Religious hypocrisy

assassination plot foiled

2008-02-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

A plot to assassinate the Danish cartoonist who drew an image of muhammad that was published in newspapers was stopped when three men (one Danish citizen of Moroccan origin and two Tunisians) were arrested. There was unrest in Denmark consisting of burning schools and cars. This might have been caused by the reprinting of the cartoons which was done in solidarity of the cartoonists.

you can't always get what you want

2008-02-16T07:13:00.000-08:00

Huckabee supporters pray for deaths of leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. There is a new word I learned from this story: imprecatory prayer is prayer for the misfortune of others. The pastor that made the call is being investigated by the IRS for endorsing Mike Huckabee because under tax exemption status, churches are not allowed to endorse candidates for election. Should churches lose their tax exempt status when they ask god to smite their enemies? Of course, when the Baptist Press reports on the story, they leave off a bit of what the rest of us find quite hypocritical.

islam is not oppressive to women and journalists (just don't kill me)

2008-02-03T04:48:00.000-08:00

A journalist has been sentenced to death in Afghanistan under sharia law for downloading a report that says that islamic fundamentalists use the Koran to justify oppression of women. Apparently he did nothing more than read the document and for that he was sentenced to death.

Grisham calls baptist convention intolerant, then is labeled as "negative"

2008-02-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

John Grisham was a voice of tolerance, anti-war, and anti-poverty at a baptist convention. His speech was then labeled as "negative" by the reporter.

How strange that the reporter in question picked out such positive aspects of the speech, such as
* Baptists should be inclusive rather 'proudly intolerant' (e.g. excluding women)
* should use the mission of the ministry to raise children out of poverty
* oppose the Iraq war

and then call the speech negative.

plead insanity

2008-01-31T04:50:00.000-08:00

A priest for the Orthodox Church in Bucharest, Romania was convicted of killing a young nun during an exorcism ritual. Apparently the nun had schizophrenia and the priest and 4 other nuns decided to try to cure her by performing the ritual but accidently killed her. The priest and the nuns were each given a sentence of 5-6 years.

god, save us from your follower

2008-01-21T05:43:00.000-08:00

"I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."
-- Mike Huckabee
And of course, Mike, you know the word of god, so we should let you change the constitution.

the attack of the pope

2008-01-21T04:34:00.000-08:00

The pope was supposed to speak at the opening ceremony of La Sapienza university in Rome but he cancelled because of protests from university professors who pointed out that this pope has a bit of an anti-free academic history. The pope gave a speech in 1990 also at La Sapienza where he said that he thought that the trial of Galileo was right and just. Pope John Paul in 1992 admitted that the earth did not stay stationary, only three centuries after Galileo was tried for heresy.
The pope in a blatant hypocritical remark said this weekend "I encourage all of you, dear academics, to always be respectful of the opinions of others, and to seek the truth and the good with an open and responsible mind because we might jail and torture you just as we did to Galileo." Ok, so that last bit I might be misquoting him, but of course for the physicists at the university this is actually what is happening since there many in the general public who are calling for their jobs.
So lets analyze this carefully: You are not allowed to disagree with the pope or you will lose your job.
There was a large crowd at the Vatican this last weekend in what the media is calling support of the pope although apparently there were protesters there too.
The real hypocrisy is that the pope was the one who cancelled his own visit and now is playing the victim and crying saying that he doesn't get to speak. boo-hoo. Um, mr. pope, sir? Don't you get to speak to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people every week? The professors are not asking you not to speak, just not at their ceremony where you will be given an open position to attack academic freedom (as you did last time).

first it was harry potter...

2007-12-09T06:18:00.000-08:00

Relgious groups are calling for a boycott of The Golden Compass, both the movie and the books, because of their anti religious undertones. The movie apparently hints (although somewhat abstractly) that religion removes free will. The behavior of these groups seems to confirm this.

who does islamic law protect?

2007-12-03T06:09:00.000-08:00

In an extreme case of failed justice of islamic law a rape victim in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 90 lashes for seeing a male friend who is not a relative without an escort. When she protested her sentence was changed to 200 lashes. These types of miscarriages of justice could happen all the time but the victims are unlikely to come forward.

cute little bear named mohammed

2007-12-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

A British teacher in Sudan was convicted of insulting religion (but cleared of inciting hatred and showing contempt of religious beliefs) because she allowed students in her class to name a teddy bear mohammed. She was sentenced to 15 days in jail. Protesters gathered outside of the Republican Presidential palace, some calling for her death, were somehow not charged with insulting religion.

value voters priorities

2007-11-29T08:01:00.000-08:00

Richard Land says we shouldn't hate value voters because they want to ban abortion and gay marriage. He is the primary author of the Land Letter, so try to put what he says in context: he supports the Iraq war but somehow values life (at least the lives of his fellow baptists).

He believes that reducing abortions by making them illegal is the way to go. I disagree and think that we need to reduce the the need for people to have abortions in the first place but that women need to be able to freely choose to have or not to have children. Priorities shimorities.

His statement that "marriage is anything but a personal, private relationship" is fine, I agree that recognizing a relationship is not personal, but societal. Richard Land needs to be aware that by not recognizing same sex relationships, christians are marginalizing gays and lesbians. For some reason he needs to be "convinced" that same sex relationships have value to gays and lesbians (I don't see where it is his business) and until he is convinced he will stand in the way of those relationships existing. If those are his priorities I think we have the right to hate him for it.

religious leaders

2007-11-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

A bishop was stripped of his position after it became public that he had an affair with his brother's wife. Earl Paulk was the archbishop of a protestant mega-church in Atlanta, but no longer. The wife said that she was manipulated into the affair. The fact that he received praise from the President of the U. S. is no surprise, it seems to be a strong indicator of corruption.

Also Cardinal Frances George was elected president of the U.S. council of catholic bishops. In this NPR story, he is at least partially faulted with allowing abuse by a priest to continue to abuse children in his own archdiocese as late as last year.

Pat (heart) Rudy

2007-11-09T04:51:00.000-08:00

Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Guiliani for president. Everyone is quite quick to point out that Rudy is not a supporter of the three things that Pat Robertson is partially responsible for being in the GOP's platform: guns, gays and god.
It seems clear why Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy to me: Rudy Giuliani is the front runner and Mr. Robertson is notorious for 'predicting' the future based on what he hears in the news.
I have less respect for Rudy for acknowledging Pat Robertson. I know he has to because of politics but the minute that the front runners say to Pat, "you are a nutcase, take your fundamentalist extremism and go hide in a cave somewhere" then Pat Robertson will have no power to call down the wrath of god on people who fail to do his bidding.

Pat had another fit recently and told people that yoga is evil and a form of pantheism. I wonder if Rudy is ok with this.

Its ok, because Jesus forgives me

2007-08-30T04:48:00.000-07:00

Michael Vick, America's least favorite sports hero, asked forgiveness from Jesus and gave his life over to god.

Extremism - Islamic, Christian and Jewish

2007-08-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

I only saw part of Christiane Amanpour's report on 'God's Warriors.' It addressed in three separate reports many examples of the type of religion that I address on this website.
One of the comments that she responded to on CNN's website asked the question 'How can you even begin to compare Islamic extremists with Christians or Jews? How can you even put them in the same sentence?'
Which brings me to the cartoon by Chuck Asay that I am posting with this text. How does one attempt to reduce religous extremism? The Christian response seems to be "kill them, kill them all!"

Yet another DOMA supporter gets caught with his pants down

2007-08-28T05:28:00.000-07:00

What is it with these people that are so deep in the closet that they are politically active against the rights of gays and lesbians to marry and then get caught having sex in a bathroom stall? This time it was Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho.
I wonder if he will ask god and his family for forgiveness...

Jesus gets divorced

2007-07-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

Some guy named Jesus (some guy that claims that he is the second coming) gets divorced. Who knew that in the second coming of Jesus, he would turn out to be a gambler and a womanizer? I do not understand why this Jesus guy has anyone who listens to him claim that he is the second coming and then showers him with gifts and money. There is a homeless guy down the street who does this too and he is lucky if people give him spare change.

Candidates wear their faith on their sleeves

2007-07-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Of the major candidates mentioned in this article only Rudy Guiliani doesn't seem to use his religion as a selling point of his candidacy.

Man killed trying to perform an exorcism

2007-07-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

Police interrupted a exorcism being performed on a 3 year old when a relative called them. Upon entering the room the tried to stop a man from choking the girl. The police tried subduing him with a taser and placed him in handcuffs and then he died suddenly.

Christians demand rights to commit hate crimes

2007-07-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Christians seem to be worried about being able to express their views on homosexuality (with a stick). They have been calling a bill passed by the House of representatives a 'thought crimes bill' while the title of the bill seems to be titled 'Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.' Nothing of what the religious right says about the bill seems to be true, but that has never mattered in politics, what matters is what people believe to be true. Here's a sample:
1. would make Americans too afraid to report a Muslim acting suspiciously in an airport or on a plane, effectively giving jihad terrorists a free hand
2. creates second-class victims and a legal system of 'separate and unequal,'
3. muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality
4. places us on a slippery slope toward religious persecution
5. your grandmother's mugging will not receive as much attention as the "hate crime" committed against a homosexual

The institution of marriage

2007-07-12T04:34:00.000-07:00

David Vitter, a Louisana congressman and a strong supporter of the Protection of Marriage amendment, admitted that his phone number does appear on the phone records of a D.C. madam. He has asked for forgiveness from his wife and god.

Pope suffers from delusions of grandeur

2007-07-11T04:45:00.000-07:00

The pope made up some random criterion for a faith to be "true" (that goes something like 'only a true church recognizes the legitimacy of the pope') and then pointed out that only the catholic church is the only one satifying criterion and is therefore the only true church of god on earth. Not that I blame him...most churches do this to one degree or another.

Students willing to die because Pakistani government won't impose islam on everyone

2007-07-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

A madrassah in Islamabad, Pakistan is under seige by government forces. They have been clashing with the secular government because they are not allowed to go on a vigilante campaign of distroying book and music shops for being unislamic.

God (heart) Castro

2007-06-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

George Bush said at a speech given at the U.S. Naval War College "One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away." Does that mean that if Castro lives for a few more years that god loves him?

Riots in Moscow

2007-05-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

A gay rights protest asking the Mayor to overturn a ban on a gay pride parade turned into a bit of a riot when Russian orthodox protesters got involved and started beating up the other side. One orthodox believer said: "It (homosexuality) is satanic." One man holding a crucifix threatened to beat-up any gay person he saw.

And the survey says...

2007-05-29T05:13:00.000-07:00

A recent survey says that most muslims in American assimilate into society reasonably well. The problem is that there is still a frighteningly large (roughly 26-30) percentage who say that suicide bombings are justified often, sometimes or rarely.
At a recent Organization of the Islamic Conference the leaders of Malaysia, Indonesia, Kuwait, the UAE and Pakistan spoke of the problems that many of the 1.6 billion muslims are among the worlds poorest and have an international reputation that has been tarnished by false perceptions that most support terrorism. I would bet that if you surveyed muslims in these countries the numbers would not be significantly different. In any population it will be difficult not to find some that think that it is ok to get revenge by killing, but 1/4 of the population is really bad.
I was watching 60 minutes the other day and it was great to see them honor some military families from Iowa. During the same segment they interviewed one military member about to be shipped off and what he said made me worry.
"I feel that god lead me to do this job. ... I believe that what they did on 9/11 was a travesty." Who does this sound like? Dick Cheney? Pat Robertson? Jerry Falwell?

Pope makes people mad

2007-05-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

On his recent tour of Brazil the pope said that Latin America had welcomed European priests who came with the conquitadore colonists. Brazilian Indians called the pope's comments 'arrogant and disrespectful.' Many have demanded an apology (including Venezulean president Hugo Chavez), and he came close by acknowledging in a recent audience that "It is not possible to forget the sufferings and injustices inflicted by the colonizers on the indigenous population, whose fundamental human rights were often trampled upon."

What is honorable about killing a family member?

2007-05-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

A kurdish teen in northern Iraq was killed apparently because her family members believed that she converted from Yazidi to Sunni Muslim. The details of this killing are rather horifying, it was caught on a cell phone camera and police apparently watched as it happened.

Ding dong, Jerry Falwell is dead

2007-05-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

Jerry Falwell died the other day. He is most notable as the founder of the Moral Majority. Let me point out the (hopefully obvious) irony: J.F.'s followers are neither moral nor major. Lets hope they will leave us alone now that he is gone.

The pope is catholic

2007-05-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

The pope is in Brazil lamenting that they are losing catholics to other religions. He blames many of South Americas problems on Marxism and capitolism, but then warns that women should not have access to legal contraception or abortion. I believe single most effective means to help the social status of a population is to give women control of their reproductive rights and the pope is not acknowldging the damage that the catholic church has caused in South and Central America.

Child mortality rates in Iraq

2007-05-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

It was reported recently that 1 in 8 children in Iraq die before age 5 and has appeared at the very bottom of the list of countries with bad child mortality rates. It is hard not to be cynical about churches (say like the Southern Baptist Convention) that came out in favor of the Iraq war and have a strong anti-abortion lobby. I think that everyone would like to see abortion rates lowered, but one cannot take the moral high ground and impose laws that say all abortions are illegal when at the same time you do things which indirectly kill millions of children.

Satanic haircuts

2007-04-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

Iran has placed a ban on western style haircuts because they are against islamic values. Wow. An intire nation doomed to a bad hair due to islam.

Imam says 4 sentence prayer in Texas, sends christians in a tizzy

2007-04-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

I am not in favor of legislative bodies praying at the beginning of sessions because it tends to set the self-righteous tone of 'god supports my cause.' The prayer thing happens all the time though. The self righteousness is unlikely to be the case if the prayer is lead by an islamic leader in a Texas room which has no islamic senators.
Pastors and senators showed how closed minded and completely not sanely based in reality their responses were to allowing an imam to say opening prayer on April 4th in the Texas legislature. One pastor had his panties in a bunch after hearing the 4 sentence prayer, "My spirit is so grieved after listening to a portion of the reading by the Islamic Imam. I could not finish listening because my heart was fully rejecting every word spoken. This was an imposter spirit, the spirit of the antichrist." If you don't like something call it satanic.

Burqavaganza

2007-04-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

The Pakistan government stopped a theatre group from staging a satirical play about burqas under pressure from islamist lawmakers. "They have committed blasphemy against the Prophet (Mohammad)."

Lets beat a few ex-gays for a change

2007-04-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

Some ex-gays are coming out of the closet against gays being included in a national hate crimes bill. Since the hate crimes bill is to protect gays from religious zelots (like the ex-gays) who think its ok to beat people just because they are different. Allowing the religious right input on hate crimes legislation is like letting the wolf guard the hen house. Why not let the KKK have input on civil rights legislation?

I hate to even acknowledge this one

2007-04-20T17:39:00.001-07:00

Southern Methodist University held a conference "Darwin vs. Design." Roll eyes. Not again. If you repeat something often enough does that make it true? No, but it does make it truthiness.
I have to respond to the quote "He also said the theory of Intelligent Design is not faith-based." Show me one person who is not a superstitious mystic that would acknowledge anything credible about Intelligent Design because I want to talk to someone who doesn't keep falling back on the bible as a source.

Kill the wabbit

2007-04-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Three employees of bible publishers in Turkey were brutally killed and suspects have been arrested. A newspaper quoted a suspect as saying:
"We didn't do this for ourselves, but for our religion," Hurriyet newspaper quoted a suspect as saying. "Our religion is being destroyed. Let this be a lesson to enemies of our religion."

Curse of the spiderwoman

2007-04-18T17:08:00.000-07:00

I have on a number of occasions in this blog asserted that religion is akin to belief in fairies and magic. If you doubt my assertion take a look at this analysis of christian curses by some Baptist minister. Apparently people who are not biblical descendants do not have curses because the bible doesn't mention other types of curses and therefore they don't exist.

The great sin

2007-04-16T04:38:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's tourism minister is in hot water. She hugged a man. It doesn't matter who she hugged (did that man commit an "illegitimate act" too?), or that it was at a moment of after she had gone skydiving. She obviously isn't too islamic since pictures of her show her without a punjab, but now she is in danger from some religious fanatics. Nothing in my experience can help me understand how stupid islam is. I just can't wrap my head around it.

Barefoot and pregnant

2007-04-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

There are allegations that Dr. Sheri Klouda was dismissed as a theology professor at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary because of a change in the administrations position (when the president was replaced) to one that says "a woman should not instruct men in theology courses or in biblical languages." The case has not been proven in court but the quotes from the administration are pretty telling of their policy:
"I do not know of any women teaching in any of the SBC seminaries presently in the area of theology or biblical languages. In my estimation all of the seminaries have sought to be more consistent with most Southern Baptists' understanding of Scripture on the matter." The Baptist school is not denying the descrimination, they only claim that it is in their first amendment right to do so.
Christians often point a finger at the backwards treatment of women by Islam, but they have hardly cleaned out their own closets.

Is God poison?

2007-04-07T04:59:00.000-07:00

An article in Macleans discusses some of the arguments of some modern well spoken atheists who have written books in the years since 9/11.

Uh oh, its magic!

2007-04-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

A church in Ethiopia claims to be able to cure HIV/AIDS by baptising visitors with holy water. The catch is that visitors seeking a cure are not allowed to take antiretroviral drugs.

State religion

2007-03-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

A bill floating around congress (it has passed the house and is waiting in the Senate) would change the way that attorney's fees are granted involving the Establishment clause of the first amendement. So in cases where a city chooses to flaunt the First Amendment by, say, putting a cross on a public park, this bill will make it harder for organizations to bring a lawsuit against them and it would make it possible only for deep pockets to access the courts. The hypocrisy of all this is WE DON'T TAX CHURCHES and they are the deep pockets that would benefit from this bill.
Supporters of the bill say that it removes financial incentives as motivation for filing First Amendment lawsuits. But currently it is the case that if an attorney wins an Establishment Clause case asking a city government to remove a religious idol, the city may be required to pay for the removal and the legal fees for both sides of the case.

A cure for being Baptist

2007-03-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Albert Mohler has written in a personal blog that
(a) it might be possible for scientists to prove a biological basis for homosexuality (indeed, there is evidence which suggests that a link might exist) and develop a genetic test for it
(b) that it would be ok for parents to choose to "cure" their children of homosexuality if such a treatment became possible
(c) that it would be immoral to abort a fetus simply because it tests positive for being gay

Science has also suggested that there may be a genetic reason that causes people to believe in God. Indeed, there is scientific evidence which indicates that there is some genetic component which causes people to believe that (conveniently selected passages of) the Bible is the word of God. I think that we should try to find a genetic cure for being Baptist first.

In a more recent blog entry he states that "Other articles and reports claimed that I suggested that homosexuality may be genetic in origin and that genetic therapies should be used to create customized and corrected babies." But in the first blog entry he states (what I see is one of many statements which contradict his denial blog entry) "If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin."

Gotta love Gingrich (God does, ya know)

2007-03-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich (one of the most popular almost-runners-for-president) has come clean about an extra-marital affair that he had at around the same time he was attacking President Clinton during the Lewinsky affair. We were all relieved to hear that this is OK with christian voters because at least he didn't commit perjury in front of a sitting fedral judge (BTW, the way he states this in the interview makes me think that one could catch him commiting perjury in front of a standing divorce court judge). Don't worry Newt, I'm sure that if someone had asked you back then to publically admit that you were having an affair you would have shouted it to the world.

Lies, damn lies and James Cameron

2007-03-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

A Jesus tomb was discovered in Jerusalem and James Cameron has "proved" that there is only a 1 in 600 chance that this is not the tomb of the real Jesus and he waited until Lent to hold a news conference to announce this. This statistical argument is sketchy at best. The statistical calculation may be correct, it is just that the probability that the assumptions that went into that calculation are correct is probably close to 1 in 10,000. Mathematics alone cannot prove that one has found the tomb of Jesus. It is kind of like those documentaries that "found" Noah's ark in the '70s where fuzzy satelite images proved that location has been uncovered. There is an hour of my life which I still regret giving up. This is why I will not watch television and cringe while listening to the director of Titanic argue using statistics.

Christian groups are angry (the film was apparently censored in India), conservatives are angry, scientists and scholars are angry, all at James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, the two responsible for making this documentary.

Baptists throw the first stone

2007-02-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

The Rev. Lonnie W. Latham was arrested on Jan 3, 2006 in Oklahoma City for asking for sex from an undercover policeman. His attorney filed a motion to have the misdemanor lewdness charge thrown out based on the 2003 Supreme court decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.
The hypocrisy of this story is that Reverend Lonnie W. Latham was a Baptist minister who had supported a resolution calling on gay men and lesbians to reject their sinful ways as well as a state amendment to protect the traditional definition of marriage.

Catholics against sex

2007-02-17T22:34:00.000-08:00

Cardinal Edward Egan and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio issued a statement against New York's Valentine's day condom give away and stated that the city officials "fail to protect the moral tone of our community when they encourage inappropriate sexual activity by blanketing our neighborhoods with condoms."
Mayor Michael Bloomburg responded by saying (which I agree with) the city is trying to find ways to reduce its rates of HIV and AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases. "They should preach to their congregants what they think is the appropriate ways to live your lives, but the health department has to work with the real world of people not practicing protected sex, not practicing abstinence, and this is a ways to keep people alive."
If Catholics really wanted to reduce rates of premarital sex and abortions, they should stop bringing up their faithful completely ignorant of the cause and effect of premarital sex.

United we stand

2007-02-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

There is a meeting of the Anglican church in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania this week in part to discuss 'issues' regarding homosexuality and its relation to the church. The Nigerian Church is threatening to break away from the Anglican church by next year if something isn't done about those "damn gays and lesbians."

In December the Anglican Church of Tanzania decided to not take funding from liberal U.S. churches that condone homosexual practices or bless same sex unions. At least one African bishop is breaking ranks from this position and taking the money in good conscience with the statement "Let the judgement be done by God, not by me."

Unfortunately not all of the African primates (not monkeys, the leaders of the church are called primates) agree with that assessment. Several of them refused to participate in some of the ceremonies of the meeting with the leader of the Episcopal church in the U.S. because they are in fact quite judgemental.

Sell your soul, and a milkshake

2007-02-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

Pat Robertson knows how to play his crowd (and feed them too aparently). I guess I give him too much credit for being a religious figure when really the difference between him and some nutcase pushing a shopping cart around the neighborhood is about 700 million dollars. This video is Pat doing one of his other video endorsements. Its hilarious!

Don't vote for him because he's Mormon (and brainwashed)

2007-02-09T07:49:00.000-08:00

Mit Romney is facing an uphill battle with his presidential campaign because he is Mormon and many evangelical christians don't think that the Mormon religion is christian:
"His faith is inconsistent with my faith. His faith is consistent with the Book of Mormon. My faith is consistent with God's word, the Bible, and they're not compatible," said South Carolina State Rep. Gloria Arias Haskins.
I don't just hope that Mit Romney's faith bites him in the ass, I want it to eat him alive after comments like the following:
"People in this country want a person of faith to lead them as their…president." Along with his shift in position on gay rights and abortion to something that aligns more closely with his church will hopefully make him completely unelectable. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is weird, secretive, and ultra-conservative. Be afraid, be very afraid.

If the shoe fits...

2007-02-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

Two muslim groups are suing over cartoons published in a French magazine. We have all heard the ridiculous stories about suicide bombers believing that they are going to receive (roughly 72) virgins in heaven. I have a hard time believing that a Muslim understands what the word 'offensive' means if that story can perpetuate itself within Islam. We should all be able to laugh at the stupidity of that idea, but what do we see instead? Violent protests. These groups don't deserve a day in court.
Caption of this cartoon: Its hard to be loved by idiots.

Update: The French court aquitted Philippe Val on March 22.

He is cured!

2007-02-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

I started this blog a few months after the story of Ted Haggard came out last year who was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and it was revealed that he had sex with a gay escort that also sold him crystal meth.
Now after three weeks of therapy Ted says he is no longer gay. The big hypocrisy of the story is that Ted had come out publicly against gay marriage and even appeared in the movie Jesus Camp preaching against gays. I won't comment about how sincere I think Ted is.

Love the sinner, hate the sin

2007-02-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

New South Wales Baptist churches have been displaying signs which say "Jesus loves Osama." That may be true, but many of Jesus' followers don't show that love.

A voice of reason

2007-01-31T19:41:00.000-08:00

Recently Episcopal congregations have split from the Episcopal Church and have chosen to align with an Anglican branch (formed by a Nigerian Anglican archbishop) over disagreements with the Episcopal Church's liberal views on homosexuality (including the ordination of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson). Of course, the Episcopal Church has sued to get their churches back.

Meanwhile Nigeria is passing draconian anti-gay laws.

On the bright side we have Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu saying:

"I am deeply, deeply distressed that in the face of the most horrendous problems -- we've got poverty, we've got conflict and war, we've got HIV/AIDS -- and what do we concentrate on? We concentrate on what you are doing in bed."

If you don't like it, call it satanic

2007-01-29T19:34:00.000-08:00

The mayor of Moscow vowed not to let to allow a gay rights parade occur and called such events satanic. Press coverage seems to indicate the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Maybe this doesn't reveal religious hypocrisy since the ROC is the one true perfect religion and if they demonize gay rights marches you know it must be true.

In the Anglican conservative/liberal fight we have Nigerian Archbishop calling the acceptance of gay relationships as a "satanic attack" on the church.

Science is controversial if it disagrees with religion

2007-01-28T15:16:00.000-08:00

It is absolutely crazy that schools are required to acknowledge every laughably incredible religious idea because science becomes 'controversial' when it disagrees with myth. A Seattle school board voted to prevent schools from showing the film An Inconvenient Truth unless the teachers also present "a credible, legitimate opposing view" as well. Um, where would one find that? Does a bible thumper count as "credible?" Not in my book.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old."

How are teachers able to teach anything legitimate if religion and politics are allowed to decide the meaning of truth? I don't like what science says about climate change, lets vote it off the island.

Dick Cheney on the firing line

2007-01-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked the following question of Dick Cheney in an interview: "Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children," Focus on the Family declared. "Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child." Do you want to respond to that?

Dick Cheney ducked the question by saying "No, I don't." He then proceeded to say that Wolf Blitzer was out of line with that question. Given that the republican party has been aligned with far right religious groups for many years now and Cheney is a leader of that party I don't see how the question is anything close to out of line. I loved Jon Stewart's line for Cheney:
"how dare you apply my party's cruel and inhumane policies to my family."

Evangelism vs. environmentalism

2007-01-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

I should give credit when I notice religious groups doing something right, but I don't see it very often. Here is a story of an evangelist who is working with scientists who for advancing environmentalist causes. The rationale for Richard Cizik's lobbying efforts is 'God wants us to be a steward for the earth.' This sort of motivation is completely lost on me, but hey, whatever works for you. We all have to live here, taking care of our environment is a logical necessity.

The ironic thing is that there seems to be a larger resistance to the work of from other evangelists (amounting to silence or antipathy towards the environmental movement) who seem to think that man has been given the Earth to use and to go forth and prosper (and by consequence, waste natural resources as though they will never run out) and that climate change is God's will that we can do nothing about. Is that f*&^%d up, or what?

The war without

2007-01-22T05:22:00.000-08:00

I don't want to give the impression that I am annoyed at just the hypocrisy of christian religions. The muslim religion is just as guilty for being intolerant of other people's beliefs and way of life as any other religion (and in my opinion, MUCH worse).

It is impossibly difficult for an outsider looking at Islam to separate the difference between "extremists" (who see Christians as the enemy) and "moderates" (who see atheists as the enemy) and to have any sympathy for a religion when half of the daily violence in the world is caused by "religious" people who think they are going to heaven. Where does that idea come from?

Less is written by muslims in English expressing thier views than most christian religions so I will write less about them. Rather than fighting a jihad they should blog. It is probably a better way of releasing frustration than blowing themselves up.

Rewriting Science

2007-01-15T05:19:00.000-08:00

I missed a news story (not widely circulated) that the Bush administration is preventing employees from telling the geological age of the Grand Canyon to visitors for fear of offending religious fundamentalists. Fortunately Gary Trudeau didn't miss it, but makes it look like a joke.

I mean who could believe that someing so stupid is actually true? At least the National Park Service hasn't changed its website to call the age of the Grand Canyon 'controversy.' Very few people understand the amount of time that is spent studying, collecting data, comparing work of different scientists in order to arrive at a scientific conclusion.

Science is hard and requires a lot of work to arrive at a theory and you almost never call science `a fact' because evidence could arrive tomorrow which upends everything you know. Science has already discarded the theory that there was a biblical flood and the age of the earth is 6000 years old because that disagrees with observable data (if the age of the Earth is 6000 years old then we should see X. We do not see X, therefore the age of the Earth is not 6000 years old). To have all of that work discarded because it does not agree with the biblical myth is obscene.

I can understand why park service agents don't want to disobey though. A christian fundamentalist is likely to become violent if you say something that disrupts its world view.

Republican + christian = intolerant?

2007-01-04T18:07:00.000-08:00

Rep. Virgil Goode (R, Virginia) caused a lot of controversy by stating in a letter to his constituents that Muslims have no business holding elective office in the United States. He was obviously taking issue with Rep. Keith Ellison's (D, Minnesota) election to the House or perhaps his choice to use the Quran in his swearing in ceremony today. Goode went quite a bit further by saying "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America." Ouch, Virgil. Can you clarify that to make it sound less bigoted? Read the bill of rights lately? He states in the same letter that he has the Ten Commandments hanging in his office.

Dennis Prager, a Townhall columnist, seems to have stirred up the pot even more by stating:
"He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization. ... What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book."

Ummmm, Dennis, you are insane if you think I would actually believe "the act undermines American civilization" or that America holds the bible as its holiest book. I am atheist and American and you are undermining the tenants of American government that I hold most dear, namely, the separation of church and state and the first clause of the first amendment of the constitution.

Excuse me, but can someone explain to me why the controversy over what book he uses for this swearing in ceremony? I am perfectly happy to ban the use of the Quran if we also ban the use of the bible for the swearing in ceremony. Fairs, fair.

Pat Robertson predicts the future

2007-01-03T13:48:00.000-08:00

I know that many people consider Pat Robertson rather strange because he tends to talk more than he thinks. It wasn't very kind of him to call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez in 2005.

But I heard today that he made some predictions for the new year. In 2006 he predicted that a tsunami would hit the U.S. In 1998 he predicted bad weather for gay friendly Orlando. He claims to have a good prediction record because he said in January 2004 that George Bush would easily win re-election in 2004 (it is debatable if the adjective 'easily' applies to what happened in November 2004).

His latest prediction is that terrorists would carry out mass killings in the U.S. in late 2007. My message to Pat Robertson: my cat can make predictions better than you can. I hope that you are wrong about this one. What you seem to call 'a conversation with god' most people call 'an imagination.'

The Christian Coalition and gay marriage

2007-01-03T05:12:00.000-08:00

Joel Hunter was supposed to have taken the leadership position in the Christian Coalition of America in January of this year but turned down the post in November and distanced himself from the group by saying that he wanted the group to focus on issues other than abortion and same sex marriage such as environment, AIDS and poverty.

My feeling is that the Christian Coalition's position on gay marriage is bigoted. How do I know that the Christian Coalition is not interested in doing anything but attacking gays for political gain? A straight couple can meet a potential mate, date, f*&k and marry in the course of one television season and what does one hear from Christians who are supposedly interested in protecting the institution of marriage? Ten seasons of The Bachelor.

Can I get a constitional amendment against bad television?

Ever get frustrated by god bother-ers?

2007-01-01T07:47:00.000-08:00

I think that the religious right should accept a good part of the responsibility for the war in Iraq. I will point out some of the hypocrisy of religious 'values' and how they lead to clearly bad political outcomes. You can believe anything you want, but please don't use your crazy magic-wand/fairy dust/rapture/Jesus-loves-you logic when making policy decisions because the rest of us don't live in that fantasy world and are trying to make this a better place to live in.