Vatican Adds to List of Stuff You Shouldn’t Do

CNN reports that the Vatican has announced that drugs, pollution and genetic manipulation have been added to the Catholic Churches “you’re gonna have to pay more now to get into Heaven” list.

When asked to list the new areas of sinful behavior, (Monsignor Gianfranco) Girotti denounced “certain violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments, genetic manipulations.”

Also interesting was the fact that:

Girotti said the Catholic Church continued to be concerned by other sinful acts, including abortion and pedophilia.

He said Church authorities had reacted with rigorous measures to child abuse scandals within the clergy, but he also claimed that the issue had been excessively emphasized by the media.

Interesting, considering that some statistics show that 6% of Catholic Priests could be abusive. The Great Realization points out that this would mean 24,000 Abusive Catholic Priests!

Read more about the new sins here!

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Christian Poster Child Tom Coburn Endorses John McCain

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Beliefnet.com reports that Tom Coburn has endorsed Senator John McCain for President. Let’s talk about this endorsement for a second.

Tom Coburn is a U.S. Senator for Oklahoma with some extremely hypocritical views that are closely linked to his never-faltering Christian beliefs. From calling his fellow Oklahoma citizens “crapheads” to radical pro-life views, he’s a few cards short of a deck. For example, Coburn is ‘pro-life’ and goes with the “sanctity of life” right-wing buzzphrase that “all life is sacred” as if liberals hate life. Meanwhile, Coburn advocates the death penalty for abortionists. Pretty funny for a guy who has admitted to have performed abortions. The list goes on.

So congratulations, John McCain, on picking up thie stellar endorsement from a hypocrite. I’m sure it will ring loud and clear with psycho-conservative Christian people everywhere.

Tony Snow Warns of “War on God”

Think Progress has the story:

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow is apparently attempting to remake himself into the image of Bill O’Reilly. In a series of recent public events, Snow has adopted the mantle of the right-wing’s perceived “secular-progressive” war on conservatives.

Last Friday in an address to the Academy of Leadership & Liberty at Oklahoma Christian University, former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow launched a rhetorical broadside against college faculties in America and mourned this nation’s “war on God.” Oklahoma City Friday reports:

The winsome and articulate Snow charmed his audience with wit:

“The average Iranian is more Pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country.” And with serious talk about the war on terror and “the second war in this country, the war on God.” […]

Snow also said he loved being on a stage where he could say the word “God.”

So calamitous is this “war on God” that Tony Snow never once mentioned it from the White House podium when he served as Bush’s press secretary. The “war on God” is no more real than the right-wing’s perceived “war on Easter” and the “war on Christmas.”

Appearing on the O’Reilly Factor last Thursday, Tony Snow endorsed Bill O’Reilly’s purported war on Christmas:

“I don’t think they’re going to beat Jesus. … You’ve mentioned the fact that you’re not allowed to have Christ at Christmas. I mean, I went to a Christmas store this week. It didn’t have anything about Jesus. It had all sorts of funny little ornaments in it, but nothing about the holiday. People are tired of that.”

Being a phony champion for purported social conservative causes appears to be Tony Snow’s remedy for resuscitating his image following the Bush years.

New Gallup Poll: Religion Will Be Important for 2008 Election

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A newly released Gallup Poll report suggests “religion will play a part in both the primary elections of both the Republicans and Democrats but in the general election as well.” America responded to the results with a collective, “No Shit, Sherlock.”

AP reports:

When it comes to the Republican primaries, the voter choice for a candidate is heavily influenced by the frequency with which they attend religious services. The results come from polling both Republicans and those leaning toward Republicans. It also includes potential candidates as well as some who have backed out.

First of all, they asked who the voters would support in general: Rudy Giuliani 29%, Fred Thompson 19%, John McCain 17%, Mitt Romney 8%, Newt Gingrich 7%, Mike Huckabee 2%, Ron Paul 2%, Duncan Hunter 2%, Sam Brownback 2%, Tommy Thompson 1%, Chuck Hagel 1%, Tom Tancredo 1%, Jim Gilmore less that half a percent, Other/none/no opinion 10% Total polled, 1,204

Of those who attend church regularly, every week: Rudy Giuliani 24%, Fred Thompson 20%, John McCain 16%, Mitt Romney 8%, Newt Gingrich 7%, Mike Huckabee 3%, Ron Paul 1%, Duncan Hunter 1%, Sam Brownback, 3%, Tommy Thompson 2%, Chuck Hagel 1%, Tom Tancredo 1%, Jim Gilmore less that half a percent, Other/none/no opinion 13%. Total respondents 480

Of those who attend almost regularly or monthly, Rudy Giuliani 32%, Fred Thompson 21%, John McCain 15%, Mitt Romney, 8%, Newt Gingrich 8%, Mike Huckabee 2%, Ron Paul, less that a half of a percent, Duncan Hunter 1%, Sam Brownback 2%, Tommy Thompson 1%, Chuck Hagel 2%, Tom Tancredo 1%, Jim Gilmore 1%, Other/none/no opinion 6%. Total respondents 294

Of those who attend services seldom or never Rudy Giuliani 33%, Fred Thompson 18%, John McCain 18%, Mitt Romney 8%, Newt Gingrich 6%, Mike Huckabee 2%, Ron Paul 3%, Duncan Hunter 2%, Sam Brownback less than half a percent, Tommy Thompson 1% Chuck Hagel less than half a percent, Tom Tancredo 1%, Jim Gilmore less than half a percent.

The percentage is pretty much the same across the board with the exception of the overall leader, Rudy Giuliani who gets most of his support from those who go to church less frequently.

On the Democratic primary side, the results are very different.

The results from the total polled are Hillary Clinton 35%, Barack Obama 22%, Al Gore 17%, John Edwards 11%, Bill Richardson 4%, Joe Biden 3%, Dennis Kucinich 2%, Mike Gravel 1%, Christopher Dodd 1%, Other/none/no opinion 6% Total polled 1,515

Of those who attend services weekly, Hillary Clinton 39%, Barack Obama 24%, Al Gore 13%, John Edwards 10%, Bill Richardson 2%, Joe Biden 2%, Dennis Kucinich 1%, Mike Gravel less than half a percent, Christopher Dodd less than half a percent, Other/none/no opinion 8%. Total polled, 364.

Of those who attend rarely or monthly, Hillary Clinton 34%, Barack Obama 26%, Al Gore 13%, John Edwards 14%, Bill Richardson 3%, Joe Biden 4%, Dennis Kucinich 1%, Mike Gravel less than half a percent, Christopher Dodd 1%, Other/none/no opinion 5%, Total polled 325.

Of those who attend seldom or never, Hillary Clinton 32%, Barack Obama 20%, Al Gore 20%, John Edwards 11%, Bill Richardson 5%, Joe Biden 2%, Dennis Kucinich 2%, Mike Gravel 1%, Christopher Dodd 1%, Other/none/no opinion 6%. Total polled, 794.

In related news, Fred Thompson is said to be courting religious leaders in an effort to secure their support before announcing his run for the 08 Republican nomination. Thompson is a mildly moderate religious man at best. He barely goes to church. Yet, because he does not publicly support abortion like Giuliani and is not a Mormon like Romney, the religious leaders will probably entertain his interests before the other republican front-runners. Is it interesting that Thompson is a front runner before even having announced an official run?

My claim is that if Romney weren’t a Mormon, Thompson would have declared his run by now. The only reason Thompson hasn’t officially entered the race by now is because there’s a weak point with every other Republican candidate that’s keeping them from being a clear front-runner. If Romney weren’t a Mormon, he’d have the support of the majority of Republicans and Thompson would view him as more serious competition. That’s my opinion, of course.

Back to the gallup poll, the AP story concludes:

Next they take a look at how this equates in a Presidential race between the two leaders, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. Giuliani wins with the ones who attends weekly, 61-34%, in the weekly or monthly group he also wins with 64-31%. In the seldom or never group, Senator Clinton wins 49 to 46%.

Very interesting!

Would The Candidates Treat Atheists Differently?

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The Bush Administration has proven its disregard for un-religious Americans by blatantly promoting religion with taxpayer money. Stephen Marsh, a somewhat awkward young man from California asked the Candidates on Sunday during the CNN/YouTube Debate if they will treat non-religious Americans any differently.
Marsh:

Am I wrong in fearing a Democratic Administration that may pay lip service to the extremely religious as much as the current one?

John Edwards answered:

As President of the United States, we will embrace and lift up all Americans, whatever their faith beliefs or whether they have no faith belief as Stephen just spoke about. That’s what America is. Now, my faith is enormously important to me personally — it’s gotten me through some hard times, as I’m sure that’s true of a lot of the candidates who are on this stage. But, it is crucial that the American people know that as President, it will not be my job, and I believe it would be wrong, for me to impose my personal faith beliefs on the American people, or to decide any kind of decision — policy decision — that will affect America on the basis of my personal faith beliefs. (applause)

Barack Obama answered:

I am proud of my Christian faith, and it informs what I do, and I don’t think that people of any faith background should be prohibited from debating in the public square. But I am a strong believer in the separation of church and state (applause) and I think that we’ve got to translate — by the way, I support it not just for the state, but also for the church — because that maintains our religious independence and that’s why we have such a thriving religious life, but what I also think is that we are under obligation in public life to translate our moral va- our religious values into moral terms that all people can share including those who are not believers and that is how our democracy’s functioning, will continue to function and that’s what the founding fathers intended.

See the video:

The John Edwards answer is good, but not true. He has made his decision on Gay Marriage based on his personal faith beliefs and will use his beliefs to make other decisions. If you truly lead your life by your faith beliefs as I’m sure all of these candidates will attest, you use those beliefs to make your daily decisions.

I didn’t really like Obama’s answer. Why is there constantly a notion that moral values can not be attained through anything except religion? Surely he understands that religion prescribes certain values that not all people share, especially in relation to some modern social issues. Through his method of using religion to guide morality for the nation, we’ve seen such travesties as the blocking of the HPV vaccine, stem cell research funding, and an extremely heated abortion debate that has raged for decades. I believe Obama is saying that you’ve got to take these religious beliefs and translate them into a greatest common denominator that all of the American people will accept — but if that’s true – why do the moral beliefs have to begin with religion in the first place?

Bush Administration Using Religious Ideology to Lie to Americans

Many Americans are frustrated that Christian based concepts of what the Bush Administration calls a “culture of life” is too blind to situational affects and can in fact result in more harm than good. A blind call to “let God take care of it” disrespects the human progress that has been made in the medical field in the last century.

Two of these topics are abstinence-only education and emergency contraception — two issues that we now know the Bush administration does not want you to know the truth about. Associated Press reports that “President Bush’s most recent surgeon general accused the administration Tuesday of muzzling him for political reasons on hot-button health issues such as emergency contraception and abstinence-only education.”

Carmona said he believed the surgeon general should show leadership on health issues. But his speeches were edited by political appointees, and he was told not to talk about certain issues. For example, he supported comprehensive sex education that would include abstinence in the curriculum, rather than focusing solely on abstinence.

“However, there was already a policy in place that didn’t want to hear the science, but wanted to — quote, unquote — ‘preach abstinence,’ which I felt was scientifically incorrect,” Carmona said.

This is just another instance of the Bush Administration hiding real scientific results from the American people in order to promote their religious-right wing agenda and the views of their religion.

According to ThinkProgress:

On Thursday, the Senate will consider the nomination of Dr. James Holsinger to be the next Surgeon General. Perhaps not surprisingly, Bush has this time nominated someone who has repeatedly put ideology over sound science, peddling views of homosexuality that have been rejected by the medical community.

See Carmona’s hearing here:

Was Mitt Romney Always This Religious?

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Mitt Romney has made it painfully clear that he’s willing to cater to the extremely conservative religious right’s social values of opposing abortion. They call it the “culture of life.” Was Romney always this religious?

This video from a 1994 Debate against Ted Kennedy will help us figure that out!