In Which Brannon Howse Lies Through His Teeth
If you’re just an ordinary person trying to scrape by and don’t ‘t have a lot of time to check things out for yourself chances are good you find your “experts” and believe whatever they say. Despite the fact that Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has a “good friend” that hires whores to dress him up in diapers, you’ll still believe Tony Perkins when he says don’t give money to left-wing, gay, socialist politicians. Despite the fact that Rush Limbaugh called for any drug abusers to go to jail, you’ll still forgive when he abuses drugs. Are there examples on the other side? Of course there are. But since the evangelical right never acknowledges their mistakes until someone holds their feet to the fire, then why should I?
The whole basis for the evangelical right (and I’m trying very, very hard to maintain some semblance of civility right now) is “truth”. Not just “truth” but “biblical truth”. And not just “biblical truth” but unerring “biblical truth”. According to them only one “right” exists in the world. If you even acknowledge a second option in any question then you’re practicing “moral relativism”. And that’s bad. Really, really bad.” In their world, big-G God has one answer and one answer only. Of course, it depends on which sect of Christianity you belong to as to what that answer is. It’s simpler to quote their philosophy with a quote from David Mamet. “The other guy’s cigar always sucks.”
It’s that philosophy that allows them to hate the rest of the world and to decry “worldly things” simply because big-G God doesn’t, in their non-morally relative view, endorse them. Thus, they can decry mega-churches “diluting” God’s word in order to put butts in the seat while begging for money to keep their radio stations on the air. To put it another way – one side makes money from the folks who say “God is love” and the other makes money off the folks who say “God will destroy those who say ‘God is love’”.
One of the best ways to make someone believe something is through humility. Let me rephrase that. One of the best ways to make someone believe something is by listing all of the sins someone else is guilty of in the greatest possible detail and then saying that you don’t do those things.
Example:
There are a lot of ministers who, once the lights come down in the 10 million dollar mega-churches built with the money bilked from useless sheep that flock to their clarion call of sedentary salvation and moral relativism, think nothing of strangling little tiny baby kittens, freshly from their mothers womb and smearing their blood all over their faces. It’s not something I would ever do. Do I sin some times? Sure. We all do. We are of the flesh. I’m not holy. How can I be? But does that mean I can’t speak out about people strangling little tiny baby kittens, freshly from their mothers womb and smearing their blood all over their faces? No. It’s important that we do.
Another way is to tell your own sheep that if you’re ever wrong, all they need to do is bring it to your attention and you’ll apologize. Something along the line of this -
That’s pretty straight forward, right? “I make a mistake, the Christian thing to do is admit, not make the same mistake and move on.” But built in to that statement comes a paradox. You worship someone because you believe they’re infallible. If you believe they’re infallible, chances are good that 1) you’re not listening terribly close 2) if you find some inconsistency then you’re hero is no longer infallible and 3) who has the balls to spit in Superman’s face. Because of these things, Brannon Howse can make these kinds of statements with 95% certainty that his audience will quietly accept what he says with even more docility than before.
What’s implicit in that statement is that it only applies to those who agree with him. He will only apologize to those who buy into his “world view”. Everyone else can, literally, go to Hell.
Proof – Of course!
Some quick background. Religious conservative and wingnuts in general love to point to Obama’s use of “czars” as proof that he’s really a communist. In this paradigm, everyone who’s ever taken a bath is a Christian because you dunk yourself in water. The shell game works like this:
- Russia had czars
- The communists were Russians
- Communism is bad
- Czars are Communists
I’m not making that up.
Of course, the Communists overthrew the Czars. That makes Obama’s czars…um…not Communist.
Given this shockingly true information, a fair, thinking person would have to admit that the whole “czar” thing makes no sense at all. Right?
Did that sound like any kind of an apology? Did that sound like a man humbling himself before the truth? Or did that sound like a man struggling to maintain his hold on a lie that’s a central part of his hate?
Personally, I think the latter. Of course, as a moral relativist, I could be wrong
PS – Let’s see how legalistic his defense and/or defenders get. Legalism, btw, is also a bad thing. It’s either right or wrong and God decides.
Brannon Howser, CrossTalk, Dobson, Pure Evil, Republicana, VCY America, Wingnuts, xtians
Nice post. Of course, anyone who actually bothers to read the Bible knows that God actually admits several times he is fallible. I won’t actually list where (hint, it’s in the Tanakh–I doubt they even know what that is) because I’d like to have them actually read those books, even if they can be dreadfully boring. Hey, it’s more fun to bash gay people and make up fake moral surveys like this one:
http://traditionalvalues.us/moralitysurvey1.aspx?pid=gb4&gclid=CLuPhPn6vKICFRMNDQodsSk75Q
Paul, the plain fact of the matter is–and I know you know this but I can’t help but stress this–that these people only use religion of any kind as a tool to further their own agenda. It has no basis in any morality–it’s just a way for homophobic, xenophobic, and utterly bigoted people to claim that they’re adhering to a higher authority and they can’t be responsible for what they believe in.
And that’s really what’s at the crux of it: responsibility. Do you know about all of the court cases surrounding Prop 8 out of California? A lot of the witnesses for the pro-Prop 8 people are refusing to testify about their beliefs because they fear revenge and threats. Can you believe this? They’re cowards who hide behind some bogeymen and claim that they fight for the American way.
They can’t take responsibility for their hateful beliefs, and they know that most people can see right through it. So they build a morality around it by burrowing religion (because this is what God says–we have to do what he says or we face eternal damnation) so that they can claim that they’re the ones who are being wronged. The gays are undermining traditional marriage! They want to adopt kids and teach them their gay ways! They’re encroaching upon traditional American values by demanding special rights!
In reality, these people are using these things as tools to repress and oppress a segment of the population they find distasteful. Strip all of the “American values” and “God” talk away and you have nothing more than a hateful, vindictive, and completely arbitrary set of beliefs based on some irrational fear.
Seriously. I can’t think of anything other than an intense, irrational type of fear or paranoia that would drive people to think that the Christian God and movement conservatism are compatible.
The best thing about that survey is that it’s already filled out with the correct answers! Which gives me an idea to do a survey that you *can’t* change the answers to!
Poor old Howse has no idea how stupid he sounds. He was talking about Mdm. Blavatsky and called her Mdm. Belinsky throughout the program. He’s lucky that most of his audience is even dumber than he is, and they believe that he knows what he’s talking about. Ignorance and hate-mongering is his hallmark!! We need to keep an eye on these people, and eventually they will cross a line – and then they can be prosecuted for instigating a hate-crime. It’s only a matter of time.