Miscellanea Agnostica

American Christians’ martyr complex is wearying. They continually and repeatedly whine and complain that their religion is on the verge of being stamped out … even when it’s not. I understand why this is; a desire to be persecuted for Jesus is embedded deep within their religion’s psychopathology, and they really can’t help themselves. Still, it’s one thing to believe one is being persecuted, but quite another to fabricate forms of persecution that don’t exist, or to make claims about Christian persecution that aren’t true.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, as the Washington Post reports, is the most recent figure to be guilty of these kinds of lies (WebCite cached article):

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday continued his outreach to Christian conservatives, telling a gathering of them that the United States is effectively funding wars on Christianity by sending money to nations like Egypt and Syria.

“It’s clear that American taxpayer dollars are being used in a war against Christianity,” Paul said at a luncheon hosted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition to kick off the three-day Faith and Freedom Conference.

Paul said the U.S. war in Iraq led Christians to flee a secular country that had otherwise been “a relatively safe place for Christians,” and that Christians are now being hunted in nearby nations.

First, let me say it’s absolutely true that Christians have been, and are, persecuted in a lot of places in the world. I don’t dispute that at all. I also don’t dispute that it’s wrong for anyone to be persecuted for it. What I dispute is Paul’s claim that the U.S. government is consciously and methodically financing a global campaign to wipe Christianity out.

Let’s be honest: The societies of countries like Iraq and Egypt certainly harbor animosity toward Christians; I’ve blogged about a long tradition of religious strife in Egypt, for instance. There’s nothing new about this. That doesn’t make it right … it just means it’s not new at all.

So what does American financial aid have to do with it? Nothing. Christians there would be harassed, with or without American assistance. Christians in those places were harassed, before they got any U.S. assistance, and they likely would continue to be harassed if we stopped supplying it. In fact, it might be argued that our assistance gives us a degree of input into those countries’ affairs that we wouldn’t have otherwise, meaning it’s a potential way for us to limit the harassment. The dance of diplomacy and international relations is a complex one, that cannot be boiled down to “sound bites” as Paul likes to do.

Paul also brings up a point which is a particularly sore one for the Religious Right in the US:

“Should we be sending F-16s and tanks to Egypt when (President Mohammed) Morsi says Jews are descendants of apes and pigs?”

Granted, Morsi is an anti-Semite, as are many of the leaders of countries in and around the Middle East. But what can we do? Make our assistance conditional on whether or not those countries have anti-Semitic rulers? Is it even possible for us to have that much influence over them? What makes Paul think we do?

Something Paul doesn’t admit, is that this has been going on for as long as America has been sending out foreign aid. That aid frequently ends up in the hands of repugnant dictators, is spent in countries where the U.S. is vehemently hated, and helps societies that propagate any number of injustices, sometimes against their own people. Unfortunately there’s not much we can do about that, other than stop the aid, which would have stiff ramifications … such as the loss of diplomatic relations. Again, the game of diplomacy isn’t as clear-cut or simple as the Senator says it is.

Paul also makes a comment which is factually incorrect:

“We’re borrowing money from China to send it to Pakistan.”

Lots of folks, including many on the Right and particularly libertarians like Rand Paul and his father Ron, love to assert that America’s debt is entirely held by China, therefore any borrowing we do comes directly from Beijing. But that’s not true. As FactCheck explained a couple years ago, China finances only about 7.9% of new debt

The bottom line is that Rand Paul was clearly trying to convince his audience that the Obama administration is financing a global jihad against Christianity. That isn’t the case; but if it were, then because Obama is continuing a long-standing policy of foreign aid, then G.W. Bush, Clinton, G.H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, etc. had also financed a global jihad against Christianity. Does he seriously think it’s been going on for decades? If so, why hasn’t Christianity already been wiped out in those places?

As I said, what Rand Paul is doing is appealing to the Religious Right’s martyr complex. It’s insidious, and it needs to stop … but we all know it never will. Because it works too well. The R.R. continually gives into it … happily, with smiles on their faces, and with open checkbooks, ready to finance anyone who campaigns against that foreign-born “secret Muslim” in the Oval Office.

At any rate, Rand Paul’s lie about a U.S.-financed global war on Christianity, places him into my “lying liars for Jesus” club.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: china, christian, christian martyr complex, christian persecution, christian persecution complex, Christianity, christians, egypt, faith and freedom coalition, foreign aid, iraq, liar for jesus, liars for jesus, lying liar for jesus, lying liars for jesus, mohammad morsi, national debt, pakistan, persecution, rand paul, Religion, religionism, religionist

Most believers think that adhering to their metaphysical notions — whatever they might be — is virtuous. It somehow makes them better people, superior to others, even. Or something. I’m still not clear as to how that works, exactly, but they’re convinced of it, and they just love telling everyone so. The problem is, their beliefs can and do have some terrible ramifications. Take, for example, this report from the Associated Press via the Washington Post, about a Virginia father who killed his little daughter because of his metaphysics (WebCite cached article):

A Virginia man who said his 2-year-old daughter was possessed by a demon has been sentence to more than 20 years in prison for her death.

Thirty-year-old Eder Guzman-Rodriguez was sentenced Monday in Floyd County after pleading no contest to first-degree murder. His daughter, Jocelyn, was found dead in November 2011.

Prosecutors say Guzman-Rodriguez told police that his daughter had a demon inside of her and that he had attempted to exorcise her of the demon.

But this conflicts with other information the father had provided:

According to Shortt’s summary of the evidence, Guzman-Rodriquez told police that a “bad spirit” had entered him. He said that he saw his daughter gesturing to him, as if she wanted to fight and that he punched her “over and over” with his bare hands, Shortt said.

So, was the baby possessed, or the father? In the end, no one can say. Until someone provides objective, verifiable evidence to the contrary, I must assume neither was possessed. Nevertheless, I guess it was necessary to kill the baby. Or something.

I note that, when police arrived, there were some other people there, holding Bibles. It’s not clear if they played any part in Guzman-Rodriguez’s exorcism attempt; the article doesn’t say — possibly because the police never were able to make any determination. They very well could have arrived after the deed. I certainly hope they weren’t involved in Jocelyn’s murder.

Hat tip: Doubtful News.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: christian, Christianity, christians, demon, demonic possession, demons, eder guzman-rodriguez, exorcise, exorcism, exorcist, floyd cty VA, floyd VA, homicide, jocelyn guzman-rodriguez, killing, killing babies for jesus, killing for jesus, killing kids for jesus, murder, possession, Religion, religiosity, religious, religious killing, virginia

By now we all know … whenever something awful happens, fierce religionists just can’t help but blame it on their theological enemies, or whoever else they despise. It doesn’t matter whether or not the facts are in, or if they actually know what they’re talking about. They just rage and fume and bluster and hurl the blame everywhere they can, just because they happen to be sanctimoniously enraged that there are insolent people out there who actually dare not believe what they believe.

By now I expect all my readers have heard about this afternoon’s Boston Marathon bombing (WebCite cached article). It’s only been a few hours, but already there are lots of religionists, I assume most of them Christians, who’ve announced via social media that “godless” people are to blame for it. Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, has done a yeoman’s job of cataloging a number of these hateful and idiotic postings (cached).

Please go to Hemant’s page and read their bilious spew; I won’t repeat any of it here. Suffice it to say, these people have absolutely no fucking idea whether or not a “godless” person or persons bombed Boston. As I type this, the New York Post reports a Saudi national has been identified as a suspect (cached). This person is virtually guaranteed to be a Muslim, and not some “godless” person.

Yeah, I get that it’s the Post reporting this, and it’s very early in the investigation and quite tentative. Nevertheless, if that marginal tidbit is best information we have at the moment, no one can rationally justify deciding the bomber(s) must have been “godless.”

Listen up, people. This is just ridiculous, and it needs to fucking stop already! Right now.

Update: The Boston Globe reports the aforementioned Saudi national is not a suspect (cached). The investigation is back to square one and, essentially, stalled out.

Photo credit: PsiCop original, based on Matthew 7:16a, NASB.

Tags: boston, boston MA, boston marathon, boston marathon bombing, christian, Christianity, christians, godless, godless society, Religion, religionism, religionist, religionists, social media, twitter

The Religious Right in the US sincerely believes Christianity is “under attack.” There’s a war against their religion, they claim. Now, most of us know there’s no such thing going on. Churches aren’t being shuttered or bulldozed; Bibles and crucifixes aren’t being confiscated or destroyed; devout Christians aren’t being put on trial for believing in Jesus. Put as simply as possible: There’s no persecution of Christianity going on in this country. It’s. Just. Not. Fucking. Happening.

You may have heard that the great Biblical state of Kentucky passed a law protecting Christians’ freedom of religion (even though, with First Amendment protections already in place, no such law is needed — in Kentucky or in any other state). One of its proponents is outraged that there’s been criticism of this law, and penned a letter to the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader to explain why it was needed (WebCite cached article):

Could it be a war on Christianity? Now I know your response will be that there is no attack on religious freedoms. Indeed, you will deny the very existence of such a war. Yet, tell that to the owners of Hands On Originals or Chik-fil-A, who were vehemently attacked by government officials and agencies for expressing their personal religious beliefs. Tell that to the high school coach who gets sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for offering a prayer of protection before a ballgame. Tell that to the teacher who gets sued for saying, “Happy Thanksgiving,” “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Easter.” Tell that to the valedictorian who gets enjoined from mentioning God in her graduation speech. Tell that to the county judge-executive who gets sued for posting the Ten Commandments. Tell that to the student who tries to pray or read her Bible during school. Tell that to the citizens whose governor decided the State Capitol needed a “holiday tree” as opposed to a Christmas Tree.

Rep. Stan Lee’s complaint is basically a “dump” of childish whines. There’s no cohesion to it, and Lee generously salts his bellyaching with mythology, marginal claims, and outright lies.

First of all, no business owner has been “attacked” by any officials. An “attack” is a punch in the face or being held up at gunpoint; criticism is not, and never will be, an “attack.” Second, no American — not even the owners of Chick-fil-A or Hands On Originals — is ever entitled never to be criticized. Third, using their position as bosses to coerce their employees to live their private, non-workplace lives according to the fierce, rigid strictures of their own dour metaphysics, is not merely “expressing their personal religious beliefs.” It’s quite something else.

Lee doesn’t provide any evidence of these teachers he says have been “sued for saying, ‘Happy Thanksgiving,’ ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Easter.’” It sounds like urban legend to me. There’s nothing specific, just wild claims without a stitch of support.

Valedictorians in public schools being told not to talk up God is part of an effort to keep church and state separate. Let’s face it, lots of public schools use children as proxies to force religion into them, and that’s forbidden.

Oh, and public-school students most certainly can both pray and read Bibles in school. It happens all the time. To say it can’t, is a flat-out lie, and Lee knows it.

Public-school coaches leading students in prayer, and judges putting up immense Decalogue idols in courts, are both examples of Christians using the power of government to promote their religion. And it’s illegal.

And calling a Christmas tree a “holiday tree,” harms no one! Since Christmas is a holiday, semantically speaking, this means all Christmas trees truly are “holiday trees.” To say otherwise is also a lie.

Like the rest of the Religious Right, Rep. Lee is confused. He thinks Christians being criticized for wanting to control everyone’s lives, is an “attack” on his religion. He thinks separation of church and state abridges Christians’ freedom of religion. He thinks Christians are entitled to get their way, all the time, every time, and when they don’t, it’s unacceptable.

As I’ve blogged many times already, I understand where Christians are coming from. A desire to be persecuted for Jesus is part and parcel of their religion, and it has been almost since its inception. This persecutorial delusion is embedded deep in the psychopathology of Christianity. Rep. Lee and the rest of the Religious Right really, truly want to think they’re being attacked for their beliefs. In many ways, they literally can’t help themselves.

But that’s really no excuse for remaining attached to this paranoid delusion. It’s one thing to fantasize about being a martyr, because one’s religion is founded on a martyr. It’s quite another to invent persecution that’s not even happening, and accuse others of doing things they haven’t done. The delusions don’t serve any good purpose, and really need to fucking stop already.

I have to add Rep. Lee to my “lying liars for Jesus” club. Not that he’s alone there. Lying for Jesus is a common pastime among Christians. That’s because … to paraphrase Isaac Asimov … lying is the last refuge of the insecure.

Photo credit: I Can Haz Cheezburger Builder.

Hat tip: Friendly Atheist.

Tags: christian, christian martyr complex, christian persecution, christian persecution complex, christian right, christianism, christianists, Christianity, christians, frankfort KY, persecution, Religion, religionism, religionist, religionists, religious freedom, religious right, rep stan lee, stan lee

It figures. A month ago I blogged about something Marion “Pat” Robertson said, after not having mentioned him in a long time. And now here he comes, with some more notable commentary. This time, he actually indicted himself. Right Wing Watch reports on his latest blunder (WebCite cached article):

Following a news story on the 700 Club about the Profitable Sunrise investment scam [cached], televangelist Pat Robertson told viewers to beware “scamsters in religious garb quoting the Bible, I mean run from them.”

In case you don’t believe he actually said this, here it is, via Youtube:

Hmm, I wonder who could possibly fit that description … someone who’s “dressed in religious garb” and always “quoting the Bible” … that every Christian should “run from.” Hmm. Who could that be? I wonder … !

To be clear, this is one of those (exceedingly rare) occasions when I agree with Robertson about something. He is absolutely correct when he says people need to “run from” “these scamsters in religious garb quoting the Bible.” They truly are “all over the place.” Including CBN!

Photo credit: CBN, via the Raw Story.

Hat tip: Apathetic Agnostic Church.

Tags: bible, christian, Christianity, christians, marion pat robertson, pat robertson, profitable sunrise, profitable sunrise investment scam, Religion, religiosity, scamsters

By now most of my readers will already have heard the news: the College of Cardinals has elected a new pope. The New York Times reports on the cardinals’ choice (WebCite cached article):

With a puff of white smoke from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel and to the cheers of thousands of rain-soaked faithful, a gathering of Catholic cardinals picked a new pope from among their midst on Wednesday — choosing the cardinal from Argentina, the first South American to lead the church.

The new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (pronounced Ber-GOAL-io), will be called Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He is also the first non-European pope in more than 1,200 years and the first member of the Jesuit order to lead the church.

A lot of folks will speculate as to what it means that a non-European was elected Pope, and that the new Pope named himself for St Francis of Assisi. It’s true that Francis is the first “New World” pope, and it’s also true that St Francis had — like Jesus himself — preached the virtue of poverty. But don’t be deceived. The Roman Catholic Church is a colossal juggernaut that works in its own way, moves at its own pace, and in many ways governs itself. It almost doesn’t matter who heads the Holy See. It’s the bishops who, collectively, run the Church, and they’ll continue to do so just as they always have. Even if he’d wanted to — and I’m positive he doesn’t — Pope Francis can’t “change” the Church in any meaningful way … because it can’t be changed.

Photo credit: Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, via the New York Times.

Tags: cardinal bergoglio, catholic church, christian, Christianity, christians, college of cardinals, conclave, holy father, holy see, jorge mario bergoglio, papal election, pope, pope francis, Religion, roman catholic, roman catholic church, vatican, vatican city

During the height of her popularity in the 1980s — in the wake of her having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 — Mother Teresa was arguably the most famous Roman Catholic on earth (rivalled only by Pope John Paul II). In 1995, when the late Christopher Hitchens penned a book critical of her called The Missionary Position, it seemed to have come out of nowhere.

In spite of some favorable literary reviews of his book, Hitchens was widely excoriated for having dared take on a poor, frail old woman who was viewed, by most people, as a living saint. The book was frequently dismissed as a product of Hitchens’s presumed irrational hatred of all things Catholic, and not as the product of research into what she’d actually been up to, backed up by primary-source material.

Well, nearly 2 decades later, it seems Hitchens hadn’t really been that far off target. The (UK) Independent reports that some academics have assessed Mother Teresa’s career, and agree she wasn’t much of a champion of the poor and the sick (WebCite cached article):

The late Mother Teresa’s saintly image has been called into question by researchers conducting an in-depth study of her life.

Mother Teresa may have spent the vast majority of her 87 years looking after the sick and poor, but researchers from Montreal and Ottawa universities have now raised questions over the ‘dubious’ nature of her care, as well querying her “questionable” political contacts.…

Writing in the Journal of Studies in Religion/Sciences after analysing around 300 documents surrounding Mother Teresa’s life, Dr Serge Larivie and Dr Genevieve Chenard say they have uncovered details that compromise the Albanian-born nun’s saintly image.

They claim that many of the ‘missions’ set up by Mother Teresa were unfit for their inhabitants, calling them ‘homes for the dying’ due to their poor hygiene and a shortage of food, care and medication.

The researchers believe a lack of money cannot be the reason for the poor conditions however, as Mother Teresa raised hundreds of millions of pounds during her lifetime, although much of that money apparently appears to have vanished into several ‘secret’ bank accounts reportedly kept by the nun.

The researchers also questioned why, despite openly offering prayers and medallions bearing depictions of the Virgin Mary, Mother Teresa provided no direct or monetary aid to victims of a number of natural disasters in India.

Dr Larivie says: “Given the parsimonious management of Mother Teresa’s works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?”

The researchers went on to query Mother Teresa’s politics and political contacts, accusing her of accepting a financial grant from the brutal Duvalier dictatorship, which is deemed responsible for the murders of over 30,000 Haitians between 1957 and 1986.

But Mother Teresa had more political allies other than brutish tyrants like François and “Baby Doc” Duvalier; infamous banking swindler Charles Keating was also among her associates. Yeah, those were the sorts of people she made time for, and counted as her friends and supporters. Yuck.

I suspect these findings won’t rehabilitate Hitchens in the eyes of those who despised him. I also suspect they won’t convince Mother Teresa’s devout Catholic admirers into rethinking their devotion to her. They will, instead, dismiss them as the product of the Evil Secularist Elite that supposedly infests higher education in North America. (As though there’s no such thing as a conservative or religionistic college anywhere to be found.) After all … why put up with inconvenient facts, when you can rationalize some way to ignore them?

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: calcutta, catholic church, charity, charles keating, christian, Christianity, christians, christopher hitchens, francois duvalier, kolkata, mother teresa, Religion, roman catholic, roman catholic church, the missionary position

At this point one would have thought the Republicans should have learned the lesson of the 2012 election, which is that letting the idiots within its ranks mouth off like the clowns they are, is a bad idea. And voters seem to have agreed they were idiots: Richard Mourdock, Joe Walsh, and Todd Akin — at one time all favored to win their races — ended up losing, because they opened their mouths and shoved their religionistic feet in them. Remarkable losses such as these ought to have sent a message to the country’s Religious Right politicians.

But it seems some of them either never got the message, or they got it, but have decided spewing idiocy won’t hurt them. The New York Times Caucus blog reports on one who’s gone and done just that (WebCite cached version):

The lawmaker, Representative Phil Gingrey, an obstetrician and gynecologist, told the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce that neither Mr. Akin, who lost his Senate bid to Senator Claire McCaskill, nor Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who lost to Joe Donnelly, a Democrat, had been treated fairly in the wake of their rape comments, according to The Marietta Daily News.

“I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things,” Mr. Gingrey said, according to the paper. “It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right, wasn’t he?” …

He also justified Mr. Akin’s distinction between “legitimate rape” — which Mr. Akin had said women’s reproductive systems can defend against — and other unspecified sexual acts that can lead to pregnancy.

Mr. Akin, he said, “was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation’ — and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that’s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’

“That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don’t find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that.”

So you see, even after a disaster of an election which left the Republicans still out of the White House, and with a smaller number of seats in both houses of Congress, they still cannot seem to get over their belief that calling out idiots for their idiocy is somehow “not fair” to the idiots; that not all rapes are really “rapes”; and that women who are raped are less likely to become pregnant than women who aren’t.

Oh, and the part about fueling women with wine in order to get them to “loosen up” for sex … what juvenile fucking bullshit! I think I got over that idea back when I was in high school. But what the hell do I know!?

If you unsure how the next two years in GOP politics are going to go, this seems to provide an indicator: They plan to double down on their stupidity and buffoonery, be laughed at and derided as the clowns and loons they are, and continue to intone the endless mantra that they aren’t being “treated fairly.” Apparently they think this is a winning formula, in spite of the 2012 elections whose results say something else.

Update: The folks at PolitiFact examined Gingrey’s (and by extension Akin’s) claim and found it had no scientific basis at all (cached). As the article explains, and as I hadn’t known until just recently, there’s a significant wing of the Religious Right which really, truly and seriously claims either that women cannot conceive when they’re raped, or that the likelihood of conception is greatly reduced. The reason they make this claim is so that they can justify banning all abortions and not even grant an exception for cases of rape. They are willing to lie to people in order to justify forcing the entire country to live according to their metaphysics, and they’ve been doing it for many years.

Photo credit: PsiCop original, based on proverb.

Tags: atlanta, atlanta GA, christian, christian right, Christianity, christians, cobb county, congress, georgia, georgia 11th district, gop, house of representatives, legitimate rape, misogynist, misogynists, misogyny, phil gingrey, pregnancy, rape, Religion, religionism, religionist, religionists, religious right, republican, republicans, todd akin