Three Way News: Rapture Monday: Don't Be Left Behind for Left Behind

Monday, March 07, 2005

Rapture Monday: Don't Be Left Behind for Left Behind

Warning. This post includes some explicit language that most adults can handle better than I can.

The Rapture Index is at 152 and falling.

Here's what the Religious Correct are worried about this week:

Left Behind

The latest book in the Left Behind series went on sale last week. This book "tells what life was like for several of the now-familiar characters in the 'Left Behind' saga during the time leading up to the Rapture". I have not read any of the Left Behind books, but it always seemed to me to be the Harry Potter for those who want to be sure that their enemies are punished in an eternal lake of fire. That said, I'll have to read the first book before I find out who, in fact, will be left behind with me. (Please, God, don't let it be anyone too annoying. Oh, and if you can leave the good folks at Netflix behind, too, that'd be great. I'd like to get caught up on my DVD watching during the tribulation.)

Obscenity

Playboy plans to distribute some racy pictures through cell phones. The RC are reacting with typical reserve:

Los Angeles radio talk-show host Paul McGuire is concerned what this new agreement between Playboy and Dwango means for America's culture and its families. He says when pornographers like Playboy make their material available to the wireless market, "soon cell phones will open a tsunami of porn images into the cell phones of America."

and...

Rick Schatz of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families (NCPCF), a non-profit organization based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has a warning for parents. "The fact is, we are entering a new era in the age of porn ... a time when pornography has jumped from the back alleys to cell phones and MP3 players," he says in a statement issued earlier this month.

Don't worry: the good people at American Family Filter will be able to help. Oddly, they are less concerned about children having access to pornography than one might think:

The threat to your PC and personal information from hackers grows on a daily basis. In addition, the Bsafe Online development team sees firsthand the daily tragedies wrought by inappropriate use of the Internet (missing and exploited children, broken marriages, pornography addictions, etc.).

And there's this testimonial:

Personal holiness! This is the core issue behind an Internet filter. That is why we here at American Family target our Internet filter at adults. If we as adults hope to respond to this call for personal holiness, we would not even consider going on the Internet without a filter based on Christian values that cannot be disabled with an "adult password override.

Just because your marriage is safe from porn addiction at home, doesn't mean the unsuspecting traveler won't by pummeled into sin by temptation. If you visited an Adelphia cable subscriber for a few weeks in January, you could watch "Playboy Enterprises-supplied triple-X porn". (Note: AFAIK, Playboy doesn't do XXX, but I could be wrong on that. Also, the difference here is one of degree. Adelphia will still sell you the right to watch two people having sex, so long as it's not anal sex and there are no visible emissions.) Fortunately, thousands of people spoke up against the right of people to watch what they want. According to Agape, Adelphia might have been concerned by Attorney General Roberto Gonzales's commitment to keeping justice clothed. Gonzales has stated that he will aggressively prosecute purveyors of obscene materials:

I am strongly committed to ensuring the right of free speech; the right of ordinary citizens and of the press to speak out and to express their views and ideas is one of the greatest strengths of our form of government, but obscene materials are not protected by the First Amendment, and I am committed to prosecuting these crimes aggressively.

Your marriage saved from porn addiction and your neighbors safe from Ron Jeremy's limitless limpid jets of love (yes, Virginia, that jelly of love that Whitman described as hot & enormous), you can relax until Veteran's Day when ABC intends to show Saving Private Ryan again. The American Family Association's Randy Sharp is furious:

[Sharp] says the FCC's decision to reject complaints is opening a Pandora's box. "What this decision means is that Howard Stern and anyone else on radio can now take these clips -- as long as they say 'We're going to air Private Ryan dialogue' -- [and] air the 'f-word' over and over and over again without any fear of repercussions. The FCC now has approved the use of this type of language on the national airwaves."

And Adelphia can run images of starved, naked women in death camps for the sheer prurient thrill of it!

(Agape's picture, not mine.)

Actually, of course, Sharp is wrong. It's called context. If they show a woman giving birth on the Discovery Channel, that doesn't give Spike TV the right to broadcast 24 hours of amateur beaver shots.

On the other hand, there's always the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to complain about: "Sports Illustrated: Call it what it is a slut magazine. It will cause many to do what the magazine intended - self-pleasure."

Man bites dog

I can't find any supporting sources for this story:

Earlier this week, two member of Wisconsin Christians United (WCU) were in Burlington distributing a brochure titled "Homosexuality: The Truth." After leaving literature at homes throughout the city, the pair stood on a busy street, holding signs which read "Homosexuality is Sin" and "Christ Can Set You Free." After a short time, a car with two individuals stopped near the picketers. According to eyewitnesses, one of the car's occupants approached the picketers yelling obscenities. Then the man allegedly began assaulting the Christians.

I do not advocate violence. On the other hand, if you want to stand on a street corner and shout condemnations at people, you should expect someone to yell an obscenity or two in response.

Happy Easter!

If you think Easter needs less chocolate and more wounds of Christ, Jesus's General has just the product for you.

Horowitz's Heroes

Somewhere, David Horowitz is proud, because a Bill Felkner doesn't play well with others:

Master's student Bill Felkner says the School of Social Work at Rhode Island College (RIC) threatened to reduce his grades if he did not lobby for the school's position on welfare issues. David French with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) says the trouble began when Felkner objected to the showing of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 in Professor James Ryczek's social work class last Fall. ...

"One of the problems here is they've told Bill that he has to work in a group when he lobbies -- yet there's no group that wants to form to lobby a conservative point of view on some of these issues," he says. "So to form a group, he's had to have conformed to liberal ideas, which is just astonishing."

No, Bill, it's not liberals' fault that nobody wants to be your friend. Although, I don't know why one would show F 9/11 during a social work class.

A couple hundred Catholics walk into a college...

College president says, "Sorry, we don't serve Catholics here." A couple hundred Catholics say, "In that case, consider us Gone-zaga."

Sorry. Anyway, next time someone uses the cliché' "Is the Pope Catholic?" consider this. Gonzaga University claims to be "a private, four-year comprehensive university...owned and operated by the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church." According to some, that's just not Christian enough:

A conservative columnist and university professor is accusing a Catholic law school of having "deplorable conduct" towards its Christian students. He says Gonzaga University "is committed to Catholic values like the KKK is committed to racial equality."

He's Back

Just when it was safe for Sponge Bob to be seen in the company of a single sea horse, they're back:

"Under the guise of promoting tolerance for other categories such as race, gender, age, disabilities, etc., the WAFF Web site included homosexuality as a normative lifestyle," Wildmon said. "While everyone should promote respect, a promotion of homosexuality should not be thrust on little children and unexpecting parents who do not believe homosexuality should be normalized. It is absolutely wrong for schools to be used to promote the homosexual lifestyle."

What do we want? Rapture! When do we want it? Now!

And shame on George Bush for supporting a limited withdrawal of Israeli settlements. I've got a balloon payment on my mortgage in three years. If I'm not Raptured by then, I'm screwed!