hard lessons in a global society

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One of the most obvious results of US exceptionalism and unilateralism has been the collapse of global cooperation as forums such as the UN are no longer seen to represent the weaker, developing countries but to be vehicles for legitamising US policy. The consequences of this permeate far and wide throughout global society and one of the saddest aspects of this is described in this article by MJ Robbins, who blogs for the Guardian as The Lay Scientist. 

The following paragraph struck me as highly pertinent in the wake of my recent post on human sustainable development and my point in the comments that cultural influences that promote fecundity as a desirable trait are, alongside US exceptionalism, one of the most malignantly sociopathic influences upon our species. 

"In a male-dominated culture with a strong tradition of polygamy (in the Islamic north at least), where children are seen as gifts from God, the power of men is measured by the size of their families, and different political, ethnic and religious groups compete to be the most populous, fertility is an especially sensitive issue."

Whilst America continues upon its historical course of imperial conquest, subjugation and exploitation there is little hope that genuinely benevolent campaigning organisations can make much impact in their attempts to confront and reform such appallingly destructive and regressive cultures. Oh, and they're not going to make much progress in Nigeria either. LOL

Catholic crocodile tears

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The Vatican said 'the Holy Father was deeply disturbed and distressed.' Well poor baby, but why was he not deeply disturbed and distressed before? Why did he not give a rat's ass while the report was in progress and the Vatican ignored all its questions? To say nothing of while the abuse and the cover-up of the abuse and the perpetuation of the abuse via refusal to do anything about it, were going on? Why is his distress so god damn late? Why is he bothering to do a Bernie Madoff, pretending to be all sorry and repentant after it is no longer possible to conceal and deny and hide?

''He wishes once more to express his profound regret at the actions of some members of the clergy who have betrayed their solemn promises to God, as well as the trust placed in them by the victims and their families, and by society at large.'' The Vatican said the Holy Father shared the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland, and that he was united with them in prayer at this difficult time in the life of the Church.

No he doesn't! [jumps up and down in fury until the windows rattle] He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't! It's all soothing oil, it's all sleazy self-exculpation. He does not share the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland because he and his Vatican are what the outrage, betrayal and shame are all about. He doesn't get to make himself another subject; he's the object. He's not one of the victims, he's the top perpetrator. He has an unbelievable gall claiming to feel all this sorrowful emotion when he is the head of an institution that did everything it could to protect itself and did nothing to protect children who were assaulted by its priests. He shouldn't be talking eyewash about his emotions, he should be saying the Vatican behaved like a criminal organization. He should resign. They should all resign. They should fold up their tents and go do something useful.

And knock off the 'Holy Father' crap, too. With a father like that, who needs enemies?

Word to Ophelia.

UK body endorses Christian fundamentalist curriculum as equivalent to A-Level

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"Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

"Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all."

There are schools in the UK who teach this shit as fact and will get you an A-Level for your pains. When was lying to children in a manner which strongly influences their world view and social interactions (by making them look like a fucktard to the rest of society) not child abuse?

do you want a vagina full of AIDS?

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Because apparently, if you use a condom as a precaution against STDs, that's what you'll get:



This video is funny but only because the guy is such a distressingly ignorant fucktard.

This next video is the funny junglist mash-up version. Oh yes!

the war for the holy land

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From the Los Angeles Times (via Media Lens):

“The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel.

"‘This rabbi comes to us and says the fight is between the children of light and the children of darkness,’ a reserve sergeant said, recalling a training camp encounter. ‘His message was clear: “This is a war against an entire people, not against specific terrorists.” The whole thing was turned into something very religious and messianic.’"

“In testimony reported by Israeli news media and in interviews with The [Los Angeles] Times, Gaza veterans said rabbis advised army units to show the enemy no mercy and called for resettlement of the Palestinian enclave by Jews.

"‘The rabbis were all over, in every unit,’ said Yehuda Shaul, a retired army officer whose human rights group, Breaking the Silence, has taken testimony from dozens of Gaza veterans. ‘It was quite well organized.’"

Word.

UK police declare 200 children to be "terrorist suspects"

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WTF? This just isn't funny. Children? Children for fuck's sake!

"What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'."

Said the senior pig in charge.

Punkscience is completely immune to charges of racism but as far as a "bad attitude towards 'the West'" goes, he's pretty fucking guilty of that. I think Western society is a fucking joke. Subtle imperialism, corruption and corporate globalisation are a threat to everything I hold dear in the Western world and they are products of that same world. But my attitude is very different from rucksack bombs and fundraising for the Taliban. I note that this program is exclusively targeted at Islam. As if other religious fundamentalists aren't any sort of threat to the integrity of our society (think Catholics and stem cell research, abortion and sex education or the Labour Friends of Israel parliamentary group and war crimes, or the various cultural and religious forces fuelling arranged marriages, female genital mutilation, other misogyny etc. etc. etc. etc.). No, it seems other religious and cultural phenomena promoting equally inhuman philosophies are ignored when there are Mooslims to persecute.

I might add that, to many children living amidst such a culture of pernicious persecution, where the people they are meant to respect and trust (teatures, etc.) grass them up to the authorities instead of confronting their beliefs with reason and argument, I am entirely sympathetic with their plight, if not their beliefs. The reason that kids can embrace such philosophies with such conviction is because there is so much damning evidence of UK war crimes and hypocrisy. That's what happens when you throw the moral high ground away and give people ample reason to hate you and want to blow you up. This was perfectly self-evident to me and the millions of people around the world who marched against the wars. Sadly, not to Bush, Blair, Straw, et al. (Or was it?)

this I want to see

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Religulous. Checkit.

Royal Society sky-pixie fan resigns over support for "creation-science"

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About time too. Talk about mixed messages!

Its interesting that one of the RS Fellows and Nobel laureates, Harry Kroto, who wrote to the Society asking for the sky-pixie fan's removal stated his opinion that if Reiss had been an atheist his comments would have been acceptable. This suggests that under certain circumstances Reiss's comments might be acceptable.

Well they're not. Religion is nonsense.

Just because some people choose to ignorantly or wilfully attempt to mix science and religion doesn't mean that religion can be brought into science lessons. Quite, quite the opposite. What should be happening here is that science should be deployed in religious education lessons to quash all the farcical mumbo-jumbo that religious people hold to be true. Walking on water, an afterlife, miracles, visions, natural disasters as evidence of some god's wrath, religious proscriptions. All of these and many more need to be put into the context of our society and laws. Islam prescribes death for apostasy- this is illegal in this country. Christianity proscribes adultery but there is no law against it in this country. Your relationship might not last too long if your partner finds out but its not illegal. Paedophilia features heavily in Abrahamic religions but that doesn't make it any more acceptable than hammering a tent peg into someone's temple (Judges 4:17-24 NLT)?

Rich Dawkins- another RS Fellow, wrote in to New Scientist to weigh in on the argument and suggested that, rather than resign as Director of Education for the Society, Reiss might resign his clerical Orders instead. Its certainly a scenario that I would love to see.


Edit:

Thanks to Rossinisbird who pointed out that I had written that Islam proscribes death for apostasy when in fact fundamentalists believe it prescribes it (as usual the evidence and arguments for and against a specific interpretation of sky-pixie literature are irrational and opaque).

weekly bible quote

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Genesis 38:

⁸Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’ ⁹But since Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother’s wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother. ¹⁰What he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.

believing in god gives you the right to do this:

.
Evil.

Inhuman.

Ignorant.
.

weekly bible quotation

No, really.

Deut 25:11-12

Various Commands

11 If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, ¹²you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

He's insane. Completely gone with the pixies. A gibberer. Rossinisbird knows it too. So does Justin Keating. Why the Guardian is giving a podium to this fundie I don't know because whilst his Church obstructs life saving scientific research on the grounds that a ball of 16 cells is 'a human being', it is simultaneously busy sabotaging rational efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS. Which makes them complicit in murder. Which doesn't sound like a morally defensible position from which to lecture others on the morality of their actions.

Cnuts.

Saudi plan to halt spread of extremism by 'retraining' clerics

My fat, hairy arse.

"religious guilt"

Its amazing what you can blame on religion: war, crime, misogyny, repression of human rights, etc.

Now you can add 'bad sex life' to the list.

I had intimate encounters with several girls of a sky-pixie-fan persuasion when growing up. As a randy teenager it was always rather frustrating being turned down for reasons of religion. I always thought it was an enormous cop-out (possibly one of the reasons for my deep-seated hatred of religion?). I now firmly believe that parents should teach their children all about sex and leave it up to the child to decide when they need to gain any direct experience. Trying to control my development into an adult through direct repression always backfired with me and made me all the more determined to expand my knowledge of forbidden pleasures such as smoking, drinking and girls' naughty bits.

If you can raise a well balanced child with a broad set of interests and pastimes and help them to understand the pressures of modern society then they are going to be far better placed to deal with the advances of randy teenagers or their own hormonal urges than a child who has been repeatedly told that such things are evil and to be suppressed and resisted at every turn. Human beings are human beings, the better parents understand this and treat their children accordingly the better society will become.

Moses was high when he "received" the ten commandments

This is just beautiful. Whether a historical figure called Moses existed or not it seems that religions haven't changed their approach to divine revelation over the ensuing millenia- anyone else hear that story about an Opus Dei chapter in the US doping new recruits with mescalin to induce visions?

forcing your religion upon your children is child abuse

New Humanist rocks!

the sky-pixie made me!

My first paragraph on this CiF thread sums up my position succinctly:

"This article is revisionist crap. Evolution needs no rehashing to make it acceptable to rednecks. Rednecks need educating to help them understand the profound implications of evolution. This is an educational and sociological problem, not a scientific one."

I chose to follow this up with a succession of appropriate quotes from my collection.

Cuckoo Factor Ten!

This complete gibberish has been legally posted online, much to the chagrin of the Church of Scientology. Normally you have to pay $400,000 to get access to this!

Talk about giving science a bad name!

Marcus Brigstocke rules

This is just plain awesome.

Catholic Bishop: "Sky Pixie told me condoms don't protect against AIDS"

Word!


Addition:

There's a diatribe on this subject over at the NSS.