God's Nutcases

[D. Scarlatti]

God's Warriors, actually. Worth checking out. As with Christiane Amanpour's other feature-length reports, it'll be repeated endlessly. Parts two and three air tomorrow and Thursday nights. Discuss.

[InTheServiceOfZeke]

people kill for all kinds of reasons. why just pick on the god folks?

[Ensign Steve]

Just a few minutes I followed a link to this article:

Muslim women: My headscarf is not a threat - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/21/hijab.godswarriors/index.html)

Last year at Christmastime, Rehan Seyam, a Muslim living in New Jersey, went to pick up some things at a local Wal-Mart. Seeing her distinctive traditional Muslim head covering called a "hijab," a man in the store, addressing her directly, sang "The 12 Days of Christmas" using insulting lyrics about terrorism and Osama bin Laden.

Gross. But, honestly, that's what she gets for shopping at Walmart.

Edit: I like how the article says "Last year at Christmastime" instead of, say, "Last December". Nicely ethnocentric of them.

[D. Scarlatti]

Yeah tomorrow's "episode" is Muslims, then Christians. Tonight's was Jews.

I thought it was pretty well done.

Main Page (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/gods.warriors/)

[Ensign Steve]

Oh that reminds me of a joke I heard on Last Comic Standing. Wanna hear it?

The lady is riding on the train and the woman next to her ask if she's heard the good news. After some confusion about Brad and Angelina, she realizes the woman is trying to "save" her. She says, "Oh, I'm sorry, my people are Jewish." The woman says, "That's okay, they just haven't found Jesus yet." The lady replies, "Oh, we found him! I guess you haven't heard the bad news."

[D. Scarlatti]

Haha.

[InTheServiceOfZeke]

i read a really dry, but informative book on this subject a while ago- The Battle For God, by Karen Armstrong. worth a look if you dig this sorta thing...

[Ari]

that's what she gets for shopping at Walmart.
Yeah they left out, "and then the 400 pound shirtless man zipped away on his walmart powered shopping cart."

[LadyShea]

At one point I worked at a jewelery store in the Forum Shops owned by a big time temple-Mormon family and one of my coworkers was Jehovah's Witness (immigrant from Mexico) and another some kind of charismatic evangelical (from South America). A mail-order bride from the Philippines rounded off the crew. The praying and witnessing and "Word from God"s for, to and about each other and customers never ended lemmee tell ya.

A lovely pregnant lady wearing a hajib came in and was looking at watches and the Jehovahs Witness totally accosted her.

Where are you from?
Philadelphia.
Why you wear that thing on your head? You don't have to here in America.
It is a tenet of my religion, it doesn't matter where I live.
I will pray for you that you aren't lost to the lake of fire.
Peace be with you.

That job is what led me to initially leave my nominal Christianity permanently behind me.

Seriously, add large groups of people on both sides of the above exchange and things are gonna get ugly.

[Watser?]

Things ARE ugly...

[D. Scarlatti]

That settlements shit is crazy. There was one episode where the Israelis went up with bulldozers to knock down nine houses in the middle of nowhere and there was this big riot because the people say God told them to move there.

[Watser?]

The craziest settlers live in and around the Palestinian city of Hebron in the southern part of the West Bank. That is also where the peaceful activists of the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) (http://www.cpt.org/hebron/hebron.php) are who are trying to keep the two sides from bashing each other's heads in. It is kinda weird that among the religious fundamentalists stirring up shit there are also religious do-gooders trying to help out. The CPT and Rabbis for Human Rights (http://www.rhr.israel.net/) are helping the Palestinians with their olive harvests and participate in peaceful Palestinian protests (as a sort of human shields).

[Clutch Munny]

I only just learned about these guys (http://www.romancatholicism.org/) when I was looking for references on Augustine and predestination. Um, National Socialism what? And, by the way, currently we have no pope (http://www.romancatholicism.org/sedevacantism-reconsidered.htm). Are these the Mel Gibson catholics?

In looking around to try find out who the hell these people are, and who the hell Feeney was (they seem to be big fans), I also found these folks (http://www.catholicism.org/). Less wingy? On the surface. But still plenty fucking strange.

The idea that (North) Americans would have to look abroad to find examples of God's Nutcases is absurd. There's enough here for a 10-part series on its own.

[D. Scarlatti]

In a few cases the Jewish settlers had purchased their land from the Arabs, but the Israelis knocked their houses down anyway, I believe pursuant to Israeli court decisions interpreting international law or something. In other cases it's not clear whether the settlers are there because God told them, or because God told them to make a big "Fuck you" to the Palestinians.

Whatever the case, some of those people really, really hate each other.

[Watser?]

Oh, hmmm about those Hebron settlers: a lot of them are Americans too. I think a pretty large percentage of Jewish settlers are American, they seem to be spending a couple of years there and then go back to the US or something. I will see if I can get some figures on it.

[Watser?]

In a few cases the Jewish settlers had purchased their land from the Arabs, but the Israelis knocked their houses down anyway, I believe pursuant to Israeli court decisions interpreting international law or something. In other cases it's not clear whether the settlers are there because God told them, or because God told them to make a big "Fuck you" to the Palestinians.

Whatever the case, some of those people really, really hate each other.

The Israelis are always talking about 'illegal outposts', some of the new settlements are against Israeli law. However ALL settlements are against international law.