Wow. WOW. That is so incredibly fucked up I really don’t have anything else I can say.

Perhaps Mr. Barber should be invited to speak at the Inauguration, too. After all, there are many people who agree with him in this country, we are deeply divided and wounded nation, and we wouldn’t want anyone, however hateful of fellow human beings, to feel left out.

Abortion fertility ceremonies? Seriously?

Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of “mother earth.”

THESE THINGS TOTALLY HAPPENED!  I AM NOT MAKING THEM UP!

Perhaps Mr. Barber should be invited to speak at the Inauguration, too.

I knew, I just knew someone was going to drop this line, and - voila - second comment.  Bravo.

Ha. I remember the “Baal worship” descriptions at the anti-abortion speeches. Golden oldies, that one.

Kind of hurt by the fact that there’s no evidence to back these orgies up.

I like how he’s incorporated the new “bi-sexual orgy” and “gay sex doesn’t make children” angle. That’s a brand new one I haven’t heard. Nice to know that they are keeping up with the times.

So liberals worship Baal, conservatives Mammon…

Give me that old time religion
Tis the old time religion,
Tis the old time religion,
And it’s good enough for me!

Doug H.:
Can you blame Luke?  I certainly don’t.  It’s a degree in difference, not in kind.

Doug D.,

Is it really such a bad question?

Bam Bam thinks gays are baby murderers and Warren thinks gays are pedophiles.

What’s the difference between these two guys, really?

Look at his hand in that picture…

This guy is a little shakey on his pagan theology.  “Ba’al” simply means, “god.”  Child sacrifices were made to “Moloch,” at least, according to the Romans and other enemies of Moloch-worshippers.  The archeological evidence for any such thing actually happening is at most ambiguous . . .

(Note that the Philistine fish-tailed god Dagon was also called, “Ba’al” on occasion.  This is of particular relevance, because, as we all know, this site represents the unholy, fish-tailed, goat-hoofed union of Dagon with the greek god Pan) 

So, praying to Ba’al = bad, but praying to an actual golden calf is good?

Seriously, I don’t think these people have ever read the book they claim to follow.  Even the kids’ version of the Bible has the story of Moses and the golden calf in it, fer chrissakes.

Rea, I think you can blame his misunderstanding of “Ba’al” on the fact that “Baal” is referenced in the Old Testament multiple times as some kind of specific deity…

Mnemosyne, that’s got to be a hoax. Or Photoshop. Or something. That is too awesome to be true.

Hmm, fascinating, apparently not a hoax:

http://www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bios/cindy_jacobs102008.aspx

However, to be pedantic, I should point out that they were not praying TO the bull, but rather OVER the bull. Which, frankly, Moses would have approved of entirely.

Modern liberalism deviates little from its ancient predecessor. While its macabre rituals have been sanitized with flowery and euphemistic terms of art, its core tenets and practices remain eerily similar. The worship of “fertility” has been replaced with worship of “reproductive freedom” or “choice.” Child sacrifice via burnt offering has been updated, ever so slightly, to become child sacrifice by way of abortion. The ritualistic promotion, practice and celebration of both heterosexual and homosexual immorality and promiscuity have been carefully whitewashed – yet wholeheartedly embraced – by the cults of radical feminism, militant “gay rights” and “comprehensive sex education.” And, the pantheistic worship of “mother earth” has been substituted – in name only – for radical environmentalism.

Is Mr. Barber seriously insane or stupid enough to believe in this incredible pile of shit?

It is so hard to tell with fundamentalists and evangelicals. Their professed beliefs are so far from reality that it’s really hard to tell if they’re just insane, or just extreme, or simply bullshit artists.

Are there baked goods at these Ba’al-worshipping, Abortion Fertility ceremonies? Do they have the equivalent of Dana Carvey’s church lady character?

This guy is a little shakey on his pagan theology.  “Ba’al” simply means, “god.” Child sacrifices were made to “Moloch,” at least, according to the Romans and other enemies of Moloch-worshippers.  The archeological evidence for any such thing actually happening is at most ambiguous . . .

I came here to say this – and to add that child sacrifice by fire to Molech was actually mentioned and forbidden in the Old Testament over a dozen times (not counting the by-the-way mentions of Molech as the “detestable god of the Ammonites” a few more times).

Some of the texts referred to Ba’al Molech as either the object or type of sacrifice Bam Bam is referring to here.

The parents set their children on a particular kind of alter and either burned them there or rolled them into a fiery pit, depending on which account one reads.

If anything, sending kids to an unnecessary war bears greater resemblance to the Molech-sacrifice than does abortion – and the reasons for that sacrifice are also quite similar: good fortune, protection etc.

Eh. They probably had floo powder, too.

... I’ll show myself out.

Dear Mr. Barber,

I’m afraid your head will asplode now, but I must inform you there are, in fact, pantheistic earth mother worshipers. The majority of environmentalists simply want a world fit for future generations to live on; even fundamentalists are often smart enough to realize that the Bible says that no one will know when to expect the Second Coming, and therefore relying on Rapture to save their families is deep stupid.

But getting back to the pantheistic earth mother worshipers, you will find that they have strict principles against harming others; apparently something you lack, as spreading lies is harmful.

But before I do: word on the “unnecessary war” point, Devil’s Advocate.

“It is so hard to tell with fundamentalists and evangelicals. Their professed beliefs are so far from reality that it’s really hard to tell if they’re just insane, or just extreme, or simply bullshit artists.”

Or: Those who were bullshit artists to begin with who gradually come to swallow their own propaganda and actually begin to believe it. I’m sure more than a few of them fall into that catagory.

I’d never heard of him before, but I must say this Bam Bam creep is a real piece of work. Add me to the list of people who expect Obama will call him up at any moment to beg him to come speak at the inauguration.

HISTORY: UR DOIN IT WRONG

hee hee couldn’t resist the pun

Which is worse - this 1-of idiot or that some people will believe him or that others who don’t come close to believing will quote & cite this tirade as part of the screed against progressive and liberal thinking?

It’s at times like this that lawyers are ashamed of another lawyer.  How could somone who thinks like this graduate law school and what kind of administration of what kind of law school would hire a complete shit like this?

Was this written by Eugene McCarthy or Robert Wech of the John Birch Society?

I am so tired of people dissing Ba’al, Beelzebub, Moloch, Asmodeus, and what have you. This creates a hostile environment for me, and negatively affects my self esteem. I feel like a victim. I need government protection, a new program, a subsidy!

Samantha Vimes, you rock so hard.

And, the pantheistic worship of “mother earth” has been substituted – in name only – for radical environmentalism.

I have to admit that I’m never once met a Wiccan who wasn’t a “radical environmentalist” (as Bam Bam defines it). Heh.

What’s really sad about this is I actually heard of a woman via WitchVox who had hospital staff try to take her newborn away from her because they were convinced that Wiccans kill their babies. Sounds insane, but I believe the incident really happened. And it’s why, BTW, I get annoyed when a certain person on this site suggests that all Wiccans and other moderate religions are just shills for the bat-shit insane Christian Right.

And it’s why, BTW, I get annoyed when a certain person on this site suggests that all Wiccans and other moderate religions are just shills for the bat-shit insane Christian Right.

Ellen

To be honest it annoys me too. I know plenty of religious people who aren’t crazy, who are progressive and against the war and all the rest of it. I still don’t like religion much, but I hate that kind of knee-jerk dismissal of a whole group of people much more.

I actually heard of a woman via WitchVox who had hospital staff try to take her newborn away from her because they were convinced that Wiccans kill their babies.

Not to mention, that’s fucking terrifying as hell.

“Kind of hurt by the fact that there’s no evidence to back these orgies up. “

How come I never get invited to the orgies?  Is it because I’m not bisexual?

I am so tired of people dissing Ba’al, Beelzebub, Moloch, Asmodeus, and what have you. This creates a hostile environment for me, and negatively affects my self esteem. I feel like a victim. I need government protection, a new program, a subsidy!

It’s amazing how often spiteful people can obsess about a fantasy which exists only in their minds, completely missing the reality which sits in front of their eyes.

It’s about 18 different kinds of crazy, and I want to start taking it apart, but that’s about as futile as arguing with Timecube guy. You all know about him, don’t you? http://www.elsewhere.org/timecube/

Yeah. He and BamBam would get along great.

AND it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place which God had told him.

Genesis 22:1-3 King James version

The worship of “fertility” has been replaced with worship of “reproductive freedom”...

Yup. Promoting contraception has everything to do with wanting to be pregnant all the time so we can perform aborto-sacrifices.

I’ll third the Moloch point. Ba’al is rather like small-g “god” - generic term for false idol.

And in all my yeshiva studies, I never heard of orgies accompanying the sacrifices of children. The burning of the children themselves was bad enough… and the children were often rather older than infants, IIRC. (Not that fundnuts will understand the difference between any live human of any age vs. a fetus of any stage of gestation.) Homosexuality was a separate issue in the Old Testament era.

A couple of somewhat tangential notes (gotta use that education somewhere):
According to what I learned (via Jewish commentaries / Talmud),
- The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but lack of hospitality - the angels/strangers were guests, and they abused them, as they regularly abused all strangers who came to their town seeking hospitality. (Which makes more sense if you’ve ever lived in the Middle East.)
- If a woman is convicted by the Sanhedrin (Jewish High Court) of a capital crime, and she is pregnant, her fetus is killed within her womb prior to her execution, to spare her the shame of going into (early) labor mid-execution - the inference being, if we can allow an abortion (foeticide?) for the sake of her shame, so much more so in the event of any danger to her health, let alone her life - and most rabbis will rule that this includes her mental health, allowing women to elect abortion in cases of rape, and also possibly even of severe depression, mental illness, etc. (sidenote: if the condemned woman has already gone into labor prior to execution, she is allowed to complete birth; she is then executed forthwith.)

/tangent

Thanks for the warning, btw; I managed to read through the whole mess without either hurting my jaw or losing my lunch.

madinscriber, also to add, in the Christian Old Testament, if a woman is accused of carrying the child of a man who is not her husband, she is given a sacred drink from the priests. If she’s innocent, the baby will be fine; if she’s guilty, the baby will miscarry.

God likes abortions.

Oh, dear sweet caramel glazed fruit filled Jeebus with pecans.  This manages whole new depths of stupid and mendacity that I had previously thought impossible for a (marginally) sentient being to achieve.  Talk about (literally) demonizing your opposition.

The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but lack of hospitality - the angels/strangers were guests, and they abused them, as they regularly abused all strangers who came to their town seeking hospitality. (Which makes more sense if you’ve ever lived in the Middle East.)

I am amazed that more people (including those who profess to be literalists and to have read the bible) don’t know this. It’s not even a question of interpretation. It is right there in the text. Ezekiel 16:49. (Also the stubborn refusal of these people to acknowledge a context where hospitality was that important - but then again, what can you expect from people who think the entirety of a Bronze Age book is still applicable today.)

The archeological evidence for any such thing actually happening is at most ambiguous . . .

The evidence at Carthage is a bit more than ambiguous, but still uncertain.  There are also suggestions that this was not routine practice, but rather a response to enviornmental disasters, such as prolonged droughts.  There certainly is no evidence for accompanying orgies (of any sort).

Hey, ummm, those bisexual orgies that you DEMONcraps hold?  Is there some sort of sign-up list I need to be on for notification of time and place?

Ellen: Ah, yes, thanks!

Rebecca: Goes along with the whole twist-it-to-suit-your-needs mentality. Demonizing gays = expedient; providing and esteeming hospitality = inconvenient.
Same reason why they’ll eat shellfish and wear mixed fabrics, although these things are as much of an “abomination before the lord” as homosexual male sex…

madinscriber:

Same reason why they’ll eat shellfish and wear mixed fabrics, although these things are as much of an “abomination before the lord” as homosexual male sex…

But Jeebus invalidated all of the old dietary and sartorial laws. He said that man is defiled by what comes out of his mouth, not by what goes into it.

Of course, I’ve never really understood why this applies to shellfish but not, say, a penis.

Blood for Baal!  Blood for Baal!

I’m going to be trying to figure this one out all day - I like the idea that the proto-liberals were “sacrificing” their children, who they never actually wanted to have, and loved murdering, so they could be more fertile.  Coherence, please.

“The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but lack of hospitality”

Which was a total rip-off of the Baucis and Philemon myth, but let us all be as willfully ignorant of the history of mythology and superstitions (and world history in general) as the troglodytic, petulant fundagelicals, and participate in their own orgy of bigotry and theocratic Orwellianism. Pfft!

Hebrew speakers:  Ba’al is “Lord” or “Master” or “Husband,” right?  I told my Israeli mother once that “Beelzebub” < “Ba’al Zvuv,” and she said, “husband of a fly?”  And the Ba’al Shem Tov was Master of the Good Name.  Nothing idolatrous about him, particularly.  Geez, what kind of seminary did these preachers attend?

Actually, Dan, what Jesus said (at least in the translations I have) is

“There is nothing from without a man which, entering into a man, can defile him.”

You can declare that it’s about shellfish all you like. I like to think Jesus was including other men.

“madinscriber, also to add, in the Christian Old Testament, if a woman is accused of carrying the child of a man who is not her husband, she is given a sacred drink from the priests. If she’s innocent, the baby will be fine; if she’s guilty, the baby will miscarry.

God likes abortions. “
Not to mention the multiple times God orders pregnant women killed when towns are conquered…

http://www.evilbible.com/god’s not pro-life.htm

“Christian Old Testament” is a contradiction in terms.

>>If feminism promotes promiscuity why haven’t more feminists had sex with me?

Because they’re sex-hating harpies. When they’re not sex addicted whores.

See, feminists hate sex, except when they love sex. Also, Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia. Doubleplusgood duckquacker.

...in the Christian Old Testament, if a woman is accused of carrying the child of a man who is not her husband, she is given a sacred drink from the priests. If she’s innocent, the baby will be fine; if she’s guilty, the baby will miscarry.

Um, got a chapter and verse for that?

I know the Old Testament has some pretty outrageous shit, but that’s a new one on me.

Luke, the bigot spot at the inauguration is taken.  Maybe we can invite him to give a keynote at the Democratic Convention in 2012.  Or we could appoint him to Obama’s Senate seat maybe (we can even take up collections for him to meet the asking price).

Bitter Scribe - Numbers 5:20-28.

This guy is a little shakey on his pagan theology.  “Ba’al” simply means, “god.” Child sacrifices were made to “Moloch,” at least, according to the Romans and other enemies of Moloch-worshippers.  The archeological evidence for any such thing actually happening is at most ambiguous . . .

Which is a lot like relying on Jack Chick for a description of Catholicism, or the Freepers for a description of Islam.

Take a look at the Wikipedia entry. There’s a good possiblity it referred to some equivalent of a baptism ceremony, before the Jews started inflating the story. The Old Testament and traditions about it are not reliable or unbiased sources.

“The Ba’al worshippers burn children” may be right up there with “the Jews bake children’s blood into their bread” or “The Baptists drown children”.

And while Barber is so obviously a blithering idiot, I still think people should consider the motivations of the anti-abortion side fairly. Ask yourself precisely how you would stand if you honestly and sincerely considered a fetus to be the same as a baby.  I don’t think you can deal with the movement if you paint it as consisting solely of nitwits like Barber, or misogynists trying to control wild vaginas.

Steve,

“Blood for Baal!  Blood for Baal!”

Khorne is not amused

This just proves, yet again, how twisted freaks like him are.

Seriously… it’s just twisted in those rotting from the inside skulls of theirs.

And hello… OVERSHARE with the pr0n thing too Mr. Saddleback.

Hmm.. saddleback- pony fetish???!?!

>>Khorne is not amused

I’m more of a Slaanesh fan, myself.

“Ask yourself precisely how you would stand if you honestly and sincerely considered a fetus to be the same as a baby.”

Just as well “Ask yourself precisely how you would stand if you honestly and sincerely considered a person of African decent to be the same as a draft animal.”

I’d shoot myself for being congenially brain-dead.  Asking me to consider holding a position that is out and out evil will end in me either saying (A) Evil is cool; let’s murder innocents, or (B) me supporting suicide to end an agent of evil.

The Bible holds that ending a prenancy is, at most, a fineable offence.  Since wearing a poly-cotton blend would get your ass stoned to death under Biblical law, aborting a fetus must be the most irrelevent sin in the Bible, ie God doesn’t care that much about it - and since virtually anything even remotely considered murder of another human being got the death penalty, a fetus cannot be a human being under Biblical law - otherwise, ending a pregnancy would be a death sentence.  Science has no real stand on the issue, as there is no concensus among the labcoaters.  So to recap: God doesn’t make a big deal of abortion and shows no reason to consider a fetus a person, and science could care less.  That leaves the only reason to support an anti-choice position is because you are (1) hopelessly dedicated to patriarchal degredation of women and use God as a figleaf for social control unrelated to religion, (2) a tard, or (3) All of the above.

PiaToR: Who gives a flying shit how “honestly and sincerely” these jackoffs want to force women to bear children. I don’t want to understand them; I just want them away from power.

Rebecca: Thanks for the citation. The actual verse says the cursed drink would make her “belly to swell and thigh to rot.” I’d never have guessed that meant miscarriage, although it does make perfect sense once it’s explained. This kind of roundabout language is why reading the Bible can sometimes be frustrating.

The stench of burned flesh? Is Bam Bam calling barbecue unchristian?

Phalamir -
DING!

Bitter - I personally am not sure about the miscarriage bit, but I think that’s the citation Ellen meant, and it definitely is supposed to make her infertile if she’s been unfaithful.

Bitter, I thought the fetus was considered part of the woman’s thigh (based on the Torah, but I don’t have the specific reference), so that makes sense.

Rebecca -
The Bible Gateway gives “causes you to have a miscarrying womb and barrenness” as a possible translation, so this looks about right.

Here is the link:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers 5:20-28&version=31

The evidence at Carthage is a bit more than ambiguous, but still uncertain.  There are also suggestions that this was not routine practice, but rather a response to enviornmental disasters, such as prolonged droughts.

The issue is whether graveyards full of infants at Carthaginian sites represent sacrifices or just burials of dead infants.  A lot of the burials seem to date from times of environmental disasters, as you point out—but that’s exactly when you’d expet there to be a lot of infant deaths.  The main point against the “sacrifice” theory seems to be that a lot of the “infants” seem to be stillborn fetuses.

PiaToR: Who gives a flying shit how “honestly and sincerely” these jackoffs want to force women to bear children. I don’t want to understand them; I just want them away from power.

Your last clause of your second sentence answers the question in your first.

I guess they don’t have rhetorical questions in Phoenicia.

rea -

As I said, the evidence is still uncertain, though the association of the infant cemeteries with the temples is suggestive.  It remains one of those things we still do not know for certain either way.  Human sacrifice and even child sacrifice are not all that unusual in the world, especially in the neolithic and bronze age.  The story of Isaac also suggests that something of the sort may have been practiced in the region.

Thanks Joshua and DrDick. (Funny, isn’t the NIV supposed to be the fundie translation?)

Wait, there are WARHAMMER geeks here? By Sigmar’s Scrotum, I have COME HOME!

I know, I had a double take at the Khorne reference.  My winter home is on Fenris

Ellen,
the thing says water and “dust from the tabernacle floor.”  Want to bet there were a lot of ashes in that dust from all the burnt offerings?

Know what you get when you mix water and ash?
You get lye. (okay, it’s a process that takes a few days, but still)

“Here, you unfaithful harlot. Drink the lye and prove your innocence!”

Right, because if we just find the “right” translation of the book about talking bushes and men living inside a whale and the universe being created in 6 days then all will make sense! ! !

Notorious - I just found it ironic that the most vocally anti-choice group would use a translation that explicitly calls for induced miscarriage, rather than one where it’s only euphemistically hinted at.

Rebecca -
Yep.  Bible Gateway is basically a fundie site, so if they agree with you (it is not their preferred translation BTW), you are dead on target.  I have actually read the whole goddamned thing cover to cover (unlike most fundies), but it was a long time ago and my memory isn’t all that good.  I do like to slap the Talibangelicals with actual scripture, however.

I’ve always wondered why the BBQ at the bisexual orgies I attend at Halloween taste kind of funny.

I think the problem is that they are mixing their weird christian worldview with the words of another culture at another time, so things end up being glossed over and misinterpreted. Ancient cultures could not look inside, so they couldn’t go OMG,THEFETUSHASAHEARTBEAT, for example.

PiaToR,

The thing is, the phrase “honestly and sincerely” actually makes them worse.  If they are taking the position because they expect to use it to browbeat others into letting them have power, then at least it is a political tactic and one can consider them underhanded bastards who know how to use propoganda, ie evil, but mentally astute.  “Honestly ans sincerely” sends them into the realm of psychos - when even the God you claim to follow and accept as the final word in all decisions says your full of shit and you still hold to the position, you have some seriously major mental issues.  Putting myself into the heads of people who are that mentally deranged (and when you tell your God He’s wrong, you’re pretty far out there) is something I just refuse to do: “Consider the POV of those that think Dane Cook is funny”, “No”.  I believe there is absolute good and absolute evil.  I also believe 99.99% of things fall between those extremes.  That does not mitigate that the anti-choicers are really, really, really dark charcoal grey.  I can accept Adeptus Battle Grey, but anything darker should not be given a seat at the table with the grown-ups.

I thought that killing the already born children because their parents committed the sin of poverty or lack of health insurance was the prime turf of the wingnuts?

Human sacrifice and even child sacrifice are not all that unusual in the world, especially in the neolithic and bronze age.

In the British Isles, it may have persisted until the early middle ages.  Some of the bog mummies look a little too ritualistically bound for it to just be a case of a murderer trying to hide his crime.

Can we start the orgy already?  I’ve got my SunnO))))) CD’s to set the mood!

So, is any market running a good pre-Christmas sale on babies?  I’d really like to make a couple for Christmas dinner, but the price has been a little steep.

Well, are you a Christian, MikeEss?  If so, you can make a baby (JC himself, in fact—so appropriate to the season) with a little bread, a little wine, and the proper blessing . . .

Mnemosyne -

Pretty much general agreement that those were sacrifices, though there is some debate on exactly who they were (criminals, war captives, or members of the group in good standing).  Definitely continued in northern Europe and eastern Europe into the early Middle Ages.  Continued in Mexico-Central America and the Andes into the 1500s (at least).  Among some Native Americans in the US into the late 19th century (Pawnee Morning Star Ceremony for instance).

BitterScribe, Rebecca, Dr.Dick,

Per my Biblical Hebrew teacher in college, ‘thigh’ is one of the charming Biblical euphemisms for ‘genitals’. (When the angel struck Jacob in the hollow of the thigh? Um, yeah, not so much hollow, or thigh. Angel kicked Jacob right in the good parts. That would have been completely understood by a native speaker, too—probably lots of sympathetic wincing every time that story got retold.)

So ‘to cause [one’s] thigh to rot’ means, more or less, ‘to cause someone to have horrible genital problems/disease.’ (‘Barrenness’ is probably understating the case!)

Another charming euphemism for ‘genitals’ in the (Hebrew, not Christian) Bible is ‘feet’. So you get these passages about people uncovering their feet and it has horrible consequences, and modern readers find them completely incomprehensible—when what really is going on is the people being written about are *flashing* people.

(For real entertainment, get me started on the quite beautiful euphemistic extended metaphor for female masturbation in the Song of Songs! It’s a doozy!)

my SunnO))))) CD’s

Does anyone know how the heck they came up with that name?

For real entertainment, get me started on the quite beautiful euphemistic extended metaphor for female masturbation in the Song of Songs! It’s a doozy!

Oh, please do!  This is for purely academic purposes, you know, as I am teaching the Anthropology of Gender in the spring. 8-)

And whats wrong with rituals?.....

http://www.psych.nyu.edu/amodiolab/Amodio et al. (2007) Nature Neuro.pdf

Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to
informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual
response pattern.

how nice of Mr Barber to prove the point.

Another point to consider in the more adult-using human sacrifices (gods, that phrase would be so ridiculous out of context) is that a given culture might have considered it an honor—-either as being chosen to go to God, or as a sort of martyr when there’s an environmental calamity going on.  Every so often we hear in our own culture about pro-life pregnant women who choose to forego treatment that’d threaten their pregnancy, or to continue a pregnancy that would kill them, and you get both them and other pro-lifers saying how honorable and wonderful and what a perfect mother she is to die giving her baby life.  Religious martyrs—-saints in Christianity, for example—-are often portrayed as embracing persecution and death (although usually by the hands of their enemies rather than their fellow worshippers, but the concept of it being an honor to sacrifice their life for their god is very much present). (Hell, the whole religion is founded on a sacrifice.)

As a more everyday example we have a certain amount of pride towards the concept of a soldier, police officer or firefighter dying in the line of duty—-it’s not to the point where people actively seek out opportunities to get themselves killed, but when a situation calls for it they do it and are often proud and honored.

It is not a significant jump to see a culture with very strong religious beliefs managing to get this sort of feeling going for a sacrifice for metaphysical purposes, as we do on occasion for other human beings or, sometimes, for ideals.

For what it’s worth.  I mean, obviously this guy has issues, but there’s more to the concept of sacrifice than “KILL KILL KILL!”  That is for enemies; that is warfare or execution or murder—-sacrifice, by definition, has to do with giving something up, not getting rid of it.  In most (not all, but most) cases, there’s probably a distinction between the two.

(Not, of course, that that makes it all fine and dandy.  But it’s of a different order, if not magnitude, than murder and wholesale destruction.)

oops. please cut and paste the whole pdf link…

Another charming euphemism for ‘genitals’ in the (Hebrew, not Christian) Bible is ‘feet’. So you get these passages about people uncovering their feet and it has horrible consequences, and modern readers find them completely incomprehensible—when what really is going on is the people being written about are *flashing* people.

... so when Mary Magdeline anoints Jesus’ feet with her hair ...

Bambam seems to have missed the BIG FUCKING REASON for the BIG FUCKING That are crazy pagan fertility orgies and the like.

Fertility rituals are conducted at the beginning of spring, for the crops and such.

What’s 9 months after the start of spring? the dead of winter. When you don’t need people up, moving around, tending the fields and watching the herds to protect the lambs and calves against predators.

Synchronized births, keeping the immediate medical difficulties to the time when there’s the least else to do.

a least, that’s the explanation which ignores any sincere, deeply held belief.

my SunnO))))) CD’s
Does anyone know how the heck they came up with that name?

It goes back to the logo of Sunn guitar amplifiers the “O)))))” represent the sun, if ya get my drift?

“Honestly ans sincerely” sends them into the realm of psychos - when even the God you claim to follow and accept as the final word in all decisions says your full of shit and you still hold to the position, you have some seriously major mental issues.

That is your opinion of their sanity.  It is not backed up by any evidence - “psycho” suggests an inability to relate or deal with society.  The “fetuses = babies” crowd are a significant minority, and their position strikes a chord with the majority of people in your country who vaguely support abortion rights, but are very uneasy abouit the thing.  And your interpretation of whatever The Big Sky Fairy supposedly says in the Bible is as good, and as worthless, as their own.

These people are not crazy.  You and I may think they are deluded, but I think it is critical that you do not dismiss the idea.  There are groups, usually the leaders, that are motivated by the deep desire to control what women do with their genitals, but you are doing your cause a huge disservice if you fail to credit the majority of those expressing this belief with some degree of sincerity.

In my humble opinion, to the majority of anti-abortionists, the motivation is not misogyny but the belief that a fetus is a baby.  GIVEN this premise (which, again, I point out I consider wrong and deluded), their stance is both principled and sincere - they are not psychos.  The general line of attack I’ve seen here is counter-productive - by all means pick on their leaders displaying misogyny, but do not assume it applies to all, or even the majority of the anti-abortionists.  IMHO, they mean what they say.

“And your interpretation of whatever The Big Sky Fairy supposedly says in the Bible is as good, and as worthless, as their own”

Actually: No.  Mine is based off the text and it’s logical conclusions, which I can lay out in a (semi)coherent way.  It also happens to be a pretty standard interpretation among rabbis, meaning I’m not making it up, but going with the majority intrpretation of a lot of guys who are known to study the text pretty damn thoroughly.  Anti-choicers OTOH take that same text and ignore all logic and even the words of the text and invent an interpretation from thin air.  One can interpret The Lord of the Rings to be a primer on building FTL engines, but that does not make the interpretation as valid as another interpretation that it is a fairly standard epic.  The anti-choice interpretation is wrong, because it is crap - and provably crap at that.

“if you fail to credit the majority of those expressing this belief with some degree of sincerity”

If I credit them with sincerity, they deserve less from me.  They believe something that their infallible text says is crap, ie their God says is crap.  And they tell their God to stfu and go sit down.  If they are sincere that even God His Own Damn Self can’t tell them what to do, they are implicitly saying they deserve to ignore all laws, social constraints, and even Divine pronouncement at their whim - t which point I say do unto them before they have a chance to do upon my wife or any other woman.

“GIVEN this premise (which, again, I point out I consider wrong and deluded), their stance is both principled and sincere”

Given nothing.  Their position is wrong, and provably wrong by their own standards of arguemntation at that (well, if they followed their professed arguementation and didn;t just make shit up).  I don’t have to give them anything because I am not suicidal enough to let rabid dogs bite me just because “given the rabid dog’s view, he’s acting sincerely” - sincere or not, I still shoot his infected ass between the eyes.  Their position is no more valid than that of neo-Confederates who think Africans are chattel, or neo-Nazis that think Jews are inhuman.  They can be sincere, they are also wrong and anti-American.  That many people refuse to treat anti-choicers as social pariahs is something that needs to be worked on, true, but trying to woo them by playing patty-cake with them and cooing over their ideas is like doing the same with someone who believes the aliens are putting jet-engines in his keister - you’re trying to reason with the mentally unbalanced.  We can medicate the latter, and we ought to medicate the former - preferably with cyanide.

Their sincereity means nothing, because their position is nonsensical and is antithical to the freedom of the mother.  To be quite honest, their attacks on her freedom and rights makes them treasonous, since they want to set up a law above the Constitution - and heck, not even Biblical law, but their Out-of-Thin-Air law.  They can be sincere as hell, but they deserve to be hanged as traitors - or should we reward Benedict Arnold as long as he was sincere and honest in his treason?

Compassion and empathy without bounds is suicidal - Gandhi wanted JEws to accept Hitler’s views and not try to resist the concentration camps because then Hitler would see the erro of his ways.  That isn’t noble, it is retarded.  At some point, when you see evil, you beat it dead, not try and make friends with it.  When it threatens the rights of Americans, it is also a crime of omission to not defend the Constitution.  If my choice is my Constituion or a bunch of people who want to tear it down and institute a theocratic dictatorship (and a theocratic dictatorship of the stupid at that), I know which I pick.  You go wave the white flag and bring them cookies - gives me a chance to reload.

Phalamir, I like your style.  Una

In my humble opinion, to the majority of anti-abortionists, the motivation is not misogyny but the belief that a fetus is a baby.

If that were true, the majority of anti-abortionists would not support exceptions in rape and incest cases.  But they do.

Joshua, no, that’s why i specifically pointed out that it’s a euphemism *in Hebrew*, and not therefore a feature of the Christian Bible (which was written mostly in Aramaic and Greek.)

If that were true, the majority of anti-abortionists would not support exceptions in rape and incest cases.  But they do.

Or they haven’t thought it through enough.  That particular point is one I’ve harped on in the past; it’s more productive than the assumption that the typical anti-abortionist is driven by misogyny.

it’s a euphemism *in Hebrew*

Oh, well THAT’S no fun.

Another proud Liberty University Law School grad.

I smell the faint whiff of Ted Haggard’s brimstone, this guy isn’t theorizing, he’s fantasizing.

I’d like to see him call that crap to my face.