Congressional Candidate Knows Extraterrestrials

This is a bit off-topic, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s rare that we encounter a politician who may actually be crazier than a creationist. We found this in the Miami Herald: Miami politician says aliens took her on a spaceship. Now she’s running for Congress.

Sounds good, huh? Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

Florida has a U.S. senator who once flew aboard the Space Shuttle. [That’s Bill Nelson.] A congressional candidate from Miami can go one better: Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera says she’s been aboard a spaceship too. But this one was crewed by aliens. As in extraterrestrials.

No comment. Let’s read on:

Three blond, big-bodied beings — two females, one male — visited her when she was 7 years old and have communicated telepathically with her several times in her life, she says.

Isn’t this great? We’re told:

Rodriguez Aguilera, 59, a Republican who is running to replace retiring Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, recounted her experience with the ETs during a 2009 television interview. She described “going up” inside the spaceship — though whether it went into space or just hovered around town was left unclear. “I went in. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes,” Rodriguez Aguilera said.

Sounds credible. The news story continues:

In two separate videos posted to YouTube years ago, one by local Spanish-language station America TeVe and another by a political critic with the user name DoralGirl26, Rodriguez Aguilera spoke on television in detail about her extraterrestrial experiences. She said the alien beings reminded her of the famous statue in Rio de Janeiro, Christ the Redeemer, with arms outstretched.

Among the things she said she found out from the aliens:

▪ There are 30,000 skulls — “different from humans” — in a cave in the Mediterranean island of Malta.

▪ The world’s “energy center” is in Africa.

▪ The Coral Castle, a limestone tourist attraction South Miami-Dade, is actually an ancient Egyptian pyramid.

▪ “God is a universal energy.”

At last, we may get someone in Congress who knows what’s going on. Let’s read some more:

The Miami Herald asked Rodriguez Aguilera about her experiences Friday. She responded with a statement that waxed astronomical, but sadly failed to mention close encounters of any kind.

[They quote her:] “For years people, including Presidents like Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and astronauts have publicly claimed to have seen unidentified flying objects and scientists like Stephen Hawking and institutions like the Vatican have stated that there are billions of galaxies in the universe and we are probably not alone,” she said. “I personally am a Christian and have a strong belief in God, I join the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe.”

There’s a lot more to the story, but nothing about aliens, so we’ll stop here. Oh, in case you want to make a contribution, here’s her campaign website: Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera for U.S. Congress.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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WorldNetDaily: Darwin Was a Left-Wing Racist

We found an incredible hash of trash at the website of WorldNetDaily (WND) — the flamingly creationist, absolutely execrable, moronic, and incurably crazed journalistic organ that believes in and enthusiastically promotes every conspiracy theory that ever existed. WND was an early winner of the Curmudgeon’s Buffoon Award, thus the jolly logo displayed above this post.

Here’s the article we’re talking about: The true leftist identity of the so-called ‘far right’. The subtitle is: “Exclusive: Scott Lively stresses Darwin’s role in legitimizing ‘Aryan supremacy’.” Wowie — it’s an exclusive! You can’t find this information anywhere else!

But who is Scott Lively? WND informs us:

Dr. Scott Lively is the founder and president of Defend the Family International and has been since 1997. An attorney, pastor and human-rights consultant, he has promoted and defended the biblical view of marriage and family in more than 30 countries. He is the author of five books, including “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party.”

There’s no information about his doctorate. Wikipedia’s article on him says he “became an alcoholic at the age of 12,” graduated from high school in 1976, and “spent the next 10 years drifting around the United States, often homeless, sometimes sleeping under bridges and begging for spare change on street-corners.” That same information is found on his own website, but there’s no mention of any further education.

We know you’re eager to jump into Lively’s article. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

Let’s start by remembering that American conservatism is grounded in the Bible, and what it seeks to conserve is a society conformed to the biblical worldview. That’s why conservatism is so heavily focused on the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution, and the most intense political battles between conservatives and liberals relate to “original intent” and “traditional values.”

[*Groan*] That old clunker. See Is America a “Christian Nation”? Then he says:

On race relations, the New Testament is quite clear that – as individuals – all human beings are equally valuable to God and to be judged on their conduct not their ethnicity: [scripture quote]. Yes, the Bible allowed various forms of slavery in the Old Testament (but never based on skin color), just as it allowed divorce and polygamy – all practices God disapproved. Importantly, these were worldwide practices in those days that the Bible regulated in such a way as to steer the world away from barbarism toward civility. Biblical law must always be viewed in contrast to the extreme depravity and wickedness of the pagan world at that time.

Yeah, right. There’s no bad stuff in the bible. After that he tells us:

The anti-slavery movement has always been a primarily Christian phenomenon from it’s earliest roots in the 14th century.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! What took so long? Lively continues:

In contrast, “white supremacy” is a doctrine of the occult, built upon the ancient anti-Creationist worldview we call Evolution, which was popularized (not invented) by Charles Darwin. In the late 1850s, Darwin emerged as the ideological savior of the African-slave-owning world just as post-Reformation Christianity began making major strides against slavery.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! We debunked all that nonsense in Racism, Eugenics, and Darwin.

Lively spends a few paragraphs quote-mining Darwin in an attempt to show that he was something like a Klansman in his thinking. In truth, Darwin was not only anti-slavery, his views on the subject were among the most enlightened of his time. After that, Lively he talks about Nazis and gays. He somehow scrambles everything together, and finishes by concluding

No, the so-called “far right” is not conservative; it is and has always been the outer fringe of the far left.

So there you are. Left is right. the bible is anti-slavery, Darwin was a racist, the American Constitution is based on the bible, and Lively is an expert on The Truth™. Another example of great journalism from WorldNetDaily.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Creationist Wisdom #784: Junior College Teacher

Today’s letter-to-the-editor — it’s actually a column — appears in the Anza Valley Outlook of Fallbrook, California, which calls itself the “Avocado Capital of the World.” It’s titled God referenced five times in the Declaration of Independence, and the newspaper has a comments feature.

Unless the letter-writer is a politician, preacher, or other public figure, we won’t embarrass or promote him by using his full name — but today’s author is an exception. It’s Harold Pease Ph. D, described as “a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and to applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College.”

Taft College is a public community college located in Taft, California. We searched for Harold’s name in the faculty directory, but for some reason it’s not there. Anyway, we’ll give you a few excerpts from his column, enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary, and some bold font for emphasis.

It always amazes me when otherwise intelligent people are unable to find evidence of God in our governing documents.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! It always amazes your Curmudgeon when people do find such evidence. As we explained in Is America a “Christian Nation”?:

The “Christian Nation” advocates typically begin their spin by pointing out that the Declaration of Independence says we’re endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. … [E]ven if Jefferson actually were referring to the scriptural deity, which is dubious, the “Christian Nation” advocates fail to grasp the basic point that the Declaration isn’t the law of the United States. It was a statement made for the king, and for the world, announcing that the Americans were declaring their independence, and the reasons why they were doing so.

[…]

The Articles of Confederation — our first constitution — was drafted by another committee of the Continental Congress, and was presented to Congress for approval the same month as the Declaration — July of 1776. … Did the Articles — drafted mostly the same month as the Declaration — create a “Christian Nation”? No. There’s no mention of religion — Christian or otherwise — in the document. Well, there is a vague (probably Deist) phrase in the signature section … .

For contrast, we quoted some of the Colonial Charters, which were drenched in religious language, and with which the Founders were undoubtedly familiar. Nevertheless, neither the Declaration, the Articles, nor the Constitution contain any language even remotely like that which had theretofore been employed in the beginning of such documents. We also pointed out that the Constitution is specifically non-religious, and the Federalist Papers, written to explain the Constitution clause-by-clause, has no scriptural references.

That was a long comment, but it was necessary. Then the junior college teacher says:

The Declaration of Independence, the signing of which we commemorate July 4th, alone has five references to God – two in the first paragraph, one in the middle and two in the last. It begins, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Yes — that’s the Declaration’s first “reference to God.” But it says “nature’s god.” Who’s that — the supernatural, miracle working Yahweh? It doesn’t sound like Yahweh, but the junior college teacher thinks otherwise. He tells us:

Who is responsible for “the laws of nature” but God – certainly not man nor nature itself? From the “laws of nature” sprang an awareness of natural law, sometimes called common sense, understood by early philosophers to be a source of higher law that never changes.

Okay. Somehow the junior college teacher thinks “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” counts as two references to God. He continues:

The third reference to God is the word “creator” found in the second paragraph. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” …

Whoopee — that’s three! Let’s read on:

The fourth and fifth references to God in the Declaration of Independence are found in the last paragraph. The rightness of our cause was left to God as judge. Here is stated, “We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown…”

That’s four. Here’s the last one:

The fifth and last reference to God asks for his divine protection in our revolutionary course of action, “and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Verily, the Declaration is steeped in supernatural references. It’s an abominable mystery how Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, also wrote The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and produced the Jefferson Bible. Anyway, now we come to the end of the junior college teacher’s column:

There was no dissent noted with respect to these references to God and their placement or emphasis in this document by any of the participants then, nor should there be now. The signers of the Declaration of Independence clearly viewed God as justifying revolution from existing government in the protection of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” rights he had endowed upon man.

Amazing, isn’t it, that the same people who approved the Declaration also wrote the virtually godless Articles of Confederation. And somehow, less than a dozen years later, the Founders wrote the totally godless Constitution. Perhaps you can explain it, dear reader.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Of Chimps and Britons

Oour jocular title is to introduce two news items that are utterly unrelated — except that both will generate a lot of nonsense from creationists.

The first item is announced by this headline: Chimps are not people, cannot be freed from custody: New York court which appears at the Reuters website. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

Chimpanzees do not deserve the same rights as people, a New York state appeals court unanimously concluded on Thursday, as it refused to order the release of two of the animals to a primate sanctuary. The 5-0 decision by the Appellate Division in Manhattan is the latest defeat for the Nonhuman Rights Project and its lawyer Steven Wise in a long debate over whether caged chimpanzees are actually legal “persons” entitled like humans to bodily liberty.

Is that case still alive? It seems that we wrote about it almost three years ago — see Oook, Oook — Chimps Lose in Appellate Court. Oh — it’s not the same case, just the same advocate — the Nonhuman Rights Project — this time on behalf of different chimps.

The Discoveroids are likely to jump on this. They’ve done so in the past because the concept of rights for chimps violates their creationist sense of “human exceptionalism”– see Discoveroids Oppose Frivolous Lawsuits.

Okay, that’s the first item. Now, from the Daily Mirror, a Labour oriented British tabloid published in London, we read: 7 nasty or awkward DUP beliefs that show their deal with Theresa May could be a coalition of chaos. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

A comparatively little-covered party in Northern Ireland has agreed to prop up Theresa May after she spectacularly failed to win a mandate from the British people. The right-wing Democratic Unionist Party ( DUP ) confirmed they’re set to back a Conservative minority government to help Mrs May maintain a fragile grip on power. That means they’d vote in favour of a Tory Queen’s speech and budget. But what could they demand in return?

The astute reader of the Curmudgeon’s blog will remember that we’ve had occasion to write about the DUP before. In Bathroom Pervert David McConaghie Is Sentenced, we quoted a newspaper that said:

A disgraced former aide to a DUP MP [Democratic Unionist Party Member of Parliament] who secreted a camera in the constituency office toilets for sexual thrills was jailed for four months today.

You’re probably thinking that just because one high-ranking member of the DUP was a freakish pervert, there’s no reason to condemn them all. Keep thinking that, dear reader, as we quote a bit more from the Mirror:

Here are some of the more controversial aspects of the party Theresa May has got into bed with – or things that’ll just be really awkward for her.

They then discuss several DUP policy positions which we’ll list here without the tabloid’s commentary:

1. They oppose abortion, even for rape victims
2. They’re anti-gay marriage
3. Some uncomfortable past links [with groups like Ulster Resistance]
4. Climate change scepticism
5. Creationism

We’ll skip items 6 and 7, because we never heard of them before. Here’s what the tabloid has to say about the DUP and creationism:

Creationism is pretty rare in the United Kingdom, but not unheard of among the elected politicians of the DUP. Last year the party’s Assembly member for West Tyrone, Thomas Buchanan, praised an event promoting the rejection of evolution among children. He told the Irish News: “I’m someone who believes in creationism and that the world was spoken into existence in six days by His power.” And the Caleb Foundation – mentioned above – is described as one of the leading creationist pressure groups in Northern Ireland. It pushed for creationist theory to be displayed at the Giant’s Causeway – and its chairman met none other than Arlene Foster, then tourism minister and now DUP leader, to discuss the request.

So there you are, dear reader. Chimps have no legal rights in the US, and creationists may have risen to power in the UK. At the end of our posts about McConaghie, we always gave this advice:

Avoid using the bathrooms at any creationist organization — that includes creationist politicians, creationist “think tanks,” creation museums and theme parks, and the church buildings of creationist denominations.

Now we may have to give that warning for the entire United Kingdom.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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