enjoy ripping into some religious nut every now and then, generally when they bring it upon themselves with a bizarre news item.  This page collects such things.  Also check the Evolution page, which has similar items, but ones of a more scientific bent.  As this page is getting longer and longer at a rapid pace, owing to how frequently some outrageous example of religion conflicting with common sense and/or the laws of physics is in the news, it will likely be split Solomon-style, into two or three parts, divided by topic, faith, or possibly just by date.

More recent additions are added on top.

September 13, 2003

Amusing and apparently scandalous news here.

ROME (Reuters) - A church in central Italy may need reconsecrating after police discovered it had been the location for a pornographic film, Italian media reported Thursday.

The local priest said the film crew told him they were shooting a wedding scene in the church. But actually, a man dressed as a priest was filmed having sex with a woman playing the bride.

My reaction would be a big, "So?"  So some people had sex in the church. So what?  I'm sure the church would be annoyed, but hey, the movie people paid good money to rent the room; can't they pretty well do what they want while they're renting it? Damage deposit and all.  Apparently not.

The priest of nearby Gioia dei Marsi said that under canon (church) law the Bishop of Marsi, Lucio Renna, would have to re-bless all services held in San Vicenzo, east of Rome, since the film was shot in 1998.

That's pretty funny, in a "thank god it's not me." sort of way. So they've got to hunt up like 50 wedding parties, three dozen funerals, etc, and re-bless all of them? I take it the people who were married there are still legally married?  And they don't have to dig up grandma and sprinkle holy water on her coffin or anything?  And I guess that the molesting of an altar boy in the vestibule isn't something that requires a reconsecration, or it would be a monthly problem at most churches in the US.

July 30, 2003

The Vatican has issued a new document that's sure to be widely-ignored.

The document is titled "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons." It was prepared by the church's guardian of orthodoxy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and is to be released Thursday, the officials said.

One official familiar with the document called it a "practical reflection" for both Catholic and non-Catholic politicians and public opinion in general.

It asks that the legal recognition accorded the traditional marriages not be extended to same-sex unions, the official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The pope is sticking to his guns on numerous issues where enlightened public opinion is coming more and more into opposition to traditional church positions.

In January, the pope approved guidelines on church teachings for Catholic politicians saying that the church's opposition to abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage is not up for negotiation.

The guidelines said laws safeguarding marriage between man and woman must be promoted and urged that "in no way can other forms of cohabitation be placed on the same level as marriage, nor can they receive legal recognition as such."

Several countries have legalized gay marriage or civil unions, and more seem poised to follow their lead.  True, gays will still be persecuted and discriminated against throughout most of the world for the foreseeable future, and in still-religious (primitive, to our Western humanism perspective) places like South and Central America, Africa, much of Asia, Arabia, etc, but in the Western world acceptance of non-heterosexual life styles is an an all time high, and growing.  Which is what the Pope is trying to stop.

One interesting thing is how utterly religion has faded from importance through most of Western Europe.

On Sunday, the pope lamented that the church's message was being watered down in Europe, decrying the spread of a "vague and little-demanding religious sentiment, which could become agnosticism and practical atheism."

This is a topic that I find very interesting. Europe, cradle of Christianity, historical home of kings and theocracies, is now far less religious than the US, and correspondingly far more liberal.  The US used to be far more modern in thinking and attitudes, but for whatever reason, religious belief is still very common in the States, and there's still a public taint attached to rationalist or atheist beliefs here.  Thousands of books and papers have (no doubt) been written on the subject of the persistence of religious belief, and uninformed me isn't going to wade into that topic today.  Perhaps I can get Malaya to comment on this some, since she addresses this sort of topic in her professional life.

I would venture to suggest that the general lack of scientific education in the US is a major contributing factor, since the more you know about Biology or Astronomy or Physical Geography, or any of a dozen other physical science fields, the more facts you have that stand in total contradiction to major portions of Christian theology. And if you branch out into things like World Religions or Humanities or Human Mythology, and see that pretty much every story in the bible is based on an earlier myth from a now-forgotten religion, it becomes pretty much impossible to continue to invest any actual belief in the Bible as a true or factual document. At least that's how it worked for me in my college education/brain-washing.

Of course the preceding paragraph assumes that the student is interested in forming a new opinion about the world and has a mind that's open to re-evaluating the mythos they were brought up in.  Lots of people have innumerable facts that contradict their closely-held superstitions, be they Astrology or Religion or Racism, and they still cling to/believe in what they were brought to believe in, whether they want to or not.

Like most atheists/rationalists, I see these as the last days of the Age of Religions, and assume that in the future only primitives and fools will cling to belief systems founded thousands of years ago.  Belief systems that are obviously (to me) totally archaic and unnecessary in modern life.

Of course so did Voltaire... 250 years ago...

January 19, 2003

Another article about the crazy primitives in Malawi and their obsession with vampires.

They wear dark clothing, it is said, and carry syringes to draw blood from their drugged victims, who sicken or die. The creatures have magical powers and a fondness for vanishing in graveyards, but no one has ever heard of them changing into bats.

In these impoverished rural communities, which lack electricity, running water, adequate food, education and medical care, peasant farmers are accustomed to being battered by forces they cannot control or fully understand.

People here believe in an invisible God, but also in malevolent forces — witches who change into hyenas, people who can destroy their enemies by harnessing floods. So the notion of vampires does not seem farfetched.

Then again, AIDS might be to blame. With so much shame and stigma surrounding the disease, some people might prefer to blame vampires for sickness and death. Charles Kaiya interrupts a visitor's musings over the various theories to suggest another possibility: the villagers might be right.

Mr. Kaiya's theory? Perhaps the government has promised to sell Malawian blood to donor nations in exchange for financial aid. "Maybe it's going to Saudi Arabia to get money," he said.

Not that it would convince anyone, but blood isn't really of any value.  It doesn't keep long enough to store up in vast quantities, so you need a steady flow of it coming in, with more in times of emergency.  There were a lot of articles after 9/11 about how every bloodbank in the country was totally overwhelmed by donations, the vast majority of which just had to be discarded.  Most types of blood are almost useless in donations, and obviously if there were blood-stealing/selling freaks in Malawi, they would not have any interest in the blood of frequently AIDS-infected poor starving villagers.  Lots of people in modern societies aren't even allowed to give blood after they test it and find your iron content is too low, or other such things.

January 6, 2003

One of the most outrageous examples of how Islamic law works is presented in this news story.

Tiouli was on a business trip last October when, she alleges, she was raped by three men who offered her a lift home from a nightclub. She reported the attack immediately to the Dubai police, who after investigating her claim arrested her.

One of the men admitted to having "consensual sex" with Tiouli, which made her, in the eyes of Dubai's judiciary, guilty of both adultery and making a false rape accusation. She could face up to 18 months in prison. None of the men has been charged.

Tiouli was in prison for five days and has since been staying at a hotel. The government has taken her passport and refused to let her leave the country until her trial, which has not yet been scheduled.

Now I suppose we have to consider the possibility that she actually did have consensual sex with the guy, and they had a fight or she balked at screwing his friends also, and that her complaint is in fact false. Even if you accept all of that, it's obvious she's being screwed (again).  The guy admits to sex, so why isn't he getting 18 months in prison? Because countries with Islamic law are extremely sexist and primitive, that's why.

January 6, 2003

This seems like a stupid little story about the lack of freedom or common sense in schools these days, until it turns more interesting with the wacky quotage half way through.

Some Christian group in a high school wanted to give out candy canes with religious messages.  The school said no, no one can give out non-school messages of any kind, for any reason.  Probably a stupid rule, but hey, what else is new in schools these days.  The kids went ahead and did it anyway, and they're likely get suspended when they return.

They are fighting to not be suspended, apparently under the reasoning that, 1) they really don't want to be suspended, and 2) they are special, and 3) rules don't apply to them.

The students, who were forbidden by school administrators to distribute the candy and messages, are accusing school officials of violating their rights to free speech and expression.

''No matter what they do, we're not backing down,'' Stephen Grabowski, 16, said yesterday. ''We really believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we're prepared to fight. They picked the wrong people to step on.''

Look, you whining pussy.  You knew the rules, they broke them, take your punishment like a man.  WWJD?  Etc.

The part that cracked me up and made this worth posting was their explanation of what candy canes are.

Taped to each was a piece of paper that included a religious explanation for the candy cane's shape and colors. The J shape stands for ''Jesus,'' or, when inverted, symbolizes a shepherd's staff, Grabowski said. The white is for Jesus's purity, and the red is for the blood he shed, Grabowski said. The notes also included some Bible verses and a prayer.

I'd never heard that foolishness before, but apparently it's all the rage among the insecure Christian types that need to feel everything on earth is some sort of religious symbol.  I checked on Snopes for the real story, and it wasn't hard to find.

An amusing related link is this one, which debunks the fantasy that the annoyingly long Twelve Days of Christmas song is some sort of secret Christian training hymn, or something.

the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is said to have been developed by Christians who could not open practice their faith because they lived in societies where Christianity was forbidden. Locating a place in the western world where the practice of Christianity was banned during the last several centuries is difficult enough, but trying to discern the usefulness of a Christmas song as a method of preserving tenets of Christianity in a society where the practice of Christianity itself was outlawed is truly a mind bender.

Something I did not know.

Some misinterpretations have crept into the English version over the years, though. For example, the fourth day's gift is four "colly birds," not four "calling birds." (The word "colly" literally means "black as coal," and thus "colly birds" would be blackbirds.) The "five golden rings" refers not to five pieces of jewelry, but to five ring-necked birds (such as pheasants). When these errors are corrected, the pattern of the first seven gifts' all being types of birds is re-established.

So the only good/practical gift of the whole 12 turns out to be poultry.  Yet another reason not to sing the whole damn thing.

November 28, 2002

I posted a week ago how it would be nice if there were at some point some good news about Muslims.  Still waiting.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - The deputy governor of a largely Islamic state in northern Nigeria called on Muslims to kill the Nigerian woman who wrote a newspaper article about the Miss World beauty pageant that sparked deadly religious riots.

Islam's holy book "states that whoever accuses or insults any prophet of Allah ... should be killed," Dangaladima told The Associated Press. Anyone who killed Daniel would be "a martyr who will go to heaven," he said.

"If she is Muslim, she has no option except to die. But if she is a non-Muslim, the only way out for her is to convert to Islam," he said.

Of course her comments were nothing bad at all.  They mention Salman Rushdie, and it was the same in his case, he engaged in some very mild speculation, in a fictional novel, about how the prophet Mohammed might have had second thoughts about some of his decrees and teachings, which was enough to get the "head on a platter" decree from the fanatical Iranian leader.

The main reason Rushdie got in trouble is because the "Satanic Verses" are actual things. At one point way back in the day, early in Mohammed's career as a prophet, he was besieged by enemy forces, and being starved to death in some caves. At the last minute, he issued some about face in what Allah had been telling him all along (according to him, of course, there is no corroboration since he was the sole prophet of the Lord) which enabled him to be freed from the siege and not starve to death. The ruling was something to do with tolerance of older religions and their icons, I don't remember the exact details. Some years later when Mohammed was in a position of more military might, he predictably flipped back to his original positions on everything, and led his army to destroyed the forces that had put him down previously.

But how to explain the flip flop, while keeping Allah's infallibility? He said that the changed decrees were caused by Satan's trickery, appearing to him in the guise of Allah back in the desperate cave days. Hence the term "Satanic Verses". This is historical fact, not something in Rushdie's novel. Any mention of the SVs is extremely controversial to this day.

Now as any reasonable bright child of 8 could point out, there is a much easier explanation for the flip flopping in decrees and it doesn't require gods for motivation.  Mohammed was beaten by superior forces the first time, and had to do what he had to do in order to survive, and the minute he could get revenge and go back to doing what he wanted to in the first place, he did so.  Blaming his actions on Satan is a pretty transparent ruse, but since he had set himself up as the prophet and Allah as an infallible god, etc, and Islam has never had a renaissance where they could modernize the religion and begin to question some of the sillier aspects and errors in their holy writings and have a reformation; defensive death threats are the only way to deal with someone pointing out the various errors and inconsistencies in the Koran.

The woman's newspaper article about the Ms. World pageant said nothing that would be offensive to anyone with any common sense.  However since that never applies to religious zealots, she's in deep shit.

Daniel, a Lagos-based fashion writer with ThisDay, reportedly went into hiding after being interrogated by police last week in connection with the article, which suggested Islam's founding prophet Mohammed would have approved of Miss World and might have wanted to marry one of the contestants. Her religion is unknown.

The newspaper has issued repeated apologies for the article, saying the offending portions were published by mistake after earlier being deleted by a supervising editor.

Her comments obviously had nothing to do with the Satanic Verses, but since she's a writer and so is Rushdie, the parallel is brought up.  The head kook in Nigeria doesn't have the religious authority to issue a real fatwah, but shooting his mouth off about how she should be killed, knowing how many unstable and eagerly-murderous young male Muslims there are around the world, is nearly the same thing.

• News item I don't understand at all. But since the picture is cool, I have to include it.

Far right deputies on Rhone-Alpes council said the poster is an attack on the beliefs of Christians, and demanded its withdrawal. Other right-wing councillors - including those from France's majority Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) - backed the far right on the grounds that the poster is provocative.

How is that anything to do with an attack on the beliefs of Christians?  They can't seriously thing Christianity invented pointy-eared horned creatures?  Ever heard of Druids, paganism, and Greek mythology kids?  There is an explanation that makes thing clear as mud.

UMP official Emmanuel Hamelin explained to France 2 television why conservatives voted against the poster. "It has touched the religious principles of some elected representatives, and that is what probably sparked off the reaction we are seeing today," he said.

Okay, but why?  I think they should have to be able to explain themselves coherently before they make a political stink.  Perhaps this comes under the old "I know it when I see it." pornography test?  There is some mumbo-jumbo from the Christians about it being a black virgin, which the artist says was never his intent. What would that mean anyway?  Like some sort of revisionist version of the Madonna being black?  Or Eve?  I seldom understand religious fanatics, personally. The festival organizers are not giving a thought to withdrawing the image though, so bonus points for them having spines.

November 22, 2002

Some of those Nigerian Muslims sure are uptight.

LAGOS, Nigeria - Muslims burned down a newspaper office yesterday to protest an article suggesting Islam's prophet might have chosen a wife from among contestants in the Miss World beauty pageant being held in Nigeria.

What did the paper say?

"The Muslims thought it was immoral to bring 92 women to Nigeria and ask them to revel in vanity. What would [the prophet] Muhammad think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them," the article said. In the same issue, the paper published profiles and pictures of more than 60 Miss World hopefuls.

You can't say anything, ever, about Muhammad.  You just can't, unless it's along the lines of "all praise and blessings..."  Makes for a lack of the self-examination that religion requires to pull themselves out of their own dark ages, IMHO.

The paper burning isn't the worst of it, as there are huge riots and hundreds of people being killed over things that only puritanical religious primitives could be upset about.

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 105 people have been killed in riots in Nigeria stoked by Muslim fury over the country's staging of the Miss World contest next month, Red Cross officials said on Friday. More than 500 people have also been injured in the street riots in the northern city of Kaduna, where enraged youths have torched churches and mosques.

The violence, sparked by a newspaper article suggesting the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married one of the Miss World beauty queens, resembled massive sectarian bloodletting in the region two years ago that killed thousands.

The pageant hasn't even begun yet.  Apparently there were calls for a boycott, since under the draconian Islam laws of Nigeria, women can be stoned to death for adultery.  Wouldn't it be nice if one day there were some news about something from Islam that was actually good?  For happier pageant thoughts, take a look back at the 1st and 2nd place winners in Miss Universe.

November 16, 2002

I read this article literally with my jaw agape, in astonishment.  True, it's just world net daily, which is a ridiculous right wing tabloid, but still.

On second thought I guess it's not that surprising that the US Government would have devout (clueless) Christians at some levels, but it's still astonishing to me that someone is wasting the time and money on satellite photos of Mt. Ararat in an effort to spot Noah's Ark.  To me this is on the level of viewing space photos of the earth in an effort to see the dents in the planet where it rests atop Atlas' shoulders, or perhaps to find the handprint where Hercules held it briefly during his legendary labors.  Or perhaps an archeological expedition to find Medusa's grave and extract some of her DNA so we could clone a snake-haired woman whose gaze would turn men to stone.

In other words, it's frighteningly bizarre for adult humans to take an obvious fable as a literal event, and I just can not believe that well-educated people would do so.  It like hurts my brain.

The list of reasons why there's no possible way Noah's Ark could have been an historical event, as detailed in the Christian Bible, is too long to get into here, but I do have an article page with some mention of it. I was ready to assume the pictures were recent, and would have almost accepted it if Dubya was in charge of things, since he doesn't know any better.  But apparently they are from 1990 and 1992, with Bush the first and Clinton to blame.  Not that any of the presidents are personally ordering this sort of thing, but you have to associate the blame with the man at the top, at the time.

October 16, 2002

This is copied directly from The Onion, but it's short and I thought it was just so perfect I couldn't resist.

Georgia School Board Bans 'Theory Of Math'
COGDELL, GA—The Cogdell School Board banned the teaching of the controversial "Theory Of Math" in its schools Monday. "We are simply not confident of this mysterious process by which numbers turn, as if by magic, into other numbers," board member Gus Reese said. "Those mathematicians are free to believe 3 times 4 equals 12, but that dun [sic] give them the right to force it on our children." Under the new ruling, all math textbooks will carry a disclaimer noting that math is only one of many valid theories of number-manipulation.

October 13, 2002

BOMBAY, India (AP) - Five people were killed Friday in Hindu-Muslim rioting and police gunfire after riots broke out during a general strike to protest the Rev. Jerry Falwell calling the founder of Islam a terrorist. Forty-seven others were injured.

Not that Hindus/Muslims/Christians in India were having any problems finding reasons to kill each other prior to Falwell's recent comments.

The thing is, Falwell was essentially correct in the facts.  I was surprised anyone cared what he said; information on the life of Mohammed is not exactly secret.  The guy was a warlord, raiding camel trains, eventually controlling a city state and launching wars against other cities, combining political battles with religious ones.  He launched Islam with violence and warfare.  Much of it in self defense, but that's not really the point.

I don't think the events are open to debate, you can find info about Mohammed's life story on dozens of scholarly websites with a quick search. Obviously calling him a "terrorist" is intended to inflame; but he was clearly a military leader.  One might note that Jesus was supposed to be one as well, which is why Jews don't accept him as savior; he doesn't satisfy all of the prophecies from the Old Testament as to what the messiah should be.

None of which makes Falwell's comments any more useful; it's not as if the Old and New Testament aren't totally packed full of horrible violence, murder, warfare, sacrifices to God, etc.  But he's Jerry Falwell, the man blamed legalized abortion for the 9/11 attacks; he's certifiably a kook.

He apologized a couple of days later, and I'm sure he really means it sincerely. 

Falwell, a conservative Baptist and a leading voice for the Christian right in America, said in a prepared statement that he was sorry for the hurt feelings caused by his comments.

"I sincerely apologize that certain statements of mine made during an interview for (the Oct. 6 edition of) CBS's '60 Minutes' were hurtful to the feelings of many Muslims.

"I intended no disrespect to any sincere, law abiding Muslim," he said.

Falwell said his error came from answering a "controversial and loaded question" at the end of an hour-long interview.

"That was a mistake and I apologize," he said.

So he does intend disrespect to insincere, law-breaking Muslims?

October 5, 2002

Wild West story of a town of hardcore Mormons in Arizona, living like they did in the good old days.

Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano's office is covering up information documenting extensive and ongoing criminal activity including rape, incest, assault, kidnapping, forced marriages of underage girls, weapons violations and welfare fraud that is rampant in the remote polygamous community of Colorado City, state records obtained by New Times reveal.

...

Johnson says he's been investigating allegations of child abuse, sex crimes and welfare fraud in Colorado City since becoming a supervisor six years ago. The former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy says he's interviewed more than 30 former church members who have fled Colorado City.

Johnson says he has been told of repeated instances of underage girls being forced into marriage, child abuse, child labor law violations, welfare fraud, rapes, assaults and mental cruelty. Young boys are also abused, he says. Boys who are deemed to be unruly and who will not follow church doctrine are dumped onto the streets of Salt Lake City to fend for themselves, he says.

October 4, 2002

Jesus wept.

A high school in San Mateo, California has a new school club, to go along with the chess club and debate club and all those other happy high school institutions.  The new one is a Satanic Club, and there were 35 members at their first meeting.  Parents are hopping about, of course.  Tragically it's not a real Satanic club, so no goat sacrifice. They're just into the writings of Anton LaVey.

LaVey started the Church of Satan in 1966 under the theory that Satan is not a supernatural being, but rather a symbol of defiance and rebellion against a conformist, God-fearing society, according to literature on the Anton LaVey Web site.

The school is letting them continue as long as they don't actually practice a dark mass, since federal law requires equal access for school organizations.  Christians are upset by this, predictably enough.

Pam Cachay said she couldn't believe it when her 10th-grade daughter told her it was announced on the school's loudspeaker that a Satanism club had formed. "The parents I've talked to are outraged," she said.

Her 15-year-old daughter, Larena Whattam, was equally offended when she heard about the club. "I was completely appalled. I'm a Christian and I love God," said Whattam, who is member of the school's Christian Club.

Tragically, the article is very professional and balanced, rather than a ranting, furious condemnation of anyone who doesn't really really love Baby Jesus.  Some of those will no doubt pop up in the days to come, and I'll hopefully catch sight of them, since I love that sort of thing.

It gets better.  A follow up article the next day talks about a lunchtime protest one concerned parent set up.  Police came in case they were needed to keep order.  The only problem:

Parent Pam Cachay organized the lunch-hour rally, expecting 50 people to show up in an effort to dismantle the club, devoted to the study of the teachings of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan.

Cachay was stunned to find no one picketing.

Undeterred by her utter lack of support, or common sense, the mother is still trying to manufacture outrage, and is planning on pulling her daughter from that school and sending her to another one because of the club.

"They (club members) say they're not practicing rituals. Not yet," Cachay said. "When you start choosing to worship darkness, there's something wrong there."

I feel bad for her kid; you know how embarrassed teens get when their mom/dad is famous and all charged up with activism.  Imagine having to transfer to a new school mid-year, and everyone knowing you're there since your mom is a total "Christ Crispy", as we used to call them when I was that age.

It's all worth it though, in her effort to save her daughter from the dark forces of Satan.  And stuff.

September 21, 2002

Here's why all religions should be outlawed, and all deeply-religious people should be rounded up and put into death camps.  Wait, did I say death camps?  I meant happy camps!

Members of a Tennessee religious group were hoping for a miracle at a teenage member's funeral. They called on God to raise 15-year-old Jessica Crank from the dead at her funeral Wednesday. Jessica died Sunday at her home from a rare form of bone cancer.

The girl was a nut, raised by nuts, as part of an organized system of nuts.  She had a form of bone cancer, had a tumor the size of a basketball on her shoulder when her parents finally took her to a clinic.  They were urged to get her medical treatment, they refused, and she died at home, no doubt after suffering in agony for years.  Not only did they kill her through neglect, they actually thought she would rise from the dead if they asked God really nicely.  Given that He'd refused to cure her cancer, you might have thought they'd take that as a hint.

Her mother and the man who heads the New Life Ministries religious group are facing child abuse and neglect charges in the case.

Adults are allowed to let themselves die in service of their delusions.  Adults are not allowed to murder their children by refusing them medical care in service of their delusions.  I hope they sterilize and lobotomize the whole church, and ship their children across the country to re-education camps where they can have their impressionable minds purged of the divine rot implanted by their insane parents, which would at least give them a chance to grow up to become useful and functional members of society.

All of which is about as likely to happen as the girl returning from the dead.  So let us pray...

I don't actually advocate the criminalizing of all religion, or the lobotomization of all the faithful*, by the way.  That was an example of comedic license and sarcastic exaggeration.  It won't happen again.

 On the lighter side, how the hell do you suppose she wore clothing with that thing on her arm?  Article says they had an open casket.  So was she in there, with this second head-sized thing pushing up on one side?  Or did they puncture it, or saw it off so she'd look pretty in her dress, and therefore look pretty in heaven?

*Just the devout ones.

August 17, 2002

If you were wondering what's the deal with the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina you hear about, it's part of the Hajj, a requirement for Muslims. Info:

The fifth and final pillar of Islam is the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca every able-bodied Muslim is required to make at least once in his life. Pilgrims must wear special dress, walk seven times around the Ka‘aba (Arabic ka’bun, 'a cube'), and kiss the talismanic black stone enshrined like an idol in the southeast corner of the edifice. Although probably a meteorite — and thus a truly heavenly stone - the black stone is claimed to be one of the precious stones of paradise given by the angel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham when he built the Ka‘aba — in Arabia, contrary to Jewish and Christian opinion! Even though the stone has been stolen, burned, and broken, it is the veneration focal point for more than a billion Muslims in the world today. (With so many Muslims required to come to Mecca, the logistics of the Hajj are rapidly bursting the bounds of the possible.) The Ka‘aba temple is widely believed to be older than Mohammed, having housed the pagan Arabian pantheon. All its idols were destroyed when it was adapted to serve the Islamic cultus.

When in Mecca kissing the Ka‘aba, it is also incumbent upon pilgrims to kill an animal in the Mina valley on the tenth day of the month of pilgrimage, since Allah, like the Yahweh of the Jews, is believed to enjoy having animals killed for his viewing pleasure. After killing a goat or other suitable sacrificial species (dogs and pigs are deemed unsuitable), most pilgrims then betake themselves to Medina (Yathrib), a city located 210 miles north of Mecca, in order to pray at what is claimed to be Mohammed's tomb.

As that quote hints at, and photos like this one demonstrate, it's getting to be damn hard to actually do this as the number of Muslims world wide increases, and while doing it you are going to be absolutely sardined with thousands of other people.  A paradise for the spread of infectious diseases, eh?

July 8, 2002

This is cool.  Zoom out.  It's a map of the universe, showing the location and position of our solar system, relatively.  My metaphor will require a larger haystack and a smaller needle.  If you are religious, keep reminding yourself that God made all of this, and we're the most important part.

July 3, 2002

On another alien topic, I was watching a PBS show tonight about Native Americans near Seattle, on Bainbridge Island.  The show was about fireworks, mostly, but had a bit of their history.  As recently as the 1930's, the US government came in and moved every one of them away from their original villages on the coast, and stuck them on new reservations.  Not only that, but all of their children were forced to attend distant boarding schools, they were banned from practicing any religion other than Christianity, and speaking any language other than English.  America, land of the free!

The ironic part was that some of them are now devout Christians, going on and on about biblical passages and praying over every box of fireworks, etc. Given their shotgun introduction to the Bible, I'd think they would drop the white man's religion now that they have the option, and go back to their heathen nature spirit worship, or be Buddhists, or Atheists, or something.  Anything but Jesus, considering how they were forced to worship it.

While cutting up veggies for the pasta stir fry I had for dinner, I was pondering the history of conquered peoples, and their usual forced adoption of the religion of the conquerors. And how they tend to persist in worshiping it even decades or centuries later.  See Mexico and all of Central and South America, for example.

In goofy Sci Fi (like on South Park or the Simpsons) Christians are always trying to spread their gospel to aliens, who seem surprised and vulnerable to it.  How would it really be though?  In the history of humanity, the conquering tribe's religion is almost always imposed on the weaker tribe, usually under threat of death, and over time it is adopted long term. Also, the tribe with greater technology always seems to win any meeting, and their ideas, technologies, religions, etc always seem to triumph in the end.

So would this happen when/if we encountered aliens?  Would they come to dominate the earth, and force us to worship their tentacled gods?  Would they be crusaders, come to civilize us and cure us of our heathen ways?  Possibly, but I certainly hope not.

I subscribe more to the Star Trek concept, of enlightened, scientific, rational aliens, (they're Star Trek, we're the primitive planet) who would be past the Age of Religions in their societal development, and would probably be bemused by how many earthlings follow their primitive superstitions.  In that light, it seems an amazing act of hubris to assume they'd have any tolerance for earth religions, much less want to follow them. 

I can't see any way objective observers (which Aliens would be, coming from outside of our culture) wouldn't see all earth religions for what they are; the philosophical constructs of ancient man, passed down over time and (inexplicably) still followed by large percentages of the population, even when science has shown that virtually everything in the various holy books is clearly myth and fable, rather than fact.

Our belief systems would seem so pathetically superstitious and primitive that no higher life form could possibly have any use for them, other than as anthropological artifacts to analyze.  Right?  Did the conquering Spaniards start worshiping Quetzalcoatl and painting themselves with jaguar spots when they encountered the Aztecs and Mayans?  Not that I know of.

I sort of assume that aliens wouldn't have any religion, or at least no primitive one.  Can we expect new religions to appear on earth, ones based in science and modern thought?  Or will existing ones just continue to be modified and amended to keep up with the times?  There are new religions on earth, they're just called "cults" since they have a lot fewer members and are new.  Mormons were a cult 100 years ago, but now there are tens of millions of them world wide.

None of the well-known religions or cults are really "modern" though.  Scientology is recent, but it's just absurdly kooky, full of magical powers and idiotically silly creation stories, so it's got no real future. Will there be a truly modern religion, or does the whole concept of modern/scientific exclude religion, which is by definition blind belief and adherence to written "truths", regardless of whether or not they are actually true?

Surveys I've seen say that upwards of 90% of top scientists are atheists, and more like 95% of really top scholars in their fields are godless.  The more you know, the less you feel a need to believe in magic, is how I decipher the evidence.

That was true for me; I wasn't real religious, but was certainly at least agnostic, with various superstitious tendencies, when I was a teenager.  Then in my first couple of years of college I took classes in Astronomy, Physical Geography, World Mythologies, and Philosophy, and putting together the new knowledge I had, I just couldn't keep believing in anything magical or supernatural or religious.  I found the mythology classes the most instructive; when you learn that virtually every story in the Bible is based on earlier legends and myths from other cultures and their religions, it pretty well removes any chance you'll take any of the Biblical tales literally.  The fact that the whole concept of dualism (Satan vs. God) wasn't introduced into Christianity until long after the Old Testament writings, and was obviously added in after the ancient Hebrews were exposed to dualism from Babylonian religions (among others) was really an eye-opener.

Anyway, my point is that I can't see humans not continuing to grow less superstitious/religious over time, especially once all our existence is owed to science and technology (as it will be in space travel).  But of course I project my own life experiences onto my world view, and what I expect others to believe as they learn more.  Plenty of well-educated people know as much as I do about things, and still believe in God.  I'm not sure how they reconcile things w/o just turning their backs on all logical analysis, but they seem to manage it somehow.

So I guess aliens would likely be rationalists and highly-evolved in their belief systems, but there's no guarantee they'd all be atheists.  After all, it's entirely possible that there is some magical creator thing for the universe, a being that's knowable and detectible with sufficient technology.  Humans can't do it (yet?), but perhaps alien civilizations could, and they'd introduce us to their method?  Just because none of the religions practiced on earth are more than updated interpretations of ancient superstitions doesn't mean there's not a true worshipful type of religion possible in the universe.

Though I tend to doubt it...

April 29, 2002

The insanity of taking pretty much anything from the Bible literally is well-demonstrated by these quizzes.  It's pretty easy to get 8 or 9 out of 10 on each one, just by picking the most horrible, ridiculous option, and then seeing which biblical verse was the source of it on the answers page.

A person can find truth and guidance and inspiration in the Bible if they look for it there, but it's just as easy to find hatred, slavery, brutality, murder, and endless contradictions that are sort of hard to explain while claiming the whole thing is the word of God.  The greatest evil and good can both be easily backed up by selective Bible excerpts, which as I said a paragraph ago, illustrates the insanity of taking anything in it literally.  If you don't believe me, take a few of those linked quizzes.

April 26, 2002

So there is this mystery virus sweeping across Greece.  I've seen numerous articles about it.  Here and here and here, for example. It's killed upwards of 40 people so far, and no one knows what it is or what's causing it.  Every school and university in the country is closed all week, all sporting events are canceled, etc.  It's a huge deal.

Doctors say the virus is transmitted through bodily fluids and feces.

"We don't know with certainty what it is, but we have some indications which group it belongs to," said Takis Panayiotopoulos, director of the surveillance department at the Greek Centre for Special Infectious Diseases (KEEL).

He told Reuters the virus probably belonged to the "enterovirus" group, which infect the intestines and sometimes spread to other parts of the body, particularly the central nervous system.

The quote I found amazing was in this article on CNN.com.

The Greek Orthodox church has reacted angrily to media suggestions that taking Holy Communion -- the symbolic sipping of wine representing the blood of Christ -- could spread the virus because church-goers tend to use the same spoon as each other.

"It should be considered blasphemous, to say the least, to consider it possible that epidemic ailments could be transferred through holy communion and endanger human life," the Athens diocese said in a statement released to Reuters news agency.

Now it's nice they want to defend their quaint little religious customs, but isn't it a bit insane to consider that a direct transfer of saliva between people who are potentially infected with a deadly virus is a good idea?  When this virus is known, for a fact to spread "through bodily fluids"?  They're closing every school in the country, but they can't stop sipping wine from a dirty spoon in church for a few days, for God's sake?

Tests have analyzed Holy Water in the past, and found that it's horribly unhealthy.  I mean think about it; there's this puddle of tepid water sitting out in the open air for days at a time, with sick people dunking their filthy hands in it, splashing it on their faces and letting it drip back down, etc.  Of course it's polluted and dangerous to consume, that's just common sense.  The minute some scientific evidence shows that a priest praying over some water kills germs and bacteria, hospitals will start hiring them to work in the ER.

Just because you're sipping wine for god and pretending it's Jesus' blood, doesn't mean the germs from sick people aren't all over the spoon you're using for it, and making people sick.  And in this case, possibly killing them.

Imagine if someone can prove they got the deadly virus from a church communion spoon?  Talk about a lawsuit.  Not that churches seem to have any inclination to change their activities just because they're being pounded by lawsuits, as ten thousand pedophile priests would testify.  And have.

Not having to earn your own money does that to people/organizations.

April 21, 2002

So does "freedom of religion" = "freedom from medical treatment"?

Since this story is in Canada, where they don't have the same constitutional protections of freedom as in the US, it's not entirely relevant, but bear with me.

The article in question is here, and it's about a 16 y/o girl who is a Jehovah's Witness (no, not "Witless", though that's an appropriately dumb joke in this instance) and is refusing the blood transfusions she requires as part of her treatment for Leukemia.  She's had intensive chemotherapy already, and the courts are forcing her to continue he treatment; they've had to strap her down to put the blood into her body.  The article doesn't say if she'd have died or fallen into terribly ill health by now if they weren't doing it, but I doubt they're giving her dozens of large blood transfusions just for fun.

Her religion says that the Bible prohibits any blood transfusions.  Funny how it doesn't prohibit chemotherapy too.

I wonder how many other Jehovah's Witnesses adhere strictly to this credo?  I wouldn't think there would be too many old Witnesses, if they couldn't have any sort of surgery at all, died any time they had a bad car accident, slipped using a circular saw, etc.

Anyway, I'm not talking about one particular religion/faith/cult here, I don't know what the Witnesses' actual beliefs are, if this girl is an exception or the rule, and I don't really care.  The whole concept of refusing medical treatment for superstitious reasons is what I find interesting about it.

I suppose that in theory it should be inspirational or ennobling that she's so devout she'll risk her life to follow her faith.  Some people seem to support it when someone won't work on a Friday, or a Sunday, or insists on fasting for X number of days at some time of the year, etc.  I don't see that illogical behavior is really a good thing, no matter how much someone supposedly thinks they *must* behave that way.  Since in every case the vast majority of other people on earth think it's foolish, and has nothing to do with getting into Heaven (or whatever), then one could correctly say that it's "idiotic", at least going by majority vote.

The girl's family is split on the issue. Her father is for the medical treatment, the mother and sisters are superstitious peasants who should be burned at the stake... I mean they support the girl's decision.  It's hard to believe there are people in this modern age with this sort of Middle Ages view of things.  I take it there aren't a lot of hemophiliac Jehovah's Witnesses?

It's interesting that adults generally are given the right to kill or cripple themselves for whatever idiotic reason, by refusing medical treatment because of their religion of choice, but minors are not.  Yet outright suicide is illegal.  So you can refuse to have a blood transfusion when you know you'll die if you don't, but you can't shoot yourself?  Where's the logic there?

The other aspect of it I think should be addressed is financial.  She's in Canada, so tax dollars are paying for her treatment.  If she stopped getting the blood transfusions, and died because of it, after they'd spent a fortune on her chemotherapy, hospital stays, etc, and I were a Canadian tax payer, I'd be pretty damn pissed.  What if you paid for someone to get a heart transplant and they went out and started smoking again and eating three pounds of steak a day? (Well, I'd be pissed, but I suppose this happens all the time.)

A perpetual tragedy is the huge shortage of donor organs in the US; thousands of people die every year waiting for a transplant kidney, liver, heart, etc to become available.  Meanwhile lots of people die and don't allow organ donation for religious beliefs, or just through laziness.

I'd like to see a national system where if you weren't on the list for donor, you could not receive one in donation.  And you couldn't wait and change your status just when you got sick, you had to make the choice when you were of legal age to decide.  That's when most idiots wreck their cars or motorcycles, and the younger body has a lot more useful parts than some 60 year old.

I also wouldn't be opposed to organ donation being a pre-requisite to being treated (for anything) at any public hospital.  Various religions could have their own private hospitals if they were so upset by modern medicine, but if someone is going to suck up tax dollars in their treatment, or even insurance dollars, they should, by god, be forced to share and share alike.  People's religions are fine for how they want to be buried and if they are from some nutty cult that refuses whatever kind of medical care, but when their superstitions are causing other people to die, that's just not acceptable. It's idiotic to bury someone with valuable and life-saving organs in them, or burn them up, or throw them in a medical waste bucket during embalming.  Hospitals should just take whatever they need, and tell the family whatever the family wants to hear.  It's not like they'll ever know; granny isn't going to cut open little Johnny at the wake and count his kidneys.

Of course I think any beliefs that prohibit that sort of thing are foolishness and shouldn't be humored for an instant. The people who have those beliefs think they are important, far more important than anything in life, since heaven and hell are forever.

They're just wrong, that's all.

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