Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – Prayers have failed: Bachmann is out and our own local wannabee theocrat, plus the Pope

Seeing Michele Bachmann deliberately lying on TV makes me feel all warm and cozy inside.  Few things should do more to show how religion doesn’t make a person a decent, humane, human being, and it sure doesn’t keep them from breaking every rule in their very own religion.   Like so many politicians who get caught having no ethics to speak of, sure that might equals right, they suddenly find a great need to spend more time with their family, or whatever else excuse they can come up with. All of Michelle’s prayers failed, because we all know that she was praying ferociously to win; and all of Michelle’s lies failed, and showed her piousness to be worthless.  Poor Michelle, once a contender for the presidency and now one more failed theocrat.  So much for the claims on how moral Christians are.    As always, there are few better arguments against Christianity than the actions of Christians.  It’s a shame that their god got out of the business of smiting people when they invoked his name and screwed up. It’d be much simpler for the other Christians to demonstrate any differences.

Harrisburg, PA also has our own failure, Linda Thompson.  Mayor Thompson managed to win the mayorship a few years back after  Stephen Reed lost after ruling the ‘burg for quite a few years. She lost this election, unfortunately to one more pander bear, Eric Papenfuse, who is just as sure as Linda is that prayer works and should be engaged in for city government by praying to this god of theirs for each and every decision.  At least that’s what he told a congregation that was hosting a “debate”.   I guess God was on Eric’s side more than Linda’s?  That’s what it must be right?  If prayers work as claimed, then Eric’s prayers are more important than Linda’s.  Of course, prayers don’t work as claimed at all, so Linda and Eric can keep claiming that their god is on their side.

I’m happy that the guy I voted for, didn’t seem bother with the pandering.  Alas, he lost.  I’ll have to check out the Republican candidate, to see if he’s claiming God will help him win too.  then I think I might have to demand the altar contest at city hall to make sure we get the right God approved candidate.

Mayor Thompson is rather noted for saying questionable things.  She recently called our rural neighbors to the north “scumbags” when complaining about the trash problem in the city. She might be right that rural folks dump stuff in the city, but having been a rural person, I know that most rural folks will find a ravine or an abandoned strip mine.  She also was quite certain that fasting and prayer would solve Harrisburg’s financial crisis.  *That* was a lovely example of how prayer consistently fails for even TrueChristians.  Now, Mayor Thompson has decided that getting kids in church will stop gun violence, because they need a “moral foundation, make them understand that they are valued human beings”.

Unfortunately for Mayor Thompson, and Bachmann, church is not a great place to get the idea that humans are valued.  Most churches teach that only a certain type of human being is to be valued, one that follows a certain religion.   There are some theists that do seem to consider JC’s claim that one must take care of the “least of these”, but that humane lesson is nearly lost in a sea of commands to abandon anyone who does not think in the exact same way as the believer does.  We have repeated stories in the bible where children are killed by this god and its faithful, not exactly role-models for telling kids not to kill each other.  We have lessons that one should take what one wants with violence, as long as you can claim that some god told you he agreed.  Repeatedly, we see this god, and many other gods, acting no more moral than a punk with a gun, all sure that might equals right.  If you aren’t wearing the right sectarian “colors” then you can be killed without a thought by the other side. 

As always, the gods are very much the humans that create them.  The gods have an excuse for their behavior, they don’t exist.  The humans don’t and demonstrate themselves just as deceitful, willfully ignorant and delusional as ever.

Now for the Pope.  Poor Fran,  he said that everyone will be saved by JC even the atheists and then the Vatican says otherwise.   Seems that the Pope is more a universalist than his church might like.   And the word from the Vatican seems more strict than even JP2 had, when he wrote that other religions might have at least some of the truth, if not all of it.  The Vatican spokesman seems to be sure that Roman Catholics and only Roman Catholics can be “saved”.  Now, to see if he can prove it.  I’m sure some of the Christians who read this blog would like to tell me that the RCC aren’t real Christians at all and don’t know what they’re talking about.

I wonder, those Christians who were nattering about the Malachi prophecy when JP2 died, what do they think of Fran?  Hmmm, from the wiki article, they are sure that there has to be more popes since well, it’s embarrassing if God doesn’t show when he’s cued.