Posted inFundamentalism Gay rights

Churches shouldn’t be able to discriminate against gays

On one of my other blogs, Salem Political Snark, I wrote a post this afternoon that already is getting a lot of online attention here in semi-sleepy Salem, Oregon -- the state capital that often is referred to (especially by me) as the centerpoint of places in Oregon that people really want to go to: the coast, the Cascade mountains, Portland, and Eugene. Check out "Two reports of how Broadway Coffee House/Commons discriminates against LGBT people." Excerpts: Someone contacted me about a year ago about how the Broadway Coffee House here in Salem refuses to allow gay people to be…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

Christian missionary killed by remote tribe shows idiocy of religion

So, here's a quiz for you. Someone learns about an island inhabited by about 50-100 members of a tribe that has had very little contact with civilization. The nation that the island is a part of has decreed that no outsiders are to set foot on the island. One reason is that the tribe members lack immunity to many diseases common in the outside world, so they could be decimated by contact with outsiders. Should this person:(A) Give up any idea of visiting the island. (B) Sneak onto the island with the intention of changing the tribe over to their way…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Indian guru convicted of rape. His followers riot, killing 32.

Ah, the craziness of religious belief is on full display in India. First, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, a guru who claims millions of followers, was put on trial for raping two women in 2002 at the headquarters of his Dera Sacha Sauda group in the town of Sirsa. The guru His devotees apparently were anticipating that this supposed God-man would get better legal treatment, considering his purportedly divine status.  The town ordered an indefinite curfew to stop his followers from gathering but thousands had already left for the town of Panchkula where a court was due to give its verdict. Singh drove…
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Posted inFundamentalism

In Saudi Arabia, atheists are considered terrorists

Kind of jarring news, given that President Trump (geez, I hate to write those two words) just returned from his visit to Saudi Arabia, all enthused about how great his talks with Saudi officials/royalty were. So today I come across a 2014 story in the Independent, "Saudi Arabia declares all atheists are terrorists in new law to crack down on political dissidents."  In a string of royal decrees and an overarching new piece of legislation to deal with terrorism generally, the Saudi King Abdullah has clamped down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could "harm public order".…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

The Satanic Temple is a positive force for good. Praise Satan!

Satan, the Devil, is a religious myth. So I like how The Satanic Temple has taken this bit of dogmatic ridiculousness and made it into a way of promoting rationalism and free inquiry.  From their FAQs: DO YOU WORSHIP SATAN? It is the position of The Satanic Temple that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. The Satanist should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s absurd radical Islamist theology

By their very nature, all religious theologies based on irrational supernaturalism don't make sense. But some theologies are more non-sensical than others -- particularly destructive ones which call for violence and killing in the name of God. Like that preached by the head of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He was on TIME magazine's Shortlist for 2015 Person of the Year, losing out to Angela Merkel. In the Person of the Year issue, al-Baghdadi got a two-page writeup.  The Quran, Islam's holy book, was a big part of his life from an early age. Born into a religiously devout lower-middle-class Sunni Muslim…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

No surprise: Planned Parenthood shooter is a religious fanatic

I don't believe in ESP. But it didn't take any supernatural powers of perception for me, and many others, to accurately predict that the man who entered a Planned Parenthood clinic, killing three and wounding nine, was religiously motivated. A well-researched New York Times piece, "For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack," describes Dear's religious sensibilities. Excerpts: He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation. “He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms.…
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Posted inFundamentalism

“Imagine” is the solace I needed today

After hearing about today's attacks in Paris, I considered writing a blog post about religious fundamentalism. But then I realized that John Lennon had already said everything I wanted to say. And in a much better way.------------------------------- Imagine Imagine there's no heavenIt's easy if you tryNo hell below usAbove us only skyImagine all the peopleLiving for today... Imagine there's no countriesIt isn't hard to doNothing to kill or die forAnd no religion tooImagine all the peopleLiving life in peace... You may say I'm a dreamerBut I'm not the only oneI hope someday you'll join usAnd the world will be as one…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Hindu fundamentalists are killing freethinkers in India

Well, a story in the New York Times, "India's Attack on Free Speech," makes me feel better about religious craziness in the United States. We have lots of fanatic Christian fundamentalists in this country. But we also have the First Amendment and a healthy respect for free speech. Our Christian nationalists don't kill anti-religion bloggers. (Good news for me!) In India, though, people are being killed for speaking their faithless minds. I'd thought that India was making progress on becoming a liberal democracy akin to ours ("liberal" means something different in this context from the usual liberal/conservative distinction). But apparently…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Religious fundamentalists kill bloggers and other secular activists

There are plenty of reasons to reject religion. A big one is that fundamentalism makes people so crazy, they not only want to kill people who criticize religiosity, sometimes they actually do kill them.  Below is a piece by Sanal Edamaruku that I came across in New Scientist. Ananta Bijoy Das likely was killed by Muslim extremists. Edamaruku also writes about other secular activists who were killed by Hindu extremists. He himself was threatened by Christian extremists.  It isn't just one religion that produces murderous true believers. They all do. Lesson: stay away from religion.  Here's the opinion piece by…
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Posted inFundamentalism Religions

Criticizing Islam isn’t racist

I enjoy getting comments on my blog posts. Many add informative extras to what I was writing about. But sometimes I read a comment that makes so little sense, my only reaction is a bewildered "huh?" Such as this one, submitted in response to "Of all the crazy religions, is Islam the most dangerous?" I was a big fan, but now you lost me. Now you just seem racist to me. Sorry. I'm no fan of religions, any of them, but it's fundamentalists that are the problem. I don't like it when people target any particular group. The Muslims I…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Pope acts like an bigot in denouncing gay marriage

How could anybody believe the Pope is a spiritual person worthy of emulation? Clearly the Pope is a narrow-minded bigot who is woefully ignorant about both modern science and the basics of human compassion. Here's proof: "Pope says future of mankind at stake over gay marriage."  The defence of the family, the Pope said, "is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears." On Monday, the Vatican's newspaper described laws on gay marriage as an attempt at a communist-like "utopia", a day after tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out in France…
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Posted inFundamentalism Religions

Irritating putdowns of pseudo-spiritual wannabes

Even when I was a religious true believer, Eastern mysticism variety, I tried to avoid being irritatingly sanctimonious. People who consider themselves holier-than-thou are difficult to be around. And I necessarily associated with quite a few people who didn't believe in what I did. Such as my first wife, who early on deconverted from the India-based Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) faith that I held on to for about thirty-five years. And my second wife, who always has been an "infidel" from the standpoint of RSSB. When I gave talks at RSSB meetings, I often used her as an example,…
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Posted inFundamentalism God

Why a Christian woman denies global warming

My wife, Laurel, has been engaging in an exchange of emails with a Christian woman who used to do the same thing with Laurel's sister -- try to convince a religious skeptic that the Bible is God's inerrant truth. Which, of course, is complete bullshit.  As is this woman's response, after Laurel noted that viewers of Fox News are horribly misinformed about the reality of global warming. She replied: It is because I am a Christian that I don't believe in global warming.   My wife then emailed her: I am curious why being a Christian causes you to reject…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Hate mail about me going to hell. Oh, well.

Well, wish me luck in hell. That's where I'm going according to this email message. But at least my dog likes me! (When I give her chew sticks after her dinner, at least.) But seriously... if there's a hell, it's hate. I don't hate. I just disagree and express my honest opinion. So I feel like I'm far away from hell. HINES [PIG]I WENT THRU YUR BLOG COC AND I SEEN U HAVE WRITTEN ALL BULLSHIT ABOUT ALMIGHTY BABAJI WHO IS THE ALMIGHTY GOD IN HUMAN FORMU BLOODY PIECE OF SHIT U HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO…
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Posted inFundamentalism Spiritual practice/meditation

Integral egos gone wild: Wilber and Cohen relish worship

As I said in this post, I used to have a love-hate thing going on with Ken Wilber and his Integral philosophy. (Click on that link and you'll be led to examples of what I liked and disliked.)Last night, though, I got around to reading the September - November 2009 issue of EnlightenNext, a magazine devoted to uncritical lauding of Wilber's work, along with that of his Integral comrade, Andrew Cohen.When I got through reading "The Second Face of God," I'd reached a clear conclusion: Wilber and Cohen aren't aiming to go beyond the limitations of religiosity in their quest…
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Posted inFundamentalism Humor

Draw Mohammed Day freaks out fundamentalist Muslims

Example #[infinity] of why religions are so ridiculous: Pakistan shuts down Facebook over a page that promotes "Draw Mohammed Day."The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority issued the order a day before "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," scheduled by a Facebook group with the same name. "Obviously it (the blocking of Facebook) is related to the objectionable material that was placed on Facebook. That is why it is blocked," said Khoram Ali Mehran of the telecommunication authority.Check out Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! on Facebook. No reason not to -- aside from defying the will of Allah and being damned for eternity, along with having…
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Posted inFundamentalism Politics

Texas dismisses Thomas Jefferson from schools

We didn't need more evidence that religious fundamentalists are dangerous wackos who seek to undermine American freedom and independence -- but, sadly, here it is:The Texas State Board of Education removed Thomas Jefferson from the school curriculum, replacing him with John Calvin, who, not surprisingly, also was a religious wacko.Jefferson, on the other hand, held unconventional Christian beliefs and strongly argued for the separation of church and state. He also, of course, was the third president of the United States, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States.But…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Faith healing kills another Oregon child

Last year the father of Ava Worthington was convicted of criminal neglect for allowing his child to die rather than seek medical attention. Ava had the misfortune of being born to parents belonging to Oregon's Followers of Christ church, where children die at an alarming rate because of crazy faith healing beliefs.An investigation by The Oregonian claimed that at least 21 out of 78 minors found to be buried in the church cemetery died of preventable causes, including simple infections which would be easily treated with routine antibiotics.Now, make that 23. The parents of teenager Neil Beagley (grandparents of Ava)…
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Posted inBooks Fundamentalism

Andrew Cohen — an abusive American guru

Outrage. Anger. Disgust. An overwhelming desire to cancel my subscription to the EnlightenNext magazine. These were some of my reactions as I read through an expose of Andrew Cohen, a self-proclaimed "guru" who talks a good spirituality game but clearly plays by very different rules.Earlier I shared some passages from Stephen Bachelor's excellent introduction to "American Guru," a book authored by William Yenner and other contributors who were long-time disciples of Cohen and experienced or saw his abuses first-hand.As the events recounted in this book reveal, Cohen's demonization of his students' "egoic tendencies" -- tendencies which he himself has supposedly…
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