The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XXXV

The week in fundie . . .

1. The Unintentional Irony award goes to the opponents of the International Baccalaureate curriculum at a high school in Upper St Clair, Pennsylvania, who appear to be of the view that it comes straight from Chairman Mao:

   "The IB program is anti-American. It does not teach the basic patriotic values of the United States," said Judy Brown, 64, a retired merchandising and sales representative who has a daughter that attended Upper St. Clair schools. "It's almost like brainwashing."

   A hostile board member was heard to utter:

   "Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie;" and, "Jesus Christ as the redeemer of man is the center and purpose of human history. That is why all authentically religious tradition must be allowed to manifest their own identity publicly, free from any pressure to hide or disguise it."

   Got that? Not forcing Jeebus and flag-waving patriotism down the throats of students constitutes "brainwashing." (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
   
2. A Catholic bishop in Chicago is seeking legal changes that would shield Church institutions from having to pay out "excessive damages" in sex abuse lawsuits, on the grounds that they "jeopardize the mission of the church" and hence "place an excessive burden on the free exercise of religion for American Catholics." Oh, please. If the Catholic church wishes to minimise the damages resulting from sex abuse lawsuits, the answer is absurdly simple: it needs to stop engaging in or sheltering the perpetrators of sexual abuse. (Chicago Tribune, via the Atheist Experience)
3. Sherri Shepherd, who is proving herself to be someone you want in your corner should you ever find yourself playing team Trivial Pursuit, opines: "I don't think anything predated Christians." The Greeks? The Romans? "Jesus came before them." Shepherd is quite the polymath: not only is she full-bottle on world history, she's also formidable on the earth sciences. (The Huffington Post, via Pharyngula)
4. Florida's Palm Beach Community College refuses to provide health benefits to same-sex partners of its employees. It is more than willing, however, "to offer workers insurance for their pets." (365Gay.com, via Morons.org)
5. A Saudi appeals court judge has threatened to sentence a rape victim to death if she appeals against her current sentence of 200 lashes and six months in prison for "illegal mingling" with an unrelated male. (via Bartholomew's Notes on Religion)
   

Just to make it worth your while . . .

Pat Condell on Catholic morality


The videos of this year's Beyond Belief conference are now available online.

Read more!

Highlights from the comments at Catch the Fire (before they're disappeared)

Catch The Fire has been getting a lot of traffic, it appears, since it became apparent to all and sundry that God/Pastor Nalliah backed the wrong horse in the recent Federal Election. The administrators appear to have relaxed their unstated ban on critical comments, for now, and you can find some of those at the end of this post. But most of the following extracts of comments are from true believers, responding to Nalliah's "explanation" for the miserable failure of his pre-election prophecy. I've separated them into categories . . .

Why, God? Why?

Many people from a number of Churches were gathering over a period of time and praying taht “God’s will would be done at this election”.

Does God not place any value on our prayers? (Richard--who I suspect might be one of ours)

Stock-standard lunacy

Apparently a psychic predicted a Rudd win. That alone tells me what Rudd is about and that I don’t want to be on side with these occult voices. (Aurora)

We were spoken to through Judges 20 in that there must be determination that the battle must continue, regardless of the defeats, for in this passage the Lord says go up, but they were slaughtered – and yet they came together as one nation – almost – at the time. Later you find they were not all together – there were still those who were not with them in chapter 21. But God gave them victory regardless – the third time. We also had a dream of 3 snakes which looked fierce but were easily destroyed. So, we continue to pray the prayers we were supplied with before the election, but must now pray them in the context of what the Lord will do. He is the God of miracles. (Ken & Adrianne)

I agree with what you have said, and I must admit when I heard the news of Labor’s victory, I was led to read from Lamentations. I believe God was grieving as I was. (Trisha)

Lawyering for Jesus

Some people may not be aware that prophecy is conditional: upon both prayer and obedience.(Pastor Marilyn McKenny)

I noted that when you declared what the Lord had told you, you included the word “IF”. While some would see this as a disclaimer for you to dodge criticism should the prophetic word not come to pass – the “IF” is meant to be an encouragement & motivation to the Church. 2 Chron 7:14 is an example of this type of condition. “IF my people….. etc”. Obviously, the condition was not met.(Pastor Bob Cotton, another Lawyer for Jesus)

We have had situations the same , where God made his will known but it went the other way because no one was listening or prophecies were misinterpreted through poor theology, or prayer was weak . (Des & Christine Gibson)

…. you did not get it wrong….. we the body of Christ did - oh for ears that will listen. (Allen Moore)

Thankyou O servant of the Most High God.
I don’t believe you got it wrong. I’ve never heard God say “oops”. (Robyn)

A while ago, before I knew of your election prophecy I had a vision of John Howard standing defeated he was a broken man in my vision weeping and worn out. It then troubled me because of what your prophecy had declared, I thought how could 2 opposite things come from the same source of eternal truth?

After you had pointed out that the lack of unity in the Body was the cause for Labor’s win (and many other problems we are facing) it brought a sense of peace(knowing that this vision was correct and from our Lord) and sadness too for I had wanted the Liberal party to win also. (Andrew, on how the power of Christ can resolve glaring contradictions)

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt

The people have demanded a king and God has given us one (I Sam 8) . You, the prophet, has faithfully warned the nation, but God is preparing David, even while Saul is in power. (Jill)

As to your question did I vote them in no I personally didn’t, I advised people who would listen and my children to vote family first so as not to go down the road of lust and lies in human nature so called…. My children listened but most others didn’t, while handing out how to vote cards for family first only over a period of 2 hours 2 people only asked for family first the rest graciously took all information handed to them.
Sadly we now have a party that tends to sway against biblical values and advise, but like the good book says it is our job as believers to continue to pray for the government elect and let the Lord God Jesus stir their waters and relies their ways, not to implement change that will bring the Christians
Down as God the Almighty will not allow this to happen and bad times will fall upon them in sickness and decease (Argument from consequences from Sharon)

The Lord said to me the problem is the state of the hearts & the sin of His people who are blinded and have voted foolishly, so the Lord will have to allow the people to learn the hard way & to actually have to wake up by personal suffering & experience….
I too and many ohters I have spoken to suffered greatly on that first night really struggling with the Lord…and on Sunday night, the Lord lead me to Jn 11 and the Lazarus story, yet again (Emphasis and hyperlink added. Very cheeky, Hilary)

Praise the Lord and pass the tinfoil

I think we actually are going to experience some things that we need not have endured… ( like the 40 years in the wilderness.. due to the idolitary etc.. .. reminds me too ” oh foolish Galations.. who has bewitched you”…)
I also really feel deeply for John Howard,. (Me too, Marg. Me too.)

Very well written - couldn’t agree more; this nation is headed straight toward end times and has joined the ranks - need we have been surprised? (John & Louise)

I could hardly sleep last Saturday night for anguish as to what was happening in the election. I saw the jubilation from the Labor camp as releasing a demonic flow over the country, a vicious rabble that had been waiting, scrapping behind the starting barriers, to burst out upon their legal release: the announcement of Labor victory. They knew they were about to get freedom. They had already cornered and achieved confusion in Howard who, not having enough knowledge or power through the Holy Spirit, had crumbled on some major as well as minor issues, providing further fuel for the blind amongst Christian brothers and sisters to vote against him.(Clare)

Some months before the election I talked with a spirit-filled pastor who has a lot of contact with parliamentarians in Canberra. Not long beforehand he had been phoned up by Kevin Rudd asking for prayer. It wasn’t my place to ask more, but the pastor volunteered that Kevin Rudd was unequally yoked to Julia Gillard. She represents the socialist left wing of the Labour Party. While not electable in her own right as a Prime Minister, I expect she will use her anti-Christian influence as Jezebel did through Ahab. (Malcolm McCaskill)

Your reference to “wolves in sheep’s clothing” is particularly appropriate as this is the tactic used by the Fabian Society in the world and Australia - to subtly infiltrate the key areas of society and gain social change and power. I understand that the Fabian Society’s original symbol was a wolf in sheep’s clothing but was changed as this was too obvious to what they were on about. The Fabian Society has a long history of anti-Christian activity (including shocking acceptance of depraved sexual practices), and I understand that the current membership of the Australian branch is composed of Gough Whitlam (president) and a number of former Labor prime ministers. The Fabian Society’s links and debt to Lenin is alive and well, and their influence on the Labor spirit is also alive and well.

The Labor Party is actually not a political party at all - it masquerades as one. It is a religious party with its doctrine being humanism, atheism, and naturalism, and its god is man (that is, the glorification of man to solve all problems in the world and society to the blasphemous exclusion of its Creator - God). (David)

Theocracy

The Father did not ask His Children for much, not as much as His has asked of others; He did not ask us to be imprisoned for this election/He did not ask us to give our life for this election/No, all He asked was that we follow His Will (He wasn’t taking our freedom of choice He would never do that, He gave us a choice: Follow His Will/Don’t follow His Will)…it was all very simple what He was asking His people.

We as the Father’s Children were meant to stand in the gap for those who don’t know Him. (Cindy. That's chilling.)

But I wonder how long the following comments will last . . .

Thank you for the explaination. But why are you so frightened by the ALP win?

I am a Christian - and I don’t believe I have to be Right-Wing to be so. I probably did not vote the way you did. Does this mean, in your mind, that I am not a listening, committed Christian.

I have close connections with your home country Sri Lanka. And I have seen what awful things happen in that nation when the Buddhists try to be involved in politics.

You claim that your prophecy regarding John Howard being elected was stymied by the Christians who did not agree with you. Were they not listening to God?

It is right that we test prophecy. I am sure you agree. Do you know that many Christians and Christian leaders in this nation were praying for an end to dishonest government and trusted that God would work through Kevin Rudd, another Christian?

Are we wrong and you are right? Have you seriously searched your heart about this? (Bryan)

I thought the correct answer was YES I did get it wrong!!!

However you won’t publish any comments that differ from your point of view.

Thank God that His wisdom is greater than your’s. I will pray for you. (Rod)

Danny,
I know the Lord has plans for good for all who follow his word and accept his son Jesus. You spoke at my church and I believe your prophesy extended to Peter Costello. Could you please comment.

Also you published on your website a prophesy of Kenneth Copeland:

“God’s man in Australia stood up and publicly declared Australia a Christian nation! ‘If you want to come here and join us in our Christian faith you are welcome here but don’t think you can come in here and try and force some other religion here on us and don’t think you are going to tell us how to believe God and who we are going to worship.’ He publicly did that,

now this is no time for that man to be defeated. Well he’s not going to be. Amen.

He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He is Lord over Australia! It has been announced! Amen.”

It would appear this prophesy was false? Could you please comment. (Brendan Willis)

Commenter James Garth published his "Open Letter to Pastor Nalliah" on his own blog. Read more!

I see now What's So Great About Christianity

Rightwing pundits keep trying to tell me What's So Great About Christianity. Well, I think I understand where they're coming from, now.

In the remote Penza region of Russia, a group of Orthodox Christians has barricaded itself inside an underground bunker to await the Apocalypse, which it believes will come to pass in May next year. Better still, the group contains in its number four children, including an eighteen-month-old baby, who are obliged to await the Apocalypse in temperatures dropping to minus 10 degrees Celsius.

The group has nothing in the way of sound empirical evidence to support the claim that the world will end in May 2008. But that's OK, because "While reason helps us to discover things about experience, faith helps us discover things that transcend experience."

And yes, the leader of the cult--under whose orders the Penza group are sitting out the end of the world in an icy cave--may be currently undergoing evaluation in a psychiatric facility, but surely all this means is that he now sees "in color what we previously saw in black and white." And isn't this whole episode a demonstration of the fact that "Christianity makes of life a moral drama in which we play a starring role and in which the most ordinary events take on a grand significance?"

And sure, you could always make the argument that these cultists have an ethical duty to look after the welfare of the children in their care--and that this duty involves not indoctrinating them and holding them hostage in below-freezing conditions. But Christians, you see, live sub specie aeternitatis. And isn't it "better [for those kids] to suffer wrong than to do wrong?" And if the kids die of exposure out there, why should we worry? "The secular person thinks there are two stages for humans: life and death. For the Christian, there are three: life, death, and the life to come. This is why, for the Christian, death is not so terrifying."

Face it, heathens. The people in that cave in Russia are "pursuing [their] higher destiny as human beings. [They] are becoming what [they] were meant to be," because Christianity "not only makes us aspire to be better, but it also shows us how to be better." By barricading oneself in a remote cave to await an event one has no reliable evidence will come to pass, stockpiling weapons, holding children against their will in below-freezing conditions, and threatening to blow oneself and one's fellows up if anyone tries to intervene. Read more!

Surprise, fucking surprise

Family First is demanding that all Federal candidates declare whether they are now, or ever have been TEH GAY:

The Family First candidate in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt says voters have a right to know the sexual preference of all candidates contesting the federal election.

A report in today's Courier-Mail newspaper says Family First's Ben Jacobsen demanded that the Liberal candidate Charlie McKillop declare if she is gay.

Mr Jacobsen, who is against gay relationships, says he was not targeting Ms McKillop, but speaking generally about every candidate.

"Look I think this is a public office, this is a person that's going to represent Leichhardt in our House of Representatives," he said.

"I think the public have a right to know the values that you're going to pursue in Parliament." (ABC)

And everybody knows that gay values aren't Australian values, non? Everybody knows that as soon as you let one of those into Parliament, they'll immediately proceed to infect our beloved Christian democracy with TEH GAY. Santorum spreading everywhere. Before you know it, your 15-year old son is being sodomised with the rough end of a heroin-laced outcomes-based education, while being forced to watch lesbian witch porn on the Internet.

Fundies First: the gift that keeps on giving.

UPDATE: The backpedalling has begun already. Read more!

The Bill Muehlenberg Trophy: Joseph Massad

Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, has published a book in which he argues that

there are no homosexuals in the entire Arab world, except for a few who have been brainwashed into believing they have a homosexual identity by an aggressive Western homosexual missionizing movement he calls "Gay International." [. . .] According to the author, "It is the very discourse of the Gay International which produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist" (emphasis added).

The claim is advanced in the third chapter of Desiring Arabs, based upon an earlier paper of his (“Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World”).

TEH GAY AGENDA is a familiar Christian Right meme, and
the idea that gays and lesbians do not exist in the Middle East has most recently been put by one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Massad simply presents the homophobic ravings of Christian and Muslim fundies and expresses them in the idiom of postcolonial studies. As former Guardian Middle East correspondent Brian Whitaker observes in a review of Desiring Arabs,

Massad talks of a “missionary” campaign orchestrated by what he calls the “Gay International”. Its inspiration, he says, came partly from “the white western women’s movement, which had sought to universalise its issues through imposing its own colonial feminism on the women’s movements in the non-western world”, but he also links its origins to the Carter administration’s use of human rights to “campaign against the Soviet Union and Third World enemies”.

Like the major US- and European-based human rights organisations (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International) and following the line taken up by white western women's organisations and publications, the Gay International was to reserve a special place for the Muslim countries in its discourse as well as its advocacy. The orientalist impulse … continues to guide all branches of the human rights community. (p 161)

Oddly, since this is central to his argument, Massad offers no evidence to substantiate his claim. There are plenty of reasons other than an “orientalist impulse” why gay rights activists might justifiably pay attention to Muslim countries (punishments for same-sex acts, for instance, tend to be heavier there, on paper if not always in practice, and the only countries in the world where the death penalty for sodomy still applies justify it on the basis of Islamic law) but that is not the same as reserving “a special place” for them in the discourse.

Then again, I suppose the demand that extraordinary claims of the kind Massad advances be supported by empirical evidence may be written off as another manifestation of Western imperialism. It gets worse:

State repression against gay people happens on a frequent basis across the Middle East. Massad, however, who claims to be a supporter of sexual freedom per se, is oddly impassive when confronted with the vast catalogue of anti-gay state violence in the Muslim world. Massad, unlike Ahmadinejad, does acknowledge that "gay-identified" people exist in the Middle East, but he views them with derision. Take, for instance, his description of the Queen Boat victims as "westernized, Egyptian, gay-identified men" who consort with European and American tourists. A simple "gay" would have sufficed. He smears efforts to free the men by writing of the "openly gay and anti-Palestinian Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank" and the "anti-Arab and anti-Egyptian [Congressman] Tom Lantos" who circulated a petition amongst their colleagues to cut off U.S. funding to Egypt unless the men were released. He then goes onto belittle not just gay activists (one of whom, a founder of the Gay and Lesbian Arabic Society, referred to the Queen Boat affair as "our own Stonewall," in reference to the 1969 Stonewall riot when a group of patrons at a New York City gay bar resisted arrest, a moment credited with sparking the American gay rights movement) but the persecuted men themselves. The Queen Boat cannot be Stonewall, Massad insists, because the "drag Queens at the Stonewall bar" embraced their homosexual identity, whereas the Egyptian men "not only" did "not seek publicity for their alleged homosexuality, they resisted the very publicity of the events by the media by covering their faces in order to hide from the cameras and from hysterical public scrutiny." Massad does not pause to consider that perhaps the reason why these men covered their faces was because of the brutal consequences they would endure if their identities became public, repercussions far worse than anything the rioters at Stonewall experienced. "These are hardly manifestations of gay pride or gay liberation," Massad sneers.

Joseph Massad: you are a disgrace to academia. Your brand of unscholarly and unsubstantiated rubbish feeds the hysterical paranoiac fantasies of the Horowitz crowd and their puppets in the Republican party--people who seek to restrict academic freedom and stifle the views of those with whom they disagree, and are just salivating for a cause celebre like yourself. Furthermore, it gives a free pass to the persecution of gays and lesbians in the Arab world, by coding any criticism of such persecution as "Western imperialism." Lift your game. Read more!

More unconvincing arguments for God: Pareidolia

Here's an interesting photo taken recently in Poland . . .



AND UNLESS YOU CAN PROVE OTHERWISE, THE DEFAULT EXPLANATION IS THAT POPE JOHN PAUL II HAS INCARNATED HIMSELF IN A BONFIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

While credulous theists the world over are once again basking in their own insipidness, a new voice of reason has emerged on the Australian political landscape. I mentioned it in passing on Sunday, but the Secular Party of Australia will be fielding candidates for the Senate in this year's federal election. Jen of Unsane and Safe fame will be running, which is good news, because I vote below the line. I wish her the best of luck: Ganbatte!, as they say in Japan.

As for the party's policies, there is very little that I disagree with, except this one: "We stand against . . . The wearing of religious attire in schools." As long as no one is compelled to wear religious attire, and as long as the wearing of such attire does not hinder the wearer's ability to participate in classroom activities, I don't see how it infringes anybody else's rights. (And the Party does claim, elsewhere on the site, to "believe that people should be free to indulge their beliefs, provided they do not infringe the rights of others.") Indeed, banning the wearing of religious garb, I believe, is just as anti-democratic as enforcing religious observance. (You might say that it amounts to the state overstepping the boundary between church and state.) I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of a representative of the Secular Party on this issue. Read more!

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XXVIII

The week in fundie . . .

1. Ann Coulter wants "Jews to be perfected." (Via Pharyngula)
2. Air America adds ex-evangelical Christian Dan Barker's Freethought Radio to its line-up, and FOX News screams "GODLESS PROGRAMMING!!" (Via Pharyngula)
3. Under Christian and Muslim pressure, UK teachers are becoming reluctant to teach evolution and are being urged to teach creationism.
4. Left Behind Games: Criticise our sad excuse for a computer game, and we'll sue! (Bartholomew's Notes on Religion)
5. Kent Hovind talks to God. And God talks back. Yessireebob!
6. US Department of Defence greenlights fundamentalist Christian proselytism in the military. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
7. Catch the Fire: Baby Jesus told Pastor Nalliah that he wants John Howard to win the election (Alan Matheson)

Ann Coulter: Anti-Semite
Read more!

PZ Myers' mutating genre meme

Here are the instructions:

The Pharyngula mutating genre meme

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

• You can leave them exactly as is.

• You can delete any one question.

• You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…" to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is…", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…".

• You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…".

You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

My parent is: Pharyngula.

1. The best time travel novel in Magical Realism is…

The Island of the Day Before, by Umberto Eco.

2. The best romantic movie in historical fiction is…

Cold Mountain.

3. The best sexy song in industrial rock is…

Closer, by Nine Inch Nails

I shall attempt to disseminate my seed of a meme to:
Mikey Capital
Ninglun
The Thinker's Podium
A Churchless Faith
Unorthodox Atheism




Via Nullifidian, Kent Hovind getting pwned on the Infidel Guy. . .


Funny stuff. God himself now talks to this guy in his prison cell.

Read more!

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XXIV

The week in fundie:

1. God orders fundie to kill gay man. (via Pharyngula)
2. Fundies disrupt Hindu man praying in the Senate. (via Pharyngula)
3. Fundie mother tries to ban books from school library. (Friendly Atheist)
4. Trailer park bans HIV-positive 2-year old from swimming pool. (via Morons.org)
5. Former US Surgeon-General gagged by Bush administration. (via Morons.org)
   

(More of my thoughts about Jesus Camp over the fold . . .)

Watching the opening scenes of Jesus Camp, in which Pastor Becky Fisher whips up her pre-pubescent flock into a frenzy of flailing limbs and glossolalia, I had a passing thought. Imagine if these kids were encouraged to get passionate about the things that matter--politics, ethics, science, literature, philosophy--instead of rolling around the floor like mindless ululating idiots. Imagine if they could be encouraged to actually use their brains rather than surrendering them to fundamentalist dogma. That's the real travesty of this glimpse into the parallel universe that is Bible Belt USA: a generation of kids--smart kids--whose potential is being squandered in the cause of that politico-religious hybrid known as the Christian Right. A generation of kids whose intellectual development is being corrupted by the pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical claptrap that constitutes the Christian homeschooling curriculum. A generation of kids who are being raised to consider themselves, by virtue of their religious affiliation, as their nation's ruling class--who are urged by the likes of Fisher to Christianise the US, not by the use of reasoned debate and discussion, but by gradually seizing control of its institutions. I stand by my comment in the previous post. This is child abuse, pure and simple.

It would be easy to write this documentary off as a stereotypical representation of fundie America: creation science homeschooling, speaking in tongues, worshipping the image of President Bush, the family pledging allegiance to the Christian flag. It can't be real, can it?

But then you have only to consider the Dover ID case, the Creation Museum, the Left Behind videogame, "Paul Hill Days," the War on Harry Potter, "erototoxins," Paul Cameron, abstinence education, "fundagenics," the War on Science, Conservapedia, David Paskiewicz, Purity Balls, Idiot Pete, the War On Contraception, Christian Exodus, anti-Semitism, Pensacola Christian College . . . .

Jesus Camp, however disturbing, was not without its funny moments. In one scene, Fisher's young charges visit New Life Church, Colorado, to hear Pastor Ted Haggard preach against homosexuality. Read more!

Jesus Camp

My girlfriend and I will be seeing it tomorrow night.



UPDATE: The whole thing (with Italian subtitles) is available on Google Video. Read more!

Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XXIII

The week in fundie:

1. Malaysian woman, born to Muslim parents but raised as a Hindu by her grandmother, claims intimidation and mental torture during her imprisonment for renouncing Islam in favour of Hinduism.
   
2. Anglican Bishops blame floods on TEH GAY.
   
3. Jesus Camp screening at Perth's Revelation Film Festival 15/7/07
4. Religious Right protests promotion of Hindu professor to head of religion department at Lutheran-owned university
5. Bush administration flooded with graduates from a poorly-rated Christian fundamentalist law school
6. Kansas Education Board member unapologetic about her efforts to get Christianity into public schools through the back door
7. Yet another Christocrat Big Day Out: "American Vision"
8. Fundamentalism with a friendly face?
   

Read more!

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XXII

(Blogswarm: see below fold)

The week in fundie . . .

1. Alabama Governor proclaims a week of prayer for rain. (A tactic which has worked so well for John Howard.) (Via Pharyngula)
2. C of E bishop blames floods on TEH GAY. (Nullifidian)
3. Islamic nutjob blames recent thwarted terrorist attacks on the Salman Rushdie knighting. "Is Britain longing for Al Qaeda's bombings?" You fucking tool! (Dispatches From The Culture Wars)
4. Rightwing creationist nutjob Ann Coulter gets smacked down on national television to thunderous applause. (Via Morons.org)
5. Christian Zionist nutjob: Tony Blair is not necessarily the antichrist. "Many prophecy experts believe that a future pope will be the false prophet." (Bartholomew's Notes on Religion)
6. Christian fundamentalist nutjobs are planning a series of "Paul Hill Days" in honour of the man who in 1994 assassinated a doctor and his escort outside an abortion clinic. Planned events include a re-enactment of the shooting. (Talk2Action)
   

On the subject of theocrats, another Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm has been planned for July 1-4, 2007. Here's what to do:

1. Post to your blog about the separation of church and state. If you want to point your readers to something they can DO about the religious right, send them to the First Freedom First website and ask them to sign the petition. First Freedom First is not a sponsor of this blogswarm, but they have been a very very helpful resource, and Blog against Theocracy would like to return the favor. You may wish to tag your post "Blog Against Theocracy."

2. send an email to

blogagainsttheocracy.july07 AT blogger DOT com

The SUBJECT LINE of your email will be the NAME of your blog. I would type for my subject, "Blue Gal". Don't use all caps or any extra lines. It won't get picked up.

The BODY of your email should have ONE thing in it: The url for your post. Blogger will turn this into a link automatically. Make sure you post the full url, including the http, etc.

I'm sorry, but that's all you're allowed to email. Longer posts will be truncated, and if they're not, BAT staff will edit them. We have to be fair to everyone participating. We'll also be watching for spam and deleting that as it arrives, so don't feel you have to email me if you see any violations or spam on the site, we'll get to it.

I've tested this system and the biggest problem is getting the darn email address correct. It's AT blogger DOT com not AT gmail DOT com. And make sure you have a period between the blogagainsttheocracy and the july07, and that you spell theocracy correctly. (even I screwed up in this post. Be aware it's july07 not jul07. See?)

You may email blogagainsttheocracy AT gmail DOT com if you have any questions or problems.

Read more!

Idiocracy

Synopsis: The story is told from the perspective of Joe, an army librarian who, along with prostitute Rita, becomes a guinea-pig in a top-secret military hibernation experiment. After a prostitution scandal forces the closure of the army base on which the experiments are being conducted, the sarcophagi containing the hibernating Joe and Rita are forgotten. They emerge 500 years later in an America that has become, as a result of low fertility among intelligent people, overrun by idiots. The most popular TV show features a man who is repeatedly kicked in the testicles. The most acclaimed movie features 90 minutes of someone's bare buttocks, punctuated by the occasional fart. The nation faces widescale famine because the crops have dried up, a result of years of being irrigated by a sports drink full of electrolytes.

Joe, a man of painfully average intelligence in his own time, suddenly finds himself the smartest man in the world. After several brushes with the law (and jailtime owing to the incompetence of his lawyer), he is recruited by the President to solve the impending food crisis, and is given a week to do so. When his ingenious plan--to irrigate the crops with water rather than a sports drink--fails to produce immediate results, Joe is sentenced to gladiatorial combat with monster trucks in a demolition derby arena. When the crops start growing, Joe is saved from certain death and eventually becomes President, signalling the dawn of a new era. As he declares in his address to Congress,

There was a time when reading wasn't just for fags. And neither was writing. People wrote books and movies. Movies with stories, that made you care about whose ass it was and why it was farting. And I believe that time can come again!

This is a film that you can't really take at face value. At face value, it comes across as just another lame, low-budget gross-out comedy replete with toilet humour and terrible acting. But then you realise that's the whole point: the very species of teenage knuckledragger who would be attracted to Idiocracy based on its face-value qualities is the very target of the film's satire. Actually, there are other targets, too: anti-intellectualism, corporatism, materialism, and the dumbing-down of education (Joe's "lawyer" received his degree from a city-sized warehouse retail store). And guess which news channel the idiots are watching in this dystopian future? In 1997, director Mike Judge gave us the brilliant Beavis and Butthead Do America; Idiocracy shows us what happens when Beavis and Butthead run America.

Wikipedia notes some of the difficulties the film faced upon its 2005 release. It was only released to a handful of screens across the U.S., and "20th Century Fox, the film's distributor, did nothing to promote the movie." Nor was it screened for critics. It is speculated that Fox, unhappy with the unflattering portrayal of its news channel as well as the film's anti-corporate message, deliberately sabotaged the film's chances of garnering a wide audience. The closing sequence of the film features a theme-park tour of world history in which Charlie Chaplin leads the Nazi Party and dinosaurs are featured as World War Two combatants; perhaps, in a country which recently saw the opening of a multi-million-dollar Creation Museum where humans are shown walking with dinosaurs, the satire hit too close to the mark for comfort. In any case, you can get it on DVD now.

See also: "The Movie Hollywood Doesn't Want You To See" (Slate) Read more!

Degayifying the Moskva

Orthodox Christian Russians were working tirelessly last Sunday to cleanse the Moskva River's sparkling waters of TEH GAY, after a dirty gay cruise vessel full of dirty gays trailed megalitres of santorum in its wake the previous evening.

Participants hired a ship and decorated it with church banners, icons, Russian imperial flags and their motto, "We are Russian, God is with us."

"Our great Orthodox capital is in spiritual vacuum and experiences ideological aggression from the West. So our aim was to demonstrate that the Russian people's spiritual and moral ideals are alive and will be so forever," Yury Ageschev, coordinator of the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods, told Interfax.

He said one of the action's aims was "to purge the Moskva River after a large group of gays, who hired a similar ship to have a party going the same route last night."

On a more serious note, this follows a plan by Christians to conduct anti-homosexual pogroms in a Moscow park popular as a meeting place for gays and lesbians.

YouTube: Christians and homophobia
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The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XXI

The week in fundie:

1. The Religious Right post-Falwell. (Americans United for the Separation of Church and State)
2. A library in South Carolina has been forced to cancel its summer programs after receiving threats and accusations that it was "promoting witchcraft." (Via Pharyngula)
   
3. Lesbians kicked off a bus for for kissing. (Via Morons.org)
4. Queensland National MP Barnaby Joyce: "If Christian people do not put their view forward that Australia is a Christian state, then within a short period of time, [. . .] another religion might fill the vacuum." (Via Unbelief.org)
5. An Italian village has opened a criminal investigation into the film version of The Da Vinci Code, in response to complaints by local clergy. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
   
6. The Exclusive Brethren cult, which bans sex ed and ICT in its own schools, is planning to sponsor one of the UK's publicly-funded "faith schools." (Bartholomew's Notes on Religion)
7. Study: social dysfunction higher in America's Jesus states. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
   

Bill Maher on Jesus Camp Read more!

Bush nominates degayification advocate as US Surgeon-General

Australia doesn't really have an equivalent of the US Surgeon-General (technically, the closest equivalent is the Chief Medical Officer). He or she is the unofficial public face of health in the US, and is generally seen as a respected and authoritative advocate of public health education and healthy living. Naturally, the Christian Right would regard getting one of their own into this position as a major coup in its quest to Talibanise America.

As the disastrous experiment with abstinence-only sex education has demonstrated (an experiment destined to continue thanks to a decision by lily-livered Democrats to increase funding for such programmes), the fundagelicals don't do health science well. But what do they care?--they're more interested in saving souls than lives, and they're not about to let reality get in the way of their Bronze Age agenda.

Regarding the office of Surgeon-General, the faith-heads have had previous success: in 1994 they forced the resignation of Jocelyn Elders after she dared to suggest the promotion of so benign an activity as masturbation as an alternative to riskier sexual practices--despite the fact that masturbation carries no harmful side effects--expect possibly chafing. (Indeed, frequent ejaculation has been found to reduce the risk of prostate cancer in men, but I guess Jesus wants you to get prostate cancer.)

But the big pay-off for the Religious Right would be to manoeuvre a kool-aid-sipping fundagelical into the position of Surgeon-General itself. And now they have a sniff of victory, thanks to the Bush administration's nomination to the post of James Holsinger, a Paul Cameron-class homophobe:

James Holsinger, President George W. Bush's nominee for Surgeon General, has a dark view of homosexuals. In a 1991 paper, Holsinger describes homosexual sex in sickeningly lurid language. "Fist fornication," "sphincter injuries," "lacerations," "perforations" and "deaths seen in connection with anal eroticism," are some of the terms Holsinger concocted to describe acts with which he suggests at least medical familiarity (a case of participant observation, perhaps?). At the same paper, Holsinger puzzlingly issues no warnings about the dangers of heterosexual sex in his paper. To him, only "anal eroticism" is a health peril.

As the Alternet article points out, what is most worrying about this nomination is not so much Holsinger's bigotry as his support for "ex-gay therapy." In other words, the individual who the Bush administration believes is best qualified to give the American public advice on healthy living is someone who believes homosexuality is both a "lifestyle choice" and a "disease" that can be "cured." Moreover, the nomination is a tacit endorsement of a therapy discredited by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and other mainstream medical organizations. The American Psychiatric Association maintains that there is "no scientific evidence that reparative or conversion therapy is effective in changing a person's sexual orientation;" there is evidence, however, that ex-gay therapy can have harmful effects, including "depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by a patient."

Hopefully, US senators will give this snake-oil salesman the short shrift he deserves.
Read more!

Spot the Logical Fallacy

Source: In the Room

It's time for a round of "Spot the Logical Fallacy." Today's passage comes from the latest article by Dinesh D'Souza, in which he purports to smackdown Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris on the question "If God created the Universe, who created God?"--thereby proving that there is still room in his mouth to accommodate his other foot. Here's the passage:

Given that nothing in the universe is the cause of its own existence, the universe cannot be explained by an infinite regress of causation. If there were infinite regress then the series would not have gotten started in the first place. The universe is here, just like the fellow who has gotten his driver’s license. And just as there had to be a first number at the DMV that got the sequence going, so too there must be a first cause for the universe that accounts for the chain of causation that we see everywhere in the world. We may not be able to say much about what this first cause is like, but we have established the need for it and the existence of it. Without a first cause, none of its effects—including the world, including us—would be here.

The real force of Aquinas’ argument is not that every series must have a temporal beginning but that every series, in order to have being or existence, must depend on something outside the series. It is no rebuttal to say that since everything must have a cause, therefore God Himself requires a cause. Aquinas’ argument does not use the premise that everything needs a cause. Everything that exists in the universe needs a cause. God is not part of the series and therefore the rules of the series, including the rules of causation, do not apply to Him.

And remember, folks:

Aquinas can rest easy. It seems evident that Dawkins and Harris have not answered the theistic argument. Yet amusingly they think they have. What’s up with these self-styled paragons of reason? Dawkins and Harris are experts in laboratory science. One is a zoologist, the other a student of neuroscience. Here is the classic case of people who are experts in one field trying to issue authoritative pronouncements in another. When this happens the results are not hard to predict.

Do your worst.
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Pell and Hickey: cult leaders without a cult

National Day of Secularism

May the 26th

What does the Catholic Church in Australia have against secularism, liberal democracy and the Enlightenment? Quite a lot, it seems, because in the last 24 hours no less than two high-ranking clergy have warned Australian Catholic politicians that if they vote in favour of expanded stem-cell research, they risk being kicked out of Benedict's gang. By now you would have heard about Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell's heavying of Catholic parliamentarians in NSW who are considering voting in support of a therapeutic cloning bill currently being debated in the Lower House:

Cardinal George Pell has warned Catholic politicians they face "consequences" in the life of the church should they vote for an "immoral" bill before the NSW Parliament to expand stem cell research.

[. . .]

"These possibilities are quite grotesque and I'd be very surprised if they had approval throughout the population," he said.

"To create a human embryo for the express purpose of using it and destroying, that's the way we treat lab rats. It's totally inappropriate for human beings. It's a perverse new direction in human experimentation.

"I don't think Catholic politicians, Christian politicians or pro-life politicians who has properly informed their conscience should vote for these changes."

"Cloning is not quite the same as abortion and the legislation for such a thing as cloning is different from actually performing cloning," Dr Pell told reporters.

"But it is a serious moral matter and Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church."

As Bruce points out, Pell seems to be taking his Escriva-esque contribution to political science, what he calls "normative democracy"--"simply a case of “norms” (coincidentally parallel to church doctrine) that the state was not allowed to breach (in other words if the Church dictates against it Australia doesn’t get a say)"--to a new level. But one wonders whether Pell's acting entirely off his own bat, or in response to a memo from head office, given that this morning Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey issued his own fatwa against stemcell research. Hickey has form, of course: early last month, in response to a similar call from Pope Benedict, he declared that any doctor performing an abortion would be excluded from communion and would potentially face excommunication. Declaring that Catholics who vote for therapeutic cloning are acting against the Church's teaching, Hickey said:

"I had to speak about conscience and I would call on Catholic politicians to examine their conscience before taking communion if they supported stemcell research."

I don't want politicians Catholic or otherwise to "examine their conscience" on this issue (or any other) if it means that they stay up nights worrying about whether their sky-daddy will cast them into a lake of unquenchable fire for eternity if they disobey the orders of the Archbishop. Because, let's face it, that's insane. I want them to use one of the few opportunities they get in party political life to actually use their brains--and in the process, to tell the likes of Pell and Hickey to go fuck themselves. Fortunately, that's what they seem to be doing.

Courtesy of SMH. And too bloody right!

Let us hope, then, that Catholic school principals show as much backbone. As Mikey blogged a few days ago, earlier in the week Pell proclaimed that school principals in his archdiocese would have to take an "oath of fidelity" regarding Church teaching on homosexuality, birth control, and the ordination of women:

In a first for the Australian church, the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, is set to extend the oath of fidelity and profession of faith, a requirement of church law for bishops, priests and heads of seminaries, to all senior educational leaders.
The oath demands "religious submission of intellect and will" on questions of faith and morals - even if these are inferred but not defined by the pope and his bishops - and an acceptance that everything solemnly taught by church tradition is divinely inspired.
It suggests they would be bound not only to impart these teachings but to live by them. [Emphasis added]

Religious submission of intellect and will? Can I just suggest, to any principal who is seriously considering "submitting his or her intellect and will" to the sky-daddy's representatives on Earth, that you don't deserve to be at the helm of an educational institution in the 21st century? Perhaps management training at McDonalds is more your speed, because schools (real schools, that is) are supposed to develop in students the ability to think and to reason for themselves, not to transform them into mindless religious automatons.

Indeed, Pell seems to be taking cue from Jerry Falwell. Just look at what he has in store for those poor students whose parents are fool enough to believe that five to twelve in the Catholic education system will magically transform their little darlings into model citizens:

Among its other new measures are marriage preparation classes for senior secondary school students, twice-yearly reviews of its educational bodies, and forums so Catholic politicians can be updated on church teachings.
There will also be renewed efforts to teach youth about "sexuality and life issues" through formal courses and seminars, and measures to bring in to the fold young people inspired by next year's World Youth Day.
Cardinal Pell has taken an intense interest in Catholic education, ordering the rewriting of the religious education curriculum, and aiming to turn around Catholic thinking that faith is caught, not taught.

Sorry: that's not a school, it's a madrassa. All this talk about getting values back into the classroom . . . when did education stop being a value?

In the end, though, you have to laugh at these gentlemen who have been so cloistered from reality that they appear to think this is the eleventh century, there's still a Great Chain of Being and the secular powers still defer to religious authority unquestioningly. Unfortunately for them, most Australians, and indeed many Catholics, have voted with their feet on abortion, birth control, women's rights, gay rights and stem cell research. Pell and Hickey and cult leaders without a cult.

See also Ninglun's post
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The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XVIII

The week in fundie:

1. Homophobic street preacher whines about hypocrisy because he has been refused permission to march in a gay pride parade. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Incidentally, the WorldNetDaily article detailing the poor oppressed anti-gay activist's plight refers to said gay pride parade as a "gay" pride parade. Why the scare quotes? Are the participants not gay? Are they only pretending to be gay? Why do wingnuts do this? Are they stupid or something?)
2. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, ultra-Orthodox Jews are threatening violence against this year's gay pride parade, having acted upon similar threats in previous years. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
3. And if you happen to be gay--or even if you're accused of being gay--in post-Saddam Iraq, it significantly increases your chances of being shot, burned and/or beheaded by Shi'a fundamentalist death squads. (Via uruknet) (Warning: follow the links at your own risk--they contain images that are definitely NSFW.) Isn't faith a wonderful thing?
   
4. Over in Pakistan, a Christian man has been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Mohammed. (Via Richard Dawkins.net)
5. Confused by "NOMA?" US Republican Presidential candidate Sam Brownback unpacks it for you in an op-ed for the New York Times. The way to balance science and faith is to cherry-pick those elements of science which are consonant with your religious ideology (or could be interpreted to be so); if it doesn't agree with your religious presuppositions, you simply write it off as "atheistic theology posing as science." Simple, no? (Richard Dawkins.net) (More info. on the science-friendly Brownback campaign in this post)
6. New Zealand is set to get its own version of Ken Ham's Creation Museum. (Via Pharyngula)
7. Why some people resist science (Via Pharyngula)
   

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Right Wing Death Beast

Someone named "matt" left the following comment at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, in response to a post about Laura Schlessinger's son, currently serving in Iraq, and a website he has created featuring (amongst other choice items) "cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation."

you are full of shit you fat liberal fuck if it was not for people like dr.laura's son your fat stupid ass would be killed by the islamofacist you fat ugly peice of shit you peacenicks are destroying this nation but trust me you liberal cowards are gonna get your punishment you stupid fucks we are gunnin' for you and we are gonna get you just wait after the next big terrorist attack all you liberal fuckheads will be fair game you and the islamofacist just wait bitch soon it will be open season

And Ed Brayton's not even a leftie (he's a libertarian). The scary thought is that this individual could have access to firearms. Read more!