If you haven’t been enraptured

I guess there’s only you heathens (and Catholics, Protestants etc., basically anyone not a born again whacko) out there now because the godly will have all disappeared bodily to heaven, as today is the day of the RAPTURE!

Well the stunningly ugly site at home.flash.net said it would be today and couldn’t possibly be wrong because it’s got loads of capitals and everything. [Hat tip PZ Myers as always]

But weirdly, now it is today, they seem to have changed the date to a less precise “Fall 2009.” So there could easily be another couple of months left in which we have to share the planet with the as-yet-unraptured fundies.

Dont you just love it when they put the mental back in fundamentalist….

(side note: Will be home soon and will try to return to longer posts)

No educashun

The reliably extreme wingnut daily – and seemingly hundreds of other blogs with names like rightwingerz.com (don’t you just love that ludicrous z?) have an almost word-for-word replica of a story about:

Court orders Christian child into government education
10-year-old’s ‘vigorous’ defense of her faith condemned by judge

(“Her” “vigorous defence”, indeed. “Her” faith, indeed.) To summarise the tale, a court-appointed guardian ad litem

reasoned that the girl’s “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.” (from worldnetdaily)

To paraphrase, he saw the girl as being in danger of being far too isolated and brainwashed for her own good. Just in case, that doesn’t have the ring of truth, look at, say, Amazon’s Classical homeschool list to see what kinds of material are available for homeschoolers.

Classical.HomeSchool for grades K-3

(No, I don’t know why it has a dot between Classical and Home either. I am already baffled enough by grades K-3. I am guessing kindergarten to grade 3[?]. Basically very young children then.)

Item 1. is

KJV/Amplified Parallel Bible, Large Print (King James Version) by Zondervan Publishing
The list author says:
“My favorite Bible, the beauty of the KJV language, with Amplified to enhance…great for reading aloud to the children.”

Item 2.

Teaching the Trivium: Christian Homeschooling in a Classical Style by Harvey Bluedorn
The list author says:
“The # 1 Homeschooling Book in my opinion, and I have read ALOT of them. This is where it all starts!”

(wtf is the trivium? I casually assume that was the metal thing you use to suspend pans over a camp fire. No, that’s a trivet. The freedictionary says

in the Middle Ages, one of the two divisions of the seven liberal arts, comprising logic, grammar, and rhetoric.

So, a medieval curriculum then. Hmm. What a brilliant idea in the 21st century. (not) Wikipedia gives more choices.:

Trivium is the Latin singular form of trivia. It may also refer to the following:
* Trivium (band), an American heavy metal band
* Trivium (cipher), a synchronous stream cipher
* Trivium (education), in medieval educational theory

I suspect “the singular form of trivia” may be just as appropriate.)

To continue the homeschool trivia curriculum:

3. The Three R’s by Dr Beechick
4. Dr. Beechick’s Homeschool Answer Book by Ruth Beechick
5. Egermeier’s Bible Story Book by Elsie E. Egermeier
6. The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos
7. Prima Latina: Introduction to Christian Latin, Teacher Manual by Leigh Lowe
8. The Alphabet for Classical Latin by Helena Bluedorn
9. A Greek Alphabetarion: A Primer for Teaching How to Read, Write & Pronounce Ancient & Biblical Greek by Harvey Bluedorn
10. Ray’s new primary arithmetic: For young learners (Ray’s arithmetic series) (Ray’s arithmetic series) by Joseph Ray,

etc. Enough, already… You get the flavour.

Basic reading and maths, fair enough, although I begin to be suspicious of even these books, given the context. And the fact that googling Ruth Beechick found me this enthusiastic home-schooler’s blog.

I think I now own every book Ruth Beechick has written ~ well, not every one; she’s got a new one just hot off the press: “World History Made Simple: Matching History With the Bible.” (from Homeschooling from the Heart blog)

Speaking of history, number 14 on the Amazon list is:

14. The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child; Volume 1: Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer
The list author says:
“This is a *good* story…I do like it, however have your Bible handy and make sure your children are grounded in OT History FIRST…may want to skip the beginning sections, and pre-read so for editing”

In other words, it’s a book that doesn’t JUST have the Old Testament in it, so they have to issue a health warning.

The Latin and Greek seem eccentric, to say the least. However, surely they’d be a welcome relief from the constant Bible shit. Maybe not, given that they seem to be there just so these poor unfortunate kids can read even more Bibles.

I can understand why people might prefer to spare their kids the many horrors of standard schools. But, to teach kids at home, following this sort of curriculum…… How could any child subjected to this have a hope in hell of fitting in with other people, let alone of thinking for themselves?

FSTDT Lives

I’ve been away for a while, so it was with shock, horror and sadness I realised that FSTDT had died, but it was joy when I realised it had been resurrected.

The posts can now be found at FSTDT.net, although it is still very rough and ready. As you can see, the look and feel has remained, but the new system means there are a lot less quotes getting through. IMHO this is both good and bad, in the past some pretty un-fundie quotes were being approved, but at least you were getting a lot of comedy. Now it seems like there is only going to be a quote or two each day. With the restrictions placed on moderation, there is also a good chance that only quotes from known-regular-fundies will make it though – everyone else is scared of approving non-fundie, non-funny stuff. Hopefully none of this will transpire and my pathetic attempts at prediction will remain pathetic.

A few other things I don’t like about the changes are – the lack of any ability to edit your own posts; the difficulty in getting back to the post index/archives after you have viewed a comment and the lack of apparent monthly threading. It is possible that Distind is going to address these points, so time will tell.

For now, however, it remains a fantastic source of idiocy and witty comments. It also remains pretty much the only source of online comedy images I have:

Skepticism

(hat tip: FSTDT Refugee Forum)

The horror….

fstdt is reliably hilarious. It’s like the old movie Being John Malkowitz – except that in the fstdt case, its a portal into the minds of people who are so barking mad that you wonder if there really are no mental health professionals in the USA.

As a side effect of indulging in giggling your way through a few quotes and following the links to the Rapture forums, the will to live can get vaporised.

It can make you despair for the whole human race. I start to wonder about the statistics. How many of these people are there per head of the global population? *shudder* Plus, you start adding in Islamic fundamentalists and Catholic fundamentalists, these numbers are looking pretty scary.

Well, don’t come out from behind the sofa yet. That’s just the religiously-inspired maniacs. There are plenty more non-religious lunatics where they came from.

Yes, I know about intersecting sets. I try to console myself with the thought that maybe all the conservapediacs and fundies and conspiracy nuts are the same people and that there’s only a limited pool* of them. (Wishful thinking. I think it’s called “denial” on Oprah.)

I came across one point at which the sets intersect in the rapture-ready thread entitled “Ever thought why we’re REALLY going to digital?” I saw the topic heading and tried to predict what the REAL reason for digital transmission would turn out to be. (I see you’re ahead of me here.) To usher in the end times, of course. I bet Jesus’s tv and radio sets were analog. It says so in the Bible, so it must be true.

But I was half-wrong. Although digital transmission is indeed Satan’s way to help bring about the end of the world, the main worry is that it lets the government listen in to all your conversations. (Spare a compassionate thought for the minor government employee paid to listen to the home lives of our own dear fundies, day in and day out. Death would be a blessed relief.) Through the speakers, which act as microphones….

Two words: Big Brother.
I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I heard if you plug a microphone into your speaker socket, you’ll hear sound coming out of it?
What do you all think about this? Is it true? It wouldn’t surprise me, but my question is “why”? I or my family never talk about anything interesting anyway. How do they keep track of millions of people? (from jaiu on rr)

Yeah, my friend tried it out and heard a strange static sound coming from the receiving end.
Also, get a loud speaker, plug it into the microphone socket, now speak into it, and it might record.
Why else would they be doing this?(from jaiu on rr)

Electrical devices do the electrical feedback things that they’ve always done – whether digital or not – and, just because a speaker can (sort of) act as a microphone, it must be part of a plan by some magically powerful “them” to eavesdrop on her family. …. Well, of course it must. What other conclusion could you draw?

The rest of the thread contains a mixture of apparently sane people trying to explain a few basic facts (about electrical devices and the difference between digital and analog) and more people for whom this little bit of rationality is so far over their heads that the saner commenters might as well have been speaking in Basque. Some examples of the latter:

I’m pretty sure that their plan is to watch us through our tv and maybe even tell us what to do. With an RFID chip installed in our bodies required to buy and sell they can just turn it off. The ultimate form of slavery and control.
I think going digital is somehow related to end time events.
All this has me worried, I think I am going to talk all my T.V.’s to the trash.
I know nothing about technology, but I definately believe everything that’s happening now is end time related (lifted from various comments)

OK, this stuff is just ignorant, rather than evil, unlike the “Palestinian babies are better off dead” and “Obama is a secret muslim Antichrist” comments that turn up all around the rest of the site, like the leaking dog turds that always appear on a field of snow.

But it’s not just a few simple-minded RR posters who are promoting digital-analog fear. It seems to be a fascinating component of a really paranoid worldview, so perfectly illustrated by The Truth and Light Ministeries site that I assume the site must be a parody.

(And yes, that’s how they spell it. The US-version spellchecker here is redlining it, so it can’t even be correct for US spelling. The odd word subliminally suggests a tv mini-series to me.)

This site claims that there are 2 reasons for the switch to digital: Reason 1 is that digital images can easily be faked. (Yes, everything used to be true before digital)

Undisclosed sources, experts on reverse technology have informed that any television set manufacture after 1995 has the capability not only to receive a broadcast signal, but to also send one. That’s correct, any television manufactured after 1995 already has a built in feature to send a broadcast signal from your living room of live images of what’s happening in your home.

Yeah, right. So, we are getting a video recorder that’s capable of broadcasting free with our tvs? We must be getting well and truly ripped off when we pay for camcorders, then, because they cost more than tvs and they don’t even let us watch tv at the same time. (My heart goes out again to any low-grade government functionaries forced to spend a working day looking at footage of people staring at “How Fat is your Celebrity Ice-dancer”, pausing occasionally to get a drink and to argue about shopping.)

I follow the “logic” of this argument. Apparently, fibre optics makes it possible, that’s why “they” want us to go digital. It turns out that the New World Order is to blame. Blimey, that New World Order gets everywhere and it’s apparently omniscient and omnipotent. (Maybe it’s god.)

Either the writer has no sense of irony, or else this Truth and Light Ministeries really is a spoof site – maybe a tribute site to the Illuminatus Trilogy – which is subtly undercutting its content with this final bible quote.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie

I am pretty impressed by the comedic potential of the link they have to Google video “The Prophecy Club. ” There’s one of a “scientist” explaining about Technology and the Mark of the Beast. (He’s a “scientist” so it must all be true.) However, despite the exciting title, the video redefined the phrase “excruciatingly dull” so I haven’t put a link.

This one (Exposing the Illuminati from Within) sounded even better for a chortle, given the presenter’s impressive list of demonic credentials, but the actual video disappointed by being too boring even for me to watch.

Exposing the Illuminati from Within. Part 2. Bill Schnoebelen was a Satanic and Voodoo High Priest, 2nd degree Church of Satan, New Age guru, occultist, channeler, 90th degree Mason, Knight Templar, and a member of the Illuminati. Bill shows how the conspiracy works and how it uses the Lodge and the highest echelons of power and technology to form a new world government.

Given that every single one of these paranoids is using computers and the Internet to spread their views, I would really hate to have to tell them a single basic truth about computers. You know, that little thing about them being digital.

* The best insult I’ve heard for weeks is “He got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t looking” So many opportunities to apply it, so little time.

Brainless in Gaza

Odd that the people on rapture-ready discussion boards – who hate supposedly- fellow-Christian Catholicism with a passion – identify themselves almost completely with Israel.

I find it’s amazing in how with all the bombs going into Israel (sp?) only 4 people as of yesterday had been killed. It that doesn’t speak to God’s hand over his people and how he protects and will defend us. I don’t know what does. (from bakerhorsepower on a particularly disturbing typical thread on Rapture Ready)

(Original h/t fstdt)

That thread has a whole editorial about how God is 100% with Israel. Just like the writer above who talks about his/her god protecting and defending “us”, God can’t tell the difference between Israelis and fundies, either, apparently. So he’s protecting Israeli lives, in the mistaken belief they are really American Protestant fundamentalists.

(RR posters don’t see greater firepower and many more armaments and soldiers as having anything to do with the disproportion in numbers of dead people between Israelis and palestinians. It’s all down to god’s smiting choices.)

How ironic then that another post sees this very same God as protecting Palestinian babies by killing them.

Despite some tough competition, this is possibly the most distasteful post I have ever read, even by the abysmal standards of Rapture Ready.*

It’s headed by a picture of a young blonde woman with a bunch of flowers – looking winsomely off to the middle distance, maybe imagining the rapture – with a picture of a couple of innocent-faced young blonde kids in the post’s footer. Which makes the content all the more chilling:

A great thought!!
I have been upset about the innocent children in all of the fighting in Gaza….but this thought came to me….these little children that are dying would have been taught Islam and hate…this way they have a chance to go to heaven!! It’s terrible that they are dying and my heart is sad….but when I was talking to God this thought came to me….the ones that are dying are going to be able to go to heaven….instead of growing up and following Islam…so, something good is coming out of this…. (by someone who calls herself “cbressler1976 ^^Heavenbound^^”)

Two exclamation marks on “A great thought”. Maybe the punctuation mark is evolving to fill the sentience vacancy created by people like cbressler1976. These stray exclamation marks are trying to draw our attention to the criminal misuse of the word “thought” in the only way that they know how.

You’d think that this post must make the hairs on even Rapture Ready posters’ necks stand on end. Far from it. It brings in lots of lurve from her fellow raptards.

That is an excellnt point. It is always good to have an eternal perspective. (says wvborn56)

Really. I am not making these up. (I decide to take that comment as really being massively sarcastic, in the face of the evidence. Because I have to retain some will to live.)

Very good thought, on the other hand their parents think they are with “allah” and enjoying 72 virgins. But we know they rest with Jesus. Too bad their kids can’t tell them they are worshiping a fake god. The kids know more than the “teachers” of islam. (adds rapturecalldan)

Even I can’t fool myself that “very good thought” is sarcasm, given the rest of that comment.

To recap: these people see the deaths of real babies and children as good, because the kids won’t grow up to be Muslims.

No, even more stunning than that, if that were possible. They see the deaths of any non-fundy babies as good.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I remember, at first, feeling soooo sorry for all the little children who had died in the tsunami (sp) in 04, I think???? Then, it just hit me like a ton a of bricks–those little children, had they grown up, may never have come to know the Lord, and now they can be w/ Him. (from Mommytoa3rdgradeboy)

So this woman – who defines herself entirely in relation to her own child, if her sig means anything – feels nothing except delight in the deaths of other “3rdgradeboys” who don’t share her religion and nationality.

This tsunami tale is an opportunity for cute little cbressler1976 to also show her soft and caring feminine side:

It’s good to know that they are in a better place..

On a temporary basis, I am going to pretend that this dangerous insanity constitutes a coherent worldview and address some of their “points”

How many chosen people can god have? If the Bible can’t lie, then it must be the Jews. Hence, there is at least some logic in the bible-bashers thinking god wants Israel to win (although, given history of Jewish persecution, if that’s what comes from being god’s favourite, I’m bloody glad I’m a heathen)

But I am more than confident that there’s nothing in the Bible about raptards being the chosen people. So, why wouldn’t god think he’d also be doing the raptards’ kids a favour by smiting them?

They are saying that God is smiting Asian children and Palestinian children (some of whom are of course from Christian families) FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. So, why is their god being so mean to Jewish children by forcing them to live without letting them become fundies?
And, surely that means that god should be all for abortions, then? He must be doing foetuses a big favour.

Why is their god cruelly forcing the fundies’ children to live, given that heaven is so great and that they would be spared the danger of sin, if he just took them now?

Let me repeat, in true shock and awe. These are people who can rage endlessly and mightily over the foetus’ right to life and they consider the deaths of real human children to be a good thing.
*************************************
(*I’ve messed about with the links so as not to give RR any link hits. You can access the threads by reverse-messing with the urls. I don’t normally bother but this stuff is so emetic that I can’t bring myself to even leave a link in.)

EnRaptured

The makers of the Rapture Ready Index are getting really quite upset about the prospect of Obama’s winning. (Make it so. Please, make it so.)

So upset that they seem to see Obama in a rapture-causing category almost all of his own.

…If Obama should win in November, I plan to issue the most dire warning I’ve ever issued during the history of this ministry.

That will be pretty damn dire then. Isn’t that their whole raison d’etre? Issuing dire warnings? And this will be the most dire.

I admit to being too dumb to understand the whole “dire warnings” thrust of the Index. Aren’t these people counting the minutes until they get raised up to heaven on a big cloud? Is their Index supposed to list bad things or good things, from their perspective?

In fact, if they really believe that an Obama victory will issue in the end of the world, then why are they condemning the “liberal” media for supporting him? Shouldn’t they be welcoming him for supposedly hastening their coming move upstairs?

Why are they supporting the emetic McCain/Palin combo, then?

(Well, not quite. They barely mention McCain. All their hopes seem to be on Palin, who is much scarier even than McCain to my godless self – and quite a threat to moose, wolves and polar bears, too, apparently.)

Of course, they manage to get in a sly insinuation that Obama is a mysteriously secret Muslim. This is utterly confusing, apart from obviously being the worst kind of nonsense, although it seems to be believed by a fair proportion of the people on their chatboards. How can such people both blame Obama for the words of his former Christian pastor and still see him as a Muslim? (Quite apart from their bizarre assumptions that “Muslim” is just a euphemism for “being a suicide bomber” and would self-evidently disqualify anyone from the presidency.) But, again, if they really believe this, shouldn’t they be welcoming it, following what I hesitate to call their logic?

Rapture Ready’s avid enthusiasm for the prospect of the destruction of humanity is expressed perfectly in another disturbing piece on the same page, which complains that the US is stopping the rapture by failing to support Israel:

The perfect prophetic storm is upon this last-time generation. To understand the darkly serious truth of America’s tinkering in the matter of forcing Israel to make human peace with its enemies, we must delve heavily into the relevant prophetic Scriptures.

(If only the US would force Israel to “make human peace.” ) They reckon that America and the UN are interfering in god’s plan for Israel.

…America’s and the Quartet’s (U.S., E.U., U.N., and Russia) attempts to force the making of a Palestinian nation upon land that is Israel’s by divine right.

I’m not going to be too snide about people with absolutely no education in history, let alone modern international politics. These are tough subjects and I am already marvelling that people as mentally challenged as the RR gang can write sentences and use the Internet.

I am going to challenge “god’s plan.” Either their god wants the world to be scourged of us evil humans or he doesn’t. If he does, but is too idle to do it himself, shouldn’t they be welcoming any potential anti-christ figure who fills the bill? If god wants the US to support Israel right into the jaws of Armageddon, why can’t he bloody do it himself?

Look, RR people. I wouldn’t dare suggest you try reading history books or anything. But there are plenty of other holy books that you could take as literally true. You could take the Eddas or the Mabinogion or the Baghavad Gita or the Dao de Jing (however they are spelled.)

I’m not saying that you still couldn’t do serious damage if you believed in any of these books as accurate prophecies but at least the rest of us would get a break for a few centuries while you worked up an appropriately life-destroying worldview.

Equal Rights – educating fundies

(hat tip: DarkfireTaimatsu on FSTDT)

Other than being a bit to soft on fundies at the end, this seems pretty reasonable to me.