Over the past week I have come across these gems and thought you might be interested!
------------------------------------
Some atheists are upset that they were not invited to take part in the Democratic National Convention’s Aug. 24 interfaith service in Denver.
Becky Hale, a founder of the atheist group Freethinkers of Colorado Springs, said the service discriminates against non believing Democrats. “By reaching out to people of faith,” Hale said, “they have shown the back of their hand to those who do not believe.”
---------------------------------------------
A group of American Christians who had more than 300 Bibles confiscated by Chinese officials when they arrived in China, is refusing to leave the airport until they get the books back.
---------------------------------------------
A federal appeals court has ruled that East Texas jurors wrongly used a Bible during deliberations in a capital murder case, but that there isn’t enough evidence to show they were prejudiced when they decided to send a Waco man to death row for fatally shooting and bludgeoning a 64-year-old man.
"Texas is a state in which almost no serious crime occurs because ‘good’ Christians like George Bush have done their best to hold on to the death penalty."The death penalty is a barbaric form of punishment banned by most civilized nations.
The records show it does not accomplish what proponents say it does.
Hence Texas has to build ever more prisons.
--------------------------------------------------
Nothing makes Satan happier than the Beijing “bikini” Olympics says Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid.
“The world’s worst display of women’s clothing is the women’s Olympics,” he said. “No exposure of women’s private parts on a global scale could make Satan happier than Olympic games that include women’s sports.”In an interview aired on Al-Majd TV on August 10 and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the unhappy cleric slammed the Olympic Games - past and present - for its debauched display of women’s bodies.
------------------------------------------------
Speaking of Muhammad Al-Munajid, he says he is happy with this report of a Muslim woman who designs full-body swimwearThe original suit design was based on surf wear and featured floral Hawaiian print separates: the “Island Shirt” — a looser-fitting version of the rash guard, with more fabric in the chest area and a tapered waist — and swim pants, basically board shorts turned into straight-leg pants.
“I understand most people are accustomed to not seeing a lot of clothing on the beach or in the water,” said Sabet. “We don’t want to look like freaks or stick out like sore thumbs for being so covered up on the beach but I wanted to help make water activity accessible to Muslim women.”
A swim cap and swim hood, similar to what scuba divers might already wear, completed the suit.
-------------------------------------------------
The Asterisk Gallery, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is hosting a fund-raiser on Friday, August 29, 2008 for a SubGenius cult minister who acquired over $140,000 in legal costs in her ongoing struggle to regain custody of her son, after the child was taken away from her based on her religious beliefs.
Rachel Bevilacqua is a high-ranking member of the Church of the SubGenius, known far and wide as a “parody religion” that engages in satire, performance art, and comedy in a manner widely seen as a spoof of dangerous religious cults.
In December of 2005, she became involved in a legal dispute regarding custody of her ten-year-old son, though she and the father of the boy had never been married. Rachel had raised her son with her husband, Steve Bevilacqua, and exercised custody from birth, with the father of the child retaining visitation rights.
As with many separated couples, this agreement had been followed by each parent, until the father took steps to request sole custody of the child in December of 2005.
Domestic custody battles take place daily in the court system, but this case took a turn into strange territory on February 3, 2006, when Rachel Bevilacqua’s chosen religion was introduced in the court room.
Her son’s father introduced photos of her performing at the annual SubGenius “X-Day” festival, including participation in an unquestionably adult-oriented parody of Mel Gibson’s blockbuster movie The Passion of the Christ.
--------------------------------------------
In a survey released this summer by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, just 59 percent of 35,000 respondents said they believe in a hell “where people who have led bad lives, and die without being sorry, are eternally punished.”
That’s down from the 71 percent who said they believed in hell in a 2001 Gallup survey. And it is lower than the 74 percent who said they believe in heaven in the recent Pew poll.
Skepticism about hell is growing even in evangelical churches and seminaries, says one theologian here, a bastion of conservative evangelicalism.
---------------------------------------------------
On a personal note here my wife keeps telling me that one of the devils greatest powers is to let people believe he doesn't exist.
Now this is either absolutely true or another clever attempt at brainwashing by the church.
With religion's track record at using psychology to manipulate people I suspect it's the latter.
------------------------------------------------------------------
And finally, we borrow this quote from the Religion blog of the Dallas Morning News:
“In my early teens, I would sit on the street corners and play gospel songs. People would listen, applaud, pat me on the head, and tell me, ‘You’ll be good one day.’ But they never tipped. When I played a blues song, though, they always tipped. Always. That’s when I knew I wanted to play the blues.” - B. B. KingAllan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E ! and as a paperback H E R E !
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://allans-perspective.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment