Via John Morales, in the comments at Pharyngula:
As John remarks, this YouTube may not last, but given the hysterical overreaction to PZ Myer’s post on “Frackin’ Crackers,” I think we can expect a lot more of these.
On the subject of “Al Queerda,” two WYD developments: one encouraging, the other disappointing, if not unexpected.
First, the disappointing. Read the rest of this entry »
The Prime Minister says of Pope Benedict:
All of Australia, [. . .] I believe, should treat him with respect.
Why?
What the NSW Government is doing to liberal democracy in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Mutaween is a generic term for religious police in Islamic countries. They’re the guys (and of course they tend to be guys) who go around arresting, beating, flogging and even killing ordinary citizens who flout religious laws. In countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, women tend to find themselves the victims of the sadistic dogma-enforcers (see this Amnesty report from 2000), who on one occasion prevented schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building “because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress.” (15 of the schoolgirls subsequently died, having been beaten back into the blaze by the police.) We in the modern, enlightened West like to pride ourselves on our difference from sickeningly backward societies like the theocracies of the Islamic world. We value religious freedom, and are not so cognitively immature that we require the repressive apparatus of the state to artificially prop up religious faith and deliver us from reality. Certainly nothing could be more alien to the liberal democratic values we cherish than the idea of religious police, right?
Wrong. As you are doubtless already aware, the NSW Government has deemed it necessary to outsource the Sydney constabulary (as well as emergency services) as rent-a-cops for the Spanish Inquisition, and they have already proceeded to heavy potential critics: Read the rest of this entry »
Machine Gun Keyboard‘s take on World Youth Day
The week in fundie . . .
Frassati: role model and (as you can see) something of a hornbag to millions of young Catholics*
An exhumed corpse, about 80 years overdone, will be one of the star attractions at the Catholic World Youth Day to be held in Sydney this July:
Pier Giorgio Frassati will play an important role in the huge Catholic festival despite being dead for more than 80 years, Fairfax Media reports.
Mr Frassati was only 24 when he died from polio, but he has become a role model for young Catholics because of his fervent faith, teamed with good looks, a robust physique and sunny nature.
The worm’s-meat-formerly-known-as-Frassati is being flown in at the request of one Cardinal George Pell, and the word around the votive is that if the Catholic youth festival goes off without a hitch, Pell could win himself a senior position in the Vatican.
(*No, of course that’s not the real corspe!!)
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