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Rachel Maddow talked about it last night. Eric Zorn's discussing it today. And in case you haven't seen it from those two yet, allow us to be the first to bring you the newest potential threat on the life of the President of the United States of America - direct from the pages of the Bible.
Now, there's no shortage of vile stuff floating around the interwebs about our president, but using a snippet of scripture from the book of Psalms brings things to a new low. It's apparently being spotted on bumper stickers and t-shirts (although all we've found thus far is just graphics), and some believe that conservative Christians are using the verse, pulled from Psalm 109, to call for the death of the President. You be the judge:
8 May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.
The Psalm goes on:
9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven [d] from their ruined homes.
Nice stuff, huh?
It's been a while since we pored through the pages of oh, say, Leviticus, but for anyone out there who's considering making this particular plea to the Christian God of your choice, keep in mind that in between for praying for death, you've got a lot of work to do based on the Old Testament laws. Keeping "impure" women separate from men, animal sacrifice, managing unclean lepers, killing adulterers and kids that insult their parents and so on - it's hard to imagine having the time to work through to deity-based death requests.
You can read the whole psalm here, but if Obama is considering a rebuttal prayer of his own, allow us to suggest verse 29 from the very same psalm: "Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame; and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle."
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I had read about this earlier and thought it was absolutely detestable. But that was under the assumption that all three lines were from the same verse.
I think it's intellectually dishonest to include the next two verses because they fit the narrative. The shirt doesn't say "Psalm 109:8-10." That one verse is purposefully taken out of context to illustrate displeasure with his leadership. I don't find this to be particularly sinister.
The whole thing seems to be a cry for revenge and death of a horrible enemy though, in addition to the classy praying for misery toward the family.
Beautiful, peaceful religion it is...........
I can see how it could be interpreted that way, but I feel like subtlety isn't their strong suit -- they would have cited more verses had they meant to be the direct message. Maybe I'm wrong.
All I know is when I used to write term papers, I would pluck random shit out of a paragraph just like that, if it was worded the way I wanted it to be to make a point.
I can see how it could be interpreted that way, but I feel like subtlety isn't their strong suit -- they would have cited more verses had they meant to be the direct message. Maybe I'm wrong.
I think they knew what they were doing and stopped just short of including the incriminating passages, but they're sure their fellow bible-readers will get the drift. There have to be other passages in the bible they could have cited that didn't lead to passages that speak of wanting someone's death.
After all, Christianists have been taking the Bible out of context for hundreds of years! It's tradition!
Are you actually saying that bible-thumping boobs who use the supposed words of the divine to justify their own petty, temporal arguments are being "misunderstood"? Oh no! What a terrible thing, to be taken out of context.
Considering these are the same band of cretins who take EVERYTHING Barack Obama says out of context, who demand literal readings of the bible and castigate anyone who doesn't do the same I'm going to reserve my intellectual concern for people who aren't agitating for the murder of their elected representative.
So we should stoop to intellectual dishonesty because they do it too? I'm sorry, but I just don't subscribe to that theory.
Making the whole thing even more stupid, Psalm 109 might not even mean what some think it does.
Wow, got a Cliff Notes version of that website?
Who is Ray c. Steadman, by the way?
It explains that Hebrew doesn't have quotation marks and the part of the psalm on the t-shirt is what a bunch of assholes are saying about a guy who doesn't deserve it.
You got that right: http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Psalm_109
The usual vile crap from the usual suspects. What God are these people worshiping?
jesus would NOT approve
My relatively extensive personal experience with fundamentalist types suggest that these people very, very rarely take anything out of context as Slaphappy suggests, nor do they often use single verses without knowing what the rest of the passage says. Their entire philosophy is that people should accept the entire Bible, not just bits and pieces of it. When they chose this verse, they knew exactly what they were doing.
"...these people very, very rarely take anything out of context..."
Correction: Add to that phrase, "unless it suits them." They do have a heck of a lot of fun with with the bits of Genesis that involve Sodom and Gomorrah.
I don't generally believe in burning books, but I make an exception for Bibles and Korans.
Jesus led an alternative lifestyle. If he returned to earth today those that presume to speak for him would undoubtedly crucify him again.
You have essentially captured the most consistently missed point in the history of religion.
Another problem with the argument that they're only quoting that one line and not the rest of the passage - these are the same weasels who are more than happy to smear the Koran with dubious quotes, often taken out of context, from English translations of that scripture. In other words, they would have to expect a double standard in this case. (Of course, they do expect such a double standard because they make the solopsistic argument their text (or more specifically, that their interpretation of their text) is good and all other texts are "bad".)
As a Christian, I find this destable. It really bugs me that only the most ignorant "christians" are the ones who get the spotlight.
Shame on these people.
it's called the "vocal minority"