It’s a shame that he chose one of his silliest – and there are a lot to choose from – remarks to do it: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
This may appear cute at first glance, but beyond that it makes no sense. Atheism is the belief that no god exists; a person who believes in one god – or God – is not an atheist any more than a person who only eats pork is a vegetarian when it comes to cows.
From here:
Manchester Cathedral is to host a ‘new age’ festival featuring tarot card readers, crystal healers and ‘dream interpretation’.
Local Anglican leaders have agreed to throw open the doors of the historic cathedral in a bid to embrace alternative forms of Christianity.
Fortune tellers, meditation experts and traditional healers will fill the pews during the day-long festival in May. The Bishop of Manchester, Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, said he wanted to celebrate ‘all forms of spirituality’.
The Spirit of Life festival on May 2 will also feature stalls and workshops on angels, prayer bead-making and massage.
Fire-breathing vicar Rev Andy Salmon, of Sacred Trinity Church and St Philip with St Stephen in Salford, will also perform.
Where are the dancing bears, and ritual voodoo sacrifices you are probably thinking.
Is it any wonder the Anglican Church has become a universal laughing stock as it self-parodies its former seriousness by solemnly pondering the virtues of sodomy, opening its places of worship to practitioners of the occult, employing fire-breathing performing vicars and calling the whole mish-mash a celebration of ‘all forms of spirituality’.
One can only hope that someone brings a Koran and the fire-breathing vicar ignites it in a Koran flambé.
From here:
School pupils aged just four are to be taught atheism in a move schools hope will equip them to be ‘citizens of the world’.
Education bosses in Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire, have radically restructured the RE syllabus to accommodate non-religious beliefs.
Youngsters will continue to learn about the six major faiths – Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism – but they will also be taught humanism, the belief that there is no God or Gods, and that moral values are founded on human nature and experience.
The move recognises that more than 10,000 people in the borough do not have any religious beliefs. Both primary and secondary school pupils will be included in the shake-up.
Fiona Moss, from RE Today, which helped create the new syllabus, said: ‘We really must recognise that some people do not believe in God and do not have a religious background.
‘We have to make children aware of non beliefs. ‘We want to support children to engage and enthuse them about RE to become good citizens in Blackburn and the world.
Teaching four year olds that “moral values are founded on human nature and experience” is a recipe for disaster. The average four year old wants his own way now and without recognition of moral restraint from something higher than his own nature and experience, would still see wanting his own way as the highest moral imperative when he is forty.
That would equip them to be citizens of a solipsistic little world consisting of nothing but me.
“A prayer for a time of book-burning”: only Anglicans could come up with a phrase like that. The book in question is the Koran – surprise, surprise – a copy of which was burnt on March 20th in Florida. Anglican leaders have denounced the conflagration as the “act of a sick mind”.
Meanwhile, rampaging Muslims are burning Christian churches all over the place with nary a peep of protest from the same Anglican leaders: they appear to have squandered their monthly quota of indignation on the witless twerp who burnt the Koran.
From here:
Anglican leaders have condemned the act of burning of the Qur’an on March 20 in Florida, United States. Bishop Alexander Malik of the Diocese of Lahore, Pakistan, said that “Such acts were in flagrant contradiction to the teaching of Christianity… They were the manifestations of sick minds busy in spreading hatred, bigotry and unease in society.”
In Peshawar, Pakistan, Bishop Humphrey Peters noted that this was a “shameful act” performed “only to gain cheap popularity”. Bishop Peters was speaking at a press conference alongside members of a Peshawar based inter faith group ‘Faith Friends’ at which colleagues from the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities also expressed their anger at the action.
Dawkins et al. gibber incessantly that the cosmological argument fails because, once you have concluded that someone must have created the universe and that someone is God, you must answer the question, “who created God?”. The immediate problem with this line of reasoning is the confusion between the categories of what is created and what isn’t. Science tells us the universe is not eternal but was created. By definition, God is eternal and not created: the universe needs a creator, God doesn’t.
John Lennox explains another logical problem with the “who created the creator” view here:
SCIENCE AND religion are not incompatible, but should be seen as complementary fields, a gathering in Dublin heard this weekend. John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford and the author of a number of works on science and religion, told the annual meeting of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Ireland that the notion that science and religion are inimical is a “myth”.
“Faith is not only a religious concept, it is also a scientific concept . . . Every scientist believes that nature is rationally intelligent. [sic – it should be intelligible]” Describing what he called the “logical incoherence” of atheism, propounded by figures such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking, he said the question of “who created the creator” could also be applied to atheists. “I have said to Richard Dawkins . . . if you believe the universe created you and is your creator, who created your creator?
“Most of us have got an ultimate fact,” he said, “for atheists it is the universe, for me the ultimate fact is God. It’s not a question of whether there’s the ultimate fact, the real question is which fact is ultimate.”
In much the same way as Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi promoted non-violence as a panacea for all strife, both personal and political. Although as a Christian it is easy to sympathise with the former, Gandhi’s formula only worked against the British Raj because, by the time Gandhi applied it, it also had little appetite for sustained violence.
The advice he gave to Jews, – a single Jew standing up and refusing to bow to Hitler’s decrees might be enough to melt Hitler’s heart – is nothing less than the fevered raving of a deranged mind.
It comes as no surprise, then, that a new biography of Gandhi reveals that his sexual antics were no less fevered and deranged.
No wonder Bishop Michael Ingham holds Gandhi up as a archetype worthy of emulation.
From here:
Gandhi’s pejorative reference to nakedness is ironic considering that, as Mr. Lelyveld details, when he was in his 70s and close to leading India to independence, he encouraged his 17-year-old great-niece, Manu, to be naked during her “nightly cuddles” with him. After sacking several long-standing and loyal members of his 100-strong personal entourage who might disapprove of this part of his spiritual quest, Gandhi began sleeping naked with Manu and other young women. He told a woman on one occasion: “Despite my best efforts, the organ remained aroused. It was an altogether strange and shameful experience.”
Yet he could also be vicious to Manu, whom he on one occasion forced to walk through a thick jungle where sexual assaults had occurred in order for her to retrieve a pumice stone that he liked to use on his feet. When she returned in tears, Gandhi “cackled” with laughter at her and said: “If some ruffian had carried you off and you had met your death courageously, my heart would have danced with joy.”
Yet as Mr. Lelyveld makes abundantly clear, Gandhi’s organ probably only rarely became aroused with his naked young ladies, because the love of his life was a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder, Hermann Kallenbach, for whom Gandhi left his wife in 1908. “Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom,” he wrote to Kallenbach. “The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed.” For some reason, cotton wool and Vaseline were “a constant reminder” of Kallenbach, which Mr. Lelyveld believes might relate to the enemas Gandhi gave himself, although there could be other, less generous, explanations.
Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach about “how completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.” Gandhi nicknamed himself “Upper House” and Kallenbach “Lower House,” and he made Lower House promise not to “look lustfully upon any woman.” The two then pledged “more love, and yet more love . . . such love as they hope the world has not yet seen.”
At 8:30, fiat lux.
From here:
Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.
At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran.
In the midst of all this terrorising of Christians by Muslims, there is at least some good news: only one Koran has been damaged – and even that appears inconclusive.
World leaders won’t have to write notes imploring copy-cat desecrators to show more sensitivity to Koran lovers, the heads of bishops and archbishops won’t implode as they contemplate the enormity of possible hate crimes against the Koran and, something we can all be thankful for, Obama won’t make another speech about how, in this teachable moment, Christians should show restraint so as not to inflame worldwide Islamophobia.
From here:
Four branches of the military have begun sending training material to 2.2 million active and reserve troops as a prelude to opening the ranks to gays, with instructions on, for example, what to do if an officer sees two male Marines kissing in a shopping mall…..
The vignette about seeing two male Marines kissing is part of a list of scenarios to help instructors prepare commanders for incidents likely to arise.
“Situation,” it begins. “You are the Executive Officer of your unit. While shopping at the local mall over the weekend, you observe two junior male Marines in appropriate civilian attire assigned to your unit kissing and hugging in the food court.
“Issue: Standards of Conduct. Is this within standards of personal and professional conduct?”
The answer to Marines: “If the observed behavior crosses acceptable boundaries as defined in the standards of conduct for your unit and the Marine Corps, then an appropriate correction should be made. Your assessment should be made without regard to sexual orientation.”
Wrong answer: you should video the kissing marines. The video would then be used as propaganda material to demoralise the enemy by showing them how tough US Marines are.