OVO

The following is an excerpt from Max Blumenthal’s new book, Republican Gommorah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party, published by Nation Books.

A few miles down the road from Colorado Springs [a home to James Dobson's Focus on the Family], in the quiet bedroom community of Eldredge, a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray followed the unfolding debacle at New Life Church [once under the stewardship of Pastor Ted Haggard] with an interest that bordered on obsession. Murray, a sallow-faced, bespectacled 24-year-old, had been indelibly scarred by a lifetime of psychological abuse at the hands of his charismatic Pentecostal parents. Murray’s mind became crowded with thoughts of death, destruction, and the killings he would soon carry out in the name of avenging what he called his “nightmare of Christianity.” On an online chat room for former Pentecostals, Murray heaped contempt on his mother, Loretta, a physical therapist who homeschooled him to ensure that his contact with the outside world was severely limited. [...] An authoritarian Christian-right self-help guru named Bill Gothard created the home-schooling regimen implemented by Murray’s parents. Like his ally James Dobson, Gothard first grew popular during the 1960s by marketing his program to worried evangelical parents as anti-hippie insurance for adolescent children. Based on the theocratic teachings of R. J. Rushdoony, who devised Christian schools and home-schooling as the foundation of his Dominionist empire, Gothard’s Basic Life Principles outlined an all-consuming environment that followers could embrace for the whole of their lives. [...]

At the Charter School for Excellence, a school in South Florida inspired by Gothard’s draconian principles that receives $800,000 in state funds each year, children are indoctrinated into a culture of absolute submission to authority almost as soon as they learn to speak. [...] After graduating from Gothard’s home-schooling seminars, which constituted the bulk of his education (Colorado has no educational records for Murray after third grade), he was presented by his parents with two options for higher education. The first choice was Haggard’s alma mater, Oral Roberts University. [...] Murray’s second option was the “Discipleship Training School” of Youth with a Mission (YWAM), a Christian Reconstructionist-inspired missionary group that trained bright-eyed youngsters to spread the gospel of Colorado Springs to under-evangelized Third World nations. Desperate to escape his parents’ rigid order, Murray joined YWAM. But as soon as Murray enrolled at YWAM’s training center in nearby Arvada in 2002, he found himself trapped in an authoritarian culture even more restrictive than home. He realized that, as another student of YWAM bluntly put it, the school’s training methods resembled “cult mind-controlling techniques.” [...] Murray lurched to the polar opposite edge of his parents’ fanatical faith, replacing their Bible as his inspiration with the writings of Aleister Crowley, a flamboyant, self-proclaimed Satanist. [...] Murray had been indoctrinated so thoroughly into charismatic Pentecostal culture, however, that even while he railed against his religious upbringing, he could not abandon his ingrained attraction to religiosity. So instead of fleeing hardcore Christian culture for secular humanism, a natural position for jaded skeptics like him, he traded his former faith for Crowley’s occultism. [...] Now he practiced Crowley’s faux faith as fervently as his parents wished he had worshipped their neo-evangelical macho Christ. But the occult only led Murray into a confusing new world of cheap thrills. By his own account, he engaged in “every sort of sexual pervrsion [sic]…that’s legal,” from anonymous gay sex to bestiality. He boasted of his proclivity for binge drinking, his love for death metal bands, and his penchant for spewing “blasphemy.” He envisioned his new experiences as positively transcendent. “In a way it’s like I’m just about completely rebelling against christianity [sic] in any way that I can,” the enragé mused, “but this is a little different of a rebellion.”

Article continues.  There’s no one solution that can make every young man and confused parent live happy lives.  But refraining from introducing the problems of superstition in the first place might be helpful.

Terrorist hid explosives in his bottom: Suicide bomber Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri attempted to kill a Saudi prince by detonating explosives hidden in his bottom.

Scandinavia Fights Female Genital Mutilation: When she was 11, a Swedish-born girl was taken on vacation to her mother’s native Somalia. The mother wanted to “make her daughter clean” and paid a man to cut off her daughter’s clitoris and labia while two women held her down. Afterward, the girl was stitched to her urethra. No anesthesia was used.

Threats for breaking Morocco fast: A Moroccan man campaigning to change the law banning eating in public during the Muslim Ramadan fast says he has received 100 death threats this week. Radi Omar denied that his group was anti-Islam. “We are in favour of individual freedom,” he told the BBC. Six of his colleagues are in custody after planning to eat in public last Sunday and he demanded their release.

Florida Investigation Finds No Credible Threat to Teen Christian Convert: She has said she is afraid of becoming the victim of an “honor killing” if she stays with her father and mother. Her parents have said they have no intention of harming their daughter.

‘The result of an absurd religious war’: A Moroccan man allegedly killed his 18-year-old Muslim daughter in northeastern Italy after she moved in with an older Catholic Italian man.

How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraq’s gays: Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

Child-bride, 12, dies in Yemen after struggling to give birth for three days: A 12-year-old Yemeni child bride died after struggling to give birth for three days, a local human rights organisation said.

All articles continue at links.  These are the stories that one person found, in a short period of time, in English-language news sources. Is it possible there are many more such stories to be found?  Many more, many more every day?  How about a corresponding number – or 1/10,000th of a corresponding number – of similar stories about atheists beating and mutilating and killing people as part of their atheism?

EsoZone is a mutant unconference, Portland Oregon USA, October 9 and 10 2009.  See you there!

Former Regent assistant dean, wife guilty of child sex abuse: Court records show the McPhersons manipulated the teens into submitting to fondling, kissing and other sex acts. They cited Bible verses that they said justified the abuse and, afterward, would pray together for God’s forgiveness.

Priest charged with abuse for 1978 incident : Sixty-four-year-old James R. Blume, a former member of the Christian Brothers religious order who later became a Catholic priest, has been charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy in Elm Grove in 1978.

Australian Prime Minister to apologise for care home abuse of British children : With the support and encouragement of organisations such as the Salvation Army and Barnardo’s, children were removed from their familes – often having been told that their parents had died – and sent thousands of miles away to a life of starvation, slave labour and sexual abuse. Beatings with straps, canes and even cricket bats were common as was sexual assault. In some Christian Brothers institutes, small boys were forced into bestial acts.

Harrowing documentary uncovers the cruelties of Franco’s paedophile priests: Some 30,000 Spanish children were forcibly removed from their parents and given to childless pro-Franco couples – or put into Catholic Church-run institutions where they were brainwashed and cruelly abused.

Sunday school teacher indicted in CA girl’s death: A San Joaquin County grand jury has indicted Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby on charges she kidnapped, raped and killed an 8-year-old girl and drugged two other people.

Ex-priest probed over abuse claim: West Midlands Police is reviewing the case after admitting it failed to investigate when a complaint was made about Father James Robinson in 2003. Father Robinson, who denies the claims, worked in Sutton Coldfield, Cradley Heath and Newcastle-under-Lyme, but moved to California in 1985.

Sydney priest ‘groomer’ caught on webcam, court told: Police allege they posed as a 13-year-old girl on the internet to catch Robert Fuller, a priest of three decades standing and the parish priest of All Saints at Liverpool for six years. Prior to that he was the parish priest at a Punchbowl parish.

All articles continue at links.  These are the stories that one person found, in a short period of time, in English-language news sources. Is it possible there are more and more and more and more such stories to be found?  How about a corresponding number – or 1/10,000th of a corresponding number – of similar stories about atheists abusing children as part of their atheism, using atheism as an excuse to the child and in court?

The Internet Archive suggests that The Raving Atheist started some time in 2002.  By September 2002 the site described itself as “an atheistic examination of the culture of belief: how religious devotion trivializes American law and politics.”  The site and its author have had a curious history.

The Raving Atheist (TRA) was influential on me in three ways when I found it in 2004.  First, TRA’s essays clarified for me the importance of distinguishing between religious belief and theocracy.  TRA wrote (quote): “any person asserting a special individual right or attempting to dictate social policy based about a belief in god must first 1) define the god, 2) prove that the god exists and 3) demonstrate how the right or policy follows from the belief in god.” Religious belief can be foolish, harmful and sad (or clever, helpful and joyous) but it is largely a matter of personal choice.  The trouble for all of us starts when religion is enfranchised into law.  The Raving Atheist helped me understand theocracy is where my criticism should primarily be addressed, with criticism of religion in general coming behind.  I often fail, but I’ve tried to criticize theocracy more harshly than religion or any particular religion.

Second, TRA reminded me that no set of beliefs is a package deal.  Just because a person is an atheist does not mean they are necessarily also a capitalist or a communist, although some capitalists and some communists would like to claim otherwise.  In this case, the reminder came in the form of TRA being strongly in favor of atheism and strongly against abortion.  That’s a combination I’d never seen before, TRA himself said it was rare and which remains a minority view.  TRA was banned from anti-abortion Christian sites for being an atheist, and looked at askance for being anti-abortion by atheists.  This rare combination of beliefs was helpful to me, whether or not I shared them.  Just as the Dalai Lama is not a vegetarian, The Raving Atheist and you and I pick and choose and invent our beliefs from a variety of inspirations.  Sometimes they seem to go together, sometimes we find others that share our beliefs and they appear to form a self-consistent ideology.  But it is just as likely we’re dressing up our preferences in fine justifications.

Third, for better and for worse The Raving Atheist influenced my writing style.  He didn’t just use reasoned criticism to address his concern.  He also heaped scorn and mockery on those he opposed.  TRA took news stories about theocracy and changed the wording so their absurdity and cruelty was emphasized.  I do these things as well.  If you like my work in this style, thank TRA.  If you don’t, blame me.

The better influences that TRA has given me remain, I hope, as I’ve changed in being an atheist and a writer.  TRA has also changed. There were few posts to the blog between 2006 and 2009.  Among them was a June 2006 post stating TRA “will never write another bad word about Jesus or Christianity on The Raving Atheist.” TRA also wrote:

“Neither Christ nor Christianity shall ever again be maligned on this site, I have vowed. In contemporary America continuing this blog under such constraints might appear to rival the composition of a thousand-page novel without the letter ‘e.’ Or perhaps without the alphabet, given that Christianity equates Christ with God, and that the denial of His existence could be fairly construed as an insult. The seeming impossibility of the challenge might suggest an abandonment of disbelief. Consequently charges of atheist heresy, of conversion to theism, have now been lodged against me. With such conversions I am well familiar. Often I have questioned whether a committed, well-read atheist has ever come to faith. No one is better able to recognize the symptoms of a religious transformation than I. But my own diagnosis I will not disclose. [...] I can only assure you that I will not be acting indifferently or agnostically. What has led me to this point, whatever this point is, is a firm conviction that I must go beyond words and set an example. I will not say whether what lies behind that conviction is God or not. You will have to content yourselves with the understanding that the truth of His existence, whether founded in fact, logic, or a combination of both could not possibly vary with what my words might command you to believe. But I will not tell you what I believe. And I will not tell you why I will not, and you will never trick it out of me.”

Reading that I wondered if I could write in favor of atheism without criticizing religion. I haven’t done so online, but I do have a book manuscript that attempts to do just that. Perhaps someday it will get that last bit of editing and see print.

On December 22, 2008, TRA wrote: “Three years ago, I promoted and appeared in the atheist documentary The God Who Wasn’t There, dedicated to the proposition that Jesus never existed. TODAY I DEDICATE THIS SITE AND MY LIFE TO THE WORSHIP AND SERVICE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.”  Is this evidence that some beliefs are package deals, that it’s impossible to stay atheist if you’re against abortion?  Some say yes.  But I’m going to stick with no.  Just because you’re a vegetarian or a nature-worshiper or an occultist doesn’t mean you’re also a fascist.  Just because you’re an homosexual it doesn’t mean you’re gay.  You are what you are by choice and by chance, and political correctness of every stripe be damned. I am still puzzled when friends have a mix of heresies that don’t match my own.  But it doesn’t threaten me like it used to.

As of September 2009 a Google search for “Raving Atheist” returns his blog as the first match, with the byline “Atheistic examination of American law and politics.”  The site‘s own byline is “Dedicated to Jesus Christ, Now and Forever.”  The back content is mostly there, and what isn’t there is usually at the Internet Archive. TRA’s site isn’t as funny or inspirational to me as it used to be.  But the number of anti-abortion atheists was small, and the number of atheists-turned-Christian is also small.  TRA’s site is worth reading at minimum for its rarity.

Lubna Hussein, When I think of my trial, I pray my fight won’t be in vain: Next week I will stand trial in a Sudanese court, charged along with 12 other women with committing an “indecent act” – wearing trousers in a public place. I will face up to 40 lashes and an unlimited fine if I am convicted of breaching Article 152 of Sudanese law, which prohibits dressing indecently in public. As an employee of the UN I was offered immunity, and the chance to escape trial, but I chose to resign from the UN so that I could face the Sudanese authorities and make them show to the world what they consider justice to be. [The] director of police has admitted that 43,000 women were arrested in Khartoum state in 2008 for clothing offences. When asked, he couldn’t say how many of these women had been flogged. And it’s not just about clothing. After my arrest, two girls were arrested in a public place and the police discovered that their mobile phones had video clips of scenes from the hugely popular Arab soap Noor and Mohannad in which the main characters kiss each other. The girls were charged with pornography and given 40 lashes. [...] When I think of my trial, I pray that my daughters will never live in fear of these “police of security of society”. We will only be secure once the police protect us and these laws are repealed. I also pray that the next generation will see we had the courage to fight for their future before it was too late. We need Arab, African, American and European leaders to stand with us and help us make sure that the next chapter of our history is less bloody and brutal than the last. This will require conviction and boldness from their side. I hope they will display the qualities of those Sudanese men and women I most admire.

Nesrine Malik [bio: Sudanese-born writer and commentator who lives in London and works in the financial sector] wrote “any whiff of visible western practical support for Lubna Hussein for example, would have robbed her campaign of most of its credibility. What will help Muslim women is spending less time and effort being outraged on our behalf and more on differentiating the different faces and needs behind the burqa.”  Malik also wrote “The new date for the trial, 7 September, falls in the middle of Ramadan. This will work in Hussein’s favour. Ramadan is a month when Muslims are supposed to renounce violence and refrain from all intolerant behaviour, dedicating the fast to peaceful contemplation. Perhaps the government will invoke its faux piety and use this as an excuse to delay the trial yet again if no other solution can be negotiated in the meantime. Hopefully, the momentum the case has captured will not ease. Flogged or found innocent, the world will be watching.”  Apparently the West is heeding Malik’s suggestion to observe but not speak of Lubna Hussein’s trail.  Google is unable to find any mention of Lubna Hussein at the National Organization of Women, feminist.com, The Feminist Majority, Feminist Studies, The European Womens Lobby or Amnesty International. [thanks to Klint Finley for pointing out my error: AI does mention Lubna Hussein, here and here].  Against Malik’s wishes, there is a whiff of visible support for Lubna Hussein at Feminist Blogs and Ms. Magazine. Maybe most Western feminists consider dress reform to be old fashioned, having resolved the issue in the 1850s.  If their sisters in the Muslim world are being arrested and flogged for it, well, they just need to get with the times. There’s more support for Lubna Hussein at atheist sites such as Freethinker and OVO than at these feminist sites.  Who’s got your back, and who’s putting a whip across your back?

All praise to Lubna Hussein for her pointed and practical public protest against the contemptible sharia government of the Sudan.  Efforts such as hers, Muslims Against Sharia, the Institution for the Secularization of Islamic Society, Irshad Manji and others are the only way that Islam is worthy of existence in the 21st Century.  Like all religions, it should wither under the twin suns of reason and scorn.  But should Islam accept the secular neutering that Christianity has in the West, it can start to redeem itself.  For its evils past and present, the Muslim world is in need of redemption.

2009 marks 400 years since Galileo exhibited his telescope, 150 years since the publication of On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and 40 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The calendar and anniversaries and mathematics are human inventions. The small satisfied feeling I get from nice round numbers and overlapping anniversaries is something like a superstition. I act on my superstition by writing a blog post and I don’t expect anyone to act on my superstition, so it seems harmless enough. Compared to how the professionally superstitious responded to Galileo’s telescope and Darwin’s theory, I think I’m doing pretty good. On this anniversary of three nice round numbers, take a moment to consider what science has revealed and what superstition has concealed about the universe.

Terror suspect refuses to stand in court: the men were seeking a fatwa, or religious ruling, to justify their plot.
Kidnapped boys ‘brainwashed’ to die as suicide bombers: They had all been kidnapped by the Taliban and taken to camps where they would be trained to kill; trained to be suicide bombers.
Woman journalist rejects offer of immunity from prosecution for wearing trousers: She was arrested in a restaurant in the capital with other women earlier this month for wearing “indecent” clothing – trousers. She said ten of the women arrested with her, including non-Muslims, each received ten lashes and a fine.
Muslims welcome police scarf move: Avon and Somerset Police is issuing head coverings to its female officers so they can enter mosques. The force says the move will help its officers respect Muslim religious customs while carrying out their job.
Man loses his tongue, and blinded in one eye after Muslim ‘honour’ attack in London: Two men have appeared in court after the suspected lover of a married Muslim woman in east London had acid thrown in his face and was stabbed twice in the back in a possible “honour attack”.
Arrests in submerged car deaths: The Whig-Standard learned that Kingston Police have been investigating, for at least two weeks, the allegation that the deaths were an honour killing.
Taliban buying children for suicide bombers: Pakistan’s top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say.
Syria amends honour killing law: The new law replaces the existing maximum sentence of one year in jail with a minimum jail term of two years.
Ezra Levant talks about his fight for freedom of speech: Canadian magazine publisher Ezra Levant became famous as the first and only person prosecuted for printing the controversial “Danish Mohamed” cartoons.
Somalis watch double amputations: Hardline Islamists in Somalia have carried out double amputations on four men for stealing phones and guns. They have each had a hand and foot cut off after being convicted by a Sharia court in the capital earlier this week.
Muslim Countries Lead in Human Trafficking: Muslim countries in the Middle East and north-central Africa lead the world in human trafficking, according to a new U.S. State Department report. Of the 17 countries that were given the “Tier 3″ listing reserved for the worst offenders, nine were Muslim countries or countries with a large Muslim population from these two regions.
Police arrest ‘homosexuals’ at party: While the kingdom has faced criticism from human rights organisations, it insists that it always acts in accordance with Sunni Islamic law.
Taliban beat musicians, shaved their heads and left them tied to trees overnight because they performed at a wedding: They believe music is un-Islamic. Why? Hadith Qudsi 19:5: “The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance.”

Here is hope for the Muslim world: secular reform, in the way that Christianity has undergone secular reform in the West.  The Bible of Christianity contains all manor of absurd and atrocious commandments, but the Christian world has found it possible to ignore them.  Leading the way out of darkness are Irshad Manji, the Institution for the Secularization of Islamic Society, and the nation of Turkey among others.  The alternative is for the Muslim world to keep on killing its own, keep on killing others and keep on its mission to conquer the world or die trying.

Nigerian atheist attacked by a mob of Christians at a child witchcraft conference: Nigerian atheist Leo Igwe was attacked this week by a mob of Christians at a conference he staged to discuss Child Rights and Witchcraft.
Murder-defendant Houston brothers may represent selves: “We’ve got the best counsel in the world,” Leon Houston said. “We’ve got God on our side.”
Abstinence-Supporting GOP State Lawmaker Admits To Sex With 22-Year-Old Intern: According to his website is “a member of Christ United Methodist Church, where he serves as a Sunday school teacher and board member of their day school.” He recently sponsored a bill designed to prevent gay couples from adopting children. Also quoted as saying he ‘didn’t believe young people should have sex before marriage anyway, that his faith and church are important to him, and he wants to promote abstinence.’
100 Huntley Street hosts suspended during Ponzi scheme probe: Ron and Reynold Mainse have been relieved of their duties as hosts of Christian program 100 Huntley Street after allegedly becoming involved in a $14.1-million Ponzi scheme.
Pastor and sons face fraud charges: They allegedly ran a multi-million dollar, faith-based affinity fraud for at least five years that duped thousands of investors into buying bonds that raised at least $120 million. The Reeves allegedly stole $6 million for themselves in the process.
Priest held for selling body parts: The Zion Apostolic Church priest and a casual worker for at least two mortuaries were arrested after police were called to a home in Acornhoek, where they found a white woman’s breast and hand on Saturday.
‘I was only giving the boy anatomy lessons’, said paedophile priest: The 79-year-old ex-priest from Melbourne refused to apologise for the assault on the boy for fear of a compensation claim being made against the church.

I have an amateur interest in the connection between biology and behavior.  This is often called the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate, described by wikipedia as “the relative importance of an individual’s innate qualities (‘nature,’ i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences (‘nurture,’ i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.”  I think this is a false dilemma, or what we in the Church of the SubGenius call a nontroversy.  On the nature side, there are behaviors influenced or controlled by our biology.  On the nurture side, there are our behaviors influenced or controlled by other people’s biology.  Unless there is a mind / soul / ghost / phantom captain in us that is not biological, our behavior is influenced or controlled by biology (sometimes once removed).  Biology in turn is influenced or controlled by the natural universe, its chemistry and physics.  I claim all behavior is biology, and all biology is chemistry and physics.  I refer less to the nature versus nurture debate and more to the connection between biology and behavior.  I could be wrong in my claims or in how my claims are formulated.  Here are some recent examples of biology influencing or controlling behavior…

• Why Anorexic Patients Cling To Their Eating Disorder: Processes in brain metabolism that explain this disturbed eating behavior.
• Women are getting more beautiful: Beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern.
• Are We What Our Mothers Ate?: Mothers’ health in the days and weeks prior to becoming pregnant may determine the health of offspring much later in life.
• Babies Understand Dogs, Bark-matching Study Finds: Six-month-old babies can match the sounds of happy and angry barks to pictures of happy and angry dogs.
• Parts Of Brain Involved In Social Cognition May Be In Place By Age Six: A group of regions has been discovered in the human brain that are specifically used for social cognition.
• Rush Of Blood To The Head: Anger Increases Blood Flow: Mental stress causes carotid artery dilation and increases brain blood flow. A series of ultrasound experiments also found that this dilatory reflex was absent in people with high blood pressure.
• Brain Differences Reinforce Preferences For Those In Same Social Group: Unconscious prejudices against outside groups exist at a basic level.
• A biomarker for anorexia?: A new study shows that the levels of a brain protein differ between healthy and anorexic women.
• Mechanisms Of Self-control Pinpointed In Brain: Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have uncovered differences in the brains of people who are able to exercise self-control versus those who find it almost impossible.
• Child abuse ‘alters stress gene’: Chemical changes which reduced the activity of the gene for glucocorticoid receptor in those who suffered child abuse.
• Hormones affect men’s sense of fair play: Men with high levels of testosterone are more likely to turn down low [business] offers, even if they stand to gain money by accepting them.
• Delinquency In Children Now Linked To Biology: A highly reactive autonomic nervous system, which regulates our cardiovascular, digestive and respiratory functions, paired with a stressful family environment leads to increased instances of maladaptive personality change.

… not a one of which proves my claim, nor do they prove my claim as a whole, but they lend some support.  My claim that behavior is biology could be refuted by demonstrating the existence of a mind / soul / ghost / phantom captain in us that is not biological, or the existence of a God that is somehow ‘outside’ of the natural Universe.  If behavior is biology then interesting and disturbing possibilities arise.  The non-existence of some concepts of free will and personal accountability must be considered.  Statistical regularities in behavior are explained (the overwhelming amount of violent behavior being carried out by men and not by women is explained by having biological roots, for example) but that can be cold comfort.  The line between the individual and the species is blurred.  The possibility of an ‘afterlife’ is lessened, but the possibility one might nudge the lives of future generations is confirmed.  Natural rights may be shown to have a firm foundation, or be shown to have no foundation at all.  How would your day-to-day life be different if you thought you were part of the natural universe?

This is another installment in our continuing series of Things Atheists Didn’t Do.

Still More Things Atheists Didn’t Do | Quick Hitts

Pat Condell on the cultural treachery of the liberal left.

Today (22 July 2009) there is a solar eclipse over India. I was thus reminded of Gora (1902-1975), an author, philosopher and friend of Gandhi. Gora wrote a series of articles titled “I Learn.” Here is an article from 6 March 1969…

“I was teaching for a year at a college in Colombo city. I was 25 and my wife 17 years of age. My wife and I were bred up in orthodox Hindu tradition. We shared its virtues as well as its drawbacks. One belief was that an expectant mother should not move out, cut or break anything at the time of an eclipse, but should confine herself indoors and rest in darkness. Transgression of the practice, it was believed, would maim the foetus. First time my wife was in the family way six months when a solar eclipse came in. According to the convention, she should retire into a dark room at the time. But we were beginning to grow atheistic. So we both argued, ‘if the effects of an eclipse on expectant mothers were a reality, as real as the fire scorches and a thorn pricks, all expectant mothers, Hindu or non-Hindu all over the world, should be effected equally. But in Colombo city where non-Hindus abound, why do women, of whom there should be a considerable number of expectant mothers too, move about freely, unmindful of the occurrence of the eclipse?’ This comparative thinking emboldened us to violate the traditional belief. My wife walked out into the open air, cut vegetables, bit and ate sweetmeats, as the solar eclipse was in progress. Later she normally delivered of a normal child. Superstitions grow in communities due to indolence to think and fear to act.”

Gora lived in haunted houses to dispel the notion of ghosts, he hosted Beef and Pork Parties to point out how the dietary restrictions found in religions kept people apart, and he founded The Atheist Center. Wikipedia: “The Atheist Center provides counseling, promotes intercaste and casteless marriages, works to abolish child marriages, provides aid to prostitutes, unwed mothers and vulnerable women, debunks superstitious beliefs by holding firewalking demonstrations and debunking other ‘miracles,’ educates against belief in witchcraft and sorcery, and promotes sexual education and family planning.”

I hope that thousands of women who might have otherwise cowered in fear today are instead taking advantage of the chance to see the eclipse – or just get on with their daily lives. Thank you, Gora.

A photograph which purports to show Republican militiamen shooting at the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Cerro de los Ángeles near Madrid, Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The photograph was given wide distribution by the Nationalists during the war. [Been looking for this image for 10+ years. I think it's fake, but still... ]

File:SpanishLeftistsShootStatueOfChrist.jpg – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious (generally Catholic) institutional power and influence, real or alleged [filed under 'religious discrimination and persecution' - because religion is always right therefore anti-clericalism is always wrong.]

Anti-clericalism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hello, this is Robert Sheaffer. I’m an author, a free-lance writer, and skeptical investigator of all manner of bogus claims. Skeptical resources on UFOs, the “paranormal,” feminist “scholarship”

The Debunker’s Domain, by Robert Sheaffer.