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Francis Bacon and the Book of Leviticus


Francis Bacon

By Brendan Beery
Posted on June 19, 2011

In Francis Bacon’s 1620 book, Novum Organum [ http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm ], it doesn’t take long for the author to grab the reader by the lapels and start shaking; here are Bacon’s first two sentences:

Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men’s efforts than good by their own.

It would be impossible to read this and not have the anti-science, anti-learning leanings of right-wing Americans spring to mind. We will never know how many great minds have abandoned our shores [ http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X584219&site=beeryblog.wordpress.com&xs=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FFlight-Creative-Class-Global-Competition%2Fdp%2F006075690X&sref=http%3A%2F%2Fbeeryblog.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F06%2F19%2Ffrancis-bacon-and-the-book-of-leviticus%2F ] to escape the shadows of George W. Bush and his stem-cell ban; ongoing efforts to clip evolutionary scientists below the knees; and the intrusion of religious dogma into all American policy concerns over the environment, the climate, and the relationships between humanity and the planet and among humans.

It’s ironic that right-wingers are always accusing progressives of being “elitist” know-it-alls when it’s the religious and political right in this country that professes to have all the answers.

And where did they get those answers—those infallible, unassailable, unquestionable answers? Why, from the Old Testament, of course. (As I have pointed out many times before, self-professed “Christians” seem singularly unconcerned with the notions of charity and social justice contained in the New Testament—the part of the Bible about Jesus.)

Let’s take, for example, right-wingers’ aggressive war against gay rights. Where do right-wingers find the principles that animate their frothy-mouthed barbarism toward their gay compatriots? They get those principles from the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus [ http://www.woodlandsonline.com/bbps/book.cfm?book=3 ]. Leviticus 18:22 says, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” (One might notice here that lesbians are off the hook; there’s no rule saying that a woman shalt not lie with womankind as with mankind.)

Futher, Leviticus 20:13 says, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

So rather than study the issue whether same-sex relationships or marriage do any harm to society, right-wingers seek to stop any reasoned or scientific explorations of such matters on the ground that they already have all the answers—straight from the lips of God Himself.

It’s troubling how infrequently Americans are asked—by the mainstream media or in our popular culture—to probe a little more deeply into this Book of Leviticus from whence spring the precepts believed by tens of millions of Americans. I won’t subject you to the whole thing here, but just take a gander at some more gems from Chapter 20:

9 For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.

10 And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

11 And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

12 And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have wrought confusion; their blood shall be upon them.

13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

14 And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you.

15 And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.

16 And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

17 And if a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness; it is a wicked thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people: he hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.

18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.

19 And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister, nor of thy father’s sister: for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity.

20 And if a man shall lie with his uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his uncle’s nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.

21 And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.

22 Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.

23 And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

24 But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.

25 Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.

26 And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.

27 A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.

There you have it. The same rulebook that requires the execution of your children if they ever curse you (think teenage years) and requires that we put wizards to death also says that gays (gay men, at least) should meet a similar fate.

How do right-wingers explain their failure to seek the civic enforcement of all these commands? Why just the one about gays? And if they’re going to seek enforcement of the command about gays, why not be true to their rulebook and also seek the death penalty for anyone who “experimented in college”?



What principles underlie right-wing behavior on these points? And what sane human being could believe that the violent cultural obscenities contained in Leviticus represent the musings of a merciful God?

As the saying goes, there is no disinfectant like the light of day. Maybe we should post Leviticus Chapter 20 to every streetlamp and utility post so our fellow citizens can see just where right-wing zealots and teabaggers go to find their “ideals.”

Francis Bacon also wrote,

. . . [T]here are Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue, or only of the ancient sects and philosophies, that I speak; for many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner set forth; seeing that errors the most widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike.

Copyright 2011 Brendan Beery (emphasis in original)

http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/francis-bacon-and-the-book-of-leviticus/ [with comments]


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Dummy of the Day: Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg Pens Didactic Train Wreck

June 20, 2011
http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/dummy-of-the-day-family-research-councils-peter-sprigg-pens-didactic-train-wreck/ [with comments]


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The Profound Evil that is the “Family Research Council”



By Brendan Beery
Posted on June 21, 2011

I’ve written before about the “Family Research Council,” Tony Perkins’ “Christian” waffen SS outfit. For people who claim fidelity to the Ten Commandments—including the one that says “Thou shalt not lie”—right-wingers sure do seem to mislead a lot. They often do so by using words to mean the opposite of what those words’ common usage denotes.

Right-wing fake Christians turn the victims of bullying into the perpetrators and the perpetrators into the victims. They turn minorities into oppressors and majorities into the oppressed. They turn the filthy-air Act into the “Clean Air Act” and an un-American domestic spying program into the “Patriot Act.”

They live in a world where everything is literally its own opposite, and they feel no compunctions whatever about using words to mislead and obfuscate—either because they’re too stupid to comprehend semantics or because they’re such liars that semantics don’t concern them.

So it should come as little surprise that they’ve turned the teachings of a man who concerned himself exclusively with charity, forgiveness, and redemption into a vile snake-pit populated with the human analogs to frothing, rabid, back-alley dogs. Self-professed right-wingers don’t rally for Jesus; they rally against everything he taught; they are seething with vitriol and judgment.

And it also shouldn’t surprise that the right-wing moniker “Family Research Council” was either created by someone who didn’t speak English or intended to mislead the general populace about what the FRC would do.

One would have thought that a “Family Research Council” would conduct research on how to better the quality of life for American families. But what research need one undertake when one already has all the answers to life’s most perplexing problems—right there in the Book of Leviticus [ http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/francis-bacon-and-the-book-of-leviticus/ (first above)]?

And what are the biggest threats to the American family? Child obesity or malnutrition? Crumbling institutions of education? Divorce and financial strife or poverty? The inherent difficulties associated with vows of monogamous fidelity? Fetal alcohol syndrome or “crack babies”? Absentee parents?

No. It’s the gays. You see, solving real problems isn’t so sexy because it doesn’t allow one to sink one’s dripping fangs into the skin of a nice juicy flesh-and-bones enemy—like a gay teenager, for example.

Several times per month, the FRC, whose spokespeople appear on mainstream media outlets regularly, publishes a charming screed encouraging its “Prayer Team [ http://www.frc.org/content/frc-prayer-team-email-subscription ]” to spring into action for Jesus. As far as substantive policy, there is not one single suggested “prayer” that does not include the targeting of LGBT citizens; and these “prayers” usually exclusively target LGBT citizens.



It’s telling that the FRC doesn’t list people to pray for; it lists (and I did not make this up) prayer targets [ http://www.frc.org/content/frc-prayer-team-email-subscription ]. Only a spiritually perverted fake Christian could conceive of prayer (which most of us probably see as a peaceful and meditative undertaking) as an offensive weapon to be deployed against targets.

Here are the FRC’s suggested “prayers” so far this month:

JUNE 15

•[With regard to California’s same-sex-marriage litigation] Pray that the U.S Supreme Court will preserve Natural Marriage when the case reaches it!

•[With regard to a federal initiative to promote inclusiveness in the work environment for LGBT individuals] Pray God will stop this oppression of our hired federal workers — military and civilian!

•[With regard to the same-sex-marriage debate in the NY State Senate] May God intervene and move a Senate majority to vote to save natural marriage in New York State. May New Yorkers both pray and insist that their Senators vote “No” on legalizing same-sex “marriage!”

JUNE 8

•[With regard to the NY same-sex-marriage debate] May God give courage to New York’s pro-marriage Senators. May they handily defeat this effort to overturn the natural order in this state and our nation. May God’s New Yorkers arise to pray and stand! May the members of New York’s legislature who blindly or intentionally seek to shred the fabric of our nation’s moral order be defeated in the next election!

•[With regard to a federal initiative to stop the bullying of LGBT students in schools (which I’ve written about here [ http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/jesus-freaks-support-bullying-kids-maybe-we-schould-bully-them-back/ ])] May God help us to not to “bully” anyone, but to graciously yet urgently speak the truth in love to young people who are hurting themselves with the “LGBT” lifestyle. May believers across America not be “bullied” by our government’s efforts to promote harmful and sinful sexual practices among our youth and instead determine to stand courageously against these misguided efforts which can only lead to God’s judgment!

JUNE 2

•[With regard to President Obama’s proclamation recognizing “Pride” Month] Pray that God will protect America from the spiritual effects of this evil Presidential Proclamation. May Christians—who will be targeted by HRC’s smear campaign—enjoy God’s protection. And may this administration’s efforts to promote homosexuality overseas be resisted and defeated at home and abroad!

•May God continue to stir the people and legislatures of the individual states to reject federal pressure to support abortion and gay “marriage.” May efforts to overturn Obamacare, homosexual “marriage,” and funding of Planned Parenthood, prevail!

Not one syllable about charity, the poor, the sick, the oppressed or the downtrodden. Not ONE syllable. And these people profess to being Christians who do research to help families. What more profound evil exists on this continent in this time than the American religious right?

Copyright 2011 Brendan Beery (emphasis in original)

http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/the-profound-evil-that-is-the-family-research-council/ [with comments]


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Family Research Council “Prayer Team” Has 2-14 Win-Loss Record in 2011; Why Does Jesus Hate Teabaggers?

By Brendan Beery
Posted on June 26, 2011

I’ve written recently [ http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/the-profound-evil-that-is-the-family-research-council/ (just above)] about the Family Research Council’s “Prayer Team [ http://www.frc.org/content/frc-prayer-team-email-subscription ]” and its “targets.” Recall this one:

May God give courage to New York’s pro-marriage Senators. May they handily defeat this effort to overturn the natural order in this state and our nation. May God’s New Yorkers arise to pray and stand! May the members of New York’s legislature who blindly or intentionally seek to shred the fabric of our nation’s moral order be defeated in the next election!

And recall this one:

May God help us to not to “bully” anyone, but to graciously yet urgently speak the truth in love to young people who are hurting themselves with the “LGBT” lifestyle. May believers across America not be “bullied” by our government’s efforts to promote harmful and sinful sexual practices among our youth and instead determine to stand courageously against these misguided efforts which can only lead to God’s judgment!

Do these people ever wonder why, if what they are praying for is God’s will to begin with, God keeps answering their prayers that His will be done by saying, “Stick it”?



Do gay people pray harder than teabagging bigots, or does Jesus just hate teabaggers and reject all their prayers for sport?

If it’s the former, then teabaggers must cede superiority in Christian-methods know-how to their gay nemeses, for “the gays” apparently know more about prostrate god-hustling than they have been given credit for. If it’s the latter, then instead of praying harder, teabaggers might as well stop praying at all.

Either way, with the Prayer Team’s pathetic record at actually winning on behalf of Jesus, God’s latest message to the FRC must sound a little like this:

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw7KijRfU-c ]

Below is my tabulation of the FRC Prayer Team’s win-loss record for 2011 thus far. I have counted as a win or a loss every instance when the FRC has instructed its lemmings to pray for a specific result, that result has now had time to materialize, and the result is in.

I have not counted FRC prayer “targets” with regard to which the results are still out (for example the FRC’s prayers about how the Supreme Court should rule on California’s Prop 8). I have also not counted FRC prayers for amorphous and un-measurable results, as for example whether President Obama will find Jesus or whether people will spend an hour a day prostrate against the right to choose.

Note also that, just like a sports team can play multiple games against the same opponent, FRC “Prayer Team” games against the same opponent multiple times count. For example, FRC has issued multiple “Prayer Team” alerts about New York’s same-sex marriage law, and each time, there was ample time for Jesus to intervene (as FRC so often asked Jesus to do). Just like the Mets can lose to the Cubs multiple times every season, so too can the FRC lose to Jesus every time it invokes His Holy Name.

Here is the FRC’s concrete prayer results record so far in 2011:



Merely by way of comparison, here are the 10 worst NFL season records in history (from tenth worst to worst):

10          1934 Cincinnati Reds (0-8) 
  
 9          2001 Carolina Panthers (1-15) 
  
 8          1980 NO Saints (1-15) 
  
 7          1952 Dallas Texans (1-11) 
  
 6          1991 Indianapolis Colts (1-15) 
  
 5          1981 Baltimore Colts (2-14) 
  
 4          1971 Buffalo Bills (1-13) 
  
 3          1973 Houston Oilers (1-13) 
  
 2          1990 NE Patriots (1-15) 
  
 1          1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-14)

Now, what do we suppose fans of the 1981 Baltimore Colts felt about their two-win season? Did they think that Jesus was on their side, or did they think that Jesus had forsaken their cause?

And if the “Family Research Council” can’t get Jesus to so much as prevent its homosexual calamities, let alone effectuate the commands of Leviticus that all un-closeted ex-conservatives be executed forthwith, then what are teabaggers to think about Jesus’ disposition toward them?

Of course, closeted homosexual teabaggers likely have more fight left in them than the 1981 Colts had left in them; after all, the 1981 Colts made a living running away from huge, intimidating athletes, not from their far more problematic selves.

No media outlet has yet questioned FRC Head Coach and Fuhrer Tony Perkins [ http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=by03h27 ] about his outfit’s 2-14 prayer record. We hope that, with a little prodding from our readers, that might change.

Copyright 2011 Brendan Beery [emphasis in original)

http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/family-research-council-%e2%80%9cprayer-team%e2%80%9d-has-2-15-win-loss-record-in-2011-why-does-jesus-hate-teabaggers/ [with comments]


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