Futurama Explains Religion

 

Christian Privilege Saves Child-Murdering Parents From Prison

 

Christian child abusers Herbert and Catherine Schaible

A Pennsylvania fundamentalist Christian couple, Herbert and Catherine Schaible, are spared prison after being found guilty for murdering their child with prayer and they are allowed to keep their seven remaining children to abuse for Jesus.  (That’s what you call “irresponsible procreation”.)  Cases like this make a good argument for regulating and prohibiting certain religious beliefs and practices that are just fucking dangerous.  The law already prohibits some religious practices, such as polygamy and slavery, yet allows parents to murder their children as long as they believe in magic powers.  Hopefully, however, that may be changing — prompted by the long history of child abuse and neglect by the Followers of Christ Church cult, the state of Oregon has just introduced a bill that will ban faith-healing as a defense for killing your kids.

Churches like these overstep the generous bounds of religious freedom granted to them.  Forcing kids, who cannot consent, to suffer needlessly through these ‘faith-healing’ rituals and to die horrible, painful deaths because their brainwashed, idiot parents are told to believe they have magic powers.

Why are these parents spared prison and allowed to keep their other children to experiment on?  They are clearly insane (emphasis mine):

Following the guilty verdict Clark [the father] said: ‘The legal community is trying to force our church group to put them in the hands of this flawed medical system, when they have chosen to put them in the hands of a perfect God, who does not make mistakes.’

About a dozen US children die in faith-healing cases each year, a handful of which spawn criminal charges, according to experts.

It is not the first time the First Century Gospel Church of Philadelphia’s teachings has clashed with the authorities.

And, the authorities admit that it’s going to take a lot of supervision to make sure that these monsters don’t harm their other kids, as they are still under the influence of the cult First Century Gospel Church.

Sick.

via [link] Philly.com and [link] DailyMail UK

Moderate Muslim Scholars Praise Murderer Of Pakistani Governor

Over 500, that’s five hundred, Muslim scholars, who are considered moderates, are praising the body guard who murdered Pakistan’s Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, over his opposition to the country’s severe blasphemy laws.  Cheering lawyers showered flowers on the killer, Mumtaz Qadri,as he was fescorted into court.

Taseer has been criticized, by moderate Muslims, for his support of Asia Bibi, the mother of small children who has been imprisoned for a year for allegedly blaspheming the “prophet” Muhammad, and a majority of Pakistanis want her executed.

This is moderate Islam.  From MSNBC:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Lawyers showered the suspected assassin of a liberal Pakistani governor with rose petals as he entered court. Some 170 miles away, the prime minister joined thousands to mourn the loss of the politician, who dared to challenge the demands of Islamic extremists.

The cheers and tears across the country Wednesday underscored Pakistan’s journey over the past several decades from a nation defined by moderate Islam to one increasingly influenced by fundamentalists willing to use violence to impose their views.

Even so-called moderate Muslim scholars praised 26-year-old Mumtaz Qadri for allegedly killing Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer on Tuesday in a hail of gunfire while he was supposed to be protecting him as a bodyguard. Qadri later told authorities he acted because of Taseer’s vocal opposition to blasphemy laws that order death for those who insult Islam.

As Qadri was escorted into court in Islamabad, a rowdy crowd patted his back and kissed his cheek as lawyers at the scene threw flowers. On the way out, some 200 sympathizers chanted slogans in his favor, and the suspect stood at the back door of an armored police van and repeatedly yelled “God is great.”

Many other Pakistanis were appalled.

[…]

The response from the United States Secretary of State Clinton has been very weak, no mention of the horrific acts being committed in the name of religion, no mention of blasphemy laws, only a generic ‘we-will-help-them-in-their-time-of-turmoil’ bullshit.  Here is a good WashTimes editorial on it.

The Second Coming Jewelry Sale

I think he’s like, serious, or something.

Religious Heads Exploding In Unison

The outpouring of pure hatred from the Religious Right talking heads — you can almost hear them screaming “God damn America!” It’s as if they’re wishing for catastrophes to happen just so their insane rantings will be proven.  The purely demented, drama-laden wailings and obsession with sex is both hilarious and sad.

Read the rants on Right Wing Watch – “Reaction to DADT Vote: “The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted” read the reactions from Bryan Fischer of the American “Family” Association and Tony Perkins of the “Family Research” Council (tied to white supremacists), Matt Staver of “Freedom” Federation, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for “Truth”, Mass Resistance, and former chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt (who was court-martialed in 2006 for disobeying orders).

We are now stuck with sexual deviants serving openly in the U.S. military because of turncoat Republican senators … Had the cloture vote failed, we would still have sane moral and sexual standards governing military personnel policy. But sadly those days are gone, perhaps forever.

Oh, the irony of these lunatics calling other people sexual deviants with their diapers and hookers and  committing adultery while their wives lay cancer-stricken.  And it’s well known how pure and chaste heterosexuals are in the military, especially when 1-in-3 women report being sexually assaulted and raped by male heterosexual soldiers.

The rant from Mass Resistance comes complete with a centerfold photo of Scott Brown, who apparently “doesn’t have a problem showering no matter who is ogling him.”

UPDATE: Right Wing Watch reports that most of the right-wingosphere, so far, is dead silent on the repeal:

When Judge Vaughan Walker struck down Proposition 8, Religious Right leaders were falling over one another to release statements decrying it … but the repeal of DADT has largely yielded collecting silence.

So far, we have not heard a peep about the vote from the American Center for Law and Justice, Concerned Women for America, The Eagle Forum, Focus on the Family, the Traditional Values Coalition, Vision America, The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, The Christian Coalition, Renewing America Leadership or anything from conservative leaders like Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, James Dobson, Newt Gingrich, or Richard Land.

Waiting to gauge the public response to calculate what they’re going to spew; the hate-group leaders like Perkins, Fischer, and LaBarbera quoted in the first RWW link just don’t care any more — they cannot sound any crazier than they already do.

Ex-Muslim Could Face Life Sentence For Blasphemy

Twenty-six year old Walid, or Waleed, Husayin (pseudonym), a barber in the West Bank of Palestine, was trucked down and arrested because of his satirical Facebook claims to be Allah.

From JihadWatch.org:

[…]

Their faith is under attack from the West because a Palestinian barber questions Islam? Lunacy.

He could face a life sentence if he’s found guilty, depending on how harshly the judge thinks he attacked Islam and how widely his views were broadcast, said Islamic scholar Tamimi.Even so, a small minority has questioned whether the government went too far.

Zainab Rashid, a liberal Palestinian commentator, wrote in an online opinion piece that Husayin has made an important point: “that criticizing religious texts for their (intellectual) weakness can only be combatted by … oppression, prison and execution.”

Good point, no? Lock her up too!

This man’s own family and townspeople want him imprisoned for life and/or dead.  But, why would they dare say anything different, lest they be locked up, too?

Meanwhile, a Pakistani doctor has been arrested and charged with “blasphemy” because he threw away a business card of a pharmaceutical rep whose name is Muhammad.  The rep turned him.  Why isn’t the rep guilty of blasphemy for comparing himself to Muhammad, as though tossing his business card equaled tossing the “prophet”?  And, why isn’t naming your kid after the “holy” “prophet” a form of blasphemy itself?  Using the fucked-up logic of religion, a living person named Muhammad seems to be more of a likeness than drawing a picture of someone who nobody knows what he actually looked like.

Nothing in religion makes sense.

I Had A Prophetic Dream About Lou Engle

In this dream, Lou Engle was wailing his arms about, rasping out his demented bile to the mesmerized flocks swaying to the rhythm of his voice, when out of nowhere, came came two she-bears (mama grizzlies, I think they were) and ripped him apart, blood spraying over the writhing worshippers.  This dream that I really, really had (I mean, why would anyone just make up stories like that?) is a “seed-thought from the Heavenly realm” (really, it is) and it’s a stern warning directly from God, according to the self-claimed “prophet” Lou himself, who declares that dreams are the Word of God.  No longer is the Bible the only word of God, you see, now it’s Lou’s “dreams, thoughts, intentions, and directions”.  And people just lap it up.

From Right Wing Watch: Engle: Dreams Are The Word Of God

Engle spoke for an hour and a half straight on the dangers of ignoring or trivializing the messages that God speaks through dreams, warning that prophets cannot be concerned with appearing “fanatical” or “out of our minds,” declaring that everything he has done in twenty-five years of ministry has been “founded on the word of God” that has been “delivered through the prophetic ministry of divine ideas, thoughts, intentions, and directions, and by the grace of God, we have picked up most of those seed-thoughts that have come from the Heavenly mind-realm … and I have found that those dreams were not just tickling fancies, they were the word of God and they have created movements that shake nations”

It is dangerous, Lou warns his followers, to ignore or trivialize these for-real-he-swears prophetic dreams — so just drop your money in one them there “collection stations” located throughout the crowd for your convenience.  It’s sad that people, lots and lots of people, fall for demented shysters like this.

Lou Engle has called for the christian youth of America to rise up and resort to force if they have to, to be as radical as islamic extremists.  This call has been made by other well-known Dominionist leaders.  It  seems to be working.

Hell Is For Children – A Christian Parable

Excellent.

Via @BibleAlsoSays on Twitter.

Bryan Fischer: Too Many Bastard Children Being Born

Those bastards!

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association says too many bastard children are being born and married people should be obligated to produce at lease three children.  Great.  Yeh, we need more children’s lives fucked up by the abuse and indoctrination of religion.

We want married couples to have more children, not fewer. Our problem is not that married couples are having too many kids, our problem is that they aren’t having enough.

Our fertility rate right now is barely at replacement level, and that’s with 40% of our children born out-of-wedlock — bastards, to use the quaint and correct term (dictionary: “bastard: a person born of parents not married to each other”). That’s not name-calling, it’s telling the truth.

…

The last thing we need is any public policy that encourages married couples to have fewer children. In fact, the American standard ought to be a minimum of three children per married couple.

God’s original instruction to our first parents was to “be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.” This command, which theologians call the “Cultural Mandate,” has never been rescinded. It’s still in effect today, just as much in effect as it was when first uttered 6,000 years ago.

In order to “multiply” – that is, to grow in number – each couple has to have at least three children.

That 40% figure overlaps heavily into the 80% self-proclaimed christian population.  Please, for the sake of our country’s Good Christian Heritage™, we must stop with all this “irresponsible procreation”.  Bristol, Sarah?

Destroying Science In Schools

It is absolutely alarming that they are filling kids’ heads with this garbage in the 21st century.  These “faith-based schools”in the UK are using a very popular curriculum imported from the good ole U.S. of A.  These taxpayer-funded schools also include Muslim schools teaching their own brand of Medieval bullshit.

This is child abuse.  Read at Coburg Atheist:

… They think that you can teach children that the bible (or Qur’an) has all the answers – they even believe it themselves.  This means they are deliberately pushing the next generation backwards.  At this rate, if this was done in all schools, in a few decades we would be back in the Inquisition.

“Oh but that only happens in the backward U.S. South” you say.  Or maybe only in backward Muslim countries like Iran and Pakistan – that’s why they are under-developed.  While it is true that Science text books for children that teach creationism are produced in the U.S., they are moving to the U.K. into “Faith based schools”.  See the following video:

 

Equality California Finds Noose Hung On Door

 

image from EQCA Facebook page

This is what it’s all about.  No matter how it’s packaged and marketed, no matter how loudly they preach about their “christian love”, what this is all about is raw hatred.  Their “culture war” is waged on adults, but the casualties are kids who have to grow up and live in this world.

Kids see and hear this hatred being spewed by religious leaders and preachers who then pass it on to teachers and parents.  Kids take this hatred to heart.  Bullies take these lessons on hatred and act them out.

The toxic leaders of the Religious Reich refuse to accept responsibility for the messages they preach that snuff out children’s hopes for life and a future; these vile Men and Women of God™ even blame the children for the treatment they receive.  Their message: gay kids deserve bullying, torment, death and hellfire.

 

Maggie cannot figure out what her organization is doing that would cause anyone harm.

Well, Equality California found this noose on their door a couple days ago, called in to report it and the officer told them “Sometimes you just have to live with being a victim”

Then the officer told them his car was broken into once, because, you know, getting your car stereo stolen is just like someone coming to your door and suggesting you should kill yourself.

The sign pictured is one that a NOM supporter displayed at one of their Indiana stops on their Hate Bus Tour.

via JMG

Salvation Alert: God Will Hold You Accountable For How You Vote

"For whosoever voteth Republican shall be saved." - Romans 10:13

Saying the magic words to Jeebus won’t save you, like it says in the Holy Babble — David Barton says god will hold you accountable for how you vote.  From Right Wing Watch (go there to watch videos):

David Barton has released a nearly nine minute video explaining to Christians that God will only bless this nation if we are righteous and that our national righteousness is determined by our public policies.  As such, if we want God to bless our nation, we have to give him a reason to do so and that is why Christians must vote.

But not only do Christians have an obligation to vote, Barton says, but they will one day have to answer to God for exactly how they used that vote:

We’re to seek righteousness first, and dozens of Bible passages affirm that a nation’s righteousness is determined by its public policies, by how well those policies conform to God’s standards. We love to sing “God Bless America,” but if we really want God to bless America, we’ve got to give him something to work with.

Christianist Leaders Mandate Bullying Gay Kids, Who Deserve Death, Anyway

Yes, they say that in so many words.  They state that it is their Christian Duty™ as Authentic Christians®.  (the really Authentic Christians® like Clint McCance, for instance!)  In fact, they even have a Duty to exercise “God’s Perfect Hatred” towards gays.  Gay kids deserve all the bullying they get.  Gay kids deserve suicide. And if the bullying and physical assaults don’t work, they deserve long lives of torment, disease and loneliness or incarceration and forced conversion therapy because they’re like alcoholics and murderers!

All together, now: “See? — no way are kids killing themselves because of anything we say!” – says the Religious Reich.

First, I gotta say that I cannot contain my anger about this subject enough to avoid using foul language in this post.  (well, duh! but, I may edit out the cursing later, maybe not)  As it is, I get very angry about a hell of a lot of …  most OK, everyfuckingthing that these mentally ill religious extremists come up with, but the stuff coming out of them lately concerning kids and bullying and suicide is way over the fucking top.

See, I got my anti-gay bullying from, specifically, two adult teachers — I have touched on that in another post on bullying.  I didn’t get it from other kids, really.  I was well-liked enough by other kids as well as teachers.  And I was never sexually abused; I didn’t even have sex until I was eighteen!  So today, when I hear adults mocking and attacking these children who are victims of their relentless religious bullshit, I want to punch them, I want to knock some fucking teeth out of a few of those simpering pussies who call themselves Men of God™.  They make me want to fucking puke.

Regardless how much they preach about their “christian love” or about how much they are “protecting” the children, they DO NOT care about children or families or anything but preaching fear and lies and condemnation to reap profits.  And, child abuse?  The Church (all religions, but Christians are the subject of this post) … the Church is the fucking hands-down winner on perpetrating, permitting and perpetuating child abuse.

Well, some of the most hating-est, self-appointed christian leaders in this country have gotten together with a written joint proclamation (I will list some of it below with my annotations) to spell out their Moral Christian™ obligation to make sure that they and their little indoctrinated offspring get to harass, beat and incite violence onto possibly queer kids (some of whom are their own kids) — queer kids who need to be made aware that they are subhuman garbage whom God created and despises and will torture and burn  forever in the Hell that He created just for those disgusting little queers.  Praise Jesus!  Praise His Name!

America’s True History Of Religious Tolerance

A good read on Smithsonian online:

America’s True History of Religious Tolerance –  The idea that the United States has always been a bastion of religious freedom is reassuring—and utterly at odds with the historical record. — By Kenneth C. Davis

[…]

In the storybook version most of us learned in school, the Pilgrims came to America aboard the Mayflower in search of religious freedom in 1620. The Puritans soon followed, for the same reason. Ever since these religious dissidents arrived at their shining “city upon a hill,” as their governor John Winthrop called it, millions from around the world have done the same, coming to an America where they found a welcome melting pot in which everyone was free to practice his or her own faith.

The problem is that this tidy narrative is an American myth. The real story of religion in America’s past is an often awkward, frequently embarrassing and occasionally bloody tale that most civics books and high-school texts either paper over or shunt to the side. And much of the recent conversation about America’s ideal of religious freedom has paid lip service to this comforting tableau.

From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever”—including the “heathen” natives already here. Moreover, while it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a “Christian nation.”

[…]

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Americas-True-History-of-Religious-Tolerance.html?c=y&page=1#ixzz12ewmVhdo

Atheists And Agnostics Have More Knowledge Of Religion Than Believers

No surprise here!

[…]

Respondents to the survey were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether they could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say what century the Mormon religion was founded. On average, participants in the survey answered correctly overall for half of the survey questions.

Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers, while Jews and Mormons followed with about 20 accurate responses. Protestants overall averaged 16 correct answers, while Catholics followed with a score of about 15.

Not surprisingly, those who said they attended worship at least once a week and considered religion important in their lives often performed better on the overall survey. However, level of education was the best predictor of religious knowledge. The top-performing groups on the survey still came out ahead even when controlling for how much schooling they had completed.

[…]

Take the quiz (I’ll post my score later when I take it)

Woot! oh yeh!  I only missed one question, which only 11% of respondents answered correctly.

14 out of 15 correct – 93% (They don’t give the 32 question test.)

via JMG