I laughed, then laughed some more. I really find a lot of his columns annoying or simply off, but this was great. So on the mark.

Though, I don’t get the Ethan Hawke allusion. Does he hang out in Marxist coffee shops?

I pray that Taibbi’s latest column makes millions and millions of dollars for RS.

Hey everyone! It might help for you to play the game. It’s the first game ever to promote Prayer and Worship as infinately more effective than the use of physical warfare (a gun). In a world full of many bad games, we need your support…not your mockery…unless of course, you’d put Hitman and Grand Theft Auto under the tree before promoting a game will positive moral values.

I have to believe someone here on RollingStone.com might actually be interested in a game which promotes positive moral values. That’s precisely the quote from America Online.

There is no anti-semitism, no anti-muslim or anti-islamic sentiment in the game.

This is NO killing in the name of God.

The Antichrist is the ultimate bad guy. He wants you all to follow-him to hell.

Just join the Tribulation Forces and start winning people to your side. Winning is that easy. And yes, without the “You have to be a Christian” question at the end. It’s not there. Matters like that are between you and God. My job is just to make a positive difference in an industry which puts out pretty awful content.

Most sincerely,
Troy Lyndon / CEO
Left Behind Games Inc.

Jab,

Really? I couldn’t even finish that column. I’ve finally had it with Taibbi. I’m not reading his shit anymore.

Let me just say that I hate Christmas as much as the next reasonably cynical bastard, but what’s with all that garbage about ripping off nativity scenes? That’s not even remotely funny. Geez, what an asshole.

As to the Eternal Forces “controversy,” I find the whole thing hilarious. These are truly some stupid Christians who think that the world’s ills are going to be solved even just a little bit by a video game. It might as well be a parody. From what I understand, the game is actually kind of fun. They should’ve had Rockstar make it and it would’ve had better production value.

These guys like Taibbi need to find some real work, something that is an actual job. This guy just wants to piss people off, be annoying, shock anyone or everyone, or all of the above. He’s a loser who never got breast fed as a child. Loser.

You rule, Matt. Sleep with me!

We here in the heartland are worried about you, Mr. Taibbi. We agree with your POV, despite what the pundits would have you believe about us “salt of the earth” folk. If we’re salty, it’s because we actually work and work makes us sweat. But we do worry about you, because as anyone knows immersing yourself in such evil things as politics and, hell, anything considered “national affairs” or “current events” will eventually rot your brain and your soul. Get out, Matt, while you still have a chance. We need you! We need people with your views to put down the pens and get down to some actual honest work changing the goddamn course we’re on. Leave the world of politics before you dry up into a bitter little gnome, and join us in the trenches…. but, if you insist on continuing along this dangerous course, please know our hearts and minds and prayers go out to you. PS: In response to those who think you wrote your latest Christmas thing to shock, I simply say if that was the case you’d have done nothing more than mention how a small library in Texas recenrly uncovered a rare and previously unknown Thornton Wilder play called “Jesus and Judas Butt-fuck in Heaven.” The title alone masks the play’s gentle and timeless themes of love and forgiveness. Peace from the heartland, Mr. Taibbi.

I’m from the Heart of the Heartland. I love Tiabbi, I appreciate his artful snark.

Perhaps one day these Chirstians will learn to turn their cheeks instead of launching feeble, ill conceived, hypocritical attacks upon his work.

Hey dumbass, I’m not a “Chirstian” or a Christian, and I still hate Taibbi’s “artful snark,” okay? So blow me.

Also, I believe the proper phraseology is “turn the other cheek,” not “turn the cheek.” Damn, are you stupid. I can see why you like Taibbi – you’re not very discerning.

NE Lib
You are generalizing both Christians and people who don’t like Taibbi’s work in one comment. Impressive. Keep in mind prejudice is a form of ignorance.

I smoked weed out of a baby Jesus bong. The baby Jesus was stolen from a neighbor’s manger scene and no I never felt the least bit bad or “scared of God’s wrath” about it.

Lord, I ask you to forgive Matt Taibbi for his defense of nativity scene desecration, for he knows not what he does. For this I pray: Our Father, Who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name;
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We hate you Matt Taibbi……….go away

i think it’s in my catholic blood to hate non-catholic christians… more than any other group of people alive.

Tim LeHaye is sick, Left Behind, the books and the game are sick, descrating others’ beliefs is sick and anyone who thinks this is all funny is the sickest. Does Taibbi go after the Easter Bunny too?

Mr. Lyndon is an idiot. Of course his game promotes violence. Just because the characters don’t pull out a gun and bust a few caps, does not mean that its any less violent than Grand Theft Auto. At least in GTA you can CHOOSE to kill (or not kill) a hooker, but in Left Behind, it God’s work.

I think most of you are missing the point. I could be wrong but I think Mr. Taibbi is trying to make us relise that a game with killing and praying goes against all christin beliefs. How can it be acceptible to kill in the name of god? It seems to me that America is being brainwashed into Christin Fundementalist. There NEEDS to be a separation between church and state, something that seems to have been forgotten. Get God out of schools, or bring it into schools, teach about the bible in English as fiction, because thats what it is.

Bonus Question: Have you ever mistreated a manager?

Yes, I have mistreated a manager. I think it comes with having been in the military.

In the military you are trained to give your life away if your Commanding Officer deems it necessary to complete the mission. People in the civilian world do not appreciate that kind of discipline, and like to take advantage of it, or make fun of people that have been conditioned to comply with such requests.

When you wake up to that fact that your “civilian manager” thinks you are a joke because you are willing to sacrifice your life in pursuit of a goal . . . well, that manager gets mistreated.

I wish more civilians had a sense of honor, commitment, and courage.

Hey dumbass, I’m not a “Chirstian” or a Christian, and I still hate Taibbi’s “artful snark,” okay? So blow me.

Also, I believe the proper phraseology is “turn the other cheek,” not “turn the cheek.” Damn, are you stupid. I can see why you like Taibbi – you’re not very discerning.

Regardless of his rhetorical and typing abilities, he’s right—this country’s filled to the brim with nominal Christians: people who parade around as Christians, but can’t recite the Commandments. If more Christians would “turn the other cheek”, I would harbor infinite admiration for them, rather than viewing them as the lying abominations they presently are. You, C U in Hell, only reinforce this philosophy.

I feel that organized religion is not only a negative aspect of society because of its utmost intolerance and requirement to be divisive and hurtful to those who do not agree with you (i.e., if you do not convert to Islam, you will be killed, if you do not accept Jesus as the Son of God, you will not go to heaven, etc.), it will be the downfall of the world. I feel the truest words ever put together didn’t come from a thousand year old book that everyone interprets differently, but from a little song with a huge message and heart, Imagine by John Lennon. The line of imagine if there’s no religion, people living in perfect harmony hold more weight than any prophecy or act of terrorism or crusade or holy war or political propaganda. But I guess that’s why it’s called Imagine.

I like most Christians. And I think that people that bash Christianity, for the most part, are the real self-rightous ones. They’re ususally the ones that come from very Christian families and now feel “enlightened”…They’re just as dumb and misguided as when they were going to church every sunday with they’re rich, white parents. They just feel more guilty now.

Matt Taibbi is one of the best political writers in America. Rolling Stone is lucky to have him and the public is lucky that Rolling Stone hired him and gave him a forum for his brilliant, incisive and hilarious observations.

Great call Bob. Merry Non-specific-winter-gathering to you.

ALL Religions are crap! IMHO
It is the biggest scam/fairy tale that man has ever convinced itself of. ALL religions were written/made up by men who wanted control of others and their fears. There very well may be a god of some sort, but, the state of today’s religion, especially in America, cannot be what He/she/it envisioned.

Believe what you will. I’m ok with that. Just don’t tell me I have to live that way or try to give me guilt trips because I don’t choose that life.

Every religion believes that they are the “chosen” ones. That only their kind will enter heaven….You can’t ALL be right.

“Every religion believes that they are the “chosen” ones. That only their kind will enter heaven….You can’t ALL be right.”

——————- ——-

No they can’t all be right. But you can expect some pretty big wars will be fought over it.

How about this idea? they are all right.
They all have a piece of the same pie, only they have different icing and their tastebuds are different and therefore think it’s different.
What they can’t seem to understand is the commonalities between the religions, all based on the ancient religions that worshiped mother nature as the giver and protector of life. Somehow, in time, that turned into a man that was good at condemning and destroying.
Perhaps part of ‘pulling the veil’ over the eyes. Those among us still able to think and deduce things on our own, we have a tendency to look at the commonalities in the slices of pie and try to find the common message. It’s not religion that is flawed or corrupt, it is the people that engage in religion and then twist it for their own design or ideals. The romans adopted catholicism not because they believed it’s message, they adopted it because they needed the christians (pacifists) to fight for them in war. It’s always been the same, all religions get affected in the same way. Which is why all the prophets have said that your relationship with God is yours alone, not dependant on any church, religion or leadership.

Come on Matt Taibbi, be a real man,
Anyone can go after a docile group of Americans who are trying to celebrate thier culture and religion. Thats so fuckin easy that the local dropout in our neighborhood does it.
Why not go after the real hardcore, Go after the Muslim swine. Imagine the thrill of breaking into a local mosque and desecrating thier religion.
Why not go after them with a big RS front page picture of YOUR rendering of Muhammad wearing a Hodgi Turban and sucking Johnny Quest’s Dick as the plane crashes into Meca. Now that My friend is something to be reckoned with.
It may be because you are somewhat selective about what religous groups you bash. Perhaps you only bash the group that supports political views you dislike.
Of course there is also the distinct possibility you are not Gonzo enough to risk getting your fucking head cut off.

This is far too easy to do. Mr Taibbi is clever & may be entertaining to some – but I’m not a fan of his “reporting”.
Smarmy doesn’t play with me. One of the reasons I don’t bother with the Nation anymore…

I’m old and I remember Hunter S. Thompson. Fitting that Matt is currently writing for Rolling Stone. His work is in the tradition Gonzo Journalism at it’s finest. I laugh my ass off everytime.
Keep Spanking the Donkey, Matt.

Any Christian who cannot see the irony of a game that encourages people to lay waste to entire cities in the name of god is a hypocrite, and anyone who cannot laugh at this article is so sorely lacking in a sense of humor that I for one will be glad to be “left behind” without all these sour, self rightous assholes. If all the Christians and “Christians” (and other religous fundamentalists) would get the hell off this planet and hurry off to their “heaven” perhaps the rest of us will have some hope of salvaging the place before it is totally destroyed by global warming and religious warfare. Matt Taibi, I love your work.

The fact that some Christians still think that God answers prayers if you’re pure at heart means that they completely ignored the lessons of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Japanese massacre of 22 million Chinese, the Rwandan genocide, the Darfur genocide, and the Black Plague, not to mention the Crusades!

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From Somalia.

Why religions talk about your goodness after death and creat problem in our universy.

individuals should have inner peace so, you can generate external peace.

A.A.shirwac
Somalia .

Matt..you are an idiot. Period.

Someone actually pays this guy? What a waste of money.