Those of who who read TPM might have heard about the novel argument for the death penalty made by Wyoming State Legislator Lynn Hutchings (R-Cheyenne), but wait, hold her beer. First, for those who missed it, her Jesus-based reason for the death penalty:
“The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty for you and me,” she said. “I’m grateful to him for our future hope because of this. Governments were instituted to execute justice. If it wasn’t for Jesus dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope.”
Second, what she told some LGBTQ high school students while discussing a workplace protection bill for LGBTQ employees:
The students wanted Hutchings, their district representative, to support the bill, according to the complaint letter.
According to the complaint, she responded by saying: “If my sexual orientation was to have sex with all of the men in there and I had sex with all of the women in there and then they brought their children and I had sex with all of them and then brought their dogs in and I had sex with them, should I be protected for my sexual orientation?”
Line up the 100 biggest assholes in the country and the first 25 will be state legislators.
(h/t to a long-suffering Wyoming reader)
Roger Moore
From the state that lynched Matthew Shepard.
jl
The apparent historical fact that the Romans executed the historical Jesus for encouraging political insurrection, or in order to fulfill divine prophecy and plan, or whatever argument you want to make, is an argument for states keeping the death penalty?
I looked at the link in hopes of at least a Bible verse but fond nothing.. Sola scriptura is supposed to be the Protestant motto -though I don’t know Latin so don’t know if I remember the phrase correctly.
So, Romans executed Jesus, therefore death penalty is good? That’s it?
Edit: we should go out and look for the greatest people on earth and execute them? By crucifixion? That was later improved by breaking on the wheel, is that a godless and superfluous bell and whistle? But Christian Europeans loved to execute people that way.
Sorry, I don’t mean to appear stupid, but I don’t quite follow.
Yarrow
This is so ridiculous in so many ways.
@jl: Pontius Pilate was a hero!
Kent
I grew up in a pretty religious family. But using the bible to justify the death penalty is a new one, even for me. The sheer venal stupidity that seeps out of red state legislatures is truly astonishing. And I say that as someone who has lived in both Texas and Alaska which both seem to compete for the worst and most venal state reps. Although it looks like WY is gaining ground.
Yarrow
@jl: You’re overthinking it. It’s more that if death by execution was good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for us now.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
I never seem to lose my ability to be horrified by what R’s seem to spout so I guess that’s a good thing; I’m not desensitized yet.
Fuck, she doesn’t understand what sexual orientation is or the concept of consent and who/what can give it. I can’t believe she actually said that to those students. Who the fuck does think she is? Those are kids!
That Jesus quote is also real fucking precious. She’s celebrating the Roman government executing her “savior” for being an enemy of the state. I won’t even get into how nonsensical the “Jesus Died to Save Us from the Original Sin” thing actually is.
Suffice it say, I think it’s disgusting and hypocritical of her to advocate for the death penalty in any way. Dozens of people have been wrongfully executed. If you send an innocent person to jail, you can at least let them go later. There’s no going back when you kill them.
mrmoshpotato
WTF?! I don’t want to know what repressed shit makes Hutchings string together homosexuality (which is apparently just fucking every man or woman in sight), pedophilia, and beastiality.
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. These homophobes…
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
That’s pretty much it. For these people sex is whatever the man wants and everyone else needs to shut up because they’ll bring shame to the family if they say anything.
Dorothy A. Winsor
When people get freaked out over other people’s sexual orientation, I always want to ask what’s it to them. How does it affect them? It just seems stupid.
Duane
Lynn Hutchings should be on the terrorist watch list. She’s deranged and dangerous, homicidal even, and she has supporters.
Same for that newspaper owner in Alabama. Threats to society.
meander
Perhaps the death penalty craziness is an off-kilter argument for why fundamentalist Christianists love Trump. Maybe “We wouldn’t have our salvation if not for the emperor-led Roman Empire colonizing Judea and ruling with an iron fist, therefore Trump should get much more power…”
Yarrow
@mrmoshpotato:
Homosexuality, pedophilia, and beastiality used to be lumped together by a lot of people in the not that distant past. We actually have come a long way in a relatively short time. Still a long way to go, obviously. Further to go in some places like WY.
I just looked her up to see how old she is. She’s 58. It also it appears she is an African American woman. Interesting.
jl
@Yarrow: She also seems to confuse an impulse to do something with actually doing it. And, has some wild and very exaggerated ideas about what 99.999 percent of the population, of whatever orientation, have impulses to do.
But, besides that,… still nuts in so many ways.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
What a sad and pathetic existence that is.
I have to say, when I first read her line about how we’d have no hope, she made me think of this stupid joke:
I never thought Bob Hope was very funny.
ETA:
I’m sure the WY GOP loves to point to her as to how they’re totally not racist.
scav
I guess Christianity her-style is worshipping people executed by the state, in which case who knows how many black-velvet icons she’s got hanging in her bright corner — but she’s certainly pre-positioning herself for the future state of the cult of Trump as Chosen Savior of Real America (although wouldn’t he be even more a source of hope to her if he’s strung up rather than merely impeached?).
It’s sooo hard to keep up with the marbleless American mindset.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: Ah, forgot about that.
I guess it’s my understanding of consent that makes me put homosexuality in one bucket, and pedophilia and beastiality in another bucket.
Jeffro
Just thought I’d echo some of the above comments with a quick, “GEEZ THESE PEOPLE SURE SPEND A LOT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT OUTLANDISH SECKS-YOO-ALL STUFF, DON’T THEY?!?”
Also busy short-circuiting on the whole death penalty (non)-logic there.
Let’s please move on as quickly as we can…please?
jacy
My people come from Wyoming, way back. (My grandpa was good friends with Gale McGee, the last Democratic senator from Wyoming). He at one time ran for Goshen County commissioner. All our family was all staunchly Democratic.
Fast forward 40 years, and everybody who moved out of Wyoming is a screaming liberal, and everybody who stayed is a wingnut. Not quite sure what happened, but it was everywhere there.
(My mom –screaming liberal — recently went on a road trip with her sister — wingnut — to visit their brother in San Antonio. Bev started in about “the homosexuals” and how they were all ballet dancers, to which my mom replied, “You know there are a lot of gay hockey players, you shouldn’t stereotype.” Which left Bev so nonplussed, she just shut up for the rest of the trip.)
Droppy
She seems to be somewhat undiscriminating in all the possible versions of fauna she imagines having sex with. I think a quick check of her browser’s history might not help her re-election bid.
Gelfling 545
Huh. My understanding was that at Jesus’ second coming he wasn’t supposed to get executed again.
Leto
Why do they inevitably turn to sex with animals? Similar to how they always used to say, “They’re shoving this down our throats!” Projection much?
The Moar You Know
The only socially acceptable way you can phrase “I want to kill a whole bunch of people who are pissing me off” is to couch it as something Jesus would approve of.
So they do. This shining example of the promise of democracy, fulfilled on Earth, is simply telling us she wants permission to go on a murder spree.
bemused
Gasp!
ruemara
Wait, what?
What? Nymphomania, pedophilia & bestiality are sexual orientations?
Who thinks like this? Who says this? HOW DO YOU VOTE FOR THEM? These people are disgusting.
@Yarrow: She is also a moron and probably the “I have a black friend” of her group.
Kent
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Textbook example of “projection”
VeniceRiley
There is a certain strain of Xtian that believes that, without jeebus, their menfolk would be putting their peepees in everyone and everything … all the time, and that Jesus alone constrains them.
Matt
Jesus being executed is literally these wingnuts’ favorite part of the Gospels. It gives them the torture porn they crave *and* kills a hippy.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@ruemara:
They have an R after their name and they “tell it like it is”. Blech.
The Moar You Know
@jacy: Ha. I have yet to meet even one. Their main avocation in life seems to be spending all their time banging every ballerina in the troupe.
Yarrow
@ruemara:
She’d almost have to be. The AA population of Wyoming is only 1.6% of the total population. It’s almost completely white.
BlueGirlFromWyo
@Kent: My father served in the WY state legislature (D) in the late 80s-early 90s and could actually work with the GOP majority. He couldn’t do it now.
Kent
So I guess the “Christian” thing to do is kill all the priests and ministers? Because Jesus?
Duane
@The Moar You Know: That’s why she should be watched. Sounds threatening to me.
Yarrow
@Matt: I didn’t see the Passion of the Christ but I heard it had a lot of torture scenes in it, like graphic shots of nails in the hands, etc. Of course that could be just what Mel Gibson likes, too.
Gravenstone
@Leto: Wyoming, where the men are Men and the sheep are nervous.
kindness
Wyoming…. What can you say about a state that elects Lynn Chenney as it’s only Congressperson? Not much honestly. If I didn’t want to ski Wyoming I’d have no use for the place.
delk
After my husband and I were finally able to legally get married, we are too tired spending all day destroying traditional marriage to have sex.
ruemara
@Yarrow: So’s my entire contact list but thankfully people know I’d deck them for that.
@delk: I think that’s the lesbian post wedding ritual.
scav
mmmm, the Massacre of the Innocents also plays an important role in the whole Jebus story, no? — I assume she’s in favor of bring back that activity as state-sponsored evidence of fostering moral greatness too.
hells littlest angel
By refusing to execute people for public speaking, our government could be standing in the way of the next messiah!
The Moar You Know
@VeniceRiley: My favorite question as a kid was “you’re an atheist? How come you don’t just murder everyone? It’s not like it matters to you!”
um, because it’s wrong, you fucking dingbat. I don’t need a Bible or God to know that.
By the second time I was asked this I had the horrifying realization that these people, if not for their “religion”, would do exactly that. Being born without empathy or decency, if someone told them the rules no longer applied, they’d be murdering babies with pitchforks for fun.
Barbara
Dogs and kids can’t consent, and anyone else who doesn’t consent isn’t part of your orientation. But otherwise, yes. You have the right to have sex with dozens, even hundreds of people of either gender so long as they want to have sex with you too.
varmintito
Setting aside her moral depravity for a moment, that sentence should be taken out back and shot.
trollhattan
Saw Wyoming and Lynn and wondered what the Cheney snot was up to now. Great, two Wyoming Lynns to watch out for.
Speaking of the lesser Cheney spawn, how long before she snags one of WY’s senate seats? She’s ambitious as her daddy and less able to hide her intentions.
Barbara
@The Moar You Know: I know better than to expect sound exegesis from someone who would say something like that, but the Christian spin on the “law” is that the law was made for those whose hearts were too hard to do the right thing and that the whole point of salvation through Jesus was that it made the law unnecessary. “I don’t need the law to make me do the right thing; I do the right thing because my heart has been imbued with the spirit of my lord and savior.” You don’t believe it but they are supposed to believe it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jl:
“Don’t do the crime unless you can do the time” Joshua ben Joseph, 31AD
(the time being three days of course)
Sister Golden Bear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Every accusation, a confession… perhaps not in deeds, but still.
I swear the Talibaptists think about gay sex far, far, more than gay people do.
varmintito
@The Moar You Know: Exactly. It is assumed that one cannot be ethical without theological belief. The assumption is so fundamental that it often is unstated. I’ve occasionally asked devout people to explain why this should be true in theory, and plainly is false in practice. I’ve yet to get a real reply.
The Book of Job is the extreme version. God decides to test Job’s faith by imposing an escalating series of horrors upon him, including the deaths of his children and wives. When God is satisfied that Job’s faith is sincere (because a hostage would never play along with his captors, amirite?), God gives Job a new set of children and wives. The old ones are remain dead, though. From this, we are to conclude that (1) God loves us, (2) God is the wellspring of morality, and (3) if we question God’s existence, love or morality, we are incapable of ethical thought or behavior, and he will throw us in a pit of fire were somebody in a red suit will poke us with pitchforks for eternity.
Martin
@ruemara:
People who don’t believe in consent because they’re subjects of God’s infinite will.
Steve in the ATL
@kindness: there is much better skiing in blue Colorado….
japa21
My brother-in-law and his wife have had a summer home in WY outside of Laramie. Their normal official residence was norther WI. Now their official residence is the WY place and they travel around during winter as their home is inaccessible. Anyway, when they went to vote last year at their local polling place they were the only voters their at the time (not a large voter base). They asked one of the folks there just how many registered Democrats there were. The response was “You’re the only two.”
They knew they were a minority, just not how much of a minority.
Uncle Cosmo
@The Moar You Know: That’s the thing: These people are all scared shitless. Scared they’re gonna burn in hell for eternity ‘cuz they can’t keep from sinnin’. Scared even if they can keep from sinnin’ that just maybe their One True Religion isn’t – that they’ve been worshipping the wrong God or the right God in the wrong Way, & they’re gonna burn in hell for eternity.
Most of all, scared of themselves, as in, “The temptations to sin are coming from inside the brain!” I maintain that no person that’s ever walked the earth (or dragged their knuckles acrost it while breathing heavily through their pie-holes) is 100% A-1 unperverted heterosexual: Most humid beans are 90-10, one way or t’other, some are 80-20 or 50-50, & there’s always the chance appearance of that annoying little pervy itch. But that leetle bit of, shall we say, nonconforming interest scares the crap out of them – because in the wrong situation they just might act on it – & they’d be lost forever. Kind of like, we can’t have anyone believing in a God that’s not the one I believe in or even believing in a different way, because then we might face DOUBT, & then we’re Krsipy Kritters on Big Daddy’s Infernal Bar-B-Q – so we gotta convert ’em or kill ’em. Which is where I came in (& I’ll see myself out – this has been an unkempt & barely-coherent rant but yinz are wicked smaht enough to decode it…)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Martin:
That sounds super dark and horrifying. Like, the very concept of a omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient being is terrifying. God, especially as portrayed in the Bible, is a cosmic dictator that kills and tortures anyone that stands up to it or even mistakenly disobeys it.
I’ll never understand how people can square their belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful god with things like accountability, transparency, and liberal democracy.
Fair Economist
@varmintito:
Even as a small child I was horrified by that. Even if he loves his new family he’ll mourn his old one all his life. What kind of sociopath could have considered that adequate compensation?
Also, what about the faith/nonfaith of the first wife and children? Don’t they count?
Duane
@delk: You don’t have to do that. Traditional marriage is quite capable of destroying itself.
JGabriel
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Or: Republicans have a way of skillfully upping the dose of outrageousness just enough to compensate for increasing desensitization.
Steve in the ATL
These people are so freaking weird.
JaySinWA
@Barbara:
I’m a lapsed Lutheran and have read a bit about theology but I don’t think I have run across this reasoning. What have I missed?
schrodingers_cat
Jingostaan Zindabad
(Hail the Land of Jingoism)
Written about India, but could easily fit our current situation
From Anna Vetticad’s review of Gully Boy
2018 hai desh ko khatra hai /
Har taraf aag hai tum /
aag ke beech ho /
Jor se chilla lo /
sabko dara do /
Apni zahreelee been baja ke /
sabka dhyaan kheench lo… /
… Jingostan zindabaad.
(Rough translation: It is 2018, the country is in danger / You are in the midst of the flames that have engulfed us / Scream out loud and scare everyone / Draw everyone’s attention with your poisonous agenda… / Hail the land of jingoism.)
Anonymous At Work
You’re neglecting the 50 former and prospective state legislators also in line…
oatler.
They’ve been rationalizing the seven deadly sins for decades. As Michael Palin sang:
“Always look on the bright side of life…”
artem1s
Almost as ridiculous as ‘what if Mary got an abortion or took the pill?’ argument for justifying criminalizing contraception and family planning. It’s the reverse butterfly effect mentality. And just beyond stoopid.
trollhattan
@artem1s:
“What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@japa21: They knew they were a minority, just not how much of a minority.
I’m only surprised because I thought the UofW or the mountains might attract an old hippie or two, or a couple of retired professors
Karen
How long before Trump is a god to his supporters? Or even G-d
Leto
@Fair Economist:
Haha, do women and children count? You so funny!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Karen: He is, sometimes, the color of a golden calf.
Karen
@Leto: Only when she’s pregnant.
West of the Rockies
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
If choosing to have sex with a man inexorably leads to having sex with women, children, and dogs, we are destined to be humping everything that crises crosses our paths.
This is so ludicrously stupid. I doubt Cheney believes this shit anyway. BTW, how will her lesbian sister interact with her henceforth? Clearly, Mary will be screwing hounds in short order, according to Lynn.
Edit: oops… I see I confused Lynns.
West of the Rockies
@Yarrow:
Every race has its morons and its gems. I get nervous when I hear that “Black women will save us.” They may well be at the forefront of needed changes; they are not magical, super-powered angels though.
AThornton
If we catch these nuts wearing polyester and cotton pants can we take them to the city gates and throw rocks at them?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@West of the Rockies:
Wrong Lynn. This one is a state legislator.
Chyron HR
Well, thank god your boy Bernie has returned to once more be the champion of the not racist, not sexist, not homophobic and most certainly not deplorable Trump supporters.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@JGabriel:
That sounds likely
waratah
The gorgeous Tetons, Jackson Hole, white water rafting, Yellowstone. I love that part of Wyoming.
Wapiti
@Karen: If they can’t resist Trump’s obvious and transparent lies, they will fall to hidden tricks of the Prince of Lies as well.
West of the Rockies
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Roger that.
Yutsano
@jacy:
Can confirm. Dated one. Defencemen are my jam it turns out.
varmintito
@AThornton: Their beliefs tell us we must, but being an ethical atheist, I would decline no matter how tempting it sounds in the abstract.
varmintito
@Yutsano: Obligatory joke about pulling the goalie.
Don’t know the setup, but that’s the punchline.
Leto
OT: liberal bias! Liberal bias!
CNN hires GOP operative with no journalism experience to run its 2020 coverage
Steve in the ATL
You people know good and well that I am sitting in an airport bored because my flight has been delayed and yet there is almost no activity here.
Get busy, people—this blog is my primary source of entertainment!
trollhattan
@Steve in the ATL:
Here ya go: Fish added to rice fields cut methane emissions.
Who knew rice farming is the 2nd highest source of agricultural methane? Not I.
Citizen Alan
@Wapiti:
I have told “Christians” of my acquaintance that anyone who would vote for Shitgibbon would also likely be happy to take the Mark of the Beast if the Antichrist did a good enough job of appealing to their tribal bigotries.
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan: damn it— now I have only four free articles left this month at that newspaper I’ve never heard of!
But who knew indeed—rice is the new beef!
Leto
@Steve in the ATL: Don’t worry fam, I got ya covered!
schrodingers_cat
What type of a Muslim am I?
An Indian Muslim answers in Hindustaani Musalman.
Hussain Haidry’s inspired poetry. It made the hair at the back of my neck stand up. There are subtitles in English.
ETA: The last line is, I am as much an Indian as I am Muslim, I am an Indian Muslim.
Sad, that it needs to be said aloud in Modi’s India. That your automatically suspect because of your religion.
rikyrah
Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) Tweeted:
‘I think you know there are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American.”
Sure thing, Bernard.
I can’t with this man. I just can’t.
https://twitter.com/AngryBlackLady/status/1097939712394829825?s=17
Steve in the ATL
@Leto: totally lit, fam! But allah willing I won’t be delayed for ten hours…especially since I have to go home and pack and get on another flight tomorrow. Mayo Clinic meetup, anyone?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Being that rice is a staple of Asian diets, that’s not surprising.
Steve in the ATL
@rikyrah: I’m not a smart man, but doesn’t that meet the very definition of racist?
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA:I am not surprised either, rice farming is labor, water and energy intensive.
m.j.
Please, someone, anyone, tell her about The Aristocrats.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: She sounds angry.
randy
I had friends in a small UU Fellowship at Laramie. Can’t all have moved away, but any one precinct is chancy.
randy
The Pale Scot
@Gelfling 545:
I’m quite sure that he has tried to return repeatedly and gets whacked as soon as he opens his mouth
Steve in the ATL
Why do these lunatics think that gay=promiscuous? Are gay people freer with their affections than straight people, or is it projecting the Bible thumper’s hope that hosncloseted gayness will lead to hot gay sex without the effort of seduction or compatibility?
gorram
@meander: Yeah, John Hagee popularized (the already existing) versions of that sort of thinking. One of the common versions I’ve heard a lot is that the antichrist will (at least superficially) resemble Jesus, so if you vote for the most war-mongering, hateful, vicious person you’re actually in the clear in terms of aiding the antichrist’s rise to power.
Miss Bianca
@Fair Economist: You’re forgetting the funnest part of the story…as I recall, the torture of Job all begins because God and the Devil have a little bet going on about faith, or lack thereof.
I remember this point being disturbing enough to most of us in confirmation class that our teacher had to spend some time addressing it. What I don’t remember is how he justified God’s actions.
Yutsano
@rikyrah:
You.
Have.
GOT.
To.
Be.
Kidding.
Me.
We need to roast him. Alive or dead. I’m not particular of which.
@varmintito: I don’t want to spread tall tales but…goalies tend to be little spoons.
If ya know what I mean and I think ya do.
The Pale Scot
@ruemara:
With the existence of facebook I’m sure that millions of repthugs think they have a black friend.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: BS needs to go away, take up crocheting, since he is such a crotchety old man
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Wheat production is nearly double rice (in tonnes) worldwide, and coarse grain (corn, etc.) more than both of those. Suspect the main differentiator is flooded the fields.
VeniceRiley
@Leto: This CNN hire pissed me off more than any other news today. Given the Wilmer coverage, that’s saying something.
JaySinWA
@Yutsano: Maybe it’s the ice. I had a gay shirt tail relative that was a pro ice skate dancer. Sort of a hockey ballet cross.
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan: mmm…wonder bread and HFCS….
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: My favorite comment in that thread (so far):
LMAO over here.
Leto
@Steve in the ATL: =)
@rikyrah: I’m glad his political instincts are as sharp as ever. I can’t wait till he implodes.
@Miss Bianca: I had a youth pastor who called Job a whiner. Because having everyone you love killed in front of you, over a shitty bet an omniscient being already knows how it will turn out… definitely a loving god.
gorram
@Fair Economist: Chattel. Apparently.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Rice is a staple, but wheat and maize have similar annual harvests*. I’m surprised that they’re behaving as if putting fish in the rice paddies is a wonderful new invention; I was under the impression that it’s the standard practice in most rice producing areas. Not only does it reduce methane production, the fish are a good source of protein. IIRC, fish poop is also a good fertilizer.
*More people eat rice, but wheat and maize are also used for food processing and as animal feed. The harvests are similar enough that they trade places year to year depending on which one has the best harvest that year.
Roger Moore
@Steve in the ATL:
Many people think being racist means lynching people and using the N-word. Being skeptical about voting for a black man because of his race is something different.
The Pale Scot
@varmintito:
I’ve tried to point out it as;
“Let’s say that what JC is recorded saying in the Gospels was actually said by Clarence, the bartender who worked in a pub down the road. Would the exhortation to love your neighbor, be humble, tend to the unfortunate be any less relevant to creating a good society?”
Result; hand waving and protestations of Clarence’s lack of divinity.
“So, if the real JC insisted on the practices of Baal you’d be on that team”
gorram
@Roger Moore: Plus, the fish will eat at least some of the pests that might bother the rice plants.
Brachiator
@varmintito:
I don’t know how a person can be ethical in the light of so many different theologies with conflicting claims.
Of course, it is Satan who fucks with Job, with God’s permission. I have sometimes wondered how this book even made its way into the Bible.
West of the Rockies
@Leto:
Hmph… Sounds kind of crazy when you put it like that.//
David Evans
@Leto: I’m sure God switched off his omniscience before taking the bet. That would only be fair.
Alternatively, gods were not thought to be omniscient until much later in history.
JoeyJoeJoe
There’s a former state representative from Wyoming who basically spent all of his time attacking same sex couples rights. His name was Gerald Gay. He was defeated for re-election in 2016 while the Oval Office asshole was getting something like 70% of the vote in the district
Steve in the ATL
@David Evans: do you think god would hustle devils with bar bets? Seems plausible.
The Pale Scot
@Steve in the ATL: Here ya go
Costumed Person Destroys The Drums At Children’s Music Concert
The Pale Scot
OOpps
Costumed Person Destroys The Drums At Children’s Music Concert
Leto
@Steve in the ATL: Gotta do something for all eternity. That or open a diner.
Roger Moore
@gorram:
Not to mention pests like mosquito larvae that will cause problems for humans living in the area.
Kathleen
@jacy: My great grandfather was appointed to state office by Nellie Taylor Ross, the first woman governor (who obtained the position when her husband died). I have a copy of the telegram she sent when he died. My dad was born there and he and his family were staunch Democrats (they moved to Nebraska in the late 30’s/early 40’s).
My second cousin and her husband live there (she’s retired speech therapist who did stint in the Peace Corps and he is returned from BLM) and they are still strong Democrats! I think they may be minority of people in that state who aren’t wack. Don’t hear about many people being from Wyoming.
Amir Khalid
@Yarrow:
I did see it. (Bootleg videos used to be a thing in Malaysia, and were a godsend for movie buffs.) It is indeed Christianist .torture porn.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I think it’s part of an evolving view about morality and reward for virtue. If you read older books of the Hebrew Bible, like Psalms and Proverbs, they have an attitude that moral behavior during our lives will be rewarded within our lives. That’s a very neat and tidy view, which unfortunately is obviously wrong. Job was an attempt to come up with an explanation for why things don’t work that way. In essence, it’s saying that God stands aside and lets the world be as it is rather than intervening to grand worldly justice. That’s what God is saying when he rebukes Job for questioning him. Of course Christians skip this whole issue by worrying about the afterlife and saying that’s where God grants people real justice for their actions in life.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I don’t know. Job is older than many of the Psalms, and Proverbs are spread out over a long ass time. The authors of Job may have had something specific in mind, or been inspired or attempted to answer some other texts that people had been exposed to. No matter what, it is a strange book. I don’t like it much.
Older passages in the Bible often stress a comforting relationship between the Deity and humans. Job is all about an angry god saying STFU when it comes to understanding the ways of his divinity.