JISHOU, HUNAN — Remember that ultra-conservative Baptist church in North Carolina that was going to burn Satan’s bibles — every kind except the 1611 King James Version? It didn’t happen.

The church’s pastor, Marc Grizzard, had planned a fried chicken dinner to accompany the fiery celebration on Halloween night, but Mother Nature rained on his parade, as it were. Then, the local John Law informed Pastor Grizzard that state laws prohibit burning paper outdoors. Oh, and there were protesters, too.

So, the worshipers of the KJV took their party inside their meeting hall. No Bible bonfire. I know you are all disappointed.

Grizzard isn’t. His comments about the rainout are positively upbeat. And still crazy.

November 13th, 2009 | Tags: Amazing Grace Baptist Church, Bible, book burning, King James, Marc Grizzard, religion | Category: Commentary, religion | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — Only in America: a church in North Carolina will hold a book-burning party on Hallowe’en night to immolate “Satan’s Bibles.”

Not the books used by Satanists. No indeed, though I reckon you can bring them along. The Amazing Grace Baptist Church intends to toast such “perversions of God’s word” as

NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.

For good measure, the church near Waynesville, NC, also plans to add “Satan’s music” to the pyre.

such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contemporary Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

and non-Bible books, too :

We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.

October 23rd, 2009 | Tags: Bible, book burning, Hallowe'en, KJV, Marc Grizzard, Satan | Category: Commentary, Random rants, religion | Comments (3)

JISHOU, HUNAN — I figure if Andy Schlafly, the perpetrator of Conservapedia’s Conservative Bible Project, can rewrite the King James Bible, so can I. Here’s my rendition of Mark, Chapter 1. (Please observe my copyright. Thank you.)

THE GOSPEL OF MARK (draft #1,216,593A)
Chapter One
1. This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus, as written by Mark, who believes Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.

2. The prophets wrote, “Behold, I will send my messenger to scope things out for you, to lay the groundwork, as it were.

3. “Someone will be crying in the wilderness, ‘Make way for the Lord, because he’s coming through! (No autographs, please!)’”

4. John the Baptist got his name because he dunked people in the river, saying baptism signified repentence for one’s sins.

5. He had quite a following all over Judea, and even among city folk from Jerusalem, who all came to be dunked in the Jordan River and to confess their sins.

6. John was a back-to-lander kind of fellow, dressing in clothes made of camel’s hair and wearing a leather loincloth; he also ate only locusts and wild honey.

7. He was overly humble, too. He said, “Somebody is coming who is so much better than I that I am not even worthy to untie his shoes.

8. “I have only baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Spirit of God!” (John failed to mention the new guy was his cousin, so he might have been a little biased.)

October 9th, 2009 | Tags: Bible, Conservapedia, Conservative Bible Project, Mark, rewrite | Category: Random rants, religion | Leave a comment

CHONGQING — Well, not literally, but pretty close. Via DailyKos, I learned today that Conservapedia (the Bizarro version of Wikipedia) intends to take the King James Bible and rewrite it into plain modern English, making sure the new version has no “liberal bias.”

The Conservative Bible will be a wiki, so it will be a group project, rather like giving a large group of monkeys enough time and equipment to recreate the works of William Shakespeare.

The rationale and methodology of this ill-conceived project piece of crap are so wrong on so many levels that’s it’s hard to know where to begin.

The King James Version (1611) was an English translation from the Hebrew, Latin and Greek texts then available, done entirely by members of the Church of England. It became the “standard Bible” among English-speaking Protestants, largely because of its poetic language and of the breadth of the British Empire.

Conservapedia’s head simians plan to retranslate the English in the KJV translation, which is a lot like playing “Telephone” with the Scriptures. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

There’s nothing wrong with retranslating the Bible. It’s been done dozens of times already. But the new versions start from the original texts, not the KJV. For example, the New International Version (which apparently is too liberal for the monkeys at Conservapedia) was a joint project of 100 scholars in several different countries and different churches, who referred to texts and archaelogical evidence that were unknown 400 years ago. The complete NIV Bible came out in 1978.

October 6th, 2009 | Tags: Bible, Christian Revisionism, Conservapedia, revisionism, rightwing, stupidity, wingnuts | Category: Random rants, religion | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — Public school teachers — in fact most teachers — should just shut up about their religious preferences. Proselytizing is an abuse of their “bully pulpit.”

The Panda’s Thumb has two articles this week demonstrating the misuse of teacherly authority. One is an update on the ever-continuing John Freshwater saga; the other a report on one teacher’s attempt to haul students to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

Freshwater is a seventh-grade science teacher in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, who has paraded his particular brand of Christianity — and anti-evolution propaganda — in front of his students for several years. His superiors looked the other way until Freshwater used a Tesla coil to burn a cross shape on the arm of a student. The student and his parents cried foul, and the parties involved are now in a legal thicket.

Freshwater has been the subject of hours of administrative hearings regarding his continued employment. The boy and his family have filed a civil liberties suit against Freshwater and the school system. Freshwater himself has filed his own civil liberties suit against his employers, and another civil suit against the family, alleging they have slandered him.

During the administrative hearings, witnesses reported that Freshwater always had a Bible on his desk (despite his superiors telling him to remove it), maintained a stock of Bibles in a bookcase for students to borrow, had Christian-oriented posters decorating his science classroom, and made a point of teaching students that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang were bogus.

June 15th, 2009 | Tags: Bible, creation museum, David Paszkiewicz, evolution, john freshwater, proselytizing, Schools | Category: Civil liberties, Commentary, Schools, Teaching, religion | Leave a comment

The LOLcats craze pretty much passed me by. LOLcats are cute, sometimes funny, but they get on my nerves after awhile. Other folks have a lot more patience than I have. Volunteers are translating the Bible into LOLcat-speak. And I have to admit, it’s pretty funny in parts — the translation, I mean.

Here’s an excerpt. Adam an Eve (bad kittehs) meet teh snake.

GENESIS 3: Bad Kittehs

1 Nao teh snakez wuz mor shneakay than any beest ov teh field which Ceiling Cat had made. An he meowed unto teh woah man kitteh, liek I herd that Ceiling Cat said, u shall not eated frum any tree ov teh garden? Even dem trees on dat plate?

2 An teh woman said unto teh snakez, i can haz froot ov teh garden!3 but ov teh fruit ov teh tree which iz in teh midel ov teh garden, Ceiling Cat sez, dun eatz it cuz if u eatz it he mek u ded.

4 An teh snakez sed unto teh womenz, he no mek u ded:5 4 Ceiling Cat noes dat, teh dai u eat dat froot, den u gon b able to c, An u be liek Ceiling Cat, knowin gud An evil. An dis froot, it has a flavr, srsly, liek cheezburgerz!

April 10th, 2009 | Tags: Bible, lolcats, srsly, translation | Category: General stuff, Media, religion | Comments (1)