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Friday, September 21, 2012

American Christianity Trashes Itself

       

The Bible can be used as maliciously as the Quran. Indeed, more so.


The Bible exceeds the Quranic enjoinder to slaughter infidels by demanding that "true believers" slaughter their own children! 

This slaughter is not merely a "moral option" that can be acted upon -- or not -- according to personal choice.

Rather, it is a moral obligation to kill one's children.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 - Children Who Refuse to Obey

“A man might have a son who is stubborn and refuses to obey. This son does not obey his father or mother. They punish the son, but he still refuses to listen to them.  His father and mother must then take him to the leaders of the town at the town meeting place.  They must say to the leaders of the town: ‘Our son is stubborn and refuses to obey. He does not do anything we tell him to do. He eats and he drinks too much.’  Then the men in the town must kill the son with stones. By doing this you will remove this evil from your group. Everyone in Israel will hear about this and be afraid. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+21%3A18-21&version=ERV

I know not one person who did not display stubborness and refusal to obey. (Do you? How 'bout the guy in the mirror?)

If American Christians continue to foment malice by the inflammatory citation of biblical bilge (trusting that The Bible is invariably the inerrant Word of God) they will, in the end, damn everything they pretend to value.

***

"Mistakes In Scripture. When The Bible Gets The Bible Wrong." http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/05/mistakes-in-scripture-when-bible-gets.html

"Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran?" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124494788

***

GOP speaker of Kansas House prays for Obama’s death, calls First Lady “Mrs. YoMama”

One can only wonder how THIS PERSON ever attained a position of power in the Kansas State Legislature:
The Republican speaker of the Kansas statehouse issued an apology this week after sending emails from his personal account referring to First Lady Michelle Obama as “Mrs. YoMama” and quoting a Bible verse cited by some as a reference to presidential assassination.
Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal [above], from the city of Hutchison, sent an email before Christmas that compared the president’s wife to the Dr. Seuss character The Grinch, with a tagline asking: “Twins separated at birth?”
“I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing Mrs. YoMama a wonderful, long Hawaii Christmas vacation — at our expense, of course,” the forward read.
In another of O’Neal’s emails, he referenced Psalm 109 from the Old Testament, which reads in part:
May his children be fatherless  and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
O’Neal wrote: “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”
I would like to think that here in Illinois we would chase from office any speaker of the House who ever peddled such filth. But I doubt that the people of Kansas will do any such thing. Some of them probably will dismiss any fuss over O’Neal’s emails as just so much political correctness.
UPDATE: Several readers have attempted to defend O’Neal with regard to his reference to Psalm 109.
A comment from “Laura,” for example, reads as follows:
When I read the title of this article, I was outraged at O’Neal and thought, how could a Christian do this??? Then I read it. The article implies that O’Neal quoted Psalm 109:9-12:
“May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.”
O’Neal never quoted those verses. The only verse that was quoted was verse 8:
“Let his days be few;
and let another take his office.”
Read just what it says, without interjecting any other verses or reading into it. No one is ever implying that they want our President dead; when they are saying, “Let his days be few,” they are talking about his days in office. They are simply wanting him to not be president anymore. This verse has made the rounds among conservatives and has appeared on bumper stickers. I laughed my head off when I first read it. Does that mean that I wish this man were dead? No!!! I pray for him and his family every day.
I receive hundreds of political emails, several of which jokingly referred to verse 8, but I have never, ever seen any Christian quote verses 9-12 in reference to Obama. Never. If one of my “friends” sent me an email about wishing death to our President, I would ban them from my life forever.
I admit that a pet peeve of mine is scripture being taken out of context, but this was not meant to be serious. It is a joke – no different from a political cartoon. I can understand liberals being offended at what conservatives joke about; I am often offended at what my liberals friends post (although I read them anyway and never hide them.) But for this writer (and many like him who did the same) to say that O’Neal wished death on President Obama is nothing but a lie. This is wrong.
My response to Laura is as follows:
Laura: Nice try, but your defense of O’Neal’s biblical reference is illogical.
You say that verse 8 of Psalm 109, as applied to President Obama, does not suggest a wish for his death. But the first five words of verse 8 are: “Let his days be few.” And verse 9 says: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
The clear implication is not changed by the intervening words: “And let another take his office.”
You suggest yourself that scripture should not be “taken out of context.” Well, the context of Psalm 109 is a wish for someone’s death. As O’Neal says himself: “Look it up — it is word for word!”
Does he expect that anyone who looks up Psalm 109 is going to isolate the second half of verse 8 from the rest of that Psalm?
Don’t be silly.
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