Tolerance is not a religious value

Religion really hates it when you tell its proponents that they have to live up to their promise to be good. It’s so unfair!

Last year, New York enacted the Dignity for All Students Act, effective July 1, 2012. (See prior posting.) In addition to prohibiting bullying, the law (Educ. Law Sec. 801-a) requires schools to include in their K-12 curriculum instruction in tolerance and respect for others of different races, weights, national origins, ethnic groups, religions, religious practices, mental or physical abilities, sexual orientations, genders, and sexes. According to Yeshiva World, on Monday the New York Board of Regents voted to exempt yeshivas and parochial schools from this requirement to the extent that the school has a religious or moral objection to the requirement. Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz said that parents of students in such schools "may now feel secure that … their children will not be subjected to lessons that are inconsistent with their religious doctrines."

Yeah, like what? Now their children don’t have to hear those horrible messages like, “You don’t get to beat up that kid for being gay” and “Atheists are human beings, too” and “Yes, the girls are allowed to speak in the classroom”?

It does look vaguely religious, doesn’t it?

In a completely unsurprising decision, Jessica Ahlquist has won her court case, in which she was complaining that a prayer banner was an inappropriate object to hang in a public school. The defendants tried to argue that it was “an historical memento of the school’s founding days, with a predominantly secular purpose.” Judge for yourself. It’s the banner titled “School Prayer”, which begins, “Our Heavenly Father” and ends with “Amen.” Somehow, the judge in the case was not fooled and recognized that it seemed to be rather obviously religious in tone, and has ordered it taken down.

Next thing you know, these religious gomers will try to argue that creationism is a secular, scientific theory. No one is going to be fooled by that, are they?

Patriarchy knows best

We’re an equal opportunity religion basher here at Pharyngula, so after ridiculing the Islamic attitude towards female genitals, it’s only fair that we look at the other major Middle Eastern religion, Judaism and its extremists.

And in Jerusalem, they are having a conference on innovations in gynecology — it’s Science! In the 21st Century! Yay!

Except…women will not be allowed to speak at the event. They can attend, but will be segregated into a separate section.It’s being held at the Puah Institute, which is apparently a bastion of Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy.

As far as Puah is concerned, it operates on a strictly kosher basis, as required by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate. While there are women on its board of directors, its public face is strictly male, and the two sexes are not allowed to mix at its events.

To be sure, not all sectors of the ultra-Orthodox community support these exclusionary tactics, explains Nachman Ben-Yehuda, a Hebrew University sociology professor and author of the recently published book Theocratic Democracy. “But most people are too afraid to speak out.”

Isn’t that typical? Whether it’s Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, the exclusionary extremists all rise to prominence and start imposing their superstitious nonsense on everyone else…while the more numerous moderates tremble and hesitate to speak out against folly, and start looking for compromises. You cannot build a better world when you start by compromising with idiocy.

Female genital mutilation has medical benefits?

There is a very good question which I’m pleased to see that an expert Islamic cleric has finally seen fit to answer. Why mutilate female genitals at all? What purpose does it have? I confess to uncharitably assuming that it was all about controlling women’s sexual activity, but I was unfair. They have perfectly good reasons for chopping and hacking at little girls crotches with jagged sharp instruments.

Female circumcision has not been prescribed for no reason, rather there is wisdom behind it and it brings many benefits.

Mentioning some of these benefits, Dr. Haamid al-Ghawaabi says:

The secretions of the labia minora accumulate in uncircumcised women and turn rancid, so they develop an unpleasant odour which may lead to infections of the vagina or urethra. I have seen many cases of sickness caused by the lack of circumcision.

Circumcision reduces excessive sensitivity of the clitoris which may cause it to increase in size to 3 centimeters when aroused, which is very annoying to the husband, especially at the time of intercourse.

Another benefit of circumcision is that it prevents stimulation of the clitoris which makes it grow large in such a manner that it causes pain.

Circumcision prevents spasms of the clitoris which are a kind of inflammation.

Man, that’s all so true. Don’t you just hate it when you’re having intercourse with a woman, and she starts getting aroused? I suppose snipping off the clitoris is one way of dealing with it (the ladies really do cool down fast when you start waving a knife around), but I’ve found it more humane to keep a bucket of cold water next to the bed. As a bonus, a good cold water splashing also flushes out the strange and repulsive slippery dampness that so unpleasantly oozes out of their vaginas.

Although, come to think of it, the guy giving all that advice probably doesn’t have to worry too much about aroused women.

Witch-hunter Ukpabio spreads her poison here

This may be redundant, but Helen Ukpabio is an awful excuse for a human being, and she’s also a fervent Biblical literalist. She’s a Nigerian pentecostal preacher who rants and rails about witches, especially those wicked children who are agents of Satan. Her brand of demonization is what has been fueling the mutilation and murder of homeless children in Africa.

She also makes movies illustrating the devilish activities of these witch-children: flying through the air, cursing good Christian families, drinking blood, and just generally being so naughty that they deserve to die, at least if no one brings them to Ukpabio’s ministry to be exorcised, at a price.

She’s also got simple diagnostic tools so that you too can detect a witch.

a child under two years of age that cries at night and deteriorates in health is an agent of Satan.

I am distressed. By this method, all three of my children were witches and warlocks. It also explains a lot about those Terrible Twos. And my kids didn’t grow up in areas where malaria was common!

All joking aside, who in their right mind would beat children to death, set them on fire, or throw battery acid in their faces? As it turns out, people under the influence of Helen Ukpabio think that is reasonable and just.

Third world problems, right? Let’s all close our eyes and not worry about it — we Americans have nothing to do with it.

Wrong. Helen Ukpabio is coming to the US, at the invitation of Glorious Praise Ministries in Houston, Texas. You read that right: an infamous Nigerian witch-hunter, responsible for fomenting a climate of fear and hatred leading to the agonizing death of innocent chldren, is coming to Texas to raise money and support for her reign of ignorance and terror. Here. Sponsored by American Christians.

Madness. This evil, criminal woman ought to be met at the airport and turned right around, if not sent off to trial for crimes against humanity.

Protests are being organized, and money is being raised to support Stepping Stones Nigeria, the organization trying to oppose the violence against children promoted by Ukpabio.

I’m simply stunned — I find it unbelievable that her visit is being tolerated by the state, let alone that she was invited here by a mob of dimwits in Texas.

Calvin could do it so much cheaper, with just a cardboard box

The Templeton Foundation has found another way to throw money at universities: they are supporting a study of spirituality in space, whatever that means. The University of Central Florida is getting $300,000 to build a rocketship simulator, in which subjects will apparently sit and go “Ooooooh, aaaah”.

To perform the experiment, they will build a virtual space lab to simulate a space flight with the help of the Bildakt Research Group in Berlin. The simulation will try to replicate those spiritual experiences among astronauts.

The team will also analyze astronauts’ reports using a software program developed at the University of Memphis.

The team’s hypothesis is that the spiritual experiences described by astronauts are primarily caused by the various views of the earth and the vastness of space.

No duh. What are the alternative hypotheses? What results would support or disprove their hypothesis? How are they going to measure “spirituality”? Their proposal sounds murky from this summary, and it also sounds remarkably like they’re going to be looking at natural processes — so why confuse the issue with ambiguous words like “spirit”?

What they don’t realize is that in this project, UCF is the experimental subject, the Templeton Foundation is the experimenter, the $300,000 is the unconditional stimulus, and they are trying to make “spirituality” the conditional stimulus that causes university administrators to start drooling. The only way to succeed is to wake up and realize how they’re being manipulated.

Oh, well. We already know what result they’ll get.

Do you have religious trauma syndrome?

I don’t — my departure from religion was painless and occurred at a young age. But I know that many people experience great stress at leaving the faith.

Breaking out of a restrictive, mind-controlling religion is understandably a liberating experience. People report huge relief and some excitement about their new possibilities. Certain problems are over, such as trying to twist one’s thinking to believe irrational religious doctrines, handling enormous cognitive dissonance in order to get by in the ‘real world’ as well, and conforming to repressive codes of behavior. Finally leaving a restrictive religion can be a major personal accomplishment after trying to make it work and going through many cycles of guilt and confusion.

However, the challenges of leaving are daunting. For most people, the religious environment was a one-stop-shop for meeting all their major needs – social support, a coherent worldview, meaning and direction in life, structured activities, and emotional/spiritual satisfaction. Leaving the fold means multiple losses, including the loss of friends and family support at a crucial time of personal transition. Consequently, it is a very lonely ‘stressful life event’ – more so than others described on Axis IV in the DSM. For some people, depending on their personality and the details of their religious past, it may be possible to simply stop participating in religious services and activities and move on with life. But for many, leaving their religion means debilitating anxiety, depression, grief, and anger.

Next step: the day will come when religion itself will be recognized as a mental disorder, not just the effects of breaking away from it. You can find more about dealing with the trauma of escape at Marlene Winell’s site.

Bishop labels file-sharing religion a ‘sham’

The Swedish government has formally recognized the Church of Kopimism, which considers information holy and uses copying as their sacrament. It’s rather silly, if you ask me, and I’d rather just get away from the nonsense of religion altogether, but it does have one virtue: it has inspired at least one crazy Christian to rage.

But Bishop Peter Ingham, head of the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong, said the move cheapens the value of ‘real’ religious organisations and labelled the group a ‘sham’.

"There should be some measuring stick against what you call religion," Bishop Ingham told ninemsn. "In my mind, if religion has nothing to do with God — or what people perceive to be God — then it’s a sham.

"It cheapens the currency of religion in general because [now] anything can be defined as a religion."

Right. I hear that there are some people who worship a dead man who they claim was a god! I hear that there are some people who think their god manifests as a cracker, so they eat him! I hear that there are some people who think that if you don’t dunk a baby’s head in a tub of water, it won’t go to heaven if it dies! Boy, there sure are a lot of silly beliefs out there that cheapen religion.

And that takes some doing. Religion is bottom-of-the-barrel garbage as it is.

And then he says this:

“It looks like it’s just a way of getting around the law of piracy and copyright. How could a religion promote illegal activity?”

Wait…isn’t it a tenet of the Christian faith that early in their history, they were intensely persecuted by the Romans? That the martyrs refused to obey the laws of the land and thus were executed? And wasn’t Jesus himself executed for his rabble-rousing disobedience? How self-unaware are these guys?

Does he consider the current events in Nigeria to be an example of a religion promoting a legal activity?

Glorifying god’s name

In Nigeria, an Islamic group called Boko Haram has been murdering their Christian compatriots in an effort to drive the Christians out of northern Nigeria. The details are sordid; automatic rifles, bombs, unarmed citizens gunned down en masse, churches being blown up, more than 500 killed in total.

But there is a theme, and it’s a telling one.

Witnesses said gunmen burst into the hall and shouted "God is great" as they opened fire.

“Gunmen who are, from all indications, members of Boko Haram came in large numbers and have encircled police headquarters. They chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is Great] and fired indiscriminately,” a resident told AFP.

God is a self-righteous delusion in the heads of believers that justifies terror and death.

God is not great.

God seems to be more on the level of a conscienceless thug with a gun.

I’m sure they are a very spiritual couple

Kristy Bamu and his two sisters were visiting their older sister, Magalie Bamu, and her partner, Eric Bikubi, over Christmas in London. Initially, it was apparently a jolly time…and then Eric got it into his head that his three visitors were witches.

The court was told that over a period of days the pair, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, attempted to exorcise evil spirits they believed were in three of the children – Kristy, his sister Kelly, 20, and their 11-year-old sister, who cannot be named. Bikubi refused "to let them eat, drink or sleep for days, while the punishments became increasingly violent, with [the attackers] using the many implements found in the flat as weapons of torture", Altman said.

During their ordeal the siblings were forced to pray and chant throughout several nights and, in a "staggering act of depravity and cruelty", the defendants recruited sibling against sibling as "vehicles for their violence", said Altman.

Kristy became the focus of Bikubi’s attention, the court heard. He allegedly struck the boy with a hammer in the face, knocking out his teeth; on another occasion he shoved a metal bar into the teenager’s mouth, the court heard.

When Kelly attempted to hit her brother using something light, she was ordered to use a heavier implement. In a desperate attempt to prevent any further suffering, Kristy and his two sisters eventually admitted to being sorcerers, said Altman. "As Kristy’s injuries became ever more severe he even pleaded to be allowed to die," he added.

They gave him his wish and drowned him in the bathtub.

A couple of people believe there is magic in the world and that their delusions are real, and a 15 year old boy ends up tortured to death.

The couple are denying that they committed murder; Eric Bikubi claims “diminished responsibility”, apparently because he’s an evil idiot who believes in spirits.