Our friends at Right Wing Watch have this little nugget from David Barton’s WallBuilders Live! show yesterday:
Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a study between those that are on welfare and see how much and how often they read the Bible. You know, if Booker T. Washington is right that Christianity and reading the Bible increases your desires and therefore your ability for hard work; if we take that as an axiom, does that mean that the people who are getting government assistance spend nearly no time in the Bible, therefore have no desire, and therefore no ability for hard work? I could go a lot of places with this. I would love to see this proven out in some kind of sociological study, but it makes perfect sense.
Words fail us here.
Wow! This opens up some great possibilities. How ’bout people who have Lone Star cards would have to go on line every so often and answer bible study question to be issued a new PIN, which would frequently change….. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t be giving Mr. Barton any ideas….
Does barton realize that Mr Washington has been dead for a century? Or is he bringing up a well-known Negro to compare to today’s welfare recipients, who are obviously (in his little mind) all black as well?
Poopyhead is the polite way to describe this
toadpiece of deceased pond scum.Neither I nor my parents were on welfare. All of us were Christians. My parents were hardworking poor folks—as was I when I lived with them. I feel sure that my parents had read the Bible much in their younger years and attended church more often. It appears that none of that raised their “desires.” I assume Barton means desires for the things of this world, which are the primary concerns of far right conservative Republicans these days. You know:
Do I have enough things?
Can I get more things?
Is someone trying to take away my things?
Considering their situation, I suspect that my parents thought something entirely different about the Bible and desires? Grew up in rural Tennessee poverty. Great Depressions hit at the moment they are married. Then came dad’s disabling Type I diabetes at age 27. Mom’s mental illness raged. Their only child was dead at age 3. Saddled with a failed rural farming enterprise. I rather suspect that my mom and dad read the Bible and wondered where God was in the middle of their misery rather than using it as a piece of capitalist pornography to arouse one’s desires for the things of this world.
Reading the Bible puts me in touch with Jesus, which is a good feeling. To the best of my recollection, Jesus has never leaped from the pages and said, “Charles, wouldn’t you really like a new Canon Rebel SLR camera?”
By the way, just a message for Mr. Barton. My “hardworking poor” but tragedy stricken parents were what Jesus refers to in the Bible as the “least of these.” If you know those New Testament verses, you also know that Jesus identifies himself as being one with these people. They are him, and He is them. He makes that quite clear. So, in the middle of all that poverty and tragedy, where was Jesus? Jesus was quite literally there in the role of THEM. Jesus was both my mom and dad. They are gone to their eternal rest now—have been for years. You would do well to quit twisting the words of the Bible to make it appear to support various forms of man-contrived evil. Otherwise, I might have to ask my parents (Jesus) to shove a lightning bolt up your ass. Your rectum should thank its lucky stars that I have restrained such requests thus far—because my requests seem to get answered in high volume.
Excuse me Charles, but “my parents’ only child died at the age of three?” Err, I can imagine a couple of things you meant to write, but I don’t think that was one of them. (And the Great Depression[s?] hit as soon as they were married? If that means in 1929, this would mean that to even be as young as my 66, they would have had to have had you after 17 years of marriage — but you’ve never seemed that old, and with the problems you describe with your parents, did they really last that long together?)
Again, I’m sure it was just misspeaking, but can you sort it out?
Brother Charles I dare say you are completely out of touch with modern evangelism. Don’t you know that the gospel of prosperity is all the rage with lowlife preachers preying on those who can least afford it? Yes, Brother Charles, if you pledge $82 a week for the rest of the year God will shower you with vast materialistic riches. But you can’t reap your rewards unless you sew that $82 a week seed.
Now you may think that $82 is going to me, the lowlife preacher, to fund my meth-fueled weekends jaunts to Vegas with a leased Lear full of caviar and hookers. No no no, Brother Charles, your $82 goes directly to God, it has nothing to do with me. Okay well maybe it doesn’t all go to God, perhaps He let’s me keep a little, but that’s only to fund my faith healing business. Because I’ve always believed if you’re going to do something give it 100%, and that’s why I’ve dedicated my life to exploring every form of charlatanism and lowlife-ism known to man.
Isn’t it special that redneck bigot Barton projects the expected stereotype to the conservative base that welfare recipients are black. The boob is still living in the 50s. 1850s.
Actually, he’s got the concept right but the wrong book. It’s “Dune” they should read and be inspired by Paul Atreides as he liberates the Fremen against overwhelming odds. Very inspiring.
Dear Mr. Barton:
Or, if you prefer the NIV:
Catholics put it…{Douay Rheims]
Darby — the inventor of ‘the Rapture’ put it:
And one final version, from Young’s Literal Translation:
Admittedly, this is an obscure and little read chapter, what with it only including the Lord’s Prayer and unimportant suff like that. And, afmittedly, I cut it short, and left out the next verse, you know, where that crazy rabbi you never pay much attention to says
Prup (aka Jim Benton)
I said what I meant and meant what I said. Here is a sort out for you.
My sister, who died, was the only child that my parents had had at that time. She was born in 1933 and died in 1936. I was born 16 years after her death in 1952 and was raised as a spoiled brat only child. However, it is a little hard to grow up as an only child in a power family because the only thing you can be spoiled with is a heavy dose of near nothing.
My mom was born in 1910 and my dada was born in 1911. They were about 18-19 years old and just married when the Great Depression hit. They were married and lived together, despite all of their problems, until my dad died in 1986. My mom continued to live in the smae house with all of his things lovingly there (more or less) until she died in 1997. They had their problems like every couple, but they were committed to their marriage and needed each other to get by.
By the way, if I recall correctly, right wingnut fundies and evangelicals have one of the highest divorce rates in the nation. I figure marriage just exists in “theory” among the conservative Texas SBOE crowd and the David Barton fans. My parents lived it as REAL.
Here is the last interesting fact that makes math with my family a perilous enterprise. We have a complete genealogy for my dad’s side of the family that goes all the way back to the late 1600s in Virginia. It is a family history book more than 3-inches thick and with 17,500 family members from one coast to the other. One of the notable things along my particular line is that the births of all men fall “just right” to have kept them out of all major American wars. You would need a microscope to find a veteran. People also tended to have lived long lives up until the most recent generations. For example, my grandfather (no typo) was born in 1864. So, just three generations of my family span 148 years. Pretty cool, huh?
The funny part is the implicit assumption that Barton thinks what he does is “work.” Quote mining the Founding Fathers to misrepresent them to fellow fundamentalist nimrods is not “work.” It’s an easy paycheck, as is much else related to Je$us Inc. in America.
Sad to say Andrew, it has become Jesus, Inc. The thing that gets me is why no one in the Christian community understands that as being a bad and demeaning thing for Jesus and the faith. Have we Americans become callous, tone deaf, indifferent?