I can’t keep up with these teen fads

Christian knees are trembling, sensing imminent doom brought on by juvenile fantasy literature. Which is ironic, considering that they worship a big sloppy book that fits perfectly into the genre. Anyway, first there was the Harry Potter series, which turned all the teenagers into Wiccans (what?); then there was the Twilight series, that has led to an upsurge of teenagers drinking blood (I missed that one, too). What next?

Think carefully: What might happen if a “third wave” of popular entertainment inspires gullible teenagers to seek possession by demonic entities, thinking it’s good for them? To those who believe in a real behind-the-scenes war between good and evil, the prospect is truly terrifying.

There are no people with magic powers or functioning magic wands, and there are no quidditch matches on ESPN; vampires aren’t real, and all that can happen with rare instances of blood drinking is a little nausea and the potential transmission of blood-borne diseases.

Demons aren’t real, and inviting one to possess you is just a waste of time that will make you look very silly. And the people believe it’s a peril deserve a little terror, and should lock themselves up in their churches and not come out any more.

Baby killers!

Religion leads to moral bankruptcy, and can be used to justify anything. What else can you say when crazy theologians argue for murder?

Rabbis Dov Lior and Yacob Yousef had endorsed a highly controversial book, the King’s Torah – written by two lesser-known settler rabbis. It justifies killing non-Jews, including those not involved in violence, under certain circumstances.

The fifth chapter, entitled “Murder of non-Jews in a time of war” has been widely quoted in the Israeli media. The summary states that “you can kill those who are not supporting or encouraging murder in order to save the lives of Jews”.

At one point it suggests that babies can justifiably be killed if it is clear they will grow up to pose a threat.

Oh, wait. This must be more of that sophisticated theology, because I don’t get it.

(via Butterflies & Wheels)

A lump of excrement by any other name…

The Campus Crusade for Christ is changing their name. They’ve decided that they aren’t just about “campuses”, which is great; maybe they can quit poisoning our universities then. They’ve also, after a mere 60 years, realized that “crusade” has negative connotations to a lot of people, so they’re dropping that, too. Their new name?

“Cru”.

Cru? Just cru. Cruel crude crucifiers cruisin’ for crumpet crumbs. I don’t know, I guess they’re just trying to be hip and happenin’, or something, when they’re really just a fusty old antiquity dedicated to dogma.

They’re also rather defensive about the fact that they’ve dropped Christ from their name, but they explain it quite well.

We were not trying to eliminate the word Christ from our name. We were looking for a name that would most effectively serve our mission and help us take the gospel to the world. Our mission has not changed. Cru enables us to have discussions about Christ with people who might initially be turned off by a more overtly Christian name. We believe that our interaction and our communication with the world will be what ultimately honors and glorifies Christ.

That’s so charmingly craven of them! They want to be sneaky when proselytizing, and they recognize that Christ is a major PR detriment to them. Now if only we could get the rest of Christianity to jettison Jesus.

Now this is a creepy stereotype

“Little girl, would you like some candy?” Somebody didn’t think things through when they decided that this was a good strategy for proselytizing.

An Edmonton mother is outraged after members of a local church approached her daughter on a playground – offering a Bible verse, candy and a promise that if she memorized the passage they would give her more treats.

Kathleen Crowe says her nine-year-old daughter Angeline was playing in MacEwan park last week when she was approached by a couple from the Victory Christian Center who gave her candy and a Bible verse. Angeline was also promised more candy if she memorized the verse.

And if she didn’t memorize the verse, she could burn in hell!

The many failings of the Catholic church

Now that the Cloyne report is available, the perfidy of the Catholic church is directly measurable. Michael Nugent has tallied up a list of all the documented, unambiguous cases of Irish Catholic officials lying — just blatant, undeniable, flat out lying to investigators. I’m pretty sure that’s against one of their commandments.

If you want to see a Catholic nuisance closer to home, look to Philadelphia. They have a new archbishop, and he’s apparently because he’s overtly political.

“I think that with Chaput you will see a much more politically active archbishop than we saw with Cardinal Rigali,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit magazine America and author of numerous books on the Catholic hierarchy.

Reese described Chaput as an “in-your-face” leader who is “going to be a real pain in the neck for the Democratic Party.”

…

But he has been even more forceful in articulating what it means to live as a Catholic. He has regularly rebuked the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

A month after President Obama’s inauguration, Chaput decried what he called a “spirit of adulation bordering on servility” toward Obama by “some . . . Democratic-friendly Catholic writers, scholars, editors and activists. He said, “There’s no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope, and change.”

Oh, boy. Let’s see the Catholic Church find common cause with the teabaggers. Roger Ebert has a nice summary of the ways the GOP is the party of the past; I’m happy to see the church hopping on that same train to oblivion.

It could be worse, part I

We could be Christians. Answers in Genesis distributes a little quiz about modesty: I took it and failed. Most of the questions assume clothing is defined by God, that the purpose of clothing is to hide sexuality, and the focus is almost entirely on women — look at questions #9 and #10, for instance. That could have come straight from a Muslim handbook.

The Style Quiz

Take the following True/False quiz to discover what you really believe about clothing, and then compare your responses with the answer key below.

1. According to the Bible, the primary purpose of clothing is to cover the body.

2. There’s nothing right or wrong about particular clothing styles. It’s all just a matter of taste and personal opinion.

3. The Bible tells us what styles of clothing Christians should wear.

4. Since the Bible says God looks on the heart, what we wear and how we appear aren’t that important; it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

5. Our clothes and appearance reveal a lot about our values, our character, and beliefs.

6. What I wear is not really anyone else’s concern. I should be free to wear the kind of clothes that I like and that I feel comfortable wearing.

7. Modesty means dressing in a way that is outdated, dumpy, and unattractive.

8. If a girl doesn’t wear trendy clothes that are at least a little revealing, guys won’t notice her.

9. Except for guys who are “over-sexed,” most men are not really affected by the way women dress. Most guys don’t even notice how women dress.

10. I can’t help it if guys struggle morally because of what I wear. It’s up to the guys to control their minds. I shouldn’t have to change the way I dress just because they can’t control themselves.

11. Parents shouldn’t impose their standards or beliefs about clothing on their kids. They should let them make their own decisions, even if they don’t approve of what their kids are wearing.

12. Christians are free to dress as they wish, because we’re not under the law, but under grace. It’s legalistic for parents or youth leaders to establish guidelines or standards for the way young people dress.

13. Christian women should never wear clothes that are revealing or that look sexy (i.e., clothes designed to arouse sexual desire or interest).

14. There are some public settings where it is okay for Christian women to wear clothing that exposes their private parts (e.g., thighs, breasts).

15. A woman can be covered from head to toe and still be dressed immodestly. 16. A woman can wear modest clothing and still be an immodest woman.

17. Most girls and women do not understand the meaning, the power, or the benefits of true modesty.

Oh, you want to know the right answers? Look below the fold.

[Read more…]

Ireland stands up to the Catholic Church

Last week, the Cloyne report was released. This document describes patterns of child abuse and in particular the willful intransigence of the Catholic church in correcting the problems in Ireland, and it’s pretty damned damning. One significant detail: the Church’s defense in recent months consists of claiming priestly pedophilia was a thing of the past, a product of the laxity and corruption of the general social atmosphere in the 60s and 70s, pushing the blame onto that awful liberal culture, not the church. Unfortunately, the Cloyne report assesses policies in the late 1990s, so we’re talking about relatively contemporary church practices. Maybe they can start blaming investment bankers instead of hippies.

Anyway, the report rips into the church at all levels, from the local diocese to the Vatican, and accuses them of failing to report cases of abuse, providing support for victims, or even of recording problems — the church had basically closed all doors for redress, and had insisted as usual on keeping the horrors hidden in house. It’s been a cult of secrecy that has permitted the abuses to continue.

Some of the local church officials have apologized — small comfort to the people who were sexually abused as children — but wouldn’t you know it, the Vatican rejects all criticisms. They say the Vatican’s instructions to Irish clergy were perfectly reasonable, because opening up these cases to secular authorities “risked contravening canonical law”. Right. Raping children isn’t as significant a contravention of canonical law as arresting child-rapers in a dog collar would be. It’s just more of the same dodginess from the Vatican.

However Maeve Lewis, director of abuse survivors’ group One in Four, hit out at Fr Lombardi’s claims. Saying they “completely lack substance”, she added his words are “part of the now familiar refusal by the Vatican to acknowledge that the culture of loyalty and secrecy which facilitated the sexual abuse of children extended far beyond the Irish Church.

“It is further evidence, if needed, that the Vatican’s claim to prioritise the safety of children is completely lacking in credibility,” she said.

Now though, in a major step, the Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland Enda Kenny has spoken out rather forcefully against the church.

Mr Kenny told the Dáil that the Cloyne Report highlighted the ‘dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.’

The rape and torture of children had been downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold, instead, the primacy of the institution, which are its power, standing and ‘reputation’.

The hierarchy had proved either unwilling or unable to address what he called the horrors uncovered in successive reports, a failure which he said must be devastating for so many good priests.

Mr Kenny said that the Catholic Church needed to be truly and deeply penitent for the wrongdoing it perpetrated, hid and denied.

‘Instead of listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal,’ Mr Kenny pointed out that the Vatican’s reaction had been to parse and analyse it, with the eye of a canon lawyer.

The full speech is available online. Kenny is a believing Catholic, unfortunately, but good common sense and a recognition of what is morally right overrides obedience to the church, and here are a few more parts I liked.

But thankfully for them, and for us, this is not Rome.
Nor is it industrial-school or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the Irish-Catholic world.

This is the ‘Republic’ of Ireland 2011.

A Republic of laws…of rights and responsibilities…of proper civic order…where the delinquency and arrogance of a particular version…of a particular kind of ‘morality’…will no longer be tolerated or ignored.

Cardinal Josef Ratzinger said “Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.”

As the Holy See prepares its considered response to the Cloyne Report, as Taoiseach, I am making it absolutely clear, that when it comes to the protection of the children of this State, the standards of conduct which the Church deems appropriate to itself, cannot and will not, be applied to the workings of democracy and civil society in this republic.

Not purely, or simply or otherwise.

CHILDREN FIRST.

Bravo!

Why are they even debating this?

The UK has been having a debate about Sharia law in the House of Commons. Why, I don’t know; it’s so regressive and oppressive, such a step backward, that it ought to be simply dismissed out of hand. Maryam Namazie gave a speech opposing Sharia law, and here’s a small piece of it.

After all, Sharia law is based on the Koran, the hadith (sayings and actions of the prophet Mohammad), and Islamic jurisprudence. They all agree that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s, a women can’t sign her own marriage contract, men have the unilateral right to divorce whereas a women have limited rights to divorce; child custody goes to the father at a preset age; girls get half of the inheritance boys do and so on.

The Islamic Sharia Council explains why this is so: With regards to women’s testimony, ‘If one forgets, the other can remind her.’ It’s the difference between a man and a woman’s brains.’ ‘A woman’s character is not so good for a case where testimony requires attention and concentration.’ And this also applies to divorce. ‘Women are governed by emotion; men by their minds so he will think twice before uttering talaq [divorce].’ It goes on to say it is not ‘derogatory’ but ‘the secret of women’s nature.’

We’re done. Really, there’s no debate necessary at this point; we live in the 21st century, when no legal code should enshrine inequalities (and I’m well aware that there are inequities in US law, but we’re fighting hard to remove them, not add more).

Guess what makes Josh McDowell cry?

I think the loony Christian apologist has got something right. He has identified the greatest threat to Christianity:

The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have… whether you like it or not.

Hooray for the internet!

Now here is the problem, going all the way back, when Al Gore invented the Internet [he said jokingly], I made the statement off and on for 10-11 years that the abundance of knowledge, the abundance of information, will not lead to certainty; it will lead to pervasive skepticism. And, folks, that’s exactly what has happened. It’s like this. How do you really know, there is so much out there… This abundance [of information] has led to skepticism. And then the Internet has leveled the playing field [giving equal access to skeptics].

Somebody should book this guy for the next skeptics’ conference — he’ll make everyone very happy.