I generally favor the idea of teaching comparative religion…

…but there is a good argument against it: many religions are sickening.

Wow, that set you guys on fire. Just to clarify: I think Wilders is a flaming nutcase; I deplore his racist angle and his desire to exclude and oppress rather than educate.

However, here is the problem: when people ask me if we should keep religion away from kids, I say no: I think comparative religion classes are an excellent idea. Think about this, though. Would such a class show beheadings? How about voluntary crucifixions in the Phillipines? Jim Jones? Suicide bombings? I think we know the answer. Even here, where there is little sympathy for religion, people are horrified at the idea of showing the worst of religion — “oh, that’s not real Islam,” they say, but I have to reply that yes, that’s the reality of faith. Of course not everyone favors violence and it’s only a minority that commit the real atrocities, but the oppression is there.

Anyway, my point was that if we did teach comparative religion, it would be weak tea that favored faith by censoring out the worst of it, or it would be a class tainted with such appalling horror that all of us liberals would be yanking our children out of it.

(But no, Wilders’ film would not be appropriate as educational material either — it’s too dishonest. Some of the elements in it, including some of the most shocking bits, are genuine, though.)

None so blind as those who will not see

This is a tragic story of the malign effects of religious ignorance.

An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday.

Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said Madeline Neumann died Sunday.

“She got sicker and sicker until she was dead,” he said.

Vergin said an autopsy determined the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis, an ailment that left her with too little insulin in her body, and she had probably been ill for about 30 days, suffering symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness.

The girl’s parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to “apparently they didn’t have enough faith,” the police chief said.

They believed the key to healing “was it was better to keep praying. Call more people to help pray,” he said.
The mother believes the girl could still be resurrected, the police chief said.

But wait! That isn’t the punchline. Read this and weep.

The girl has three siblings, ranging in age from 13 to 16, the police chief said.

“They are still in the home,” he said. “There is no reason to remove them. There is no abuse or signs of abuse that we can see.”

Their sister is dead of stupidity and neglect; she died painfully with their dumb-as-rocks parents hovering over her, chanting to their sky fairy. And this brain dead cop sees no sign of abuse? What is it, does calling it religion make it invisible?

Om lingalingalinalinga, kilikili

i-17bc8e5c3d658494e51472cef12ad816-curses.jpg

The laughing fellow on the left is Sanal Edamaruku, president of Rationalist International and atheist. The cranky old man in the robes on the right is Pandit Surinder Sharma, a self-described Tantrik Magician. The scene is in a studio on Indian television, where the magician is trying to kill the atheist with sorcery. Sharma had said he could kill anyone with sympathetic magic inflicted on a doll made of dough, and that he could accomplish this in a mere three minutes … so Edamaruku confidently offered himself as a victim. The old fake went on for hours and failed.

After nearly two hours, the anchor declared the tantrik’s failure. The tantrik, unwilling to admit defeat, tried the excuse that a very strong god whom Sanal might be worshipping obviously protected him. “No, I am an atheist,” said Sanal Edamaruku. Finally, the disgraced tantrik tried to save his face by claiming that there was a never-failing special black magic for ultimate destruction, which could, however, only been done at night. Bad luck again, he did not get away with this, but was challenged to prove his claim this very night in another “breaking news” live program.

Edamaruku obliged and willing went to his “doom” that night.

The encounter took place under the open night sky. The tantrik and his two assistants were kindling a fire and staring into the flames. Sanal was in good humour. Once the ultimate magic was invoked, there wouldn’t be any way back, the tantrik warned. Within two minutes, Sanal would get crazy, and one minute later he would scream in pain and die. Didn’t he want to save his life before it was too late? Sanal laughed, and the countdown begun. The tantriks chanted their “Om lingalingalingalinga, kilikilikili….” followed by ever changing cascades of strange words and sounds. The speed increased hysterically. They threw all kinds of magic ingredients into the flames that produced changing colours, crackling and fizzling sounds and white smoke. While chanting, the tantrik came close to Sanal, moved his hands in front of him and touched him, but was called back by the anchor. After the earlier covert attempts of the tantrik to use force against Sanal, he was warned to keep distance and avoid touching Sanal. But the tantrik “forgot” this rule again and again.

Now the tantrik wrote Sanal’s name on a sheet of paper, tore it into small pieces, dipped them into a pot with boiling butter oil and threw them dramatically into the flames. Nothing happened. Singing and singing, he sprinkled water on Sanal, mopped a bunch of peacock feathers over his head, threw mustard seed into the fire and other outlandish things more. Sanal smiled, nothing happened, and time was running out. Only seven more minutes before midnight, the tantrik decided to use his ultimate weapon: the clod of wheat flour dough. He kneaded it and powdered it with mysterious ingredients, then asked Sanal to touch it. Sanal did so, and the grand magic finale begun. The tantrik pierced blunt nails on the dough, then cut it wildly with a knife and threw them into the fire. That moment, Sanal should have broken down. But he did not. He laughed. Forty more seconds, counted the anchor, twenty, ten, five… it’s over!

This sounds fun! I’ve been getting email lately from creationists telling me I should die, I should be fired, I should suffer horribly, but all they do is whine that they’re going to mumble to their god to have me destroyed. They should take a lesson from their Indian brethren and start using flash powder and chanting nonsense syllables — it would be no more effective, but it would be much more entertaining.

Department of “Duh!”

This is what health departments are reduced to in the face of lunacy. Health officials in the Philippines have issued a warning to people taking part in Easter crucifixion rituals.

The health department has strongly advised penitents to check the condition of the whips they plan to use to lash their backs, the Manila Times newspaper reports.

Real nails are used in the re-enactments
They want people to have what they call “well-maintained” whips.

In the hot and dusty atmosphere, officials warn, using unhygienic whips to make deep cuts in the body could lead to tetanus and other infections.

And they advise that the nails used to fix people to crosses must be properly disinfected first. Often people soak the nails in alcohol throughout the year.

People are flagellating themselves and nailing themselves to sticks in a public spectacle of stupidity, and health officials are warning them to get a tetanus shot? How about “Stop doing that,” instead, or alternatively, “Please use rusty nails and whips clotted with rotting gore so that you’ll die sooner and we won’t have to worry about you idiots anymore”?

Archbishop flames on

A while back, I posted about the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury had unambiguously condemned creationism. While I appreciated the sentiment, I had my doubts about his sincerity, and mentioned that I preferred my religious authorities to say “crazy stupid things”. Perhaps the Archbishop reads my blog, because he has obliged.

The Archbishop hit out against the "two extremes" in the range of theories of how the world began in his Holy Week lecture on Faith and Science last night. He said "Science has more to do than is simply covered by these theories."

Creationists believe in the literal version of creation as told in Genesis, and argue that man walked the earth at the same time as the dinosaurs. Neo Darwinists argue that culture is subject to evolutionary forces which will eventually weed out religion.

Dr Williams admitted that Neo Darwinism, a theory supported by Atheist Professor Richard Dawkins, is "most problematic" to theology, but he called it "a pseudo science" and "deeply vulnerable to intellectual challenge because it is trying to be a theology."

In a sideswipe at evolutionary scientists such as Professor Dawkins, Williams warned "Science can be seduced into making exaggerated claims."  He added "Neo Darwinism of Dawkins’ kind carries with it a rather subjective agenda…It is as vulnerable as Christianity". Both Neo Darwinism and Christianity are telling stories, the Archbishop continued, Christianity acknowledges that fact, Neo Darwinism doesn’t.

Thattaboy, Archbishop. I appreciate the help in exposing the inanity of religion.

For those following along, Rowan Williams clearly has no idea what the neo-Darwinian synthesis says, because nowhere does it claim that evolution will weed out religion; even I, brutal opponent of all things godly, can see reasonable arguments for the adaptiveness of religion, or the absence of selection against religion, or that there are acceptable rationales for religion as an exaptation. But otherwise, the admission that science is a problem for theology, and the ignorant claim that evolution is a pseudo-science, are useful tools for the atheist conspiracy.

Christian mental health care: positively medieval

Here’s a real horror story: a place called Mercy Ministries claimed to offer psychiatric help to people in Australia, and what they offered instead was nightmarish religious discipline and doctrine. There’s something subtle in there, too, that ought to make us ashamed: the Australian reporter calls it an “American-style ministry”. Isn’t it sad to see that our country is becoming an adjective for idiocy?

Anyway, here’s one woman’s summary of her “treatment”.

Nine months without medical treatment, nine months without any psychiatric care, nine months of being told she was not a good enough Christian to rid herself of the “demons” that were causing her anorexia and pushing her to self-harm. After being locked away from society for so long, Naomi started to believe them. “I just felt completely hopeless. I thought if Mercy did not want to help me where do I stand now?

And here’s another account:

Careful and articulate, her struggle with the horror of her descent into despair at the hands of Mercy is only evidenced by the occasional tremor in her hands and voice as she describes her experience. She was sharing the house with 15 other girls and young women, with problems ranging from teenage pregnancies, alcohol and drug abuse, self harm, depression, suicidal thoughts and eating disorders.

“There were girls who had got messed up in the adult sex industry – a real range of problems, some incorporating actual psychiatric illness, others just dealing with messy lives, and the approach to all those problems was the same format,” Johnson says.

Counselling involved working through a white folder containing pre-scripted prayers.

“Most of the staff were current Bible studies or Bible college students, and that is it, if anything. You just cannot play around with mental illness when you do not know what you are doing. Even professionals will acknowledge that it is a huge responsibility working in that field, and that is people who have six years, eight years university study behind them.”

And while there was nothing that was formally termed “exorcism” in the Sydney house, Naomi was forced to stand in front of two counsellors while they prayed and spoke in tongues around her. In her mind, it was an exorcism. “I felt really stupid just standing there – they weren’t helping me with the things going on in my head. I would ask staff for tools on how to cope with the urges to self harm … and the response was: ‘What scriptures are you standing on? Read your Bible.”

This is the bottom line.

And yet Mercy continues to operate without the scrutiny of government authorities, under the radar and with impunity.

Of course. A lot can be forgiven if you just label it “religious”.

Dear readers: I hope you die soon

That’s the sentiment Terry of Rapture Ready expressed. Don’t believe me? Here’s the direct quote:

There are two important statistics to note:

1. Each month about 160,000 people visit Rapture Ready.

2. Every year, the mortality rate claims around 1 percent of the population.

Internet usage by the elderly is somewhat lower than that of the general population, but it still means that hundreds of you people who are reading this right now will not be here the same time next year.

For you folks who become part of the mortality figures in the coming days, I commission you with the same task: When you meet the King of Kings, please ask Him to pour His grace and guidance on this web ministry.

You unsaved folks who happen to be reading this article and think it is total nonsense, you are pure gold to this cause. Once you meet your unfortunate end, you’ll cry out 10 times louder from bowels of hell than a saved person who might be distracted by the glories of heaven.

Charming, eh? That isn’t the worst of it. He wrote this missive after his mother’s death a few weeks ago. Before she died, he asked her to go tell Jesus to send more traffic to his website.

Seriously.

I have a mission for all of my readers here on Pharyngula, too. I want you to stay alive. You don’t have to continue reading this site, unless you really want to; traffic is not that important. But if, as you are going about your daily life, you happen to meet someone who thinks Rapture Ready is a wonderful resource, I want you to be sure and tell them that they are a demented fuckwit. Just for me.

Creationism makes for strange bedfellows

Religion can be a force for peace, love, and understanding — at least when it provides an opportunity to beat up on those evil secularists. Turkey is an excellent example of where the creationists want to take us: it’s the one country in the world that beats the US in its level of ignorance about biology, and the Christians and Muslims are happily collaborating to promote theocracy there.

Read the account — that’s our future if the Discovery Institute has its way.

Now blind in two senses

People in India were told that there was a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary floating in the sky, so about 50 of them suffered burned retinas by staring at the sun. I think we can see that religion definitely attracts stupid people to its ranks.

I sure hope no one tells them that if you hit yourself on the head with a hammer real hard, you’ll see swarms of angels dancing everywhere around you. Or, more likely, that if you mail all your money to a preacher, you’ll get rich. But no one would be that sadistic, would they?