"A Man's a Man for all that!" - Rabbie Burns

"Religion? No thanks. I prefer not to outsource my brainwashing."
Trying to get your average Joe creationist to understand the phrase scientific theory is as hard as getting a fish to enjoy mountaineering. Its an unimagined world for them - it requires a complete reversal of their normal modes of thinking and being. The fact that humans could explain the complexities of this world without a creating God is a world view they cannot grasp. It's like asking a tuna if it appreciates the view from the top of Mount Everest.

Nov 10, 2008

In the name of ( their) God

Well after all the excitement of the US presidential elections I decided it was time to do another bit of a swoop around the Internet to see what our friends the God believers are doing these days in the names of their God(s). I was not the least bit surprised of course to find the usual stories of butchery, carnage and intolerance in the name of religion.

In the eastern Indian state of Orissa around 60 Christians have been murdered in the last couple of months by Hindu's incensed by the murder of a Hindu leader in August. The odd thing is that Maoists killed the Hindu leader but the Hindu reprisals were taken against Christians. Still I suppose logic and rationality was never the strong point for religious believers. If you can't find a Maoist to take revenge on in India then I guess a Christian must be the next best thing.

Meanwhile those cuddly Jewish settler types in Palestine continue to honour their God by regularly beating up Palestinians in the West Bank. The latest act of bravery by these heroes of the Jewish faith was to beat up a six year old child. No doubt they feel that their God is fully supportive of such despicable behaviour. Mind you the God of the Old Testament Bible isn't noted for his peacefulness is he?

Not to be outdone in the religious nutter stakes the Christians staged another flare up of violence in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem when Greek and Armenian priests resorted to punches and kicks as they yet again dispute access to the supposed tomb of Christ.

And finally to round of this carnival of religious madmen we have Islamic terrorists sowing more death and destruction and murdering more members of their own faith in synchronised car bombings in Baghdad which left around 28 dead. The suicide bombers will no doubt have faithfully worn their white underpants and been dreaming of the virgins that awaited them in heaven as they plotted to blow apart their fellow countrymen.

So it seems that all around the world the faithful are continuing to do God's work.

15 comments:

Delirious said...

Oh, you mean you missed the bigotry showed to our religion by the gays? You missed their rioting at our sacred temples? Hmm...odd...they aren't even religious :P

http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/

Anonymous said...

There are a fair number of Gay believers as I understand it. I don't have much sympathy for them if they were rioting. Mind you I am not aware that they are doing what they are doing becausethey are irreligious. My post was a quick round up of religious nuts.

Perhaps I should do another post on sexual nuts. Of course that would have to take into account the nut jobs on all sides and I suspect we would see a faiir share of the religious in there as well.

Anonymous said...

Amen to that.

Looney said...

I had a colleague from China when I worked in Japan. His Chinese wife had reported her parents to the authorities when she was young, during the cultural revolution. The parents disappeared and the children never saw them again. Certainly they were murdered in the name of the anti-God. All that was left for the children was guilt to carry into adulthood. If I surveyed my church, I could probably get a number of these kinds of posts going from first hand stories without scouring the net. Then there were the stories from the baby sitter / house keeper who lived with us for awhile.

Anonymous said...

Your right Looney. there were indeed terrible things done during the cultural revolution by those of the marxist faith in the name of their communist religion.

it's yet a further example fo the terrible deeds people will commit in the name of irrational faith.

Marf said...

@ Delirious: I can't say for sure because I didn't read about it, but are you sure the gays weren't just a tad bit upset about having the values of one religion forced upon them? They did get their right to marry ripped away from them after all...

Looney said...

Marf, if I remember correctly, the GLBT right to marry wasn't thought of 10 years ago. Perhaps it was discussed in Mainline churches 5 years ago, and was conceived of for their religious purposes. The recent discussion in the news indicate that GLBT theory claims that this right is more fundamental than our other constitutional rights which took centuries to obtain.

For us, we feel that the rights of civilization that took centuries to win are being eroded or discarded due to the sudden whim of anti-Christian elites. Whether or not this is true, do you really think that the GLBT community will live in quiet contentment if they take formal ownership of marriage?

Marf said...

@ Looney: No one lives in quiet content unless they're in a coma. So no, I wouldn't expect the right to marry to completely pacify them.

But I just don't see how them being able to marry is mutually exclusive to any rights you have.

What I'm getting out of what you said is basically this: "By God, it took my ancestors centuries to obtain the rights I have and enjoy, so it's only fair the GLBT community have to wait a few more centuries for their rights."

Looney said...

@Marf: "But I just don't see how them being able to marry is mutually exclusive to any rights you have. "

Religion has ethics and morality at its core. If contrived, mutually exclusive morality is established by the state and trumps religion whenever there is a conflict, then freedom of religion no longer exists.

I think we already see this with GLBT childrens stories being forced into schools in MA, along with Catholic Charities being forced to leave the state because they won't do adoptions for GLBT roommates. We are really moving back to the first century, where sex crazed culture was viewed as a right, and Christianity was viewed as a hate crime.

Anonymous said...

Lets decode what Looney is saying;

"if contrived mutually exclusive morality is established by the state"
Looney ony sees th possibility ofone morality his own. So by his logic the existence of anyone elses morality that doesn't accord with his own is not acceptable. So he couches it in negative language.

" freedom of religion will no longer exist" - so according to Looney allowing others their freedom of belief will compromise his. Any belief for example about the legitmacy of Gay and Lesbian marriage stops him practicising his religion.

This is drivel of the highest order.

Looney said...

Bunc, perhaps you don't understand the consequences of modernist legal thinking. China, for example, does not have freedom of religion, but per your reasoning we could state that it actually does have freedom of religion because most people do and believe what they want most of the time. Under the new regime, if some gays ask a preacher to perform a gay wedding and the preacher declines, he - and the church - could be subject to hate crimes litigation. I heard of a case like this not long ago involving a wedding photographer. As with China, you never know when you are going to be shut down. Other recent cases of litigation terrorism involve Doctors refusing to artificially inseminate lesbians, and on and on. Catholic charities pulled out of Massachusetts because it was ruled illegal for them to not provide adaption services to gays. It isn't as bad as 16th/17th century England yet, but that is where we are headed.

I do think that GLBTs can be allowed to mock and spoof marriage and other sacred things, just as people burn flags. Certainly you would agree that GLBTs like to mock and spoof for entertainment? The problem is that the legal community has reached the point where the original purpose of the institution - hopefully raising a physically and mentally healthy next generation in the case of marriage - has been tossed into the waste bin. From now on, the mocking and the spoofing are the basis for marriage itself as far as the law is concerned.

In Massachusetts, the result has been government mandated GLBT children stories in the schools. Next, we will have "The king who married her dogs" pushed on 2nd grade kids by school bureaucreats. Yes, there are plenty of people who have loving, committed relationships with their dogs! I have a loving, committed relationship with my computer! Does it really make sense to put gay gangbangers in charge of determining what children will hear about sexual morality in the government schools? The GLBTs run California, so we should at least be clear on what the consequences of all this are.

Marf said...

@ Looney: I see, so this is more than just a religious deal with you. You're outright prejudiced.

You're grasping at anything you can to justify your feelings. It's like seeing a single black man commit a crime, and blaming his entire race for it. You feel they're all the same.

Let me tell you, my friend, they are not all the same. They are like you and I. There are "criminal, immoral" gays and "good, upstanding" gays like any other group of people. Some cheat on their partners just like some married couples do, others don't. Some have an "open" relationship (as with some married couples), others don't.

As for taking care of children, we have single parents. There's not some sort of prerequisite to have both a mom and a dad in order for the child to turn out OK. Society doesn't take children from these single parents and put them with a married couple.

I'm a little ashamed of you that we have to stoop to the level of pointing out a dog can't sign a contract.

Anonymous said...

@ Looney,
I think Marf has this right Looney, in particular in suggesting that essentially you are just prejudiced.

And what is it with all the China references? I am not sure exactly what you think quoting issues in China has to do with anything.

Another straw man to knock down. Your arguments are also full of the fallacy of the excluded middle. I suggest you go look this up.

In any MODERN society there will be different views on morality and these need to be able to co-exist. Where those with extreme views won't accommodate to this approach then they must sometimes have some restraint put on them.

I don't think that the gay and Lesbian community should be able to dictate the legal rights of Christians but neither do I think that Christians should have the right to dictate the legal rights of gays and lesbians.

This is the reason the state MUST take a balanced view of potentially competing "world views". The legal system must ensure that everyone has the same essential rights.

There must be no special privilege for religious belief in this mix.

Marf said...

@ Looney: I'm sorry. This is a debate about gay marriage rights, not you personally. However I don't feel I was wrong in that statement, it was still out of line. I was just (and still am) upset over your use of the term "gay gangbangers" as a generalization of the GLBT community.

I enjoy these little discussions we have on opposing views. It's usually more interesting to discuss an issue with someone that disagrees with me rather than agrees with me all the time. It allows me to more fully express my side.

@ Bunc: He's using China as an example. I use examples and analogies all the time when trying to make a point.

Anonymous said...

@marf - I know he's trying to use China as an example, I just completely fail to see the relevance of it as an illustration of any position that I have been arguing for.

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