Yes, Joseph ("Just For Menstache") Farah has gone beyond mockery, beyond satire, and is now traveling through The Twilight Zone, and by that I mean the zone with the sparkly vampires and the compulsively topless werewolves, not the literate one with the grasp of irony, flair for allegory, and frequent shots of Rod Serling coughing up a lung oyster.
What happens when an evil man is interviewed by a know-nothing interviewer from a corrupt and decadent faux news agency?Karl Rove books another appearance on Hannity?
You need someone like me to sort out the sublime (not much of that) to the ridiculous.While Joseph needs someone with a strong constitution to sort out his nose hair from his mustache before applying the weekly Just For Men, because dying your nasal cilia is contraindicated, according to the manufacturer. As Barbra Streisand so memorably sang, "People...Who need People. Are the luckiest People...in the world" Except for the People who pull proboscis pelt duty on days when Joseph has a salon appointment.
So that’s what we’re going to do. Decipher and decode the Huffington Post’s Q&A with the insufferable Jimmy Carter.Oh good, more of Farah's thoughts on Jimmy Carter. It's like reading Moby Dick, if Ahab had been obsessed with harpooning Clara Peller.
Asked by HuffPost senior religion editor Paul Brandeis about Creation, Carter said: “I happen to have an advantage there because I am a nuclear physicist by training and a deeply committed Christian. I don’t have any doubt in my own mind about God who created the entire universe. But I don’t adhere to passages that so and so was created 4,000 years before Christ, and things of that kind. Today we have shown that the earth and the stars were created millions, even billions, of years before. We are exploring space and sub-atomic particles and learning new facts every day, facts that the Creator has known since the beginning of time.”Above the age of consent, I hope, because it's getting fracked on a daily basis. (And yes, 88-year old man, your failure to properly card Creation is making it extremely difficult to plan a birthday party for the Universe, because we're not sure if it's appropriate to hire a stripper.)
Well, wait a minute! Was it millions of years ago or billions? There’s a big difference between the two. Why so imprecise? That doesn’t sound like a nuclear physicist talking. Just how old is the Earth?
And if the Creator has known all this from the beginning of time, why would He inspire the authors of the Bible to get it wrong?Simple! For just as Candid Camera begat Punk'd, so the Bible begat Candid Camera.
Asked about homosexuality and the Bible, Carter had this to say: “Homosexuality was well-known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born, and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.”Turns out, no -- it was actually a case of identity theft. Jesus was using an ATM card skimmer.
Wait a minute! Isn’t Jesus God?
And didn’t God inspire the Bible?Which part? The first part that contradicts the second part, or the second part that contradicts the first part? And isn't Joseph question begging? And if God is love, and God inspired the men who wrote the Bible, then who wrote the Book of Love?
Just because Jesus isn’t quoted in red letters in the Bible discussing homosexuality, does that mean He never addressed it?I'm sure he covered it in the lost testament, The Gospel of Saint Dorm Room Bull Sessions.
Doesn’t it suggest, on the contrary, that Jesus didn’t dispute the law of the Bible?In that case, I'll bet he's pretty embarrassed about this whole "Christianity" thing that mushroomed after his death. "Jews, people...We're supposed to be Jews! Weren't you listening?"
In fact, wouldn’t His atoning sacrifice on the cross be rendered ineffective if He didn’t uphold the law in its entirety?You, there! Put down that shrimp scampi and start stoning your daughter!
Does Jimmy Carter believe there is disagreement within the Trinity on homosexuality?You tend to get that in any love triangle, especially the one in the 1971 British drama, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, in which the omnisexual Holy Ghost was essayed by Murray Head.
Here’s what the Bible says about homosexuality with no ambiguity:
"Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
Romans 1:24-28: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;”This actually sounds more like the droning monologues the homeless guy who lives in front of the Wax Museum murmurs into his beard when it gets hot, and less like the kind of thing one should base a civil rights policy on.
Of course Jesus never said “gay people should be condemned.” In fact, I don’t know anyone who says that.At most, Joseph's friends merely demand that the Department of Building Safety and City Engineering cite gay people for faulty wiring, substandard plumbing, and serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing members.
What most Bible-believers say is that homosexuals should turn away from their sin – just like adulterers, fornicators and liars should. Further, Jesus does talk very specifically about marriage –...from the perspective of a confirmed bachelor with 12 close male friends.
and he affirms what it is supposed to be in God’s economy: an institution between one man and one woman for life (Mark 10:7-9).Jesus was sweet, but a little naive. But perhaps marriage would work better if we thought of it as a union of two life-minded individuals united in love and commitment, rather than a cog in "God's economy," because that makes it feel more like a tranche.
Carter continues: “I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.”
Arbitrarily? Has Carter ever read the First Amendment? And what about the Bible-believing civil judge?Oh! Oh! I know this one...He's a contradiction in terms? Wait, no -- I want to change my answer! He's bad at his job...?
Should he or she be forced to violate his or her own moral principles by being forced to participate in sin?Just like the registrar at the University of Mississippi when James Meredith tried to sign up for class?
Question: “Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life (John 14:6). How can you remain true to an exclusivist faith claim while respecting other faith traditions?”Question: A train leaves Philadelphia at 1:00 PM, heading west at at 94 miles an hour. An eastbound train leaves Cincinnati at 2:30, traveling at 88 miles an hour. They meet at 9:45 PM, and Gomez Addams blows them up, and it turns out they were toy trains operated by a sitcom character. Discuss.
Carter: “Jesus also taught that we should not judge other people (Matthew 7:1), and that it is God who judges people, so I am willing to let God make those judgments, in the ultimate time whenever it might come. I think ‘judge not that you be not judged’ is the best advice that I will follow. Maybe it is a rationalization, but it creates a lack of tension in my mind about that potential conflict. There are many verses in the Bible that you could interpret very rigidly and that makes you ultimately into a fundamentalist. When you think you are better than anybody else – that you are closer to God than other people, and therefore they are inferior to you and subhuman – that leads to conflict and hatred and dissonance among people when we should be working for peace.”It's cute when self-righteous fundies go on a five state apostate fingering spree. It reminds me of Doghouse Riley's observation (I'm paraphrasing) that you can crack open the phone book in any mid-sized American city and find 431 flavors of the One True Faith.
But that’s not what Christians are commanded to do by Jesus. We are commanded to spread the gospel for the salvation of many. I know this hasn’t been a big part of Jimmy Carter’s life. But it remains the unequivocal, central role of the Christian in the world.
We’re not supposed to just live and let live – because to do that actually means death for those we don’t confront with their sin and the salvation message.Although when you're persistent enough in your proselytizing, they often begin praying for death, so I'd call it a push.
Question: “There is a scripture passage attributed to Jesus, ‘Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth, I did not come to bring peace but a sword’ (Matthew: 10:34). How do you interpret that, in light of your basic belief in Jesus as the Prince of Peace?”Christ was strapped?
This is why I call Jimmy Carter a truly evil person. He still tries to masquerade as a Christian, though his views are increasingly heretical if not those of an apostate.We still have to prove it, though. Okay, we'll need a giant apothecary's scale, and a duck... (By the way, I once masqueraded as a Christian at a Halloween party in college, and I'll be frank -- I totally did not get laid).
Jesus says when judgment day comes, there will be some He turns away, even though they claim to have prophesied in His name.Well, knowing ol' Mr. Lust in His Heart, I bet it's something dirty.
“Depart from me, I never knew you,” Jesus says (Matthew 7:23). I wonder what goes through Carter’s mind when he reads that verse with Rosalyn?
