Watching "Pastor" Warren and his circus of insanity from an ICU.

[Neshanic]

Maybe there is a God. Not in the traditional sense, but like one in "Dogma" has a great sense of humor.

So there I was sitting next to my mother, she on the monster octopus ceiling machine with tentacles of wires, flat screens and tubes, she was there for a heart attack on Friday night. It really is kinda like a church in those places. Quiet, serene, and caring people.

My mother in a drug haze wanted to see the "thing" with Obama and McCain. I turned on one of the tentacles, and an image came on the flat screen, the first questions were being asked.

Mercifully my mother went in and out, but I sat there holding her hand while two imbeciles, and I do mean imbeciles were talking to an imbecile that has the RED phone to God himself apparently. You could not get a better guy out of central casting, a pompous fat oaf that sits and basks in his own temple of creepiness, all in the name of Christianity.

Oh he asked the right questions all right. What IS evil? I hung on to the chair for dear life. Aside from the usual answer from our candidate, it seems evil is here among us, but our guy was too smart for the crowd, and roared when they heard the simple answer they all wanted. Mistake making was big. How big was yours and how big is ours? I like when a presidential candidate answers for me about my mistakes as an American.

The evil? This parade of lunacy. Why there? Why? All questions on one groups terms and one groups beliefs and OUR guy signed up. Suppose a huge liberal group asked them to attend a sitdown with Bill Moyers. Same format. The howls would be deafening. Oh, but this is the important stuff that Orange County religious supply siders and invisble hand Jesusnomics types and their kind need to KNOW! Evil, good, mistakes, personal failures, all right in colossal sanctuary of their own design.

God does have a huge sense of humor, because as they defined the big evils, I contemplated why no questions so intensly and laser guided to both these people on why in our society people have no health care, a war continues, an economy dies. The devil is in the details, as two individuals played "me like you", with a sideshow book whore as the grand inquistitor and one was on home turf.

The shark was jumped that night. You guess which person and team did.

[Gabi Hayes]

1. ''a pompous fat oaf that sits and basks in his own temple of creepiness,

all in the name of Christianity. ''

wonderful! couldn't agree more

what an obviously insincere CHARLATAN

twenty THOUSAND drooling, selfish 'christians' salivating at his feet

can you imagine the swell time Jesus would have, smashing his temple to all that is anathema to true Christianity?

[QC]

5. Careful--criticizing our new buddy Rick will get you attacked around here now.

I speak from experience.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Neshanic]

10. Thanks for the warning. I know the flavor of the month reptile we will bask with changes

frequently. I think we need an Excel spreadsheet.

[QC]

11. Maybe they can set up a listserv so folks like us can keep informed

about who is now a saint and who is now a devil, since that does tend to change with whiplash speed around here.

[gaspee]

16. Agreed

I had a post deleted for so-called christian bashing. I'm an equal opportunity basher though - I think all of the religionistas of the world are equally ridiculous.

I am so freaking sick of the pandering to snake oil salesman that I want to puke.

Bunch of charlatans leading sheep to slaughter while they live high on the hog with their private jets, mansions, fleets of luxury cars and absolute power over people because those people need to believe in something to make their live make sense.

I'd be rich if I thought defrauding people desperate for something to believe in was a way to make money.

Smarmy, sleazy televangelists make me sick and so called democrats pandering to them make me even sicker.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. oh.....very very sorry to hear about your mother. I've spent more time than

I care to remember in ERs, ICUs, nursing homes, with both parents and my grandmother

how is she doing?

sounds like you have a decent hospital, because I've seen the result of not caring very much

I hope she gets out of there as soon as she possibly can

heart is with you....

[Raven]

3. Nothing like being in the ICU with someone you love to put things

in perspective. Good thoughts to your Mom.:hug:

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Hope our Mom is OK,,,,

I think your idea of the same format with Bill Moyers as the questioner is a FANTASTIC idea!!!!!

[JackORoses]

6. you don't want to win, but you don't want to lose either? what do you want?

oh, that's right, you want what you can't have.
you want a loser to win.

sorry that your dreams can't come true, but that would doom the rest of us to a nightmare.

[Neshanic]

12. I want to win. What I saw was not a plan to win. I saw

an infomercial on John McCain, and why we still will not get twenty votes from that sanctuary.

Sometimes it's good to say no.

This was one.

[JackORoses]

14. you are mistaken, and you will be proven as such

Inclusivity trumps exclusivity.

Obama knows this and that is why he will win.

[Top Cat]

8. Rick Warren amplified the meaning of evil last night.

He allowed McSame to ramble on about things that did ot directly answer the questions at hand. Barack was not given the same opportunity to answer the questions as he would have.

[Richardo]

9. I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Obama has embraced his Christianity. It was a "Christian" gathering, at least in name.

Don't you suppose he knew what kind of questions he would be asked? Would any thinking person expect an agenda-free line of policy questions?

What was the downside for his campaign? Probably very few of those people would ever vote for him, but isn't it a positive that he is not afraid to make an appearance and answer their questions? I don't see any downside for that - quite the contrary, it would have been worse for him to decline to appear. It would have reinforced the RW talking point that Democrats are all non-religious hedonists. But I've seen that Obama is not afraid of diagreements and makes his case to those that disagree with candor, forethought and civility.

There are certain groups that candidates are expected to address: veterans, racial minorities and religious are a few. These are never moderated, purely objective appearances - each group has its agenda and hot button issues, mand expects the candidate to address those issues.

The only downside from last night was that a bunch of leftist religio-phobes on meaningless internet sites won't like it. I think he made the right calculation.

[Neshanic]

13. Thank you about the thoughts for my mother. You all are kind.

[IndianaGreen]

15. We must subject Christianity to the same critical analysis afforded all ideologies

Christianity, like every great revolutionary movement, was made by the masses. It arose in Palestine, in a manner utterly unknown to us, at a time when new sects, new religions, new prophets arose by the hundred. It is, in fact, a mere average, formed spontaneously out of the mutual friction of the more progressive of such sects, and afterward formed into a doctrine by the addition of theorems of the Alexiandrian Jew, Philo, and later on of strong stoic infiltrations. In fact, if we may call Philo the doctrinal father of Christianity, Seneca was her uncle. Whole passages in the New Testament seem almost literally copied from his works; and you will find, on the other hand, passages in Persius’ satires which seem copied from the then unwritten New Testament. Of all these doctrinal elements there is not a trace to be found in our Book of Revelation. Here we have Christianity in the crudest form in which it has been preserved to us. There is only one dominant dogmatic point: that the faithful have been saved by the sacrifice of Christ. But how, and why is completely indefinable. There is nothing but the old Jewish and heathen notion, that God, or the gods, must be propitiated by sacrifices, transformed into the specific Christian notion (which, indeed, made Christianity the universal religion) that the death of Christ is the great sacrifice which suffices once for all.

Frederick Engels 1883

The Book of Revelation

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/religion/book-revelations.htm

The whole idea of a Deity that needed to be satisfied with bloody sacrifices is nothing but a con job to get the gullible and confused masses to support and maintain a priesthood in power over them.

[DeSwiss]

17. Excellant review!!!

Bravo!!! Bravo!!! Bravo!!!

- And I'm sorry to hear about your mother. Hope she gets better!!!

K&R!!!

on edit: BTW, here's another nice little ditty about Pastor Rick's operation:

When John McCain and Barack Obama are questioned by Saddleback Church's Rick Warren on Saturday, many of the church members will have paid $2,000 to sit front and center to listen to the next president of the United States.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/church-tickets-saddleback-2122308-members-ross

[DeepModem Mom]

18. Very powerful. K&R, with good thoughts for you and your Mom. nt