Salon reports that the Green Street United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem will stop performing weddings for straight couples until same-sex marriage is legal in North Carolina (Emphasis added):

As an Anti-Racist, Reconciling Congregation, Green Street United Methodist Church seeks to be in faithful ministry with all people in the brokenness of our world. This statement is being adopted as a sign of our commitment to love and justice for all people.

The Marriage Covenant between two people is a ministry of the church. Couples making a commitment to one another need a supportive community of faith to sustain and uphold them so as to grow in faith and love. Weddings are the occasion for covenant making, a time to seek God’s blessing on their commitment to one another. When a couple chooses to be married in the church, they should also be conscious that they are making a declaration of their relationship as a new ministry for the congregation and the world. At Green Street Church, we claim the committed same-sex relationships as no less sacred in their ministry to us and the community.

But sadly, at this time in the United Methodist Church, marriages, weddings and holy unions are limited to heterosexual couples. As our nation struggles to provide legal recognition to people in same-sex relationships and provide them the privileges allotted to opposite-sex married couples, our denomination struggles to overcome the sin of reserving these sacramental privileges for straight people only. We, the leaders of Green Street Church, see people in same-sex relationships as completely worthy of the Sacrament of Marriage. We reject any notion that they are second class citizens in the Kingdom of God.

WOW. Just wow. That’s some statement.

Tell me again, “What Would Jesus Do?”

Although support for gay marriage has reached a new high of 58% of the American public—including 81% of 18-29 year olds—same sex marriage is constitutionally prohibited in North Carolina. It’s worth mentioning that the Green Street United Methodist Church are also bucking the 2012 vote of their own church elders by supporting gay marriage rights. 59% of Catholics, 62% of independents, and 34% of Republicans are pro-gay marriage according to recent polling.
 

 

 
On a blog post that’s been shared tens of thousands of times in the past few days, Rachel Held Evans, author of A Year of Biblical Womanhood writes of how Christianist haters like Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher and Bryan Fischer are forcing younger Christians to chose between their gay friends and their religion.

From “How to win a culture war and lose a generation”:

When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next most common negative images? : “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics.”)

In the book that documents these findings, titled unChristian, David Kinnaman writes: “The gay issue has become the ‘big one,’ the negative image most likely to be intertwined with Christianity’s reputation. It is also the dimensions that most clearly demonstrates the unchristian faith to young people today, surfacing in a spate of negative perceptions: judgmental, bigoted, sheltered, right-wingers, hypocritical, insincere, and uncaring. Outsiders say [Christian] hostility toward gays… has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith.”

Later research, documented in Kinnaman’s You Lost Me, reveals that one of the top reasons 59 percent of young adults with a Christian background have left the church is because they perceive the church to be too exclusive, particularly regarding their LGBT friends. Eight million twenty-somethings have left the church, and this is one reason why.

Rachel Held Evans has closed comments on her essay, writing “I want to keep this a safe place for conversation.”

You won’t wonder why after you’ve read the responses from some of her supposedly Christian readers…
 

 
Via Dan Savage/Joe.My.God

 
Interestingly enough, this item comes to you courtesy of the kooks at WorldNet Daily. Not really the kind of thing you’d expect to find there among the ads for hardcore survivalist supply companies, books like “The Islamic Invasion” and anti-Obamacare PACs, but there it was…

According to WND a study published last year found that a part of the brain atrophied more rapidly in Catholics and “born-agains” than it did in more “mainline” Protestants.

The study called “Religious Factors and Hippocampal Atrophy in Late Life” was published online by the Public Library of Science last year. Since then, it’s been mentioned by blogs and medical sites but generally has not reached into mainstream reporting.

“The findings of this study indicate that hippocampal atrophy in late life may be uniquely influenced by certain types of religious factors,” write the authors, led by Amy D. Owen of the Center for the Study of Aging at Duke University. Several of her colleagues joined in the report.

The review noted that there have been few studies regarding the relationship between religious factors and structural neuroanatomy, “despite a growing interest in the ways spiritual beliefs and practices are reflected in brain activity.”

The piece goes on for a bit in a more or less neutral “journalistic” tone, then concludes with an explanation (of sorts) that is more in line with what we think of as the typical kooky WorldNet Daily party line:

“This study is among the first to examine religious and spiritual correlates of structural neuroanatomy, identifying several understudied factors associated with hippocampal atrophy,” said the analysis. “Religious factors, including religious group membership and life-changing religious experiences, but not frequency of public and private religious practices, were longitudinally associated with hippocampal atrophy.

“Atrophy in this region has important clinical implications, having been identified as a marker of late life mental health problems such as depression and dementia. These results may reflect an impact of cumulative stress on hippocampal volume.”

That Christians face stress is no surprise.

Newberg cited “persecution,” and a survey done for WND last year showed that 49.2 percent consider the legal activism against Christians and their beliefs regarding homosexuality in the United States to be “persecution.”

And that “persecution,” according to just about one in three Democrats, is “necessary.”

That many Christians seem to honestly believe that they are the targets of persecution for their blinkered and bigoted views on homosexuality is plenty of evidence of atrophied brains, if you ask me…

Above, a fucking idiot.

Harold Camping, the 89-year-old coot preacher who achieved fame for repeatedly getting the date of “The Rapture” wrong says he finds his situation “embarrassing” and is getting out of the prophecy business. Probably a good idea at his age… and with his track record!

“We’re living in a day when one problem follows another, and when it comes trying to recognize the truth of prophecy we’re finding it very, very difficult,” Camping said in an audio file posted to his Family Radio website yesterday. Via the NY Daily News:

Camping has made several predictions about the end of the world over the years. He claimed the end was nigh in 1994, then again in May of this year. When that didn’t happen, he said it would be Oct. 21.

“Why didn’t Christ return on Oct. 21?” he asked. “It seems embarrassing for Family Radio, but God is in charge of everything.”

The minister noted that no matter what people may think is in the Bible, ultimately God has the final word and isn’t obligated to reveal his plans.

“There’s one thing that we must remember,” Camping said. “God is in charge of this whole business, and we are not. What God wants to tell us is his business, when he wants to tell us is his business.”

The failed prognosticator also said he was sorry for saying that anyone who didn’t believe in his incorrect predictions would not be saved.

“I should not have said that and I apologize,” Camping said.

The Oakland-based preacher added that just because he was wrong, people shouldn’t lose their faith.

“We should not for a moment feel that we’ve been abandoned by God,” he said.

Really? Why not? I’m sure that schmuck who spent his pension on those “repent the end is near” subway posters feels pretty alone right about now…

 
Note that this “protest” against “the evils of evolution” having a brain is taking place on the campus of an institution of higher learning…

Also, one Redditor brings up a good point in the thread, “If evolution causes rock’n'roll, what caused dubstep?”

(via reddit)

 
Pat Condell is a British atheist who makes popular—albeit quite controversial—YouTube clips railing against religion. He’s a former stand-up comic and has a quite a knack for looking right into the camera and really nailing it. Condell’s rants are anything but polite, and they throw cold water on religious belief (“An organized system of ignorance!” as my old friend Brother Theodore liked to say) as well as anything I can think of aside from George Carlin’s all-time classic “Religion is Bullshit.” (What happens to Christians when they accidentally listen to Carlin’s routine? I wonder about that every time I hear it!!)

Here is how he describes his mission:

I was a regular on the UK stand-up circuit until the mid nineties when I got fed up performing to drunken birthday parties, so I started writing for other people. I wrote my most recent show, and I now make internet videos, because I believe religion in the modern world is out of control and is given far too much respect by people who should know better. It enjoys a status it hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve, and it’s time we stopped pandering to it before it literally destroys us. You can find out more at my website.

Below Pat Condell takes on Christianity:
 

The next time you hear a dumbass say something about how the Founding Fathers felt about religion, hit ‘em with this quote, courtesy of Condell:

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” - Thomas Jefferson

In the name of balance, here’s Pat Condell’s epic rant from 2007 “The Trouble with Islam,” amazingly still on YouTube:
 

 
Via Joe My God

 
The great Kurt Vonnegut compares and contrasts Christianity with Socialism in this pointed excerpt from the audio book of his A Man Without A Country collection of non-fiction essays.
 

 
Jiz and The Mammograms is a re-dubbed parody of the classic 80s cartoon Jem and The Holograms. It’s performed by the drag artist Sienna D’Enema, who wishes to remain anonymous so that s/he doesn’t have to tell hir parents about it - which is completely understandable. If it was me I wouldn’t want to tell them either. The subject matter of Jiz! covers teen pregnancy, prostitution, people trafficking, crack addiction, abortion and oriental skat fetishes. Jem is no longer a world-famous rock star doing her best to help the local youth, she’s now a drug pushing pimp who gleefully encourages her teen fans to get pregnant so they can have abortions. Her mansion is now a giant brothel full of underage hookers (and a few kidnap victims), and Synergy, the super-computer that communicates to Jem, and styles her through her special earrings, has been rechristened “Electronic Drug Dealer”. Yes, it’s tasteless (REALLY tasteless), but it’s also very, very funny.

The latest episode of Jiz! has been released onto Youtube, and could possibly be the most controversial yet. It concerns a young girl (Laura, aka Shitty Panties) who is sent by an extremist Christian group to convert Jiz to the word of the Lord, but who has her own struggles to face along the way. Not least of which is her excessive flatulence. I never saw much Jem and the Holograms the first time round, but this has made me REALLY curious about the original episode.

If you have never seen Jiz! before, I recommend you start with the episodes after the jump, as “Laura” contains a few in-jokes (including The Golden Shower Girls). If you have seen Jiz! then you know what to expect. Brace yourselves:

Laura - Taking It Up The Chocolate Yahweh (obviously this is NSFW)
 

 
More Jiz! after the jump… (smirk)

 
Sicko Christian fundamentalist David Benoit tells a grisly tale of redemption with a shameless insensitivity that borders on the sociopathic. What a creep.

In June of 1984, David was led of the Lord to establish Glory Ministries as an evangelist. When David began, the emphasis of Glory Ministries was to expose the truth of the damaging effects of rock music on society. The only solution being regeneration by Jesus Christ.

In the past several years, David has used his vast knowledge of the occult and the New Age movement to show how Satan is subtly gaining entrance into our families and our churches through seemingly harmless children’s toys, movies and cartoons.

“David Benoit’s message is one of hope, not fear.  David has a unique way of presenting hard hitting facts with southern style humor.”  Jerry Falwell.

Yeah right. You laughing yet? 
 

 
Previously on DM: Another perspective, Merill Womach.

 
At first, Christian fundamentalist group Repent Amarillo’s recent charming video of their firing-squad execution of a Santa piñata in the name of putting the Savior back in to the holiday seems typical.

But after reading Canadian cannabis activist Dana Larsen’s 2003 article on the apparent psychotropic and shamanic origins of Santa Claus and many other Christmas traditions, it made some deeper sense to me.

Skip down to the explanatory vid…

According to Larsen, the Lapps of modern-day Finland and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes had holy men in their ranks who regularly imbibed the hallucinogenic red & white amanita muscaria mushroom (also known as “fly agaric”). These ‘shrooming shamen proved to be the model of the figure we now know as Santa Claus.

Larsen also contends that the Christmas tree was originally seen as a “World Tree”, typically a fir or evergreen, species under which the amanita muscaria mushroom thrived:

The World Tree was seen as a kind of cosmic axis, onto which the planes of the universe are fixed. The roots of the World Tree stretch down into the underworld, its trunk is the “middle earth” of everyday existence, and its branches reach upwards into the heavenly realm.

So, of course, the North Star around which all stars seemed to revolve was always aligned with the top of the tree—thus the star on top of the modern Christmas tree. These ancients also saw the magic mushroom springing up as “virgin births” seeded by the morning dew, which is symbolized by the tinsel on the tree. Trippy, eh?

Also:

• In the highly stoned eyes of these shamen, amanita muscara-eating reindeer appeared to, well, fly.
• Santa wears the red-and-white outfit of the original mushroom gatherers, his ruddy glow is an effect of the ‘shrooms, and like most shamen, used the central smoke hole (chimney) of his animal-skin shelter as an entrance or exit.
• Oh and those mostly red, bulbous ornaments on the tree? Those symbolize the ‘shrooms red caps, which the ancients used to dry on the trees.

Below is the least campy video I could find that draws a bunch of the connections between Santa and the ‘shroom. Enjoy!
 

 
Thanks to Lexie T. for the heads-up!

 
He’s a smug bastard, but he’s our smug bastard.

It’s nice to know that America’s funniest atheist activist is also part of a growing group of celebrities unafraid of the Oprah cult-mafia.

Thanks for the heads-up, Aybee Deepblak!
 

 
Not much else to say about it, really.

Via Everything is Terrible

 
Wayne Cochran was the baddest motherfucker to sport a platinum blond pompadour in the history of rock and roll. He was the honky doppelganger to the hardest working Black man in show business. But, the booze, the pills, the nightsweats, the trembling heebeegeebees and soul twisting demonic machinations of the Devil’s music drove him into the cold stiff arms of suicidal despair. Some men cannot handle the Hermetic heaviness bestowed upon them, the alchemical fire scorches and blinds them.

Like so many tales of rock and roll redemption, Jesus appeared to Wayne and laid his hands upon that sinner’s radiant wighat and the Satanic sunglasses of sin fell from Wayne’s eyes and the light of salvation penetrated his supplicating optic nerve sending a bolt of Christ-like illumination into the pulsating pink folds of his frontal lobes. Wayne was a changed man and Jesus had a new brother in arms, but rock and roll had lost a sharkskin suited shaman who had sent the serpent power of sexual bliss up the spinal column of sweet soul music.

And the black angels wept.

As one who had seen Cochran perform in the early 70s, I can testify to the man’s powerful transformative mojo. I was struck down and raised up.

45 years after appearing on Jackie Gleason’s Miami-based TV show, Wayne is running a Christian ministry in the same city where he once dazzled an audience with his lime green threads and his Mephistophelian moves.

In many cases, the transformation from rock star to Christian minister is lateral and redundant. But, sometimes the lord moves in mysterious ways and He does the watusi. Wayne Cochran was a cosmic force before he found religion. Religion found him - a primal, wild, uncontrolled religion. Sometimes that’s more than a man can handle. So, he turns to the script, scripture, where the rules are neatly laid down - ‘Jesus For Dummies.’ Every man or woman needs to do what they have to do, but it saddens me to see great artists retreat from their work because they can’t mentally process it. Art is supposed to be scary, it takes you places where you’ve never been and that is knowledge.

Wayne Cochran’s pompadour was a crown, not of thorns, but that of the Magi.
 

 
Kentucky Elvis sings his own special rendition of Suspicious Minds at his church, but his version is called Sin Filled Life.

Via Christian Nightmares

Pastor Eddie D. Smith Sr. explains the use of the Hindu term Namaste to his congregation. Right on!

(Clip via Chai Pilgrimage)