[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

Anyways, why do you need "funding" to teach abstinence...

You need to waste hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars teaching children that the failure rate of condoms is 50% because that's what the fundies want you to do in exchange for their votes. The abstinence-only programs are written by right-wing fundamentalists and filled with medical misinformation.

And if 95% of Americans are having premarital sex, that means the fundies are having premarital sex, too, in spite of what they preach. I think we knew this already but it's probably not something they want their children to hear.

"The best that modern science can say for abstinence is that it's harmless when practiced in moderation."

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Dobson: I Want To Cure Ted Haggard of Being Gay But Don’t Have Time, It ‘Could Take Four or Five Years’

Ted Haggard was one of the most prominent evangelical leaders in the nation until he admitted to having a sexual relationship with a male prostitute and buying meth.

Focus on the family founder James Dobson, who considers Haggard a “close friend,” told CNN’s Larry King last night that he was “asked to serve on a three person restoration panel.” One purpose of the panel, Dobson acknowledged, was to “restore [Haggard] from being gay to not gay.” Dobson said he didn’t have time to participate, however, because such a process “could take four or five years.” Watch it:

P.S. -- He must be really gay! Have they tried waterboarding?

Pastor Ted: "Hey, I'm not gay anymore!"

Pastor Ted has been born again, again! He is no longer gay! Praise Jesus!

Thanks to three weeks of intensive de-Gayhab, Pastor Ted is now "completely heterosexual." Or so he said in an email to his followers. He managed to squeeze "three years' worth" of psychological counseling into three weeks! He said he was seeking answers to "the incongruity in [his] life." Yeah, I can see how some people might think it is pretty incongruous to rant and rave against gay marriage while engaging in gay sex for three years. And let's not forget about the crystal meth that he frequently used during his cash-for-sex encounters.

Pastor Ted will now take psychology courses online so that he can become a psychologist and help other hypocritical fundamentalist Christian preachers who are experiencing "incongruity" in their lives.

The Denver Post reports that Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur also said the four-man oversight board "strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work instead of Christian ministry if Haggard and his wife follow through on plans to earn master's degrees in psychology."

Another oversight board member, the Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, "said the group recommended the move out of town, and the Haggards agreed," reported the Denver Post.

So Pastor Ted will now take his snake oil salesman's act on the road.

[Rev. Tim] Ralph [a member of Haggard’s oversight board] said three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed Arizona treatment center helped Haggard immensely and left Haggard sure of one thing.

“He is completely heterosexual,” Ralph said. “That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn’t a constant thing.” [In other words, he was only gay when he was engaged in gay sex but he was completely heterosexual the rest of the time.]

Why Haggard chose to act out in that manner is something Haggard and his advisers are trying to discern, Ralph said.


No word on what Pastor Ted is supposed to be "acting out" in this photo.

P.S. -- Does this mean Pastor Becky Fischer can reopen Jesus Camp now?

P.P.S. -- This is hilarious but the fundy wingnuts are so delusional they'll believe anything.

[Ninong]

Aww, shucks! We were hoping he was coming back to Baton Rouge.

Even though he is officially 100% heterosexual now, Pastor Ted said that he and his wife will honor the request of his overseers and leave Colorado Springs. No explanation for why he wants to take his show to Iowa or Missouri but I think we should warn the supermarkets there to stock up on 5-gal garden sprayers and Wesson oil. Pastor Ted has a fondness for anointing particularly sinful intersections with cooking oil. It's his way of fighting "Control."

He also likes to make late night missionary forays into local gay bars to recruit new members for his church. All of this was revealed by Pastor Ted in an interview with Harper's Magazine back in May 2005. Pastor Ted claims to have foreseen Internet prayer networks long before Al Gore invented the Internet.

Excerpts from the Harper's interview:

Pastor Ted soon began upsetting the devil's plans. He staked out gay bars, inviting men to come to his church; his whole congregation pitched itself into invisible battles with demonic forces, sometimes in front of public buildings. One day, while he was working in his garage, a woman who said she'd been sent by a witches' coven tried to stab Pastor Ted with a five-inch knife she pulled from a leg sheath; Pastor Ted wrestled the blade out of her hand. He let that story get around. He called the evil forces that dominated Colorado Springs—and every other metropolitan area in the country—“Control.”

Sometimes, he says, Control would call him late on Saturday night, threatening to kill him. “Any more impertinence out of you, Ted Haggard,” he claims Control once told him, “and there will be unrelenting pandemonium in this city.” No kidding! Pastor Ted hadn't come to Colorado Springs for his health; he had come to wage “spiritual war.”

[Pat Robertson claims to talk to God on a regular basis but Ted Haggard talks to both God and the devil. Remember, boys and girls, that this delusional lunatic was elected president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation's most powerful religious lobbying group.]

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Ninong

He also likes to make late night missionary forays into local gay bars to recruit new members for his church. All of this was revealed by Pastor Ted in an interview with Harper's Magazine back in May 2005. Pastor Ted claims to have foreseen Internet prayer networks long before Al Gore invented the Internet.

What a loone...
People are so gullable they believe idiots like this can be anything more than lying scambags. I wonder how much money he made for his bosses with his road show?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

I wonder how much money he made for his bosses with his road show?

Gene, in effect, he was his own boss. He founded his own church. He drove around looking for a spot to found his church and when he found a likely spot, he got out and sniffed the ground and that's when God told him to build his church in that spot. (P.S. -- Before that he was assistant pastor at a fundy church in the Baton Rouge area.)

His "bosses" would be the church's board of directors. He was the founder and head pastor. He did the hiring and the firing and the preaching against the evils of methamphetamines and gay marriage. He had a cameo role in that freak film about the Jesus Camp freaks who are brainwashing little children into thinking they are talking in tongues. John Ashcroft, our former Attorney General, used to be able to speak in tongues but he likes to keep that part quiet. His father and his grandfather both spoke in tongues all the time. They literally took their show on the road, travelling around the country in a beat up old station wagon with all the kids.

I wonder how they understand what they are saying when they speak in tongues?

As far as I know Ashcroft didn't spray any intersections or gay bars with cooking oil but he did anoint himself with cooking oil before starting each new job. I don't think Ashcroft was into snake handling. At least, I don't recall reading anything about him and snakes, just him and calico cats. Calico cats are possessed by the devil, according to Ashcroft, who like his father and grandfather, is an ordained pentecostal minister.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Ninong

As far as I know Ashcroft didn't spray any intersections or gay bars with cooking oil but he did anoint himself with cooking oil before starting each new job. I don't think Ashcroft was into snake handling. At least, I don't recall reading anything about him and snakes, just him and calico cats. Calico cats are possessed by the devil, according to Ashcroft, who like his father and grandfather, is an ordained pentecostal minister.

Yikes, I always loved Calico cats for some reason...what does it make me?
In fact my black and white cat looks almost like Groucho Marx...

John Ashcroft, our former Attorney General, used to be able to speak in tongues but he likes to keep that part quiet. His father and his grandfather both spoke in tongues all the time. They literally took the show on the road, travelling around the country in a beat up old station wagon with all the kids.

That's just down right freaky, Ninong. I too wonder how they understood each other when they spoke in tongues...what the heck does it mean anyways?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

That's just down right freaky, Ninong. I too wonder how they understood each other when they spoke in tongues...what the heck does it mean anyways?

It means that the Bible is full of a lot of stuff that no rational person takes seriously but there are some people who believe that everything in the Bible is literally true. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who used a razor blade to neatly cut out all of the "miracles" from his personal copy of the New Testament.

"Speaking in tongues" comes from the Book of Acts in the New Testament. I believe St. Paul claimed the ability to speak in tongues but he said it should be reserved for talking to God in private lest everyone around you think you are mad.

Of course, it's all utter nonsense but some people are convinced that their unintelligible utterances are actually an unknown language that is understood by God. In the original context in Acts, it was a reference to the Apostles being able to speak in the native language of the people they were preaching to even though they had no knowledge of that language. "Tongues of fire" descended on the heads of the Apostles and they were able to speak in any language necessary to be understood by their audience. Another interpretation is that they spoke in their own language but were understood by their audience in the audience's native language. I think that second interpretation was made up simply because the original version was too far fetched for most people. Either version requires a belief in miracles.

Here is the passage from Acts:

And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

As you can see, it clearly states that they "began to speak with other tongues." It doesn't say anything about speaking their own language and being understood in a different language.

Speaking in tongues is quite common in some of the weirder Christian denominations, such as Pentecostals. Many Pentecostals also feel a need to handle snakes. They think the Bible commands them not only speak in unintelligible gibberish but to play with poisonous snakes, too. It's all part of their religious practices.

Here's where they think the New Testament commands them to play with deadly snakes:

Mark 16:17-18 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

So... According to that passage, a Christian must cast out devils in God's name, must speak in new tongues, must play with snakes, will not be harmed by drinking poison and must lay hands on the sick so that they be cured. Lots of them believe that stuff and make tons of money out of it, too. Did you ever channel surf and end up on one of those Christian fundy broadcasts where the preacher guy lays his hands on the heads of the sick people and pushes them back and they fall on the ground and wriggle around for several minutes before announcing that they have been cured of something or other?

The way it works is that all of the people in attendance have to fill in a card before the performance that lists their particular ailment that they would like to have cured, along with their name, etc. That information is then radioed to the preacher, sort of like Bush's ear plug and battery pack for the presidential debate, so that he can address each person by name and tell them that he is about to cure them of the heartbreak of psoriasis or restless leg syndrome or whatever.

And the part about laying hands on the sick to cure them is taken seriously by some people who allow their innocent children to die rather than allow them to be saved by evil medicine. I remember reading the case of one crackpot couple who have allowed three of their children to die. And there are those who actually defend these morons' right to kill their children because it's their "religious belief." Don't forget that medical practice two thousand years ago was not as advanced as it is today, so laying hands on the sick might have been just as effective as calling your primary care physician.

It's really amazing what people have done throughout history, even recent history, because of various "religious" beliefs. Think of the hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of women who were killed in Europe because they were believed to be witches. Even here in the U.S., two or three dozen women were hanged in Salem, Massachusetts just three hundred years ago because they were accused of being witches. If two people testified against you that your familiar appeared to them in a nightmare and frightened them, then that was proof that you were a witch. A familiar was your ghost that appeared to them in their sleep. People actually believed that crap.

Of course, the Europeans had a neat way of determining who was a witch and who was not. I found it online and copied it here:


Witch Ducking

Between 1100 and 1700 AD the dunking stool was used to determine if someone was a witch. This method was deemed to be foolproof as it was so easy to spot the difference between a witch and a normal person:

• If the person sank or drowned, they were not a witch. The fact that they would be dead was seen as only a minor issue compared to the benefits of being cleared of any charges of witchcraft.

• If the person floated then they were definitely a witch as their body must have rejected the "baptismal water". Confirmed witches would usually be burnt at the stake.

So, if you were lucky you would drown but if you were unlucky you would be dunked in freezing water then burnt alive!

Unlike normal dunking, witches would have their right thumb tied to their left toe to inhibit them from making any attempt to swim or otherwise resist being dunked.

[Ninong]

Gene,

I knew I remembered reading about this recently and I just found the story online here. Check it out.

It seems that Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia recently pardoned a woman who was convicted in Virginia 300 years ago of being a witch by the witch ducking method. Unfortunately for her, she floated, but instead of being burnt at the stake like they usually did in Europe, she was merely thrown in jail for seven years. In Salem, she would have been hanged!

In some European countries you were burnt at the stake and in others you were hanged. In a few places you were both hanged and burnt at the same time. And it was all in the name of God, of course! The Bible says thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. This was quite common in Christian countries for several hundred years.

P.S. -- Katherine Harris is very lucky she wasn't born four or five hundred years ago in Europe.

[zhenya]

Thanks for the link, Ninong. I watched few movies and read some books about women's fate in Europe and US. It is terrifying.
You can understand why I look skeptically at all this "messias" that can cure people by placing their useless hands on their heads. Those TV shows freak me out and I turn them off quickly. I have enough nightmares to bare in my life as it is.

[Ninong]

Abstinence students still having sex

Study tracked 2,057 young people in government-funded programs


WASHINGTON - Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, according to a long-awaited study mandated by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don’t believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.

P.S. -- Notice that the Bush Administration tried to hide this news release in the Friday night news dump. I guess they were hoping that no one would notice it mixed up with all the DOJ email stuff. This was a government funded study (Contract No. HHS 100-98-0010) designed to prove that abstinence-only sex education works. It proved just the opposite. Here is the full 164-page report: Impacts for Title V, Section 510, Abstinence Education Programs: Final Report.

[Frag Hag]

...I guess it's not so much what's taught at school, as what's taught at home.

Shay
(who wants government funding for her home taught abstinence until marriage course)

[Ninong]

Bush Administration's "Faithfulness & Abstinence Czar" has just resigned!!!

You'll never in a thousand years guess why! OK, so maybe you will.

If you guessed it has something to do with the D.C. Madam you win a prize or something!!!



This is hilarious!

As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

A State Department press release late Friday afternoon said only he was leaving for "personal reasons."

Tobias' private cell number was among thousands of numbers listed in the telephone records provided to ABC News by Jeane Palfrey, the woman dubbed the "D.C. Madam," who is facing the federal charges. In an interview to be broadcast on "20/20" next Friday, Palfrey says she intends to call Tobias and a number of her other prominent DC clients to testify at her trial.

"I'm sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," Palfrey told ABC News.

Here.