We have previously seen how Christian leaders like Pat Robertson routinely attributed natural disasters like Katrina to God’s revenge for everything from gay rights to abortion to secularism. Not to be outdone, according to various sites, Colorado pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner have informed the faithful that the recent deadly forest fires were punishment for gay rights and abortion even though they struck the conservative areas of Colorado Springs rather than places like Boulder. Presumably, God also wanted 19 fire fighters killed in Arizona under the same theory.
What is striking about these bizarre claims is that there is a population that loves the model of a vengeful Old Testament God who thinks nothing of wiping out villages or most of Mankind because he is peeved with some affront. They also want to believe that God is randomly killing people for sins to complete their own twisted view of faith.
Swanson noted that a Denver Post photograph of State House Majority Leader Mark Ferrandino kissing his partner also helped trigger God’s wrath.
Of course, that still leave the odd fact that God chose to hit Colorado Springs which is deeply conservative and spared the liberal areas of Colorado — a pattern that might suggest God is pretty liberal. That did not stop these two pastors:
Buehner: Why Colorado Springs? Understand that Colorado itself is a state that has been begging for God’s judgment. How did we do that? Well, we were the first state to make abortion legal; you could murder your baby as long as it’s in your womb.
. . .
Swanson: When you have a state where the House leadership is performing a homosexual act on the front page of the Denver Post two months ago? Does God read the Denver Post? Do you think He picks up a copy of the Denver Post? He gets it. God gets the Denver Post.
Buehner concluded that Coloradans should be glad God “hasn’t destroyed the whole state yet” as “an act of grace.” But why were the fires concentrated in Colorado Springs, Buehner asked, “Why not wipe out Boulder or Denver” where all the Democrats live? He answered his own question: “Judgment begins in the House of God.”
They also attacked airplane movies showing breasts, young men “doing the metrosexual thing with the skinny pants and the little fairy shoe” and women wearing pantsuits.
One can debate whether people like this actually believe this nonsense, but clearly people listen who want to hear that God is killing people in retribution for sins. Of course, massive fires occurred before the birth of Jesus Christ and natural disasters have struck the most God fearing, conservative areas. None of that even slows down the narrative.
The curious thing about this narrative is that one would normally assume that God is at least as good a person as most human beings. If we ever met a person who kills people randomly to express anger, we should view him as a psychotic individual. Yet, those same attributes are constantly reaffirmed by pastors like these two individuals.
By the way, Swanson has also condemned the new Star Trek movie on the basis for inter-species sex . . . and suggested it is the natural extension of evolution: “He said the movie “implicates the good guy in the film as mating with the wrong species, but not just one, but two. . . That’s how you get evolution, and so the end result of course is that evolution has no basic problem with bestiality or cross-species mating.”
Gene
have you ever read nivens “man of steel, woman of kleenex”?
Not only does Swanson miss the point of his chosen mythology of choice, he butchers “Star Trek” as well. The alien/human hybrids may be technically the spawn of interspecies mating, but they are all from the same order within the phylum cordata. This was touched upon in both the original series and “The Next Generation”. They offer directed panspermia as the explanation of why there are so many humanoid aliens. In the original series, the crew of the Enterprise was told by an alien named Sargon that his species – the Preservers – had seeded the galaxy with their DNA as a way to preserve their legacy in the episode “Return to Tomorrow”. In “The Next Generation”, Capt Picard solves an archaeological puzzle left to him by a former mentor to get a recording hidden in the DNA of several species that offers the same explanation in “The Chase”. This actually has precedent in nature as a breeding schema capable of producing live (but usually sterile) offspring. Different species, hybrid offspring: the product of a male donkey and and female horse is a mule.
Really Swanson, although your nomenclature may be technically correct, you mistake “interspecies” for “bestiality” (which would be coupling outside your order incapable of producing offspring for purely sexual pleasure). Larry Niven’s idea of risharthra is closer to bestiality than the hybrids in “Star Trek”. There are no Human/Gorn or Human/Tholian hybrids. That would be something akin to bestiality.
Please stick to screwing up one mythology at a time, Swanson. You’re doing enough damage to society by mauling Christianity as it is. You don’t have to maul “Star Trek” as well.
Frankly-“Pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner, this God fellow of yours seems like kind of a dick.”
Indeed. That god sounds like a tyrannical monster and completely undeserving of any love at all.
Swanson and Buehner are absolutely right. Y’all stop doing nasty gay stuff and having abortions, or God will kill more firefighters, you hear? Got that?
After God told me that piece of bad news, I asked Him why He was specifically killing firefighters (and no offense, God, you do whatever you wish, Sir, I’m just wondering).
And God told me it was because they are easy to spot, and when burned up always get some press. He reminds us that He can see large blazes quite easily from His undisclosed location in space.
In light of the deaths of 19 firefighters, I hope their comments come back to bite them. What a horrid perversion of Christianity they preach.
Never let a good disaster go to waste.
That seems to be the mantra of these charlatans.
So why were the 19 firefighters killed by “god’s fire”?
For trying to save lives and property?
Pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner, this God fellow of yours seems like kind of a dick. Were those firefighters in any way responsible for the offenses for which he decided to execute them in a most horrible fashion? As a former firefighter myself & a strong proponent of marriage equality and choice why did he not smite me instead?
On God and Snowden: This is non email message from Brussels last night. The gossip is that the U.S. has told any nation that wants to take him can do so if he will agree to stay and not come home for his trial until Obama is out of office. The administration does not now want a trial. The Germans are demanding The Papers, meaning the secret Affidavit which is attached to the criminal Complaint against Snowden. The Germans are considering taking him and also recalling their Ambassador from DC because they are mad that we spied on them. They are also communicating by written code papers flown back and forth in Embassy Bags like the old days before everyone got careless and sent emails to the cathouses in Amsterdam (opps sorry Holden). So, it is possible that Germany will take Snowden with no restrictions on what he publishes as a blogging journalist. Like what we are all here– blogging journalists. God spulled backwards journalists. Germany is thinking about suing Clapper as a war criminal under the Nuremburg precedents of post WWII. Suing in the Den Haag Court.
K. Andrew, That is too often the case.
Nick,
Since the Rocky Mountain News folded, Denver hasn’t had a real newspaper.
Christ called he wants his religion back. I have no idea what version of Christ these lunatics are representing or praying to but they really need to get a grip. Their hatred and brutality is hard to connect with the man who said “Love thy neighbor as thy self”.
It is way past time to terminate all tax exemptions that are based on the religious status of the organization or person. In my opinion this is a privilege based on religion and is unconstitutional.
Reblogged this on dreams on the hill.
God is fair and balanced and Hell hath no fury like a spurned God. And it gets worse if you spull it backwards in English not Deustch.
junctionshamus, I hear God is a voracious reader. I miss the Rocky Mountain News when I’m out there. Large cities w/ only one newspaper are lacking balance.
If God was trying to send a message, he’d start the Colorado fires in January. That would get some attention. Massive wildfires in the driest part of the year? Seems like the bar’s set pretty low, omnipotent-deity-wise.
Then again, I suppose the monsoons in Bangladesh in the rainy season are retribution for … living in Bangladesh … or something.
CHINOS – Christians in name only. And as a Christian, I’d like to believe there’s a special place in Hell for these poseurs, b/c not only does God read the Denver Post, he also reads the Turley Blawg.
Maybe the fires were ‘retribution’ for A-Hole Pastors???????
Any Republican candidate for prez should not be a member of this guy’s congregation.
Christian Conservatives never stop in providing entertainment