Recent Comments

1. 8 days ago on Mike Luckovich

   Yes, David seemed to be very smitten with Bathsheba from the moment he first voyeured her bathing on her rooftop.

   Out of the eight wives David had that are named in the Old Testament, Bathsheba was not the first, but she became his favorite. Even though his son by her, Solomon, was not the firstborn (he was son number ten) David worked things out (apparently Bathsheba, with all her, um, charms, was quite persuasive) for Solomon to be the one to succeed him.

   David had eight wives named in the Old Testament. But he was a piker compared to his (tenth) son and successor, Solomon (son by Bathsheba), who had 700 wives according to the Bible, along with 300 concubines (mistresses). Busy fellow. Trump’s role model, though Trump is having a hard time keeping up (so far only five kids with three wives and who-knows-how-many mistresses).

   Many of the revered prophets of the Old Testament had multiple wives. THAT is “traditional marriage,” most of them with god’s blessing; THAT is Biblical marriage. None of this “one man, one woman” nonsense they try to peddle today.

   For most of recorded human history around the world, and especially the Biblical variety, “traditional marriage” has meant one man with multiple underage prepubescent females of the same ethnic tribe, as a property agreement in arranged marriages in exchange for a dowry (possibly goats, cows and sheep), maintaining “dominion” over these wives as chattel property in the same way as his herds, flocks and other livestock.

   Fortunately, marriage has been EVOLVING and being redefined for millennia.

2. 9 days ago on Mike Luckovich

   Good reminder that the guy who cheated on wife one with wife two, and cheated on wife two with wife three, and cheated on wife three with a porn star and a Playboy Bunny (and lots and lots of others in between for all of them) is paying for his “sins” by selling Bibles overpriced at $59.99.

   And for the low, low additional price of $6.66 you can get your choice of centerfold — Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal or Melania.

3. 9 days ago on Mike Luckovich

   There are quite a few more examples that would not fit in the space allowed for each comment and I didn’t want to spill over into additional comments to make this particular point.

   Plus, that particular account includes not only lust and adultery, but also murder, which makes it a less desirable example to use with good “Christians.”

   Conservative “Christians” get all bent out of shape if you happen to show a flash of private anatomical parts in intimate interactions that are a normal part of most people’s lives and, in good relationships, is positive, beautiful, natural and something most people experience.

   But murder? Violence? Gore? Blood? Those are things that most people will never experience and, if they do, should be rare and traumatic experiences that are not considered normal. But you can show as much of that stuff as you want in photos, movie videos or video games. They love that stuff!

4. 9 days ago on Mike Luckovich

   Yes, you can copy and paste verse 22 of Ezekiel 23 and, while it continues the naughty flavor of the passage I cited, try it again with the verses I referenced (verses 17-21) and see how the GoComics bot responds.

   If the true believers want to read what it actually says, they’ll have to check it out in their very own Bibles. Take it down from its pedestal, blow off the dust, actually open it up for once, and read it for themselves — including the parts they don’t read in Sunday School — instead of just the cherry-picked favorite verses selected by their cult leaders.

   GoComics apparently agrees that the Bible is obscene.

5. 9 days ago on Mike Luckovich

   Breaking news — we have uncovered the Bible Study notes from that very spiritual, special moment shared as Saint Donald led Stormy Magdalene out of the depths of sin and into the radiance of celestial glory. We have uncovered the list of exactly which passages they were sharing (well, after that bit on unfortunate nastiness with the “Forbes” magazine spaning)…

   Genesis 19:31-36 Lot has sex with and impregnates both his daughters

   Genesis 35:22 Israel (Jacob)’s son Reuben has sex with his father’s concubine (mistress)

   Genesis 38:2-18 Onan has sex with his brother’s wife but pulls out early and spills his “seed” on the ground to prevent impregnating her

   Judges 16:1 Samson has sex with a harlot

   I Kings 11: 3 Solomon had a harem of 700 wives and 300 concubines (mistresses; side hustles)

   Ezekiel 23:17-21 (KJV) “xxx” (I tried to copy and paste the test verbatim from the King James Bible and the GoComics bot seems to think that the actual Bible text is too explicit for a comics comment page, so believers can look it up in their very own Bibles.)

   Explicit verses in Song of Solomon (erotic poetry throughout): Song of Solomon 1:12-13; 4:5; 7:3; 7:7-8

   Numbers Chapter 31 (entire chapter): God commands Israelite soldiers to kill all the Midianites, except the virgin girls to be kept as “booty” (King James; “plunder” in newer versions) Rape and pillage! The godly thing to do!

   We just need one or more non-believer parents in Florida to file a complaint that the Bible contains material that is not appropriate for children because of its many, many explicit examples of very explicit, erotic naughty passages — the ones that the cherry-pickers never seem to include in their Sunday School lessons.

6. 25 days ago on Clay Jones

   I did not claim that any of the books of the Bible, Apocrypha or Dead Sea Scrolls are “valid” in the sense of being literally true or infallible or inerrant or anything remotely akin to a literal “word of god.” My point is that some of those unearthed from the caves of Nag Hammadi and Qumran now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls were more liberal (in the modern meaning) than those that were accepted into the official canon, and likely a closer reflection to Jesus’ intent, but were excluded because they did not comport with the militaristic, patriarchal institution under which Constantine sought to unify the disparate sects into a single unified, universal or “catholic” religion.

   If you want to see an expanded view of my analysis of Bible fallacies (including hundreds of direct internal contradictions, toleration of slavery, rape and other crimes against humanity, factual errors, atrocities supposedly commanded by god, and failed prophecies that they never teach in Sunday School), along with explicitly erotic passages that no religious conservative would allow in schools or libraries (and which even the GoComics censor-bot blocks if I try to copy and paste directly from the Bible), you can do a search on terms “Danizier,” “Bibleolatry” and “WordPress” and my site will come up.

   While there may be occasional flashes of inspiration and primitive wisdom in the Bible as in any ancient book of myths and legends, the Bible is no better and certainly no more literally factual than the mythologies of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Incas or Mayans, who were far more advanced in science, math and culture than the primitive tribal Hebrews, and whose religious mythologies evolved into modern sciences (astrology into astronomy, alchemy into chemistry, herbal healing into modern medicine, magic into science), unlike the anti-science postures of today’s conservative Bible literalists.

7. 25 days ago on Clay Jones

   Your original comment referenced texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and I responded to that, and made clear that I was referring to additional Dead Sea Scroll texts that are more liberal and, in clarifying a response to @d6f1spna I clarified that I was, indeed, referring to the word “liberal” and in the sense as it is understood today.

   Certainly Thomas Jefferson (and Madison and Washington) were all very liberal for their time. But unless you want to return to the days of slavery and eliminate the FAA, FDA, CDC, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, public schools, the right to vote for women, nonwhites, non property owners, and whole lot of other things (which maybe you do, at least in part), by the standards of today and the way the word “liberal” is used today, what I said is completely correct in relation to how the newly-discovered texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, written by those closest to Jesus, are far more LIBERAL than the letters of Paul and the militaristic, patriarchal church established by Constantine, which Jesus would have found abhorrent.

   Jesus taught us to feed the hungry, care for the poor, heal the sick, treat those imprisoned humanely and welcome the stranger. His earliest followers (before Paul came along) even lived in a communal order in which they “had all things in common”; and “sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, according to their needs.”

   (Acts 2:44-45; emphasis added; this was enforced by THREAT OF DEATH in a more detailed description in Acts 4:32-37 and Acts 5:1-11)

   Shades of Karl Marx! If someone were to suggest such a practice today, those who claim to be Jesus’ followers today would call him a Communist.

   Would they call Jesus a Communist?

8. 25 days ago on Clay Jones

   Oh yeah, good ol’ Thomas Jefferson, the one who wrote “all men are created equal” while his plantations were maintained by more than 600 human unpaid laborers held forcibly in involuntary servitude. Instead of domination by “governmental restraint,” he championed the imposition of restraint by those who were apparently created more equal than others. More like the privilege of the elite rather than a truly “free acquisition of wealth.”

   Jesus, and those closest to him, explicitly rejected the oppression of the poor and stated that the servant (some modern translations use the word “slave”) would become the master. It would only be after Jesus was gone that the apostate Paul, who never met Jesus in person, would revert to the harsh legalism of the Old Testament, in an ideology in opposition to Jesus but which so impressed Eusebius that, in his Fourth Century compilation of the modern Bible, gave Paul a special place of New Testament prominence while rejecting many texts by those who actually knew and lived with Jesus.

   As I explained quite clearly, my reference to the liberalism of those who wrote gospels most closely aligned with what Jesus reportedly taught, was in the context of the modern meaning as popularly used today.

   These more liberal (in the modern meaning) gospels, epistles and other texts were most threatening to the establishment of a militant, patriarchal ecclesiastic institution steeped in rigidity and opulence that Jesus would have found abhorrent, and were therefore banned and prohibited and required stealth and secrecy to hide away and preserve.

9. 25 days ago on Clay Jones

   Usually the terms “Apocrypha” or “apocryphal” are used to reference the extra books that are accepted in Catholic versions of the Bible but excluded from Protestant versions and which are also accepted in some compilations of the Hebrew Bible which do not include the Christian New Testament.

   These texts all long predate the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and are not what I was referring to, though, strictly speaking, the term “apocryphal” in its purest form could certainly refer to that.

   And I did mean to use the term “liberal” rather than “Christian.” As used today, modern liberalism over the last 90 years includes care for the poor, the hungry, those in need, those suffering from illness or imprisonment and foreign strangers in our midst, all of which are tenets of modern liberalism, and which are rejected in modern conservatism, whether in reference to political ideologies or religious denominations, including those call themselves “Christian” while bearing no resemblance to Jesus’ teachings.

   As for “classic” liberalism, an unsourced definition that someone invented means nothing. If it refers to the liberalism of the founders rather than as is understood today, considering that many claimed ownership of unpaid human laborers as the foundation of their “free market” economy, their moral definitions have little practical relevance to how the term “liberal” is used today and not what I was referring to. In any case, I do not see any reference to “laissez faire” or “free markets” in the Constitution or the writings of the founders who created the American experiment.

10. 26 days ago on Clay Jones

    Can’t say that I often agree with you, but well done!

    Yes, the Book of Enoch and the Gospel of Thomas and other liberal original source texts such as the gospels of Mary Magdalene and Philip, as well as the Gnostic gospels and additional writings of James and Peter should be read by everyone, though I am sure that the Catholic church and most conservative Protestant and evangelical sects would not agree.

    These texts that the early conservative, patriarchal Roman church sought to destroy were excluded from the compilation of an official canon that had been compiled by Eusebius in the Fourth Century CE, under the direction of Emperor Constantine who tried to unify the disparate and conflicting sects into a single unified, universal “catholic” church.

    The new, unified church was based on the “apostle” Paul and everything Jesus opposed — powerful militarized elites and religious leaders living in luxury and opulence in direct contrast to the teachings of Jesus and, yes, patriarchy and nationalism.

    This new conservative establishment of the early Christian movement felt threatened by what they perceived as opposing liberal views and sought to eradicate them. They ordered the destruction of all non-sanctioned texts that had been rejected from the canon and, for centuries, we only knew about them from references in other writings but did not have the actual texts themselves.

    But, unknown to the religious elites in power, there were those who wanted to preserve the more liberal opposing view, and they hid away these texts in the caves of Qumran and Nag Hammadi where they lay hidden until rediscovered in 1947.

    Today, these liberal texts that the elitist, militaristic Constantine and his patriarchy saw as a threat and sought to destroy, are widely available and, yes, as you suggest, I concur in your recommendation that they should be widely promoted and read.

    Again, well done, sir!