Ok, so is the Catholic church an intrinsically immoral institution? I say it is, and Minow in a comment on Poland’s AG has received files says it isn’t. So let’s discuss that.

I say it is, because it is a powerful but wholly unaccountable institution which tries to impose its dogmatic rules on everyone. It’s authoritarian, and it’s officially all-male. The source of its power and authority is its imaginary relationship to an imaginary god.

Those features taken together are enough on their own to make it an intrinsically immoral institution. It bosses people, on the basis of an invisible unaccountable god, and it answers to no one. That’s a god-based dictatorship, and that’s intrinsically immoral. It excludes half of humanity from even the possibility of sharing its power, and that’s intrinsically immoral. [Read more…]

A Polish friend tells me that the Catholic church in Poland is about to get slammed with its very own child abuse scandal.

There’s this place called the Dominican Republic, see…

Poland’s attorney general has received investigation files concerning two Polish clerics accused of child abuse in the Dominican Republic.  [Read more…]

The Sunday Assembly idea is getting a lot of mockery – at least I think it is, but maybe that’s because most of my friends on social media are the kind of people who mock things like Sunday assemblies, which they certainly are. That could be it. It could be that people who have more social media friends who sing solemn songs about Sunday assemblies or crochet scarves (from organic non-GMO fully local twice-blessed wool sheared from athletic non-smoking sheep) to wear to Sunday assemblies – it could be that people like that don’t have the impression that the Sunday Assemblies idea is getting a lot of mockery. I do though.

Melbourne has already hosted five Sunday Assemblies. Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra are next.

“Because it is a godless congregation, we don’t have a doctrine to rely on so we take reference from everything in the world,” Kathryn Murray, the Assembly’s Melbourne convenor, said. [Read more…]

Bill Cooke is the International Director of the CFI’s Transnational Program. 

Fifty or so miles out of Kampala is a small town called Wobulenzi, and here CFI–Uganda runs a clinic devoted to testing the local population for HIV/AIDS and educating them how the disease is contracted. The education program is vital because, as in much of Africa, superstition and misinformation are rife.  So much of what is not understood is attributed to witchcraft and, not infrequently, whoever is identified as the witch ends up dying a horrible death. The churches and the mosques do little or nothing to prevent this superstition, and in many cases are the chief propagators. So, against huge odds, CFI–Uganda is fighting these debilitating superstitions.

CFI–Uganda is also helping an organization called HALEA, or Humanist Association for Leadership, Equity and Accountability. [Read more…]

So what’s George Bush up to these days? I know you’re wondering. He’s up to converting the Jews, that’s what. Sarah Posner explains at Mother Jones.

Next week, former President George W. Bush is scheduled to keynote a fundraiser in Irving, Texas, for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, a group that trains people in the United States, Israel, and around the world to convince Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. The organization’s goal: to “restore” Israel and the Jews and bring about the second coming of Christ. [Read more…]

Cruelty doesn’t get enough attention. Judith Shklar pointed that out; Montaigne pointed it out.

When I drew up that quick secular 10 commandments recently I put “don’t be cruel” first. I kind of take it for granted that that’s essential…but apparently I’m not in the majority on that.

I just Googled the word and I’m a bit shocked to find that most of the first entries are for cruelty to animals, as if cruelty to humans isn’t a thing.

Cruelty to humans is a thing.

So that study on sadism I’ve been meaning to talk about for weeks.

Most of the time, we try to avoid inflicting pain on others — when we do hurt someone, we typically experience guilt, remorse, or other feelings of distress. But for some, cruelty can be pleasurable, even exciting. New research suggests that this kind of everyday sadism is real and more common than we might think.

So does regular interaction on the internet, and it’s very depressing. I mean really depressing. I don’t like realizing that a lot of people like to inflict pain just for the hilarity of it.

To test their hypothesis, they decided to examine everyday sadism under controlled laboratory conditions. [Read more…]