What is it about Christians and sex? Really...

Apologies to everyone for being a bit behind with blog postings these days. Russell Blackford and I are busily working away on our next book. It's going to be a follow-up to our popular 50 Voices of Disbelief - Why We Are Atheists. You can buy it now (other than in English) also in Polish, Korean and Spanish editions, if you feel so inclined. I understand that North Koreans won't be able to get their hands on the book because there is no picture of Kim Il Sung on the cover. My bad, should have thought of that :-). Anyhow, so we're close to completing the manuscript of a book tentatively called  50 Great Myths About Atheism. 

It is no secret that I am an atheist, and a gay one to boot, so there's no news in me having little time or patience for Christianity, Islam and whatever other religious this-n-that that has been invented by humans many centuries ago. I would not mind if god people went about their own business, praised their god in their houses of worship or at home and left it at that, but they don't seem to be able to stay out of OTHER people's lives. They just can't. It's not how they roll!

What truly drives me against the wall at the moment is aggressive campaigning by the Roman Catholic Church against marriage equality in the US and also the UK. In the UK, the Roman Catholic Church is now taking its campaign into its schools (taxpayer funded, that goes without saying, the Catholic Church wants maximum ideological influence in state affairs, but it hates paying for the privilege). Faith schools, of course, are a contradiction in terms. It's a bit like suggesting that there could be communist, capitalist, scientologist or any other ideological schools, as if there was more than one empirical reality to be taught. Now, IF that organisation was a beacon of morality and its senior management staff were known to abide by the Church's teachings all the time, I would still disagree with them, but there would be at least some begrudging respect from me for their consistency. The thing is, not a day goes by without further revelations of Cardinals (ie very senior Church management folks running around in usually wonderfully camp dresses - well, if you're into that sort of thing) protecting pedophiles amongst their staff (priests and upward) from state prosecution. They didn't even bother warning parents who mistakenly left their children in Church hands about the impending danger.  Really, I kid you not, they did not!

These same people think nothing of it to tell secular societies today how they should legislate in matters marriage. Old guys who never managed to hold a stable relationship with another human being in their lives - really? Old guys who count large numbers of pedophiles among their ranks lecture us - really? Do you, Roman Catholic Church, really have no shame at all?  On what grounds - really - do you claim competence in matters ethics or actual worldly life?

If you think, by the way, this was just a Catholic phenomenon... here's a Baptist preacher advising his congregation to beat up their kids, crack their wrists even, if they are suspicious the kids might be gay.

If you feel like reading up on Christianity's crimes throughout its history, you might want to take a closer look at learning German and reading Karlheinz Deschner's 10 (!) volume Criminal History of Christianity. It'll be well worth your time, and you likely will be even more reluctant to listen to Catholic clergy going on about morality.

The Catholic Church and its Sex Abuse Scandals

You might think, 'oi wei, there he goes again', but seriously, the ever-growing sex scandal in the Roman Catholic Church is surely something to savor by any atheist. Not because we wouldn't feel sorry for the children who have been abused sexually and otherwise by what amounts to thousands of priests who were supposed to look after them in some role or other. One has every reason to feel sorry for them. Equally though, this IS another case of 'we told you so'.

I don't want to dwell too much on the horrific abuse that has (and probably still is) taken place, tempting as it is to recount some of the more salacious details. Here's the real problem for an organization that relies on people buying into lots of bizarre stuff in order exercise power over people's lives directly and indirectly. Just recall how the Catholic bishops in the US tried hard to kill health care reform in the US just a week ago, playing against the 'ethics' and 'morals' card. Remarkably that this bunch of discredited old men still dare to talk to us about morality. It is clear that senior management of the Church the world all over (and including the organization's CEO, its current Pope) have worked day and night to conceal the abuse and have worked day and night to protect its raping and beating staff from being prosecuted by the state. Says British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, "In a 2001 edict to Catholic Bishops worldwide, the Pope ordered a cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy. He failed to ensure that priests who raped and sexually abused young people were reported to the police. This is why he is not welcome in the UK and why we object to him being honoured with a State Visit in September, especially a State Visit that is being funded by the taxpayer."

Makes you wonder, even if you hold the organization not in as much disdain as I do, why would the Church do this?

The answer, I think, is actually quite simple: Part of the Catholic fairy tale is that the Pope and his staff are representatives of God on earth. You know people us mere mortals are meant to look up to for guidance. Surely an omnipotent, omniscient and good God would not allow his own local reps to engage in such sort of perverted behaviors, especially not in such large numbers. At least that's what most sane people, believers and atheists, would have to wonder. It's one thing for them to say that God ain't interfering with what mere mortals are doing on earth, that he's given us autonomy to live our own lives and so on and so forth. Fair enough, but that surely doesn't explain why God's own reps engage in such reprehensible stuff and God does nothing. If, on the other hand God's reps are in those crucial respects no different to the rest of us, we have every reason to ask why we should trust their advice on matter ethics anymore than the next person in the street. I suspect actually that priests ARE more likely to engage in such aberrant sexual activities due to the celibacy related hypocrisy, but that's another story.

This then is the reason, I think, for why the Church has gone out of its way to keep the abuse under wraps, even if that meant to protect child abusing staff members from prosecution. Of course, this permitted many of the child abusers to continue their abuse for decades. It is clear then that the Church, in order to uphold the fiction of Gods reps on earth, did not hesitate to protect child abusing staff the world all over.

So, my advice to employees of the cult of misery: cease and desist to engage in any further attempts at influencing public policy in areas of reproductive health or any other matter. You are in no situation, credibly, to claim special moral insights and competence.

As to my fellow atheists out there: indeed, there is no God that's omniscient, omnipotent and good. Otherwise, no doubt, today's latest scandal in the ongoing saga would also not have happened. God would not have permitted a Roman Catholic priest to abuse 200 deaf boys sexually and get full cover from the church hierarchy (I do mean the Vatican). It is that simple.

Another murder aimed at furthering the 'pro-life' agenda

It had to happen, the pro-life affirming loonies in the USA have taken yet another person's life. George Tiller, MD, a medical doctor specialising in reproductive health services, including medically indicated late-term abortions, was gunned down outside a church service in his home town. I'm probably as shocked about this killing as most reality based people. However, there's a deeper issue about this, at least to my mind.

The religious ideologies that triggered the murder of Tiller (and, in the past, others like him) want their adherents to subscribe to the view that from the moment of biological conception (marriage and all, you know the drill) the developing embryonic cell mass is of infinite value and should be treated as if it was a person. Well, persons - all other things being equal - are usually seen to have a right to life. At a minimum this is understood as a negative right, ie I must not interfere with such a person's right to life (by way of killing that person).

Let me be clear: I do think the view that something that has no central nervous system, that has no capacity to suffer, and that has no higher brain function has a right to life, makes no sense at all. What harm could possibly have been done to such a thing if it is destroyed? None at all, at least as far as I can see. It is for that reason that I reject the idea that we should treat the developing embryonic cell mass from the moment of conception as if it was a person. After all, it isn't a person, so why bother? It's a bit like saying that I should treat the leader of the opposition as if she was the leader of government. She might have the potential to be the next leader of government, but right now she is not. I surely cannot smuggle the right to be treated as if you were the leader of government into the potential to become the leader of government. A lot of potential things never eventuate (eg my potential to be an astronaut will not ever be realised).

However, and here is where I am troubled about this matter. IF someone really holds the barmy view that the embryonic cell mass after conception is infinitely valuable and should be treated as if it was a person from that moment onwards, it is only logical that you consider abortions murder. In turn it is perfectly reasonable for such a person to treat abortion providing health care professionals as if they were murderers. Surely it is not unreasonable (from such a person's perspective) to try to prevent further murders from happening. Ergo it should not come as a big surprise that Doctor Tiller was murdered by a 'good citizen' trying to prevent further murders at the hands of the good doctor.

So, the pro-life crowd's handwaving along the lines that the murderer is not one of theirs, makes not much sense. The ideology they propagate leads, to my mind inevitably so, to the killing of people like Tiller. Freedom of speech seemingly covers Catholic propaganda ministers freedom to spout lies about a supposedly ongoing 'genocide', whereby the deliberately and mistakenly refer to blobs of cells as 'children'. IF you really believe that propaganda, surely it's not unreasonable to conclude that in order to stop the genocide the perpetrators of the genocide must be stopped. Killing one person (eg Dr Tiller) is clearly seen by some of those on the pro-life side as the lesser of two evils. They are only able to reach this conclusion, however, because the church hierarchy continues to propagate outrageous nonsense about 'genocide' and 'holocaust' and whatnot when it comes to abortion. This is where the blame for Tiller's murder as well as that of others like him squarely belongs. You shouldn't be too surprised if some people at least do actually fall for your agitprop.

Cult of Misery Latest: Pope Delivers Annual Message of Hate

The famously dress wearing Pope, in an early release of his annual message of hate to the world, declared today that stopping homosexual behaviour is as important as stopping the destruction of the rain forest. The BBC News, in a remarkable display of analytical insight and critical thinking skills noted that the Pope hadn't referred to homosexuals as 'sinners'. Strangely, the BBC News didn't note that the Pope might be in need of professional psychological help to deal with his homophobia. Strangely, nobody of the usual politically correct crowd insisted that anti-hate speech legislation be properly applied and the Pope and/or his senior executives be prosecuted.

Happy hol's everyone. I'm away till early January trying to escape Xmas (not an easy task...).