Tim Tebow under attack

[Earl]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/ ... =webmail11

Why Are Anti-Christian Bigots So Eager to Prey On Tim Tebow?

By Todd Starnes
Published December 12, 2011 | FoxNews.com




Tim Tebowâ??s success as the quarterback of the Denver Broncos has done little to silence his critics who believe that his faith in Jesus Christ has no business on the football field. It doesnâ??t matter how many touchdown passes he throws or how many games he wins because Tebow will always be a lightning rod for anti-Christian bigots.

Itâ??s become something of a sport to attack Christians in this nation. In recent days a cross was removed from a Christian chapel on an Army base because it violated regulations. Symbols of the Christmas season have been removed from public squares and public schools because they might offend non-Christians. And in Washington, D.C., Christian teenagers were forced to pray in a gutter after police told them it was illegal to pray on a sidewalk outside the Supreme Court.

Hollywood spews out reprehensible anti-Christian propaganda wrapped in the guise of family-friendly entertainment â?? indoctrinating children to various and sundry lifestyles and beliefs. The music industry relishes artists who denigrate faith and traditional families. Our taxpayer-funded museums host religious exhibits smeared in elephant dung.

And that brings us to the National Football League and the attacks on Tebow.

There arenâ??t many superstars for evangelical kids to admire â?? but Tebow is one of those guys. Heâ??s an athlete who â??walks the walk.â? Heâ??s passionate about his relationship with Jesus Christ. He prays. He studies his Bible. And he also wins football games.

And for that â?? heâ??s been subjected to ridicule.

Stephen Tullock, a linebacker for the Detroit Lions, personified the anti-Christian attacks when he mocked Tebow after sacking the quarterback. As Tebow picked himself up off the gridiron, Tullock started â??Tebowingâ? â?? a mocking prayer on bended knee.

â??I told a friend of mine that I might have a couple sacks this game and if I get him, I going to Tebow it,â? Tulloch told the Denver Post.

There was no outrage â?? no editorials of condemnation. There were no calls for religious tolerance â?? nothing but silence from the chattering class.

Imagine for just a moment if Tebow had been a Muslim. Imagine Tullock sacking the quarterback and then pulling out a prayer rug and offering a mocking prayer toward Mecca. Imagine that.

But the attacks on Tebow started long before he started playing professional football. NBC Sports reported on an incident that occurred at a Scouting Combine. Tebow suggested the group pray. Another player told him to â??shut the f*** up.â?

Former Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer told the Daily Mail, â??I wish heâ??d just shut up after a game and go hug his teammates.â?

A particular disappointment has been the criticism levied against Tebow by his fellow Christians.

â??It seems Tebow might help himself and the kingdom by getting off his knees, taking the verses off of his face, and being faithful to Christ without the public acts like all the other Christians in the NFL have done for decades,â? wrote Anthony Bradley, an associate professor of theology and ethics at The Kings College in New York City, in World Magazine.

Perhaps the good professor would suggest Christians enter restaurants through the back door and use separate drinking fountains?

â??Put down the boldness in regards to the words and keep living the way youâ??re living,â? opined Kurt Warner in a Washington Post story.

So Warner wants Tebow to water down his boldness. Exactly, how does one do that, Mr. Warner?

Perhaps the sad part of this episode is that Tebow is an anomaly in a professional sports industry searching for a moral compass.

They take great pride in putting bad boys on superstar pedestals.

At the end of the day, though, which NFL star would you want your little boy idolizing? A dog killer? A guy who beats up his girlfriend? Someone who is communicable? Or a man who loves Jesus, helps orphans and builds hospitals for the needy?

Iâ??ll take Tim Tebow in my huddle any day.

Todd Starnes is the host of FOX News & Commentary, heard daily on radio stations.

[Fat Man]

OK, I needed some time to think of what I was going to say before posting a response here.

And I'll probably still fuck up and perhaps say the wrong thing.

But here goes . . . . .

Now, I'm not going to criticize ALL Christians in general, because I know that NOT ALL Christians are right-wing extremists. There are moderate Christians and liberal Christians. Some are Republicans and some are Democrats. Christians come from all walks of life.

So, I don't have a beef with all Christians, but only with the extremists.

But, I'm going to say this . . . . .

The article quoted above comes from FOX NEWS.

FOX NEWS is hardly what I call fair and balanced.

While doing some searches on Google, I have come across some criticisms of Tim Tebow by other Christians.

FOX NEWS would have us believe that all the criticism directed toward Tim Tebow come exclusively from the left, from atheists, or from "anti-Christian biggots" and that is simply not so.

There are criticisms directed toward Tim Tebow that have come from other Christians themselves.

But do they mention that on FOX NEWS?

NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Even among some Christians who believe that God answers ALL prayers, they also believe that sometimes, the answer is NO!

Personally, I don't believe that God answers prays at all, that God, whoever or whatever he is, that he is a non-interventionist sort of God, perhaps in the beginning (billions and billions of years ago) might have set down the cosmic laws by which the universe operates, but then, after that, he did not step in to make this or suddenly create that, but just simply sat back and allowed the whole cosmic process to unfold naturally without any intervention on his part. The universe operates on it's own, hence, life evolves.

Anyway . . . . .

Here is a link to an article I have found.
http://relationshaping.com/2010/01/27/t ... christian/

RelationShaping


Tim Tebow: Non-Aborted Fetus, but Crybaby Christian
Posted on January 27, 2010 by David W. Boles

University of Florida football quarterback, and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow is the worst kind of Christian: Self-promoting, crass, entitled, fragile, haughty, and invoking the sacred right of Crybabyism when God doesnâ??t answer his prayers. During every football game, Tebow advertises his public love of God in quaint Bible verses printed on homemade eyeblack patches. Each week his mommy sends him a list of quotes to use.



Tebow is a phony Christian because he publicly prays for God to give him the win â?? just as, Iâ??m sure, Christians on the other side of the ball also pray for the win.

Asking God to pick winners in football games is a horrible mockery of the Christian faith and it degrades the notion of God to someone petty enough to care about the score of a game while the rest of the world is suffering and on fire.



The most fascinating part about these public Jesus lovers like Tim Tebow is the fact that when they lose â?? when God does not shine down on them â?? they become crybabies and whiners.

Why canâ??t Tebow just accept that it was â??Godâ??s Willâ? that he lose to Alabama? Why cry about it? If God predestined the defeat of Tebow, why not be gracious about it? Why not shine in defeat as you have in victory?

I have yet to see those who praise God in a win turn around and also praise him in a lossâ?¦ with something like thisâ?¦

â??God didnâ??t want me to win today and it sucks.â?

â??God answers all prayers, and today, the answer for me was â??noâ?? â?? and while Iâ??m devastated, Iâ??m glad to honor Him, but I wonder why we even play these games if theyâ??re already predetermined.â?

â??I prayed to Baby Jesus today for the win â?? and the Messiah spit in my face with a defeat â?? and I while I accept the loss, next time Iâ??m praying to his mother instead.â?



Yes, those examples are ridiculous and Iâ??m sure some people are outraged! OUTRAGED! Remember that feeling because thatâ??s how non-believers and different-believers and other non-Christians feel when people like Tebow rub their faith in our noses.

College football and the NFL are international companies with worldwide interests â?? when it comes to religion and other private, personal matters â?? they should both clamp down on public displays of private worship.

Let the players pray in the privacy of the locker room and if they insist on forming a prayer circle in the middle of the playing field, donâ??t show it on television as if you are somehow, tangentially, invoking the love of God into your broadcast.

Itâ??s unseemly to peep on praying people.



The final Tebow atrocity and affront to public values and community morality is his participation with his mommy Pam, in an anti-abortion advertisement that will be shown during this yearâ??s Super Bowl television broadcast:

Abortion rights groups are angry that CBS will run a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl from the rabidly homophobic and anti-abortion group Focus on the Family. Few have actually seen the 30-second spot. But we know that it will feature football phenom Tim Tebow, whose mother chose to ignore her doctorâ??s advice to terminate her pregnancy.

Did you catch that? Ms. Tebow was presented with a choice.

She was a missionary in the Philippines when she was stricken with amoebic dysentery. Doctors feared for her life and urged her to abort her fetus. That she would give birth to a son who would become the first underclassman to win the coveted Heisman Trophy is wonderful. Also wonderful is that Ms. Tebow was able to make an informed decision. Her doctors werenâ??t muzzled by far-right zealots who want women to carry their pregnancies to term no matter what. And she wasnâ??t forced by those doctors to end her pregnancy.

Focus on the Family is touting Ms. Tebowâ??s right to choose while trying to deny the same opportunity â?? the same right â?? to other women. Whether CBS is right to run this advocacy ad after rejecting others in the past, Iâ??ll leave to others for the moment. But abortion rights advocates, such as the National Organization for Women, would do well to point out this hypocrisy with an ad of their own.

Pam Tebow: Please keep your vagina out of our Super Bowl! We donâ??t want your uterus tilting into the salsa!



Tim Tebow: Get control of your life â?? and your mother â?? and temper your Christian partisanship with private humbleness and accept the public fact that your Godforsaken eyeblack might just insult more fans than it converts, and that some of your teammates might have different beliefs than youâ?¦ and that doesnâ??t mean they are any less good, less deserving, or less faithful, or less human than you.

OK, I really don't know if the guy who published the article is a Christian himself, or not. But, I don't think that he was putting down all Christianity in general, but only how some Christians behave and saying that it's a "horrible mockery of the Christian faith and it degrades the notion of God" so, he's not saying anything against Christianity itself, but only how some of the Christians behave.

Anyway . . . . .

If I recall correctly, Jesus himself even said, that when you pray, that you not stand up in public to pray as the hypocrites do for they have their reward, but that instead, you go into the privacy or your own room and pray in secret to God.

OK, I'm not quoting the EXACT words, I'll have to look it up somewhere in the New Testament, but that is essentially what is implied.

Also, I think that praying for your team to win is rather crass. Maybe it was not God's will that your team wins. But then, I don't think God even gives a dam about football!

As I have said earlier, some Christians will tell you, that when you pray to God, He'll answer your prayer alright, but sometimes the answer is NO!

But I say, that when you pray to God, you'll get no answers at all, not a yes or even a no, but no answer at all.

Now, as for my position on abortion . . . . .

I am pro choice, especially in a situation if the pregnancy is a threat to the woman's life, if the baby might not survive anyway, she should have the option to terminate the pregnancy if she might die from it.

The choice should be her's and her's alone.

Either way, I would respect her choice, whether she chooses to have the abortion, or chooses not to have the abortion, even if the continued pregnancy might be a threat to her life, but she still choose to continue her pregnancy anyway, even then, I would still respect her choice in the matter.

And her doctors also respected her choice, even after informing her that she might die, when she chose not to have the abortion, her doctors still respected her choice and did not try to force her to terminate the pregnancy.

Also . . . . .

I believe that if a woman has been raped, or a young girl has been sexually molested by her own father or another male adult, she should not be forced to carry the pregnancy to full term, but should be allowed to have an abortion if she chooses.

And yes, if she can't afford it, then the state should cover the charges, especially if she had been raped or sexually molested.

And finally . . . . . my position on sex education . . .

Teaching abstinence only has been a dismal failure. In states where sex education is based on abstinence only, those states have the highest rate of teen pregnancies. ALL of the scientific facts need to be taught.

Since when, is how our own bodies function, to be a state secret??? Eh?

I remember when I was a kid living up in Minnesota, when ever any one of us had any questions, like where babies come from, and eventually, how they got there in the first place, my mother would get the big red book which was a medical encyclopedia which would answer our questions. It included diagrams of the developing fetus. EVERYTHING!!!

She believe that education in all things was essential. She even took classes in First Aid, and we kids enjoyed reading her textbooks. My favorite section was the charts on Human Anatomy with transparent plastic pages.

We've all heard the standard ol' cliché "Curiosity killed the cat!" Right?

Well, I say . . . . .

It was not curiosity that killed the cat.
It was ignorance that killed the cat.
Curiosity got framed! It was a bum rap!

Anyway . . . . .

Getting back to what I was saying about FOX NEWS.

OK, while we all know, that FOX NEWS has a right-wing bias, one could just as easily argue that CNN NEWS has a left-wing bias. I'll acknowledge that.

Personally, I think MSNBC is more moderate, with some of the members of the News staff a little bit left of center and some a little bit right of center, I think they do try to present the facts without any bias one way or the other.

But now, concerning FOX NEWS, I propose a hypothetical situation . . . . .

Suppose Dr. Carl Sagan and the Reverend Jerry Falwell were still living.

And there was a 5 to 10 minute debate between them on FOX NEWS concerning science and religion.

Carl Sagan is a gentlemen, so he would not put down Jerry Falwell and criticize him or put him down just for being a Christian.

Of course, if it were me having a debate with Jerry Falwell, I wouldn't be so polite, I would call him a bed-wetting ignoramus, but then, I'm fat bitch anyway, and sometimes I can be a real prick! OK?

But, Carl Sagan would very politely point out to Jerry Falwell where he is in error, and point out to him his fallacies and misconceptions concerning science.

But then of course, maybe the next day or so, good ol' Bill O'Reily of FOX NEWS would have something to say about the debate between Carl Sagan and Jerry Falwell and make some retarded comment about an anti-Christian bigot attacking Jerry Falwell, and blowing the whole thing way out of proportion, crying boo hoo because poor Jerry Falwell came under attack from the big bad astronomer and anti-Christian bigot, Carl Sagan!

Aw! Poor Jerry Falwell, poor baby! Did the mean ol' astronomer Carl Sagan say something really naughty to you? Aw! Poor baby!

Well, I really can't say for sure how a hypothetical debate between Carl Sagan and Jerry Falwell might turn out, but knowing FOX NEWS, I say the results would be par for the course.

OK, maybe Tim Tebow did receive a bit of teasing and ribbing from some of his team members, but I think the FOX NEWS article just blew the whole thing way out of proportion by saying that it was only anti-Christian bigots when in fact, even some other Christians criticized Tim Tebow, which FOX NEWS fails to mention.

Now, in the past, in the OFF TOPICS section, I may have posted some articles from FOX NEWS, but it was usually to point out where they were in error and to criticize them for it.

I don't believe a damn thing FOX NEWS has to say.

Yeah!

"The tide goes in, the tide goes out, and you can't explain it!"

Uh huh! Another moronic saying by Bill O'Reily concerning a debate between science and religion.

What a fucking retard!

When I was only in the second grade, I knew that it was the moon that causes tides, which apparently, Bill O'Reily does not!

Also, when it comes to the issue of science and religion, and the age of the earth, I listen to the geologist and the paleontologist, the ones who actually go out climbing the rocks in all kinds of weather, and getting their hands dirty, and not some overpaid stuffed shirt in a suit and tie who sits in his air-conditioned office and thumbing through his BUY-BULL!!!

Sorry, FOX NEWS, but . . .

YOU FAIL!!!

[HugeFanOfBadReligion]

I agree with Fat Man that the Fox News article. I really have nothing against Christianity as I don't really have any opinion on religion in general, so I'm not criticizing the article because of some anti-religious reason, but because I think it creates a very distorted view. I'm not going to discuss Tim Tebow and his faith, as it really doesn't concern me at all. First of all, he's a football player, and thus I really don't care about what he does as I have no interest in the sport, unless he does a significant act of good or if he causes great harm to someone. Second of all, apparently the reason why he's gained a lot of attention is because of his religious practices, and as I stated earlier, I really have no opinion on that. But I definitely do think that article is biased.

Itâ??s become something of a sport to attack Christians in this nation. In recent days a cross was removed from a Christian chapel on an Army base because it violated regulations. Symbols of the Christmas season have been removed from public squares and public schools because they might offend non-Christians. And in Washington, D.C., Christian teenagers were forced to pray in a gutter after police told them it was illegal to pray on a sidewalk outside the Supreme Court.

They're trying to make it seem like Christians are being persecuted in the US, which is really untrue. Most of those examples are based on the law, and Christianity is not exempt from the law. If a cross violates regulations, then it should be expected that it will be taken down, as it doesn't gain immunity from the law simply because it is a religious symbol. The same applies to the Christians who were praying outside of the Supreme Court. The article seems to imply that they were just swept into the gutter simply because they showed their faith, but in reality, it was simply illegal to pray where they were standing. They weren't told that they couldn't pray, they just couldn't do it right there.

As for the Christmas symbols being removed, I can understand it. If I was someone of a different faith that didn't celebrate Christmas, I think I might get a bit annoyed by all of the symbols of Christmas everywhere. It's not a conspiracy to get rid of Christmas, just because there aren't an abundance of Christmas symbols everywhere really shouldn't ruin anybody's ability to enjoy Christmas. The article also only focuses on how Christians are being mistreated, when there are also examples of how other groups are being mistreated. In the States for example, atheists often have trouble getting into public office, and a while ago I remember reading about someone in highschool who didn't join everyone in prayer at a school ceremony (and no, this wasn't a religious ceremony or even a religious school I think), after which he was tormented by other students and even adults including his teachers. I think that last example is much worse than any example that Fox News gave concerning the persecution of Christians in that article. Another example is the laws in France concerning the hijab. So while the article just wants to state that Christians are under attack, in reality, they aren't under attack. They might be mistreated occasionally, but not any more than other groups of people.

[Fat Man]

The article also only focuses on how Christians are being mistreated, when there are also examples of how other groups are being mistreated. In the States for example, atheists often have trouble getting into public office, and a while ago I remember reading about someone in highschool who didn't join everyone in prayer at a school ceremony (and no, this wasn't a religious ceremony or even a religious school I think), after which he was tormented by other students and even adults including his teachers. I think that last example is much worse than any example that Fox News gave concerning the persecution of Christians in that article.

Yeah! Those of us who support science education in our schools, we are the ones who are being harassed and persecuted and bullied around. Christian politicians in the Republican party are doing just fine! Thank you!

They got it made! They have it easy!

They're the ones who wield the most power in this country and are able to control what is being taught in high school science classes.

In the meantime, the science nerds and techno-geeks in our high schools are getting their heads slammed up against their lockers by the jock bullies, and nobody does a damn thing about it.

So, here in the good ol' USA, ignorance reigns supreme! Glory Hallelujah! Amen!

As for Tim Tebow, he's doing quite well for himself. Thank you!

He's getting his few million dollars per year for chasing a ball around, and he's probably got his free Hummer by now, without having to rape somebody to get it, so, I guess he's one of the good guys since he's not a bully, like so many other jocks.

I'll grant him that much. OK?

Also, he gets to chomp down on a tall stack of T-bone and Sirloin stakes 10 feet high every day, so, he's got it made in the shade!

And I thought I was a glutton???

But, he's just another whinny-ass cry-baby who cries boo hoo hoo hoo, when ever, once in a while, God doesn't let him win a game.

Yeah! A "whinny-ass cry-baby" that's what those on the right like to refer to rape victims and the victims of bullying as being, so I got that ol' right-wing jargon down pat, and I'm turning it around and using it right back on them.

And so I say to Time Tebow . . . . .

. . . . . GET OVER IT!

Yeah! Another standard right-wing ol' cliché that I'm turning around to use right back on them.

If the shoe fits . . . . . . . . . . . . .

OK, Tim Tebow may not be a bully, but because of his religious views, he is homophobic, and he supports all the right-wing political causes, so he is the darling of the far right. (kiss kiss)

Recently, a baseball team had come out against bullying, and against the harassment of gay and lesbian teens, after a gay teen had committed suicide after having been bullied and harassed by some other students in his school. They produced a video titled, "It Get's Better" a video with a message to inspire hope for gay and lesbian teens, and all teens who have been bullied.

So, it is a baseball team who is taking the stand against bullying.

Now, someone has urged an NFL football team to also take a stand against bullying, and to produce a football team's version of a video titled "It Get's Better" but so far, no go.

I have received information on this in my E-mails from MoveOn.org since I subscribe to their Newsletter, and this morning I signed an online petition urging that an NFL football team also take a stand against bullying and produce their own football version of an "It Get's Better" video.

It will probably be another day or so before I find out the result of all the petition signatures.

But, if a baseball team is willing to take a stand against bullying, then why can't a football team do the same? Right???

Well, if any football team does join in taking a stand against bullying, I seriously doubt if it will be the same team that Tim Tebow is on. It will have to be some other NFL team, I guess. (Yeah! We'll see!)

OK, here is another article I found at MEDIAMATTERS FOR AMERICA
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107300001

MEDIAMATTERS
FOR AMERICA



Google Search Easily Debunks Fox's Claim Of
Anti-Christian Media "Bias"
July 30, 2011 4:59 pm ET by Andy Newbold

According to Fox News, the media is inflicted with an anti-Christian and/or pro-Muslim bias. Their evidence? "The mainstream media hammered the fact that the Norway shooter is a Christian, but they seem to be ignoring the fact that the Fort Hood copycat is a Muslim," said Fox host Clayton Morris today, in reference to Naser Jason Abdo, the soldier recently charged with planning an attack on Fort Hood.

Fox not only claimed that news outlets are "ignoring" Abdo's religious faith, but that they are actually "hiding the fact" that he is Muslim. Fox also hosted Tim Groseclose, author of "Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind," to discuss this alleged media bias, which Groseclose attributed to "political correctness," adding: "It's not in vogue to be Christian... but it is somewhat in vogue to be sympathetic to Muslims among the far left."

Here's the problem: I couldn't find a single mainstream media outlet that is "leaving out" the fact that Abdo is Muslim ... unless these are not the mainstream media: New York Times, Associated Press, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS.

That's right. Fox just made it up. Apparently the opportunity to combine two of Fox's favorite narratives -- the persecution of Christianity and liberal media bias - was too good to let the facts intervene.

Last week on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart noticed that Fox News responded to the recent Norway shootings with claims of media persecution against Christians. Stewart pointed out that Fox News is quick to distinguish violence in the name of a religion from those who practice that religion--as long as that religion is not Islam:

So, the "liberal" media did NOT fail to mention that Naser Jason Abdo, the guy who did the shooting at Fort Hood, was a Muslim. The fact that he is a Muslim was made very clear by the "liberal" media. I have heard it very clearly in the NEWS broadcasts and I have read it in NEWS articles online.

So, the "Liberal" media has mentioned the religious affiliations of BOTH the Fort Hood shooter, Naser Jason Abdo, a Muslim, AND of the Norway shooter, Anders Behring Breivik, a Christian, hardly what I would call a bias among the "liberal" media.

Either the News staff at FOX NEWS need lessons in reading comprehension, or else, they need to clean the shit out of their ears when listening to broadcasts from the "liberal" media. I would say the latter rather than the former, because getting them to improve their reading comprehension is a lost cause, since most of the staff at FOX NEWS are semi-literate swine with shit-for-brains, in which case, cleaning the shit out of their ears is also a lost cause!

Of course, it can be argued, that Anders Behring Breivik is not a true Christian, but only somebody who claimed to be a Christian.

But by the same reasoning, it can also be argued, that Naser Jason Abdo is not a true Muslim, but only somebody who claimed to be a Muslim.

Oh! But according to FOX NEWS, Anders Behring Breivik is not a true Christian because he's a terrorist, while Naser Jason Abdo because he's a terrorist, he's a true Muslim.

Sorry FOX NEWS, but you can't have it both ways!

Either they are BOTH true to their religions, or they BOTH are not!

You can't say that all true Christians are not terrorists while all true Muslims are terrorists.

Most Muslims are not terrorists, just like most Christians are not terrorists.

Although I don't believe in either religion, I give them both the benefit of the doubt.

In the past, on these forums, I have been accused of attacking Christians in general, when I have tried over and over again to emphasize, that I'm not down on all Christians, but that I'm only down on the extremists.

It's people like Pat Robertson, and all those other tele-phony evangelists on the boob tube that I refer to as Christard Funny-mentalists.

Also, the News staff at FOX NEWS are all lying shit-bags, and Bill O'Reily is the biggest lying sack of shit of them all. I don't even believe him when he says good morning!

Sorry again FOX NEWS but . . . . .

YOU STILL FAIL!!!

[Earl]

Thank you, Fat Man and Huge Fan, for your responses to my OP. I appreciate your posts. Both of you have expressed your views without ranting. This may surprise you, but I'm in agreement with many of your points.

I should point out that I'm not a fan of Fox News. I'm not opposed to their existence, as I think diversity among news media outlets is politically healthy. But I stopped watching Fox News a long time ago (except on rare occasions, such as when I'm away from home staying by myself in a hotel) because they promote political conservatism without acknowledging any of conservatism's wrongs. Yes, liberal networks have their own bias. For me that's beside the point because I gave up on politics (at least those of the U.S.) a long time ago.

As a Christian I find the notion of a football player (high-school, college, or professional) praying that his team win in the game in which he is participating to be rather crass. What if there are believers on both teams? But really it's more than that. The whole idea that a believer would pray that his team win the game ... it's so trivial.

I understand how a player would long for his team to win, and I do respect the feelings of players. But I don't believe that God cares about the outcome of a ball game of any kind. In fact, when I hear of a player praying to God that his team win, I feel like screaming.

My own view is that God is not magic in a box. That is demeaning to Him. Yes, I believe that God answers prayer; but the answer may be a long time coming, or it might be "NO." Some (actually, way too many) turn God into their servant. ("I was about to be late to a business appointment downtown, but the Holy Spirit saved me a parking space.") This is an outrageous attitude for a believer to have.

What a devout football player should pray for is that none of the players (including those of the other team!) not be seriously injured or that God helps him to play to the best of his ability. This is the sort of prayer that a football player should make, regardless of his faith, period.

Regarding religious persecution or harassment, my position may surprise you: I believe very strongly in the rights of minority groups, even those who practice a religion with which I disagree or, for that matter, the right to not have any beliefs at all. What I'm saying is that I'm opposed to discrimination against agnostics and atheists. I'm opposed to anyone being mistreated. My heart's always bled for those who have suffered discrimination of any sort. I would be unalterably opposed to a "Christian theocracy." The kingdom of God in the New Testament is a spiritual one, not a political institution. Under a "Christian theocracy" I'd likely to be among the first to be persecuted because I would object to their doctrinal teaching. But the main point is that I've always been in favor of human rights. After all, I grew up under Jim Crow in the U.S. and saw how terrible it was.

I copied and pasted the Fox News article because I was disgusted by the other player mocking Tebow's faith. But there may be more than one side to this story. Some evangelicals can be quite irritating. I'll give an example from my own past experience:

When I was an eighth grader in junior high, there was an evangelical named Andy Irwin. (That's his real name. I know it's extremely unlikely that he would, but I've mentioned his name just in case he reads this.) I have to briefly describe what was going on in my life at that time. I was suffering from a form of chronic depression and didn't even realize it at the time. I frequently was picked on at the school and had only two friends there. The depression was not caused by the bullying, by the way. It had another cause, which I shall not mention here. The point is that I was already suffering emotional pain and didn't need to needlessly put up with any nonsense.

I had just read The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells and was carrying a paperback copy of the sci-fi classic that I brought to my English class.

Andy was sitting next to me in the classroom. He had never spoken to me before. This fact needs to be pointed out in light of what happened.

He noticed my paperback copy of the Wells novel and nearly went ballistic. He also shouted "What are you reading that for? Didn't you know that H.G. Wells was an atheist?" Remember, he had never spoken to me before. Not so much as a "Hi, how are you?" to acknowledge my presence. But the fact that I had an H.G. Wells paperback was sufficient cause for him to start berating me.

Being an ignorant 14-year-old, I didn't even know what the word "atheist" meant. Erwin was rather presumptious, assuming that I had ever heard the word.

But he turned out to be the one who was ignorant! If he had bothered reading the novel, he would have read that the narrator of the story gave credit to God for the eventual defeat of the Martians to bacteria "the humblest of creatures which He in His wisdom placed upon the earth." This quotation probably is not correct word for word, but he does give credit to God in his novel.

Wells published The War of the Worlds in 1898. That was five years before he eventually did become an atheist. In his autobiography Wells indicated that he became an atheist in 1903.

So, Andy didn't have his facts straight. Instead of acting like a jerk and being just another unpleasant person I had to deal with at school, Andy could have made an attempt to be friendly; but he made a fool out of himself instead. (Andy, I know it's highly unlikely; but if you're reading this, do you now see what a jerk you were? After that stupid little outburst of yours, I didn't want to have anything to do with you and had no desire to hear anything you might have told me about your faith.) What a jerk! So, perhaps Tim Tebow might be guilty of this sort of clueless behavior that seems to typify more than a few evangelicals.

Sorry my post is so long.

On the other hand, another reason why I've been sympathetic to Tebow is that he contradicts machismo, or at least seems to do so. He's been ridiculed for being a single football player who's also a virgin. There was a "comedy" cable series (whose name I don't remember) about a fictional college football team whose members were a bunch of bed hoppers. I saw a You Tube video from that show in which one of the fictional players, who had been in the practice of publicy urinating on the gridiron, ridiculed Tebow for being a virgin. And I recently saw some stupid sports webpage in which a young woman claimed she was going to try to seduce Tebow into having sex with her. Virginity has become the new scandal now. (For the record, I'm definitely not a virgin, as I've been happily married for over 30 years.)

Anyway, this rambling post should provide a little fodder to keep this thread going.

Again, kudos to Fat Man and HugeFan for excellent posts!

[Lewis]

It doesn't look like he's not harming anyone with his prayer, so I don't see the big deal. However, wouldn't it be better to pray about the poor and the downtrodden instead of a football game?

As for the 'persecution' Fox News documents, like HugeFan said, that's just the Separation of Church and State being enforced. As for the section on Hollywood Values, we are all unique individuals, so it isn't shocking people have different values.

At the end of the day he's a public figure, parody always goes hand in hand with that.

[Fat Man]

I subscribe to TFN Newsletter, the Texas Freedom Network, which I get in my E-mails every day, except on weekends.

Anyway, here's is a link to an article in a recent Newsletter from TFN.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7369021/fair-game

Tebow's Religion: Fair Game
And when we're done talking about that, let's discuss how he becomes a better quarterback than Andy Dalton

By Charles P. Pierce POSTED DECEMBER 19, 2011



I don't know what this means in the grand theological scheme of things, but the best play Tim Tebow made yesterday came in the third quarter, when his athleticism and his brains kept him from looking foolish on SportsCenter replays from now until the final trumpet sounds. With Denver already far behind New England, the Broncos had the ball on their own 2-yard line. New England's Brandon Deaderick got in clean and had Tebow wrapped up for an obvious safety, but Tebow fought him off and got free, dropping the ball in the process. He picked it up and circled deeper into the end zone with a couple of Patriots still in pursuit. They had open shots at him, too, but they couldn't bring him down, and Tebow still had enough left to throw a pass across his body with enough ginger on it that he avoided an intentional grounding penalty.

That was his best moment. Through a combination of athleticism and intelligence, he avoided a safety and he avoided a penalty. Otherwise, his team might have lost 43-23. Nevertheless, it was the most exciting play for no gain that I've ever seen.

(As such, it goes on the list with something I saw the late Steve McNair do in college. By an odd set of circumstances, I happened to be in Mississippi the day McNair played against what was then called Troy State in his last game at Alcorn. Midway through the game, McNair got flushed from the pocket, circled back about 30 yards, juked and faked his way through virtually the entire Troy defense, and then, at the end of the play, jumped over some dude for a 1-yard gain that was the greatest 1-yard gain I've ever seen. Now I have my greatest no-gain play to join it. I'm thinking of compiling a life list.)

Reading someone else's mind, and then committing your thoughts on what they're thinking to print, is always a mug's game, but I don't think I'm out of line in believing that it was something of a relief to Tebow yesterday to discover that all he really has established in his career is that he's a inexperienced quarterback, albeit one with unique athletic skills and the throwing motion that Tim Robbins displayed in Bull Durham, who has far, far more to learn than he already knows. He does not yet play the position well enough to lead his team to a victory from behind against a really good team. (Note: Neither does Mark Sanchez.) My old friend Tony Kornheiser this week called Tebow "the most compelling athlete in America" and compared him to Magic Johnson. All I can say is that Mr. Tony is becoming easily compelled in his old age. (I may try to steal his wallet by e-mail.) In fact, and as was demonstrated yesterday, Tebow's got more in common with Andy Dalton than he does with either Magic Johnson or St. John Chrysostom. And so we come to today's reading, from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter One, Verses 35-38:

"Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: 'Everyone is looking for you!' Jesus replied, 'Let us go somewhere else â?? to the nearby villages â?? so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.'"

In other words, sooner or later, everyone gets tired of his own hype.

He was not the reason Denver lost 41-23 yesterday, although his inexcusable second-quarter open-field fumble helped open the floodgates. The Broncos defense picked a bad day to stop being the 1985 Chicago Bears. Tom Brady sliced and diced them for 27 straight points after Denver had started so well. Brady's primary weapon was tight end Aaron Hernandez, who used to help Tebow provide Christian witness by stomping all over the rest of the SEC. With Denver geared to stop Rob Gronkowski, the other gifted young New England tight end, Hernandez had his best day as a pro â?? nine catches for 129 yards and a touchdown. There are a dozen good reasons why Denver is not as good a football team as New England, and the relative abilities of their respective quarterbacks is right at the top of the list. Tom Brady can control an entire game. The available evidence indicates that Tim Tebow can control a game just well enough to put his kicker in position to nail one from 59 yards to tie a team that yesterday lost by 24 points to the Seattle Seahawks. Compelling? Not as a player. Not yet.

But, of course, that was not what the past week was about, either. Tim Tebow became "compelling" because he became a character in the great national dumbshow that is our culture war. And we should be very clear about one thing â?? he wasn't dragooned into this. Nobody drafted him. He walked into this role with his eyes open. Before he ever took a snap in the NFL, he appeared in an anti-choice television ad with his mother that was sponsored by Focus on the Family, an influential anti-choice, anti-gay-rights organization founded by the Rev. James Dobson. He knew what he was doing.

(Added historical curiosity: Dobson was playing in the pickup basketball game during which Pistol Pete Maravich was stricken and died. Strike two.)

Which made a lot of the chin-stroking about Tebow's religion over the past weeks pretty much beside the point. It has been argued paradoxically that his faith is both vital to his success and off-limits to criticism. This is, of course, nonsense. He put his business in the street that way, and he did so by allying himself with the softer side of a movement that contains other organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which knows about this stuff, recently designated as hate groups. There was considerable thumb-sucking about the propriety of criticizing â?? or, gloriosky, perhaps even mocking â?? Tebow's conspicuous religiosity. This was an ironical moment in that it came in the week that journalist Christopher Hitchens died, and it was Hitchens whom I first heard say, although he may have been quoting someone else, that the only proper answer a journalist can give to the question "Is nothing sacred?" is "Yes."

Of course, you can mock public religiosity. You can treat it with scorn and disdain. You can put a rubber nose and clown shoes on it. That's a proud American tradition. Read Mencken. Read Mark Twain. Hell, read James Madison, never known in his day as a comic stylist, although he was said to have been great fun in small groups, and he did get the Gisele Bundchen of 19th-century political wives to marry him. Start him up on public religion, though, and the little guy was on fire:

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

Let us be quite clear â?? Tim Tebow adheres to a particular form of American Protestantism. He belongs to â?? and proselytizes for â?? a splinter of a splinter, no more or less than Mitt Romney once did. This particular splinter has a long record in America of fostering anti-Enlightenment thought, retrograde social policies, and, more discreetly, religious bigotry. To call Tim Tebow a "Christian," and to leave it at that â?? as though there were one definition of what a "Christian" is â?? is to say nothing and everything at once. Roman Catholics are Christians. So are Lutherans, Episcopalians, Melkites, Maronites, and members of the Greek and Russian Orthodox faiths. You can see how insidious this is when discussion turns to the missionary work that Tebow's family has done in the Philippines. This is from the Five Priorities of the Bob Tebow ministries, regarding its work overseas:

It is the goal of the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association to preach the gospel to every person who has never had an opportunity to hear the good news of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Most of the world's population has never once had the opportunity to hear the only true message of forgiveness of sins by faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

It so happens that 95 percent of the population of the Philippines is Roman Catholic. Catholic doctrine just happens to be in conflict with what Bob Tebow and his son preach in regard to personal salvation. (To devout Catholics, for example, sins are not forgiven "by faith alone," but through the sacrament of reconciliation as administered by a priest.) Bob Tebow's goal is not to convert unbelievers. It is to supplant an existing form of Christianity. So who's the actual Christian here? This is not an idle point to be made. Down through history, millions of people have died in conflicts over what a "Christian" really is, which is what so exercised Madison, and also what brought down a lot of Hitchens' wrath upon religion in general. History says that as soon as you start talking about "the only true message" in this regard, you guarantee that, eventually, people will get slaughtered in the town square.

Earlier this week, some kids were suspended at a high school on Long Island for "Tebowing" â?? dropping to one knee in prayerful contemplation â?? in the hallways. Asked for his reaction, Tebow replied, "You have to respect the position of authority and people that God has put in authority over you, so that's part of it. But I think it does show courage from the kids, standing out and doing that, and some boldness."

First of all, God is involving Himself in how they select principals to run the high schools on Long Island? That's a bear of an interview process right there. And you will note the obvious passive-aggressiveness in the second part of the answer. Obey your principal because God got him the job, but, damn, these kids are brave in their faith to defy the principal's authority and, by extension of the first point, God's. This is childish. It is silly. And it also makes my head hurt.

If we're going to have a real discussion about the place of public religion in our public spectacles, then let's have one instead of some mushy, Wonder Bread platitudes about how great it is that Tim Tebow talks about Jesus and doesn't get caught doing strippers two at a time in the hot tub. If religion comes into the public square, it is as vulnerable as any other human institution to be pelted with produce. Ignorance does not become wisdom just because you gussy it up with the Gospels. If we keep faith with those American values, then we might just let him off the hook enough to see if he simply can become a better quarterback than Andy Dalton.

Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for Grantland and the author of Idiot America. He writes regularly for Esquire , is the lead writer for Esquire.com's Politics blog, and is a frequent guest on NPR.

Yeah! So, our dear friend, Mr. Tim Tebow, is involved in right-wing extremist groups.

He put his business in the street that way, and he did so by allying himself with the softer side of a movement that contains other organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which knows about this stuff, recently designated as hate groups.

And also . . . . .

Nobody drafted him. He walked into this role with his eyes open. Before he ever took a snap in the NFL, he appeared in an anti-choice television ad with his mother that was sponsored by Focus on the Family, an influential anti-choice, anti-gay-rights organization founded by the Rev. James Dobson. He knew what he was doing.

And finally . . . . .

He belongs to â?? and proselytizes for â?? a splinter of a splinter, no more or less than Mitt Romney once did. This particular splinter has a long record in America of fostering anti-Enlightenment thought, retrograde social policies, and, more discreetly, religious bigotry.

So, again, our dear sweet Mr. Tim Tibow is not exactly a nice boy! Isn't he! Eh?

He probably also fosters an anti-science attitude as well.

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn one of these days, that when Tim Tebow was in high school, he probably harassed the science nerds and techno-geeks in his school, telling them that they were going to Hell if they believe in Darwins theory of Evolution!

Yeah! Uh huh! That's what America needs right now! Some more jock-bully Bible-thumping Fundamentalists in or schools harassing the science students.

Sweet!

Anyway . . . . .

While reading this article link in my E-mail from the Texas Freedom Network, I found a link to a more or less related article about the recent Penn State scandal, also published by the same author, By Charles P. Pierce.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/723 ... penn-state

The Brutal Truth About Penn State

The problem can't be solved by prayer or piety â?? and it's far more widespread than we think

By Charles P. Pierce POSTED NOVEMBER 14, 2011



"But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father â?¦"

â?? Matthew, Chapter 6

It was midway through the pregame prayer session that the gorge hit high tide. There is always something a little nauseating in large spectacles of conspicuous public piety, but watching everyone on the field take a knee before the Penn State-Nebraska game, and listening to the commentary about how devoutly everybody was praying for the victims at Penn State, was enough to get me reaching for a bucket and a Bible all at once. It was as though the players and coaches had devised some sort of new training regimen to get past the awful reality of what had happened. Prayer as a new form of two-a-days. Jesus is my strength coach. Contrition in the context of a football game seemed almost obscene in its obvious vanity.

So, when the feeling had subsided somewhat, I dropped by the sixth chapter of Matthew, and then I went on to the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, who warned his people:

For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

And I felt better, but not much. There is solace in Scripture, but there are also too many places where the guilty and the morally obtuse can hide.

The crimes at Penn State are about the raping of children. That is all they are about. The crimes at Penn State are about the raping of children by Jerry Sandusky, and the possibility that people lied to a grand jury about the raping of children by Jerry Sandusky, and the likelihood that most of the people who had the authority at Penn State to stop the raping of children by Jerry Sandusky proved themselves to have the moral backbone of ribbon worms.

It no longer matters if there continues to be a football program at Penn State. It no longer even matters if there continues to be a university there at all. All of these considerations are trivial by comparison to what went on in and around the Penn State football program.

(Those people who will pass this off as an overreaction would do well to remember that the Roman Catholic Church is reckoned to be a far more durable institution than even Penn State University is, and the Church has spent the past decade or so selling off its various franchise properties all over the world to pay off the tsunami of civil judgments resulting from the raping of children, a cascade that shows no signs of abating anytime soon.)

There will now be a decade or more of criminal trials, and perhaps a quarter-century or more of civil actions, as a result of what went on at Penn State. These things cannot be prayed away. Let us hear nothing about "closure" or about "moving on." And God help us, let us not hear a single mumbling word about how football can help the university "heal." (Lord, let the Alamo Bowl be an instrument of your peace.) This wound should be left open and gaping and raw until the very last of the children that Jerry Sandusky is accused of raping somehow gets whatever modicum of peace and retribution can possibly be granted to him. This wound should be left open and gaping and raw in the bright sunlight where everybody can see it, for years and years and years, until the raped children themselves decide that justice has been done. When they're done healing â?? if they're ever done healing â?? then they and their families can give Penn State permission to start.

If that blights Joe Paterno's declining years, that's too bad. If that takes a chunk out of the endowment, hold a damn bake sale. If that means that Penn State spends some time being known as the university where a child got raped, that's what happens when you're a university where a child got raped. Any sympathy for this institution went down the drain in the shower room in the Lasch Building. There's nothing that can happen to the university, or to the people sunk up to their eyeballs in this incredible moral quagmire, that's worse than what happened to the children who got raped at Penn State. Good Lord, people, get up off your knees and get over yourselves.

There is something to be said, however, for looking at how it happened. Which is not the same thing as trying to figure out how it "could" have happened. The wonder is that it doesn't happen more often.

(How many football coaches out there work with "at-risk" kids? How many shoes are there still to drop? Unfair? Ask one Bernard Law, once cardinal archbishop of Boston, if you can pry him out of his current position at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Clean Getaway in Rome.)

It happens because institutions lie. And today, our major institutions lie because of a culture in which loyalty to "the company," and protection of "the brand" â?? that noxious business-school shibboleth that turns employees into brain-locked elements of sales and marketing campaigns â?? trumps conventional morality, traditional ethics, civil liberties, and even adherence to the rule of law. It is better to protect "the brand" than it is to protect free speech, the right to privacy, or even to protect children.

If Mike McQueary had seen a child being raped in a boardroom or a storeroom, he wouldn't have been any more likely to have stopped it, or to have called the cops, than he was as a graduate assistant football coach at Penn State. With unemployment edging toward double digits, and only about 10 percent of the workforce unionized, every American who works for a major company knows the penalty for exercising his personal freedom, or his personal morality, at the expense of "the company." Independent thought is discouraged. Independent action is usually crushed. Nobody wants to damage the brand. Your supervisor might find out, and his primary loyalty is to the company. Which is why he got promoted to be your supervisor in the first place.

Further, the institutions of college athletics exist primarily as unreality fueled by deceit. The unreality is that universities should be in the business of providing large spectacles of mass entertainment. The fundamental absurdity of that notion requires the promulgation of the various deceits necessary to carry it out. The "student-athlete," just to name one. "Amateurism," just to name another. Of course, people involved in Penn State football allegedly deceived people when it became plain that children had been raped within the program's facilities by one of the program's employees. It was simply one more lie to maintain the preposterously lucrative unreality of college athletics. And to think, the players at Ohio State became pariahs because of tattoos and memorabilia sales.

By an order of magnitude, the Penn State child-raping scandal is miles beyond anything that ever happened with the Ohio State football team over the past five years, miles beyond anything that happened with the SMU football team in the 1980s, and miles beyond anything that happened with the point-shaving scandals in college basketball. It is not a failure of our institutions so much as it is a window into what they have become â?? soulless, profit-driven monsters, Darwinian predators with precious little humanity left in them. Penn State is only the most recent example. Too much of this country is too big to fail.

On July 20, Enda Kenny, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, rose before the Dail Eireann and excoriated the Vatican and the institutional Roman Catholic Church for the horrors inflicted on generations of Irish children, horrors that they both committed and condoned. This was an act of considerable political courage for Kenny. The influence of the Church had been a deadweight on Irish politics and the secular government since the country first gained its freedom in the 1920s.

Nevertheless, Kenny said:

"Thankfully â?¦ this is not Rome. Nor is it industrial school or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the Irish-Catholic world. This is the Republic of Ireland, 2011. A Republic of laws â?¦ of rights and responsibilities â?¦ of proper civic order â?¦ where the delinquency and arrogance of a particular kind of 'morality' will no longer be tolerated or ignored â?¦ as taoiseach, I am making it absolutely clear that, when it comes to the protection of the children of this state, the standards of conduct which the Church deems appropriate to itself cannot, and will not, be applied to the workings of democracy and civil society in this Republic."

He did not drop to his knees. He did not ask for a moment of silence. He did not seek "closure" but, rather, he demanded the hard and bitter truth of it, and he demanded it from men steeped in deceit from their purple carpet slippers to their red beanies. Enda Kenny did not look to bind up wounds before they could be cleansed. And that is the only way to talk about what happens after the raping of children.

Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for Grantland and the author of Idiot America. He writes regularly for Esquire , is the lead writer for Esquire.com's Politics blog, and is a frequent guest on NPR.

Yeah! Sorry, but we can't just pray this away!

I think it's rather hypocritical for the jock-boys at Penn State to pray for the child victims who were sexually molested, when the sports culture itself, and the jock-boys who are fully immersed in said sports culture, are primarily responsible for the rapes at Penn State.

No, instead, the jock-boys should get down on their knees, in private, as it says in Matthew, Chapter 6, and pray for their own rotten miserable worthless little souls!

Of course, since I'm not a Christian, I don't think that would do them any good!

No, what they need is to go from Penn State, to the state pen, and be locked up somewhere so far away they won't be able to hear the dogs barking!

Yeah! Confess, and ye shall be saved . . . . . IN PRISON!!!

End of story!


Yeah! I really think this looks so fucking retarded!

Also, I seriously doubt that these morons are praying for the rape victims, and certainly not for the salvation of their own miserable rotten slimey little souls. No, they're paying something like . . . Oh please! Dear God! Please don't allow our sports programs at Penn State to be shut down, and please, don't allow funding for our football programs to be cut back!

Yeah! That's probably what they're really praying for.

And furthermore . . . I really don't think that Tim Tebow actually came under attack, as implied by those lying shit-bags in the FOX NEWS article at the top of this forum topic. Perhaps a little teasing, and ribbing from some fellow team mates, but no really serious attacks or persecution.

I say that, because all those football players as shown in the above Penn State photo sure got religion real fast! Eh?

Anyway . . . . .

In the meantime, I think that I shall order the book IDIOT AMERICA by Charles P. Pierce.

IDIOT AMERICA!



This should prove to be an interesting read.

Actually, I really don't give a flying fucking Hootenanny in Hell about poor little Timmy Tebow! Aw! Poor baby! He's been so persecuted!

HEY, THE FUCKER IS LUCKY! He's a true red white and blue American citizen, and he has more rights than I have.

Yeah! That's right!

According to former President Bush, I'm not to be considered as an American citizen because I'm not a Christian!

SO, FUCK TIMMY TEABLOWJOB! He's doing just fine for himself. He's got the entire right-wing and all the Republicans backing him up.

While, I'm to be classified as a non-citizen because I'm not a Christian, and I'm un-American because I support science education and evolution in our science classes.

Just like, I'm a Commie because I don't like football, and I'm also a fag because I don't like sports, and now, I'm not even a citizen because I'm not a Christian.

So, fuck Tebow. He's just another boo hoo crybaby because not everybody cares to get in line to lick his boots and sniff his jock strap.

He can go straight to Hell as far as I'm concerned! Fuck him!

[UPDATE AND RE-EDIT] at 5:30 AM, my local time.

My mind is really buzzing tonight, just thinking about all of this.

So, I couldn't sleep.

I have just ordered this book from Barnes & Nobel early this morning at approximately 4:30 AM my local time. I should be getting it within 14 days.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to reading this little gem!

My book COSMOS by Carl Sagan (the one I ordered to replace the one that was badly damaged during my move down from Las Cruces New Mexico to El Paso Texas) came in yesterday and so far I have read the Introduction and two chapters.

When I'm done reading that, I'll be looking forward to reading IDIOT AMERICA by Charles P. Pierce.

I can hardly wait!

[Earl]

I'm now bored with Tim Tebow. ( Surprised? ) Does he have anything to say about bullying, or is this issue beneath his concern? A life that is good and kind impresses me far more than ostentatious religious expression.

[Fat Man]

I'm now bored with Tim Tebow. ( Surprised? ) Does he have anything to say about bullying, or is this issue beneath his concern? A life that is good and kind impresses me far more than ostentatious religious expression.

Yeah! I've been bored with this whole Tim Tebow thing since the last time I had posted in this topic, which was December 22 last year.

I think we should just let this topic die of itself.

The entire episode has been about as exciting as watching paint dry!