'Fundamentalists Say the Darnedest Things!'

Warning: This article contains the F-word.

I found a website yesterday that is not only amazingly amusing, but downright frightening in what it showcases.

Called Fundies Say the Darnedest Things!, this site monitors fundamentalist Christian websites, blogs and forums and re-posts the most absurd things jackasses for Jesus write. The site bills itself as "an archive of the most hilarious, bizarre, ignorant, bigoted, and terrifying quotes from fundies all over the internet!"

These are excerpts from Christian forums, liked Teens-4-Christ.org, Usenet's alt.christnet.christianlife, ChristianForums.com, and countless others. Expect lots of homophobia, racism directed at blacks and Muslims, and thousands of other non-Christlike rantings. The site currently indexes over 14,000 quotes.

To make it easier on you (and your stomach, because you can't read too much of this stuff without getting ill), the webmaster lists the "best" of the quotes each month. Nominate your favorite quotes for awards.

Currently, there are 19 comments up for "awards." Go to this page for the actual links.

• "Choose Life or I'll Kill You" Award: Paul displays the "Life begins at conception and ends after birth" mentality.


• "I Define Homophobia" Award: Tiffany09 hates MySpace because it asks which team you're on.


• "I Love My Cult!" Award: Evangelist is proud to be a member of a cult. Could you please pass the punch?


• "Projecting Much?" Award: Mosheh_Thezion describes his, er, men's, desires to fuck anything that they can get his, er, their, dick in.


• "Proud to be a Doormat!" Award: Juanita is oh so very proud of sacrificing all independent thought for God and her husband!


• "YELLING MAKES ME RIGHT!" Award: HoLy Knight is right, BECAUSE HE CAN YELL!


• Argumentum ad Populum Award: Jacob1983 thinks that 2 billion people can't be wrong, yet still disagrees with those 12 trillion flies that think stool is delicious.


• Dim Bulb of the Month: Elizabeth Maxwell's failure to comprehend what a logical fallacy is shows just how dim some bulbs really are.


• Evil Mother Fucker of the Month: Dr. Jack Hyles explains how and why beating your child is the sign of a True Man of God.


• Exclamations for Jesus Award: OMG!!! Ashley Brianne talks about the DECAY of MORALITY very EMPHATICALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


• Fundie Debate Tactics Award: Cdevidal tells us all we need to know when it comes to debate.


• History Revisionist of the Month Award: Mrs. Debbie reveals that Baptists predate all other sects of Christinaity, despite historical proof showing otherwise.


• Pot and Kettle Award, Bro. Randy tells the Kettle just how black it really is. And describes himself in a nutshell at the same time.


• Profound Arguement of the Month: BAFRIEND eloquently tells us what he thinks of homosexuality.


• Prude of the Month Award: TJ finds any sexual act aside from the missionary position to be perversion.


• Rambo Jesus Award: Jesus is coming back, and this time, he's out for blood!


• Sigmund "Fraud" Award: Thom319 thinks he's the next Sigmund Freud, too bad his theories make even less sense than Freud's.


• Teflon Coated Slope Award: The author of Gather.com has coated the slope of gay marriage with a microfilm of teflon.


• Unintentional Innuendo Overload of the Month: OnMyKnees is in love with Jesus!

The site also has secondary projects called Conspiracists Say the Darnedest Things! and Racists Say the Darnedest Things!

Fundamentalists | Fundies | Christians | Conspiracy Nuts | Racists | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Filipino Masons challenge edicts calling them 'clandestine'

Last September some of our Filipino brothers — seven separate lodges, each over 100 years old — formed the new Most Worshipful Independent Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the Philippine Islands (IGLPI).

The details and their reasons for forming a new grand lodge can be read on their website or in an article published on the Burning Taper in September.

As you might expect, after seeing similar occurrences in the United States, specifically Georgia, with the formation of the United Grand Lodge of America, many of the Filipino brethren were "excommunicated" through five separate edicts of M.W. Grand Master Yu of their former grand lodge. Of course, the first step the Grand Master took was to proclaim the brothers "clandestine," despite the fact they were all made Masons in regular lodges 100+ years old.

Yesterday, IGLPI posted on their site six reasons why their actions were Masonically proper, and the Grand Master's actions improper.

1. The brethren mentioned in the Edicts are not clandestine Masons.


2. The ground for the issuance of the subject Edicts is erroneous.


3. It is the inherent power of Lodges to form a Grand Lodge.


4. The Grand Master cannot issue an Edict declaring Masons under his jurisdiction as clandestine masons.


5. Edict No. 232 and its sub-Edicts are discriminatory.


6. The Grand Master has no authority to issue orders to appendant bodies.

Masons | Filipino Freemasons | Small Town Freemasonry | Freemasonry | Most Worshipful Independent Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the Philippine Islands | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Church shoves Freemasonry aside; plans 'God and Country' celebration

Built in the 1800s, the historic Wilsonville (Alabama) Masonic Lodge
No. 510 was literally shoved out of the way Thursday by Wilsonville Baptist Church to make way for an expansion of the church, the Montgomery Advertiser reports.

Movers braced the old building with beams before raising it from its foundation. Moving the lodge 600 feet took about 30 minutes.

Wilsonville Baptist Church will hold a "God and Country Celebration" in June.

Image: Wilsonville Baptist Church

Masons | Christianity | Small Town Freemasonry | Freemasonry | Wilsonville, Alabama | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Regent University deletes Bush reference on its website

It's not just the missing White House emails anymore.

A few days ago in an article about Monica Goodling I wrote about Pat Robertson's Regent University's ties to the Bush administration. The school boasted having placed over 150 of their law graduates in the Bush administration, primarily into the Dept. of Justice.

In the last few days, they've tried to throw that piece of information down the Memory Hole. Didn't work, thanks to an alert blogger at Les Enragés.org.

Take a look at this cached version of Regent's website's "quick facts" page, as it appeared on the afternoon of April 6, 2007.

Now check it out today.

The final bulleted item "150 graduates serving in the Bush Administration" has disappeared from the list of "Distinctive Graduates."

Image: Pat Robertson "squeezing out another highly qualified law graduate"

Monica Goodling | Regent University | Pat Robertson | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Finding Masonic relevance in everything you do

A New York Masonic brother (I assume) chided me the other day for posting something that was "apropros to nothing this blog covers." I assume he meant it wasn't relevant to Freemasonry, even though it was about my conversations with another brother. Since the logo and title of this blog use Masonic references, and I am a Mason, I guess that commenter "NYGL" thinks every post should be "about" Freemasonry.

As I wrote once in some article here on the Burning Taper, since I am a Mason, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, everything I think, do or write is colored by my Masonic filters.

As an experiment, I'm selecting some random "quirkies" from the British news website Ananova to show how easy it is to find something Masonic about everything you read. You can find meaning everywhere.

• Women to rule new town: "China is to create the world's first 'Woman Town' where women make all the decisions and disobedient men face punishments," the first paragraph reads. And how is this different from the typical meeting of the Order of the Eastern Star?


• Wordsworth turns rapper: This article is about how William Wordsworth's poem about daffodils "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" has been set to a rap tempo. MasonicWorld.com has used the Wordsworth quote "The child is the father of the man" in an excellent essay on how Freemasons can act as a moral compass to young people.


• Proclaimers inspire Italian Romeo: This man is going to walk 500 miles and then turn around and walk home to prove he loves his girlfriend. There and back again, a true "traveling man." Instead of meditating on the Lost Word as he walks, he'll be i-p(l)odding to the Scottish band The Proclaimers along with Elvis, David Bowie, Lou Reed and John Lennon.


• Call to ban 'Satanic' Eurovision song: Swiss Christians want to ban a song because it has "occult lyrics." I'll bet they don't like Freemasons, either, what with all that Ba'al worshiping we do behind closed doors.


• Beer banned from British pubs: Freemasons used to hold lodge meetings in British pubs. Now they meet there afterwards. But they can't drink this beer 'cause it has a naked woman on the label.


• Man born on Friday the 13th gets married on Friday the 13th: Well, there was that whole "kill the Templars" thing about 700 years ago that started the Friday the 13th franchise, or so the story goes.


• Masturbating woman disturbs fraternity: These brothers should have had a tiler at the door if they don't welcome masturbating women! LOL!


• Potential spoiler alert: Stop reading now if you haven't seen the movie Magnolia.
  
  Magnolia, one of my favorite films, could be subtitled "It Could Happen." One of the things that happens in the movie — quite unbelievably (but it could happen!) — happened in Serbia recently.
  
  The Masonic connection?
  
  The image above is from the movie. Just before going on stage Burt Ramsey/Narrator, played by Ricky Jay — who is wearing a masonic ring — asks gameshow host Jimmy Gator, played by Philip Baker Hall, "You with me, Jimmy?" Jimmy replies, "The book says we may be through with the past but the past ain't through with us." Burt replies, "We met upon the level and we're parting on the square."

Masons | Quirkies | Ananaova.com | Freemasonry | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Burning Taper's 500th post: And so it goes

This is my 500th post on Burning Taper.

I had noticed it was getting close a week or so ago. There's supposed to be something magickal about numbers that end in zero, especially if they begin with a five, like 50 and 500 and 5000, like they're milestones or somehow related to the Law of Fives. So I'd been thinking of writing some special self-celebratory post, or maybe a deep and meaningful "look to the past, look to the future" introspective article, or something equally ludicrous.

But it's just a number, and this is just a blog. Hitting the Big Five Oh Oh isn't that big of a whoop to me — any semi-literate simian with ten fingers and a keyboard could write this blog (and some days does!) — and it's even less of a woo hoo! to you, so let's just treat it like any other post and talk about something strange.

Someone in England today began an online petition to force British Freemasons to out themselves, to register with the government that they are a Mason. Petition-signing will go on for one year.

Here's the actual text of the e-petition, which has, as I'm writing this Friday afternoon, exactly one signer, the creator of the petition, S. Warriner.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to establish an open register of freemasons as a first step towards making them an open society in line with other societies in a free democracy.

It was recognised 200 years ago that secret societies were subversive to the government and centres of sedition. Secret societies are the antithesis of what a free democracy is about. It is understood the freemasons have now developed into a cult which may use its secret membership to develop and promote its business interests to the detriment of non members. Secret membership makes it possible to take over business and property of non freemasons by a form of insider trading using fifth column tactics before the non freemasons become aware of what is happening.

I swear to Elvis, I don't know which breed of anti-Mason is more insane, the religious anti's in the U.S. or the political anti's in the U.K.

Read — and sign if you want to — the petition here.

Image: The Widow's Son

Masons | Petition | Anti-Masons | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge of England | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Kurt Vonnegut is dead, alas

Kurt Vonnegut is dead, alas.

He was a strange and interesting man.

I haven't read his books in years, and his later stuff never really grabbed me.

But I have fond memories of the times when I was eagerly devouring his early works. "Welcome to the Monkey House," "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," "Player Piano" and "Sirens of Titan" all still stick in my mind, as does my first Vonnegut immersion into "Slaughterhouse-Five" back in high school.

I also had the pleasure of seeing him give the commencement speech at Agnes Scott College many years ago.

In that speech he said:

Incidentally, if somebody asks you whether you are a Liberal or a Conservative, tell 'em this:

"Listen, Buster — I'm a graduate of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, zipcode, 30030. They taught me to think for myself there. You want to know if I'm a Liberal or a Conservative? I'm both of those, and neither one.

"Go jump in the lake. Go climb a tree."

Ah, sweet granfalloons....

RIP, Kurt Vonnegut

UPDATE, Fri., April 13: You can listen to fellow strange-and-dead author Philip K. Dick talking about Kurt Vonnegut in a 1981 interview here.

Kurt Vonnegut | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Who is the Anti-Mason?

Warning: Contains the F-word.

We seldom get any good Masonic mysteries and drama in real life, so I thought I'd share this unfolding "saga" with you. It's fairly adequate entertainment, unless there's something good on television right now.

It looks like we need to rename MySpace Mike. Let's call him Drama Queen Steve from now on.

You might remember him from last September. On the Burning Taper's MySpace site, we received several emails from him, full of tired old anti-Masonic jibberish. His first email to us ended with "FUCK THE MASONS AND FUCK THE ILLUMINATI."

We reposted several of his emails in an article about him on Sept. 22. He then filled the comments section with even more anti-Masonic claptrap, copied from various religious and conspiracy websites.

At some point, Mike's MySpace.com profile was re-tooled into what looked like, at first glance, a pro-Masonic website, full of Square and Compasses and other Masonic graphics, where he called himself "Brother of Light." However, reading his postings and articles revealed it was actually an anti-Masonic site containing the same twisted Taxil tales he had become infamous for here.

I checked a few minutes ago, and his MySpace account has been closed.

This afternoon at 3:17, the first comment since January was added to the original article about MySpace Mike. Posted anonymously, it is written by, supposedly, someone in Pennsylvania claiming to be soon becoming a Mason.

(Comments and emails that follow are verbatim.)

That anonymous post said:

This guy is a nut and ruining the Mason name. I don't where in the hell he got his information but he obviously watches too many movies. I have pettioned to join a local lodge and Johnstown, Pa. Once i'm in, this guy will go down.

I have no idea if this was actually from someone in Pennsylvania about to join a lodge. Could be. But it doesn't sound very Masonic to be saying something like "this guy will go down." (Note the missing words, bad grammar, misspellings and lower case "i'm," all trademarks of Andy Warhol.)

More likely, it was MySpace Mike/Drama Queen Steve setting up today's dramedy.

Less than an hour later, another anonymous post appeared on the MySpace Mike article, this one admittedly from MM/DQS. It said:

That's real nice. So now I will have a radical masons coming after me. That picture is not even me. So if something happens to this person would you even give a crap. This just goes to show what a great charity organization you are. Do you all normally put up pictures of anti-masons. For what purpose? In hopes of getting somebody killed? I have posted widows home address and still have it. Maybe I'll start posting it calling him a child molester that should get plenty of people stoping by widows house. I think I'll do that. I'll be back and give you link so you can see. Now well see who goes down.

This is where he admits to being Andy Warhol, when he talks about my address.

He also says that the photo, which appeared on his original MySpace site and was atop the original article posted here about him, is not of him.

For a couple of months earlier this year, he re-appeared as the foul-languaged troll Andy Warhol, repeatedly spewing misspelled profanities. His favorite term for me was "asshat." Warhol also dirtied the waters with expletives at other Masonic blogs, including Bro. Tom Accuosti's Tao of Masonry. Mike/Andy Warhol was the reason the Burning Taper has on occasion temporarily changed the settings to not allow anonymous or unmoderated commenting.

My first article about Mike was posted on the Taper's MySpace site as well as here. About a month ago I received email there from a brother in Washington State, who has had his own go-round with our Drama Queen. You can read about Mike's run-ins with those Masons here.

Warhol once posted my physical address in a comment here, which he got from domain registry records, and urged people to pay me an unfriendly visit.

About 45 minutes after the second comment was left, an email arrived in Burning Taper's emailbox. The sender's email address was a first (Steve) and last name (I'm not posting it, but it was a surname that doesn't appear in records anywhere, according to Yahoo's Peoplefinder) at inbox.com, a free email service.

The email said:

I have noticed that again I'am at the top your little blog. I have reported you for posting my picture on this blog. It was all fun and games but now I'am being threatened here is a copy of what was said on your blogger site.

This guy is a nut and ruining the Mason name. I don't where in the hell he got his information but he obviously watches too many movies. I have pettioned to join a local lodge and Johnstown, Pa. Once i'm in, this guy will go down.

If you don't remove all there pictures from your sites the two at blogger.com and the one at myspace I will contact the proper authorities. I'am not kidding I give you 24 hrs from 4:44 p.m. to this. You have been warned.

In paragraph one, he says he's reported us. In paragraph three, he warns that he will report us. Come on, man. Make up your mind who you are and whether or not it's even your photo, Mike/Andy/Steve.

Sheesh.

MySpace Mike | Anti-Masons | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Full-length anti-Mason video now available

Remember that ridiculously strange 'Corn, Wine and Oil' video excerpt that "exposed" Masons as Baal worshipers that we talked about a couple of weeks ago?

The full three-hour movie became available today at the website 666 Mark of the Beast in exchange for a donation to their "ministry."

The website "is dedicated to the study of the End Times, the Rapture, the Tribulation, and the Prophecies in Revelation. We believe that Bible prophecy is to be understood in a literal way and the expressed view of this site is of a pre-millennial return of Christ and pre-tribulational Rapture of the Church. Therefore, this website is dedicated to bring fellow believers the latest news, stories, events and signs that brings us closer to the End Times."

Such happy people.

Masons | Anti-Masons | Christians | Freemasonry | Fundamentalist | 666 | End Times| Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Onward Christian Lawyers: Pat Robertson's law school grads fill Dept. of Justice

More than 150 attorneys hired by the federal government during the Bush administration have been graduates of Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," the Boston Globe is reporting.

The story opens with this chilling paragraph:

The title of the course was Constitutional Law, but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks were opened, a student led his classmates in a 10-minute devotional talk, completed with "amens," about the need to preserve their Christian values.

Monica Goodling, a Regent graduate and until last week top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, recently resigned. She was one of a handful of officials who oversaw the firings of U.S. attorneys in what has become another Bush scandal.

She recently refused to testify to Congress, citing the Fifth Amendment.

Regent University's 21-year history is that of a school that has turned out a high number of graduates unable to pass the bar exam. It was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1996.

"It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The New Republic website. "...[T]hat a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ."

Monica Goodling's undergraduate work was done at Messiah College, a Christian school "committed to an embracing evangelical spirit." Her entire higher education has been steeped in evangelical tradition and beliefs.

Shortly after Bush became president, he picked the dean of Regent's government school, Kay Coles James, to be the director of the Office of Personnel Management, and she has since packed the upper echelons of the Dept. of Justice with attorneys with Regent degrees.

"We've had great placement," said Jay Sekulow, who heads a non profit law firm based at Regent that files lawsuits aimed at lowering barriers between church and state. "We've had a lot of people in key positions," the Globe reports.

Regent University is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place.

Sixty percent of the graduates in Goodling's 1999 class failed the bar exam on the first attempt. It has improved, according to the Princeton Review, to a 67% pass rate today.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is the university's newest instructor. He co-teaches a course called "Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and National Security."

Creeping theocracy, or just typical of Washington politics?

UPDATE, Wed., April 25: The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday 32-6 to authorize a grant of immunity for former Justice Department official Monica Goodling.

Image: Karl Rove and Monica Goodling

Theocracy | Politics | Evangelical | Regent University | Monica Goodling | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Masons on the level: The Don Imus flap

In the last several weeks I've become friends with fellow Masonic blogger Brother Isaiah Coffey, a member of a Prince Hall Affiliated Masonic lodge in Atlanta. I, by contrast, am a member of a "regular" blue lodge in rural north Georgia, working under the jurisdiction of the "whites only" Grand Lodge of Georgia. Bro. Isaiah and I consider ourselves Masonic brothers, no matter what our respective grand lodges may say.

This morning I emailed Bro. Isaiah asking him what he thought about the current media frenzy regarding radio talk show host Don Imus, who is in hot water for an off-the-cuff on-air remark calling the women of the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed ho's."

Bro. Isaiah had some great insights on the issue, and we've agreed to post our email exchange online on both his blog Kingdom of Conscience and here on the Burning Taper.

My questions are in italics.

Good day, Brother,

What's your take on the Imus flap?

I think that it is a bunch of bullshit how the media exposes a white man because of his comments and they don't expose how blacks or hispanics talk about other races. Period. I feel that it is not only common on drive-time radio, but also common within the confines of our own homes, communities, and within our life here on earth. Even to the oldest historical records that mankind has on file, race has always been an issue. At one point, a person was identified by their particular country... now it's their skin color. So, we've gone from countries binding themselves together by nationality... to countries dividing themselves by color. If it's not race, it's class, or gender. Take your pick.

Why do you think there is a double-standard on what people can say? Why can a black person say things that a white person can't? Why is it funny when Bro. Richard Pryor did his great imitation of white people, but a white comedian imitating a black person would be called offensive?

I think that psychologically and emotionally it is a form of "get-back" for blacks to be able to poke fun at whites publicly and know within their minds that whites cannot do the same or retaliate because of the backlash from the black community and also being deemed a racist for supporting discrimination through the means of media, whether that be print ads, radio, TV, etc. The reason that I believe that this is a form of "get-back" for blacks is because at one time in history, whites were able to not only poke fun at blacks but also physically abuse them in public or in private without any major repercussions to follow. Now the black community is taking as many free swings as the referee (law) would allow. Is it right? Hell no!

Do you think that it is a generational thing?

This particular question hangs on so many factors. Some would say that it could only be generational because the leading whistle blowers in the black community would be Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. If they weren't around to exploit the situations via the media, then would these instances draw as much attention?

But on the other hand, the way that it could appear not to be generational is because the spirit of the community's fore-fathers could continue to live on within the offspring of the communities. Whether this is accomplished via family teachings about race and related issues or just by associating with certain individuals within their prospective environment who harbor a certain view point on opposite races.

Will it become less offensive or more offensive for future generations as we become more of a melting pot?

I believe that it will become less and less offensive over time. For instance, when was the last time that you've heard of a Jew complaining about the captivity within Egypt? You haven't... because there is a serious separation in time for those who currently live in the present that cannot relate to or feel or hear the pain from any elders that experienced the tragedy of being held a slave. But, ... you did hear about the complaints of the mass murderers during the World Wars during the 20th Century.

There are two type of wounds. Physical wounds and spiritual wounds. The physical wound can heal itself fairly quickly, sometimes even defying the laws of time, and is based solely upon the individual. But a spiritual wound is based upon the hearts of the people and is a type of wound that heals only as quick as the people of that particular community or generation that was injured.

Why do you think that Bros. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have made a career out of being offended every time a white person makes a joke or has a slip of the tongue showing his biases?

I think it is because Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson come from an era where most of their life involved racism in some form or fashion. Growing up during the Jim Crow law era, their minds, ears, and eyes have been trained to pin-point racism, discrimination, or racist-remarks. There's a psychological term, and I can't remember the name, but it basically states that the mind sees what it wants to see.

I think that it is wrong for Race A to poke fun at Race B; and then pull the race card when Race A is at the butt of the joke. It's amazing to see how the word "semantics" not only comes into play over the course of time, but it also comes into play when it is dealing with race. It's okay for a black man to call another Nigga' or Nappy headed bastard, but then when someone from another race makes the same statement... it's a problem. Humans are not born racist. It's instilled in their minds as they are raised by their environment, whether that be by family or friends.

---

UPDATE of sorts, Wed., April 11: After a move to have Coretta Scott King's portrait hung in the Georgia Capitol failed in committee, state representative Roberta Abdul-Salaam told reporters, "It's just like calling Mrs. King a nappy-headed nigger. It's another example of blatant disrespect for black women in 2007. It's worse than what Don Imus did."

Unbelievable.

UPDATE Sat. April 14: Bro. Al Sharpton (he's a Prince Hall Affiliated Mason) receives death threats.

Masons | Masonic Brotherhood | Racism | Don Imus | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Georgia | Kingdom of Conscience | Isaiah Coffey | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Kermit the Frog sings 'Hurt'

Even Kermit the Frog feels down and out sometime.

Check out his cover of the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. You may have also heard Johnny Cash cover it on his American Recordings albums.

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear my crown of shit
on my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stain of time
the feeling disappears
you are someone else
I am still right here
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way



Hurt | Kermit the Frog | Nine Inch Nails | Johnny Cash | Music Video | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

List of blogs that participated in the Blogswarm Against Theocracy

If it accomplished nothing else, this past weekend's Blogswarm Against Theocracy has given me quite a few new blogs to read. Here's the latest list, as of this morning, of blogs that participated in the swarm by posting one or more articles. I understand there are at least 200 more blogs to be added.

In this list you'll find liberals and conservatives, Christians, Jews, Pagans and atheists. So far I've even found one by a Christian minister.

I hope you find some new and interesting reading material among them.

From Kristim (at MPS)
The Aristocrats
Montag at Stumplane
life's journey
Chip Berlet (at T2A)
Frederick Clarkson (at DKos)
A poetic justice (several poems)
Driftglass
The Quaker Agitator
Balls and Walnuts
Zaius Nation
Birmingham Blues
Lihan161051
Brian
Chaotic Good
Dangerously Subversive Atheist Penguin
Northgate Science
Austin Atheist
The Greenbelt
Essential Saltes
Knight of Pan
Evil Bender
I doubt it
Xark
Abnormal Interests
Tengrain (at MPS)
Omnipotent Poobah
Orcinus
A Whore in the Temple of Reason
The Cylinder
Austin Cline
Thorne's World
WMD Actual
Witches and Scientists
Explicit Atheist
Yikes!
Flatbush Gardener
The Truffle
I am the Lizard Queen
Neal Rauhauser (at dKos)
Lost in the Underground
Atheist Experience
Indignant Ahole
So Queer
Sanguine in Seattle
Sepherim
The Burning Taper
Wishing for wisdom
Independent Bloggers Alliance
One North Dakota Woman
Derek Timothy
Deep Subject
Paul Hutchinson's Blog
Diario de bordo (Portugal)
Lord J-Bar
Big Daddy Malcontent
Brahmin Colorado (at dKos)
Brainshrub.com
The Front Page (Canada)
Chris Rodda (at T2A)
April Reign (Canada)
Immoral Logic
Pambolita
Rational Revolution
Deleted Items
Bratfink
Religious Right Watch
IseBrand
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub
Timeline of Theocracy (at T2A)
Hypnocrites
ProgressiveU
The Skeptical Alchemist
Dark Christianity
The Rational Christian
Another Ravan Perch
Unrepentant Old Hippie
Cycle
AP Lawrence, Blogger
Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes
God is for Suckers!
There are no Barking Sparrows
Beep Beep It's Me
Cause for Concern
The Jaded Skeptic
Cassandra Waites (at T2A)
Hot Cup of Joe
Big Brass Blog
Dawne Gee at Clean Cut Kid
xcsharpshadowx
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Image: The Grand Lake theater in Oakland, California, which regularly makes political statements on its marquee. Photographer unknown.

Blog Against Theocracy | Blogswarm Against Theocracy | Blogs | Christianity | Fundamentalist | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Statue of Liberation through Christ: Does it honor God, or is it just a ridiculous eyesore?

As if Memphis isn't already gaudy enough with all that Elvis-worshiping going on at Graceland, a mega-church last summer erected what some might call a blasphemy not only to Jehovah and Jesus but to America and America's goddess.

Behold, the Statue of Liberation through Christ!

It's a $260,000 ridiculous eyesore that blurs the line between church and state, some say. Others call it "a creative means of just really letting people know that God is the foundation of our nation."

Whatever you call it, it's big. Standing 72 feet tall, this confused goddess is the brainchild of World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church and its pastor, Apostle Alton R. Williams. It is a replica of the Statue of Liberty, bastardized with the Ten Commandments under one arm and "Jehovah" inscribed on her crown.

Instead of a torch, she holds aloft a huge gold cross.

And, a single tear is on her cheek. How touching.

In "The Meaning of the Statue of Liberation Through Christ: Reconnecting Patriotism With Christianity," the Apostle Williams explains that the teardrop is God's response to what he calls the nation's ills, including legalized abortion, a lack of prayer in schools and the country's "promotion of expressions of New Age, Wicca, secularism and humanism."

At the unveiling last July 4th, Williams proclaimed, "I decree the spirit of conviction on this intersection. This statue proves that Jesus Christ is Lord over America, he is Lord over Tennessee, he is Lord over Memphis."

Williams is a prolific and opinionated writer. In another book, he said Hurricane Katrina was retribution for New Orleans' embrace of sin.

In yet another book, Williams promotes the theory that the original Statue of Liberty was given to the U.S. by France as a symbol of the emancipation of slaves in the U.S., not as a general gesture of good will. His church is predominantly black, and he bases his non-mainstream belief on the fact that Lady Liberty has a broken shackle around one ankle.

This idea has been debated for years, and the general consensus is that it is not true. The designer of the original statue, sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (a Freemason, by the way) was commissioned to build it. He had engineering help from Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the designer of Paris' Eiffel Tower. The project was a joint effort between France and the United States — France built the statue, and America built the pedestal, soliciting funds from the public to pay for it. It was timed to commemorate the USA's 100th birthday in 1876.

Williams certainly thinks big, and his church certainly qualifies as mega with its 12,000 members. It has a school, a bowling alley, a roller rink, and a bookstore.

I hope the store sells paperweight replicas of the statue. One would look swell on my shelf next to my bobble-head Elvis.

Sources:
New York Times article, July 4, 2006
The U.S. Park Service

Statue of Liberation through Christ | Apostle Alton Williams | World Overcomes Outreach Ministries Church | Christianity | Jesus Christ | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Get your theocracy off my democracy: America is not a Christian nation

After reading more articles spawned by the Blog Against Theocracy campaign, I was musing ("musing" is such an overused word on blogs these days) thinking about the Radical Right's continued dead-horse beating of their mantra "America is a Christian nation."

A few miscellaneous and random points to ponder:

• George Washington wrote into the Treaty of Tripoli, later signed into law by John Adams, the phrase "...the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." [A comment on a forum about this article says this is "a myth being spread across the Internet." And this website, which posts the text of the entire treaty, indicates that Joel Barlow, not Washington, wrote the Treaty.]


• Thomas Jefferson wrote in "Notes on the State of Virgina, "It does me no injury for my neighbors to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."


• The days of the week are named after gods or goddesses or things-in-the-sky that were once considered gods. Sunday and Monday are named in honor of the Sun and Moon; Tuesday is named after the Nordic god Tyr, who was the equivalent of the Roman war god Mars. Wednesday is named for the Germanic god Woden (Wodan), who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons, equivalent to the Norse Odin and akin to the Roman Mercury. Thursday is named after the Germanic Thunor, or Norse Thor, akin to the Roman Jupiter. Friday takes its name from Frigg or Freyja, the Germanic goddess of beauty, roughly equivalent to the Roman Venus and Greek Aphrodite. Saturday, of course, is named in honor of the Roman god of agriculture and time, Saturn.


• The planets in our solar system are all named for Roman Gods: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, Charon, and Eris. Earth's other name, Gaia, was a Greek goddess.


• Many of the months are named for non-Christian gods: January is named for Janus, the Roman two-headed or two-faced god of the doorway. One face looked back to the past, the other to the future, just as we still do in the month of January. February was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification, via the purification ritual Februa held on February 15 in the old Roman calendar. That ritual probably was related to February 14 as well; the "love" rituals we go through every Valentine's Day are hardly a Christian thing. Even if St. Valentine did begin it (he didn't), he would hardly be considered a Christian by today's standards. March was called Martius in ancient Rome, and was dedicated to Mars, the god of war. It has been suggested that the name April (Latin aprilis) comes either from the Latin word aperire, "to open," referring to the new growth in springtime, or, more likely, from aphrilis, which referred to the Greek equivalent of Venus, Aphrodite. The month of May may have been named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman goddess of fertility, Bona Dea, whose festival was held in May. June is named after the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter and equivalent to the Greek goddess Hera, Zeus's wife. July and August were named for the Roman emperors who were proclaimed a god and son of a god. In 42 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was formally deified as Divus Iulius ("the Divine Julius"), and Caesar Augustus henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a god").


• Early American space missions were named for gods: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo; it was even mirrored in the fictional Lost in Space television program with the spacecraft Jupiter II.


• American (and foreign) automobile brands and models have been named after gods: Mercury, Roman messenger of the gods; Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and of time, equivalent to Cronus in the pre-Greek pantheon; Taurus, associated with the Greek myth of Zeus taking the form of a bull to seduce Europa; Mazda (full name Ahura Mazda), the Zoroastrian god of light; Thunderbird, a mythical creature common to Native American religion; the Dodge Odyssey reminds us of Odysseus, released by the goddess Athena only to have his raft destroyed by Poseidon. Dodge also had a car called the Aries, which was a mythological ram which carried Athamas's son Phrixus and daughter Helle to Colchis to escape their stepmother Ino. Dodge also had a car called the Phoenix, named for the mythological bird associated with Egypt's sun gods, as far back as the 1950s.


• Our favorite sinking ships are named for non-Christian gods: Poseidon, named for the Roman god of the sea, and the Titanic, named for the Titans (Gaea, Uranus, Cronus, Rhea, Oceanus, Tethys, Hyperion, Mnemosyne, Themis, Iapetus, Coeus, Crius, Phoebe, Thea, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, Metis, and Dione), who ruled before they were overthrown by the later Greek pantheon we're more familiar with (Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite, et al). The NFC football team from Tennessee is named for these gods, too.


• American culture and products are rife with pagan god names: Canon cameras are named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy. Trident chewing gum is named for the pitchfork-like staff carried by the gods of the sea, Neptune and Poseidon. There are Venus razors and a Venus Bridal brand of bridal accessories. There are condoms named for Ramses II, a pharaoh-god of Egypt. The popular Disney characters Snow White and Cinderella, taken from folklore, are veiled archetypes of European goddesses, and Pocahantas, though she was a real woman, is also a goddess archetype of Native American religion. The Allman Brothers originally recorded for Capricorn Records. Sirius Radio is named for hunter Orion's canine companion. And don't forget Mickey Mouse's dopey dog Pluto. Even our weapons of war are made by a company named after mythology: Raytheon, maker of missiles such as Patriot, Maverick, Sidewinder and Tomahawk, means "light of the gods."


• America even has her own goddess, Columbia, who graces the top of the Capitol, New York Harbor, the old Liberty Head dimes, and the start of every movie by Columbia Pictures. She is based on earlier goddesses Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar and Isis.


• And that overused word, "musings," comes from the Muses, fifty goddesses, water nymphs, or spiritual guides who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music and dance.


• Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter, and even our favorite anti-Christian holiday (since the Christians abandoned All Hallow's Day), Halloween, are pagan in origin. The word Easter derives from the name of the Germanic Goddess of the Dawn, or spring, the dawn of the year. She was called Ēaster, Ēastre, and Ēostre, in various dialects of Old English, and may go back as far as the similar-sounding middle eastern Astarte and Ishtar. Easter eggs and bunnies represent new life at springtime. Many Christmas traditions have their origins in the deep past, long before Zero A.D.


• The American Superman saga is a loose re-telling of the Jesus story. But then, the Jesus story — a virgin birth, ascensions, miracles — is a re-telling of savior myths that predate Christ by hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. Learn more about Tammuz, Bacchus, Osiris and Isis. And those stories, just like the legends told in Masonic lodges, ultimately lead you back to man's fascination with what happens in the sky.

Yes, America is anything but a Christian nation. Our culture is steeped in polytheistic paganism. Even if we're not always consciously aware of it, these archetypes live in our subconscious, reminding us that, as they say in the movie Magnolia, "we may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

Christianity is only 2,000 years old; it's simply today's most popular Western religion. The modern American version of fundamentalist Christianity is even younger, and in many ways would be unrecognizable to Christians of the past, and totally baffling to the billions of people who lived in pre-Christian times.

Spirituality and religious belief in things greater than and beyond ourselves is timeless.

Neither Christianity nor America is ultimately cosmic, or universal, or changeless. Like everything that has come before, both will change, adapt, mutate, and eventually fade away. Or perhaps become the brand name of a toothpaste or an automobile.

We're all only here for a short while, and while we're here, we've got to co-exist — all of us — Christian, Jew, Muslim and pagan. Christianity and other religions and spiritual practices and beliefs have their place in people's lives... even in mine. The one you follow, if any, is a matter of one's consciousness and conscience. One size doesn't fit all, and no one religion is the "only one," no matter what your Bible or other Volumes of Sacred Law say.

Let me take this down to a common denominator we all understand — bumper stickers: "Get your theocracy off my democracy."

Or simpler still: "My karma ran over your dogma."

I say no to theocracy in America, and yes to religious tolerance.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wilson's Almanac, and my mind

Image: Sunrise, taken by the crew of Apollo 12 on their return trip from the Moon.

Masons | Religion | Astrotheology | Freemasonry | Blog Against Theology | Christianity | Theocracy | America | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Blogging guidelines: Civility or censorship?

After a shouting match free-for-all developed on a technology blog recently, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

Today's New York Times has a long article discussing their ideas.

O'Reilly's version and his comments can be found here.

Here are the guidelines suggested by Wales, along with his commentary:

The Bloggers Code of Conduct

We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation. One can disagree without being disagreeable.

1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.

We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we'll delete comments that contain it.

We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:

• is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
• is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person
• infringes upon a copyright or trademark
• violates an obligation of confidentiality
• violates the privacy of others

We define and determine what is "unacceptable content" on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list. If we delete a comment or link, we will say so and explain why. We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.

2. We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.

3. If tensions escalate, we will connect privately before we respond publicly.

When we encounter conflicts and misrepresentation in the blogosphere, we make every effort to talk privately and directly to the person(s) involved — or find an intermediary who can do so — before we publish any posts or comments about the issue.

4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.

When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we'll tell them so (privately, if possible) and ask them to publicly make amends. If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn't withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.

5. We do not allow anonymous comments.

We require commenters to supply a valid email address before they can post, though we allow commenters to identify themselves with an alias, rather than their real name.

6. We ignore the trolls.

We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about us or our blog, as long as they don't veer into abuse or libel. We believe that feeding the trolls only encourages them — "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it." Ignoring public attacks is often the best way to contain them.

7. We encourage blog hosts to enforce more vigorously their terms of service

When bloggers engage in such flagrantly abusive behavior as creating impersonating sites to harass other bloggers they should take responsibility for their clients' behavior.

Here at the Burning Taper, we strive to keep the comments section as open as possible. Only once in a while have we deleted anyone's comments, and except when an occasional foul-mouthed troll comes along, we've kept your ability intact to post anonymously.

What do you think about these guidelines? Are they fair, or do they limit free speech? Do you support them? Would you adopt these rules for your own blog? Do you think the Burning Taper should adopt them, in toto or at least partially?

Or is this much ado about nothing?

Blog Guidelines | Civility | Censorship | Jimmy Wales | Tim O'Reilly | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Post-Easter mashup: Obelisks, Buddha and the 'God of my understanding'

The blog 22 Over 7 has an interesting post about the significance — Masonic, Christian and Pagan — of the Washington Monument obelisk and the intersecting circles, a Christian symbol known as the vesica piscis (bladder of the fish) that it stands upon.

Easter Sunday was Buddha's birthday. April 8 was also the day my friend Ron Bonds died, in 2001. I still miss him.

I've found a couple of good articles so far that came out of this weekend's blogswarm of Blogs Against Theocracy: Check out Journeys with Jood's entry on "the God of my understanding," and Deep Something's discussion of the religiosity of America's Founding Fathers.

Image: A flyover of Washington, D.C., from 22 Over 7

Blogs Against Theocracy | Founding Fathers | Religion | Freemasonry | Washington Monument | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Blogs against theocracy: 'We're not gonna take it!'

Bro. Don Tansey of the blog Movable Jewel has already said it better than I could. He said it politely. I'm more prone to ranting when it comes to this subject.

I stand with him and other bloggers this weekend in putting Christian fundamentalists on notice: We're not gonna take it!

Keep your hypocritical, overzealous, ultra-conservative, paranoid religious hands off the U.S. Constitution, the judiciary, federal, state and local governments, our schools, our kids, our bedrooms, our lodge rooms, and every other aspect of our lives you would like to control. Your twisted theological views do not represent the views of the majority of Christians or Americans, and your actions certainly aren't what Jesus would do.

The United States of America is not a theocracy. It will never be one.

Keep your church separated — stand way back! — from our state.

• Jesus is not a Republican. Or a Democrat. Or even an American.
• The Bible ain't science. Don't try forcing teachers to teach creationism in public schools. Take your own kids to that silly dinosaur park Kent Hovind created to teach that dinosaurs roamed the earth a couple of thousand years ago, but leave my kids out of it.
• Decisions about health and the use of medicines, alcohol and plants, abortion, and how to end your own life are personal decisions, not decisions to be made by your groups.
• All people are God's children... "red and yellow, black and white," as the Sunday School song goes. "Love one another," as Jesus said. "All you need is love," sang the Beatles. Stop being racists, sexists and homophobic. You're not any more special than the rest of us.
• God didn't tell George W. Bush to invade Iraq, and He damn sure doesn't support the war.
• God doesn't "hate fags," no matter how many signs you wave at soldiers' funerals.
• All families should be respected, no matter what form they take. It's none of your business who someone marries, or what someone does behind closed doors.
• Art is art. If you don't like it, don't watch it, read it, or look at it. Quit trying to keep the rest of us from watching it, reading it or going to museums to see it. (I thought the Chocolate Jesus was a minor masterpiece.)

Inside the dome of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., is a quotation by Thomas Jefferson: "I swear upon the altar of God eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Let his words be a warning to those who would replace American democracy with a Calvinist theocracy. Millions of us agree with Jefferson.

I have one suggestion for the fundamentalist Christians who want to rule America using eye-for-an-eye, hateful, vindictive, archaic Old Testament rules and practices and Paulian propaganda: Rip every page out of your Bible and burn them, except for one verse.

1 John 4:8 — Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Related websites: Blog Against Theocracy, First Freedom First, Journeys with Jood, Center for Inquiry, American Humanist Association, and many more.

Theocracy | Church and State | Religious Intolerance | Freemasonry | Fundamentalist | Christian | Fundamentalist |Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com