Discussion:

Too Much Sex, Too Little Jesus:

For my sins.

Ole Anthony, founder of the Trinity Foundation, has been going after these charlatans and thieves for a long time. I had the privilege of listening to his deposition that was taken in a case against Trinity Broadcasting Network. He’s a fascinating man, very sincere in his faith. He talks the talk and walks the walk. He is the nemesis of TBN and those other parasites on the body of Christ.

http://trinityfi.org/ is the website, and a revealing New Yorker article can be found at God doesn't need Ole Anthony

Excerpt:

In the summer of 1958, Anthony was sent to the Marshall Islands, in the South Pacific, to calibrate his sensors against a newly designed hydrogen bomb. The Air Force had estimated that the explosion would be equivalent to 3.5 megatons of TNT, but it was equal to 9.3 megatons instead.

Standing on the shore of an island thirty miles away, Anthony watched the target island disintegrate in a blinding flash. A few seconds later, the blowback hit him—a shock wave of wind and sound so powerful that it knocked him into the water. Anthony’s body still bears traces of the explosion.

His blood is so marked by radiation that a doctor once told him he should be dead. His flesh is pocked with more than four hundred lipomas—hard, fatty tumors, strung under his skin like knots in a clothesline.

My body is a disaster zone," he says, but when he mentions the explosion now it’s merely as a metaphor for his spiritual awakening fourteen years later. His foundation, as it turns out, is named not after the Holy Trinity but after the first nuclear device, which was detonated in New Mexico, in 1945.

It’s OK (pats shoulder).
I’ve been an AZ resident since 1968. Other family have been here since the late 40’s (the Phoenix branch of my tribe).

It’s not only the televangelists, but also the mega-churches (many times they are the same) that are huge fool-and-money departing operations. If these crooks were selling anything other than salvation they would be in Jail for fraud and false advertising.

But if some idiot wants to contribute to Renflo Dollar’s jet airplane, I guess that’s fine. but at least make the charlatan pay taxes.

I am going to start St. Gambrinus Pentecostal Church. The ritual will consist on drinking beer until the parishioners speak in tonges. Tax free contributions will be taken from the faithful on they wait out before they pass out.

Organized religion has always been about power, and we all know power = money. He’s absolutely right in every respect.

Although to be fair, the televangelists are no worse than the Military Industrial Complex, last week the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff went to Congress to ask for more money otherwise the Russians will take away our freedom.

Military-Industrial Complex, the Religious Complex and the Cop & Prison Complex… if we manage to reign in those three we will become the best place ever.

He must really do, they are multiplying by the day.

I am so glad to see that we have finally gotten over our shock after 911 which made Liberals impotent. I applaud those who are beginning to confront the way Republicans have used Christ as a cash register and campaign slogan. Shame on their Party and the conservative propagandists who have defiled the true meaning of religion, Christianity in particular.

…doG’s speakin’ to me---------

he’s sayin’ you oughta get poses of true followers’ who’ve been overcome by the spirits… then blackmail if they don’t tithe or if their checks bounce…or until your G650 is paid for.

The Lord doesn’t condone what has been going on.

We were not created to stand by and let others stone the poor, sick and misunderstood. We must find our faith again…in something…and stop the constant stoning of our fellow man, war-mongering and pollution.

We owe it to our species to be better than we have been. We have failed ourselves. God gave us the brains to figure this out. It’s time we prized that capability and fostered it’s promise. Praying for help is the last refuge of those who are afraid to ever try. We were not created to fail. God still expects big things of us. We need to believe in us the way He always has.

I hope Pope Francis makes this perfectly clear to the American Taliban when he speaks before our Congress in a few weeks. They have been the ones holding this nation and its people back from doing great things for Mankind. We have to finally get past 911 and all the bad things we chose to do in response. It’s time to take the high road again.

There will not be any Apocalypse unless we chose it. I’m really getting sick of all those books and films about zombies, plagues and robots taking over the world. It can’t happen if we embrace our intelligence and humanity. When did Man become such a quitter?

When Donald Trump gets so frustrated that even he kind of gets it half way right in a very crazed and ridiculous way, you know we are on the brink of making a comeback. Don’t give up on us now, Lord.

The best is yet to come if we don’t kill off our chances with stupid, simplistic remedies for complex problems. There is always an answer if you don’t quit looking for it…which is the Republican answer to everything.

I Don’t Care If It Rains or Freezes…

I was raised mainline protestant in a sea of fundamentalism (Oklahoma) and I was used to seeing this crap (think oral Roberts) all the time. Nothing but fundies with few, very few Catholics to be seen. I married a Catholic and the one thing that impressed me tremendously about Catholic priests were their vows of poverty. Imagine any of these fundie blood suckers taking vows of poverty. The saying then and quite true now, any time these bible thumping men of god came to town, you always kept one hand on your wallet and the other on your wife.

Mmmm … Does The Lord talk to you?

This one made me angry. I got dragged to several of Andrew Wommack’s sermons a few months ago; I am not a believer, but I very much wished to fashion a whip out of rope and start flipping some tables in Jesus’ name.

I’m a freaking antitheist and I think the people who should be most angry about the Prosperity Gospel are other Christians, because it makes a mockery of your beliefs.

“Whether it’s God or the bomb/It’s just the same/And it’s only fear/Under another name.”

This song really should’ve gotten wider airplay.

Nah, the Police would just arrest you for being a “Vagrant” and a Dirty Fucking Hippie.
Now, if you are BLACK they will just shoot you and claim you threatened them with that crooked staff, that they thought was a really, big, wooden gun (feared for their lives so to speak) AND you were wearing Robes and a Turban-ish-Mooslimy headgeary thing!!!

In a sane society these assholes would be in jail. If you listened to what Oliver said, he kept repeating: it would be funny but the people being bilked are those that can afford it least. Those that prey on the weak are the lowest form of life on the planet.

Giving money to churches as a means of charity is terribly inefficient. The breakdown:

• Personnel: 58%
• Administration: 6%
• Facilities: 18%
• Programs: 14%
• Other: 1%

The only category which touches on charity is “Programs”, at 14%. But much of that is not really charity - evangelism/outreach is just drumming up business, and youth programs and worship are strictly in-group activities. If I join the yacht club and I am then allowed to attend the quarterly meetings for members, it isn’t charity; you just getting what you paid for. Finally, the real charity meat and potatoes: 1% “local/national benevolence” and 2% “international benevolence” – that is, giving aid to outsiders who are in need. 3%.

Obviously, the exact breakdown varies from church to church.

Ah, you might say, I probably got this from some hateful secular party-pooping website. Nope, it is quoting a study done by a national evangelical organization of their members.

The link to the study, which appears the above pdf, has disappeared, but it really was from eccu.org.