In Muslim countries children are beaten at school for not having sufficient enthusiasm for learning the Koran.
Child abuse during Koran lessons investigated in The Hague
The Hague – The Hague has filed charges in 49 cases of corporal punishment of children during Koran lessons, the newspaper de Volkskrant reported Wednesday. Signs of bodily abuse, including bruises and welts, were discovered by the state health service in an unusually large number of 10-year-olds taking the Koran lessons.
Nearly half of the cases involved students at the el-Islam mosque in The Hague. The imam of the mosque denied the accusations and demanded proof to back them up.
The de Volkskrant newspaper reported further that unnamed “sources in the Moroccan community” had confirmed that children are often “beaten hard” during Koran instruction. It was hard to prove the abuse since parents mostly wouldn’t dare to speak out against it, the sources said.
In a Christian country a child at school is not allowed to read the Bible:
A third grader was told by a teacher at her New Jersey elementary school that the Bible was not appropriate reading material for quiet time, MyFoxNY.com reported.
The teacher at Madison Park Elementary School in Old Bridge, N.J., ordered the girl, Mariah, to put away her Bible.
Michelle Jordat, Mariah’s mother, said her daughter was upset and confused by the incident, MyFoxNY.com reported.
But children are encouraged to read gay pornography (not to be read on a full stomach) with the intent of alerting them to its delights.
Islam beats children to make believers out of them; Christendom, intent on self destruction, schools its young in rejecting the foundations of what makes it work and opts instead for this:
What a mess.
Uniting Anglicans: Rowan Williams couldn’t do it, Katharine Jefferts-Schori didn’t want to do it; Fred Hiltz is still having a conversion about doing it; but Anglicans are finally united against a common foe – warm weather:
Copenhagen unites Anglicans hoping to combat climate change.
As church bells rang throughout the world Dec. 13 to mark Christianity’s commitment to combating climate change, Anglican leaders were making their voices heard about global warming in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The founder of Christianity foresaw this, of course; in the Garden of Gethsemane, as drops of blood oozed through the pores of his skin, he knew his sacrifice would be worth it, because in approximately 2000 years his followers would unite to wage the final battle against that most diabolical of evils: a 0.4 degree rise in the earth’s surface temperature.
My 5 year-old granddaughter, who has a far clearer understanding of the gospel than Fred Hiltz – admittedly not a surprising achievement – produced a painting for my inspection a few months back. Most of it was red and in a corner was a small cross. “That”, she said proudly pointing to the sea of red, “is the blood of God”. We pinned it on the fridge.
A school in Taunton takes a dim view of this sort of thing:
A Taunton father is outraged after his 8-year-old son was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick-figure picture of Jesus Christ on the cross.
The father said he got a call earlier this month from Maxham Elementary School informing him that his son, a second-grade student, had created a violent drawing. The image in question depicted a crucified Jesus with Xs covering his eyes to signify that he had died on the cross. The boy wrote his name above the cross.
h/t: SF
Copenhagen bells ring, candles flicker, archbishop links love to climate.
Archbishop Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the 77-million strong Anglican Communion, preached the main sermon before Danish royalty, Denmark’s prime minister and religious leaders in a packed Church of Our Lady, Copenhagen’s Lutheran cathedral.
“We cannot show the right kind of love for our fellow humans unless we also work at keeping the earth as a place that is a secure home for all people,” Williams said at the December 13 service described as “an ecumenical celebration for creation”.
I think I’m going to cry.
It wasn’t quite all love, though; to keep the chthonic barbarians at bay:
Shortly before the service, police with bomb-sniffing dogs combed the church and its surrounding area
While those protesting the heat had to brave the cold in order to listen to that bombastic old fart, Desmond Tutu:
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, enthralled thousands of people braving the cold weather
Those who were serious dressed up as polar bears and sported inflatable icebergs:
concerned families carrying inflatable icebergs. Some people were dressed in polar bear suits
Communists, having run out of other ideas, think climate change is a capitalist is plot:
A small group carried the red hammer and sickle communist flag or signs reading, “Toxic capitalism”. Another sign read, “Save the plan, scrap capitalism.”
To fit the occasion some dressed :
as clowns.
While others believe the solution lies in sartorial blackness and breaking glass:
one small group clad head-to toe in black that was seen hurling street cobbles and smashing shop windows.
It is some consolation to realise that, in spite of all the jet fuel burned, limos hired, candles lit, bells rung and hot air expended, little will come of all this apart from a temporary glut of used polar bear suits on ebay.
I have written before about the travails of my father-in-law in the nursing home where he was living. Since then, the care has improved dramatically and the staff has been kind and supportive.
John died last Friday at about 3:45 p.m. The week before, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered in his room to say goodbye, sing Christmas carols to him and pray. It has been difficult to see a once strong, vigorous man who helped bring up three children, was an artist, built houses and owned businesses, reduced to a helpless shell – a victim of dementia and crippling arthritis.
Of the people I have seen die, I have been struck in every case by a sense of wrongness in it; it was not what our Creator originally intended and, although he has redeemed us and removed death’s sting through Christ’s atoning sacrifice and resurrection, the feeling of wrongness remains.
John had been sinking slowly for a long time and during his last 24 hours would take 3 deep breaths and then not breathe for about a minute; at 3:45 p.m. on December 11th he took his last 3 breaths. Although it is a sad time, it is also a happy time since he was a Christian and is now free of the worn out body that was causing him so much pain; in the resurrection he will have a new body that will not wear out.
Many of us wondered why he lingered on so long; did God have a purpose that we could not see? I fancy John might not have been willing to give in to the wrongness of death – as Dylan Thomas put it, he was raging against the dying of the light:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Bankers have become as unpopular as tax-collectors. Barack Obama doesn’t like them:
“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street,” Mr. Obama said in an interview to be broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program Sunday evening, according to excerpts made available ahead of the program.
Relations between the banking industry and the White House began frosty and have deteriorated in recent weeks, with large banks lobbying against legislation that would toughen financial-market regulations and administration officials frustrated by some banks’ continued payment of high bonuses and their reluctance to lend.
Mr. Obama reiterated that frustration in the interview, noting that some banks have continued to award bonuses and restrict lending while many Americans struggle with unemployment. “Some people on Wall Street still don’t get it,” he said.
Rowan Williams really doesn’t like them:
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams: bankers have failed to repent.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked the bonus culture of the City, condemning the failure of bankers to repent for their excesses.
Dr Rowan Williams, who has consistently taken a left-of-centre line on economic issues, said that the Government should have acted to cap bonuses. He warned that the gap between rich and poor would lead to an increasingly “dysfunctional” society.
Dr Williams said: “There hasn’t been a feeling of closure about what happened last year. There hasn’t been what I would, as a Christian, call repentance. We haven’t heard people saying ‘well actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, empty’.”
And now the British public has a chance to whack a banker:
An arcade game that allows people to vent their anger at bankers has proved so popular the owner keeps having to replace worn out mallets.
Inventor Tim Hunkin introduced “Whack a Banker”, which is based on the older “Whack a Mole” game, at his arcade on Southwold pier in Suffolk.
Instead of players hitting pop-up moles with a mallet, within a set time, the target is pop-up bald figures.
Mr Hunkin said the game was “proving very popular”.
I wonder what Jesus thinks about bankers? Perhaps the same as he thought about the famous tax-collecor, Zacchaeus:
He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” Luke 19:1ff
As liberal Christians love to point out: Jesus sides with the marginalised and downtrodden.
But only one, and it has a capital “S”. Here is Archdeacon Michael Patterson to explain:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnXKPpLoJ9w]
The idea that poverty – and little else – is a “Sin” is attractive to liberal Anglicans because one bears no direct personal responsibility for it, and thus its remedy is in the hands of government not the individual.
Only when they are sniffing Muslims, though:
Bomb-sniffing dogs on Vancouver transit worry Muslim leader.
Specially trained bomb-sniffing dogs might soon be patrolling Metro Vancouver’s buses and SkyTrains just in time for the Olympics, but that has some Muslims concerned.
The Metro Vancouver Transit Police Service is in the process of selecting the handlers and dogs that will be part of the two-year pilot project, said deputy chief George Beattie.
Once the teams are trained, the dogs will work on the entire transit system, including buses, SkyTrains and SeaBus ferries.
But the idea of being sniffed up and down by a slobbery pooch — no matter how well trained — has already raised concerns among some members of Metro Vancouver’s Muslim community.
But this doesn’t have anything to do with the possibility of a Muslim being caught carrying a bomb. No, really, it doesn’t.
Climate fascism at the UN:
[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI]