Miscellanea Agnostica

The drama surrounding the slow demise of the palatial “Crystal Cathedral” in Garden Grove, California continues to play out. The local Roman Catholic diocese purchased the “Cathedral” in a bankruptcy sale only a few months, ago, and I’d have thought things might have been resolved with creditors being paid off … but alas, it was not to be. The Los Angeles Times reports that founding pastor and televangelist Robert H. Schuller resigned from its rump board over money he thinks he’s owed (WebCite cached article):

Robert H. Schuller and his wife cited the “negative” environment at the church he founded when announcing their resignation from the Crystal Cathedral board.

“We cannot continue to serve on the board in what has become an adversarial and negative atmosphere especially since it now seems that it will not be ending any time soon,” Arvella Schuller said in a statement Saturday. …

The resignations are a result of a breakdown in negotiations over financial claims against the church that the Schullers filed in Bankruptcy Court.

Schuller; his wife, Arvella; their daughter Carol Schuller Milner; and her husband, Timothy Milner, allege that the church owes them money for copyright infringement, intellectual property violations and unpaid contracts.

Sorting through competing financial claims has delayed $12.5 million in payments to some church creditors and could threaten the church’s ability to continue its ministries, including the “Hour of Power” broadcasts.

That’s right folks. With tens of millions of dollars of debt owed to a large number of creditors — some of whom are small businesses who’ve gone unpaid for years already — the Schuller family is hovering over their church’s sad remains, fending them off and demanding to be paid first. That there isn’t any money left — and that the Schullers themselves caused their church’s pathetic financial condition in the first place — appears not to matter to them. They just want their money, and are willing to get in the way of everyone else’s interests, and storm out of the room, in order to get it.

What a wonderful brood, eh?

I still can’t figure what this kind of greed has to do with the man who founded Christianity and taught the virtue of humility and poverty … but hey, what could a cold-hearted, skeptical, godless agnostic heathen like myself possibly know about such things? If there are any Christians out there who can explain this to me, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: bankruptcy, bankruptcy court, california, crystal cathedral, finances, garden grove CA, garden grove community church, greed, hour of power, orange county CA, orange cty CA, robert h schuller, robert schuller, televangelist

In the vein of answering the question “Whats’ the harm in having crazy metaphysical beliefs?”, law enforcement in southern California are looking for a tiny sect whose members have disappeared in search of the apocalypse. CBS News provides this report on these folks and the search (WebCite cached article):

Deputies searched a wide swath of Southern California early Sunday for a break-off religious sect of 13 people that included children as young as three and left behind letters indicating they were awaiting an apocalyptic event and would soon see Jesus and their dead relatives in heaven, authorities said.

The group of El Salvadoran immigrants, described as “cult-like” by sheriff’s officials, was led by Reyna Marisol Chicas, a 32-year-old woman from Palmdale in northeast Los Angeles county, sheriff’s Captain Mike Parker said.

The group left behind cell phones, identifications, deeds to property, and letters indicating they were awaiting the Rapture.

“Essentially, the letters say they are all going to heaven to meet Jesus and their deceased relatives,” sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said. “Some of the letters were saying goodbye.”

The fear is that they’ve decided to commit collective suicide.

If a grown adult makes a decision to follow some delusional hyperreligious nutcase, that’s one thing. It’s a free country, and people are free to be stupid. Even psychotically and suicidally stupid. But to drag children down into one’s chosen psychosis, is something else entirely.

I can only hope these people are found and their children corralled to safety, before it’s too late to save them from the adults’ apocalypticism.

Update: The group has been found, and its members accounted for. See e.g. this AOL News report (cached):

Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Parker told the Los Angeles times the group members were cooperative with authorities. They told police they were praying to end school violence and sexual immorality.

I have no idea how “praying to end school violence and sexual immorality” relates with “going to heaven to meet Jesus and their deceased relatives,” but hey, what the hell do I know?

Tags: apocalypse, apocalyptic, apocalypticism, california, christ, cult, cult suicide, cultist, cultists, el salvador, heaven, heaven's gate, jesus, jesus christ, missing, palmdale CA, reyna marisol chicas, salvadoran, sect, suicide, suicide mission

In a change from its usual dutiful, obedient, lock-step march behind the vast hosts of the Religious Right, the US Supreme Court dealt a blow to a Christian group at a law school in California. The AP via Google News reports on this decision (WebCite cached article):

An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won’t let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group’s “discriminatory practices.”

The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. The CLS requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle” as being inconsistent with that faith.

But Hastings, which is in San Francisco, said no recognized campus groups may exclude people due to religious belief or sexual orientation.

Isn’t it amazing that fundamentalist Christians believe themselves to be above the rules everyone else must obey? They get to do whatever they want, ’cause of Jesus … I guess. This group thought they could have it both ways … they could gain recognition by the school — and the funding that goes along with it — without actually having to abide by the rules required of recognized groups.

(I’m not sure that aspiring lawyers ought to be looking for ways to excuse themselves from having to obey rules … I mean, that kind of runs counter to the entire field of law … but hey, I’m just a cold-hearted, cynical, skeptical, God-hating agnostic heathen, so what do I know?)

The Court’s theocrat-in-chief made just the sort of doomsday prediction one would expect from any mindless religiofascist:

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a strong dissent for the court’s conservatives, saying the opinion was “a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country.”

What Alito doesn’t get is that a lack of school recognition doesn’t prevent the members of the Christian Legal Society from believing in whatever reprehensible notions they feel like … all it means is they can’t get any funding from the school. And isn’t that what this was all about … extracting money from the Hastings College of the Law? I wonder what Jesus would say about the Christian Legal Society’s obvious greed.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk.

Tags: california, christian legal society, christian right, gay, gays, hastings college of the law, homosexual, homosexuality, law school, religious right, san francisco CA, scotus, supreme court, united states supreme court

Yes, it’s true. And there is no other explanation for their ruling. The United States Supreme Court has declared that the federal government can erect monuments to specific religions on federal property and refuse to build them for other religions. The effect is that they’re allowing the federal government to proselytize for Christianity. The New York Times reports on the decision they handed down (WebCite cached article):

A badly fractured Supreme Court, with six justices writing opinions, reopened the possibility on Wednesday that a large cross serving as a war memorial in a remote part of the Mojave Desert may be permitted to remain there.

The Court ranged far afield — both literally and metaphorically — in order to arrive at this conclusion:

“A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a plurality opinion joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies would be compounded if the fallen are forgotten.”

I’m not quite sure how all those fallen Christian soldiers would have to end up “forgotten,” if the Mojave Cross were moved to private land instead of federal property, but that’s Justice Kennedy’s reasoning. Apparently he thinks that if that particular cross were taken down, all those soldiers would be “forgotten.” They will only be remembered, if the Mojave Cross is left standing on federal property. According to him.

No, I can’t explain it, I’m merely quoting it for you. Just goes to show that being appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court doesn’t mean you’re always rational.

Unfortunately the Times doesn’t provide the context of this lawsuit, but thankfully, ABC News does (cached version):

The cross stood peacefully for years until the Park Service was asked if a Buddhist Shrine could also be built near the cross.

When the Park Service declined the request, Frank Buono, a retired National Park Service employee, expressed his dismay that the government was showing favoritism of one religious symbol over another. He later filed suit in federal district court.

[On page 2, cached] While Buono, a Roman Catholic, did not find the cross itself objectionable, he was disturbed that it stood on government property when the government would not allow individuals to erect other permanent displays celebrating their religions.

Thus, what the Supreme Court has done, is to decide that, 1) the federal government can build monuments to single specific religions (the cross is a symbol of Christianity only — not of Islam, or Judaism, or Sikhism, or Wicca, or Hinduism, or any other religion); and 2) it can simultaneously refuse to build monuments to any other religion. Together those two sure look like “government pushing Christianity on people” to me.

Yes, I know, the cross was built by the VFW, not the federal government … but federal approval is required nonetheless, meaning the matter is completely up to them as to whether or not it’s built. And since they forbid a private party to build a Buddhist monument, that means the government has chosen sides and is favoring Christianity. Period.

Who said the separation of church and state was alive and well in the United States? It isn’t … not with the Supreme Court packed with theocratic religionists!

Hat tip: Skeptics & Heretics Forum on Delphi forums.

Photo credit: watch4u.

Tags: california, christian, christian right, Christianity, christians, cross, mojave cross, mojave desert, mojave national preserve, monument, proselytization, proselytize, proselytizing, religionism, religionist, religionists, religious right, scotus, Separation of church and state, socas, supreme court, theocracy, theocrat, theocrats, united states supreme court, us supreme court

As the Catholic clerical child-abuse scandal has continued to rumble around Europe — most recently having made its appearance in Malta — the Vatican’s position has consistently been that the current Pope, Benedict XVI, who once headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which had been responsible for handling such allegations, had known nothing about it until the early 2000s, and since becoming Pope in 2005, he has taken command of the problem and dealt with abusers harshly. But the AP got its hands on a 1985 letter which suggests otherwise. As they report via Google News, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was actually reluctant to discipline or defrock a priest in the Oakland, California diocese who had already been convicted of abuse (WebCite cached article):

The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including “the good of the universal church,” according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.

The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican’s insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church’s doctrinal watchdog office.

The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle.

The case against Rev Stephen Kiesle had already languished for four years by the time Cardinal Ratzinger wrote back to John Cummins, then bishop of Oakland:

In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle are of “grave significance” but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with “as much paternal care as possible” while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department.

But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the “good of the universal church” and the “detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ’s faithful, particularly considering the young age.” Kiesle was 38 at the time.

Kiesle’s guilt by that time was not in question, and Kiesle himself had requested to be defrocked:

Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years’ probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.

As his probation ended in 1981, Kiesle asked to leave the priesthood and the diocese submitted papers to Rome to defrock him.

So by the time of this 1985 letter, Ratzinger had been working to keep a man who wanted out of the priesthood, in his vestments for 4 full years! And it would take 2 more until he was finally tossed out!

The Vatican’s denials that Cardinal Ratzinger wasn’t aware of the problem of priests abusing children, decades ago, are quite obviously untrue. How many more lies will they tell in order to keep propping him up?

Photo credit: Kim Johnson / AP (via USA Today)

Tags: 1985, 1985 letter, benedict xvi, california, cardinal ratzinger, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse, catholic clerical abuse scandal, child abuse, clerical child abuse, diocese of oakland, john cummins, joseph ratzinger, letter, oakland, oakland CA, pope benedict, pope benedict xvi, priestly pedophile, priestly pedophilia, priestly pedophilia scandal, rev stephen kiesle, roman catholic, roman catholic church, stephen kiesle

At the northern end of Los Angeles county (in California), well away from the urban center of that sprawling metropolis, lies the city of Lancaster. As one would expect, it’s not as cosmopolitan as the enormous city to its south. It is, however, a growing region, despite its somewhat remote location. So it’s odd that its elected officials would start carrying the standard of Christianity and try to force it on everyone — and vilify Islam at the same time. The (Los Angeles) Daily News reports on this controversy (WebCite cached article):

Lancaster officials became embroiled in religious controversy this week after the mayor spoke of trying to make the Antelope Valley city a “Christian community” and a councilwoman wrote on Facebook that beheadings are what Muslims “are all about.”

Mayor R. Rex Parris made his comments Tuesday in his State of the City speech as he urged Lancaster voters to approve a municipal ballot measure that would allow prayers – even those invoking a specific deity, such as Jesus – at city meetings.

“We’re growing a Christian community, and don’t let anybody shy away from that,” Parris said to an audience of about 160 people, mostly pastors and their spouses, the Antelope Valley Press reported.

Parris is — as one would expect from the “no-compromise” position laid out in these remarks — not backing down from this statement:

Parris said Friday he was surprised by the objections of non-Christians and secular-government advocates, and said his remarks had been taken out of context.

Note, the “out of context” whine is the religionists’ reflexive objection whenever they’re caught making an incendiary statement. In this case, context is irrelevant; his remarks were absolute, as embodied in “don’t let anybody shy away from that.” Isn’t it interesting how he expressed a “no-holds-barred” view to a group of pastors and their wives, but later is sniveling and trying to back away from them? Hmm.

Anyway, those remarks came in the wake of another comment that was just as incendiary:

Days before Parris’ remarks, Lancaster City Councilwoman Sherry Marquez used her Facebook page to comment on the trial of a Muslim man accused of beheading his wife in Orchard Park, N.Y.

“This is what the Muslim religion is all about – the beheadings, honor killings are just the beginning of what is to come in the USA,” Marquez wrote Jan. 23. “We are told this is a small majority of Muslim’s (sic) in America, but it is truly what they are all about. You disrespect/dishonor them or their religion and you should die (they don’t even blink at killing their own wives/daughters, because they are justified by their religion).”

How nice. I guess Ms Marquez forgot about the latest example of Christians killing people in the name of their religion; i.e. Scott Roeder, who was just convicted of assassinating Dr George Tiller in Wichita KS? Yes, Ms Marquez … and all other Christian religionists out there who would have us believe that Christians never engage in violence in the name of their religion … Christians can be terrorists, too. OK?

Clearly the folks in charge of Lancaster, CA are veering in the direction of theocracy. While their religionism might make them feel entitled to do this, the truth is that the US … and all of its states, counties, and municipalities like Lancaster … are secular governments. And this is the case for good reason. If you wish to understand why , read all about it from the pen of the man who wrote the First Amendment and thus helped ensure it was so (cached article).

Tags: antelope valley, beheading, california, christian, Christianity, christians, honor killing, Islam, lancaster CA, los angeles county, muslim, muslims, r rex parris, Religion, religionism, religionist, rex parris, Separation of church and state, sherry marquez, theocracy, theocrat

California is an odd state, compared to the other 49. It has a very large and diverse population; perhaps the greatest variety of terrain and climate of any state; and it has easily the most bizarre political system of all. Among its governmental features is the ease with which initiatives can be circulated and then get on the November ballot. This means lots of initiatives get voted on by the people of California … sometimes very strange ones.

One such initiative campaign is a somewhat-less-than-serious effort to force so-called “protectors of marriage” to actually live up to their declared intention of truly “protecting” marriage. The AP (via Google News) reports on it:

Til death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.

In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.

The effort is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that’s the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.

“Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more,” the 38-year-old married father of two said.

Marcotte passed his first hurdle, having obtained permission to collect petition signatures. But that was the easy part; it gets much harder:

Marcotte needs 694,354 valid signatures by March 22, a high hurdle in a state where the typical petition drive costs millions of dollars.

Even if his initiative never makes it, Marcotte has made his point, and it’s been noticed, as the AP goes on to say:

Not surprisingly, Marcotte’s campaign to make divorce in California illegal has divided those involved in last year’s campaign for and against Proposition 8.

As much as everyone would like to see fewer divorces, making it illegal would be “impractical,” said Ron Prentice, the executive director of the California Family Council who led a coalition of religious and conservative groups to qualify Proposition 8.

This is otherwise known as “excuse-making” or “rationalizing.” As it turns out, Prentice makes his groups intentions crystal-clear:

Prentice said proponents of traditional marriage only seek to strengthen the one man-one woman union.

“That’s where our intention begins and ends,” he said.

In other words, Prentice and his group are concerned with preventing gays — and only gays — from marrying. No other group of people are their targets … just gays. They have no other interest in the “marriage game” — and have admitted it themselves. So when they later claim that “we’re not ‘anti-gay,’ we’re ‘pro-marriage’,” we all know that to be a lie.

Find out more about Marcotte’s California Marriage Protection Act at their Web site.

Tags: ballot, california, california marriage protection act, gay marriage, initiative, john marcotte, marriage, petition, proposition 8, referendum

As if the pathetic Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean (about whom I’ve blogged a couple times already), weren’t already a caricature of everything that’s wrong with fundamentalist Christianity in the US, she goes and heaps yet another cliché on the pile of crap she’s accumulated. According to US News & World Report, she blames the sorry affair on Satan:

Three weeks after becoming a hero to conservative Christians with her answer to a gay marriage question at the Miss USA pageant, Carrie Prejean hits the big kahuna of Christian radio this week, appearing today and tomorrow on James Dobson’s daily Focus on the Family program.

In the most intriguing part of today’s interview, Prejean describes the battle between God and Satan as she was formulating her response to Miss USA judge Perez Hilton’s thorny question. …

I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me [Perez Hilton's] question. …

I’ll grant that “Perez Hilton” (I refuse to believe that’s his real name!) was trying to goad conservatives — if not her personally — with that pageant question. And to be honest, the guy is no saint; quite the contrary, he’s a muckraking, self-promoting celebrity-blogger. Even so, the Miss USA pageant knew this when they invited him to be there, and Ms Prejean and all the other contestants had to have known he’d pull an obnoxious stunt or two. For her not to have been prepared with a glib yet diplomatic answer that didn’t give Hilton what he wanted (i.e. a confrontation), is inexplicable.

But neither does the question — no matter how incendiary it was intended to be — grant her the right to have violated her pageant contract and get away with it, then become lauded as a Christian martyr and heroine by fundamentalists.

At any rate, the tactic of blaming one’s problems on Satan and his campaign to tempt all Christians, is almost as old as Christianity itself. It would be nice if Christians could try to be a little more original in their excuse-making, than to invoke the name of Satan.

Tags: california, carrie prejean, fundamentalist christians, gay marriage, james dobson, miss california usa, perez hilton, proposition 8, religious right, satan