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

11 10 2008

Before I proceed, some breaking news. Pfc. Jeremy Hall, the atheist US soldier who suffered discrimination, harrassment and death threats at the hands of his loving Christian superiors and fellow soldiers, is dropping his lawsuit against U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Defense Department, and plans to leave the Army. (According to the American Freethought podcast, Hall was denied permission to attend the recent Atheist Alliance convention, where he was listed as a speaker.)

The week in fundie:

  1. For an example of how it is possible for Catholics to be as demented as the fundiest fundagelicals, look no further than Matt C. Abbott’s column on the RenewAmerica* website, “As the ‘Obama-nation’ nears, priests sound alarm“. There you’ll hear from Father James Farfaglia, who is unhappy with the recent US bishops’ statement, Faithful Citizenship, which counsels “the Church’s leaders [. . .] to avoid endorsing or opposing candidates or telling people how to vote.” Farfaglia wants the Church to tell people to vote against Obama and for McCain, because, among other reasons, “McCain will appoint a pro-life Supreme Court justice; Obama will appoint a pro-abortion one.” He also speaks highly of Catholic convert, long-time anti-abortion activist and theocrat Randall Terry, who in 1993 said: “I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…. Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”You’ll also hear a goodly dose of Christian persecution mania from Father Richard Perozich. Jumping at the shadows of government spooks waiting around the corner to clap him in irons for being an ultraconservative Catholic (“we may not be in jail (at least at the moment)”), Perozich accuses the state of “encroaching on our religious beliefs, our freedom by passing laws which indoctrinate us, penalize us for non conformity, and take away our liberty.” The chief agents of this anti-Catholic persecution , in his view, are (self-hating?) Catholic politicians who, by not always voting in strict accordance with Catholic dogma, have become “slaves to people with evil ideas” . . . those ideas being “abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual activity.” TEH EVIL, you see, infects the souls of individuals who then force teh evil onto everyone else. How, you may ask? Perozich reaches under his cassock and pulls the following theory out of his wrinkled arse: “First evil forms people into groups to organize and express itself. [. . .] Evil then beings to take over in 4 ways: infiltration, indoctrination, intimidation, and imposition.” The examples he provides are just priceless:

    When we know persons with same sex attractions who have not learned to master chastity, we feel sorry for them. We want them to feel better. They infiltrate by asking for tolerance. They reinvent themselves saying that this is who they are. They indoctrinate with false ideas that they are genetically created this way, that they cannot change, that their sex is just as good as, or even better than, normal people because they don’t create overpopulation. They intimidate, calling us bigots, hate-filled people, intolerant. Finally they impose laws forcing us to learn about their sinful lifestyle, to accept it, to take away our freedoms if we don’t accept it, to teach this as normal in schools, nursing programs, to celebrate it publicly in parades, schools, and the work place as ‘diversity’ when in fact it is perversity. [Emphasis added]

    Read the full article to learn more about the INFLITRATE–>INDOCTRINATE–>INTIMIDATE–>IMPOSE strategy is deployed against unsuspecting hard-right Catholics by “unrepetant” woman abortionists and “famous people with diseases” calling for embryonic stem cell research funding. Read the rest of this entry »





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

29 06 2008

Machine Gun Keyboard‘s take on World Youth Day

The week in fundie . . .

  1. Three years after Campus Crusade for Christ spammed the incoming mail of Australian school principals with the creationist propaganda DVD The Privileged Planet, Focus on the Family is doing the same in New Zealand. But whereas the then Australian Education Minister Brendan Nelson welcomed the prospect of creationism being taught in Australian schools “if that is the wish of parents,” the New Zealand Education ministry maintains “the theory of evolution underpins the science curriculum and schools have a responsibility to teach theories that are subject to accepted scientific scrutiny.” According to the NZ Christian newspaper Weekly Challenge, The Discovery Institute’s Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez (authors of The Privileged Planet) will be conducting a speaking tour of that country in October and November to, as the paper puts it, “strengthen our belief in an intelligent and amazing Designer.” Not that Intelligent Design has anything to do with religion, you understand. (Via Pharyngula)
  2. In Ghana, 34-year-old Yussif Abdullarahman killed one of his wives by hitting her on the head with a blunt object and pouring acid over her body because, as he claimed, “she was a witch.” (Happy 98.9 FM)
  3. In the Indian state of Jharkand, three members of a family were beaten to death with bamboo sticks and iron rods after being accused of practising witchcraft. According to Thaiindian News, “over 700 people, mostly women, have been killed over the past few years in Jharkhand after being branded as witches.”
  4. The Anti-Christ will be a German Jew, according to UK Pentecostalist sect RedSky Ministries. Read the rest of this entry »




Religion as child abuse: evangelical pastors target child “witches” in Nigeria

21 01 2008
Evil witches, apparently. (Guardian)

In certain regions of Nigeria, diseases (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, etc.), accidents, drunkenness, mental health problems, the smoking of marijuana, divorce, infertility and other misfortunes are generally blamed on witchcraft. And evangelical Christian churches are exploiting this superstition for material gain, charging up to three or four months the average working person’s salary for “deliverances.” Now the “prophets” have started naming children as witches, with horrifying consequences:

How Suspected Witches are Treated

  • Abandoned, isolated, discriminated, ostracized from the community
  • Taken to the forest and slaughtered
  • Disgraced publicly and murdered
  • Bathed in acid
  • Poisoned to death, often with a poisonous local berry (asire)
  • Buried alive
  • Chained and tortured in churches in order to extract confession

(Stepping Stones)

Guardian Film report here. Via The Good Atheist podcast.

UPDATE: More religion as child abuse at [GBG] Atheist News.