Category: Religion / Religious / Theocracy
Israel’s Rafah Massacre: They Think They Can Get Away With Anything
Florida Educators Train To Teach Christian Nationalism
And more on the attempt to force Christianity on everyone else kids in public schools regardless of the parent’s religion, here is the attempt to teach that the US is and should be a Christian nation whose laws, morals, and rules should be based only on the Christian bible I present this. Yes in Florida where the legislature passed letting Christian religious leaders be untrained school counselors but DeathSantis the governor claimed that no other religion especially the Satanic Temple. Of course the law can’t be used that way but the die hard rabid fundamentalist Christian are desperate to push their religion and only theirs on the public. Side issue, it is hilarious how the fundamentalist Christians freak out over the name not realizing the religion is a science based social civil rights based faith, not one that worships their devil. Although with the way they are anti-science and ant-civil rights for anyone not white, straight, and cis maybe they should freak out. Hugs. Scottie
Popular Information reports:
Training materials produced by the Florida Department of Education direct middle and high school teachers to indoctrinate students in the tenets of Christian nationalism, a right-wing effort to merge Christian and American identities. Thousands of Florida teachers, lured by cash stipends, have attended trainings featuring these materials.
According to speaker notes accompanying one slide, teachers were told that “Christianity challenged the notion that religion should be subservient to the goals of the state,” and the same hierarchy is reflected in America’s founding documents. That slide quotes the Bible to assert that “[c]ivil government must be respected, but the state is not God.” Teachers were told the same principle is embedded in the Declaration of Independence.
The next slide in the deck quotes an article by Peter Lillback, the president of Westminster Theological Seminary and the founder of The Providence Forum, an organization that promotes and defends Christian nationalism. The group’s executive director, Jerry Newcombe, writes a weekly column for World Net Daily — a far-right site known for publishing hundreds of stories falsely suggesting Obama was a Muslim born in Africa.
Read the full article. There’s much more.
The Christian nationalist materials were obtained through a Freedom Of Information Act demand.
As the piece notes, Peter Lillback is a signatory to the infamous Manhattan Declaration, which calls on Christians to commit “civil disobedience” against LGBTQ rights.
Photo: Florida education chief Manny Diaz, who previously appeared here over the successful bill to teach K-12 students about the evils of communism and the bans on sociology courses and diversity programs.
This Vile Pro-Israeli Claim Taken Apart
PROOF: Israel Deliberately Killing Aid Workers
Let’s talk about Texas removing power from GOP voters….
3 really great short videos from Rev. Ed Trevors.
I like all of these because the message in them is so wonderful. In the first video he talks about a fundamentalist hate preacher and how he is wrong. Rev Trevors says it is not the job of Christians to burn books, to demonize others, to cause harm. He talks about what the job of a Christian really is. Again it is a message I as an atheist can enjoy and agree with.
In the second video he talks about religious men who blame women for their own sexual feelings and lust, so tell those women they must be completely covered and show no skin so men won’t be sexually excited by seeing them. The Rev. again shows how this is wrong. The sexual sin is the man’s, not the woman’s to deal with. Women shouldn’t have to cover up and show no skin to protect men, men need to take responsibility for themselves and their feelings.
The third one I included not so much for the religious nature but as a reminder to all of us, myself included, to take down time, me time, just relax and enjoy life. I hope if you watch them you will enjoy them. Hugs.
Proposed Texas GOP platform calls for the Bible in schools, electoral changes that would lock Democrats out of statewide office
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/25/texas-republican-party-convention-platform/
BY ROBERT DOWNEN AND RENZO DOWNEYCredit: Eli Hartman/The Texas TribuneRepublican Party of Texas delegates voted Saturday on a platform that called for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.
Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform included proclamations that “abortion is not healthcare it is homicide”; that gender-transition treatment for children is “child abuse”; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and “publicly honor the southern heroes”; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the U.S. government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs.
The party hopes to finalize its platform on Wednesday, after Saturday’s votes on each proposal are tabulated.
Passed by delegates at the party’s biennial convention, the platform has traditionally been seen not as a definitive list of Republican stances, but a compromise document that represents the interests of the party’s various business, activist and social conservative factions. But in recent years — and amid a party civil war that’s pushed it further right — the platform has been increasingly used as a basis for censuring Republican officeholders who the party’s far right has attacked as insufficiently conservative, including Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez, R-San Antonio.
As the party has drifted further right, its platform has done the same. In 2022, it called for a referendum on Texas secession; resistance to the “Great Reset,” a conspiracy theory that claims global elites are using environmental and social policies to enslave the world’s population; proclamations that homosexuality is an “abnormal lifestyle choice”; and a declaration that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected.
Many of those planks were also included in this year’s platform, which was debated late into Friday night and presented for a vote Saturday afternoon.
One proposal asserts that illegal immigration is the “greatest threat to American security and sovereignty” and calls for the state and federal governments to devote all available resources to deporting undocumented immigrants.
Perhaps the most consequential plank calls for a constitutional amendment to require that candidates for statewide office carry a majority of Texas’ 254 counties to win an election, a model similar to the U.S. electoral college.
Under current voting patterns, in which Republicans routinely win in the state’s rural counties, such a requirement would effectively end Democrats’ chances of winning statewide office. In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott carried 235 counties, while Democrat Beto O’Rourke carried most of the urban, more populous counties and South Texas counties. Statewide, Abbott won 55% of the popular vote while O’Rourke carried 44%.
However, some attorneys question whether such a proposal would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act because it would most likely limit the voting power of racial minorities, who are concentrated in a relatively small number of counties. (The party’s platform also reiterates its previous calls for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act).
The platform also takes a step further some of the party’s previous calls for more Christianity in public life. The 2022 platform proclaimed that the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian principles,” for instance, and demanded the repeal of federal prohibitions on political activity by churches.
The 2024 platform goes significantly further: It urges lawmakers and the State Board of Education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance,” and supports the use of religious chaplains in schools — which was made legal under a law passed by the state Legislature last year.
Though more subtle, another proposed plank could also aid Republicans’ ongoing attempts to further infuse Christianity into public education. This year’s platform also calls for Thomas Jefferson’s “Letter to the Danbury Baptists” to be included in the list of “original founding documents” to be taught in history classes, along with the U.S. Constitution or The Federalist Papers. Jefferson’s Danbury letter is often cited by activists such as David Barton, a Texas pastor and self-described “amateur historian” who has spent decades arguing that church-state separation is a “myth” that has been used to shroud America’s true Christian roots — a claim that has been thoroughly debunked by actual historians and experts, many of them also conservative Christians.
The new platform comes as Republicans increasingly embrace once-fringe theories such as Christian nationalism, which argues that the United States’ founding was God-ordained, and therefore its institutions and laws should reflect conservative, Christian views. Barton’s ideas have been a key driver of that movement, and were repeatedly cited by lawmakers last year during debates over the chaplains bill and in legislation that would have required the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms. Barton’s group, WallBuilders, was also an exhibitor at this year’s Texas GOP convention, and the party has increasingly aligned with two far-right, fundamentalist Christian billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks.
The draft platform also leans into the Texas GOP’s open hostility toward Texas House leadership and Phelan, with positions that would weaken the power of the House speaker and distribute power to the GOP caucus in the House as a whole. One plank advocates for limiting the speaker to two consecutive terms. Another calls for a discharge petition process, which would allow members to send bills to the House floor for a vote even if they haven’t passed the House committee process.
On Friday night, the convention elected former Collin County GOP Chair Abraham George as the next party chair, a vote that is expected to continue the party’s trajectory. During his candidate speech on Thursday, George called for the party to fight Democrats, radicals and “RINO” Republicans who go against “everything we stand for.”
During a speech on the convention stage on Saturday, former gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Don Huffines carried a printed version of the platform with him. He noted that Republicans have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s mansion for two decades, but the party still struggles to secure its priorities.
“We could get any piece of legislation done anytime we want, but, every session, we struggle to get our platform into law,” Huffines said.
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I forgot to post these yesterday as I lost track of things
The next bunch are from Jill at https://jilldennison.com/2024/05/19/you-bring-popcorn-ill-bring-da-toons/ or her entire blog https://jilldennison.com/ . I understand that we share a lot of the same viewers, but Jill is a wonderful person who has stood by in trying difficult times. She was one of the few when hurricane Ian tore our home apart offered to loan / give us money. We did not accept but it was the offer that was the grand thing. It is the kind of person she is. When I come across a funny video or one of a good person doing good things I send it to her. She never gets upset and sometimes uses them. When I am sad or at a breaking point I know I can reach out to her. So if you don’t already follow Jill’s blog, you would be wise to do so at the links above. Hugs. Scottie
Thank you Jill. You have been a friend indeed and a friend when I had a need. Best wishes and hugs to you, the girls, the fur babies, and all you hold dear. Scottie
Bring back the Gdammed EISENHOWER (R) TAX RATES…when UNIONS and the Middle Class Thrived
Jon Stewart on Conservative Cancel Culture & Kosta on Trump’s Assassination Claim | The Daily Show
I thought Jon’s part was incredibly spot on and correct. Plus very funny. The man has the touch of comedy for sure. That part ended about 14:13 when the other guy came on. Him I did not find funny even though he had a couple good lines. Hugs. Scottie
Scottie's Playtime 