Musings of a free mind...

Another religious contradiction? Surely not!

BBC news reported Monday that Pope Benedict  XVI told a meeting of bishops that the pursuit of money and wealth is pointless.

He says that the current financial crisis is proof of this.  That the banking institutions going under, being nationalised or taken over are proof of this.

And here's the catch:  He says that instead of pursuing wealth, people should base their lives on God's word.  But, as the spokesman for God, wouldn't that effectively mean people would be basing their lives on what he, the Pope, says?

I agree that people SOLELY shouldn't pursue wealth, but ol' Benedict here is being a bit of a hypocrite.  Take a look at his shiny, expensive looking hat:

Oh, and the current economic climate isn't "proof" that people shouldn't pursue wealth and should, instead, pursue God.  It's proof that, as a collective of thinking, free-minded individuals, society as a whole is undergoing evolution.

We're adapting to change as time moves forward.  Unlike religion.

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The fundamental problem.

Fundamental Christian America strikes again with another instance of logic and reason-defying stupidity.

'Gospel Today' magazine has been pulled from public display from more than 100 Lifeway Christian bookstores in the USA.  "Why?"  You might ask.  Well, it turns out that this month's issue has a picture of 5 female pastors on the front cover.  Obviously this is unacceptable.

The Southern Baptist Convention owns the bookstores and has pulled the magazine from display because female pators are "contrary to what we believe."

I despair at the USA every time religious stories like these rear their ugly head.  It just serves as a reminder of how backwards, judgemental and discriminatory the worlds largest superpower is.

I was under the impression that God loved all as equal?  If that's the case, I'm sure it wouldn't mind a few female preachers.  In fact, I KNOW it wouldn't.  Because, if God exists, it would be very SANE and LOGICAL.  Don't you see?

It's another case of a few male chauvinists at the top who are scared of losing their position of power to women.  This is a man-made issue, not an issue of the divine.

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Terrorisn't.

Ansyaad Mbai, Indonesia's head of counter-terrorism, has today claimed that the West has taken the wrong approach in 'the war against terror' and that it, in fact, makes the fight more difficult.

He says that the all out aggressive approach (that'll be invading Middle-Eastern countries) makes it harder for morderate Muslims to tackle terror in their own countries.  He says that this imperial approach by the U.S has left Muslims feel like the whole thing is an attack against Islam.

Don't get me wrong here, I agree with him entirely.  But he's missing the point.  He's assumed that the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan is actually part of a 'war against terrorism'.

Of course it isn't.  It's a front for America to further its economic interests and put a financial strangehold on the rather lucrative, oil-rich Middle-East.

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Get over it, homophobe.

I just read a news story on 9news that was so ridiculous it made me laugh.

An Ohio church displayed on its public message board, a message that read:  "I kissed a girl and I liked it, then I went to Hell."

The message was a reference to the pop song 'I Kissed A Girl' by Katy Perry and, according to Pastor David Allison, it was a loving way to remind young people that the Bible denounces homosexuality.

What about the things that the Bible advocates?  Like genocide, infanticide and slavery.  Why do the higher clergy always get up in arms about homosexuality which is, let's not forget, a personal choice that affects no-one else but the consenting indivduals involved?

Pastor Allison also said the music video for the song was so suggestive that it borders pornography.

So?

At what point did sexual thinking become a bad thing?  Without it none of us would be here today.  That's right, there's nothing wrong with sexual thinking, it's just the Church with it's head so far up it's own arse (as usual) that it's getting all morally confused again.

I bet the Church could do something good and productive in this world if it focused on things that actually mattered.

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Catholicism: It's all me, me, me.

I thought without internet access I'd be without material to blog about.  Luckily you can always rely on the Pope and some hardcore catholics for a bit of irrational thinking, blog-fodder.

I'm sitting here in the library of my university trying to get Virgin Media to install internet into my new house, when I stumble across a story on Yahoo (UK) news.  In a nutshell, a now dead German artist created a sculpture of a green frog, up on the cross, holding a beer mug in one hand and an egg in the other.  Despite the obvious religious connection, I must admit that the first thing that occurred to me was that the frog was able to grasp things in his nailed hands.  Clearly a feat that Jesus wasn't capable of.  Pussy.  You've gotta work through the pain, man.

Anyway, I'm not here to have a go at Jesus, I'm sure he was a good chap, and he was definitely a great magician.  No, I'm here to have a go at the Pope.

His Holy-Popeness is up in arms (nailed ones?) at this sculpture, claiming it's offensive.  One of his representatives, Franz Pahl is president of the regional government that opposes the sculpture.  He went to the lengths of hunger-strike over the summer in a bid to get it removed.  His faith clearly didn't allow him the strength to follow through with this threat as he was taken to hospital and has subsequently recovered.  He's now threatening to step down as president of the regional government.  Isn't this obvious?  Let him!  The last thing anyone needs is some guy being president of anything if their judgement is so obviously blinded by religious dogma and superstition.  It's like a mini version of the Bush administration.

But here's what annoyed me most about this story:  The catholics involved are making a massive assumption that the sculpture is some kind of anti-God statement.  It's not.  The artist said himself that the sculpture represented a self-portait of human angst.

Doesn't catholicism remind you of that annoying guy in the workplace who always thinks you're talking about him?  The one who tries to get in on every conversation because he's so 'holier-than-thou' (excuse the pun) that you MUST be talking about him.  Pull your head out of your own arse, grow up and, please, go away.

Finally, even IF the sculpture was deliberately having a go at the catholic belief system, that doesn't make it wrong.  Offensive, yes, but not wrong.  I find things offensive every day, as do most people, but that doesn't mean I should be able to just click my fingers and make it go away.  It's called Freedom of Expression.  And it's beautiful.

Just because religion's involved doesn't mean it should be afforded more respect than any other belief system.  After all, if you're insulting God, so what?  Remember, I'm pretty sure he can look after himself.

I must credit the artist who created this sculpture.  Without him I would never have been able to write this blog post.  But, more importantly, without him so many catholics would not be upset right now.  Ladies and gentlemen:  Martin Kippenberger.

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Annoying Bible verse of the day...

Ok, so I'm not going to do this every day, but this one annoyed me enough to post it.

I was just reading through some other blogs when I came across this proudly displayed verse:

ROM 8:28 "We know that in all things God works for good with those who love Him, those whom He has called according to His purpose."

(Yes, in the interests of grammar I'm sticking with the convention of capitalising the pronouns of our imaginary friend.)

These Christians aren't doing their God any favours here.  Surely God is above the petty jealousy of only working for good those who love him?  What about other good people who don't believe or follow Him?  I guess God just ignores them.  As the great Bill Hicks said:  "No, you're WRONG.  Because God would be very sane.  Don't you see?" 

Once again I feel compelled to state that the Bible is JUST A BOOK.  A self-prophecised 'gospel' adapted by various men and women (although mostly men) over the centuries.  By this fact alone, IF it ever was the word of God, it certainly isn't anymore.  So, please, don't live your lives by those verses, the very idea people do is a very worrying thought indeed.

And, to finish, the famous quote:  "If God exists, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion." - Edmond de Goncourt

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Oh the irony!

So I loaded up my blog just now and discovered, much to my horror, that my Google adSense advertisment had thrown up an ad telling me to preach the Catholic gospel!

If you ignore the bad grammar, (add in a comma) it also tells you to buy shirts and hoodies.  Catholic hoodies!  Since when have the Church been bothered about selling clothing?  Do they want you to endorse them like yo do your favourite sports team?  GO SATAN!  I mean, Jesus.

Maybe God's punishing me for my anti-faith posts recently.  After all, who'd seriously click on an advert to buy a Catholic hoodie?

I think I need to tweak my adSense settings.

Confused 'Pro-Lifers'.

I should really stay away from myLot.  I was there again earlier when I ended up debating abortion.  Always a hot topic, huh?

This was no ordinary debate, though.  Normally you get the Pro-Lifers telling you that abortion is the most terrible sin, (these guys are usually Christian, I should add) and then you get the Pro-Choice side of the argument which, well, is self explanatory.

The strange thing about the argument this time around was that the topic of the death penalty got introduced and everything went crazy.  A vast, vast (i'll say that again, VAST) majority of the Pro-Life side of the argument were FOR the death penalty.  Does that make sense to you?  Isn't that contradictory by definition?  Yes.  Yes it is.  How can you be 'PRO' life, and in the same instance, 'PRO' death?

They argued that an aborted foetus has done nothing wrong and so deserves to live, whereas a criminal has (probably) done something horrible and thus deserves to die.  Fair point, but couldn't you also argue that the criminal is a human being who, despite their crime, has the capacity to feel, think and experience emotion.  A foetus without a central nervous system cannot experience pain and certainly cannot think and experience emotions.

If you're willing to put another feeling, thinking human being to death, regardless of who they are, you should also be willing to allow a feeling, thinking woman the right to choose how a pregnancy will affect her life.

The Priority of Faith

Sarika Singh, a Sihk teenager from South Wales won her High Court fight today to overturn her suspension from school for wearing a steel bracelet, a symbol of her faith.  The school had suspended her claiming that the bracelet violated their no jewellery policy, which allowed only watches and ear studs.

I personally couldn't care less what any individual decides to wear, and I think they should be allowed to do so freely.  My concern here is that the decision to overturn her suspension was made on religious grounds.  Of course she should be allowed to wear her bracelet, but the fact that the only reason the suspension was overturned is because of faith angers me.  It's yet another case of religion getting special treatment.  Why should faith deserve more respect than any other system of belief?  It shouldn't, but it consistently receives it.

Imagine if she had argued that she needed to wear the bracelet as she was a devout supporter of the Labour party and it symbolised her faith in Gordon Brown.  (Ridiculous concept, I know.  Like anyone has faith in that guy.)  She'd have been laughed at.  But it's the same principle, so why do we so readily accept religious faith as a basis for breaking the rules?

We're never going to evolve and develop into a society of rational, thoughtful people if faith is constantly excused from rational behaviour.  Come on people, lets grow up.

He isn't God.

I ended up arguing with a Christian today.  Again.  I was commenting on a discussion on myLot so kindly titled:  "I Love GOD! i love Christians, Muslims n Jews! but i hate atheists!"  (You can instantly feel the Christian compassion.)  This time it ended up being more of a 'splitting hairs' argument, rather than an argument based around a fundamental belief.  In a nut-shell, I got annoyed at the constant references to God's apparently male gender.

I refuse to refer to God as 'Him', as all Christians seem to do (even though it's much easier to refer to it in that way) because I just don't see how gender is relevant to God.  The references to God being male are what's left over from an ancient book that was written in times when sexism was prevalent and women were considered second-class citizens.  By the reasoning of the time it was incomprehensible that God could be female.  The only other option, apparently, was male.

If God exists, isn't it far more likely that it's not gender specific?  How could an entity that has always existed have gender?  Gender is surely irrelevant.  Many Christians seem so sure that their God is male, and they continue to refer to it as so, despite the fact that it reduces God's status as a supreme being to do so.  By giving God gender you are implying (in fact, assuming) that it was created, or, that it can pro-create.  This in itself neccessitates the existence of a female God in order to justify the purpose of gender.

Not so unique now, is he?