Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada, a conservative lawmaker for the Herat province, said parliament withdrew the legislation because of opposition from religious parties that considered the law un-Islamic.
Sometimes, I hardly know how to respond to reports like these.
Mooglets
Following the bad news for Christian leaders generally from the census figures, new research by the Latin Mass Society illustrates a catastrophic decline in Catholicism in Britain.
Hardly surprising, really, given the past few years of revelations.
Moolgets
I really, honestly wish that title was an exaggeration. The Arkansas state legislature recently passed a law requiring a minute of silence at the beginning of each day in public schools, which is explicitly provided for children to silently pray. You’d think that was bad enough.
Unfortunately, when an atheist mother voiced her concerns and objections about this asinine bill (specifically referring to the harassment her 8-year-old atheist daughter would likely receive when the other children noticed she wasn’t praying), Representative John Payton, the man of the hour, simply told her to read two bible verses that would answer her question.
Not that it matters, but what do those verses say?
Here’sRomans 1:19-25:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; butbecame vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened… Professing themselves to be wise,they became fools
… the hell?
And, of course,Psalm 14:1 reads:
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Way to go, Representative. Way to go.
One of the biggest growth areas in political activism around religion is coming from an unlikely source: the nonreligious. And it’s happening far from the marbled corridors of power in the nation’s capital.
The Secular Coalition for America, an umbrella organization that represents 11 nontheistic groups including American Atheists and the American Humanist Association, is looking to take its secular-based activism out of the nation’s capital and into the states.
Beginning in June, the Washington-based SCA will install directors in 18 states including Hawaii, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Alabama. State directors will meet with local politicians and train and mobilize local nontheists to lobby on behalf of secular issues and causes.
Why? Activists say the most important policies that affect nonbelievers don’t come from Washington.
“The majority of erosion to church-state separation is at the local level,” said Serah Blain, the SCA’s first state director, appointed in Arizona in January. “It’s in city councils and school boards and statehouses. And that’s where these things really affect people’s lives, with laws on bullying and abortion and access to health care. And they are passing without much opposition because it isn’t seen as glamorous to lobby locally.”
The announcement comes on the heels of SCA’s appointment of Edwina Rogers, a veteran Republican lobbyist, as its new executive director, a move the group has spun as a means to greater access on Capitol Hill. It is also the latest indication that nontheists — atheists, humanists, skeptics and others who hold no supernatural beliefs — are working to become a political force in their own right.
Amanda Knief, who recently joined American Atheists after working as the SCA’s government relations manager, said nontheists must “show elected officials that we are a political movement that needs to be recognized. That kind of recognition has been lacking because it is not politically savvy. So we need to show them that we are there and that we count.”
This year already represents a high-water mark for political organization and activism among nontheists:
The Reason Rally drew more than 10,000 people to Washington in March, where speakers urged them to contact local and national representatives and ask them to support church-state separation, science education, marriage equality for gays and lesbians, and ending government support of faith-based organizations, among other causes.
The SCA’s 2012 Lobby Day, an event that included training in lobbying techniques and meetings with congressional staff, attracted 280 people from almost all 50 states — up from 80 at the same event a year ago.
Cecil Bothwell, a Democratic candidate for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District is running as an atheist. If he wins, he will join Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., now the only openly atheist member of Congress.
Enlighten the Vote, a nonprofit that supports atheist candidates and issues, is actively seeking atheists to run for public office and trains atheists to lobby their politicians.
The National Atheist Party was established in March 2011 and now claims members in all 50 states.
Ryan Cragun, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tampa who studies American atheism, sees the growing political organization among nontheists as a sign of their maturation as a movement. Yet while Cragun says he personally supports the movement, he does not believe it will have a major impact this election year.
“They are reaching a level of maturity where organization is necessary to maintain structure and keep the movement going,” Cragun said. “But until you are talking about lots of money or lots of voters — and I don’t think they have either of those at this point — I don’t think they are going to be national players.”
That may be a long time coming, said Ellen Johnson, executive director of Enlighten the Vote and former president of American Atheists.
“It is hard to get atheists to agree on anything but their atheism,” she said. “We are mostly liberals, I will grant you that, but once you veer off into anything besides (church and state) separation issues, most atheists will argue.”
The hiring of Rogers to head the SCA is a case in point. Since the announcement of her appointment a week ago, reaction from members of the organizations it represents has been highly mixed.
P.Z. Myers, a University of Minnesota biologist and an influential atheist blogger, denounced her ties to President George W. Bush and former Sen. Trent Lott and her donations to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign.
Jacques Berlinerblau, a Georgetown University professor and expert on faith and voting, has taken a more wait-and-see attitude.
“Ms. Rogers is confronted with a daunting task,” he wrote on May 4 on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. “For all of its chest-thumping and self-congratulatory praise, secularism’s standing in the judicial, legislative and executive branches is arguably at its lowest ebb since the 1950s. And don’t even get me started on its predicament in state houses across the country.”
A large delegation of Government Ministers is to visit the Vatican next week to consult about British Government policy with the Pope. Among the six ministers going to Rome are Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport; Alan Duncan, the Minister for International Development; and Greg Barker, the Energy and Climate Change Minister.
The delegation will be led by Baroness Warsi who will lecture at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy on the subject of the place of religion in modern political discourse.
The British delegation will reportedly discuss climate change, arms proliferation, religious tolerance, interfaith dialogue and the crisis in Somalia and the Horn of Africa with the Pope and Vatican officials.
The Daily Telegraph reports a “Vatican observer” as saying:
“It’s a very strong delegation and it’s a way of showing that the relationship with the Holy See didn’t end in a blaze of fireworks when the Pope’s visit finished. It’s one of the most comprehensive British visits ever in terms of the range of interests represented.”
The politicians will be accompanied by the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols.
Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: “What on earth is a delegation of senior British politicians doing consulting the last theocracy in Europe on our Government policy? We are a democratic nation and we didn’t vote for the Pope – so why are we involving him in policy-making? Polls show that very few people in this country agree with his teachings – and that includes Catholics.
“This is an extremely undesirable development. The Government should be challenging the Vatican’s assumed and suspect power, not indulging it.”
What the bloody fuck?
Why the hell is my Government talking to the bloody Vatican about such important fucking issues? No, seriously, WHY?
Ugh.
~Mooglets
Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkinsand Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationism in science classes.
The Department for Education has revised its model funding agreement, allowing the education secretary to withdraw cash from schools that fail to meet strict criteria relating to what they teach. Under the new agreement, funding will be withdrawn for any free school that teaches what it claims are “evidence-based views or theories” that run “contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations”.
The British Humanist Association (BHA), which has led a campaign against creationism – the movement that denies Darwinian evolution and claims that the Earth and all its life was created by God – described the move as “highly significant” and predicted that it would have implications for other faith groups looking to run schools.
Dawkins, who was one of the leading lights in the campaign, welcomed confirmation that creationists would not receive funding to run free schools if they sought to portray their views as science. “I welcome all moves to ensure that creationism is not taught as fact in schools,” he said. “Government rules on this are extremely welcome, but they need to be properly enforced.”
Free schools, which are state-funded and run by local people or organisations, do not need to follow the national curriculum. Scientific groups have expressed concerns that their spread will see a reduction in the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Several creationist groups have expressed an interest in opening schools in towns and cities across England, including Bedford, Barnsley, Sheffield and Nottingham. Critics say they seek to promote creationism, or the doctrine of “intelligent design”, as a scientific theory rather than as a myth or metaphor.
One creationist organisation, Truth in Science, which encourages teachers to incorporate intelligent design into their science teaching, has sent free resources to all secondary schools and sixth-form colleges.
A BHA campaign, called “Teach evolution, not creationism”, saw 30 leading scientists and educators call on the government to introduce statutory guidance against the teaching of creationism. The group said if the government would not support the call, an explicit amendment to the wording of the funding agreement could have the same effect. Last week the Department for Education confirmed it had amended the agreement, although a spokesman denied it was the result of pressure from scientists. He said the revision made good on a pledge regarding the teaching of creationism given when the education secretary, Michael Gove, was in opposition. “We will not accept any academy or free school proposal which plans to teach creationism in the science curriculum or as an alternative to accepted scientific theories,” the spokesman said, adding that “all free school proposals will be subject to due diligence checks by the department’s specialist team”.
The revised funding agreement has been seized upon by anti-creationists who are pressing for wider concessions from the government.
“It is clear that some faith schools are ignoring the regulations and are continuing to teach myth as though it were science,” Dawkins said. “Evolution is fact, supported by evidence from a host of scientific disciplines, and we do a great disservice to our young people if we fail to teach it properly. “
A spokeswoman for the BHA said: “The government’s new wording is quite wide and in practice could prevent those who promote extreme religious or particular spiritual or pseudoscientific approaches from including them as part of the school curriculum as science or as evidence-based.”
Thanks to pintucks for the submission :)
~Mooglets
“Heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
—-
This is an old article, but an interesting one.
Thanks for the submission :)
~Mooglets
At least three people in London with HIV have died after they stopped taking life saving drugs on the advice of their Evangelical Christian pastors.
The women died after attending churches in London where they were encouraged to stop taking the antiretroviral drugs in the belief that God would heal them, their friends and a leading HIV doctor said.
Responding to the BBC London investigation, Lord Fowler, the former health minister responsible for the famous Aids awareness campaign of the 1980s, condemned the practice.
“It’s just wrong, bad advice that should be confronted,” said the Tory peer, who chaired last month’s House of Lords committee into HIV.
Jane Iwu, 48, from Newham, east London, described one case, saying: “I know of a friend who had been to a pastor. She told her to stop taking her medication - that God is a healer and has healed her.”
“This lady believed it. She stopped taking her medication. She passed away,” said Ms Iwu, who has HIV herself.
‘Irresponsible’ adviceBBC London spoke to a second woman from east London who told of a friend who died after taking advice from her pastor who told her to stop taking her antiretroviral drugs.
Meanwhile, the director of a leading HIV research centre in east London said she had dealt with a separate case in which a person with HIV died as a result of advice from a pastor.
“I’ve only seen that once, but it has happened,” said Prof Jane Anderson, director of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Health and HIV, in Hackney.
“We see patients quite often who will come having expressed the belief that if they pray frequently enough, their HIV will somehow be cured,” she added.“We have seen people who choose not to take the tablets at all so sometimes die.”
Lord Fowler condemned pastors giving this advice, saying: “It’s dangerous to the public and dangerous in terms of public health.”
“It’s irresponsible,” he said, suggesting pastors should instead “come off the air on it, look at things much more seriously, and not give this completely wrong advice to the public”.
HIV prevention charity African Health Policy Network (AHPN) says a growing number of London churches have been telling people the power of prayer will “cure” their infections.
“This is happening through a number of churches. We’re hearing about more cases of this,” AHPN chief Francis Kaikumba said.
AHPN said it believed the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN), which has UK headquarters in Southwark, south London, may be one of those involved in such practices.
The church is headed by Pastor T B Joshua, Nigeria’s third richest clergyman, according to a recent Forbes richlist.
When approached by BBC London, leaders of the church described themselves as Evangelical Christian pastors.
The church’s website, which was set up in Lagos, Nigeria, shows photos of people the church claims have been “cured” of HIV through prayer.
HIV-Aids healingIn one example, the church’s website claims: “Mrs Badmus proudly displays her two different medical records confirming she is 100% free from HIV-Aids following the prayer of Pastor T B Joshua.”
“HIV-Aids healing” is listed on the church’s website among “miracles” it says it can perform.“Cancer healing” and “baby miracles” are also advertised.
The church’s UK website promotes a monthly “prayer line” for which it says: “If you are having a medical condition, it is important you bring a medical report for record and testimony purposes.”
It has posted videos on the internet showing its services in south London, in which participants who claim to have arthritis, asthma and schizophrenia say they have been healed after being sprayed with “anointing water” provided by the church.
Mary Buhari, 44 , from central London, told the BBC she had had a phone conversation with a representative of the church, in which she was told she could be cured of HIV.
“I was told they can cure any illness on Earth through prayer, including HIV,” she said.
However, when asked by BBC London if it claimed its pastors can cure HIV, SCOAN responded: “We are not the healer. God is the healer. Never a sickness God cannot heal. Never a disease God cannot cure.
“We don’t ask people to stop taking medication,” the church added. “Doctors treat; God heals.”
The recent House of Lords committee report into HIV awareness said faith groups’ approaches to supporting people with HIV had improved but more needed to be done.
“It is essential that faith leaders engage with HIV as an issue and provide effective and truthful support and communication around the subject,” it said.
A Department of Health spokesman responded to the report saying: “Over 60 recommendations were made and we will be responding to Parliament in the next few months.”
From BBC News Wow. London. London, people. Jesus effin’ christ. Critical thinking. Critical thinking. All these people are professing that praying will not work, they’re all saying ‘yes, some people come to us thinking that if they ray it will go away’ - but are any of them actually telling them that, actually, fucking no. Religious bullshit will not fucking work, because religion is bullshit and God doesn’t fucking exist, so praying will in fact do absolutely bollocks all. No. Of course they don’t. Not even in softened up and pasny’d terms. Because why? Because we’re not meant to offend people. Telling someone who sincerely believes that praying will magically make everything go away is bollocks, is apparently offensive. Telling someone that they should rely on empirical fucking scientific research and remedies, not bullshit made up bollocks is apparently offensive. But somehow allowing these people their delusions and in turn allowing them to die of them? That’s all fine and bloody dandy. Ugh. ~Mooglets
The American Family Association is at it again. According to AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer, people who have sex before marriage or engage in acts of homosexuality should be charged with a crime.
“These are behaviors that can be made illegal, and should be made illegal: those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral — that means it’s perfectly appropriate to have laws against what the law calls fornication, absolutely appropriate to make that illegal; men who practice homosexuality, perfectly permissible,” said Fischer.
“In fact, we’re directed, we’re told in the Scriptures that it’s a good idea, this is the purpose of the law, it’s for the lawless and disobedient to engage in homosexuality — it’s perfectly appropriate for that kind of behavior to be against the law,” he said.
It’s absurd really. Millions of people around the country would be locked up if Fischer and the AFA had their way. And it’s quite interesting that Fischer would use Bible scripture to push his agenda, since the Bible also says that the only sexuality people should worry about is their own. Just reading Matthew 7:1-5 and John 8:3-11 will make this apparent. In other words, Fischer and the AFA shouldn’t concern themselves about what other people do in the bedroom. They should only be concerned with themselves.
From AddictingInfo
Right. Great. Now lets go through all the numerous laws and rules in the Bible and see how many he himself has broken and lock him up for them, shall we? I mean, the being gay thing isn’t even on the top ten, so he’s had to go through Leviticus to get that particular law, so he must have seen the other ones in there alongside the gay bits, right? And lets take a guess at how many he’s likely broken without even thinking about it.
These people sicken me beyond all measurement.
~Mooglets
Leaders within Ohio’s Amish community faced a soul-searching question after what they say were hair-cutting attacks against several followers of their faith. Should they cooperate with authorities or adhere to their beliefs of forgiving one another and keeping disputes private?
In the end, church bishops decided to seek help from the outside.
“They didn’t feel they could get it stopped any other way,” said Timothy Zimmerly, a sheriff in Holmes County where authorities say an Amish bishop and his son were held down while men from a breakaway Amish group used scissors and a clipper to cut their beards.
Five men were arrested and accused of cutting the hair of several people, offensive acts to the Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry.
While the attacks in recent weeks might seem bizarre to outsiders, they have struck at the core of the Amish identity and tested their principles.
They strongly believe that they must be forgiving in order for God to forgive them. Often that means handing out their own punishment and not reporting crimes to law enforcement.
One couple refused to press charges even after acknowledging that their two sons and another man came into their house last month, held them down, and cut the father’s beard and the mother’s hair.
The husband and wife who live near the village of Mesopotamia didn’t report the attack and only talked after authorities said they had received a tip, said Trumbull County sheriff Thomas Altiere.
“They want to turn the other cheek, let God take care of it,” said Altiere, who lacked enough evidence on his own to make an arrest.
The wife of an Amish bishop who said her husband’s beard was cut by members of the same splinter group last week said they decided to press charges so that his attackers would get help and to prevent anyone else from getting hurt.
“This is not for revenge,” said Arlene Miller, who recounted how several men came to their farmhouse near Carrollton in eastern Ohio and tried to get at her husband’s beard while he struggled with them.
“We don’t believe in fighting,” she said. “We do believe in turning the other cheek, but in this case there’s nothing wrong with struggling to get away.”
Two of those arrested a week ago are the sons of the breakaway group’s leader, Sam Mullet. He has denied ordering the beard-cuttings but says they were in response to criticism he has received from other Amish religious leaders about his leadership practices, including excommunicating people in his own group.
“One thing for sure is, I’m not calling the law in against one of the other Amish people or against you people,” Mullet said at his farm outside Bergholz, a village where he established his community in 1995. “I don’t do that. I have no right to call the sheriff to defend myself.”
Ohio’s Amish communities are centered in rural counties south and east of Cleveland. They have a modest lifestyle and are deeply religious. Their traditions of traveling by horse and buggy and forgoing most modern conveniences distance themselves from the outside world and symbolize a yielding to a collective order.
While it’s uncommon for the Amish to take their disputes public and enlist authorities, there is no central authority to decide so it usually falls to the church leaders or those involved.
This year, members of Amish communities in Ohio who federal prosecutors say lost millions in an investment deal operated by a fellow Amish man asked a judge to let them settle the matter out of court. The judge rejected the request.
Authorities in Missouri prosecuted an Amish man a year ago on sexual assault charges after Amish family members of the victims and bishops came to authorities. The prosecution of an Amish individual was very rare in the rural county, said prosecuting attorney Mark Fisher.
“If it weren’t for Amish coming forward, we would not even have known about it,” he said.
It’s more typical for police to get involved if the Amish feel they are in danger or when they’re involved in a high-profile crime and have no other choice, said David Weaver-Zercher, a professor of American religious history at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa.
He co-wrote a book, “Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy,” after a gunman shot 10 schoolgirls, killing five, inside a one-room schoolhouse five years ago in Nickel Mines, Pa.
The Amish were widely praised for their immediate forgiveness after the shooting and reaching out to comfort the gunman’s widow.
Interacting with police after the shooting changed some perceptions among the Amish about dealing with law enforcement and created friendships that continue, Weaver-Zercher said.
“Many people gained an increase level of regard or comfort after what happened,” he said. “There’s often cases where Amish people become close to authorities, and in some ways those walls are lowered.”
From Fox News
On the one hand, I’m trying not to laugh my head off at the sheer stupidity of it. On the other hand, I’m incensed at the physical attacks made on these people. It may only be a beard and hair cut - but they are attacked in their homes, held down and forced against their wills to have these cuts. And that is, actually, a physical attack on a person.
I don’t care what justifications the attackers are coming up with, and I don’t care that it is rather absurd, and I don’t care that I think the Amish beliefs are just as, if not more, silly than any number of religions I could name - these are physical, bodily attacks.
I’m glad the victims decided to actually use the authorities for this, rather than leave it alone.
~Mooglets
James ‘Fat Boy’ Onen has been speaking in the UK of his fight against superstition and religion in Uganda
An atheist talkshow host and 12 “like-minded people” are attempting to tackle superstition, mysticism and witchcraft in Uganda. James “Fat Boy” Onen is an on-air presenter for Sanyu FM and a co-founder ofFreethought Kampala. Through Facebook campaigns, newspaper articles and regular monthly meetings, Onen believes Freethought Kampala is providing the only rational platform for tackling superstition in Uganda.
This month, Onen has been speaking at events around the UK after being invited by the British Humanist Association (BHA). Addressing small gatherings, he said everyday Ugandans were over-reliant on a “mixed bag” of belief in black magic and Pentecostal Christianity.
“On my talkshow, I offer two million Ugandan shillings to anyone that would prove to me that witchcraft works,” he told an audience at the Camden Head pub in London this week. “After three months, one person came forward and took me to a witch doctor, of course he could not do anything.” He continued: “But that was not sufficient to change people’s minds because they are of the view that evil spirits exist. This is because their pastors are telling them every day that Uganda is cursed and that Uganda suffers from a ‘generational curse’.”
He told a story of how a Ugandan primary school was shut down because “demons had possessed the children and the management couldn’t keep the children under control”. Pastors were called but to no avail, explained Onen, who says the children demonstrated symptoms of mass hysteria. This story was not a one-off and was all too common, he said. Meanwhile, Aids victims die because their spiritual leaders advise them not to take antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), he claimed. On top of this,Uganda lives under the shadow of the proposed anti-gay bill, which suggests the death penalty in some cases.
Onen “came out” as an atheist in 2008 after a spate of reports on child sacrifice. He said reading all the “bullshit” about superstition and witchcraft in the press made him co-found Freethought Kampala. “I decided that enough was enough. I and some like-minded individuals decided that we should get together to make a rational viewpoint part of the national conversation.”
Before Christianity grew exponentially in Africa, most adhered to African traditional religion, which forms the basis of witchcraft and superstition in Africa. Onen is less critical of the late 19th-century Christian missionaries to Uganda and explained how the protestant preacher Alexander Mackaywould throw magic charms into fire to prove they did not work. Onen believes it was the rise of Pentecostalism in the 1950s, however, which boosted Africans’ fear of spells and superstition. “Charismatic Christianity is making things worse by over-emphasising it, by advertising it, by lending credence to the validity of claims that witchcraft is efficacious, by fully absorbing that worldview into their worldview,” he argued.
When challenged that some Pentecostal churches, such as Watoto Church in Kampala, regularly taught against belief in witchcraft, Onen was dismissive. “I’m not sure how it helps to tell people to not practise witchcraft or to engage in black magic on grounds that it is an evil thing to do while reinforcing the view that it is actually efficacious.”
Commenting on the talks, Joanna Sadgrove, a specialist in African Christianity who has researched in Uganda for 15 years, said Onen did not capture the diversity of expression of religion in Africa. “There are religious leaders who capitalise on people who don’t have control over their lives. There are also Christians who are doing good works in Ugandan society and being part of a community of faith.”
She went on to say: “Witch doctors, child sacrifice and belief in demon possession have been around for years in Uganda, they are just more talked about at the moment because of an increasing western presence in Uganda. Journalists feed a western fascination with these stories and child sacrifice certainly makes the headlines.”
From The Guardian ~Mooglets
