Cross Partially Removed from Water Tower ??

A while ago, I highlighted the case where the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the town of Whiteville, Tennessee, requesting they remove the cross the town had erected on the top of the water tower.  The mayor, James Bellar, called it an act of terrorism.

Well, to avoid losing what could have been an expensive court case, the town has indeed removed the 'cross' . . . sort of.  They simply cut off one of the arms.



Now it's not a cross, it's some abstract symbol or something.

Mayor Bellar had this mature thing to say:

"This brings to close a sad chapter in the history of Whiteville that can best be described as terroristic, cowardly and shameful! The fear and terror caused our older people here is shameful. So shame on your client and your firm!"

Yes, what a perfectly appropriate response to someone requesting you obey the law.  Shake your finger at them and cry, "Shame, shame shame!"

Separation of Church and State equals Terrorism

James Bellar, mayor of Whiteville, Tenn. feels that his community is under attack by terrorists.  Is this based on any violence waged against town residents?  Any intercepted communications involving plots to construct explosive devices or stage attacks?

No, it's because he got a letter in the mail. The Freedom From Religion Foundation warned Mayor Bellar they would sue if he didn't remove a cross erected on a town water tower eight years ago.

“They are terrorists as far as I’m concerned,” said Mayor James Bellar about the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “They are alleging that some Whiteville resident feels very, very intimidated by this cross..."

“A terrorist is more than a guy that flies the planes into the building,” he said. “It’s anyone who can disrupt your way of living, destroy your lifestyle, cause you anxiety. It’s more than killing people. If they can disrupt your routine in life, that’s what they want to do. They are terrorists as far as I’m concerned.”

Yes, because expecting other people to obey the law is just like flying planes into buildings.

While the cross was paid for by private funds, that it was erected on public property is a government endorsement of religion, says Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who received notice of the cross from an anonymous Whiteville resident. Even the Jackson Sun editorial called for the town to remove the cross. "God doesn't call governments to be Christians, he calls Christians to be Christians,” the newspaper wrote.

But Mayor Bellar shows the homogenous thinking typical in fundamentalist conservatives. He doesn't believe that the complaint originated locally. “As a matter of fact, I don’t even think it’s a Whiteville resident,” he said. “We don’t have people of that belief here and if we do they’re not going to raise that kind of ruckus for the rest of the town.”

Mayor Bellar would do well to both brush up on both the law and the diversity that can be found even in conservative Tennessee.

Pastor burgles parishioner for drugs

So it seems a woman noticed some of her prescription pain meds were missing.  Who do you suppose would be the culprit?

Prescription painkillers kept disappearing from her house, so a few months ago Jean Harris set up a surveillance camera outside. What she found was her minister, Pastor Rickey Alan Reed, 55, of First Free Methodist Church, trying to get inside her home.

This is the part that intriques me:

The day after she caught him on video, she said she called a church meeting and confronted Reed. He said he would get help. She said church members pressured her not to go to the police.

Police have charged Reed with aggravated burglary. Reed is free on bond, tensions are high at church, and police are investigating whether he may have broken into other homes looking for drugs. Harris, who has attended the church for 55 years, says church members have ostracized her.

I recall a song from church camp that went something like, "And they'll know we are Christians by our love."

Pastor Orders Flock to Beat Gay Couple

I've been told by Christian conservatives that their faith in Jesus makes them more loving and accepting, even of people whom they believe are engaged in sinful behavior like homosexuality.  The phrase, "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin," has been often used to summarize their position.

Too bad it didn't work in this case:

[W]ho could imagine the hate and rage that would motivate a Pastor to instruct deacons and members of his congregation, Grace Fellowship Church in Fruitland, TN. to physically attack a couple arriving in the church parking lot last Wednesday?

The fact that one of the gay men attacked happened to be the Pastor’s own son, Jerry Pittman, Jr., no doubt contributed to Pittman senior’s noxious edict. According to Pittman Jr., after hearing his Dad yell, “SICK’EM!:”

“My uncle and two other deacons came over to the car per my dad’s request. My uncle smashed me in the door as the other deacon knocked my boyfriend back so he couldn’t help me, punching him in his face and his chest. The other deacon came and hit me through my car window in my back.”

The situation was made worse when a Deputy Sheriff arrived.

Once the barrage of punches ended, the Deputy refused to let the two victims press charges.

I can't fathom how preventing someone from pressing charges after they've been assaulted would be legal. Maybe someone with a better legal understanding could enlighten me.

So wedding-day virgins deserve to die of cancer?

Pandagon reports that yes indeed there are some misconceptions about HPV out there, namely that anyone who contracts it must be a 'person of loose morals' and that by preventing one of the consequences of extra-marital sex by vaccinating against HPV, all we really accomplish is that we give permission for our tender teenage girls to grow up to be a 'person of loose morals.'

What's not said, of course, is that HPV is far more prevalent than one might expect.  It's not just prostitutes and twelve-year-old non-virgins who get it.  Practically everyone who has sex contracts it at some point, usually asymptomatic, and with no long-term consequences. You can be a wedding-day virgin marrying a man who's had consensual sex with just one other person, and whoops, you've got HPV, but you'll never know it. But to hear religious conservatives like Thomas Peters tell it, you now deserve to die of cancer because you didn't follow the rules properly.

HPV is like the common cold in terms of severity. Most people are fine, but a percentage of people get sicker and die. That's why we vaccinate against the flu, and why we should vaccinate against HPV. But that doesn't mean we need to have some society-wide panic about the flu. Just get the shot and get on with your life. Sheesh. The only reason to freak out about HPV---and about the vaccine---is that we can't handle the fact that people fuck. Even though pretty much everyone fucks. It's bizarre, it really is.

ACLJ: Money funnel for lawyers in the guise of religious liberty

Fred Clark of Slacktivist has a new piece on the the ACLJ, the American Center for Law and Justice, or the ACLJ.  The ACLJ poses itself as an alternative to the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, except the ACLJ doesn't stand up for anyone whose religious freedoms are being curtailed in America, only those who are evangelical Christians.

Not only does the ACLJ have the freedoms of only one religious group in mind, but it also stands against the freedoms of other competing religions, such as when it joined the resistance against the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" (which is neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque.) 

But Clark has highlighted how perhaps the true purpose of the ACLJ is to keep its head, Jay Sekulow and his family, rolling in the dough.  Sekulow also runs charities, and according to Bob Smietana writing for The Tennessean:

Since 1998, the two charities have paid out more than $33 million to members of Sekulow’s family and businesses they own or co-own, according to the charities’ federal tax returns, known as form 990s.

One of the charities is controlled by the Sekulow family — tax documents show that all four of CASE’s board members are Sekulows and another is an officer...

Who knew that pretending persecution could pay so well?

Turns out gays, not boobs, cause earthquakes

Not long after a minor earthquake rattled the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, along come the predictions by religious folk that God sends natural disasters to punish people, right on schedule.  Here's Rabbi Levin letting us know that this event  was due to, not Boobquake, but homosexuals:

The money quote at the 6:00 minute mark is:

"One of the reasons that God brings earthquakes to the world is because of the transgression of homosexuality, and the Talmud states, 'You have shaken your male member in a place where it doesn't belong. I too, will shake the earth.'"

Who knew that the Talmud was loaded with innuendo?

Of course, with minimal property damage and no reported injuries from this earthquake, one wonders if perhaps God is losing his grip.  And since gay marriage is illegal in Virginia, the epicenter of the quake, but not in New York, perhaps God has gone myopic as well.  God used to be able to kill off individuals in a crowd (2 Samuel 6).  Now he misses the target by hundreds of miles?  I'm afraid we expect much more from an omnipotent deity.  God may want to consider scaling back, spend some more time with his family, and perhaps take up a hobby...preferably one that doesn't involve sharp instruments.

Atheists: No longer the least popular group

A mildly amusing survey shows that the Tea Party is less popular in America than all other groups mentioned:

In an op-ed article in the New York Times, Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and David E. Campbell, a political scientist at Notre Dame, say they have collected data indicating that the tea party is "less popular than much maligned groups like 'atheists' and 'Muslims.'"

To be fair, there's bound to be cross-over, as a Tea Party member could very well be an Atheist or a Muslim (although I would find it highly unlikely.) The survey also asks participants to rate religious groups, political parties, and notable individuals, so the results are bound to be weak and difficult to interpret.

But it's refreshing to see that atheists are no longer the whipping boys of American culture.

Pastor Films Honey-Soaked Naked Girls in Shower

From the News of the Weird:

AUGUST 8--Using a hidden video camera, a Texas man filmed four naked, honey-drenched teenage girls while they showered at a church where he worked as a youth pastor...

The 30-year-old Fortenberry, investigators alleged, organized a “Fear Factor” game that included honey being poured over four girls he had picked to participate. After the contest, Fortenberry instructed the minors that they “could take a shower and wash the honey” off their bodies.

It was at this point that he allegedly videotaped the four teenagers with a camera he had hidden in the church bathroom.

I don't think this is what Yahweh had in mind when he promised believers a land flowing with milk and honey.

But since the statute of limitations has already expired, prosecutors today were forced to dismiss felony charges lodged against Thomas Fortenberry, who allegedly did the surreptitious filming in November 2007 at the Greater Harvest Community Church in Pasadena.

Freedom is Wonderful, but Only for Me

Fred Clark of Slacktivist responds to the Southern Baptist hierarch spokesman Richard Land's complaints that certain judges or administration officials may make rulings that are "against the will of the people."  Clark writes:

Implicit in this is a notion of democracy that we've encountered again and again among American evangelical Christians attempting to engage in politics. It is the idea that democracy means everything is subject to the will of the majority -- including the rights of minorities, which therefore aren't rights at all, merely privileges permitted or withheld by the sentiment of the majority. It is, bluntly, the idea that democracy is just a fancy word for mob rule.

We see this in things like the absurd annual ritual of the so-called "war on Christmas" and in a thousand similar obsessive resentments of imagined offenses. We see it in the ugliness of the anti-mosque movement. We see this in the fear that equality under the law for GLBT people will somehow constitute an infringement of the religious liberty of those who regard homosexuality as a sin (this despite the hard-to-miss fact that Fred Phelps remains free to say whatever vile things he wishes, whenever and wherever he wishes). We see it in the aggressive sectarian impulse to piss on trees and mark territory by erecting officially sanctioned sectarian holiday displays or Ten Commandments plaques or official prayers and other ostentations of sectarian allegiance.

Would that every Christian believer understand the difference between the rule of law, and the rule of the mob.

One Picture, 1,000 words

From Indexed

NZ Quake blamed on homosexuals

After every natural disaster, there never fails to emerge someone to declare that the deaths and destruction were sent by God as punishment, always against those whom the speaker doesn't like.  The recent earthquake in New Zealand is no exception.

At Christchurch Earthquake, the unnamed writer blames the February 22nd quake on homosexuals:

To the hundreds of thousands of people who suffered because of the Christchurch earthquake: Ask yourselves: "Was the profit from meals, accomodation and transport from 900 poofters and lesbians attending "Gay Ski Week" worth the $4 billion damage, worth the homes destroyed? Was it worth going to sleep night after night not knowing if the roof will come down on you by morning?" Chris Carter and Helen Clark's government got what they wanted -- 12 year olds on the streets as prostitutes, overseas trips, expensive liquor and credit card junkets, lesbians running loose on the South Island as if they own the place. But, looking at your ruined homes, at all the historic buildings destroyed, ask yourselves, "Did we get what we wanted in all this destruction?"

Let's step back and take a look at this line of argument. The writer is saying that God looked down on New Zealand and saw some people doing something he doesn't like. So he waves his fingers and causes a disaster, killing several people, but not necessarily the ones performing the hated behavior. God then relies on some other person to pronounce to the masses what the disaster really means. If there is a more error-prone method of conveying your desires, I don't know of any. Would any non-godlike person behave this way?

Suppose a man is hired as a security guard of an apartment building, and he learns that one of the tenants is behaving "immorally." Maybe the guy in 3-B is watching pornography, whatever. The guard then goes to the basement and lights some oily rags on fire, burning down the entire building, killing seven people--except the guy in 3-B! He gets away safely. Then the security guard's friends saunters along and tells the survivors, "If you hadn't allowed one of your own to watch porn, none of this would have happened. Are you happy now?!"

In what world would punishment like this make sense? If the author of this website is correct in that God really, really, hates homosexuals, then wouldn't it make more sense for God to punish the homosexual? Wouldn't it be more effective if, say, everytime two guys have sex with each other, their hearts immediately stop? If everytime a woman said for the first time, "I'm a lesbian" she fell over dead, wouldn't that do more to end homosexuality than just randomly sweeping buildings down in an earthquake sometime in the same year as a gay public event takes place?

Of course, when believers are harmed by natural disasters, then it's "God works in mysterious ways," and "God needed more angels so he called them home," and "God tests us with pain so that we don't become accustomed to this world."

For the New Zealand families grieving over their loss of loved ones, the author of this website owes them an extreme apology

LDS cult waterboards babies

What do you do when an infant becomes difficult to manage?  Submit it to water torture, of course:

“It’s quite common,” Carolyn Blackmore Jessop said. She was a witness for the B.C. government in the constitutional reference case to determine whether Canada’s polygamy law is valid.

“They spank the baby and when it cries, they hold the baby face up under the tap with running water. When they stop crying, they spank it again and the cycle is repeated until they are exhausted.”

It’s typically done by fathers and it’s called “breaking in...”

Her assertions about water torture were not challenged by FLDS lawyer Robert Wickett during cross-examination.

I simply haven't the words.

Erick Erickson: Government shouldn't accommodate atheists, or even mention them.

CNN contributor Erick Erickson can't stand that there are atheists in the United States, expecting to be treated equally by the federal government. 

Erickson criticizes President Obama for calling for a "Moment of Silence" rather than a "Moment of Prayer," the way God intended it (pay no attention to Jesus urging prayers to be done in secret.)  Never mind that previous Republican presidents have done the same thing.  When Obama does it, it's because Obama is "of the left."

But the offensive part is when Erickson argues that the President shouldn't "accommodate atheists" even by calling for "prayer or reflection."  Why, in Obama's inaugural speech, he had the audacity to "mention" atheists. Can you imagine such a thing?

(No word on when Erickson plans to contact his U.S. Representative and ask him or her to begin the paperwork on repealing the First Amendment.)

Saddam Hussein: Superstitious ghoul

Saddam Hussein, in a bid for piety, gave his own blood for ink to transcribe a Qur'an.  Today, Iraqi leaders don't know what to do with the macabre book.

Perhaps the United States should revisit the policy of supporting twisted superstitious tin-pot dictators.

Science, in conjunction with superstition, works.

Another entry for "What's the harm?" with depressing familiarity.  Child gets sick, parents pray for child instead of seeking professional treatment, child dies.  In this case, the parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter, the same charge as if they had chosen to pray their child out of the street before it gets mowed down by a truck.

The newspaper report also throws up a poll, and the choices are telling:

Do you believe in the power of prayer to heal?
* Yes
* Yes, but in conjunction with medicine
* No
* Don't know

"Yes, but in conjunction with medicine."  Standard cop-out for those who want to cover all their bases, which curiously shows a lack of faith.  "Yes prayer works, BUT, you also have to employ professionals because God's not *quite* powerful enough to heal on his own without a lot of human help." 

In other news, prayer plus aspirin cures headaches.

Bomb-sniffing dowsers are junk

The Iraqi Interior Ministry inspector general finally admitted that the ADE-651 bomb-sniffing dowsing devices don't work.

The ADE-651 was sold as a hand-held wand that supposedly swiveled when in the presence of dynamite or other explosives.  But like water-dowsing the device is nothing but a scam.  ATSC, a British company that manufactured the ADE-651, won million-dollar contracts selling the device to the Iraqi Interior Ministry for as much as $60,000 apiece.  U.S. military officials called the device a scam for years, and the British government has jailed the ATSC Chief Jim McCormick for fraud and has banned the company from exporting more.

Initially, Interior Minister Jawad Bolani defended the wands, saying it had saved countless lives.  But people actually using the device knew better.  Iraqi policeman Mahammed Shaker said he knew they were a scam: ""They don't achieve anything. It's all a show for the public."  The Iraqi Ministry's inspector general, Aqeel Al Turaihi reported that "many lives have been lost due to the wands utter ineffectiveness."

However, despite the criticisms, the lack of results, and the tragedy of the situation, the ADE-651 units have not been pulled from checkpoints across Iraq, and the official who signed the $85 million no-bid contract has been granted immunity.

U.S. Lt. Col Dennis Yates was very critical of ATSC's McCormick and his worthless device: "This piece of junk did, in fact, significantly contribute to an unknown -- and pathetically large -- loss of innocent lives. The guy who bought it should rot in one of the stinking jails that dot Baghdad."

"I don't have the facts, but I just know it!"

Rachel Maddow asks Alaskans why they are supporting Joe Miller:

Supporter A: Because Eric Holder is anti-gun.
RM: What's he done against guns?
Supporter A: Wuh . . . what hasn't he done against guns? Look at his voting record!
RM: He wasn't an elected official.
Supporter A: <Blank stare> . . . just look at his record--
RM: What's he done on guns that you're upset about?
Supporter A: <Blank stare . . . think, man, think!> I honestly don't know enough to answer that question.

Supporter B: Eric Holder is anti-gun!
RM: What has he done that's anti-gun?
Supporter B: I don't have all the facts, but I know that he is.

Supporter A: Just look at his press releases.
RM: Which ones?
Supporter A: Just . . . just Google "Eric Holder" and "2nd amendment."

Then Supporter C chimes in:

Supporter C: Black Panthers!


"This is the world that Fox News has created."

Danielle Bean: Faith is More Reasonier than Reason

Danielle Bean, "Catholic author" writes in the On Faith blog that she's upset that atheists are using Jon Stewart's D.C. rally to promote reason.  This is unacceptable, writes Bean:

Atheists would have you believe that science is opposed to faith, but real science is not only unopposed to faith -- real scientific study leads us to God.

For proof, she cites Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry, who stated that "From a knowledge of God's work we shall know Him." Congratulations to Ms. Bean on finding a seventeenth-century scientist who also believed in God. She doesn't cite any other scientist who doesn't believe in God, or who does not feel that the best way to know about the universe is to apply faith, but that might detract readers from her main point.

I am not sure just how atheists have managed to secure exclusive rights to use of the word "reason."

Well, no one ever said that atheists want "exclusive" rights, but freethinkers do argue that reason is superior to faith when obtaining information. Sure, what we learn by faith might be true, but the only way to know for sure is to A) use reason, or B) use more faith. Martin Luther called Reason "the Devil's greatest whore," but I suppose the Catholic Ms. Bean might not know what the Father of the Protestant movement would say.

Ms. Bean goes on to erect a cartoon-version of the modern scientific method:

There is nothing at all reasonable about believing that the universe is a colossal accident....Believing that the human body is a haphazard collision of cells and that the earth is randomly placed in space, at precisely the correct distance from the sun for supporting life is as reasonable as expecting a roomful of monkeys with typewriters to turn out the next great literary masterpiece.

Of course, no non-theistic cosmologist describes the origins of the universe as an accident, and no biologist calls a human being a haphazard collision of cells. She also grossly exaggerates the range of our Sun's Habitable Zone and Earth's special place in it. Not because, as I suspect, that she's had extensive scientific training, but because apologists have told her so, as I have written about before.

Anti-faith personalities like Jon Stewart and Richard Dawkins might think that they have all the answers, but real believers know that only God does. And He's not invited to the mall this weekend.

Ms. Bean seems confused. The Jon Stewart rally is not intended to be a backlash against faith in general, but a response to the Glenn Beck rally of right-wing conservatism and fear-mongering. That atheists are taking an opportunity to protest against the Religious Right and their "faith-based" politicking is not because we have all the answers. We don't, but we don't plaster faith into our gaps of knowledge and then hug ourselves because we're so special in the eyes of God.

Simply put, faith is an unreliable means of obtaining knowledge. As the saying goes, Faith is No Reason.

Pastor arrested on 11 sexual abuse charges

Yet another case of a Protestant minister involved in sexual abuse:

The new charges involve two teen boys who said McCurdy forced them into sexual relationships with him. They told police he used his position in the church and Bible scriptures to force them into sex acts, authorities said.

I'm reminded of Voltaire: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.