Newsweek's Andrew Sullivan got a much-needed education about religion and politics from not one but two evangelical leaders Sunday.
The first came from Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention who in the midst of a heated debate on CBS's Face the Nation told Sullivan, "Any fusion between evangelicalism and Republicanism pales in comparison to the point of anemia compared to the black church and the Democratic Party" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Mormon Congressman Raul Labrador (R-Id.) scolded David Gregory on Sunday for his network's horrible treatment of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's faith.
Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Labrador specifically named MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell as one of the offenders (video follows with transcript and commentary):
“Thousands of atheists, agnostics and other non-believers turned out in the US capital on Saturday to celebrate their rejection of the idea of God and to claim a bigger place in public life,” wrote Agence France-Press of the “Reason Rally” on the National Mall March 24, 2012.
The Reason Rallyers carried crucifixes with profane statements on them, and signs like “So many Christians, so few lions.” They cheered the headline speaker, militant British atheist and scientist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins stressed that, “I don't despise religious people. I despise what they stand for ...” But he went on to exhort the crowd to “ridicule and show contempt” for believers and their faith.
Is it Christmas again? It sure feels like it, with aggressive atheists popping up to take gratuitous shots at believing Christians.
Ernest Perce V, the Pennsylvania director of American Atheists, is demanding state lawmakers rescind a decision to celebrate 2012 as the “Year of the Bible,” according to FoxNation. The Bible, he says, is “barbaric.”
As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said on MSNBC's Morning Joe, "Sometimes [Rick] Santorum sounds like he's creeping up on a Christian version of Sharia law."
In response to this nonsense, the Republican presidential candidate told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt later that day, "This is the intolerance of the Left. If you have religious beliefs that they don’t believe in, then they marginalize you" (video follows with partial transcript):
Christians the world over are going to be thrilled to know that Jesus was a Palestinian.
At least that's what HBO's Bill Maher told CNN's Piers Morgan Monday evening in a discussion about Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Sarah Palin on Tuesday weighed in on the press's reaction to comments Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum made about Satan in 2008.
Appearing on Fox News's Hannity, the former Alaska Governor said, "For these lamestream media characters to get all wee-weed up about that, first you have to ask yourself, 'Have they ever attended a Sunday school class even? Have they never heard this terminology before?'" (video follows with transcript):
Aside from the constant anger and paranoia about the nefarious "one percent," perhaps the toughest thing about being a raging liberal is keeping track of who to hate. Each December, the politically correct crowd get riled up against people who think that no one should take offense to being wished a Merry Christmas. Instead of doing that, the left instructs all and sundry to use the generic "happy holidays" and assiduously avoid mentioning the holidays to which one is referring.
So what happens when someone tries to do the reverse of this, i.e. inject religion into something that liberal secularists like which is normally areligious? It hasn't happened often but thanks to hip-hop singer Cee Lo Green, we now know that such an activity is considered a mortal sin.
Every year, millions of Christians that celebrate the birth of their Savior are faced with the attacks on Christmas - "holiday trees," atheist ad campaigns and even outright blasphemy in mocking nativity scenes. To Christians and conservatives, the evidence is overwhelming. But in recent years, the left and the mainstream media have actively denied that the war even exists.
From the hard left gang of current and former MSNBC personalities to CNN hosts to Huffington Post writers, the watch words have been "fake" and "phony" and "ridiculous." With varying degrees ire, they've blamed Fox News and the "Christian right" for the "manufactured outrage" at attacks on Christmas.
The culture of Hollywood has just been beautifully defined by two awards-show decisions. The first one was Brett Ratner being dumped as the director of ABC’s Oscars telecast after he said “rehearsals are for fags.” It wasn’t long before Ratner turned himself in for “negotiations” with the gay Anti-Defamation cops about doing P.C. penance.
The second one, just days later, was the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and NBC begging British comedian Ricky Gervais to host the Golden Globe Awards again – after he mercilessly insulted nearly everyone in Hollywood and ended last year’s program with a long list of thank yous, ending with “And thank you to God – for making me an atheist.”
NPR science correspondent Robert Krulwich promoted the ancient atheist Lucretius on Monday's Morning Edition with the author Stephen Greenblatt. Then the network took a second bite of the apple on Tuesday's Fresh Air with Terry Gross when book critic Maureen Corrigan raved for six minutes over Greenblatt's book The Swerve as "part adventure tale, part enthralling history of ideas." It a "brilliant work of nonfiction" and a "profusion of riches."
It didn't matter how Vatican-bashing it sounded, since that's a plus for NPR:
On Monday's Morning Edition, National Public Radio channeled the thrill of discovering an ancient Roman writer's "spookily modern" writings. Anchor Steve Inskeep touted a long-forgotten work championing atheism: "Some people wake up in the morning and thank God for granting them another day. Others get up, and thank their genes, their frontal cortex and their lipids. Secular thinking has a long, long history, longer than many of us knew."
That's a strange opening. It's not very historical -- no one questioned theism in ancient Greece? But NPR's Robert Krulwich seemed thrilled at the story of "our book" of godlessness being saved for the ages. His guide was leftist literary theorist Steven Greenblatt, but NPR failed to mention the taxpayer-funded network was following the footsteps of The New Yorker. Greenblatt concluded by touting the "deep truth" and joy found in discovering there is no God: