Religion: Some More Random Observations

Do you have greater credibility for your personal worldview and biases, or are you taken more seriously if you invoke God, Jesus and/or the Bible in support? Perhaps you may think a wicked city like Las Vegas should be destroyed. Thumbs down, but then you say well look what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. You’d get short shrift if you advocate executing disobedient children, until you can cite the Biblical chapter and verse which states the exact same thing. Wacky ideas get the thumbs down; Biblical wacky events that mirror those ideas – thumbs up. 

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Anybody reading the story of the crucifixion in Matthew, Mark or Luke will note that for three hours, between noon and three pm apparently, it became very dark. John doesn’t mention this, and Matthew and Mark only note the three hours of intense darkness. But Luke (23:45) notes specifically that “the sun was darkened’. That clearly implies a solar eclipse. However, there are several problems with this. The first is that the crucifixion of Jesus took place at Passover. Alas, Passover happens or is celebrated when the Moon is in its Full Moon phase (or when the Earth is between, but not quite in direct alignment with, the Sun and the Moon). A solar eclipse can only happen when the Moon is totally dark, that is when it is in its New Moon phase (when the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun). So, when the crucifixion happened, that is at Passover, the Moon was Full, not New, therefore no solar eclipse. The second problem is that the New Moon only covers the Sun causing a solar eclipse thus causing intense darkness, for a maximum just shy of eight minutes. That’s just a tad less time than Mathew, Mark and Luke allow for. The third problem is that the crucifixion happened as far as can be determined in April of 30, or 33 or 34 CE. There is no solar eclipse in Jerusalem in April in any of those months and years and is therefore irrelevant, misleading and immaterial. So, either it’s all just fiction, added in for dramatic effect, or it was a miracle (which is probably the official church line). I’d opt for the fiction myself.

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Be sure to check out Wikipedia’s entry for “List of scandals involving evangelical Christians” – very, very enlightening. Also, if you have access, read the following:

Gardner, Martin: “Prime-time preachers” (in) The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher; Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York; 1988; p.223-245.

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This is the latest Right Wing Watch Cindy Jacobs story.

“Cindy Jacobs’ five-year-old daughter can stop tornadoes.”

Apparently her trick is to shout out “I told you to be quiet in Jesus’ name!” and the tornado just goes poof.

My response: Hello, my name is Alice and I’ve gone through the looking glass into wonderland – whee!

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Speaking of the Right Wing Watch, their coverage of the extreme right wing fundamentalist religious personalities like Pat Robertson, Bryan Fischer (especially Brian Fischer), Cindy Jacobs, Glenn Beck; and dozens more, show that these individuals and the organisations they represent (like the American Family Association) are stridently anti-President Obama, and have been since Obama rose to the fore in 2008. I’ve never witnessed any American president being subjected to the vitriol and abuse that President Obama has routinely been by the religious right. Amazingly, it doesn’t seem to be a racist thing, it’s just Obama stands for everything the extreme right wing is against like gay marriage. So, Obama is the antichrist; Obama doesn’t believe in the Bible; Obama hates America; Obama isn’t even an American citizen; Obama is anti-Israel; Obama is pro-Muslim; Obama is a closet Muslim; Obama is a closet gay; Obama is America’s Lenin or Stalin; Obama hates the military; Obama is an illegitimate president; Obama should be impeached. There’s a lot more negatives, but you get the drift.

But it’s not so much about what Obama is (sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me) but what Obama’s agenda is. Obama will declare himself God; Obama wants to destroy the American economy; Obama wants to raise a black army and kill whites, especially right wing Christian whites; Obama wants gun control to disarm his enemies; Obama wants to precipitate another Civil War; Obama will turn America into an Islamic state; Obama discriminates against Christianity; Obama declares war on white America; Obama is out to destroy the family unit; and on and on and on it goes without any shred of evidence whatever.

While that might be an example of America’s freedom of speech, I wonder whether or not any of these individuals will apologise in January 2017 when Obama leaves office and nothing whatever has come to pass that even remotely confirmed these outlandish shock, horror, it’s the end of the world or at least of America, claims. My gut feeling is that there won’t be an “I’m sorry” or “I got it wrong” from anyone that’s a member of any one of the extreme right wing fundamentalist religious groups. By then they will have moved on and will be bucketing some other person.

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Why is it that a select number of those with a religious conviction feel they have a moral and ethical right to disturb and inconvenience you, at their convenience of course, in order to shove their religious worldview down your throat? The nice thing about atheists is that they don’t disturb and inconvenience you; they don’t do doorknocking!

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Ancient art works that depict ‘flying saucers’ all seemingly have a religious, especially New Testament, Jesus/Mary themed context: Why? Perhaps because the religious figures central in the artistic works aren’t supernatural but flesh-and-blood of an ‘ancient astronaut’ variety.

Cindy, Oh Cindy: Gimme That Old Time Religion!

We’re aware that God is interested in saving souls, I just wasn’t aware that the souls in question were on a pair of Cindy Jacobs shoes!

On a TV program called “God Knows” (as related on the website Right Wing Watch, 9 January 2013), a woman, Cindy Jacobs, made some totally outlandish claims along the lines of the Biblical God provides – those multiplying loaves and fishes scenario. She claimed that when cooking for her children and the multitudes of young friends they brought along, her spaghetti dinners just kept on keeping on, no matter how many showed up to be fed, the spaghetti pot was always full, the food just multiplied supernaturally; oil in bottles kept being supernaturally topped up a cup at a time; the tires on her car lasted way, way, way longer than anyone could possibly explain naturally; ditto a pair of her shoes refused to wear out. Praise God!

So if I got this right, there are millions starving in the world, but God gives her His preference by keeping her spaghetti pot full; millions around the world can’t afford basic necessities, yet God sees to it she gets life-everlasting shoes. If this is supposed to be proof of God’s reality, what does this say about God’s priorities? All this would be hilarious were it not for the fact that the woman was totally articulate and absolutely sincerely believed all the bullshit she was spouting off about.

In another post (20 December 2012), she also relates how an angel (apparently without wings) rendered assistance to her when things went to hell in a hand-basket at a Venezuelan airport.

Perhaps the women is in some serious need of psychiatric help (you can judge that for yourself if you view her videos), help that God fails to provide her since her shoes and spaghetti have a higher priority for God than her sanity! By the way, I’m not making any of this up. This woman has just got to be seen to be believed! You’ll find lots of her loony religious right videos, videos by apparently Doctor Cindy Jacobs on YouTube or the Right Wing Watch website. You don’t have to watch daytime TV or see blockbuster films to be entertained. She’ll keep you totally enthralled for hours and hours with her Christian looniness.

By the way, the one issue I have, that one bone to pick with these private cable-only TV Right Wing Christian Networks, which I assume “God Knows” is an example, be it Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association or Pat Robertson of the CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network): The 700 Club, or many others, is that it’s a closed shop; it’s all in-house. They spout off their extreme right wing religious messages safe in the knowledge, totally aware in the knowledge, that they cannot be cross-examined in real time, on the spot, by those experts, journalists or interviewers whose job it is, is to be sceptically aggressive. It’s like POTUS having to ‘Meet the Press’ where the only ‘investigative journalist’ or interviewer present is his wife!

Here are just a few selected headlines from Right Wing Watch website regarding Cindy Jacobs, the TV show “God Knows” and her organization Generals International.

“God miraculously made a pair of Cindy Jacobs’ shoes last for years.”

“Cindy Jacobs remembers the time God sent an angel to help her make travel arrangements.”

“Jacobs claims to have thwarted numerous terrorist attacks.”

“Jacobs warns Obama’s ‘anti-Biblical’ policies have led to ‘floods and fires and more’.”

“How Cindy Jacobs prevented two African coups.”

“Bakker and Jacobs claim to have prophesied September 11^th attacks.”

“Jacobs: Our prayers stop terrorism.”

“Jacobs: Prayer led to the capture of Manuel Noriega.”

“Cindy Jacobs: I have the power to revive dead children.”

“Jacobs: Satan seeks to destroy God’s model for the family and install tyranny.”

“Jacobs: People will be required to get a RFID [radio-frequency identification] implant to receive health care.”

“Cindy Jacobs claims American schools had no problems before 1962.”

“Jacobs: Prophets warned Jews of the Holocaust.”

“Jacobs: Elect Right-Wing politicians…Or else.”

“Cindy Jacobs prophesies Obama ‘cover-up,’ prays for religious right leaders.”  

“FRC [Family Research Council] teams with Cindy Jacobs to target 2012 elections’.  

“Cindy Jacobs unveils election initiative to ‘remove the lie of separation of church and state’.” 

“How Cindy Jacobs reversed a hysterectomy.”

“Cindy Jacobs warns of Satan’s grip in ‘ungodly’ education system.”

“Jacobs: OWS [Occupy Wall Street] protests driven by “a power of darkness’.”

“Jacobs’ prayer warriors mobilize against Occupy Wall Street.”

“Jacobs: ‘The Response’ broke the curse of Native American cannibals.”

“[Jacobs]: We are seeing natural disasters ‘because sin has reached Biblical proportions.”

“Jacobs: Ban abortion because it curses the land.”

“Jacobs: ‘Sexual immorality’ is like putting the wrong fuel into your car.”

“Jacobs: The DC earthquake is a sign from God to share the gospel.”

“Jacobs, Benefiel to spend 40 days laying spiritual ‘siege’ to Washington DC”

“Jacobs: ‘It’s time for many Jewish people to turn to the Lord’.”

“Jacobs: ‘Everything that I said has happened’.”

“Jacobs in Alaska, announces mobilization of a half million intercessors to swing 2012 election’.”

“Jacobs: America will erect a memorial on National Mall to the ‘holocaust of the unborn’.”

“Jacobs: God is using earthquake to break Japan’s pagan idolatry.”  

“Jacobs: Birds are dying because of DADT [Don’t Ask Don’t Tell] repeal.”

“Jacobs and Pierce issue warning that CA [California] will be destroyed by earthquake if Prop 8 is struck down.”

“Cindy Jacobs: The Lord is targeting elections.”

“Cindy Jacobs prophesies a third party led by Marco Rubio.”

“[Jacobs]: ‘God is going to do something supernatural in these elections’.”

“Jacobs: ‘Filling the arsenals of God’s media army’ to stop the Islamification of Fox News.”

“Jacobs calls the ‘blood-covered justice and judgments of God’ down upon her enemies.”

“How Cindy Jacobs shut down Craigslist.”

“Cindy Jacobs repents for lesbianism, ‘girl-on-girl kissing’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’.”

“Cindy Jacobs: God’s mercy depends on how we vote in 2010.”

“Cindy Jacobs issues ‘a serious warning and a call for urgent prayer’.”

“Cindy Jacobs’ prayer warriors target Prop 8 case.”

“Jacobs: May Day 2010 saved Times Square.”

“When Cindy Jacobs caused Washington DC to flood.”

“Jacobs: ‘The Bible is the government of the people, by the people and for the people’.”

“Jacobs: If you care about the environment, you’re Dominionist.”