What Sort Of People Ask A Question Like "Will the Antichrist be a homosexual?

I found a , um , provoking little article on the internet from May 2009.

The title was Will the Antichrist be a homosexual?.

The author, the pastor for an independent Baptist Church in a small US town, reckons it's likely:

...In effect, there is no greater sin against God than to reject how he made you, and no greater sin against women than to reject how God made them.

Having seen what the Bible says of sodomy, we have no further to look than the book of Daniel, chapter 11 to find our answer. It says, “Neither shall he [Antichrist] regard... the desire of women....” As I said at the onset, I am not the first to draw attention to this, but the verbiage is clear....

Now, you are asking yourselves, what kind of town has a Church like this? What sort of people live there? What sort of politicians do they elect?

Oddly enough, the place is Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin was mayor and where she still lives.

Vile Fatwa In Bangladesh

A 16 year-old rape victim is punished with 100 lashes.

This 'gruesome brutality' and 'parallel system of justice that misuse the name of religion' is roundly condemned by the Bangladesh Daily Star here.

JUSTICE has been made a farce of once again. In a shocking repetition of misuse of fatwa, a rape victim was at the receiving end of a hundred and one lashes; the punishment was fixed through local arbitration participated by some village elders in a village in Kashba upazilla. And the rapist is roaming scot-free.

The incident is shocking not only for the gruesome brutality meted out to the 16 year old girl, but also because of the attitude of the law enforcing agency who did not act promptly enough to prevent the whipping or take cognisance of the incident later. It is very clear that the High Court directive to the police, issued in August 2009, to investigate all extrajudicial punishments, has not been fully implemented. Had that been the case the perpetrators would have been brought to justice and made examples of, and this would have acted as a deterrent to others.

The recent incident is disturbing on two counts. It demonstrates once again that helpless women, who are victims of rape and other forms of torture, not only cannot seek redress of law, they and their parents are further subjected to physical and mental torture including social ostracisation, as in the recent case in Kashba.

The other disturbing aspect is the role of the police. We cannot comprehend the statement the OC of Kashba PS that he would take appropriate action if the victim filed a case in this regard. He is in clear breach of the High Court directives in this regard. It is even more disturbing because three women have been victims of lashing as result of fatwa in this very district during the current month.

One cannot speak too strongly against this kind of aberrations that is being used to perpetrate violence against women. This practice must stop immediately. We join with the conscious segment of the society in calling upon the government to take steps to stop the parallel system of justice that misuse the name of religion. While the highest court has taken cognisance of the matter the police have not been quite up to the task earnestly as yet.

Evil.

I assume that this story in the Telegraph last week was true:

Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary has branded Christmas "evil" in a sermon posted on the internet.

The lawyer, who recently praised the Mumbai terror attacks, urged all Muslims to reject traditional Christmas celebrations, claiming that they are forbidden by Allah.

The 41-year-old shocked Christians and even those of his own faith by branding yuletide festivities as "the pathway to hellfire".

Choudary, who is chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers, ruled out all celebrations, including having a Christmas tree, decorating the house or eating turkey.

In the sermon posted on an Islamic website, he said: "In the world today many Muslims, especially those residing in western countries, are exposed to the evil celebration Christmas.

"Many take part in the festival celebrations by having Christmas turkey dinners.

"Decorating the house, purchasing Christmas trees or having Christmas turkey meals are completely prohibited by Allah.

"Many still practise this corrupt celebration as a remembrance of the birth of Jesus.

"How can a Muslim possibly approve or participate in such a practice that bases itself on the notion Allah has an offspring?

"The very concept of Christmas contradicts and conflicts with the foundation of Islam.

"Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire. Protect your Paradise from being taken away – protect yourself and your family from Christmas."

Choudary is Principal Lecturer at the London School of Shari'ah and a follower of the Islamist militant leader Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Earlier this year, he led a meeting at the heart of the area where the liquid bombers lived, which warned of a British September 11.

Well, he's a perfect example of the opposite of what Liberal Democrats believe in, isn't he? If so, it would be good to see a bit more condemnation from the Lib Dems of this sort of thing.

All I can say is, it's good to see that many Muslim families are apparently having turkey dinners - that's their choice, they should be free to do it.

We have to make sure that Mr Choudary continues to lose the argument- and isn't allowed to win through fear and intimidation.

Border Skirmishes Between Religion and Science

Here's three American websites I've been looking at lately.

The first is CONSERVAPEDIA - the "Trustworthy Encyclopedia". For me it's an example of religion trying to trample all over science. I know that other Lib Bloggers have mentioned it before, but it's worth a second look. - or second warning. Don't think of it being a Conservative website in just political terms, they are sixteenth century or worse in what they think of science. Not only are they trying to dump evolution, they are trying to dump modern astronomy.

Here's an extract from their article on the moon:

Atheistic theories of the origin of the Moon, widely taught for decades despite lacking the falsifiability requirement of science (see Philosophy of science), have been proven false.[8] Lacking any other atheistic alternatives, some scientists assert that the Moon originated from a collision early in Earth's history which created an orbiting ring of debris from the iron-poor surface of the planet which eventually coalesced into the moon.[9] This theory, however, is contrary to key observations of the Moon, such as the relatively low levels of iron in the Moon's crust. Additional tests fail to support the atheistic theory.[10]
Biblical history records the Moon being created on the fourth day of creation week, along with the Sun.....

.....Humphreys determined that the basalt had been laid down about 370 years after creation, and the brecchia had been laid down 1840 years after creation, or about 190 years after the Flood.[19] These findings clearly suggest that the Moon, and presumably all other bodies in the solar system, have been subject to two separate system-wide bombardments, one occurring in the second or third generation after the fall of man and the other occurring well after the Flood.

Note the equivalences here:

modern accepted science = atheistic science
atheistic science = bad

A while back the Onion website did a nice piece of satire on creation science:

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Trouble is, the satire isn't that different to what's on Conservapedia:

Everything in the universe that has mass attracts every other thing that has mass. The mechanism which transports this force has never been observed, scientists have created the graviton, a hypothetical particle, in order to uphold the naturalistic explanation absent of a supernatural force.

They haven't found a supernatural force, but they are still hoping for one.

Turning away from Wikipedia, there's STARDESTROYER.NET a forum which invotes you to "Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid people" - I think by 'stupid people' they mean the type that trust Conservapedia.

There's a lot of SF stuff here, some interesting science news, some copies of correspondence with creationists and some interesting writing. Probably the one item that would upset the Conservapedia people most is this ongoing work of fiction entitled Armageddon???? in which Satan tries to claim Earth as his own, but meets unexpected resistance from the combined armed forces of the USA, Russia, Britain, Singapore, Al Qaeda.... It also makes Gordon Brown , George Bush and especially Bill Clinton into heroes. You might say it's a case of science trying to trample over religion.

In this early extract, the Royal Navy take on a demonic sea-monster:

“Hit it again. Full power to the forward sonar transducers.” The contact had been settling down when the second pulse hit it. If anything the threshing was even worse than with the first pulse. “That’s a Baldrick, no doubt. Weapons, fire tubes one and two. Target that thing.”

Taking four tons off the extreme end of the moment arm caused Astute’s bow to dip. It didn’t matter to the torpedoes, they were already out and climbing to the shallower water near the surface. Once there, they kicked up to 81 knots and ran out to the estimated position of the target. At that point they dropped their guidance wires and dived vertically on the contact below them.

A shaped charge can penetrate six times its diameter; that gave the pair of Spearfish torpedoes a theoretical penetration of 126 inches. In fact, they did a bit better than that, blasting deep cavities in Ralaraspanathsis’s back, severing his spinal column and burning deep into his vital organs. His body tissues, vaporized by the blast, sprayed out and down, searing and cooking his internal organs and bursting open the swim bladder that kept him afloat. Crippled and dying, he felt himself floating upwards towards the surface. Confusion filled his mind, he was a herald. How could they have done this?

“Well, there’s no doubt about, we just scored a Baldrick.” A cheer went up around the control room. Ever since Prime Minister Gordon Brown had quoted ‘Blackadder’ in his initial announcement, the British had taken to calling the denizens of hell, ‘Baldricks’. It had a nice, contemptuous air about it, one that was beginning to catch on. “Number One, take the boat to the surface, we need to collect samples.”

Finally, I found the LIBERTE EGALITE TRIVIALITE BLOG described as "Random screeds about... you know... stuff, from a heathen atheist bleeding-heart liberal ex-mormon rationalist in the heart of the reddest state." It's just a.... blog, but there's some nice stuff there on Dr Who and an interesting account from the author of the blog on how science. pornography, cinnamon oil and the Mormon faith clashed in his teenage years. It's worth a look, even if only to say hi to a liberal Dr Who fan in Utah.

Finding Common Ground Between Christians And Atheists

I've found a semi-serious list of 10 things that Christians and atheists can agree on. For example, no 3:

3. In Everyday Life, You're Not That Different

You Christians, if the transmission in your Camaro explodes, are you going to use prayer to reconstruct it? No, you'll call a mechanic. When your tooth hurts, you don't assume it's possessed by demons. You look for a cavity. Basic, everyday troubleshooting.

Well, at the very worst, the atheists are just applying the same common sense, real-world troubleshooting to the God question. At the creation of the universe and in the heart of mankind, they expect to find the same physical, tangible answers they'd find inside a burnt transmission. If they're wrong about God, they're only wrong in that they've taken the tried-and-true troubleshooting we all practice one step too far.

On the other hand...

Atheists, even if you reject the idea of God completely and claim to live according only to the cold logic of the physical sciences, you all still live as if the absolute morality of some magical lawgiver were true.

No, wait. Don't go away.

When some guy hustles you out of eighty bucks in an ebay scam, you don't nod and say, "Interesting! This fellow lacks the genetic predisposition toward equitable dealing that generations of sexual selection in favor of social behavior has instilled in the rest of us! A fascinating difference!"

No, you think what that guy did was wrong. You want justice. You think he should have acted differently.

Even though there's no "wrong" molecule floating in the air and there's no "justice" element on the Periodic Table. You don't think of the swindler as just a fellow animal who happens to behave differently than you. You think he should have acted some other way, according to an invisible ideal that everybody is aware of and knows they should obey.

When that "boob at the Super Bowl" incident happened a while back, I constantly heard atheists making fun of Christians and their puritan silliness over sex. "Come on! It's just meat! We're all just mammals! Sex is natural! What are you afraid of?!?!?"

Yet, the moment you find out that while you were on vacation, your girl got drunk and slept with the entire Chicago Bears...

I've also found, on the smae website , a very funny list of the 9 most badass verses of the Bible. Not for biblical literalists.

Is It Time To Commission An Opinion Poll On Faith Schools?

There have been some very interesting discussions on Lib Dem Voice about how our party should interact with religious organisations and what we think about faith schools in particular.

I noticed one comment there (no 53) that official party policy is against faith schools - which is something that isn't often mentioned.

This issue isn't going to go away, especially if there is a likelihood of more faith schools being established. If more Islamic schools are going to be established, are they going to be based on priciples like this of the International Board of Research and Resources - "a brainchild of a group of Muslims stimulated into action by Brother Yusuf Islam.":

The primary sources of Islamic Education are universally recognised as follows:
1. The Qur’an
2. The Sunnah / Hadeeth
The secondary source of Islamic Education includes Ijtihad which is the interpretation and analytical deduction of scholars based on the primary sources of Knowledge, the Qur’an and Sunnah. This category of knowledge incorporates Ijma’ (consensus of the scholars); Qiyas (analogy); Istihsan (juristic preference); Istihslah (public interest); ‘Urf (common customs); the sayings of the Sahaaba and History.

I wouldn't like to see this as the basis for a British child's public education in maths, english, geography history, science etc. Neither do I want to see American-style battles over the teaching of evolution or even skirmishes with advocates of 'creationist physics'

Should we move out of the 'comfort zone' on this? Should it be in our manifesto for the next election to bring an end to faith schools? Or to put a freeze on the creation of new ones? I don't know. But I would really like to see the party commission a pollster to ask the public a question like this:

What policy would you like to see the government take on state-funded state schools?

1) Create ,if requested, more new state-funded 'faith' schools for the children of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh parents;
or
2)keep the existing ones open but not open any new ones except in exceptional circumstances;
or
3)turn all the existing faith schools into 'normal' state schools?

with the follow-up question:

If the Liberal Democrats adopted the policy you prefer, would you be more likely to vote for them?

"Resolution opposing Satan's plan to destroy the U.S. by stealth invasion"

Sometimes I'm not keen on mixing God with politics. But I'm definitely not keen on mixing Satan with politics.

Hattip : Andrew Sullivan

Aren't Some People Lovely?

I have recently found an blog called Oklahoma Hippy - with lots of good stuff there. One recent post links to Agape Press - "Reliable News From A Christian Source". Apparently one pastor, Rev. Bill Shanks of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans , seems really glad about what's happened to New Orleans:

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

Will this chap get to heaven?

So much for the land of Edison, Feynman, Asimov , Watson and Hubble

Political Wire reports that a Pew Research Center Poll finds that 64 percent of Americans favour teaching creationism along with evolution in the public schools.
38 percent want schools to teach creationism instead of evolution.

On a more detailed question the response was:

"Life On Earth has
......existed in its present form since the beginning of time ....... 42 per cent
......evolved over time guided by a supreme being ....... 18 per cent
.....evolved over time through natural selection ....... 26 percent
.....evolved over time don't know how ........ 4 percent
.....don't know at all........ 10 percent

Well. That's 42 percent of the American public who don't seem to believe that dinosaurs existed long before mankind. Are they believers in the Bible, or simply in the Flintstones?