OVO

Howard Friedman: Child Custody Shift OK'd For Failure To Follow Religious Upbinging Agreement [LINK-ZUM]

In Herschfus v. Herschfus, (MI Ct. App., Dec. 27, 2007), a Michigan appellate court upheld a lower court's modification of a custody award. The court gave sole legal and physical custody of a divorced couple's child, Jacob, to the father, based in significant part on the mother's failure to comply with the agreement entered at the time of the divorce to raise Jacob in the Orthodox Jewish religion. It rejected the mother's First Amendment challenge, finding that "the trial court's ruling was constitutionally appropriate because it was based on Jacob's needs and not on a value judgment regarding the parties' practice of religion."

[From the highly recommended blog Religion Clause. In the United States of America, a child can be legally separated from his mother because she failed to get him to present as believing a specific state-mandated superstition. Compare this with the case of Edgardo Mortara, in which a child was legally separated from his mother because she failed to get him to present as believing a specific state-mandated superstition. Of course these are totally different cases, because Jacob lives in the secular United States and wasn't Jewish enough, while Edgardo lived in the theocracy of the Vatican See and was too Jewish. It's all a matter of presenting as believing the right superstition in the right nation. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, judaism, theocracy

John MacDonald: Mohels Give Non-Jewish Babies a Slice of Tradition [LINK-ZUM]

When his son was born, Reverend Louis DeCaro Jr. was dismayed to learn that none of the doctors on call at Manhattan's Allen Pavilion hospital had time to perform the circumcision. At a loss, the DeCaros turned for advice to their Manhattan pediatrician, Andrew Mutnick, who offered a simple solution: Hire a Jewish ritual circumciser, known as a mohel. [...] "When [a circumcision] is done by a mohel, you appreciate the gravity, the beauty of the religious connotations," DeCaro said. [...]

According to [Emily Blake in New York and Joel Shoulson in Philadelphia], non-Jews make up between 2% and 5% of their clientele. Some, like the DeCaros, are motivated initially by practical circumstances, but others seem drawn to the mohels for spiritual reasons, if not explicitly religious ones. Both Blake and Sherman have even been approached by "Torah-observant Christians" - those dedicated to observing Old Testament commandments - seeking to have their sons circumcised on the eighth day after the birth. In all cases, families say they are drawn to the intimacy and convenience of a nonritual circumcision performed at home.

[Article continues at link. Beautiful, religious, intimate, convenient - fine words to describe infant genital mutilation by untrained amateurs to satisfy a superstition dictated thousands of years ago by an invisible monster that lives in the sky. If these parents had a stranger play doctor with their babies for any reason other than religion, they would rightly be arrested, tried, and imprisoned. But because they do it for religious reasons, they are forgiven. Religion makes unnecessary cosmetic surgery somehow become a good idea. Religion makes everything okay, because it's ancient and sacred and stuff. Like the ancient and sacred tradition of performing circumcisions by chewing off parts of a baby's penis. Haw, ain't God good! - Trevor Blake]

Labels: judaism, krankheit

Trevor Blake: NOW and Muslim Women, 19 December 2007 [LINK-ZUM]

Previously, in Where Are You Now? and NOW and Sharia, I asked why the National Association of Women had made no comment about a woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes by an Islamic court for the crime of being outside unaccompanied by a male relative (this after she was gang raped). After global protest, none of it from NOW, the King of Saudi Arabia gave her a pardon. As far as I know, NOW continues to remain silent on her fate. But NOW has (as of 19 December 2007) placed a link to Muslim Women: Damsels in Distress? by Soumaya Ghannoushi on their Web site. NOW precedes the link with a disclaimer reading "NOW recognizes the importance of the information conveyed in the links below, but does not necessarily endorse the content." Weak praise offered after others fought their fight for them.

From Ghannoushi's essay: "It seems that Muslim women - particularly those living in western capitals- are destined to remain besieged by two debilitating discourses, which though different in appearance, are one in essence. The first of these is conservative and exclusionist, sentencing Muslim women to a life of childbearing and rearing, lived out in the narrow confines of their homes at the mercy of fathers, brothers, and husbands. Revolving around notions of sexual purity and family honour, it appeals to religion for justification and legitimisation. The other is a 'liberation' discourse that vows to break Muslim woman's bondage and free her of the oppressive yoke of an aggressive, patriarchical, and backward society. She is a mass of powerlessness and enslavement; the embodiment of seclusion, silence, and invisibility. Her only hope of deliverance from the cave of veiling and isolation lies in the benevolent intervention of this force of emancipation. It will save her from her hellishly miserable and bleak existence, to the promised heaven of enlightenment and progress. It is a game of binaries that pits one stereotype against another: the wretched caged female Muslim victim and her ruthless jailer society against an idealised 'west' that is the epitome of enlightenment, rationalism, and freedom. Those escapees who leave the herd are held up as living testimonies to the arduousness of transition from the twilights of tribe, religion and tradition, to the dawn of reason, individualism, and liberation."

I suggest that there is a world of difference between the West and the Muslim world, and that it is not at all 'one in essence.' Even if I were to grant in full Ghannoushi's claim that women in the West are patronized, this is not the same at all as women being stoned to death, having their genitals mutilated, or being subject to honor killings - all part of the Muslim day to day world. If Ghannoushi can't tell the difference between being belittled and being beheaded, let her try both on for size and see if direct experience counts for more than abstract politics. Or perhaps Ghannoushi might care to comment on how Nazia and her husband Mumtaz celebrated Eid ul Adha, the Islamic ritual of sacrifice, this past week. Is there a difference between what Nazia experienced and, say, a woman getting passed by in a promotion for a job due to her gender? I say yes, Ghannoushi says no. In their cultural relativism and abstract politics, Ghannoushi and NOW have a hands-off policy of women getting their hands cut off.

NOW has lost any standing it may have once had as an advocate of women's rights.

Labels: islam, sex

Abul Taher: Muslims break taboo to allow guide dog into mosque [LINK-ZUM]

A retriever is in training to become the first dog in Britain to be permitted to enter a mosque, acting as a guide for its blind Muslim owner. The animal has been chosen because it salivates less than usual, thus reducing the risk of flicking spittle onto other worshippers at the Al Falah

Keeping pet dogs is considered "haram" (the Arabic word for "forbidden") in Islamic teaching, because they are regarded as unclean, particularly their saliva. The mosque took its decision after advice from imams and scholars at the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), who carried out a full review of Islamic teaching on dogs. [...] Ibrahim Mogra, a senior imam at the MCB, who has overseen the review of teaching on guide dogs, said they could be justified as they served an "urgent practical purpose". He said: "We found the Koran allows Muslims to use dogs for hunting. So if Muslims can eat a prey bitten by dogs, then there should not be a problem using them to guide you if you are blind."

[Article continues at link. This is an example of how religion tries to have it both ways. On the one hand, keeping dogs is haram - an eternal, unchanging, infallible, supreme, all-knowing Allah told us so! On the other hand, we can talk about it and change the rules if it suits our urgent practical purpose. It might have helped the 'revelation' along that in June a UK Muslim cab driver was fined for refusing a blind couple with a guide dog access to his cab. Just as the 'revelation' to allow Black men to lead Mormon Boy Scout troops miraculously came at around the time lawsuits against the Mormons were being filed. Or the 'revelation' that Mormon polygamy was for heaven and not Earth miraculously came at around the time Utah wanted to join the United States. It is good that theists try to have it both ways. Debating religion and making changes are both steps toward secularization, in which human reason and compassion trumps tradition. Secular humanists, like atheists, just get on with things. Religious humanists, as these Muslims are whether they want to be or not, may cloak their reason and compassion in superstitious garb. But at the end of the day they recognize themselves and not an invisible monster that lives in the sky as the true active moral agent. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: islam, mormon, race

MNF: Sunni, Shia March Together in Baghdad for Peace [LINK-ZUM]

Approximately 1,000 Iraqi citizens, of both Shia and Sunni religions, joined together on the sectarian fault line in Rawaniyah, the Karkh District of Baghdad, to march with one another in what they called a "Peace March," Dec. 19. [...] With Iraqi Army and Iraqi policemen maintaining the security on the streets and within the crowd during the event, they were able to successfully complete the march for united peace among all Iraqis.

[Article continues at link. I am always glad to report the advance of secular values like tolerance of difference among advocates of superstition like Muslims. I never get to do as much reporting of good news as I'd like. And I'm not happy that the only source for this story is the occupying military force in Iraq. They are perhaps not the most trustworthy source. For instance, they fail to mention that December 19th is the anniversary of the death of Saddam Hussein. Is the Muslim world so hell-bent on killing themselves and the rest of us that the only good news about them is utterly suspect? - Trevor Blake]

Labels: islam

Jeff Jacoby: The Islamist war on Muslim women [LINK-ZUM]

The "Qatif girl" won a reprieve last week. On Dec. 17, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah pardoned the young woman, who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after she pressed charges against seven men who had raped her and a male acquaintance in 2006. Two weeks earlier, Sudan's president extended a similar reprieve to Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher convicted of insulting Islam because her 7-year-old students named a teddy bear Muhammad. Gibbons had been sentenced to prison, but government-organized street demonstrators were loudly demanding her execution. [...]

No international furor saved Aqsa Parvez, a Toronto teenager, whose father was charged on Dec. 11 with strangling her to death because she refused to wear a hijab. "She just wanted to look like everyone else," one of Aqsa's friends told the National Post, "and I guess her dad had a problem with that." No reprieve came for Banaz Mahmod, either. She was 20, a Kurdish immigrant to Britain, whose father and uncle had her killed last year after she left an abusive arranged marriage and fell in love with a man not from the family's village in Kurdistan. Banaz was choked to death with a bootlace, stuffed into a suitcase, and buried in a garden 70 miles away. More than 25 such "honor killings" have been confirmed in Britain's Muslim community in recent years. Many more are suspected. [...]

By Western standards, the subjugation of women by Muslim fanatics, and the sometimes pathological Islamist obsession with female sexuality, are unthinkable. Time and again they lead to shocking acts of violence and depravity: [...] In San Francisco, a young Muslim woman was shot dead after she uncovered her hair and put on makeup in order to be a maid of honor at a friend's wedding. [...]

All these are only examples - the tip of a dreadful iceberg that will never be demolished until Muslims by the millions rise up against it. As for the rest of us, we too have an obligation to raise our voices. It took a worldwide outcry to spare "Qatif girl" and Nazanin. But there are countless others like them, and our silence may seal their fate.

[Article continues at link. The West is largely a Christian culture, but a secular Christian culture. Christianity is still tied to the Bible and all its support for slavery, all its oppression of women, all its scientific nonsense. But secular Christianity can simply ignore these cruel and foolish practices, picking out the good stuff from the Bible and getting on with things. The Muslim world has so far rejected the secular and has no intention of getting rid of its support for slavery, all its oppression of women, all its scientific nonsense. I hope the Muslim world can get its act together, keep the good stuff and join the rest of us in the 21st Century (even joining the 19th would be an improvement), but there isn't much the West can peacefully do to make that happen. But we can do something about honor killings in the West. Prosecute the murderers and their murderous support system. Use the same techniques that were successful against the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia - crushing taxation, relentless arrests and incarceration, and inescapable social opprobrium. No honor for honor killers, not one second of respect for their sacred traditions and ancient culture. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, islam, science, sex, slavery, theocracy

Trevor Blake: Iconoclasts [LINK-ZUM]

Those who destroy or harm the artwork of others are sometimes called iconoclasts. The term is also used to describe those who destroy or harm religious artwork. The great majority of religious iconoclasts are, themselves, religious. The sort of iconoclasts I am interested in are trying to make something new happen, not replace one old idea with another old idea.

Rindy Sam kissed a solid-white painting by Cy Twombly, leaving lipstick traces that will never come off. Laszlo Toth rained down hammer blows on Michelangelo's statue Pieta. Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi jumped on My Bed, an art installation by Tracey Emin. Chai and Xi tried to urinate on Duchamp's sculpture The Fountain but failed. Pierre Pinoncelli, however, both urinated on The Fountain and knocked chips off of it with a hammer. Mary Richardson took a butcher's knife to the painting Venus in the Mirror by Rokeby Valasquez (this act seems to have been done for a 'cause,' but I'll give it an honorable mention). Wilhelmus de Rijk took a knife to Night Watch by Rembrandt. William Lloyd destroyed the Portland Vase. DaVinci's The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist was subject to a shotgun blast, Danae by Rembrandt got a splash of sulfuric acid, and Michelangelo's David also got the hammer. Tony Shafrazi spray-painted "KILL LIES ALL" onto Pablo Picasso's Guernica. The Little Mermaid is subject to ongoing acts of iconoclasm. And oh my, there are more, many more, iconoclasts...

Labels: art

Uppsala Universitet: Number of conflicts in the world no longer declining [LINK-ZUM]

The trend toward fewer conflicts reported by peace researchers since the early 1990s now seems to have been broken. [...] Since the most conflict-ridden years in the early 1990s, a continuous decline was registered up to 2002. Since that time the number has held steady at around 30 active armed conflicts per year. This is probably also the case for 2007. [...] The Middle East is the region in which peace initiatives are most clearly conspicuous in their absence. The central importance of the region for the world's oil supply and for world religions makes this serious.

[Article continues at link. There are some limited tools at our disposal to change our dependence on oil. Where appropriate, we should employ them and thereby lessen that specific cause of war. There are 100% effective tools at our disposal to change our dependence on religion. They are called atheism and secular humanism. If we fail to employ them and thereby lessen that specific cause of war, perhaps we are not deserving of peace. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: fight, science, theocracy

Robert Spencer: Hitchens simply cannot be this stupid [LINK-ZUM]

Hitchens reflects the popular view, which is that the onus for slavery is squarely on the West. [... however...] Some of the evidence that Islamic slavery still goes on consists of a spate of slavery cases involving Muslims in the United States. A Saudi named Homaidan Al-Turki was sentenced in September 2006 to 27 years to life in prison, for keeping a woman as a slave in his home in Colorado. For his part, Al-Turki claimed that he was a victim of anti-Muslim bias. He told the judge: "Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit. The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution." The following month, an Egyptian couple living in Southern California received a fine and prison terms, to be followed by deportation, after pleading guilty to holding a ten-year-old girl as a slave. And in January 2007, an attache of the Kuwaiti embassy in Washington and his wife were charged with keeping three Christian domestic workers from India in slave-like conditions in al-Saleh's Virginia home. One of the women remarked: "I believed that I had no choice but to continue working for them even though they beat me and treated me worse than a slave." Slavery is still practiced openly today in two Muslim countries, Sudan and Mauritania. [...] There is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well - notably Saudi Arabia, which only abolished slavery in 1962, Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970, and Niger, which didn't abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and as many as one million people remain in bondage. Slaves are bred, often raped, and generally treated like animals.

[Article continues at link. It was the secularization of Christianity, and not Christianity, that ended the open slave trade in the West. The Bible contains exactly no admonishments to slave owners or the slave trade. As Christianity accomodated the advances of secular morals, it moved away from slavery. It is the resistance of Islam to secularization that keeps the open slave trade alive in the Muslim world. The Quran does contain some admonishments to slave owners and the slave trade, but it also contains support for the slave trade. The secularization of Islam will swing the Muslim world away from slavery, and the lack of secularization will keep it in place. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, islam, slavery

Trevor Blake: Sleep Chamber Wishes You a Merry XXX-Mas [LINK-ZUM]

Brad Miller is documenting the work of John Zewizz, aka Sleep Chamber. This is much-needed archival work, as Sleep Chamber was a band deserving of far more positive attention than it got. Anyone interested in the sort of sex-heavy occult electronic music of earlier Coil or Psychic TV would do well to see what America had to offer in that genre. I corresponded with John in the late 1980s, trading my zine for his videotapes. Sleep Chamber spawned Women of the SS, who became Women of Sodom. Here is a digitalization of a remarkably rare holiday compilation cassette edited by John Zewizz. John, wherever you are, take care and thank you.

Labels: magick, music, ovo, sex, zine

BMC Evolutionary Biology: Cryptic diversity and deep divergence in an upper Amazonian frog, Eleutherodactylus ockendeni [LINK-ZUM]

The forests of the upper Amazon basin harbour some of the world's highest anuran species richness, but to date we have only the sparsest understanding of the distribution of genetic diversity within and among species in this region. To quantify region-wide genealogical patterns and to test for the presence of deep intraspecific divergences that have been documented in some other neotropical anurans, we developed a molecular phylogeny of the wide-spread terrestrial leaflitter frog Eleutherodactylus ockendeni (Leptodactylidae) from 13 localities throughout its range in Ecuador using data from two mitochondrial genes (16S and cyt b; 1246 base pairs). [...] Our findings uncover previously unsuspected cryptic species diversity within the common leaflitter frog E. ockendeni, with at least three different species in Ecuador. While these clades are clearly geographically circumscribed, they do not coincide with any existing landscape barriers. Divergences are ancient, from the Miocene, before the most dramatic mountain building in the Ecuadorean Andes. Therefore, this diversity is not a product of Pleistocene refuges. Our research coupled with other studies suggests that species richness in the upper Amazon is drastically underestimated by current inventories based on morphospecies.

[Something to keep in mind next time you read about how many species are dying out. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: science

Trevor Blake: Gulfstream II # N987SA [LINK-ZUM]

It appears that the United States Government is using a single aircraft to both kidnap people from Europe and the United States to fly them to the Guantanamo torture camp in occupied Cuba and to run drugs. I'd prefer to be paying my taxes to a government that did neither of these things.

30 August 2007: Gulfstream II #N987SA is bought by Donna Blue Aircraft Inc.
16 September 2007: Gulfstream II #N987SA is sold to Clyde O'Connor and Greg Smith.
18 September 2007: Gulfstream II #N987SA takes off from Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport headed for Toluca (near Mexico City).
24 September 2007: Gulfstream II #N987SA takes off from Rio Negro, Colombia. It is chased by Mexican military helicopters and crashes near Tixkokob, Mexico. Soldiers find 132 bags containing about 3.6 tons (3.3 metric tons) of cocaine inside.

Reporte Oriente, Avion usado por la CIA y la DEA traficaba drogas 29 November 2007: "An executive jet that the United States government used for years to extradite criminals from Colombia and Taliban from Europe to the base at Guantanamo, Cuba, is the same jet which two months ago crashed in a jungle area of the Yucatan Peninsula , Mexico, with a cargo of 3.3 tons of cocaine that apparently were loaded in Medellin." [Translation via Google]

More links, dates, information:
Daily Kos: CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE.
Narco News: New Document Provides Further Evidence That Owner of Crashed Cocaine Jet Was a U.S. Government Operative; Mysterious Jet Crash Is Rare Portal Into the
'Dark Alliances" of the Drug War.
Pimpin Turtle: CIA Plane Crashes in Yucatan Carrying 3.2 Tons of Cocaine.
Sacramento for Democracy: Gary Webb Vindicated by the Crash of N987SA.

Labels: fascism, prohibition

Trevor Blake: Three Theists and their E-Mail Decisions [LINK-ZUM]

Jihad Watch: "Allah Willing, thetime will come when flashes of fire will burn your belly to ash, your wife(your yahoodi whore) shall be a slave for the pleasure of the Al-Muslimoon. Inshallah, I will find yuo and killed you SOMEDAY YOU KUFFAR PIG, YOU SON OF THE APES AND THE SWINE ALLAH TA'ALLA SHALL ROAST YOUR ORGANS FOR THE PLEASURE OF THE MUSLIMS YOU SCUM FILTHEIR THNA THE COCKROACH, YOU K A F I R"

Dan Savage, Another Day, Another Dozen Stories Like This: "A day doesn't go by without an email arriving from some fundie douche expressing concern for my son's immortal soul."

Associated Press, Teen Held After Threat Sent to Satanists: "A teenager was arrested after a leader of the Church of Satan turned over to the FBI an e-mail the high school student had written to the sect in which he threatened to kill his grandparents, authorities said."

[All articles continue at links. A tip of the hat to Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, for making the unfortunately necessary and responsible choice. - Trevor]

Labels: fight, islam, religion, satanism, sex

Trevor Blake: The Transistor [LINK-ZUM]

Today (December 16th) is the anniversary of the invention of the transistor. The transistor is one of the most important invention of the 20th Century. Transistors are part of nearly all electronic devices, including computers, cell phones, radio and television. Most of humanity has been touched by the transistor.

What did religion (any religion) invent in the 20th Century? Or the 19th? Or the 18th... or ever? Religion is valued because it is the anti-invention. Religion has tradition. Religion comes from an eternal God. Sometimes religious people admit change, but only in the form of revelation - which comes from an eternal God, so it isn't really change at all. Nothing new comes from religion. Religion resists invention until it sees a means to profit from it, at which time a convenient revelation occurs and the invention is seen as part of God's eternal non-invented plan.

If a person or a society have all the answers, and if all the answers they have are the right answers, and if there are no other people or societies around to disrupt things in any way, and if there are no changes in the world uncontrolled by people, then there is no need for invention. But on my planet, we need invention to survive much less thrive. Religion is the enemy of invention. If you are reading this on a computer screen, some part of you must be in agreement with me.

Labels: religion, science

Trevor Blake: What Religion and Science Can Do for Us [LINK-ZUM]

Religion:
Tracy McVeigh, Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt: Almost everyone goes to church here [the Niger Delta]. Driving through the town of Esit Eket, the rust-streaked signs, tarpaulins hung between trees and posters on boulders, advertise a church for every third or fourth house along the road. Such names as New Testament Assembly, Church of God Mission, Mount Zion Gospel, Glory of God, Brotherhood of the Cross, Redeemed, Apostalistic. Behind the smartly painted doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one. But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush. Some parents scrape together sums needed to pay for a deliverance - sometimes as much as three or four months' salary for the average working man - although the pastor will explain that the witch might return and a second deliverance will be needed. Even if the parent wants to keep the child, their neighbours may attack it in the street.

Science:
Robin Bal, Miracle Man Walks Again: He survived against all the odds; now Peng Shulin has astounded doctors by learning to walk again.When his body was cut in two by a lorry in 1995, it was little short of a Medical that he lived. It took a team of nearly 20 doctors to save his life. Skin was grafted from his head to seal his torso - but the legless Mr Peng was left only 78cm (2ft 6in) tall. Bedridden for years, doctors in China had little hope that he would ever be able to live anything like a normal life again. [...] But recently, he began exercising his arms, building up the strength to carry out everyday chores such as washing his face and brushing his teeth. Doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing found out about Mr Peng's plight late last year and devised a plan to get him up walking again. They came up with an ingenious way to allow him to walk on his own, creating a sophisticated egg cup-like casing to hold his body with two bionic legs attached to it. He has been taking his first steps around the center with the aid of his specially adapted legs and a resized walking frame. Mr Peng, who has to learn how to walk again, is said to be delighted with the device.

[Articles continue at links. Mr. Peng was cut in half and is today walking around, thanks to science. Those children murdered by superstitious monsters won't have a second chance. Sometimes theists talk about science and religion as seperate magistrate, each with its own contribution to the world. That seems supported by the facts, as science makes things better and religion makes things worse. Every day I ask myself what I can do to make religion less palatable to the average person. So far, the truth seems to be the most appropriate and effective tool. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, magick, religion, science, transhuman

Judith Kohler: Security Guard Prayed for Divine Guidance Before Shooting Gunman [LINK-ZUM]

Jeanne Assam is hailed for saving countless lives in shooting a gunman outside her church, but the volunteer security guard insisted that her steady hand was a matter of divine guidance. [...] "It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God," said Assam, whose hands trembled a little as she recounted the shooting during a news conference Monday.

[Article continues at link. If God was there, why didn't God do anything about the gunman? Why didn't God do something about the gunman before the gunman became the gunman? Why didn't God keep those people who were shot and killed alive? If God is the creator of all things, doesn't that mean God made the gun, God made the bullets, God put those bullets in the gun, God put that gun in the gunman's hand, and God gave the gunman a steady hand as a matter of divine guidance? Why is God using some of us to kill others of us? What 'lesson' did the dead people learn? Are their lives less than ours, such that they can be sacrificed so we who survive can learn a lesson? These are the sorts of questions that reveal how morally bankrupt theism is. "God did it" is embarrassing to hear in the 21st Century. All sympathy to the families and friends who lost loved ones in this terrible incident. Maybe if God wasn't around, we'd kill each other a little less. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, fight

Daily Rotten: December 10 [LINK-ZUM]

[The following is from Daily Rotten for December 10, 2007. Sometimes I imagine creating a calendar of 'this day in the history of religion.' Days like December 10 show that it would almost write itself. - Trevor Blake]

December 10, 1520: The heretic Martin Luther burnt the papal bull issued by Leo X, titled "Exsurge Domine", demanding an end to his heresies. Luther had published 95 points against the practice of granting indulgences, and the Catholic Church only had 94 points in favor of them. Although technically he was the winner, Luther was subsequently excommunicated.

December 10, 1792: "That if any do commit the detestable and abominable vice of Buggery, with man or beast, he or she so offending, shall be adjudged a felon, and shall suffer death, in the case of felony, without the benefit of Clergy." (Act of General Assembly of Virginia)

December 10, 1958: Ralph Muller and Peter Kamenoff, two ex-members of the Fountain of the World religious cult, accost guru Krishna Venta at the cult's hillside compound in Box Canyon, Ventura County, California. The men accuse Venta of having fucked their wives. For whatever reason Venta, the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and formerly known as Francis Pencovic, is unable to placate the men. So they detonate 20 sticks of dynamite they brought, 19 of which are strictly overkill. The three men are instantly blown to pieces along with 7 other cultees. Venta's remains are only ever identified through dental records.

December 10, 1993: Adolf Hitler is baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in a ceremony performed inside their London temple. Mormons use this strange retroactive baptismal ritual to ensure ancestors or other relatives may join them in heaven.

[Also in the news on December 10, 2007..."Vigilantes kill 40 women in Iraq's south: Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against 'violating Islamic teachings,' the police chief said Sunday." ... "Iran Executes 21-Year-Old Accused of Gay Sex as a Teen: Mouloodzadeh was a 21-year-old Iranian citizen who was accused of committing anal rape (ighab) with other young boys when he was 13. However, at Mouloodzadeh's trial, all the witnesses retracted their pre-trial testimonies, claiming to have lied to the authorities under duress. Mouloodzadeh also told the court that his confession was made under coercion and pleaded not guilty." ... and happy 60th birthday to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The advance of the secular is the advance of peace and prosperity. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, fascism, islam, mormon, religion, sex

BBC: US Church splits over gay rights [LINK-ZUM]

A Californian diocese has voted to become the first to break away from the US Episcopal Church in protest at its support for gays in the Church. Delegates of the San Joaquin diocese in Fresno voted 173-22 to secede. It follows years of disagreement with Church authorities triggered by the consecration of a gay bishop in 2003.

The Episcopal Church is the US wing of the 77m-member Anglican Communion, which is threatened by a deep split between conservatives and liberals. The Episcopal Church says that in recent years 32 of its 7,600 congregations had left, with another 23 voting to leave but not taking the final step.

[Article continues at link. Private and voluntary organizations are certainly free to be as inclusive or exclusive as they want. What strikes me as contradictory in this story is that the break away cult voted on the issue. On the one hand, they claim their rules are immutable. Homosexuals cannot be part of their cult, and that's that. It is not possible for the cultists to have a say in the matter. But the way they carried out their decision was by vote. They voted to break away from the rest of their cult. It is, apparently, possible for the cultists to have a say in the matter. Sometimes their superstition is based on a divine and infallible source, sometimes they are free to openly make things up as they go along. They couldn't accept homosexuals (inflexible) so they voted (flexible) to break away. If their superstition was as rock-solid as they claim it is, they have no choice but to accept what God (by way of their leaders) tells them. Voting is just the opposite of superstition, it is a secular tool and there is nothing sacred about it. Their cult cannot be changed, but it can be changed. This seems to be a contradiction.

Superstition is thick with contradiction. Claims are made in spite of conflicting evidence (the superstitious call this 'faith'), and they are held as sacred until the moment they are not. The change always comes with a series of unsatisfying explanations. If the change comes from a revelation, why was a false or incomplete revelation given in the first place? If the change comes from a recognition of human error, what means do the superstitious have to recognize error in the future (such as in the new change)? If the change is just ignored (as Christianity does now regarding the thousands of years it supported slavery) then why not ignore any number of other superstitious rules too?

The difference between science and superstition is that superstition cannot change - until it does. Science is always changing. Superstition is never wrong - until it is. Science is always considered tentatively true and likely to be found in error or incomplete if testing continues. Superstition has no questions, only an answer (God did it). Science has a few answers for now and many, many questions.

I am glad to see this vote in the Episcopal Church. By excluding homosexuals, it makes itself more irrelevant to the modern world. By voting, it embraces secular over superstitious values. Both of these hasten either its secularization or withering away, either of which outcome I welcome. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, sex

Matthew Moore: Fighting the curse of the face-eating tumour [LINK-ZUM]

A Jehovah's Witness who for decades refused all surgery on his horrific facial disfigurement has been given hope by a British doctor and new medical technology. Unwilling to accept a blood transfusion, Jose Mestre has allowed the bloody tumour that first appeared on his lip in adolescence to obliterate almost all of his face. Now 15 inches long and weighing 12 pounds, it has blinded him in one eye and made eating a daily ordeal. As it begins to block his airways, doctors fear his life could be in danger. But now one of Britain's leading facial surgeons has proposed treating Jose, 51, by employing ultrasound waves to coagulate the blood before the operation. This should allow his growths to be removed without risk of heavy bleeding - satisfying his religious prohibition on blood transfusions that has so far hampered his search for treatment.

[Article with photographs continues at link. The Watchtower Society, also known as the Jehovah's Witnesses, have predicted the end of the world no less than five times. According to their founder Charles Taze Russell, their second President J.E. Rutherford, and their official magazines The Watchtower and Awake!, the world was to end in 1914. But 1914 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1915. But 1915 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1918. But 1918 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1925. But 1925 came and went without the world ending. So the date changed to 1975. But 1975 came and went without the world ending. So they stopped making public predictions about the end of the world and purged members (nearly 30,000 in 1978 alone) who questioned these false prophecies. Making failed predictions is a sure way to look stupid, but looking stupid isn't so bad. Where the Watchtower Society really stands out is denying medical care for their children, based on fickle revelations from God to their leadership. Sometimes they ban medical procedures such as blood transfusions, sometimes they do not ban them - too bad for you if your was eaten away by a tumor while the ban was in effect. Blood transfusions were forbidden to members of the Watchtower Society, as described in The Watchtower on September 15 1961 (pp. 563-564) and February 15 1964 (pp. 127-8). Then again, Blood transfusions were not forbidden to members of the Watchtower Society, as described in The Watchtower on November 15 1964 (pp. 680-3) and June 15 2000 (p. 31). I am glad for advances in medical science, but it is upsetting that they are applied in the accommodation of superstition. Perhaps a God who would give you haemangioma isn't a God worth worshiping; perhaps a religion that convinces you to to do nothing about it isn't worth following. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, religion, science, watchtower

Trevor Blake: OVO 1987 - 1992 [LINK-ZUM]

High quality scans of each individual page of OVO issues 1-14 (1987-1992) are now online. These images were used to make the PDF and OpenOffice editions of OVO. Additionally, there are more than sixty images now online for the first time. Some are color scans of original art to compliment the previously available monochrome scans of multiple-generation photocopies. Some are previously unpublished collages made during those years. Some are relevant photographs.

When I started publishing OVO I was just a self-important hayseed living in a small town making a dumb little zine among thousands of others. But OVO did accomplish a few things in the first fourteen issues. OVO was the first to publish several essays by Hakim Bey that later appeared in his book T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone. OVO published work by Mike Diana long before his work drew the attention of State and Federal employees. Photographs of body piercing appeared in OVO two years before the Modern Primitives issue of Re/Search. The phrase 'phone tag' appears in print for the first time in the first issue of OVO. 'Liberating Wednesday' by PM, author of bolo'bolo, appears in OVO for the first (and only) time; this is nearly a decade before and fifty-two times more radical a suggestion than 'Buy Nothing Day.' Crop circles and the Men in Black are referenced at a time when they were still obscure. The first appearance of Ride Theory in print occurs in Ignatz Topolino's contribution to OVO. And OVO was aware enough of the outer edges of scientific ethics to mention gene patents in the same year they first were granted.

OVO has a second life in the 21st Century. The contacts and content that informed the original photocopied editions remain active. At the same time, new issues are available that take advantage of the distribution capabilities of home computers, the Internet and print-on-demand services. Hundreds of thousands of pages of OVO have been distributed and new issues are in production.

Labels: ovo, periodical, zine

Jonathan Petre: Atheists behind the greatest cruelty, says Pope [LINK-ZUM]

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a powerful attack on atheism, saying that it was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.

[Article continues at link. Image above depicts a devoted and life-long Roman Catholic, never once censored by the Pope, leaving a house of worship. Socialism, the true target of the Pope's missive, has indeed killed so many people that it is almost showing up on the charts as a distant number two compared to the body count of those killed by religion. Give it a few thousand more years and maybe it will be an honest contender. For now, nothing competes with religion in the murder department. What is it about religion that makes people so sure it is morally right to kill? Faith. Faith is not to believe where there is a lack of evidence. Faith is to go on believing when there is counter-evidence. That is where socialism and religion meet. Religion has an invisible monster that lives in the sky on its side, which justifies everything it does. Socialism has the Material Concept of History on its side, which justifies everything it does. I'm not a fan of faith, religion or socialism. I'm a fan of acknowledging that humanity will inevitably err, and the best we can do is limit the scope of our errors before we make them and learn from our errors after we make them. That is how democracy and science are linked; they grow on a mountain of errors, not from a soil of Absolute Truth. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, fascism, science, socialism