Monthly Archives: February 2007

If God says “Kill ‘em”, will the people listen?

The answer is apparently yes.  I doubt it comes as any surprise to anyone that grew up as or with fundamentalists such as myself.   However, I do find myself surprised that anyone would have to find out such a thing in a formal setting like the one in the study.

We see similar behaviour all the time. When authorities in our lives condone certain things, we tend to exhibit those things.  For example, competitiveness.   Those of us raised by people who appreciate a competitive streak tend to be competitive long after our parents have released us into the wild.

Thus, is it really any surprise at all that people who consider their god the ultimate authority will behave in a manner that is aggressive and/or violent if they are given cause to believe that it condones, even demands, such behaviour?  I don’t think so.

Fox News “sponsoring” Democratic Debate

What is wrong with some Democrats? Fox news is little more than a mouthpiece for the Republican Party and is perhaps singularly responsible for dumbing down of political discourse in America.

Consider the slandering of Senator Obama by Fox News in recent weeks.  They’ve went after him for being the son of a Muslim (video), for having a Arabic name and have made shit up in some instances.  They’ve also turned his preferred vice (smoking) into a national incident (video) and have even questioned if he was “black enough” (video).

Fox News has a well established extremely anti-Democrat bias which is not to be confused with being reasonably critical that makes it unfit to be a sponsor of a democratic debate.

I encourage everyone to sign the petition at MoveOn.

The Man in Black

I grew up on ‘old country’, that is to say “songs by musicians generally despised by Tennessee music executives”. One of the despised was Johnny Cash and this is his song explaining why he was the Man in Black.

Today in God

John McCain’s metamorphosis into a doing-anything-to-get-the-god-vote twit is complete with his recent disavowal of Roe vs. Wade.

Minister Zille Huma Usman of Pakistan was murdered by an Islamic man for not covering her head.

Haredi Jewish men are starting to publicly attack Jewish women for not obeying their dictates regarding the proper role of women.

Sunni vs. Shia violence is spreading in Iran despite efforts by the government to contain it.

Nearly five years to the date, another train is bombed in India while enroute to Pakistan.

Today is the one year anniversary of the bombing of Samara’s Golden Shrine by Sunnis.

Egypt has sentenced a blogger to four years in prison for “insulting” Islam.

Bishops in Africa are threatening to sever ties with the Anglican church if it doesn’t do something about that woman refusing to fire the gay man.

Telling it like it is

This letter was written to the New Zealand Herald in protest to the labeling of New Zealand as a “Christian Nation”.

If my resistance to deem New Zealand to be a Christian nation makes me a traitor, as Brian Tamaki suggests, take me to the Tower, or the New Zealand equivalent, for it would be greatly preferable to living in such a country.

You might think, then, that I am one of the 48.8 per cent of non-Christian New Zealanders.

I am not. I am an Anglican priest serving an Auckland church. And no, I’m not Bishop Richard Randerson under a nom de plume.

As an immigrant from America I know what it means to live in a Christian nation. That’s why I left. New Zealand’s respect for human rights is why I chose to live here as a permanent resident.

Before Christians hasten to denounce my position, take a close look at the only Christian nation. To be fair it should be described as a Fundamentalist Christian nation.

And, aye, they should. America is a “Christian Nation” in the sense that is presently controlled by fundamentalist Christians who have declared war on all things ‘secular’, which is to say ‘anything that doesn’t jive with their version of The Truth ™ ‘.

Then you’ve got the whole End of Days theology that includes a sizable chunk of the population. Twenty five percent of Americans believe that Jesus will return this year. A full fourty four percent of Americans believe Jesus will return during their lifetime.

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On Religious Fundamentalists

I found an interesting book via Debunking Christianity I thought I’d share. It’s called The Authoritarians by Bob Altemyers. As someone who was raised by and around fundamentalist Baptists, I’ve found all the chapters pretty fascinating – especially the fourth chapter as it deals with religious fundamentalists and what makes them tick.

This chapter has presented my main research findings on religious fundamentalists. The first thing I want to emphasize, in light of the rest of this book, is that they are highly likely to be authoritarian followers. They are highly submissive to established authority, aggressive in the name of that authority, and conventional to the point of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide. They are fearful and self-righteous and have a lot of hostility in them that they readily direct toward various out-groups. They are easily incited, easily led, rather un-inclined to think for themselves, largely impervious to facts and reason, and rely instead on social support to maintain their beliefs. They bring strong loyalty to their in-groups, have thick-walled, highly compartmentalized minds, use a lot of double standards in their judgments, are surprisingly unprincipled at times, and are often hypocrites.

The above, taken from the summary of the chapter, is exactly how I’d describe a majority of my relatives and their fellow church members in addition to some more choice words I’m sure Professor Altemyer would call “uncharitable”.

So, go read the book and pass it along.

A doctor withholding information? Refusing service? Not surprised.

A recent survey by the University of Chicago concluded that 14 percent of doctors believe they have no obligation to tell patients about all available options and another 29 percent believe they are under no obligation to refer patients for treatments they find objectionable.

As a woman, colour me unsurprised.  Though I am a mother now, I never intended to be one.  When I was 23 I sought a permanent solution to motherhood.  I wanted a hysterectomy and sat out to speak with doctors about obtaining one.  It was an experience I’ll never forget.

The first one I spoke to pretty much just laughed me off and implied that I was just being immature and would change my mind when I “grew up”.  The second one bluntly stated that he wouldn’t perform such a operation and was rather proud to announce that I’d have a problem finding a doctor who would do such to an “otherwise” healthy woman.

It was the third one that got me to give up entirely.  The man treated me like I wasn’t even a human. After finding out that I was divorced he calmly explained that a future husband might desire children and would become unglued should he find out that his baby-machine was intentionally broken.  As a doctor and a man, he had to take the desires and wants of this potential husband into consideration and he just wasn’t up to having to face some ‘young buck’ down the road.

And having spoken to other women I’ve learned my story isn’t all that unique.  Many doctors, mostly men and often religious, have no problem enforcing their beliefs about women upon us.   We’re baby machines, provided the good doctors think we’re old enough to start popping them out.  We are not individuals who should be treated with respect and allowed to make our own decision about when or even if we’ll be mothers or to how many we’ll play mom to.

Doctors using their superior position to make sure we remain in our given role is not news. At least, it isn’t to those of us who’ve tried to buck our assigned duties and choose our own paths.

The only thing that would be surprising is if a study concluded that religoius male doctors were more likely to withhold information from male patients about Viagra with even more declaring they had no obligation to tell male patients about procedures that can reverse the effects of a vasectomy.

Now that would be news.

Freethought in the black community

dubois.jpg

Did you know that many of the great African-American leaders of the 20th century were not religious and some such as W.E.B Dubois explicitly rejected the personal god of Christianity? I remember being quite shocked as if there’s one very persistant stereotype about African Americans it is that they’re extremely religious.

Mike Estes of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia discusses this hidden history in an interview with the Infidel Guy here (mp3) using the words of the people themselves as evidence.

h/t: Friendly Atheist

Cleric proposes mandatory 10 year sentence for potential rapists

What?!? It makes just as much as sense as this:

A leading Malaysian Muslim cleric has suggested that all women should be fitted with chastity belts as a deterrent to rape and incest, a news report said Friday.

Abu Hassan Al-Hafiz, an influential cleric from the northeastern Terengganu state, said that women were most safe from sexual predators if they donned some form of barrier to their sexual organs.

‘We have even come across a number of unusual sex cases, where even senior citizens and children are not spared. The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection,’ Abu Hassan said in a sermon late Thursday, quoted by the Star daily.

‘My intention is not to offend women but to safeguard them from sex maniacs. Besides, husbands could also feel more secure, if you know what I mean.’

Abu Hassan said that the practise of women wearing chastity belts in Malaysia could be traced to as recent as the mid-1960s.

And of course, it’s always the behaviour of women that must be restricted, never the behaviour of men . I look forward to the day where we suggest - in complete seriousness – that all potential victims of pick pocketing be fitted with a device that prevents the most ardent of thiefs from making off with their wallets.

These are the times that make you want to smack some heads together

One of the most common myths about America is that the people who founded it were dyed in the wool Christians. In truth, many of them were not. The most obvious of these non-Christians was Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense. It was written in plain language (as were all of his works) and thus accessible to all Americans. It was the first work of its kind to openly speak of rebellion and it was an inspiration to none other than George Washington.

But his influence went deeper than that. He also wrote the collection of essays we know as The Crisis. As a matter of fact, the phrase my title alludes to is the opening line of the first essay ‘These are the times that try mens souls“. These essays were written during the war with George Washington ordering the first one to be read to troops. It has been suggested that more people read those essays than people who watch the Super Bowl currently.

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