All Entries in the "Religion" Category
Watch: Christian mob surrounds Muslim man outside the White House
Conservative media and particularly Fox News has been keen in months past to gin up stories about Islamic tribal laws being implemented across the United States. While this is in fact not happening anywhere in the US, it has become a point of intense concern to some religious fundamentalist Christians, who take the media spin seriously.
In this video, a group of anti-Muslim protesters take their concerns about Sharia law to the White House, only to find a Muslim man in prayer. They begin shouting, insulting him and cursing Islam, and one man even threatens his life. Later, as the Muslim man bowed again in prayer, the protesters begin praying back at him, uttering Christian chants in response.
At the end, a woman who claimed to have spent years in the Middle East informed the protesters that while they mocked him, the man had prayed in Arabic that each of their families be blessed.
Full Story Here: Watch: Christian mob surrounds Muslim man outside the White House | Raw Replay.
The Catholic Church Supports Unions As ‘Moral Choices,’ Says Bargaining Rights Reflect ‘Principles Of Justice’
As teachers, firefighters, policemen, and other public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio battle to retain their collective bargaining rights, a contingent of anti-union politicians and pundits are contorting facts to vilify union workers as wealthy, elitist, and dangerous. However, one traditionally conservative organization is declaring official support for these beleaguered public servants: the Catholic Church. In a public letter to the Archbishop of Milwaukee last week, Bishop Stephen E. Blair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stated that unions are “moral choices” and collective bargaining rights reflect the “principles of justice”:
“These are not just political conflicts or economic choices; they are moral choices with enormous human dimensions,” Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said in a public letter last week.
“The debates over worker representation and collective bargaining are not simply matters of ideology or power, but involve principles of justice, participation and how workers can have a voice in the workplace and economy,” his letter said.
Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » The Catholic Church Supports Unions As ‘Moral Choices,’ Says Bargaining Rights Reflect ‘Principles Of Justice’.
Religious Coalition Tells The GOP That ‘The Budget Shouldn’t Be Balanced On the Backs Of The Poor’
In an address at the National Association of Religious Broadcasters Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made a moral case for the deep cuts passed by House Republicans, saying, “[i]t is immoral to rob our children’s future and make them beholden to China.” But Sojourners, a progressive group of Christian leaders, looks at the GOP’s deep slashes to the budget in a different light and bought a full-page ad in Politico yesterday that asks legislators to consider, “what would Jesus cut?”
Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Religious Coalition Tells The GOP That ‘The Budget Shouldn’t Be Balanced On the Backs Of The Poor’.
Federally Funded ‘Missionaries’ Now Teach in Florida Public Schools
Government-funded missionaries in public schools? Project SOS has received over six and a half million dollars in federal funding, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) since 2002, to teach abstinence education in Florida public schools. The funding continues into the present – in September SOS received over $450,000 from HHS.
To begin with, should federal funding still be flowing to a sex ed approach proven to be largely or wholly ineffective, according to a 2007 federally commissioned large scale study by Mathematica Research?
Full Story Here: Federally Funded ‘Missionaries’ Now Teach in Florida Public Schools (Religious Right Watch).
Two Decades of Christian Nationalist Education Paved Way for Today’s War on Labor
Biblical Capitalism – Part Three
While some religious leaders have come together to voice support for public employees in Wisconsin, others view the attack on the public sector and unions as a holy war. Fundamentalist textbooks and other media have been used for indoctrination into a worldview in which unregulated free markets are divinely mandated. In this sacralized model of capitalism, those who interfere with the invisible hand of the market are choosing “the state as provider rather than God.” The Koch brothers may have helped finance the current war on workers, but the narratives repeated by the Tea Partiers and their candidates echo those taught from Christian nationalist textbooks for more than two decades. (Quotes from textbooks continued from Part Two.)
[Author’s Note 2-21-11: Following the article I have added links to articles which define the meaning of terms Christian Nationalism, Christian Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism, and Charismatic Dominionism.]
The press has covered the Tea Party movement as if it were a completely different entity from the Religious Right, with a distinct and separate agenda. The textbooks quoted in this series of articles promote a totalist worldview in which the narratives of biblical economics, Christian nationalist revisions of American history, and Creationism are interwoven.
Full Story Here: | Two Decades of Christian Nationalist Education Paved Way for Today’s War on Labor.
Two Decades of Christian Nationalist Education Paved Way for Today’s War on Labor
Biblical Capitalism – Part Three
While some religious leaders have come together to voice support for public employees in Wisconsin, others view the attack on the public sector and unions as a holy war. Fundamentalist textbooks and other media have been used for indoctrination into a worldview in which unregulated free markets are divinely mandated. In this sacralized model of capitalism, those who interfere with the invisible hand of the market are choosing “the state as provider rather than God.” The Koch brothers may have helped finance the current war on workers, but the narratives repeated by the Tea Partiers and their candidates echo those taught from Christian nationalist textbooks for more than two decades. (Quotes from textbooks continued from Part Two.)
[Author’s Note 2-21-11: Following the article I have added links to articles which define the meaning of terms Christian Nationalism, Christian Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism, and Charismatic Dominionism.]
The press has covered the Tea Party movement as if it were a completely different entity from the Religious Right, with a distinct and separate agenda. The textbooks quoted in this series of articles promote a totalist worldview in which the narratives of biblical economics, Christian nationalist revisions of American history, and Creationism are interwoven.
Full Story Here: | Two Decades of Christian Nationalist Education Paved Way for Today’s War on Labor.
Finding Faith, Doing Service in Haiti
On the first anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, I travelled to the Leogane region of Haiti, the center of the earthquake’s devastation. I went as the guest of an Israeli NGO called Tevel b’Tzedek (The Earth, in Justice) founded in 2005 by Rabbi Micah Odenheimer to promote social and environmental justice in the world. With the support of IsraAid a team of Israeli volunteers travelled to the region soon after the earthquake. Uri l’Tzedek, a U.S. based Orthodox social justice organization, asked me to be the first of a series of rabbis to visit the team and interact with many of the Haitians that they have been helping.
Haiti is one of the poorest countries on the planet. Its per capita income is about $350/ year. Haitians expect nothing from their government. It has been ruled by a succession of leaders who have either been ruthless dictators or incompetents. The $15 billion dollars of aid that poured into the country after the earthquake and the hundreds of NGOs on the ground can barely make a dent in the country’s problems because there are no government agencies that have effectively coordinated the aid effort.
Full Story Here: Rabbi Sid Schwarz: Finding Faith, Doing Service in Haiti.
Military chaplain: Soldier’s rape ‘must have been God’s will’
A lawsuit targeting the Pentagon contains an astonishing anecdote about a retired Sergeant’s experience after being sexually assaulted by a colleague during a deployment to Afghanistan.
The lawsuit, available here (PDF), was filed by 17 military women against Secretaries of Defense Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld in Virginia. It assails “the military’s repeated failures to take action in rape cases created a culture where violence against women was tolerated, violating the plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights.”
Sergeant Rebekah Havrilla alleges in the complaint that in 2006, after her military supervisor repeatedly sexually harassed her, she was raped by a colleague she was working with at the time.
“He pulled her into his bed, held her down, and raped her. He also photographed the rape,” it reads. Havrilla reported the incident within a month.
Full Story Here: Military chaplain: Soldier’s rape ‘must have been God’s will’ | The Raw Story.
New Catholic Bible deletes ‘cereal,’ ‘booty’ and ‘holocaust’
It’s not the first time Catholics have tried to modernize the Bible but it may be the oddest.
The New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), which was set to make its debut on Ash Wednesday, March 9, aimed to make the text easier to understand by making a number of little tweaks, both subtle and obvious, in hopes of making it easier to read. Among them, deleting the words “cereal,” “booty” and, oddly enough, “holocaust,” was said to have taken place to help people better understand scripture.
Catholic translations of the Bible go back to 1582 when the Douay-Rheims Bible was published. The first edition of the New American Bible was published in 1970.
“It will be like going from regular TV to high-definition,” Mary Elizabeth Sperry, associate director of New American Bible utilization for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Catholic News Service. “You’ll have the same programs but more clarity, more detail.”
Full Story Here: New Catholic Bible deletes ‘cereal,’ ‘booty’ and ‘holocaust’ | Raw Story.
Church of Scientology investigated over ‘slave labor’: report
The FBI is investigating the Church of Scientology over allegations its practices may have violated human trafficking laws, a news report states.
According to a profile of filmmaker and former Scientologist Paul Haggis in the New Yorker, the FBI is running an ongoing investigation into claims the church pays some of its workers as little as $50 per week, forces children into “billion-year” contracts and sometimes uses physical force to keep church members from escaping Scientology compounds.
The allegations center around Sea Org, a religious order inside the church whose 6,000 members are used by the church as labor, including maintenance of church properties.
Full Story Here: Church of Scientology investigated over ‘slave labor’: report | Raw Story.
Pope’s organs are too holy to donate to mortals, says Church
Benedict XVI has tried to scotch rumours that he carries an organ donor card after his secretary revealed that his ascension to the position of Holy Father means he is no longer able to bequeath his body parts to lesser mortals.
On the pontiff’s instructions, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, Benedict’s personal secretary, fired off a letter to quell the rumours that started in the Pope’s native Germany.
“It’s true that a simple cardinal can have an organ donor card but, despite public declarations to the contrary, it ceased to apply when he was elected head of the Catholic Church,” Mgr Gaenswein said.
Full Story Here: Pope’s organs are too holy to donate to mortals, says Church – Europe, World – The Independent.
OPS: Ya Think Jesus would agree?
Media Matters debunks Obama’s alleged Bible misquote
Fox News recently accused President Barack Obama of misquoting a passage from the Bible during his address this week at the National Prayer Breakfast. However, a liberal media watchdog group pointed out that Fox Nation failed to realize that “there is more than one version of the Bible.”
“Obama was quoting from the New International Version,” Ben Dimiero of Media Matters for America wrote Friday, “while Fox Nation was pointing to the King James Version to ‘debunk’ him.”
Fox Nation blasted Obama’s reading of Isaiah 40:31, stating that the passage is, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Full Story Here: Media Matters debunks Obama’s alleged Bible misquote | Raw Story.
Gun Lobbyist Wants a Patron Saint for “Hand Gunners”
A group led by a longtime gun lobbyist is petitioning the Vatican to make a nineteenth century Passionist seminarian “the patron saint for hand gunners.”
I am not making this up. But the lobbyist’s case for making an existing saint, Francesco Possenti also a patron for hand gunners, appears to be a fabrication.
Francesco Possenti (1838-1862) was a young man who lived in Central Italy in the mid-eighteenth century. He was known for both his intelligence and affinity for “la dolce vita” – parties and fancy dress. However, during an illness he promised that if he recuperated (he did) he would join a religious order as gesture of gratitude (he did not). Following several family deaths and a second illness, Possenti joined the Passionist order of priests as a seminarian.
He then changed his name to “Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.” The young noviciate became known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary and his deep spirituality. Almost simultaneously, he contracted a fatal case of tuberculosis, dying before he could take his priestly vows. During this time, however, Possenti remained highly spiritual and serene in the face of death. He passed away in February 1862.
Full Story Here: | Gun Lobbyist Wants a Patron Saint for “Hand Gunners”.
Biblical Capitalism – The Religious Right’s War on Progressive Economic Policy
Tea Party ideology is not new but taps into decades of Religious Right instruction on “Biblical Capitalism.”
The second annual PA Progressive Summit 2011 was held in Pittsburgh on January 22 and 23. I again gave a presentation on “Biblical Capitalism” or the belief that unregulated capitalism is biblically mandated. The Religious Right is well known for its regressive social activism, but less publicized is the role it has played in the war against progressive economic policy, labor unions, the regulatory structure and social safety net. The sacralizing of laissez-faire capitalism predates the Tea Party movement and has been a major theme of fundamentalist textbooks for more than three decades. Over the next two weeks I will be posting several additional articles providing links to material included in my presentation as well as other resources on this topic.
Hundreds of progressive leaders from around Pennsylvania gathered to participate in the conference sponsored by Keystone Progress, Service Employees International Union, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Democracy for America, Pennsylvania State Education Association, and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776.
Full Story Here: | Biblical Capitalism – The Religious Right’s War on Progressive Economic Policy.
Worshiping God, Not the Bible
“If you still say the bible is not true, I will say that no book is more honest.”
My latest literary diet has consisted of an obscure historical novel entitled Honor’s Kingdom. Written by Owen Parry, it is a nineteenth century tale surrounding espionage in London between Confederate and Union agents and their attempts to secure European support during the Civil War.
In one chapter the lead character is bemoaning the decline in respect for the bible brought on by the Age of Reason and the scientific explosion of that generation. Wrestling with the tenants of Darwinism, he brings to light the doubt that many have for biblical authority. In frustration the character shares his personal credo on the matter: “If you still say the bible is not true, I will say that no book is more honest.”
Indeed, there is no more honest writing to, as Parry declares, “Show us who we truly are.” But I wonder in this age of enlightenment, super computer technology and instant communication, if this honest book is really authoritative to most people’s lives?
Full Story Here: Matt Idom: Worshiping God, Not the Bible.
400 rabbis protest Glenn Beck’s use of Holocaust imagery
Four hundred rabbis will publish a letter on Thursday calling on Fox News to sanction host Glenn Beck for repeated use of Nazi and Holocaust imagery and for airing attacks on World War Two survivor George Soros.
In an open letter to Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp which owns Fox, the rabbis also demand an apology from Fox News chief Roger Ailes for characterizing Beck’s Jewish critics as nothing more than “left-wing rabbis.”
The letter will appear as an advertisement in the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal on Thursday for which the rabbis spent more than $100,000, a spokesman said.
Full Story Here: 400 rabbis protest Glenn Beck’s use of Holocaust imagery | Raw Story.
Land Of (No) Liberty: Southern Baptist Official Drops Out Of Religious Freedom Group
Religious liberty is a fairly easy concept to grasp: All faiths have the right to exist, meet for worship, spread their ideas and build facilities. All must abide by certain laws, and the government must treat them equally.
There is nothing in our Constitution that says that certain groups will be denied these rights simply because some people don’t like them. Yes, some groups have unpopular views and doctrines – but the First Amendment protects them too. It sometimes takes courage to stand up for the rights of groups deemed unpopular, but our Constitutions demands nothing less. (And, of course, you also have the right to join no religious group at all by being an agnostic, atheist or skeptic.)
You would think that a religious group once in the minority, a group whose members once faced persecution and unpopularity, would understand that. Sadly, that does not appear to be the case.
Full Story Here: | Land Of (No) Liberty: Southern Baptist Official Drops Out Of Religious Freedom Group.
What’s the Least You Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?
When I first met Danny, he said, “Preacher, you need to know that I’m an atheist. I don’t believe the Bible. I don’t like organized religion. And I can’t stand self-righteous, judgmental Christians.”
I liked him right away!
In spite of Danny’s avowed atheism and my devout Christian beliefs, we became close friends. Over the next year Danny and I engaged in numerous conversations about faith. During that time Danny softened his stance on atheism. One day he announced with a laugh, “I’ve decided to upgrade from an atheist to an agnostic.” Several months later Danny said, “I’ve had an epiphany. I realize that I don’t reject Christianity. Instead, I reject the way that intolerant Christians package Christianity.” A few weeks after that conversation, Danny said, “Martin, you’ve just about convinced me on this religion stuff. So I want to know–what’s the least I can believe and still be a Christian?”
Full Story Here: Martin Thielen: What’s the Least You Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?.
Pope: Not Everyone Has Right To Marry
Pope Benedict XVI told priests Saturday to do a better job counseling would-be spouses to ensure their marriages last and said no one has an absolute right to a wedding.
Benedict made the comments in his annual speech to the Roman Rota, the Vatican tribunal that decides marriage annulments. An annulment is the process by which the church effectively declares that a marriage never took place.
Benedict acknowledged that the problems that would allow for a marriage to be annulled cannot always be identified beforehand. But he said better pre-marriage counseling, which the Catholic Church requires of the faithful, could help avoid a “vicious circle” of invalid marriages.
Full Story Here: Pope: Not Everyone Has Right To Marry.
‘Smoking gun’ letter reveals official Vatican cover-up of child sex abuses
A letter written by a Vatican official in 1997, marked “strictly confidential,” warned Irish bishops to avoid reporting the sexual abuse of children in the church, in hopes of avoiding public fallout from the scandals that were sure to ensue.
Victims’ groups the world over were calling the letter — first obtained by Irish broadcaster RTE — the “smoking gun” which proves institutional complicity in untold thousands of reported sexual abuses.
The church has long maintained that it did not and would never instruct its bishops to engage in a cover-up of such heinous crimes: a claim that appeared to be false.
Full Story Here: ‘Smoking gun’ letter reveals official Vatican cover-up of child sex abuses | Raw Story.
What Being Religious Really Means To Young People
Are you religious? What criteria come to mind in answering that question? When evaluating how “religious” someone is, social scientists and the general public tend to rely on the frequency of religious activities, strength or type of religious beliefs, relative importance of religion in one’s life, or some average of these aspects of religious life.
However, in reality it is very difficult to measure someone’s overall religiousness, religiosity or how religious she is on some sort of scale. Although it is common to hear one person describe another as “religious” or “not religious,” what exactly does that mean?
Certainly, some people are highly religious in all three of the above aspects and some are not religious at all. In our study of young people in the United States (The National Study of Youth and Religion), we find that 20 percent are highly religious in all aspects and only five percent are not religious at all. This leaves 75 percent of the population as more difficult to classify.
Full Story Here: Lisa D. Pearce: What Being Religious Really Means To Young People.
Sicko Westboro Hate Cult Says It Will Picket Funerals of Arizona Shooting Victims!
In Video Posted on GodHatesFags.com, Cult Leader Fred Phelps Denounces Giffords as ‘Avid Supporter of Sin and Baby-Killing’ and Blasts Palin as ‘Cowardly Brute’ for Taking Down Controversial Crosshairs Map From Her Web Site — Even Nine-Year-Old Girl Slain By Gunman Draws Westboro’s Wrath
IS THERE NO LIMIT TO THIS HATEMONGER’S SICKO CONTEMPT FOR GRIEVING FAMILIES? — In a video message posted Monday on the Web site of the rabidly gay-hating cult Westboro Baptist Church, cult leader Fred Phelps announced that he and his followers will picket the upcoming funerals of the six victims who lost their lives in Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson — even targeting that of nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green. “That child was not innocent,” the cult said in a press release. “That child is better off dead, so the cup of her iniquity will not overflow!” The Supreme Court is due to rule by spring on a lawsuit brought against Westboro over its picketing of military funerals. (Image: GodHatesFags.com)
Full Story Here: The ‘Skeeter Bites Report: Sicko Westboro Hate Cult Says It Will Picket Funerals of Arizona Shooting Victims!.
Religion and Representation
Years ago, my oldest son told me that he thought those in our small Baptist church had all been brainwashed. How else could they believe in the unbelievable? At the time, I was shocked.
He later softened that position. Although he said that he couldn’t accept all things biblical, he explained, quite eloquently I thought, that he “wouldn’t want to live in a world where a God didn’t exist.” I was impressed.
Then, a few months ago, he told me that he was a deist. I was confused. This time I had to turn to the all-knowing and omnipresent — Google.
Through it all, I’ve been very sympathetic about my son’s spiritual quest, in part because my own religious beliefs are evolving. I have gone from the most devout born-again Christian to a more nebulous, nondoctrinal set of beliefs that do not necessarily align with organized religion. When people ask about my faith, I often reply, “unresolved.”
Full Story Here: Religion and Representation – NYTimes.com.
Egypt Muslims to act as “human shields” at Coptic Christmas Eve mass – Ahram Online
Coptic Churches around the country expect an influx of Egyptian Muslims to share with the country’s Christians their Christmas Eve mass
“Although 2011 started tragically, I feel it will be a year of eagerly anticipated change, where Egyptians will stand against sectarianism and unite as one,” Father Rafaeil Sarwat of the Mar-Mina church told Ahram Online. The Coptic priest was commenting on the now widespread call by Muslim intellectuals and activists upon Egyptian Muslims at large to flock to Coptic churches across the country to attend Coptic Christmas Eve mass, to show solidarity with the nation’s Coptic minority, but also to serve as “human shields” against possible attacks by Islamist militants.
Mohamed Abdel Moniem El-Sawy, founder of El-Sawy Culture Wheel was among the promiment Muslim cultural figures who first floated the bold initiative.
“This is it. It is time to change and unite,” asserted journalist Ekram Youssef, another notable sponsor of the intiative, in a telephone interview with Ahram Online. She added that although it is the government’s responsibility to act and find solutions to bring an end to such violations, “it is time for Egyptian citizens to act to revive the true meaning of national unity.”
Full Story Here: Egypt Muslims to act as “human shields” at Coptic Christmas Eve mass – Ahram Online.
Religious Makeup of the New Congress Looks LIke The Old
Many analysts described the November 2010 midterm elections as a sea change, with Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives and narrowing the Democratic majority in the Senate. But this political overhaul appears to have had little effect on the religious composition of Congress, which is similar to the religious makeup of the previous Congress and of the nation, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.
The 112th Congress, like the U.S. public, is majority Protestant and about a quarter Catholic. Baptists and Methodists are the largest Protestant denominations in the new Congress, just as they are in the country as a whole.
A few of the country’s religious groups, including Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Jews, have greater numerical representation in Congress than in the general population. Some others, such as Buddhists and Muslims, are represented in Congress in roughly equal proportion to their numbers in the adult U.S. population. And some small religious groups, such as Hindus and Jehovah’s Witnesses, are not represented at all in Congress.
Full Story Here: Faith On The Hill: Religious Makeup of the New Congress Looks LIke The Old.
The Rise of Charismatic Dominionism
Why should you care? In plain English this is a shift from an originally passive theology in which believers are waiting to be Raptured from the earth prior and escape imminent apocalyptic horrors, to a politicized theology in which believers must take control over society and government. End times narratives provide a blueprint for activism much like a platform defines goals of a political party. The narratives provide a clear picture of what we can expect from this particular stream of evangelicalism as it gains both religious and political clout and molds tomorrow’s Religious Right.
The demise of the Religious Right is being announced with great fanfare in the media. It is an announcement that has been made repeatedly over the decades and, without fail, has been wrong every time.
Full Story Here: | The Rise of Charismatic Dominionism.
Two Kinds of Baptists, Same Kind of Problem
Southern Baptists share the same problem as independent Baptists. They lack any effective system for clergy accountability, Brown writes.
In Atlanta, law enforcement authorities are investigating a controversial mortgage scheme that allegedly preyed on financially troubled homeowners. Two Baptist mega-church pastors are linked to the scheme.
As reported by CBS Atlanta News, a company called Matrix Capital promised to lower people’s mortgages if they paid a $1,500 upfront fee. Police say “thousands of homeowners paid Matrix Capital the money,” but rather than getting their mortgages lowered, “most of them ended up in bankruptcy and losing their homes.” Just before Christmas, some started asking whether their own pastors were the ones who had let the wolf in the door.
Southern Baptist pastor Gary Hawkins was “the face of the company’s promotional video,” and he “vouched” for the man behind the company, Fred Lee, even though Lee already had a “questionable history.” Now Lee is “accused of stealing” from members of Hawkins’ Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated church, Voices of Faith in Stone Mountain, Ga. With 11,000 members, Voices of Faith is one of the Georgia Baptist Convention’s fastest growing churches.
Many of those who forked over $1,500 – and who eventually lost their homes – had attended a Matrix Capital seminar at Hawkins’ Voices of Faith church. People say they trusted Matrix Capital because they trusted Hawkins, and because the sales pitch was made “in the sanctity of their local church.”
How many American christians are really atheists?
I’m not the first guy to raise this question and I won’t be the last, but what the heck, let’s talk about it.
A lot of Americans think of themselves as “progressive christians” or “liberal christians,” and I count a good number of them among my friends and colleagues. Not long ago I was talking to one of these friends and we wandered into the subject of religion. Dawkins and Harris were invoked, as might be expected. Anti-Dawkins and -Harris resistance was encountered, also expected. So I finally decided to ask some questions that I had always wanted answers to, but had never actually asked.
The ensuing conversation went something like this:
Full Story Here: Scholars and Rogues » How many American christians are really atheists?.
Archbishop of Canterbury calls on rich to ‘shoulder the load’ with the poor
Rowan Williams says hardship must be ‘fairly shared’ in rebuke of public sector cuts, but supports idea of ‘big society’
The archbishop of Canterbury today said that the burden of the economic downturn should be “fairly shared”, amid fears that the less well-off in society were being hit the hardest.
In his Christmas Day sermon, Dr Rowan Williams spoke of “a lasting sense the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load”. His comments might be seen to support the stance of trade unions and students who have claimed that, as the coalition government seeks to slash the national deficit, the less well-off are being penalised as a result of a recession caused by the folly of City bankers.
Williams said: “Confidence isn’t in huge supply at the moment, given the massive crises of trust that have shaken us all in the last couple of years and the lasting sense that the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load.”
Full Story Here: Archbishop of Canterbury calls on rich to ‘shoulder the load’ with the poor | UK news | guardian.co.uk.
OPS: LOL, I’m sure they’ll listen, and act.
Pat Robertson Wants To Legalize Pot
Pat Robertson came out in favor of marijuana legalization on the 12/22/2010 episode of The 700 Club
Lutheran Leader Seeks Communion Agreement With Pope
The president of the Lutheran World Federation is calling on Lutherans and Catholics to issue a common statement on Holy Communion to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017.
“Our intention is to arrive at 2017 with a common Roman Catholic-Lutheran declaration on Eucharistic hospitality,” Bishop Munib Younan told the Italian Protestant news agency NEV before meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (Dec. 16).
“Eucharistic hospitality,” means that Catholics would be able to receive Communion at Lutheran worship services, and Lutherans would be able to do the same at a Catholic Mass.
Full Story Here: Lutheran Leader Seeks Communion Agreement With Pope.
How Religious Fundamentalism Enables Sadists Like Elizabeth Smart’s Kidnapper
Extreme and patriarchal religions give people with violent or controlling tendencies a justification to let those tendencies loose.
This week, the testimony in the riveting Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case drew to a close and the jury prepared to deliberate. As Smart–who is currently living abroad on mission for the LDS church– took the stand nearly a decade after her infamous kidnappings, she revealed herself to be an incredibly strong, resilient young woman. She served as an uncompromising witness to her own brutal victimization at the hands of her captors: Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, a pair of breakaway fundamentalist Mormons who captured Smart to “seal” her to them in plural marriage.
Full Story Here: How Religious Fundamentalism Enables Sadists Like Elizabeth Smart’s Kidnapper | Belief | AlterNet.
How the Torah is Pro-Women
There is a common (and unfortunate) misconception in the world at large that the Torah is anti-women. The reality is that a simple examination of the actual text and a little research into some of the major commentaries reveal just the opposite. No modern apologetics are required to prove the truth — that Judaism is, and has always been, exceedingly pro-woman.
Let’s start at the beginning. A careful reading of the text of Genesis shows us that Adam was never alone: “So G-d created Man in His image, in the image of G-d He created him; male and female He created them.” The original Adam was a male and female composite that was only separated later. The 19th century German Torah giant Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch expounded this verse unequivocally in support of the fundamental equality of men and women, “Although all living creatures were created in both sexes, this is only stressed at human beings to lay down the fact that both sexes were created equally, directly by G-d, and in equal likeness to Him.” He wrote this some 50 years before women’s suffrage.
Full Story Here: Rabbi Adam Jacobs: How the Torah is Pro-Women.
FBI plant banned by mosque – because he was too extreme
T
he spying game wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for Craig Monteilh, a convicted criminal recruited by the FBI to investigate the march of radical Islam into Southern California. His endless talk of violent “jihad” so alarmed worshippers at the local mosque, that they took out a restraining order against him.
Monteilh spent 15 months pretending to be Farouk al-Aziz, a French Syrian in search of his religious roots. He prayed five times a day at the Islamic Centre in Irvine, Orange County, wearing white robes with a camera hidden in one of its buttons, and carried a set of car keys that contained a secret listening device.
The enthusiastic attempt to catch local Muslims discussing terror campaigns backfired, however, when community leaders went to the police with fears that the suddenly devout young man, who got up to pray at 4am, had become a radical in their midst.
Full Story Here: FBI plant banned by mosque – because he was too extreme – Americas, World – The Independent.
Churches Launch Campaign For Jobless
Yesterday, a coalition of religious groups along with three U.S. Senators announced a grassroots push to help find jobs for the unemployed, in the absence of stronger action from Washington. The Faith Advocates for Jobs Campaign will organize 1,000 congregation-based unemployed worker support committees in 2011, in order to help the unemployed both find jobs but also deal with the sometimes crushing emotional and spiritual side-effects of long-term unemployment.
“As people of faith, we call for an economy that provides a job for everyone who wants and needs one,” the group’s mission statement reads. “We affirm that all jobs should be good jobs, paying living wages and benefits, allowing workers dignity and a voice at the workplace, ensuring workers’ health and safety, and guaranteeing their right to organize unions.”
In addition to helping shepherd people through the difficulties of unemployment, the group — along with Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — also aims to organize political action around more job-friendly policies by bringing the voices of those they’re helping to Washington, In These Times reports:
Full Story: ThinkProgress » Churches Launch Campaign For Jobless.
Only Half of Americans Rate Clergy as Ethical
What do nurses, soldiers, pharmacists, elementary school teachers, doctors, and police officers have in common?
Americans say they are all more ethical and honest than members of the clergy, according to a Gallup survey released on Friday (Dec. 3).
Slightly more than half of Americans (53 percent) rate the moral values of priests, ministers and other clerics as “very high” or “high.”
That percentage is a slight bump from 2009, when only 50 percent of Americans said men and women of the cloth are ethical paragons, the lowest number in Gallup’s 32 years of measuring professional reputations.
Full Story: Only Half of Americans Rate Clergy as Ethical.
Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens Debate Religion
Former British prime minister Tony Blair said Friday his religious beliefs did not play a role in his decision to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq during a debate about the merits of religion in Toronto.
Blair attempted to persuade his verbal sparring opponent, writer Christopher Hitchens, that religion is a force for global good when he was asked by an audience member how religion influenced his decision to stand with the United States against Iraq.
“Religion doesn’t do policy. All my decisions were based on policy and so they should be, and you may disagree with those decisions but they were made because I genuinely believed them to be right,” said Blair before the audience of more than 2,600 at Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall.
Full Story: Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens Debate Religion.
World Poll: Is religion a force for good?
The world is deeply divided on the question of whether religion is a force for good, a survey by Ipsos Reid suggests.
Full Story: CBC News – Canada – Poll underlines sharp divide on religion.
Pat Robertson’s Group Demands Investigation Of Muslim Congressional Staffers Based On Misleading Fox Report
With America caught up in an Islamophobic whirlwind, anything remotely tied to the Islamic faith sets off paranoid hysterics over an impending Muslim takeover. Rather than responsibly debunk these delusions, the Fox News network has contributed to the hysteria by promoting extremely radical guests, polarizing rhetoric, bigoted punditry, and racial profiling. Last week, FoxNews.com unveiled a new “investigation” targeting Muslim staffers on Capitol Hill. According to the report, the Congressional Muslim Staff Association’s (CMSA) have sought to bring the “Who’s Who” of jihadist sympathizers to its weekly Friday Jummah prayer meetings “for more than a decade.”
Right on cue, the right-wing American Center for Law and Justice demanded that the Justice Department to investigate and “take immediate action to halt” the congressional prayer sessions. Channeling its founder and indefatigable anti-Muslim Rev. Pat Robertson, the ACLJ said the “absurdity” of inviting “the very terrorists who want to destroy America” to Capitol Hill “raises a host of significant questions-including concerns about national security” and, based on Fox’s “report,” warrants a “thorough investigation”:
The Biggest Lies About Islam
In recent days, President Obama stood before a crowd of 6,000 people in Indonesia and addressed the deterioration in relations between the Muslim world and the West. In what was seen as a follow-up to his historic address at Cairo University last year, he reaffirmed that bringing the Muslim world and the West together remained a priority. As before, he said that the key to achieving better relations was finding common ground and forging new links which enabled more people from Muslim countries and non-Muslim countries to get to know each other. “I believed then, and I believe today,” he said, “that … we can choose to be defined by our differences, and give in to a future of suspicion and mistrust. Or we can choose to do the hard work of forging common ground, and commit ourselves to the steady pursuit of progress.”
Very well, but how? I spend a lot of time in the US, and it is striking how ignorant so many people are about Islam, particularly in certain parts of the media. Pundits and columnists repeatedly get away with making claims about Muslims and Islam which fuel mistrust between Muslim countries and the West. Most of the time, these claims are not just wrong. They are embarrassingly wrong. What is so galling is that these errors are rarely called out because so few know the truth.
So, for my humble contribution to improved relations, I would like to present and debunk the top three lies which make the rounds about Muslims.
Lie One — Muslims hate the west and what it stands for.
Full Story: Azeem Ibrahim: The Biggest Lies About Islam.
Anti-Abortion Pastor Who Put Doctor’s Home Address On ‘Wanted’ Posters Convicted For Stalking
North Carolina Rev. Phillip “Flip” Benham’s wild-west antics earned him two years probation yesterday after a judge convicted him for stalking an abortion doctor. Leader of the “unashamedly” Christian, anti-abortion group Operation Save America, Benham distributed old-West style “Wanted” posters earlier this year that “included the names, addresses and photos of four Charlotte, N.C., doctors who perform abortions.” While Benham claimed his actions were protected by the First Amendment, he violated a new North Carolina law meant to protect citizens from being targeted by “a lone-wolf assailant”:
Benham and his group took the posters to the doctors’ offices and to their neighborhoods. They placed the posters on cars and tacked them up on doors.
Detective Milton Harris with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department says this violated the state’s new law against targeting an individual at his home.
Full Story: ThinkProgress » Anti-Abortion Pastor Who Put Doctor’s Home Address On ‘Wanted’ Posters Convicted For Stalking.
Oklahoma Voters May Have Accidentally Voted Against Ten Commandments, Too
Last year, radical right-wing politicians in Oklahoma passed the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act, which ordered “the placement of a monument displaying and honoring the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol.” The bill authors noted that “the Ten Commandments found in the Bible, Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, are an important component of the moral foundation of the laws and legal system of the United States of America and of the State of Oklahoma.”
As ThinkProgress noted, many of these same legislators voted to put a proposal on this week’s ballot, the “Save Our State” constitutional amendment, that bans Sharia from being considered in Oklahoma courts. The ballot states that Oklahoma courts must “rely on federal and state law when deciding cases” and forbids them from “considering or using international law” and “from considering or using Sharia Law.” The measure passed with 70 percent of the vote.
As a law professor noted to CNN, however, the religious zealotry of these lawmakers may now be in serious self-conflict:
Rick Tepker, the first member of the University of Oklahoma School of Law faculty to try a case before the U.S. Supreme Court…called the passage of the measure “a mess” with implications unknown until a case that challenges it arises.
Full Story: ThinkProgress » Oklahoma Voters May Have Accidentally Voted Against Ten Commandments, Too.
Justice Stevens voices support for NYC mosque
Justice Stevens says Americans should accept mosque near Ground Zero in spirit of tolerance
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday that Americans should be tolerant of plans to build an Islamic center and mosque near the site of the World Trade Center in New York.
The 90-year-old Stevens said it is wrong to lump all Muslims with the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks that killed 3,000 people. “Guilt by association is unfair,” he told a Japanese-American group in Washington.
Full Story: Justice Stevens voices support for NYC mosque | Raw Story.
Former Employees: Racism & Abuse in Leading Religious Right Org.
Just before this year’s Values Voter Summit, the progressive advocacy group People For the American Way called on Republican elected officials and candidates to condemn virulently anti-gay and anti-Muslim statements made by the American Family Association’s director of public policy, Bryan Fischer.
Fischer, who hosts a daily radio show on AFA’s radio network of 180 stations, has, among other things, claimed that inbreeding causes Muslims to be stupid and violent; called for the deportation of Muslims and for banning them from military service; claimed that gay sex is “domestic terrorism”; called gay adoption a “terrible, terrible, inexcusable, inhumane thing to do to children”; and claimed that Hitler and his stormtroopers were all gay.
No one took PFAW up on its suggestion, and AFA’s founder and chairman emeritus Don Wildmon was feted at the Summit’s gala with the James C. Dobson Values & Leadership Award, which declared him “one of the most effective Christian leaders of our time.” At the award dinner, anti-gay marriage crusader Bishop Harry Jackson called him a “legend” and “the ultimate advocate for the kingdom of God”; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson called him a “wonderful man of God” who had a “great influence” on the culture; and Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson added, “I don’t think there’s been a more fearless defender of righteousness and truth than Don Wildmon.”
Full Story: Former Employees: Racism & Abuse in Leading Religious Right Org. | Politics | Religion Dispatches.
Religious group took alleged terrorist money
A group of Ohio ministers has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the organization that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast because it received money six years ago from an alleged Islamic terrorist organization trying to finance illicit lobbying.
ClergyVoice, the activist group that wrote to the IRS commissioner Wednesday, complained that the Fellowship Foundation violated its obligation as a tax-exempt organization not to deal with such entities.
The foundation, an Arlington-based religious enterprise associated with a house at 133 C St. SE where several members of the House and Senate have rented rooms, acknowledged Wednesday that it had received two $25,000 checks, in May and June 2004, from the Missouri-based Islamic American Relief Agency.
Full Story: Religious group took alleged terrorist money.
Christian group pulls support for event challenging homosexuality
A national Christian organization will stop sponsoring an annual event that encourages school students to “counter the promotion of homosexual behavior” because the event has become too divisive and confrontational, the group’s president told CNN on Wednesday.
“All the recent attention to bullying helped us realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they’d like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not,” said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, the group that sponsored the event this year.
Called the Day of Truth, the annual April event has been pushed by influential conservative Christian groups as a way to counter to the annual Day of Silence, an event promoted by gay rights advocates to highlight threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
Full Story: Christian group pulls support for event challenging homosexuality – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs.
U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey
Executive Summary
Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.
On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.
Full Story: U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey – Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Catholic Monks In Wyoming Face Opposition Over Monastery Plans
Plans by a group of Roman Catholic hermit monks to erect an outsized monastery in northern Wyoming have pitted neighbor against neighbor and aroused debate with religious undertones.
At the center of the Wyoming controversy is a remote ranch where the Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel want to build a 144,000-square-foot French Gothic-style monastery and coffee roasting barn. The monastery will feature a church that seats 150, with one spire rising 150 feet.
The proposal triggered a clash between ranchers who live miles apart, trying to protect their quiet, rural open spaces, and the hermit monks who live a secluded, Spartan life of prayer and meditation and are looking for more room to meet their expanding order and maintain their privacy.
Full Story: Catholic Monks In Wyoming Face Opposition Over Monastery Plans.
Defiant Pastors Take on IRS in Pulpit Freedom Sunday
Pastors Across the U.S. Say They Will Defy Law and Talk Politics
Nearly 100 pastors across the country planned to take part in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an in-your-face challenge on Sunday to what the government says can and cannot be said in church.
The pastors, along with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based nonprofit Alliance Defense Fund, are reacting to a law stating that churches are not allowed to support politicians from the pulpit, according to the ADF.
The growing trend is a challenge to the IRS from the churches, and may jeopardize their all-important tax-exempt status. But some pastors and church leaders said they are willing to defy the law to defending their right to freedom of speech.
Full Story: Defiant Pastors Take on IRS in Pulpit Freedom Sunday – ABC News.
Update: Bishop in alleged gay sex scandal to step down
Update: The website Black Spin reported on Friday afternoon that the bishop at the center of allegations of a gay sex scandal plans to step down as the pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church after he delivers his sermon on Sunday. According to the same story, as many as 30 young men may now be considering suing Bishop Eddie Long.
The Georgia bishop at the center of a slew of underage gay sex allegations told his congregation that gays “deserve death” during sermons in the 1990s.
Audio of a sermon by Bishop Eddie Long exhorting the death penalty for gays was broadcast by The Michelangelo Signorile Show on Friday, the same day that a fourth person came forward with allegations of sex abuse against the bishop.
Full Story: Update: Bishop in alleged gay sex scandal to step down | Raw Story.
Papal visit: Thousands protest against Pope in London
Organisers of the Protest the Pope event said they wanted to highlight his stance on controversial subjects, including the ordination of women.
Sex abuse and Catholic opposition to contraception have also been criticised.
Organisers of the protest say 20,000 people took part in the rally; however, police say they are unable to confirm this figure.
Full Story: BBC News – Papal visit: Thousands protest against Pope in London.
Are We ‘Cramming Religion Down Our Children’s Throats?’ or Creating Good Citizens
There is a strange, hyperbolic expression favored by the New Atheists: “cramming religion down the throats of children.” The idea, and even the wording, appears with regularity in the anti-religious writings of people like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, and Jerry Coyne. Most recently we saw a lament on Coyne’s blog about proselytizing down under, which he labeled “a particularly noxious specimen of religious tomfoolery” that makes him question whether “the U.S. is the worst in cramming religion down the throats of its kids.”
This language evokes the harshest of images. What is a secular reader, unfamiliar with how religious children are actually raised, to think? They have never seen a Christmas pageant where dozens of happy children sing cute choruses under the direction of dedicated volunteer staff; they have not seen teenagers gathered in prayerful support around one of their friends whose little brother was just killed in a terrible accident; they have not seen older teens holding bake sales so they can raise enough money to spend two weeks in Haiti helping people in need. Instead, they must picture stern-faced parents dragging kids against their will to indoctrination sessions where they sit on hard wooden chairs until they affirm a set of beliefs in settings reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. After years of such training, the once-open-minded children mature into narrow-minded adults who carry out the narrow-minded agendas of their parents — oppose healthcare, gay marriage, stem-cell research, Muslims, and anything else they can think of — and begin the process of having their own kids, with a new generation of throats down which more toxic ideas will be crammed.
Full Story: Karl Giberson, Ph.D: Are We ‘Cramming Religion Down Our Children’s Throats?’ or Creating Good Citizens.
The Flat Earth Temptation Beckons Still: First Annual Catholic Conference On Geocentrism
Stupidity Alert!
Galileo Was Wrong, The Church Was Right – that’s the sensationalistic heading for the 1st Annual Catholic Conference on Geocentrism.
Geocentrism is the claim that the Sun revolves around the Earth, not vice-versa. From the cast of speakers at this event, I don’t get the sense that the geocentric movement is growing, but with young evangelical Christian auteurs making short films about God beaming product-safety alerts directly into the heads of Christian housewives, who knows?
Full Story: Talk To Action | The Flat Earth Temptation Beckons Still: First Annual Catholic Conference On Geocentrism.
The Real ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Was on the 17th Floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower
The New York Times has a story up about what it calls a Muslim “prayer center” in the World Trade Center. Muslims who worked in the Twin Towers met there for their daily prayers — there was even a wash room nearby set up for the pre-prayer ritual cleansing.
By any measure, the “prayer center” in the trade center is much closer to the definition of a mosque than Park 51, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” — a 12-story non-sectarian community center with a culinary school and sports facilities.
The fact that there was a mosque in the south tower — compounded by the fact that it is as likely as not there were Muslims praying in the mosque on the 17th floor when terrorists jet-bombed the building — should make it harder for Republicans to argue that construction of Park 51 somehow defiles the memory of those who died in the 9/11 attacks.
Full Story: Pensito Review » The Real ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Was on the 17th Floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower.
Gainesville pastor Terry Jones previously led evangelicals in Germany
Terry Jones, the pastor with the handlebar mustache whose plan to burn Korans on Sept. 11 caused international outrage, has left a colorful trail that spans the Atlantic Ocean, culminating in a surreal gathering in front of his church in Gainesville, Fla.
On the sprawling front lawn of the Dove World Outreach Center, Jones’s 50-member church, 30 reporters ran Friday morning from one scene to another: Two evangelical ministers on their knees praying. A large man in an Army uniform screaming about Islam while holding a flag. Activity at the large warehouse that houses the church.
It wasn’t clear what was going on inside — the glass doors were covered with dark fabric. Members, including Jones’s son Luke, occasionally stepped outside to give interviews. Church member Stephanie Sapp came out wearing shiny black heels, tight jeans, purple polish on her toes and a gun in a holster on her hip.
Full Story: Gainesville pastor Terry Jones previously led evangelicals in Germany.
Quran Burning Pastor Was Expelled From German Church He Founded After His Radicalism Alienated Congregation
Before Rev. Terry Jones was being condemned by the White House and military commanders in Afghanistan for his planned “International Burn a Quran Day,” he was a pastor at an evangelical church he founded in the 1980s in Cologne, Germany. Jones grew the congregation of the Christian Community of Cologne to as many as 1,000 members, but his radical, hate-filled preachings eventually got him expelled from the church. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, Jones ruled the church like a tyrant, even as his sermons became increasingly Islamaphobic and hateful, prompting his congregation to kick Jones and his wife out of the church last year:
Various witnesses gave SPIEGEL ONLINE consistent accounts of the Jones’ behavior. The pastor and his wife apparently regarded themselves as having been appointed by God, meaning opposition was a crime against the Lord. Terry and Sylvia Jones allegedly used these methods to ask for money in an increasingly insistent manner, as well as making members of the congregation carry out work. [...]
Jones became increasingly radical as the years went by, former associates say. At one point he wanted to help a homosexual member to “pray away his sins.” Later he began to increasingly target Islam in his sermons. A congregation member reported that some members were afraid to attend services because they expected to be attacked by Muslims. “Terry Jones has a talent for finding topical social issues and seizing on them for his own cause,” says Schäfer.
The Christian Right Needs ‘Enemies’
Especially among American Christian fundamentalists, that paradox continues to this day – with the bumper-sticker question, “what would Jesus do?” combined with a determination to destroy perceived “enemies,” as the Rev. Howard Bess notes in this guest essay:
At the heart of American Christian Fundamentalism is a basic religious dualism that is obsessed with a never-ending struggle between Good and Evil. These Christian fundamentalists must always have an “enemy” with whom to fight.
Without doubt, there are biblical precedents for this view, especially in the Old Testament recounting Israel’s ancient history of bloody battles with its neighbors. Even the New Testament ends with Revelation, depicting a final battle between Good and Evil with a triumphant Jesus Christ the winner over every opposing force.
However, there also were voices of dissent against this dualism throughout the Old and the New Testaments. Indeed, the final witness is Jesus, the rabbi from Nazareth who advocated that evil was to be overcome not with a fight but with the doing of good.
Full Story: Consortiumnews.com.
OPS: As Hartmann has been explaining, for years now: You can’t be a Super-Hero unless you have a Super-Villain. Even if you have to create one
Rabbi Sid Schwarz: Genesis 22: Abraham’s “Return” and the Binding of Isaac
“Take your son, your only [yechidcha] son, the one that you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah and offer him up there as a sacrifice.” – Genesis 22:2
It’s no secret that services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah are much better attended than those on its second day. But what the second day of the Jewish New Year lacks in attendance, it makes up for in narrative drama. In synagogue that day, we read Genesis 22, which recounts the binding of Isaac, a chapter that shapes the way we understand our relationship with God and, potentially, with one another.
Many commentators focus on the way that Abraham’s faith is tested when God asks him to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. Abraham gets to the very moment of killing his son before being stopped by an angel. The school of religious thought that celebrates blind faith hails Abraham for his willingness to put obedience to God ahead of filial love.
Full Story: Rabbi Sid Schwarz: Genesis 22: Abraham’s “Return” and the Binding of Isaac.
Cooler than Thou: Will Hipsters Wreck Christianity?
Brett McCracken’s new book dissects the phenomenon of the hipster church, frets about the fate of Christianity.
It was pouring rain, cold rain, on an early March morning, as I headed to Brooklyn Label, a café near my apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I was meeting Vito Aiuto, pastor of Resurrection Presbyterian Church in Williamsburg, a plant of Redeemer Presbyterian, one of the largest and most influential evangelical churches in New York City.
I arrived drenched and he arrived late, wearing a utility shirt, jeans, and a maroon wool hat he never removed. We sat at the counter, sipping bottomless coffee from oversized mugs, and talked about our neighborhood and how to build community, his experience starting and leading a church, music, education, and his recently adopted son. Aiuto told me that he tries to keep things simple at Resurrection; he lets the congregation decide the church’s programs and activities. He also admitted that ministering in the hipster neighborhood of Williamsburg is both a blessing and a curse, that although Resurrection mainly attracts young and educated artist types, he has an explicit goal of ensuring it is not a “hip” church. There are no gimmicks to draw that crowd in.
Full Story: Cooler than Thou: Will Hipsters Wreck Christianity? | (A)theologies | Religion Dispatches.
Pastor’s Plan to Burn Korans Adds to Tensions
If building an Islamic center near ground zero amounts to the epitome of Muslim insensitivity, as critics of the project have claimed, what should the world make of Terry Jones, the evangelical pastor here who plans to memorialize the Sept. 11 attacks with a bonfire of Korans?
If building an Islamic center near ground zero amounts to the epitome of Muslim insensitivity, as critics of the project have claimed, what should the world make of Terry Jones, the evangelical pastor here who plans to memorialize the Sept. 11 attacks with a bonfire of Korans?
Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”
Full Story: Pastor’s Plan to Burn Korans Adds to Tensions – NYTimes.com.
Right-Wing Christian Militia Vows To Protect Florida Church Burning Qurans On September 11 (Updated)
Despite the city’s fire protection ordinances, the poorly-named Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL is committed to hosting “International Burn a Quran Day” on September 11. The radical church, which boasts an “Islam Is Of The Devil” message on a sign outside the church and as the title of its pastor’s book, insists “we will still burn Korans” on the church grounds despite being denied a permit. While the church may be fined for openly burning the holy texts, one “armed Christian conservative group” aptly named Right Wing Extreme vowed Sunday to protect the church from any other harassment during the burning:
The Christian conservative organization Right Wing Extreme has offered its support and protection for the International Burn a Quran day.
Right Wing Extreme was founded in April of 2009 after the Department of Homeland Security’s report titled Right Wing Extremism.[...]
Full Story: Think Progress » Right-Wing Christian Militia Vows To Protect Florida Church Burning Qurans On September 11 (Updated).
Christian Right Bigots Are Hiding the Truth — Early Christians Condoned Gay Marriage
Many of the world’s religions — including Christianity — supported same-sex unions, a reality obscured by modern-day shrill, conservative commentary.
“This sucker’s going down.” That was George Bush’s pithy description of the US economy when the financial crisis in the autumn of 2008 threatened to bring down every bank on Wall Street.
Concerted international co-operation of a sort never seen before averted disaster that winter and by the middle of last year the world’s biggest economy seemed to be on the mend. American factories started to hum again, shares rallied sharply and growth resumed. The US was showing its traditional resilience when faced with adversity and all was right with the world.
That judgment now appears premature. The latest economic data from the US has been poor. Traditionally, America’s flexible labour market has meant job creation in the aftermath of recessions has been robust; this time it was weak even when output was growing strongly in late 2009 and 2010. Recently it has gone into reverse.
The New War of the Christian Crusaders
Know-Nothings of 2010
By DAVID ROSEN
The building of a Muslim community center in an abandoned building two blocks from the site of New York’s former World Trade Center has become the latest controversy in America’s long fought religious wars. The construction of the center, often referred to as a mosque, has become the latest rallying issue for the Christian right, Tea Party proponents and Republican operatives in their war to impose moralistic and corporatist values on America.
It is too early to know how the Muslim center issue will be resolved, but it is clear that the rantings of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Abe Foxman (of the Anti-Defamation League) and others have played an important role pushing a local issue into the center-stage of national politics. Since the horrendous attacks of 9/11, Muslims in general and American Muslims in particular have been the targets of an undeclared religious war promoted by Christian fundamentalists and self-serving Republicans. For some among these religious zealots, Islam is a threat to their belief that the U.S. is a white Protestant nation. Over the last four centuries, Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Jews and many others have been targets of religious persecution, often the victims of imprisonments, hangings, lynchings and other acts of violence.
Rightwing ranters might well not know the history of religious intolerance in America, but they are surely aware that they are fueling a deep-seated rage among a certain scary segment of the Christian populous. This round in the ongoing religious culture wars has yet to explode into the ugly violence that took place in the aftermath of 9/11, and one can only hope that the current controversy will not lead to attacks on Muslims.
Full Story: David Rosen: Know-Nothings of 2010.
Churches trying to get Oil Money
This news article states that some churches are already seeking money from BP because of the oil spill, and others are considering it.
What is interesting is that the Assemblies of God, usually identified as one of the worst of the Dominionist denominations is mentioned (one of their smaller churches is mentioned as having applied for a large sum of money).
They are so adamant about “free markets” and “lowering taxes” and “reducing spending”- yet here they are with their hands out. Knowing how they pressure their members to give-give-give (give until it HURTS was a common theme when I belonged years ago), I doubt that their profits are so reduced that they can’t stay in business. I find it ironic and a bit disgusting about how they preach against “big government” and that a few Republicans (long identified as being steeplejacked- see dogemperor and others) have even considered the BP money to be a “shake-down”, yet those churches (the source of the steeplejacking) are demanding money.
I’d almost bet those churches don’t really need that money- and I fear that most of it will go into the pockets of the rich and not help the ordinary people- who need it the most. I’m even more concerned that as ordinary people loose their livings, they will be put through the punitive wringer waiting for the homeless and very poor (gotta fix those broken poor people, you know- it’s their own fault!).
Full Story: Talk To Action | Churches trying to get Oil Money.
11 August, 2010 MSNBCNadler Dismantles Right-Wing Arguments Against Mosque: ‘We Do Not Put The Bill Of Rights…Up To A Vote’
This morning on CNN’s State of the Union, New York congressmen Jerrold Nadler (D) effectively dismantled the arguments of his fellow Empire State colleague Peter King (R), who has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the new Islamic center project in lower Manhattan.
King argued that, while he respects Muslims’ “right” to build a new center, “they should listen to public opinion” and “should voluntarily move the mosque away from Ground Zero.” Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, explained, “We do not put the Bill of Rights…to a vote. The reason we have a Bill of Rights is that you have your religious rights…whether majorities like you or not, frankly.”
Nadler then addressed the biggest fallacy of the right-wing argument: namely, that in their opposition to the Islamic center, they are ascribing collective guilt on all Muslims for the terrorist acts of 9/11:
Evangelicals’ Stealth Mission to Sneak Jesus into Our Public Schools
Fundamentalist evangelists are hiding their religious agenda to sneak into public schools and preach to a captive audience of students.
United Methodist minister David Jenkins was meeting with fellow clergy last year in the small Kansas community of Sharon Springs when one of the pastors made what sounded like a routine request.
The clergyman noted that the Todd Becker Foundation was coming to town, and the evangelical Christian organization, which purports to warn youngsters about the dangers of drunk driving, wanted to line up local religious leaders to help with its presentation.
What struck Jenkins as odd was the venue: It was to take place at Wallace County High School.
Full Story: Evangelicals’ Stealth Mission to Sneak Jesus into Our Public Schools | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.
40 Religious Leaders Denounce Sarah Palin and Fox’s Hate Speech
Forty different Catholic, evangelical, mainline Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders and scholars came together to release a statement condemning the hate language of Fox News, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich as it relates to the so called Ground Zero mosque, “Fear-mongering and hateful rhetoric only undermine treasured values at the heart of diverse faith traditions and our nation’s highest ideals.”
The statement released by Faith In The Public Life condemned the religious bigotry of Gingrich, Palin, and Fox News, “As Catholic, evangelical, mainline Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders and scholars committed to religious freedom and inter-religious cooperation, we are deeply troubled by the xenophobia and religious bigotry that has characterized some of the opposition to a proposed Islamic center and mosque near where the World Trade Center towers once stood.”
Full Story: 40 Religious Leaders Denounce Sarah Palin and Fox’s Hate Speech.
Obama Speaks Out On Mosque Controversy: “Our Commitment To Religious Freedom Must Be Unshakeable”
Tonight, President Obama hosted an iftaar dinner at the White House — a feast marking the culmination of a day of fasting for practicing Muslims during the current Islamic calendar month of Ramadan. At remarks delivered at the dinner, Obama spoke out on the controversy surrounding the construction of a new Islamic center near the Ground Zero site, firmly siding in favor of the project:
Obama:
Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.
From the moment he entered office, Obama has made a commitment to engaging in a more positive relationship with the Muslim world. During his inaugural address, Obama said, “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” And later, in a speech in Cairo, Egypt, Obama added, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” But the right-wing antics against the construction of mosques, the disturbing instances of hate crimes against Muslims, and the rising tide of Islamophobia has served to frustrate the administration’s commitment to engage with the Muslim world.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Obama Speaks Out On Mosque Controversy: “Our Commitment To Religious Freedom Must Be Unshakeable”.
Would Evidence for God Mean the End of Atheism and Christianity?
A complaint often voiced by scientific atheists is that there is simply no evidence for God and therefore belief in the old codger is thoroughly unjustified. Frightened witless by this snort, creationists (and I include intelligent design advocates here) scurry about frantically trying to provide just such evidence. But what would scientific evidence for God look like, and what implications would it hold?
The astronomer Fred Hoyle famously remarked that nothing shook his atheism quite like the apparent “fine tuning” of the cosmos for life. For Hoyle, the delicate balance of our universe’s physical constants vaguely approached what might be called evidence of God. Others have remained unimpressed by this “evidence.” They point out that if there are an infinite number of universes out there (as some cosmologists contend), then invariably some are going to have physical constants like ours — no divine fine tuning required. Of course, the faithful can always retort that God is the ultimate author of all these universes because God loves diversity. In the end, the physical constants might hint at something divine, but they are hardly convincing.
This little episode highlights the absurdity of treating God as a hypothesis. He’s impossible to pin down — as might be expected from someone whose job description includes being infinite and everywhere. But as a thought experiment, let’s set aside this little problem and assume that the scientific atheists and creationists are right and God can be treated as a hypothesis. If so, there ought to be conditions under which the hypothesis receives support, possibly even strong support. The ramifications of this are just too intriguing not to consider.
Full Story: Matt J. Rossano: Would Evidence for God Mean the End of Atheism and Christianity?.
Religious Right Pushes Churches to Openly Defy the Law and Campaign for Tea Party and Other Conservative Candidates
As organizations that claim tax-exempt status, churches cannot directly intervene in elections. A religious right group is trying to change that.
When South Dakota gubernatorial hopeful Gordon Howie put out a call for pastors to endorse him from the pulpit, the Rev. H. Wayne Williams was quick to respond.
Williams, pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, endorsed the Republican candidate during a church service on May 16.
An ecstatic Howie, the self-professed “Tea Party” favorite, quickly issued a press release praising the action.
“Last week, Howie challenged South Dakota churches and their pastors to become more politically active in the stretch run to the June 8th primary election, urging pastors to endorse candidates and advocate specific issues from the pulpit,” read the Howie media statement. “Reverend H. Wayne Williams, Pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, became one of the first to accept the challenge, adding an official endorsement of Gordon Howie for Governor to a message delivered during his Sunday night services.”
Strip Unconstitutional Churches
More and more, Churches are violating the establishment clause in the First Amendment and the 501(c)(3) tax code, from which they derive their tax exempt status, by endorsing Republican candidates for public office. The Bush Regime simply ignored the complaints about this.
When South Dakota gubernatorial hopeful Gordon Howie put out a call for pastors to endorse him from the pulpit, the Rev. H. Wayne Williams was quick to respond.
Williams, pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, endorsed the Republican candidate during a church service on May 16.
An ecstatic Howie, the self-professed “Tea Party” favorite, quickly issued a press release praising the action.
“Last week, Howie challenged South Dakota churches and their pastors to become more politically active in the stretch run to the June 8th primary election, urging pastors to endorse candidates and advocate specific issues from the pulpit,” read the Howie media statement. “Reverend H. Wayne Williams, Pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, became one of the first to accept the challenge, adding an official endorsement of Gordon Howie for Governor to a message delivered during his Sunday night services.”
Full Story: Strip Unconstitutional Churches » Politics Plus.
The End of Times: Do Scientists and Fundamentalists Concur?
You might think that scientists and Evangelicals have nothing in common. But you’d be wrong. Large numbers of both agree on one thing: the end is near.
A few years back, Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s Royal Astronomer, published a book titled Our Final Century, in which he put the odds of human survival through this century at no better than 50-50. Now, biologist Frank Fenner, who played a key role in ending the scourge of smallpox, says the end is certain.
Surveying the carnage humanity has inflicted on the ecosphere, the 95-year-old Australian scientist says nothing can change our fate now. “It’s an irreversible situation,” he’s quoted as telling the press. “I think it’s too late.”
Many of the best-informed scientists agree that we have left it too late to prevent anthropogenic climate change from bringing on a global catastrophe. Whether this results in actual extinction or merely the ruin of civilization is a matter they are still debating.
Full Story: Clay Farris Naff: The End of Times: Do Scientists and Fundamentalists Concur?.
Study: Contemporary Mosques Are A Deterrent To The Spread Of Terrorism
In recent weeks, conservatives who have been arguing against the construction of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero have been claiming that such a building would be “offensive” to the memory of the 9/11 victims. They have also tried to imply that this mosque would embolden terrorists, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich saying:
The idea of a 13-story building set up by a group many of whom, frankly, are very hostile to our civilization — and I’m talking now about the people who organized this, many of whom are apologists for sharia, which is a form of law that I think we cannot allow in this country, period.
However, today the New York Times highlights an academic study that concludes the opposite of what Gingrich and his uninformed ilk are claiming, finding that many mosques deter terrorism:
Full Story: Think Progress » Study: Contemporary Mosques Are A Deterrent To The Spread Of Terrorism.
OPS: As usual, Conservative ideology, what Conservatives beleive, is 180 degrees out of phase with the facts and reality.
Reminder to critics who think a mosque is offensive to the legacy of 9/11: There’s already one at the Pentagon.
In opposing the planned Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City, conservative stalwarts have picked up on right-wing extremists’ paranoid hysteria over the initiative. In an interview with RealClearPolitics today, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) joined Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Liz Cheney, and many others in attacking the plan as an “inappropriate” affront to 9/11 victims. Deeming the site “hallowed” and “sacred ground,” he asserted that “we shouldn’t have images or activities that degrade or disrespect [the site] in anyway.” But, as Salon’s Justin Elliott points out, Pawlenty and company are “strangely silent” over the fact that “Muslims have been praying inside the Pentagon since Sept. 11″:
Yes, Muslims have infiltrated the Pentagon for their nefarious, prayerful purposes — daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven’t even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.
Church Carnival Sets Up Shooter Game With Obama As Target
In Roseto, Pa., a carnival company closed down a shooter game called “Alien Attack,” after complaints and news stories that President Obama was one of the targets.
The black “alien leader” is holding a scroll titled “Health Bill” and wearing a presidential seal belt buckle. He also has antennae and a troll doll with a KISS T-shirt on his shoulder.
The owner of the carnival company, Goodtime Amusements, dismissed a complaint, saying the figure is not meant to be Obama.
Full Story: Church Carnival Sets Up Shooter Game With Obama As Target | TPMMuckraker.
Pat Robertson’s group sues to stop mosque near NY’s ground zero
A conservative advocacy group founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson is suing to try to block a planned Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero.
The mosque proposal has become a fulcrum for balancing religious freedom and the legacy of the Sept. 11 attacks. It would be two blocks from ground zero.
The American Center for Law and Justice says it filed a petition Wednesday challenging a city panel’s decision to let developers tear down a building to make way for the mosque. The Washington-based group is representing a firefighter who survived the terrorist attacks.
Full Story: Pat Robertson’s group sues to stop mosque near NY’s ground zero | Raw Story.
Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?
The recent decoding of a cryptic cup, the excavation of ancient Jerusalem tunnels, and other archaeological detective work may help solve one of the great biblical mysteries: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The new clues hint that the scrolls, which include some of the oldest known biblical documents, may have been the textual treasures of several groups, hidden away during wartime—and may even be “the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple,” which held the Ark of the Covenant, according to the Bible.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered more than 60 years ago in seaside caves near an ancient settlement called Qumran. The conventional wisdom is that a breakaway Jewish sect called the Essenes—thought to have occupied Qumran during the first centuries B.C. and A.D.—wrote all the parchment and papyrus scrolls.
But new research suggests many of the Dead Sea Scrolls originated elsewhere and were written by multiple Jewish groups, some fleeing the circa-A.D. 70 Roman siege that destroyed the legendary Temple in Jerusalem.
Full Story: Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?.
NAE Urges Church to Cancel “International Burn a Quran Day”
Dove World Outreach Center has been featured on Talk2Action before for their visible anti-Islamic protests. (Photo is Rifqa Bary rally in Ohio, 2009.) In an ironic twist, their pastor, Terry Jones, testified in 1997 U.S. congressional hearings on religious freedom in Europe, where he complained of intolerance and revocation of the tax-free status of his charismatic church in Cologne, Germany.
In a press release the National Association of Evangelicals has urged Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, led by Terry and Sylvia Jones, to cancel their International Burn a Quran Day to be held on September 11. The NEA encouraged “increased understanding and reconciliation.”
Terry Jones is an apostle in the “apostolic and prophetic” movement which teaches the “five-fold ministry” preparing the church for the end times. (Jones is not one of C. Peter Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles members.) Jones is also author of the book Islam is of the Devil which can be purchased along with matching coffee mugs. The church provides instructions by Pastor Wayne Sapp on how Christians should go about burning the Quran, complete with a test run.
Full Story: Talk To Action | NAE Urges Church to Cancel “International Burn a Quran Day”.
Pastor Hosting ‘International Burn A Quran Day’: ‘We Have Nothing Against Muslims’
On September 11, 2010, the extremist evangelical Dove World Church — whose pastor, Terry Jones, has written a book called “Islam Is Of The Devil” — plans to host “International Burn A Quran Day,” when it will burn Muslims’ sacred text and encourage others across the world to do so as well. Churchmember Wayne Sapp has even posted an instructional video that explains how and why to burn the Islamic text.
CNN host Rick Sanchez invited Jones on his show yesterday to ask him about the inflammatory action. When Sanchez pressed Jones about why he would try to anger the world’s Muslims by burning their sacred text, the evangelical pastor replied, “Well, for one thing, to us, the book is not sacred,” provoking laughter from the CNN host.
Jones later went on to explain, “What we are also doing by the burning of the Quran, we’re saying stop, stop to Islam, stop to Islamic law, stop to brutality. We have nothing against Muslims, they are welcome in our country.” When Sanchez asked him how he would feel if Muslims burned the Bible, Jones admitted he wouldn’t like it but emphasized that it was his “right” to burn the Islamic text because “we live in America”:
Full Story: Think Progress » Pastor Hosting ‘International Burn A Quran Day’: ‘We Have Nothing Against Muslims’.
Tim Lahaye, Evangelical Christian Minister, Warns Obama Bringing Us Closer To ‘The Apocalypse’ (VIDEO)
Evangelical Christian minister Tim LaHaye says that the policy initiatives put forth by the Obama administration are bringing the country “closer to the apocalypse.”
LaHaye issued the dire warning in an appearance this week on Mike Huckabee’s talk show on Fox News.
“Our present president doesn’t seem to get it,” LaHaye explained. “He doesn’t understand that some of the things he’s introducing that many of us call ‘raw socialism’ — it’s a different name, but it’s essentially government control and government domination of everything.”
The evangelical voice said of the political platform maintained by the Obama administration, “It’s going to work against our country and bringing us closer to the apocalypse.”
Full Story: Tim Lahaye, Evangelical Christian Minister, Warns Obama Bringing Us Closer To ‘The Apocalypse’ (VIDEO).
Finding God After Leaving Religion
Thirty-four million Americans have given up on organized religion, according to the most recent American Religious Identification Survey. Yet for many of these dropouts — from churches, synagogues, temples and so on — spirituality is still a vital part of their lives.
How else would you explain the phenomenal success of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love (soon a major motion picture), or the writings of the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, and others like them? Just because people are fed up with organized religion doesn’t mean their appetite for spiritual things has been swallowed up, too.
I know because I was one of these millions who dropped out of active involvement in organized religion. But unlike the majority of the other 33,999,999 dropouts, I was a religious leader when I did.
Full Story: Steve McSwain: Finding God After Leaving Religion.
Why Does God Reveal Himself to Some People and Not to Others?
Doesn’t it seem likely that the reason all of us can’t see God is because there is no God?
If God exists… why isn’t his existence obvious?
And is “free will” a good answer to this question?
A few weeks ago, in this very publication, I posed the question, “Why did God create atheists?” If God reveals himself to religious believers, in visions or revelations or other spiritual experiences… why doesn’t he do it with everyone? Why are those revelations so contradictory — not to mention so suspiciously consistent with whatever the people having them already believe or want to believe? And why doesn’t everyone have them? If God is real, I asked — if religious believers are perceiving a real entity with a real effect on the world — why isn’t it just obvious?
Why is God playing hide and seek?
Full Story: Why Does God Reveal Himself to Some People and Not to Others? | Belief | AlterNet.
They Cast Out Demons & Burn “Witchcraft Items,” and They’re Taking Over Entire States
They claim to be able to raise the dead and cause miracles, such as the multiplication of Thanksgiving turkey dinners. They burn “witchcraft items” and “idols.” They hold mass exorcisms to cast out alleged evil spirits they say cause lust, pornography, addiction, homosexuality, bisexuality, and perversion. They claim to be able to heal HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, Glaucoma, and cancer, and to break “generational curses” and “witchcraft curses.” Who are they? Here are a few overviews (1, 2, 3.)
They compare opponents of their movement to rats that will be exterminated and one of their leaders has predicted that the regime they’re working to create will initially “seem like totalitarianism”. They’re closely tied to the notorious, so-called “kill the gays bill” before Uganda’s Parliament. They’re behind Sarah Palin and one of their “prophets” has become the de-facto prayer leader for the Republican Party.
While America has fixated on the Tea Party movement, a radical, right-wing charismatic evangelical movement is burrowing into the power structures of major American cities, such as Newark, NJ [1, 2], and even entire states, such as Alaska and Hawaii.
Full Story: Talk To Action | They Cast Out Demons & Burn “Witchcraft Items,” and They’re Taking Over Entire States.
There Has Been a Mosque Near Ground Zero Since 1970 – Same Year the World Trade Center Opened
I lived four blocks east of the World Trade Center in the 1980s, so I’ve followed the controversy about Park51, formerly known as Cordoba House, the new Islamic center being built two blocks north of the trade center at Park Place, with insider-y interest.
Andrew Sullivan has been posting notes sent to his site, the Daily Dish, from people who live in my old neighborhood — including this factoid that shouldn’t be surprising: A mosque, Masjid Manhattan, has been holding services on Warren Street, four blocks north of the World Trade Center for the last 40 years. (It’s about a block west of the Tweed Courthouse, if you know the area.)
Our members are city, state and federal employees, as well as professional employees of the Financial [District] who come to our Masjid to perform their daily prayers. Masjid Manhattan and its members condemn any type of terrorist acts. In particular, the attacks of 9/11 where non-Muslims as well as Muslims lost their lives.
Full Story: Pensito Review » There Has Been a Mosque Near Ground Zero Since 1970 – Same Year the World Trade Center Opened.
Gay Priests Blasted For Leading ‘Double Life’ By Church
The Catholic Church in Italy, still reeling from the clerical sex abuse scandal, lashed out Friday at gay priests who are leading a double life, urging them to come out of the closet and leave the priesthood.
The Diocese of Rome issued the strongly worded statement after the conservative Panorama newsweekly said in a cover story and accompanying video that it had interviewed three gay priests in Rome and accompanied them to gay clubs and bars and to sexual encounters with strangers, including one in a church building.
One of the priests, a Frenchman identified only as Paul, celebrated Mass in the morning before driving the two escorts he had hired to attend a party the night before to the airport, Panorama said.
Full Story: Gay Priests Blasted For Leading ‘Double Life’ By Church.
MRFF vs. Sectarian Supremacism and Anti-Government Conspiracists in the U.S. Chaplain Corp
A compilation of past articles, video, and documentation on sectarian Christian supremacism and anti-government conspiracy theorists in the U.S. Military Chaplain Corp.
Given the current revival of anti-government rhetoric, the following list of articles might mean more to readers now than when they were originally published. MRFF has repeatedly warned about the aggressive proselytizing conducted by the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), headed by Ret. Col. Jim Ammerman. In addition, Ammerman and some of his chaplains, while flaunting their military credentials, have promoted “New World Order” conspiracy ideology, in which they claim that the U.S. will imminently lose sovereignty, betrayed by government leaders who are part of a demonic cabal of “Illuminati,” described as international banking families. (The list is Jewish except for the Rockefellers – explanation to follow below).
An article about the history and activism of Mikey Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation is currently cross-posted at Alternet and TruthOut. Below the following list of links is further information on Ammerman and a selection of quotes from his book After the Storm in which he describes the first Gulf War as a massive religious revival.
Full Story: Talk To Action | MRFF vs. Sectarian Supremacism and Anti-Government Conspiracists in the U.S. Chaplain Corp.
Louisiana Bishops Rebuff New State Gun Law: ‘We Don’t Think It’s Appropriate To Have Guns In Churches’
Earlier this month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) signed a bill into law that allows people to bring concealed weapons into places of worship. Anyone who passes a background check and completes “eight hours of tactical training each year” can be designated “as part of a security force” for “churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship” that allow carriers of concealed weapons. USA Today reported this week that Catholic churches in Louisiana will still not permit congregants to bring guns to their services:
Concealed handguns won’t be allowed in Roman Catholic churches, despite a new state law allowing them.
“We don’t think it is appropriate to have guns in churches,” Danny Loar, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops — the church’s public policy arm in Louisiana, said Monday. …
Bishops discussed the issue when reviewing bills, Loar said.
“The bishops decided that, if the bill became law, the bishops would let their pastors know that this would not be permissible in Catholic churches,” Loar said.
Exclusive: Religious group calls out Glenn Beck’s ‘warped gospel’, launches ad campaign
When Glenn Beck attacks Christianity, some just see red. Others — they spy opportunity.
Dan Nejfelt, a communications associate with advocacy group Faith in Public Life, has been high on Beck’s smear-list ever since his group began running Christian radio ads quoting scripture as a way of encouraging believers to stop paying attention to the right-wing Fox News personality.
The group, which says their ads are sponsored by over 100,000 members nation-wide, has gone so far as to target their ads for every city Beck is visiting this summer.
Their efforts have been getting Beck’s goat in a big way. In recent days he’s even played their ad on his radio program and increased the ferocity of his rhetoric against Christians who see poverty, war, climate change and economic tyranny as core social ills.
Full Story: Exclusive: Religious group calls out Glenn Beck’s ‘warped gospel’, launches ad campaign | Raw Story.
Extremist Christians Aim to Create Armed Militias Against “Godless” Federal Government
Christian Reconstructionists believe civil government should be reformed according to the dictates of biblical law. Some advocate for followers to take up arms.
Herb Titus, a lawyer for the far-right Gun Owners of America, is jubilant over last week’s Supreme Court decision in the case McDonald v. City of Chicago, finding that state and local regulation of gun ownership must comport with the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The decision has also pleased the National Rifle Association, which sees it as ammunition for challenging gun control laws across the country. But for Titus, who thinks the NRA “compromises” on gun rights, the Second Amendment isn’t solely about “firepower,” he says. “You have to see it in its spiritual and providential perspective.”
That perspective is about far more than hunting and self-defense. For Titus, the Court’s 2008 recognition of an individual right to bear arms, and its application of that principle to the states in the McDonald case, are crucial steps toward arming Americans against their own government. Titus cites the “totalitarian threat” posed by “Obamacare” and “what Sarah Palin said about death panels.” People need to be armed, he said, “because ultimately it may come to the point where it’s a life and death situation.”
Hagee Markets New Prophecy Book While Claiming CUFI Not Motivated by End Times
Glenn Beck promotes Hagee’s latest prophecy book, which is currently #2 on the Wall Street Journal’s list of best selling “non-fiction.”
On Tuesday the New York Times published a front page article titled “Tax Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in the West Bank,” describing American financial support for Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, by groups such as John Hagee Ministries, Inc. (See note below.) Responses to the article have included the claims that the authors were wrong to represent Christian Zionists as motivated by end times prophecy. The ridiculous claim that prophecy plays little role in Christian Zionist activism is one of the major talking points now being used across the country to market and maintain partnerships between Christian Zionists and Jewish organizations. For the benefit of Jewish audiences, these leaders present their lobbying efforts as reality-based, not prophecy-based, as John Hagee did in recent op-ed articles in the Jewish Daily Forward and Ha’aretz. Meanwhile, Hagee and other Christian Zionist leaders continue to solicit support through the marketing of apocalyptic end times prophecy.
[Authors note: The NY Times article lists financing by John Hagee Ministries, Inc., Hagee's personal ministry, not his Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Other CUFI directors have also raised funds for West Bank settlements in their own name or through their church ministries.]
Full Story: Talk To Action | Hagee Markets New Prophecy Book While Claiming CUFI Not Motivated by End Times.
Presbyterians: End U.S.-Israel Aid Over Settlements In Palestinian Land
Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal Friday that included a call to end U.S. aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories.
But they said the 172-page report, which details their church’s approach to issues in the Middle East, was a sincere effort to mend long-standing fractures between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Jewish groups.
It earned qualified praise but also criticism from pro-Israel organizations, which have long taken issue with various Presbyterian statements on Middle East peace.
Full Story: Presbyterians: End U.S.-Israel Aid Over Settlements In Palestinian Land.
Head Of ‘World’s Largest Interactive Christian Website’ Calls Out Beck’s ‘Deception’ About His Mormonism
Glenn Beck often speaks about faith on his radio show and Fox News program, but he almost never mentions his own faith — Mormonism. Beck’s audience largely consists of conservative Christians, many of whom consider Mormonism to be a “cult.” So as to not alienate his followers, Beck obscures his religion, and focuses instead on broad themes common to many Christian faiths.
But out of view of his general audience, Beck readily explains that the Church of Latter-Day Saints made him who he is today. “I was baptized on a Sunday, and on Monday an agent called me out of the blue,” Beck said in a Mormon promotional video. And the Church has rewarded Beck. For example, the Mormon-affiliated LDSTravel.com website is currently promoting Beck’s 8/28 rally in Washington, D.C., offering travelers an entire day as part of a seven day tour of the East Coast.
Today, Bill Keller, the “leader of the world’s largest interactive Christian website” — an internet ministry with over 2.4 million subscribers — is attempting to expose Beck’s “deception” about his faith, explaining Beck “lies to people by stating he is a Christian”
Jindal Signs ‘Gun-In-Church’ Bill, Allowing Congregants To Bring Concealed Weapons To Worship
Yesterday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) signed a bill into law that will allow people to bring concealed weapons into houses of worship. The Times-Picayune reports on the bill:
[State Rep. Henry] Burns’ bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.
The pastor or head of the religious institution must announce verbally or in weekly newsletters or bulletins that there will be individuals armed on the property as members of he security force. Those chosen have to undergo eight hours of tactical training each year. [...]
The bill also allows a house of worship to hire off-duty police or security guards to protect congregants.
Full Story: Think Progress » Jindal Signs ‘Gun-In-Church’ Bill, Allowing Congregants To Bring Concealed Weapons To Worship.
OPS; Petulant children with their toys
Police: Conn. priest stole $1M for male escorts
A Roman Catholic priest in Connecticut has been arrested on charges he stole $1.3 million in church money over seven years to use for male escorts, expensive clothing, and luxury hotels and restaurants.
Waterbury police say the 64-year-old Rev. Kevin J. Gray was charged Tuesday with first-degree larceny. Gray is the former pastor at Sacred Heart/Sagrado Corazon Parish in Waterbury.
The Hartford Archdiocese last month asked police to investigate after it discovered during a financial review that he might have taken more than a million dollars for personal use.
Full Story: Police: Conn. priest stole $1M for male escorts | Raw Story.
Are Eastern Religions More Science-Friendly?
Religion comes into conflict with science when it is defined by unprovable claims that can be dismissed as superstitions, and when it treats as historical facts stories that read like legends and myths to non-believers. Other aspects of religion — what I would consider the deeper and more significant elements — are not only compatible with science but enrich its findings. The best evidence of this is science’s response to the religions of the East over the course of the last 200 years. As the French Nobel laureate Romain Rolland said early in the 20th century, “Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws.” The same can be said for Buddhism, which derives from the same Vedic roots.
Most of the Hindu gurus, Yoga masters, Buddhist monks and other Asian teachers who came to the West framed their traditions in a science-friendly way. Emphasizing the experiential dimension of spirituality, with its demonstrable influence on individual lives, they presented their teachings as a science of consciousness with a theoretical component and a set of practical applications for applying and testing those theories. Most of the teachers were educated in both their own traditions and the Western canon; they respected science, had actively studied it, and dialogued with Western scientists, many of whom were inspired to study Eastern concepts for both personal and professional reasons.
Full Story: Philip Goldberg: Are Eastern Religions More Science-Friendly?.
Hoekstra skips unemployment extension vote for country club fundraiser, even as unemployment sits at 13.6%.
This afternoon, the House passed a bill to extend unemployment benefits for the next four months. The bill passed with bipartisan support, although 142 Republicans voted against it, along with 11 Democrats. Several members did not show up to vote however, including Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), who is running for governor. Hoekstra, who hopes to govern a state with an unemployment rate of 13.6%, the second highest in the nation, spent the afternoon instead traveling to the Muskegon Country Club for a fundraiser. If the Senate fails to pass the House’s unemployment extension, then 90,000 Michigan residents are set to lose their unemployment checks by Saturday. Hoekstra also failed to vote on the unemployment insurance extension bill brought to the floor earlier this week
Tea Party Jesus: Blog Puts Words Of Conservatives In The Mouth Of Christ (PICTURES)
The concept behind the site Tea Party Jesus is simple: Put the words of conservative Christian social and political figures in the mouth of Christ. The juxtaposition of hateful, ignorant, or otherwise nonsensical rants with serene photos of JC himself isn’t only funny, but says a lot about the people who claim to be Christians. With the site’s permission, we’ve compiled some of our favorites so far. From the predictably fiery Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter to various pastors, radio hosts, and senators, these quotes are real, with quote sources linked to in the caption of each slide. If you go to the actual site, you can click on each photo to reveal the person behind the quote, making for for a jaw-dropping game of who-said-what.
Full Story: Tea Party Jesus: Blog Puts Words Of Conservatives In The Mouth Of Christ (PICTURES).
Catholic Churches Filing For Bankruptcy To Protect Assets From Sex Abuse Lawsuits
Dan Rather:
Spiritually Bankrupt
This is written with a sense of sadness and some mixed feelings. While not a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I have great respect for the church and its followers.
The church has done and continues to do much good in the world. I’ve seen it among the poor, the downtrodden, and the ill all around the globe. But with a team of other investigative reporters, we uncovered some things that should be brought to light and pondered.
Earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI issued the first apology to priest abuse victims from St. Peter’s Square – a gesture intended to show that church leadership is finally ready to confront this growing scandal.
Full Story: Dan Rather: Spiritually Bankrupt.
Consciousness and the End of the War Between Science and Religion
Nothing gets as vicious as fighting for a lost cause. If the proverbial Martian landed in a flying saucer today and saw how religionists war against scientists, he would be surprised at the vehemence on both sides. What is the war about? Fact beat out faith long ago. When Darwin’s theory of evolution replaced Genesis to explain the appearance of human beings, which was in the middle of the 19th century, the trend away from faith was already old. The world had been remade as material, governed by natural laws, random in its effects, and immune to divine intervention. Not just science but thousands of unanswered prayers did their part to dethrone God.
I am not drawn to lost causes, and therefore I’d like to guide the debate away from religion. And since religion is the primary form of spirituality in most people’s lives, we’ll have to step away from spirituality, too, at least at first. There should be renewed admiration for science’s attempts to answer the fundamental mysteries. These are well known by now:
* How did the universe come about?
* What caused life to emerge from a soup of inorganic chemicals?
* Can evolution explain all of human development?
* What are the basic forces in Nature?
* How does the brain produce intelligence?
* What place do human beings occupy in the cosmos?
Full Story: Deepak Chopra: Consciousness and the End of the War Between Science and Religion.
-
If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
-
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
moveon.org
