America's True History of Religious Tolerance

Wading into the controversy surrounding an Islamic center planned for a site near New York City’s Ground Zero memorial this past August, President Obama declared: “This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are.” In doing so, he paid homage to a vision that politicians and preachers have extolled for more than two centuries—that America historically has been a place of religious tolerance. It was a sentiment George Washington voiced shortly after taking the oath of office just a few blocks from Ground Zero.

But is it so?

Read more . . .

A good look at the actual history of religious tolerance. 

Gay Suicide Link Dump

Just wanted to put this out here.  Homosexuality is a "sin" that most religions hate.  The attitudes of parents and the filth spewed by ministers, far too many of which are secretly gay or sexually abuse boys, is to blame. 

Teenager Justin Aaberg Killed Himself Over Gay Bullying.
Parents say bullies drove their son to take his life 
Bullied Tehachapi gay teen Seth Walsh dies after suicide attempt
Rutgers student Tyler Clementi's suicide spurs action across U.S.
Gay 19-yr-old kills self after anti-gay city council meeting   (Probably a coincidence: 4.3 magnitude earthquake shakes Oklahoma

Haters gonna hate

Library card protest over witchcraft 

A Wairarapa Christian minister is crusading against what he says is Masonic paganism by renouncing his library card.

John Cromarty, of St David's Church in Carterton, objects to a Masonic Lodge being used as a temporary library because he says the group is connected to witchcraft, the Wairarapa Times-Age reports.

In a letter to Carterton Mayor Gary McPhee, Mr Cromarty said he and his wife had handed in their library cards and were asking their friends not to visit the lodge, which was housing the town's books while a new events centre was built.

He said while Freemasonry did some good in the community and portrayed a facade of being compatible with Christianity, its foundations were rooted in witchcraft and paganism.

A past master and a Freemason of the lodge, Warwick Cashmore, said Mr Cromarty's attitude was extremely disappointing.

"The basic tenants of freemasonry are brotherly love, relief, and truth," he said.

From Stuff.co.nz

How silly is this?  First of all, the roots of Freemasonry are in Catholicism.  Second, hasn't he read his damned book?  A tree will be known by its fruit.  I guess at least he isn't trying to ban books or burn the Masonic Hall down.

Religion in the News March 27

More public servants could join detox regimen Taxpayer dollars going to pay for Scientology treatments of LEOs exposed to methamphetamine.
U.S. courts allow sex abuse cases against Vatican to proceed in rare legal move We can only hope.
Catholic Order Admits Its Founder Abused Boys Over Decades This is obscene.

Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus have a sword fight

Usually I post pretty grim stuff here. But this is just so funny I have to share:

While preaching is not allowed in Australian public schools, it is apparently fine to replace school counsellors with 'Christian Volunteers' such as Darryl.

A few years ago, the government realised that they could hand over school counselling roles to a willing Christian church without having to pay for the privilege. Now almost half of Australian public schools have a Christian volunteer as a full time member of the school community with parents having no direct control of how much their children are exposed to.

Read more . . .

Be sure to read all of the emails, they are hysterical.

Watch: survivors of abuse point the finger of blame directly at Benedict

The victims are not going to be silenced; it's a house of cards collapsing. Statement by David Clohessy, executive director, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, on the NYT expose of Benedict's involvement in the cover up of pedophile predator priests.

Read more at Pam's Houseblend . . .

We need a world court that can try these people and lock them away forever. The Pope is NOT above the law. If you subscribe to the collection of myths called the Bible, both Christ and Paul are clear that EVERYONE is answerable to secular law while alive. It's in situations like this that I wish religion were real and these baby f***ers would roast in a hell of their own making for eternity.

Church Meeting Sparks Controversy

BARABOO, Wis. -- A church meeting where women weren't allowed to speak is drawing controversy in Baraboo.

Women from St. John's Lutheran Church said they want basic rights and that the lack of those rights is what led to the firing of the school's principal.

The Lutheran school's principal, John Hartwig, was fired on Sunday, mainly because of his beliefs that women should be respected more in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Church, WISC-TV reported.

Read more . . .

Voodoo practitioners shrug off blame for Haitian quake

"Kaaaa! Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka," she screams and stutters, her right arm bent in front of her.

Around her, the other Voodoo worshippers look on, unsurprised but expectant as their ceremony reaches its climactic mid-point. Someone ties a red cloth to her arm, which stops shaking.

In their eyes, she is possessed by a spirit of the dead - one of the 220,000 estimated to have perished in Haiti's January quake perhaps - and is thus, in a way, blessed.

When she picks up a rusty knife and swings clockwise around the room, gulping from a bottle of cherry-flavored alcohol, they do not draw away.

Instead they embrace her, even kiss her. And in that way they are blessed, too.

But for all the fervor and favor being shared in this back-alley corner of Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum that was badly smashed in the quake, the practitioners of Voodoo are feeling under seige.

Read more . . .

Catholic Church 'sect' attack

Lay Catholics have claimed the Pope is "ruining" a Church which is now a corrupt "sect".

Herbert Kohlmaier, the head of the Catholic lay initiative, today (Tues) launched a stinging attack on the Church following controversial comments by ultra-conservative Pastor Gerhard Maria Wagner over the Haiti earthquake which have caused public outrage.

In an interview in Oberösterreichische Nachrichten he said that the Wagner affair was only the tip of the iceberg and that Pope Benedict XVI was "ruining" the Church by trying to lead it back into the past.

Read more . . .

Police: Church hid teen

It's a tale as old as time: A teen defies parents, plots an escape and runs away from home.

The parents of a 14-year-old girl from Brecknock Township experienced all of that last month.

Except their daughter didn't want to walk on the wild side, as many teens do.

She wanted to join a strict, splinter group of the Mennonite church.

Three church members were arrested Wednesday for allegedly concealing the girl from her parents and from police after she ran away from home, with plans to ultimately take her to Kentucky.

In arrest warrant affidavits filed in the case, an unusual tale unfolds of escape plans that were to be burned or destroyed, a middle-of-the-night getaway, a change from modern clothes into Mennonite garb, a hiding place in a chicken coop and a stubborn refusal by church members to hand over the girl.

Read more . . .

Americans Were There to Help, Not Kidnap Haitian Children, Pastor Said

Baptist group members are charged with the trafficking of children.

The U.S. pastor of five of the 10 Americans who are scheduled to appear in a Haitian court today to face child trafficking charges said the missionaries were there to help children, not kidnap them.

"I can assure you that the intent of our group going down there had absolutely nothing to do with kidnapping and everything to do with helping a desperate situation in Haiti," the Rev. Clint Henry, from the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, said on "Good Morning America" today.

The 10 Baptist missionaries said they were attempting to bring 33 Haitian children to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic when they were arrested Friday night at a border crossing.

Read more . . .

Yeah, they would have given them a really good lives and solid lifetime careers as sex workers. Wonder if Swaggart was one of their buyers? Maybe I'm a bit biased. It was Baptists who were serving as foster parents whose son molested my children while I was desperately ill. We'll never know how many of the handicapped children they fostered got the opportunity to service him.

It’s as if they want me executed, says culture chief enduring hate campaign

The letters and emails come in a daily tide. “Filth!” they cry. “Shame on you”; “You are a very sick person”; “The soul that sinneth shall DIE”. For the past six months, the head of Glasgow’s museums and art has been under siege from Christian fundamentalists, who have vowed to oust her from her job.

Dr Bridget McConnell, head of Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG), the £100 million charity in charge of the city’s culture, says she is alarmed by what she describes as a “personal witchhunt” against her.

“It is almost like being phsyically abused,” she said. “You get knocked down by it every day and you pick yourself up, but then you come in the next morning and it happens all over again. It’s attrition.”

Read more . . .

Rabbis hold prayers in besieged Gaza

Four rabbis held the Sabbath prayers in a hotel in Gaza city on Saturday evening to express solidarity with people stranded in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The four rabbis are members of Neturei Karta movement, a Jewish group that doesn't believe in Zionism and insists that Israel doesn't represent Jews.

"I understand the opinions of Palestinians towards Jews," Rabbi Yisrael David Weiss, an American citizen, told Xinhua, adding that "Judaism rejects Zionism and its approach."

It is important to realize that there are many Jews world wide who believe the State of Israel is an abomination.

Uganda Catholic Priests Form New Church

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- Twenty renegade Catholic priests who are either married or want to marry have broken from the mainstream Roman Catholic Church here and formed a new church where celibacy is not required, members said.

The Ugandan government said Thursday it was investigating the breakaway Catholic Apostolic National Church in Uganda and would ban it if found to be illegal. Vatican officials said the priests were now considered ''outside'' the Catholic Church and would likely be excommunicated.

The creation of the splinter church underscored the increasingly vexing problem of enforcing celibacy for Roman Catholic priests in Africa, which has the world's fastest-growing Catholic population but where there have been several cases of priests living openly with women and fathering children.

The Catholic Church really needs to take a serious look at its tradition of celibacy. There is very little Biblical support for, other than the misogynist Saul, and certainly Yeshua never said anything about it. It's no leap to attribute the forced celibacy of the priests to the perversions that are practiced by them.