The 2,000 year old modern problem
Following on from my previous post about the Pope’s apparent direct involvement in covering up the illegal sexual activities of some Catholic church staff, here’s something that illustrates how old this so-called “new problem” really is:
The Beast File: Catholic Church Sex Scandals
Two thousand years of sweet fuck-all being done about this problem strongly suggests that exactly the same will continue to be done about it unless the public makes it happen. The right-leaning religiosity of most modern Western governments almost guarantees they won’t be doing anything about it anytime soon.
However, as pointed out by Jack of Kent recently, care does need to be taken to determine whether crimes have actually been committed by Ratzinger. Particularly when you’re looking an international borders and legal differences.
Hat tip: PodBlack Cat
Pre-teen chocolate starfishes too tempting for the men in dresses?
How appalling is this situation that there are even jokes about it?
If you’re unaware of the context: a Catholic bishop is on record using the same disgusting argument that rapists throughout history have used in their own defence: these children were asking for it, so it’s their fault. This is piled on top of the other crap they’ve been spewing about the issue, such as claiming that the voice of thousands of victims now coming forward about their own abuse is just petty gossip or that it’s a Jewish conspiracy (also called “the God-killing Joos done it!” gambit). Today’s latest is that the Pope “forgives” the Beatles.
None of these amateurish attempts at deflection or distraction hides the fact that for centuries, little boys (and girls) placed in the care of authoritarian father figures have not only been getting raped by the people who were supposed to care for them and show them the love and peace of their god, but that the organisation recruiting these monsters actively protects and shields these pederasts from justice by moving them away from one legal jurisdiction and into new predatory hunting grounds. And to add the final insult to that injury, it was The Pope Formerly Known As Ratzinger (TPFKAR) himself who appears to have been directly behind it for quite some time in his role as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was in this role that he earned the telling nicknames of God’s Rottweiler and Pope’s Enforcer — neither have positive connotations.
It is to all our shame that we, as a society, have allowed the status quo to remain. And it is to the worldwide Catholic community’s shame that they elected such a man to be the representative of their god on Earth. As Christopher Hitchens said on Real Time with Bill Maher last month: the act that all levels of society and nearly all cultures consider to be one of the most heinous of crimes is the very one on which the Church wants some wiggle room:
Are we going to say these people are above our law. I appeal to people. I mean, that’s what’s being asked for. If you’re a clergyman, you’re not liable to the laws… Don’t let’s call it child abuse. It’s the rape and torture of children.
I wish success upon the campaign to arrest Ratzinger on his upcoming visit to the UK in September, using the same legal principle that caught Augusto Pinochet in 1998. At the very least, where the will of the majority has not been successful in preventing it, this threat may dissuade him from visiting at a cost of £20M to the taxpayer.
What odds will you give me that, at the last minute, Ratzinger will have to cancel his trip due to “unforeseen circumstances”?
Hat tip: LOLgod
If you really loved me…
The regular reader of this blog already knows that I’m a huge fan of Tim Minchin. So for some pure, unadultered, politically-incorrect fun, enjoy the following music video (probably not recommended for little ears):
If You Really Loved Me by Tim Minchin
Hat tip to PodBlack Cat.
Happy Zombie Jesus Day 2010
Why reinvent the wheel when I can recycle last year’s seasons greeting?
Well, it’s that time of year again — the long-weekend that a number of Western nations observe as a national holiday: the pagan festival of Eostre, better known as Easter, where millions of people gleefully glorify in the brutal killing of their god, who was the son of their god sent by their god to cleanse the world from sins stipulated by their god, for the appeasement of their god.
I have a computer wallpaper that describes it succinctly:
Christianity, n.: Sending telepathic messages to a Jewish ghost letting him know that you will accept him as your master and to ask him to remove a magical curse that was passed down to you because an old woman that was made from the rib of her partner ate a piece of magical fruit from a magical tree because a talking snake told her to.
Ask me again why I’m an Atheist?
Those who recognise that monotheism is one god too many, know it as:
Zombie Jesus Day!
The Parody
According to popular culture and today’s political-religious voices, this holiday all began with…
…the death of a Jewish martyr named Eashoa or Yashua (depending upon which etymology you follow) — who most people know by his translated name of Jesus or Isa — around 2,000 years ago. And then a few days later, it ended with…
…the apparent resurrection of the martyr to the least objective audience possible: Mary Magdalene, sometimes considered to be a love interest or equal leader. Major opposition to this last point is usually from the same people who naïvely think Jesus’s mother died a virgin. (All of this accepts, for the sake of argument, that the people in the story actually lived at that time, that Jesus was born to Mary, that he had a group of followers, etc).
Then some time afterwards, this strange and little-known sect was chosen to replace the polytheistic Roman pantheon as the official religion of the Roman Empire. The Roman Catholic Church was born, complete with its equally absurd Doctrine of the Trinity (one god is three gods but is really just one god — presumably to keep the polytheistic migrants from pantheism happy).
Protestants, particularly ones from modern fundamentalist sects, don’t like this fact but: Catholicism is Christianity. There was no distinction and, with the exception of the schism over the power of the Pope which lead to the formation of the Eastern Orthodox Church, it remained that way until the 16th century Reformation.
For those who haven’t yet completely signed over their rational and critical faculties, here’s the official story for those looking to join the club…
…and is only sanctified by you joining in the cannibalistic ritual of eating the god/man/father/son’s body and drinking his blood. No brains required. Brains…
The Reality
The festival of the Anglo-Saxon pagan goddess Eostre (or Ôstarâ) celebrates the rebirth of life after the long cold winter by marking the coming of spring, and observes the lunar calendar (as seasonal events have done throughout much of civilisation). Most people know it as Easter, and have bought into the claim that it originated with the death of a religious fanatic around 2,000 years ago.
Easter did not originate with the death of Jesus any more than Christmas originated with his birth. As with most Christian holidays, it was piggy-backed onto pre-existing holidays of the culture in which it spread, and then was later enforced and rewritten by the Church as if the original never existed. Hence the Eostre/spring symbolism and timing for Easter, and the Yule/winter solstice symbolism and timing for Christmas. Easter is timed to mark the end of Passover — a national & religious celebration of the story of a brutal god murdering thousands of innocent infants — making them follow a lunar, seasonal calendar. Hence the fact that both occur at seemingly random times between late March and late April, matching the Jewish month of Nisan (also called Aviv, or spring), marking the timing of the barley harvest. And don’t forget the Easter egg and its symbolism of new birth/life.
Rebirth, new life, resurrection… recognising an ongoing theme?
The Incredulity
I’ve clearly parodied the stories surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus, basing them in a more Catholic setting than Protestant as the former has been around the longest and the latter is cherry-picked from the former, but they serve to outline the outlandish beliefs surrounding the holiday being celebrated. I say celebrated, but the facts are that only a tiny percentage of the Christian population actually observe (or even know) all the requirements of this holiday, and the number of people who actually know the popularised Easter story is dwindling yearly. For most of the Western world, Easter is simply a 4-day long-weekend where we may have some nice meals and catch up with family, get away for a few days to the coast or snow, or do some DIY around the house to wash away the winter and prepare the house and garden for the coming spring and summer.
The latter is really what Easter is all about. We’ve come through the harsh winter, those of us left alive and healthy will now rebuild what winter has damaged, and life will begin again for the year — as can be seen all around with plant growth, spring lambs and the returned warmth of the Sun.
It’s a shame that some people voluntarily hang on to Bronze Age superstitions, from a time when humanity wasn’t enlightened enough to realise the reality of the annual wonders occurring around us this time
of year. I understand why church and political leaders encourage and propagate such absurdities as it ensures their unrivalled power — particularly when you can threaten disobedience with eternal torture in a place that the threatened cannot be certain whether such an evil torment exists or not (enter the fallacy of Pascal’s Wager) — but for otherwise intelligent lay-people to do the same thing feels like collusion or appeasement. Something similar to knowing that you don’t need to outrun the lion chasing you to stay alive, merely that you have to outrun the person next to you. It’s a sick rationale from a sick system borne of sick minds.
Despite what believers reading this may think or say: I do not hate people of religion. I can respect the person while despising the belief, whether religious or political. Beliefs do not stop a person from being human, nor from being worthy of treatment as such. That’s the nature of secular humanism.
Humanity is more important than invisible friends.
Ratzingergate and the UK Papal visit
It was a headline I couldn’t resist — an homage to talentless copy editors worldwide.
But seriously, folks… why isn’t the Pope being questioned by the police? Christianity may have tortured and murdered countless people in the last 2,000 years, but they’re no longer above the law. To ignore it is to admit an unconscionable fondness for medieval theocracy.
Stand up and be counted: it’s ‘A’ Week on Facebook!
Many people who either cannot see evidence for the existence of gods or are convinced that gods do not exist (there’s a difference) keep to themselves and never speak of it, watching in bemusement as their loved ones structure their twenty-first century lives according to the words of pre-scientific Bronze Age nomads and shepherds.
Or perhaps they haven’t given much thought to their position on the supernatural — or are frightened for one reason or another — so when asked their beliefs, they’ll write or say the same thing as their family. In some cases this can be an act of self-preservation, as much of the world does not enjoy religious freedom (yet) and can be punished severely. However, for most in the West this normally revolves around our relationships with family, friends and colleagues.
Wherever you live, the unfortunate result of this passive acquiescence is that governments and organisations with a strong religious ideology are then able to claim that the percentage of religious believers is far higher than is actually true (this can be skewed further by families with a domineering religious parent, or parents who take their babies to be christened or equivalent). Religious Tolerance states that, as of 2000, one-third of the world’s population is Christian, 19.6% is Muslim, 13.4% is Hindu, 12.7% are non-religious, and has atheism at 2.5%. They state that non-religious includes those with “no formal, organized religion include agnostics, freethinkers, humanists, secularists, etc” but clearly consider atheists to be a separate category. I think this is misguided at best — I consider myself a Secular Humanist (i.e. humanist), which is very much an atheist world view. One could also say that non-theists (i.e. all those without religion) are 15.2% of the world population, and thus the third-largest group, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate, either.
So with all these statistical fun and games taking place from the school classroom to the highest seats of government power, isn’t it time we stood up to be counted?
Funny you should ask! Next week is the start of the ‘A’ Week on Facebook campaign (29 March to 6 April, 2010), hence the scarlet letter ‘A’ image at the top of this post. From the campaign’s front page:
Good without God? Imagine Facebook with ‘A’s all across the site showing the world is full of people who are ‘good without God‘ and don’t need religion to influence their lives. Imagine the awareness we can raise during ‘A’ Week On Facebook if 1,000s of people take part. Imagine… you can be a part of making a difference…
Details on how to go about joining this campaign can be found at its website:
Simply follow the recommended steps, then you’re good to go!
In the past I’ve been reticent to connect myself with groups such as the Out Campaign, as I consider many of them to be too aggressive to otherwise normal people who just happen to believe in a sky fairy. However, in this case I think the value of a worldwide Facebook atheist awareness campaign outweighs any differences I may have. So those who know me on Facebook can see that my profile picture is now showing the scarlet letter in support of the campaign.
Perhaps this will put paid to the oft-quoted fallacy that atheists are a tiny but vocal minority.
I hope you’ll consider joining the campaign, and look forward to a week of increasing the general public’s awareness of atheists and atheism by showing that:
- It’s okay to be atheist
- It’s okay to let others know you’re atheist
- We’re not all aggressive iconoclasts
- We don’t hate everyone
- We’re not all “angry at God” or “punishing God” for something
- Not all of us reached this point after a traumatic event
- Not all of us insist your unexplained events are hallucination or mental illness
For most of us, atheism is simply a logical process held up to the light and examined critically.
Creationism is… still a lie
My love for the game of Portal is well documented along with my love for Still Alive, Jonathan Coulton‘s fantastic ending song to that game.
Now imagine my surprise and delight to discover that someone has taken Still Alive and turned it into a brilliant science education and anti-Creationism video:
Still a Lie (Portal, Still Alive parody)
How cool is that? It made me laugh, I can tell you. My congratulations to the mixer/masher from whose mind this sprung.
Fortunately, the video shouldn’t be taken down anytime soon, as JoCo releases his works under the Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0 licence (as stated on his downloads page).
There’s probably… an animated image
More gold from the rather scary and creative mind of Crispian Jago. These things needed clearing up, after all!
