jeez who woulda thought the standard white jesus and his papa could cause all this hate and stuff?

not necessarily relief, but at least smilingly thought-provoking from the godless front:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/11/20/bernard-porter/come-back-karl/

Apart from the fact that the prayer movement betrays a unique level of viciousness and evil, I do not see any downside to its members' engagement in a futile activity reserved for the ignorant.

Perhaps anyone with one of those bumper stickers or t shirts should get a friendly little visit from the FBI.

Well, Gregor, my concern is that one of these nuts will take it literally and decide to act on the prayer. Especially given that there's so much other scary ignorant rhetoric flying around the air and video waves these days.

Pat Robertson engaged in this several years ago -- during the Bush administration, he prayed and/or exhorted his followers to pray that God would whack a few Supreme Court justices (I think he suggested that God give them cancer), presumably so that their replacements could be named by Bush.

"May his days be few, may another take over his position."

If you want to see what kind of pig Colson is, go read "Nixonland." He may have changed his modus operandi, but tigers never change their stripes. He's still scum.

Well, perhaps there's the slimmest of silver linings in this -- it will make atheism even more attractive to any thinking person!

wingnuts manipulating the Bible for their perverse violent purposes, how Jesus-like of them.

As a Manhattanite, I wish they would have named their declaration the "Kansas City Declaration", or the "Indianapolis Declaration" or, better yet, the "Melbourne (FL) Declaration". We Manhattanites already have a "project" to our names. Another declaration, this time of religious intolerance, is just not acceptable.

on behalf of a certain group of indigenous:
karma, jack, karma...

In all honesty, should Secret Service or the FBI be all over the organizations pushing the Pray for Obama campaign?

People are bring guns to tea bagger events. It boggles my mind that this sort of thing is just being allowed to escalate.

It's just a matter of time before some sort of violent act occurs... against the President, another politician, an OKlahoma city type thing. When it does happen there can't be any shock or dismay or "how could this have happened?" This cancer has to cut out, and that's what it is, a cancer on our society.

I always wonder about people who pray for God to perform a specific action (as opposed to, say, just praying to express gratitude.) The concept, as I see it, is that here is this omniscient, omnipotent being, but you're telling him "Hey! I have a better idea!" I don't get it.

But then again, I don't get most of what these folks do.

In all honesty, should Secret Service or the FBI be all over the organizations pushing the Pray for Obama campaign?

People are bring guns to tea bagger events. It boggles my mind that this sort of thing is just being allowed to escalate.

It's just a matter of time before some sort of violent act occurs... against the President, another politician, an OKlahoma city type thing. When it does happen there can't be any shock or dismay or "how could this have happened?" This cancer has to cut out, and that's what it is, a cancer on our society.

"imprecatory" prayers, which are basically appeals to God to hurt, or possibly kill, a specific target

It just goes to show that religion is nothing but a badge of tribal identity, at least in this country. Much in the way the knuckleheads whining that Obama is somehow violating the Constitution have probably never taken the 45 minutes it takes to actually read that document, it is a relative certainty that those Christians beseeching God to smite their enemies have no idea what is really in the Bible except for what someone has told them. All of these arguments boil down to perceived threats to the dominant culture. The rest is window dressing, especially the religious nonsense.

I was someone else who sent this to you, and I can report that the company which was making the Psalm 109:8 items -- an Internet company which apparently allows people to submit designs and then marketing them -- has, after first defending them and then holding a poll on its site, removed all such materials from sale and apologized for them.

Hopefully no other site or company will 'fill the void,' but I doubt this.

The use of the selected verses of Psalm 109 appear to be another example of projecting one's faults onto an opponent and thus absolving oneself of guilt. Verses 2-5 of Psalm 109 seem to provide a wonderful description of these people.

"For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They compassed (i.e. schemed or plotted against) me about with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause. For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love."

Ther's an old Yiddish proverb that goes something like this: If prayer worked, they'd be hiring people to pray.

I haven't seen anything in my classified ads.

Tell me how the fundamentalist Christians differ from the fundamentalist Muslims.

Right wing Christianist hypocrites always wave the flag and piously claim to be the greatest of patriots, but give them a choice between following a law that protects a despised minority and clinging to their bible-based bigotry, the protestations to be be advocates for law and order immediately goes down the drain. They don't love the law unless it is some superstition-based verse written by a desert mystic who was probably writing under the influence of a sun stroke.

Why is this a "toxic use" of scripture? It seems to be exactly what this Psalm was written for. Why not call it what it is? Appropriate use of scripture.

New idea for tee shirt...

Psalm 109:8 - The song of the Christian Terrorist
& American Jihad

Elizabeth and Saint Zak have hit it. It's easy to laugh at these people and shake your head at the craziness. But a while ago this crossed into territory that should be taken very, very seriously.

This will not end well.

This is certainly a topic worthy of having an entire TWIG devoted to it. The first thing I think of is Steven Weinberg's:

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”

I am amazed at right-wingers' willingness to poison the very same well from which they themselves have to drink.

This will not end well.

Particularly since I imagine if we do a Venn diagram of "People who would actually buy a Psalm 109 T-shirt or sticker" and "People who contributed to the run on guns and ammo after Obama's election" the overlap of the circles is significant.

...Christian leaders? More accurately I think would be Christian theocons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoconservatism

Only 151 christian leaders so far? ...that's it? ... and you expect a million by Dec 1; good luck!

We have an 8 war -- with no end in sight, and substantive questions about it's necessity -- and civilian populations killed by the thousands and what does their moral compass say about that? ...it's jammed! jammed just before Obama is set to raise the stakes.

Note that the loudest of them all, George Weigel, the Catholic mouth-piece for invading Iraq, signed the declaration.

Someone tell me why gay marriage more dangerous than two questionable wars?

I'm a Pagan, and it cracks me up that a bunch of conservative Christians who supposedly abhor witchcraft are engaging in black magic. They can call it prayer if they want, but they're trying to influence the world through non-physical means and directing negative energy towards someone to cause them harm. That's some dark, dark magic, which has a habit of blowing up in your face.

If you read the red-letter parts of the New Testament, I think you'll find that Jesus Himself seems to have thought that divorce is a far worse thing than abortion.

Of course, even assuming that God exists and is what Christians say God is, then God's gonna do whatever God decides to do, regardless of what these hateful prayers say. It isn't as though they could MAKE God do stuff to Obama just by insisting.

"What happens when the same number of people pray for something as pray against it? How does God decide whose prayer to answer? Does the total number of people praying for or against something matter? How about the righteousness of the supplicants? Are positive prayers answered more frequently than negative ones? Does God take the positive ones and Satan the negative? Does the intensity of the praying have any effect on the outcome? Does the length of time one devotes to praying have any effect on the frequency with which one's prayers are answered? Do the words and phrases used in the prayer -- either positive or negative -- have any bearing on the success rate? Does the nature of the thing or things prayed for have any bearing on the prayer's success rate -- either positive or negative prayers? Why or why not??" -Robert A. Baker, Prayer Wars (Full article here: http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/prayer_wars/)

@ wbn
Tell me how the fundamentalist Christians differ from the fundamentalist Muslims.

The Muslims don't eat pork.

Besides Jim in Raleigh's quotation of verses 2-5 to set the context of Psalm 109, we should also note that in verses 15 & 16, the enemy condemned is also God's enemy, "Let the Lord always remember their sin and erase their memory from the earth; because they did not remember to show mercy, but hounded to death the poor, the needy, and the brokenhearted." [Lutheran Book of Worship translation] Verse 15 is particularly difficult to translate as it refers to the sins of the enemy's ancestors (plural) and his (singular) memory. But what is very clear is the reason for condemnation: they did not remember to show mercy, but hounded to death the poor, the needy, and the brokenhearted. Doesn't seem to fit Obama. More likely to fit those who put the Psalm 109:8 bumper sticker on the cars. I really don't want a "Prayer for Republicans -- Psalm 109:15&16" bumper sticker, but it is tempting.

"They can call it prayer if they want, but they're trying to influence the world through non-physical means and directing negative energy towards someone to cause them harm."

Posted by: FoxinSocks at 1:01 PM

Ditto. This "imprecatory" prayer ca-ca comes out of the same black, bubbling cauldron as spells, incantations and curses. They might as well be selling dolls with stick pins which would fit nicely with the new fad of burning folks in effigy.

These people haven't gotten past black cats and powdered salamander made powerful with a single drop of blood and whatever other voodoo/zombie BS that will smite their enemies by displaying their ignorant conjuring on a t-shirt or teddy bear.

Dog whistle? I don't think so. Dog's are smarter than that. They don't listen to this shit. Only mindless humans without a clue how to think for themselves respond to such junk.

"Tell me how the fundamentalist Christians differ from the fundamentalist Muslims."

Um ... they eat pork?

"Why is this a "toxic use" of scripture? It seems to be exactly what this Psalm was written for. Why not call it what it is? Appropriate use of scripture. "

I just love how "Christians" ignore that Jesus basically said he came to correct scripture. Said that following HIM was the only way to get to heaven, and that God was LOVE.

Trying to reconcile the "Good News" of the Gospel with all the mean and nasty stuff of the "Old Testament" has twisted Christians into knots since the Council of Nicea.

I see efgoldman beat me to it.

I apologize for posting before reading through the comments.

So these folks say they're praying for bad things to happen to Obama and others? Blow them off if they claim to be Christians. They are worshiping their own devil. God = Love, Devil = Hate.

Christ said to love your enemies. These folks need to reread their bibles. Strike that: these people need to read a Christian bible. And apologize to any Christians that hear their heathen nonsense.

"...they will not cooperate with laws they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same sex-couples." quoted by Steve Benen.

So, rather than recognize same-sex couples, these groups will voluntarily shut down their charities, hospitals and schools? Sell off their real estate ownings and investments? Or are they going to try for public sympathy by claiming their "religious convictions"? My guess is the latter. Pity, as the first option would be better by far for this country.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems the more you suggest that the right is "frightening", the more backslapping goes on among them, because that's exactly what they're trying to do. Scare you. Republicans are only opposed to terrorism as a political tool when brown folks from sandy countries do it.

What the right is is ridiculous. I doubt they can remember back when people who disagreed with the president weren't even allowed on the same street where he was speaking, but had to herd together in "protest compounds" far from the scene. I don't know where law enforcement is on this issue, but I guess if the righties get a pass on this, it's OK for me to wear my, "Hope You Choke On That Hush Puppy, You Republican Piece Of Shit" T-Shirt anywhere I like.

a look at some of these leaders:

48. Steven Garofalo
Senior Consultant, Search and Assessment Services (Charlotte, N.C.)

109. Bob Reccord
Founder, Total Life Impact, Inc. (Suwanee, Ga.)

113. Tricia Scribner
Author (Harrisburg, N.C.)

133. Juan Valdes
Middle and High School Chaplain, Florida Christian School (Miami, Fla.)

142. Parker T. Williamson
Editor Emeritus and Senior Correspondent, Presbyterian Lay Committee

145.Don M. Woodside
Performance Matters Associates (Matthews, N.C.)

next on the list: deacons, elders, youth group leaders...

Isn't it in the bible that Jesus said that if a man looks at a woman with "lust in his heart" then it's the same as committing adultery with her.

Does that logic transfer to murder in his heart too?

If you were god couldn't you come up with a better plan than what the world's religions claim. Something better than a massive land grab filled with violence and terror? Laughable to assume this God of the Bible is that stupid. Spirituality I can understand but these religions have a justification for anything they want to do.

I want these people exposed...I want names and addresses for those who put out psalm killer teddy bears and bumper stickers.

Since Obama's acceptance speech wasn't rained out as prayed for has it ever occurred to these idiots that God is on Obama's side...that he supported his election. Put that bumper sticker out..."God is on Obama's Side...you should be to". Or "God made sure Obama won".

Psalm 40:15:

“Put to shame and confound all who seek to take my life. Turn back in disgrace those who desire my ruin.”

It's isn't voodoo, it's a THREAT. Anyone saying evil prayers have no effect needs to ask Dr. Tiller's widow about that.
We don't have to worry about their stupid superstition causing people harm, the religious right have repeatedly, and repeatedly demonstrated they will fulfill their own violent prayers.

As Jim in Raleigh and LeeRupert have pointed out, the psalm points less to the president than at the Christian Right. A couple more snippets from later in the text (JPS 1917 trans.):

v17 Yea, he loved cursing, and it came unto him; and he delighted not in blessing, and it is far from him.
18 He clothed himself also with cursing as with his raiment, and it is come into his inward parts like water, and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment which he putteth on, and for the girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
...
v28 Let them curse, but bless Thou; when they arise, they shall be put to shame, but Thy servant shall rejoice.
29 Mine adversaries shall be clothed with confusion, and shall put on their own shame as a robe.

If the robe fits, let the Christian Right wear it. But ah, they already are.

As an educated Christian and a Presbyterian minister, I am appalled at this prayer against Obama. In response, I just said a prayer for him, for long life, for success in all he undertakes, for a blessing on his wife and children.

I used to pray for Bush, too, not because I agreed with him (I didn't, in just about every respect), but because he needed all the help he could get not to screw the country up even more.

I am ashamed of right wingers who masquerade as Christians. They obviously have no clue what Christianity is all about and are using it for power and money and hatred. I apologize to America on behalf of all the non-crazy Christians out there (and there are many of us). Sorry, folks. We're not all wingnuts.

I wish people would pay as much attention to the
words of the radical muslims they guys mean what they say but we ignore it hence Fort Hood. Wake up people to the important issues facing us. They want to vaporize us..Focus on the real enemy we are in serious trouble. They are amoung us and
want us dead...