Comments

1
Some guy once said "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." I forget who that was...
3
Seriously, the best response these fringe pastors is to simply ignore them.

There are for more pressing matters to worry about, like Trump.
4
What about the rest of East Texas? ...Controlled by Evangelical repukes.
5
If this is God's wrath, he appears to not have lousy aim (hitting the 9th Ward instead of the French Quarter, or Florida instead of California or New York), but also lousy timing (hitting Houston 18 months after the lesbian mayor LEFT office rather than during the 72 months while she was in office).
6
There's an entire generation now that doesn't know anything about Talibangelical "Christians" except for their deranged, psychopathic hatred of LGBT people. Well, that and the toxic, heretical "prosperity gospel" scam that separates gullible morons from their money.

Whatever happened to "treating people the way that you want to be treated," the Golden Rule that we teach kindergarteners? Or basic human decency for that matter.

No wonder these charlatans and sanctimonious hypocrites are producing atheists by the truckload.
8
What took them so long?
9
There are no gods
10
It's ALMOST enough to make you think there AIN'T no God.
11
So, God is Love ...except when He hates and randomly kills some people for the sins of others.
Sounds like the god for me!
--
@3 - I would argue that pastors like this, and the unthinking moralistic attitudes & close-minded views they drum into their "flock" are actually part of the cause for the Rise of Trump. Trumpf is largely a symptom -- he likely didn't even think he was going to make it past the primary, let alone the presidency. The people living in their moralistic bubbles, harboring hatred in their hearts for the "other" --(mostly darker skinned others, but also leftists, and the sexually unrepressed too)-- are the ones who make up his most rabid fan-base.

Of course, many others also supported (or at least voted for) him out of fed-up frustration with bipartisan support for Wall Street's rentier-initiated economic punishment that's been dished out in increasing doses since Reagan's 'trickle-down' "revolution" b.s. But it's the "Christian Vindictives" who make up Trumpf's base and receive his not-so-subtle winking approval when they mow people down with cars.

But I will bet you that "Pastor" Kevin Swanson voted Trumpf, and encouraged his "flock" to do the same. Just a hunch. If so, then Swanson is very much part of the cause of Trumpf, and his odious viewpoints are worth countering, imho.

...Update: Ok, i couldn't find any direct support of Li'l Trumpy, but Swanson did support Teddy Cruz, who encourages "mobilizing Christians to vote Biblical values", so he is a part of establishing the Unthinking Hordes who handed us this national disgrace.
12
You know, I really wish we could collectively step away from comparing bad things to Hitler/Nazis. This has been said before, but it bears repeating.
While such a comparison may be technically accurate, it pretty much turns people off and they stop listening. The writer making the comparison tends to sound hyperbolic...and ignorable. And that's unfortunate.

Sure, we need to appeal to emotions --as dry rational discussion doesn't connect with most people-- but reaching for the nuclear "omg just like Nazis!" kinda bleaches the communicative terrain by resorting to extreme concepts too frequently.

Just my $0.02

That said, Swanson is a smiteable hyperbolic asshole of the first order.
13
@6 - Yeah dude, blip@7 is right, these nutcakes aren't 'fringe"... they're hanging out with current political 'leaders':
[Ted] Cruz also spoke, along with GOP rivals Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal, at the National Religious Liberties Conference organized by pastor Kevin Swanson [in 2015].
14
@12 I'd agree usually, but when people who can't distinguish fascists from anti-fascists control the White House, I think the usual rule about 'reductio ad Hitlerum' gets suspended.
15
@3 As others have said, the talibangelical wing of the Christian religion is not 'fringe' in the USA. It is completely mainstream, especially in the south, and currently controls all three arms of the US government by virtue of an alliance with a far-right sexual predator. "Ignore them and they'll go away" won't work. We ignored them and they took over the government.
16
Why couldn't some natural disaster be because Texas voted for Trump? Or because some bar in Austin ran out of tequila on Margarita Monday? Once you start "post hoc ergo propter hoc" the sky's the limit.
17
Strange that their god is capable of creating entire universes with the power of thought alone, but for some reason can't manage to individually target a few human beings for retribution without taking out even larger numbers of the Faithful in the process.

It almost makes one wonder who's really being punished here...
18
We could also use Stalin comparisons once in a while, you know, for the sake of variety.
19
COMTE @ 17 - "It almost makes one wonder who's really being punished here..."

Do you think they don't realize that? That's why they're always so keen to blame us LGBTQs, as a diversion tactic.
20
Ah, but they have thought it through and have an answer for this. It's that God simply can't be judged by the standards of human morality. He's God, right is defined by his will. Bow to power, kiss the ring. Repeatedly hearing stories, biblical and contemporary, of God "acting" this way prepares followers to tolerate abuses by powerful people, which is useful.
21
Is THIS why Joel Osteen didn't open up his church after the Hurricane?

barb
22
I think he didn't go far enough..

If one were to read the bible, you could EASILY present a case that god is the devil
23
How many churches were destroyed in Houston and New Orleans? After the 1989 earthquake, many San Francisco churches closed their doors, rather than pay for expensive seismic retrofits. The greatest damage was in the predominantly straight Marina, not so much in the gay Castro.
God's aim does suck.
24
When Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755, American preachers declared it was Gawd's vengeance...against Americans thwarting his will by using lightning rods.

Please wait...

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