Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXVIII

Before I proceed, some breaking news. Pfc. Jeremy Hall, the atheist US soldier who suffered discrimination, harrassment and death threats at the hands of his loving Christian superiors and fellow soldiers, is dropping his lawsuit against U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Defense Department, and plans to leave the Army. (According to the American Freethought podcast, Hall was denied permission to attend the recent Atheist Alliance convention, where he was listed as a speaker.)

The week in fundie:

1. For an example of how it is possible for Catholics to be as demented as the fundiest fundagelicals, look no further than Matt C. Abbott’s column on the RenewAmerica* website, “As the ‘Obama-nation’ nears, priests sound alarm“. There you’ll hear from Father James Farfaglia, who is unhappy with the recent US bishops’ statement, Faithful Citizenship, which counsels “the Church’s leaders [. . .] to avoid endorsing or opposing candidates or telling people how to vote.” Farfaglia wants the Church to tell people to vote against Obama and for McCain, because, among other reasons, “McCain will appoint a pro-life Supreme Court justice; Obama will appoint a pro-abortion one.” He also speaks highly of Catholic convert, long-time anti-abortion activist and theocrat Randall Terry, who in 1993 said: “I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…. Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”You’ll also hear a goodly dose of Christian persecution mania from Father Richard Perozich. Jumping at the shadows of government spooks waiting around the corner to clap him in irons for being an ultraconservative Catholic (“we may not be in jail (at least at the moment)”), Perozich accuses the state of “encroaching on our religious beliefs, our freedom by passing laws which indoctrinate us, penalize us for non conformity, and take away our liberty.” The chief agents of this anti-Catholic persecution , in his view, are (self-hating?) Catholic politicians who, by not always voting in strict accordance with Catholic dogma, have become “slaves to people with evil ideas” . . . those ideas being “abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual activity.” TEH EVIL, you see, infects the souls of individuals who then force teh evil onto everyone else. How, you may ask? Perozich reaches under his cassock and pulls the following theory out of his wrinkled arse: “First evil forms people into groups to organize and express itself. [. . .] Evil then beings to take over in 4 ways: infiltration, indoctrination, intimidation, and imposition.” The examples he provides are just priceless:
   

   When we know persons with same sex attractions who have not learned to master chastity, we feel sorry for them. We want them to feel better. They infiltrate by asking for tolerance. They reinvent themselves saying that this is who they are. They indoctrinate with false ideas that they are genetically created this way, that they cannot change, that their sex is just as good as, or even better than, normal people because they don’t create overpopulation. They intimidate, calling us bigots, hate-filled people, intolerant. Finally they impose laws forcing us to learn about their sinful lifestyle, to accept it, to take away our freedoms if we don’t accept it, to teach this as normal in schools, nursing programs, to celebrate it publicly in parades, schools, and the work place as ‘diversity’ when in fact it is perversity. [Emphasis added]

   Read the full article to learn more about the INFLITRATE–>INDOCTRINATE–>INTIMIDATE–>IMPOSE strategy is deployed against unsuspecting hard-right Catholics by “unrepetant” woman abortionists and “famous people with diseases” calling for embryonic stem cell research funding.

Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXVI

The past few weeks in fundie . . .

1. Minister aids and abetts the breaking of a Commandment. Fundie JoAn Karlos took it upon herself to decide what other members of the public can read by stealing a sex education book from the public library on the grounds that she deemed it “obscene.” A local clergyman decided to pay the $100 fine, to which the fundie responded: “I’m blessed. I’m very blessed. It’s extremely generous because I know they don’t have a lot of money.” Larceny for Jesus . . . what a great moral example to be setting your children. The fundamentalist brain strikes again! (Boston Globe)
2. “Who are the British creationists?”: according to ths BBC report, the neurological virus known as Biblical creationism has spread across the Atlantic and is now infecting the UK. Think 28 Days Later, only this time with glossolaliating zombies. Much, much scarier.
3. A senior Saudi official has “qualified” his remarks that it is permissible to kill broadcasters of “immoral” television content. Moderating his views significantly, he believes they should be put to death only “in the due process of law.” (Scotsman)
4. Eleven people were killed in a Congo soccer stadium riot after a soccer player tried to use “witchcraft” to win a match. I’m not making this up. And don’t laugh: the offering of prayers to magic sky fairies are routine in American football. (Reuters)
5. In Canada, a 42-year-old man used a “witchcraft club” to groom two teenage boys whom he subsequently molested. (Canada.com)
6. In Zimbabwe, Dolores Umbridge of the Ministry of Magic sentenced four people to 18 months each in jail under the Suppression of Witchcraft Act. It is not known if any Dementors were involved in the capture of the offenders. (allAfrica.com)
7. According to the governor of Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom State, loving Christian pastors have been lovingly throwing children into the street, suspecting them of witchcraft. Says the governor: “They even attempted to [lovingly] burn some children alive in the state. We’ve rescued children who have been [lovingly] almost burnt to death on the basis that they are into witchcraft.” (The Sun News On-line)
8. In Papua New Guinea, an elderly woman was beaten by local villagers after they accused of her using witchcraft to cause flash floods. (The Australian)
9. In that hotbed of liberal pluralist democracy known as Camden, New South Wales, a residents’ group that had only recently rejected an application to build a Muslim school has welcomed a proposal to build a Catholic school. Spokesman Emil Sremchevich explains: “It’s very simple: people like some things but don’t like other things. Some of us like blondes, some of us like brunettes. Some of us like Fords, some of us like Holdens. Why is it xenophobic just because I want to make a choice? If I want to like some people and not like other people, that’s the nature of the beast.” The English, Mr Sremchevich: you’re doing it wrong. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
10. Nice try, dickhead. A US man tried to get out of paying his taxes by declaring himself a citizen of heaven rather than the United States. Wait a minute . . . where have I seen this before? (DesMoines Register, via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
11. Hindu fundamentalists gang-raped one nun and burnt another alive as they stormed an orphanage in the Indian state of Orissa. (AsiaNews.it)
12. According to fundie news outlet OneNewsNow, there is “shock and sadness in the Christian community over word that famed Christian music singer Ray Boltz has publicly announced he’s living a homosexual lifestyle.” There’s a lump in my throat, too.

Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXV

The week in fundie . . .

1. In a “family values” forum in Mexico City, a Catholic priest justified rape thusly: “When we show our body without prudence, without modesty, we are prostituting ourselves.” (Chicago Tribune)
2. Bill Donahue, professional whiner and president for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, fresh from trying to get a university student disciplined and a university professor fired for insulting his precious little disc of unleavened bread, has launched a campaign to have gay bloggers barred from the Democratic National Convention. (Edge Boston)
3. Following in the footsteps of Random House in the United States, the Serbian publisher of Sherry Jones’ The Jewel of Medina has pulled the book from the shelves after members of the local Islamic community complained that the novel, depicting the life of Muhammad’s child bride Aisha, “offended their feelings.” (Reuters)

Let’s fighting love!

Possibly the world’s queerest video game:

It’s a Japanese game called Chou Aniki, which roughly translates as “Super Big Brothers,” released in the early nineties for various platforms including the SNES. As the Wikipedia entry notes, the game is replete with wacky humour, surrealist imagery, and blatant homoeroticism.

Via Digg. See also: Sexual Moments in Video Game History.

Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXIV

The week in fundie . . .

1. Which employees would Jesus shaft? A Christian bookstore in the UK fired four employees by email after its parent organisation, a Christian charity, filed for bankruptcy in the US. The bookstore, which had closed but has opened again with reduced trading hours, also tried to impose a new contract on its employees, “drastically reducing their contractual rights.” And the administrators don’t like criticism of their activities: one sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to a blogger, containing the hilarious line “I do not consent to you posting blogs on the internet.” (via Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion)
2. The Christian fundamentalist brand of toilet paper known as OneNewsNow accuses the United Nations of advocating pedophilia, after (according to OneNewsNow) the UN granted recognition to two “homosexual activist groups” neither of which in the spirit of Christian honesty, integrity and forthrightness the innuendo-slinging OneNewsNow chooses to identify.
3. This is welcome news, if several millenia overdue. Iran is to suspend its use of stoning as a method of capital punishment. (AFP)
4. In Florida, a team of “psychic detectives” known as “Body Hunters” are “assisting” in the search for a missing toddler. “We will not even look at street names [. . .] We drive and go completely on feeling instinct, chasing down what we call a person signature.” Good luck with that. (FOXNews, naturally)
5. Meanwhile, the reality TV programme “The One” has declared one Charmaine Wilson *Australia’s leading psychic.” The winner “promised to represent the spirit world and the psychic community as best she can.” There’s a community? Wilson’s victory was decided by audience vote, which is as solid a methodology as any, given the circumstances. (LIVENews)

Homophobia: a truly interfaith phenomenon

A homophobic yogic cult, claiming to be able to “cure” homosexuality through chanting, has infiltrated the Gold Coast City Council, according to Religion News Blog. Through its front organisation the Australian School of Meditation and Yoga, the Science of Identity movement is running yoga and meditation courses in collaboration with the Gold Coast council (as part of the latter’s “Active and Healthy” program). The leader, one Chris Butler a.k.a. Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa Jagad Guru, claims to be a “living yoga master” as well as (according to a critical site) “teacher of the entire world, a direct link to God and the only true follower of Jesus Christ.” Ex-members have some interesting stories to tell:

Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXIII

Two weeks in fundie . . .

1. This is an old one, but the title of this World Net Daily article says it all: “Soy is making kids ‘gay.’” (Via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
2. Nigerian diners see the name of Allah in a piece of gristle. (Via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
3. From September, taxpayer-funded “faith schools” in Britain will be able to reserve head-teacher positions for religious teachers and “and voluntary aided schools [will be able to] require some non-teaching staff to follow a religion.” (British Humanist Association)
4. Remember Council Nedd and his In God We Trust organisation? They’re urging Barack Obama to condemn the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s “Imagine No Religion” billboards. In God We Trust, which is responsible for a billboard campaign asking “Why Do Atheists Hate America?,” describes the “Imagine No Religion” billboards as “hateful.” (CNSNews)
5. Britain’s Chief Rabbi blames declining religious belief for “the spread of depression, stress, eating disorders and drug and alcohol abuse.” Because religion causes you to do good things, and nonbelief causes you to do bad things. It’s so simple! (Mail)
6. The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy is Commanding Contrition from PZ Myers for his Communion Cracker Crucifixion. (Pharyngula)
7. US organisation Pray At The Pump claims that petrol prices have fallen below $4 a gallon because they (*posthoc* . . . sorry, just had to clear my throat) prayed for it to happen. (Norwich Bulletin)
8. A poll of Muslim students at British universities suggests that almost a third think that killing in the name of religion is justified, a third support a worldwide Islamic caliphate, and about a quarter believe that men and women are not equal in the name of Allah. (Guardian)
9. Women were excluded from participating in a parliamentary choir at a special sitting of the Israeli Knesset, held in order to welcome British PM Gordon Brown, in order to placate the cherished beliefs of Haredi parliamentarians. ““I am the director-general of all MKs,” said the Director-General of the Knesset, “and I don’t have any wish to cause situations that would make MKs get up and leave.” Because bigots have feelings, too. (Haaretz)
10. And bigots with delicate sensitivities that must under no circumstances be upset by inadvertent contact with filthy evil menstruating women, also ride buses. That’s why Egged, Israel’s largest bus company, is continuing to maintain sex-segregation on routes that pass through Haredi districts, where women must sit at the back and men sit at the front. This is in spite of a 2006 incident in which a 50-year-old Canadian woman, on her way to pray at the Western Wall, was set upon by the local Taliban “modesty patrol” who punched, kicked, slapped and pushed her when she refused to sit at the rear of an Egged bus. (All well in keeping with the thesis that religious faith is a prerequisite for moral behaviour, as you can see.) (Jerusalem Post)
    

A more welcoming stance towards gays and lesbians . . . or teh Jesus gets it.

Via John Morales, in the comments at Pharyngula:

As John remarks, this YouTube may not last, but given the hysterical overreaction to PZ Myer’s post on “Frackin’ Crackers,” I think we can expect a lot more of these.

On the subject of “Al Queerda,” two WYD developments: one encouraging, the other disappointing, if not unexpected.

First, the disappointing.

Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXII

Before we begin . . . kudos to the Federal Court for allowing sanity to prevail by striking down New South Wales’ special World Youth Day “anti-annoyance” laws.

Now, onto the week in fundie . . ,

Dillahunty FTW!

1. Kicking the homeless out of Sydney during the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day: it’s What Jesus Would Do. (ABC News Online)
2. In the US, a Pakistani man has been charged with murdering his daughter because she wanted to end her arranged marriage. (Thaindian News)
3. In Jordan, a 16-year-old boy stabbed his older sister 10 times in the heart because she “disappeared from home for a month with her boyfriend.” (The Times of India)
4. The London Metropolitan University has “expressed regret at any unhappiness” caused to China as a result of its having awarded an honorary PhD to the Dalai Lama. (Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion)
5. Ugandan Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, a participant in Australian Archbishop Peter Jensen’s anti-gay Global Anglican Future Conference, says he fears being killed by gays when he is “in countries which have supporters of homosexuals.” (via Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion)
6. In Italy, a man has been awarded damages after he was told to retake a driving test because of his homoseuxality. (via Fundies Say the Darndest Things.

Sydney WYD: Mutaween for Jesus

What the NSW Government is doing to liberal democracy in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Mutaween is a generic term for religious police in Islamic countries. They’re the guys (and of course they tend to be guys) who go around arresting, beating, flogging and even killing ordinary citizens who flout religious laws. In countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, women tend to find themselves the victims of the sadistic dogma-enforcers (see this Amnesty report from 2000), who on one occasion prevented schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building “because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress.” (15 of the schoolgirls subsequently died, having been beaten back into the blaze by the police.) We in the modern, enlightened West like to pride ourselves on our difference from sickeningly backward societies like the theocracies of the Islamic world. We value religious freedom, and are not so cognitively immature that we require the repressive apparatus of the state to artificially prop up religious faith and deliver us from reality. Certainly nothing could be more alien to the liberal democratic values we cherish than the idea of religious police, right?

Wrong. As you are doubtless already aware, the NSW Government has deemed it necessary to outsource the Sydney constabulary (as well as emergency services) as rent-a-cops for the Spanish Inquisition, and they have already proceeded to heavy potential critics: