A pastor, and a senior counsellor at a christian "boot camp" where the goals are to build character, integrity, and among other things, bring morality back into the lives of children, have been arrested for aggravated assault after tying a rope tether from a van to a teenage girl before dragging her along on her stomach several times.
Apparently the girl was running in an exercise at the ineptly named "Love Demonstrated Ministries" camp, but became tired.
Undoubtedly seeking to demonstrate their higher moral understanding and help instill greater morality in the girl, police allege that the counsellor held the girl down and yelled at her while the pastor tethered her to the van before they drove the van, regardless of whether she could remain upright or not, dragging her on her stomach.
Hardly what one could describe as religious people behaving in a morally acceptable way.
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The height of immorality was demonstrated by Reverend Dagoberto Valle Arriaga recently when the Mexican priest was sentenced to over 50 years goal for murdering his son.
Not only, as a Catholic priest should his vow of chastity have actually prevented him from fathering a child, but not wanting his superiors to find out about his little secret, he murdered the son to try to save his career.
A sickening display of a poor moral example.
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In what is clearly a direct contradiction to some of the most fundamental claims of christianity - peace, tolerance and goodwill towards others - alarming reports have been published regarding a deep rooted attempt by fundamentalist evangelical christians attempting to "take over" the US Military and turn it into an army of religion.
Michael Weinstein, a veteran from the U.S. Air Force, has recently published a book titled With God on our Side: One Man's war Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military. In this book he presents compelling arguments on a considerable problem emerging in the US military.
During the course of his research, over 5,000 people contacted the organisation he is a member of, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, providing details of coercion, harassment and guilt tripping.
Quoting Independent Weekly:
An army private ... contacted me when he was going through basic training. When he signed up, they asked him his religious denomination and he said Christian, but they identified him as not being fundamentalist enough Christian, and they punished him by putting 'none' on his dog tags. When he got to Afghanistan, the commander said that the blessings of the Lord Jesus would not be on the unit unless everyone was evangelical, and since he would not convert, this 20-year-old private would be responsible for the deaths and injuries the unit might suffer.
As noted by Michael Weinstein, were this level of religious abuse conducted in the private sector, it would not last very long before a large lawsuit were to be taken out. However, these sorts of constitutional freedoms do not appear to be available to those in the armed forces, making them ripe for abuse.
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Recently a tragedy occurred where two Hindu pilgrims in India were run over by a truck in a hit-and-run incident.
However, what followed was a tragic example of immoral practices. Taking revenge, a mob went on a rampage, blocking roads, and burning buses and police cars.
One would have expected better from religious people.
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Muslim militants from the terrorist organisation Abu Sayyaf ambushed Philippine soldiers on August 9, killing 9.
While the Philippines is predominantly a Catholic nation, various muslim groups, but most notably Abu Sayyaf have other designs, apparently willing to convert the country by sword (or gun and bomb as the case may be).
This primitive, vicious and brutal notion shared by so many religious groups that the ends justify the means when it comes to converting nations and populations to desired religions is an intensely immoral notion, regardless of the original or the desired religion.
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A priest has been arrested for for indecent exposure after being found running at a high school track around an hour before sunrise in June of this year.
While he admitted that what he did was wrong, he claimed that he sweats considerably if wearing clothing while jogging.
Surely if its necessary to exercise naked it might be a morally appropriate thing to do so in private, rather than say, at a place where minors may be?
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One of the strongest claims of religions, world wide, is that it grants a stronger sense of "serving one's fellow man", the sense of community spirit or reaching out to those who are in most need of help.
Yet, according to Science Daily, a recent study reported by the Annals of Family Medicine found that just 31 percent of physicians who were religious worked with the underserved, whereas 35 percent of physicians who declared themselves to be atheist, agnostic or had no religion worked with the underserved.
One would have expected that had religion granted moral ascendancy, there should have been a very high percentage of religious physicians working with people who need it most.
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The Australian government, led by christian Prime Minister, John Howard, has announced plans to introduce discriminatory legislation into parliament during the next sitting, thereby preventing gay couples from adopting children overseas.
This would be achieved by denying the visa application automatically for any child who is being brought into the country for the purposes of adoption by a same sex couple.
While some states have permitted same-sex couple adoption, this legislation would override the states.
This comes remarkably soon after a lengthy report was presented to government detailing the large number of instances in which homosexuals are discriminated against in Australia, particularly at the federal level. Of course, the government, led by a known liar who makes "non-binding promises" during elections and to colleagues for support, continues to maintain the falsehood that they are for equal rights and are indeed non-discriminatory.
Thou shalt not bear false witness eh John?
Given that Howard has repeatedly stated that children should only be brought up by a man and woman who are married, one assumes that in order to prove that they're non-discriminatory, the government will outlaw divorce for couples with children. This probably won't come about however as the government whose mindset is firmly entrenched in the 1950's do believe that heterosexuals are first class citizens.
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Clearly a sign of someone needing anger management, a catholic priest in Melbourne has in the last few days been embroiled in controversy after video clips were posted on YouTube showing him spewing racist, sexist and homophobic comments against skateboarders.
Now, while it should certainly be acknowledged that at the start of the video the priest was asking the skateboarders to remove themselves from church property, the rapidity at which the priest degenerates into spewing vitriolic abuse is by far and away completely uncalled for.
Surely a man of the cloth could simply resort to calling the police, rather than calling people "f*cking c*nts", or asking "how's your arsehole from being f*cked by all these c*nts?" After all, if the skateboarders had been repeatedly hanging around the church when they weren't welcome, surely that should be a matter for the police?
After the video was first posted and the story was picked up by Australian media, the priest in question apologised for his actions, saying that he had been more angry at that point than any time in his life. Within a couple of days however, videos surfaced showing the same priest, hurling the same sort of vitriol, over six months past, and another even later incident.
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A former Los Angeles catholic priest was arrested on Tuesday this week, suspected of sexually molesting a child from a parish in Pacoima between 1988 and 1991.
The priest in question was accused recently of molesting four people who were among the over-500 people who recently were awarded massive child-abuse settlement (in the order of $660 million US) by the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
However, these charges were based on new evidence.
According to the complainants, the priest "reveled in the pain he inflicted", and he was "brutal and vicious".
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A reverend of a church in Chicago this week was found guilty of stealing somewhere in the order of $200,000 of church funds, with the majority of the money being used to pay for, and buy goods for a male stripper.
These thefts were not limited to electronic funds theft, but included stealing from the collection plate at the church; it was these thefts that led to parishner's discovering his less than moral understanding of ownership and funds distribution.
The investigation conducted revealed that the reverend had taken almost $40,000 from church collections alone, paid $1,000 a month to a male stripper, and charged purchases to the parish account, as well as writing cheques to himself from the parish account.
Clearly this was not the work of a moral person.
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A soon to be published biography of John Winston Howard, the current prime minister of Australia, further highlights his 'morals'.
John Howard can already be credited with telling one of the greatest bald-faced lies in Australian politics. In 1995, the federal liberal party was roundly defeated in an election which seemed impossible to lose; the liberal party at that point went into the election planning on introducing a goods and services tax (GST) in Australia if they were elected.
The election lost, their party in disarray, Howard took over the leadership of the party yet again and in a public media scrum, in front of dozens of cameras, microphones and eyewitnesses, squarely declared:
There's no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy. Never, ever. It's dead. It was killed by the voters in the last election. Any suggestion that I left the door open is absolute nonsense. I didn't. I never will. The last election killed the GST. It's not part of our policy and it won't be part of our policy at any time in the future.
It is impossible to argue that this is anything but an unwavering promise that the GST would never be reintroduced by the liberal party, yet, just a little more than 3 years later, Howard reneged on his promise, proving it to be a lie, and introduced the GST into Australia.
This however is not the end of the man's perfidity; indeed, the release of his biography has shown how little respect Howard has for the notion of truthfulness and honesty. The seventh commandment, that being "Thou shalt not bear false witness" is widely accepted as the notion that you shouldn't lie. From what can be gathered by Howard's actions, it's possible to circumvent this through sophistry and weasel words.
Not lying indeed is an admirable trait; honesty is a good moral attitude to have, and while there may be valid reasons from time to time to stretch or bend the truth, doing so for self gratification and self achievement seems a less than moral reason.
When challenged once of his reneging an election promise, "Honest John", as he was once misleadingly nicknamed coined the term "non-core promise"; that being that some election promises were core promises which must be fulfilled, and others were seemingly non-core promises which could be ignored at will.
A non-core promise? A non-binding promise? Ah, a lie. A dirty, rotten, sneaky lie. Let's be honest, a promise that you do not intend to fulfill is not to be obscured by weasel words or sneaky alternate definitions, it is a lie, a dishonorable statement of non-fact.
So, it should come as no surprise to anyone then what his wife is quoted as having told the authors of the recent biography, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald. It is, indeed, most enlightening.
We also know from Janette Howard that, in the Prime Minister's household, there is a clear understanding between a firm commitment and a non-firm commitment ... "You talk about a whole lot of things when you're trying to convince people to do things ... but you don't go back and honour every single one of those unless you have made a firm commitment about it, and John wasn't into making firm commitments." (SMH, "One roast could save another", July 21 2007, Peter Hartcher)
So, here we have a man (and his wife for that matter), espousing christian values while blithely discussing the notion of a promise which is binding and a promise which is not binding.
Or, to boil things down to the roots of the matter, here is a christian man who apparently frequently lies in order to get things, and sometimes (not often) what he promises will be real, not a lie.
It would seem that the Australian penchant of giving people nicknames which are the opposite of their literal meaning (e.g., calling redheads 'bluey') was dead on the mark in declaring Howard "Honest John".
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In Texas, America, a christian school has recently come under severe criticism after it expelled a student based on his MySpace personal web-page.
Were the only criticism to do with the expelling, that might have been the end of the story; however; the further allegations that have been raised are most disturbing. Multiple teachers have claimed that they were forced to change failing grades to passes, and both parents and students have accused the school of ongoing preferential treatment of particular students.
Apparently not willing to directly deal with the accusations of grade fixing, the principal of the school has come out fighting on an entirely different front, saying that the accusations are the work of the 'devil' (a fictional character in the mythology of various religions).
These criticisms are not coming from third parties with a vested interest in seeing a competing or religious private school closed; these are coming as sworn statements from teachers, parents and students.
Religion should not be used as an excuse to avoid dealing with serious accusations. (Even the catholic sect has recently learned this.)
If these allegations prove to be true, then the school may be guilty of violating some of the most serious responsibilities of a teaching organisation, namely, to ensure that people leave with the best skills they have been able to learn, and their grades are honest. To fight such allegations with trite responses is immoral.
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While the Hindu notion of cows being sacred is well known, the downside of this trait became apparent in the recent finding of a court in Wales.
A Welsh Hindu group, who have several cattle on their monastery grounds, recently appealed the death sentence handed down to one of their cows when it was tested positive for bovine tuberculosis.
Their argument? Destroying the cow was an infringement on their religious freedom.
Bovine tuberculosis is a serious disease; it can spread as tuberculosis to humans either via ingestion of contaminated milk, or even via aerosol spray (e.g., mucus, etc.)
In order to protect other cattle and humans, most developed nations have policies of destroying infected cattle.
Religious freedom is one thing, but to do so at the risk of jeopardizing the health of other animals and people seems a morally specious notion.
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A jury on Friday 13 July found a former episcopalian priest guilty on charges of multiple sexual assaults against three boys over a period of five years.
The man, who has been both a priest and a school teacher, as well as having served as a foster parent, preyed on children as young as six, turning his home into what prosecutors described as a "Disneyland" style environment which included candy, games, computer games and a hot tub. The not-so-Disneyland-like aspects of his environment however included framed pictures of naked boys, a hot tub, and the man frequently walking around naked.
Taking only three hours, the jury found the former priest guilty and sentencing will be conducted before the end of July.
The man originally pleaded guilty in 2002, but the guilty plea was overturned after further victims came forward claiming they too had been abused.
Yet another high moral standard being set.
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The San Jose Mercury News reports on 14 July of some of the larger payments which have been made by the catholic church in the United States since 1950.
The figures, quite frankly, are astounding, and it's not the money that is scary, but the number of affected people. Quite frankly, the money isn't enough. How does one put a price on the cost of destroying a child's innocence, or ruining a person's life?
By paying money the church has tacitly acknowledged the victim status of these people. How many innocents however are still out there, afraid to come forward, or unable to come forward, or not willing to come forward?
Some of the numbers reported by the San Jose Mercury include:
- Archdiocese of Los Angeles: approximately 500 victims
- Archdiocese of Boston: 552 victims
- Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon: 175 victims
- Archdiocese of Louisville: 243 victims
All up, in the San Jose Mercury article, 2,199 people were tacitly acknowledged by the church as victims in payouts from 9 dioceses.
That's an average of 244 victims per diocese. The LA Times, also covering the payout for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, cited research from Cardinal Roger Mahony which found that:
3 out of every 4 parishes in the archdiocese had been assigned a priest accused of sexual abuse.
While parts of the report were challenged, the LA Times goes on to say:
Later review showed that seven cases of suspected pedophiles who had been allowed to remain in the ministry were not disclosed in the report. Complaints against four other priests were identified, but with omissions. The church has said the report was never intended to be comprehensive.
It is unimaginably vile to think that this many people have been abused and robbed of their innocence by supposed "moral" guardians.
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According to the website KSBY 6 Action News, a wiccan couple were arrested on July 12 for using their religion to entice a 15 year old girl into having sex with them. The police allege the couple used a variety of wiccan rituals and drugs, such as marijuana, to get the girl to have sex with them. This resulted in multiple counts of child molestation occurring.
Where does the need to rob children of their innocence come from? How is it that religious faith can be reconciled with such actions?
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Highlighting a continuing acceptance of all other religions so long as they are christian, a group of activists recently shouted abuse and interrupted a Hindu prayer being offered in the US Senate.
It would appear that the group who lead the interruption would see that the notion of "religious freedom", as espoused in the US constitution, in fact actually means "freedom for christians to prevent anyone else from having a religion", or something along those lines.
As reported in several media outlets, including the Times of India, Rajan Zed, a Hindu priest from Reno, Nevada had just stepped up to the podium in the senate and was about to start the prayer when protesters from a right-wing christian sect "Operation Save America" started interrupting and shouting to express their dissatisfaction with the notion of equality and brotherhood.
According to the Times of India, one protester shouted:
"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight ... This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before You."
One is unsure whether such bigots are so inclined because they have (a) not been able to read the part of the US constitution enshrining religious freedom or (b) think it only applies to christian sects or (c) just simply like being hateful.
Unfortunately, time has proven again and again that for most fundamentalists espousing such nonsense that (c) is the most likely option.
Apparently rudeness, closed-mindedness and attacks on democratic freedom make up part of the moral attitudes for this group.
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US Senator, David Vittler, a lector at his St Francis Xavier Church (according to his official online biography), who has made a career in politics of campaigning the moral high-ground for family values and protesting the lack of morals in other Louisiana politicians, as well as arguing against same-sex relationships and abortion, has recently been forced to admit to a "very serious sin" in his past, after it was discovered that his phone number was in the client list of Ms Deborah Jeane Palfrey, recently dubbed the "D.C. Madam".
As reported in the New York Times, Senator Vittler admitted to his sinful past, but seemed to neglect to admit to the sin of hypocrisy in his statement. Half a decade ago he was linked to a prostitute in New Orleans but vehemently denied the accusations.
It's a funny world we live in. It's not uncommon to see people vehemently campaign against the contents of their own closet. For instance, sometimes the most active and unpleasant homophobes are actually closeted people whom through various reasons cannot reconcile their sexual identity.
This level of hypocrisy in a public figure (so recently exemplified by the leader of a fundamentalist church in Colorado Springs) who has campaigned against the very things he does or has done in secret is certainly not a good example of moral religious activities.
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Three men who belong to a radical christian group who believe that all christians should be under the same denomination were arrested last week after failing in their attempt to blow up a church belonging to another denomination in their town.
According to Martha Deller of the Star-Telegram, the men were discovered by the deacon of the church in question while they were attempting to setup the bomb they had planted. Under police questioning, they claimed to belong to a sect which "has three levels of involvement: bible study, consensual fighting, and destructive acts". Clearly the immoral would-be killers had managed to graduate to "destructive acts". Apparently they belonged to a group of seven such men who all felt that society was decaying and that it was time to 'send a message', so to speak.
Unfortunately none of the levels of involvement in their sect were to do with morality. To willingly prepare and plant explosives in the hope of killing people is a less than admirable trait.
Interestingly, the men seem to either be incredibly stupid, or particularly in need of setting conundrums for people to solve; they wouldn't identify their sect; presumably their aim is to convert everyone to following their "denomination", otherwise their first act, based on their intent, should have been to blow themselves up. It seems odd that people are meant to convert to a denomination that they don't name. This seems to be a direct manifestation of Grey's Law, which states "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
One wonders whether the "consensual fighting" had progressed to such a level that they all knocked out each other's senses, but unfortunately history has shown that people who stoop to such things are often quite aware of what they are doing and feel they are fully justified in doing so.
At the end of the day, "immoral" is perhaps the nicest thing that can be said about such people as these men.
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Thanks to Atheist Resource UK for pointing this story out.
In a remarkable return to dark ages thought, the Vatican has released a statement, fully authorised by Joseph Ratzinger (AKA "Pope Benedict XVI"), which states that the Catholic church is the only true church in the world, and any church which does not recognise him as the ultimate authority is not a true church.
For years, centuries in fact, the various christian sects (Catholic, Protestant, etc.) have maintained various attempts to reconcile their various faiths.
This "think my way or else" thinking however is the kind which previously led to burnings, inquisitions, savage and brutal beatings, killings, etc.
Already the "clarification" issued by the Vatican has resulted in wide-spread condemnation from protestant groups.
For someone whom was supposedly a reluctant member of the Hitler youth, the Pope has demonstrated strong Nazi ideals by demanding that all christian sects obey and recognise him as the ultimate spokesperson for 'god' on Earth. Such demands for dogmatic and thoughtless obedience are reminiscent of the worst kinds of thought control and belief in a supreme leader.
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A muslim woman, who had repeatedly attempted to get out of jury duty, was recently arrested and held in contempt of court for listening to her MP3 player under the cover of her hajib headscarf during the trial where she was a member of the jury. This included listening during sections of the murder trial where critical evidence was being presented.
Once the deception was discovered, she was discharged from the jury, searched, found to have hidden a MP3 player under her hajib, then arrested and bailed to appear in court later this month.
Justice, and participating in jury duty to ensure a fair and impartial trial, is a moral duty of modern society. To so blatantly act in such a contemptible fashion towards the justice system shows a profound lack of morals. Regardless of the final proven innocent or guilt of the person being tried, to so deliberately interfere with the judicial process is a dangerously selfish act.
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In a strange take on name-calling, where it is usually the school bullies who conduct such activities, and the role of the school officials to stamp it out, a Catholic school in Sydney refused to enroll a boy to the school unless he use his mother's maiden name.
The problem? His surname is 'Hell', which, in German, means 'light' or 'bright'. The boy's father, whose heritage is Austrian, has lived with the same surname all his life, and himself attended a Catholic school when he was a boy.
While the officials at the school quickly changed their minds when the family took the matter to the local media, the Hells are apparently reconsidering the notion of a Catholic education for their children.
This is probably just as well. Any school which prohibits the entry of a person based on their name, not taking into account the origin of that name, clearly has some serious problems going on. Presumably the books in the school library will have large swaths of redacted sections where whole sections are cut out merely for containing words that while perfectly valid in another language just look a little too naughty when considered from a narrow minded and maybe slightly bigoted English-only-thankyou perspective.
One can only imagine, for instance, what would be left of a German book on art - page numbers might survive, but as for the kunst inside, it would surely have to go having too much of a resemblance to other naughty words in English.
While this may seem a somewhat humorous example, it is yet again another case of the thought police attitude that religion so frequently employs.
One has to wonder whether the initial decision to deny enrolment to the child will have a lasting psychological trauma on the child. It was the child, in the end, who refused to enrol under a name other than 'his'. As such, he was exposed to a large institution effectively saying "your name is not good".
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In a return to pre-renaissance thought, English Bishops have blamed recent flooding on things they don't like, attributing it to divine retribution. These petty, insensitive men have claimed that by introducing laws such as those which grant same-sex couples equal rights, authorities have forced 'god' to send down death and destruction.
Silly words from silly men in silly dresses would be laughable under a circus tent, but when issued under the supposed auspices of religious authority, silly words cause untold harm. Imagine the psychological trauma to a child when told that that some supposedly omnipotent creature has taken exception to the decisions made by others and decided to kill random people and inflict random destruction?
Claiming that natural disasters are a form of divine retribution is a silly, immoral thing to do which demonstrates a distinct lack of intelligence and a willingness to inflict lasting harm on the innocent.
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A Malaysian woman was detained for six months, and suffered mental torture and was forced to participate in Islamic worship when held by religious authorities after attempting to officially change her religion from Islam to Hindu.
While the woman had been born to Islamic parents in Malaysia, she had been raised as a Hindu and her religion only became an issue when she married a Hindu man. (In Malaysia, it is illegal for Muslim to marry a non-Muslim.)
When she registered with the Islamic Sharia court in Malaysia to have her religion officially changed to Hindu, she was detained and forced to participate in Islamic ceremonies while subjected to mental torture.
While now released, she must remain in the custody of her parents and continue to undertake weekly religious counseling. I.e., it is still the intent of the Islamic authorities to force her to remain Muslim, and indeed, become a practicing one.
What makes this more disturbing is that even though Malaysia's official religion is Islam, the country's constitution is secular.
Forcing someone to worship a particular religion, whether they are agnostic, atheist or from another religion is morally repugnant and smacks of the thought-police attitudes reminiscent of Stalanist and Fascist dictatorships. What is next? Detention and brainwashing for people who don't like the colours of the flag? This isn't a fine line that was crossed, it was a large, multi-coloured and clearly marked mile-wide stripe that was willingly leapt across by religious authorities conducting nothing less than a programme of brainwashing of people who disagree with them.
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On July 7, 2007, an Indian court sentenced 14 Hindus to life imprisonment for their participation in the brutal slaughter of 116 Muslims during mob violence on October 27 1989. The 14 men (one of whom was a police officer) were members of a mob which attacked 116 Muslim men, women and children, using swords and daggers as part of a brutal religious turf-war over a scrap of land which apparently had holy significance to both groups of people.
More were involved in the killings than just those 14 sentenced to life imprisonment. Six others were accused but have already died, and four others believed to have been associated with the crime cannot be found.
This was a senseless, brutal murder; the mob hacked and stabbed to death over a hundred people simply because the two were of different faiths, and had different beliefs about a piece of land.
Not really the example of high moral values supposedly provided by religion that one would expect to see.
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As the governor of Texas, George Bush appeared to take a particularly hash line on justice and pardons, issuing the least number than any Texas governor since some time in the 1940's. This amounted to just one death sentence pardon, and 20 pardons for lesser charges.
As the president of the United States, approaching the end of his second term, George Bush has commuted just 4 sentences, out of more than 4,000 applications. Again, this is a very low number of interventions by a United States President.
Yet it seems strange then that of those four interventions, the most recent one has been for a personal friend of the President, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
While fully acknowledging his friends' guilt, Bush the US President intervened and commuted the jail sentence that Libby received.
This seems like remarkably convenient double standards by a supposedly fair and christian man. Apparently out of all the thousands of requests for pardons received by the President during his two terms, Libby's case was just one of four which were a unique enough travesty of justice or harsh penalty to warrant Presidential intercession.
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Reported in BBC News Online on July 5 2007, we have the story of an ex-priest, who while a rector at a church in Ballachulish, Argyll, embezzled £20,000 from a £63,000 bequest made by a female churchgoer. Disturbingly, the same priest had been the only executor of her estate.
While he has now fully repayed the embezzled funds, it can hardly be said that a priest embezzling money is a sign of strong moral examples set by religion.
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The Taliban, an organisation which has proved itself time and time again as the paragon of immoral behaviour, has apparently stooped to a new low, if new NATO reports are to be believed.
According to the RichardDawkins.net, reporting on a story from the UK Guardian Unlimited, NATO recently detained a confused 6 year old boy at a checkpoint, and discovered, then defused a bomb-vest attached to the poor child.
Quoting RichardDawkins.net:
"They placed explosives on a six-year-old boy and told him to walk up to the Afghan police or army and push the button," said Captain Michael Cormier, the company commander who intercepted the child, in a statement. "Fortunately, the boy did not understand and asked patrolling officers why he had this vest on."
Yet again such an abhorrently vile act shows that the Taliban, who seem obsessed with moral behaviour, have not the slightest ounce of it themselves.
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The Australian "Herald Sun" reported on July 5, 2007, that four Buddhist monks from South Korea have been detained for tax fraud, assisting over 2,500 people evade over $2 million Australian in tax by forging donation receipts.
Some of the monks were so blatant in their efforts that they apparently had produced pamphlets which advertised their services over fake donations.
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A character in a children's television programme affiliated with Hamas in Palestine has been using a mickey-mouse like character (named 'Farfour') as part of the show. Given the somewhat hateful message this pseudo-American symbol had been presenting, one might feel relieved that the program has ended, except for the dramatic way in which the mickey-mouse character was removed from the show.
In the final episode, Farfour is approached by an actor playing an Israeli wanting to buy his land. Presumably when Farfour refused, he was beaten to death.
There are, undoubtedly, legitimate claims for both Israeli and Palestinians in the middle east conflict. This is not in any way disputed. Involving children in this way must be seen as unacceptable.
What sick and deluded approach to childrens' television does this come from? Where is it acceptable in any sense of morality and right behaviour to demonstrate such hateful attitudes to children?
Children are innocent, and deserve to be left to their innocence. Whether it is physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse or brainwashing, it is still child abuse, and should be utterly unacceptable to any moral person.
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In a remarkable tirade against free thought, a religious person has written a letter to the editor of a newspaper claiming that "freedom of the religion", part of the US constitution, means that anyone who is not religious must get out of the country.
Taking it one step further, the remarkably certain individual goes on to claim "I don't care if they have never committed a crime, atheists are the reason crime is rampant."
(It must be quite a relief to the catholic church, for instance, to know that atheists have apparently caused all the buggering of children by priests throughout the ages.)
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It remains difficult to reconcile the fact that groups of purportedly religious individuals, who claim to be acting from a higher moral authority, can still call for the death of an individual for a book written more than a decade ago.
Where is the morality in taking the stance "What you say appears insulting, so I demand your death?"
The recent knighting of Salman Rushdie has reignited the furore surrounding his book "The Satanic Verses". When it was first released, Ayatollah Khomeini, having not read the book himself, issued a fatwah against Rushdie, claiming that it would be morally acceptable, indeed necessary, for anyone claiming to be of muslim faith to kill Rushdie.
It would appear that since 1988, Rushdie has still not been forgiven for this work of fiction.
While some of the controversy had died down in the last few years, the recent knighting of Rushdie has given hard-liners with an obsession for killing people who disagree with them justification for reigniting the demand for the man's death.
The fatwah called for the death of Rushdie and anyone associated with the production of the book; this resulted in deaths and attacks; unable to reach Rushdie themselves, extremists killed the Japanese translator of the work, and seriously injured the Italian translator, as well as attempting to assassinate the publisher from Norway.
There's a lot of writing that we disagree with. If one were to insist on only writing something that everyone would agree with, one would publish at best a book of blank pages with no title.
It is sad to think that anyone can claim moral superiority while calling for someone's death.
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A student in the United States was recently suspended from High School after wearing a T-Shirt with the message "Homosexuality is shameful (Romans 1:27)" on the back, written on tape and stuck to the shirt. The opposing side of the shirt read, "Be ashamed. Our school has embraced what God [sic] has condemned." The student wore the shirt to school the day after a "day of silence" was held in support of non-heterosexual students.
Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but hate speech justified due to religious convictions walks a fine line.
The student is suing the school claiming an unfair suspension.
What is odd about this is that the student has quoted the bible as justification for the statement made on the T-Shirt. Under the guise of being about homosexuality, a topic of morality that certain religious groups have claimed to be authoritative experts on, this is supposedly "free speech" as opposed to "hate speech".
The bible is an antiquated collection of bigotry and myths which throughout the ages has been used to justify a large number of hateful comments. So the question is, were a T-Shirt quoting the bible promoting slavery, or the killing of opposing tribes, or the belief that women should not appear in church whilst having their periods have been justified?
Of course not.
What is the difference then between this statement on homosexuality and a statement promoting slavery (or decrying the abolition thereof?)
None.
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It seems impossible to discuss immoral applications of faith without touching on the ongoing and frequent deaths around the world due to religious inspired suicide bombings and other mass-killings. This is a topic that requires no direct reports, no specific instances named. We all know of instances. They fill our evening news, our morning news, our midday news, our radio news, our internet news, our papers, our lives.
Every day news reports disguise the religious nature of these atrocities by referring to them as "sectarian violence" or "Person(s) from TribeX attacked people from TribeY". This is sugar-coating of the worst kind.
Murder is a despicable crime that demonstrates a profound immorality. To rob another person of their life, the only life we have evidence of us having, is a truly heinous act.
It is logically impossible for someone to argue that murder based on faith is an acceptable or moral behaviour; "you don't agree with me therefore you must die" is not in even the most basically compelling argument to any moral human being. It's a sick justification for a hate-based crime.
The most fundamental question we must ask ourselves moving forward as a race is – are we animals, or are we human beings? Is a human being just a specific instance of creatures within the animal kingdom, and therefore justified in killing each other simply based on some biological drive for being the alpha humans, or are we animals who have learned to think, feel, and discover an intrinsic moral purposes to our lives?
I sincerely hope we aim for the latter.
In a move that surprised none, the current Australian Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, a known Christian, has gone on the record as continuing to support a discriminatory, two-tier society where same-sex couples are not awarded the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts. It is understood that the Australian Labor party, led by another known Christian, Kevin Rudd, supports the continuing discriminatory system.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission recently published a report following a national inquiry into discrimination against people in same-sex relationships. This report identified federal laws which expressly deny same-sex couples equal rights to their heterosexual counter-parts.
Currently under Australian law, same-sex marriages are not recognised at the Federal level, denying same-sex partners equivalent access to a variety of services that are immediately awarded to heterosexual couples.
It is morally reprehensible to continue to discriminate against a section of the community. In this case, what is worse is that since homosexuality itself is legal within the Australian community between consenting adults, the government and opposition are supporting discrimination against people who should otherwise have full legal rights in the community.
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In late June, the annual Jerusalem Gay Pride march was held by proud gay activists and their supporters, with approximately two and a half thousand participants.
Protests against the march were held elsewhere in the city, with Ultra-Orthodox Jews vehemently disagreeing with the march, believing it is a debasement of the city.
According to the Associated Press, quoted by the "Boston Edge", a 32-year old man was arrested on the morning of the march carrying explosives. Under questioning, the man admitted that he had wanted to plant the explosives along the planned route of the parade.
An Ultra-Orthodox Jew, the man obviously felt that killing in the name of religion was acceptable. Given the horror frequently experienced by Israeli citizens by suicide bombers, it seems contradictory and hypocritical that someone who supposedly comes from a deeply religious part of the Israeli community would feel that this was a morally appropriate action.
It is morally certain that a basic tenant of humanity is refraining from taking another life; regardless of arguments for or against capital punishment, it is clear that an attempt at mass murder simply because one disagrees with the sexuality of a group of people conducting a peaceful march is unacceptable.
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In early June, 2007, the Australian state Parliament of New South Wales debated proposed changes to the stem cell research laws. These proposed changes were mainly to deal with allowing the cloning, under specific circumstances, of embryonic stem cells to support medical research purposes. Researchers seeking the legal changes aimed to be able to expand their understanding of debilitating diseases that cause permanent quality-of-life impairment or even lead to death.
The most senior catholic representative of Australia, Cardinal George Pell not only voiced his disapproval of this bill, but went on to threaten the democratic process of Australia.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald article, dated 5 June 2007 entitled "Vote against cloning, or else, Pell warns":
"Cardinal George Pell has warned Catholic politicans they face 'consequences' in the life of the church should they vote for an 'immoral' bill before the NSW Parliament to expand stem cell research."
Qualifying his comments, Pell cited that while he wasn't saying that Catholic MPs who voted for the proposed amendments wouldn't be excommunicated, he did feel that such a vote would threaten their role in the church.
Thankfully, many Catholic MPs in the NSW Parliament ignored this pointed attack on democracy and medical research by following their hearts in a rare conscience vote, helping to get the proposed bill changes through the lower house of the Parliament.
While George Pell is of course entitled to his personal opinion on embryonic stem cell cloning, and to make that opinion publically known; however, by threatening Members of Parliament - those who have been elected or re-elected only very recently by the NSW population - he has clearly demonstrated his contempt for the democratic process.
Since the Commonwealth of Australia is defined as a democracy, not a theocracy, the blatent threatening of elected officials is hardly an appropriate or moral activity by such a senior religious figure.
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