Just in case the world ends tomorrow, as predicted by an American Christian group, Family Radio.
Category Archives: religious whackjobs
Ready, fire, aim
As an ex military officer, Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby would be familiar with needing to aim before shooting. However, when he tweeted yesterday t the effect that Australian servicemen and women who we were commemorating on Anzac Day did not fight for an Australia that included gay marriage and Islam, he seems to have forgotten that lesson.
Quite rightly, the response on Twitter was to give it to him with all guns blazing. For example:
“@JimWallaceACL What they fought for was freedom from prejudice and persecution. For all Australians!”
“Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby should be ashamed, using ANZAC day to push a homophobic and racist agenda.”
Wallace later apologised:
“Ok you are right my apologies this was the wrong context to raise these issues. ANZACs mean too much to me to demean this day, not intended.”
So its OK to shitcan gays and muslims, just not on Anzac Day? One of the news headlines I saw yesterday went along the lines of “Christian Lobbyist shames Anzac Day” (I can’t find this now to provide a link). Um, no, he’s actually shaming Christians. That it was done on Anzac Day is insignificant in the overall scheme of things.
From what I know of Christian values, such bigotry is not part of them. Those Christians who appoint Mr Wallace and his ilk to lobby for them might want to consider this carefully when choosing their spokespeople.
It’s just a book
Some nutcase Christian extremist in the US burns a copy of the Koran. A bunch of Afghan Moslems get upset and stage protests. People get killed in the course of these protests.
Ten people died amid fresh protests that began in the centre of the city of Kandahar and spread as police clashed with crowds on Saturday, a day after seven UN staff were killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
What is it about these people that gets them so whipped up into bloody frenzies? It’s just a book. Sure it probably offends your sensibilities, but really, working yourself up into a killing frenzy – over a book? Get a grip on reality and a sense of perspective!
I think US president Barack Obama has got it right when he says:
"The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,"
"However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity.
"No religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonourable and deplorable act.”
If people, both Christian and Moslem, and anything else for that matter, can’t deal with their religion and others peacefully and respectfully, and it causes them to behave like bloodthirsty savages and take extremist positions, perhaps its time they found themselves a new hobby.
Eternal damnation
A New Zealand child-sex offender who believes giving a DNA sample would condemn him to eternal damnation wants an exemption from inclusion on a national police database. David Hugh Chord, 37, is a Christian and believed that, if his DNA was taken, he would be given the "mark of the Beast" and damned for eternity, his lawyer, Michael Bott, said.
Chord is serving two years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty to six counts of an indecent act on a young person, and one of an indecent act on a child last year.
Mr Bott argued Chord’s religious belief should exempt him from having to provide a sample for the database.
"Based upon his interpretation of the Book of Revelation, that means he’s effectively damned and cut off from fellowship with his God."
Chord believed giving a DNA sample would cut him off from his God, and also the Christian community, which would impinge on his rehabilitation.
The judge hearing Mr Chord’s application asked Mr Bott whether Chord’s belief that anything that could identify him would inflict the mark of the Beast on him stretched to photos and fingerprints, which would have been taken when he was arrested. Mr Bott said it did not, but was restricted to DNA, which was the clearest identifier of individuality.
"It’s accepted that DNA is the building block, the key, that shapes human identity."
The judge commented that any God that would damn someone for eternity because a DNA sample was taken against their will was a "pretty tough God or deity or supreme being".
I’m not sure why Mr Chord is worried about eternal damnation – I expect he’s already earnt that for his crimes that he’s in jail for. Nice try though – creative argument.
So my imaginary deity is better than your imaginary deity
And that makes me superior to you, so says David Barker, former Liberal party candidate for the western Sydney electorate of Chifley.
Mr Barker, who calls himself a "man of strong Christian faith", reportedly used his Facebook site to accuse Labor of moving the nation closer to being a Muslim country. In a letter to local Christian leaders seeking their support, pointed out prime minister Julia Gillard was an "atheist" and that his Labor opponent in Chifley, Ed Husic, was a Muslim. Mr Barker said he did not understand why he had been disendorsed as the Liberal candidate for Chifley.
"I made a comment that I believe God is the only way to heaven and we shouldn’t have a Muslim candidate running in that area,”
"I don’t believe that’s exactly in line with what we believe as Australians."
Liberal Party state director Mark Neeham said Mr Barker had not conducted himself in a way the party expected of its candidates. Opposition leader Tony Abbott said attacks on people, based on their religion, had no place "whatsoever" in the election campaign. Which is odd, because at the same time both sides of politics are more than happy to fall over themselves pandering to the redneck racist vote by demonising asylum seekers – but only some of them, inconveniently the ones who by and large are dark skinned and Muslim. The ones coming by plane, conveniently largely European and Asian, and nor Muslim, seem to be ok.
Wanker of the year
In the light of the bushfires in Victoria comes an early contender for wanker of the year.
The Catch the Fire Ministries has tried to blame the bushfires disaster on laws decriminalising abortion in Victoria.
The evangelical church’s leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, claimed he had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with "a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb". Mr Nalliah referred to 2 Chronicles 7:14 to back his assertion.
Mr Nalliah said:
"The Bible is very clear, If you walk out of God’s protection and turn your back on Him, you are an open target for the devil to destroy."
and also:
"In my dream I saw fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably. With this I woke up from my dream with the interpretation as the following words came to me in a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb."
As well as the fires, Mr Nalliah has previously said drought and the world financial crisis could be partly blamed on human sin.
As I said, wanker!
"a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat"
Thats part of the vows in the Traditional version of a Scientology wedding. The groom is reminded that “girls” need “clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat” and is asked to provide them all. The bride is told that “Hear well, sweet xxxx . … For promise binds. Young men are free and may forget. Remind him then that you may have necessities and follies, too.”
Words of wisdom from L Ron Hubbard. I wonder what he was smoking when he wrote them?
But that might not be the version of the ceremony that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes use for their wedding. It could be the Double Ring Ceremony – in it, the minister holds up the couple’s rings and asks that they imagine a triangle inside them, and the couple is asked to imagine affinity, reality and communication as the points of those triangles.
And supposedly intelligent people swallow these ravings from a bad sci-fi novelist?
Religion and tolerance, take 2
Seems that the truth in this story is somewhat different than first presented. The daughter has now been charged with murdering her mother and attempting to murder her father. Seems it was a fairly standard parent/teenager disagreement … albeit one that escalated to the extreme with tragic consequences.
Religion and tolerance
A teenage girl in Queensland tells her father she wants to opt out of her Islamic faith and convert to Christianity. The result, father goes beserk with a knife and kills his wife, mother of the daughter, when she stepped in to protect her.
I’ve always thought religion is supposed to be about values like peace, tolerance and stuff like that. Not sure where murderous rage comes into it?
Technorati Tags: Islam, christianity, murder, peace, tolerance
Muslims take their angry pills (once again)
Why is it that Muslims take offence so easily at anyone making even the slightest criticism of their religion? Are they very insecure about the legitimacy of their beliefs, or something? This week they have been angry at the Pope, who made some comments in a lecture to some theologians in his native Germany. The comments referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil “such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”.
According to the Vatican, the Pope’s remarks have been misconstrued by those taking offence. The academic speech was meant as a “a clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation for violence, from whatever side it may come,” said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.
While the reactions have been modest compared to the beserk responses to the cartoons earlier in the year, among other things:
- Morocco withdrew its Ambassador to the Vatican
- an Egyptian political leader called the Pope’s remarks a mistake which would only be removed by a personal apology
- Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan called the comments “ugly and offensive” and said they should be withdrawn
- Yemen’s president publicly denounced the Pope
- 5 churches in the West Bank were attacked (this is more like we come to expect)
- Egypt’s foreign ministry summoned the Vatican envoy to Cairo to express “extreme regret” at Benedict’s speech.
No fatwas declared so far ….that we know of!
The Vatican said on Saturday the Pope was sorry Muslims had been offended and that his comments had been misconstrued, but Muslim countries and religious groups remained angry at what they said portrayed Islam as a religion tainted with violence. (Perhaps its the crazy jihadists carrying out barbaric acts in the name of Islam, and the crazed violent responses to being accused of violence that actually give Islam its PR problems?)
This is the comment that really made me laugh:
“How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have been aggressive against every country of the Islamic world?” prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said. “Who attacked Afghanistan and who invaded Iraq?”
Ummm … I’ll grant you the invasion of Iraq was pretty dodgy, but Afghanistan – even the most fanatical Islamist could hardly claim the Taliban were innocent of wrongdoing (harbouring Al Quaeda and its training camps) and did not deserve what they got.
I always thought that religious faith is supposed to bring with it inner calm and things like that. On the evidence we see of the behaviour of many Muslims, it doesn’t seem to be hitting the spot for them.
Update (18/09/2006): More reasoned and non-violent responses from those offended by the linking of Islam and violence.
Technorati Tags: Pope Benedict, Catholic Church, Vatican, Muslim, Islam, Mohammad, jihad, protests, violence, faith, religion