April Fools' Joke

gapingvoid.com

"April 1st: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four." ~ Mark Twain

* UK charity sued over killing of cow ...

Hindustan Times
Vijay Dutt, London
March 28, 2008

"Hindu leaders and monks, angered by Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) slaughter of its sacred cow, have served legal papers for trespassing when they put down temple’s sacred cow Gangotri on December 13, 2007.

"Campaigners from the Bhaktivedanta Manor Hindu temple in Hertfordshire claimed that the “mercy killing” was illegal and took place while monks were at worship. The charity was in negotiations with the temple for weeks over the slaughter of the 13-year-old cow because it had a broken leg and had bedsores.

"The move has been endorsed by most major Hindu organisations. This unprecedented act of serving a legal notice to the RSPCA headquarters in West Sussex has surprised the authorities.

"Gauri Das, President of Bhaktivedanta Manor, who led the team of monks serving the legal notice told HT that “The Hindu community in Britain is appalled by the lack of integrity in their behaviour. … No compensation will be adequate to address the loss of Gangotri, whose life was taken through deception and damaged the feelings of our faith community.”

"Das added, “Qualified vets who were caring for Gangotri never thought she should be killed. But what is shocking is that the RSPCA, without any form of apology or remorse, now suddenly started writing to Hindu community leaders inviting them for a round table meeting.”

"The agitation has been going on since December. There were protests outside the RSPCA’s headquarters on December, 26 and another demonstration took outside Parliament Square and the DEFRA offices on February 13.

"Last year, Shambo, a bull kept at Skanda Vale religious community near Carmarthen made headlines when he was slaughtered in July after testing positive for bovine TB. Two other animals from the same temple were also put down soon after Shambo’s death."

*If the cows were suffering or if there was a danger to humans in some way, I agree with the RSPCA. If not, this is an even sadder story. ~ BlogHer

* TIME Magazine Quote of the Day

Friday, Mar. 28, 2008

"Any reasonable person can see this is meant to spit in the face of Muslims and insult our religion."

• ARSALAN IFTIKHAR
• contributor to Washington-based Islamica Magazine, on the release of Fitnah, the anti-Islam film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders

* Daniel Dennett, Thinker ~ Born on This Day in 1942

Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. Dennett is also a noted atheist and advocate of the Brights movement. Wikipedia

“ . . . I've come to realize it's time to sound the alarm.

Whether we Brights are a minority or, as I am inclined to believe, a silent majority, our deepest convictions are increasingly dismissed, belittled and condemned by those in power -- by politicians who go out of their way to invoke God and to stand, self-righteously preening, on what they call 'the side of the angels.'

. . . Politicians don't think they even have to pay us lip service, and leaders who wouldn't be caught dead making religious or ethnic slurs don't hesitate to disparage the 'godless' among us.

From the White House down, Bright-bashing is seen as a low-risk vote-getter. And, of course, the assault isn't only rhetorical: the Bush administration has advocated changes in government rules and policies to increase the role of religious organizations in daily life, a serious subversion of the Constitution. It is time to halt this erosion and to take a stand: the United States is not a religious state, it is a secular state that tolerates all religions and--yes--all manner of nonreligious ethical beliefs as well.”

~ Daniel C. Dennett, "The Bright Stuff," The New York Times, July 12, 2003

* On Fearing Religion ~ Dr. Anthony Campbell

Thomas Nagel and the Fear of Religion
Home page: www.acampbell.org.uk

A fear of religion?

It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

~ Thomas Nagel, "Evolutionary naturalism and the fear of religion", in The Last Word. Oxford University Press, 1997.

"Many secularists feel, not without reason, that the forces of irrationalism are always threatening to return, and this can lead them to embark on excessively vigorous counter-attacks."

~ Anthony Campbell, read full article ...

* Minister of Magic

J.K. Rowling speaks of fundamentalists who tear down the Harry Potter series as being a work of the Devil:

"Fundamentalism is, 'I will not open my mind to look on your side of the argument at all. I won't read it, I won't look at it, I'm too frightened'. That's what's dangerous about it," she continues, "whether it be politically extreme, religiously extreme.... In fact fundamentalists across all the major religious, if you put them in a room, they'd have bags in common. They hate all the same things, it's such an ironic thing." Full article ...

Christian Tolerance?

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiment in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy which has marked the present age would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination, so far that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”

~ George Washington, letter to Sir Edward Newenham, Oct. 20, 1792.

Source for most of the biographical discussion of Washington's religion is The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, From Washington To F.D.R., by Franklin Steiner.

Today, there are many ways of classifying the over 1,000 Christian faith groups in North America:

By denomination
Into three or four meta-groups (e.g. Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican)
By theological belief system (Calvinism, Arminianism, etc.)
By religious family, (Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, etc.), and
By "wing." The conservative, mainline, and liberal wings of Protestantism are described here.

	Introduction: Fragmentation of Christianity from one to thousands of faith groups
	Criteria for selecting the "true" church Using Jesus' statements and how he treated outcasts as a guide Using Jesus' disciples and church success as guide; Conclusions
	The view of an evangelical Christian (an essay donated by William Taylor Sr.)
	The beliefs of some Mormons
	The current teachings of the Roman Catholic Church

This lack of consensus is so extreme that sincerely and devoutly held beliefs by very liberal Christians may well be considered blasphemy by very conservative Christians, and vice-versa. One result is that some Christians view Christianity as a collection of religions, not as a single religion.

Pope Prays for Peace on Easter Sunday

"As is tradition, the 80-year-old pope prayed for peace in troubled parts of the world, singling out Darfur in Sudan and Somalia, “the tormented Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon.” He also mentioned Tibet, a sensitive issue for the Vatican, which is working to improve ties with China, amid unconfirmed reports of direct talks here last week between Chinese and Vatican officials."

Popes have been praying for peace for hundreds of years but it never happens. You'd think that a loving god would grant this important plea. Not. While on the History channel right now is a one-hour special on "Crucifixion." The warning at the beginning was that the program is 'graphic' and some viewers might not want to watch it. Christianity itself is violent. ~ BlogHer

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. ~ Jonathan Swift

THOMAS HARDY

The Respectable Burgher
On "The Higher Criticism"

Since Reverend Doctors now declare
That clerks and people must prepare
To doubt if Adam ever were;
To hold the flood a local scare;
To argue, though with stolid stare,
That everything had happened ere,
The prophets to its happening sware;
That David was no giant-slayer,
Nor one to call a God-obeyer
In certain details we would spare,
But rather was a debonair
Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:
That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,
And gave the Church no thought whate'er,
That Esther with her royal wear,
And Mordecai, the son of Jair,
And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair,
And Balaam's ass's bitter blare;
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare,
And Daniel and the den affair,
And other stories rich and rare,
Were writ to make old doctrine wear
Something of a romantic air:
That the Nain widow's only heir,
And Lazarus with cadaverous glare
(As done in oils by Piombo's care)
Did not return from Sheol's lair:
That Jael set a findish snare,
That Pontius Pilate acted square,
That never a sword cut Malchus' ear;
And (but for shame I must forbear)
That —— —— did not reappear!...
— Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,
All churchgoing will I forswear,
And sit on Sundays in my chair,
And read that moderate man Voltaire.

* Ram sez, "Let my people go."

Hindu Extremists in India Forcibly ‘Re-Convert’ Christians

Believers lured to temple in Himachal Pradesh, pressured to deny their faith.

by Surinder Kaur Lal

... “I was forced to participate in the Hindu rituals, and I could not resist the force in the temple because of the massive crowd surrounding us,” he said. As part of the purification ceremony, Christians were made to have their feet washed and to drink Gangajal, the water of the River Ganges ... Christian News Report

* Uh oh, "A President Obama's Neoliberal Theocracy"

Here's the hub of matter.
In his speech to the Democrat convention in 2004,
then Candidate for the U.S. Senate Barack Obama said,

"It is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keep, I am my sister's keeper -- that makes this country work."

Full article at American Thinker

* James Madison, Deist ~ Against Religion in Politics

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect," Madison wrote William Bradford (April 1, 1774).

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. . . .

Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.”

~ James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785.

James Madison, Jr., (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American politician and the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817), and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Selected works of James Madison
Born this day, March 16

Blessed are the fundamentalists, for they shall inhibit the earth.

Click Cartoon to Enlarge

photobucket

Can priests turn other food into God, or only those little cookies?

* Omar Khayyám ( غیاث الدین ابو الفتح عمر بن, براهیم خیام نیشابوری), Anti-religion, Agnostic, Poet, Philosopher, Mathematician, Astronomer

*Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell;
If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;
What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find?
Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?
…

The Koran! well, come put me to the test—

Lovely old book in hideous error drest—

Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,

The unbeliever knows his Koran best.

 

And do you think that unto such as you,

A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,

God gave the secret, and denied it me?—

Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.

Khayyám (Nishapur, Persia, May 18, 1048 - December 4, 1131) "describing those who claim to receive God's word as maggot-minded fanatics (via Le Gallienne's translation):^[10]"

*RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM

* Atheist David Sloan Wilson & Evolutionary Theory

The Huffington Post
Atheism as a Stealth Religion (series of 6 postings)
David Sloan Wilson

"In today's polarized world, the conflict between atheism and religion is shaping up to be the fight of the century. In this corner, the new atheists, flexing their muscles with books such as God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. In that corner, the religious fundamentalists, who are responsible for 9/11, the Christian takeover of America, polluting the minds of their children, and numberless other atrocities. It's science and reason against dogmatism and blind faith, making it obvious who the enlightened liberal should root for.

"Well, not quite. The truly enlightened liberal should experience a twinge of doubt about the very blackness and whiteness of it. Let me show you how a bit of evolutionary thinking can paint a more interesting picture in shades of gray."

Stealth II: Let's Get Real
Stealth III: Four Questions and Six Possible Answers
Stealth IV: The Transformation of the Obvious
Stealth V: Ineffective, Silly, and Worse

Watch for Wilson's Stealth VI as his final installment in this series.

David Sloan Wilson

"uses evolutionary theory to explain all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, as he recounts for a general audience in Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin´s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (Bantam 2007). He is a distinguished professor of biology and anthropology at Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York. He publishes in anthropology, psychology, and philosophy journals in addition to his mainstream biological research."

Wilson's Website, Evolutionary Religious Studies