Washington, “District of Christ.”

I don’t have any comments yet. Perhaps I’ll edit some in after a while. In the meantime, here’s a video of a crazy Christian who thinks America is (or should be) a theocracy.

For the record the man in this video, John Benefiel, is the same man who believes homosexuality is all part of a scheme by the Illuminati to limit the population.

Y’ever wondered why we induct- why we elect good people to Congress sometimes, and sometimes they go there and they go nuts?

Well, you might too, if all the nation confessed that you were under the District of the queen of Heaven called Columbia. Do you understand how serious that is? When we call it the District of Columbia we’re saying it belongs to Columbia, the Queen of Heaven, and that gives her a legal right to mess things up in our nation’s capitol.

Well, in March of 2010- well, in December of 2009 we gathered one leader from all fifty states to divorce Baal and as we were there we renamed the District of Columbia to the District of Christ. Hallelujah.

Harumph, harumph.

And somebody asked me after we did this, they said, “Well how can you do that anyway?” Well, we just did it! Whaddaya mean how can you do it? You do it! “Well, what authority do you have?” I tell ya I have more authority than the U.S. Congress does.

See, I guarantee ya that that will not forever be called the District of Columbia. It will be changed… by somebody- it’ll be changed by the Lord when he comes back or our Congress, but the body of Christ has to do the changing first! We’re the real spiritual authority, then the natural authority will begin to change!

[ominous music]

Would you vote for an atheist?

“…If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an atheist, would you vote for that person?”

53% of the voters polled said no. Fifty-three percent. That, my friends, is a majority. The only majority, in fact, who answered they would not vote for a candidate based on one particular trait. Even homosexuals are more likely (they, in fact, have a majority in their favor) to be elected president than an atheist.

That’s not a knock on gays. Fortunately, America is quickly becoming less and less homophobic. Unfortunately, it is clear that America is by and large still very much an “atheophobic” nation.

Frankly, every single one of the poll results disgusts me. Comparatively, since atheists “scored” so much lower than everybody else, and overall because the keywords should be “generally well-qualified,” and not whatever other aspect was brought into the picture. If a presidential candidate is “generally well-qualified,” then that’s just fine with me.

Now to be fair, if I had to choose between two generally well-qualified candidates – one who was atheist and the other who was religious – I would almost definitely vote for the atheist, since I know he (or she, since I’m not part of that 11% who wouldn’t vote for a woman) wouldn’t have any religious motivation for creating or supporting policies or laws; thus keeping church and state separate, as they should be.

Back to the poll, though. The obvious question here should be why? Why would 53% of American voters not want a generally well-qualified president, who also happens to be an atheist?

I would wager a guess that the answer has to do with morals. The religious are a-scared that if you don’t believe in a god – any god – then you are an immoral heathen who runs about raping virgins and murdering infants. And on that point, I can agree that I would not want a president who is known for raping virgins and murdering infants. Fortunately, the religious who feel that way are just being ignorant and silly.

Atheism, religion, and morality are a topic for another day, though.

Related articles

• Vote Atheist! (dangeroustalk.net)
• Religious/Political Poll: Would you vote for a Presidential candidate who admitted to being an Atheist? (thegreatone22.wordpress.com)
• Atheists as a Political Force (dangeroustalk.net)
• Matthew Chapman: The Atheist in the Closet (huffingtonpost.com)

“But those are Old Testament laws!”

I will often challenge my Christian peers with some of the following laws put forth in the Bible:

• If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head. (Leviticus 20:9)

• If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

• If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

• If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Exodus 21:20-21)

• Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material. (Leviticus 19:19)

• When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. (Leviticus 15:19)

• For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. (Exodus 35:2)

…and so on, and so forth. I then ask of them which of these laws have they broken? Why is it okay that they have not yet been put to death for their violation of Biblical laws? Why do these things apparently no longer matter to their god?

Every answer is exactly the same: those are Jewish laws of the Old Testament. Those laws were put forth by Moses. And then something about Jesus dying and those Old Testament laws not being of relevance any longer.

A couple things come to my mind at that point. First, the law forbidding homosexuality is a so-called Old Testament law (Leviticus 20:13 which, for the record, not only says homosexuality is an abomonation, but that anybody committing such a treacherous act should be put to death immediately) which Christians just love to quote when attempting to pry their religious beliefs into politics. That and, y’know, the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21). That old thing which the “New Testament Christians” place as the foundations of their morality. As a sidenote, Jesus later references the “commandments” (Matthew 19:17-19), but only six of them. He omits the first three, which are all about loving God, and then sort of combines the last two so as to say simply to treat your neighbor as yourself. The “golden rule,” so to speak. The important thing here, though, is that even Jesus himself was saying to follow those Old Testament laws.

So are the Old Testament laws still relevant? You say no, but Jesus says yes.

The second thing that comes to mind is Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” God does not change his mind. Whether they’re laws put forth in the Old Testament or the New, he does not change his mind. Did you work last Sunday? Time to die.

Oh. Also, there’s this, which can be found in the New Testament.

Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (I Peter 2:18)

Related articles

• Are you suppose to follow the old or new testament (wiki.answers.com)
• Do I Have To Read Leviticus? (pttyann2.wordpress.com)