One of these days, I need to write an article about Hal Lindsey. You might remember him from the 1970s, when he came out with his best-selling book, The Late Great Planet Earth. Hal is big into Bible prophecy. According to his book, the End Times were supposed to happen in the 1980s. Oops. Maybe if they had published an edition in Aramaic, Jesus would have read it and known when he was due. But he is coming back! Any day now! Really he is!

Everything Lindsey says, does, and thinks passes through the filter of Bible prophecy. Among the other awful offal on Hal’s website are cartoons about the current state of the world as it relates to the Earth’s never-ending-impending ending. These cartoons are created for Lindsey’s site by John and Patsy Rule.

As I looked through the archives, it gave me a riveting picture of what Christian Zionists like Lindsey and his followers believe. I thought you might be interested in seeing some of those cartoons.

Because of the size of these things, I’m going to break this article into three parts. Today we will look at how Lindsey’s followers view the matter of politics and church/state separation. Part 2 will examine what they think of secularists, and part 3 will look at prophecy.

When Fox News is Too Liberal

This first cartoon tells us about Barack Obama’s secret:

Obama is a closet Muslim! I know it’s true! I read it on the internet somewhere!

At least Fox News has the decency to restrict their libel to innuendo (“Is Obama a Muslim?”).

(On a strictly side note, don’t you love how everybody is now upset over the inflammatory statements made by Obama’s pastor? I bet many of the same people who think he’s a Muslim are upset about what his Christian pastor said!)

Many of the cartoons in the archive are strongly anti-Muslim. They depict Islam as a monolithic force out to destroy Israel and the West. They don’t bother to distinguish the dangerous radical Muslims from the less-hazardous non-radicals.

One way to determine whether a viewpoint is fair is to turn it on its head. What if non-Christians viewed all Christians as extremist wackos? How would Lindsey’s followers feel then? Oh, wait. Lindsey’s followers are the extremists! Nevermind.

Cutting God out of America

This is the recurring view of liberal politicians. They’re always portrayed as being on a single-minded mission to remove God from the government, the schools, and society in general. That’s all they do. The cartoons never explain why. I’m still trying to figure out what motive Christian Zionists ascribe to liberals. I guess the assumption is that liberal politicians haven’t found God (which isn’t true in most cases), so they’re controlled by Satan’s evil forces.

Never in these cartoons is anybody depicted as merely holding to another, equally valid, form of Christianity. The good guys are always the Zionists. Everybody else is a tool of Satan.

Well That’s Your Problem! You Used the Wrong Foundation!

It’s that God-damned Liberal Agenda again! Thank God the dreaded Homosexual Agenda was off at a pride parade that day.

If you can’t read the labels on the bricks, they say “school prayer”, “10 commandments”, “God’s word”, “Jesus”, “traditional marriage”, and “pro-life”.

The premise of this cartoon is flawed, of course, because the United States was not founded on Biblical principles. If it had been, then Mike Huckabee wouldn’t feel the need to overhaul the Bill of Rights. I mean, come on, folks. Maybe they could argue that the country has strayed from its roots, but when they—the Christians—tell you that you have to throw away the First Amendment, then it isn’t the “liberals” who are destroying the foundation of this country.

More Retirements are Imminent

This cartoon is actually pretty accurate. I forgot who it was, but one court-watcher said recently that he expects three Supreme Court Justices to announce their retirements within the next year. I want you to mentally erase three of those figures on the left side of the image and add three more to the right side.

It’s Motivating Me. Maybe Not the Effect They Wanted.

This one speaks for itself.

In 2005, John McCain sponsored legislation to ban torture. The bill actually passed and was signed into law by Bush. McCain has a very good reputation on anti-torture issues. A reputation that is undeserved.

McCain’s law specifically exempted the CIA.

On Saturday, Bush vetoed a bill intended to close that loophole. John McCain supports that veto. Mr. Anti-Torture is the only presidential candidate who advocates the use of torture.

Some of you may not be happy with our choices in this election. I agree. We have two right-wing Democrats vying for the opportunity to compete against a far-right Bush clone in November. This is how democracy works. If you’re going to live in a country predominantly populated by right-wing islamo-homo-xeno-freedom-phobes, all you’re going to get are candidates who reflect those values.

All you can do in the election booth is try to tug the country just the slightest bit away from the values of hate and fear. The alternative is to be like McCain. Publicly pretend that you stand for one thing while actually supporting the opposite. If you do not vote for the Democrat in November, even if you stay home, you are voting to further enable the radical right and their campaign to destroy the values that this country used to stand for.

Outside of the voting booth, we have to continue to educate the populace and bring their attention to the important matters. Not everybody who voted for Bush fully understood the consequences of their actions. Not everybody who will vote for McCain really wants a perpetual war in Iraq or warrantless domestic spying. They’re fooled by the rhetoric and the slick commercials. We have to let these people know that what they think they are voting for is nothing like what the candidate really stands for.

Your efforts to educate the misinformed may only have a small effect in this election, because the best we can hope to achieve is putting a regressive Democrat into the White House.

The real struggle is for the long term. We have to keep pulling to the left. We have to keep pulling people away from the anti-American values of the right wing. Eventually, if we succeed, we will bring enough of the populace back to their senses that we will have real choices in future elections.

(The full article about McCain the Torture King is at SF Gate.) (via The Sideshow)

As you’ve all heard by now, Mike Huckabee finally gave up his hopeless quest for the White House on Tuesday. He will now return to his hopeless quest of waiting for Jesus to return.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about his dropping out other than I’m glad it’s finally over. I am concerned about what plans he has for the future. I doubt that McCain will tap him for the VP slot, although McCain does need to do something to appease the fundie crowd.

Tony Perkins Thinks I Value His Opinion

Today I received an email from Tony Perkins of the Fundie Research Council. The first part of the email is titled “Huckabye”. He says some interesting things here, so I thought it would be worth examining it. He writes:

To succeed in his bid for the White House, McCain must consolidate his support among conservatives, including social conservatives, which will not happen just because he is the Republican nominee.

I hear that a lot from fundies right now, but talk is cheap and the election is still eight months away. When November 4th rolls around and they’re in the booth staring at the names:

• John McCain
• Hillary Clinton

who do you think they’re going to vote for? Many conservatives and probably most fundies dislike McCain, but they absolutely despise Clinton.

Some pundits have suggested that a lot of “social conservatives” (i.e. fundies) will choose to stay home that day. Believe me. Nothing motivates a fundie more than the opportunity to spread their hate. The Republican nominee could be Richard Dawkins, but all of the fundies would still turn out in swarms to vote for him anyway, because what they’d really be doing is voting against Hillary Clinton. And that will feel so good!

Tony Perkins’ email continues:

A poll released last month by George Barna revealed that if the election were held then, only 45 percent of Evangelicals would vote for a Republican candidate.

Again, talk is cheap. A pollster calls them up on the telephone. It’s anonymous. They don’t even have to look the pollster in the eye. It’s real easy to say things they don’t mean. They may even think they won’t vote for the Republican at the time they’re answering the survey, but when they’re staring at the prospect of another Clinton in the White House, they’ll camp out in front of their polling place weeks in advance, like an evangelical Harry Potter line.

That number is down from 85 percent of Evangelicals who voted for George W. Bush in 2004.

If you were wondering how Bush managed to get re-elected despite all of the atrocities he committed, there’s your answer. The so-called “values voters” don’t have any values. If they did, they would not tolerate torture, suspension of the Fourth Amendment, being lied into an unnecessary war, etc. All they want is to overturn Roe v. Wade and keep those dirty, filthy homos from having butt-sex within a legally-sanctioned marriage. No matter what the cost.

John McCain will have to convince social conservatives that their issues matter and that he can talk about them as a candidate and act upon them as president.

That won’t be difficult. McCain has already managed to convince most Americans that he’s a maverick, straight-talking, moderate, incorruptible American hero. Blowing smoke up the fundies’ asses will be a piece of cake for him. (And the fundies will secretly enjoy the anal stimulation and freak out that they might be gay, thus forcing a constitutional amendment against anal smoking.)

During the 2000 election, John McCain called Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance”. That was probably the last time I had any respect for the guy. In the years since, his true colors have become apparent. By 2006, McCain was sucking at the teat of intolerance; he gave the commencement speech at Falwell’s Liberty University.

A couple of days ago, one of the most radical and dangerous of all fundies, John Hagee, endorsed McCain. Think Progress has a good article about this. According to the article, McCain “had been courting the endorsement for over a year”. McCain has become the very thing he criticized eight years ago: an agent of intolerance.

The Think Progress article is short and well worth the read. The most important part to remember is that Hagee has previously stated:

The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.

No wonder Hagee endorsed McCain. He knows that McCain is the perfect candidate who will escalate war in the Middle East.

A few days ago, I received an email from Chris Weber, a graduate student at Stony Brook University. Chris is conducting a survey on people’s feelings about the presidential election and thought this readership could help. Here’s the pitch:

The purpose of this survey is to examine how people think and feel about the political issues, parties, and candidates in the upcoming election. In the survey, you will be asked a series of questions about two political candidates, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. We are very interested in how individuals that find information on the web think about politics, and your participation would be greatly appreciated. In total, the survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. The survey is completely anonymous and you can skip any questions you do not wish to answer.

Click here to take the survey.

Please feel free to contact Chris Weber (crweber@notes.cc.sunysb.edu) at Stony Brook University with any questions or concerns. Thanks for your help!

In honor of my recent controversial statement that all creationists are either extremely ignorant or extremely stupid, I present for those creationists an illustrated guide to their choices. Please choose one.

Would you rather be ignorant…

…or stupid?

Special Bonus

Unrelated to the above, I also found these two images at Creative Disease and thought I’d share them:

(via Pharyngula)

Carnival of the Godless #85 is up over at Greta Christina’s blog. She has posted two versions. One has “clean” pictures, and the other is illustrated with slighty-bawdy pulp and paperback covers.

The main article I want to call your attention to is “Why Mike Huckabee Hates America” by Alexander the Atheist. It’s an excellent summary of why Huckabee is dangerous, and it demonstrates that this loon does indeed hate America.

Several other articles relate to topics that have been discussed here lately.

I’m sure you remember my recent article about fundie milk. In that vein, CAE at Vwxynot tells us about fundie pasta. Meanwhile, Aussie Daniel Kinsman, the 327th Male, exclaims “Oh shit, I’ve been giving theists money!” (see image above)

I’d like to add an addendum to my fundie milk article. I just found some faggots. Enjoy them with your homo milk.

Back in October, I wrote about fundie paranoia that “In God We Trust” was going to disappear from our money. Holly Ord at Menstrual Poetry tells us that fundie paranoia has forced the mint to move the motto back onto the face of the coins.