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

Let’s creation the heavens and the earth!!

The week in fundie . . .

1. In the UK, the Church of England is whining that not being shown enough special preferential treatment by the Government, and not having a special Minister for imposing Christian dogma upon UK citizens (whether they are Christian or otherwise) is tantamount to persecution. (The Times)
2. Jesus said: “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room (or closet.) and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret…” (Verse courtesy of Matthew 6: 5-6. Link courtesy of the New York Times)
3. A Northern Ireland Assembly member and chair of the Stormont health committee has called on gay people to seek “psychiatric counselling” to cure their homosexuality. (Via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
4. At a baseball game in Seattle, a lesbian couple were told by an usher to stop kissing on the grounds that they were making another spectator uncomfortable, and that there were children in the crowd whose parents would have to explain why two women were kissing. (Via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
5. According to the Daily Times,
   

   Pakistan will ask the European Union countries to amend laws regarding freedom of expression in order to prevent offensive incidents such as the printing of blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the production of an anti-Islam film by a Dutch legislator, sources in the Interior Ministry told Daily Times on Saturday.

   The sources also warned that if the EU did not comply, attacks against EU diplomatic missions could not be ruled out.

Bethel sex scandal: What Would Archbishop Hickey Do?

Deny responsibility, of course.

Thanks to commenter DNGQ, I have managed to locate a copy of a West Australian article (“Church knew of sex claims,” 26/5/08) detailing the Western Australian Catholic Church hierarchy’s knowledge of and position on sexual and other abuses at the Bethel Covenant Community.

While the Church admits that it has been receiving complaints about former Bethel leader Kevin Horgan’s “style of management and autocratic exercise of authority” for years, it

claims it was not made aware of sexual allegations until last year. Archbishop Barry Hickey yesterday distanced both himself and the Church from Bethel, saying it was an independent group and must solve its own　problems.

But in a joint statement with Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton which was　released to The West Australian on Friday, he said he had investigated　any complaints he had received from Bethel members, all of whom were　Catholic. Bethel was rocked by the claims of several members that Mr　Horgan, the founder and long-term leader of the ecumenical group, had　groped their breasts or encouraged them to have breast enlargements.

Stumbleupon joy

Times Free Press

(UN Evironment Programme)

And if you’re especially bored, why not play a bit of Etymologic?

Akismet . . . under the hood

I’m considering turning this into a play or an opera.

· Jamie Holts | jamie@bestnewspolitics.com | bestnewspolitics.com | IP: 75.125.60.13A friend of mine just emailed me one of your articles from a while back. I read that one a few more. Really enjoy your blog. Thanks

Not Spam — Jun 5, 6:04 PM — [ View Post ]

· Jamie Holts | jamie@bestnewspolitics.com | bestnewspolitics.com | IP: 75.125.60.13

I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.

Not Spam — Jun 5, 6:08 PM — [ View Post ]

Is secularism about to get its groove back?

Peter Canellos, Washington bureau chief at the Boston Globe, certainly seems to think so. He’s noticed a distinct trend across the 2008 election primary campaign, which started out with candidates wrapping themselves in the Bible, making antidemocratic utterances about freedom “requiring” religion, and generally embracing anyone able to pronounce the words “Gawud” and “Jeebus” with sincerity, but is “ending with candidates rushing to repudiate them. An election cycle that was supposed to usher in the marriage of religion and politics may be hastening its divorce.” Canellos continues:

From the evangelical ministers who questioned the fitness of a Mormon to be president, to the religious-right activists who denounced John McCain as godless, to the McCain-backing radio preacher who said Hitler was fulfilling God’s will, to Barack Obama’s longtime minister who blamed the United States for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to Obama’s Catholic adviser who last week mocked Hillary Clinton, the clergy haven’t just made a bad show of it: They’ve behaved like small-minded bigots.These preachers have managed the amazing feat of making all the politicians involved in the campaign seem, by comparison, more tolerant, more reasonable, and less self-interested.

It hasn’t been all clergy, of course. The vast majority of religious leaders have sensibly stayed out of politics – or, rather, above politics, where spiritual leaders function best. But encouraged by candidates and perhaps envious of the religious right’s influence on the Bush administration, many religious figures have sought to weigh in on the presidential election this year.

What they’ve discovered is that once they turn their pulpits into lecterns, they lose the deference that attaches to men and women of God. The rain of criticism has caught many by surprise, more accustomed as they are to nods and amens.

It ought to go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that among mature and enlightened citizens, zero deference should attach to people simply because their names are prefixed by “Father,” “Pope,” “Pastor” or “Reverend.” (Or “Imam,” or “Rabbi,” etc.) Perhaps, if Canellos is right, Americans are beginning to realise this, and are finally growing up. And (assuming Canellos is right) you have to wonder where this is coming from. Despite their (at times) mutual antipathy, secularists and religious progressives have for the past several years been pushing back against that noisome and toxic admixture of religion and politics known as the Religious Right. Maybe, even on the religious side (as journalist Christine Wicker argues), the slit in the burqa is widening, to borrow Richard Dawkins’ metaphor.

“Yellow Peril” paranoia much?

Today’s Ninemsn poll:

(“Do you regard Australia as part of Asia?”)

I believe we are in danger of being swamped by paranoid, racist, chauvinistic bogans. They form ghettoes and do not assimilate.

Will the real Antichrist please stand up?

It is high time the lunatic fringe of Christianity made up its mind about who the Anti-Christ is supposed to be.

On the one hand, a commenter by the name of “Mister Truthful” this morning made a very sound case for Barack Obama being the Anti-Christ:

IF WE ADD UP THE LETTERS IN HISFIRST, MIDDLE & LAST NAME, WE

WILL GET 666 IF WE USE SOME UNDERSTANDING!

**SO HERE IS THE FORMULA:

HIS FIRST NAME IS BARACK.

HIS MIDDLE NAME IS HUSSEIN.

HIS LAST NAME IS OBAMA.

BARACK HAS—————6 LETTERS

HUSSEIN HAS—————7 LETTERS

OBAMA HAS—————-5 LETTERS

NOW 6 PLUS 7 PLUS 5 EQUALS 18.

AND IF WE BREAK DOWN THE NUMBER 18.

WE WILL GET 6 PLUS 6 PLUS 6.
AND 666 IS THE MARK OF THE BEAST!

And he wrote that in ALLCAPS, so it must be true.

(UPDATE: BTW, nice work, Satan!)

On the other hand, former McCain endorser Pastor John Hagee has advanced the thesis that the Anti-Christ will be a Jewish gay homosexual:

It’s a good thing that Australian troops have been pulled out of Iraq . . .

. . . because the war is being run by a bunch of class-A fuckwits. As I posted in this blog’s most recent round-up of religious chicanery, some members of US forces stationed in Iraq are attempting to convert the local population to Christianity, distributing Bibles and other fundamentalist Christian literature, as well as “witnessing coins.” As Jason Leopold reports in The Public Record, they’re also handing out Chick tracts, translated into Arabic, to Iraqi children. That means you have US soldiers, part of an occupying force in an overwhelmingly Muslim country, whose fellow soldiers are dying in their dozens month after month at the hands of insurgents opposed to their presence, handing out Arabic translations of the following to Iraqi kids:

The Second Coming of Jeebus can’t come soon enough for these monkeys, can it? Via Dispatches From The Culture Wars.

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

The week in fundie . . .

1. Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion reports on calls from within the evangelical wing of the Church of England to convert British Muslims, on the grounds that “Our nation is rooted in the Christian faith and that is the basis of welcoming people of other faiths,” and despite the fact that in the nineties the Church leadership distanced itself from an organisation established to evangelise Jews (a point on which the evangelicals, Bartholomew notes, remain silent).
2. The Spanish Inquisition Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decreed that “anyone trying to ordain a woman and any woman who attempts to receive the ordination would incur automatic excommunication” from the Catholic Church. Kiddy-fiddlers are still welcome, however. (Yahoo News)
3. When it comes to the separation of church and state and the issue of whether there should be a religious test for public office in the US, Democrat member of the Indiana State House of Representatives David “Dave” Cheatham doesn’t beat around the bush. He argues that “Any public official should have as a top priority the goal of serving God and living a life as a witness for Jesus.” The separation of church and state is, for Cheatham, a “one-way street”:
   

   Religion and faith should be able to affect government policies and practices, but government should not interfere with legitimate religions. Restricting prayer in school and the reading of the Bible and the Ten Commandments was never intended to be the affect of the 1st amendment. Government has over-stepped their authority. Government’s relation to religion should be one of “benevolent neutrality.”

   “Benevolent neutrality,” means neutrality towards the religions Cheatham is prepared to recognise.

   government should not be used to favor a particular religion over another as long as the religion is a legitimate faith with the belief in God. Cults and other pseudo-religions are not really religions in my mind.

   Via Fundies Say the Darndest Things.

4. Villagers in Orissa, India bound and gagged a woman they accused of being a witch, dragged her from her home to the local crematorium, and burnt her alive. This happened last week. It happens to dozens of Indian women every year. (Reuters)
5. At an Anonymous rally in Glasgow, police ordered protesters to take down placards labelling Scientology a cult. Similar action was taken against a protester in London last month. (Sunday Herald)
6. According to Jason Leopold at OpEdNews, some US soldiers are distributing Bibles and other fundamentalist Christian material translated into Arabic to thousands of Iraqi Muslims, in order to convert them to Christianity. Members of the 101st Airborne Division have been provided with a special military edition of Bible Pathway Ministries‘ Daily Devotional bible study book, and are using them, according to an officer in the division, “to minister to the local residents.” Elaborating upon this blatant violation of the Establishment Clause, Chief Warrant Officer Rene Llanos explains that “We need to pray for protection for our soldiers as they patrol and pray that God would continue to open doors. The soldiers are being placed in strategic places with a purpose. They’re continuing to spread the Word.”
7. In the Filipino province of Leyte, the Catholic Church is considering tithing in order to keep its parishes afloat financially. This is in a country in which 26.9 percent of families were deemed to be living below the poverty line in 2006. (Inquirer.net)
8. How much irony can you pack into one story? ABC News Online reports that moderate Muslims rallying in Jakarta in favour of religious tolerance have been attacked . . . by baton-wielding radical Muslims. The moderates were protesting against Indonesian government plans to ban the Ahmadiyah sect, considered heretical by many other Muslims.

Religion as child abuse: two vignettes

In Baltimore, members of the Christian group One Mind Ministries slew an 18-month-old boy after he failed to comply with the cult’s rules:

Cult members concluded Javon Thompson was a “demon” after the baby wouldn’t say “amen” at mealtime and starved him to death, witnesses told homicide detectives, according to records obtained by The Examiner.

“The child was abused because Javon was noncompliant with the existing rules of the ‘cult,’ ” the records state. “The child was also viewed as a ‘demon.’ ”

Investigators believe 18-month-old Javon’s body was found last month in a suitcase in Philadelphia two years after his death. (Baltimore Examiner)

According to a witness, the boy was “beaten, physically abused [and] deprived of food and water, which led to the child’s death.” The boy had “grown so skinny he was a skeleton and that he died in December while his mother was holding him in her arms.” After his death, cult members placed his body on a mattress where they said “God would resurrect him from the dead.” They then took his body to Philadephia, packed it into a suitcase, and stored it in an acquaintance’s shed. HT: Dogma Free America.