Atheists want to erect anti-Christmas message next to a nativity scene

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From here:

A national atheist foundation plans to seek permission to hoist its own banner to join secular and religious Christmas displays on an East Texas courthouse square.

The display surrounding the Henderson County Courthouse in Athens includes a traditional Nativity scene, as well as multiple Santa Clauses, elves, wreathes, garland, trumpeters, dwarfs, snowmen, reindeer and Christmas trees, the Athens Daily Review reported.

[…]

However, county officials received a letter Monday from the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued the seasonal display on courthouse grounds amounts to an unconstitutional endorsement of the Christian faith.

In Elmwood City, Pa., the foundation has proposed hoisting a banner that reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, LET REASON PREVAIL. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

It is clear that atheists hate Christmas – the real Christmas – and are prepared to go to considerable lengths to try to make everyone hate it as much as they do. What is less clear is why, after strenuous efforts to make their case, they couldn’t come up with a statement of their position that at least makes sense.

If in your first sentence you trumpet that reason is to prevail, why, in your third, would you make a statement that is unprovable by reason – i.e. “There is only our natural world”?

Perhaps atheists are so smug in the certainty of their assumptions, that they have become incapable of examining them.

A History of the Anglican Journal

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Can be found here.

Some interesting tidbits:

1959
A new distribution concept benefitting dioceses and the national church is forged. All identifiable givers to the church receive the newspaper along with their diocesan publication. Circulation skyrockets to more than 200,000.

Since I still receive the Journal, I must be viewed as an “identifiable giver”: believe it or not, I don’t actually give the Anglican Church of Canada any money, so my identifiable giving must be all  the free publicity the ACoC receives on this blog. It’s gratifying to be appreciated.

Come to think of it, though, the Journal receives a yearly subsidy of $596,627 from Canadian Heritage, so, as a taxpayer, I am still contributing to the Anglican Church of Canada. Very reluctantly.

1968-1975
Hugh McCullum, a well-respected journalist and activist, is the first editor to hire professional reporters rather than clergy to produce stories on poverty, aboriginal land claims, pollution, abortion law reform and apartheid. A fierce advocate of editorial independence, he believes that an open, transparent church is a stronger church.

And now, 40 years later, the ACoC is such an “open, transparent” church that its membership has strengthened from around 1.36 million to 320,000, many of whom are septuagenarians.

1977
The newspaper’s editorial policy is revised. While the Canadian Churchman remains the national newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada, its’ [sic] position as an independent voice rather than the official voice of the church, is made clear.

The supposed editorial independence of the Journal is frequently reiterated, largely to avoid losing its substantial grant from Heritage Canada. In reality, it has about the same amount of independence as Pravda had from the U.S.S.R.

Even with the yearly grant, the Journal has been shrinking – it must be getting stronger – and has had to appeal to members for money:

1994
With funding from General Synod slashed by 38 per cent, the Journal seeks donations from readers for the first time. Proceeds from the Anglican Journal Appeal are shared 50/50 with the diocesan newspapers.

Rest assured, though, that it has not abandoned its liberal blinkers: instead it now oozes reader friendliness:

2010
A re-design of the Anglican Journal, the first in a decade, is launched with the April issue, offering a bold new reader-friendly look.

 

Richard Dawkins to guest-edit the New Statesman Christmas issue

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The New Statesman inviting Richard Dawkins to edit the Christmas edition of its magazine is as sensible as Switzerland nominating Moammar Khaddafi to sit on the U.N. human rights council.

From here:

We have no reindeer, but four horsemen; no single star of wonder and no astrologers bearing gifts, but a gifted star of astronomy who knows wonder when she sees it; no kings from the east, but the modern equivalent of a king from the west; and wise men – and women – all around the table. Please join us at the feast.

Four horsemen bearing gifts of pitiless indifference, nihilism, God hatred and meaninglessness each wrapped in a disguise of enlightened rationalism.

Merry Christmas.

Don we now our bright apparel

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From here:

Kids at a school in Traverse, Mich., are once again singing “Don we now our gay apparel” after a teacher made national headlines trying to take the line out of the traditional Christmas carol “Deck the Halls.”

Students at Cherry Knoll couldn’t make it through the line without giggling, the teacher said, so she substituted the word “bright” for “gay.”

“There had been students that had been snickering at the lyrics in ‘Deck the Halls’ and she had attempted to get them back on track quite a few times,” Principal Chris Parker told UpNorthLive.

This is interesting from at least two perspectives. First, it goes to show that hijacking a word that belongs to someone else can backfire and second, no matter how much you invest in social engineering, homosexuality will still be seen as an aberration whose mechanics are intrinsically comical. Except in the Anglican Church of Canada, of course, where homosexuality is the norm, heterosexuality the aberration and the church itself the archetype of high farce.

Fred Hiltz goes to Lambeth to discuss the Anglican Covenant

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From here:

Over the next few hours, they discussed several matters, among them the Anglican Covenant and the educational guide posted last summer on the website of the Anglican Church of Canada. “Archbishop Williams had obviously read our material, and he seemed appreciative that Canada was giving the covenant a fair hearing,” says Feheley.

I had no idea that Paul Feheley had a sense of humour.

Jesus wasn’t a “super-good” person according to Rowan Williams

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From here:

Jesus would spend Christmas with the St Paul’s Cathedral protesters, the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.

Dr Rowan Williams declared that Christ would be ‘there, sharing the risks, not just taking sides.’

He said in an article aimed at the huge audience of buyers of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times that Jesus ‘is somebody who constantly asks awkward questions’.

The Archbishop said: ‘Christmas doesn’t commemorate the birth of a super-good person who shows us how to get it right every time, but the arrival in the world of someone who tells us that everything could be different.’

If Jesus wasn’t “super-good”, does that mean the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks Jesus was slightly bad, that he sinned? If he doesn’t show us how “to get it right every time”, does that mean Jesus sometimes got it wrong? Does Rowan Williams believe that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father? It doesn’t sound like it.

Dr Williams said in his article: ‘One of the slogans on the posters and banners in front of St Paul’s Cathedral has been “What would Jesus do?”

‘This started life in the US some years ago, with people wearing wristbands with WWJD on them. It’s one of those things that looks wonderfully obvious, a quick way to the right answer.’

He added that when Jesus said ‘give Caesar what belongs to Caesar’, he meant to ask ‘what’s the exact point at which involvement in the empire of capitalist economy compromises you fatally?’

That must be one of the things Jesus didn’t get quite right: when he said ‘give Caesar what belongs to Caesar’, what he really meant to say was that you should ‘give Caesar what belongs to Caesar’ unless, instead of being a ruthless tyrant,  Caesar happens to be a capitalist, in which case, don’t giving him anything since capitalists are more corrupting than the devil himself.

Nativity scene removed from Montreal Town Hall

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Canada is a country whose culture, laws and traditions have been indelibly shaped by Christianity. It is not a “Christian country” in the sense that everyone who lives in Canada is a Christian, but it is a part of Christendom, a part of an imperfect hodgepodge of political and individual freedoms rooted in the notion that man was created in the image of God and  that 2000 years ago God became Incarnate and was the inspiration for a civilisation.

That is why Canada should celebrate Christmas, why prayers to the Triune God should be said in public meetings, why schools should not shrink from Christian  education and why those who can’t live with that should live somewhere else.

From here:

MONTREAL – A posh Montreal suburb has decided to remove a nativity scene and menorah from town hall rather than acquiesce to demands from a Muslim group to erect Islamic religious symbols.

The decision by the Town of Mount Royal upsets a Christian resident who says the town is abandoning an established tradition under pressure from a tiny religious minority.

Town councillors of several different religions unanimously decided to remove the Christian and Jewish items.

They had been displayed in front of the municipal building for the past 15 years.

“We asked ourselves if we were willing to display (symbols of) the five major religions,” said Mayor Philippe Roy.

“This is not the role of the city, which is a secular public institution.”

The decision comes amid a larger debate about the place of religion in public institutions.

Quebec’s highest court has agreed to hear an appeal of a ruling that barred councillors in Saguenay, Que., from praying before their meetings.

Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay has been spearheading a legal, financial and public-relations crusade to support his right to lead the short prayer.

The battle has pitted Tremblay against the province’s human rights tribunal as well as the Quebec Secular Movement.

Carla Mariano, a Christian resident of Mount Royal, tells QMI Agency that her town’s decision to remove the manger is an affront to Canada’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

 

Amnesty International still suffering from BDS

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Amnesty International still wants George W Bush to be arrested for “allegedly violating international torture laws”:

Amnesty International on Thursday continued its campaign urging nations around the world to arrest George W. Bush for allegedly violating international torture laws. This time they specifically targeted Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia where the former U.S. president is touring this week.

Bush began going through the countries on Monday to promote efforts to fight cervical and breast cancers, and Amnesty said the three nations have an obligation to arrest him under international law.

The extent of Amnesty’s Bush Derangement Syndrome malaise is emphasised by the fact that Ethiopia is one of the countries that they would like to arrest Bush. Of course, Ethiopia’s human rights record is a model of how torture is done properly, a paradigm from which more modest abusers – and the U.S. cannot even aspire to the status of modest abuser – have a lot to learn.

To compound the irony, Ethiopia’s record is found on Amnesty’s own site:

In November of 2005, Ethiopian police killed 6 and wounded as many as 24 civilians in a march protesting the recently released election results. There have been numerous reports of government opponents being taken from their homes in the aftermath of this incident. There have also been reports of widespread arbitrary detention, torture, “disappearances”, harsh prison conditions, and use of excessive force by police and soldiers against anyone suspected of supporting the armed opposition groups. No one responsible for a 2003 killing that left 63 Anuak people dead (witnesses and unofficial estimates put the number at several hundred) has been brought to justice.

Occupiers attack Barack Obama’s inner Bush

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The Occupy mob has come to the conclusion that the shade of George Bush has possessed Barack Obama and made him, on rare occasions, act like a U.S. president even though he continues to talk like a dopey liberal who never left the campaign trail.

From here:

Demonstrators held signs that leveled some of the Occupy protest’s most pointed criticism to date of the president. “Obama is a corporate puppet,” one said. “War crimes must be stopped, no matter who does them,” read another, beside head shots of President George W. Bush and President Obama.

One man, wearing a mask of the president’s face and holding a cigar, carried a sign that read, “I sold out!”