Thursday, April 25, 2013

#523: Michael Bresciani


Michael Bresciani has some serious issues with … you guessed it: gays and lesbians (probably mostly gay men):

In our world most of those spreading the gay lie are liberals, activists, spineless academicians, Hollywood sellouts, and now we can throw in a president and a large contingent of fully duped politicians … There is little doubt that the entire gay and lesbian community is guided by a powerful demon spirit who is subordinate to Satan.

I am not sure Bresciani knows exactly what “lie” means.

His day job is to be a Christian author and a columnist for several online sites and magazines, most notably Alan Keyes’s RenewAmerica. According to his bio, “[h]is articles are now read in every country in the world,” which presumably means that they are read in the US because that’s the only country that matters. Bresciani has a very literal view of hell, and explains in detail how it is organized (musings fascinatingly reminiscent of helpless medieval neo-Platonist scholars and comic book authors). Alcoholics are apparently possessed by Satan as well.

Wait; possessed? Yes, possessed by demonic angels. According to Bresciani:

The demoniac of Gadara (Lk 8: 26f) was said to have, not one devil, but an entire legion of devils. That is about 6,000 devils in that one man alone. What makes us think that there are not enough devils for everyone in our world who steps into Satan's kingdom? One third of the angels departed from the presence of God when Satan left [no citation; seems to rely on Milton]. That could be a number we could not fully imagine.”

I don’t think most people disagreeing with Bresciani disagrees primarily over the numbers of devils. The quote is from Bresciani’s defense of Daniel Avila, the “marriage guy” of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who has himself argued that Satan was responsible for homosexuality but later (non-)apologized. Bresciani didn’t accept the apology, apparently, though for the wrong reasons.

He’s also a renowned birther and a staunch defender of Ray Comfort (he shows up in the comments here to defend him).

Diagnosis: Amazingly deranged and ignorant Taliban fundie with a strong nostalgia for early Medieval Times and the appurtenant cartoon interpretation of the Bible. Dangerous.

3 comments:

  1. God will definitely punish us soon, since America is currently home of the devil. In fact, God is already punishing us through Obama's presidency. It seems a bit single-minded, but that's the nature of Bresciani's single neuron response to events in the world, we suppose.

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  2. you know what's sad? this guy is my boyfriends father, who abandoned him before he was even born. I've been searching his name online lately to get some clarity on who he is, and all I'm getting is that he's an absolute asshole who's views are absolutely haywire and irrelevant. No wonder my boyfriend wants no part in his life.

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  3. The debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye received some attention. It was generally concluded that Nye won the debate (though many suspect that Ham’s goal wasn’t to win). Enter Michael Bresciani. According to Bresciani, Nye lost by displaying the abject spiritual poverty of modern man, and also because of … well, you can read about it yourself – it must be one of the most delusional screeds we’ve read in a while.

    Other than that, Bresciani continues as always. Obama is just like the antichrist; indeed, the Antichrist (soon to arrive) will look a lot like Obama: “Being the incarnation of the Devil himself means that his view is always the exact opposite of God and is always wrong. A perfect type of the antichrist is Barack Obama.” Of course, Bresciani seems to be of two minds when it comes to whether he wants to bring in Armageddon; otherwise he wouldn’t try to fight the signs, would he? But he does. What signs? “Academics are assuring our children that they are the progeny of monkeys who are now on the cusp of conquering the stars. Yet, even the monkeys have not blurred gender distinctions nor do they indiscriminately destroy their young on a daily basis. They exist without hoarding gold and silver or prepare for retirement. Is it time to tell the Darwinists that acting like monkeys is not proof of evolution?” He has also argued that marijuana should be kept illegal because pot users are bound for hell.

    How opposed to marriage equality is he? Well, he has likened Scott Lively to Jesus due to Lively’s opposition to “demonic” LGBT rights (also here).

    At least he accepts global warming, even manmade global warming. But it has nothing to do with emissions. Instead, he says extreme weather is the result of “homosexuality, abortion [and] general sexual preoccupation.”

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