Replies

"In my book, mocking someone is synonymous with disliking them."

It appears at least that you downgraded your omniscient interpretation of my feelings from hating to dislike. so um, I guess my arguments are slowly winning you over. Come on. I know you want to say Yeeeaaaaassssss, praise the Lord.

"Calling them "hypocrites," while presenting no evidence, is cheap and tawdry."

I’m sorry. I thought that as a good Christian with so much experience in revivals and so on, you would have been familiar with the likes of Jimmy Swaggart, who I presented as an example of just such a (more) scripture quoting (harder) bible thumbing Christian. Apparently you are not as well versed in the fine art of the revivalism a I thought.

While I actually was familiar with many of the details of these charlatans leading the blind I expected you would like actual references and hence I have included them for your education.

If you go to "Google News" now, and type in "Jimmy Swaggart" here is the first thing that comes up:

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=591979

JIMMY SWAGGART: Sins of the Flesh - Dec 10 2004

“In the gaudy, intemperate world of 1980s US televangelism, no one burnt with a more self-righteous fury than the Rev Jimmy Swaggart. He was iron-hard on all the usual soft targets: gays, Hollywood, people not pledging their life savings to Jimmy Swaggart Ministries - but poured special bile on his peers, such as Jim Bakker, whose Praise The Lord network collapsed when he was revealed to have had an affair with his secretary. Swaggart went on Larry King's CNN show to say such sinners were "a cancer on the body of Christ". There was an inevitability to his exposure as a regular client of hookers at several insalubrious Louisiana truck-stops.” (hey no offense to Louisiana truck stops OK?)

Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E

Well if that one dosen't meet your definition, try this on for size and feast your Christian eyes on the third hit, which is particularly telling and representative of the whole rotten grimy “cheap and tawdry” bunch (now just calm down- I don’t hate them, I hate their sins don’t ya know!).

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_14418.shtml

“Descending the podium, I had noticed but a single empty chair in the entire room. Taking it, I found myself at a table of strangely egalitarian folk. They were gentle in manner. They welcomed me expansively. They introduced themselves. To my delight, they spoke less of arcane technology than they did of their fellow man and their responsibilities toward humanity that such technology could help them fulfill. I listened, interested, noting that they all had that sort of deliberate not quite real Dixie accent that I’d learned to recognize in actors when playing Southern characters before the camera. But why here? Their names - remarkable in retrospect, but hardly noteworthy at the time - were Jimmy Swaggart, Paul Crouch, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Pat Robertson, Robert Tilton, and a guy named Billy Batts. I was present, I know now, at American Televangelism’s Big Bang, or if you prefer, its Genesis. Big league Fundamentalist Christian TV Evangelism was born at that table that day...

Of the seven people at that fateful dinner table, most would be embroiled in scandals. They would stand accused or proven guilty of behavior violating their very admonitions and those of their professed god. One would be indicted for fraud, another convicted, two would be involved in extramarital affairs with prostitutes and another accused of sexual harassment by a same-sex employee.6 The preacher accused of this laying on of hands would pay that employee nearly half-a-million dollars to keep his silence. Another would enter drug rehab. One I would personally witness attempting to pass a worthless check for $2,000,000.00 of satellite equipment and services. Nice bunch. “

Need more evidence skoozy-toozy? Cause it just keeps on cummin. Unfortunately, I could sit here and post all day, and then all night and I would still have scandals to marvel at. Now I’m certain these aren't your Christian heroes... or, ah, are they?

Oh no, I know they are not representative of the real bible thumpin, scripture screamin preachers, well at least those that haven't been found out yet.

And by the way, you know one hell of a lot less about me than I know about these bums (who I don’t hate but OK, maybe do dislike, just a teenie weenie itsy bit, but don't hate, no hate) and yet you seem very uninhibited in pontificating about my knowledge and motives. Kinda makes you look like a hypocrite too skoozy-woozy, and well we wouldn’t want that, would we?

So next time, be careful before you make those leaps to judgment without the facts otherwise that leap might just put you in front of one of those big Christian metaphorical Sunday school busses and you could get hurt! And Lord knows I would't want that my little skoozy-foosy-schmoozie-poozie.

Remember keep love in your heart.

Oh, and have a nice day!