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Monthly Archives: November 2007

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

Friday, November 30, 2007

“WHAT a wonderful Christian attitude some have,” says a commenter to a Daily Mail story about a priest who has been receiving hate mail.
And why has this member of the clergy been the subject of a hate campaign that has even included what appears to be an arson attack? Because this member of the clergy [...]

Filed in Anglican Communion, General barminess, religious hatred | Comments (0)

Film of the book

Friday, November 30, 2007

THE Dutch politician Geert Wilders is about to stir up another MoToons/MoDog/MoCat/MoBear type of rage (oh, add in Salman Rushdie and Submission) with an under-ten-minute film showing why the Koran is such an evil load of fascist propaganda, used as an inspiration “by bad people to do bad things”.
According to AP and the International Herald [...]

Filed in Islam | Comments (1)

Child abuse rife in madrassas and mosques

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

THE conviction this month of a Manchester Imam who beat an 11-year-old boy with a mop handle for talking during a lesson at a mosque, serves as a timely reminder of the dangers children face in Islamic institutions both in the UK and abroad.
Guhlam Mustapha Hazarvi, 42, dragged the frightened boy into the corner of [...]

Filed in Islam, The Freethinker, faith schools | Comments (6)

Muslim rage erupts over a bear called Mohammed

Monday, November 26, 2007

WE’VE had the Motoons protests, followed by an eruption of fury over the Modogs illustrations, and now followers of the Religious of Perpetual Outrage in the Sudan are making death threats over a teddy bear called Mohammed.
The object of their lastest bout of fury is Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old mother of two from Liverpool, who [...]

Filed in Blasphemy, General barminess, Islam, The Freethinker | Comments (6)

Get it right, damn it – Christmas has NOTHING to do with Christ!

Monday, November 26, 2007

DUNDEE University has been accused of “antagonising Christians” with a forthcoming Christmas lecture that challenges one of the central tenets of the faith.
Second-year dental student Emily Mackie said the university’s decision to call its inaugural Dundee Christmas Lecture “Why Evolution is Right … and Creationism is Wrong” is badly timed and insensitive to Christians.
I call [...]

Filed in General barminess, The Freethinker | Comments (19)

Too, too good

Sunday, November 25, 2007

ONE of religion’s more palatable exponents, South Africa’s likable and genial Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is on the wireless on Tuesday night, having a knock at the Anglican Church and its leadership for its attitudes towards homosexuality.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4, he says the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has failed to demonstrate [...]

Filed in Anglican Communion, gay | Comments (0)

Sunday school was never like this

Sunday, November 25, 2007

NOT all Americans are Bible-totin’, scripture-quotin’, Republican votin’ rednecks who think they have a hotline to Jesus, though you might be excused for harbouring such an image when the right-wing Bible Belters get going.
Indeed, as this story is published during a Sunday morning, a bunch of kids in the USA will soon (we’re allowing for [...]

Filed in Freethinking allowed | Comments (1)

Dangerous materials: children’s story threatens to destroy entire universe

Saturday, November 24, 2007

IT’S just a story. Let’s say it again, louder: it’s just a storr-eeee!
Hmm. Doesn’t seem to have done much good. They’re still obsessing about Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, wondering if it’ll poison the impressionable minds of schoolkids and turn them against God.
To judge by the current brouhaha, you wouldn’t think the first book [...]

Filed in Freethinking allowed, Religion and the arts | Comments (3)

Mea culpa!

Friday, November 23, 2007

A ROMAN Catholic prelate in Canada seems to have felt the need to confess sins – his church’s, though, not his own.
He’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who is Archbishop of Quebec City and Primate of Canada. According to a story in the Globe and Mail, he has “admitted that some Catholics’ narrow-minded attitudes in the past [...]

Filed in Catholic Church | Comments (0)

Christian Voice: Some Pertinent Questions

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

STEPHEN Green’s efforts in the Administrative Court this week to bring a private prosecution for the common-law offence of blasphemous libel against Jerry Springer: the Opera, prompted one blogger to do a little digging into Green’s egregious little outfit, Christian Voice.
And his investigation seems to confirm something we had always suspected: CV is a one-man [...]

Filed in Blasphemy | Comments (2)