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November 21st, 2008
08:50 pm
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Love and rockheads*
Here in California, even though the anti-gay Proposition 8 passed, the fight continues. The latest news is that the state Supreme Court will hear the petitions asking it to consider whether Prop 8 violated the procedure for changing the California Constitution.

Others are on top of this -- including maradydd, who has some legal analyses worth noting. She links in her latest post, though, to the amicus filings for the Prop 8 cases, and there's at least one in there that's a serious piece of work.

As a dragon myself, I'm predisposed to be sympathetic to people of strange spiritual belief. But strange only takes you so far. If you're going to believe something strange, be prepared to show your work. When you make logical connections, be sure the logic connects. When you make assumptions, be willing to cross-reference.

The lady from the Kingdom of Heaven [PDF] has not done this. You'd probably come to that conclusion simply from reading that she's the "heiress of the Almighty Eternal Creator," and "a co-creator of earth and human souls with the fully God nature of Messiah Jesus as revealed in the Holy Bible, Genesis 1:26-27." But let's be charitable and keep reading.

Unfortunately, it doesn't get better. It's hard to maintain even shreds of the massive credibility that claim requires when you can skim through the court filing and find quotes like this [p.35]:
God created human souls by changing the supernatural substance for creating bear souls, and He sent this soul into monkey wombs. In this way, bears did not grow long tails, long arms, and legs like a monkey. God then changed the supernatural substance for creating human souls, and He removed short tails, hair, and the shape of bears' faces and sent this design into bear wombs. At this stage, after birth, the natural bodies were not wholly human yet. During the process of growing up, the natural bodies were changing, and this led to the creation of humans on earth.

That's right: Humans are descended from apes via bears.***

Of course, this is the same document that claims the basis of God's prohibition against gay marriage is contained in Genesis 1:26-27 -- there seems to be an unhealthy obsession with that passage -- with the sentence "God blessed them, saying: Be fertile and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it" being interpreted as an order of paramount modern importance. Even spotting the author the Bible being the inerrant word of God -- which is like spotting Bush eight hundred million Hindus -- it seems pretty puzzling to claim that God's No. 1 priority for 2008 A.D. mankind is to go out and subdue the wild, untamed, dangerous, severely underpopulated Earth. I guess if we haven't finished the job of polar bear extinction yet, we must really be falling down on that fruitful multiplication thing.

I'll give her this, though. The sentence: [p.39]
[T]he Divine Queen's natural career as a life-insurance agent ended on April 7, 1994.

... would make one hell of an opening line for a novel.

--
* For the cultural cave-dwelling set among us: the reference.
** Also: It's a Prop 8 post, so I declare by fiat I get to use my "forbidden love" icon.
*** It should be noted that this is actually an idea that has shown up in various ancient eastern European mythologies. However, the eastern Europeans never to my knowledge tried to wedge bears into the primates; and the "heiress of God" grew up in southeast Asia anyway.

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From:dogemperor
Date:November 22nd, 2008 05:59 pm (UTC)
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Well, I know of at least one Eastern Asian myth that also includes bears (or at least bears who turned into people) being ancestral to a particular *clan* of humans...but let's just say that the particular Korean dynasty in question hasn't been around for quite some time (about 2500 years, actually). :D

And something tells me that the actual Haneolists might object to her claiming descent from Dangun Wanggeom... :D

*ahem*

That noted, and speaking as someone who *does* have the Mother of Bears as a spirit companion/totem/whatever, I think I can definitively say she's on some major crack. :D Honestly, I don't think Bear gives a damn re human sexuality :D

And the petition reads like some kind of crazy-arse Vietnamese Moonie crack :P
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From:eclective
Date:November 22nd, 2008 09:20 pm (UTC)
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My immediate reaction to this: "omgwtfpumpkins. I have nothing against her religious beliefs, but using them to attempt to invalidate others' civil rights is an unfair tactic."

My secondary reaction to this: "...wait, that's what this whole Prop 8 mess is about anyway."

It's hilarious-- I lol'ed, and passed it on-- and yet at the same time I don't think we should forget that at current, people in California are struggling to earn equal rights because of a two-thousand-year-old book filled with inconsistencies and historial inaccuracies that some people treat as more accurate than scientific analyses of the world. No offence to Christians reading this post; I am fine with your religion, and I respect the Bible as a signpost to spirituality, as something that, regardless of its historical accuracy, can inspire us to higher thoughts (and I believe that's the point of it; that the point never was to religiously, pun not intended, adhere to its every word as if it were a manual for life, but to be moved by it, to obtain glimpses of the divine through its poetry). But if we don't think Bear-Monkey-Creationist-Woman's beliefs are reason enough to remove civil rights, we shouldn't presume mainstream Christian beliefs to be any more so.

I think people forget that Christianity, even setting aside this sort of stuff, is pretty weird at its base. We're so used to hearing the old stories that they don't strike us as strange, but most of mainstream Christian doctrine is every bit as strange as "humans were made when God put bear souls into monkeys". Or... monkey souls into bears, or whatever the heck is going on here.

Edited at 2008-11-22 09:23 pm (UTC)
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From:r_caton
Date:November 22nd, 2008 10:35 pm (UTC)
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But of course they are bear souls...
that's why shamans are referred to as Yogis...
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From:joysweeper
Date:November 23rd, 2008 08:59 pm (UTC)
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I have no idea why, but every time I read the phrase "monkey wombs" I crack up.

I got frustrated when arguing with a religious classmate over gay rights. He says homosexuality is explicitly shunned in the Bible so how isn't it illegal, I say that the Bible's old and can't apply literally to the modern world, and anyway he shaves and wears blended fibers which are Abominations Unto God, so he's already choosing to ignore certain aspects... It's like arguing with a brick wall. ...Then the professor came over and told me that if we allowed people to do what they want, how would we stop tyrants? This much illogic makes my head hurt. (This professor also believes that there is no such thing as inequality between the sexes because women have babies and great economic purchasing power, aaagh I don't even know where to start making an answer to that!)

I just don't get it when someone can't just live and let live. It's like we're speaking completely different languages.
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