Richard Dawkins comforts the afflicted
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The last goodbye
Islam harbours some strange ideas: the 72 virgins that await suicide bombers, female genital mutilation, niqabs, child brides, forbidding women’s education, and so on.
A law about to be introduced by Egypt’s Islamist government will provide permission for husbands to copulate with their wives for up to six hours after they die. Lest anyone denounce this as sexist, women will have the same opportunity.
How many husbands – or wives – have been clamouring for this law, one wonders? Has this been a common, but illegal practice, up until now? Why six hours – does it only become necrophilia at 6 hours and one minute?
From here:
Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives – for up to six hours after their death.
The controversial new law is part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament.
It will also see the minimum age of marriage lowered to 14 and the ridding of women’s rights of getting education and employment.
[….]
The subject of a husband having sex with his dead wife arose in May 2011 when Moroccan cleric Zamzami Abdul Bari said marriage remains valid even after death.
He also said that women have the right to have sex with her dead husband, alarabiya.net reported.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian comedian has been convicted of insulting Islam. He must be an ingenious fellow to have found a way to insult a religion that cheerfully promotes having sex with dead people.
On retirement
With so many people unemployed and desperate for a job, a part of me feels guilty for thinking this way; but I do, so here it is:
In March 2012 I was 65. I had planned to retire at 65 but didn’t because the thought of sitting in my study, fiddling with computers and being paid to do so seemed like too good a thing to cavalierly toss away.
I had hoped that the company I work for – AT&T and, indirectly IBM – would pay to put me out to pasture. In fact, I have been working diligently to make my betters see the virtue of this by being a little more odious at every passing year; alas, to no avail.
It is like a game of chicken: who will capitulate first? Since I have accumulated 38 years of what is laughably known as “service”, my employer would have to pay me to depart – unless I do so of my own volition. Thus, as my 65th birthday approached, I imagined numerous VP’s rubbed their hands in delirious glee at the prospect of ridding themselves of a 38 year irritant. Anticipating that, I gritted my teeth, stayed the course, grasped the nettle and – here I remain.
So, dear management, in the unlikely event that any of you are reading this: I am holding fast until you bribe me to go. Call me and we will discuss terms.
I love capitalism.
Train up a child in the way he should go
And when he is old, he will not depart from it.
From here:
A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves.
The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.
Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
This is quite understandable: if children expect to have to work for a living, they won’t demand a free lunch from the government when they grow up; the government will lose control of who gets what and people will start suspecting that we could get by with less government. That would never do.
Go and sin some more – and take photos
John tells the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. No-one condemns her after Jesus says: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus doesn’t condemn her either, but says: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
How does the church cope with this type of situation today? Since it doesn’t place much emphasis on – or even believe in, in many cases – sin, it takes a different approach.
All Saints Church–Community Centre in Toronto is giving prostitutes – or “sex-trade workers” as the current circumlocution has it – cameras for them to “tell their stories” – while plying their trade, one presumes. The idea is that this will “empower” them. I can certainly foresee new opportunities for blackmail; perhaps that is what is meant by “empower”.
From the Journal:
A photography project to empower women who work in the sex trade has raised about $38,000 for the drop-in program at All Saints Church–Community Centre in downtown Toronto, where the project began.
Carly Kalish, a full-time social worker hired by the church, dreamed up the idea of giving 10 women disposable cameras and photography lessons as a way to tell their stories. The result was The Exposure Project, an exhibition of 33 images at Holy Trinity Church in downtown Toronto. The exhibition ended in a fundraiser on April 19 which attracted a sold-out crowd of 250 people. Most of the photos, which were professionally framed, sold for $75 to $200 each; gala ticket sales and donations further boosted the bottom line.
While the photographers did not attend the gala themselves, they did bring partners and friends to a private viewing beforehand. “It was just breathtaking to see them see their own work,” says Kalish. “They were so proud of themselves.”
Interview with an unborn child
Anglicans call for….. you’ll never guess
Dialogue!
New Zealand’s Christ Church Cathedral was irreparably damaged by an earthquake and a diocesan synod motion proposes to knock it down and build “an inspirational cathedral on the current site to the glory of God”. The trouble is, the new structure will be made of inspirational cardboard.
Not everyone is happy about having a cardboard cathedral in the neighbourhood, so various clergy are proposing to have a conversation with the cardboardophobics. This invites a question: which will disintegrate first, the cardboard, institutional Anglicanism or the dialogue?
From here:
The Anglican Church will have a “comprehensive dialogue” with South Islanders on the future of Christ Church Cathedral.
About 300 clergy and lay representatives from the 71 parishes in the Anglican diocese met at a Christchurch synod on Saturday.
A motion was passed unanimously at the meeting to consult with people about the cathedral. The motion stated that the synod “undertakes a comprehensive dialogue process with the citizens of Christchurch, Canterbury, the West Coast and the city council towards determining the future of the city’s Anglican cathedral”.
The motion affirmed the decision that “Christ Church Cathedral will be deconstructed to a safe level”.
The Rev Mike Coleman proposed the section of the motion calling for dialogue.
Keeping the skies safe from 4 year old girls
To make everyone feel better about this, I would like to emphasise that no profiling whatsoever – racial, religious, or otherwise – was performed by the airport Stasi in their efforts to purge dangerous Grandmas, 4 year olds and teddy bears from our fragile skies.
As an aside, when I flew to Athens last year, while I was being probed by prurient gloved hands as I struggled to hold my beltless pants up, a 350lb Muslim lass, swathed from head to foot, waddled past me untouched to plant herself resolutely in two seats in the centre of the plane. I’m convinced there was at least one stowaway under her burka.
My two young children, aged four and six, were particularly excited their Grandmother was catching the same flight out of Wichita. Since she lives in California, and we live in Montana, they’ve never had a chance to fly with her. Tired and eager to return home, we began passing through security. My children and I went through without an incident. My Mother, however, had triggered the alarm. She was asked to go through the scanners again, and when the source of the alarm could not be identified she was told to sit aside and await a pat-down. All of this was perfectly routine.
When my Four-year-old daughter noticed her Grandmother, she excitedly ran over to give her a hug, as children often do. They made very brief contact, no longer than a few seconds. The Transportation Security Officers (TSO) who were present responded to this very simple action in the worst way imaginable.
First, a TSO began yelling at my child, and demanded she too must sit down and await a full body pat-down. I was prevented from coming any closer, explaining the situation to her, or consoling her in any way. My daughter, who was dressed in tight leggings, a short sleeve shirt and mary jane shoes, had no pockets, no jacket and nothing in her hands. The TSO refused to let my daughter pass through the scanners once more, to see if she too would set off the alarm. It was implied, several times, that my Mother, in their brief two-second embrace, had passed a handgun to my daughter.
My child, who was obviously terrified, had no idea what was going on, and the TSOs involved still made no attempt to explain it to her. When they spoke to her, it was devoid of any sort of compassion, kindness or respect. They told her she had to come to them, alone, and spread her arms and legs. She screamed, “No! I don’t want to!” then did what any frightened young child might, she ran the opposite direction.
That is when a TSO told me they would shut down the entire airport, cancel all flights, if my daughter was not restrained. It was then they declared my daughter a “high-security-threat”.
Downsizing the Anglican Church of Canada
“Downsizing” in business is a euphemism for laying people off; it is a deliberate exercise to cut expenses by paying fewer workers; it is usually a survival tactic. In the Anglican church of Canada, “downsizing” seems to be taking the form of consolidating dioceses – and, presumably, laying off employees – because the church has lost many of its customers. As in business, the ACoC is downsizing in order to survive. Whether it should survive is probably a more interesting question than how to make it survive but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Another euphemism adored by business is “global resourcing”. This is code for sending jobs overseas to places where labour is cheap, places like India, Argentina, Brazil, China and so on, and laying off workers where labour is expensive – like North America – in order to make cheaper goods and increase profits. It’s a shame that the Anglican Church of Canada isn’t considering global resourcing – to Africa, for example – instead of downsizing. There would be two benefits:
African Anglicans know how to make churches grow; this is mainly because – to use a business illustration again – unlike their North American counterparts, they actually believe in what they are selling.
African Anglicans would turn the ACoC into something that might be worth saving rather than what we have now: a weekly pantomime of largely effeminate priests in fancy dress engaging in an aesthetic posturing whose underlying meaning was abandoned around the turn of the 20th century. They would turn it into something that should be saved, something that God would bless.
From here:
The lean-and-mean sort of downsizing that has marked corporate Canada of late may be poised to affect the ecclesiastical province of Canada—reducing the number of its dioceses so it can carry out God’s mission more efficiently.
Delegates to the September 2012 provincial synod will consider this possibility as one of several motions from the province’s governance task force aimed at reforming church structures to enhance mission.
According to a background note to the notice of motion, the proposal “recognizes the changing demographic of the Anglican Church within the ecclesiastical province of Canada in terms of both decreasing numbers and the increased cost of providing ecclesiastical services within our seven existing dioceses.”
The province comprises the country’s seven easternmost dioceses: Montreal, Quebec, Fredericton, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island; and Western Newfoundland, Central Newfoundland and Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador.
A new configuration might see these dioceses merged into three: Montreal with Quebec; Fredericton with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island; and all three dioceses of Newfoundland and Labrador: Western, Central and Eastern.
An exercise in contrasts: remembering an atheist and a Christian
Christopher Hitchens remembered for how clever he was and, by association, how clever his friends are; a homage to ego:
They came to mourn Christopher Hitchens in the Great Hall of New York’s Cooper Union, where Abraham Lincoln gave the speech that launched his campaign for president in 1860.
The hall was filled with family, friends and readers; intimates of 40 years’ standing, and those who knew him only from the printed page and stage appearance; all still wounded by a loss that remains fresh at four months’ distance.
Most of the memorial took the form of readings from Christopher’s own works, occasionally enlivened by editorial comment. The biggest laugh was claimed by the writer, actor and gay-rights exponent, Stephen Fry.
Christopher, he said, had condemned as more trouble than they were worth: champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics. “Three out of four, Christopher,” said Fry.
Chuck Colson remembered for the positive influence he had on others – a homage to redemption:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called Colson “a fine man whose life proved that there is such a thing as redemption.”
Evangelist Billy Graham acknowledged Colson’s “tremendous ministry reaching into prisons and jails with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ” for three and a half decades. “When I get to Heaven and see Chuck again, I believe I will also see many, many people there whose lives have been transformed because of the message he shared with them,” Graham said in a statement, adding, “I count it a privilege to have called him friend.”
One Andrew Mullins from Georgia tweeted to testify of Colson’s ministry. “The man changed my life in High School. His prison ministry changed other lives, as well,” he said.