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Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

It’s Sunday in Seychelles … the rest of the would will catch up later … I’ll shout myself “horse”

Posted in Religion, science, tagged , , on June 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Because it’s Sunday, religion chomps at the bit to be topic du jour, this being the jour of choice for some to trot into a church and listen to some galloping gospel nag before racing to put on the old feedbag down by la mer (Notice my restraint in not ponying up with a canter/cantor ref … although I was tempted to geld the lily.)

Do you sense that I have been led to the baptismal font, but passed on the drink?

Fodder for my Sunday sermon comes from the news, and, as you know, I can rarely put the blinders on when presented with horse shit.

Winner of today’s “Horse’s Ass Award” goes to Vatican secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone Cardinal Bertone for his take on the Belgian government’s efforts to get to the bottom of sex abuse by priests in that country.

Apparently outraged that men of the cloth were “held for nine hours without eating or drinking” and that police seized 500-some files from a “Church commission” that was supposedly investigation allegations of abuse, the Cardinal expressed astonishment, saying:

“It was sequestration, a serious and unbelievable act,” … and, “… there are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes”.

Yeah … right, you salacious git … putting dinner plans on hold and forcing bishops to enjoy their own company for a few hours is the “serious and unbelievable act”. He must be vibrating in his vestments over what the cops might find in those files. Could there be information that might be … shall we say … damning?

Moving right along, we flip the unleavened sandwich and find facial hair.

As this report illustrates, to beard or not to beard is ongoing as a hairy issue in the Muslim world, and being taken to new lengths by Hizbul-Islam militants in Somalia who are now ORDERING men to grow their beards and trim their moustaches.

I doubt that one of the dudes involved in the mandate intentionally punned when he announced,

“Anyone found violating this law will face the consequences.”

… or maybe Somali militants are really little more than frustrated comics … hence, the funny face growth?

Probably not, since it would take some humor somewhere under all that hair to grasp that a centuries-old fashion suggestion does not a mandate make.

Muslims learn about the Prophet’s views on facial hair not from the Koran, but through hadith – or sayings – attributed to Muhammad.

One such hadith, related by Muslim scholar Sahih Bukhari centuries ago, stipulates: “Cut the moustaches short and leave the beard.”

Good thing, then, that the 1970s came along later, as a hadith edict on sideburns, silver lamé and platform shoes would be just silly.

As a Sunday offering, I’ll close with some sense from Deepak Chopra, who notes that ” … religion is the primary form of spirituality in most people’s lives … “, then goes on to write about the tug-of-war between religion and science.

Science comes down to earth as technology, religion comes down to earth as comfort. But viewed together, they fall short of a common factor that guides every moment of daily life: consciousness. The future of spirituality will converge with the future of science when we actually know how and why we think, what makes us alive to the outer and inner worlds, and how we came to be so rich in creativity. Being alive is inconceivable without being conscious. “I think, therefore I am” is fundamentally true, but Descartes’ maxim should be expanded to include feeling, intuition, a sense of self, and our drive to understand who we are.

Amen.

And that’s enough horsing around for a Sunday …

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Selling soap, and paying …

Posted in England, Religion, World politics, tagged , on May 21, 2010| 1 Comment »


Imagine this …

A brand of soap … we’ll call it Morning Glory … has experienced sagging sales, having been around for yonks and recently reputed to cause irritation, and worse.

In an effort to revive interest, maybe even bring in some new victims customers, a massive campaign is carefully planned, the main thrust of which is personal appearances by the company mascot, Mr. Glory himself.

With no change in the Glory formula in sight, the ad/PR machine is taking the “ram it down” tact, trotting out the same old slogans, offers and, of course, the big guns, and BIG TIME … a strategy that has worked for them time after time, and sold a lot of soap.

The UK is chosen as launch pad for the blitz, partly because Morning Glory’s reputation has been especially bitten on the ass in that country; rashes have broken out and some users have been permanently scarred.

A budget of £15 million is set … that’s a whole lotta soap.

Now, here’s the puzzling bit; the British government agrees to pay more than half of the bill, plus, plus.

Shocking, heh?

Okay, we’re not talking soap here, but another representation of morning glory called Pope Ben the Roman Numeral.

Yep … he’s bringing the road show to Britain and the British tax payers are picking up a huge part of the tab.

The total bill for the invited visit – without the cost of police and security – is estimated by the Foreign Office to be about £15m. Of this, £7m will come from the Catholic Church, the rest will be shouldered by taxpayers.

Ooooh. I know if I was still paying taxes in England I’d not be chuffed.

The monsignor coordinating the viz rationalizes this depletion of British coffers by passing the Popester off as “a head of state”, a definition the church cultivates actively, and since the Vatican is its own little world, carries some cred, but shouldn’t.

Yes, that’s my opinion; if they want to look like a State, they should pay taxes, and the pope should no more be invited to spew on global affairs than should Sun Yung Moon.

My fav bit, though, of the report is this:

So where is the Church going to find the £7m it has pledged to contribute?

… He said for the Papal visit the church hoped people would double their contributions to come up with close to a million.

Yeah … because the catholic church doesn’t have two pennies to rub together? Paaaaalllllleeeeeeaaaasssseeee …

When the head of this church gets around on an ass (pun intended), dresses in homespun and sells off the art collection, maybe … and only maybe … then there could be a point made for helping out a bit with his travel budget … like donating a week-long bus/tube pass.

Until that happens, though … frozen precipitation in perdition comes to mind as more likely … pope soap should fork out for its PR gigs.

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That sticky “Fox / Henhouse” thing again …

Posted in Religion, Smarten up, The United Nations on May 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

With as much objectivity as my ex-husband’s trashy paramour would have conducting a study of his honor, and with all the credibility of the Catholic church investigating sex abuse of children, the UN has commissioned a review of “the workings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)”.

Fox? Henhouse?

Well … if follow the money rings a bell, this might lead thinking minds in certain directions:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.

Those who consider the UN above all suspicion of self-gratification might not think this the giant circle jerk that my brain conjures, but, although a contradiction in terms, the impotence of the organization would indicate that what will cum of this “review” will be little more than a useless sticky mess that doesn’t clean up after itself.

… rather like my ex and the Pope.

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Hammering the Church … they started it …

Posted in Children, History, My Chinese Checkered Past, Religion, World politics on May 4, 2010| 4 Comments »

There are some who might accuse me of Pope-bashing or, at least, hammering the Catholics … shall we say? … mercilessly.

Well … yeah. But they started it.

All those centuries of burnings and beatings and such rather set a precedent for showing no mercy, and, gee, all I do is give a tongue lashing, and like Blacks can use the “N” word, girls who grew up in the bat-like shadow of Sister Mary Stanislaus and her ilk have license to lash.

Yes, I was a Catholic girl, although I didn’t start that much too late, and had my share of rotten treatment at the hands of black-clad despots, so bear with me.

This story raises a host of ghosts, and we ain’t talking little white bread dots.

… current research and expert opinion suggest that men within the Catholic Church may be no more likely than others to abuse, and that the prevalence of abuse by priests has fallen sharply in the last 20-30 years.

How’s that for missing more than one point in one go?

First, let’s look at the “research” … and feel free to note my bolding of type and call it hammering if you like:

The best-known study on sex abuse by Catholic priests was published in the US, by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops …

Well, grab my head and stick it down a baptismal font! That attribution drips.

Moving right along to more on the point-missing, how’s this?

“The real problem is an abuse of authority, the duty of care that pastors have to their flocks,” says the British historian, and former member of the Jesuit Catholic order, Michael Walsh.

“This has been abused and that is the greatest scandal – that’s what is systemic, rather than sex abuse.”

No, Father Michael … the real problem is that kids have been getting fucked by priests, and the fact that church dudes in big hats and dresses did everything in their vast powers to make sure nobody ever did a thing about it, and that tactics that guaranteed this were engrained into the fabric more clearly than the face on the Turin shroud, just made it more fun.

Trotting out stats is often a dodge, and here’s a classic case of the trots used to suggest that: “There is a big gap between the reality and the public debate … ”

Overall, from 2001-2010 the Vatican has considered sex abuse allegations concerning about 3,000 priests dating back up to 50 years, according to figures given last month by Monsignor Charles J Scicluna, who as the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice heads the office that investigates such cases.

Though the cases were spreading geographically, “the phenomenon itself is much reduced,” he said, noting that there are 400,000 priests worldwide.

Sorry, but the cases the Vatican “has considered about sex abuse allegations” hardly qualifies these numbers as hard data.

My favorite bit of gospel though is this line:

“Celibacy can indeed be a challenge but the vast majority of sexual abuse is not committed by celibates … “

I’ll be charitable and assume this means theoretical celibates …

There’s more, but I have kids to bathe, and if anyone tries to sprinkle them bashing and hammering will happen.

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Church … State … do not mix …

Posted in History, Religion, Smarten up, Women's rights, tagged , , , , , , , on February 15, 2010| 1 Comment »

I live on an island. That is my only excuse for being caught off guard by the preposterous news that a fundamental function of America’s founding fathers is under attack.

The separation of church and state is about as basic as it gets as far as making and keeping the USA a sane and livable nation, so the information in this piece in the NYTimes Mag is like a ball-peen to the brain case:

To conservative Christians, there is no separation of church and state, and there never was. The concept, they say, is a modern secular fiction.

The fact that headway … although that seems completely the wrong word to use juxtaposed against such brainlessness … is being made in efforts to remove the vital barrier between gods and government is testament (Like that one?) to just how stupid people can be.

I know. I know. Using words like ‘stupid’ shows no brilliance on my part and I should attempt to wax eloquent when referring to those so determined to limit … ban even, if at all possible … thinking, but, sorry, they piss me off, and stupid fits so well.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the poperific dude’s take on the UK’s efforts to take the “in” out of religious intolerance …

The effect of the government’s proposals, he said, in an address to Catholic bishops in Britain, has been to impose “unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs”.

… and mentioned the dangers of slopping religion all over governing:

… freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs” is an old saw that has cut deeply over the centuries since religion was invented, excusing everything from mass exterminations to female genital mutilation, serving up the Kool-Aid in one form or another and forcing millions to stop with the thinking stuff and take a big ole swig.

A couple of days later, I picked up The 19th Wife, a novel based on fact by David Ebershoff woven around the true story of Ann Eliza Young, one of the many wives of Brigham Young, prophet for profit of Momons and a staunch and paunchy advocate and practicer of polygamy with more than 50 women tethered to his bits and hundreds of children spawned … the guy the university is named in honor of who is well-revered to this day amongst the Latter Day Saints, as they like to call themselves.

Have been forced to sit through hundreds of hours of LDS claptrap as a child … this after hundreds of hours of Catholic claptrap … I am more than familiar with the tale of the golden books and magic sunglasses that delivered the message of the Moron angel to Mr. Smith, eventually leading thousands of those with thoughts of something to gain to Utah in much the same way Jim Jones got San Francisco folks to head for South America and for many of the same reasons.

Ann Eliza’s tale is rife with horrid consequences of life under a government controlled by a “faith” where abuse of all flavors is considered part and parcel, so condoned, then … eventually, when forced into the light of day by those who passed on the Kool-Aid … concealed, excused, apologized for, and finally condemned.

Today’s news brings reports on decades of sexual abuse by Catholic priests … and it’s about time.

An investigation last year revealed that church leaders in Dublin had spent decades protecting child-abusing priests from the law while many fellow clerics turned a blind eye. A separate report in Ireland released months earlier documented decades of sexual, physical and psychological abuse in Catholic-run schools, workhouses and orphanages.

The popester is reportedly “”disturbed and distressed” by the report and shares the “outrage, betrayal and shame” felt by Irish people … but still insistent, as we saw in the article last week, that government should keeps hands off.

Yeah. Right.

Does anyone think that any religion would come clean on anything if there were no secular government to grab it by its over-starched lapels and shake?

The days of religion running nations should be as far behind us as the possibility of owning other humans … but we all know many countries have a faith-shod foot on the controls and slavery happens every day in our world. The trick is to keep from backsliding in places that have moved beyond these archaic, abusive methods of ‘leadership’.

“Secular” … Latin saecularis, from saeculum ‘generation, age,’ used to mean ‘the world’ (as opposed to the Church)

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