Update: To correct misinformation in the comments, I was not “fired”. I offered my resignation and it was accepted.
Because I had the nerve to be critical of the Catholic church’s stance on birth control and abortion—nevermind their political opposition to distributing condoms to fight HIV, a stance that has helped usher thousands and possibly millions to their untimely deaths—I’ve gotten a number of letters from people who call themselves “Christians”, as Bill Donohue also calls himself. Chrisitians are people who are supposed to follow the behavior and teachings of Jesus Christ. I mention this, because it seems to me that therefore, when Christians are contemplating an action that is morally questionable, it appears they should consult the Bible before acting.
Luckily, I happen to have a Bible laying around this house, because even though I’m not a Christian, I was an English major, and it is important to Know Your Ancient Mythologies if you are reading poetry. And I flipped to this passage that seems to have solid advice on what to do if you’ve got some asshole dragging a woman in front of an angry crowd and yelling, “SINNER!”:
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?� This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.� And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?� She said, “No one, Lord.� And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.�
Granted, I don’t think criticizing the church for policies that hurt families and even get people killed is a “sin”, but my letter writers do. But I thought I’d bring up this story for two reasons. One, I’ve always been impressed by the subtext of the story. I suspect, strongly, that this story is part of the reason that Christianity was so attractive to women in its early days, because this sort of random misogynist scapegoating is all too real in a patriarchy, and this story must have touched a lot of women at the time, who would be impressed with Jesus’ unwillingness to play into such misogyny. In fact, from everything I understand, much of the history of Christian misogyny is one 2,000 year long backlash against early female power in the church.
I’m also impressed by how so many people who claim to follow Jesus have basic reading comprehension problems when they regard this story. (Not all—for instance, some fellow Pandagonians take their faith seriously enough to read the Bible and try to follow its precepts.) From my mailbag:
I pray that I had some small part to play in your “resigning” from the Edwards campaign you libelous fraud!
That’s from a Vivian Thomas, who also wants me to know that I’m a worthless hag. (Update: Vivian was attacking me for my position on the Duke case. I’m so tired of the bullcrap from that, but I can assure the haters that I’m full aware if I spread vicious, untrue rumors about the accusers, they would have exactly no problem with me.)
Catholics are concerned about killing unborn children, you stupid bitch. Chop away if it suits you, but we don’t
have to accept that as moral. That’s why it’s called a religion. Look into it.
Frankly, if I were a churchy person, this “Look into it” thing would insult me, since R.R. from Tallahassee, FL is all but saying that religion is his excuse to declare his misogyny “moral” so he doesn’t actually have to think and decide what his morality is for himself.
Amanda,
after reading your vile screed against Catholics and the Holy Spirit, I just had to see what you looked like. (I envisioned you eyebrow-less, with no visible pupils, and a blank, dead stare.) I see I was correct about the blank, dead stare, but other than that you’re not too bad. I then thought maybe you were mad at God (and by proxy Catholics) for making you ugly, but now I’m figuring you’re just mad at him for making you a woman.
Annette D’Amato is somewhat right, that I’m angry—but not that I’m a woman, but that people like her have such uncalled for contempt for women. But I am impressed that I gave her a small bit of education. Contrary to what people have been telling her, feminists are not demons without eyebrows (she missed the boar’s teeth and snakes on our heads), but human beings.
Andy Driggers from Dallas, TX was also so moved by my criticisms of religious anti-choicers, that he wrote:
Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man! Living in Texas myself, I know you haven’t found that real Texan yet. But once your liberal pro feminist ass gets a real good fucking, you might see the light. Until then, enjoy your battery operated toys b/c most real men wouldn’t want to give you the fucking you deserve b/c the shit that would come out of you ears.
Reminder: Donohue was claiming to be so hurt by my “bigotry”. Yet, for some reason, his supporters write me and they are more interested in telling me that my womanhood is repulsive to them. Interesting—almost as if his claims to speak for Catholicism were in fact dog whistles to scare people about women’s equality.
As I told some close friends in the days that Donohue was on the news, spraying code words about “get the feminists” (which explains why he roped Shakespeare’s Sister into this, even though she really had nothing to do with any of this—except she’s pro-equality, which is what is really what offends Donohue and all the people who gave that anti-Semite airtime), a good half of my hate mail could be summed up, “You have a pottymouth, you stupid cunt.” An example, from Paul Bernard of Scottsdale, AZ:
i like the way you trash talk i don’t particularly want to have sex with you but i would like a blow job.
Right wingers right now are pretending like sexism has nothing to do with me, which is an argument that works if you think a) men get emails about how they need to suck a dick on a regular basis and b) that there’s nothing whatsoever sexist about allowing men to curse but hitting the fainting couch if a woman does.
Bud Phelps, another person who opposes “bigotry”, as defined by right wing shill Bill Donohue.
It’s just too bad your mother didn’t abort you. You are nothing more than a filthy mouth slut. I bet a couple of years in Iraq being raped and beaten daily would help you appreciate America a little. Need a plane ticket ?
Time to wake up and smell reality—real bigots follow the siren call of the fascist right wing. Why would they even bother with liberals and all our equality and human rights and other tedious ideas?
Romanco De Leone was also moved by Donohue’s poignant claims about insulating the Catholic church from legitimate criticisms.
YOU RACIST WHORE. FAT UGLY BITCH. SUCK MY LONG COCK ASSHOLE I HOPE YOU KIDS NEVER LIVE AND YOUR PARENTS DIE A TRAGIC DEATH YOU ASSHOLE BITCH!
I HOPE YOUR WOMB IS BARREN AND YOUR CAREER PLUMMETS TO HELL YOU BITCH
But I shan’t belabor the point. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the hate mail the Bill Donohue’s “Christian” campaign against me has inspired. This is all stuff from days ago—I’ve gotten more than 100 since. Hell, from the looks of my email from last night, I’ve had more than 100 in the past 12 hours from self-proclaimed Christians who want me to know that I have hurt their feelings and this has nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with their own misogyny and tendency to witch hunt.
496 Responses to “People who claim to love Jesus write me”
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Aw, that last one was sweet. It included hoping that your womb remains barren, which your regular readers know to be a fond wish of yours.
Otherwise, good luck trying to shame these whackos. Cats licking their own and one anothers’ genitals have a more developed sense of dignity.
*wince* God, I hate this. It’s very brave of you, though, faced with such sick-making comments, to formulate such a coherent and clear response. And I’m so, so glad that you’re still posting. *goes back into lurk mode*
(I’m still stunned by how much of this nonsense is about swearing. Because no one in any workplace ever does that.)
But… but… I thought you were the vile one? Am I to believe that Billy Donahue has lied to me? I don’t know how to process that. I mean, you’re suggesting that some Christians are hypocrites, but I really remember Jesus having something to say about that. How can it be?
This must just prove that you are such a vicious anti-Catholic bigot that you actually drive good Christian folk to be exactly the kind of person you criticize, thus justifying your attacks. A shrewd plan, I’m sure Layman Billy will see through it and realize you’re still responsible.
I think.
I’m having trouble parsing the logic in the comment made by Andy Driggers of Dallas, TX, which is somewhat unsurprising. But if Andy Driggers of Dallas, Texas wants to explain the distinction between women who ‘need a good fucking’ and those who can’t get one — or if the friends of Dallas, TX resident Andy Driggers want to help out — I’m sure that Google searchers in years to come will appreciate it.
I work for a very religious person (who would never in a million years put crap like this in an email, I may point out) and even he admits he needs to work on not dropping the “eff bomb” as he puts it. We don’t agree on anything political or religious, but we can respect each other’s right to an opinion. Funny how that works.
Actually, the Pope makes a pretty good villain on abortion. It’s easier to criticize him than the Church because there’s a natural response to “You’re bigoted against Catholics”: “I thought we’d moved beyond 1960, when Catholics were suspected of having more allegiance to the Pope than to the United States.”
thank you for posting these.
i think someone in an earlier thread said that you’re deservedly suffering this backlash because the right-wing blogosphere simply illuminated your words for all to see.
there’s no shame in your words- but there’s plenty of shame in this violent, misogynistic, dreadful hate mail. keep exposing it for what it is- this is important work.
In the past year the University of Minnesota conducted a study to discover what popular conceptions people had regarding athiests.
They found that we are the most despised group in the country. Responses included the view that they would not condone their children marrying an athiest and that we are untrustworthy.
You’re an intelligent feminist who doesn’t believe in god. Of course they were going to come and get you.
Stay strong and don’t let this sick shit deter you in speaking truth to power, Amanda.
This is precisely why civilized people reject and loathe religion. It’s not so much the muddy, opaque metaphysical doctrines as the foul swine wallowing around belly-deep in them.
No, I’m not looking for a job in American politics, Mr. Donohue. You go to Hell.
They’ve not only sold me on Catholicism, they’ve also convinced me that feminism is pointless and outdated!
Great post. I’m embarrassed that people who claim to be “good Christians” would defame you in such a way.
I’m a Catholic, and would be the first to take on the Church regarding its stances on women, birth control, homosexuality, etc. A lot of people would argue that doesn’t make me “Catholic,” but I see Faith and Religion as very different things. I think you can be Catholic in faith, and fight against the misogynistic/heterosexist religious ways of the Church. People ask me, “Why don’t you leave a Church that doesn’t accept you because of your sex and sexuality?” I say, “I’m going to stay and I’m going to fight it until they change.” You can call me idealistic. I don’t care, but I know what I’m doing and I’m going to stick with it.
Oh well, if those people believe in Hell…they’ll get what’s coming to them one day.
Do you suppose it’s this Andy Driggers?
http://www.linkedin.com/ppl/webprofile?authType=name&action=vmi&trk=ppro_viewmore&authToken=zl-f&id=5188113
:( why are there so many sick people out there? “What you need is a good fucking,” “what you need is to be raped,” “Suck my cock,” “Give me a blowjob bitch…” It seriously makes me want to cry. Sex is one of the joys of my life. It’s never, ever something I want to do to someone in such a way as to “punish” him or cause him pain, physical or mental. I can’t even wrap my mind around its obviously casual place in the hierarchy of some people’s mind as a weapon of contempt and hatred and physical agony. I really feel ill.
I’m not a religion freak, nor a women hater,I do think Left wing nuts are crossed wired from birth, and you can’t help it. I hope you grow up some day and see the light. Bha bye, another left wing nut case down the drain, just like Air Head America.
So you think that because you had the temerity to speak out against the Catholic Church you should receive a pass? Wrong. I am not Catholic, but I can tell you emphatically that anti-Chisitian issues are a bastion of the left. Your resignation, reportedly not asked for, is about the only dignified way you can extricate yourself from having made comments hardly becoming anyone with any sense of decency.
The world is not so concened about what happens to you; we are far more concerned with defeating an ambulance-chaser like Edwards, and stopping the spread of Liberal Socialism.
long time listener, first time caller.
doubt you’ll even read this but i just want wanted to add my voice in opposition to all of these freaks and wanted you to know that you have one lurker who thinks you’re amazing. you’ve changed my entire way of thinking on so many issues and perfected so many of my own arguments. i wish nothing but the best for you and i hope to god you have a bff and a bottle of wine to get you through this. hundreds of people are in awe with what you can do with words but that single voice saying you’re crap has the power to crumble all of that. and lord knows this is more than a single voice. hopefully you can keep in mind that the only reason you’re getting this is because the truth is hurting them; especially coming from someone as eloquent as you.
now i’m starting to sound creepy.
And to think Dubya is proud to call those writing this tripe his flock. Just wow.
It seems obvious that mixing “R” rated commentary with any discussion of religion will attract criticism.
Anne, you crack me up! What’s sad is that these “Christians” believe that their hate-filled rants will actually “convert” people.
I believe that these people are emboldened by the anonymity of this forum. Character is what a people do when they think that no one else is looking.
Peace!
Amanda,
Small comfort for you in all this, now you are a national figure. Your blog will be read by far more people than before. Once again, by trying to silence you, idiots like Donahue only succeed in increasing your influence and impact.
I know this because I am one such.
Incidentally, Paula Zahn’s show on CNN did a pretty good hour last night on the bigotry that atheists encounter, and did a pretty good job depicting them as ordinary people just trying to live a life, free of religion. They even had a short interview with Richard Dawkins. It was unexpectedly progressive for CNN.
Frankly, Amanda, the fact that you haven’t gone totally ballistic on these people but instead have smartly and effectively eviscerated and embarrassed them here means you are a more logical person than I. I would have just gone ape shit. Kudos to you for using the anger I can only imagine you feel to show how hate-filled these assholes — er people — are. What was one of Jesus’s most revered sayings? Oh yes, love thy neighbor….these people who write such filth about you don’t sound very Christian to me.
How nice that these good Christians do Satan’s work.
Amanda,
With respect, your “clarification” really isn’t helping. Did you expect your resignation to be rejected by the campaign? Do you still support John Edwards?
Your announcement yesterday gave a lot of people who are looking for a reason to be mad at John Edwards a foothold. If you support still support him, after all that has happened, please say so, because I would like some of these people to stop foaming at the mouth without any reason.
Thanks.
-DFL
Holy crap.
And I mean that both ways.
It seems obvious that an “R” rated commentary mixed with any discussion of religion will attract criticism
Ma’am, you weren’t disliked for disagreeing– most folks disagree. It’s the hate-filled bile that you spewed and being a rep for a presidential runner that got folks upset.
I hope that you get happier, someday. You’ve got a lot of hate, and that’s never good for folks.
And I fully expect a lot of bile for this post.
Keep fighting the good fight against the Christianist fascists, Amanda. I was saddened to hear that you stepped down from the Edwards campaign, but I’m glad you continue to call these Catholic demagogues out on their lies on this site. As a young blogger myself I am inspired by your courage to call these mysoginist psychopaths out in such a high-profile forum.
Thanks, bean. I’m serious, I love hatemail. While it’s obvious to me that Bill Donohue doesn’t have a spiritual or loving bone in his body and only uses Christianity as an excuse to hate women and shill for the Republican party, it’s not obvious to everyone since he does demonstrate some semblance—at times—of an ability to ineptly use dog whistles and code words. But the people who lift their heads when the dog whistle is blown show no such restraint. Turn on the light and the cockroaches scatter, etc.
I guess all of those WWJD bracelets now stand for “Who Would Jesus Defame?”
(Or if he’s filing Bill Donohue’s tax return, Who Would Jesus Defraud?)
Phew.
How you can open your inbox is beyond me, Amanda. You don’t just have thick skin - you’re the feminist Blogzilla, able to withstand mazers, missles, artillery shells, and bog-knows-what else because of your rherorical generator g-1 smack-fu skillz.
I am not a Christian either, I happen to be a Buddhist. But, the last line of that story has Jesus saying, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more”.
Pretty clearly, this is an acknowledgement the woman had done wrong. The only issue was the harsh punishment. You see, with or without religion, one can easily surmise actions have consequences. And society has rules to more or less systematically ensure individual behaviour stays within bounds. So there is no hypocrisy in any church or group condemning abortion. After all, whether a fetus is a distinct human being or not, it is clearly human life. And most of us tend to think human life is at least important, if not actually sacred.
Recall, Jesus was considered a radical in his time. The idea was to appreciate the value of this woman’s life, despite her bad acts– in contrast to the mysoginistic traditions of the time. Christianity tends to stand as a counter to the opression of women, not an enforcement. Of course, you have lots of exceptions in the Church’s history, but look where we are today and compare to the seventh century mindset that still pervades the Middle East.
If you want to see mysoginy, take a look at Islam. Then you might appreciate Christianity a bit more.
As I said, I happen to be a Buddhist, and we get our share of grief from all western religions. Nevertheless, clearly Christianity is not the enemy.
>why are there so many sick people out there?
Do you really need to ask? You’re talking about some of the most sexually-repressed people in the world. They’ve been taught all their lives that sex is dirty and shameful; women are “vessels of sin”. Naturally they’d use violent sexual imagery as a way to degrade Amanda. It’s how they degrade themselves, after all.
I was raised in the Presbyterian church but at 12 when my parents told me I could make my own decisions about religion I chose to sleep in Sundays and never went back. It’s largely because of people like the above e-mailers, but in Jackson Mississippi they were racist as well. Why would I want to be associated with such willful ignorance and hate? People scratch their heads and ask why I’m not a believer. Mostly it’s because the Flock is so full of A-holes. I believe in the Golden Rule and that’s enough for me.
Jesus Quintana: You ready to be fucked, man? I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we’re gonna fuck you up.
The Dude: Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Jesus Quintana: Let me tell you something, pendejo. You pull any of your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I’ll take it away from you, stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger ’til it goes “click.”
The Dude: Jesus.
Jesus Quintana: You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
Walter Sobchak: Eight-year-olds, Dude.
Amanda -
How closely do these hate mails resemble the usual sewage that has to show up in your inbox just from writing on Pandagon? Has Donohue’s rantings given you a higher quality of diarrhea than you normally get from misogynistic right-wingers, or is this typical sludge from the minds of typical morons?
And, speaking as a Catholic, if you’re an English major you have probably read the Bible more (and more carefully) than a lot of Catholics do. The Church doesn’t encourage its members to be reading it by themselves without supervision - they may get ideas. I’ve read it myself many times, which is why I have so many issues with my own Catholic religion, but I know I’m an exception and not the rule. We’re not all haters, and Bill Donohue certainly doesn’t speak for all of us.
By the way, Amanda, as a Christian, I want you to know that these idiots offend me more than anything you’ve ever written.
I’ve been out there defending you. Eventually, you run out of cheeks with these people, don’t you?
Lord love a duck because he has got to be having problems with that clueless crew. As a person who has struggled with her own faith and has lived with that rare breed, the honest-to-God true Christian (scary people, good does not describe them adequately), I can quarantee that the people emailing that trash to you are the faithless and lost. They can read the Bible, go to church and even confess but they just do not get what Christ was talking about all those years ago.
All religions have these asshats, they all want to be part of the in crowd and are willing to do, say and be anything to attain it. Heck, I’ve talked to supposed athiests who are trying to formalize their beliefs around a sort of high schooly. preppy concept. Telling them to grow up doesn’t help and for reasons outside of reality, they already think that they know how to get laid. Ride the wave and remember, this too shall pass.
Amanda, you’ve got bigger balls than any of the “men” who wrote those stupid things to you.
I’m thankful I can read and learn from you and I’m sure that goes for all readers of Pandagon with an IQ above 60. Exposing the thoughts of your critics helps show them for what they really are.
Hang tough and we’ll all get past this stupidity…
Amanda,
It’s a funny thing when people cannot take criticism but criticise everyone else. I’m, of course, using the word criticise pretty freely here since what they’re doing goes further and is pretty nasty. I prefer to think of these people as those that try hard to stick to old ass dying principles-principles that as time passes they get more desperate to uphold, and tend to go ballistic and insult everyone trying to defend them. I’m a Catholic who likes to read this blog for the information provided and the different point of views. The Catholic Church is one of those institutions holding on to old ass dying principles and cannot accept that most Catholics (like myself) have more modern views. Those people sending emails like the ones you quoted do not deserve to be listened to.
BTW, good for you for sticking to your style and resigning when a job-albeit an important one-makes you to move away from it.
Amanda,
It’s a funny thing when people cannot take criticism but criticise everyone else. I’m, of course, using the word criticize pretty freely here since what they’re doing goes further and is pretty nasty. I prefer to think of these people as those that try hard to stick to old ass dying principles-principles that as time passes they get more desperate to uphold, and tend to go ballistic and insult everyone trying to defend them. I’m a Catholic who likes to read this blog for the information provided and the different point of views. The Catholic Church is one of those institutions holding on to old ass dying principles and cannot accept that most Catholics (like myself) have more modern views. Those people sending emails like the ones you quoted do not deserve to be listened to.
BTW, good for you for sticking to your style and resigning when a job-albeit an important one-makes you to move away from it.
Skimming those messages, because I couldn’t bear to read them word for word, has left me feeling sick. I just finished Gerry Spence’s new book, so at least I have an idea where this good old American culture of hate, hate and more hatred comes from… You do great work, Amanda - keep it up!
Paul Bernard from Scottsdale has actually broached one of the key facets of the Catholic method of birth control. There are some other, not to vague references in the bible to the other one. You could conduct an interesting survey among these people as to their preferred method of avoiding preganancy. It’s a rather ideal system from their point of view, since the guys are probably far happier with it than women. One other side bar question to the survey would also be interesting. Just how long after the most recent episode of 24 did these malignant morons write these letters? One other question. Do they take Holy Communion with those mouths? Truly, according to their lights, doth the Body of Christ wander the wilderness anew once they’ve taken the host.
Amanda,
From one “non-believer” to another — THANK YOU for being here.
I’m sorry you are taking such abuse from the christians. I grew up in middle of that shit storm and it took awhile to get my head straightened out.
The fact that they are so full of hate and violence was the key to driving me out.
Like you actually read their book of magic. I could never understand how an institution that published something so beautiful as the Sermon on the Mount or the passage you quoted could yield such crud as William Donahue or Jerry Falwell. THERE’S the real mystery in their religion.
It’s heartening to know you are out there, especially after losing Molly.
Thank you,
Stephen
Amanda,
I would assume you are a lost sheep, and Jesus hung around sinners - its odd Donohue hasn’t reached out to you in this way.
Luke 15: 3-7 NIV
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
I guess his bible instructs him to seek out and destroy lost sheep. Kind of the opposite of what Jesus taught us, isn’t it?
Wow. That’s some mailbag. I’m sure glad to see the armies of Civility are out in force.
I’m assuming there are a good number of friendly Christians also pointing out that you are probably a Lesbian? This sort of a person usually can’t resist the temptation to toss a bit of homophobia into the stew…
I give it, oh, 30 seconds before Hugh Hewitt or Kathryn Lopez tells us that “Um, these aren’t real Christians.”
If Bertrand Russell were alive today, “Why I’m Not a Christian” would be much longer. Since I’m not actually a Christian, I don’t mind passing judgment and calling these people what they are: assholes.
An upside to the ignorant, sick and hateful remarks from some of the religious pushers is that like Creationists’ drivel, their comments only serve to undermine the credibility of their religion.
Thanks, Amanda, for writing what you write.
Hm, keep an eye on this kind of stuff. I think it’s only going to get worse.
Amanda, I am proud to be associated with this blog, with its fine group of writers and commenters, and with you. And the vacuous thugs’ attacks just make that pride greater.
Update: To correct misinformation in the comments, I was not “fired�. I offered my resignation and it was accepted.
Oh, please! No one was born yesterday. You promised Edwards you wouldn’t go out of your way to offend Catholics and then yesterday, you did it again. You were allowed to resign instead of getting shi*tcanned. What a mistake he made trusting you at your word.
Just wanted to echo the above posters, that’s an incredibly brave, coherent, kick-ass response post in the face of all these hypocritical assholes. Of course, I’m sure the media will pick this up and make exposing Donhue and his follower’s bullshit their first priority…
The right-wing blogosphere is filled with concerned citizens who come over to visit our pastures and screech for hours about the occasional cowpie, then return home to their toxic waste dumps and bed down in dried vomit…
Even better, that story from the Bible about the woman being stoned? According to Misquoting Jesus (Bart Ehrman), most Biblical exigesis scholars think that it wasn’t part of the original book, but added by a later faction.
I guess these idiot letter-writers figure they’re doing “God’s work” or some such crap by sending you such hateful comments.
I cannot believe that they have the nerve to call themselves “Christians.”
“What you need is to be raped and beaten daily”
Jesus would be proud.
I pray for people like you for making such comments that are so offensive. You would be up a creek if you said these things similar to Jews, Muslims, Buddhist etc. Free Speech is one thing Hate Speech is another. Never mind what Bill Donohue thinks, I think you owe an apology for offending many of the good Catholics think out there.
Anti-Catholicism like this is the “Anti-Semitism of liberals.”
Jesus would be proud.
Maybe not, but Yahweh sure would.
Reply macro: Do your mother and your pastor know you talk like this?
Amanda - I will not stoop to the low level of name calling and attacks on you personally. Many in my family have served in the Military to protect your right to voice your opinion. What I take exception with is the fact that I am constantly hounded to be more tolerant of other people and their faith, lifestyle, heritage, and so on. But, in almost the same breath, I am attacked as a racist for wanting to enforce the laws of the land when it comes to borders, or wanting an official language (such as Mexico has already), or wanting to perhaps getting upset when children are told they cannot observe their Christian faith in a public school, but to force students to “become muslim for a month” is OK.
I guess my point here is that I can tolerate a lot, but that does not mean I accept it. But, it did appear on your blog and in your replies (as well as some of the messages you have received from people whom I now pray will see their errors and repent) that you are unwilling to even tolerate Christianity, which is the second oldest (mono-theistic) faith on the planet.
It’s perfectly within your rights to be critical of Catholic teachings. I would only ask that you take the effort to try to understand why the teachings are what they are before being critical. Anything less is intellectually lazy.
Your belief that birth control and condoms may save lives is also a fine conclusion for someone who believes that any ends is justified by the means. However, the threats from which you wish to save are by-products of life in sin.
Christians believe that human body was created in the image of God. Catholic teachings challenge individuals, who are blessed by God with free will, to choose to act according to his will, to not abuse their bodies or their minds. To treat all human life with dignity (so the name calling your getting is an egregious sin by those who are casting stones).
The notion that two wrongs makes a right is simply wrong. The only answer is to avoid sin. What you are selling is false remedies, that further debase human life.
Again, I only ask that you understand that which you are criticizing, rather that parroting the bigoted statements of others. Some self-reflection might also do you good. You’re anger and hatred can’t possibly be the result from any personal experience with the church.
However you left the Edwards campaign (whether you tendered your resignation or were asked for it), it’s clear to me that he couldn’t afford to have someone as mis-directed and bitter as you on board.
another angry ugly “woman”. Amanda, do yerself a favor. go buy some birkenstocks, eat some tofu, and shut yer canine face up…
[…] Well, history seems to be repeating itself here. Yesterday, I wrote a post criticizing one of Edwards’ bloggers silly political moves. In short, one of these controversial bloggers, wrote another blog post over the weekend that referenced Christianity in a way that some people may perceive to be insulting. I personally don’t believe that anything that she said was terrible, nor do I believe that she should be censored or anything even close to that. If she was just another blogger, it wouldn’t matter. However, as an official blogger for a national candidate, writing another blog post about a group that just raised a bunch of hell is an absolutely stupid thing to do. Hours after my post, Amanda announced her resignation [Mirrored Here]. Coincidence ? I think not. Further, I don’t believe she should have resigned. I believe she should have been fired and she should have given Edwards the ability to do that. I take campaigns seriously and when you’re working on a campaign, especially in a publicitly role, your personal issues take a backseat to the candidate’s success. Any staffer that selfishly and foolishly risks the political future of their candidate should be removed from the campaign, immediately. I’m glad Amanda or Edwards took my advice. […]
Such “Feminism” Is an Insult to Man and Woman…
Not to beat a dead horse here, but it’s been so long since I encountered one of these weak-willed, hysterical……
The ‘Bloggergate’ and related links…
Under attack, Pandagon has been down all day. But you can see here (and re-posted here) what scum of the Earth resides on the political Right in this country. This is a good time to read this again. And please……
I’m glad you cut yourself loose, Amanda. You’re much to smart and sassy to live inside the straitjacket of a Presidential campaign.
And damn, I’ve been trying to post that since about 2 this afternoon. Hope you’re hanging in under the onslaught.
The mix of bragging (”I had the nerve to criticize” — a position more than 50% of voters agree with; some nerve) and preachiness (”these supposed Christians”) was, I fear, too volatile a mix for any mainstream campaign. You’re supposed to represent the candidate to as broad a range of listeners as possible, not indulge in “public self-esteem sessions” and the kind of moral castigations, sprinkled with scat, that have become the two horses you seem to enjoy riding the most.
Just walk away — you don’t need to work your resume here at your own site: you’re proud of yourself — great; you’re morally superior to those who disagree with you — again, congratulations.
And you weren’t fired — kudos.
Still voting for Edwards?
Wow, we live in a really sick society. And yet, Amanda is the one being attacked for being “offensive.” I don’t get it.
“Never mind what Bill Donohue thinks, I think you owe an apology for offending many of the good Catholics think out there.”
Bull shit. All of my friends are Catholic and Christian - they ALL vote liberal. All of them would support Amanda’s freedom of speech despite their personal feelings being “hurt” because somebody knocked their religion. Do you know why? Because they are all strong in their faith.
bah, politics…. perhaps its best your not involved in that shameless race to the…uh.. middle…
everyone knows that live is truly lived outside the lines.
go get’em
From World-O-Crap:
‘Nuff said.
The thick of the so-called Christians harrassing you are not, in fact, an accurate reflection of God or the Bible.
Most Christians are nice people. The people slandering you and heaving insults at you are merely immature people, who find comfort in the anonymity of the internet.
People like that have threatened me before, too–nothing comes of it. Don’t let it trouble you.
Although I happen to disagree with 99.99% of what you write, I firmly believe in your right to write. (Yick. What a sentence.) I find most of what you’ve written about Christianity to be incredibly offensive.
Guess what? That means that I don’t usually visit your site. You’ve never come knocking on my door to spew in my face, so honestly, it’s up to me as to whether or not I see your writing.
That being said, would the idiots who spew that vile twaddle in the name of Christ please get off the bus? You’re bothering me.
How *exactly* is condemning people and name-calling either Christ-like or likely to bring them into the Church?
Right. Didn’t think you had an answer for that.
I beg your forgiveness for the words of my co-religionists. May a gracious God watch over us all.
I feel a post about this coming from General J.C. Christian, Patriot soon. Amanda, I’m not sure you fully understand the solemn importance of men wrestling together in the style of the ancient Spartans. When they don’t get to vent their manly energy that way, it can manifest in ugly scathing emails against women, who tend to look at the size of these men’s little soldiers and giggle. Look, not everybody is endowed with three-inch monsters, ok?! HARLOT! WENCH!
Oops, sorry, got a little carried away there.
C. Tang, you sure are jerking yourself off hard to lecture anyone about the dangers of self-aggrandization.
Gee, who let in all the religious trolls?
Ah yes, the pained tone of voice, the “I’ll pray for you”, the holier-than-thou sanctimoniousness, the moral rightousness and the certainty that Amanda will be “punished by God.” All the while spitting out the most disgusting hatred (and justifying it because one is a “moral Christian.”)
Isn’t there something about removing the beam from one’s own eye before worrying about the mote in someone else’s?
And what’s so great about monotheism? From where I stand, I’d love to throw all of you monotheists together in a sandpit and let you fight it out which one of your gods is the “true God.” It’s about as silly to me as claiming Chinese is the only True Language and all the rest of us non-Chinese speakers have to learn it and use only it.
What a typically optimistic statement :p
ts wrote :
Funny you mention that, because it’s what I think of them. The term I prefer for these people is “fake Christians” (which is a label I gladly apply to the Amanda-haters in this thread, too), but I suppose they could also be called “Paulians”, as they often seem to worship Paul instead of Jesus. They’re distressingly common here in Texas.
Maybe the the Bibles they’re reading are missing the Gospels?
“I’ll pray for you.”
“Prepare to be disappointed… again.”
Honestly, I’ve never cared for the “look at all my hate mail” post, no matter which side does it. It’s a logical fallacy that drawing the abuse and ire of hateful, intemperate, disturbed people means that one is in the right, just as it would be a logical fallacy to conclude that such mail means one is in the wrong.
Just wanna let you know, another reader gained from the fiasco. Keep the faith.
I am so flipping angry I could spit nails (no, that isn’t a snide religious comment, for you trolls).
What’s happened to you and Melissa is just way beyond the pale.
No, people do *not* have to respect other people’s religion. All we have to do is respect your right to believe in it. I have a right to call a belief ridiculous if that’s how I see it.
I never post my blog address here, because it’s just a little personal rambling…but I’ve posted twice on this topic in two days, and some interesting discussion has cropped up, so if anyone is interested it’s http://broceliand.livejournal.com/
And for trolls? Be aware. Post on my blog and you’re going to be deleted, tout suite. It’s bad enough I have to share the planet with people capable of spewing this sort of personal vitupretativeness, I won’t share blog space with you.
1. I think it’s hilarious that so many people on these threads adamantly refuse to believe you resigned. (Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s horrible you felt you had to; I just think it’s interesting that so many people seem to have such an investment in you being actually fired.)
2. I WANT THESE FUCKERS OUT OF MY RELIGION, DAMMIT! To all you trolls/”concerned Christians”/what-the-fuck-evers: People like you, with your holier-than-thou attitudes and your passive-aggressive “I’ll pray for you”s and your rampant assholery and bigotry that you feel free to spew anonymously while living it up as big men at church, are the reason that I’m so ashamed of admitting that I’m Christian.
There’s a reason Dante saw so many Popes (and other “good” Christians) stuck in his vision of hell. (That, come to think of it, is probably why none of the Divine Comedy ever appears in Christian bookstores…)
Amanda, I’ll keep saying this until the trolls lay off: I may not always agree with you, but I do respect you, and I’m on your side here.
EX-FED:
Those who send such mail deserve as much exposure as they get, if not more. That doesn’t mean Marcotte was originally in the right, but it does mean the hate-mailers are wrong - and not only wrong, but seriously fucking deranged if they think their insane ravings will be taken for anything but the mewling of mean-spirited ‘yes men.’
It’s perfectly legitimate for Marcotte to hold those turds to their own “righteous standards.� They’re being measured by their own yardsticks, though most of them are too stupid to see how that’s a bad thing.
If I were Amanda, I’d have posted their e-mail addresses as well as their names.
I just want to throw my support in the ring for you, Amanda.
I’d also like to congratulate you for getting on the Bill O’Reilly show, or whatever it’s called. Like they say, “if they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right.”
“The people slandering you and heaving insults at you are merely immature people, who find comfort in the anonymity of the internet.”
No doubt there’s some truth in the second half of that statement, but the first half is a dangerous illusion. My children are real, actual immature people and they never, ever would even dream up, much less hurl at others, the nasty shit that these people are having no trouble dreaming up and hurling at Amanda.
Oh Ex-Fed, I usually do, too. But this is about 1/50th of what I’ve gotten. The complete pile of hate mail is beyond the “few assholes” thing and right into the secure “look at who responds to Donohue’s dog whistles” territory.
as least there is one thing you can take comfort in amanda. you just know that all these dreadfully unoriginal hateful comments being made by anonymous posters, well these are the folks who will die a quiet death. that maybe they have children that are forced to pretend to love them, perhaps a wife or husband who feigns the enjoyment of their company or just avoids them altogether, a job that is slowly gripping their heart and squeezing the life out of it, but no real love. no real friends. no real connection to any living thing. they are shells of humanity and their only solace is a pretend man who lives in the sky who promises to keep them safe in exchange for worship. it is their utter emptiness that demands to be filled with delusion and hate. that they cannot control all of us is their greatest regret. but they can’t and won’t ever control and so they drool and spit and decry the depravity of it all, when truly the depravity lives on the stench of their own breath.
“Anti-Catholicism like this is the ‘Anti-Semitism of liberals.’â€?
Which means what, that conservatives are all anti-Semites? Like that’s news?
Amanda: As a Christ-centered Friend, I can say that it’s pretty obvious that those claiming here to be Christians are nothing of the sort. I am so sorry that all of this hatred and bile has been thrown your way. Know that there are folks out here who are praying for you, and for Shakes, and who hope that you will take a nice, long, hot shower (to clean off the troll spit - how they do spray!), have a good cup of coffee, and then go out to keep on fighting the good fight.
What lovely e-mail you’re getting from these fine folks, Amanda. We will know they are Christians by their love, evidently.
May I suggest that the Edwards campaign hire the late Anna Nicole Smith to replace Amanda and Shakes? Sure, she’s dead, but her gold-digging reputation is much more palatable to the Catholic League’s patriarchal, patronizing, misogynistic view of women. Hell, they represent 300,000 Catholics, which is approximately 0.54% of all of America’s 65 million Catholics. That 0.54% could be just the “bump” Mr. Edwards will need for victory.
Just a thought.
I’m not writing you as a Christian. I’m writing to you as someone that is infuriated with your absolutely idiotic lack of censorship and self-restraint. I am an Edwards supporter and I believe he would be an excellent president, which is why I am so amazed that staffed bloggers like you, who can write so smarmily on a number of things and APPEAR to be incredibly politically savvy, would be so DENSE and careless as to give Republicans and FOX News (not to mention other Democrats) fodder to run Edward’s campaign into the ground with.
So while you continue to post things that refute that you have been fired (I could care less if you were or if you resigned) and act incredibly smug and proud over the ruckus you’ve caused in the ignorant and close-minded Christian community, remember this: Yes, the reaction to your words have demonstrated the stupidity and volatile nature of the typical right-wing Christian. However, there are many out there other than you that do the job perfectly well. What have you really accomplished? You’ve created the first dark spot on a so-far spotless campaign and given the Republican media machine a new catch-phrase to associate with Edwards. “Christian hater” will be the “flip flop” of ‘08 and thanks to you, Edwards will not make it pass the primary.
As much as we have disagreed with each other politically, Amanda, I have to give you much credit and the highest respect for how you have handled this shitstorm…and taking down that asshat Donohue for dumping on you with his bigotry would be a nice bonus.
I’m not a fan of John Edwards (or any Democrat, for that matter, for my own personal reasons), and I still question the way that he handled your situation…but I believe that you resigning and reclaiming your right to speak your mind to the fullest is the right thing to do under the circumstances.
As for the brutal hate mail and the DoS attacks that you are getting: well, that’s always what happens to women who have the stones to speak out for themselves….and I especially am tickled with the thinly veiled lust/hate letters sent by those fools who are so fearful of their own sexuality that they would impose it on you.
Hopefully, this sorry and sad episode (and attempted witch burning) will backfire on these wingnut cretins.
These folks represent religion the way Hitler represented Germany….that is to say, not too well.
Props to ‘ya, Amanda…whatever our differences may be, I’m in full support of ‘ya. You didn’t deserve any of this crap.
Anthony
I just do not understand that if you do not have a religion, are not of a Christian faith, why be so vile to the ones that are. I believe in God, but do not practice a particular faith, but I am not critical or ugly to the ones that choose to. Just was curious.
Amanda,
I believe that your decision was the best for the circumstances. I personally find your writings to be offensive, yet frankly edgy and usually interesting. I can see how they might by construed to be the worst, and will not lie that I thought your association with John Edwards was not a good thing.
Your decision to leave the Edwards campaign, was if my take is correct a well meaning sacrifice, to take fire off the Edwards Campaign. To me it showed you really cared about a John Edwards Presidency and the direction of our country. I hope that doesn’t change.
I think you have a wonderful career in political punditry, which should make you loads of money to buy the music collection of your dreamsï?Š Controversy is what people like to see these days, and you are nothing if not controversial.
(And by the way, my brother saw your picture and thinks you’re pretty cute, so don’t let the bastards get you down. You are far far far from ugly)
I wish you the best of luck, and the hope that you continue to stir the pot with your edgy writings. If there is a truly just God in the Universe we will see you on MSNBC debating with some of your critics in a short order.
Take Care!
Dav
Sometimes I want to write more long rants about how the anti-abortion position isn’t even Catholic canon, but I’ve already ranted about that before. So I said this instead:
http://sideshow.me.uk/sfeb07.htm#02140154
i know that the argument ‘they weren’t real Christians’ is frustrating to non Christians because where do you draw the line - two swear words? three i wish you were deads? or worse? and yet, and yet, Jesus said, “You will know them [His true followers] by their fruit.” The fruit or outcome of following Jesus (and I know this from 25 years of following Jesus) is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. one of Jesus’ strongest followers described love as being patient and kind. he said that love (the leading and most important sign of being a follower of Jesus) doesn’t envy or boast. it isn’t proud or rude or self-seeking or easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs. love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. it always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perserveres. None of these were displayed in the horrid, horrid comments of those who wrote to you. i come by your site from time to time and hardly agree with any of it. as a Christian I often turn away mid article because it’s too painful to read such hate being directed toward me. nevertheless, these vile comments were made by people who do not come even close to loving Jesus. religious? ya maybe, but Christian in the true meaning of the word - nope i don’t believe so. does this mean that there are going to be a lot of very surprised and disapointed people come judgement day? i think so.
First-time commenter. Sorry you have to deal with so many fucktards.
I am so sorry that these kinds of people exist in the world and I was absolutely ecstatic to hear that you were on the staff for Edwards. I’ve been lurking here for awhile and I love reading your opinions and views. And you are a braver woman than I to open your e-mails to read the poison that they want to spew at you.
Thank you for running an amazing blog.
Kick ass and take names, Amanda. And publish names. And keep tarring them with that brush. I just wonder why Donohue hasn’t apologized for the comments by people like Annette D’Amato and Andy Driggers. Why won’t he condemn these comments?!
Could it be that he agrees with them?
May I suggest that the Edwards campaign hire the late Anna Nicole Smith to replace Amanda and Shakes? Sure, she’s dead, . . .
Sure, why not? Dead democrats vote in every election.
I think you are confused here. As your story ends, Jesus said, “go, and from now on sin no more”. I don’t think that was meant to say the woman had done nothing wrong and could carry on without consequences.
I am not a Christian. I happen to be a Buddhist, but even without religion, it is stating the obvious to note actions have consequences.
If you are looking for a misogynistic religion, forget Christianity. That whole story you told was about a group of people applying harsh punishment for a woman, where a similar act by a man might go unnoticed. Christianity changed all that. The fact one might be outraged by presumed misogyny can only be possible in a culture where it is not accepted.
On the other hand, spend a day in the present-day land where that story took place. The stoning that woman was about to receive is fairly common today.
Christianity is not the enemy.
Not to feed the trolls or anything but:
But, it did appear on your blog and in your replies (as well as some of the messages you have received from people whom I now pray will see their errors and repent) that you are unwilling to even tolerate Christianity, which is the second oldest (mono-theistic) faith on the planet.
I don’t get it, is there some kind of hierarchy of religion that makes your religion more specialer the longer it’s been around? Because if so, as a Jew, I’d like to say STFU. Now I’m off to make those n00b Mormons give me Utah.
Okay now that I got that out of my sytem…
Let me just add my voice to the chorus of support.
Although I don’t comment much I read Pandagon and Shake’s Sis every day, multiple times a day. Sometimes Amanda and Melissa’s post really make me think, other times they “just” add a little humor and good to my day. It just breaks my heart to see such excellent and thoughtful writers get treated like crap. I hope to see nothing but good come to Amanda and Melissa from now on.
To Kyle @ 1:16pm:
Wow. Just wow. Kyle just claimed himself omnicient. Film at 11.
Kyle, are you saying that all church experiences are good, pure, and without sin? Land sakes, I’d like to visit YOUR church.
At my church there are no such illusions.
Every Good Friday the prayers include this bit, which came to mind while I read the foul-mouth invective of the self-righteous:
Just so.
Amanda:
As many differences we have had in the past, I have to give you much respect and gratitude and sincere thanks for how you have handled this shitstorm around you.
I’m no fan of John Edwards (or pretty much any Democrat, for that matter; I tend to attack them from the Independent Left), and I do think that he could have handled the controversy much better than he did….but in the long run, I think that your decision to resign his campaign and focus your efforts on knocking that mountain of human crap named Donohue and his Christian FRight haters and witch-hunters is the best one.
As for the hate mail and the DoS attacks: well, that’s par for the course for those who simply canot stand a woman with the stones to call them out on their misogynist bullshit. And as a sex radical, I’m particularly fascinated by all the supposedly “moral Christian men” who are so unsure of their sexuality that they would impose their repressed desires on you.
However we may disagree on some matters, Amanda, on this one you have my full support and blessings. You didn’t deserve any of the crap they piled on to you; it’s great to see that you are pissed enough to throw it back at ‘em. Just get ‘em..and don’t let up.
Anthony
OK…I didn’t know that my original comnent was in moderation before I posted the second one….sorry about that.
Just keep the second one and omit the first, please.
Anthony
What a coincidence! I was just talking to the Pope and he said that he had consulted Xana about Church doctrine, and he was going to issue a moto proprio allowing priests and homosexuals to be married, women to be ordained, and he was going to ditch that contraception and abortion prohibition.
See, persistence pays off sometimes
Amanda, you are misrepresenting my statement with the implication that my opinion has anything to do with your writings on the Catholic Church and that I claim to follow Jesus. You libeled three demonstratively innocent Duke students for no other reason than you either thought it was funny or you were completely ignorant of the facts of the case. Your statement was cruel and uninformed. Now you have removed all traces of your past writings on the Duke lacrosse players because you are also, apparently, spineless. I expect this comment to be moderated away because of this fact.
I also realized today that I’ve been misspelling my name.
Keep up the good work! If you’ve pissed these people off you are doing something right. Personally, I’m glad you are off the leash and free to fight back against the Jesus freaks and their mindless, hateful minions.
Incredible. I laughed as I read this article. You talk about Plan B for Mary and God’s sperm, use “fuck” as a verb, noun and adjective and then get bent out of shape when someone tells you to go to hell? I understand the hypocrisy, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that you are an idiot and a whore who will do what you need to be appreciated and important (see, AM’s “apology”), up to and including vulgarly lashing out at a religion and then turning your coquettish side to the camera and crying “Poor little me.”
Throwing out my support as well - Amanda, you’re fabulous. Your strength and your intelligence scares these weak, ignorant cowards to the depths of their souls, terrorizes their authoritarian little minds and egos until they mess their pants.
Keep kicking ass, Amanda. When they’re resorting to these quote-unquote “tactics”, you know you’ve got them cowed in any way that really matters.
[…] Some people are wrong, about moral dilemmas, and about poems, too, for that matter. […]
So, saying “fuck” = personal threats. Fascinating stuff, shit for brains.
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the New Testament, three antihuman religions have evolved —
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the omnipotent father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries affected by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates.
Gore Vidal, “Monotheism and Its Discontents,” The Nation, 13 July 1992; adapted from the 1992 Lowell Lecture at Harvard.
Nothing and no one has done more to impede civilization and human society than Christianity and Islam, the two bastard children of Judaism.
And in that tale of the legendary itinerant preacher and reputed wonder-worker known today as Jesus, it is interesting to consider how much the story is improved with the theory that “the woman taken in adultery” was the preacher’s wife.
[”Take care of yourself / Get plenty of rest.” Bob Dylan said that.
Christianity invented religious fanaticism; so, please keep safe. (I said that.)]
I wrote this post this morning, flush with the excitement of righteous anger and light-headedness of waking up too early. And then Pandagon went down! Seems a little anticlimactic to post it now… not like that’s going to stop me.
*~*~*~*~*~
My husband and I live better Christian lives than these people, and we’re atheists!
I second ahem in that I hope these fine folk don’t mind their names turning up on the web sometime in the future. Ze internets is a great place to google people that I’m thinking of employing, who volunteer for me, or who want to join my church.
Andy Driggers? Andy Driggers Rape threats? Andy Driggers of Dallas TX? Rape threats?
Vivian Thomas? Vivian Thomas, a libelous fraud? Vivian Thomas libelous fraud?
Annette D’Amato? Annette D’Amato demon eyebrows? Annette D’Amato vile screed?
Paul Bernard? Paul Bernard blowjobs? Paul Bernard of Scottsdale AZ blowjobs?
Bud Phelps? Bud Phelps rape threats? Bud Phelps rape threats?
Romanco De Leone? Romanco De Leone long cock? Romanco De Leone rape threats?
That took me a shitload of time to code. Y’all better steal it and use it as you best see fit.
(I said I was a better Christian (atheist), not a perfect Christian (atheist).)
hey panda-gone, why all the hate? do you ever stop to think how much good catholics are doing in this society? The amount of charitable work done each week by Catholics in this nation is staggering. I’d love to know how many thousands of meals are donated by Catholics to the poor everyday! Not to mention the charity of many many religious groups in this country and around the world that are doing amazing things like traveling to Honduras on a mission trip, risking their lives, to provide clean water and hygiene!
I ask of you: Take down the rhetoric and put some positive energy into our society. SHOW others what you are all about with examples of your goodness and deeds. You may actually get some followers and converts to sate your ego.
screaming vulgarities on a website only exacerbates the division in our society.
all you need is love
all you need is love
all you need is love, love. Love is all you need
What a sad, disgusting freak show.
Amanda, I keep getting blown away by the force and clarity with which you present your arguments. I will savor your writing and analysis all the more knowing how it gets under the skin of these reptiles.
Hey, marc page, I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.
Although I disagree with what you wrote, I don’t think Christians should respond with hate mail. You can’t just assume that all these people are Christians as well. Not all Catholics are Christians. The main quote I saw about the Holy Spirit was not appropriate and made me sad though. I would hope that we could discuss this and not respond with cuss words.
Absolutely, Heraclitus, because:
“She knows there’s no success like failure /
And that failure’s no success at all.”
Not all of the people who hate you are Christian.
O’Reilly apparently hates your guts too.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IcRSsNYr5LU
It must really suck for you to get slapped up the side of the head so hard with reality… I mean, after years of censoring all those who disagree with you into oblivion, you finally found out that you are a spineless, irrational feminist who cannot exist in the real world.
There is no censorship in real life, moron.
I made copy of your posts too, because I know how you anti-social marxists love to re-write history:
http://no-maam.blogspot.com/2007/02/amanda-marcotte-pandagon-get-oppressed.html
If you were capable of linear thinking, you could have avoided this… but then it wouldn’t have been quite as much fun for the rest of us…
The world is laughing at you!
You deserve it.
MWUH HAH HAH HA!
Hell hath no humour like a feminist exposed.
Amanda - I’m floored by the malicious and vicious messages you’ve received. Just floored. I don’t feel bad about one single thing I’ve written at GenW the past few days.
The problem? These people were probably watching Bill O’Reilly last night without holding B.A.’s in Mass Communications (of which I do). Remember, these people are not capable of critical thinking and seeing entertainment designed to ‘make money’ for what it is. They wouldn’t know a credible news source if it came up and bit them on their behinds.
I truly believe the universe brings everything full circle. It’s going to come full circle for these ridiculous little wingnuts that have written these atrocious things to you when John wins. And the Karma Bus? Sometimes it runs over people. Bill Donahue in his arrogance, hatred, and blind-rage ought to be paying heed to that. No, he may NOT have written these things . . . but he and his friend Billy Bob O’Reilly might as well have placed the keyboard at the hands of these whackaloons.
Amanda —
You’re doing a great thing. The crazy fanatics are simply exposing their craziness in attacking you. The truth is, these people are worried. Because finally “religious” viewpoints are losing their immunity from criticism. “God told me so” isn’t cutting it anymore. Not as an excuse for hatred, for oppression, or for any reprehensible behavior.
We live in a place where our government actively uses TORTURE and the religious right (sic) doesn’t see it as a problem. Nope. Sex is the problem. They’re nuts and they’re being called on it.
The “free pass” is over for thugs——even “God fearing” thugs——is ending.
Del Shaffer writes:
“Not all Catholics are Christians.”
See it? Aside from being very fuzzy on the concept, they express bigotry toward each other.
I’m telling you, these people are a menace.
I would like to point out, for all the catholics/christians, that this type of HATEFUL and EVIL behavior is the last thing that Jesus wanted for any of us. It goes against everything he stood for, and you think that dying on the cross for us would send a message to the religious masses about how important it is to stand up for what you believe in, to respect others and their beliefs-even if you don’t agree. God gave us free will. Government gave us free speech. Please people, before you open your nasty mouths take a second to think about what you are projecting. -Do these people kiss their children with their filthy mouths. I pray that these people are barren themselves, so they don’t have children that may grow up to be gay or atheist or feminist or intelligent or anything different than their bigoted parents that way their parents won’t end up hating them or telling them they just need to be fucked good and hard by a member of the opposite sex.
MARC:
Don’t blame religion, which is neither good nor bad in itself. Blame assholes who use religion to further their own agendas, and who believe their holy book is an appropriate club with which to punish impudent non-believers – or even other believers, as is the case with so many anti-ecumenists who bash Catholics for not being “Christian enough.â€?
You know what would be balm for your soul right now? Luther, the 2003 version. It’s a lush historical drama about the dude whose writing about the Catholic Church makes you look like a piker.
Bloggers didn’t invent incivility, you know. Some of Luther’s screeds against the pope would make Bill Donohue clutch his pearls so hard he’d choke to death. And one of his pamphlets was illustrated with an engraving of a cardinal as an ass—and I don’t mean a donkey—playing a harp. The ass had a li’l cardinal’s hat and everything.
Yeah, it was underwritten by a Lutheran organization, so it paints him a bit larger than life, and the script can’t even touch A Man For All Seasons, but it’s got hot guys (Joseph Fiennes!) and great actors (Peter Ustinov! Alfred Molina!) and it’s engaging.
I think you’d enjoy it in light of your recent unpleasantness, and you could take some comfort in the fact that the bastards can send you ugly, ugly e-mails, but they sure as hell can’t burn you at the stake.
Wonderful have you back up. You have been in this christian’s thoughts ever since I noticed the site was down. Not all christians are scary and crazy. But your voice is a wonderful one to have added to any debate.
Augustine said that hope has two children: rage and courage. Your courage and rage give lefties hope.
No, my dear “Devils Advocate” (if that’s your real name)
These religions — Xtianity & Islam — are quite bad in themselves — root and branch. The harm to human beings and their societies flows unavoidably from the tenets and doctrines of these overgrown cults.
Amanda,
Small comfort for you in all this, now you are a national figure. Your blog will be read by far more people than before. Once again, by trying to silence you, idiots like Donahue only succeed in increasing your influence and impact.
Mmm - perhaps a small redesign, placing links to the offending posts and the email reponses in context at the top of the blog in in order for anyone new showing up?
[…] Besides no doubt also receiving similar “vitriol and veiled threats,” Pandagon was also faced with denial of service attacks today. Amanda Marcotte also had more to say on the controversy in a post on People who claim to love Jesus write me: Reminder: Donohue was claiming to be so hurt by my “bigotryâ€?. Yet, for some reason, his supporters write me and they are more interested in telling me that my womanhood is repulsive to them. Interesting—almost as if his claims to speak for Catholicism were in fact dog whistles to scare people about women’s equality. As I told some close friends in the days that Donohue was on the news, spraying code words about “get the feministsâ€? (which explains why he roped Shakespeare’s Sister into this, even though she really had nothing to do with any of this—except she’s pro-equality, which is what is really what offends Donohue and all the people who gave that anti-Semite airtime), a good half of my hate mail could be summed up, “You have a pottymouth, you stupid cunt.â€? […]
Welcome back, Amanda
After the week-ish you’ve had, you should go get a massage or something - you deserve it.
Is anyone really surprised by the hate filled messages from self-described christians?
My personal fave:
“after reading your vile screed against Catholics and the Holy Spirit, I just had to see what you looked like. (I envisioned you eyebrow-less, with no visible pupils, and a blank, dead stare.)”
I always pictured you in a black turtleneck and with a black beret. I must say i was disappointed.
O’Reilly apparently hates your guts too.
The man for whom birth control means non-consensual phone sex. (Eugh. Brain bleach.)
Speaking as a fellow left wing bigot and anti-christian I don’t feel that the Catholic church is our enemy. I think the real enemy is Islam. Therefore I think if Amanda had any balls she would focus her hatred on Islam.
Noam
MARC, my dear, if you choose to blind yourself to the good people have done in the name of their beliefs, focusing instead on those who would twist the best ideas into the worst outcomes, I cannot dissuade you.
KAIT: http://clergycorner.blogspot.com/2006/04/anger-and-courage.html
For some reason, this storm of hatred and bigotry brought this to mind:
What rough beast IS this, this new faux Christianity, that slouches towards Bethlehem?
Many people have done many good things for both good and bad reasons; but that was not the subject of what I wrote. I commented on the deleterious effects of these mad cults on Western civilization. If you choose to sidestep that “I cannot dissuade you.”
Count me amongst your supporters and avid readers Amanda. Thanks for putting your opinion out there.
I’m a Christian and nothing Amanda’s said has ever shocked or offended me, but the venom and filth being spat at her from my so-called brothers and sisters in Christ sure has. For shame. Is this how Christ tells us to love one another?
I guess I’m a crappy Christian too, though — it’s much easier for me to love someone as courageous, passionate, and outspoken as Amanda Marcotte as a sister human being than the nasty, hateful creatures cursing her.
Keep swinging, Amanda, more of us are in your corner than theirs.
You know, I wonder what the minister in charge of my confirmation class would say about those letters. Maybe I was out sick that Sunday.
Amanda, you’re doing good work here. Thank you.
The fruit or outcome of following Jesus (and I know this from 25 years of following Jesus) is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control.
Then Makarios, the Buddhists seem to have it all over the Christians, don’t they?
W.B. Yeats (in that poem and others) was expressing his belief (popular among the Modernists) that the Christian Age was coming to an end.
Having passed through the first stage of dying (Shock & Denial,) Christianity is now in the second stage: Rage & Anger.
MARC: I said religion is neither good nor bad. Stop allowing the people who wrote those letters to dodge personal responsibility by blaming the “mad cults” they’re in. People use religion. Religion doesn’t - and indeed cannot - use people.
Amanda, you have said before that basically everybody hate atheists. I think this last couple weeks has (sadly) shown the wisdom of that statement.
It occured to me that if you had even proclaimed some non-Christian faith, the nutcase Christians would still hate you, but they would at least believe you were as deluded as they are.
By professing no faith at all, you’re no longer bound by the shackles of religion - this apparently is too much for some of the religiously inclined to tolerate…
“Religion” was not the subject of what I said. The doctrines (and indoctrination) of Christianity and Islam is what makes these people behave the way they do.
Hey, if I make “Anti-Catholic screeds” can I become a national celebrity too?
Communion is just bland crackers and cheap wine!
The Trinity is nonsensical at best!
Benedict XVI bears substantial physical resembalance to Emperor Palpatine!
Meat is just as tasty on fridays as the rest of the week!
I demand an interview on CNN to justify my “crude and vile lashing out at religion.”
now, in all seriousness, to othr non-trolls who have expressed anger at Edwards (mostly along the lines of “gutless”) Amanda isn’t working for him anymore. Do you really think if he’d been the creep who refused to offer her any support and requested her resignation as a non-firing firing, Amanda would hesitate for a moment in blasting him for being a wishy washy jerk? It’s not like he’s the only choice in the field, where saying anything bad about a dem will do damage to the cause of Lesser Evil.
Amanda says she offered resignation to get those turds to shut up, and I’m inclined to take her words at face value.
Stop allowing the people who wrote those letters to dodge personal responsibility by blaming the “mad cults� they’re in.
That’s unfair. If you grow up being told that martyrdom will send you straight to paradise, you’d be a fool not to blow up some buildings. The Prophet himself was a jihadist if there ever was one.
Dear Mr. Page,
If you would like to actually discuss this, then please let me know. Where can I reach you? Can’t we all discuss things respectfully?
Sincerely,
Del Shaffer
Also, Amanda, I’m a believer in keeping what happens on the interwebs within its own system of tubes. That being said, the content of the emails you received can’t be allowed to fade into oblivion; those are probably the best and longest compositions by their writers since their respective glory days in the fourth grade.
With that in mind, I don’t think it would be out of line make sure the content of those emails shows up if someone (future employer? potential date? I can’t decide which is less likely) were to google their names. Let us know if there’s anything we can do in that regard.
great job on ruining Edward’s presidential bid.
p.s. deathtoll hits 4000. That is, another 4000 would be US citizens murdered today, tomorrow, and so on.
not that you care.
And if you read the New (so-called) Testament sideways, ‘Jesus’ was an insurgent, fomenting a rebellion against the Roman Empire. And it’s all great fun to think about … I mean, you’ve got to love ‘recreational thinking.’ But the problem now, in Europe and the Un-tied States of America, is waking up from the hangover of Xtianity.
Indeed! And my thought was, what if the thing which does bring it to an end is the mad zeal, the passionate intensity, of those who profess belief but practice something altogether different?
Amanda,
Just another lurker coming out of hiding for a few moments. If there is anything good to come out of this episode, let it be this: A critical number of people will have seen Bill Donahue for what he is. Let him fade into well-deserved obscurity, only ever remembered as a bad example.
Yeah, I’m dreamin’.
Now, not that anybody gives a rat’s ass, but IMO, I have mixed feelings about you resigning from the Edwards campaign: I am sorry that Edwards will no longer have somebody of your caliber in his campaign, but on the other hand, I think that you working for a campaign in the first place would have diminished you and your writing. As a reader, I’m happier having you on the outside howling like the wind against the system.
OK, back to lurking….
-SJohn in Tucson
Dear Del,
I’ve discussed this with people like you until my ears have bled.
(Shorter: No, thank you.)
I have several thoughts on this whole affair. Suffice to say, I support Amanda in her decision, but wish it didn’t have to happen that way. I’m currently undecided for the primaries (not that it matters, living in a late primary state, my vote won’t make a difference and my wallet isn’t big enough to make an impact) but I’d have to argue it doesn’t speak that well for John Edwards. Granted, hindsight is 20-20, but at least he should have ignored the attacks, and preferably, he should have said something like, “I don’t let Republican shills dictate my staff. I stand 100% behind the people I’ve chosen. Next question.” There is no way in hell Edwards would be gaining votes from Donohue’s minions, and I’d argue that by showing some backbone Edwards might have gained some support from people who are looking for leadership.
wren sed: “With that in mind, I don’t think it would be out of line make sure the content of those emails shows up if someone (future employer? potential date? I can’t decide which is less likely) were to google their names. Let us know if there’s anything we can do in that regard.
That’s what I diiiiiiid! Comments must be in moderation. Weep!
“Religion� was not the subject of what I said. The doctrines (and indoctrination) of Christianity and Islam is what makes these people behave the way they do.
Uh…so Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were what, chopped liver?
How do these people stay alive with their heads jammed so far up their asses?
I read Pandagon daily, and I’ve never ever seen anyone here write “hate speech” against Christianity or Catholicism. Certainly not what I’d call “hate speech,” anyway. To me, bigotry implies an irrational hatred instilled by a sense of superiority. Thinking Christians and Catholics are mostly hypocrites who are full of shit and need to actually READ their Bibles rather than throwing them at women who go into Planned Parenthood for pap smears.
Are you so dense? Do you seriously NOT see the difference between hating Jews just because they’re Jews and hating the Catholic church for causing so much pain in the world? This isn’t like accusing the Jews of being in charge of the banks–Catholics are actually very active in promoting death and pain across the world, affecting primarily women.
Those who say Christianity is “so progressive!” when it comes to women … what are you smoking? Catholic women can’t aspire to any church position but sisterhood, even in light of the priest shortage. Women are basically told that they should be happy to be pregnant all the time and enjoy a “separate but equal” role in a marriage that is somehow NOT equal … “women serve your husbands, but husbands … don’t smack her around, okay?” (I was pretty livid when one of our priests said it was a terrible sin for a couple to not procreate, lemme tell ya.) And so on and so on … but just because we don’t get STONED for our sins, Christianity is progressive??
Ugh. Asshats. “Oh noes, the words you used to describe my religion were sooooo meaaaaaaaaaaan. All of it’s 100% true, but you were so meaaaaaaaaaaaaan.”
They’re shitting themselves over that throwaway comment in the Children of Men review? Give me a break! It’s TRUE! That’s the POINT OF THE DAMN STORY. Jesus was conceived without the DIRTY DIRTY sex (like I believe that story anyway). He may as well have sprung from Mary’s head.
I will totally understand if this goes in the mod queue. I’m just … so … mad … (OH NOES TEH WIMMEN R MAD N MAKIN BAD WURDZ!!!)
Amanda wrote,“Because I had the nerve to be critical of the Catholic church’s stance on birth control and abortion—nevermind their political opposition to distributing condoms to fight HIV, a stance that has helped usher thousands and possibly millions to their untimely deaths—I’ve gotten a number of letters from people who call themselves “Christiansâ€?, as Bill Donohue also calls himself.”
Excuse me, Amanda, it wasn’t just Bill Donohue, but John Edwards as well who was troubled by your remarks, as he wrote in his press release, “The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwen’s posts personally offended me.” and adds, “I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word.”
Still, Amanda, I must point out that the Catholic Church does not share your sincerest conviction that people ought to be helped to fornicate “safely.” In other words, it is not afflicted with condomania, as you appear to be, but rather teaches whomever will listen that abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage are 100% effective in avoiding STDs. That is, Rome isn’t responsible for the HIV/AIDS pandemic, or would you deny that people are free to ignore and and all sound medical and biblical advice to their own peril? This they most assuredly do, have done, and will continue to do by the millions. You do believe in free moral agency, don’t you? That’s what being pro-choice means, doesn’t it? Even so, good hearted liberal that you are, you want to help the teeming masses in deepest darkest wherever to avoid the near occasion of STDs. Allow me then to suggest that you write a check to the UNFPA, earmarked for its condom distribution program, and if you’re feeling especially generous, even saintly, write one as well to Catholic Relief Services.
Flewellyn Feb 14th, 2007 at 12:21 am
W.B. Yeats (in that poem and others) was expressing his belief (popular among the Modernists) that the Christian Age was coming to an end.
Indeed! And my thought was, what if the thing which does bring it to an end is the mad zeal, the passionate intensity, of those who profess belief but practice something altogether different?
An important factor, to be sure, in the downward spiral (or gyre) of Xtianity.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
As long as that describes them and not us.
Marc,
I am sorry to hear that. In February of 1998, Jesus Christ changed my life. I accepted Him as my Savior and Lord. I try my best everyday to live for Him but I fail. That is where His grace and mercy come in. The Bible is inerrant and is my source for living. It is God-breathed and allows us to know how we are to live. Many non-Christians live their lives each day based on many things that come from the Bible. It is all around us. The moral code, the golden rule, the snake on the cross on ambulance (Numbers 21), and the Ten Commandments. So, I only pray that my life would be a testimony of Jesus’ love for the world He came to save at Calvary. I pray that you will one day know the peace and the unspeakable joy of living to bring glory to your Creator, God.
In Christ,
Del Shaffer
The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:10
It is not their love of humanity but the impotence of their love of humanity that prevents today’s Christians from burning us.
Friedrich Nietszche, ‘Beyond Good and Evil.’
Wait–is that one guy seriously thinking that you’re supposed to be upset that Bill Falafel O’Reilly hates you? That is FUCKING hilarious!
Amanda, I do hope that if any of the vile emails you’re receiving are sent through a work system, you are kindly informing employers how said employees are using their time.
Cheers.
Dear Automaton for Jesus:
The golden rule was around long, long before Christianity. This is not an example of “non-Christians liv[ing] their lives each day based on many things that come from the Bible,” but of Christians hijacking moral concepts for the sake of their own egos.
I am sorry that Jesus Christ stole your voice and replaced it with such aggressively tepid nonsense.
Not at all yours,
junk science
Thank you, Junk Science. I couldn’t have replied better myself to the JeezusBot.
Still, Amanda, I must point out that the Catholic Church does not share your sincerest conviction that people ought to be helped to fornicate “safely.�
You’re absolutely right! So let’s all hope that good Christian organizations like Lutheran World Relief horn in on their territory with utmost dispatch, since they value actual humans over sperm.
Gratifying as it would be after seeing the outpouring of scum over the past few days, I’m afraid I can’t join Marc Page in bashing all Christians (although I do appreciate his Dylan references), or in declaring Christianity or monotheism inherently crazy-making. I mean, The Fairfield Four, is all I’m saying.
Mrs. Marcotte, your blog and the humans who agree with you are all missing that one thing…Christ. Your hatred and vile contempt for the Word and people of GOD is nothing new so don’t be proud. Read your Bible and you will see that hatred for GOD extends from Genesis to Revelation. Also note their demise. Problem is Mrs. Marcotte, you need to be afraid of a GOD that will put you in hell and leave you there forever. Not because he “likes” it, but because human beings don’t want to admit that they have sinned against a holy GOD and won’t ask for forgiveness. However, I agree with on one thing (sort of), Jesus’ death was torturous, painful, bloody, and disgraceful. That’s how GOD wanted it to be. He needed to die a death like that, to show us that sin isn’t pretty, wonderful, painless and without regretts. But he died for you, Amanda.
I love your site; I found it off feministing and I’m a huge fan of both. I think Edwards is losing a lot in you and Melissa. I wish you both the best, and I hope you will keep writing and keep fighting. You just happened to be the first two to get taken down in what will probably be a long (and bloody) election. It’s a distraction from Bush’s failures, if nothing else.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on the Catholic position on BC. I’m taking a class on Gender and Family in Early Christianity (with an atheist homosexual professor of Religous Studies, nonetheless), and I could argue doctrine, history, and inequalities all day. I’m actually researching a paper on Lilith (the first wife of Adam) and how she was demonized for not submitting to him during sex… and then used as a representation of what women shouldn’t be. It’s so interesting. And a bit depressing… even the Roman women had it better than most Catholics have over the centuries.
But best wishes to you in all your endeavors
Clarification:
I do not “bash” (whatever the hell that means this week) any individual human being who professes to be a Christian.
I “bash” Christianity and monotheism.
Clarification —
I do not “bash” (whatever that may mean this week) any individual who believes himself or hrerself to be a Christian.
I “bash” Christianity and monotheism.
hamletta, may the best teams win.
Heraclitus, I’m thinking of The Inklings.
the snake on the cross on ambulance
is Jesustron 1.0a trying to claim the Rod of Asclepius as a Christian symbol? Because I’m pretty sure there’s a law requiring all trained antiquarians, doctors, and people who enjoyed the Xena and Hercules TV shows to beat him within an inch of his life.
As a self-proclaimed intelligent person, I am sure you realize the bottom of the barrel is not representative of the whole barrel. Then again, posting the more civilized responses would not draw as much controversy and solicit the response you’ve had to your post. There is probably also a satisfaction in swimming in the bottom of the barrel as it feeds the obvious anger that has developed in you. As a self-proclaimed intelligent person, you know the actions of Stalin are not representative of all atheists.
You also know the unreliability of identity on the internet. I could say I’m Queen Elizabeth, and you wouldn’t know otherwise. This anonymity can be used as a weapon against the Church. If I had a grudge against the Church, what better than to portray one of the faithful and then write a hateful letter to you?
If you think the Church’s stance on birth control and abortion is rooted in misogyny, you couldn’t be more wrong. The Church has taken many arrows for venerating Mary. (Venerate Worship) Read the writings of the many female saints in the Church. Read the writings of Mother Theresa and Mother Angelica, the latter being the founder of EWTN, a global tv and radio network. There have been many very powerful women in the Church. The real reason for the Church’s stance is outlined in documents like Humanae Vitae and Evangelium Vitae. It’s the Theology of the Body, and it comes with responsibilities for man and woman, not just the woman. Read more here http://www.theologyofthebody.net/
“Wait–is that one guy seriously thinking that you’re supposed to be upset that Bill Falafel O’Reilly hates you? That is FUCKING hilarious!”
Oh, it’s better than that. He wrote :
Comedy gold, straight from Archie Bunker’s mouth.
O’Reilly also hates Arabs, because one of them spit on his falafel one time and didn’t even try to be sexy about it.
Sorry that you had to resign on account of being a woman who is far far far far far smarter than Billy “The Liar” O’Reiley. Frankly, you deserve to be a mainstream political commentator.
I’m glad that O’Reiley is finally afraid of Edwards. Regardless, he knows which party is going to win in 2008.
[…] Amanda herself hits the nail square on the head when she riffs: […]
[…] Our little blog hits the ground running this week as we observe the carnage left in the wake of Bill Donohue’s fatwa against Amanda Marcotte - of Pandagon fame. Amanda had previously joined John Edward’s campaign as blog editor-in-chieftress, and today has resigned her post due to the sturm und drang Billy managed to whip up over the past several days. Donohue is another in a long line of hateful yet holier-than-thou proselytizers who have zero tolerance for a world home to humans who harbor belief systems even marginally different than his own. Amanda’s great sin was criticzing the Catholic Church’s stance on birth control and abortion. Amanda explains her decision to resign her post from Edward’s campaign here […]
I, like several others that have written here, disagree with the vast majority of what you write, but, support your right to freedom of speech. I also disagree with much of what Catholicism teaches, thinking that it strays from true Biblical teaching. Those that call you names and claim to be Christians, are not, truly. However, incredibly polarizing statements and viewpoints, can make people act and say some very STUPID things. Not to rationalize for them, just trying to be “tolerant”.
I don’t pretend that anything I say will change your mind, just as there is little chance of you changing my mind, but, your generalizations of the entire Christian Faith, based on how the Catholic religion is taught, is not just narrow minded, but closed minded. If you have truly read, and comprehend the Bible (being an English major), and knew the differences between what the Bible teaches, and how Catholicism deviates from a number things, you would, hopefully, not lump the two together too much.
I also have difficulty seeing where your thoughts that Christians are mysogynist comes from. I believe what is taught is that “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;and “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. ” So those that honestly try to be like Christ can not be women haters. Christ also tells us to be servers of others and that the greatest leader is the greatest server. And Christ himself kept the “harlot” from being stoned by asking those in the crowd that were without sin to cast the first stone, thereby condemning those that tried to keep a double standard.
Just my thoughts. Keep being who you are. Life is what you make it.
Who are these people? Self righteous religionists? Misogynists? Cruel people who enjoy the suffering of others.
These are the times when it is very difficult to follow the teachings of Christ. I do not want them for my brothers and sisters and yet I must accept them.
Dear Amanda, I am sorry for your distress and disappointment this past week. I hope that all will be well for you. For this as for so many things IBTP.
Amanda —
The fallacy in your argument about “casting the first stone” is that you are quoting the New Testament, which the Christianist Pharisees do not read, except for the Book of Revelation. Which they don’t really read either, else they could easily see that a “literal interpretation of the scriptures” could not possibly lead to the conclusion that the Shrub’s impending attack on Iran is necessary to bring on the necessary Apocalypse.
Also, in re: the Washington Post story, isn’t the first phrase of the fourth paragraph interesting? “After days of indecision, Edwards said ….” He hired a bitch and he’s a faggot. Q.E.D.
I am uncomfortable with the vile insults Amanda has received. But since when does judging all christians by the comments of other “christians” give anyone any credibility? Do you realize that ANYONE can claim they are a christian? It is very possible that any of these insults could come from someone attempting to invigorate the base of support for Amanda. I do not allow the values of those whom are annonomous to hold sway on my judgements of the values of those whom are out in the open. Amanda’s comments must be judged worthy or unworthy all by themselves and no amount of insults by those claiming to be “christian” have any bearing at all.
Amanda did not cause this.
This entire manufactured fiasco was created and caused by right-wing bloggers, then picked up by right-wing bigots with larger microphones (malkin and donohue and o’reilly) = right-wing noise machine driving the media. If it was not this it would have been something else and believe me there will be more to come. It’s called swiftboating for a reason.
Still, Amanda, I must point out that the Catholic Church does not share your sincerest conviction that people ought to be helped to fornicate “safely.� In other words, it is not afflicted with condomania, as you appear to be, but rather teaches whomever will listen that abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage are 100% effective in avoiding STDs.
Translation: I think people deserve to die for their lifestyle choices, since they’re not mine.
Disproving the adage that it is the poetry that gets lost in the translation.
I certainly hope that ‘Andy Driggers’ wasn’t using his real name. A quick and free search at www.dexonline.com tells us that there is an ‘Andy Driggers’ living in Richardson, TX (near Dallas) and it also tells us his phone number! I won’t type the number, but other people can search for it if they really want. However, the person you call may be some guy who is a neighbor or aquantaince of the real hate-mail sender.
I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this, Amanda.
Lex, it’s not a competition. It’s about loving God’s children and meeting them where they are. The sexual politics of the countries in question are such that fornication isn’t necessary to contract the AIDS virus.
Shakes resigned also. This is a very bad thing for all of us.
Kyle,
“Your belief that birth control and condoms may save lives is also a fine conclusion for someone who believes that any ends is justified by the means […] The notion that two wrongs makes a right is simply wrong.”
I’m pretty sure Amanda Marcotte doesn’t consider condom use to be a wrong to be justified. That simple notion seems to escape you. So much for understanding what you criticize.
Mom? Can we keep Viv? I promise to feed her and change her water bowl daily and take her for walks and I’ll be so good, Mom, and you PROMISED I could have a pet once I was old enough, Mom, come on, all my friends have pets and all I have is a stupid goldfish so please, please, can’t we keep this one? I really like how it is all gassy and warty and not very smart and none of the other kids at school will have anything at all like this Vivien and they will be so jealous when I bring her in for Show and Tell, just wait!
What a Mess - McEwan Also Resigns from Edwards Campaign…
Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister, who was hired last week to be a netroots coordinator for the Edwards campaign has also resigned from the campaign today, in the wake of the controversy perpetuated by the conservative Catholic group led by Bil…
[…] As I posted previously, Amanda at Pandagon has posted some of the disgusting e-mails she has received. Echidne of the Snakes has a post on Amanda’s e-mail, as well. The part of her post that interested me was this: I get told fairly often that my problem is inadequate sex and that this inadequacy is caused by my ugliness/fatness/hairiness. The real reason is of course the snake tail. Would you like to f*** someone who has cold scales for a butt? But I digress. […]
This whole fiasco was started by Michelle Malkin. She is so evil and so disgusting, it’s unfathomable.
The fact that this woman unleases her minions out against those who disagree with her is criminal.
She incites these bigots and wingnuts at every chance and legally she should be stopped. She deserves to be sued for enciting a riot and causing threats and violence to these women and their families.
It wouldn’t be hard to prove it, she allegedly enticed that maniac Freeper into sending envelopes filled with white powder to Nancy Pelosi and others. he was a Hotair poster.
Can’t she be indirectly held accountable for her actions?
GOOD GOD WHAT PANDERING TO YOUR FEMINIST LEADER IN HER MOMENTS OF HUMILIATION!
Jesus H Christ, people, all of you who have sat here and masturbated to the ideal that Amanda was down-trodden by the patriarchy….
YOU ARE ALL PATHETIC!
If Amynda was really for what she preached, she would first of all not preach victimhood, for victimhood precludes being dominated… and surely, Mzzz Marcotte, in all her collegiate credentials could not be a submissive upon campus or afterwards, n’est pas?
I am amazed at this blog, for given the INTERNATIONAL attention which Mzzzz Marcotte has achieved with her unhidden hatred of others… some might TRULY question NAZIHOOD at her behest. Certainly the Dems, which I DO NOT SUPPORT, nor can support, as a non-national…Also must slowly be realizing the poisioness relationship all who affiliate themselves with cultural Marxism must behold for those WHO TRULY VALUE FREEDOM OVER STATE-MANDATED EQUALITY (COMMUNISM!)
Your gig is up, wierdos!
You are commies!
McCarthy overlooked you… I DID NOT!!!
NeoconservativeChristians have cornered the market on hate. Amanda, you don’t need to explain or apologize or defend yourself. These people sending you hate mail are crazy morons needing something to hate on. Today it’s you, tomorrow it will be somebody else.
I know, I know, troll feeding, but…
some might TRULY question NAZIHOOD at her behest.
It’s supposed to be bad that your opinion carries enough weight to make people say “gee, maybe Naziism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”
hell, I’ll take it on faith. Amanda, if you say Nazis are bad, I’ll believe you. you seem to have good judgement, as the troll points out.
“GOOD GOD WHAT PANDERING TO YOUR FEMINIST LEADER IN HER MOMENTS OF HUMILIATION!”
Amanda I think Ron is jealous and wants to be you…he obviusly needs some adjusting by a good “TV repairman”. LOL
He really wants to be the only feminist leader, what a troll…welcome to the petrie dish - wingnut madness is really a filthy disease .
Grace, good luck, you’re going to need it. Do you really think Edwards will win by default if he just curls up in a fetal position and covers his ears until the election? Amanda didn’t do a damn thing to your precious candidate except exist, have preexisting opinions, and write entries long before HE approacher HER.
None of this is her fault, and feeling the way you do it’s hard to fathom why you’re blaming her for “handing” them an excuse to attach him, when from your perspective it’s he who showed poor judgment and incompetence. Let me guess, he had no obligation to vet, but when she was offered a job it was her responsibility to ferret out and bring to his attention any comment that might be misused out of context by lunatics because he can’t be expected to do his own job and she needs to do his as well?
You’re going to discover that that’s impossible because when they can’t create a fake controversy out of something, they’ll invent one from nothing. And if he continues to die on his knees and validate spurious attacks instead of fighting back, well, it will be interesting to discover if he committed war crimes and shot himself in Vietnam or if it’s going to be a new storyline for a new election cycle.
“McCarthy overlooked you… I DID NOT!!!”
Whoa, most flamboyant troll yet.
French as an insult, classic!
Rob, seriously, get a little dignity, man. If you’re so determined to broadcast the fact that you’re a 55 year old guy who’s never had a date, the least you can do is try and come up with a better handle. Using your own name just makes it that much..sadder. If your boss ever has reason to google “O’Reilly vibrator falafel” and there you are, it could get embarassing.
What a clusterfuck. Two hundred responses.
“They’re not real Christians!” CHECK!
“Christianity is peaceful and loving!” CHECK!
“…not like those dirty Muslims” CHECK!
Amanda,
Sorry to hear about all those bad people calling you all of those nasty and unfair names….maybe Karma does operate in your universe.
Whether you claim to be a Christian or simply a human, you should show a smidgen more respect for the beliefs of others.
Come visit anytime…I have a couple of good entries on you
http://tommason.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!49EE332ACF0CD87C!1024.entry
(And I didn’t call you any bad names…well, maybe a clyster, but that was only because the result is the same as your logical arguments.)
Signed,
Not a Catholic, Simply More Respectful of (most) Others
Vivien, you wrote in part: “…You libeled three demonstratively innocent Duke students for no other reason than you either thought it was funny or you were completely ignorant of the facts of the case. Your statement was cruel and uninformed. Now you have removed all traces of your past writings on the Duke lacrosse players because you are also, apparently, spineless. I expect this comment to be moderated away because of this fact….”
Leaving aside that some of what you’ve claimed here isn’t accurate, I simply want to ask you this: if you feel Amanda has been sufficiently punished or exposed as a libeler, then isn’t your work here done? Shouldn’t you be ready to move on to Bill O’Reilly and cast libel allegations at him for claiming repeatedly that the recently rescued teen boy, abducted and horribly abused, had to have been having fun? Either he thought it was funny or he was completely ignorant of the facts of the case, or he didn’t care. His statements about that boy were cruel, uninformed, televised, unretracted, malicious, and directed at one minor child.
So maybe you could move along and shine your bright light of truth on O’Reilly. After you’re done with him, I’m sure we can make a list of other Swiftboated, maligned, and libeled persons, most of whom are a whole lot more vulnerable than the Roman Catholic Church, which, like Duke and its sports program, will likely flourish despite Amanda Marcotte’s attack.
Dear lord, y’all are so mean. Just go away. Do something useful. Feed the hungry. Heal the sick. Protect the weak. Go practice your religion.
Sorry that you had to bail on the Edwards gig, but at least you can get back to dealing with Mr. Doughnut-Hole and his allegedly-catholic “League of Extraordinary Barn Mice.” Forget about building a better mouse trap. Go for the gusto; break out the flame-throwers on these clownish hypocrites. Better yet, give them a good dose of rat-poison. The new-and-improved version of D-Con, I hear, is called “D-NeoCon….”
Jeez people, you’ve done everything to insult me but nothing to refute me.
In fact, the only thing that you haven’t said to me yet is that I can’t get laid or something.
PLEASE! Could one of you just simply tell me that I can’t get laid, so we can get on with it?
Bill C:
Bill, do not make this mistake.
This is one of the worst mistakes people make when trying to deal with issues of religion, and it’s one of the reasons why people have a harder time dealing with positions like Amanda.
Face it: these days, “Christianity” means you say that you accept Christ as your personal savior. Depending on your church, you might or might not contact water while doing so.
That’s it.
That’s *all* there is to being a Christian.
It’s one of the reasons I do not accept the title Christian (the other being that I’m Wiccan - it’s a long story, and you really don’t want to know).
Anyone who can mouth a few magical words, and who isn’t the Wicked Witch of the (mumbled word that might be “east” or “west” because I can never keep those two straight) can be a Christian.
And a lot of them are assholes.
It’s the most important lesson for a modern Christian to accept. Yes, you are sharing a title with Oral “why is he trying to *avoid* being called home?” Roberts, Jerry “viruses are a sign of divine displeasure at those who risk blood exposure to help accident victims!” Falwell, and Pat “do I need to *say* anything?” Robertson.
That’s why I can deal with Amanda being angry, and, yes, nasty.
Because I know full well what she’s fighting. And every Christian who is true to the message and the mission should be equally bothered by what people are doing now, and have done in the past, in the name of Christianity.
It hurts, sometimes, to see someone talk nasty, but a true Christian should recognize that, right now, Christianity is being used as a tool for power and fame and money and personal glory. Of course it’s being seen as ugly by some folks! It’s being used in an ugly manner.
And you might say “but that’s not the way Jesus taught people to act!” and you’d be right. But that’s the face of Christianity today, and you can’t expect people to see past that face until there’s a new face that rips through the old one.
I hope you understand where I’m going with this. Christians can’t deny that the assholes are part of the face of Christianity; it’s doubly frustrating because it’s extremely hard to change that. Just have faith… remember, it can move a mountain, it can certain topple a few assholes from power, if you keep at it long enough.
This is exactly the material that convinced me to walk away from Christianity and religion 10 years ago in 1997 after initially becoming a Jesus Freak in 1989 and studying the ancient Greek texts. Garbage like that can’t be reconciled with the Bible at all. Not one whit of it.
What’s really sad and embarrassing (other than hammering them with truth via this post, Amanda) is they most likely have DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak” album on CD where one track starts off with a preacher saying, “The single leading cause of atheism in the world today are Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and then deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable,” and never realizing that they themselves fit this very preacher’s description to a T.
Amanda,
I’m another lurker who wanted to pop my head up and give my support. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Cheers!
“Jeez people, you’ve done everything to insult me but nothing to refute me.”
You’ve said nothing substantial enough to refute.
LMAO, dude, how can anyone refute you? Your points are just too substantive. You’ve got it cold. It’s just too much for mere mortal brains to absorb. “I LOVE BILL O’MORE THAN I PROBABLY SHOULD BUT OH OH, JESUS GOD I masturbate remembering how much the women who seemed to recoil from me in horror actually want me because it’s part of their rape fantasies (the guy’s blog, seriously, I wanted to find out if he’s actually 60 like I suspect or else 14 and instead found a world of hilarity and delight) YOU MASTURBATE to something else, garble, SIGN UP FOR CRAZY PEOPLE’S ARMY, NAZIS, OMG YOU FOUND OUT YOU’RE A FEMINIST WHO KNEW, syduydssj, incoherent” slam dunk, guy. When you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and we just can’t compete.
As far as not being able to get laid, no way. Just because you’ve never been on a date doesn’t mean you can’t get laid. After your 75 year old mom lifts you up to vacuum under you because even though you’re able bodied you’re not going to make it easy on her to wait on you hand and foot and you curse her out for being a total princess and too lazy to do as good a job as when you weighed 40 pounds and were 3 (again, visit his blog and thank me later), you would be a total chick magnet except for how you and your normal, high functioning buddies just won’t play the game and let the femhags get you by the balls like all the other deluded guys. That and it’s just so ICKY thinking of putting anything like vibratey or falafely in that dirty hole with the she-cooties. But damn, they still want you, because how could they not? Maladjusted, seriously disturbed and incoherent creepy guys are the HAWT. And the more they run away screaming, the more they want you to chase they, and, well, you know (YOU KNOW) how that ends.
Lol! People, being a non-church goer myself, EVEN I can tell you that church is made for sinners - and your faith is for YOU to practice, not for others to practise what YOU deem fit.
Imagine if Noah had your attitudes, John and Sizemore…
No-where in the Bible does it tell you to “go with the grain”.
The folly of modern Christians, and likely past Christians, is that they did too much looking at the people sitting in the pews around them, and far too little reading of the actual Bible on their own and meditating on its true meanings.
You are supposed to choose the denomination that best suits your understandings of the Bible… don’t you get it? That’s why God gave men the ability to reason and rise above the beasts of the field.
If you want to believe all of that Wicca shit, fine, go ahead, but don’t go pulling that tired Marxist line that “you can’t be a Christian because all the Christians you see are sinners…” YUP! THEY ARE! WHAT DO YOU THINK THE BIBLE HAS BEEN SAYING? If you weren’t a sinner, you would have no need for the Bible, Christianity or God, would you?
Think people! Don’t let Marxism think for you.
Christianity & the Bible is SPECIFICALLY designed for people who do wrong… NOT for people who do not sin.
Thankfully, Amanda and most of her followers never sin, that’s why you don’t need to acknowledge anything from the Bible - not even its moral law, which, btw, is the basis for EVERY legal system in the Western World. EVERY ONE!
Without acknowledging our past coming from Christianity… just exactly what moral code do those of you agnostic anti-religious people propose that we follow?
And if we do away with Christianity, what is to assure us that we follow a moral code 200 years hence, rather than fall into complete anarchy? Do you believe in man’s intrinsic evil of today, but believe in his everlasting righteousness tomorrow? What solid guideline do you propose to have mankind follow? That of Karl Marx & Frederick Engels? Seriously! What moral guideline do you propose to replace or current moral system WHICH IS based on Christianity? That is NOT a stupid question. What is stupid is to NOT ask that question.
And please, don’t yammer on about the evils of past Christians… perhaps it was the solidness of the Bible (ie, not allowing it to be a fluid work, in contrast to how feminism wants the Constitution to be a fluid “living” work & always changeable) that pulled mankind out of those dark days and back into the right general direction. Am I right? I don’t know. Are you? How do you know you are right? And why should you, with all of your “tolerance” feel it is OK to be intolerant of Judaism/Islam/Christianity? Your “tolerance” and equality means shit after the filth that people like Amanda have said about religion… but that’s not surprising, given her beliefs about “equality” between the genders.
This is how communism starts, people. Read up on it. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci… They all sound a lot like you!
Holy crap, Pariahuna,
That has to be the worst put together two paragraphs I have ever seen in my life.
Between run on sentences that don’t belong in the same paragraphs to, well, just complete incoherency. I don’t know what to say. Illiteracy is a sad but common affliction.
Did you graduate from highschool? I assume you were talking about me, but I had a hard time pulling my 75 year old brain down to your Grade 3 grammatical skills.
Could you please hire a highschool student to translate that drivel and re-submit it so that I can reply to your obviously superior intelligence?
Incoherence is not an argument. Should you produce an actual argument, perhaps then we might refute it.
How can anyone read the vile hate-mail being sent to you and fail to realize that your greatest “sin” was not what you said or using ‘bad words’ in the course of saying it, but was in fact your gender.
These people are pissed off that Edwards had the gall to hire two women to do “computer stuff”, which everyone knows is the rightful province of men, and has been since ancient times, along with automative repair and plumbing.
Keep exposing the hatred being thrown at you. Don’t allow them to think they’ve got you isolated in some dark alley. They don’t. This is the internet, and their assaults upon you should be made public. It’s the only way to reveal them for what they truly are.
Good luck to you Amanda. Stay strong.
What ushered many people, be it in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions, to their untimely demise through the aftereffects of HIV (it’s not the HIV that kills, so get it straight, liberal) is not the opposition to condoms. It’s their inability to keep their pants on that condemned them, even knowing that a contagious STD was both present and highly prevalent in the area. Now, it’s true that many didn’t have the education about the disease, so that’s an area which needs to be addressed, but for you to blame an institution for deaths which are perfectly preventable through abstinence and education is absurd. Furthermore, to condemn an entire religion (Christianity) as being patriarchal is also absurd…the Bible is written the way it is…that doesn’t mean new interpretations aren’t being made, and revisions to sermons/homilies, etc. aren’t occurring. The role of women in all churches is always being updated and improved. I’m not even a religious person, and definitely not a practicing Catholic, yet I’m certainly offended by your angry little diatribes…just think, if you’ve alienated moderates, and people who aren’t practicing, you’re the one most to blame for Edwards’ coming disaster. Way to go.
Oh, and by the way, in Christ’s teachings, he never condoned fornication and adultery, both of which are activities that helped spread HIV through Western Africa. Thought a “literate” liberal would want to know that, as you very conveniently omitted that from your amusing little diatribe against the Church.
Granted, I don’t think criticizing the church for policies that hurt families and even get people killed is a “sin�, but my letter writers do.
Yeah but you do seem to think that somebody writing an angry letter to you is “stoning you to death”.
If Amynda was really for what she preached, she would first of all not preach victimhood,
Robbie-snookums, anyone who celebrates the sheer joy of fucking in the face of the disapproval of moralising prudes and whimpering milquetoasts such as yourself is nobody’s victim.
Amanda is more of a man than you can ever be, and more of a woman than you can ever handle - which is precisely why you fear her so much. You fear her speech, you fear her sexuality, and most of all you fear her independence from your approval or disapproval.
Suffer, you pusillanimous little turd.
Amanda,
Having read your site for I guess two years now, I was concerned that folks would attack you when I heard (and celebrated) of her hiring. I was not concerned that you would not be able to defend yourself (I knew you could). I was not concerned that you would not be smart enough (I knew you were). I was concerned that there might not be enough support for you if the attacks got ugly.
I see that there is plenty of support for you.
I do hope, however, that you are turning over any e-mails or nasty posts on this blog that might threaten you with harm to the proper authorities. These “Christians” can be quite dangerous. I remember 20 years ago laughing with a friend who lived across the street from our local abortion clinic at the “Neanderthals” who gathered near his apartment. We thought them to be harmless fools. In the 1990s two of our “local brainless fools” wound up being related to a plot that killed some folks way down in Pensacola, FL. Another wound up making a jerk of herself at a trial of a man who killed an abortion doctor in upstate NY.
My point: these folks are dangerous.
You probably already knew these kinds of things.
On the flip side: I don’t ever want you to stop your fighting words. They are awesome.
longhairedweirdo:
In fact, one of the big streaks in right-wing Christianity is what I call the Cult of Forgiveness.
It was well-established in the Bible that humans just can’t keep the word of God. That’s the whole reason Jesus came–the 10 Commandments proved too difficult to adhere to. So Jesus comes, and he says “hey, God loves you. He wants you to not sin, but He loves you and if you love him back He won’t be pissed at you.”
And not much has changed in 2000 years. People still sin. People still cheat, covet, act like dicks, lie, steal, etc.
Enter the digital age–people find themselves driven to isolation by a culture of fear and anonymity. We’re friggin’ lonely. We sort of suspect that this isolation is because we’ve been dickheads, we’ve lied, maybe we’ve cheated on someone or stolen something. We’ve certainly coveted.
Enter the shiney Church with all the people prancing around clapping their hands. They’ll love you. They’ll accept you. They’ll give you all sorts of attention, but you have to come to Jesus. In front of them. Slowly. No, no. Like that. Okay, move your hand over here. Better. Now. Come to Jesus.*
So, the bigger the shithead you were, the most interesting your salvation is, and the longer you’ll have in the limelight as a convert. Hell, you can conveniently ignore that “sin no more” clause and just keep being a cheating, lying, coveting, stealing dickhead, because you can just have another tearful, attention-grabbing confession.
I’m going to take a page from Romans 2 and not make a blanket assumption about whether or not these people are “real” Christians, but I think that Jesus wasn’t bullshitting us when he said you would know them by their fruits.
* Sorry for that, but if you watch a Pentecostal service, there is a LOT of sexual stuff goin’ on there.
I was one of those who thought that the hiring of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan (who has also now resigned) was a bad idea, because there was no way their cybertrail wouldn’t be attached to the Edwards campaign, and I said so. It was almost inevitable that something like this would happen to some blogger, and that someone would wind up paying a people cost for it; it could just as easily have been Jeff Goldstein or Hugh Hewitt, I suppose, but that’s just the (bad) luck of the draw.
And it’s certainly true that our hostess has used intemperate language before. But such is no excuse for those who wrote the hate mail; I am as impressed with them as I am with their invective.
ROB???
Dude, Communism? That’s almost funny.
Seriously, maybe the reason that the Bible isn’t taken in the way you might want it to be taken is it is a flawed book. I say this as a practicing Christian.
Take a good look, boy. God deposed Saul for NOT committing a full genocide against the Amalekites. God punished David for following his order to have a census. God demanded punishment for Onan, Achan, and Moses for really strange reasons (masturbation, thieving during a genocidal battle and striking a rock respectively).
Do I think God actually did these things? NO. I think the authors/compilers of the Bible were living in bizarro world. The problem is that using the whole Bible as a moral guidebook is insane. You say that the legal codes of the world are based on the Bible…. They aren’t, bud. The legal codes of the world (west and east) have evolved (there’s a baadd word, man) over the last 3000-9000 years. Slowly, we have been changing to suit society… Sometimes we get better, sometimes not, but evolution is a messy process….
If our codes were based on the Bible, you couldn’t have a cheeseburger or go out and order food on the Sabbath (bet you do those things, Rob….).
Wren Wrote:
“wren
Feb 14th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Also, Amanda, I’m a believer in keeping what happens on the interwebs within its own system of tubes. That being said, the content of the emails you received can’t be allowed to fade into oblivion; those are probably the best and longest compositions by their writers since their respective glory days in the fourth grade.
With that in mind, I don’t think it would be out of line make sure the content of those emails shows up if someone (future employer? potential date? I can’t decide which is less likely) were to google their names. Let us know if there’s anything we can do in that regard.”
Generation Whatever will volunteer to put their names, emails and comments on our blog if it dodges and deflects the heat off of you. The three of us met as members of Stepmom/Secondwife sites. These can be vitriolic and acidic online communities that tend to implode every 6 months or so. From these implosions . . . I’ve learned that once you hit send - an email is fairgame. Including your IP address. I’d love to see if those emails were sent from work emails. Just a thought - hmmmm. . . .
You probably have my email from my postitng this - please don’t hesitate to forward on. One of us over there is in a high-level tech position and could probably figure out where these came from in 2 minutes or less. These people put it out there - it’s now fair game. Isn’t that what they have done to you?
Oddly enough, Jesus himself seems to have prophesied these people, in the 7th Chapter of Matthew:
22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/
My life and my glory are my own, thanks.
You may have missed this, but some horrific majority of the people living on this planet live under the near-constant threat of hunger, violence, and want. I am very lucky, but I’m not sure which disturbs me more; the idea that your god liked me (before I was born!) in some way that he (one is forced to assume that your god is a he) didn’t like some poor child born into Iraq or Darfur or any of the other awful places in this world, or that your god just didn’t care and I was blessed and so many others cursed because your god couldn’t engineer a better world.
You should read the “GetReligion” website regarding Mormon beliefs, ( Romney is running for President).
According to some Mormons belive that Mary had physical sex with God the Father and that’s how Jesus was born!
Now this is denied by many Mormons but it seems that this belief was held by many a Mormon in the past and IT STILL MAY BE!
Yet, the reaction from the “religious Right” has been very muted.
Where’s William Donohue?
How come he’s not attacking Mormons for their blasphemy?
I am amazed and horrified at your hatemail. I hope you don’t let them get to you, because as a long-time lurker I really enjoy your posts. Even when I (rarely) disagree with them, they still make me think.
Best of luck.
I think Thorn hit the nail on the head here. Look at the responses - folks somehow blaming you for Edwards (which, if he didn’t want your work kit-and-kaboodle, he never should have approached you) campaign, folks blaming you for Catholics having it rough (and I’m sure Jewish folks who’ve been insulted, faced the diaspora, and so much more would LOVE to hear how criticism of the Catholic ‘good works’ actually hurt folks is just like anti-semitism), folks blaming you for the death toll in Iraq, and god knows… maybe these folks are blaming you for the east coast ice storm, and for their bread not rising.
This all boils down to good old fashioned women hating. You speak out (loudly) about inequality. You don’t put it in polite terms. You curse, you are brazen, you are not meek, you are not apologetic.
How dare you!
Keep up the good work - I know that it is inspiring - at least to me.
My main reaction to reading the hate fillled writings of the trolls on this and many recent Pandagon threads is that they prove why we need this site. Some of these people are so enraged by and fearful of any woman who speaks her mind that their every word justifies the need for feminism.
BTW, Rob, when you write in all caps, and use the word Nazi, and what you write is filled with incoherent ranting, you are not likely to encourage people to engage you in dialogue.
[…] 2. Certain Evangelical Christians are only big on this whole “love” concept when it’s convenient; otherwise they call you a “worthless hag,” “stupid bitch,” and “racist whore.” […]
Po’ Wittle Amanda - the victim! While I hate Bill Donohue - a media gadfly and annoyance for years, for Amanda to bleat that she was hounded because of her questioning of church policy would be funny if not so pathetic - like Tom metzger (RIP - rest in pain) claiming he was hated for questioning racial issues in America! Perhaps Amanda’s references to douchbags, godbags and godbaggery (you have a thing for bags) wouldn’t matter if she’d been hired by the campaign for hipster President of Williamsburg, but when grownups play the rules are a bit more severe - cop to it - you use your blog like people use bathroom stalls and then act surprised that your words come back at you - even if your message is on key - even if cool East Coasters like myself could care less about religion - even if your a feminist and on the side of good, even if words like fuck and cunt and jerk-off don’t bother the unaffected like us.
Hey Amanda, first time poster and recent but most likely new long-term reader here.
This thread would make one hell of a paper if I were taking a class on abnormal psych. Something about near-total anonymity really brings out the beast in some folks. One would normally have to find a thread on freerepublic or LittleGreenFucktards to experience this much impotent, self-castrated wingnut anger all in one shot. All you knuckle-draggers must feel pretty bad-ass eh? Wishing actual physical harm on someone who’s on the other side of a few hundred thousand miles or more of cable and fiber-optic line? And all because she took one of your favorite sacred cows and made a big mess o’ burgers out of it. Are your poor widdle feewings hurt? Well get fucking used to it, whiners. People think thoughts you’re not gonna like. Sometimes they express them to others. They’re going to keep on thinking and expressing them long after you run out of wind. Mainly because when it comes right down to it, you lot aren’t nearly as scary as you like to think you are. I’ve spent my time on your side of things and I know that most of you screamers who’ve found your way here are at your bravest when you think you’ve got someone overpowered and you’ve got lots of backup. You’re the ones who post stuff like “Hurrrr, yeah, me too!” when someone talks in a thread about how they’d like to see the police use live ammo on protestors. You talk shit about how “If I was there, I’d have gotten a piece of those lefty punks” when you see a YouTube clip of said lefty punks pushing back when someone tries to muscle them around. You think we’re all wimpy little feminized pushover pacifists, while you’re the ones who think being seen buying feminine products for your wife or girlfriend will cause others to see you as less of a man and you’re the ones who can’t seem to find your way to a recruiting office. You talk about the leftist orthodoxy of thought while you spew the latest wingnut talking points and backbite each other when someone doesn’t immediately endorse some major doctrinal idea. The worst is, you blather on about freedom and liberty while espousing the idea that some people don’t deserve either just because they happen to think differently or eat differently or love differently than you do while harming no one, especially not you. News flash kiddies, especially the “Rrraaa! Marxism! Socialism!” verbal defecator upwards in this thread, when you start labelling people as anything like an enemy of the State for what they think or what they believe, guess what that makes you? Well besides a fucking hypocrite. It makes you a willing, conscious heir to the kind of abuses perpetrated by Josef Stalin when he thought it would be a great idea to start culling people he thought were detrimental to the body of the whole because they didn’t fit in right. You can rattle on about eeeevil lefty socialist librullz all you want, but at the end of the day what you want is the same thing you’re railing against: a country where people obey unquestioned authority of the State and don’t buck the status quo. You don’t mind the idea of a police state as long as you think you’re the ones doing the policing and you’re fools for it, because once you define a particular group as being ideal citizens that ideal will only get more and more narrow, eventually it’ll no longer include you and by then it’ll be too late to do anything but realize what a dumbshite you’ve been to play along with it.
Oh, and for those who obviously don’t get it, quick primer on tolerance. Not caring about something someone else does in the privacy of their own home or on their own time that doesn’t really affect you, that’s tolerance. Not caring when someone advocates or attempts to cause your imprisonment/expulsion from society/torture/violent death, that’s just plain stupid. See the difference there? Sorry, but “You should tolerate me, you dope-smoking welfare-collecting godless heathen deserving of death” does NOT fucking work. Personally, I don’t care if you insult me; at this point there’s little I haven’t heard and most of it is just tired, rehashed stuff that has about as much bite to it as an elderly chihuahua. But, when you cross the line from insulting to telling me that I or anyone else should be killed or injured just because I don’t think like you; well fuck you, Jack. Nobody has to tolerate that and nobody should. Me, I’m sorry Edwards didn’t shut you assholes up and shut you down like he should have instead of waffling back and forth trying to appease people that weren’t going to vote for him in the first place. Obviously he doesn’t have the spine to stand up to people like you. Plenty of us who do though. So I look forward to seeing more of Amanda making you foaming mad with the knowledge that she will continue to say the things she does and no matter how hard you think your nasty little thoughts, you can’t do dick about it.
The world is not so concened about what happens to you; we are far more concerned with defeating an ambulance-chaser like Edwards, and stopping the spread of Liberal Socialism.
Yes, I know I’m late to the party but in my defense it was just a bit difficult to get here yesterday.
I do believe that Kent actually said that the ends justify the means. Nice that he is willing to be so clear. Would that they all were.
I’m sorry Amanda, about all the mess and all the assholes. I hope the slings and arrows sting less and you keep up the good fight.
Excuse me now while I go and find a presidential candidate to support.
Remind me to steer clear of Dallas.
Just wanted to say keep your head up and keep fighting.
You don’t deserve this shit.
The hypocrisy of these people is staggering.
*returns to lurking*
Funny how these religious zealots can only focus on the language you used and not your message.
I am always amazed that the followers of the catholic ‘church’ can be so vicious and vile.
I had a friend for a short time, he was tragically killed in a car crash, who was a catholic priest in training. He was the kindest and most respectful person that I’ve ever met, short of my grand father.
We sat and talked about religion (no surprise) and I brought up the misogynistic attitude of the catholic ‘church’… His answer was something that gave me a lot of info on him as a human being. He said that were it not for women, man would not exist and that one simple fact, men and women were equal, for without one, there can’t be the other. He said that he ‘had issues’ with the ‘church’ but could not leave the ‘church’ because he saw through the hatred and disgust for women to the love of Jesus and of God for His creations. He wanted to be one that in the ‘church’, found the true meaning of the lessons of the bible and forgive and honor all life.
He almost brought me back to religion… Such a calming and rational follower of a morally bankrupt ‘religion’ hoping to save it from its own hypocrisy and contempt for human life.
There are those that are like him and realize that religion is a tool now. A tool of intolerance and hatred. A tool for blinding people to the wrenching of morality from religion in this country.
I quote Seneca:
And another quote: there are none so blind as those that will not see…
‘Religion’ has supplanted racism and bigotry for many in this country… Gone is the ‘we have nothing to fear but fear itself’, now there is nothing but fear and hatred and distrust… A ‘religion’ that worships the pope is contrary to the very teachings of the bible…
How the catholic ‘church’ can claim morality and have anyone take it seriously is just tragic and disastrous for humanity…
Humans should be above this evil… Some of us have never learned…
Fascism has used religion before… Germany, Ireland, etc…The human need for some to trample others that don’t meet their high requirements WILL end the human race and manipulated ‘religion’ will be the weapon… Will God weep at the destruction of His creation? I doubt it… It has strayed far from its roots… This is the reason that I’ve not brought children into this cold and cruel world… To value life means ALL life…
There is much evil and wickedness in religion today… I fear that you have just scratched the surface.
Is America to be ripped asunder by the religious hatred of bigoted and evil men? Apparently…
It’s somehow ironic that the dying words of Jesus were reported to be “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.”
From commenter Kent: “So you think that because you had the temerity to speak out against the Catholic Church you should receive a pass?”
Uh, yes, actually. It’s called having the right to express your opinion. Since when is any institution above reproach? Or to quote from one of my favorite philosophers:
“True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.”
- H. L. Mencken
Keep doing what you do best, Amanda!
As to the thugs and their garbage, I guess we’ve found the cyber-equivalent of the lynch mob. Clearly you’re pissing off the right people. If nothing else, we’ve got an object lesson on the enduring fascism and misogyny of the Christianists.
Now can we please send Daddy Donohue and his ilk for a visit to their fellow reactionaries in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? Pretty please? We could solve a lot of the world’s problems that way.
Clarification for the cerebrally challenged: Yes, that works both ways. No, threats of death and rape do not count as “free criticism”. I know, that last bit is news to fans of Malkin, Coulter, and their ilk, but yet it is so.
hamletta wrote: “Lex, it’s not a competition. It’s about loving God’s children and meeting them where they are. The sexual politics of the countries in question are such that fornication isn’t necessary to contract the AIDS virus.”
Oh, but it is a competition among all who ostensibly claim “loving God’s children and meeting them where they are” as a motivating factor, and it’s not just Catholic vs. Protestant, as you well know.
From wikipedia: “Fornication, sometimes referred to as premarital sex, is a term which refers to any sexual activity between consenting unmarried partners.”
Please do explain what you mean about sexual politics of the countries in question and how fornication isn’t necessary to contract the AIDS virus. It isn’t a contaminated water supply at fault here. If it’s Africa that we’re discussing, from what I’ve read, it is hetero male infidelity to spouses that is primarily to blame for the spread of HIV/AIDS, made worse by the desperate and nigh unto impossible to squelch idea that an infected male can be cured by having sex with a virgin. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, HIV/AIDS transmission rates have fallen dramatically because of its counter cultural experiment with abstinence.
Your 15 minutes are almost up.
Lex, I would be absolutely thrilled to see some studies (not press releases from a church, thank you) on the idea that a “counter cultural experiment with abstinence” has been significantly more successful than non-abstinence-only efforts in other countries. Given that abstinence-only sex education fails it hard when applied to teenagers in America, I’m skeptical of the claim that it works kitteny magic on adults halfway ’round the world.
I’d really like to hear the good christians explain how abusive language and death threats towards Amanda are so christian. I have a tiny bit of experience with being called an “anti-religious bigot” by the “church” of $cientology, but at least the followers of El Wrong Hubbard never escalated to rape fantasies and death threats.
You know, Jesus did have something to say about being attacked and what you should do about it. Unfortunately, as I’m reading this, I don’t see how the abuse of Amanda and Melissa by those who claim to be religious fits in. Why don’t you read it and see:
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)
So, what about it, Christians? If you think Amanda’s an enemy, are you going to bless her, like Jesus said, or are you going to continue with your worldly ways of showing your extreme disapproval, such as the death threats and vituperative language? I want to see your exemption from following Holy Writ.
/M/
Amanda,
I’m ashamed to share the same planet with these ‘christians’… keep up the good work, I know I don’t have to tell you this, but don’t let them win…
After reading the specifics of your comments I was one of the persons writing to the Edwards website recommending you resign. I was the first to log into the OAC in our area so I was designated as captain. When you were not fired I resigned and now support Barack Obama. Please be aware of my personal background. I was a social worker for 30 years included in my duties was, on occasion, accompanying women to the abortion clinic after they made their choice. I am not Christian and am offended by many teachings of the Catholic Church particularly with respect to gay and women’s rights. During Vietnam I was a war resister eventually doing alternative service. Bill Donahue is a hatemonger and a bigot. That he is able to represent an organization with Catholic in the title is frightening. These times are reminiscent of when we were young. No matter what happened or what was said politicians did not stop the war. The sexism issues used as hot button campaign tools of today were the racism issues of yesterday [those Blacks and welfare cheats are getting too much]. My, and our liberal response, took on many forms: despair, confusion and a all encompassing anger that has been rekindled by the present administration. HOWEVER - websites are not private words seeping out to the abyss, but literature as preserved as the works of Socrates. The carelessness of your language brought your ideas to the level of hate speech. While in this context it is “free” speech, it is speech that should not be sanctioned by a campaign representing itself as uniting one another or turning the page from the unresolved animosities of our generation. Your speech alienates people like me too.
Lex - please do explain then just what exactly the women are supposed to do to protect themselves from the men? Pray? Hope that their particular guy hasn’t been running around, or that the man they’re being forced to marry isn’t one of “those” men? A social acceptance of condoms would at least give the women something concrete and helpful they could do to protect themselves.
Condoms aren’t the end all and be all of HIV protection, no, but they are an important adjunct to education, and ignoring them is the equivalent of saying “be perfect human beings - not only you, but your spouses - with regard to sexual matters, or you deserve a long, lingering, horrible death.” How Christian.
I’m sorry, are we being accused of being Marxists? Did it suddenly become 1967 or something?
Sorry to break it to the “Christians” but lots of people take issue with CHURCH doctrine. Some are athiests, like Amanda. Some are agnostics like me. Some are diests, some are secular humanists, some are Buddhists, some are Jewish. And a lot are Christian. I expect an institution that regards itself as the “one true church” to disrespect others’ beliefs (though many within that institution refuse to play that game). What is hypocritical, however, is for an institution that officially disrespects others’ beliefs to cry foul when someone else doesn’t exhibit full respect and deference for the institution’s beliefs.
Whether you claim to be a Christian or simply a human, you should show a smidgen more respect for the beliefs of others.
You guys first.
Amanda-
You are too nice. I say smoke ‘em. How many of those posts are violations of the Terms of Service of the ISP of those users? I know you like hate mail, but I’d take it to the most aggregious flamers. You don’t even need their real email.
Maybe they would just implode if they couldn’t spew their bile on the net for a few days. Either that or go back to flagellating themselves, front and back, like they did before the internet.
All the best.
[…] Truly I say to you: not enough people have been writing vile things to Amanda Marcotte. […]
NBarnes,
You said: “or that your god just didn’t care and I was blessed and so many others cursed because your god couldn’t engineer a better world.”
Are you suggesting that God (if there is a god) controls everything and if man chosses to do evil God should not allow it to happen? Should God make all women in oppressed regions of the world sterile, so children wouldn’t be born into squalid conditions? Should God force all evil people to be kind to their fellow human?
If you really are committed to liberal ideals, you should take a serious look at what God has based his dealings with us on. Free will. There is no more liberal ideal than that. I am not chastizing you, but what you are saying is being promoted by the most vocal liberals in this country. But what they ignore, and it makes us look stupid and hypocritical, is the fact that having free will does not mean (and never will mean) freedom from RESPONSIBILITY from the choices we make.
Amanda exercised her free will and now must be responsibly for her comments. I totally understand the concept behind her words, but I am offended by her choice of words. If it is true that Amanda deleted some of her past comments, well, that would suggest that she knows she was out of line but chose, by her own free will, to use words meant to enflame others.
We liberals only have ourselves to blame for this because we are the ones who castigate those who use politically incorrect words for blacks, gays, women, and others. Well, we don’t get to have it both ways. The concept behind PC cannot apply only to the groups we choose if we want to be taken seriously. PC speech MUST apply to all if we are going to be true liberals and not look like a bunch of self rightous hypocrites.
Amanda,
Thank you for being the strong woman that you are. Please continue to collect these hateful emails and use them as tools to display the outright hypocrisy and immorality of so-called Christians. True followers of Christ are cringing. Yet they know that these fear-mongering hate monkeys are like this because they live full of fear and anger – they live in Hell. Pity the poor fools.
Nonetheless, I wish that we progressives would do a better job of keeping the hateful rhetoric to a bare minimum. Sometimes shit has to be flung; sometimes we just can’t help ourselves; unfortunately, it is too easy for the right to use that as a tool in their attacks. We can discredit them by using their own words without reducing ourselves to their level.
We can do better. We DO better. We LIVE better lives. We WILL continue to change this world. The Old Guard is dying and their last breaths are filled with desperation as they bare their fangs and look for fresh blood. We will not be cowed by their verbal violence and manipulation of the media and their sheep.
Stay strong and keep on keepin’ on.
With tremendous gratitude,
Colin
One of the “Others�
P.S. My pontification will likely be scoffed at by wingnuts as they gleefully declare that it was you, Amanda, that let loose with hateful rhetoric. I would kindly point out that when it is hateful rhetoric and patriarchal oppression that elicits defiant and occasionally venomous retorts, those that lend credence to the former CANNOT invalidate the latter. What I find supremely comforting is that, by casting a wide “Othering� net, they cast themselves as the eventual political minority. They will rue the day that they started letting their sadistic ways bleed out into the public sphere instead of keeping them behind closed KKK doors where they could at least pretend that they are the chosen ones.
We will NOT conform.
grendelkhan, I started with a Google search: “Nigeria abstinence.”
You wrote: “Given that abstinence-only sex education fails it hard when applied to teenagers in America, I’m skeptical of the claim that it works kitteny magic on adults halfway ’round the world.”
Are American teens representative of African teens? Do the teens of Kenya or Chad or Mozambique identify with Lindsey Loham and Paris Hilton? What about Ice Cube? Do the adults???
The Echo Chamber of the Small Minded…
Bill Donohue is a spin doctor. Not a religious figure, not a spiritual leader, not even a true man of the cloth. He’s a one man PR firm for the Catholic church. His directed attacks on Edwards for hiring bloggers……
Lex, you’re awesome. I have had, I think, only one anti-choice nut ever show up in this blog and able to stifle his prurient interest in my sex life, choice of contraception, whatever. Hell, Dawn Eden had an open sexual fantasy about my fornications.
It makes sense, though. I’m white, middle class, college educated, and if I had kids, there’s a 75% chance they would be tow-headed, blue-eyed imps. No wonder there’s so much fascination from your conservative calvacade of the dire importance of making me procreate, especially if I don’t want to, since the latter situation would also mean that I was taken down a notch.
Amanda, I’ve disagreed with you, and continue to in some things. I’m still behind you 100% on this. And I say this as a Christian, raised Catholic, who still has a soft spot for the Church of Rome. As for Donohue, O’Reily, and all the fuckwads writing you this hatemail, I’m going to keep copy/pasting from my own blog until they get the point:
I renounce you, and all your lies, and all your works. I recognize the true source of the hateful, vicious rhetoric that you spew at every opportunity. You drive people away from the church, instilling in them the false idea that Christianity is about hate and exclusion, not about Christ’s message of universal, inclusive love. “No man can serve two masters”, and you have clearly chosen yours. And so, I renounce you. And every time I see you rise out of your fetid swamps of bigotry and ignorance, dripping with hate, I will denounce you, renounce you, and reaffirm that you do not speak for me, nor do you speak for the Lord.
I invite you to examine your words and deeds, and then join me, a fellow sinner, in prayer and repentance.
My, my Mr. Andy Driggers. Originally being from the Dallas area myself, I looked you up. Found a lovely wedding announcement for you and the lovely Mrs. But does she know about your vile diatribe and violent wishes to ‘do it’ to another woman?
Hey Amanda. Since you’re online, can you respond to my last comment to NBarnes? I’d really be interested in your thoughts on my opinion concerning this.
Wow. These guys are just horrible.
For the record, I’m both Christian and a Democrat, and I honestly think my involvement with both came from the same part of me: I want people to be kind to one another, and to take care of the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden. I hate social and economic inequality, and I hate discrimination. And this isn’t just from my soft heart, it’s from my big squishy brain, too, because people in general like people who like them, and who treat them kindly, and try to understand them– and people don’t like those people who don’t like them, and ignore them, and don’t bother learning anything about what they’re like. Sometimes I think that the teachings of Jesus are a sociological experiment where we were given specific instructions for how to make the world better, and that by and large the experiment has failed because the instructions are ignored while the instructor is worshipped.
I’m baffled by people who can spew so much hate in the name of religion. Hate is easy. Forgiveness and acceptance of others is hard. “Love thy neighbor” is the hardest fucking thing on earth to do because it doesn’t mean just the neighbors that you already like, it means the people who send hate mail and advocate rape and murder. The vast majority of neighbors suck, which makes being Christian very hard to do. Clearly there are a whole bunch of people out there who are not doing very well at it– myself included most days. (I like to think I get it right on some rare occasions.)
The point being, you’ve got my support. I’ve read through the stuff that the ‘wingers seem so upset about, and I don’t see anything that I haven’t heard said a hundred times, often by Catholics. You seem to have handled this abuse with grace and courage and humor, and for that– and for all your hard work– I tip my hat to you.
[…] Ghandi H. Christ, the getting of wisdom? Must there always be blood before there is peace? I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. […]
I thought the review of Children of Men was quite good. It’s criticism of church policy was very mild and you really have to be a fanatic to be ‘insulted’. The Catholic Church (and most other Christian churches), patriarchal? Duh.
I thought joining the Edward’s campaign was a mistake, but that’s your decision–its and old debate, play in the mainstream or be purist in principles. At first I thought that your resignation was a big mistake. But if the review of Children of Men provoked censure, then I can see why you could no longer be there. Sad.
But I am very happy you can now return to your excellent writing unfettered and, no doubt, wiser.
My, my, my! As a Texan myself, I found Andy Driggers comments so, well, Texan!
It seems there is an Andy Driggers with a wedding announcement easily found on the web. A lovely couple from a Dallas ‘burb. Question is, does the lovely Mrs. Driggers know her husband is itching to do nasty stuff with another woman?
Maybe he’s a baptist??
Tapetum
Feb 14th, 2007 at 9:18 am
“Lex - please do explain then just what exactly the women are supposed to do to protect themselves from the men? Pray? Hope that their particular guy hasn’t been running around, or that the man they’re being forced to marry isn’t one of “thoseâ€? men? A social acceptance of condoms would at least give the women something concrete and helpful they could do to protect themselves.”
Condoms aren’t the end all and be all of HIV protection, no, but they are an important adjunct to education, and ignoring them is the equivalent of saying “be perfect human beings - not only you, but your spouses - with regard to sexual matters, or you deserve a long, lingering, horrible death.� How Christian.
Hmm, the woman must convince her man to wear a condom in your scenario, cheating lout that he may be, and irrespective of social acceptance. Failing that, she has no recourse beyond prayer, discounted by default as an effective preventative. That is, appealing to God for help is worse than useless; it may well be lethal. Far better to implicitly trust a piece of extruded latex, a gift from some well meaning stranger. Hell, it’s better than no protection at all!
In any case, “those” people can’t be expected to behave completely rationally when “the urge” seizes them. “We” who don’t entirely trust “those” people to manage their own lives and marriages effectively can only hope to God (sort of) or Science (most definitely) that one or the other will have the gumption to at least grab the condom and insist on its use BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE TO STOP!!! and “We” have another case of HIV to try and contain.
Actions have consequences. It is hardly Christian to dispute this.
Whether you claim to be a Christian or simply a human, you should show a smidgen more respect for the beliefs of others.
One doesn’t need to respect others’ goofy-ass beliefs. One just needs to tolerate them.
I didn’t leave the catholic church - it left me.
I am not a Christian. However, this predictable response to such fiery comments could be called karmic. It is said among those of us who call ourselves Vaishnavs that the real challenge for a developed mind is to be able to convince one’s opponents and defend one’s viewpoints while remaining inoffensive in speech. We neither have to belittle nor swear at those we disagree with to make a valid point. I have long agreed with many of Ms. Marcotte’s opinions while resenting the nastiness of her style.
It reminds me, I am sad to say, of the way Ann Coulter writes. It makes me suspect a lack of depth, somehow.
“Every word is heard and processed in the mind,
And the reactions that they’ve spurred will the thoughtless speaker find.”
Former Edwards blogger posts the messages received that led to her resignation…
Amanda Marcotte recently resigned as a blogger with the John Edwards campaign, as did the other blogger, Melissa McEwan, and after both had overcome the negative campaign staged by the Catholic League against them. On this site, Amanda is posting the s…
I think you could have been a little more sensitive by not calling the bible part of the “Ancient Mythologies”. This only increased the gap just as it would to say the same about the Gita or Quran. While it’s perfectly acceptable for people have differences of opinion, it’s a bit childish to not respect someone’s beliefs (as you would expect them to respect yours). The fact remains that some people believe that these books are holy and we should respect that.
I’m wondering how many of these offensive posts are made by legitimate Christians (or any other religion for that matter). The internet tends to attract these type of comments that are the stuff of Middle School childeren. Although, Donohue seems to make statements not to far off from some of these posts.
I would like whoever reads this to try to learn about other beliefs and try to be more understanding of them (this includes humanism).
Imagine all the people….
Amanda, please take all of the truely awful hatemail these people have been sending and maybe make an outakes page somewhere? A collection of all of these awful hate filled oh so christian comments would be a great resource to link to, you know to let people know the writings of the true christians.
BTW, this made the morning news on CNN today. It may not go away but it looks like the tables are turning from the Edwards blogger story toward the hate-fest smear campaign. Have the absolute hate these people spewed discussed in the national media could go a long way to discredit them.
Sometimes handing these people a mic is the best approach and let them hang themselves.
If people want to see more media coverage of the real story about this, the smear and hate coming out of the religious right email CNN and ask them to do a story on it. They actually do read those emails and sometimes act on them.
To essaykay, who asked: “are you saying that all church experiences are good, pure, and without sin? Land sakes, I’d like to visit YOUR church.”
No, I never said that at all. But I’d like you to visit my church too. In fact, “a church” would probably suffice.
In all, Amanda appears to have an extremely limited understanding of Christianity, and yet hates the faith. I’m postulating, sure, but her hatred probably isn’t based on any personal experience. Rather, her comments seem a reaction to actions by those who also offend Christians. Either way, I can’t imagine anything that would justify the hatred and bigotry Amanda displays. It’s sad.
We pray the same Good Friday prayer at my church. And it’s a good one. Thanks for reciting it.
To Numad: It’s o.k. that Amanda doesn’t consider it that way. I do, and so does Catholic teaching… the point of my comment. Nothing escaped me, much less simple notions. I understand perfectly her position and mine. Now, would you? Thanks.
I suggest everyone call the Catholic League at -
212-371-3191
and make a complaint about Bill Donahue. When I called last night and got the VM his cell phone number was posted as well.
CALL NOW PEOPLE OR FOREVER HOLD YUR PIECE.
The Right Wing isn’t the only ones who can protest what they do not approve of, period. it’s high time to rally our troops.
I have faith but not religion and there is nothing wrong with my Y-chromosome that said — I still like you, and enjoy what you have to say.
The hate mail that Amanda has received is inexcusable. Those people may think that they are Christians but they are mistaken. However, they are not expressing themselves differently than Amanda does. The only real difference is that she is quite intelligent; they sure don’t seem to be. But the language, the anger, the hatred of the “other” is the same on both sides. There is a lesson here, if one cares to learn it.
I would only add my voice to those who have said, to the effect, that the best defense is a good offense. We need to let these hate-mongers and the MSM that carry their water know that we’re not turning the other cheek anymore.
For someone who claims to have been quoted “out of context,” you have just pulled a passage out of the Bible and proceeded to ignore half its message. The last line of the passage you quoted was:
“And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.â€?”
In other words, Jesus wasn’t ignoring or excusing what she did. He forgave her because they agreed she wasn’t going to do it anymore. In other words, she could show contrition and make amends.
In this case, you refused to do that. After Edwards stood by you and gave you another chance, you proceeded just this weekend to write a review of “Children of Men” in which once again you went out of your way to ridicule the Church. That was totally gratuitous; the rest of your movie review did not depend on it and would have been fine without it, but you just couldn’t resist sticking the knife into Christianity yet one more time.
That’s not in keeping with Jesus’ “From now on sin no more.”
Ever since the 1960’s, there has been this segment of the Left that believes that acting like boors and assholes and getting in everybody else’s face is a political statement, whereas civility, mutual respect and common decency are too “bourgeois” for them. You’re in that category. Starting in the late 1970’s, the Right, of course, copied your tactics; and now America is a less civil, more vulgar, less decent society for all. Congratulations. You “progressives” have succeeded in lowering the tone for the entire country, Left and Right included. From illicit drug use to STDs to heckling opposition figures to simple refusal to act in a civil manner, you set the pace.
Good for you, Amanda. Another lurker who has your back amongst these vile “Christian” trolls.
Amanda, as a devout Lutheran I’m here to say: fuck those people. They’re ignorant of the faith they’re supposedly living. I look forward, as always, to more of your well-informed, clever, funny, and insightful work.
Sorry to see so many people who claim to love Jesus launch into the stratosphere of goofiness. I wonder if they know the Jesus I do. The one who was killed by the religious leaders. The one who has no patience for judgement outside the “Church”. I wish you well.
Why should anyone care if the Catholics worship Mary? Or if there have been a few active women in the Catholic church? How does that prove that Catholic theology isn’t misogynist?
If Catholicism isn’t misogynist, then why aren’t women allowed to become priests, or bishops, or even pope? Why is it that only men are allowed to make up all these silly rules about the appropriate use of a woman’s body?
Rachel,
You said: “I’m baffled by people who can spew so much hate in the name of religion.”
As a christian, I’m baffled by people who can spew so much hate in the name of anything. THIS is why, IMHO, Amanda MUST accept responsibility for her choice of tone and words.
Roger Snowden: If you want to see mysoginy, take a look at Islam. Then you might appreciate Christianity a bit more.
Actually, just like the Christian churches and their representatives who continually misintrepret the living daylights out of the Bible, so does Islam have its fair share of nutjobs who misintrepret the Koran. When the Koran was written, it was awfully subversive of the then-dominant social order, insisting that women be treated fairly, receive inheritance rights, blah blah blah. The problems start cropping up when morons like the Taliban, Sharia courts stocked with Bush-nominee-esque judges, Islamic politicians, etc stick their nose in and interpret the Koran for their own misogynistic purposes.
From http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/w_islam/fmedu.htm
and http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/w_islam/inhrt.htm
You’ll find some pretty interesting reading on that site, Roger.
We were with you in the skirmishes before,
We were with you in the fray
We will be with you going forward,
Since forward lies our common way.
This whole episode is full of lessons for me and probably has more to unfold. But first, how are you holding up? Will it help if I massage a few of Pandagon’s adverts with my mouse?
I cannot judge the Edwards campaign for seeing a fit between your style [and your offenses, if any there be, are pretty much down to style IMO] the “standards” of discourse in presidential campaigning. Aren’t they already in tatters, those standards? Thuglicans and seriously rich people who don’t care what their money breaks on the way to buying a presidency have added “swiftboat” to the vocabulary of political campaigning. Every candidate will just have to set their own it seems…and we voters will then judge. I know from calling voters prior to the last election that the average registered democrat is fairly sick of hateful attack campaigning. I do consider it to Edwards’ credit that he expressed confidence in your ability and insight and kept you on the campaign.
The rancor is not without precedent but feels like a new low in the life of our democracy as an enterprise of informed public debate. This demise takes on a particular symptom here:Asymmetrical 1st Amendment. Their right to practice their religion ON OTHERS shall not be abridged and your right to bad-mouth the harms they work on disenfranchised women, gay people and others shall not count as protected free speech. Is the one way street they make of the bill of rights a step toward eliminating it altogether and setting up a theocracy? the itchy rabid pack at Donahue’s beck and call are an embarrassment to what I, a lapsed [insert any religion], know of people of faith…most of whom regard civility or tolerance as one of their values. But in the smoke of this particular battle, I have lost sight of whether those who do good and abide differences BECAUSE of their faith are a majority among those who identify as “religious people”. While individual Christians have demonstrated their consciences in disowning the sentiments and tactics you have been subjected to, what religious leader of Donhue’s rank has spoken against this? You are absolutely, documentably, right in pointing out that Donahues’s attack dogs are a political faction stalking under a religious label. That ploy has great advantages under the defacto rules. Just wear that crucifix on the outside of your brown shirt and you get a free pass into the big tents.
I am bummed out to see how much the world is still in the hands of intolerant primitives. I feel challenged to understand the particular fears and ignorance that add up to the perception of war-like status that pins a mind like Donahue’s in its place. I feel challenged not to react in ways that make his vision of culture war a self fulfilling wish. [I am failing that challenge just now so there goes my chances of blogging for any presidential candidate] My faith is unshaken: if a thing is wrong and unfair, there must be some way to show that it is wrong and unfair. A civil liberty has been most uncivilly trampled here. And you have been done out of a career move that your energies and keen critical abilities had earned you.
It never hurts to label a bottle of wine or medicine but my how badly it breaks discourse, progress and understanding to put a label on a human being. Great is the harm of labeling whole classes of people; it enables insensitivity. Greater harm for a human being to label themselves; it suspends thought and in a flash gives one a hoard of imagined enemies.
Write on, Amanda!
In terms of all these Catholic ayatollahs, some google searches turn up interesting non-results. For example, the guy from Texas that thinks you need sex, well, turns out google says he doesn’t even have a penis.
By the way, I’ve been blasting folks on a right-wing website. All kinds of vile responses. But I’m jealous of you–no death threats yet.
Hang in there.
BTW, I saw a bumper sticker you might find amusing:
“Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers”
Sorry to point out the obvious here, but all the people who are attacking Amanda, don’t seem to be attacking her views per se, but rather ‘how’ she chooses to expresses them. I have yet to see any of you who don’t agree with Amanda putting forth something like:
‘I don’t think the Catholic church is misogynistic because……’
Why is no-one refuting the ‘Catholic Church is misogynistic’ angle?
I’m waiting for someone to tell me why it isn’t.
Keep up the good work. I was raised a catholic. Taught to respect my elders et cetera.
I am appaulled by the responses you have received. Their ignorance screams volumes.
Your right to freedom of speech is sacrosanct. This bigotry turns my stomach. I wish I could help. Your patience and compassion is an example which I as a christians would have been proud to have shown. You are leading by example. Jesus would have defended you too!!!!!
PLEASE CONTINUE TO LEAD
THE CHRISTIANS NEED TO BE REMINDED WHAT IT IS TO BE CHRISTIAN
Thank you for restoring some of my faith in humanity
Stephen
Roger Snowden at 2/13, 10:51 am is truly funny.
So, you need to appreciate Christianity’s brand of misogyny a little bit more
because it’s so much milder than the seventh century brand of Islamic
misogyny. Woo! It reminds me of that anecdote about the husband who to turns
to his wife after finding out a friend of theirs is a wife beater and saying,
“Aren’t you glad I don’t do that?”
(I may be an emotionally abusive asshole, but at least I don’t physically beat you up!)
Melissa McEwan “Resigns” From Edwards Campaign…
Fox News is reporting that Melissa McEwan has followed Amanda Marcotte back into the dark bowels of the sinstrosphere. “This was a decision I made, with the campaign’s reluctant support, because my remaining the focus of sustained ideological attacks…
trailer park chick asks: “Why is it that only men are allowed to make up all these silly rules about the appropriate use of a woman’s body?”
It’s the Catholics’ decision to make, not yours.
Nobody on earth is forced to stay a Catholic. Nobody on earth is being forced to convert to Catholicism. Those who freely choose Catholicism and choose to accept the Pope’s spiritual guidance have made a choice which you should respect, even if you totally disagree with it. That’s what this is all about, still being able to show mutual respect for views that you are diametrically opposed to.
Even if you don’t respect it, there are proper and improper ways to show that disrespect. Mockery in a comedy routine is one thing. Signing aboard a Presidential campaign is not a good way. Far more American voters are people of faith than are atheists; that’s a statistical fact. And no candidate can get elected who appeals to atheists and pisses off Catholics and anyone else who’s devout enough to stand by Catholics when they are being slammed.
[…] There are gaps in my intelligence on the recent Amanda Marcotte/Shakes Sis/psychotic godbag/American Political Machine episode. I am not in possession of all the facts. For instance, was there a train? My stomach clenches when I think of Amanda, bursting with young, sparkling genius, a scuffed leather suitcase in her hand, waving goodbye through a billow of steam as the train sweeps away from the station for the Edwards campaign, only to be jumped in the club car by vulgar hate-filled minions of the vile godbag Donohue turd, before anyone can bring her a martini. […]
RightSide:
Read this and read it closely…before it’s too late.
Book of Matthew:
15:7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
15:10 And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand:
15:11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
15:12 Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?
15:13 But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
15:14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
[…] Happens. […]
As someone who is trying to be religious (I fail, most of the time) - I do have to say, this business truly appalls me. I disagreed with you, Amanda, with the way you framed your discourse - but if I was truly offended (I was not, but let’s assume I was) - why would I answer in kind? A horrific hypocrisy is at work here.
These people are crazy. They truly belong in the imaginary hell their religion has created.
The hypocrisy in these attacks is not only self-evident, it’s as glaring as a Las Vegas casino front. Not to mention the bad grammar; somehow I doubt any of these people went to Catholic schools.
Keep up the good work, Amanda. We’re behind you.
Wow! That is really something, I admire your fortitude in the middle of all this abuse. I am puzzled by the ‘Christian’ that wished your mother had aborted you. He must really be angry;-) The really scary thing is that there are tens of millions of these people ready to do the bidding of crackpots all in the name of religion. I fear for the future of this continent and the fascist overtones that may envelop us all.
Amanda,
I am very sorry that you have received such hateful mail. It is inappropriate…and I do not condone or sanction it.
While I disagree with you on virtually everything, I am curious to know how you feel about John Edwards comments concerning you:
“The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwen’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else.�
How do you feel about John Edwards’ characterization of your writings as “intolerant language�?
Assuming that Senator Edwards is correct in his assessment that your language is intolerant, do you think that you might benefit from sensitivity training?
Ms. Marcotte,
Bill Donohue and his associates are sadly typical of the conservative movement. You’ve said what needs to be said about them, and yes, I do believe these Christians would like to see you sexually tortured. Unfortuntely for all of us, these Christians are determined to vote and reproduce. I am probably a bit to the right of your politics, Ms. Marcotte, but thank you for fighting the good fight.
Tom
From your sampling, these Christian emailers must be striving to follow Jesus’s point about how those who come to him “as little children” will enter the kingdom of heaven…
Swear words and insults certainly capture the spirit of childishness. Do they stick out their tongues when they actually meet you or just give the holy “sign of the finger?”
These are very sophisticated, insightful emails. I feel myself on the verge of seeing it their way.
The real question is why is there so much anger in the US? Looked at objectively even the poorest person in the US has a better standard of living than the over 2 billion people who live on $2 or less a day.
I’m guessing the anger is fueled by their powerlessness. Just look at how life in modern society works. When you are a child you are told what to do by your parents. When you get older it is your teachers and school authorities. If you are religious then add in religious leaders.
When you enter the workforce your boss tells you what to do. Finally there are all the limitations on behavior imposed by government regulation. For many now one can’t even chose their own doctors.
For men, especially, who are inculcated with the belief that they are supposed to be strong and the breadwinner, this powerlessness ends up being taken out on women and children.
One can also see this pent up anger in the rising road range and need for muscle cars to prove one’s independence. Such powerlessness has also spilled over into our foreign policy where a bunch of nerds seized control of government and proceed to show their manliness by getting other people killed.
Imagine if you will…
Some 2,000 years ago…
A certain preacher is traversing up and down Israel preaching some mighty unconventional things. Stuff like, love, forgiveness, charity, etc. A certain person hears some of his sermons second-hand and is mightily impressed. He tries to catch up with him and see first hand what all the noise is about. He does, but someone tells him, “Oh, my! Don’t follow that person! That notorious whore Magdelene works for him. If he has her on the staff, surely, he must not be a good person.”
?
What is it with all those people who don’t bother to actually read what you said? they go off on this tangent saying that you hate Jesus and Christians and Catholics and OMG YOU FEMINAZI when they obviously have NOT taken the time to read what you wrote?!
I feel for you Amanda, it’s a real pain in the butt having people twist your words to fit some pre-determined belief they have.
Then they can go to Church on Sunday and be all Holy and Righteous because they brought the Word of God to a Sinner. Amen, Lord, Amen!
I’ve been a long time reader and it Made My Day when you once responded to a posting I wrote on your blog. I printed it out and framed it. It’s on my wall right now. I Humbly Postrate Myself to my Godless Heathen Feminist. My lady, How Can I Serve You?
(okay, I was kidding in that last paragraph.. )
HUGS.
What is it with all those people who don’t bother to actually read what you said? they go off on this tangent saying that you hate Jesus and Christians and Catholics and OMG YOU FEMINAZI when they obviously have NOT taken the time to read what you wrote?!
I feel for you Amanda, it’s a real pain in the butt having people twist your words to fit some pre-determined belief they have.
Then they can go to Church on Sunday and be all Holy and Righteous because they brought the Word of God to a Sinner. Amen, Lord, Amen!
I’ve been a long time reader and it Made My Day when you once responded to a posting I wrote on your blog. I printed it out and framed it. It’s on my wall right now. I Humbly Postrate Myself to my Godless Heathen Feminist. My lady, How Can I Serve You?
(okay, I was kidding in that last paragraph.. )
HUGS.
“PLEASE! Could one of you just simply tell me that I can’t get laid, so we can get on with it?”
Heh Rob - we have already established that you are jealous of Amanda and want to be her. Go put on a dress and pumps and call it a day.
But please if you are looking for abuse hire a Dominatrix, or call Ted Haggard for advice.
We’re not interested in subscribing to your wingnut fantasy of having Liberal and Moderate America walk over your back in golf spikes.
Jeez, the nerve of you Rob - take your Ann Coulter fantasies elsewhere, please.
Keep up the good work Amanda. Our political process doesn’t need more censorship it needs less. It doesn’t need more Christians, it needs much less. It is a statement about our society and its version of Democracy when a group of religious fanatics can cause so much trouble for a campaign. Ask yourself this question: If we had 100% publicly funded elections, would this still be the case? Votes would still matter yes, but funding, which I fear is the primary motivator for your resignation, would not be an issue.
I’m concerned about Edward’s campaign, I hate to hold this against him but who else can I blame? Ultimately, he could have stood up for you.
-Mark
Nobody on earth is forced to stay a Catholic. Nobody on earth is being forced to convert to Catholicism. Those who freely choose Catholicism and choose to accept the Pope’s spiritual guidance have made a choice which you should respect, even if you totally disagree with it.
Well Rightside, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, religious factions which enter the political fray with the intention of establishing religious doctrine as public policy may not then whine that their “religion” is exempt from criticism.
Again, do check out John Hovat II. He has an interesting take on “natural law” and public policy.
One of the greatest problems in this world is irrational extremists especially those people that would condemn Catholics for their faith and those Catholics who don’t understand their faith to the point that they would cast figurative jagged stones at the condemner.
You’ve all reaped what you’ve sown and nothing will change so long as you stay the same.
Edwards called Amanda’s words intolerant. Was Edwards wrong?
If Edwards was correct, the question remains whether she should attend sensitivity training.
[…] Also, whatever they wrote, no matter how offensive to one’s faith, does not in anyway justify the mounds of hate mail, some encouraged by the right wing blogs, that the two of them have recieved. Marcotte, posted some of the hate mail on her site. Just like Kyrsten Sinema’s recent e-mails, Marcotte’s hate mail contains rape threats. Is this a trend? […]
While it’s perfectly acceptable for people have differences of opinion, it’s a bit childish to not respect someone’s beliefs (as you would expect them to respect yours).
But that’s just the point - many of them don’t, and never will. The stubborn certitude in one’s own unprovable worldview is the very nature of religion, or at least one of the inherent pitfalls of it. Amanda does not see the world the way they do. She’s an atheist and a feminist. She’s argued (persuasively, IMO) that the Catholic worldview in particular poses an active danger to people around the world and is intentionally and overtly hostile to her, as a woman. Why should she be obligated to respect a belief set that she perceives in that way?
The fact remains that some people believe that these books are holy and we should respect that.
So what? The second half of this sentence doesn’t follow logically from the first, or at least not without some explanation.
I am just so fucking sick of people whining that religious beliefs deserve respect, and then offering no justification at all.
Whether you claim to be a Christian or simply a human, you should show a smidgen more respect for the beliefs of others.
I assume that the people who hold this opinion are very reverent towards those who believe Raven created the world or that Zeus impregnanted human women while in disguise. No eye-rolling, you guys! Everyone’s beliefs are sacred.
Or are you perhaps confusing the belief itself with the right to hold the belief?
But the language, the anger, the hatred of the “other� is the same on both sides. There is a lesson here, if one cares to learn it.
And that lesson is that Lily is really Joe Klein, Richard Cohen or David Broder.
Amanda,
Good job dealing with these nutters. They represent a loud and incredibly stupid minority of Christians. You’re their target of the week, but weather the storm and you’ll come out stronger than before!
I think you could have been a little more sensitive by not calling the bible part of the “Ancient Mythologies�.
Is the Bible not a “traditional story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society”? Was the Bible not canonised before the fall of the Western Roman Empire?
This only increased the gap just as it would to say the same about the Gita or Quran.
Anyone who has the first clue about mythology would instantly tell you yes, the Gitas are ancient mythology. The Quran is not… it’s a medeival mythology based on an ancient mythology.
While it’s perfectly acceptable for people have differences of opinion, it’s a bit childish to not respect someone’s beliefs (as you would expect them to respect yours).
Indeed, but that ain’t what’s happening here. This isn’t a difference of opinion, it’s one side not knowing what the fuck they’re talking about and the other side using plain fact to needle them over it. The disrespect here - in more than a jollying way - is from the Christians who can not stand to see their beliefs placed on the same footing as others’ beliefs.
The fact remains that some people believe that these books are holy and we should respect that.
Some people believe (or believed) that EVERY mythology was holy. Hence the “supernatural” part of the definition.
I respect Christianity just as much as I respect any other mythology (that is, anthropologically and historically fascinating but utterly absurd). I can not fathom any non-fallacious reason it would deserve more respect.
[…] Here’s a sample of the ‘Christian love” Amanda received: Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man! Living in Texas myself, I know you haven’t found that real Texan yet. But once your liberal pro feminist ass gets a real good fucking, you might see the light. Until then, enjoy your battery operated toys b/c most real men wouldn’t want to give you the fucking you deserve b/c the shit that would come out of you ears. […]
Edwards lost my vote when he said he was not comfortable with your work fight against Christianist bigots.
He is not the man we need to stand up to the Theocrats trying to take over our Secular Democratic Socialist country.
He needed to take this opportunity to agree with what you wrote. The Anti-Abortion Catholic crowd are a nasty small minded bunch … I promise you … my family is fool of them. They honestly believe women are inferior to men, the older group feels morally superior - which makes them feel “special” - for holding anti-abortion, anti-contraception beliefs. Of course these women in my familiy our now out of the age to have children - when the were the loved the PILL!
Hypocrites - and Edwards was not going to get their vote. And now he lost mine.
Just too weak for what we need in Amercia today.
trailer park chick Feb 14th, 2007 at 11:09 am
If Catholicism isn’t misogynist, then why aren’t women allowed to become priests, or bishops, or even pope? Why is it that only men are allowed to make up all these silly rules about the appropriate use of a woman’s body?
Here ya’ go:
1. Jesus selected only men as disciples - I guess you have to blame Him.
2. It’s not about what a woman does with her body, it’s what she does with the other (littler) body inside her.
- you might not agree that a gestating baby is a person based on the idea that it cannot survive on its own. The same could be said about a one-year-old. Would you advocate post-partum abortion since that child is also helpless?
Let’s face it, this is all about personal responsibility and you have a tough time signing on to that kind of buzzkill. (I mention it here also: http://tommason.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!49EE332ACF0CD87C!1024.entry)
I have Catholic relatives and I asked them about this issue. To them women are considered venerated and actively participate in the church. They actually have statues of Mary in every church. Women can be eucharistic ministers (just like married men).
Consider this..married men and women cannot be priests, why? Because the earthly requirements of parenthood would lessen their focus on Christ. Being sent to the worst parts of the world (where many Catholic charities help the poor) you must remain focused on those around you, not on yourself. That is why liberals would not make it as priests either. (sorry, please don’t apply…but I can see from the posts that you won’t anyway).
Enjoy the double-wide and the pink flamingos.
Love, TJ
Amanda Marcotte, Feb 14th, 2007 at 9:51 am
“Lex, you’re awesome. I have had, I think, only one anti-choice nut ever show up in this blog and able to stifle his prurient interest in my sex life, choice of contraception, whatever. Hell, Dawn Eden had an open sexual fantasy about my fornications.
It makes sense, though. I’m white, middle class, college educated, and if I had kids, there’s a 75% chance they would be tow-headed, blue-eyed imps. No wonder there’s so much fascination from your conservative calvacade of the dire importance of making me procreate, especially if I don’t want to, since the latter situation would also mean that I was taken down a notch.”
Amanda, I’ve not kept pace with blog parlance, code words and the like, so I’ll simply assume, unless otherwise disabused of the notion, that being designated awesome is a good thing in the blogosphere, at least by your lights. At the same time you leave me a bit perplexed. What defines an anti-choice nut? I prefer to think that I am pro-choice, as in, I favor providing women with any and all helps that they might need to carry their pregnancies to term and beyond, no matter the setting, so that the choices that they do ultimately make will truly be free and not the result of any kind of coercion.
It might surprise you to learn that my oppposition to elective abortion is not grounded in religion and/or revealed truth -a nonstarter as far as I’m concerned- but in an appreciation for civil rights, and a conviction that human life, no matter its condition and state of dependency on others, should never be treated as so much disposable private property. Of course, medical situations arise where the mother must choose to save her own life at the expense of the child that she carries. Let the mother decide.
Whether youprocreate or engage in fornications out the wazoo, Amanda, is entirely your business. Nor am I worried about the Brown Tide taking over America, beginning with Texas, or LBP’s taking over my home state of West Virginia.
I am somewhat confused by the title of the blog. She never really does make a convincing case that the criticisms she receives are from “people who claim to love Jesus.”
as a christian feminist of color blogger, i received my first threat of violence from an angry religious guy over the summer, so i applaud your grace under pressure. reading through the vile comments and the hate mail, i’m convinced more than ever that the kind of bigotry and hatred displayed is all just a sign of some malignant mental disorder.
and, whatever they call themselves (Catholic, Christian, faithful, whatever) it’s clear that their religious training was piss poor: they clearly haven’t read one of the final instructions christ gave his disciples to go to every town and spread the good news, and where the good news - or Gospel - was rejected, they were to leave the town and shake the dust from their sandals, and move on.
nothing about writing hate mail, defending the faith with violence and rape, or spitting with vile poison. just move on.
anyway, hang in there. (and i love your work!)
“Because the earthly requirements of parenthood would lessen their focus on Christ. Being sent to the worst parts of the world (where many Catholic charities help the poor) you must remain focused on those around you, not on yourself”
So are you supposed to focus on Christ…. or those around you? Which one? Or both? Doesn’t that lessen the focus on Christ though…
I wanted to comment earlier, but y’all were down. Long time reader, first time commenting.
Keep writing, and ignore the people who like to call you “offensive” and “hateful” but think that wishing you could be violated is okay. I don’t always agree with what you have to say, but that’s the way life works.
DV
1. Jesus selected only men as disciples - I guess you have to blame Him.
Good Heavens, TJ…are you telling us that Jesus is/was both sexist and completely irrational?
Who knew?
Oh my God… I love you!
Keep writing, keep challenging and keep questioning!
After the Resurrection, Jesus revealed himself to his female followers first.
They were the ones who did not betray him, or deny him.
Jesus was neither sexist nor irrational. He DID, however, know that he was surrounded by a sexist and irrational society… And this society exists to this day.
[…] I don’t fault Shakes personally for this decision; based on the hate mail that Amanda Marcott got — vile, vicious stuff — I imagine there was a very good reason for the resignation. But it makes me less likely to vote for Edwards. Not only did the Edwards campaign apparently initially want to fire Shakes, when they eventually did the right thing under pressure, they did so tepidly and in a manner that made it clear that thy were not prepared to go to the mat against the anti-Semitic Bill Donahue, which left an opening for the smears to continue. Something Shakes said in her resignation is telling: This was a decision I made, with the campaign’s reluctant support, because my remaining the focus of sustained ideological attacks was inevitably making me a liability to the campaign, and making me increasingly uncomfortable with my and my family’s level of exposure. […]
Can’t face reading the whole thread, but the emails were vile enough. I don’t know if DWF is right about that Andy Driggers, but I sure am willing to bet it’s THIS Andy Driggers:
4 PC is destroying the country right before our eyes. People need to wake up before it is too late. What would the MSM say today if Bush took the fight to the terrorists the way Truman did in WWII. WE have 21 century weapons and our fighting 17 century warfare. Why do we spend billions for our development on weapons to sit idol during conflict? Not saying we should nuke, but the Sunni Triangle should have been dust over a year ago. Bush needs to wake up, the MSM is never going to like him so get over it. Do what is right for our brave men and women and kill these radical Islamic bastards. I believe in the fight, not the way it is being fought!
Posted by: Andy Driggers at September 27, 2005 09:36 AM
18 Who in there right mind wants to see 2 fags dressed up as Cowboys? It can win all the Golden Globes and Oscar’s awards, most real men will Not watch this movie. Now the men who are feminized pussies may rush to see it, but other than NYC, LA and SF nobody gives a shit about it! I hope Hollywood continues their trend, 2006 will make 2005 look like a banner year.
Posted by: Andy Driggers at December 14, 2005 09:03 AM
4 Muhammad was gay
Posted by: Andy Driggers at November 07, 2005 03:59 PM
A fine combination of homophobia and islamophobia, so I’m not surprised to find misogyny on the list as well…
Gary, I don’t understand. The title of the blog is “Pandagon.” It says nothing about Jesus.
In other words, Jesus wasn’t ignoring or excusing what she did. He forgave her because they agreed she wasn’t going to do it anymore. In other words, she could show contrition and make amends.
In this case, you refused to do that. After Edwards stood by you and gave you another chance, you proceeded just this weekend to write a review of “Children of Men� in which once again you went out of your way to ridicule the Church.
i, Ridiculing the Church isn’t a sin.
ii, Equating yourself to Jesus is.
Lib4life Feb 14th, 2007 at 11:15 am
…“As a christian, I’m baffled by people who can spew so much hate in the name of anything. THIS is why, IMHO, Amanda MUST accept responsibility for her choice of tone and words.”
Dude, she did. She resigned. What else does she have to do? Rend her clothes? Tear her hair? Vindictive much?
And, may I mention that Jesus not only had female disciples and was surprisingly egalitarian, but that quite a bit of the text related to the same was taken out over the years by various councils? And also by Paul and the sexist assholes who even at the very beginning were uncomfortable dealing with women on an equal footing. (In particular, Mary of Magdala, later painted as a “whore” to discredit her. In fact, she was a wealthy and learned woman who supported Jesus early on).
Learn your own church’s history before you start defending the doctrine-as-presently-interpreted-by-Paul’s-successors. Go read Elaine Pagel’s book on the Gnostic Gospels, other writings on the Nag Hammadi scrolls, or any number of books on how the Bible has been misinterpreted for the dominant male culture’s benefit. In other words, think for yourself and don’t let the church do all the thinking for you. This is how Protestantism came about, after all, and some of the most virulent hate directed towards Amanda and other feminists comes from the evangelical wing of the breakaway Protestants.
Many, many Catholics have done good in the world over the years. It’s when the splinter groups like Donohue’s get all het up that they start giving everyone a bad name.
Excuse the obvious next statement, but I just have to say it.
Those people are REALLY hypocritical if they think they’re acting like Christians.
How much of that tripe do you have to wade through to find a semblence of a decent counter-argument for any of your claims?
Romanco de Leone is wrong: Amanda is NOT fat.
(For a super-brief summary of the Paul/Mary smackdown, check out the description of the book The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle by Karen L. King)
Bold text mine.
Lib4Life:
“As a christian, I’m baffled by people who can spew so much hate in the name of anything. THIS is why, IMHO, Amanda MUST accept responsibility for her choice of tone and words.”
First off, I’d like to suggest that there’s a certain amount of difference between Amanda’s choice of words and tone and the people suggesting she should die, get raped, suck cock, or all of the above. Certainly both lack in civility, and arguments or statements lacking in civility are likely to repel rather than convince. The magnitude of scale, however, must be mentioned; there’s a difference between telling somebody that they suck and telling somebody that you hope that they’re raped and murdered because it’s what they deserve. Both are bad; one is definitely worse.
The blogging world is prone to rants and profanity, even from people who spend most of the time trying to be rational and civil. On the one hand, it is how it is, and it seems silly to expect it to change. It is possible to agree with a message and disapprove of its tone, and in the blogosphere we’ve mostly learned to let the tone slide and deal with the message underneath. On the other hand, it does make it easy for people outside the blogosphere to mischaracterize us.
I think that the question of how established bloggers and campaigns interact is still a new one, and I’m disappointed about how this one came down. There was a chance to work out a lot of questions, and while there’s a lot of argument going on, I think that the question of tone has gotten in the way. Do bloggers suspend their independent blogs while working for a campaign? Is blogging independently the same thing as talking independently to television or print media? Does the campaign have a responsibility to protect the bloggers, or do the bloggers have a responsibility to protect the campaign? Do we cover our asses or go on the offensive?
What Amanda said, and how she said it, was perfectly reasonable in the blogging world; how that relates to the world of politics, though, is another question. I don’t think the question has been answered yet.
Dear Amanda,
I feel so bad that this is happening to you. Those people leaving those comments are NASTY, HATE FILLED BIGOTS themselves. It makes me sick that people who call themselves Christians can be so vile and abusive. I went to Catholic school, and I probably have more knowledge of the Bible in my little finger than any of these maggot brains; and I would like to think that if Jesus is paying attention to any of this, He’s rooting for you to go out there and kick some racist bigoted Pharisee ass.
I’m sure you’ve probably heard this already…. but it wold be SO funny if you posted the emails of these people next to their hateful disgusting comments so we all could have a chance to tell them what we think. I’d love to, actually…
Keep on Keepin’ On, Sister!!
Love,
Christen Petitt
Tampa, FL
Thank God for Women Like Amanda.
Stay Strong.
Stay Smart.
Stay Brave.
Magickitty,
Yes, she did resign. But deleting comments in an attempt to fool people is not accepting responsibility. But, I am going to wait and see how she handles herself from here on out and decide if your assertion is factual.
Why I’m Not Backing A Primary Candidate…
Melissa McEwan has followed Marcotte in resigning from the Edwards campaign: A second blogger working for Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards quit Tuesday under pressure from conservative critics who said her previous online messages were an…
Amanda,
I doubt we would agree on much and I doubt we would enjoy each others company in any setting. I disagree wholeheartedly with almost every word I have read from your blog. Admittedly these visits are only since the controversey and probably will never occur again. However, I find vile, nasty posts such as those shown above absolutley repugnant. No one should be subjected to that kind of vitriole.
Stay strong. I know you will.
i’m more a lurker than poster, but what’s been done in the name of some christians god is as wrong as wrong gets.
karma is a funny thing. i don’t think they’ll enjoy their portion.
speak truth.
stand with certainty.
hear with your heart.
engage your mind.
and know you are worthy.
i figure the rule of three pretty much works for living life.
so, from one old gal who’s armor is battered and tends to need numerous repairs from her own quiet fights against the good old boy networks, good on ya!
i may rattle when i walk, but i still walk.
here’s lending you a slender thread of encouragement and strength. be strong, be well, be you.
that’s the greatest of gifts the world can hope for.
just continue to be you!
thank you for that!
Doremi: semantic sophistry - who did Christ focus on? God or the people?
Shannon: you really have to stay away from the historical fiction. Did you know that, after making his money, Dan Brown admitted the Davinci Code was fiction? Sorry to burst the bubble on that.
I’m just writing to let you know how awful I feel that you both are having to go through all that garbage with the Unofficial Bill Donahue Mouth-Breathing Freepers’ Club. I can’t believe that, in this day and age, our political AND religious discourse is poisoned with people who claim to be Christians but are anything but Christ-like.
Just as much as the idiots who’ve been threatening you with rape and death threats, I find it horrible that the so-called “kinder, gentler” critics on your blog are tacitly excusing these horrible threats by suggesting you shouldn’t have written your commentary to begin with. Which country do we live in, again? Whatever happened to freedom of speech and religious beliefs? And if leaders of one religion–such as Catholicism–are causing, ignoring, or enabling human suffering (example: AIDS in Africa and the Catholic Church’s anti-birth control stance), why shouldn’t they be held to account? I just don’t get it.
I do have to say that I really wish you two didn’t give up and cave into these freaks’ demands. I am really glad that we have great writers like you to bring attention to these issues; I’m just so sorry that total nutcases feel like they have to have the upper hand when it comes to our country’s political discourse. They have NO RIGHT to threaten you out of your job with the Edwards campaign; if you had stayed, you would have had legions of support behind you–even moreso than those freaks at Bill’s Bigot Brigade.
We still do support you, of course; but I have to say that I’m honestly disappointed that you gave up so soon. We need to battle the Religious Right and all of their auxiliary arms, up to and including the Opus Dei-like freakishness that is Bill Donohue and his henchmen. Please know that I have written a long and deeply inflammatory letter to Bill Donohue and his Lack of Catholicism League to express my outrage at the ruin he is causing in lives like yours.
Keep writing, keep speaking out, and keep up the fight–many, many others and I are with you all of the way.
So the Bible is just ancient mythologies and campfire stories to you, but it doesn’t stop you from trying to hide behind it when it’s conveeeeenient for you. LOL.
Girl, keep your head up! Don’t let these frustrated wankers get under your skin. They all sound like THEY are the ones that need a good fucking!
I am sending out love and warmth to you today. Have a Happy Valentines Day!
Peace.
HOWEVER - websites are not private words seeping out to the abyss, but literature as preserved as the works of Socrates. The carelessness of your language brought your ideas to the level of hate speech. While in this context it is “free� speech, it is speech that should not be sanctioned by a campaign representing itself as uniting one another or turning the page from the unresolved animosities of our generation. Your speech alienates people like me too.
Why does it “alienate” you??
So TJ…show me any teaching in the NT where Jesus advocates the subordination of women.
I use my Mom’s King James version, btw.
A rational person would think that if the universal subordination of women was so important and so critical to salvation, Jesus would have given us the teaching. He did not. Why is that, do you think?
TJ Feb 14th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Doremi: semantic sophistry - who did Christ focus on? God or the people?
Shannon: you really have to stay away from the historical fiction. Did you know that, after making his money, Dan Brown admitted the Davinci Code was fiction? Sorry to burst the bubble on that.
TJ, you poor ignorant soulless.
Check out The Complete Gospels (ed. Robert J. Miller) and do a little research on the canon formation of the Bible.
Sorry to burst your arrogance. Or not.
The carelessness of your language brought your ideas to the level of hate speech.
I would point out that speech that denies women’s equality, agency and autonomy is are the words of hate, no matter how pretty, condescending and truely sincere the words.
Dress is it up as “love” all you want…it is the “kind” of “love” that denigrates, diminishes and infantilizes women. Please forgive Amanda for copping an attitude. How unreasonable.
Being raised Christian myself, I try to be understanding and try not to hate any of my fellow human beings.
That being said, I think I hate the people who wrote these e-mails.
Sorry TJ, the gospel of mary is legit, unlike Dan Brown’s successful attempt to make money as a writer (more power to him, wish i could). Shannon is absolutely right and her quotation concerning the gospel (supressed by partriachal christianity), is very appropriate.
[…] At Pandagon, Amanda has samples of the emails she has received. She concludes: I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the hate mail the Bill Donohue’s “Christianâ€? campaign against me has inspired. This is all stuff from days ago—I’ve gotten more than 100 since. Hell, from the looks of my email from last night, I’ve had more than 100 in the past 12 hours from self-proclaimed Christians who want me to know that I have hurt their feelings and this has nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with their own misogyny and tendency to witch hunt. […]
There’s no place in a free country for authoritarians like Donohue, and no place for those who lap up his hatred. The Catholic Church is responsible for a great deal of human misery around the world, but I doubt that Donohue speaks for more than a handful of raving lunatics, neo-nazi stooges and braindead morons.
I’m sorry you were forced to leave the Edwards campaign, it will do him a great deal of damage.
Okay, um, no.
a) hasn’t been successful here in the US, in fact STDs are up, teen pragnancies are up … any intelligent person realises that when dealing with a complex problem, a diverse range of options are needed to best combat such; hence comprehensive sex education including abortion services.
b) what about those that don’t believe the same as you? Are you going to impose your dogmatic beliefs on those that don’t follow your mythology? Because in advocating for making public/civil policy based on such, that is what you are doing; being theocratic.
c) marriage doesn’t mean jack for protection, both in terms of being raped (by strangers or not) and simply that spouses aren’t always faithful. It’s a nice fantasy if you believe otherwise, but reality has a little bone to pick with you.
c) what about gays and lesbians? It’s people like you that say we have to be abstinent but then also campaign to not allow us to be married, even though it’s none of your business.
We criticise religions like Catholicism not because we hate them, in fact we’d really love not to have to hate them, but rather because they are attempting to have their beliefs enshrined in law and be imposed on everyone else. Practices which are racist, homophobic, misogynistic and intolerant. Calling out someone or something for such behaviour is not just reasonable, it’s fucking required. If you link your religion to those things, then honestly, I seriously pity you.
Amanda hon -
I’ve mostly been focused on supporting shakes in this, because she and I are good friends, but I also wanted to pop over and offer you my love and support as well. You are a strong, powerful, intelligent, insightful and compassionate human being hon, and I look forward to seeing more equally intelligent commentary from you in the future *big hugs*
“…laying around this house, because even though I’m not a Christian, I was an English major”
OK, everyone is entitled to a slip once in awhile.
Life4Life:
Yeah, I have free will. Except that if I stop breathing, or am denied food, or am beaten, I die. And if I’m mistreated in certain ways, I go insane. And I’m built to have certain needs and desires and I pine (and possible go insane again) if they are not met. Other than those problems, I have free will.
Which means, of course, that your idea of what ‘free will’ means in the theological sense has basically nothing to do with my life. And even less to do with the lives of people less fortunate than I am, who’s lives are nearly defined by their experience of want and violence.
If I am to buy into your conception of ‘God’, I have to believe that it was planned this way and that, even more ridiculously, that this is the best God could do and I’m told I should be grateful.
R.P. from MS:
Why you gotta make God hit you like that, Amanda? Can’t you see He loves you?
Dear Amanda et. al,
Keep fighting the good fight! I am in awe of your grace under fire. If it makes you feel better, you speak for all of us opinionated women who are shocked by the vitriol our desire to simply have our say in the mainstream dialogue always occasions, even in this day and age.
Exposing the misogyny in religion is no easy task. While reform-minded sects of Christianity and Judaism ordain women and marry gays, reactionary wings fear us, corrral us into second-class status. Is there any wonder that the Da Vinci code book and movie, were so popular? I can say that I truly think the main propelling force of the book, and what has made it more popular than other potboilers of its kind, is the readers’ universal desire to unearth the sick misogynist church conspiracy at the center of it all. People are hungry for the church, which has done everything from burning witches on up, to have its comeuppance. And you’ve tapped into a very primal battle.
So congrats, and tell your critics to stop drinking so much haterade, cause it doesn’t make them look pretty at all.
Amanda
Just a quick note to identify myself as a parochial school survivor who believes that the message of Jesus, love and forgiveness, is easy to jettison in favor of hateful rantings of the like espoused by Mr. Donohue and numerous others whose email you have been subjected to of late. Remember 1) love and forgivess is an extreme and radical message that is quite difficult to live up to each and every day and 2) there are far more people who often agree with what you say, and even more who will defend your right to say it, even when we don’t agree, than your current experience would lead you to believe do in fact exist. It’s just that we don’t take the time to write because we are not enormously and irrationally upset. However, I take the time to write today to reassure you that there are many, many, many people (and yes, Catholics) like me who enjoy reading you, and thinking about what you have to say, even if you don’t hear from us all that often. Once people bring their religion into a political discussion, they waive the right to be offended when other people in the conversation refuse to walk on eggs in deference to their religious beliefs. They don’t get to end the discussion by saying “that is what my God and His Book says.� Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Jim Podczerwinski
“Robbie-snookums, anyone who celebrates the sheer joy of fucking in the face of the disapproval of moralising prudes and whimpering milquetoasts such as yourself is nobody’s victim.”
This is too much. This smacks of something teenagers who think they invented sex might say.
Almost everybody, about the time they leave for college or thereabouts, leaves behind the fond adolescent notion that their sexual activities are pissing somebody off. Why haven’t you guys?
Celebrating the sheer joy of fucking in the face of what is, in fact, mostly the indifference of the rest of the world, who are busy tending to their own business and doing their own fucking, is OK if that’s what turns you on, of course, but it’s far from heroic.
Pendragon—
I couldn’t bring your post to work without risking my employment status, so I’m writing from memory of what I read last night.
That you only received 100 or so derogatory e-mails is somewhat miraculous, and I’ll venture to guess that those folks are hardly Catholic. Try saying something that in times past was common morality and count the thousands of vile e-mails that will result.
I’ve tried to read through your blog but can’t get past the scatological, sexual, and other assorted sordid vulgarities. Any potentially valid points you may try to communicate are lost amid the repulsive and unnecessary language you employ far too often to be explained by “shock value� rhetoric.
A sad sort of irony surrounds your current situation. Most of your writing appears rooted in your quest to create a “my-vagina-centric� universe wherein others exist solely for your objectification and/or gratification, while simultaneously excoriating young men who exhibit the same philosophy by hiring strippers and treating them as sex toys (regardless of whether a rape occurred, which the accuser now says did not.) You demand the right to say whatever you wish about whom or whatever irks you, yet want deny the same right to those who disagree with you, e.g. William Donahue. You condemn as mere breeders the Catholic faithful who support scores of Catholic hospitals, schools, orphanages and other social service organizations, and then attack those same people for not contributing enough of their paychecks to the government which you believe, based upon your alignment with John “Two Americas� Edwards, is responsible for satisfying every human being’s wants and desires. And the list goes on.
With apologies in advance for the consternation, I was against abortion long before I was Catholic based solely upon biology. I was against licentiousness long before I was Catholic based solely upon experience and logic. I was against socialism long before I was Catholic because socialism is contrary to human dignity. I am Catholic because only the Catholic philosophy accounts for all the facts I’ve accumulated and events I’ve experienced. I am Catholic, to paraphrase Chesterton, because only Catholicism teaches the things that don’t seem to be true, but are.
Like you, I was once deceived by the notion of “sex with all, no consequences attached,� and eventually the impact of that behavior on oneself and others will breach the flimsy excuses used to justify the pursuit of sex without consequences. If you’ve any intellectual honesty about you, there will come a time when you too will be unable to disregard the consequences of your actions and I pray that the fall from your self-constructed pedestal will be less painful than mine.
I will remember you at Mass.
Could you please direct me to your post condemning the nasty people who were sending Malkin similar rape-fantasy hate mail. Thank you.
Why you gotta make God hit you like that, Amanda? Can’t you see He loves you?
Hilarious and sad simultaneously.
Marie, by all means, be catholic after the fact, as it fits your frame of reference. Bear in mind that your “frame of reference” does not, and never will define the experience and reality of…the rest of us.
Larkspur, I am not Batman. I do not go around combating hypocrisy and intellectual frauds wherever they occur. I have a personal interest in the Duke case. However, I completely agree with you about O’Reilley, and calling him out this latest nonsense would be like trying to melt a glacier with a book of matches. O’Reilley is simply too far gone to even engage at this point. It would be like engaging mainstream religion by addressing the many flaws of Pat Robertson. The man claims that his energy drink is infused by god and allows him to leg press 2000lbs. For god’s sake…it’s just too much. Amanda Marcotte however doesn’t seem to be as far gone as either one of these men. Therefore, I still attempt to engage her intellect.
As for the person who talked about the background checking of Vivien Thomas. It should help them to know that Vivien Thomas died in 1985 or ‘87. He was the surgical assistant of Alfred Blaylock, Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins surgeon, who pioneered the blue-baby condition in the 1940s. His is truly an amazingly inspiring, sad and moving story. Of course, it goes without saying that the person interested in checking the background of Vivien Thomas is woefully ignorant of the standard operating procedure of intelligent people when trolling the internet.
Ron and Shannon,
I appreciate being schooled by those who are so knowledgeable on Christianity.
Oh wait….
“Jenkins points out that the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were completed by the year 100 or so. It is unlikely that any of the Nag Hammadi materials date from much before 150 and most were probably written between 150 and 250 or later. There is no way to know with certainty that they were written much before 350 when they were hidden.
While Karen King of the Jesus Seminar has attempted to place an early date on the “Gospel of Mary,” most other scholars have disagreed with these attempts. Dating of texts is a very subjective exercise. The scholars depend on such clues as the setting and a comparison of the ideas and language with other texts from the time of the writing. On these grounds most scholars would argue that the “Gospel of Mary” was written at the end of the second century or the beginning of the third. The motivation for attempts to date some of these publications earlier and earlier would seem to be to support modern aspirations and hopes and dreams, such as establishing Mary of Magdalene as an Apostle. Even Rosemary Ruether(Catholic feminist theologian), however, dates the “Gospel of Mary” no earlier than the early the third century.
How old was Mary Magdelene when she wrote it?
Shannon–
“…Bush-nominee-esque judges…”
The entire agenda of the Bush judges is to interpret the law as written, rather than make up their own. Now, you might not like the outcome of a particular case, but if you prefer Constitution-by-whimsy you best get lucky in the future.
Isn’t the legal system better and more fair when the law is somewhat predictable, and consistently applied?
As for radical Islam, the only difference between radicals and so-called moderates is, the radicals prefer the latter writings of Muhammed rather than his earlier stuff. He actually said God tells us to kill the Jews, and all others who are not Muslim.
The fairness of treatment simply meant your husband is expected to be reasonable before he beats you senseless. He is still the boss, plain and simple. And if you get raped, it’s your fault alone. You are the adulterer and you hang alone.
I just don’t recall any recent stonings of women for adultery anywhere outside a Muslim country. Do you? For that alone, I would say we are centuries ahead, don’t you agree?
Fuck their piles of stinking Jesus shit.
I am a born again (as Jesus calls it) Bible-believing Christian (not Catholic) going on 2 years now. Putting my life in Christ’s hands was the most amazing thing to ever happen to me. Jesus tells us to love your neighbor and love your enemy. With that said, I just wanted to post a message in response to your comment about Mary taking Plan B. Though it is your God-inspired, constitutional right to say what you feel and think, I do feel it was insulting to the basic doctrine of Christian teaching and to Christians personally.
Whatever the reason was for the comment, it was (again) your right to do so, I will in NO way condemn you for it. Christians who give true honor and praise to Jesus are to pray for those who persecute or mock them. Even though it hurts me to hear anyone say things like this, it is not my place to judge you. In conclusion, I wanted to say that some of the comments posted to you and about you personally were just terrible!
No one deserves to be talked to like that. And if anyone, who “claims” to be a Christian, were the ones posting those comments, needs to repent and ask Jesus to forgive them. And whatever your feelings are personally about God or Jesus, even if you don’t believe in him to be your personal Savior, he believes in you and loves you very much, because he formed you in your mother’s womb for a reason!
Thank you for your time.
Rightside: For someone who claims to have been quoted “out of context,� you have just pulled a passage out of the Bible and proceeded to ignore half its message. The last line of the passage you quoted was:
“And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.��
In other words, Jesus wasn’t ignoring or excusing what she did. He forgave her because they agreed she wasn’t going to do it anymore. In other words, she could show contrition and make amends.
No. Amanda caught the meat of the matter. The accused woman never said she would sin no more (and being human, per doctrine, she couldn’t manage it, no matter how hard she tried). Nor did Jesus demand that she agree to it before he saved her. No, he saw to it that those who were accusing her were shamed for the hypocrisy of their position.
Looking elsewhere we see that Jesus had no expectation that people would only sin once.
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Matt 18: 21-22 (KJ)
If you continue with that passage:
Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.
So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
So no, Jesus doesn’t even demand that people try to be perfect, but rather strive to be good, to, (as Micah said) Love justice, do mercy and walk humbly with their God.
TK
You know, Christians are concerned with getting us all to Heaven…
But how can it be Heaven if it’s filled with intolerant Christians constantly saying, “I told you so.”
If that’s what it will be, I wanna go to hell.
Roger Snowden wrote:
“The entire agenda of the Bush judges is to interpret the law as written, rather than make up their own.”
No, it’s not. That’s what they *say* their agenda is, but their actions tell another story. The hypocrisy of Bushites on this stuff is pretty well documented; I’m afraid I don’t have a link to a good collection of it on hand right this second, but I’m pretty sure someone else can assist you.
I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the Ninth Amendment, but one of the core features of “Bush Judges” is a desire to completely ignore this essential piece of written law, and they do so in every one of their many rulings giving the government power at the expense of the people’s rights. They also routinely ignore the Fourth Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure), the Due Process clause, and many other clear pieces of written Constitutional law….
The thing with Donohue, his minions and most of the hardcore evangelical wingnut types is that the love and mercy of Christ are not convenient to their agandas, they focus almost solely on the most authoritarian pieces of scripture (mostly out of Leviticus) that they can use as a bludgeon against those who do not conform to their notions of piety.
In otherwords, their theological wordlview is almost identical to that of the hardcore Jihadists that they like to say we on the left are so close to.
To wit; i think Donohue would look nice with a turban and a beard calling out his fatwa against Amanda and Melissa. it’d be appropriate
Centurion:
I believe Mark Twain said “You go to Heaven for the atmosphere, you go to Hell for the company”
I said elsewhere that i take comfort in the notion that most of the people who so gleefully and smugly tell me what an awful hellbound sinner i am will find themselves surprised to be roasting right beside me when me and my handbasket get where we are going
>>>There’s no place in a free country for authoritarians like Donohue,
Spoken like a true authoritarian.
There is no virtue in being tolerant of the intolerant.
The Roman Catholic Church by its own self-definition is an intolerant, overgrown religious cult. The sooner the human race leaves it behind the better.
Deconstructing Sarah in Chicago Feb 14th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I wrote: �in other words, [the catholic church] is not afflicted with condomania, as you appear to be, but rather teaches whomever will listen that abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage are 100% effective in avoiding STDs.�
Sarah, replied:
“Okay, um, no.
a) hasn’t been successful here in the US, in fact STDs are up, teen pragnancies are up … any intelligent person realises that when dealing with a complex problem, a diverse range of options are needed to best combat such; hence comprehensive sex education including abortion services.
How, pray tell, did these fine folks contract STDs and get pregnant? Based on your logic, pastors should henceforth dispense with preaching the Sermon on the Mount, seeing that people are going to ignore its precepts and do whatever they damn well please anyway. Put another way, the fault is not in what’s being taught by the RC Church, but the fact that what is taught is being ignored, in many cases deliberately.
b) what about those that don’t believe the same as you? Are you going to impose your dogmatic beliefs on those that don’t follow your mythology? Because in advocating for making public/civil policy based on such, that is what you are doing; being theocratic.
Naturally, consistent thinker that you are, you would also object if the RC Church advocated for a policy position that you actually supported, right? I strongly suspect that it’s far more than the thought that the RC Church has some influence over the formulation of public policy that irks you. You object that catholic schools and hospitals, recipients of federal assistance, can and do refuse to refer for and/or perform elective abortions, and this as a matter of religious freedom under the COTUS. You don’t like conscience clauses at all, I’d wager.
c) marriage doesn’t mean jack for protection, both in terms of being raped (by strangers or not) and simply that spouses aren’t always faithful. It’s a nice fantasy if you believe otherwise, but reality has a little bone to pick with you.
Again, what do rape and marital infidelity have to do with what Rome teaches? Do you imagine that Catholic doctrine causes either?
c) what about gays and lesbians? It’s people like you that say we have to be abstinent but then also campaign to not allow us to be married, even though it’s none of your business.
If it’s none of my business, then why are you asking me about it? I know of no Magisterial campaign to deny marriage rights to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, asexuals, or sexually undefined people. Do you? In any case, Rome encourages abstinence for all the unmarried. If they can’t abide by this teaching, then perhaps they should look elsewhere for a faith tradition that affirms them in their sexual choices/identities/proclivities/obsessions.
We criticise religions like Catholicism not because we hate them, in fact we’d really love not to have to hate them, but rather because they are attempting to have their beliefs enshrined in law and be imposed on everyone else. Practices which are racist, homophobic, misogynistic and intolerant. Calling out someone or something for such behaviour is not just reasonable, it’s fucking required. If you link your religion to those things, then honestly, I seriously pity you.
Racist practices? Name some, please. Homophobic? Lots of Catholic priests and nuns are gay and lesbian, but they have vowed celibacy in imitation of Jesus, who was himself celibate. Misogynistic? There may yet be a Pope Joan. Intolerant? I think by this charge you mean to state that anything that Rome teaches that doesn’t pass muster with your exquisitely honed sense of justice is of necessity “intolerant.â€? It doesn’t mean that you are right, but that you most sincerely believe that you are.
Lex
“[The Catholic Church] teaches whomever will listen that abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage are 100% effective in avoiding STDs.”
Unfortunately for Catholics, this “teaching” is 100% false: a pack of lies.
You can be faithful, but your spouse may not be. This is in fact the *leading method of transmission of AIDS to women* worldwide.
The Catholic Church actively supports letting women die slowly and painfully because of the sins of their husbands. Why does it support this? This is an incredibly immoral thing to due, especially for a “church”.
Del Shaffer wrote: “The Bible is inerrant ”
Anyone who says this *hasn’t read the Bible*. The Bible *contradicts itself*, many times. Start reading from beginning to end, read every page. When you’re done, I swear you will recognize that the Bible was written by falliable human beings.
Lex -
I’m not even going to go near anything of what you wrote, you missed the entire point, context and meaning in what I wrote. Go ahead and frame what I wrote how you want, but I’m not going to engage you in your silly denials.
Though, for the record, no I don’t support any position advocated from a religious perspective, regardless of if it supports a position of mine or not. Religion has no place in the public/civil sphere.
Nathanael Nerode, Feb 14th, 2007 at 7:55 pm, wrote:
Lex
“[The Catholic Church] teaches whomever will listen that abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage are 100% effective in avoiding STDs.�
Unfortunately for Catholics, this “teaching� is 100% false: a pack of lies.
You can be faithful, but your spouse may not be. This is in fact the *leading method of transmission of AIDS to women* worldwide.
The Catholic Church actively supports letting women die slowly and painfully because of the sins of their husbands. Why does it support this? This is an incredibly immoral thing to due, especially for a “church�.
How to respond to this bit of rambling and malicious nonsense? Hmmm. I know!
What the RC Church teaches can be and actually is ignored, but it’s still to blame for the spread of HIV/AIDS, you see, because the Pastors are supposed to hand out condoms first and then preach on marital fidelity and abstinence, quaint concepts, to be sure, but you have to keep up appearances.
Incidentally, as a legal matter, if a spouse cheats, contracts HIV, and then gives it to his faithful Catholic wife, at least the Church can avoid being sued IF the pastor was wise and handed out condoms at the door to everyone -men, women, and yes, even children, and insisted on their use. Even so, in spite of it all, if the woman DOES contract HIV, develop AIDS, and suffer a slow and painful death, well, she should regard it all as a redemptive form of suffering for her lout of a husband who NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXPECTED to keep his dick under control in the first place! She should be grateful! Do I hear an Amen?
How’d I do, Rev. Nerode? Have I captured the essence, the very heart of your sublime theological perspective?
Wow! Sarah in Chicago. Was it my reference to sexually undefined people that did me in? I had hoped to enage in genuine dialogue with you. Silly me!
Though, for the record, I must point out that you can’t on the one hand write that “I’m not even going to go near anything of what you wrote,” and on the other address directly one if the points that I raised by writing, “I don’t support any position advocated from a religious perspective, regardless of if it supports a position of mine or not. Religion has no place in the public/civil sphere.”
Lex is being disingenous (I know, you are all shocked).
He is correct that abstinence, and purely diadic sexual relationships; which last until death, and begin with both partners as virgins, will protect the members from getting an STD.
However, this is, as the church (and the Bible) admit, not the way things work.
The evidence is that, in places where this is the sort of sexual education given to people, it fails, dramatically, and all too predictably.
That we, as a culture have adopted (in the all too recent past) the idea of this sort of male/female interaction (check the English, and the Puritans, who expected people to be pregnant when they married; and by expected I don’t mean they thought such a pregnancy to be needful, but common enough that the saying, “a new bride can do in six months, what takes a cow, or a countess, nine” exists).
If such things weren’t so common, then God wouldn’t need to make such a big deal about it.
And Jesus wouldn’t have needed to make such a big deal out of forgiving people, yea, unto seventy times seven times.
TK
Ms. Marcotte, how can you quote from the worst, most vicious attack e-mails on you, without attempting to respond to any intelligent rebuttal e-mails of your position? Did you find no intelligent rebuttals from Christians in your e-mail? I find that difficult to believe considering that I see numerous conservative Christians posting comments to this very blog entry. They are all, as far as I can see, polite and fair-minded, even if you don’t think that they are particularly intellectually astute. What is the true ratio of e-mails you recieved like those you posted to e-mails you recieved that politely tried to convince you of the opposing point of view? Is it intellectually honest to simply set up straw men and knock them down?
Do you and the supportive commentators here not see how we Catholics might take quotations like “the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.” and “What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?” as crossing the line from constructive criticism to gratuitous mockery? At least one person here has said that we shouldn’t be angry because it’s “bashing” Christianity, not Christians. Well, how would it be if I said, “I don’t bash secularists, modernists, and humanists, only secularism, modernism, and humanism, which are the most repulsive, disgusting, ignorant, foolish ideologies in human history and have caused the suffering of untold millions.” Would you let that slide without comment?
Another issue is how dismissive you all tend to of the Church’s teachings, labeling them “racist, homophobic, and misogynistic”, as if that claim is enough to win the debate. This would be like me simply calling what your views “heresy” and leaving it there, as if the word “heresy” is enough to convince you that I am right and you are wrong. Some of us to see the Church’s positions on homosexuality, contraception, abortion, extramarital sexual activity, married priests and priestesses, to be either “homophobic” or “misogynistic”. As for racism, I don’t understand what any of this has to do with that, but it’s often just thrown in for good measure. Why not actually research what the Church teaches and her rationale behind her positions and try to construct a cogent argument against them? Try to achieve an understanding of the other side’s point of view. We’re not simply a bunch of superstitious morons who haven’t ever had experienced rational thought. We have reasons for believing what we do.
And one of the things a Catholic believes is that anyone who disagrees with the doctrines of the Roman Church is a heretic.
So, when you start a conversation by saying, “Hello, I believe you are a heretic and that you will burn in hell for all eternity” don’t be surprised when you’re told to “Fuck off.”
I’m 65, and I have a hard time understanding these “Christian” posters. This is not snark. I find it truly IMPOSSIBLE to UNDERSTAND their complete and utter ignorance of human history, civilization, sociology, anthropology, science, philosophy, and simple reality. I think their wires are crossed, indeed, but I DON’T KNOW WHY. I do admire Quakers. They are ethical people, and brave, and have some basis for ‘faith’ in non-violence. I admire Franciscans. They live and die with the poor. But everyone knows that in the beginning, man created ‘god/s’, — for social and political purposes. You can’t get through the 5th grade and still ‘believe’ in some sort of 2000 year old middle east prophetic tradition anti-Roman zealot cult thingy — Jesus is no more magic than the tooth fairy, we all know that. Or the old burning bush and riding to the skies on clouds like Mohammed and Moroni. Arabian Nights redux And all based on Indo-European and Babylonian mythology, anyway. SO if you DO ‘believe’ these things, you’re seriously lacking in brain cells. Of course if you believe in compassion, love, courage, hope, justice — you’re not religious, you are just a GOOD PERSON. No hope of reward, you see, in just being good - because it’s a natural thing to do. Help others with no thought of a heavenly bonus from the great CEO in the sky. Just faith in PEOPLE, and the golden rule, so lacking in American history. SO — it seems obvious that most American’s ‘religious’ fervor is simply — betting to get in the ‘gated community’ of celluloid ‘heaven’ (no poor need apply) — and greed. Ah, I guess it was simple all along. Let Americans be Americans. It’s a world of Ferengi. or Very Cecille De Mille. And the FERENGI have attacked these two women who dared to call them out. Always useful to see the ORc behind the mask, eh? Even the ones in the gingham dresses with the cookies. And the vacuous eyes.
“However, this is, as the church (and the Bible) admit, not the way things work.” Terry Karney
I would imagine that some pragmatically utilitarian sorts also told Jesus that turning the other cheek was not the way things work.
Then again, perhaps Jesus, like me, was being disingenuous, eh, Rev. Karney? After all, as you write, paraphrasing, “The evidence is that, in places where this is the sort of ethical education given to people, it fails, dramatically, and all too predictably.”
Maybe Jesus could have spared himself much grief if he’d simply remained a carpenter from Nazareth. To borrow from Jesus Christ Superstar, “Tables, chairs and oaken chests, would have suited Jesus best. He’d have caused nobody harm, no one alarm…”
[…] This is charming. I’m hardly a fan of her writing and there are plenty of bloggers whose opinions I actively loathe, but I’ve never been tempted to write hate mail of any sort. I don’t really get it. […]
marc page, Feb 14th, 2007 at 9:59 pm, writes:
“And one of the things a Catholic believes is that anyone who disagrees with the doctrines of the Roman Church is a heretic. False. Allow me to make a suggestion: do your homework, start here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm. While you’re at it, look up the expression, “invincible ignorance.”
So, when you start a conversation by saying, “Hello, I believe you are a heretic and that you will burn in hell for all eternity� don’t be surprised when you’re told to “Fuck off.� Has that been your experience, marc? Which role did you play?
Rachel,
I am fairly new to blogging and I have seen first hand the attitudes that allow people to use such language. It is nothing new. When immature people get itno situations where they are annonomous, they act in ways that they would not otherwise. (Just look at the threats in this topic) I know there is a difference between threats and what Amanda said, but the intent is the same. To enflame. To provoke. To insult. I cannot excuse anyone who acts that way and I judge those who do by what they say, how they say it, what their intentions are, and how they handle themselves when responsibility for their choices comes due.
In this respect, I will not excuse a righty because of what Amanda said, and visa versa.
Lex Feb 14th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
marc page, Feb 14th, 2007 at 9:59 pm, writes:
“And one of the things a Catholic believes is that anyone who disagrees with the doctrines of the Roman Church is a heretic.” False.
Oh, really? So, The One Holy and Apostolic Church no longer purports to be the “One True Church?” Something tells me you are personally acquainted with “invincible ignorance.”
So, when you start a conversation by saying, “Hello, I believe you are a heretic and that you will burn in hell for all eternity� don’t be surprised when you’re told to “Fuck off.� Has that been your experience, marc? Which role did you play?
Allow me then to repeat my line, so you can be sure of my role in your drama:
Fuck off.
It’s nice to know that Mary Margaret D’Angelo admires Franciscans, even though in her considered opinion, such people are “seriously lacking in brain cells.” While the uninitiated might be tempted to take offense at her apparently insulting scribblings, the truth of it is that she is a gnostic writer par excellence. How else to explain her many cleverly veiled references? It’s just too blamed bad that I lost my decoder ring a year ago! : (
Uh, no. Try again.
There is a difference between biting, even cruel satire on the one hand and a threat of violence, up to and including rape, on the other.
Of course, if you are so profoundly out of control of yourself and your emotions that satire directed at you as a member of a privileged group is as serious and triggering as threats of rape… well, I think it explains a lot.
Among other things, there is an unsubtle legal distinction between the two.
A bit touchy, are we? The question is what constitutes a heretic, You haven’t addressed it. Nor have I called you a heretic. I gather that you enjoy inventing straw men and knocking them down. Suit yourself, marc the foul.
“addressed it” ??? Are we mailing Valentines here?
The definition of “heretic” I was using was the definition used by the Roman Catholic Church. Any religious doctrine that is not approved by the Catholic Church is, by definition, an heretical doctrine.
If you’d like, I will draw a diagram for you. (With crayon, of course, so you’ll feel comfortable.)
Golly gee, marc the foul. You wrote, “one of the things a Catholic believes is that anyone who disagrees with the doctrines of the Roman Church is a heretic.” which is clearly NOT the same as saying “Any religious doctrine that is not approved by the Catholic Church is, by definition, an heretical doctrine.” Disagreeing with doctrine does not a heretic make.
If you’re going to pretend that you’re a theologian, at least get your argument straight, and yes, I insist that you diagram it in crayon for my benefit.
Here’s the diagram, dummy:
Statement A = Statement B.
What a Roman Catholic believes is not decided by the individual believer. The Church dictates belief. And so, if the Church deems any deviation from docrine to be heresy, the individual believer must also view deviations from doctrine as heresy.
Now, go sit in the corner.
[…] In an earlier post I indicated John Edwards campaign blogger Amanda Marcotte was fired from the campaign. At her personal blog, Pandagon, Marcotte corrects that she was not fired, but offered a resignation which was accepted. If I am clear about the outcome, she must have later retracted her resignation. […]
marc page says: “…one of the things a Catholic believes is that anyone who disagrees with the doctrines of the Roman Church is a heretic.”
So do secular-modernists believe that anyone who disagrees with secular-modernist ideology is a woman-hating, racist, fascist swine? Because sometimes it sure seems that way from this perspective.
…when you start a conversation by saying, “Hello, I believe you are a heretic and that you will burn in hell for all eternityâ€? don’t be surprised when you’re told to “Fuck off.â€?
Agreed. And when you start a conversation with a Catholic by saying “Hello, I believe your Church is misogynistic, homophobic, and only in it for power and money.” don’t be surprised to be told the same.
Fair enough. Now, fuck off.
It’s amazing to me to see religion in America these days…
It’s really an incredible sight to see…
You sleep around. You pray about it. You keep on, keeping on…
You sleep around, you get caught. You have your ‘Swaggart moment’. Declare yourself a ’sinner’, do the alligator tears and quivering lip (Forgive me for I have sinned), in public, preferably on the teevee… Maybe do ‘intensive counseling’… Well, shucks, you got it made… It’s a great racket. All you have to do is make your ‘apology seem convincing enough and you’re set…
You get caught buying air conditioned dog houses, solid gold plumbing fixtures and exploiting your teevee viewers faith in your lies… You sleep with your secretary and get caught paying millions in ‘hush money’ and you have your ‘Swaggart moment’, do some time and when you get out some of the folks you swindled out of their last dime are lined up to ‘forgive you’ and shove more money in your pocket.
‘Churches’ are lined up at the back door of the White House with their hands out for the money ladled out by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove for ’service rendered’. Millions of dollars pour into ‘religious’ leaders pockets for spreading the word that George W. Bush, the ‘man of god’ that God himself put in the White House is a decent and honest man and would never lie yet speaks with a forked tongue that would impress Satan himself. A man that sells the very core of America to any nation willing to get into the pig bin with him for it. A man that lies about his past (coc snorting, hard drinking, abortion forcing, law breaking, drunk driving, father fighting, draft dodging, under achieving frat boy) who chooses, or has chosen for him, a man that thinks he is the ruler of the world and him and his boy (George) are the supreme rulers over the air, land and sea… A foul-mouthed, reckless, egomaniacal hot head that told a member of congress to ‘fuck yourself’…
Yes, true ‘men of (the modern) God’… Members of a religion led by men with money in their hearts and ;ies on their lips…
I listened to a ‘catholic channel’ on Sirius yesterday and they were discussing ‘their’ presidential candidates and Giuliani and Brownback came up. Both men of strange pasts. Rudy is evil incarnate. Brownback would spit on a hooker instead of taking to them. Both men heck, all republicans seem to have a very strong contempt for nature and human rights as their first focus. It’s all about the power and money. Some were calling in about one or the other not being ‘right to life’ enough… Right to life doesn’t end when a person is born! You have to respect that life in totality otherwise you are a fool!
Satan himself could proclaim himself to be ‘pro-life’ and give all the required ‘code words’ and he’s probably win most of the ‘religious’ votes…
‘Pro life’ means the entire life! What do America’s children have to look forward to after being born? According to UNICEF, not a whole lot… America is LAST in health and safety! America LEADS in child POVERTY! America leads in child obesity!
IF you people want to come off as more reasonable, then you have got to get your story straight! Life begins at conception, true. Life ends in little stages from the moment of birth on… Poor parents unable to feed their required children raise unhealthy children who are already challenged in so many ways… Cities filled with guns and violent teevee and video games are hazards to their lives. Societies that are quick to ship children off to war cost many needless lives… Pollution kills and maims over time… Poisoned water, air, food… All are costing human lives…
IF you support life, as you so vociferously proclaim. If you flail your chests and cry over dead babies it makes absolutely no sense that you abandon them once they are born.
Talking the talk is easy walking the talk is hard. Are you human enough to do it?
I guarantee that if you start talking like I’ve laid down here, George W. Bush won’t be your friend anymore. Republican ‘men of god’ will drop you faster then a dirty shirt… The money your leaders get from Rove will dry up faster then spit on a Mustang hood in the desert.
But I dare you to try it. See if I’m not right…
I have a dream… A dream where America leads the world in valuing human health and human rights… It can happen. It will be a beautiful sight to see… Heaven on earth…
Lex: It’s layperson (and one time considerate for the Society of Jesus, but that’s by the boards), but your snark notwithstanding, you are still being disingenous.
Jesus made a point of separating the places of God, and the places of man (the whole tings about rendering unto Caesar). I would love to see the world be a place where the contracts of people, one to the other were open, and honestly followed.
I’d like to see a world where the thoughts, opinions, places rights and privileges of women, minorities, children etc. were all accorded fair place, and not questioned.
I’d also like a pony.
I live in the real world, where ignorance of the facts of life, and the idea that to tell people how to avoid a problem is to sanction it, is bullshit, and not done for things like drunk driving; we tell people to call a cab, get a friend to drive them home, stay until they are sober, nor yet for robbery. Heaven forfend we tell people to lock their doors, look out for people skulking in dark alleys, etc..
I also know that the position of the Church on things like birth control isn’t set in stone. There are lots of women who are santioned by their priests, the use of hormonal BC, because it’s a medical reccomendation for the control of debilitating periods.
And Humanem Vitae is an argument. His Holiness was trying to persuade the Body of Christ (as personified in the people of the Church) of the position. But it wasn’t a verdict ex cathedra, and so, as creatures of Gd, endowed by Him with reason, we are allowed (even enjoined) to ponder the question, and come to an answer. We are even allowed (though discouraged by the hierachy, and certainly by authoritarians like Donahue) to vigorously debate it, and try to persuade others to the conclusions at which we have arrived.
There are places where the religious get to set the public agenda, and the Catholic League, and thir ilk, are horrified that it’s against the law to proseltyse in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan (under the Taliban. I recall the hue and cry when some missionaries were condemned to death for breaking that law. Personally i figured they knew what they were risking, and if martyrdom was what they wanted, thet’d chosen a fine place for it). I think such laws horrendous, not because I think the Church is the be-all and end-all of right religious thinking, but because I think such constraints upon liberty to be a great moral wrong.
The Church is patriarchal, and authoritarian, and has a misogynistic streak which is broad, wide, deep and ancient. Amanda wasn’t saying anything I’ve not heard bandied about the rectory table (then again, I was considering Jesuit orders, so perhaps the rectories at which I spend my time are more freewheeling and open than most)
Attempting to impose the narrow-minded views of the Church, on all the world, is pig-headed and wrong. Force is no way to get people to adopt the right, better to show them healthy fruits, than to berate them because they fail to see the wisdom of your ways; esp when the evidence of those ways (can we say pederastic priests, I knew we could) is giving the lie to the teachings.
The Church has been wrong (indulgences, Gallileo?) in the past, it will be wrong again. It must be, because it is run by men, and men are imperfect creatures. Better to take them as they are, and work with that, then to demand they attempt the impossible, and lose their faith when they fail; or refuse to essay the impossible.
Mary Margaret D’Angelo says: I’m 65, and I have a hard time understanding these “Christianâ€? posters. This is not snark.
I’m 22 and I have a hard time understanding the draw of secular-humanism.
I find it truly IMPOSSIBLE to UNDERSTAND their complete and utter ignorance of human history, civilization, sociology, anthropology, science, philosophy, and simple reality.
Do you know us to be completely and utterly ignorant of these things or are you just assuming becuase we’ve arrived at different conclusions on them from you? I’m likely more kowledgeable about history than you because it is one of my primary areas of interest. The others I’m not so sure, particularly sociology and anthropology, but I can hold my own iwth science and philosophy.
You can’t get through the 5th grade and still ‘believe’ in some sort of 2000 year old middle east prophetic tradition anti-Roman zealot cult thingy — Jesus is no more magic than the tooth fairy, we all know that. Or the old burning bush and riding to the skies on clouds like Mohammed and Moroni. Arabian Nights redux And all based on Indo-European and Babylonian mythology, anyway. SO if you DO ‘believe’ these things, you’re seriously lacking in brain cells.
Is that snark?
Of course if you believe in compassion, love, courage, hope, justice — you’re not religious…
Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t. Religion involves faith in a transcendental reality outside our direct knowledge.
…it seems obvious that most American’s ‘religious’ fervor is simply — betting to get in the ‘gated community’ of celluloid ‘heaven’ (no poor need apply) — and greed.
Obvious? It’s obvious to you what it is inside the hearts of Christian Americans. What about Christian Canadians? What do they believe? Christian Argentinians? Are they sincere? As for the poor, countless Christians have dedicated their lives to helping the poor and other sufferers, a higher proportion I’ll wager than atheists. Maybe they just want “score salvation points”. Or maybe their faith provides them a rational framework that supports their sacrifice. Who can divine the motives of others?
Let Americans be Americans. It’s a world of Ferengi…Always useful to see the ORc behind the mask, eh? Even the ones in the gingham dresses with the cookies. And the vacuous eyes.
You paint both Christians and Americans with a ridiculously broad brush while skillfully avoiding any actual debate about the issues. “Holland. It’s a world of libertines. China. It’s a world of communists. Even the rice farmers.” Where does any of this get us? You claim to know more about history and philosophy than we. Why not prove and explain why we are such self-evident fools?
I have had just about enough of this misunderstanding of the “Render unto Caesar” comment attributed to the itinerant preacher and reputed wonder-worker we know as ‘Jesus.’
What was meant was clearly seditious and revolutionary. “Render unto GOD what is GOD’s” … what is GOD’s? The Hebrews are God’s. What that formula meant was simply that Caesar could have anything in the world, but he could not have Israel or the Hebrew tribes.
The idea of a separation of church and state was not even imagined in that place, in that time.
Neither the Roman mind nor the Hebrew mind would have made any sense out of the concept.
One thing I forgot to mention in my longish post just above is that a ‘church’ employs men that have a ‘taste for the forbidden’… Nice, fresh, innocent boys…
They love the power they have over them by the position they have in the church… Who would believe that ‘men of God’ can be so wicked and evil…
To steal the youth out of the hearts of so many children…
To shuffle the perpetrators from ‘church’ to ‘church’…
To pay ‘hush money’ time and again to the tortured families…
To wholesale ruin the lives of so many children and so many families… To RIP the souls out of so many children… To recklessly and coldly cover up the crimes…
And William Donahue claims that Hollywood is about anal sex?
Catholicism has its good points but then so does Hezbollah!
Abusing children is wrong wrong wrong. There is no excuse for it and there is no defense of it. Shielding those that abuse is wrong wrong wrong! There is no excuse for it and there is no defense for it!
There are good things about catholicism but the evil that has been done through history far out weighs any good… Catholicism has no moral authority to discuss anything…
I was physically abused as a child. Beaten most days for the slightest infraction. I grew up with fear and anger… It nearly ruined my life… Catholics aren’t pro-life, they are pro-bureaucracy… The catholic church exists to continue the reign of the church by whatever means…
Someone asked me if religion was a form of madness. I asked if madness was a form of religion…
Religion shouldn’t hurt children. Religion shouldn’t destroy their souls… For God’s sake religion shouldn’t teach hate and contempt for others… God save America from the hypocrits that fight over patting themselves on the back while society crumbles around them…
Sorry if this adds fuel to the pyre that was built for Pandagon… Aren’t there better hobbies then harrassing people like this?
Someone asked me if religion was a form of madness. I asked if madness was a form of religion…
An elegant way to express the thought. Nice.
Pinky says: It’s amazing to me to see religion in America these days….
You sleep around, you get caught. You have your ‘Swaggart moment’….It’s a great racket. All you have to do is make your ‘apology seem convincing enough and you’re set…
You must not know too many theists to think they’re defined by Ted Haggard or even his supporters. And why does the folly of men like him prove Christianity false? Does Robespierre prove atheism false?
Millions of dollars pour into ‘religious’ leaders pockets for spreading the word that George W. Bush, the ‘man of god’ that God himself put in the White House is a decent and honest man and would never lie yet speaks with a forked tongue that would impress Satan himself.
Every Sunday my priest uses his entire homily to say just that.
I listened to a ‘catholic channel’ on Sirius yesterday and they were discussing ‘their’ presidential candidates and Giuliani and Brownback came up. Both men of strange pasts. Rudy is evil incarnate. Brownback would spit on a hooker instead of taking to them. Both men heck, all republicans seem to have a very strong contempt for nature and human rights as their first focus.
You too are blessed with the power to see into men’s hearts.
Right to life doesn’t end when a person is born! You have to respect that life in totality otherwise you are a fool!
Yes! Let’s upport the culture of life from conception to natural death!
Satan himself could proclaim himself to be ‘pro-life’ and give all the required ‘code words’ and he’s probably win most of the ‘religious’ votes…
Perhaps. Sometimes Satan comes disguised as a being of light. Do you suppose if he used the right “progressive code words” that you’d vote for him, or would you be able to divine his true identity.
According to UNICEF…
…of the uncorrupt and benevolent United Nations…
America is LAST in health and safety! America LEADS in child POVERTY! America leads in child obesity!
Childhood obesity I’ll give you. Even our poor are fat. But we’re poorer and unhealthier than Zimbabwe? Bangladesh?
Life begins at conception, true.
True.
Poor parents unable to feed their required children raise unhealthy children who are already challenged in so many ways… Poisoned water, air, food… All are costing human lives…If you flail your chests and cry over dead babies it makes absolutely no sense that you abandon them once they are born.
How are we to help them? Socialism? The Free Market? One world government? Voting Obama? A new civilization of Catholic Christendom consecrated to Our Lord? You may weep over poverty and guilt trip pro-lifers for not doing enough, but what is your solution? Is it the best solution? Is it workable? How? Why? The first thing to remember is that we’re never going to construct an earthly Utopia; we can only strive for constant improvement.
I have a dream… A dream where America leads the world in valuing human health and human rights… It can happen. It will be a beautiful sight to see… Heaven on earth…
So you do believe in the possibility of earthly Utopia. And yet it exactely this particular brand of faith has itself caused more suffering than any religion. Hope for earthly Utopia was what drove the Reign of Terror, the Bolsheviks, the Maoists, and, yes, even the fascists. Are we to attempt to construct a civilization on the principles of John Lennon’s “Imagine”? I’m afraid you’re dream is just that…a dream.
Obsess much?
Pinky says: a ‘church’ employs men that have a ‘taste for the forbidden’… Nice, fresh, innocent boys…
As does the public school system. Is pedophilia more rampant in the Catholic priesthood than other institutions? Or does secular society simply enjoy seeing the Church humiliated more than other institutions?
Who would believe that ‘men of God’ can be so wicked and evil…
I certainly would! There is nothing about the sacrament of Holy Orders that suddenly makes a man impeccable and free of sin and I don’t understand why so many people seem to believe that this should be so. Of the twelve apostles chosen by Christ, one was Judas Iscariot. 1/12 of Christ’s own handpicked clergy was wicked!
To wholesale ruin the lives of so many children and so many families… To RIP the souls out of so many children… To recklessly and coldly cover up the crimes…
A true scandal. The Church is in great need for more holy priests. Perhaps if secular society wasn’t doing everything it could to tear down the Church and the priesthood and raise sexual immorality on a pedestal.
William Donahue claims that Hollywood is about anal sex?
William Donahue is a few knives short of a full drawer, in my opinion. Is he the pope?
Catholicism has its good points but then so does Hezbollah!
What good points does Hezbollah have. Catholicism’s best point is that it’s True!
There are good things about catholicism but the evil that has been done through history far out weighs any good… Catholicism has no moral authority to discuss anything…
Sounds like you’re describing Marxists.
I was physically abused as a child. Beaten most days for the slightest infraction. I grew up with fear and anger… It nearly ruined my life… Catholics aren’t pro-life, they are pro-bureaucracy…
I’m sorry to hear that. Please don’t blame the Catholic Church for it.
The catholic church exists to continue the reign of the church by whatever means…
You believe. I believe the Catholic Church exists to spread the grace of Christ on Earth.
Religion shouldn’t hurt children. Religion shouldn’t destroy their souls… For God’s sake religion shouldn’t teach hate and contempt for others…
True.
marc page says: Obsess much?
Odd you’re responding to a post of mine after telling me to fuck off. Maybe one day you’ll attempt to actually consider an argument that doesn’t support your own opinions.
I will consider any opinion … except yours.
And of course I replied to your comment. After all, you didn’t “fuck off,” now did you?
OK, I’m posting this comment in this thread as a coda, since it was apparently inappropriate to do it here.
PS: BTW, what’s with all this BS courtesy of the all-you-really-need-is-a-real-man’s-dong brigade? Didn’t know you had to be Tracy Lords in disguise to rail against the doctrine of the Catholic Church… Then again, I’m not too well endowed in the trouser department myself, so what do I know?
Anyway, good to see that, for all her raving feminism, Amanda is just as “hung up on plumbing� as anybody else:
I’m not an idiot. I’m a twat. Get it straight.
I’m a hot, moist, inviting twat. Warm, wet, inviting. But not to you or your friends. Even if I were single, these nubile thighs do not wrap around the hips of Republicans. You can fuck yourselves or the dry twats of the self-hating misogynists who will allow you tiny penis to penetrate them. Have fun! Um, the wounds you get from rubbing you un-lubricated dick repeatedly into your heartless, soulless woman–iodine is your best friend, my be-scarred friend.
Source: http://pandagon.net/2005/09/04/living-in-the-post-freedom-world/#comment-24064
Tiny willies… Dry twats… Ouch!
Is it any wonder that these evil Republicans want to screw Amanda (and her — hmm, yummy! — “hot, moist, inviting twat�)?
Oh, crap. I’m not man enough for her either. Too bad, I guess. Looks like I will have to resort to forced celibacy again…
“hot, moist, inviting twat” indeed; and don’t you wish that you deserved one.
Celebrating the sheer joy of fucking in the face of what is, in fact, mostly the indifference of the rest of the world,
I’m sorry, Annabrook, but you seem to have been asleep for the last week. Amanda has been raked over the coals for (among other things) using having once used extremely pointed language on this blog to establish that:
i, It’s her vagina.
ii, She does what she wants with it AND
iii, People who don’t like (ii) don’t have a say in that.
As a result, she has lost her job, been condemned in the national press, and received hate mail.
Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but if that is “indifference”, then you are a King Edward potato.
Delenda est Cartago, dude.
How old was Mary Magdelene when she wrote it?
Very good, TJ, and I agree with you. I think the leap to embrace so-called Gnostic Gospels, including this, are motivated by wishful thinking.
Teeny, tiny minor problem though…
“Jenkins points out that the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were completed by the year 100 or so.
How old were Matthew, Mark, Luke and John when these were supposedly completed? If, by some strange chance, these people weren’t writing at 130-140, then we don’t actually have any real witness to the life of Jesus, do we? It may be that, to take a not so purely hypothetical example, details such as the census and his birthplace were inserted to “fufill” prophecy despite the fact that they are impossible to reconcile with other events.
And if that’s the case, well, you might as well go for the Book of Mormon instead. More and better provenance.
‘Jesus’ is wishful thinking (at best.)
Phoenician in a time of Romans says: How old were Matthew, Mark, Luke and John when these were supposedly completed? If, by some strange chance, these people weren’t writing at 130-140, then we don’t actually have any real witness to the life of Jesus, do we?
Christians admit that St. Mark and St. Luke were not eyewitnesses to the events of the gospels, although they recieved their information from eyewitnesses. As to St. Matthew, most scholars date his gospel to around AD70 (though many conservative scholars place it earlier, at around AD50), only about 35 years after Christ’s death. If we assume St. Matthew to be about the same age as Jesus Christ, he would have been about 70 in AD70. As to St. John, he gospel is dated to around AD90-100, but he was the youngest apostle. If he was born in AD10, he would have been 80 in AD90, elderly but not implausibly so.
I’m sad you resigned-as another one piling on to state my former Catholic status, I think it’s about damn time some of the views of Catholicism got addressed. I can’t imagine the rocky road you’ve been going through, though, and Christ knows I’d have already been through my third bottle of single malt, so well done. I thought your input on his campaign were great, Dallas Drigger Detractors be damned. I don’t know how to resist from replying back to some of those hate mailers, though. “You’d accept a blow job from me, but not sex? Lemme’ get on a plane!” or “I have shit coming out of my ears? See, baby, you’re putting it in the wrong hole again.” But you’re a better person than me by just deleting.
Still, I completely understand, but I’m disappointed you resigned.
I’m even more disappointed Edwards accepted your resignation. I like a little loyalty from my presidential candidates.
Wrong. The first so-called ‘Gospel’ written is the Gospel of Mark (circa 70 CE), and Matthew follows and elaborates on it. Your bible quite deliberately has them out of order.
And considering that the average lifespan in the first century CE was about 40, … no sale.
As to St. Matthew, most scholars date his gospel to around AD70 (though many conservative scholars place it earlier, at around AD50), only about 35 years after Christ’s death.
So, therefore, we should consider the Book of Mormon to be more reliable than any of the Biblical Gospels, given that it was written just seven years after Joseph Smith was directed by God to the Golden Plates, yes?
Damned right … unless you’re calling the Angel Moroni a liar.
marc page says: The first so-called ‘Gospel’ written is the Gospel of Mark (circa 70 CE), and Matthew follows and elaborates on it. Your bible quite deliberately has them out of order.
I never said Mark wasn’t the earliest gospel and indeed the theory of “Markan priority” is the dominant theory of Bible scholars, who hold that St. Luke and St. Matthew based their gospels partly on that gospel and partly on an unknown source, “Q”. That isn’t the only theory though; there are several others. For most of history, Christian scholars have held, according to the “Augustinian hypothesis”, that Matthew is the earliest, which is indeed why it’s placed first in “my Bible”. What does this with the price of tea in China? Both these gospels are the likely the earliest, probably both being completed between 65-80, 30-45 years after the death of Christ.
…considering that the average lifespan in the first century CE was about 40, … no sale.
The average lifespan at the time was indeed much lower than it is now, although the averages are somewhat skewed by the high infant mortality at the time and so forth. But, of course, the average lifespan being 40 doesn’t mean everyone died by 40; it means that half of them did and half of them lived to be older. Surely you don’t think that there were absolutely no 60-, 70-, 80-, and 90-year olds in the 1st century? Da Vinci, in the 16th century, dissected the body of a 100-year old man.
Thus, it is quite possible that, in the year 100, by which time all four gospels, not to mention Acts and the epistles, were likely completed, there were still people alive who had witnessed the crucifixion. Certainly there were people alive who had known people who had witnessed it. My great-great grandmother died 75 years ago, but I know about her life, hearing about it second- and third-hand. What you should be asking is not “How reliable can the gospels be when they were written so late?” but “How unreliable can the gospels be when they were written so early?”
Nonsense.
marc page:
“hot, moist, inviting twat� indeed; and don’t you wish that you deserved one.
I sure do… It’s about time! I’m a phallocrat after all, remember? In fact, this is one of God’s most glorious creations ever.
Phoenician in the time of Romans says: So, therefore, we should consider the Book of Mormon to be more reliable than any of the Biblical Gospels, given that it was written just seven years after Joseph Smith was directed by God to the Golden Plates, yes?
No. There are fundamental differences between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was transcribed by one man supposedly translated from these plates which only he and precisely 11 other people, members of his inner circle, including his family, ever claimed to have seen. It’s not so different from the Koran, a dictation of personal revelation to one man.
The New Testament, on the other hand, is a collection of books by numerous different authors, only one of which, the aptly named Revelation, is an account of a private revelation. The epistles are letters by early Church leaders to their followers and, if nothing else, provide evidence for the existence of a distinct and flourishing Christian religion only several decades after Christ. Then you have the Gospels and Acts, accounts by several different authors of very public events to which there would have been numerous eyewitnesses around at the time of their writing. This is somewhat different from one man wandering out of the pines with a book in his hand. It gestures to a growing movement based on events of which there would have been public testimony. It is rather more similar to newspaper accounts of the miracle of Fatima, witnessed by 70,000 people in 1917. But no doubt that simply must be superstitious bunk too.
marc page the foul wrote, “What a Roman Catholic believes is not decided by the individual believer. The Church dictates belief. And so, if the Church deems any deviation from docrine to be heresy, the individual believer must also view deviations from doctrine as heresy.”
Do ya spose that Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice is aware of this immutable marcan truth? What about John “Aiding and Abetting the Abortion Juggernaut is My Modus Operandi” Kerry? Or Nancy Keenan, head of NARAL? All of these folks believe that they are faithful, practicing Catholics. Are you saying that they’re REALLY heretics, and must view themselves as such if they would be honest?
Terry Karney wrote, “Amanda wasn’t saying anything I’ve not heard bandied about the rectory table.”
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, by this revelation!
The slime machine never stops, and it’s disappointing that Edwards has lost the help of two fine thinkers at a moment when he needs them. Thank you for making such a fine continuing effort to educate and continue the rational discussion which may someday lead America to be a better country than it is at present. Big hugs! Hang in there!
What I was getting at, and didn’t quite get there is that religion is being used as a tool to manipulate the public. Doing the ‘religion act’ covers a whole range of evils and for some people allows them to support and perform a wide variety of heinous acts against civilization.
I have run into the most evil and disturbed people in those that claim to be ‘religious’…
Labels don’t do it for me anymore. I require proof of someone’s true intentions and character. Any ‘religion’ that would actively support despotic rulers and attempt (quite well) to hide the crimes of itself and its minions deserves no respect from any conscious and thinking person.
I find the use of religion as a tool by the republican party very interesting. Adolph Hitler often covered his vile lunacy and crimes against humanity in religious code words. He considered himself a ‘man of god’ and a religious man…
Another disturbing component of this ‘modern time’ is the pressure to feel and react rather than think. Not taking the time to think about what has happened causes people to react in knee-jerk and damaging ways…
Also the quest for a ‘heaven on earth’ by fundamentalists won’t create a ‘heaven on earth’. Reactionary zealots and religious extremists can’t come close to creating a heaven on earth. For examples of this look to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kansas, South Dakota, Waco…
The very aim of religion is that someone must be on top and who ever is on top gets to set the rules and decide what is permitted… That works well for the person on the top and those who they favor but the rest are ignored and used… Look at the catholic ‘church’ for evidence of this. Instead of women being revered for the role that they played in the birth of Jesus, a misogynistic leadership holds women’s faces in the mud of ‘original sin’ as if the mere touching of a woman is beneath their religion and women don’t rate as human beings…
There is enough to make me believe that ‘god’ was an entity and human males concocted the idea that god was a ‘man’ because men ruled at the time… The original sin angle is a weapon to keep the flock fearful of somehow missing out on the gifts of a myopic and manufactured deity figure…
The whole idea of religion promotes the separation of human beings by some rule, some characteristic… That is why some (many?) religions exacerbate the perverse human need to be better than someone else. To feel smug and of higher value then someone else… To judge others by the ready decrees of the leaders… This fact may actually doom the entire human race…
For the record, and not for the first time, the “Lex” who has commented on this post up to now is not the same Lex as I. I suspect Amanda knows how I feel about this whole thing anyway, which is good because I couldn’t get this page to load yesterday even to READ the comments, much less comment in turn.
Just to add my share of blasphemy, I’ve an interesting thought…
What if a tragic event occurred where a cruel Government ruthlessly attacked an innocent religious group, harassing them, putting their sacred compound under siege, preventing them from escaping from their evil clutches, knowing that helpless men, women, and children were inside.
Finally in an orgy of violence, the Government assaults the compound, resulting in the death and destruction of nearly all the members of the religious group and their compound. But a few members escaped…
The survivors regroup, tell the story of their narrow escape from the evil Government to attentive crowds. The story is embellished, the dogma is reconstructed and codified, the reborn movement gathers speed and becomes an influential branch of religious thought. Eventually the original leader of this group is venerated as a messianic figure who brings truth and redemption to his followers…
This is how (in a 100-years or so) David Koresh could become what he sought when he was alive. Scary?…
>>>There is no virtue in being tolerant of the intolerant.
Tossing around the magic word, “tolerant”, doesn’t make you tolerant. By your own reasoning YOU shouldn’t be tolerated.
Phoenician in a time of Romans, I love you.
Because gosh, no one would ever “insert to “fulfill” prophecy” (read: make shit up) in a religious context. No sirree.
While I do not agree with your views, I am a Christian. As a Christian, I believe that I am to express love in everything I do. Even when I don’t agree with you, I am to love you and pray for you. Their behavior is embarrasing and in no way indicative of Christ.
Phoenician in a Time of Romans wrote:
“I’m sorry, Annabrook, but you seem to have been asleep for the last week. Amanda has been raked over the coals for (among other things) using having once used extremely pointed language on this blog to establish that:
i, It’s her vagina.
ii, She does what she wants with it AND
iii, People who don’t like (ii) don’t have a say in that.
As a result, she has lost her job, been condemned in the national press, and received hate mail.”
I’m sorry Phoenician, but you seem to be napping (and dreaming) as well.
She lost her job and was condemned in the national press and so on because she insulted the faith of an enormous segment of potential voters. It’s happened before (think “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion”) and it will happen again. Her vagina had zip to do with it.
As for her endless contemplation of her own vagina on this blog (and her delusion that others are contemplating it just as earnestly), she is mainly being laughed at. And mocked with coarseness similar to her own.
I stopped in here just to see, and the lack of common sense is stunning. Grow up already.
Well, hi there, Lex from http://blogontherun.wordpress.com/ I’m the “other” Lex, with no blog site of my own. I’ve only been posting here since the John “Personally Offended” Edwards news broke and I tracked down Ms. Marcotte to see for myself what all the hullaballoo was about.
The question for the webmaster is why Amanda’s blog allowed two identical logon names. Hmm…
Don’t let these bible thumping sicko’s bother you. They are even helping prove your point by the way the conduct themselves in their emails to you. Religion is a place for scared, sad and often miserable people to hide while they wait for that better life in the after world while they piss away the joys of living for today. Anyone who sends you these emails just needs to be sent away from the rest of the general population with the sick people in that church of hate from Kansas. Do you know the one? The head guy looks like the evil bastard from children of the corn. Anyway keep your head up not every one is as ignorant and sick in the head as these true catholics and christians are. Have a nice day you have done a great job.
Charles @ 6:53am/Feb 14 said:
“ROB??? Dude, Communism? That’s almost funny.�
It would be funny if it were not for the fact that you can find hundreds of statements such as the following within the texts of the famous feminist philosophers, whose writings btw, are being used to indoctrinate thousands of new young people each year under the rubric of “gender studies�.
“Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.” - Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10
“A world where men and women would be equal is easy to visualize, for that precisely is what the Soviet Revolution promised.” - Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, Random House, 1952), p.806
LMAO, there is a phrase that Communists use… it contains words such as “useful� and “idiot.� Please, don’t tell me you really believed that feminism was about equality.
WHERE ON EARTH DID YOU GET THE IDEA THAT “Chrisitians are people who are supposed to follow the behavior and teachings of Jesus Christ”?
There must not be any, as the hate and ignorance-filled posts from “Christians” on this and all the other websites I’ve been to richly illustrate.
But then, you’re talking about “Jesus Christ,” obviously a very different person from just plain Jesus. My error.
Alan Watts said it best: “They kicked him upstairs, made him the Boss’s son…” or words to that effect.
The “risen Christ” makes no demands but “make all nations my disciples,” “my disciples” commonly being read as “your slaves.” In return, he’s the “Get Out of Hell Free” (and I do mean FREE) card for millions who would lynch Jesus in a minute if he showed up and said the kinds of things he did on his last visit.
“Lib4life (concern-troll)
Magickitty,
Yes, she did resign. But deleting comments in an attempt to fool people is not accepting responsibility. But, I am going to wait and see how she handles herself from here on out and decide if your assertion is factual. ”
Go f*@k yourself.
Love
Cheney
MJ:
Nod. And let’s not forget what Jesus said to do to your enemies: hate them. Don’t listen to them. Block up your ears, and do not think about what they have to say. Once they are engaged in mockery, assume that you are right, and they are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Oops. He said to love your enemies.
Hmm. Well, in the spirit of love, let’s think about this.
Does the Catholic church oppose contraception?
Hm. Why, yes, yes it does.
Does it support the efforts of people here in America to restrict knowledge about and access to birth control? As a matter of fact, some Catholic hospitals won’t tell rape victims about Emergency Contraception. It certainly supports folks who preach abstinence only education.
In fact, as far as I know - and I admit that I might be wrong here, I was a Catholic a *long* time ago - the Catholic church is the only major Christian church in America that strictly opposes birth control as being immoral.
Do you think that has had an effect on the availability of information about, and access to, birth control?
Doesn’t fighting to restrict access to birth control, and abortion, force more women to remain pregnant, and bear children?
It’s not gratuitous mockery. It is mockery, yes… but mockery to establish a point.
Insulting? Yes. An adult who is secure in his or her faith can handle insults. Is there a point to the insult? Yes… a wise person can discern that point, and take appropriate action.
What is being bashed?
Is Amanda bashing the two great commandments, to love that which is good (what is there to love about God, except his essential goodness?), and love one’s neighbor as one’s self?
Or is she bashing the efforts of those who try to control others?
If the Catholic Church did what Jesus suggested, and saw to the physical needs of others as a way to build up love (and treasure in the next life), without spending too much time pissing and moaning about other people’s sinfulness, if they were quiet, seeking service of others, and of God, not building up of their own egos, do you think she’d be complaining about this kind of thing?
I don’t.
I’ll grant you; I’ve seen people on this blog make fun of religion and those who are foolish enough to believe in “sky fairies” and the like. I don’t like it. But then, I don’t have to. Either I’m right, and there’s something more than the physical world to us, or I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter that they make fun; if I’m right, then what they say doesn’t diminish me in the least.
In either case, since I’m not the spiritual advisor of these people, it’s not any of my business, and if I want to cease to be bothered by what they say, I can stop reading it.
As for people raising a fuss over Amanda being hired, I’ll say the same thing I’ve said all along: there are dislikable people working for every political campaign for every office out there. Those people should be judged by the job they do for the campaign, period.
Amanda should have been judged *only* by how she did her job, writing the campaign blog for John Edwards’ campaign. That’s it. Because that’s the only thing that affected the public.
What she does as a hobby is no one else’s business, and it should have been left alone.
Yes, John Edwards would have been paying a salary to someone that you and many people like you are willing to hurt because you follow Jesus (who counseled love to your enemies). And if you dig into the backgrounds of non-policy workers at every stage of a national campaign, I’m sure you’ll find some truly noxious people.
Ordinarily, it’s ignored. No one cares. So why wasn’t it ignored with Amanda?
Because she was visible. And some folks wanted a nice, visible sign of what they believed in. Well, they have it.
They believe in attacking their enemies with spite and anger.
You chose your side; look around and see who is on it. I won’t pretend my side is peopled with angels… but mine isn’t the side that chose to attack out of sheer spite, and in defiance of the teachings of its messiah.
To Roger Snowden:
Sorry, I think the point was more the hypocrisy and malice, than the severity of the punishment.
PLEASE DON’T GET THE BUDDHA INVOLVED HERE!
Lex,
Make your point. You have had about 20 posts without making a single point. What’s your point?
If you don’t have a point, uncle Dick tells you to go Cheney yourself.
Or maybe you could go to red-state and start singing some gospel songs. Or maybe shoot your neighbour in the face. How about you set up a secret underground team of rescuers to intercept zygotes in petridishes from fertility clinics to implant in wing-nut women to make snow-flake babies?
Quick. Time’s a wasting. Masturbation is genocide. Go, save all those zygote-Americans that are being destroyed!!! They are all potential life right?!?!
Uncle Cheney is with you. After this trout-fishing trip is done with.
Rum, Romanism and Rebellion worked, though.
To The Devil’s Advocate:
How do you have religion without people?
Dick Cheney asks me, “What’s your point?”
Well, Dick, my point is that one should never end a sentence with a preposition, but my advice to you personally is that you should resume taking your meds.
PLEASE post their email addresses for us!!!!
TJ:
I guess it never occurred to you that Jesus chose only male disciples because the book about him was written by males who objected to female disciples, and chosen as canonical by males who objected to female disciples.
I’m not a Biblical scholar, but quite a few of them say Jesus had many prominent female disciples, a fact hinted at in several places in the gospels and the book of Acts.
And TJ:
If the church can declare Mary as “Queen of Heaven,” why can’t a woman be a lowly priest?
“The entire agenda of the Bush judges is to interpret the law as written, rather than make up their own.”
Wow, Roger, now we’re REALLY in Fantasyland. I guess the same goes for the Bush signing statements, right?
You aren’t by any chance the Buddhist “dittohead” who wrote to Tricycle a couple of years ago objecting to some one’s article suggesting that Buddhist compassion should result in a compassionate political philosophy, are you?
I guess you were right, since I would have thought the same would be true of Christianity.
Del:
In your witness regarding the presence of God all around us, you mistakenly refer to the staff with the snake as a medical symbol attributable to Moses. Unfortunately, the Caduceus (one snake) or Staff of Asclepius (two snakes) are both decidedly and factually pagan with the sole purpose of consistently representing healing. Moreover, you can’t use the Bible to prove to Bible by suggesting that the Moses mythology dominates the explanation as to its medical symbolism. Please leave the symbology to the experts.
Thanks.
Rob:
You chastise posters to, “Read up on it. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci…” when clearly you have not: e.g., you ignorantly drop the “Marxist” and “Communist” epithets, with the apparent assumption that some of us have not read anything of Marxism or other forms of political economy and thus must defer to your expertise in fabricating some sort of risk to religion. In fact, as a component of the Marxist conception of the Superstructure, religious practice remains - but is not a mechanism of hegemony. Most people of your stripe are characterized by a profound a lack of basic understanding or literacy in this area.
No. There are fundamental differences between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was transcribed by one man supposedly translated from these plates which only he and precisely 11 other people, members of his inner circle, including his family, ever claimed to have seen.
*Bzzt* - special pleading.
How many people witnessed Jesus’s resurrection? Um, around 12-15 off the top of my head - and this doesn’t preclude the possibility that he never actually died, or that we only have the word of a couple of authors on those witnesses.
How many people witnessed the turning of the water into wine? Three - Jesus, Mary and the mother of the groom. Possibly only two if we consider the possibility that it was Jesus’ wedding.
How many people witnessed the angels on Christmas? Three - shepherds. And it was a cold night, and alcohol was not unknown in the Middle East.
How many people witnessed Jesus’s conception? One - supposedly. And she’s was not exactly an objective participant.
How many people witnessed the Immaculate Conception? None.
I repeat - by the standards used for the Gospels, the Book of Mormon and the Golden Plates seem more credible.
First, I would like to say how sorry I am that you had to go through all this. The whole episode just exemplifies the level of hatred held for atheists in this country today. It is hard to escape the strange feeling that we are living in some kind of bizarro cartoon world where up is down, right is wrong and the rational vilified while those who base their lives on myth keep being elevated in every aspect of society. With the exception of the internet, atheism has become a closeted ideology, replete with most the horrible negative stereotypes imaginable. Atheists are the one group today that can be attacked without any repercussion or defense from any other group. We have to rely on “moderate� elements from the religious world just to defend our right to even speak out against the hypocrisy that lies at the heart of most religion. You were only going to be a staffer for a politician! Of course, the real horror here being: What if you had the temerity to actually be a politician. Think of what it means..what we all know. No self-identifying atheist with any body of opinion could ever hope to run for any office in this country! This sets us apart from virtually every other civilized country in the western world! Worse yet, it sets atheists apart from virtually any other group within this society. Given the well-documented inverse correlation between level of education and belief in god, this takes an entire group of what may be the most intelligent people in the country and effectively disenfranchises them from the whole political process!
In any case, I hope this mess will not cause you to back off your commentary one inch. The Donohues of the world, and his minions of stupidity, sure won’t be shutting up any time soon. The classy way you handled what has to be some of the most vile hate speech I have ever seen is quite inspiring. I hope more will join in your example
Just to throw in a little support, from a pro-choice former Catholic (but still Christian).
Phoenician:
We can safely assume two people witnessed the Immaculate Conception, though we can guess that they didn’t specifically witness it as immaculate.
We can safely assume two people witnessed the Immaculate Conception
They had internal cameras back then?
Come to think of it, how would immaculateness show up under the microscope? A little halo around the head of the sperm? The ova dressed in modest feminine garb and requiring each sperm to seek the ovary’s permission before it came knocking?
Pinky says: …religion is being used as a tool to manipulate the public.
So are and have been secular beliefs and ideologies of all sorts, including many “progressive” ones.
I have run into the most evil and disturbed people in those that claim to be ‘religious’…
Osama?
I require proof of someone’s true intentions and character.
Trust, but verify!
Any ‘religion’ that would actively support despotic rulers and attempt (quite well) to hide the crimes of itself and its minions deserves no respect from any conscious and thinking person.
You sound like you’re talking about Islam again.
I find the use of religion as a tool by the republican party very interesting.
I find the Democrats’ support of unworkable economic policies very interesting. How to you feel about Democrats giving speeches at black churches, talking about their “strong Christian faith”, etc.
Adolph Hitler often covered his vile lunacy and crimes against humanity in religious code words.
True.
He considered himself a ‘man of god’ and a religious man…
False, in all probability. He another secular ideologue who believed he could create Utopia on Earth. There were some Nazis who were into a sort of neo-Nordic paganism though.
Another disturbing component of this ‘modern time’ is the pressure to feel and react rather than think.
It seems to us on the right that those on the left are doing too much “feeling” and not enough thinking.
Also the quest for a ‘heaven on earth’ by fundamentalists won’t create a ‘heaven on earth’. Reactionary zealots and religious extremists can’t come close to creating a heaven on earth.
Nor can anyone. Fallen man can’t create Paradise. We can only strive towards our ideals.
The very aim of religion is that someone must be on top and who ever is on top gets to set the rules and decide what is permitted…
In my religion that someone is called God.
That works well for the person on the top and those who they favor but the rest are ignored and used…
Another thing is that traditionalists tend to see the machinations of human society in terms of ideals and ideology, right, wrong, truth and falsehood. Modernists and revolutionaries see it in terms of power and oppression. Thus, I see Christianity as a set of claims that I happen to believe are true; you see it as a pyramid scheme.
Look at the catholic ‘church’ for evidence of this. Instead of women being revered for the role that they played in the birth of Jesus…
Are you serious???! Besides Christ himself, there is no human, nor any angel that Catholic revere more than Mary, who we call the Blessed Virgin, Holy Mother of God, the New Ark of the Convenant, primary intercessor for our petitions before the throne of Christ, immaculately concieved as the vessel of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings and so on and so forth and so on and so forth! Protestants have spent the last 500 years accusing us of being idolatrous Mary-worshippers and now you claim we’re sexists who don’t revere her for bearing Christ?? But I thought we were sexists for only revering women as bearers of more children! Boy, the Church just can’t catch a break with the World, can she?
…a misogynistic leadership holds women’s faces in the mud of ‘original sin’ as if the mere touching of a woman is beneath their religion and women don’t rate as human beings…
Where are you getting this misinformation? If you are serious about this you must understand that you are ignorant about Catholic beliefs and practices. I just told you about the Virgin Mother. What the countless female saints, blesseds, venerable, and servants of God? St. Elizabeth, St. Margaret, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Helen, St. Monica, St. Lucy, St. Hildegard of Bingen, St Theresa, St. Catherine, St. Claire, St. Joan, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Bernadette: why did the misogynists canonize all these non-human beings who stain with their touch? The holy women of the Old Testament: Sarah, Rebecca, Deborah, Ruth? The countless pious Catholic women around the world and across millennia who saw and who see the Church not as a sexist oppressor, but as a holy bearer of grace? Are they all just “unenlightened” or what? Maybe they’re all just stupid, Pinky, maybe they’re all just stupid.
There is enough to make me believe that ‘god’ was an entity and human males concocted the idea that god was a ‘man’ because men ruled at the time…
We personify God as masculine. We personify the Church as feminine. So? Should we call God “it”. Men and women are different, and they have different roles. It doesn’t mean that they are not spiritually equal.
The original sin angle is a weapon to keep the flock fearful of somehow missing out on the gifts of a myopic and manufactured deity figure…
Again, the dialectic of power and oppressor.
The whole idea of religion promotes the separation of human beings by some rule, some characteristic… That is why some (many?) religions exacerbate the perverse human need to be better than someone else. To feel smug and of higher value then someone else… To judge others by the ready decrees of the leaders…
People do use religion to justify their pridefulness. They use all sorts of things. It not religion. It’s sin. Many professors are smug and pompous about their learning. Does that condemn education? Many activists judge others because of their leaders’ talking points. Does this condemn political activism?
John Palmer says:
MJ:
“Do you and the supportive commentators here not see how we Catholics might take quotations like ‘the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.’ and ‘What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?’ as crossing the line from constructive criticism to gratuitous mockery?”
Nod. And let’s not forget what Jesus said to do to your enemies: hate them. Don’t listen to them. Block up your ears, and do not think about what they have to say.
How do you possibly draw that from what I said.
Once they are engaged in mockery, assume that you are right, and they are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Are you saying that mockery is okay? It is not, even if you’re opinions are correct. It’s rude and spiteful. It lowers the level of the debate and, frankly, it does make your ideological opponents less inclined to listen to what you have to say. Would listen to what I was saying if I was being rude, crude, and insulting?
Does the Catholic church oppose contraception?
Hm. Why, yes, yes it does.
I never said it didn’t. Does that make it perfectly alright to say whatever you like of it? Most liberals favor abortion and I think that’s wrong. Should I go around, “Liberals are all scumbags! They’re blithering idiots!” Some conservatives talk like that. Do you listen to what they have to say?
Does it support the efforts of people here in America to restrict knowledge about and access to birth control?
It calls the use contraception sinful and refuses to provide it. Have you research the Church’s reasoning behind her stance on this issue?
As a matter of fact, some Catholic hospitals won’t tell rape victims about Emergency Contraception.
Emergency contraception is abortifacient; it prevents already fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb. The Church believes that these fertilized eggs already have souls and so naturally this would be the killing of a human person. Why compound the sin and hurt of the rape with that?
It certainly supports folks who preach abstinence only education.
Great! Abstinence/chastity: the only 100% effective form of birth control (and protection against VD)
In fact, as far as I know - and I admit that I might be wrong here, I was a Catholic a *long* time ago - the Catholic church is the only major Christian church in America that strictly opposes birth control as being immoral.
Perhaps (I’m not sure of the Orthodox take on it), although a scant 80 years ago all major Protestant churches opposed contraception. Eventually they all went along with the World, while the Catholic Church stuck to her contentions. An argument for Protestantism or for Catholicism?
Do you think that has had an effect on the availability of information about, and access to, birth control?
It doesn’t seem so, given that their are harldy any Americans who don’t know about condoms or find them inaccessible. Does the hegemonic left-wing control of most areas of academia limit availability of to conservative ideas in academia?
Doesn’t fighting to restrict access to birth control, and abortion, force more women to remain pregnant, and bear children?
Putting aside this “restriction” business, as if there is a dearth of birth control in American, what’s this “force” line? Don’t you believe that women have free will to be chaste? And if they don’t, how can you claim that the Church has the free will to accept birth control (and she technically doesn’t). Now I know your going to say, “Well, what about rape?” Well, that has nothing to do with birth control. And abortion involves two human bodies, not just one. Why doesn’t the fetus have the right to his (or her) body?
It’s not gratuitous mockery. It is mockery, yes… but mockery to establish a point.
There is not such thing as non-gratuitous mockery. If you require mockery to establish a point, you must not be able to argue it intellectually. And that either says something about the point you’re trying to make, or about you.
An adult who is secure in his or her faith can handle insults.
I think I’m handling it perfectly well. I’m responding to the insult by trying to explaining why it is insulting (and unnecessary).
Is there a point to the insult?
No. There may be a point in spite of the insult.
“At least one person here has said that we shouldn’t be angry because it’s ‘bashing’ Christianity, not Christians. Well, how would it be if I said, ‘I don’t bash secularists, modernists, and humanists, only secularism, modernism, and humanism, which are the most repulsive, disgusting, ignorant, foolish ideologies in human history and have caused the suffering of untold millions.’ Would you let that slide without comment?
What is being bashed?
The person referred to in my quotation used the term “bash”. I think “to bash” is more or less synonymous with “to insult”, which you claim can be a good thing to do.
Is Amanda bashing the two great commandments, to love that which is good (what is there to love about God, except his essential goodness?), and love one’s neighbor as one’s self?
I never said she was. I said she mocked the Church, which, by the way, is the primary bearer of two great commandments to the World.
Or is she bashing the efforts of those who try to control others?
I’m sure she thinks she is.
If the Catholic Church did what Jesus suggested, and saw to the physical needs of others as a way to build up love (and treasure in the next life), without spending too much time pissing and moaning about other people’s sinfulness
When she sees what she considers evil, she must condemn it! Do you not condemn that which you consider evil? Does your condemnation of it preclude you from seeing to the “physical needs of others”? Maybe, if you’re already spending 100% of your waking life tending to the sick.
…if they were quiet, seeking service of others, and of God, not building up of their own egos…
Holy Mother Church isn’t a “they”, but the Mystical Body of Christ on Earth. You’re thinking of the Church hierarchy. How can you claim to see into their hearts? By advocating things that you’re against, might they not nonetheless simply be doing what they actually think is best and right and true?
…do you think she’d be complaining about this kind of thing?
I’m not complaining that she is complaining. I’m defending my religion against what you yourself admit is mockery. I do the same with a protestant who calls the Church the “Scarlet Whore of Babylon”and the Pope the antichrist? Should I not? Should I take that a constructive criticism as well?
I’ve seen people on this blog make fun of religion and those who are foolish enough to believe in “sky fairies� and the like. I don’t like it.
How is “sky fairies” any worse than “hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit”?
Either I’m right, and there’s something more than the physical world to us, or I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter that they make fun; if I’m right, then what they say doesn’t diminish me in the least.
True. So you never bother to argue or promote your one views? But you’re doing it right now! I’m doing the same. I’m hoping I may plant some seeds, if not change minds. I think this is a fair thing to do, even on an oppositional website.
John Edwards would have been paying a salary to someone that you and many people like you are willing to hurt because you follow Jesus…
Hold on a minute! Your insinuating I’m willing to hurt Amanda Marcotte? When did I imply such a thing? She made these statements and I told her (though I don’t know if she read it) what I thought of them. Why are painting this to be something entirely different from what it is? This is one person saying something and another person saying what he thought of what was said. I’m not persecuting or stalking the woman. As for her job with Edwards, she was criticized–and, yes, attacked in some cases–by certain people for what she said. This is what happens when you make yourself a public figure. It happens to conservative figures all the time too. Macaca!
Jim says: I guess it never occurred to you that Jesus chose only male disciples because the book about him was written by males who objected to female disciples, and chosen as canonical by males who objected to female disciples.
I’m not a Biblical scholar, but quite a few of them say Jesus had many prominent female disciples, a fact hinted at in several places in the gospels and the book of Acts.
You’re thinking of the Twelve Apostles; the disciples were his larger crowd of followers. That’s a common misconception. But if your assuming that the whole was all made up by the Gospel writers, why care whether or not a semi-fictitious Jesus had female apostles?
Jim says: If the church can declare Mary as “Queen of Heaven,� why can’t a woman be a lowly priest?
Because men and women are different and have different roles. It has nothing to do with the hierarchy of the roles. Women, unlike men, can bear children. And only men can sire them. These aren’t unisexual roles. And neither is the priesthood. Priests are meant to sit in the place of Christ on Earth. Christ was incarnated as a male and is the head and bridegroom of Mother Church. This is an inherently masculine role; it can’t be fulfilled by a priestess. Thus, it’s a question of what a priest is; it’s not just another career path. Here’s a question: If a woman has the Queen-of-Heaven title, why can’t you let men have the lowly priesthood.
The ironic thing is, (afaik), if according to orthodox doctrine Jesus was both fully human and fully God, than Mary was impregnented with Real Physical Semen. You can stop your pearl-clutching now (that sentance sounds really dirty in this context, doesn’t it?)
[…] Our little blog hits the ground running this week as we observe the carnage left in the wake of Bill Donohue’s fatwa against Amanda Marcotte - of Pandagon fame. Amanda had previously joined John Edward’s campaign as blog editor-in-chieftress, and today has resigned her post due to the sturm und drang Billy managed to whip up over the past several days. Donohue is another in a long line of hateful yet holier-than-thou proselytizers who have zero tolerance for a world home to humans harboring belief systems even marginally different than his own. Amanda’s great sin was criticizing the Catholic Church’s stance on birth control and abortion. She explains her decision to resign the post from Edward’s campaign here. […]
There’s also Romans 1:3, which differs from Amanda’s take only in the matter of the origin of the spooge.
Phoenician in a time of Romans says: How many people witnessed Jesus’s resurrection?
St. Paul said this:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Kephas, then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living…
–1 Corinthians 15:3-6
Phoenician in a time of Romans: How many people witnessed the turning of the water into wine? Three - Jesus, Mary and the mother of the groom.
What about the servers?
…the headwaiter taste the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew)
–John 2:9
And then:
Jesus did this as the beginning of his sins…and his disciples began to believe him.
–John 2:11
How did they know?
Phoenician in a time of Romans: How many people witnessed the angels on Christmas? Three - shepherds. And it was a cold night, and alcohol was not unknown in the Middle East.
The shepherds are never numbered. You’re thinking of the magi, although I don’t believe they’re ever numbered in the Gospels either and three magi is a tradition (I could be wrong). If 500 witnessed the resurrected Christ, the angelic host on Christmas must also be questioned?
How many people witnessed Jesus’s conception? One
Presuming she was the mother of resurrected person seen by 500 people, I’d be willing take Mary at her word.
How many people witnessed the Immaculate Conception?
That’s also not mentioned in the scripture. It’s a Holy Tradition now defined by the Magisterium.
I repeat - by the standards used for the Gospels, the Book of Mormon and the Golden Plates seem more credible.
Now you’re just being silly if you can’t see what I am saying. For one thing, you conveniently forget the numerous other miracles performed during Christ’s ministry, many of which were far more public than the miracle at Cana. Such as…oh, I don’t know…the miracle of the loaves and fish? You also forget the wonders that the Gospels describe happening at the very public crucifixion. Must I tally up all the witnesses said to present at every extraordinary event mentioned in the New Testament? Can you at least believe that Christ himself was a very public figure, according to the Gospels, and managed to gain a large following very quickly, partly, according to the Gospels, through His wondrous works? Of course, the Gospels are claiming this, but what we’re debating is whether they came from a tiny circle of preachers who popped up making some strange claims or from a large following of people already formed and claiming much of the same things.
John Palmer says: We can safely assume two people witnessed the Immaculate Conception, though we can guess that they didn’t specifically witness it as immaculate.
Two people were present for that event: St. Anne and St. Joachim. The Immaculate Conception refers to conception of Mary by her parents, immaculately–that is, without original sin. That’s a common misconception.
Hysterical Woman says: The ironic thing is, (afaik), if according to orthodox doctrine Jesus was both fully human and fully God, than Mary was impregnented with Real Physical Semen.
You don’t believe the Holy Ghost had the power to impregnate the Blessed Mother through supernatural means? According to our belief she supplied the physical matter of Christ’s body.
There’s also Romans 1:3, which differs from Amanda’s take only in the matter of the origin of the spooge.
That verse refers to the decent of Christ from King David through his mother, Mary.
MJ:
Mockery is a tool; nothing more, nothing less.
I can say that, yes, I would listen to what you say if you said it in a rude and insulting manner (crudity per se doesn’t bother me). I confess that there have been times I’ve been unwilling to admit to having learned something from a person who acted in an unkind manner… but I’m interested in the truth, and thus, will listen if I feel there is something of value to learn.
Tsk, tsk. You showed such promise. No, most liberals do not favor *abortion*. Most liberals favor the *legality* of abortion. People who have an unwanted pregnancy make a moral choice, to continue the pregnancy, or terminate it. Liberals say that the state should not interfere with that choice without a compelling interest, one based in something more than a person’s article of faith.
I have yet to meet a liberal of “favored” abortion; I’ve met many who would eliminate them, if possible, by eliminating all unwanted pregnancies. This is, of course, impossible, which is why access to abortion is favored.
It creates an interesting situation: you’re demanding that the state show favor to your religion’s beliefs and enact laws based upon those beliefs. You charge that these pregnancies can be prevented by choice, so no one needs to have an abortion.
Others insist that the law not favor a particular set of religious beliefs, and point out that abortions can be prevented by choice, as well. If you can convince people not to have them, they won’t.
It’s just, one of these solutions is favored by the concept of a nation with freedom for its citizenry, and the other isn’t.
Certainly, women have the choice to avoid sex (though please note that “abstain” is the word you are looking for; a woman who has sex with her husband is “chaste” in so doing). They also have the choice to engage in sex, with the full knowledge of the methods of preventing pregnancy and the spread of disease. If it had its way, the Catholic Church would prevent the spread and/or the use of that knowledge. It would seek to control others; it does not have any faith that its message is sufficient to convince people, despite claiming to believe it is ultimate truth.
When you’ve got God and ultimate truth on your side, and you still need to pull in changes to law and policy to fight your battles, I don’t think you’ve really got any faith. Faith is supposed to be pretty powerful stuff on its own, don’t you know.
This in itself should lead one to question if the Church believes its own doctrine.
Argumentum ad hominem. A person who engages in mockery may be able to debate the point without doing so. That’s twice you’ve screwed up, first time being your ridiculous strawman about how liberals feel about abortion.
Critical thought is important if you want to learn to debate and learn more about the truth.
I’m sorry… you’re defending your religion? From what? Is it going to be damaged Amanda Marcotte’s mockery?
Please, be honest with yourself. You were personally offended by what Amanda said, and out of that personal offense, you want to do something for yourself. Your religion will do just as well as it deserves to, with any one mocker more or less.
Now maybe you have pride in being Catholic and seek to impress us with your thoughtfulness and piety. It won’t work on me, because I know how Jesus felt about folks who chose to show off their piety. And you sure as heck won’t come across as thoughtful if you feel you have to defend a religion that believes it is the true path to the Almighty from one mouthy woman who runs a blog.
When a Protestant calls the Catholic church the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, what should you do? Blow it off. There is no point to such a thing.
But when you see someone debating social policy, you can at least recognize that there are many - a great many - who care about that social policy, and if they mock the Church’s stance against policy that protects the health of many people (sinners though the Church considers them to be), you can either look for truth, or decide you know better than them, based upon your faith.
Or, you could choose the path of just not listening, and concerning yourself with the sick, the poor, the imprisoned. Jesus would be cool with that, too.
No, I don’t try to promote my own views about religion. Like Judaism, my religion does not seek converts.
I do try to spread my ideas about sound policy, like protecting the health of those who have sex, whether or not I approve of their choices (so long as the sex is between consenting adults). If God’s going to be upset with them for having sex, that’s for God to deal with, not me.
Hence:
No. That is a choice. And it can be a very unwise one. Certainly, one can condemn murder, rape, theft, and similar crimes where there is clear harm to others. But when one starts trying to condemn those who do not hold to religious teachings, one is showing a great deal of pride in one’s view of righteousness.
Who did Jesus have harsh words for? Those who claimed to know the Truth, or those who were seeking it, with open minds and hearts?
Yes, I’m inferring you are quite willing to hurt Amanda Marcotte. You admit, right here, that you were perfectly willing to watch people attack her, not for being a public figure - she was campaign staff, not working on matters of policy - but for saying things of which you disapprove.
You believe that the Church, and you, acting as proxy, have the right and duty to condemn things that you feel are evil, even if you can’t exactly point to where they’re hurting anyone.
You want to convince me you love her, as Jesus commanded? You’ll have to do a better job than that.
Ginsu posts… An interesting, and very tedious idea…
No. For an example, I worked for a ‘man of god’ who on the morning of my grandfathers funeral called me and told me that I had to work that day. I explained that it was my grandfathers funeral and he said ‘So. What do you expect me to do about that? Work or you’re fired!’ “I quit” I said and he actually argued with me over whether I was fired first or quit first… What an asshole…
Wrong. Try Catholicism…
If they actually had any faith that extended from greed and the lust for power and control, then yes, I’d even attend a ‘black church’ (your words, not mine. Racist are we?)
So someone using ‘religious code words’ can be a man of Satan? Careful there for you describe most republican presidential candidates…
Fair enough, but someone going through life’s moments with no feeling has no basis for compassion and empathy. I’d rather have someone who actually feels SOMETHING when my child is sent to fight his war of lies and then comes home in a ziploc baggie… It doesn’t bother your ‘religiousness’ that human lives are being thrown around as grains of rice on a grungy sidewalk?
My point escaped you: People with obvious mental illness can’t escape their illness exuding into whatever they attempt… Look at Hitler. Now look at Cheney… Bush… Dobson… Donohue… Robertson…
Are you sure? How about the pope? His countless minions that massage the ‘church’s’ messages. Donohue? Bush?
Because as long as a wicked man needs to just profess his failure, beg forgiveness and continue on their way as before, I see that ‘religion’ as rather pointless. Except for the leaders…
Oh, forgive me. They value ‘one’ woman. All the other must live in her shadow, cowered from the mysoginist leaders… How does it feel to be a second class citizen in religion?
Have you read anything about the first and only female pope? Why not?
Equal? How many vatican recognized female catholic priests are there? Bishops? Popes throughout history? Why do nuns exist in economic slavery? Because they are equal… To pig spit…
Which the ‘church’ uses to great effect. I’ve known catholics who go into fits because they are missing ‘church’… They are afraid of ‘going to hell’ because of it. They give money to the ‘church’ to buy their way into heaven… Kinda like putting their money into a slot machine, betting on a heaven…
“I don’t care if it rains or freezes, ‘long as I got my plastic Jesus”…
‘Pride goes before the fall’? So a catholic that slaughtered a protestant in Ireland was being ‘prideful’? Of what? The ability to kill in the name of their cultish ‘religion’?
God must have been so proud of the death toll generated by His people…
Well, just look through history… He must be so proud… Taking pride in His legions of killers… The carnage… The wasted life… From a religion that claims to value life…
Can hypocrisy exist without religion? Yes. Can religion exist without hypocrisy? Evidently not…
The president can do whatever he wants because he is, in fact, The President, and that being the case, whatever he does is lawful because he did it. Nixon said so.
Christians can say and do whatever they want, because since they’re Christian, whatever they say or do is Christian?
Or did I miss something?
Get that m*****f**king Buddhist outa here!
Always remember the mighty words of the Archbishop of Beziers!
“KILL! Kill them all! God will know His own!!”
St. Paul said this:
St Paul wasn’t there. Hearsay evidence by an interested party.
Try again.
Phoenician in a time of Romans: How many people witnessed the turning of the water into wine? Three - Jesus, Mary and the mother of the groom.
What about the servers?
Easily fooled by something any illusionist can do - they didn’t see the actual transformation. Try again.
The shepherds are never numbered.
Ah - so a miracle in which witnesses are claimed, but never identified or enumerated?
Presuming she was the mother of resurrected person seen by 500 people, I’d be willing take Mary at her word.
Riiiiight. A teenage girl winds up pregnant, claims “God did it” - and you’d believe her?
I repeat - by the standards used for the Gospels, the Book of Mormon and the Golden Plates seem more credible.
Now you’re just being silly if you can’t see what I am saying.
No, you’re being silly if you don’t get my point. We have accounts of dubious provenence collected in an age of mythology and superstition, bearing the textual traces of numerous redactions and editings for competing agendas, and collected and transmitted by a worldly organisation whose power depends on said book.
Claiming the Bible as evidence just doesn’t cut it to an objective eye. You first have to suspend disbelief before you can find it credible.
For one thing, you conveniently forget the numerous other miracles performed during Christ’s ministry, many of which were far more public than the miracle at Cana. Such as…oh, I don’t know…the miracle of the loaves and fish?
I didn’t see it. You didn’t see it. How do we know it happened? How do we know it happened like it was claimed? How do we know it doesn’t have as much “truth” to it as ‘Sophies Choice” which is also a book?
You also forget the wonders that the Gospels describe happening at the very public crucifixion.
And yet you casually dismiss the wonders claimed by the Qu’ran and the Book of Mormon. If you’re going to argue, at least address the appearance of consistency.
Can you at least believe that Christ himself was a very public figure, according to the Gospels, and managed to gain a large following very quickly, partly, according to the Gospels, through His wondrous works?
Heh. Finally another standard for proof offered.
Minor problems:
- Book of Mormon penned 1836. Number of Mormons 170 years later - over 12.5 million. Number of Christians, c200 AD - dunno, but probably considerably less than 12.5 million, being a Jewish offshoot persecuted by the Romans.
- Islam - Muhammad dies, 630 AD. Number of Muslims 1476 years later - 1.3 billion. Number of Christians around 1500 AD - dunno, but given that the world population was around 800 million, probably a bit less than 1.3 billion.
- Between 1990-2000, the major religions were growing annually as follows (Wikipedia):
* 2.65% - Zoroastrianism
* 2.28% - Bahá’à Faith
* 2.13% - Islam
* 1.87% - Sikhism
* 1.69% - Hinduism
* 1.36% - Christianity
* 1.09% - Buddhism
The world population growth was 1.41%, meaning that Christianity and Buddhism were actually decreasing their market share.
- Christ didn’t have a large following. Paul had a large following in his name - but Paul never even met the man.
[…] Marcotte wrote about the situation: Right wingers right now are pretending like sexism has nothing to do with me, which is an argument that works if you think a) men get emails about how they need to suck a dick on a regular basis and b) that there’s nothing whatsoever sexist about allowing men to curse but hitting the fainting couch if a woman does. […]
Thus spake Zarathustra!
From http://altreligion.about.com/library/faqs/bl_zoroastrianism.htm
“Myths and misconceptions: The most usual misconception is that Zoroastrians are fire-worshippers; they are not. In zoroastrian worship, fire is simply a symbol of the manifested power of Ahura-mazda.
Famous Zoroastrians: Musician Eddie Mercury”
[…] A few days ago I posted this cartoon about Bill Donohue (he of of the Catholic League) bellyaching that the Edward’s campaign had hired two "trash talking" bloggers, who in his esteemed opinion were anti catholic bigots. What had apparently set him off was the writing of one of them, Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon, about the Catholic Church’s war on contraception and abortion. Well…you can see where this is going…right? […]
[…] What’s most amusing is the nasty assed comments Amanda has recieved since Bill inserted himself as the leader of the smear campaign: Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man! Living in Texas myself, I know you haven’t found that real Texan yet. But once your liberal pro feminist ass gets a real good fucking, you might see the light. Until then, enjoy your battery operated toys b/c most real men wouldn’t want to give you the fucking you deserve b/c the shit that would come out of you ears. - Andy Driggers of Dallas, Texas It’s just too bad your mother didn’t abort you. You are nothing more than a filthy mouth slut. I bet a couple of years in Iraq being raped and beaten daily would help you appreciate America a little. Need a plane ticket ? - Bud Philips […]
Lex,
Uncle Dick tells you to stay off the meds. Addiction to meds is not good. Concern troll go Cheney yourself.
MJ,
Uncle Dick says George Allen not the victim, George Allen’s the masculine perpetrator of Macaca. Uncle Dick says George deserves to be shot in the face. Can you get him to go duck-hunting with me?
Often I like to read hate mail from “Christians.” Check out Normal Bob Smith at: http://www.normalbobsmith.com/
Amanda,
I haven’t been following your side of what has been going on, because I was not a reader of your site before this began. I have been and continue to be a supporter of Melissa’s, and I am Spartacus too.
I believe that the Christian faith is perverted 180 degrees by these people who preach and practice hatred upon their fellow human beings.
I believe that the people who call themselves Christians, but are not, are a great concern. What words I can say, they can mouth, and believe the exact opposite.
It is so bad that you cannot tell by the words at all sometimes, and must judge the tree always by its fruit. Cannabis is the tree of life and an ingredient of the anointing oil and the eucharist.
I was molested by a Catholic priest from 1977 to 1981. It happened at least once a week, which was easy for him to do, as I was a student at the parish school.
In 1977, I was in second grade. Because I was the baby of my class, I was just seven years old when the molestation started.
I tried to tell the nuns, and was punished for lying. I tried to tell my parents, namely my mother, and was beaten and punished even more severely for “making up sexy stories about Father.” I was just a little kid, and surprisingly naive at that, despite the sex that was forced upon me for four straight years by an adult who claimed to be a representative of Jesus Christ here on earth.
The molestation stopped only because the priest was transferred to another parish. The Catholic Church refuses to reveal to me today why this priest was moved so abruptly (i.e., in the middle of the school year).
Perhaps if the Catholic Church spent a little less time with their hypocritical ways and a little more time learning the word of God and then living it, we wouldn’t be having to discuss such vile topics. Vile topics, I might add, that always seem to started by these “holy” types and perpetrated upon innocent victims such as you and me.
It’s disgusting. They’re disgusting.
Long-time reader, first time commenter — Amanda, I am horrified by the e-mail that you’ve been getting, but at the same time, I am not surprised. It’s so obvious, so straight out of the playbook of he-man patriarchal idiocy that it could almost write itself. If you were a man and had written anything that you’ve written (all entirely true or well within the realm of defense-unnecessary personal opinion) they’d call you a jerk, idiot or asshole and go on their way. You’re a woman, so you get aspersions on your looks, suggestions that you need more sex, sexual aggression and outright threats of rape and violence because that is the way that men have always tried to put us mouthy women in our “place” from time immemorial.
That your detractors can’t come up with anything better than this same old same old, unintelligent, unimaginative, unremarkable crap is not surprising.
That they claim to spout it in the name of defending Christianity? More offensive than anything you said to the nth degree. If this is what these good Christians consider “do unto others” then I need to pray harder for the return of Christ soon (maranatha, indeed) to separate the wheat from the chaff once and for all, because the name of the Prince of Peace has been far too tarnished lately. Far, far too tarnished.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. You post your hate mail as justification for what you say? I love it. You you make slurs, epitaphs, call people motherf***ers and than when you get some back you cry and whine. LOOK! Look what they wrote they are suppose to be christians. Please you dish it out ‘Amanda Team Fuckyou Force’, you are going to get a BIG FU back. Christians are sinners like everyone. I am sure they will pray for forgiveness. My guess Jesus will understand.
BTW you did get fired, quiting under pressure and controversy is really not quiting. Why did you quit?
Look you may HATE catholics and christian, fine. However slurs against people of faith, mocking their religion is not cool.
76.5% of america identifies them self as Christian. I AM SURE MAKING STATEMENTS LIKE YOU HAVE, DOES NOT ENDEAR PEOPLE TO EDWARDS FOR A WINNING PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. That just does not compute with you I guess.
Wake up and deal with it, you where fired. You are now free to say what you want now and hope you are happy. However what you say is bizarre, extreme, hateful, F-bomb laced motherf***er triads devoid of facts and long on rant-N-rave.
You may have sunk Edwards boat. I hope you realize that. His slick response was well written but diplomatically he distanced himself from your F-U style of rhetoric. Deal with that. In a few words, you hurt your CAUSE and his campaign by using hate speech, slurs and pejorative epithets.
++++++++++++++
Amanda Marcotte wrote:
Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology
++++++++++++++
You may call that satire, but you could not be that dense, being an “English Major” and all. That is not only offensive but sacrilegious. Why not call blacks Nigger’s, Call woman Cunts, Jews = hook nose Kikes, call mentally challenged people retards and Gays are Fags & Dyke’s.
You know why, because that would bring outrage from those communities. However its ok to mock and be sacraligous against Christians. You call Christians, Godbags, Holly Rollers, Motherf***ers. Bible is mythology (that is intellectually and historically incorrect). No doubt religion and spirituality is by faith alone.
However being an intellectual that you are (English Major) where did we come from? I am guessing you believe the origin of man was from space dust and one cell organisms randomly & spontaneously came together in the primordial ooze, which crated all the complex diverse life. Daddy! Everything came from nothing by accident is your religion.
The Big bang created the universe and its expanding according to astrophysicist. When they say with confidence 100 trillion years ago…… it sounds so good. If the universe is expanding and accelerating, what is it expanding into? Where did all this energy come from to start with before the bang? No answers, just theories and lots of math and scientific philosophy with theorems yet to be proven. Sorry, its all made up, but it sounds good. BTW I have two advanced degrees in science and engineering, I am not a genuis English Major. How old are YOU? Why sould any one listen to you on politics, religion and life?
I agree with you about birth control. It should be available. I am not catholic but a christian. Christians in general are OK with birth control. You have a point, but the way you put it, The ‘Amanda Team Fuckyou Force’ style is really a lack of maturity. It just makes you sound stupid or crazy or extreme. Here is a classic tirade,
++++++++++++++
Amanda Marcotte wrote:
“Summary: We are fucked!
Choice is GONE! And as soon as Roe v. Wade is overturned, states will start outlawing contraception, and eventually the ideologically run court will find that there’s no right to privacy period, and contraception protection will be gone.
The only thing I can say now is that people who have enough children or don’t want any at all, get sterilized while you still can.
As for those who want children just not now….well, I don’t know. If you use condoms, stock up on EC now. If you use the pill start exploring the Canadian options.
One thing I vow here and now you motherf***ers who want to ban birth control will never sleep. I will f*** without making children day in and out and you will know it and you won’t be able to stop it. Toss and turn you mean jealous motherf***ers. I’m not going to be “punished” with babies. Which makes all your efforts a failure. Some non=-procreating woman escaped. SO give up now. You’ll never catch all of us. Give up now.”
++++++++++++++
Let me ask everyone, does Amandaa sound like she is going to have a breakdown? Marcotte your writing is bizarre elaborate tirades on anti-Catholicism, bible mocking, birth control rights paranoia and vitriolic comments about: Bush, new orleans, duke rap case, all really totally insane and WRONG. You think the Duke men are rapist. OK. Get the facts, it is unlikely. The woman had sperm from several men in her, none from the Duke players. Sometimes woman are the FUCK UP ONES. You think?
I’m not happy with Bush, the war or GOP, but MY GOSH take a Valium or something. To be a strong woman or voice does not mean you have to put down people or belittle them and their believe. No one is forcing you to have children. No one is kicking doors down and keeping gays from having sex or living together. They want to get married great. They can give there partner 1/2 there net worth if they break up just like hetro men. Again I agree in privacy, but your diatribe is just OVER THE TOP. Again it hurts your cause.
Catholic church does not run America. In fact I would be worried more about the so called Evangelicals, the James Dobsons of the world. The real far out Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwell are not embraced by mainstream Christians and these two gents are loony toonys, basically the mirror image of your far left views. However most americans are moderate and in the middle.
++++++++++++++
Amanda Marcotte wrote: I would add that abortion is a method of birth control, though it is not a contraceptive.
++++++++++++++
I am a christian and don’t believe in abortion as intentional BIRTH CONTROL as you do. However I do believe government should stay out of our private business. You can’t legislate against sin or for morality. I understand your worry, but the way you attack a faith is NOT COOL. It makes you sound like what the right says about the left: secular, anti-religion extremist.
You are either very young and immature or a truly hateful angry person, may be a little of both. You say, Geee all I did was dare criticize the Catholic church. Please, when you call the bible mythology you are really making your self out as a fool.
++++++++++++++
Amanda Marcotte wrote: Luckily, I happen to have a Bible laying around this house, because even though I’m not a Christian, I was an English major, and it is important to Know Your Ancient Mythologies if you are reading poetry.
++++++++++++++
I am not going to give you a bible study because I know you don’t give a shit. However civilization from the beginning of recorded time is marked by human spirituality and religion from a historical stand point. The bible’s teachings, wisdom’s are universally recognized, even by secular scholars, to have value and be historically accurate. In a society we must have morals and law. Religion, specifically Jewdao-Christian teachings has given us a frame work to our Constitution and law. Deal with it.
So if you are going to make a Vendetta of Christians, Catholics in particular for some reason you better be ready to defend it.
You back-down and lie and say you really did nothing wrong or didn’t mean it or say it that way. LOOK don’t be a pussy, if you are going to be a DICK and try to hurt people with your words, stand up and be counted and say I HATE RELIGION. AMANDA HATES CHRISTIANS AND ESPECIALLY CATHOLICS AND CATHOLIC CHURCH. (Funny Amanda has the words “A Man Daaa”, is she a dumb man?) Lets mock you. That is fun.
I would have more respect for you if you would just own up to your radical anti-christ opinions. You just act like you where not fired or did anything wrong. Either you are really nave to think what you said was not sacraligous or immature or you are trully anti-christ. Why not attacks Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists , Sikhs, Jews? The reason is you think it is OK to mock Jesus and the Bible. IT IS NOT COOL.
My guess, you will delete this because you will not debate or defend your words, because you know they are not defensible. I hope you grow up. Cheers Greg
Being that I left the RCC a long time ago, I really can’t say that I care what rules the church makes for members of its flock. So far as I’m concerned, they lost every bit of moral credibility when Pope JP-II stated that it was wrong for men to lust after women, but apparantly female lust got a pass. Why should that be? They don’t realize that females *can* lust after sexy men.
The only time that I *do* care is when the RCC decides to enlist the gov’t’s guns in order to make that flock — and the rest of us non-Catholics — comply with those rules.
Having said that, I see a whole bunch of wrongs from all sides here. While ridicule and mockery has its place, Amanda goes *way* too heavy on that. A little mockery can spice up any debate, but, like salt, a pinch will improve a good meal, but a shovelful will ruin anything. How about more light, and less heat when discussing all that’s wrong with RC doctrine, Amanda?
You have these idgits with their rape-her-beat-her-send-her-to-Iraq nonsense from Bill Donahue’s drones, and other assorted morons doing their part to make Catholicism in particular, and Christianity in general, look really bad. I swear America is getting stupider by the day.
Folks: the only place where two wrongs make a right is algebra.
Next, we have the Edwards campaign. No, Amanda didn’t do anything to “sink” his campaign. All that happened is that Edwards, the weasely little ambulance chaser, proved himself to be as spineless as a worm. Instead of all his lawyerly equivocation, he should have stood up for the bloggers that he, himself, hired. He should have come out and said that Donahue’s Catholic League, as a tax-exempt foundation, was interfering with a political campaign in violation of the IRS rules governing the conduct of tax-exempt foundations, and then demanded Donahue to either drop that exemption, or to STFU. If he did not, Edwards should have stated that he was going to the IRS to file a complaint. He should have pulled every skeleton from the closets of Donahue and O’Reilly and dispalyed them for all to see. I don’t agree with Edwards’ politics, and would never vote for him, but I could certainly respect him for having the courage of his convictions. Instead, he took the coward’s way out. If he can not stand up to the whacko right, then how can we trust him to do the right thing when the lobbyists of Corporate America come a-callin’?
For once, I would like to see either the Republican’ts or the Demo-Rats run a candidate that wasn’t an unprincipled coward, a moron, or a lunatic.
Just for a change.
[…] It is up to US Catholics to make decisions about how they will be represented in media by this spokesmen. Marcotte and McEwan received horrific sexual assault and death threats when Donohue got on his media soapbox and began his crusade. By the time it was over, it had spilled well past blogs. […]
I find this entire episode disgusting. Jesus DID NOT teach hate to his follows, only love, kindness and respect. Wow, how can someone who claims to be a follower of Christ in every sense use language of hate, intolerance, bigotry and absolute disrespect continue to be a follower of Christ? I am Roman Catholic, and I puke up the shoes of Bill Donohue and every other bigot out there that wishes to claim they follow the teachings of Christ, but spew hatred from their mouths. Bill Donohue HAS NO right by any means to dictate someone else’s speech, thought and expression. This is America, not Nazi Germany (no offense Germans, just referring to the era of Adolf Hitler and what he created). I can’t believe that Bill and his followers would send hate mail and death threats to these two young people. Is this the point that America has come to? Where we make every attempt to silence those with differing points of view by the use of threats and intimidation, especially from the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights? Bill himself made every attempt to trample upon the civil rights of these two forced to resign from the Edward’s campaign. What is the point of having civil rights if other people will do whatever it takes to strip them from you? Every American has the freedom to express their point of view, but not the freedom to dictate what points of view can or can not be expressed. Donohue, I am sure Jesus would not approve of your temper tantrum, and also make sure to change your diaper. You are dispicable and should be excommunicated. I strongly support the IRS in taking action against tax-exempt religious organizations who use the pulpit to spew out their political rhetoric. They should no longer have the privilige of having their tax-exempt status if preaching politics, not the teachings of Christ. I don’t want to go to church and be told not to vote for so and so because of this and this. That has NOTHING to do with the purpose of going to church, and also has no place in the House of the Lord. Shame on you Donohue for calling yourself a Christian, as you are more like an agent of the Devil - that is where hate and meaness come from. Your heart is black and cold.
John Palmer says: Mockery is a tool; nothing more, nothing less…I would listen to what you say if you said it in a rude and insulting manner…
The point is that anything that can be expressed with mockery can be better expressed without mockery. You may be able to get your point across including, but you would better serve yourself leaving it out and acting civil.
…most liberals do not favor *abortion*. Most liberals favor the *legality* of abortion.
Okay, I’ll give you that.
Putting aside this “restriction� business, as if there is a dearth of birth control in American, what’s this “force� line? Don’t you believe that women have free will to be chaste? And if they don’t, how can you claim that the Church has the free will to accept birth control (and she technically doesn’t). Now I know your going to say, “Well, what about rape?� Well, that has nothing to do with birth control. And abortion involves two human bodies, not just one. Why doesn’t the fetus have the right to his (or her) body?
Certainly, women have the choice to avoid sex (though please note that “abstain� is the word you are looking for; a woman who has sex with her husband is “chaste� in so doing).
I prefer the word “chaste” in this context. Chastity, in the way I mean it, refers to the virtue of sexual morality, both within marriage and outside it. Of course, in my view, chastity necessary translates to abstinence from sexual acts outside marriage. But “abstinence” itself is a broader term and can refer to meat, drink, etc. I think conservatives began to use “abstinence” to refer to extramarital chastity, because “chastity” sounded to religious and “old-fashioned”.
They also have the choice to engage in sex, with the full knowledge of the methods of preventing pregnancy and the spread of disease. If it had its way, the Catholic Church would prevent the spread and/or the use of that knowledge. It would seek to control others; it does not have any faith that its message is sufficient to convince people, despite claiming to believe it is ultimate truth.
The Catholic Church is only preaching its doctrines to the world. What control does it have over secular legal matters? Of course, a secular state with Catholic rulers may choose to illegalize things considered dangerous to the social morality as a whole. But this matter, at heart, has to do with individualism versus communalism. We humans are social beings and have always passed laws according to our society’s vision of morality as a whole. We still do: witness anti-drug laws, anti-smoking laws, environmental regulation, anti-discrimination laws, age of majority, age of consent, no public nudity, don’t fish in this river, don’t grow you hedges more than x number of feet, etc. It’s no different. It’s modern values expressed by the secular State.
When you’ve got God and ultimate truth on your side, and you still need to pull in changes to law and policy to fight your battles, I don’t think you’ve really got any faith. Faith is supposed to be pretty powerful stuff on its own, don’t you know.
What becomes of Christ’s command to the apostles to preach the Word to all nations? It is not the survival of our Faith we worry about (or, at least, we shouldn’t worry about that) but the wellbeing of the world and the people in it.
Argumentum ad hominem. A person who engages in mockery may be able to debate the point without doing so.
What? You defend mockery in the same breath that you condemn a supposed ad hominem? To you not see how both of these proceed from a desire to disparage one’s opponent, possibly in lieu of a convincing argument?
Critical thought is important if you want to learn to debate and learn more about the truth.
School me, O sage! (That’s not an ad hominem; I’m only engaging in mockery)
… you’re defending your religion? From what? Is it going to be damaged Amanda Marcotte’s mockery?…You were personally offended by what Amanda said, and out of that personal offense, you want to do something for yourself…Now maybe you have pride in being Catholic and seek to impress us with your thoughtfulness and piety. It won’t work on me, because I know how Jesus felt about folks who chose to show off their piety.
And you sure as heck won’t come across as thoughtful if you feel you have to defend a religion that believes it is the true path to the Almighty from one mouthy woman who runs a blog.
Perhaps you’re right, John. Perhaps I am simply wasting my time trying to flash my pious peacock feathers before the rabble. The truth is, I originally stopped at Pandagon because I was curious after hearing the brouhaha about Edwards. What really compelled to post my first post here was the implication in the original blog post that the majority or even a large minority of Christians are like the idiots quoted in the post. So I banged out a short response, hoping that people otherwise fooled might see this. Since then I’ve just been debating with various other commenters, not about Marcotte, but about Christianity in general. Maybe it’s folly on my part, but it is difficult for me to read such misconceptions and stereotypes written by apparently otherwise intelligent and well-educated people and simply not address them. I shouldn’t say I’m protecting my religion, but I am trying to show people another side to it than the side that they are getting from Amanda Marcotte’s post and from each other. But maybe I should give up.
I don’t try to promote my own views about religion….I do try to spread my ideas about sound policy, like protecting the health of those who have sex, whether or not I approve of their choices (so long as the sex is between consenting adults)….when one starts trying to condemn those who do not hold to religious teachings, one is showing a great deal of pride in one’s view of righteousness.
Why are religious views any different from political, social, cultural, moral, or philosophical views? I don’t accept this modernist desire to stick religion in its own separate, little cubbyhole, outside public discourse, outside debate. This is the argument of those secularists who tell us, “Cling to your silly little superstition if you want, but keep it behind closed doors.” Thus, civilization becomes secularized. Do you accept the conservative argument that gays can have relationships but shouldn’t express their affection in public and shouldn’t lobby for “gay rights” in the public square?
Yes, I’m inferring you are quite willing to hurt Amanda Marcotte. You admit, right here, that you were perfectly willing to watch people attack her….You want to convince me you love her, as Jesus commanded? You’ll have to do a better job than that.
So what do you want me to do? I can’t stop her attackers. I can condemn them and I do. These buffoons she’s quoting are more harmful to those on my side than on hers or yours, for obvious reasons. Or do you mean Donahue? I’ve already said I think he’s an embarrasment too and any modicum of respect I might have had for him was lost with “secular Jews control Hollywood”. But I can’t stop him. But, still, public speech has consequences and spoken publicly by posting what she posted non-anonymously on this blog. Well, that public speech made her too much of a lightening rod for the Edwards campaign. If I publicly posted some of my more radically counter-revolutionary religious/political beliefs on the Internet, under my real name, and was then hired for some minor position by, say, the Romney campaign, and my postings were then discovered and spread around by the Huffington Post and Keith Olbermann (M.J.: Worst Person in the Woooooorld!), I’d probably be kicked off that campaign too. I can’t have sympathy for her for facing such realities and I don’t think that’s synonymous with hurting her and wanting to hurt her.
Speaking as a recovering Catholic, I find the church’s stance on condoms completely ridiculous. Their stance is that it subverts God’s will — which is that married people should have children. Yet, they will teach that married people using the “rhythm method” is OK. I know, I got this lecture in 11th grade religion class in Catholic school.
Hmm, I see a problem there. The rhythm method is also subverting God’s will for married couples to have children. So the teachers in certain Catholic schools have been teaching that a moral sin is OK because the church says so.
Many American Catholics I know have to hold their noses to stay in their churches. They know half the church doctrine is bullshit but they don’t want to jump ship, hoping the church will make the great leap out of the Middle Ages. Hasn’t happened yet but you never know.
The point is that anything that can be expressed with mockery can be better expressed without mockery. You may be able to get your point across including, but you would better serve yourself leaving it out and acting civil.
Civility: Excuse me, dear sir, but would you be so kind as to go fuck yourself? And take your etiquette lesson and firmly lodge it all up in your ass? Thank you so much!
I am trying to be open to what you are writing and to understand your point of view about Christianity. Before I make my final decision about your positions, I need a little bit more information from you. Would you please address in a future blog your basic motivation for spending so much time finding things to hate about Christianity? This seems part of your life’s work. Where is this coming from on a personal level? What do you hope to achieve? What do you perceive will happen to you upon your death? What is your personal view on the meaning of your life?
Thanks,
Shannon Miller
Dear Shannon Miller:
Please shut the fuck up. Nothing you are saying makes a lick of fucking sense.
Domo.
[…] The extra-legal equivalent is social pressure. Don’t underestimate it, because this is what enabled the corporate state of the 1950s, using intense pro-capitalism/Christianity/Democracy/American* (read U.S.) and anti-Socialism/Atheism/Communism/non-American** rhetoric as its most visible expression. It’s also what made the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq possible, and even got the Shrub re-elected (no mean feat). It also results in people feeling shunned or threatened for writing about things they believe are right and wrong. Amanda Marcotte and Shakespeare’s Sister felt it, and not the pretty packaged version, either - more like the ugly side that comes out when people who refuse to think about why things are the way they are feel the Natural Order of Things is threatened. […]
I was not even aware of the situation until I stumbled upon this blog a few minutes ago. Let me tell you though, it’s the best thing that’s happened so far today! I grew up in a strict Catholic household where questioning religion and spending to much time cleansing ones genitals were both mortal sins. Naturally, as an adult, I am no longer in the front row during Sunday mass. There are few things I enjoy more than Christian retaliation. As far I can tell the idea is “Use the threat of violence in an attempt to restore peace.” That is the cornerstone of modern Christian ideology, is it not? Amanda, I know your intention is not rooted in a desire to offend or elicit negative responses but how I do love to stand by as the virtuous masquerade is unveiled by autoabhorrence. In short, thank you.