You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Assorted Religious Delusions’ tag.
Well. That happened.
(Never fear folks, yours truly and the rest of the DWR crew were nowhere near the downtown where this incident took place.)
I’m used to commenting on and reporting on these types of events when they happen not where I live. The events that happened on Saturday (September 30th) changed that. Let’s consult the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which has, so far, provided the best coverage of what happened and what is happening in Edmonton as a result of the recent attacks.
“A 30-year-old man is in custody following a high-speed chase just before midnight through streets filled with bar patrons and football fans. A man stabbed a police officer with a knife and deliberately plowed into pedestrians on Edmonton’s busiest downtown strip, police say.
Abdulahi Hasan Sharif is the man accused in the attacks, multiple sources tell CBC News.
The chase ended after a white U-Haul van the man was driving struck four pedestrians and flipped on its side. Cst. Mike Chernyk was the officer injured in the violent altercation, sources tell CBC News.
Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht confirmed that a black ISIS flag was seized from a car where the police officer was attacked. The officer was not critically injured. The condition of the four pedestrians is not known [two still in hospital, two have been released, officer released home as well].
“Based on evidence at the scenes and the actions of the suspect … it was determined that these incidents are being investigated as acts of terrorism,” Knecht said.”
I’m so very glad the global news media has repeatedly highlighted how effective vehicular homicide is for visiting death, chaos, and mayhem to innocent bystanders. Go team sensational media…because ratings ( and bully to the larger picture and consequences).
The would-be murderous dude didn’t seem quite right as reported by his co-worker:
“A former co-worker of the Somali refugee CBC News has identified as the man arrested in a weekend attack in Edmonton says Abdulahi Hasan Sharif was an ISIS sympathizer years before Saturday’s violent events, and that he had reported him to police.
Terrorism charges are pending against the suspect, who is in custody. Police haven’t identified Sharif by name, but multiple sources have identified him to CBC.
Sharif’s former co-worker, who didn’t want to be identified out of concern for his safety, said: “He would rant.
“It was very incoherent. He would just bounce from idea to idea, tangent to tangent, just about what he believed in and he definitely had genocidal beliefs, you could say.
“He had major issues with polytheists. He said they need to die. That sort of thing. I only had a handful of conversations with him about it; those only occurred when there were just two of us in the work room.”
Ah, there we go. We all have problems with the damn polytheists, they ruin everything. Sharif was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take any more of their bullshit(?).
There are larger issues colouring the events involved here. The most obvious, of course, is religion. So once again here we sit cleaning up after an episode of violence fuelled by delusional belief in a particular sky fairy mixed in, of course, with ideology that glorifies martyrdom and reward in the ‘afterlife’. So much violence can be traced back to the super-neato fact that basically all religions are essential giant ‘othering’ machines. Religion allows for easy distinctions to be drawn between those who believe the bullshit, and those who do not. And of course, as soon as one can make in-group and out-group distinction, the process of changing ones thinking about other human beings (people like oneself) into heretics and unwashed heathens (less human and worthy of killing) can begin. So, many thanks Religion (and religious belief) for the handy-dandy vehicle for reducing empathy and increasing violence between people in the world.
The other factor involved here (and sadly in Las Vegas), of course, is the way we teach males in our society to deal with problems. The plague of male violence (and let’s not forget delusional religious thinking/belief) that we suffer through must be brought to an end, we must change the way we socialize the males in our society to not see violence as a viable option for solving their problems.
It is the only way forward.
Because Magic, taught as fact, in the curriculum is AWESOME!
Further breaking news: The Edmonton Public School Board will also remove Soylent Green Recipe Book from the Foods curriculum.
How does feculence like this happen in my school system?
“An Edmonton teen and her mother have filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over a high school sex education class delivered by a religious-based group. Last year, Emily Dawson, 18, took part in a two-day class delivered as part of the Career and Life Management course at McNally High School. The teenager says she was shocked by what she heard.
“Basically shaming the girls and making them gatekeepers and meanwhile making it sound like the boys had no impulse control,” she said.
The Edmonton Public School Board used the Pregnancy Care Centre to conduct the course. The centre is affiliated with Care-Net, an American based anti-abortion movement. Both groups focus on advocating abstinence from sex.
How many other little “whoopsies” does the EPSB have up its sleeve? The NRA about the value of gun control and firearm safety? Exxon on Environmental Stewardship?
What the crap?
First, lets establish what our Experts in Christian Misogyny are advocating. From Care.net –
“Care Net promotes and supports sexual abstinence until marriage among youth through its LifeWise Program. LifeWise services are available free of charge to churches, schools, and any youth-serving organizations. Care Net will also partner with parents to provide neighborhood programs in homes or at Care Net’s facility on the east side of Madison.
Care Net works to end abortion, not primarily through political action but by building a culture where every woman receives all the support she needs to welcome her child and create her own success story. By empowering women and men to make courageous, life-affirming choices, Care Net and our affiliate pregnancy centers end abortions every single day.”
Well, isn’t this just a “Grade-A” glistening block of bullshit on display. They also run Pregnancy centres to hoodwink traumatized women and baffle them with religious bullshit and obstruct them while they attempt to obtain a legal medical procedure.
What a charming bunch of folks, god bless their hearts, we are dealing with here.
So, let’s take a look at the facts of the matter just to show exactly how full of shit our christian care.net friends are and the poisonous message they brought into the Edmonton public school system.
From:
The Failure of Abstinence-only Education: minors have a right to honest talk about sex. – Published in: Sexuality and the Law Symposium, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 12-62, 2006.
“Abstinence-only sex education is anything but educational. At best, it deprives students of the knowledge necessary to manage their own sexual health. At worst, it is dangerous to minors and to the public health. As the Waxman Report concluded, “[s]erious and pervasive problems with the accuracy of abstinence-only curricula may help explain why these programs have not been shown to protect adolescents from sexually transmitted diseases and why youth who pledge abstinence are significantly less likely to make informed choices about precautions when they do have sex.”18 In a society that purports to value children, the state should foster healthy, informed minors who are equipped to manage their sexual health responsibly. At the very least, the state should not encourage or support educators and programs in misleading children and promoting false, dangerous, and potentially injurious practices.”
~~~~
“In light of the potential health risks associated with these curricula, abstinence-only education cannot be justified as intending to serve any significant state interest. While the government may have an interest in encouraging abstinence in unmarried youth, its current policy is being pursued at the expense both of truth and public health. Importantly, there is no evidence that providing comprehensive sex education promotes increased sexual behavior or dilutes the message that abstinence is a preferable choice, as proponents assert.250 Furthermore, the government’s singular focus on abstinence represents an educational policy that is inconsistent with the democratic educational objective of preparing adolescents to make responsible, informed choices.”
More on efficacy of Abstinence only versus comprehensive sex education.
“Using figures from 1995-2000, Advocates for Youth (www.advocatesforyouth.org) reports that the HIV rate for Americans 15-24 is five times that of German youth of the age. The U.S. teen syphilis rate is six times higher than the Dutch; the chlamydia rate is 20 times that of French teens; and our teen gonorrhea rate is a whopping 74 times higher than the Dutch.
European programs that provide uncensored sex education and promote condom use are the reasons for this success. Contrary to what one might expect, European youth have fewer sex partners than Americans do and begin sex slightly later than Americans. What is alarming, however, is that America has the largest percentage of girls who have sex by age 15.
The U.S. also has the highest teen birth rate among 28 developed countries. According to a UNICEF study, less than 10 per 100,000 teenage girls in Korea, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden gave birth in 2001, whereas 52 American teens per 100,000 did.”
More on the failure of Abstinence Only Education – Here, Here, Here, here… Let us conclude then that our dear Christian Misogynists are the engineers of the fail-train; happily throwing more coal into the fire as they move full speed ahead and with Jesus and Ignorance at their side, they are unstoppable.
We should get back to Kelly and Emily and their experience with these professional dispensers of mendacity.
Kathy Dawson says she tried to pull her daughter Emily out of the class for the second day. But she says the school informed her that Emily had to take the class in order to pass her course. So she joined her daughter in the classroom. A single mother, Dawson said she was shocked what students were told about families like hers.
“Well, that our children are prone to depression, suicide, juvenile delinquency,” she said.
The remarks also surprised her daughter. “It’s not something that you hear every day where you’re getting bashed for being in a single-parent home.”
Kathy Dawson was also upset the class appeared to focus on values instead of science.”
See. Seeeeeeeeee?!? This is what happens when you let this sort of religious malevolent altiloquence into the secular classroom. Shaming single parent families, fuck-ya god hates you – and lets not forget about the eternally burning homosexuals…
“I have a friend that is a lesbian and she was asking what would happen if she didn’t want to stay abstinent and then the educator said, ‘We’re not here to talk about that,’” Dawson said.
Yes, telling young children that they’ll burn seems a little out of place in Canada (and the norm for secular societies), so we’ll just ignore your question instead. The nice people at Care Net are so full of love, tolerance, and compassion.
Full marks to Kathy Dawson for taking action to get these people out of the school system.
The Alberta Human Rights Commission has now accepted the Dawsons’ complaint.
“I’m training up my kids to respect science and demand science in their education,” Kathy Dawson said. “So this is a long haul, and I’m fully prepared to take it all the way.”
This is pretty much a slam dunk. Is religious bunk allowed in the classroom? Yes/No If the answer is yes, then the leaders of secular school board will have some explaining to do.
The EPSB took action –
the EPSB wrote that it had a registered nurse observe one of the presentations unannounced and found the information “met our standards and expectations on every level” but that it would still look for new presenters for the next year.
“Having said that, we’ve heard a lot of concerns expressed from the public over the last several days about guest speakers invited to present on the topic of sexual health education,” the board wrote.
“We are asking our schools in the fall to use different presenters so that we can continue this conversation, and focus on meeting the needs of students and parents.”
Well the school board doesn’t have its head entirely up its ass. Woo!
[Source]
[Source]
Good morning. Today’s disservice, with many thanks to AntiCitizen-X, is on the short and sweet side as cracking this particular religious chestnut is neither particularly complex or time consuming. Necessary? Of course, but hey on the Canadian long weekend everyone gets a brain break. :)
Enjoy.
[Edit: Grr. – What I get for not previewing my post. This is the correct video, Dr.Oz is scheduled later in the week.]
[Edit #2: Adding the syllogism for sake of clarity.]
1. God is omnipotent (definition of God).
2. Omnipotence is the power to do all that is logically possible.
3. A logically possible feat is any coherent action one can speak out loud without contradiction (definition of logical possibility)
3a. Any feat that has ever been done before is logically possible.
4. It is logically possible to create a finite mass of rock that cannot be lifted by its own maker.
5. Therefore, an omnipotent being can create a finite mass of rock that cannot be lifted by its own maker.
6. Therefore, an omnipotent being can create a finite mass of rock that cannot be lifted by an omnipotent being (definition of “maker” by an omnipotent being).
7. For any finite mass of rock, it is logically possible to generate a force that will lift it against a uniform gravitational field. (Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion)
8. Therefore, an omnipotent being can lift any finite mass of rock. (from #2 and #7)
9. Premise #6 and premise #8 are contradictions.
10. Therefore, it is logically impossible to be omnipotent (from #3 and #8)
11. Therefore, God is logically impossible.
It is a lighter Disservice today, kick back and laugh at the profound religious stupidity of Eric Hovind and the baffle-gab he extrudes.
I know, I know. Belief in magic is not really the best way to run anything, but rather than focusing on the silly nature of believing in the Grand Oooga-Booga, lets look at how those in power keep their ‘base’ ignorant and happy to continue to lap up all mendacity that spews forth from the Party of No. Alter.net author CJ Werleman has a nifty article about biblical illiteracy in America, so lets go over the highlights.
“More than 95 percent of U.S. households own at least one copy of the Bible. So how much do Americans know of the book that one-third of the country believes to be literally true? Apparently, very little, according to data from the Barna Research group. Surveys show that 60 percent can’t name more than five of the Ten Commandments; 12 percent of adults think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife; and nearly 50 percent of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple. A Gallup poll shows 50 percent of Americans can’t name the first book of the Bible, while roughly 82 percent believe “God helps those who help themselves” is a biblical verse.”
So really, the obedient masses can be fed just about any line of bullshite and they won’t bat an eye.
“The truth, whether Republicans like it or not, is not only that Jesus a meek and mild liberal Jew who spoke softly in parables and metaphors, but conservatives were the ones who had him killed. American conservatives, however, have morphed Jesus into a muscular masculine warrior, in much the same way the Nazis did, as a means of combating what they see as the modernization of society.
Author Thom Hartmann writes, “A significant impetus behind the assault on women and modernity was the feeling that women had encroached upon traditional male spheres like the workplace and colleges. Furthermore, women’s leadership in the churches had harmed Christianity by creating an effeminate clergy and a weak sense of self. All of this was associated with liberalism, feminism, women, and modernity.”
Funny how much of a threat Conservatives see women to the established order. I take it as a sign we are moving in the right direction.
“For instance, when Republicans were justifying their cuts to the food stamp program, they quoted 2 Thessalonians: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” One poll showed that more than 90 percent of Christians believe this New Testament quote is attributed to Jesus. It’s not. This was taken from a letter written by Paul to his church in Thessalonica. Paul wrote to this specific congregation to remind them that if they didn’t help build the church in Thessalonica, they wouldn’t be paid. The letter also happens to be a fraud. Surprise! Biblical scholars agree it’s a forgery written by someone pretending to be Paul.”
Being fact averse seems to be the default setting for much of the Republican party and concomitantly most their followers. The stupid leading the blind is not a winning recipe for running a nation.
“The best argument against a historical Jesus is the fact that none of his disciples left us with a single record or document regarding Jesus or his teachings. So, who were the gospel writers? The short answer is we don’t know. What we do know is that not only had none of them met Jesus, but also they never met the people who had allegedly met Jesus. All we have is a bunch of campfire stories from people who were born generations after Jesus’ supposed crucifixion. In other words, numerous unidentified authors, each with his own theological and ideological motives for writing what they wrote. Thus we have not a single independently verifiable eyewitness account of Jesus—but this doesn’t stop Republicans from speaking on his behalf.”
Not that making stuff up is new for politicians.
“The price this country has paid for biblical illiteracy is measured by how far we’ve moved toward Ayn Rand’s utopia. In the past three decades, we’ve slashed taxes on corporations and the wealthy, destroyed labor unions, deregulated financial markets, eroded public safety nets, and committed to one globalist corporate free-trade agreement after another. Rand would be smiling down from the heaven she didn’t believe in.”
Fantastic. Well we should be applaud the republicans for packaging up self-immolation so nicely – all decked out with rainbows and jesus stickers. It would be cute if it wasn’t underpinning the destruction of a nation.
Pakistan announced that Malala Yousafzai’s book “I Am Malala” was banned from private schools. From the CBC:
Officials say they have banned teenage education activist Malala Yousafzai’s book from private schools across Pakistan, calling her a tool of the West.
It isn’t about religion, holiness, or allah, god (etc.). It’s not about defending the country from Western influences or even polishing allah’s knob at exactly the correct speed as mandated by the Qur’an.
This book banning is about charlatans and courtiers defending their privileged status against the radical notion that women are people.
Adeeb Javedani, president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association, said Sunday his group banned Malala’s book from the libraries of its 40,000 affiliated schools. He said Malala was representing the West, not Pakistan.
The Deluded will go to any length to defend their fetid bullshit. See the christian analog (among many examples)in the the United States of christian loons shaming women as they attempt to shame women for legally ending a pregnancy.
Malala has become an international hero for opposing the Taliban and standing up for girls’ education. But conspiracy theories have flourished in Pakistan that her shooting was staged to create a hero for the West.
Because getting shot in the face is the most reliable way to become a hero? It is outrageous how far the religious will go to defend their mythology. Isn’t it enough that Malala was gunned down for the crime of being female and seeking an education, but now the same authorities (the ones ‘responsible’ for her security) are banning her book.
The Pakistani religious authorities are confabulating a grand story about the West’s plot to overthrow their country and religion – hero for the West, indeed! The only theory that is being consistently applied here is Patriarchy. It is patriarchal misogyny reinforced by religious tradition and implicit cultural norms that makes the banning of Malala’s book possible.
*ed. Wow, misspelling the name of the blog and forgetting what syntax is, all in the same post – sadly, this was after “proofing”. The dangers of early morning posting.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…