Yeah, sure, I wouldn’t mind visiting heaven. Round trip ticket, though, please.
Actually, it’s a real genre of books: all these crappy stories about people dying and recounting their visit with Grandpa and Jesus before getting revivified by doctors. It’s been a huge windfall for Christian publishing houses.
After learning that some media are practicing “cultural sensitivity” and being delicate about portrayals of animals that certain religious groups found offensive, Mary suggested that today’s metazoan should be a pretty pink pig. A good idea, I thought, but you know me — I can’t just stop there. So I read Leviticus.
Boy, Leviticus doesn’t just despise pigs…it detests just about everything. All these dirty, filthy animals (except the ones their tribe happens to raise for food and milk and fur, of course) that are disgusting and unclean. They are not only unfit to be sacrificed to the Lord, and not to ever, under any circumstances, be eaten, but if you touch them, alive or dead, you are befouled; if they touch any object it is unclean and must be destroyed. This is like the anti-biology chapter of the Bible.
So, for your edification, I’ve put the complete text of Leviticus 11 below the fold, along with a sampling of examples of the animals the Bible frowns upon. You know, it’s not just pigs — the Bible really loathes birds, and all invertebrates except 4 species.
Let’s stop drawing out the pain. The St. Paul-Minneapolis Catholic archdiocese filed for bankruptcy today. Look at the numbers:
The filing estimates that the archdiocese — the largest in the state with more than 800,000 parishioners — has assets between $10 million and $50 million, with liabilities between $50 million and $100 million. It also estimated 200 to 300 creditors.
Hey, that’s how I feel about him all the time!
I hope more people are beginning to see through Pope Francis’s superficial pretense to being the friendly pope — he’s actually the same old front for a deeply evil organization.
Uh-oh. The Pope has just grossly insulted my beliefs.
I believe you have a right to criticize anything — I go further and think you have an obligation to criticize.
I also believe that violence is never the answer, and that the proper response to words is more words, not flinging punches.
But look at what this pope is saying, violating what I hold dear.
At least someone has found a silver lining to the Charlie Hebdo murders: conservatives have used it to leverage censorship of a photo they don’t like.
After leaving the highly offensive photo titled “Piss Christ” posted for 26 years — despite decades of public Christian outcry over the image panned as art — The Associated Press finally removed the controversial and denigrating image, but only after a journalist called out its double standard brought to light when it touted its policy of not publishing potentially offensive Charlie Hebdo satirical cartoons of Muhammad, such as the ones that incited the deadly Paris attack.
Tauriq Moosa responds to a deplorable opinion piece by Anjem Choudary that accuses satirists of provoking violence.
Because free expression matters more than any one group’s feeling of offence. Because I imagine most Muslims are adults capable of handling criticism of their beliefs – even if they feel offended. Choudary is painting the picture right wingers want: an entire group of people, perched on the spring of outrage, ready to march with billboards at the slightest case of “offence”.
Muslims must speak out against this caricature and be on the frontlines defending free speech, even and especially if it offends them. And media spaces must improve and find better spokespeople.
In a disgraceful act of cowardice and hatred, fanatics murdered at least 12 members of the staff of the French satire magazine, Charlie Hebdo. I don’t hesitate to call this cowardice; the gunmen faced no real threat, killed people, and then ran away. They seemed to think this was a triumph of some sort.
In the video, the gunmen can be heard shouting “Allahu akbar” between bursts of gunfire. The gunmen also shouted “we have avenged the prophet,” according to police.
