United States: Fred Phelps has a new enemy: those dirty Yids. He's been protesting at Jewish establishments, handing out flyers blaming the Jews for killing their imaginary friend. Keeping with traditional anti-semitism, the also pretend not to know the difference between Jews in general, and the state of Israel:
Margie Phelps and three fellow church members stood on the sidewalk and held signs stating thatGod Hates Israel,Jews Killed Jesus,America Is Doomed,Israel Is Doomed,andADL Jew Bullies.One of the four women had an Israeli flag tied around her waist that dragged on the ground; she stepped on the flag as she walked.
They have also added their own unique flavour of hate into the mix:
While picketing outside the Washington office of the Anti-Defamation League last Friday, Phelps' daughter Margie said that the group is now focusing on the Jewish community because church members have beentestifyingto gentiles for 19 years thatAmerica is doomedand they haven't gotten the message.
Now it's too late,she said.We're done with them.
Margie Phelps added thatone of the loudest voicesin favor of homosexuality and abortion isthe Jews, especially the rabbis.
Anti-Gay Church Turns on Jews—The Jewish Exponent, 13th May 2009. Longer version of the same article here.
Martin of The Lay Scientist has been hanging around the Daily Mail web site, so that we don't have to. The level of his sacrifice can be judged by a recent article which featured a reconstruction of the first modern European human, who arrived from Africa and looks kind of, well, black. It seems that the BNP supporting types don't like being reminded that humanity evolved in Africa and that white skin is a relatively recent mutation.
Rubbish. Europeans did not come from Africans and never could. This is just more anti-European propaganda, of as much real scientific merit as Piltdown Man.
Others don't like the idea that we evolved at all, and in their comments demonstrate that they never got past the single-celled stage:
We are all descended from Adam and Eve, who were most probably had brown skin and were from the middle east no more than 10,000 years ago.
Daily Mail Readers in Revolt over Black Ancestors—The Lay Scientist, 5th May 2009. Headline courtesy of the Daily Mail-o-matic.
The neo-nazi British National Party has recently produced an anti-immigration poster. They chose to illustrate it with a Spitfire.
But RAF history experts have identified the iconic Romeo Foxtrot Delta Plane as belonging not to Britons but to a group of Polish pilots instead.
The plane was actually flown by the celebrated 303 Squadron of the RAF -- made up of Polish airmen rescued from France shortly before Nazi occupation.
A BNP representative could only come up with WE MENT 2 DU DAT, DUH, ONNIST GUV
.
BNP uses Polish Spitfire in anti-immigration poster —Daily Telegraph, 4th March 2009.
United Kingdom: The UK government is on a bit of a roll at the moment, what with letting in people with manslaughter convictions who then go on to commit murder, whilst banning obnoxiously opinionated but non-violent politicians, regardless of the opinion of at least one Muslim organisation, which believes in dialogue and was looking forward to an opportunity to engage in such a subversive activity. Meanwhile, an Islamist bampot is being chucked out, but being sent somewhere where he will be tortured.
The latest preachers of hate to be banned from the country are Fred Phelps and his Merrie Men, who wanted to picket a Basingstoke sixth-form college's production of the Laramie Project.
A father and daughter from a US church which preaches hatred of homosexuals have been banned from entering the UK by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church had urged protests against a play being put on in Hampshire.
Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke is staging The Laramie Project, a play about a man killed for being gay.
So, no opportunity for the London Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to organise sponsorship of the picket, whereby cash is raised for HIV/AIDS or LGBT organisations based on how long the Westboro Baptist Church hangs around, and no chance for the fundie bampots to remind the British public why the nation is not very religious at all. No doubt a tirade against our royal family will follow, just like when the Queen Mum died, seeing as they don't realise that the British attitude to royalty is as far removed from the Thai one as you can get without chopping the monarch's head off (very often).
Anti-gay preachers banned from UK—BBC News, 19th February 2009.
United Kingdom: SF author Liz Williams also runs a brace of occult shops in Glastonbury and, like many people, is interested in the recent leak of a British National Party (most of whom would have been more comfortable on the other side during WWII) membership list.
Following the leaked BNP list, I acquired a virtual pair of tongs and a face mask and took a look at the BNP's website. It is, not surprisingly, the usual vacuous presentation of some fairly sensible (in theory) policies with, as far as I could see, very little said about actual implementation....
One of these issues was that of buying British. Now, even anticipating the beat of jackboots down Glastonbury High St, this is something I can get behind - we support a lot of local craft people in the shops, but we can't exclusively buy British goods because of cost effectiveness. But there is already quite a lot of very good stuff out there, being made by woodworkers and metalworkers in the UK, and so I perused Excalibur, which is the BNP's online shop....
And lo! A lot of the stuff they sell, especially the Celtic things, is not just like the stuff we sell - it *is* the stuff we sell.
It's made in China.
And more dumb—Liz Willams' Journal, 20th November 2008.
United States: A 20-year-old male student has been expelled from an adult education college after he poured liquid over his English Literature teacher and threatened her with a lighter and a cigarette. He accused her of being a witch.
Darin Najor of Ferndale is charged with assault and battery, a 93-day misdemeanor in the Sept. 11 incident at Taft Educational Center where he attends adult education classes, Ferndale Police Lt. William Wilson said today. The students had been reading Arthur Miller'sThe Crucibleregarding the Salem witch trials.
This apparently occurred after a class discussion on witchcraft, and what people used to do with witches,said Wilson.After one class, he asked his teacher if she believed in witchcraft and what was done, and she said no. The next thing she knew, he came up behind her and poured some liquid on her out of a bottle and ignited a cigarette lighter, as if he was going to light her on fire.
According to another report, Najor allegedly told police that he was trying to kill her by pouring holy water over her. More detail about the incident is given, suggesting that Najor was inspired by his Christian faith:
Najor asked the teacher if she believed in witchcraft, police said. The teacher told him she did not believe in witchcraft and explained that the events in the play were a metaphor for unjust persecution, police said.
The suspect threw his homework papers on the floor and declared it was all blasphemy,Denmark said.The next day he came up behind her chanting what sounded like religious verses while she was working at her desk.
Najor was briefly detained in a psychiatric hospital, but has now been charged with assault and battery.
Student accuses Ferndale teacher of being a witch and tries to set her on fire—The Detroit News, 8th October 2008; Man accused of assaulting 'witch' at Taft—Daily Tribune, 8th October 2008.
England: A festival promoting religious tolerance has been cancelled because members of one religion objected to the presence of members of others. The Laxfield Festival of Tolerance honoured the life of a local Protestant executed during the reign of Queen Mary, and the legendary reaction of the villagers.
John Noyes, a Laxfield shoemaker, was burnt to death on 22 September 1557, one of 34 executed in the county for his religious beliefs.
Legend has it that almost all the villagers disagreed with his death sentence and tried to put out their fires to stop his execution.
The festival was started three years ago in a bid to remember the execution and spread the message of religious tolerance.
The message flew right over the heads of some, though.
One villager explained his opposition to the festival. He said:I felt there was a drift towards the darker side of things, such as people selling five-pointed stars and other symbols of witchcraft. It didn't uphold the values I see in life.
Just one sentence which demonstrates the need for the festival.
"Intolerant" villagers stop "tolerance" festival —The Daily Telegraph, 30th July 2008.
Germany: Some bampot has been killing rabbits in the area around Dortmund and, obviously, it can't simply be someone who enjoys being cruel to animals. Humans are, after all, peaceful bunnyhugging vegans with no tendency towards harming other creatures at all. First up, is the usual suspects: it must be Satanists.
Fear is driving rabbit owners in Germany to lock up their pets at night after a spate of brutal bunny slayings in which pets have been beheaded and drained of blood....
There has been speculation that satanists could be responsible because many of the way the rabbits have been killed.
And if that wasn't enough, the internet is also to blame.
The task force is looking into the possibility that the rabbits were being targeted using the online mapping programme Google Earth.
I'm betting it's a lone nutter, or teenagers.
German police investigate serial rabbit killings—The Guardian, 9th July 2008.
England: A criminal genius in the West Midlands has expressed his love of his fellow man by placing a pig's head on a memorial to Sikhs killed while serving in the British forces.
Navreet Singh, 22, who removed the head before taking it to the police, said whoever had tied it to the memorial was "ignorant" and "mindless".... "It's inhuman. This is a war memorial. It's not a Sikh monument, it is a British one. "It seems like someone was trying to attack Muslims. It is ignorance."
Pig's head tied to Sikh memorial—BBC News, 13th June 2008.
Scotland: As previously reported, a tiny Catholic extremist organisation has taken aim at HIV/AIDS activists, the Order of Perpetual Indulgence. As part of their vendetta, they published the e-mail address of one of the Sisters and, not surprisingly, that individual has been receiving hate mail. Which she forwarded to me. I expect there's more that got eaten by the spam trap,
she notes, but I'm not going to bother looking for it.
So, what do members of Catholic Truth have to say in the name of their imaginary friend?
England: An evangelical preacher has been convicted on nine charges of wounding and cruelty to his sons. Bradford Crown Court also convicted the boys' mother, a devout Christian, of cruelty.
The evangelical preacher put safety pins through his sons' lips, sliced their mouths with scalpel blades and squeezed the older boy's tongue with sharp pincers.
The court heard that the father used religion as his excuse for the cruelty:
Prosecutor Caroline Wigin had told the court the man, a self-styled preacher and former medical student, may have mutilated the boys as his interpretation of religious teaching.
He had told the children God had had his tongue cut off in the Bible.
The court is still considering further allegations against the parents, who cannot be named because it would identify the children.
Dad guilty of sons' scalpel torture—Bradford Telegraph and Argus, 23rd January 2008.
Wales: There has been a string of teenage suicides in Bridgend recently. The young people all knew each other, and might have been inspired by the earlier deaths. It's a terrible situation, but one religious nutter knows it wasn't the pressure of school, the lack of employment opportunities, or the impossibility of getting a start in adult life contributing to the record levels of depression and self-harm among young people. As he explained to the Daily Mail:
Teenage suicide doesn't surprise me. Children are taught at school that we are nothing more than animals, descendents of an ape-like creature. When life gets tough why carry on living if our lives are just a freak of nature. Well done to all those who teach our kids that evolution is a fact.
If being more than an animal means being a nasty, hateful scumbag, well I say OOK!
Teenage suicide cult sweeps through town as SEVEN youngsters kill themselves in copycat deaths—The Daily Mail, 22nd January 2008.
United Kingdom: Okay, this story is from the Daily Express, but it seems its not only self-styled Christians who refuse to do their jobs and then claim religious discrimination.
According to the Express, a young Muslim assistant at a branch of Marks and Spencer refused to serve a woman trying to buy a book of sanitised Bible stories for children, declaring the book to be "unclean" and declining to touch it. But if the assistant hopes for support from Muslim organisations, she looks unlikely to get it.
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, described the assistant's comments asoffensiveand called for Marks & Spencer to carry out a thorough investigation.
People who think they are Christian have turned out to be much less reasonable, and have responded, not by turning the other cheek, but by entering into a competition to see who can come up with the most disgusting comment. First up, the woman who was trying to indoctrinate her grandson, who starts with the traditional phrase used when you are about to say something really racist:
I am not racist but I have vowed never to let a person wearing a headdress serve me again. It will be a long, long time before I shop again at M&S.
Then we discover that Shipley in once again in the hands of a really nasty Tory:
Mr Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, west Yorkshire, said:I find it unbelievable. We are a Christian country. I'm afraid it is no good for people to work in Marks & Spencer and not serve their products.
And then, the Muslim Council of Britian representative pours more fuel on the flames by continuing to be reasonable:
Mr Bunglawala said:This appears to be a very regrettable incident and the 'unclean' remark was clearly very offensive and unacceptable.
“Many Biblical stories complement the teachings of the Koran. We hope that M&S will investigate this incident.
Marks and Spencer have said that the incident does not reflect company policy and that they will investigate.
Personally, I'm wondering how the assistant squares her bigotry with her working for a company with such a solid Jewish heritage.
OUTCRY AS MUSLIM M&S WORKER REFUSES TO SELL 'UNCLEAN' BIBLE BOOK—The Daily Express, 15th January 2008.
United States: A teenager who wrote to the Church of Satan expressing his desire to kill his grandparents in the name of Satan probably didn't expect the reaction he got—the Satanists reported it to the authorities.
According to police, Culver wrote he had access to an arsenal of weapons and wanted tokill in the name of our unholy lord Satan.
Culver sent the message Wednesday to Peter Gilmore, the high priest of the New York City-based Church of Satan, Sayers said. Gilmore alerted the FBI, which notified local police. Culver was taken out of class Thursday and questioned by police, Sayers said.
Teen Held After Threat Sent to Satanists—Associated Press, 16th December 2007.
Canada: A 16-year-old girl has been murdered, allegedly because she refused to wear the hijab. The main suspect is the girl's father.
Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man yesterday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter. When police and paramedics arrived at the house they found a 16-year-old lying on the floor without any vital signs, police said.
Aqsa Parvez had been choked. Male members of her family had threatened her with violence in the past.
Friends of the teenager, a Grade 11 student at nearby Applewood Heights high school, identified her as Aqsa Parvez and said they were shocked by the attack on the outgoing, likeable girl, but said she had been threatened by her strictly religious family before.
She got threatened by her father and her brother,said Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, who had known Aqsa since they both started high school together.He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.
Teen girl in critical condition after alleged dispute over hijab—National Post, 11th December 2007; Girl has died, Peel police confirm—National Post, 11th December 2007.
The courts have been busy today, it seems.
Scotland: Police attended a séance in an attempt to find the killer of a Dundee woman in 1980. Fortunately, they didn't take it seriously.
Mr Robertson, who was a detective constable at the time, said there had been subdued lighting.
The officers had held hands, although not in anaffectionateway.
I can recollect, possibly, at some time the woman was induced through some form of hypnosis to go to a spirit guide who took her to another area,he said.
The medium then gave information which he did not think had any bearing on the case.
I can say it was never considered to be a serious line of inquiry,added Mr Robertson.
He said the séance did not last long because the woman was unable to continue hercharade.
Spain: God, it seems, has taken time off from worrying about pooves, and returned to His old trick of telling people to kill one another. In this case, He told a British man to kill and eat his girlfriend:
Following his arrest in 2004, Durant wrote to a British newspaper from his prison cell in Spain, saying that he had been driven to kill and eat Durrell by messages delivered to him by God via his television.
After I killed her I cut her body into small parts, eating what part of her I found eatable. I finally disposed of what was left in small rubbish bags around Calpe,he wrote.
My mental state was breaking down at this stage. I believed God had delivered her to me and I was getting messages from the telly.
Durant admitted manslaughter, and also told the court he had killed two people in the UK, including a man he claims abused him as a child. God's role in these killings was not explained.
Woods murder police 'held séance'—BBC News, 8th November 2007; British man faces jail over 'message from God' killing—The Guardian, 8th November 2007.
Just to demonstrate that we at Prattle Towers are fair, we'd like to point out that atheists can be violent, intolerant arseholes too. P.Z. Myers witnessed Christopher Hitchens' speech at the Freedom From Religion Convention this weekend, and was not impressed:
He told us what the most serious threat to the West was (and you know this line already): it was Islam. Then he accused the audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refuse to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy.... We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons (something I entirely sympathize with), and that the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties.
It was simplistic us-vs.-them thinking at its worst, and the only solution he had to offer was death and destruction of the enemy.
This was made even more clear in the Q&A. He was asked to consider the possibility that bombing and killing was only going to accomplish an increase in the number of people opposing us. Hitchens accused the questioner of being incredibly stupid,... and said that it was obvious that every Moslem you kill means there is one less Moslem to fight you … which is only true if you assume that every Moslem already wants to kill Americans and is armed and willing to do so....
Basically, what Hitchens was proposing is genocide. Or, at least, wholesale execution of the population of the Moslem world until they are sufficiently cowed and frightened and depleted that they are unable to resist us in any way, ever again.
And he was apparently sober at the time, too!
FFRF recap: heroes of the revolution, Hitchens screws the pooch, and the unbearable stodginess of atheists—Pharyngula, 14th October 2007.
United States: A Catholic priest gave his church's organist and choir director a surprising ultimatum; quit her sex toy home party job or quit the church. He claimed that her sale of sex toys was not consistent with Church teachings
.
Linette Servais, 50, played the organ and sung with the choir for 35 years. Much of her work as choir director and organist was done without pay. When her parish priest asked to meet with her, she thought it was to say thank you.
Instead, she was told to quit her sales job with company known as Pure Romance or she would lose her position in the church.
Pure Romance in Loveland, Ohio, is a $60 million per year business that sells spa products and sex toys at homes parties attended by women. It has 15,000 consultants like Servais.
Women are earning a living for themselves and are teaching each other that sex is not a dirty secret. So, obviously it's not in keeping with church teachings, especially since the buggering of small boys was in no way involved. Fortunately, Linette is made of sterner stuff.
She said her decision was not hard: She began working with Pure Romance after a brain tumor and treatment left her sexually dysfunctional. The job allows her to help other women who have similar problems.
After I got over the initial shock, I prayed over this a long time,she said.I feel that Pure Romance is my ministry.
Linette is not the only woman of faith who has made sex toy sales her ministry, more power to them. Alas, it has been mentioned, that the company in question stocks poor quality merchandise. Hopefully, their market will learn from experience. I'm still uncertain of the particular part of the bible that mentions; Thou Shall Not Sell Sex Toys
.
Priest Cans Organist for Sex Toy Sales - Philly.com, 30th May 2007 (via About.com: Sexuality).
England: A man has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a number of Rocky Horror Show fans on their way to a performance in Cambridge.
Kelvin Stevens lashed out after hurling homophobic abuse at a group of men and women who were dressed in fishnet tights, suspenders and high heels for the cult cross-dressing show.
The burly electrician called the group 'a load of fags' before head-butting and punching Barry Giles, who was at a distinct disadvantage as he was tottering on stiletto heels.
But despite the nature of the abuse, the police will not be treating it as a homophobic hate crime as the victims weren't actually gay. I'm sure straight, but different, schoolboys will be really pleased to hear that one.
Thug starts real Rocky Horror Show—Metro, 29th May 2007.
Uganda: We've all heard loads of loony fundie nonsense about the occult, and their lies fall on stony ground in North America and Europe these days. What's a bampot to do? Why, tell the same bollocks somewhere where they haven't heard it before, or at least not heard the debunking. The Sunday Monitor fell for it this week, printing an article liberally quoting from self-styled ex-Satanists
According to Roger Mugisha whose former life as a Satanist is the inspiration for Battle of the Souls, the fact that one is not aware that what they are wearing as an accessory or the picture on their clothes is an Occult symbol doesn't let the wearer off the hook.The signs will still be significant and the wearer becomes an advocate of the devil.With this statement, Roger Mugisha is shown a recent picture of the Nabagereka, Nagginda Sylvia Luswata at the Kabaka's birthday celebration.
Looking impeccable as usual, the queen of Buganda is wearing a blue dress, which bears a Ying-Yang symbol on the chest area. To a layman's eye and most likely herself, the Ying-Yang sign is only another artistic impression that makes the dress a lot more glamorous. But to one who knows about the occult signs, a Satanist or a former devil worshipper in this case, wearing this dress is no different from proclaiming your discipleship with the devil.
And of course, an anonymous youth pastor
had to wade in in Harry Potter, even though he does not know the name of the books' author, nor that of the protagonist.
This youth pastor who declines to be named adds that books like the Harry Porter series, which openly uphold witchcraft and are packaged to sound seductive and fun for our children are also another route of spreading Satanism.
In the process, J.K. Rowlings (the author of the Harry Porter series) has become a billionaire by spreading the gospel of the underworld and also contaminated and probably converted a large number of our future leaders and law makers,he says.
The same pastor is also worried about rock music and goths.
Most young people start by innocently taking to rock music (especially). Before you know it they are emulating rock stars and taking to the gothic lifestyle; wearing only pitch black and scarlet red for clothes, accessories and make up. The numerous body piercing and tattoos come next.
Exactly how many goths are there in Uganda anyway?
The Occult: The signs are still out there...
—Sunday Monitor, 27th may 2007.
United States: The wife of a Christian man who microwaved their baby daughter says that he is not to blame. Instead, it was the work of their imaginary enemy, Satan.
Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher.
Satan saw my husband as a threat,Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.
He microwaved the child for between 10 and 20 seconds. She was seriously injured and remains in hospital. The mother wants her daughter back but, for once, social workers are being sensible and have said they will allow no such thing.
Woman: Blame devil for infant in microwave—CNN 21st May 2007 (via Pharyngula).
The Virginia Tech massacre, while not generating quite enough junk to qualify for its own Great ... Conspiracy List
, has produced some interesting insights, and fortunately the Prattle's readers are very eagle-eyed.
Red Wolf found some of Cho's rant posed on the ABC website. It was rather, well, Christian. (Uni gunman: 'I die like Jesus' )
Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people,he ranted....
Just like Jesus, he criticised the rich:
He also railed against wealthy students:Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats? Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs? Your trust fund wasn't enough? Your vodka and cognac weren't enough? All your debaucheries weren't enough? Those weren't enough to fulfil your hedonistic needs? You had everything.
And Cho reminds us of Jesus' suffering:
Do you know what it feels like to be torched alive? Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled on a cross and left to bleed to death for your amusement? You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life.
Strangely, even though Cho was clearly inspired by the Bible, there have been no calls to ban that particular book.
Alan Braggins pointed out a discussion on the Fox News website: Did the Devil Make Him Do It? Fundies, of course, disturbed by Cho's Christian blathering, say Quick, let's grasp that straw!
.
Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, shouts an unequivocalYes!
Based on what I've seen in the news,Roberts said in an interview,there's no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin.
Roberts added that he doesn’'t know if it was Satanicpossessionoroppression.Possession, he said, occurs when Satan takes over a person's life, and the person's actions are dictated by demonic possession within. Roberts says he's seen this type and has seen the Devil cast out of a person.
Satanicoppression,on the other hand, isthat which comes against.It's not in a person, but is coming against them, trying to put evil thoughts in their minds,Roberts said.
He said that the evil thoughts in Satanic oppression can be fairly innocuous, or they can be harmful. And the oppression can be in the form of fear, depression or discouragement, he said, becauseSatan comes to kill, steal and destroy.
Roberts says we'll never know whether Cho waspossessedoroppressed,because the killer has died. But he did leave a note blasting everyone around him, calling themrich kids,anddeceitful charlatans,and then blaming them, sayingyou made me do this.
I thought the name of Jesus was supposed to have power over Satan. How could he possibly have tolerated his posessee shouting it all the time?
Feeling lazy again. Here are some recent stories I missed:
Three Central American governments have banned a man claiming to be the Antichrist from entering their countries. Wear pants, Pope, says banned 'Antichrist'—News.com.au, 15th April 2007.
A fight between nuns has ended with two injuries and two arrests. The violence broke out between two rival factions residing in a convent in Avdellero, Cyprus.. Nuns come to blows over rights to convent—Ekklesia, 17th April 2007.
Three people have been killed at a publishing house in Turkey that produced bibles, in an apparent attack on the country's Christian minority.. Three killed at Turkish publisher—BBC News, 18th April 2007.
We have a problem with teenage Goths who go into graveyards at night. Vandals cause £15,000 of damage to two famous capital graveyards—The Herald, April 2007. Other newspapers blame generic bored, pissed teenagers, rather than those who would simply wallow pretentiously in the dark romance of the graveyards.
European newspapers are ... implying that Charlton Heston is indirectly responsible for the scope of the killings.. Blaming Charlton Heston—alt.politics.republicans, 17th April 2007.
Early details about the horrific school shooting at Virginia Tech strongly indicate that these events represent a Columbine-style black- op that will be exploited in the coming days to push for mass gun control and further turning our schools into prisons.. Virginia School Shooting: Another Government Black-Op?—alt.conspiracy, 16th April 2007.
We live in an era when public high schools and colleges have all but banned God from science classes. In these classrooms, students are taught that the whole universe, including plants and animals—and humans—arose by natural processes. Naturalism (in essence, atheism) has become the religion of the day and has become the foundation of the education system (and Western culture as a whole). The more such a philosophy permeates the culture, the more we would expect to see a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness that pervades people's thinking.. How Could a Loving God ... ?—Answers in Genesis, 16th April 2007.
England: There are some stories I wish were April Fools' Day jokes, but this one is dated 2nd April, so it can't be:
Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.
It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.
I am lost for words.
Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims—London Evening Standard, 2nd April 2007.
United States: Joe Murray used to be a columnist for the American Family Association, but is now strongly critical of their homophobic stance. This interview with him at Pam's House Blend makes interesting reading, and serves as a reminder that not all Christians are hate-filled loons (via Box Turtle Bulletin).
Pam's House Blend mocks all sorts of homophobia, especially fundie homophobia, and has recently featured some gems, such as What is it with Michael Savage and transpeople?—in which we learn that trans people are to blame for the Columbine massacre. The blog subtitle ...always steamin'
means something quite different in these parts, though.
Yemen: Riots have broken out after rumours that a French engineer might have 'desecrated' a book by throwing it on the floor with insufficient respect.
After a fight between a French engineer and another who is Yemeni, the Frenchman - to enrage the Yemeni - threw a Koran on the floor in an offensive way,a local official told AFP news agency, requesting anonymity.
The response of the locals suggest they are probably incapable of reading any book:
Hundreds of rioting workers burnt cars and a helicopter at the French-run facility, sources told news agencies.
Unconfirmed reports say four Yemenis and a Frenchman were injured in the unrest and the engineer was evacuated.
The paper on which holy books tend to be printed makes excellent loo roll, by the way.
Koran riot grips Yemeni gas plant—BBC News, 25th March 2007.
Romania: A priest has received a 14 year prison sentence for his part in an exorcism
which killed a young nun. Daniel Petru Corogeanu led the ritual to cast the Devil out from the woman.
Irina Cornici, 23, died after being starved and chained to a cross at a secluded convent in the north-east.
Four nuns were also convicted of manslaughter and received sentences of between 5 and 8 years. They plan to appeal their sentences, although the Orthodox Church is unlikely to be on their side:
The Orthodox Church, which described the Tanacu incident asabominable, has promised reforms, including psychological tests for those seeking to enter monasteries.
It banned Corogeanu from the priesthood and excommunicated the four nuns.
Priest jailed for exorcism death—BBC News, 19th February 2007.
United Kingdom: Britain's first Muslim peer has come out against wearing the veil. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham said that they were a mark of separation and defiance against mainstream British culture
, and that he felt the way they are used today is contrary to the original intention.
Lord Ahmed, who became the first Muslim peer in 1988, told the Yorkshire Post:The veil is now a mark of separation, segregation and defiance against mainstream British culture.
“But there's nothing in the Koran to say that the wearing of a niqab is desirable, let alone compulsory. It's purely cultural. It's an identity thing which has been misinterpreted.
“They were supposed to be worn so that women wouldn't be harassed.
Some of us would suggest that in these circumstances, it's the men who are at fault and should be kept indoors to stop them causing trouble, but this is a digression.
But my argument is that women, and communities as a whole, are now being harassed because they are wearing them.
He said that the veil was aphysical barrier to integration.
He pointed out that Westerners in Muslim countries were expected to dress according to local norms, and felt British Muslims ought to return the courtesy:
The peer said that Muslims in Britain had to become more sensitive to their surroundings, in the same way as westerners walking around Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, would have to wear a head covering and long clothing before they could expect to engage with local people.
He said that he did not want to see a ban on veils, but added:Muslims need to have a debate among ourselves about whether we need them.
Veil should not be worn, says Muslim peer—The Guardian, 20th February 2007.
United States: A bodybuilder has told a court that televangelist Pat Robertson threatened to kill him and his family in an argument over a milk shake.
According to a complaint Phillip Busch filed with the Norfolk police, Robertson made the threat when he entered a room in the courthouse Wednesday to be questioned for a deposition....
Busch is suing Robertson for what he says is misappropriation of his image to promote Robertson's protein diet shake.
Man Claims Pat Robertson Threatened Him—The Guardian, 10th February 2007 (thanks, Red Wolf).
A handful of stories from the last few days which I was too lazy to write about at the time:
There are lots of grand statements about research, with nice superscript numbers relating to references in the back. But when you chase to the back of the book to see what these academic documents are, they include such august periodicals as Delicious, Creative Living, Healthy Eating, and my favourite: Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet.I found You are What you Eat frustrating and full of errors—it cited the safe drinking levels which were revised upwards in the early 1990s, for example. There are some good recipes in there, but often they are made needlessly complicated, and use exotic ingredients which would put it out of the price range of mere mortals.
Some of it is plainly absurd. As we get older, she explains,the levels of RNA/DNA decrease.Okay.If you do not have enough RNA/DNA,she goes on, youmay ultimately age prematurely. Stress can deplete your DNA, but algae will increase it. And that's not all.Chlorophyll within the algae is a powerful oxygen generator for human beings.Back to GCSE Biology: it'll only make oxygen if there's light inside me, Gillian ...
liberal leftputs the rights of religious organisations over that of the individuals they oppress:
In the past century, material betterment and the steady diminuation of discrimination advanced progressive goals. Much of the left have [grr...—F.] yet to come to terms with this achievement. At the extreme, some who were once on the left have adopted the language and outlook of the right. They argue for what by any objective standards are reactionary positions. These include promotion of religious obscurantism in place of secularism; segregation of the sexes at public events; abridgement of free speech in deference to the sensibilities of those who claim themselves victims of Islamophobia; and, most pernicious, the resurrection in political debate of some highly traditional motifs of anti-semitic conspiracy theory.If you can get yourself to the library, it's on page 31.
United Kindgom: The Prime Minister has said that churches who want and exception from anti-discrimination laws for faith-based adoption agencies has said they will not get it. Instead, they'll get a 21 month transition period, in which they won't have to consider same-sex couples, but will be obliged to refer them to other, less superstitious, agencies. After that, they will be bound by the law like everyone else. He also reminded us of whose money it is the churches want to use for discriminatory purposes (emphasis mine):
There is no place in our society for discrimination. That's why I support the right of gay couples to apply to adopt like any other couple.
And that way there can be no exemptions for faith-based adoption agencies offering public funded services from regulations that prevent discrimination.
This is likely to be subject to a free vote in parliament, so it's still worth signing the Prattle's petition!
No exemption from gay rights law—BBC News, 29th January 2007.
Australia: I have a theory that the warmer weather drags the religious loons out, from whatever rock they've been hiding under, to bask in the sun like reptiles. A quick look at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project to map active US hate groups in 2005 shows a larger number of loons running about in the warmer states of Florida, Texas, California, Georgia and South Carolina. Likewise, a warm week in Australia (it's currently 41°C at Prattle Towers Southern Hemisphere) seems to have encouraged the zealots to disengage their tiny brains and loudly proclaim their love of their fellow man. Provided, of course, that their fellow man is the same race and religion as they are and not actually a man, because that whole homosexual thing seems to make their little heads go asplody.
This week's round up of loons brings us a showdown of stupidity between the Moslems, represented by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed and Sheikh al-Hilali, and the Christians, represented by Bruce Hales of the Exclusive Brethren and Danny Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries.
Continue reading "Warm Weather Fires Up the Loons"
United States: A woman who killed her three children by drowning because God had commanded her to sacrifice the boys
has been found to be legally insane and has been sent to a mental hospital rather than prison. And, as it traditional, social workers were slacking:
Harris was in and out of mental hospitals six times between February 2004 and August 2005. On the day the children died, her mother warned a social worker that she would hurt the boys, but the social worker did not believe the warning because Harris was such a good mother, according to the defense.
Presumably they were too busy looking for imaginary satanists.
SF Mom Is Insane in Killings of Sons—The Guardian, 18th January 2007.
East Timor: Now that they don't have to worry about their neighbours in Indonesia killing them and taking over the country, it appears that this has freed up time for the bampots to find other methods of entertainment. Burning witches has a long history amongst the more religiously insane, so why should a little original thought stand in the way of loony fundies.
Officials say three women accused of being witches have been killed in East Timor before their bodies were burned along with their house in East Timor.
The three women, aged 70, 50 and about 25, were killed on Saturday evening in Liquica, about 40 kilometres west of the capital, Dili.
Alas, the story is little more than a stub pulled off the wire and doesn't have much in the way of details. There is no mention of why the women were accused of being witches, although the usual reasons are independence, free thought and the crime of being a local healer, so expect much the same has happened here. As East Timor is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, I think we can see where to point the finger.
'Witches' murdered in E Timor—ABC NewsOnline, 9th January 2007 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).
Steve Wells, over at Dwindling in Unbelief, wants to know something: How many has God killed? Alas, there are problems with working out just how many: what was the population of the earth at the time of the Flood? How many people lived in Sodom and Gomorrah? First-born Egyptians? None of this is specified, but there are plenty of occasions in the Bible where God kills people and a number is given. His total? 2,270,365, not including rather a lot of women and children.
But we can at least make a reasonable guess as to the real number of people killed by God in the Bible.
Continue reading "Beware of the psychopath"The Guardian has published a number of stories of interest recently.
tightly bonded around religious ... identities. No doubt this will affect mostly persons of hue, and not those Christian groups who wish to promote cohesiveness by converting the lot of us. Funds crackdown on religious groups and Blair to crack down on funding for religious groups—The Guardian, 8th December 2006.
United States: A couple of tales of religious tolerance and love.
Australia: Australia's most senior Muslim cleric, Sydney-based Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, has recently jumped on the hate-mongering band wagon.
In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said:Continue reading "Mufti Blames Women for Rape"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?
The uncovered meat is the problem.
The sheik then said:If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.
He said women wereweaponsused bySatanto control men.
It is said in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa).
Nigeria: A man accused of murdering his brother has told the police that he only killed a goat. Black magicians, evil spirits, or similar figments of the imagination apparently turned the dead goat into the dead man.
He said that the goats were on his farm and he tried to chase them away. When one wouldn't move, he attacked it with an axe. He said it then turned into his brother,Police Commissioner Udom Ekpoudom told the Associated Press.
Murder suspect: Goat turned into corpse—Miami Herald, 15th September 2006.
United Kingdom: Here at Prattle Towers, we are usually sceptical of claims that the media causes crime, but that's because we rarely get to see a case as definitive as that of Michael and Patricia Watson.
The Watsons, a married couple, celebrated Mr. Watson's birthday with a meal and a bottle of wine before settling down to watch some violent pornography, Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ. Magistrates in Bedlington, Northumbria, were told of the events which allegedly followed.
Mrs Watson left the room, and her 44-year-old husband became so upset by the graphic depiction of the Crucifixion that he pulled the leads out of the television and went upstairs.
His wife then decided to watch the God Channel and went to ask him why the television was not working.
Yvonne Jobling, for the prosecution, said that an argument developed, and Watson accused his wife of being evil. He grabbed his wife by the throat and she fell to the floor. She said:His grip was so tight she was unable to speak, but she then managed to say something of a religious nature which seemed to cause him to relax his grip.
Magistrates in Bedlington, Northumberland, were told that Mrs Watson, a 51-year-old care worker, had gasped:I’m anointed by God. You know that, Michael. Do not touch God’s anointed.Mrs Watson, who was left with red marks and soreness to her neck and a grazed forearm, later told police that she had believed that her husband was going to kill her. Watson told the police that everything his wife said about him must be true because she never lied.
'Don’t strangle the anointed one,' wife pleaded in row over Mel Gibson film—The Times, 12th September 2006.
United States: American readers might be interested in signing a letter to the CEO of Wal-Mart, urging him to be consistent and stop selling a violent and obscene book. (via Pharyngula)
Germany: In what might appear to be a blatant case of religious discrimination, a Berlin family has received an eviction notice because they have been praying. But these are no ordinary prayers.
The residents at Franz Stenzer Strasse 71 in eastern Berlin say they need their sleep, Lucifer or no Lucifer. Their nocturnal rest has been disturbed by the regular high-decibel praying coming from the apartment on the second floor. There, a family's religious beliefs mandate that they raise the voices to keep the Evil One at bay.
The deafening devotion began back in October, when Pierre D., his wife and their four children moved into the apartment. They began praying four times daily at volumes that not only appeared to keep Beezelbub at bay, but alienated the other tenants, who had asked them repeatedly to keep it down.
Stentorian Praying Results in Eviction Notice—Deutsche Welle, 17th August 2006.
England: Newham Council in London is looking for a child protection officer specifically to work with cases of abused children who are believed to be posessed or witches. The council acknowledges that the number of cases is miniscule, and it's amusing the way they try and avoid mentioning that it's mostly associated with a tiny minority of evangelical Christian churches who exploit African communities in Britain. The local newspaper, on the other hand, seems to have gone out of its way to suggest that it's about witches abusing children, with phrases like witch-hunter
and dedicated to rooting out child abuse linked with 'possession' and 'witchcraft'
. Obviously the article was being written last night when the journalist ought to have been watching BBC2.
'The witch-hunter' - Officer to root out child abuse—Newham Recorder, 23rd August 2006. See also Media in moral panic shocker!—Pagan Prattle, 26th June 2005.
United States: Mel Gibson has something of a reputation in Australia for his drunken ways. It looks like he's well and truely fallen off the wagon once again.
Gibson, whose controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ was a major hit, was arrested in the early hours of Friday morning for allegedly driving speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the beach town north of Los Angeles.Continue reading "Drunken Actor Behaves Like Prat"
United States: A young man charged with spaying Satanic grafitti over a Roman Catholic religious site has admitted that he is not a Satanist, and has nothing to do with Satanism - he just did it because he thinks he's a punk, and that that's what punks do. Mick Trevey, a reporter from Today's TMJ4 spoke to the normal-looking 21-year-old Tyler Groth about his motives:
Trevey:Are you religious?
Groth:No.
Trevey:Do you have a problem with people who are?
Groth:No.
Trevey asked him why he sprayed satanic graffiti on these holy shrines.
Groth said,'cause I'm a punk - that's what I do.
No doubt some will insist that he's just lying, that he really is a Satanist motivated by religious hatred, so the journalist asked him a very telling question:
Trevey:Do you know you spelled Satan wrong?
Groth:No - I'm not aware of that.
Trevey:You spelled it satin - like the fabric.
Groth:See - if I was big into the devil, I would have spelled it right.
Trevey:Do you think that's funny?
Groth:That I spelled it wrong? No - I'm a bad speller.
No Remorse from Suspect—Today's TMJ4, 10th June 2006 (thanks, Calyxa).
United States: God has apparently being playing games with His followers, at least according to a piece of e-mail which went around Portland, Oregon, recently. According to the message, God was peeved at a forthcoming Pride parade and had decided to do something about it.
--------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:15:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Urgent Message: Portland will have disaster in June 18, 2006!
Dear Pastor,
Please pray to God when you receive this message and seek God's guidance to you and your congregation.
3 people from 3 different places and churches received vision from God about this disaster. 3 people include a pastor, a church elder and a church missionary.
Here is the information about the disaster:
1. In June 18, 2006 (the coming Father's Day), there will be a Gay Pride Parade in Portland, Oregon.
2. This Gay Pride Parade will bring the judgment of God to Portland.
3. At June 18, 2006, there will be a huge earthquake happen in Portland area, the earthquake will cause a collapse of Bonneville Dam. A wall of water will flood and destroy Portland.
4. There will be another earthquake happen in the West Coast, cause a Tsunami and the Tsunami will go to Portland from Columbia River. So Portland will be flooded also by the Tsunami. (Portland is about 50 miles away from the sea coast.)
5. There will be a team of terrorists, who will bring automatic weapons (machine guns) and kill as many survivors as they can after the disaster. They kill people before the National Guard will arrive there.
6. Portland and the nearby Willamette Valley will be destroyed.
7. God urge the Christians to leave that area.
According to Scott Moore of The Portland Mercury, the message was based on a series of dreams experienced by Lloyd Day, the pastor of the Beth Tefilah Messianic Congregation, in which God's cronies told him to get out of town to escape the destruction.
My Portland correspondent, Sister Mona Little-More, SPI, was at the parade, and notes that none of the promised destruction has taken place. I am assured that the fine breweries of that city are intact.
Gay Pride? How About Gaypocalypse?—The Portland Mercury, 9th(?) June 2006.
Note: This is apparently the 2000th entry in the Prattle.
Australia: The Australian Prime Minister has never dealt well with questions from non-tame sources, as was recently proven at a Dublin University when one student challenged John Howard to defend his efforts to entrench homophobia in Australia.
The Prime Minister John Howard has described people campaigning for gay marriage as fundamentalists.
Mr Howard says it is not discrimination to deny gay men and lesbians equal marriage status with heterosexual couples...
...Mr Howard replied that his Government had remedied much of the financial discrimination, but said most Australians do not want gay couples to have equivalent status.
According to John Howard it's all fine and dandy for him to discriminate against people based on their sexuality due to his fantasy that everyone else agrees with him. That sounds suspiciously like the turn of phrase all loony fundies use to justify their small-minded prejudices.
Australians don't support gay marriage: Howard—ABC News Online, 23rd March 2006 (via redwolf.newsvine.com).
India: That charming young deity, Kali, appears to have been helping Father Darwin with his work, with reports that she is inspiring people to sacrifice children to her. The reports seem to be based around a a tiny number of incidents involving disreputable 'holy men', extremely gullible and superstitious people, plus a mediæval approach to evidence gathering.
She consulted a tantrik, a travelling 'holy man' who came to the village occasionally, dispensing advice and putrid medicines from the rusty amulets around his neck.
His guidance to Sumitra was to slaughter a chicken at the entrance to her home and offer the blood and remains to the goddess. She did so but the nightmares continued and she began waking up screaming in the heat of the night and returned to the priest. 'For the sake of your family,' he told her, 'you must sacrifice another, a boy from your village.'
Ten days ago Sumitra and her two sons crept to their neighbour's home and abducted three-year-old Aakash Singh as he slept. They dragged him into their home and the eldest son performed a puja ceremony, reciting a mantra and waving incense. Sumitra smeared sandalwood paste and globules of ghee over the terrified child's body. The two men then used a knife to slice off the child's nose, ears and hands before laying him, bleeding, in front of Kali's image.
In the morning Sumitra told villagers she had found Aakash's body outside her house. But they attacked and beat her sons who allegedly confessed. 'I killed the boy so my mother could be safe,' Sanjay screamed. All three are now in prison, having escaped lynch mob justice. The tantrik has yet to be found.
The police are aware of a number of similar incidents, and also lay the blame squarely on a lack of education, though they seem perfectly happy to accept the confessions extracted by torture:
'It's because of blind superstitions and rampant illiteracy that this woman sacrificed this boy,' said Khurja police officer AK Singh. 'It's happened before and will happen again but there is little we can do to stop it. In most situations it's an open and shut case. It isn't difficult to elicit confessions - normally the villagers or the families of the victims do that for us. This has been going on for centuries; these people are living in the dark ages.'
The tantriks themselves are concerned that their long-standing good reputation for folk medicine is being marred by a few bampots.
Indian cult kills children for goddess—The Observer, 5th March 2006.
Wales: A vicar's son has been jailed for nine years for raping a woman. Before the offence, Nicholas Vann insisted his victim do a bit of reading for him.
Prosecutor Ieuan Morris said: ...He grabbed her head, bent her over the bed and shouted: 'Read the Bible'. He had book-marked a page about women having to be submissive to men.
“He then forced her to have sex with him. He was forceful and perverted.
Judge Hopkins told Vann:You are a controlling, selfish and inconsiderate man - a sexual bully and a sexual deviant...
“You used the Bible to make her submit and she suffered for your beliefs.
Nine years' jail for 'Bible' rape—BBC News, 3rd March 2006.
Malawi: It's an old trick used by bigots—excusing your bias as being that of ordinary people, so it's rather surprising when it's used to block a choice made by the ordinary people.
Rev. Nicholas Henderson is an English vicar, with liberal views on matters such as gay rights. He is popular among locals because of development work he has done in the past. Parishoners in the Diocese of Lake Malawi chose him to be their new bishop, a move which has been stopped by Archbishop Bernard Malango, head of the diocese of Central Africa.
The Anglican Province of Central Africa's Confirmation Court, which comprises Malawi, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, said Mr Henderson was deemednot of sound faithbecause of his liberal views on gay rights...
Anglican leaders in Africa have condemned their counterparts in Europe and north America for accepting gay rights, a conservatism believed to be widely shared by ordinary Africans.
Members of that hotbed of radicalism, the Mothers' Union, are among Henderson's supporters.
However, Gladys Nkanthama, a church elder and secretary of the Mothers' Union in one of the parishes in the Diocese of Lake Malawi, told the Associated Press:We chose him, we voted for him; we are ready for Henderson to be our bishop.
African rebels hail English vicar—The Guardian, 25th February 2005.
Australia: Australian Federal Liberal MP Danna Vale has decided to drum up some publicity for herself over the current kerfuffle concerning the more intelligent members of parliament attempting to remove the decisions concerning the abortion drug RU486 from the loony fundie Tony Abbott and placing it under the wing of the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the department that assesses and monitors all other drugs for use in Australia.
Danna Vale has decided that Australian women are too stupid to make decisions about their own fertility for themselves and is backing a move to keep the drug under the control of a man with his own tentative grip on reality. But dear Danna has even managed to get her fellow wingnut MPs off-side by mentioning her other concern over the drug.
Continue reading "Racist MP Hates Women and Muslims"United Kingdom: Loony Muslim fundies have found something new to complain about: an Ann Summers blow-up doll called Mustafa Shag. Apparently al-Mustafa is one of the names of their prophet.
But the Muslim Association — based at Manchester’ s Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre — branded himobnoxious.
Yesterday a spokesman said:This is the name of our Prophet and it’ s very upsetting. This thing should be banned.
In a letter to the store, the Association said:You have no idea how much hurt, anguish and disgust this obnoxious phrase has caused to Muslims. We are asking you to have our Most Revered Prophet’ s name ‘Mustafa’ and the afflicted word ‘shag’ removed.
The Sun does not speculate on how they could possibly have known about the doll. An Ann Summers representative said they would gladly change the name if some punster could come up with an alternative.
Muslim fury at sex toy—The Sun, 9th February 2006.
England: A Londonpastor has been arrested and is being questioned about allegations that he incited child cruelty. Dr Dieudonne Tukala of the Church of Christ Mission in Tottenham is alleged to have accused several children of witchcraft and recommended violent solutions to their parents.
Dr Dieudonne Tukala, 46, from the Church of Christ Mission, is being questioned over claims that he diagnosed several children aswitches, advising their parents to beat the devil out of them or send them back to the Democratic Republic of Congo so that he could pray for them to be killed.
Such superstitious beliefs are common within some African Christian churches, and the Daily Telegraph, based on BBC reports, gives several cases which have resulted in convictions or suicide. Not even a fœtus is safe:
The same report also interviewed the former wife of a Congolese man, Nzuzi Mayingi, 26, found hanged in Crystal Palace Park, having committed suicide 18 months after he arrived in Britain as an asylum seeker.
She alleged to the BBC that when she was pregnant with the couple's second son, Dr Tukala had accused her, their son, and their unborn son of all being possessed, known askendoki. Her husband, who had deeply-held beliefs in witchcraft, beat her then threw her out of their home, she said.
If someone is thought to be kendoki in our country in the Congo, they can kill you. You would die with your children,said the woman, who is now living in the north of England, having reportedly received threats.
A police respresentative was keen to point out that There was no suggestion, ... that the issues related solely to Congolese, or that the issues related generally to the Congolese community
. Indeed. The newspaper does not mention a case, also in London, from last year when three people were convicted of cruelty to an Angolan girl. In that case, she was cut with a knife, beaten with a belt and shoe and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to beat the devil out of her
Pastor is arrested after inquiry into claims of cruelty to 'child witches'—Daily Telegraph, 13th January 2006. See also Three convicted of 'witch' girl abuse—Pagan Prattle, 3rd June 2005.
The Great Tsunami Conspiracy List has just been updated with the addition of a link to a fascinating posting in alt.rush-limbaugh. The posting centres around a CNSNews story, America, Israel, India Caused Tsunami, Conspiracy Theory Says, in which we learn all about the Egyptian version of the Weekly World News:
The Egyptian nationalist weekly Al-Usbu' accused the U.S., Israel and India of carrying out nuclear testing that may have cased the tsunami. Those nations were testinghow to liquidate humanity,the newspaper said.
Was [the earthquake] caused by American, Israeli, and Indian nuclear testing on 'the day of horror?' Why did the 'Ring of Fire' explode?Mahmoud Bakri asked in hisinvestigativepiece published in the weekly on January 1.
The writer of the CNS piece was sceptical of the allegations. The poster to alt.rush-limbaugh seemed less so, what with him titling his post 1st. Anniversary Of Jewish Tsunami Devistation!
. He even managed to tie it in with current affairs, and conspiracy theories concerning earlier events:
The only reason why Israel hasn't unleashed their evil weapon again is because Ariel Sharon has been hospitalized and unable to give the final order! More proof that Israel was behind the Dec. 26 2004 genocide which took 200,000 lives. In fact, the same experts who've testified that Israel used remote control Boeing 757's and a controlled demolition to cause the horror of 9/11, have concluded that no one but Israel has the technology to cause such a devastating wave. Why haven't these criminals been brought to justice?
United States/Israel: In a move which has totally stunned the residents of Prattle Towers, Pat Robertson has declared that a man has suffered a stroke as a punishment from God. The man in question is in his late 70s, is grossly overweight and has an extrememly stressful job, but none of this is relevant according to the televangelist:
The Reverend Pat Robertson says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke could be God's punishment for giving up Israeli territory.
The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network told viewers ofThe 700 Clubthat Sharon wasdividing God's land,even though the Bible says doing so invitesGod's enmity.
Robertson added,I would say woe to any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course.
He went on to observe that a previous Israeli leader, Yitzhak Rabin, had been assasinated and implied that his imaginary friend was the murderer in that case.
Robertson: Sharon's Stroke May Be Punishment—WLTX News, 5th January 2006. (Thanks, Rick).
Although there are many excellent initiatives from religious groups, there are still some who see HIV/AIDS as an excuse to engage in hate speech and victim blaming. And it's not all 'Christians' pointedly ignoring the reported words and actions of Jesus - here's some extracts from a Kashmiri Muslim loon, who thinks that AIDS spreads because the West is all atheist:
We can call it a sexual Glasnost. A world where buggery, bestiality, adultery, incest and all such diabolic deeds of a human being have made even devil blush with himself. The story begins with a fanciful wish of making this world the be-all and end-all of fun and merriment. They had a desire to make it a paradise, it turned hellish even for hedonists hit not by a disease, but by a tragedy, by a punishment, by a fatal, mortal dread we call AIDS. God save them.
FREEDOM UNLIMITTED, DISASTER INDESCRIBABLE, Greater Kashmir, 1st December 2005.
United States: The good citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania know stupidity when they see it. After all, these are the people who booted out their moronic school board when the idiots went all swoony over creationism. But while the rest of the world is applauding the town's good sense, I suspect that no one is surprised to hear that Pat Robertson is calling down a hail of toads and spanners. Or whatever it is that loony fundie psychopaths threaten the intelligent with when they throw a hissy fit.
I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city,Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia,The 700 Club.
And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there,he said.
And people wonder why church attendances are falling.
Robertson warns Pennsylvania voters of God's wrath - Reuters, 10th November 2005 (via Warren Ellis).
Egypt: Three people have died after Muslim extremists protested outside a church. Their complaint? That the church had put on a play criticising religious extremism and that this was insulting to Islam.
Entitled I Once Was Blind But Now I See, the drama tells the story of a poor young Copt who is drawn to Islamist militants who then try to kill him.
Coptic Christian leaders have said the play depicts the dangers of extremism, not of Islam.
Copts would never tolerate anyone insulting Islam,Coptic Bishop Armia is quoted by Egypt's official Mena news agency as saying.
Three killed in Egypt church riot—BBC News, 22nd October 2005.
India: Predictions that don't are common fare for The Prattle, but usually it's the bigger doom and gloom variant that catch our attention, so it's time for a change of pace.
75-year-old Kunjilal Malviya, an astrologer who lives south of the Madhya Pradesh state capital Bhopal in central India, had been meditating in his house after announcing he would die Thursday between 3.00pm and 5.00pm local time. Sure it's not earth shattering, but at least there's a chance he could rectify the situation with a little self-intervention if his prediction wasn't up to par. The local cops, fearing just such an action, posted officers nearby on suicide watch.
Continue reading "Prediction Dead Wrong"Scotland: An independent councillor, Duncan Maclean, put forward a motion to West Lothian council which would have banned same sex civil unions from taking place in registry offices. Fortunately, no other councillor was willing to second the motion, so it got precisely nowhere. Maclean is unhappy.
He said fellow West Lothian councillors shouldhang their heads in shameafter giving the green light to gay marriage ceremonies.
Cllr Maclean said today:It's political correctness gone mad. As the Bible teaches, 'wrong-doers will not inherit the kingdom of God', and this includes lesbians and gays. If these people want to enter into a formal commitment, why don't they go to a lawyer and get them to sign a formal legal document? Why do these queers have to parade about in public?
He insists that his words could not possibly be offensive: I don't think I am offending any of my constituents as I know for a fact that none of my voters are gay.
Of course, there is only one way he can know this for sure...
Anger at 'parading queers' jibe in row over gay marriage—Edinburgh Evening News, 5th October 2005.
United States: 'Residual Tern' spotted a defaced sign in Honolulu, and felt the urge to take a picture. He then posted it on flickr, so that the entire world could witness the genius of the artist responsible. The sign is in a park, and lists all the things you are not allowed to do, thus:
THE FOLLOWING ARE PROHIBITED:
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
ANIMALS
CAMPING
VEHICLES ON GRASS
GOLFING
LITTERING
OPEN FIRES
To this, our wit had added the word FAGOTT'S
.
just so dumb—flickr, 14th July 2005.
United Kingdom: A committee set up to advise Tony Blair on Islamist extremism has turned out to consists of extremists. They have called upon the Prime Minister to abolish Holocaust Day because they claim it is offensive to Muslims. No doubt they will not demand any kind of reminder of the dangers of intolerance if, in the current climate of Islamophobia, some group decides to do the same to them.
Holocaust Day must be scrapped, say Muslim leaders - The Daily Telegraph, 12th September 2005 (via Religion News Blog
United States: The Loony Fundie League table is currently as follows:
Christians 2 Muslims 1 Jews 1
The Christian team has leapt into the lead after a particularly amusing statement from Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, who not only blames God, but thinks it was a good thing and an example of divine mercy (see, I said God was a psychopath).
New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now,Shanks says.God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again.
New Orleans is, of course, just as free of loony fundie preachers of hate right now.
New Orleans Residents: God's Mercy Evident in Katrina's Wake - Agape Press, 2nd Spetember 2005.
United Kingdom: Since the London bombings in July, politicians have wasted no time in deciding what to do about religious bampots. British Home Secretary Charles Clarke recently announced plans to crack down on what he describes as preachers of intolerance and hatred
. He declaimed:
We must protect the traditions of tolerance that we have established in this country through centuries of struggle and that means cracking down on those who preach intolerance and abuse free speech to justify terrorism, advocate violence or foster hatred.
Spain, Italy and France had already introduced measures to facilitate the expulsion of such preachers after the bombs in Madrid, and Denmark has acted against both Islamist extremists and those who use them as an excuse to whip up hatred against Islam.
So, presumably a few of the Prattle's favourite loony Christian preachers will find themselves unable to enter European countries from now on?
Pat Robertson is surely guilty of advocating violence when he called for the murder of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?
Mr Robertson, 75, said on Monday's edition of the 700 Club:You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.
Yet have we have yet to hear a word from the Home Secretary about what action he plans to take against The God Channel, which broadcasts The 700 Club in the UK. Surely the best way to not drive young Muslims into extremism is for the government to demonstrate that it will apply the proposed lesgislation against all those who preach hate, not just the Muslim ones?
Fred Phelps would be another candidate for persona non grata status. He's just decided that he and 20 of his congregation are going to make a trip to Sweden next month to hunt down
the Swedish king.
We'll hunt down your king,he said ominously to Expressen.It doesn't make any difference where he tries to hide.
Phelps' hatred of the royal family and all things Swedish is linked directly to his equally virulent hatred of homosexuals. He praises homophobic crimes, including murder. When controversial Swedish minister, Åke Green, was convicted of inciting hatred of homosexuals following an anti-gay sermon, Phelps saw red and turned his attention to Sweden.
You're doomed to spend eternity in hell,he continued.All you Swedes and your Swedish king and his family.
But Phelps doesn't seem to have any faith that his god will actually do any such thing.
The minister and twenty members of his congregation from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, are planning to come to Sweden at the beginning of September. They are bringing plenty of placards in order to spread their message that Sweden is the cradle of all evil and that the king rules a nation of sodomites.
King Carl Gustaf is their primary target.
Your king represents your doomed country and we'll find him wherever he may be.
Security around the royal family has been stepped up, though presumably Phelps and his cronies are unlikely to be allowed to enter Sweden after such a rant. And obviously, as he's the sort of preacher Clarke wants rid of, should he come via Heathrow, we will see him packed straight onto the first plane home. Won't we?
Clarke to launch hatred crackdown—BBC News, 22nd August 2005;Europe moves against radical imams—BBC News, 6th May 2004; Denmark targets extremist media—BBC News, 17th August 2005; TV host urges US to kill Chavez—BBC News, 23rd August 2005; Minister of hate to hunt down
Swedish king—The Local, 25th August 2005.
Scotland: Churchgoers have officially objected to The Edinburgh Dungeon having its entertainment licence renewed on the grounds that many of its displays are offensive to Christians.
But it is not so much the severed heads or piles of corpses the congregation of the city's London Road Church has objected to — it is theSatan's Grotto.
The kirk session of the church has complained about elves impaled on spikes, roasting robins and Father Christmas boiling in a witch's cauldron. Also under fire is children being asked whether they had been bad rather than good, offerednasty presentsinstead of sweets and invited to take part in ayucky dip.
The Christians claim the associations with evil are at least corrupting and at worst something that could lead to devil worship.
What is it with some groups of Christians and their obsession with Satanism? Apparently it's bad to have a sense of humour and a grasp of the ridiculous. It all seems a bit silly coming from a group who glorify in the torture of a bloke.
A recent local filler piece on the evening news reported several instances of petty theft through Sydney churches. This isn't new and has gone on forever, but that doesn't make for a good scare-mongering, so the story was taken a sign of the coming apocalypse. Most of the church leaders spoken to were upset but pragmatic about the thefts, but the loony Catholic from Parramatta declared the theft of candles and linen to be a sure sign of satan worship.
Perhaps there's something in the wine.
Edinburgh churchgoers in attempt to close Dungeon, claiming it spreads Satanism - Scotland on Sunday, 7th August 2005.
Whilst sat in the pub last night, I said to my companions I bet Fred Phelps has something suitably obnoxious to say about the London bombings - I should check
. So I did, and I was not disappointed, although he seems a little confused and appears to think that it was pedestrian tunnels that were bombed and not the Underground. The title of his article is longer than the rest of it: Thank God for the bombing of London's subway today - July 7, 2005 - wherein dozens were killed and hundreds seriously injured. Wish it was many more.
England: Island of the Sodomite Damned
Tony Blair and his Bitch Barrister Wife
These two have let England to irreversible doom, pushing the fag agenda. It is now a crime to preach God's truth about fags in England. Blair wants to be president (Antichrist) of EU (European Union), whose laws also criminalize Gospel preaching.
I don't quite get how the ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants prevents people from pointing out that smoking is bad for you and makes you stink. He's also failed to notice the biggest gay rights news in the UK -- the legislation allowing civil unions between two people of the same sex, the first of which will happen on the Winter Solstice.
United States: Vandals have started a small fire at a church, and sprayed anti-gay slogans on the wall, apparently because they do not approve of the accepting, tolerant, nature of the Christian denomination to which it belongs.
The outside of the church was vandalized with anti-gay messages and a declaration that United Church of Christ members were sinners. The graffiti’s message appeared to be a reference to the national church’s decision earlier this week to endorse gay and lesbian marriages.
The United Church of Christ’s General Synod voted Monday in Atlanta to approve a resolution that is accepting of gay and lesbian marriages but is not binding on local congregations.
A member of the congregation discovered the graffiti Saturday morning when he stopped by to mow the grass. He went into the church building, and when he opened the sanctuary there was still a small fire.
The congregation are clearly not swayed by such devastating arguments as GAYS LOVER
and plan to continue with their 225th anniversary celebrations this weekend.
Middlebrook church set fire; anti-gay messages found - Staunton News Leader, 9th July 2005 (via Chuck Currie and El Coyote Gordo).
Israel: Religious extremists have stabbed three people who were taking part in Jerusalem's Pride parade this evening.
Shortly after the parade began a young man rushed into the marchers on Ben Yehuda Street stabbing a man and a woman. Others in the parade attempted to subdue the attacker. The third victim was a marcher who went to the aid of the other two victims.
The three are reported in stable condition in hospital. The accused attacker is in police custody.
Almost 1,000 protestors lined the parade route. Bottles of urine and bags containing feces were hurled at marchers.
The mayor of Jerusalem had tried to ban the march, but a judge ordered him not to interfere:
The judge ruled that the city had no valid reason for canceling Pride. She said in her decision that Mayor Lupolianski could not act with prejudice against a group of people because he disagreed with their views. She ordered the city to provide security for the marchers, put up Rainbow flag banners along the parade route and pay a portion of the pride expenses - about $6500.
Arad also ordered the municipality to pay an additional $6500 in legal fees incurred by Open House.
Plans to hold World Pride in Jerusalem next year have achieved a politician's wet dream as Jewish, Muslim and Christian fundies have working together. Unfortunately, this harmony is only an attempt to stop the event and seems unlikely to result in peace breaking out in the region.
Jerusalem Pride Turns Violent - 365Gay.com 30th June 2005.
United States: A woman has been arrested on suspicion that she drowned then beheaded her six-year-old daughter because she allegedly believed the girl was a demon. But the church in the background to this case isn't the usual bunch of evengelical Christians:
But it's a Sacramento connection that makes the case take a strange twist. In court documents filed by Washington state prosecutors, investigators and family members allege Samara Spann was part of a Sacramento cult that worshipped deceased rap music artist Tupac Shakur.
A family friend who did not want to be identified said:She has Tupac posters, Tupac everything. Like why does she like him so much? ... It was like an obsession.
In the same court documents, Samara Spann reportedly told a Sacramento friend that she thought her daughter was a demon:This friend told her that if the child in fact was a demon, that the mother needed to cut its head off.
In Washington, investigators recovered a blood stained carpet. In Sacramento, when confronted with that evidence, the same investigators say the mother confessed to cutting her own child's head off and then dumping it off a bridge.
Mother Accused Of Killing, Beheading Daughter - KCRA 3, 14th June 2005.
England: Three pople have been convicted of abusing a girl they believed was a witch. One woman, the victim's aunt, was found guilty on four counts of child cruelty at the Old Bailey today. Two other relatives were convicted on various charges of aiding and abetting child cruelty.
The cruelty started at the beginning of 2003 when a boy told his mother that the girl had been using witchcraft.
The child was cut with a knife, beaten with a belt and shoe and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to beat the devil out of her during her ordeal at a flat in Hackney, east London.
The orphan was was brought to Britain in 2002 by her 38-year-old aunt from Angola, was beaten until she was made to admit she had been doing witchcraft.
'Witch' child cruelty trio guilty - BBC News, 3rd June 2005. See also One person cleared of abusing 'witch' girl - Pagan Prattle, 22nd May 2005; Little girl accused of witchcraft - Pagan Prattle, 10th May 2005.
Update: The BBC has added a number of articles providing background to the case. Of particular interest is this description of traditional Angolan witchcraft beliefs, which is compared with the religious beliefs of the abusers, all committed Christians.
Continue reading "Three convicted of 'witch' girl abuse"Iraq: American evangelists have managed to really annoy one particular group of Iraqis—Christians. Patriarch Emmanuel Delly is the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq's largest Christian denomination, affiliated with the Vatican. Delly, who ranks as an archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church and is tipped to become a cardinal, explained his problem with the evangelists that have plagued the country since the invasion in March last year:
Delly told Al-Jazeera News on May 19 that Iraq did not need Christian missionaries because its churches dated back long before Protestantism. He objected to the aspect of trying to convert Muslims and said,You can’t even talk about that here.
According to Delly, the evangelicals attract poor youths with displays of money and thentake them out in cars to have fun. Then, they take photos and send them here, to Germany, to the United States and say ‘look how many Muslims have become Christian.’
The (atheist) correspondent at uruknet.info goes on to discuss the role of well-known fundies like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in bringing these pests to Iraq.
Reuters has more detail on the story, and notes that Christians in predominantly Muslim countries tend not to make pains of themselves.
Many Muslim countries consider Christian missionaries as part of a Western campaign against Islam and punish both the preacher and the apostate Muslim severely. Violent Iraqi groups killed at least five evangelical missionaries last year.
At least 20 Iraqis were killed in bombings of Christian churches last year as unknown attackers stepped up pressure on non-Muslims there. Christian minorities in Muslim countries usually keep a low profile and do not evangelise.
JUST WHAT EVERY IRAQI NEEDS: A BIBLE - uruknet.info, 23rd May 2005; Patriarch denounces U.S. evangelicals in Iraq - Reuters, 19th May 2005 (via The Sideshow and The Green Knight).
United States: Way back when, a bunch of racists lost a trademark suit. They were ordered to pay costs, but neglected to do so. Now a US federal judge has ordered the Creativity Movement, formerly known as the Church of the Creator, to pay $450,000 (plus interest) to the TE-TA-MA Foundation.
The United States appears to have no equivalent of the Trades Descriptions Act, or maybe the white supremacists have a sense of irony in giving such a positive name to their destructive organisation. The members have demonstrated how creative they are as the case progressed.
[U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey] Lefkow ruled in Hale's favor but was reversed by a higher court and ordered to issue fines against Hale for every day his group didn't comply. Lefkow later became a target when Hale solicited a government informant to kill her. Hale was convicted of murder solicitation last year and last month was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He's appealing his conviction while being held in a Colorado maximum security prison.
The issue of attorneys fees also made its way to a federal appeals court, which found Hale's group liable because of accusations that his members left threatening phone messages for opposing attorneys as the case was litigated.
Judge orders Hale's group to pay up - Chicago Sun-Times, 24th May 2005. See also: Nazis lose out to hippies - Pagan Prattle, 3rd December 2002.
England: One of four people accused of abusing an eight-year-old girl they believed to be a witch has had charged dropped after the girl asserted that Kiwonde Kiese had done nothing nasty to her. The case against the other three defendants continues.
Woman is cleared of abusing girl, 8 - Muswell Hill Journal, 19th May 2005. See also Little girl accused of witchcraft - Pagan Prattle, 10th May 2005.
England: An Old Baily jury has been told that an eight-year-old girl was tortured, and an attempt on her life was in progress when the attack was stopped. The alleged motive was that another child had said that the girl was a witch.
The girl, an Angolan refugee, came to the UK to live with relatives after her parents were killed in the war there.
[Prosecutor Patricia May] told the court the aunt and Ms Kisanga put the girl in a laundry bag, zipped it up and were about to throw it into the New River in Hackney, east London, until Mr Pinto stopped them.
Miss May said Mr Pinto told them:If they did and it was discovered, the law and the rights of children in this country being what they were, they would go to prison.
A search of the house of one of the accused revealed a number of (presuambly Christian) documents on sin, the devil and witchcraft
and a diary, one entry including the sentence There was indeed a prophesy she has ndoki
(the Lingala word for witchcraft).
The trial has been halted temporarily after the girl became upset and started to cry during the presentation of video evidence. It is due to resume tomorrow.
Witchcraft case halted over tears - BBC News, 10th May 2005; Girl tortured 'for being a witch' - BBC News, 9th May 2005.
Cambodia: The Buddhists rarely rate a mention in the Prattle, but we'll make up for that oversight with the tale of a dodgy monk who got done for impersonating a god.
Monk Khong Chantha thought he saw a sucker coming when he sold a reputedly magic turtle, with Buddhist inscriptions carved into its shell, to an elderly local woman for $1.25. However, he was more than a little miffed when the little old lady set up shop with her magic turtle, claiming that it invoked miracles. He was so miffed that he returned and tried to reclaim the reptile by force. Understandably not wanting to hand her money-spinner back to the monk, there was a bit of a blue and the little old lady ended up reporting the monk to the local plods.
Continue reading "Monk Impersonates God to Retrieve Magic Turtle"Zambia: Hot on the heels of one story about the problems caused by loony fundies blocking access to condoms is another one, this time from Zambia.
Bush is running a program against AIDS in Africa based on — you guessed it — sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, relegating condoms a distant third. All well and good, aside from the small fact that it's killing people.
The stark reality is that what kills young women here is often not promiscuity, but marriage. Indeed, just about the deadliest thing a woman in southern Africa can do is get married.Continue reading "Fundies Ban Condoms, People Die"
Australia: Loony fundies are a funny bunch of people. They don't like people having abortions, yet are more than happy to sneer at teenaged mothers and do their darnedest to cut off all support possible. One particular loony fundie in Merriwa, a small rural town in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, has managed to take his moral and ethical stance one step further and landed the town with the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the country. The wingnut in question is the proprietor of the town's sole chemist and he refuses to stock condoms or the morning-after pill.
Continue reading "Pharmacist to Thank for Teen Pregnancy Rate"Andrew Ian Dodge sent a missive to Prattle Towers with a couple of entertaining links. First we have an amusing photo essay upon the Signs of Satan (which threatens sound, which is bound to be awful, so turn off whatever you use to play MP3s in your browser before visiting). It's clearly convincing evidence if you believe George W. Bush is the Antichrist.
Secondly, it appears that a man accused of a series of gruesome murders is churchgoing family man and Cub Scout leader
.
India: A beautiful example of self-styled Christians completely ignoring the reported words of Jesus has come out of a tiny village in Tamil Nadu which was bady affected by the recent tsunami:
Jubilant at seeing the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes and the much-needed medicines the villagers, many of who have not had a square meal in days, were shocked when the nuns asked them to convert before distributing biscuits and water.
Heated arguments broke out as the locals forcibly tried to stop the relief trucks from leaving. The missionaries, who rushed into their cars on seeing television reporters and the cameras refusing to comment on the incident and managed to leave the village.
Note that if you donate to the Tsunami fund run by the Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK, your money is divided up between the participating charities, including a number of Christian ones who, while probably not engaging in this kind of behaviour, are definitely hypocrites who ignore the reported words of Jesus in Matthew 6:1-4.
Villagers furious with Christian Missionaries - Yahoo News (via Pharyngula), 16th January 2004.
Israel: While certain elements of the Israeli government have been screaming about the evils of anti-Semitism in Europe, and urging French, British and German Jews to move to Israel, they seem to have failed to notice a new hotbed of anti-semitic sentiment - Israel. As Haaretz observes, the first Israeli Neo-Nazi web site opened nearly two years ago.
The site is well organized. It has text and pictures showing the activists of the organization,The White Israeli Union,some of them in Israel Defense Forces uniforms on the background of army camps and saluting with a raised arm. The expanded text is divided into sub-sections. There is one onWho we are,where the managers of the site introduce themselves asIlya from Haifa and Andrei from Arad,and it is related there that the members of the organization arepeople who have pride in themselves and are sick of living among the dirty bastards.There is a section onWho our enemies are,where all theenemiesare extensively documented: the Jews, the Arabs, the immigrants from all Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union, the Moroccans, the foreign workers - in short, theblack-asses.In the material about the Arabs there is even a practical suggestion to enlist in the IDF in a combat unit, in order to get weapons and begin to shoot at them in every possible circumstance.
The bampots behind the site are apparently Russians who have taken advantage of a loophole in the 'Law of Return':
...the law under which Jews from the former Soviet Union can immigrate to Germany is close to the restricted definition ofJewish under Jewish law.The Israeli Law of Return, however, is in fact based on the Nuremberg Laws, in which the [Third Reich-era] Germans expanded the definition of who is Jewish in accordance with their own needs.
Anti-Semitism, right here at home - Haaretz, 23rd May 2003 (via Ken Macleod).
Japan: A man has been arrested on suspicious of breaking anti-stalking laws after the Japenese equivalent of a voodoo doll was sent to a woman.
Investigators said the man from Hamakita, Shizuoka Prefecture, Akira Oshiro, 56, sent a straw doll with a nail driven though it to the woman in mid-July last year.
The doll, which was mailed to the woman's home in Shizuoka Prefecture, had the woman's name on it...
...Straw dolls which have nails driven into them are the Japanese equivalent of voodoo dolls.
Stalker arrested for sending voodoo-type doll to woman - Mainichi Shimbun, 13th January 2005.
United States: Christian thugs allegedly attacked a New York man with a metal pipe because of his Satanist beliefs. According to Daniel Romano, his attackers had been harassing him comstantly for over a month and been spreading malicious gossip about him.
Paul Rotondi and Frank Scarpinito, both 18, allegedly pounced on Romano, who wears black nail polish and an inverted crucifix symbolizing his rejection of Jesus, as he walked to meet his mother at a laundermat.
They spread rumors around the neighborhood that I eat babies and go down to the docks, pick up hookers and kill them,Romano told the Daily News.Ignorance often costs a lot of people their lives.
Romano claims to be a member of the Church of Satan, though the local head of that organisation says that is not true, cast doubt upon the whole story and suggested that Romano is nothing more than a spooky kid. Which contrasts interestingly with something Rotondi is claimed to have said to the police:
You are going to find my prints on there,he told cops at the 104th Precinct stationhouse, referring to the pipe. But then he insisted,I did not hit anyone with it,authorities said.
Meanwhile, Rotondi and Scarpinito have been charged under hate crimes legislation, which appears to apply to all religions without discrimination, whether or not they are members of a church, much to the distress of their lawyer.
This is an abuse of the hate crime law,he said.What's next - the nerds, the preppies ...? Where are you going to draw the line?
Qns. Satanist catches hell - New York Daily News, 12th January 2005.
The Middle East in general: MEMRI (usual caveats apply) has published English language translations of various Islamic versions of the Tsunami was God's punishment
meme. Such as this from Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan:
These great tragedies and collective punishments that are wiping out villages, towns, cities, and even entire countries, are Allah's punishments of the people of these countries, even if they are Muslims.
Some of our forefathers said that if there is usury and fornication in a certain village, Allah permits its destruction. We know that at these resorts, which unfortunately exist in Islamic and other countries in South Asia, and especially at Christmas, fornication and sexual perversion of all kinds are rampant. The fact that it happened at this particular time is a sign from Allah. It happened at Christmas, when fornicators and corrupt people from all over the world come to commit fornication and sexual perversion. That's when this tragedy took place, striking them all and destroyed everything. It turned the land into wasteland, where only the cries of the ravens are heard. I say this is a great sign and punishment on which Muslims should reflect.
Needless to say, it was also the Jews' fault, according to Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris:
The oppression and corruption caused by America and the Jews have increased. Have you heard of these beaches that are called 'tourists' paradise?' You have all probably heard of Bangkok. We read about it, and knew it as the center of corruption on the face of this earth. Over there, there are Zionist and American investments. Over there they bring Muslims and others to prostitution. Over there, there are beaches, which they dubbed 'tourists' paradise,' while only a few meters away, the locals live in hell on earth. They cannot make ends meet, while a few meters away there is a paradise, 'tourists' paradise.'
Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Tsunami: It was a Punishment from Allah for Celebrating Christmas and Other Sins; It was Caused by the U.S., Israel, India - MEMRI Special Dispatch Series - No. 842, 7th January 2005. See also: A Warning From God - Pagan Prattle, January 2005; With a God like this, who needs Satan? - Pagan Prattle, 31st December 2004.
United States: Tom Delay chose his reading from Christian scripture carefully for Tuesday's Congessional Prayer Service (how is that allowed under the Constitution anyhow?), and had an important message for those affected by the Asian tsumami - you are dead because you are not Christians:
The emphasis was apparently DeLay's.
Choice Words - American Coprophagia, 4th January 2005 (via Cheryl Morgan)
Fred Phelps is a recognised foaming nutball who hates everybody, so stapling his hate-filled message from god
to a disaster comes as no surprise to most. However, some of the more mainstream religious leaders have seen fit to jump on the good reverend's bandwagon.
Anglican Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen, said the will of God involved His creation of the world but it also involved His judgment on the sinfulness of humanity.
Disasters are part of His warning that judgment is coming,Dean Jensen said.
Australian Federation of Islamic Councils chief executive Amjad Mehboob said it could not have happened unless it was God's will.
You really have to wonder who would want to go to heaven if this is the kind of reception you'd meet. I'm embarrassed enough to have to share a city with the likes of the noxious Jensen.
It was a message from above—The Sunday Telegraph, 2nd January 2005.
United States: A man accused of seriously injuring his 17-day-old son had wanted to claim that his wife had injured the child in a satanic ritual:
[Christopher] Gromiuk was arrested last February after he admitted to squeezing and beating his 17-day-old son Exsavior while in adreamlikestate. The child survived and is in the care of relatives.
Later, during an evidentiary hearing, Rusch indicated he would attempt to defend Gromiuk by shifting the blame for the baby's injuries to his mother. He attempted to introduce evidence that the child's mother was involved with witchcraft and Satanism and the baby was hurt during a ritual but was blocked by the court.
Gromiuk later dropped the witchcraft allegations, which Laura Gromiuk had steadfastly denied, and agreed to plead guilty to hurting his son but had a change of heart before he could be sentenced. Last month he asked the court to allow him to change his guilty plea, arguing that he wasn't thinking clearly when he made the decision to take the state's plea agreement.
Man charged with injuring infant son to get new attorney - Rhinelander Daily News, 23rd December 2004.
United States: The family of a woman who allegedly murdered her daughter by cutting the child's arms off have decided it was the fault of her church.
By then, though, Schlosser's association with Davidson's church had intensified, Macaulay said.
He said Davidson used violent imagery and told women they possessed a rebelliousJezebelspirit, and that they should submit to their husbands, he said.
I'm not saying that anybody suggested 'Go cut your baby's arms off,'said Macaulay, a mental health counselor who lives with Schlosser's mother, Connie, in Canada.This diminishing of women, this diminishing of women's powers, women's importance, referring to women as jezebels, I think, further undermines an already fragile ego state that Dena's experiencing.
That's absurd, the 72-year-old minister said.
I'm an apostle and I'm a prophet,Davidson said.I only teach what's in the Bible and that's what makes them mad.
Davidson himself has demostrated Christian love in the past:
In September, Davidson was arrested on a public intoxication charge after a couple, longtime members of his church, called 911, alleging the minister attacked them at their home. Davidson said he was only trying to cast the devil out of the wife, who had become rebellious and rejected his teachings. He said he entered the home with the permission of her husband.
This was, naturally, Satan's attempt to discredit him.
Pastor Decried After Child's Arms Severed - The Guardian, 6th December 2004.
United Kingdom: A decision to invite punk rockers The Damned to switch on Cambridge city's Christmas lights has sparked controversy among church leaders.
Captain Sensible is due to join Father Christmas and city mayor Roger Dryden for the festive switch-on.Continue reading "Damned Flick Switch On Lights"
But the decision has led to fury among church leaders.
The Netherlands: The director of a controversial film about the treatment of women in Islam has been murdered in Amsterdam. Theo van Gogh, related to the famous painter, was either stabbed or shot - reports vary.
The perpetrator, who's said to have stuck a pamphlet to Mr van Gogh's chest, was reportedly wounded in an exchange of gunfire with a policeman. One arrest has been made.
Both the suspect and a policeman were injured and are in hospital. Ironically, Van Gogh had been working on a film about assassinated politician Pim Fortuyn at the time of his death.
Filmmaker Theo van Gogh killed -Radio Netherlands, 2nd November 2004; Gunman kills Dutch film director - BBC News, 2nd November 2004; see also Dutch MP threatened by religious loons. - The Pagan Prattle Online, 27th September 2004.
United States: A convict has been charged with the ritual
murder of a teenager who disappeared in 1998. Police say that Robert Anthony Marquez killed and dismembered 16-year old Bryan Thorne because of his belief in Satanism.
How exactly they know this isn't explained, as no trace of Thorne has been found since he disappeared six years ago. Their only evidence seems to be that Marquez's cell was decorated with photos of dismembered sheep and chickens and his body was covered with demon-themed tattoos
and Thorne's friends, who insisted that they knew nothing throughout the time Marquez has been safely in prison. Now he is due to be released, they claim that they got stoned with Marquez, who lured Thorne away from the group, stabbed him, chopped him up and put the remains in a bin!
The news reports do not explain how this relates to any known Satanic practice, nor do they discuss how a court will be able to reasonably accept the evidence of people who admit they were high on cannabis at the time.
Convict arrested for 1998 ritual slaying of Brea high school student - Monterey Herald, 9th October 2004.
United States: The lovely Feòrag caught this delightful tale from the land of denial as she was heading out the door and sent it along to the satellite office to share with Prattle readers. Leaving aside the tabloid hysterics, we have two women blaming the death of a child on demons.
The mother of the Harlem toddler beaten to death says her lesbian lover did the awful deed — but insists demons made her do it.
But [Zahira] Matos insists she didn't realize the seriousness until it was too late — when she found Yovany near death Sept 19, when she returned home from a beer run.Continue reading "Tales of Love from the Land of Denial"
Israel: This morning I woke up to an amusing story at the tail end of the news, the place where they dump the saccharine and strange. It seems there's been a punch-up in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Roman Catholic and Orthodox clerics have exchanged blows inside Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of Christianity's holiest sites.
The punch-up began after Greek and Russian Orthodox believers took offence at a door left open by members of the Franciscan order during a service.
At least five people were injured in the fracas — including Israeli police officers called in to quell it.
The church is shared jealously by six rival Christian sects.
This moronity has been going on for centuries. It was so bad back in the 12th century that Saladin handed the guardianship of the key to the only entrance to the church over to two Muslim families in 1178 in an attempt to stop the six Christian sects squabbling with each other. It seems some things never change.
Jerusalem clerics in punch-up row—BBC, 27th September 2004.
The Netherlands: A Somali-born Dutch Liberal member of parliament has seen a controversial film she wrote aired on national television at prime time. Submission confronts the sensitive issue of violence against women:
Hirsi Ali, 34, who grew up as a Muslim but has abandoned her faith, said her purpose was not to give offense but to draw attention to what she contends is widespread but hidden violence against Muslim women, even those living in Europe.
She turned to the power of images, she said, to focus attention on abuse, incest, forced marriages and the suicides of young immigrant women. Despite her writing and speaking on the subject for several years, she felt the subject has remained a public taboo.Muslims deny it,she said,and many Dutch are afraid of taking it on, of causing religious tension, of being called racists.
She has received death threats as a result and one man has already been arrested and charged for sending threats. She moved to a safehouse after her private address was published on an Islamic website. She alleges that police are trying to cover up the level of violence faced by Dutch Muslim women, for fear they will offend the perpetrators.
She already has two round-the-clock government bodyguards, and she says she intends to continue her campaign. She recently spoke before Parliament and demanded that the interior minister order the police to review their definition of murder in cases involving young women. She contends that every year at least a dozen young Muslim girls in the Netherlands are the victims of revenge killings by brothers, fathers or relatives. The police record them as family conflicts, she said.
Police say they want to avoid stigmatizing a group,Hirsi Ali said.I say, we have to know the truth.
Ex-Muslim turns her lens on a taboo - International Herald Tribune, 27th September 2004.
United States: A Wiccan man facing trial for murder has been denied bail after a prosecutor claimed that his religion is to blame, apparently confusing Wicca with some of the more loony Christian cults:
Prosecutors at Legette's bond hearing said Legette is a Wiccan and that Wiccans don't believe the government can dispense justice.
Back in the real world, the charges stem from what looks like a tediously traditional argument over a woman, athough one wonders whether the rest of the prosecutors' case will be fantasy as well.
Richland prosecutors claim Wiccan beliefs led to murder - WIStv, 25th September 2004.
Philippines: Someone is chopping the heads and hands off religious statues in the churches of Negros Occidental, and for once, Satanists aren't the main suspects - they're third. Even hacked off bits of statues have value in the antiques trade, and priests suspect that increasing poverty means that people do not respect the statues as much as they did. But there are also a mystical explanation:
The thefts of church relics and images bolstered speculations that they are being used as amulets.
[Bishop Vicente] Navarra, however, insisted these objects do not have magic powers and their purpose is only to arouse devotion and increase the faith of the people.
And where would a story like this be without Satanists, even if they are not named as such?
Asked if the series of robberies on religious images may have been perpetrated by members of areligious cult,[Father Abenir] Pineda said he believes that it was done by a syndicate.
Negrense psychic Willy Tortosa, also a councilor of Cauayan town, claimed that the theft of the hands and heads of statues signal bad omen.
Tortosa said,People on the dark sideusually hold rituals in months from July to September, in order to have access to, or to communicate with theevil sideof the world.
He added that the collective prayers of devotees to the patron saints may provide more strength to thepower seeker.
3rd 'beheading' of religious images alerts Negros priests - ABS-CBN News, 21st September 2004.
Sometimes the spam filter doesn't work. Take this message, for example, which just arrived. I feel the need to share before introducing the spam filter to this particular variety of luncheon meat:
Subject: Jewish Sucks --kill them --peace --alc
From: info-jewishsucks-48309uq@<Obviously spoofed address, as the domain appears to be the Israeli tourist board>
Date: 04:26
To: <Prattle Towers>
Hey afmrq, Israeli's Trying to Control USA in next 12 Years so guys beware now before its too late.
fhrbsruoajzzhatxqzpxozenvcosvgsdrkskvzmopxwwtyciquwomuinrkswybfsjmedlrvtbnytyefopgjavmamzvwncjp qmznrl
And that's it. No dodgy attachment, no link to anti-semitic site.
United States: An arsonist faces prison after admitting starting a warehouse fire. Jerry Walburn has several previous convictions for similar offences. These, he claimed, the Devil made him do, having got in touch through a ouija board.
Another prison term for another fire—Newsday, 2nd September 2004.
United States: Local detectives in Knox, Indiana, know why two teenage girls were killed by a train - it's because they had an interest in Wicca.
Sims said that materials found in one of the girls' backpacks have led police to believe that the deaths were suicide.
Knox Community Schools Assistant Superintendent Steve Sailor said Monday evening,The girls did take their own lives, and it appears that some of the decision-making involved wicca and, to some degree, witchcraft.
But clearly they weren't very Wiccan, otherwise why would the local Catholic priest be willing to perfom a funeral mass for one of them?
Deaths of 2 teens believed suicides - Post-Tribune, 31st August 2004.
United States: A woman described as a Gypsy
has been arrested by California police. She is alleged to have scammed an Illinois woman out of $80,000. She has previous convictions for theft, and was on the run from prison.
Demetro is accused of befriending a mother and daughter in McHenry, Ill., who used her services because they were down on their luck and overweight, Gaylor said.
Police say she convinced the older woman that her luck would change if she cleansed her life savings of $80,000. The woman withdrew the money, all in $100 bills, and gave it to Demetro, police said.
During a seance involving vegetables and live lizards, the cash was wrapped into a white handkerchief, Gaylor said. The women were asked to stare at a candle, police said.
They were given back the handkerchief and told to place it under a bed for several days, police said.When they open up the (handkerchief), they find cut-up newspaper,Gaylor said.
Police also wish to talk to her in connection with another incident:
Demetro also is wanted in another Illinois case. She is accused of telling a client that his wife had been unfaithful and he was not the father of their unborn child, police said.
The man paid her with his wedding ring and ended up killing his wife, stabbing her 80 times, police said.
Gypsy arrested on Illinois theft warrant - The San Diego Union-Tribune, 27th August 2004.
United States: An Oklahoma woman has stabbed her boyfriend, leaving a 11 cm hole in his stomach and damaging his liver, after they had an argument over the Bible. He is now out of hospital and says he still loves her.
Woman stabs boyfriend in fight over religion - News 9 (via Religion News Blog), 26th August 2004.
United States: In a follow up to the story of a fundie loon who killed an eight-year-old autistic boy during an attempted exorcism, the man in question has been sentenced to 2½ years in jail.
Prosecutors say Ray Hemphill lay on Terrance Cottrell Jr.'s chest for at least an hour while trying to releaseContinue reading "Fundie Loon Jailed For Exorcism Murder"demonsfrom him, before the boy died August 22, 2003.
It was your unreasonable and reckless conduct that caused this child to die,Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jean DiMotto told Hemphill.
United States: A parrot belonging to a Wiccan woman who launched a legal challenge to her town's unconstitutional prayers has been slaughtered in a highly ritualistic manner. Darla Wynne, of Great Falls, South Carolina, came home one night last week to find her parrot, Little One, beheaded with his heart cut out. A note warned her she would be next. It is just the latest in a long series of incidents.
Many of the town's 2,200 residents regard Wynne as a witch and disapprove of her pagan faith, she said. The vandalism has ranged from destruction of her cars to several of her animals being poisoned, Wynne said.
No one will say anything,Wynne said.They think they're protecting their own....
...Wynne said she has endured numerous verbal and written threats. She received by mail a booklet,Thou Shalt not Suffer a Witch to Live,and said a man yelled at her,Witch, you're going down.
Twice last week before her bird was killed, Wynne said she received threats in the mail.
Parrot's death latest threat to woman in prayer case - The Herald (Rock Hill), 17th August 2004.
United States (and occupied territories): Wiccan service people face a number of problems. In one incident, a small circle was pelted with bottles and stones by fellow squaddies while worshipping in Iraq. Military chaplain Patrick McCollum described some of the other problems:
An advisory team became a Pentagon priority when Wiccan military personnel reported problems while conducting rites and religious activities.
The Wiccans said that some chaplains were trying to convert them and that commanding officers made it difficult to practice, McCollum said.
Wiccans also have been pressuring the Department of Veterans Affairs to allow a Wiccan emblem, most likely the pentacle (sic.), for armed forces burial headstones or markers. Mike Nacincik of Veterans Affairs, said the department authorizes 38 emblems, including one for atheists, but none for Wiccans.
The military should honor the beliefs of Wiccans asked to fight and die to uphold freedom of speech and religion, McCollum said.
If these freedoms are taken away while they're defending these values, it creates a paradox.
Interestingly, the Air Force boasts the highest number of Wiccans - perhaps a fast jet is the closest they'll ever get to a broomstick.
Military casts Wicca in the shadows - Contra Costa Times (via Religion News Blog), 12th August 2004.
Nigeria: The remains of 50 people have been found by police in 20 locations in the forests around Okija in the eastern state of Anambra. Press reports abound with tales of a secretive cult
and traditional ritual killings
, but the reality seems to be much more darwinian than that, with the 'victims' all willing participants in a strange form of conflict resolution:
The group is believed to practice a ritual in which parties involved in a personal dispute - often over business deals - are made to drink a potion they are told will kill only the guilty one...
[Police representative Kolapo] Shofoluwe said the basic ritual of swallowing poisons to test guilt is believed to have been practiced for more than a century.
Mr. A goes to the shrine to report to the chief priests that Mr. B has done wrong to him by way of cheating him in a joint business,said Shofoluwe, adding the priests then typically call both parties together to resolve the dispute.
Nigeria Discovers 50 Possible Cult Victims - The Guardian, 5th August 2004.
Zambia: Two Liberian men have lost their appeal against a 20-year sentence imposed on them for killing a woman accused of witchcraft. The pair had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, which was accepted by the court. The killing happened during a prayer meeting after it became apparent that God was not rushing to act - the judge, Chief Justice Ernest Sakala , told them they should have waited for God to answer their prayers
rather than killing the woman.
Facts before the court were that on December 18, 2000 at Makaka hill along Kabwe road, Emmanuel and Kolle were part of a group of the Power of Christ church when Phiri was brought to them by people who suspected her of being a witch.
The court heard that the group prayed for her so that the Devil could come out of her and asked her to confess to being a witch but she refused.
Emmanuel and Kolle later took up sticks and started beating her so that the Devil could come out of her, she later died from internal injuries.
In mitigation, the duo pleaded for the court's leniency.
They said the circumstances of the matter did not amount to a 20-year sentence because they wanted to remove the devil from the woman.
Justice Sakala told the court that thinking someone was a witch was no reason to take their life and that the court had the duty to minimise or eliminate the belief in witchcraft
.
Supreme Court upholds refugees' 20-yr sentence - The Times of Zambia, 5th August 2004.
United States: Doug Daniels of The Raw Story went to the Democratic National Convention and spotted some evangelical protestors:
Most noticeable were the Christian radicals and anti- abortion activists who would bark biblical verse through their megaphones at the delegates, demanding that they repent for their sins, and denounce John Kerry as the son of the devil. At one point, hostilities began to escalate between two such protesters, one commanding the crowd to love God, the other warning us to fear him. After a few minutes of this heated, evangelical squabble, the police intervened and told the two lunatics to steer clear of each other.
Tanzania: Seven people have been murdered and another seven injured in a series of brutal attacks towards the end of last month. The victims were all accused of witchcraft.
According to police investigations, a few days before the killings, some villagers conducted a secret ballot to unearth suspects thought to be involved in witchcraft.
The RPC said on July 20 at night, more than ten youths armed with spears, sharp pieces of metal, pangas, and other crude weapons like bows and arrows, invaded Ndapo Village, killing one person and wounding another.
On July 25, the marauding youths attacked Nungu Village at around 10.00 pm and killed three people and wounded four others.
Three people were killed and two others wounded in a similar attack conducted between July 27 and 28 at Kinyika Village, he added.
Villagers also threatened those they think are witches, and several people have had to move as a result. Twenty-two people have been arrested and murder charges are expected to follow.
Outrageous witchcraft murders in Makete—The Guardian (Tanzania), 3rd August 2004.
Sweden: A Lutheran pastor has received a life sentence after he faked SMS messages from God to his mistress to persuade her to murder his wife. Helge Fossmo also used the same method to try and get the husband of a second mistress killed. The verdict noted that Fossmo ruthlessly made use of Sara Svensson's love for him and her dependency on him as a religious leader
. Svensson admitted the killing, but was found to be in need of treatment not punishment.
Fossmo's church was one that other Lutherans would have trouble recognising:
The trial painted a picture of a bizarre religious community, far removed from the liberal and secular society most Swedes would recognize. Life in the sect, an offshoot of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, was controlled by a woman known as "Christ's Bride" after she got engaged to Jesus in a ceremony.
The community's ministers also exercised a controlling influence in the lives of their flock. In Fossmo's case, that included using the latest technology to get his nanny to commit murder. Svensson testified she received anonymous text messages, which she believed to be from God, urging her to kill.
A technology company traced erased messages on her phone to Fossmo, who admitted sending them but said they were intended only to guide the nanny in her faith.
Svensson also said the pastor told her that killing his wife and neighbor was the only way she could please God.
Swedish pastor gets life for text murder messages - Yahoo! News, 30th July 2004.
India: A court in Orissa has sentenced a man to death for killing six people because he thought they were witches.
[Dileswar] Barik, 25, had killed three men and three women with a sharp weapon in January last year because he suspected that they were practising witchcraft, police said.
He had been captured and handed over to police by the villagers.
Man sentenced to death for killing six people - newkerala.com, 28th July 2004.
United States: Security at a New York State shopping mall called the police when they spotted a Muslim family praying in the car park.
[Yasin] Amin said it was just after sundown when he and his brother-in-law stepped out of the mall to pray. He said they specifically chose a spot in the parking lot out of the way so that they wouldn't disturb anyone. It was when they were finished praying that they saw the first security guard.
Back inside the mall Amin said several security guards hovered around him and his family as they shopped. He said it grew unbearable -- so he and his family opted to leave -- but his car was surrounded.
The police were not impressed. Chief Steve Heider told a local news channel It's very unfortunate sometimes we receive these calls. It's based on misunderstandings sometimes, uninformed people.
Family upset over mall incident - Capital News 9, 20th July 2004.
United States: Nicholas Kristof wonders what it says about America when racist propaganda is on the best-seller lists.
If the latest in theLeft Behindseries of evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire:
Continue reading "Bigots Invading the Book Stores"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.
United States: An Iowa pastor is annoyed because city and county fire codes mean he can't hold a book-burning. The inappropriately named Rev. Scott Breedlove of the Jesus Church in Cedar Rapids wanted to hold his conflagration on July 28th.
We don't want a situation where people are burning rubbish as a recreational fire,said Brad Brenneman, the fire department's district chief.
Linn County won't go for a fire outside city limits, either.
Officials said the county's air quality division prohibits the transporting of materials from the city to the county for burning.
The fire department suggested shredding the material instead but, alas, shredders aren't mentioned in the Bible.
Fire department bars book-burning - Yahoo! News, 12th July 2004 (via Jesus' General).
Australia: A complete and utter wombat who attempted to hijack a plane is claiming that his invisible friend made him do it. Not unlike the Shrub's excuse for going to war really.
The man accused of trying to hijack a Melbourne-to-Launceston Qantas flight last year believed that God had called on him to crash the plane, a Victorian court has heard.
David Mark Robinson, 41, is alleged to have planned to kill the 50 passengers and six crew aboard the flight before crashing it into the Walls of Jerusalem national park in northern Tasmania.
Just to point out for the geographically challenged, Walls of Jerusalem
is a national park in Tasmania, that little triangle shaped island under Australia, and not an architectural feature in Israel. Although I guess you could argue it was an anti-semitic attack by a man with the directional sense of child's spinning top.
England: A women-only lingerie shop run by a conservatively-attired Muslim woman has been firebombed by Islamist loons frustrated that they cannot see in. Owner Umm Zakariah opened up her shop in Birmingham because she felt uncomfortable selecting underwear in shops full of men and wanted some privacy.
And most [women] would prefer to give their measurements to a female assistant rather than a man. A lot of women, most of them Muslim, have told us they love the shop.
She has vowed to keep the shop open, which she feels provides a useful service to all women, not just Muslim ones
The shop is for all women,she said.Yes, it's run by Muslims and most of our customers are Muslims but all women are welcome.
We've had black and white women coming in to have a look. The windows are blacked out because we want to keep an air of mystery about what's inside.
Muslim undies shop attacked - Sunday Mercury, 4th July 2004.
Australia: A group of religious nuts in Australia have managed to run afoul of the authorities in their zeal to donate their kidneys.
The leader of an internet cult today said some members have lied to health authorities so that they could donate their kidneys to Australians in need of a transplant.Continue reading "Would You Care For Steak With Your Kidney?"
In Australia, kidney donations are not allowed for anyone apart from family members, friends or those with an emotional connection, to prevent organs being sold on the black market.
India: A Hindu temple in Chennai has been desecrated, and the prime suspects are a Christian group which has been engaged in a long campaign of harassment against the temple. A statue was smashed and two others damaged, and a sari decorating the first statue torn up and strewn over a bush. The allegedly Christian group has some very odd practices, though:
The Periamalai area was already sitting on a communal powder keg due to the confrontational and provocative attitude of a Pentecost group that specifically targetted the local Balamurugan temple. The group, which used to be very active on full-moon nights (yesterday was one), has a history of creating trouble for those coming to worship at the temple.
The residents had made several complaints that the cult group had chosen the place to carry out their brazen expansion activities 12 churches have come up in the last few years within the small circumference of Pallavaram.
The religious group also used to gather up at Periamalai (a small hillock) regularly and shout out taunting remarks at Hindus and openly deride Hindu Gods.
Locals say the Christians brought in women, who were purportedly Hindus, and then asked them to throw their mettis and thalis into a fire.
Idol found smashed in suburb temple - News Today, 3rd July 2004.
India: I suppose there's some bizarre logic involved in the belief that drinking the blood of the people you kill will stop them from haunting you. The particular wingnut is question has finally been nabbed by the local plods.
A man suspected of killing three people and then drinking their blood to ward off their spirits was arrested in north India yesterday, police said.
Hiralal Totia was arrested in Shankarpur village in Uttar Pradesh state, police told the Press Trust of India.
Police said Totia killed a police officer and then sucked his blood. He did the same with two other victims — a taxi driver and a woman, they added.
Totia told police under interrogation that he drank the blood of his victims as he believed this would keep away theirspirits.
'Vampire' killings arrest [BugMeNot] - AFP, 24th June 2004.
Cyprus: Having successfully scuppered the latest attempt to bring peace and stability to the divided island, the Greek Orthodox Church is trying to blame Satanism for the troubles of its youth.
Father Christoforos Tsiakkas has been involved in dealing with the problems that youngsters face that leave them vulnerable to the temptations of the occult. At a news conference, Father Christoforos presented evidence of the presence of Satanism in Limassol and warned that a satanic temple had already been founded in the city.
There is a circle of monuments around the leadership of five to six people. Their leader was initiated abroad and has founded a satanic temple in Limassol,the priest claimed.
And outrageous claims are being made in an attempt to frighten gullible parents.
Father Christoforos said a school principal had asked for his help in dealing with the mass initiation of school students into Satanism.
They promise them power, energy and they have a solution to all of their problems,he said.
But they are only turned into pawns.
Unlike the long history of free thought promoted by established churches? A government minister has already dismissed the claims, suggesting that the reality is much more down-to-earth.
Church concern over Satanism claims - Cyprus Mail, 26th June 2004; Police ignore crime to chase shadows - Pagan Prattle, 14th March 2004.
France: So, you are a racist fuckwit and hate Muslims. You think they are unpatriotic scum, so what better way to encourage them to care for their country than to desecrate a cemetary for Muslims who died fighting in the French army?
Vandals have daubed swastikas on the graves of Muslim soldiers in a military cemetery in Alsace, eastern France.
Seven gravestones were also smashed in the attack on the cemetery in Hagenau, north of Strasbourg.
The graves were those of Muslim soldiers who died fighting for France in the first and second world wars.
Jacques Chirac spoke out strongly against the attack, calling it an insult to the memory of the soldiers who gave their lives for our country
. This is the latest of a string of attacks on Muslim and Jewish sites in the Alsace region.
Muslim graves defaced in France - BBC News, 24th June 2004.
United States: Murder, dismemberment, a Mormon cult, the death penalty, and Playboy model Kerissa Fare. Oh, and Rohypnol. What more could you want?
This may be the year of the celebrity trial — Michael Jackson the King of Pop on child molestation charges, the basketball star Kobe Bryant accused of rape, the legendary record producer Phil Spector indicted for murder — but the kookiest, darkest, most grimly compelling court case in America may well be one that is receiving almost no media attention at all.
This week, a jury in Martinez, a small town outside San Francisco, will retire to consider the bizarre, brutally violent cult surrounding one Glenn Taylor Helzer, a lapsed Mormon accused of bludgeoning and dismembering five people in an elaborate extortion racket intended to hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Helzer, a former stockbroker who has already pleaded guilty and faces the death penalty, exerted a charismatic hold over an eclectic group of followers including his younger brother, a former girlfriend turned Playboy centrefold model, and a self-describedContinue reading "Mormon Assassination Plot and the Ones That Didn't Get Away"good witchwho once offered to raise money for Armageddon by appearing in porn films.
Ghana: Two 'witches' have appeared in court on charges of assault, after they had a disagreement over a human body they were eating.
Prosecuting, Police Inspector K. Kpoafa told the court presided over by Mr Jacob Boon that in March 2004, a former policeman accompanied [Adwoa] Fosuaa and reported that Vida [Tiwaah] claimed she is a witch and that Fosuaa is also a witch and that they had moved together spiritually to practice their witchcraft.
He said the police was told that Fosuaa is alleged to have killed her sister through witchcraft and shared the meat with Vida, adding Vida claimed that she had repented and no longer practices witchcraft and therefore, wanted to return the meat to Fosuaa.
Inspector Kpoafa said because the ex-policeman wanted to make a formal complaint against Vida for disgracing Fosuaa who was his niece, however, he was told that police could not investigate such a spiritual case. Fosuaa and Oti Awere were advised to institute civil suit against Vida, but they did not heed to the advice, but rather resorted to casting insinuations as well as insults against Vida, which generated into a family feud with Vida on one side against Fosuaa and Awere on the other. Inspector Kpoafa said on April 29, Vida met Fosuaa and told her that since she had refused to come for the meat, they had to resort to physical means to resolve the issue.
The two allegedly began fighting at this point. Two witches clash over human flesh. - GhanaWeb, 31st May 2004.
United States: Half of a grant given to a town to combat goth
has had to be returned because, surprise surprise, there was no problem to begin with.
But $132,000 of the grant was returned because officials never found much of a problem with the Goth culture, which some students called a fad that most people eventually outgrow.
Slightly more than $118,000 of the money was earmarked for therapy, assessment and case management, and the plans also included a series of town meetings to discuss the issue.
It never happened because referring someone for looking, acting Goth is not a concept that ever got imbedded in people's heads,project manager Allyce Ford said of the therapy proposal.
No news as to whether the cash will now be used to provide therapy for the bigots who though it was a good idea to begin with. $132K of Grant to Combat Goth Returned—Associated Press (via Yahoo! News), 21st May 2004.
United States: P.Z. Myers has found a stunning explanation for the atrocites committed at Abu Ghraib. According to creationists Answers in Genesis, it's because the majority don't take the conflicting creation accounts in Genesis literally.
We puzzle over how 'nice' people can so trivialize human life, sexuality and suffering in Abu Ghraib, yet we have let our culture tell these same people that they--and their captives--are just evolved animals, randomly reorganized pond scum.
Somehow I doubt Answers in Genesis are radical vegans, despite what it says at Genesis 1:29.
Former Conservative government minister Norman Tebbit has declared that an excellent form of aerobic exercise makes you fat. He was invited onto BBC Radio 4's Today programme to discuss the problem of obesity in the UK, and instead launched into a homphobic tirade.
The root cause of this problem, like a number of others, is the break down in family life,he said, arguing that familiesdon't so often eat togetherand thatwives are virtually pressurised into feeling they ought to go to work instead of looking after their children.
He said this decline in family life was due to the current government, which he accused of doingeverything it can to promote buggery.
Fellow Tory, the slimline Boris Johnson, was quick to disagree: I don't think you can say gay marriage is the root cause of obesity
.
Tebbit: buggery to blame for obesity crisis - Gay.com News, 27th May 2004.
Kenya: A 15-year-old boy has died after God ignored the prayers of his parents, who had allegedly locked him in a room for six weeks rather than seek medical attention.
The parents belong to the Kavonokia religious sect. Members of the sect do not subscribe to modern medicine but believe in prayers to heal the sick.
Police said his body bore signs of abuse, and the parents were due in court today to explain why action should not be taken against them. Neglected boy, 15, dies - East African Standard, 20th May 2004 (via AllAfrica.com).
United Sates: A Virginia woman has been sent to prison after God told her to pester the staff at a car dealership.
Cole testified earlier this year that she knew she had been ordered to stay away from the car dealership. But she insisted that God ordered her to go there. Cole said she was never rude to employees.
She said that God insisted they give her a free vehicle. Woman Who Claimed God Sent Her Gets Jail Time - ABC 7 News, 18th May 2004 (via Religion News Blog).
United Kingdom: The Web-based Church of Fools, an online role playing game that encourages members to part with donations for the collection plate (just like the real thing), is having trouble with some virtual parishioners.
The world's first Internet church has fallen victim to a plague of virtual demons, some of whom have been logging on as Satan and unleashing strings of expletives during sermons.Continue reading "Virtual Devils Curse Internet Church"
Bahrain: In case you thought it was only Christian fundies who make up scare stories, the Gulf Daily News reports on the claims of Islamic Enlightenment Society president Shaikh Saeed Al Noori, who is worried that there might be more than 100 Satanists in the country:
This has allowed many to take advantage of our division and everyone knows that Satanism is on the rise with 140 members currently a part of the Bahrain group.
If not stopped soon more will join and the damage will hit the community as a whole.
The Muslim loons have had a few hundred fewer years to perfect their scaremongering, and so did not specify what the alleged Satanists got up to that was so terrifying. On a positive note, Shaikh Saeed's speech was a call for Sunni and Shi'ite to actually get on with one another, although only to gang up on an imaginary enemy. Satanism 'on the rise' - Gulf Daily News, 17th May 2004.
Australia: After mediation, the Pagan Awareness Network has dropped its case against Mayor Rob Wilson, and according to the resulting statement, the newspapers have been exaggerating his statements somewhat.
Cr Wilson was incorrectly reported in the Cranbourne Leader on 11 June 2003 as saying that the Casey Pastor's Network should pray against the forces of evil. He did not say this. He asked Casey's church leaders to consider a day of prayer.
He does not believe he made the following statement reported in the Dandenong Journal of 30 June 2003:
Many people and groups... want to set up in Casey. Do Casey families want groups like these, who promote evil, to be part of our community?
The Pagan Awareness Network plans to get on with more important stuff now, such as organising a Full Moon ritual in Casey.
In view of Cr Wilson's statement that he did not intend his comments to incite fear or hatred, PAN Inc has decided to adopt the 'Wilson' approach towards his June 2nd, 2003 media release naming Olivia Watts... 'People can work it out for themselves.'
None of this affects the case relating to the alleged religious vilification of Olivia Watts, which involves separate issues and continues. Mayor does deal with Pagans -- but must still face Witch Olivia (PDF) - Pagan Awareness Network Inc. Media Release, 14th May 2004; Mayor spared a hex debt - Herald Sun, 15th May 2004; see also He knows so much about these things - Pagan Prattle, 10th May 2004; This charming man - Pagan Prattle, 21st August 2003; This charming man (update) - Pagan Prattle, 27th December 2003.
India: A man has allegedly murdered his three-month-old daughter because the timing of her birth was inauspicious.
Nagesh of Dudda village and Radha of Nidudi village in Hassan taluk were married a year and a half ago. Nagesh had met an astrologer to know the future prospects of his daughter, but was told that he would have to face many difficulties. A worried Nagesh decided to kill the child.
He went to Nidudi where Radha was staying with her parents after delivery and injected the baby with a syringe filled with poison when there was no one in the room.
Man kills daughter for better future - Newindpress, 14th May 2004.
Australia: A transexual Wiccan woman has decided to test out Victoria's religious tolerance legislation and is suing the local mayor who ran a vendetta against her on local radio.
Cr Wilson first threw a cat among the Wiccans last June when he blamed a series of council embarrassments on diabolical intervention. He said there was aSatanic cult out to take over Caseyand the council's toils and troubles hadall the hallmarks of being linked to the occult.
He hit the local community airwaves and outed Ms Watts, who had unsuccessfully run for council, as a witch.
As she has been unable to work due to the distress caused, she qualifies for Legal Aid, which is expected to be worth around $15,000 (£5,848/€8,759). Tony Parsons, of Victoria Legal Aid, considers it money well spent:
Victoria Legal Aid does not fund three-ring circuses. (We have) a long and very worthwhile history of identifying and backing cases where there are areas of the law that need to be tested or explored,Mr Parsons said.
The Pagan Awareness Network is also suing, and Attorney-General Rob Hulls is on their side. Encouraging them to file their complaint, he wrote: We govern for all Victorians -- and that includes witches, magicians and sorcerers
. So maybe the Courier-Mail ought to have been a little bit more careful when they described Olivia Watts as a black magic woman
?
Civic row bubbles into legal toil and trouble - The Courier-Mail, 11th May 2004. See also Witch Hunt in Victoria - Pagan Awareness Network (timeline, and donation button); The Casey Witch Trials - a web site dedicated to the case; This charming man - Pagan Prattle, 21st August 2003; This charming man (update) - Pagan Prattle, 27th December 2003.
Canada: A judge has convicted a 23-year-old man of murder after rejecting his insanity plea. Joseph Jason Chamberlain's defense lawyer called a number of witnesses to testify on the state of his client's mental health:
One doctor said Chamberlain claimed to hear voices -- orpsychic powers-- that drove him to kill Burn after convincing him she was somehow responsible for his anguished mental state.
Chamberlain also said the voices told him he was a member of the Royal Family and ordered him to eat human flesh -- claims which raised red flags with another psychiatrist who suspected him ofmalingering,or feigning his illness.
The judge, Queen's Bench Justice John Scurfield, appears to agree with this psychiatrist and told the court Mr. Chamberlain is outright malingering or, more likely, deliberately exaggerating a pre-existing mental disorder in order to benefit from a not criminally responsible defence.
No defence for murder. Man feigned insanity, says judge - The Winnipeg Sun, 8th May 2004.
Sweden: One of Sweden's top TV stars has turned down the opportunity to interview Ozzy Osbourne because he is the unofficial Prince of Darkness
. Rickard Sjöberg felt uncomfortable with Osbourne's married-with-children lifestyle. No, that can't be right...
To me, Ozzy is so strongly associated with a questionable lifestyle, Satanism and evil messages that I felt I couldn't do the job justice considering the format of these interviews. It would have just strengthened his position,Sjöberg told the newspaper Aftonbladet.
The presenter claims to be a Christian, and that even non-alcoholic beer makes him vomit. Swedish TV Star Refuses To Interview OZZY Due To OSBOURNE's 'Questionable' Lifestyle - Blabbermouth, 2nd may 2004.
Iraq: A rise of religious fundamentalism is terrorising the Iraqi academic community.
After Saddam Hussein's overthrow, university president Taher al-Bakaa gathered his staff, and promised them a university free from oppression and fear. But recently a dispute between a Sunni professor and a group of Shiite students turned into a demonstration that closed the campus for three days. Now, Dr. Bakaa says, religious factions are hijacking the university, and he fears for his life.
If we let the parties interfere with the universities, it will be a bloody situation,says Al Bakaa.Many people are in such fear they are giving up their post, including me. I am in danger.
A rise of religious fundamentalism is terrorizing the Iraqi academic community, and threatening to roll back the gains in academic freedom made by university presidents and their advisers from the United States since the end of the war.Continue reading "Fundamentalists Rush In"
United States: Jimmy Breslin ponders that more people don't find Bush's avowal of conversations with his invisible friend a sign of madness. He has his own chat with an invisible friend to clear things up.
For a year now, our temporal authorities have tried to keep all signs of war dead out of our sight. Act like nobody dies. God is on our side and none of us die. Suddenly, pictures of many coffins with flags on them were published. The country reeled. The president's people said this was a terrible thing, using dead bodies to let the country see that the war is real. God is on our side. You cannot show pictures of the new dead. One of their cheap yes-men, publisher Rupert Murdoch, did not print the picture in his New York Post newspaper, nor allow it on his Fox television network. Thus committing the one most blatant fraud we have had in decades of news in America. Deny it if you can.
All this comes out of a religious crisis in this nation. We have a president who says he talks to God. When he was asked if he had gone to his father to discuss starting the invasion in Iraq, George Bush said, no, I talked to a higher father. What he was saying is that God personally told him it was all right to send our soldiers into Iraq and start the War of the Children.
I can't believe that Bush is so dumb that he thinks he actually talks to God.Continue reading "My Invisible Friend's Better Than Your Invisible Friend"
United States: The Socastee Original Freewill Baptist Church in Myrtle Beach has a nice, friendly sign outside:
If perverts and liberals can flood the news with homosexual mess - I can say this - they will burn in hell.Romans 1:32.
Church sign reveals unfortunate bigotry - The Sun News, 26th April 2004 (via Internet Infidels Newswire).
South Africa: Rape is a serious crime which carries a heavy sentence most places. But police have so far failed to catch the naked man who ambushes women fetching water from the wells around Moletjie village, and the locals are getting frustrated. One has even gone so far as to use mythology to justify the violent urges stemming from his frustration:
That we have failed to get this man does not mean we intend to forget about him,said community member Eckson Maile...
If we catch him before police do, we'll cut off his penis, because the Bible says if a part in a human being is troublesome, it should be cut off,said Maile.
Cthulhu offers a special service for the extraction of dysfunctional brains... Naked rapist on the loose - News 24, 26th April 2004.
South Africa: It's common knowledge that young men are never violent. So, in the case of a 16-year-old who allegedly stabbed his mother 21 times after an argument, it must be because he has a single book on Satanism, and not because he is either suffering from a mental illness, or simply a vicious thug. The police don't explain why a Satanist would bother to confess his crime to a Christian priest. Satanism link probed in mom's brutal murder - IOL, 22nd April 2004.
Northern Ireland: A fire which devastated North Street Arcade in Belfast city centre is being treated as suspicious.
Forensic scientists who have been examining the North Street Arcade on Monday are understood to have concerns about the cause of the blaze.
The arcade, a delightful though somewhat run-down 1930s structure, was home to a number of alternative and arts-based business, including Labyrinth, a small and friendly occult shop. It also included a second-hand bookshop,the upstairs room of which was the motherlode o