Tag Archives: sex

The Reverend Green in the conservatory with a rope

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Stephen3The ever-green, ever gay ‘National Director’ of Christian Voice Stephen ‘Act-the-man’ Green is at it again. In a video on YouTube that drips with the most un-Christ like sarcasm and vitriol, the Blessed Stephen takes on Stephen Fry and Benedict Cumberbatch’s petition to have gay men with historic convictions for ‘gross indecency’ pardoned (that’s consenting adult sex at a time when homosexuality was illegal.) Here’s the gist of Green’s ‘argument’:

There can be no doubt that ours is the most intelligent, compassionate, sophisticated and clever generation that has ever walked this earth. Clearly, if something is not against the law now, it never should have been.

Of course he intends this ironically, but for once he has stumbled on a truth of sorts. This is the cleverest generation that ever lived. We know more today than we ever did; it is estimated, for example, that the average person alive today knows far more than the cleverest Greek who lived in, say, Jesus’ time. That ancient Greek, in turn, knew far more than an illiterate Galilean preacher. So yes, we are cleverer – though not more intelligent – than people of the past; we have the benefit of two thousand years of learning behind us. Of course, our cleverness is marred by our continual reversion to tribalism, territorialism, greed and concomitant stupidity. This is the result of our being evolved primates – another fact Green disputes in his video with an attack on both Darwin and Dawkins – but nonetheless it remains the case that we humans have never known as much as we do today.

As for Green’s second sarcastic point, ‘if something is not against the law now, it never should have been’, well, that’s not what anyone is saying. Neither Fry nor Cumberbatch nor anyone else is trying to re-write history. What they are saying is that the injustice of the situation in the past should be acknowledged and rectified. Laws change as morals evolve. Green, however, thinks we should reclaim the values of a (non-existent) golden age when gay men were persecuted and prosecuted. According to this reasoning we should also reclaim other barbaric ‘standards’ of long ago; Green’s ‘logic’ dictates it. In fact, he advocates that we should be obedient to Biblical law, which would involve a return to things that are now illegal in all civilised societies; keeping slaves, beating others, rape, regarding women as property, suppressing women and executing non-conformists. These weren’t against the law once and weren’t even regarded as wrong, even though, when judged by any objective standard, they most emphatically were. Significantly, all were actively endorsed by Green’s God in his Magic Book*. We know they are inherently wrong, however, not just because we are clever and compassionate, but because we are repulsed by them when we see them practised by ISIS and other extremists today.

Christianity was once itself illegal, as was reading the Bible in English instead of Latin. This meant that in the past, Christians were sometimes executed simply for being Christians, heretics burnt at the stake. Green’s ironic principle can be applied here too: ‘if something is not against the law now, it never should have been’. With the benefit of hindsight and, yes, a bit of cleverness, we can see that being a Christian and reading the Bible in English should never have been crimes. Equally, those men convicted of victimless offences in the past shouldn’t have been. It is, however, and as I’ve already suggested, impossible to change the past. But we can try to rectify some of its mistakes.

However, the Rev. Green would prefer it that anything that was once illegal remains so. Christianity included, Stephen?

 
God (or those writing in his name) supports slavery in Leviticus 25:44-46, Ephesians 6:5, 1 Timothy 6:1-2 and many other places; beating children in Proverbs 10:12-14 & 23.14; rape in Deuteronomy 22:28, Exodus 21:7-8 and Judges 19:16-30; women as property in Genesis 19.8, Exodus 21:7 and Deuteronomy 22.28-29; suppressing women in 1 Corinthians 14:35 and encourages the execution of non-conformists in Genesis 38.24, 2 Chronicles 15.13-15, Deuteronomy 13:9, 2 Peter 2:1-22 etc etc

 

What would the world look like if Jesus had been right?

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NewEarth

If everything Jesus promised had come true, then:-

Jesus and his twelve mates – or maybe it’s eleven, what with one of them pissing on the parade – would have been running the world for 2,000 years by now (Matthew 24.34 & Matthew 19.28).

All the undesirables – that’s me and, in all probability, you – would’ve been consigned to Hell and the Righteous would’ve been living on the New Earth, working miracles all day long, not getting married, enjoying eternal life and definitely not having sex (Matthew 13.43, Luke 20.34-35, Matthew 25.46, Matthew 13.41-42).

But seeing how none of that has happened yet, what does the world-according-to-Jesus look like while we wait for the Kingdom to arrive?

Well, duh, look around you; this is how it is:

True Believers go around curing the sick, the blind and the lame, just by touching them or using magic saliva. There’s no need for hospitals, medicine, doctors or heath care. Jesus did this sort of thing and he said his followers would too, to an even greater extent. That’s why Christians can even help amputees grow back missing limbs (Mark 16.18 & John 14.12).

By the same principle, True Believers regularly raise the dead. Okay, so there’s not going to be any death in God’s Kingdom on Earth, but it’s a handy power to have all the same (Matthew 10.8).

Hunger is a thing of the past. When anyone feels a bit peckish – an entire continent, say – Christians feed them using whatever scraps they’ve got lying around, like left-over sardines and burnt toast with Jesus’ face on it (Matthew 14.13-21).

True Believers supply everyone with as much wine as they want, too. They simply pour out some water and change it into alcohol with their water-into-wine superpower. If their beneficiaries turn out to be tee-total, the Righteous change it into something else for them, like coffee or Kool-Aid or cyanide. Of course, cyanide is the beverage of choice for God’s Chosen. He makes sure no harm comes to those who imbibe it (John 2.1-11, Mark 16.18).

Christians are regularly to be seen playing with poisonous snakes, because, like Superman they’re practically invulnerable (Mark 16.18).

Transport is transformed in Jesus’ new world too. No need for ships or ferries; Believers travel overseas by walking over seas. Conditions a bit choppy? The Almighty calms things down for them; all they have to do is ask. (Matthew 14.22-33 & Mark 4.35-41).

Mountains getting in the way? They can just be lifted out of the way using the Power of Faith, and thrown into the sea. Or, if that’s likely to cause problems for those out for a stroll on the oceans, the mountains can be rearranged to make a passage through. Very neat and tidy (Mark 11.23-24).

Best of all, True Believers can ask God for anything at all and whatever they ask for he provides. No questions asked. He does it (Matthew 7.7 & 21.22, Mark 11.24 etc).

Thanks to Jesus’ followers, this is how it is in the world, while they wait for God’s Kingdom to arrive. And when it does, it’ll be even better. Hard to imagine it could be any better than it is, I know, but Jesus guarantees it. What a blessing it is to live, here and now, in such a transformed reality.

Except of course we don’t. None of these things happen. Not the miracles, the healings, the living forever. This is not the world we live in, even though Jesus said it would be. His Kingdom didn’t come; his followers don’t do miracles like his (and certainly don’t do better ones); no-one lives forever. They never have and never will.

Instead his Followers spend their time squabbling between themselves, judging others and living – and dying – pretty much the same way we all do.

Funny that.

 

 

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 24: We stand for biblical truth!

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Judge

Christian commentator Tony Perkins demands that Christians defend ‘biblical truth without compromise.’ What he really means – because he only ever uses it in this specific context – is that Christians should use the bible to condemn gay people.

He’s not so hot on standing up for the ‘biblical truths’ that say you should turn the other cheek. Or go the extra mile. Or that you should sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor. No sir. Those are biblical truths that demand something of Christians themselves so of course they feel perfectly at liberty to disregard them.

And what about ‘judge not that you be not judged’? Christians will tell you that this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t judge others, just that they should do it according to those same ‘biblical truths’.

This is not what Jesus is saying here though. He clearly means ‘do not judge others unless you’re prepared to be judged yourself’, which, we can only conclude, Christians are happy to have happen to them. They judge others and in so doing open themselves up to judgement; Jesus is very fond of this kind of yin and yang, measure-for-measure arrangement:

Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you will get (Matthew 7.1-2).

It could also be the case that Jesus is referring here to God’s ultimate judgement as well, in which case those condemnatory Christians who believe that being ‘saved’ allows them to escape the final judgement are in for quite a shock. Still, they can always use the ‘I was only defending biblical truths’ excuse.

Stephen Green is Gay

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Green2

Stephen always got his inspiration from the Lord…

Stephen Green of Christian Voice is unhappy. Gay Marriage, he insists, is a Very Bad Thing.

Green has had a lot to say about gay relationships and gay sex over the last few years. In fact, he’s obsessed with the subject. His latest ejaculation, called ‘Gay Marriage is a Farce’, helpfully informs us:

‘Gay’ relationships (are) built on perversion.

Homosexual desires are described as vile affections in the Bible.

‘Gay marriage’ is a massive step towards the social economy of Sodom.

We don’t say homosexuals are perverts because of what they are, but because of what they do.

Homosexual activity… is either dirty or abusive or both.

Homosexuals, frustrated by their inability to engage in true sexual intercourse, have to resort to activities which are abusive or dirty.

Homosexual acts fall a long way short of the God-ordained conjugal act.

Personally, I now use the word gay mostly in its modern sense of substandard (as in, ‘that coat’s gay’).

Never self-identify as ‘gay’. Never let someone else identify you as ‘gay’.

Green is himself ‘gay’. In the ‘modern sense’, of course. He preaches that marriage is between one man and one woman for life, yet is divorced and now with his second wife-for-life. He trashes charities that help young LGBT people and makes unwarranted personal attacks on gay celebrities, recently suggesting that Stephen Fry has a ‘porcine ancestor… not that we do evolution here’ and adding derisory inverted commas around the ‘Sir’ in Ian McKellen’s name. How big and clever is that?

Even though Jesus has more to say about poverty and homelessness than homosexuality (about which he says precisely nothing), Green never mentions them. He consistently avoids talking about his saviour’s commands to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile and avoid judging others. These, it would seem, don’t matter.

While he occasionally rants about evolution and complains Christians are persecuted, it is to homosexuality he constantly returns. Always with inverted commas around ‘gay’, to ward off the voodoo.

But Green is insecure in his beliefs and faith; he rarely publishes comments that dissent from his ‘biblical’ position and when he does, responds to those who make them with an uncharitable smugness that borders on abuse. There is no sense of any Christian charity in either his comments or on his site as a whole.

Worst of all, he washes his hands, Pontius Pilate like, of the harm his negative, destructive comments cause LGBT people. The real bullies, he says, are not Christians with poisonous views like his but rather:

homosexual activists who persuade young boys and girls that adolescent same-sex attraction indicates a permanent ‘orientation’ and who go around talking homosexuality up and giving bullies a weapon to use against shy boys and tomboyish girls. People like ‘Sir’ Ian McKellen, Elly Barnes, Jake Dyos and the rest of the low-life at ‘School’s Out’.

So now you know. Stephen Green, who calls ‘gay’ people perverts with ‘vile affections’, whose relationships and love-making are, he says, founded on dirt, disease and abuse, is in no way a bully whose views contribute to any ill-feeling towards gay people.

No, the vilification to be found on Christian Voice is actually Christian love™. The gospel according to Stephen Green: it’s so substandard.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 18: We’re the ones being persecuted!

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Persecution

You think Christians don’t say they’re persecuted? Take a look at a recent entry on Christian Voice, where the claim is made that Christianity itself is being ‘criminalised’ in the UK. Visit American Christian blogs where they insist they’re being persecuted. Listen to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, complain ad nauseam that Jesus’ followers today are marginalised and mistreated.

And why do they feel this way? Usually because they don’t like being told they should stop persecuting gay people. It’s their religious right, they tell us, to ‘live according to conscience’ and to bash (if only verbally in this country at least) a maligned minority. And any attempt to stop them from doing so, they say, is an infringement of religious liberty. Hatred of homosexuality has become such an integral part of the Christian faith these days.

Suggest to Christians in the West that they’re not experiencing persecution at all, but only a fair and reasonable attempt to make them treat others as they themselves would be like to be treated (didn’t Jesus say that?) and they respond, as a Christian Voice supporter did the other day, by sending you a link to the site of the Christian Liberty Council. Here’s the proof that Christians are really the victims! Go to the link and what you get is, yes, a list of believers who’ve been cautioned for abusing LGBT people. It’s so unfair! And that’s it, that’s their evidence.

If Christians were prevented from gathering together for worship, imprisoned for their belief in Jesus, stopped from talking about their faith, denied the means of praying together and so on, then perhaps they could reasonably say they were being persecuted. As it is, they’re the ones doing the sniping – and whining when they’re chastised for it.

In fact, their saviour tells them in Matthew 24.9 what to expect when any real persecution or ‘criminalisation’ comes along. They should, he says, whinge about it at length, even if it’s only a very remote possibility.

Oh, no wait, that’s not it; see it as a gift, he tells them, and pray for those doing the persecuting (Mark 10.30 etc). Problem solved! As ever though, they choose to ignore him. They much prefer to hang on to their prejudices and see themselves as the real victims.

Picture shows, clockwise:

Pat Robertson, US TV evangelist, who says gay people want to destroy marriage and the church itself.

Yoweri Museveni, Ugandan president and evangelical Christian who this week approved a bill toughening penalties and punishments for gay people.

George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who complains about how dreadfully Christians are treated in Britain.

Scott Lively, American evangelist currently facing a lawsuit for ‘crimes against humanity’. Influenced the anti-gay laws recently introduced in parts of Africa and, possibly, in Russia.

Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, which officially condemns homosexuality, whatever conciliatory noises Frankie himself appears to make.

Stephen Green, operator of Christian Voice, which insists Christians in the UK are being criminalised for their intolerance.

Caption suggested by an article on the excellent Joe.My.God blog.

What’s this ‘Biblical morality’ we keep hearing about?

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Is it feeding the hungry? Helping the poor? Visiting the sick and the imprisoned? Opposing injustice? Fighting against oppression? Giving away your possessions? Going the extra mile? Turning the other cheek? Respecting others? Loving your neighbour? Loving your enemies?

Or is just about sex? To read Christian web-sites and blogs, you’d think so. Jesus’ followers today are obsessed with it, which is why the God they make in their image is too. Sex that other people might be having, before marriage, during it; sex when it makes babies and when it doesn’t; sex with yourself; sex in the head, on the screen and in different positions; sex with too many partners, with the wrong partners and with partners of the same sex (the worst sin of all, apparently). They write about little else, because you see, what other people do in bed together is of great concern to God. It’s more important to him – or his self-appointed representatives on Earth, anyway – than hunger, oppression, slavery, injustice and genocide combined.

If only we all had sex like the Christian experts say we should (because it’s in the Bible) then we’d all be so much better off; civilisation wouldn’t be slipping into the abyss, God wouldn’t be so upset with us and we wouldn’t all be destined for hell.

End

But morality isn’t just about sex. In fact, it has little to do with who we sleep with and when. Rather, morality is about how we treat others, as Jesus said (Luke 6.31). Of course, how we treat others in a sexual context is important, but it’s no more important than how we treat them in other contexts. That’s because morality is, or should be, all embracing. It’s long past time Christians stopped banging on about it as if it was the only concern of morality. Instead they could start treating those who do sex differently from them as they themselves would like to be treated. That, if there really is such a thing, would be true Biblical morality.

It’s time you all believed in my religion!

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Picture reblogged from GodlessEngineer via Friendly Atheist.

My God doesn’t like people who don’t worship Him in the right sort of way (the way I do).

My God thinks people – except people like me – don’t behave properly.

My God has sent a special book to me and my mates his chosen people. It’s a bit muddled but non-believers ignore it at their peril.

My God says followers of all other religions have got it wrong.

My God says Christians need to be cured of their unhealthy behaviour.

My God says Christians shouldn’t be allowed to ‘marry’ because they don’t do sex right (the way I do).

My God says it’s not hateful to say these things. The fact I’m telling you shows how loving I am, pointing out how everyone else has got the wrong beliefs, the wrong morals and doesn’t do sex right. If you’ve any sense, you’ll start to believe in my God and then you’ll be saved like me.

And when you do that, my God will like you too.