Tag: religion

People believe the rapture is coming today and hope they can take their dogs

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date September 23, 2025

Happy New Year, bitches! Or alternatively, salutations on this day of the rapture. Allow me to explain: today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It falls on a different date in the Gregorian calendar each year because the Gregorian calendar is solar, while the Jewish one is lunisolar. (And the Chinese is lunar, rounding out the trifecta of New Years I observed as a Jewish kid growing up in San Francisco. Shanah Tovah Gong Hei Lang Syne.) But today is also special because Jesus visited a South African pastor in a dream to give him the heads-up that the rapture will be taking place today and tomorrow. Pastor Joshua Mhlakela dutifully spread the good word that “The rapture is upon us, whether you are ready or not,” and social media took the baton from there by spawning the hashtag #RaptureTok. So as faithful TikTokers contemplate their (potential) upcoming ascent to heaven, they have a fervent request for Jesus: please let us take our dogs!

If you’re unfamiliar, the rapture in Christianity is the belief that good Christ-loving folks of Earth — both living and dead — will ascend to heaven with Jesus Christ.

People have taken this belief and run with it on social media, which has started the trend of #RaptureTok.

In the hundreds of videos with that tag on TikTok, you’ll discover everything from rapture tips to people wondering if they can take their dogs with them if they’re the chosen ones.

One woman’s video with over 200,000 views is making light of it all by referencing another jokester’s videos on the topic. “He’s a riot, he’s making this whole journey so fun.”

She went on to explain that in one of his videos, he mentions how there’s an angel assigned to each person when they get raptured. “He’s like, ‘I wonder if our pets get raptured too.’ He goes, ‘Could you imagine the angel that’s assigned the one little Chihuahua? They’re going up 1,000 miles per hour,’” she said, giggling.

…“I ask God all the time to please take my dogs when we’re raptured,” someone wrote in the comment section of that video.

“I have prayed for my fur babies to be raptured with me,” agreed someone else.

“They replied, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household.’ My household includes my fur babies,” a hopeful commenter wrote, quoting scripture.

While there are plenty of serious videos on the topic, of course, there are many skeptics making light of the situation, dogs aside.

One video posted under #RaptureTok showed two people hysterically laughing with overlay text that read: “I am so petty I am going to lay out a couple of outfits in my driveway on sept 24th so when my neighbor walks his dog he will think me and my dog made it to heaven for the rapture and they didn’t.”

[From NY Post]

I love how all these people are worried about whether their fur babies can go with them, as if it wasn’t the reverse that is the case: that our pets are assured entrance while we humans ought to be praying we get to tag along with them! Don’t these TikTokers know the holy proverb, All dogs go to heaven?? And of course there’s the argument that heaven is wherever your dog is. Honestly, though, and despite this not being my religion, I’m confident in saying that these 48 hours are not the rapture. Not after learning that the tragic half of the rapture decrees that “those left behind will endure seven years of suffering, war and devastation led by the Antichrist.” Is that not proof positive the event already took place, and we’re the left behinds?

Whether you’re reading this edition of Celebitchy from heaven, hell, or whatever it is that constitutes our current plane of existence, I say Merry September 23, ya filthy animals!

Photos credit: Jozef Fehér, Pixabay, musicFactory lehmannsound, Laurie Gouley, Matheus Bertelli on Pexels

Tags dogs, pets, religion, tiktok

Acting Careers Neal McDonough Religion

Catholic Neal McDonough ‘lost everything’ because he refused to kiss women onscreen

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date August 4, 2025

I would call Neal McDonough a successful character actor. He’s worked steadily for decades in primarily supporting/featured roles, in high profile projects like Justified and Yellowstone. Even if you don’t recognize his name or face, chances are you’ve seen him in something. Again, I consider that a successful acting career. But McDonough says Hollywood blacklisted him for an agonizing two years in which he “lost everything.” Why? Because as part of being a devout Catholic and married man (to wife Ruvé since 2003), McDonough refuses to kiss women onscreen. To me, the translation of that statement is, “McDonough refuses… to do his job.” But McDonough claims it’s in his contract, so it was grossly unfair that he was fired from the 2010 ABC show Scoundrels for not stepping up to smooch, which in turn led to a couple very dry years for his career. McDonough has discussed all this before, but the conversation was resurrected (Catholic pun!) on a recent episode of the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast:

“For two years, I couldn’t get a job, and I lost everything you could possibly imagine,” McDonough said. “Not just houses and material things, but your swagger, your cool, who you are, your identity — everything. My identity was an actor, and a really good one. And once you don’t have that identity, you’re kind of lost in a tailspin.”

Although McDonough struggled professionally and personally after the alleged firing, including a bout with alcoholism, “The Last Rodeo” star said he doesn’t regret taking a moral stance in his career. He credited his spouse Ruvé and his renewed faith with helping him overcome the ordeal.

“When I stopped drinking, everything just kind of changed. Literally, the clouds parted,” McDonough said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t need this crutch. Oh, people are calling me. Oh, I am successful. Oh, I do like myself again. OK, I am God’s child, and I have a job to do. Stop wallowing in self-pity. Dust yourself off and go hit it hard.”

He added: “At 59 years old, I’m more busy than I’ve ever been in my whole because I have this clarity, I have a goal and I have a vision. I have one boss, and it’s God, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make my boss happy.”

McDonough has also found a healthy middle ground for navigating intimate scenes onscreen. The actor, who plays retired rodeo star Joe Wainwright in “The Last Rodeo,” said he convinced his wife — who is not an actress — to play his love interest in the film.

“She was so great in the movie, and to kiss my wife, my real-life wife, in a movie that I wrote and produced and gave glory to (God) in,” McDonough said. “I can’t imagine anything really better than that in my life when it comes to my career because it’s finally one of those things where I made it, and I did it our way.”

[From USA Today]

You guys, he lost his swagger! There’s so much here. Obviously McDonough is entitled to his own convictions. That being said, I think if you’re refusing to do intimate scenes with costars, you can’t also be surprised that certain work is lost to you, particularly at the the level of production that McDonough has been frankly blessed (Catholic pun) to work in all these years. Also, once he started talking about the heavy drinking, I couldn’t help but wonder if that had more to do with his losing work during those years, than his kissing ban.

As for McDonough roping his wife in to play his love interest, I cry Nepo Spouse! Actually, Ruvé plays his wife in only a couple flashback scenes in his latest movie, The Last Rodeo, which McDonough cowrote and stars in and came out earlier this summer. Meanwhile, Ruvé clearly realized the optics weren’t looking good on her husband’s comments, because she and Neal jointly made “clarifying comments” after the podcast came out, in which they repeatedly exclaim, “Thank you, Hollywood!” As one great American prophet said, “Well, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord/But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

photos credit: Avalon.red

Tags Acting, careers, Neal McDonough, religion

donald trump politics Religion

Bishop Mariann Budde, who called out Trump in her sermon, is not going to apologize

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date January 24, 2025

I have a magnet proudly displayed on my fridge that’s a sketch of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence, with the caption: “Give me that old time… separation of Church and State.” So my hackles are constantly being raised at the ever-increasing sway organized religion lords over our politics. It’s such a profound, deliberately mistaken understanding of our constitution. That being said, there was a genuine exception this week, when Episcopal bishop Mariann Budde led a prayer service at Washington Cathedral on Tuesday. In the most gracious way possible, Bishop Budde addressed the new president seated in the first row, asking him “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” The president’s social media-issued response hours later was predictably full of vitriol, but it hasn’t cowed Bishop Budde. Instead, she has spoken to several news outlets, including All Things Considered on NPR, reaffirming that she believes in what she said, she believes she spoke appropriately, and no, she will not be apologizing. Amen, sister! I mean bishop!

Blessed are the merciful: “I decided to ask him as gently as I could to have mercy,” Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, said of her plea to Trump, telling All Things Considered, “how dangerous it is to speak of people in these broad categories, and particularly immigrants, as all being criminals or transgender children somehow being dangerous. … To be united as a country with so many riches of diversity, we need mercy. We need compassion. We need empathy. And rather than list that as a broad category, as you heard me say, I decided to make an appeal to the president.”

Blessed are the peacemakers: Despite the backlash, Budde told NPR that her remarks were sincere, and she did not have any regrets in bringing them to the president’s attention. “I don’t hate the president, and I pray for him,” Budde said. “I don’t feel there’s a need to apologize for a request for mercy. … I regret that it was something that has caused the kind of response that it has, in the sense that it actually confirmed the very thing that I was speaking of earlier, which is our tendency to jump to outrage and not speak to one another with respect,” she continued. “But no, I won’t, I won’t apologize for what I said.”

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness: “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some of who fear for their lives,” Budde said. “The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”

Blessed are you when people insult you: Trump criticized Budde’s remarks, writing after midnight Wednesday morning on his Truth Social platform: “The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. … She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”

[From NPR]

I’m not a religious person myself, but “so-called Bishop” was a low blow from the so-called president. Although, I’d bet $5 that Trump didn’t even know there were women bishops until that service. Most of Bishop Budde’s comments are excerpted here, but I beseech you to watch the scene in motion. For one thing, you immediately get a feel for what a gentle spirit the bishop is. Her voice is sure but not bombastic, her manner ever so delicate because she knows the gravity of the moment. You get the sense that she’s the last person in the world who wants to stir up even the slightest whiff of trouble, but her conviction compels her to. Then of course there’s the other half of this equation, the fascinating reaction shots of the Trumps and Vances. Here’s my take: Donald, Melania, and Eric have no discernable responses, to the extent that to me they looked like they were listening to someone speaking to them in another language. JD kept turning to his wife with a snicker on his face, and to her credit, Usha kept her gaze on the bishop and was the only one maintaining a passingly sincere gaze. Lara looked pissed, and Tiffany was serving fish face.

photos via Episcopal Diocese of Washington and Instagram/YouTube

Tags donald trump, politics, religion

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Ben Affleck’s debate on Bill Maher: ‘We’ve killed more Muslims by an awful lot’

Post author By celebrityabout
Post date October 6, 2014

Gone Girl ruled the box office this weekend with a $38 million take. (Annabelle was very close behind at $37.2 million.) That’s good news for Ben Affleck’s career, although the movie’s success may have more to do with marketing and the popularity of Gillian Flynn’s novel. (I’ve read it but I haven’t seen the movie yet. Kaiser will have a review coming up shortly.)

Affleck has been hustling to promote the film. He made an appearance this weekend on Bill Mahar’s Real Time on HBO, where he got into a debate with Mahar and author Sam Harris on Islamaphobia and criticism of Islam. Harris claimed that liberals are afraid to criticize Islamic doctrine for fear of being labeled Islamaphobic. Affleck countered that it is Islamaphobic to criticize Islamic doctrine. Then Maher chimed in to call Islam “the only religion that acts like the mafia that will f*ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book.” It was a mess, but I don’t regularly watch debate shows and it’s probably par for the course. Here’s some of what they said, and you can see the video above.

Sam Harris: Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy… When you want to talk about the treatment of women and homosexuals and public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue that liberals have failed us. The crucial point of confusion is that we have been sold this meme of Islamaphobia where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam gets conflated with bigotry toward Muslims as people. That is intellectually ridiculous.

Ben Affleck: Are the person who understands the officially codified doctrine of Islam? You’re the interpreter of that so you can say…

Harris: I’m actually well educated on this topic.

Affleck: I’m asking you… you’re saying that Islamaphobia is not a real thing, that if you’re critical of something.

Bill Maher: It’s not a real thing when we do it.

Harris: I’m not denying that certain people are bigoted against Muslims as people…

Affleck: It’s gross, it’s racist. It’s like saying “you shifty Jew”

Maher: You’re not listening to what we’re saying.

Affleck: You guys are saying ‘if you want to be liberals believe in liberal principles like freedom of speech like we are endowed by our forefathers to inalienable rights like all men are created equal.’

Harris: We have to be able to criticize bad ideas. Islam is the motherlode of bad ideas.

Affleck: That’s an ugly thing to say.

Nicholas Kristof: The picture you’re painting is to some extent true, but it’s hugely incomplete. It is certainly true that plenty of fanatics and jihadis are Muslim, but the people who are standing up to them Malalla, Mohammad Ali Adack in Iran…

Affleck: How about the more than a billion people who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punish women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches… and don’t do any of the things that you’re saying all Muslims… stereotyping.

Maher: A billion people you say, all those billion people don’t hold any of those… pernicious beliefs. That’s just not true Ben. You’re trying to say that’s all the problem is… these few bad apples. You’re saying that the idea that someone can be killed if they leave the Islamic religion is just a few bad apples?

Ben: The people who actually believe in an act that you murder someone is not the majority of Muslims at all.

Harris: [Even] conservative Muslims… hold views about homosexuals, about women, about human rights that are deeply troubling. These are not Islamics, they are not jihadists, but they also keep woman and homosexuals immiserated in these cultures and we have to empower the true reformers in the Muslim world to change it. Lying about the length between doctrine and behavior is not going to do that.

Affleck: What is your solution? To condemn Islam?… We’ve killed more Muslims than they’ve killed us by an awful lot. We’ve invaded more Muslim countries… and yet somehow we’re exempted from these things because they’re not really a reflection of what we believe in. We did it by accident… that’s why we invaded Iraq. [To Harris] Your argument is like “you know, black people, you know they [inaudible]”

Maher: It’s based on facts. I can show you a Pew poll of Egyptians. They are not outliers in the Muslim world that say that 90% of them believe death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion.

Affleck: [That’s like saying] “Ted Bundy did this. Goddamn these gays, they’re all trying to eat each other.”

Harris: It’s not [condemning] people, it’s ideas.

[From video of Real Time via E!]

I think that Harris made some valid arguments about criticizing the treatment of women and gay people under Islam and that Affleck mischaracterized those points. Then Maher took it too far and kind of proved Affleck’s point. It’s likely that they all decided ahead of time what stance they were going to take and that Affleck wasn’t directly responding to Harris, but to an overall theme that he was given backstage.

Affleck did make some decent arguments too, especially toward the end, although it came across as somewhat knee jerk to me. I don’t think it’s fair to lump all Muslims together based on the horrific acts of some extremists, just as it’s not fair to equate all Christians with radical cultists. I don’t think Harris was doing that, I think he was saying that we need to look at Islamic doctrine, call it what it is and foster more tolerant ideas, but again the same case could be made for Christianity. It’s hard to have a reasoned discussion about these issues when the stakes are so high and innocent people are being killed.

Also, Affleck looked really hungover to me.

These are photos of Affleck out with Jennifer Garner on Sunday in Brentwood. Beefy. He’s also shown at the NY Film Festival on 9-26. Credit: FameFlynet and WENN.com

Source Cele Bitchy

Tags criticism, fat, gay, gross, movie, politics, religion, slim, tan