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Related: About this forum10 weirdest right-wing Christian conspiracy theories
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/05/10_weirdest_right_wing_christian_conspiracy_theories_partner/THURSDAY, SEP 5, 2013 10:28 AM PDT
Fundamentalist Christianity is crawling with conspiracy theories, urban legends, and just plain bizarre beliefs VIDEO
BY AMANDA MARCOTTE
Evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson (Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder)
For the Christian right, having a faith-based worldview extends far beyond claims about demons and angels. Unsurprisingly, the world of fundamentalist Christians is absolutely crawling with conspiracy theories, urban legends, and just plain bizarre beliefs about how the world works. Heres a list of 10 of the weirder ones are currently in circulation.
1) Same-sex marriage is an elaborate scheme concocted by lesbians to entrap men. David Usher of the Center for Marriage Policy managed to cough up a theory that is an outstanding blend of homophobia, misogynist myths about the mendacity of women, and paranoia about the supposed gravy train that is child support. He argues that women will marry each other and conscript men into supporting them by pretending they are using birth control when they are not. The men will then become economically conscripted third parties to these marriages, but get nothing in return, presumably because the only reason a man would want to care for his own children would be in exchange for sex and housework. He also assumes that the only sources of income women have access to are child support and welfare; the possibility that women hold jobs doesnt seem to occur to him.
Usher is trying to find a way to justify the increasingly ridiculous right-wing claim that same-sex marriage is somehow undermining traditional heterosexual marriage. He has zero-evidence for his claim outside of his belief that women are generally sleazy liars, and will cheat men out of the straight marriages theyre entitled to by sneaking off with women.
2) Planned Parenthood is trying to get kids hooked on sex. The anti-choice organization American Life League has been peddling the idea for a long time now that Planned Parenthood works like a mythical drug dealer, but with sex. The theory, summarized in this amazing video, goes like this: Planned Parenthood lures otherwise asexual young people into thinking sex is fun (something they are dead certain that you would never, ever think if not for Planned Parenthood). They then trick them into having sex by telling them contraception works, but (evil laugh), the contraception doesnt work and the young people get pregnant and have to have abortions. Which means profit for Planned Parenthood! This neat little theory requires ignoring both the fact that Planned Parenthood is a non-profit and that the overwhelming scientific evidence shows that contraception does work, but ignoring facts and evidence is what the Christian right does best.
more at link
niyad
(113,370 posts)but "the uterus is a grave littered with the corpses of fully formed babies" is so bizarre, there are almost no words for it. .
cbayer
(146,218 posts)been these people's strong suit, lol.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)Some groups of Christians have been working very hard to convince people that birth control pills work by causing abortions rather than by preventing ovulation. They've been somewhat successful, and a significant number of people really do believe this.
Also remember that as far as these loons are concerned, a fertilized egg is a fully formed baby.
Couple those idiocies with profound ignorance of the workings of the female reproductive system in general, and you get crazy shit like #10.
Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)shenmue
(38,506 posts)Every time these freaks open their mouths, Ceiling Cat shudders.
Laochtine
(394 posts)That Christianity had a political bent, you are or you're not.
The hate of sex came from Christianity, not a political party.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)How can you honestly question the conflict that Christianity has had with that basic natural function? It ties completely into its historical subjugation of women, of wanting to control people, etc. Please tell me you are aware of this history.
Laochtine
(394 posts)Alexandria, Salem ? I would never treat you like a dullard so please don't be coy
cbayer
(146,218 posts)And while I know the puritans had issues around sexuality, I also don't know the history of how hatred of sex played into events in Salem, other than women being accused of enticing men.
There is history of all kinds attached to various religions. Sexuality is celebrated in some sects and treated dirty in others.
I am not aware that christianity is the origin of "hatred of sex" and would suggest that sexual issues (including patriarchal attitudes towards women) probably existed well before christianity. If anything, my take is that christ celebrated women.
Laochtine
(394 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)Since you have stated elsewhere that you will follow whatever group pisses off religionists the most, I could draw some sort of conclusion from that. At least your intent is clear.
Laochtine
(394 posts)So I gave it something to hold superior, to not look at that shit storm
Your knowledge of religion is cursory is clear, fine. Conclusion is fundamental
cbayer
(146,218 posts)My knowledge of religion may be cursory in your opinion, but I would suggest that yours is highly biased.
I still really don't know what you are talking about, so if you want to continue with the riddles, you are on your own.
Laochtine
(394 posts)My opinion is biased cause it's mine. I do stream a bit, but Sexism at the greatest
knowledge repository of the as of yet non Dark world. The lose can't be counted
okasha
(11,573 posts)Even then, it took a few hundred years to take hold.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)okasha
(11,573 posts)Don't forget the toe fungus.
Laochtine
(394 posts)LOl
niyad
(113,370 posts)alexandria--the great library burned and destroyed. every single act of the witch burnings was an act of profound hatred for women.
want to learn some? try "when god was a woman", by merlin stone. and, "letters from the earth" by mark twain, two easy ones to start you off. the whole history of the church is one long war against women. jesus may have loved women, the church does not.
how about paul's hatred for women? or augustine? or any of the strictures in the church against women? come on, you really have to be aware of this. ALL three of the abrahamic religions are anti-woman from the start.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)or any other religions, for that matter.
I am not arguing that the church has not been patriarchal and misogynistic, but that has been an issue across cultures and religions (with very few exceptions) and predated christianity.
The member I initially responded to didn't say anything about the church's attitude towards women. If that's what he meant, then I completely misunderstood him. He said that christianity was the reason for hatred of sex.
Of course, I have not understood pretty much anything he has said, so who knows.
At any rate, I'm am certainly not defending the three big religions' attitude towards women. It's indefensible.
niyad
(113,370 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)When someone says something I don't know or understand, I try to at least obtain a cursory understanding of it. But I don't feel any need to gain much expertise in this area.
Are you saying that I shouldn't participate in discussions unless I have a great deal of knowledge about the topic? One of the reasons I come here is to learn from those who know more about some things than I do.
I guess I just don't get where you are coming from.
niyad
(113,370 posts)a problem with sex, when you have not done any studying on the matter, when you admit (almost proudly, it seems) that you have not studied any of the major abrahamic religions, and yet, proclaim that they are not against sex. simple, really. a couple of MINUTES of study (the section on sexuality from "letters from the earth" would do for a start) would help.
You are, of course, free to participate in any discussions you care to. Just do not come into them professing what is, or is not, the case, when you have absolutely no idea.
(I added the relevant letter here. the whole thing can be read at the link)
. . . . .
Letter VIII
Man is without any doubt the most interesting fool there is. Also the most eccentric. He hasn't a single written law, in his Bible or out of it, which has any but just one purpose and intention -- to limit or defeat the law of God.
He can seldom take a plain fact and get any but a wrong meaning out of it. He cannot help this; it is the way the confusion he calls his mind is constructed. Consider the things he concedes, and the curious conclusions he draws from them.
For instance, he concedes that God made man. Made him without man's desire of privity.
This seems to plainly and indisputably make God, and God alone, responsible for man's acts. But man denies this.
He concedes that God has made the angels perfect, without blemish, and immune from pain and death, and that he could have been similarly kind to man if he had wanted to, but denies that he was under any moral obligation to do it.
He concedes that man has no moral right to visit the child of his begetting with wanton cruelties, painful diseases and death, but refuses to limit God's privileges in this sort with the children of his begetting.
The Bible and man's statutes forbid murder, adultery, fornication, lying, treachery, robbery, oppression and other crimes, but contend that God is free of these laws and has a right to break them when he will.
He concedes that God gives to each man his temperament, his disposition, at birth; he concedes that man cannot by any process change this temperament, but must remain always under its dominion. Yet if it be full of dreadful passions, in one man's case, and barren of them in another man's, it is right and rational to punish the one for his crimes, and reward the other for abstaining from crime.
There -- let us consider these curiosities.
Temperament (Disposition)
Take two extremes of temperament -- the goat and the tortoise.
Neither of these creatures makes its own temperament, but is born with it, like man, and can no more change it than can man.
Temperament is the law of God written in the heart of every creature by God's own hand, and must be obeyed, and will be obeyed in spite of all restricting or forbidding statutes, let them emanate whence they may.
Very well, lust is the dominant feature of the goat's temperament, the law of God is in its heart, and it must obey it and will obey it the whole day long in the rutting season, without stopping to eat or drink. If the Bible said to the goat, "Thou shalt not fornicate, thou shalt not commit adultery," even Man -- sap-headed man -- would recognize the foolishness of the prohibition, and would grant that the goat ought not to be punished for obeying the law of his Maker. Yet he thinks it right and just that man should be put under the prohibition. All men. All alike.
On its face this is stupid, for, by temperament, which is the real law of God, many men are goats and can't help committing adultery when they get a chance; whereas there are numbers of men who, by temperament, can keep their purity and let an opportunity go by if the woman lacks in attractiveness. But the Bible doesn't allow adultery at all, whether a person can help it or not. It allows no distinction between goat and tortoise -- the excitable goat, the emotional goat, that has to have some adultery every day or fade and die; and the tortoise, that cold calm puritan, that takes a treat only once in two years and then goes to sleep in the midst of it and doesn't wake up for sixty days. No lady goat is safe from criminal assault, even on the Sabbath Day, when there is a gentleman goat within three miles to leeward of her and nothing in the way but a fence fourteen feet high, whereas neither the gentleman tortoise nor the lady tortoise is ever hungry enough for solemn joys of fornication to be willing to break the Sabbath to get them. Now according to man's curious reasoning, the goat has earned punishment, and the tortoise praise.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery" is a command which makes no distinction between the following persons. They are all required to obey it:
Children at birth.
Children in the cradle.
School children.
Youths and maidens.
Fresh adults.
Older ones.
Men and women of 40.
Of 50.
Of 60.
Of 70.
Of 80.
Of 90.
Of 100.
The command does not distribute its burden equally, and cannot.
It is not hard upon the three sets of children.
It is hard -- harder -- still harder upon the next three sets -- cruelly hard.
It is blessedly softened to the next three sets.
It has now done all the damage it can, and might as well be put out of commission. Yet with comical imbecility it is continued, and the four remaining estates are put under its crushing ban. Poor old wrecks, they couldn't disobey if they tried. And think -- because they holily refrain from adulterating each other, they get praise for it! Which is nonsense; for even the Bible knows enough to know that if the oldest veteran there could get his lost heyday back again for an hour he would cast that commandment to the winds and ruin the first woman he came across, even though she were an entire stranger.
It is as I have said: every statute in the Bible and in the law-books is an attempt to defeat a law of God -- in other words an unalterable and indestructible law of nature. These people's God has shown them by a million acts that he respects none of the Bible's statutes. He breaks every one of the himself, adultery and all.
The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman's construction is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life.
The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in man's construction is this: During your entire life you shall be under inflexible limits and restrictions, sexually.
During twenty-three days in every month (in absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also she wants that candle -- yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart.
But man is only briefly competent; and only then in the moderate measure applicable to the word in his sex's case. He is competent from the age of sixteen or seventeen thence-forward for thirty-five years. After fifty his performance is of poor quality, the intervals between are wide, and its satisfactions of no great value to either party; whereas his great-grandmother is as good as new. There is nothing the matter with her plant. Her candlestick is as firm as ever, whereas his candle is increasingly softened and weakened by the weather of age, as the years go by, until at last it can no longer stand, and is mournfully laid to rest in the hope of a blessed resurrection which is never to come.
By the woman's make, her plant has to be out of service three days in the month, and during a part of her pregnancy. These are times of discomfort, often of suffering. For fair and just compensation she has the high privilege of unlimited adultery all the other days of her life.
That is the law of God, as revealed in her make. What becomes of this high privilege? Does she live in free enjoyment of it? No. Nowhere in the whole world. She is robbed of it everywhere. Who does this? Man. Man's statutes -- if the Bible is the Word of God.
Now there you have a sample of man's "reasoning powers," as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can't overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine plants that can be put to bed to her.[**] He puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man.
So he concretes that singular conclusion into law, for good and all.
And he does it without consulting the woman, although she has a thousand times more at stake in the matter than he has. His procreative competency is limited to an average of a hundred exercises per year for fifty years, hers is good for three thousand a year for that whole time -- and as many years longer as she may live. Thus his life interest in the matter is five thousand refreshments, while hers is a hundred and fifty thousand; yet instead of fairly and honorably leaving the making of the law to the person who has an overwhelming interest at stake in it, this immeasurable hog, who has nothing at stake in it worth considering, makes it himself!
You have heretofore found out, by my teachings, that man is a fool; you are now aware that woman is a damned fool.
Now if you or any other really intelligent person were arranging the fairness and justices between man and woman, you would give the man one-fiftieth interest in one woman, and the woman a harem. Now wouldn't you? Necessarily. I give you my word, this creature with the decrepit candle has arranged it exactly the other way. Solomon, who was one of the Deity's favorites, had a copulation cabinet composed of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. To save his life he could not have kept two of these young creatures satisfactorily refreshed, even if he had had fifteen experts to help him. Necessarily almost the entire thousand had to go hungry years and years on a stretch. Conceive of a man hardhearted enough to look daily upon all that suffering and not be moved to mitigate it. He even wantonly added a sharp pang to that pathetic misery; for he kept within those women's sight, always, stalwart watchmen whose splendid masculine forms made the poor lassies' mouths water but who hadn't anything to solace a candlestick with, these gentry being eunuchs. A eunuch is a person whose candle has been put out. By art.[**]
. . . .
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/twain/letearth.htm
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I've made no proclamation or profession at all. I challenged the notion that christianity originated hatred of sex, but I have never said that there weren't gender issues associated with christianity.
In fact, I have said repeatedly that I recognize the misogyny and patriarchy.
I'm not sure why a story by Mark Twain would be relevant here, but I tried to read it and it interests me not at all.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)I mean, all we have is just some silly "scientific evidence" that what they believe is completely false.
That's completely outrageous that we would assume our scientific truth is any better than their religious beliefs!