Readers of my blog may recall that back in December of 2011, Paul Anthony Melanson, owner of La Salette Journey, who very clearly did not bother to do any research whatsoever with respect to who I am or the actual extent of my writing. In his post dated December 5, 2011, Melanson accuses me of misrepresenting both my identity and the nature of my personal position on such issues as religion. I tried leaving numerous comments on Melanson’s site in response to his post, but Melanson’s cowardly ways kept him from allowing the comments to be posted and also kept him from responding in any manner to these comments or the post that I wrote in response to his comments. I had given up on ever hearing from Melanson, then wouldn’t you know it: earlier today I realized that Melanson has written yet another post about me.

Paul Anthony Melanson

The purpose of this post is to portray me as someone who believes roman catholics should not be entitled to a voice in the public realm. He then adds, “Maybe he would like to stick Catholics in concentration camps?“ But where Melanson gets these notions is beyond me. As we shall see, my simply never having said something or advocated something in no way restricts Melanson’s ability to claim that I said or did x. I would now like to address the issues that Melanson raises within the body of his post.

Catholic Education

Melanson takes offense to my position regarding gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in Ontario roman catholic schools. My position, which Melanson fails to accurately articulate, is that there is nothing which requires roman catholics to have their own separate school boards – nothing except their own desire to have such institutions. The state does not compel them to participate in providing education: roman catholics chose to become engaged in the education system, a system which is regulated by the state (in the case of Ontario it is regulated by the Government of Ontario). In choosing to become involved in the education system the roman catholic church must adhere to the laws and policies established by the province that regulate educational institutions. And given that the laws of provinces, states and entire countries change over time, the roman catholic church must agree not only to adhere to the rules that are in effect when they begin to provide educational services, but also to adhere to future laws and policies that regulate education.

This means that roman catholics must take the laws into account when they are wanting to become involved in such things as the education system: if the laws and policies are such that the religious group cannot comply with the law for reasons of religious faith, then they need to refrain from becoming involved. And if the laws change and the religious group is unable to comply with the law because of its religious faith, then it needs to cease its operations.

Despite what catholic apologists like Melanson argue, the issue really is this simple: comply with the law or your doors will close. The law is not erected so that religious groups can come in, muck about, and circumvent laws whenever these laws are inconvenient for them.

For the separate school board, or roman catholic school board in Ontario, this means that the schools must comply with new anti-bullying legislation, which requires all schools, even roman catholic schools, to allow students to create gay-straight alliances (if so desired). It does not mean that special exemptions need to be made for religious groups like roman catholics: they need to comply with these laws or close their doors. It’s that simple.

On the issue of taxation and schools: Melanson, I believe taxes collected from each person that are used for education should be used for the educational system to which they have a preference. So yes, I believe that roman catholics, for instance, should be able to specify whether the roman catholic schools are supported with their tax dollars or some other institution is. That said, if the roman catholic schools refuse to adhere to the letter of the law they should not receive public monies at all.

Taxation

Melanson then shifts to focus specifically on the issue of taxation and religious freedom. As you can see below, his ‘argument’ is that religious freedom and the separation of church and state can only be properly safeguarded when religious institutions remain tax exempt. He writes:

Erik Stanley, Senior legal counsel and head of the Pulpit Initiative for the Alliance Defense Fund, explains that, “There is said to be an old Arabian proverb: ‘If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.’ This expression is especially pertinent in the tax exemption context. Churches are tax exempt under the principle that there is no surer way to destroy the free exercise of religion than to tax it. If the government is allowed to tax churches (or to condition a tax exemption on a church refraining from the free exercise of religion), the camel’s nose is under the tent, and its body is sure to follow. But that’s not just my opinion; it’s the understanding of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In its 1970 opinion in Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York, the high court stated that a tax exemption for churches ‘creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches. [An exemption] restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other.’ The Supreme Court also said that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Taxing churches breaks down the healthy separation of church and state and leads to the destruction of the free exercise of religion.”

So, according to Melanson, once taxation of religious groups is allowed, then we will proceed down a slippery slope (a logical fallacy) which will end in the destruction of the free exercise of religion. I think it is great that Melanson is capable of employing quotes in his writing – it is a clear demonstration of his intellectual prowess. In all seriousness though, Melanson has proven nothing with this, but managed only to express the opinion of another person. He doesn’t even take the time to discuss the statement in any way – to explain what it means and why it is a legitimate position. According to Melanson, Stanley’s position is the appropriate one, and the reasons for this should be self-evident.

If people like Melanson and Stanley really think that ‘the power to tax involves the power to destroy’ then why are they not concerned with fighting government everywhere to stop taxing its people, for if the people are susceptible to this destruction as individuals, then this will lead to the ultimate destruction of the free exercise of religion. But their focus is not on making sure all people are kept from this destruction, only to ensure that their precious institutions will remain free to stand. It is also a clear admission of their shared belief that religious institutions are entitled to privileges that individuals are not; it betrays their elitist beliefs.

After again attacking my anti-tax-exemption position, Melanson writes:

…as the Supreme Court has said here in the United States, tax exemptions restrict the fiscal relationship between the church and state and actually tend to complement and reinforce the desired separation which insulates each from the other.  So Bridson’s argument falls flat.  It has no substance.  Much like its author.

I take a certain amount of pride in that when I make an argument I try to substantiate it. For me it is not enough to simply find someone who agrees with my position and then accept that as an authoritative source on the issue in question. Melanson, on the contrary, is treating Stanley, his statements and quotes used by him as setting the bar for what is and is not legitimate when it comes to taxation and religion. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Pulpit Initiative for the Alliance Defense Fund, (ADF) which Stanley represents, consider the following excerpt from their website:

The Alliance Defense Fund is a servant organization that provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family.

The Alliance Defense Fund is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation. ..

ADF is dedicated to preserving and reclaiming religious freedom. Unlike any other organization in America, this is being accomplished through strategic coordination with other like-minded organizations; training Christian attorneys and the future leaders of America; funding key, precedent-setting cases across America; and, when necessary, direct litigation through our in-house team of Christ-centered attorneys.

So the person whom Melanson considers to be so authoritative represents an organization that is dedicated, openly, to influencing government and law via litigation and other activities, in such areas as sanctity of life (aka pro-life initiatives), marriage and family. The intention of the ADF is to create a christian nation: not to create a society in which the differences of people are respected, including religious differences. And of course, the more these organizations are forced to pay out each year in taxes, the less they are able to horde away to hijack social structures in the name of farcical, discriminatory and divisive religion.

Regardless of what Melanson is able to convince himself of, neither he nor Stanley have actually succeeded in demonstrating that the taxation of religious institutions, including the roman catholic church, will lead to their destruction or to the destruction of religious freedoms in general. Perhaps before Melanson runs around criticizing the arguments of others he should actually take some time to figure out what an argument consists of and that quoting someone is not an argument. Paul – you actually have to engage with the material you are quoting and work to demonstrate the validity or non-validity of said material.

If religious organizations, like the catholic church, really are concerned with contributing their fair share to society, then they would not be so concerned with ensuring their tax exempt status. Every dollar that these organizations take in tax-free means that the money they would have paid in taxes has to come out of everybody else’s pocket. And then when you consider the amount of charitable donations made to these organizations, for which those making the donations receive tax deductions, that is even more money lost that has to come out of the pockets of the sum of all taxpayers. These organizations are creating financial burdens for the communities in which they operate. And because we as taxpayers have to pick up the slack for these pathetic organizations, we are effectively all giving a portion of our tax dollars to support these religious organizations, and thus, support their evangelical and other initiatives.

Tell me: how is the religious freedom of all tax payers being respected when we are all at the end of the day contributing to the propagation of these religious institutions. Not taxing these organizations is a very real attack on the religious freedom of all tax payers.

What is needed is dramatic tax reform across the board. Religious institutions are not the only institutions that receive tax exemptions, nor are they the only organizations, secular or otherwise, that use their tax exempt statuses to unfairly affect laws or to launch massive PR campaigns based not on anything factual but only on greed. What this would ultimately look like is beyond me. But what is clear is that the current system of taxation is unfair and needs to be rethought.

The Role of Religion in the Public Realm

Apparently I cannot state it clearly enough or often enough for people like Melanson and his ideological kin, but here we go again: my comments about catholics are not intended to apply to every catholic across the board. I have some close friends who are roman catholic and would not consider them to be anything like Melanson. Not every catholic believes that homosexuals are abominations and destined to an eternity in hell. Not every catholic believes in the infallibility of the pope. And not every catholic believes in such nonsense as transubstantiation. So I would encourage Melanson, the charlatan, to start getting his facts straight. It is exhausting to have to spend so much time correcting him.

Something else I have never said is that anyone should be denied a part of the political process. What I have said is that religious organizations have no right to meddle with our political and legal systems such that they work to extend their own religious freedom and the expense of every other person. Your right to religious freedom does not in turn give you the right to shit on the religious freedoms of others. Yes, believers have the same rights as other citizens to engage in political discourse. These people do not get to use their religious beliefs to tell other people what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. Melanson goes on to quote me:

But Bridson is an anti-Catholic ideologue.  He wants the Catholic Church removed entirely from the public square.  He writes, “Enough is enough! It is time to stop allowing this ancient and ignorant group to meddle in public affairs. The hypocrites! They bitch about public policy but have no problem taking public money. Ignorant and Intolerant! They have nothing to justify their beliefs, including their beliefs about such things as homosexuality (except for a book of ancient ignorance and hatred), but expect these beliefs to dictate how we all live our lives and how we all choose to think about things.”

Apparently arguing that the roman catholic continuously tries to overstep its legitimate bounds and arguing that their moral estimations, which they believe all people should be subject to, are empty and without justification, makes me anti-catholic. According to this logic, I am anti-flat-earther because I likewise argue that their arguments are entire empty of substance and thus have no place influencing public policy or otherwise interfering with how I live my life. This doesn’t make me anti-flat-earther. I don’t care of Bob down the street earnestly believes the earth is flat. In the same way, I really don’t care if close to 2 billion people are roman catholic. I simply have a problem with these groups telling me and others how we ought to live our lives. I think what I really am is anti-ignorance: I believe that positions rooted in ignorance have no place in law. Just as most schools reject the teaching of creationism or intelligent design as science, due to the fact that these theories are vacant of substance, so should our states reject accepting as law any position rooted in the unfounded assertions of religions. Melanson, you have no business whatsoever to demand that I base my way of life, in any way, on the fanciful story of a zombie-deity.

Comments Accepted by Melanson

Having finished with Melanson’s dribble, I was going to start discussing the comments he allowed to be published to his site. That said, when I went through them I realized that I have either already addressed the issue or the comments were simply stating that I am ignorant, delusional, filled with hate, etc. And just when I thought there would be nothing of worth to discuss here, I noticed the comment made by someone that is anonymous with the exception of having the username David:

That photograph (I hate to say this) looks like that of a crazed Neo-Nazi. It really reminds me of the madman Jared Loughner who ran rampage in Tucson, killing several people and wounding Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Look at the photograph at this link and then look at Bridson’s photo – he looks every bit as inbalanced as Loughner. http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10006253.html

Wait a second: is this supposed to actually pass as an argument? This piece of shit doesn’t even both to try to engage with anything I have said. He takes a picture of some psychopath, finds that my facial features resemble his in some ways, and thus determines I am dangerous. He also states that I look like a crazed Neo-Nazi. Actually, he says “I hate to say this…” - which is fucking horseshit. He hates to say it? Why did he say it? And on what grounds?

Then there is the comment made my Derek, just below David, , which is every bit as anonymous:

His posts attacking the Catholic Church, her moral teaching, Pope Benedict XVI and all things Catholic are indicative of a sick, warped mind and a potentially dangerous – meaning violent – individual in my opinion.

I hope Mr. Bridson isn’t a gun owner. Because his rhetoric is very bit as violent and over-the-top as Loughner or other fanatics who have resorted to violence.

Again, I have never advocated violence. I have openly taken issue with people who advocate violence on this website. But regardless of what I say or do, these ignorant fools will come up with their own special way of interpreting and understanding me.

What I find mind-numbing is the people commenting on his site which rail against me for being ignorant, afraid of dialogue, uneducated and the like. And then you look at what they accept to be a valid, solid argument, you’d realize that these people have their own special way of interpreting and interacting with reality – and that the hermeneutics they employ inverts reasons and actually considers the ignorant ass to be the wise sage.

Related articles

• La Salette Journey’s Paul Melanson and Friends: Ignorant and Cowardly (philosophershaze.com)
• Pedophilia, Catholicism and the First Amendment in Vermont (philosophershaze.com)
• More Snot-Nosed Catholic Whining (philosophershaze.com)
• Pope Ben-the-Dick: Charlatan and Hypocrite (philosophershaze.com)
• Archbishop Edwin O’Brien Becomes A Cardinal (baltimore.cbslocal.com)
• Separation of Church and State is a One Way Street (inactiveactivist.wordpress.com)
• Spiritual Mash-Up (dave-lucas.blogspot.com)
• Obama moves closer to post-religious Europe (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• Roman Catholic Church battle over birth control coverage was well planned (mercurynews.com)
• Barack Obama Giving some respect to the ROMAN Catholic church (current.com)

For those of us with access to electronic and other types of media, we are all very much aware of the ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude of the roman catholic church. The roman catholic church, we are told, in this world that is full of ignorance, hate and violence, is concerned with bringing peace to the world and ensuring that human rights are respected across the board. For those of you with a well-developed rational faculty, you will also be aware of how little all the words of the catholic church mean: at the end of the day, the church cares more for such things as professional sports than it does about things like pedophilic clergy, the religious freedom of every person, or otherwise respecting the rights that are to be guaranteed to all persons via international laws and declarations.

Below is an ad that was published in yesterday’s Journal de Montreal and La Presse, publications in the Montreal area. The ad was paid for by the roman catholic diocese of Montreal:

Prayer Ad for Montreal Canadians. Source: http://www.diocesemontreal.org

The diocese of Montreal hosts a page discussing this ad on their website, in which they write:

To prepare our next Annual Collection, this advertisement invites us to pray for the Montreal Canadians [sic] in their attempt to be part of the NHL playoffs.

This is a great way to demonstrate the presence of the Church in our society. The Church is a living Institution, close to the people…. with a sense of humor!

And you, do you still have hope?

The last time I checked, professional sports were not one of the areas of focus for the catholic church; its mission does not include ministering to the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and spending money on the endorsement of professional sports teams. As far as I know, there are still people who are sick, hungry and naked. There are also people around the world who are denied full participation in the community of rights that all people are supposed to share in, for no other reason than that their lifestyles or beliefs are of such a nature that the church deems them to be, essentially, less-than-human.

With everything that is wrong in the world, you would think that the church would have been true to its mission of it had perhaps advocated an end to rape, murder, religious hatred and incivilities, discriminating against people because of their race, sex or sexual orientation, or any one of a number of other travesties. Perhaps the diocese of Montreal could have used their money and the chance to communicate with others outside their ranks what the church is doing to address such issues as priests who rape children or parishes and dioceses that protect these monsters. Perhaps it could have advertised what is was doing to reach out to the LGBTQ community in a spirit of shared humanity. Perhaps it could have even used the advertisement in a much more selfish manner and described all the many ways it is working to make its community better.

Notice what the reason for the ad is: To prepare our next Annual Collection: it even capitalizes Annual Collection. The diocese of Montreal is concerned with making money – money, money, money. By appealing to the masses and trying to show people that it is close to them and has a sense of humor, the church is really admitting to manipulating the people in the Montreal area so that they will give this decrepit institution more money, so that it can continue to accumulate the capital required to lobby the government to deny to ‘sinners’ the rights belonging to all ‘good’ people.

Andrew Chung, in his article for the Toronto Star, quotes Lucie Martineau of the diocese:

It was a lighthearted wink, to ally with people who love sports…And to pray they (the Canadiens) are in the playoffs.

It tells average Montrealers that we are there, we are present…We have the same worries as you.

The diocese, on their own website, made it abundantly clear why it is they ran this ad: they want to make money. Are they convinced that Montrealers are more concerned about whether or not the Montreal Canadiens make it to the play-offs than they are about the amount they are taxed, the current global economy, corruption in the public realm, people who are homeless, or those who are addicted to drugs of all sorts? Are the people who die every day in Sierra Leone, so that people in the West can wear diamonds on their persons, less important and mean less at the end of the day than a fucking sports team?

Image via Wikipedia

If you want the Montreal Canadiens to win the playoffs and the Stanley Cup, then the best thing you can do for them is financially support the team, such that they can afford to better equip and train the players and enable them to take to the ice and win. By acting in a reasoned way you can directly influence the welfare of the Canadiens or any other sports franchise.

Praying will not give your team a win. And giving money to a church will not help your team win. The roman catholic church, via its Montreal diocese, has demonstrated yet again that they are concerned at the end of the day only with making more money and to make this money by any means necessary, even if that entails manipulating and taking advantage of the loyalties and culture of a particular group of people. Go ahead and give the catholic church more money: it is just a matter of time before they use that money to try and restrict your freedoms – even if you happen to believe that your shared ideology will save you.

Related articles

• Full Page Newspaper Ad Asks People to Pray for Hockey Team (patheos.com)
• They’re literally praying for the playoffs in Montreal (prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com)
• Pedophilia, Catholicism and the First Amendment in Vermont (philosophershaze.com)
• Church ad urges prayer for last-place Canadiens (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Catholic church prays for NHL Canadiens team (thegreatone22.wordpress.com)
• Catholic Church promotes praying for Canadiens (cbc.ca)
• Montreal church asking people to pray for Habs (sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
• Church ad urges prayer for Canadiens – ESPN (espn.go.com)
• Montreal church places ad asking fans to pray for playoff spot (tsn.ca)
• Plekanec gives Canadiens 3-2 win over Pens in SO (mysanantonio.com)

There is one thing we all know, whether we happen to be religious or non-religious in nature: if I break the law and in a court it can be shown that I broke the law, I am found guilty and must pay the prescribed penalty. Though this should come as no surprise to anyone, there are some who do not think that this is fair. In the case of organizations, there are some who believe that in the event they are found to have systemically violated a particular law that they should only be penalized for some of the wrongdoing. This is the case of the roman catholic diocese of Vermont: they have already paid out millions of dollars in law suits because they employed pedophilic clergy, but do not think it is fair that further suits will place the future of the diocese in jeopardy. That’s right folks! The roman catholic diocese of Vermont wants to actually evade their responsibility to suffer penalties for committing crimes. Sure…it might be bad that children were raped and scarred for life, but for a diocese to go bankrupt for these crimes is unacceptable!

Bishop Salvatore R. Matano. Source: www.vermontcatholic.org

The roman catholic diocese of Vermont is led by bishop Salvatore R. Matano, and in the cases of pedophilic clergy it is represented by the law firm of Cleary, Shahi & Aicher and lawyers Kaveh Shahi and Tom McCormick. To date the Vermont roman catholic diocese has had a plethora of priests charged with pedophilia (46 lawsuits since 2002, according to Burlington Free Press - BFP) and in May of 2010 the diocese paid out $17.6 million that was supposed to cover all 26 pending cases of alleged sexual abuse and rape. In order to make the $17.6 million payout, the diocese was forced to sell the property of its headquarters for $10 million. However, now that the diocese is facing another law suit involving the diocese and how it historically handled the pedophiles in their ranks, it is working with its lawyers to do whatever it can to avoid paying out any further damages. Here’s the reason:

Since this settlement, however, more suits have arisen. There is currently one suit in federal court and 8 awaiting trial in the Chittenden Superior Court. The diocese fears that further suits, if successful, will result in its financial future being placed in jeopardy – it has already had to sell off its property to stay liquid. And this is unacceptable to them. In fact, the diocese and their lawyers are arguing that the First Amendment should prohibit a court from being able to sanction actions which would place a religious institution in danger. The First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

On this Amendment, the diocese and their chump lawyers are attempting to abuse the intention or ‘spirit’ of the First Amendment by using it to prevent them from being penalized for breaking the law. Vermont law professor Cheryl Hanna, as reported by the BFP, rightly refers to the diocese as attempting to use the Bill of Rights to shield itself from liability. The BFP cites lawyers Shahi and McCormick who state:

If the protections of the First Amendment are to mean anything, the government should not be allowed to shut the doors of a church and put it up for sale… We researched this and nobody has acted on this theory before…We believe this legal battle is infringing on the rights of current believers to practice their religion.

What this amounts to is the diocese asking for special legal exemptions be provided for religious organizations, such that their futures cannot be threatened due to their illegal an unethical activities. Whereas the First Amendment prohibits the establishment, by Congress, of a law that affects religious groups, the diocese wants laws passed that gives religious groups special considerations or exemptions. This is an overt, brazen example of the roman catholic church trying to undermine the United States’ Bill of Rights.

Let s be clear about a few things: catholics do not require organizations with special legal statuses in order to practice their religion. As such, if because of its illegal activities, any particular diocese or entire religious organization can no longer remain operational in their current capacity, it would in no way diminish the ability of these religious persons to practice their faith. Religious groups do not need churches or mosques or synagogues to practice their faith: these are just buildings that have been consecrated, and houses will suffice just as well. Furthermore, religious persons and organizations are to be held to the same legal standards as everyone else in society: religion provides no immunity. For this reason, every religious person and organization must suffer the same consequences as everyone else when they violate the law. Ergo, justifiable law suits against catholic organizations cannot be blocked because the organization fears it will be put out of business if the court determines it must pay. This would amount to religion being elevated above the law, in some situations at least, which violates the First Amendment.

This move by the diocese and their ambulance chasers reveals the true nature of the despicable beast: it has zero regard for the law; the law is something that religion wants to bend and shape to its advantage, such that the laws that apply to everyone and everything else do not hold for them. It shows that whatever the church says about the evils of homosexuality, homosexuality is a sin reserved for everyone outside its priestly class. And when the roman catholic church talks about respecting human rights and about how special and in need of special protections children are, it really means that everyone else should have to adhere to these legal and ethical requirements while religious organizations can shrug them off like annoying fleas.

This is not a case involving the violation of roman catholics’ religious freedom. Conversely, it is a prime example of how the church claims bogus violations of its right to religious freedom only so that it may play the victim and in exchange receive liberties reserved for itself. The roman catholic church is a greedy monstrosity, harbouring xenophobic sentiments, sometimes quite violently, and is convinced that ours is a reality in which everyone ought to obey their moral and legal codes.

In the eyes of the roman catholic church, everyone else is beneath them. What it would ultimately like is to have a world in which it is accountable only to itself.

The roman catholic church has also made it abundantly clear that it has little or no actual regard for those whom it has wronged – even when those that are wronged include little boys and girls that have been raped and sodomized.

For more information on this issue, you can consult the following sources:

• Vermont Diocese Claims Sex Abuse Lawsuits Violate Church’s Religious Freedom - MichaelinNorfolk
• Catholic Diocese: Don’t Take Away Our Religious Freedom – Green Mountain Daily
• Morning Read: Region’s Roman Catholics decry attacks on “religious liberty” – North Country Public Radio
• Vt diocese responds to priest-abuse suit – My San Antonio

Related articles

• KC-St. Joseph Diocese Review Board Chairman Stepping Down (fox4kc.com)
• Diocese closes purchase of Crystal Cathedral (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Diocese closes purchase of Crystal Cathedral (mysanantonio.com)
• Drane:Scandal tests understanding of pedophilia, morals, the law (goerie.com)
• Sad Story of Priest who Disobeyed (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
• Manifests for believers #1 Sex abuse setting fire to the powder (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
• Crystal Cathedral: Chapman University amends its $59-million offer (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• The Belgian Church’s “mea culpa” (mumbailaity.wordpress.com)
• A Tale of Two Grand Juries and One New Law Suit (opentabernacle.wordpress.com)

Montaigne called the human being Dasein, the being whose existence is a matter of concern for itself. We, as a species, are intimately concerned with what it means to be human and what the relationship of our species is to the rest of reality. Yet, despite unifying us as a species, this fundamental search for knowledge of the world has lead people to take divergent paths on this quest; over time, the methodologies employed by these disparate groups in their quest for knowledge have lead to competing worldviews – worldviews which are irreconcilable with one another. Two such disparate worldviews belong to the scientific community and to the religious community – though for the purposes of this post I will be focusing on the roman catholic religion. Whereas science promotes honest and open dialogue, as well as a peer-reviewed process, roman catholicism offers doctrine and frequently sanctions those who openly challenge church authority.

Image via Wikipedia

Religions like that of roman catholicism claim to possess certain truths about the world, truths which are beyond questioning. In fact, within this religion, ‘knowledge’ of the world must be reconciled with the revealed truth of a god. Thus, regardless of how frequently catholic officials discuss such things as wisdom and the pursuit of knowledge, they are never really concerned with either of these pursuits: they have closed their minds to an honest reflection on reality, and thus have closed their minds to understanding it in any sort of accurate manner. This model of accruing ‘knowledge’ is directly opposed to the scientific method of coming to understand the world.

In order to demonstrate just how opposite these two systems are, I would like to dedicate this post to demonstrating precisely how science is deeply concerned with understanding reality and is actually providing insights and knowledge, whereas religion is not open to the same honest investigation. For the scientific aspect I will be discussing particle physics and the Standard Model, while for roman catholicism I will be discussing statements from pope Benedict regarding knowledge.

Particle Physics and the Standard Model

Science has revealed many things about the nature of reality, including:

• we live in a heliocentric solar system, which exists on the fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy;
• there are 350 billion large galaxies and 7 thousand billion dwarf galaxies, and approximately 300 sextillion (30 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) stars in them;
• life is governed by a process of cellular replication and that the information required for this is stored in the genetic code;
• DNA forms a double-helix;
• humans are genetically related to the other great apes, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos;
• an understanding of physics, such that we can build complex shelters, airplanes and even spacecraft; and
• an understanding of human physiology and ailments sufficient enough for the development of effective medicines and therapies.

While this is far from being an exhaustive list of the accomplishments of the scientific process to date, it serves the point of establishing that science has been able to develop knowledge of reality that is accurate enough to allow us to not only demonstrate certain realities, but also be able to incorporate this knowledge into the development of new technologies. Furthermore, as science progresses in its understanding of the nature of reality, we are continuously confronted with new questions, which it in turn begins to investigate: with every answer comes new questions. One field of science that has revealed much about the nature of reality, and which is currently engaged in very promising experimental research, is particle physics.

Image via Wikipedia

Thanks to science we know that all matter is comprised of atoms – but thanks to science we also know that atoms are not the smallest units of matter in the universe. Thanks to particle physics we know that at a fundamental level, matter is composed of quarks, leptons and bosons (please consult the graphic of the Standard Model, located to the right, for more information). We know that an atomic nucleus, such as the atomic nucleus for helium, has two protons and two neutrons. Protons are composed of two up quarks and one down quark, while neutrons are composed of one up quark and two down quarks. We also know that protons and neutrons are held together in the nucleus by what is known as gluons.

Particle physics has enabled us to actually measure the mass or energies of these elementary particles. A proton, for instance, being comprised of two up quarks and one down quark, should have a mass of approximately 9 MeV (mega electron volts), but that in reality it has a mass closer to 938 MeV; it should go without saying that there is a lot of missing mass. This is troubling enough when you consider an isolated proton, but when you realize the universe is populated by so many protons that you cannot begin to fathom the number, this missing mass becomes very troubling. Many particle physicists, based on their math and on this missing mass, are now looking for evidence of the Higgs-Boson, sometimes referred to as the god particle. Such research is being conducted in facilities like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – if it is discovered, it will explain how the weak nuclear force interacts with photons, which carry the electromagnetic force.

Based on a solid understanding of this Standard Model, scientists have been able to date the age of the universe to approximately 13.7 billion years. It has been able to determine how matter has been configured over time. When the early universe cooled to approximately 1 trillion degrees Kelvin, quarks and gluons were bound together – this is the first time that protons and neutrons exist. Then, when the universe had expanded and cooled still further, these protons and neutrons were able to bind together to form deuteron (or heavy hydrogen) which is composed of a single proton and a single neutron; deuteron was the first nucleus. And at this point we are still only at about 3 minutes after the Big Bang.

As the universe continued to expand, these deuteron nuclei were able to bind together to produce tritium (one proton and two neutrons), at which point an extra proton can be fused to produce helium – the universe at this point is 75% hydrogen and 25% helium.  Then, when the universe is approximately 20 degrees Kelvin, or 200 million years old, stars begin forming. The first stars burn only hydrogen, which fuses to gradually produce helium. Once the star has burned all of its hydrogen, it compresses until it is heavy enough to excite the helium nuclei to begin fusing. this process of fusion leads to the production of carbon. Then this carbon layer compresses and fuses until oxygen is produced. The fusion of oxygen produces neon, which when fused produces magnesium. When magnesium is fused it produces silicon, which in turn fuses to produce iron. After this point stars can explode in what are called supernovae and are responsible for producing the heavier elements.

Diagram of Supernova Development: From this talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpczfGXhBo

Science has been able to learn all of this, plus more, about the nature of reality. As we are able to build more accurate and elaborate experiments we will be able to push the limits of our knowledge even further, such that gaps which are currently present in our understanding of such models as cosmology will be made increasingly more accurate.

Having examined some of the ways in which science has improved our understanding of reality, let me now turn to one of the world’s most dominant religions, roman catholicism, and examine it s contributions to our understanding of reality.

Roman Catholicism

Science is dedicated to enhancing our understanding of the world by continuously reviewing the information and evidence available and ensuring that are official positions match reality to the greatest extent possible. Science is also characterized by having the knowledge it gains of the world being incorporated into new technologies: in addition to providing us with information about the world, science has applications in the world. Religions like roman catholicism, on the other hand, are characterized by their dogmatic approach to understanding the world. Even if we are generous and round up the nearest millennium, this archaic death cult has been in existence for over two thousand years and in that time has not contributed in any meaningful way to the advancement of our understanding of reality. In fact, religions like roman catholicism are dedicated, even in this present age, to stifling academic dialogue and to combating secularism.

To this day, roman catholicism takes it as a given that there is a god that personally created all of reality, right down to sculpting the very first people with his hands and breath. The official roman catholic position is that this deity sent his son/himself down to earth in physical form, was murdered for the sins of all people, including their original sin. They also believe that this man god overcame death, and because he did this, offers us all a share in this immortality. They believe that the moral commands of this deity, as communicated in their holy book, are binding for all people, but they are less than clear for why they interpret it literally in some parts and figuratively in other parts. This religion does vary a bit with time. For example, for the longest time, and without a lick of evidence, the catholic church taught its sheep of the existence of a place called limbo, where their unbaptized children would spend eternity in the absence of god for no other reason than that mom and dad were a little tardy with having their child dunked in the holy water. Now, however, this is no longer taught as a truth.

The roman catholic religion, like all religions, are dogmatic in their nature. It is beyond questioning that there is a deity; anything which challenges this or demonstrates this as a bunk concept is considered to be a heresy. This is not an organization that promotes understanding and uncovering new knowledge of reality. It is an organization that seeks to have all information about the world and reality conform to the idea that there is a god. The reality of this dogmatic closed-mindedness is expressed very clearly in statements made recently by pope Ben and comes from the Vatican’s website and is titled Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for the 46th World Communications Day: Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization (herein Silence and Word).

In Silence and Word, Ben states:

Ultimately, this constant flow of questions demonstrates the restlessness of human beings, ceaselessly searching for truths, of greater or lesser import, that can offer meaning and hope to their lives. Men and women cannot rest content with a superficial and unquestioning exchange of skeptical opinions and experiences of life – all of us are in search of truth and we share this profound yearning today more than ever: “When people exchange information, they are already sharing themselves, their view of the world, their hopes, their ideals” (Message for the 2011 World Day of Communications).

Attention should be paid to the various types of websites, applications and social networks which can help people today to find time for reflection and authentic questioning, as well as making space for silence and occasions for prayer, meditation or sharing of the word of God. In concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible, profound thoughts can be communicated, as long as those taking part in the conversation do not neglect to cultivate their own inner lives. It is hardly surprising that different religious traditions consider solitude and silence as privileged states which help people to rediscover themselves and that Truth which gives meaning to all things. The God of biblical revelation speaks also without words: “As the Cross of Christ demonstrates, God also speaks by his silence. The silence of God, the experience of the distance of the almighty Father, is a decisive stage in the earthly journey of the Son of God, the incarnate Word …. God’s silence prolongs his earlier words. In these moments of darkness, he speaks through the mystery of his silence” (Verbum Domini, 21). The eloquence of God’s love, lived to the point of the supreme gift, speaks in the silence of the Cross. After Christ’s death there is a great silence over the earth, and on Holy Saturday, when “the King sleeps and God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages” (cf. Office of Readings, Holy Saturday), God’s voice resounds, filled with love for humanity.

Ben is right: when trying to learn about the nature of reality, it is important to reflect on this information, so as to discern whether or not the information accurately, or even plausibly, describes the world. This makes sense. But this is the only thing Ben has to say that makes any sense whatsoever. However, unlike science, Ben is not telling people to investigate the world and to make sense of it regardless of what religion has to say about it: Ben is telling people to take time to reflect to ensure that ‘knowledge’ of the world is in accordance with the roman catholic understanding of god.

That people actually fall in line with this charlatan is all the evidence anyone needs to demonstrate that the church is concerned with controlling what people think and do, not with learning about the ways things might actually be. It is all the evidence that is needed to demonstrate that plenty of people are content with superficial and unquestioning exchanges. The pope wants everyone to believe precisely as he commands them – the faith has even gone to the extent of declaring him infallible.

Religions such as roman catholicism, then, are concerned with promoting their own closed-minded worldview, not with honestly investigating reality. And in these two thousand years, all that has really changed with the church is the degree to which it is able to censor that which it considers to be a threat to their theology, Despite having had all this time in which they could have been exploring the nature of reality and looking for evidence which points to the existence of this deity, religion is just as incapable today as it was two thousand years ago of justifying any of their claims for the existence of a deity, let alone any of the other tenets of their faith that they try to peddle as truths.

Conclusion

Science has provided us with a plethora of information regarding who we, as humans are, and how everything came to be the way it is. This doesn’t mean that science has answered all the questions we have to ask, but it does mean that science is capable of furnishing us with knowledge of reality; knowledge which can be taken and used to produce new things or to enhance other areas of knowledge. Religions like roman catholicism, on the other hand, are concerned only with manipulating and controlling the masses, trying to pass off their faith as truth, and only regarding as truth that which fits within their own unsubstantiated, impotent worldview.

Science is yielding new insights and new developments based on these insights on a daily basis. Religions like the roman catholic faith remain content to wholeheartedly embrace the superstitions, ignorance and prejudices of a backwards, archaic people.

To learn more about the insights science is gaining about the nature of reality, you can consult the following three videos, featuring Andre Walker-Loud, Tara Shears and Brian Cox:

Related articles

• Lazy photon among the missing in exotic LHC roll call (newscientist.com)
• Exotic Decays of the Higgs: A High Priority for 2012 (profmattstrassler.com)
• That’s Right, Count Them: 4 Quarks (quantumdiaries.org)
• Wacky Physics: Why Do Particles Have Flavors? (livescience.com)
• New particle observed at LHC (bbc.co.uk)
• New particle identified at LHC (bbc.co.uk)
• 2012: the year of the dragon (quantumdiaries.org)
• Higgs boson. The God Particle (dmohankumar.wordpress.com)
• New composite particle discovered by ATLAS (quantumdiaries.org)
• LHC Finds New Particle (disclose.tv)

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Jay Leno is one of the most well-known comedians in North America, taking to the stage weeknights with his Tonight Show. As other late night comedians, be it David Letterman, Conan O’Brien or Craig Ferguson, Leno begins his show with a monologue in which he comments on current events as a way of warming people up and getting them into a good mood for when he brings out his guests. But here is the thing with comedy: if you are a comedian performing in front of any number of people at all, then there is a very good possibility that you will end up offending somebody during your act. This is inevitable when it comes to comedy: lots of people will laugh, some people will find the act to just be not funny, will still others will become offended by what you have said. It would seem that Leno is on a roll, having offended sikhs, Indians and roman catholics within the span of a single week.

While I could devote some time in this post to the problems that at least some roman catholics have with the joke made by Leno, I am taking a break from the catholics today: I know there will be something about them in the news that I can discuss next time. This post will be concerned directly with Leno’s comments about the sikh Golden Palace, as well as with the reactions from sikhs and the hypocritical, fascist-like government of India.

Indians and Sikhs Offended

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On January 19 of this year, Leno showed a picture of the sikh Golden Temple and then commented on how this is the summer home of Mitt Romney, the Republican Presidential candidate. ABC News reports that in reaction to Leno’s comments a Facebook group was started, titled Boycott Jay Leno. Leno also peeved California resident Dr. Randeep Dhillon, who is suing Leno for what he is deeming the encouragement of ridicule and hatred of his religion, according to TMZ.com. Leno also drew attention from Indian nationals, including visiting NRI affairs minister Vayalar Ravi, who spoke with reporters in India about Leno’s comments (The Telegrapgh, India):

It is quite unfortunate and quite objectionable that such a comment has been made after showing the… Golden Temple… The Golden Temple is the Sikh community’s most sacred place. Even our Prime Minister went there for praying in the New Year. … The American government should also look at this kind of thing. …Freedom does not mean hurt the sentiments of others.… This is not acceptable to us and we take a very strong objection for such a display of an important place like the Golden Temple.

The Telegraph goes on to note that Ravi has directed this issue to the Indian State Department, while foreign minister S.M. Krishna is quoted as referring to the shows as ‘flippant’ and that shows like Leno’s must be “…extremely sensitive to the sensitivities of religious group(s)” within their country and outside.”

What it Means

Certain sikhs and members of the Indian Government are outraged by the comments Leno made with respect to the Golden Palace. One has gone to the extent of suing Leno while the Indian Government is calling for the censorship of the media in America and, presumably, anywhere else anyone might have the inclination make jokes that in any way come at the expense of a belief or principle that someone holds dearly. We can’t have people being offended, especially the Indian Government. After all, India is an oasis of mutual respect and tolerance between people regardless of their differences, right?

The answer to that question is “no”. India is responsible for some of the most egregious human rights violations in the world, where people to this day are subjected to social alienation and forced to live in poverty because of the religious beliefs of some hindus in that country. India wants individuals in other countries to respect their desire to not be offended for religious reasons and to have their governments ensure citizens do not violate this principle. Well as it happens, I am fucking disgusted by the way the Indian Government treats and allows its citizens to be treated – these should, because of the systemic manner in which they happen, be considered crimes against humanity. Let’s explore some of the ways in which the Indian Government, directly or indirectly, pisses on the rights and dignity of its citizens.

The purpose of this: to show that India is grossly hypocritical on issues of human rights and has absolutely no business telling anyone how they ought to be respecting the rights of individuals and groups.Taking advice on respecting human rights from India is not unlike asking Darth Vader for parenting or spousal advice: a really bad idea…perhaps even an exercise in futility.

Persecution in India

Before I continue any further, I would like to provide you with a number of links I have consulted while writing this post. While not all sources of information will actually be used in this post, they are all relevant to understanding the issues I am about to discuss:

• http://www.ielrc.org/content/w0103.pdf
• http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/AsiaRegion/Pages/INIndex.aspx
• http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/india?id=1011170
• http://www.rediff.com/news/column/indias-very-own-blasphemy-law/20110321.htm
• http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110112/jsp/opinion/story_13426168.jsp
• http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/23/india-disappointing-year-human-rights
• http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/07/20/schools-and-armed-conflict-0
• http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/countries-should-protect-human-rights-india_753996.html
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084101/Lalita-Tati-murder-Indian-girl-7-liver-cut-sacrifice-pictured.html
• http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/indian-farmers-sacrifice-girl-for-good-harvest-report/
• http://www.sikhcoalition.org/HumanRights.asp
• http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-010-2012
• http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-014-2012
• http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/resources/hr_instrument.htm
• http://www.sit.edu/studyabroad/ssa_inh.cfm
• http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-25/india/30319980_1_chogm-commonwealth-summit-countries
• http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2832288.ece
• http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2817926.ece?homepage=true
• http://indiankanoon.org/doc/12704/
• http://indiankanoon.org/doc/8019/
• http://nhrc.nic.in/hract.htm
• http://nhrc.nic.in/HumanRightsAct.htm

The most difficult part of this post is deciding where to begin when describing the systemic human rights abuses that plague the Indian State. But given that the issue of religious freedom has been pretty popular lately, I will begin with a discussion of religious freedom in India. I will also discuss such issues as: censorship; education; displaced persons; and, violence perpetrated by the Border Security Forces.

Religious Freedom

India prides itself on possessing such a diverse group of religious group within its borders. Though dominated by the hindi faith, India is also home to christians, muslims, sikhs, buddhists, janists, zoroastrians, those who do not identify with organized religion and atheists: while it may be able to boast that all of these groups live side-by-side, it is unable to boast that they do so amicably. Multiple sources, from the United Nations to Amnesty International, report that across the country different religious minority groups, who are usually non-hindi, are subject to religiously-rooted violence and social discrimination. This, despite their being laws on the books, and the Indian Government bragging, that it is committed to the rights of each of its citizens.

Then there is Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code which states:

Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment…which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

Though this is supposed to be used only in situations in which it can be demonstrated that the offender caused offense with ‘deliberate and malicious’ intent. The first thing wrong with this law is that it denies people the right to be able to speak openly about religion. Think of atheists who naturally hold a position that is considered to be offensive to many people identify as being religious. It is one thing to go around hurling insults at people, and to use hurtful religious slurs while doing so should qualify as hate speech of some sort. But simply discussing religious traditions or challenging religious positions should never be punishable by prison. It violates rights to conscience and rights to freedom of expression. As Ezra Levant notes in his book Shake Down, there is no right that protects people from being offended.

Consider the following example of religious freedom in India provided by The Telegraph:

In 2006, Jaimala created a stir when she revealed that she had entered the sanctum sanctorum of Lord Ayappa in the Kerala temple in her youth and had touched the idol’s feet. Religious leaders and the temple authorities were highly affronted by Jaimala’s act because females in the age group of 10-50 years are forbidden from entering the temple.

After four years of investigation by the state law enforcement authorities into the alleged act of sacrilege, the actress and two others were booked under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for intentionally outraging religious sentiments.

Freedom of religion does exist in India: that is, if you happen to belong to the majority group in any given locale – and so long as you do not offend anyone’s religious sentiments when you say or write anything.

Censorship

In addition to the lack of religious freedom within India, the State has also clamped down on the freedom of the press, banning books – not to mention food and drink – that it finds offensive to certain religious sensibilities. As The Hindu writer Praveen Swami writes:

The contours of the bizarre theocratic dystopia that could replace the secular state are already evident. The state tells us we may not read the Satanic Verses, or Aubrey Menen’s irreverent retelling of the Ramayana; it chooses not to prosecute the vandals who block stores from stocking D.N. Jha’s masterful Holy Cow, James Laine’s history of Shivaji, or Paul Courtright’s explorations of oedipal undertones in Hindu mythology. 

It doesn’t end there: the state regulates, on god’s behalf, what we may eat or drink — witness the proliferation of bans on beef, and proscriptions on alcohol use in so-called holy cities. It ensures children pray in morning assemblies funded by public taxes, provides endowments for denomination schools and funds religious functions. It pays for prayers before state functions, and promotes pseudo-sciences like astrology. And, yes: it censors heretics, like M.F. Husain or Mr. Rushdie. 

Even the rule of law has been contracted-out to god’s agents. Last week, a self-appointed Sharia court issued orders to expel Christian priests from Jammu and Kashmir; neither the police, the judicial system nor political parties stepped in. In many north Indian States, local caste and religious tyrannies have brutally punished transgressions of religious laws.

Whether it is a fascinating book, a succulent steak, or even just being able to continue living in one’s home is not the prerogative of the individual, it is now the role of the Nanny State or the facade authority of sharia courts. Thus far only two areas of what it means to live in India have been discussed, and so far it is clear that within India the rights of religious freedom and freedom of conscience are under attack – with the complicity of the State.

Education

There are two different ways in which the education system in India is being adversely affected that I would like to discuss at this point. The first negative impact on education is the ongoing armed conflict between rebels and the armed forces. In their bloody feuding, these groups squeeze out civilian populations, often occupying schools and even hospitals for short- to long-term shelter. The conflict itself causes disruptions to the education system until such time that the fighting stops or moves on. But even then, there is often damage to the buildings such that they must first be repaired or re-built before they can be used again, which results in further delays to the education of the youth.

As alluded to above, as religious groups become dominate in certain areas, they control the social structure, and this is adversely affecting education as well. Some of these religious groups try to put distance between their communities and the outside world, including such things as education. This coupling of tribal religious beliefs with a lack of education results in the perpetuation of beliefs in magic/witchcraft. In the same article from The Hindu, Swami notes that “In 2010, the National Crime Records Bureau data show, a staggering 178 people were killed for practising witchcraft.” And as Trust Law notes, “Due to low literacy levels, lack of infrastructure and poverty, they have lived a relatively isolated life, where some communities believe in traditional healers and witchdoctors who advise poor, illiterate villagers to sacrifice young girls for wealth or good health.”

A recent example of the dangerous effects of an uneducated citizenry involves a young girl of 7 years named Lalita Tati, was walking home from a friend’s house when two men, Padam Sukku and Pignesh Kujur, abducted the girl, killed her and sacrificed her liver to the a hindu goddess. The two farmers hoped that the sacrifice would yield a good return in their harvest. The Mail Online also reports that it is believed Lalita was targeted because her father, Budhram Tati, was suspected of practicing black magic.

The State, if it is to take the well-being of its citizens seriously, not to mention the ability for India to remain competitive in this global marketplace, must start taking the education of its people more seriously, such that it ensures religious fanatics are not able to isolate large groups of people and convince them of such primitive and dangerous beliefs as referred to above. The government of India must go to greater lengths to ensure that the conflicts its armed forces engage in do not cross over into civilian zones, as this disrupts and endangers public life, not to mention its deleterious effects to social infrastructure like education and healthcare.

Displaced Persons

People are frequently forced from their land in India, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. For example, the anti-sikh riots of 1984 left countless people displaced, many of whom remain without home or property to this day. But in addition to people being displaced as the result of conflicts in the country, many others are displaced by the government, sometimes repeatedly, insofar as where they live is non-conducive to government plans for the land. If the government needs to build a new dam, the people who live in the area receive a meager dollop of money and are booted from their homes – left to wonder and try to relocate. Then there are all the people in India who are without the money required to not have to live on the streets, a.k.a. slums. If it weren’t bad enough that so many millions of people are reduced to such abject poverty and unhygienic living conditions, these slum-dwellers also live in uncertainty as to when the next government bulldozers will plow through their homes in the name of civic planning.

If the Indian Government really were serious about such things as human rights, it would be doing everything in its power to raise the standard of living for all citizens, such that no one would ever have to be reduced to living in a slum; one also wouldn’t have to live in fear of their home being torn down by their government.

Violence Perpetrated by the Border Security Forces

One of the most common human rights complaints that I cam across in my research involved the humanitarian abuses of India’s Border Security Forces (BSF). There are reports upon reports of the BSF routinely engaging in such inhumane activities as kidnappings, mass executions, indiscriminate violence, digging mass graves, and extra-judicial torture and killing. A response of the Indian Government to these complaints was to take the BSF’s live ammunition and replace it with rubber bullets, which was successful in reducing the number of murders, but not the amount of violence being committed by these thugs.

Below you can find a video of this brutality in action, shot on January 16, 2012 and made available by the Asian Human Rights Watch. I warn you in advance, however: the footage below is extremely graphic and particularly sensitive readers may just want to take my word that the behaviour exhibited by the BSF is inexcusable and deplorable.

This is made all the more problematic when you consider Section 197 of the Indian Code of Criminal Procedure:

197. Prosecution of Judges and public servants.

1. When any person who is or was a Judge or Magistrate or a public servant not removable from his office save by or with the sanction of the Government is accused of any offence alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty, no Court shall take cognizance of such offence except with the previous sanction-

• in the case of a person who is employed or, as the case may be, was at the time of commission of the alleged offence employed, in connection with the affairs of the Union, of the Central Government;
• in the case of a person who is employed or, as the case may be, was at the time of commission of the alleged offence employed, in connection with the affairs of a State, of the State Government: 1[ Provided that where the alleged offence was committed by a person referred to in clause (b) during the period while a Proclamation issued under clause (1) of article 356 of the Constitution was in force in a State, clause (b) will apply as if for the expression" State Government" occurring therein, the expression" Central Government" were substituted.

2. No Court shall take cognizance of any offence alleged to have been committed by any member of the Armed Forces of the Union while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty, except with the previous sanction of the Central Government.

Members of the BSF are essentially able to act with impunity when discharging their official duties. This means these persons are protected from prosecution and do not have to cooperate with inquiries or investigations into the abuses in different areas.

How can India seriously consider itself to have a positive human rights record when the members of its military, who operate within the borders of the country, are able to kill citizens and non-citizens alike and never have to be accountable to anyone for the horrible things they have done?

The Irony of it All

Jay Leno told a joke featuring Mitt Romney and the Golden Tempe of the sikh religion. A sikh in California responded by suing Leno because he found the joke to be offensive. To this thin-skinned imp I would say only that no rights protect you from being offended: you can choose to either grow up and understand that not everyone has to share your system of belief, nor do they have to respect it (though they have to respect your right to believe in whatever nonsense you like) or you can be smart about your emotional shortcomings and just keep the television turned off.

As for the Indian authorities who found Leno's joke to be offensive and have called for Leno and others to censor themselves, or for the state to censor them if they will not, I say, with all due respect, to go fuck yourselves. I don't care that you were offended. There is a lot of work that must be done within your own borders insofar as respecting the human rights of all citizens is concerned; so much work in fact that you have absolutely no business telling the rest of the world how they should be conducting their affairs. Not to mention two other problems with the Indian Government on this issue:

• First, the Indian Government, like so many individuals and organizations these days, needs to be given a lesson as to what religious freedom means: it does not mean this or that religious group has the right to not be offended - it means only that they have the right to believe what they want without being persecuted for it.
• Second, in expecting other countries to yield to your demands, you expect nothing less than for these countries to hand over their sovereignty to your obvious dictatorial, totalitarian regime.

Jay Leno is a funny guy, and nothing that the Indian Government or disgruntled and easily offended sikhs do should be able to curtail his or any other person's freedom of expression. To this sikh and the Indian Government, I would like to close by reminding you of the immortal words of Demetri Martin (in the video below, go to 2:29 to watch him tell this joke). Of throwing stones, Martin says:

There's a saying that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Okay. How about nobody should throw stones? That's crappy behaviour. My policy is: no stone throwing regardless of housing situation.

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• Jay Leno Sued For Telling Sikh Religion Joke, Lawsuit Likely To Be Thrown Out Of Court (inquisitr.com)
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There are catholics across the province of Ontario who believe that their rights to freedom of religion are being affected by the Ontario government, which is requiring all schools in the province, including roman catholic schools, to be more tolerant towards students who are traditionally victims of bullying in school, including those students who identify or consider themselves to be homosexual or otherwise a member of the LGBTQ community. In addition to discussing homosexuality in the classroom, all schools across the province are being required to allow students to form gay-straight alliances, if the students so desire, even though there are disputes lingering as to whether or not the title of ‘gay-straight alliance’ must be allowed to be used. This initiative is being taken to reduce the amount of bullying, including cyber-bullying, that is taking place in Ontario schools, and plans to accomplish this via education; just as increased dissemination of information and increased discussions in the public realm helped to reduce racial tensions between whites and blacks during the 1900′s. It seeks to reinforce our shared humanity as a vehicle for reducing bullying. Who would have a problem with as honourable an objective as this?

Well, catholics for one.

The teachings of the catholic church make the unfounded determination that homosexuals are sinful beings, insofar as they act on their homosexual urges. The catholic church believes these people, if they are to be considered good people, must recognize that it is not in their nature, or in the nature of any person, to be homosexual: the desires and urges they have are aberrations of nature, the result of the devil working through them. In fact, the official position of the catholic church is that homosexuality is a crime on par with pedophilia (of which the catholic church knows a thing or two) and incest. I have previously referenced the post Holy See’s UN representative says people should not suffer violence or be punished because of their sexual orientation, available on ProtectThePope.com in which Archbishop Silvano Tomasi states:

for the purposes of human rights law, there is a critical difference between feelings and thoughts, on the one hand, and behavior, on the other. A state should never punish a person, or deprive a person of the enjoyment of any human right, based just on the person’s feelings and thoughts, including sexual thoughts and feelings. … But states can, and must, regulate behaviors, including various sexual behaviors. Throughout the world, there is a consensus between societies that certain kinds of sexual behaviors must be forbidden by law. Pedophilia and incest are two examples.

According to the catholics, then, homosexuals are not sinners for being homosexual, they are sinners and their behaviour deranged or evil to the extent that they act on their thoughts and feelings. On the one hand, Tomasi tells his audience that the church acknowledges the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings…but then makes the provision that this in reality only extends so far. Even if the roman catholic church does not condone violence towards these people, it does encourage its sheep to alienate and to treat these people as second class citizens; the Vatican teaches catholics to be ignorant towards homosexual persons – and this ignorance leads to persecution and the denial of rights which are forms of violence.

And real, everyday catholics listen to the commandments of the Vatican and embrace these teachings in their own lives. (The following discussion is based on an editorial from an Ontario resident on thenewsstar.com titled Catholics must protect freedoms.) According to people like Hamilton, Ontario resident Paul Kokoski, the gay liberation movement‘s latest ploy is to attack religious freedom by having homosexuality discussed in both public and separate (catholic) schools, under the guise of reducing school bullying. Kokoski argues that this amounts to giving those with homosexual tendencies preferential treatment in regards to bullying; he also accuses the gay liberation movement of morphing into something analogous to the Ku Klux Klan. Kokoski goes on to write:

Bullying can be curtailed without homosexual indoctrination. Further, it is ludicrous for homosexual activists to suggest that defending the Catholic faith means a denial of the homosexual person or his right to obtain help. Do parents think these things of their children when they exercise “tough love” whence their children behave badly? Hardly! In fact, the opposite is true. No parent who truly loves their child will allow him or her to do everything they please.

I would be interested to learn how it is Kokoski believes that the bullying and mistreatment of homosexuals can be effected without education: after all, it is education from the family, religion and society that is currently justifying the abuse and violence directed towards homosexuals and the LGBTQ community. Listen Kokoski, you have to step beyond your catholic ways if you are going to address the public – you cannot just say that there are other ways to reduce bullying without education; you must also explain what these other ways are. Kokoski must also provide justification for his claim that the changes to Ontario’s Education Act amount to homosexual indoctrination.

Contrary to what catholics like Kokoski would have you believe, the catholic church demonstrates zero understanding of what it means to be homosexual; it also has a historical tendency to treat homosexuals with a lack of sympathy and respect. When these catholics sit around and tell you how much they love and respect all persons, they are no better than muslims who practice the art of taqiyya - which is really nothing more than lying to those external to your religious sect, such that the true intentions of yourself and/or your religion are not actually expressed.

Kokoski then tries to explain the catholic position: it is not that homosexuals are being mistreated. Homosexuals are treated, in the catholic worldview, in the same manner as a child who has done something wrong: a child who beats up his sister needs to be punished to learn that this type of behaviour is unacceptable. Homosexuals, in the same way, must be punished for being bad. On this view, catholics are trying to treat good people well and to punish sinners for being sinners and it is that Ontario Government that is guilty of forcing immorality on the province.

Kokoski finishes his letter by fallaciously arguing:

Ultimately, religious freedom precedes the state. It is the first freedom. It is the premise and guarantee of all freedoms that ensure the common good. The very idea of making the pope subservient to Big Brother is not only irrational, it’s utterly hateful, blasphemous and ridiculous!

Religious freedom does not precede the state: we are all, first and foremost, human. We existed as a species before religion came into being. Religious freedom is not the first right: the first right would be the right to life and security of person; without these rights, the right to religious freedom is moot. Also, religious freedom, so much as it grants each person the right to believe in this religion or that, or no religion at all, it also grants each person the right to not be subject to religious teachings and commandments against their will. This means, Kokoski, that just as you have the right to believe in whatever hokum you like, I am equally entitled to not have to be subject to one iota of your superstitious claims, just as every other person is as well.

In closing, no one is making the pope subservient to the state: the pope is naturally subservient to the state. It is the unethical and power-hungry impulses of the religious that label secular states as evil, blasphemous and the like. But when you look at the cesspool of raw ignorance and vitriol that gives birth to the religious animal, it is easy to understand why they are so concerned with appearing other than they are, while all the time pushing for total control of how each of us lives our lives.

Related articles

• Anti-Bullying, TBGLQ Rights and the Catholic Church: Battle in Ontario (philosophershaze.com)
• Bullshit in Lambs Clothing: Anti-Bullying and the “War on Religion” (philosophershaze.com)
• Puppet Pundits & Grand Apologists: Christians Bicker “That’s Not Christian!” (philosophershaze.com)
• The Hate and Ignorance of Catholics (philosophershaze.com)
• The Catholic Church Has Had Its Own Reformation (robertlindsay.wordpress.com)
• Intolerance Born of Ignorance: The Real Threat to Humanity (philosophershaze.com)
• Go Trans – Figure (queeringthechurch.com)
• Roe V Wade And Christian Unity (catholicboyrichard.wordpress.com)
• Scott Stinson: Ontario’s publicly funded intolerance (fullcomment.nationalpost.com)
• Bullying, and Catholic Schools. (queeringthechurch.com)

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I am becoming increasingly upset at the intolerance that is permeating this world: both because of the severity of this intolerance and because of its frequency across the globe. One thing is certain, humanity’s future hangs in a delicate balance. It is still within our control to change our course; we still have the ability to walk down a new path. But this change will not come easily. For us to steer clear of this suicidal path we must begin respecting one another as fellow human beings, something which entails much more than simply not killing one another. It also entails learning about the natural world such that we can all work together to ensure that neither violence, nor pollution, nor inaction will be the cause of our downfall. Our long-term survival as a species requires us to put an end to intolerance in all of its many different expressions. And as we shall see, intolerance can only ever be routed out if we no longer allow ignorance to be commonplace. This is not to say that you will ever be able to prevent all forms of ignorance – but it does mean that as a species we can firmly decree that when it comes to this society or that, no law or policy can be based on any premise for which there is zero evidence or no good reason.

What I am arguing for here should not in any way be construed as my advocating some sort of “thought police”, nor should would I have said above be interpreted as me arguing that people should not be able to believe whatever they want, i.e. I am not saying that religious faith should be outlawed. People should be free to believe whatever they like. However, when it comes to being a member of society, or of the human species, you cannot spend your days enforcing your beliefs on others or indiscriminately acting on your beliefs. When it comes to how we interact with one another, or participate in the public arena, we must be cognizant of the fact that neither harmony nor long-term sustainability can be achieved if we treat individuals, or groups thereof, intolerantly.

Religious authorities spend quite a bit of time providing ethical commandments and discussing what is wrong with humanity; telling their followers who is good and who is evil, as well as many of them also telling their followers that those who truly believe will be redeemed, while everyone else will spend eternity in hell or something akin to it, i.e. being reincarnated as a being further removed from the state of achieving Nirvana. It is precisely this type of intolerance, which is born out of ignorance, that we must, at the very least, refrain from directing social policies, though ideally we would be able to banish these divisive, often violent, and unverifiable claims.

In order to justify the statements I have made above, I will spend the remainder of this post discussing some of the major examples of intolerance that currently plague our world, as well as demonstrating how this intolerance is based on the shaky ground of ignorance. For each of these examples I will make it clear just how they threaten the future of humanity, which will in the end provide justification to my claim that these beliefs need to be contained to the private lives of individuals and groups, or that these groups – because they have no place in building or maintaining societies capable of enduring into the future.

Caste Systems

India is known for many different things, one of them being the caste system, which has its origins, at least in part, in the religion of hinduism. Indian society has been segregated for religious reasons, and this segregation has lead to certain groups of people being exalted and considered ‘better’, while three other classes exist, with the lowest class being that of the undesirables or “untouchables”. This caste system discourages and even prohibits mixing of castes, and encourages misunderstandings to grow into full-fledged animosity. Religion is being used to instill and keep this intolerance alive. But hinduism is a religious faith – it is not a system of belief based on a scientific or reasoned approach to understanding the world and the role of people in it. Hinduism, as all other religious faiths, lack the authority to tell anyone how to live their lives. This is not to say that people should not be free to choose to believe in this or that religious doctrine, but it does mean that the religious cannot force their beliefs on the society in which they live.

The religion of hinduism is responsible for the abject poverty and social alienation of millions of people across the country of India – for the violence these people commit and are subject to. Religion is responsible for caste being used as a justification to discriminate, rape, torture and kill. This is an example of religion being used to poison and corrupt, not to make better.

Hinduism, and this system of caste, are the products of ignorant beliefs about the world. Ignorant about the fabric of reality and what it means to be human. There has never been a lick of evidence with which anyone could possibly defend this archaic belief as being an accurate reflection of reality. The religion is being used to keep certain persons in positions of power, while other persons are abandoned in the refuse of society, treated like feral dogs.

A specific example of the disastrous effects of this caste system is presented in the Vice Guide to Travel: Prostitutes of God. In this documentary host Sarah Harris travels to some of the slums of India and interviews a number of young and old women, as well as one man, who devote themselves to the goddess Yellamma, which means they are reduced to prostitution to make money – many of them are sold into this life by their parents and begin having sex as soon as they are capable of menstruating. All of this thanks to a religion and its beliefs being forced upon an entire society. You can watch the full documentary below.

Understanding Science and Geophysical Processes

In order to understand the world and reality in which we are situated it is necessary to tirelessly investigate this reality via the process of observation and experimentation, with any insights we gain being tested and corroborated by others with sufficient expertise before we regard these insights as knowledge or as reflecting the way things actually are in any capacity. It is only because handfuls of individuals throughout the history of humanity have been concerned with coming to know the world via these processes that we have any actual knowledge of the world. Religion has not been responsible for increasing our knowledge of the world: religion begins with certain preconceptions about how things actually are, and with these certainties in hand, begins to investigate and understand the world. But herein lies the difference: in the case of religion certain things, such as the existence of a deity, are taken for granted, and all ‘knowledge’ about the world must support the reality of these unestablished realities. The other practice, that associated with science, does not take anything for granted about the natural world – only the natural world, not supernatural speculation, can reveal anything about the world. In fact, it has only been since religion has lost its totalitarian grip on societies that science has truly been able to blossom – thanks in part to the fact that scientists and other researchers no longer had to worry about being charged with blasphemy or heresy.

The reason this issue is of such importance is that unless we truly dedicate ourselves to understanding the way things actually are, what we are and how we are related to everything else, we will not be able to make the types of decisions we need to be making in order to help ensure our long-term survival. Our ability to survive over the short or long-term will not be facilitated by holding erroneous beliefs about the way things are. Religious faith systems, then, are not what we should be using to guide our process of understanding reality – it is also why they should not be used to educate anyone about the world. Let us now consider some examples of how religion attempts to regulate humanity’s understanding of the world, as well as why relying on such systems of belief for acquiring knowledge about the world is dangerous to our survival, not to mention being a source of intolerance towards perceived wrongdoers and those who practice honest science.

Creationism in the Classroom

This is a practice that happens around the globe, and is championed in a particular kind of way by christians in the United States. Creationism is the belief that a deity was responsible for creating all of reality; it is also characterized by the belief that the world is only 4,000 – 6,000 years old – some even go to the extent of believing that man walked with the dinosaurs and many deny the validity of evolution by natural selection. Now it would be one thing if this particular article of faith was kept to the religious persons themselves, but sadly, many want others to accepts this not as an article of faith, but as a truth about the world. Creationists are attempting to have the doctrine of creationism taught in science classes as science! These charlatans have as much credibility as The Flat Earth Society.

If these people are successful in their lobbying efforts they will be contributing to the stagnation of education. It will lead to children and other students being taught this religious faith, which is no more an actual depiction of reality than is superstition. No honest research or investigation can ever be conducted if students are being told that all of their insights must agree with the tenets of the faith. And if education is surrendered to religious boot licking, our ability to understand and survive in the world will decrease, while our propensity for learned ignorance will contribute to increased opportunities for misunderstanding and growing intolerant of those who hold different worldviews.

Religion and Medicine

Religion has a history of claiming authority in areas for which it should remain mute, one of these areas being medicine. The jehova’s witness religion has had a history of instructing its followers that it is a sin to ever accept a blood transfusion for any reason – though it has recently relaxed its position on blood transfusions, providing instruction that it is now a matter of personal choice. This religion never had any business telling people it is evil to receive blood transfusions and I think the most responsible and appropriate thing for the jehova’s witness religion to do would be to approach all of its followers and tell them that there is no moral prohibition against blood transfusions. Until such time it will be responsible for contributing to the unnecessary deaths of its adherents. If this type of ignorance is to continue, more people will be inclined to hold positions that are not only inaccurate, but that also contribute to their poor health and decreased longevity.

There is also countless examples of people who believe that western medicine is incapable of helping them and that only prayer and faith in god can remedy what ails them. Go to Google and perform the following search: prayer as medical treatment death. What you find is terrifying: it is predominately cases of christian parents who decided against medical treatment and went instead with prayer. As a result of these actions, what can only be considered as child abuse, these ignorant fools killed or hospitalized their children and did so in the name of their religious faith. These people, for one reason or another, were taught to think very little of or to be intolerant of the medical establishment, to think that science is ineffective compared to the power of prayer.

Religion encourages people to be foolhardy about the world, to distrust actual authorities in the world that the priestly classes find threatening, and in doing so pushes these people to make decisions for themselves and their families that actually contribute to their decreased odds of surviving in the short or long-terms. How can humanity persevere when idiocy such as this holds the reins?

Religion and Natural Disasters

A story I have told in the past is of my last time attending a roman catholic mass. I was sitting in a pew with my family: the priest, Brian McNally, had just finished the gospel and we were about to listen to his homily (sermon). During this sermon he began telling everyone in attendance that the reason we have such calamities as earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis and the like is that people are inherently sinful and that they are god’s way of punishing people. I remember being truly outraged by what he said and was further incensed when I began surveying those in attendance and noticed that nearly every one of them were nodding their heads in agreement with him. Forget about all of that silly science stuff, the real reason these things happen is that god doesn’t like the same things that we don’t like, and because people insist on doing these things, he kills them, while leaving the survivors with their homes destroyed and the source of their livelihood swept away with the lives of their loved ones.

This is what people are being taught in their places of worship. And these fictions, they are told, are to take precedence over what learned people like volcanologists, oceanographers and others have to tell us about the nature of these phenomenon, including why they happen. So over and above being taught that there is an invisible being that shakes the earth when it is mad, these people are also taught that those who are different than them are worthy of death. All of this nonsense, rooted in plain ol’ ignorance, contributes in very real ways to the intolerance certain groups of people have towards other groups of people. And when hostilities are not based on anything at all reasonable, it is difficult to see how a solution can be amicably reached. Intolerance can fester to the point that it can only be satiated with a bloody blade or a smoking gun – and encouraging such hatreds is no way to ensure the long-term survival of humanity.

Examples of sinners being punished by god include the victims of Hurricane Katrina that pummeled the residents of New Orleans, for the overwhelmingly lewd and sexually deviant lifestyles found there. Or, more recently, consider the tsunami that struct Japan – this was apparently to punish all of the godless people who lived in that region of the world. I guess by the same reasoning, one could argue that this god thought it would be a good idea to kill a bunch of people with the actual tsunami, but then to slowly murder, sterilize and otherwise make millions of people sick via the compromised nuclear reactors.

Religious ignorance, when preached as a truth or reality, is capable of encouraging people to become more intolerant of others, not to mention also making them less empathetic to the pain and suffering of these people being punished and murdered ‘by their god’.

Sex and Homosexuality

Religion has many commandments for what is required to live a good life. In the case of the big three religious traditions, judaism, christianity and islam, there are commandments pertaining directly to the sexual act or that require certain actions to be performed on members of a certain sex. This sub-section will demonstrate how these ignorant religious practices is contributing to sickness, deformations of the genitalia, social alienation, increasing intolerance, and inciting at least certain members of these groups to violence against perceived wrongdoers or sinners.

Judaism requires that young boys be circumcised, which is nothing shy of male genital mutilation. Quite often these children are only given wine for the pain and in some instances, the rabbi performing the circumcision will remove the boy’s foreskin with his teeth, which has been known to transfer sexually communicable diseases from adult to baby – many people would also qualify actions such as this as being equivalent to rape. Yet this practice is allowed to continue to this day because it is regarded as a religious tradition.

In a number of muslim regions the practice of female genital mutilation is common place – this horrible treatment towards quite often young girls is being justified by archaic and ignorant religious principles – which is more concerned with controlling women than it is with anything remotely virtuous. There are different types of female genital mutilation, each differing in the amount of flesh removed and thus the trauma received. The World Health Organization (WHO) released a document titled Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation, which defines three types of the procedure. The first is clitoridectomy: the total removal of the clitoris. Second is excision: the partial or total removal of the clitoris and labia minora, with or without the removal of the labia majora. The third is known as infibulation: can include the total removal of the clitoris, labia minora and the labia majora; also involves sewing the vaginal opening such that only enough room is left for urine and menstrual discharge (these stitches are often removed as part of the wedding night ritual). The WHO also estimates that there are presently between 100 and 140 million women who have endured one of these three types of genital mutilation. This is another example of the laws for sexual purity required by religion that have very negative real world consequences and actually contribute to growing intolerance towards certain groups of people – in this case, women.

Let us also consider the overwhelming number of christians who are diametrically opposed to homosexuals and who work around the clock to ensure that homosexual or non-straight couples are never given the full range of rights, such as the right to marry. These christians have been told such things as ‘god hates fags’, to believe that homosexual people are internally deranged or have misguided natures that are contrary to all that is natural and good. In California the mormons or LDS church fought with their time and money to overturn a law that allowed same-sex couples to marry. Also in California, christian groups are outraged at the FAIR Education Act that seeks to include the accomplishments and contributions of traditionally marginalized groups, including homosexual persons and other members of the LGBTQ community. Catholic school boards around the province of Ontario, Canada, are fighting the McGuinty government to either not have gay-straight-alliances in their schools – or to at the very least prevent them from being able to use terms such as “gay” in their names. One can also think of the Vatican, which fought to have homosexual persons denied special status under international human rights legislation, or when pope this week referred to gay marriage and homosexuality as being a threat to the future of humanity. Recently, a man in the United States murdered a friend of his for being gay because he earnestly believed he was commanded to do so by the bible.

So here we have multiple examples of ignorance born out of religious faith that is promoting violence and intolerance towards certain groups of people, which makes it very difficult to understand how it is the religions are to be understood as promoting social harmony or even a marginal spirit of good will. When your ignorant and intolerant beliefs are capable of driving you to murder it is difficult to understand how it is these beliefs could ever be conducive to he long-term survival of any social group, let alone the species.

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Conclusion

Though this has only be a brief analysis of religion in our world, I believe it is sufficient for demonstrating just how utterly ridiculous the claims being made by the pope and others of his ilk, claims that the future of humanity will be threatened unless we have a return to religious, non-secular morality, and only if this morality is enshrined in the laws of each land. The thing is that each of these groups have different beliefs about what this morality (or natural law) they cherish so much actually consists of. The Vatican has made it abundantly clear that it is of the belief that it is the only true christian church in the world, and so the Vatican and many of the world’s 2 billion roman catholics would be quite perturbed if they were suddenly subject to anglican rule. So too would muslims be outraged if they were suddenly forced to live according to jewish law. All of these groups disagree with one another about what the truth is and what path one must walk in order to adhere to it, so clearly none of them have it in mind that just any religious system being enshrined in law  would be a good thing: they all want that power.

More to the point – given how twisted, without justification and obsessed with domination each of these traditions is – how could anyone honestly want any of them to have any degree of power? Their positions are based on ignorance, and this ignorance gives rise to greater or lesser amounts of intolerance towards others and even one another. These worldviews promote ignorance with respect to understanding the world or with respect to how to survive as a species over the long run.

Each of these groups discusses the need for religious freedom and go to great lengths to remind everyone with ears to listen or eyes to read that they need to have their rights to worship and bear witness to their faith as they believe they are required to do. But for each of them to do this requires that they infringe upon the religious freedom of other people, as no major religion I am aware of really promotes the idea of keeping to themselves. This means that other religious persons are going to have legitimate grievances, as will people who do not have any religious affiliation but are likewise supposed to be protected from being subject to the religious beliefs and traditions of other people.

Religious freedom, then, will never be something that will be achieved so long as each of these religious groups insists on being able to dictate how anyone outside of their own faith acts.

And so long as each of these groups insist on dominating the world with their foolish superstitions and hatreds, intolerance and stupidity will flourish and the future of humanity truly will be put in jeopardy – put in jeopardy by the very people who are of the belief they are humanity’s saviors.

Related articles

• There is always a root to the problem… (theamericanspring.wordpress.com)
• Christians and Religious Freedom: Your Faith Is Fickle (philosophershaze.com)
• Competitive Intolerance (and Hindu Apologists?) (isfahaaan.wordpress.com)
• How One Comic Can Unleash A Wave of Intolerance (geekmadel.com)
• Intolerance: Raise Your Voice (pnccareerservices.wordpress.com)
• Anti-Bullying, TBGLQ Rights and the Catholic Church: Battle in Ontario (philosophershaze.com)
• Religion Is NOT a Force For Good: An Irish Example (philosophershaze.com)
• A Call for Critical Thinking to Engender Religious and Spiritual Tolerance (faeriekat.wordpress.com)
• Government support for religious intolerance: A bad idea at home and abroad (secularnewsdaily.com)
• Memo to bishops: Think globally on religious freedom (ncronline.org)
• The Reservation System (Quota System) in India – Aarakshan (jeergall.com)

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If there is one fact that has become abundantly clear when it comes to that group of people known as christians. The fact that has become abundantly clear is that when it come to a vast number of christians, their religious faith means absolutely nothing if it is not endorsed and defended by government. This, at least, is how things seem to be when you consider the variety of christians who demand that their morality and worldview be reflected within the laws and customs of this or that country. Why is it these religious persons cannot lead their lives as required by their authorities, without expecting all of society and the world to mirror in law that which they consider proper and prohibit that which they deem to be sinful or evil? Why is it that the only way their personal beliefs can be validated is to have everyone else believe as they do?

The answer, my readers, is that christianity and other religious beliefs are incredibly fickle. These beliefs are fickle because the people who hold them are fickle, insecure and child-like in how they approach one another and the rest of society. Given that I am very unchristian in how I conduct my life and formulate my positions, I will now explain why it is that christians in particular are a group of people united in the fickle nature of their beliefs.

Religious Freedom

One of the issues we hear come up time and again is that the rights of the religious must be respected because they have the freedom to practice their own religion without interference. But this is not the really what is meant by religious freedom: insofar as it does grant individuals the right to be able to practice their respective faiths, it also gives people the right to not be subjected by force to the religious beliefs of others. As much as it protects the right of anyone to have religious beliefs, it also gives people the right to choose to not have religious beliefs, i.e. being an atheist is protected in the same manner that being a christian is protected.

Thus, in a society that is pluralistic, or comprised of individuals with various religious and non-religious beliefs, the right to religious freedom must guarantee that this or that religious group is free to practice their beliefs to the extent that these beliefs do not restrict the religious freedom of others. This means that in such a pluralistic society, christians must be able to celebrate their faith, but they cannot force others to live under the commandments or authority of their faith.

I will now turn to specific examples which demonstrate how so many christians are confused about what their freedom to religion really guarantees them.

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

Many christians, not to mention the official position of many different christian faith groups, believe that only those policies which are pro-life should be allowed, while anything labeled as pro-choice needs to be legally prohibited within society. Many christians are actively engaged in trying to have the laws of their society changed such that pro-choice activities, such as abortions, become illegal. One well known example of this attempt by christians to abuse religious freedoms, is the Forty Days of Life initiative – you can click here to read about what Forty Days of Life is as well as my coverage of this event in Ottawa in October of last year.

Participants in Forty Days of Life consider themselves to be keeping vigil and praying and nothing more. In reality they are trying to exert pressure on the abortion clinics as well as the women who are inquiring about or seeking abortion services, such that they can shut these clinics down and stop the women from getting abortions. What they are doing is not simply praying or keeping vigil, but are actually protesting and pushing their beliefs on others in the public realm.

These types of actions, coercing people in very public and often very graphic engagements to change their minds and trying to forcibly close clinics that provide abortion services, cross the religious freedom line. These christians are attempting to control the actions of non-christians by only allowing those institutions and only allowing those laws which they happen to find palatable.

Christians, you are free to not have abortions and to not affiliate yourselves via personal or business interactions with those people and organizations that support a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body. But you cannot bring your laughable religious beliefs to the legal realm and expect the law to embrace the morality erected by people who were nothing shy of xenophobic, close-minded, hateful and willfully ignorant about the world ad what it means to be human.

Proposition 8

The State of California had in the past granted same-sex couples the right to marry, a legal move that actually embraced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights such that each person in that State was allowed to marry any person they choose, regardless of their sex. This didn’t sit well with many christians, including the mormon church, that actively campaigned and spent large amounts of money on ensuring enough people voted in favour of Proposition 8. The result was the ballot passed and same-sex marriage was no longer legal in California.

This is another example of christians ignoring what is meant by religious freedom, and acting to force all people to live as they do in just one more way. It is not enough for these christians who seem to ardently despise non-heterosexual unions to simply not allow them within their congregations or to simply remain steadfast in their religious belief that these types of relationships are morally bankrupt. No sir. These people work tirelessly to ensure the entire world becomes as vanilla, ignorant and full of contempt as they are.

You can read more about Proposition 8 here.

California FAIR Education Act

The intention of the FAIR Education Act is to ensure that individuals of underrepresented groups, including individuals in the LGBTQ community, are recognized via the education curriculum for the contributions they have made to society. It is interesting to note that FAIR also brings classroom instruction in line with nondiscrimination laws for the State. Instead of treating the Act for what it is, an attempt to ensure that all members of society that make positive contributions are acknowledged via the education curriculum, opponents of the Act, who call it a ‘gay history bill’, and believe it is wrong for the State to “…shine a spotlight on this lifestyle…” (see the StopSB48 website).

These opponents to the FAIR Education Act, lead at least in part by Capitol Resource Family Impact and the Capitol Resource Institute, believe that those who are members of the LGBTQ community live lives of sin and that they are not worthy, essentially, of making reference. They sin in the eyes of their fictional deity – which is to say that they sin in the eyes of these christians – and they cannot be tolerated in such official capacities. These christians are not interested in relieving tensions, eliminating interpersonal misunderstandings, or even in just getting along with one another. They have their beliefs, ignorant though they are, that gays and others in the LGBTQ community are bad for acting on their impulses, and that the rest of us should be just as bigoted and ignorant as they are.

Religious freedom does give you the right to believe in foolish things and to act like an asshole in a million different ways, but it does not give you the right to force your beliefs and hatreds on anyone else.

The Vatican

In my second last post titled Pope Ben-the Dick: Charlatan and Hypocrite I went through an address made by the pope to the Vatican Press Corps, in which he reveals just how concerned with manipulating the lives of non-catholics the Vatican is. In this speech the pope tells everyone how he and the Vatican are concerned with religious freedom and other human rights being protected (right down to the religious freedom of each person), but also  seek to control how others live by having laws reflect christian (or in this case, catholic) principles. Consider one of the statements made by Ben-the-Dick during that speech:

In a number of countries, on the other hand, a constitutionally recognized right to religious freedom exists, yet the life of religious communities is in fact made difficult and at times even dangerous (cf.Dignitatis Humanae, 15) because the legal or social order is inspired by philosophical and political systems which call for strict control, if not a monopoly, of the state over society. Such inconsistencies must end, so that believers will not find themselves torn between fidelity to God and loyalty to their country. I ask in particular that Catholic communities be everywhere guaranteed full autonomy of organization and the freedom to carry out their mission, in conformity with international norms and standards in this sphere.

According to Ben, the laws must reflect religious principles so that religious persons are not torn between loyalty to State and loyalty to religious authority.

In his annual ‘State of the World’ address, Ben, who talks so much about respecting the human rights of all persons, makes comments such as “Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.” (You can find this speech at Vatican Radio). In other words, if we allow policies to be put in place that give same-sex couple and other LGBTQ individuals the right to marry one another that we risk the future of humanity. The future of humanity! This is a hell of a statement. It goes beyond saying that the roman catholic church does not condone or in anyway like such unions or relationships, to the point of saying that out future will be put in peril by allowing them to happen. Ben-the-Dick wants the whole world to act as he does…

And this is the man who says he endorses human rights for all people.

The Latin Cross of Whiteville, TN

In Whiteville, Tennessee, a number of residents paid to have a Latin Cross, a symbol of the christian faith, to be erected on the town water tower. When an individual, represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), came forward with a legal complaint based on the Establishment Clause, the town’s mayor chose to react by initially just ignoring the FFRF’s demand that the cross be removed. It wasn’t until being threatened with a law suit that Whitewville Mayor James Bellar took action and promised the cross would be removed, though it angered himself and other residents. You can read more about this here.

Since this time the town has only removed one arm of the cross – which seems to be a way for the overwhelmingly christian town to state that they would rather mutilate their religious iconography than have others tell them they cannot have it on display. Despite the fact that legal disputes regarding the Establishment Clause have repeatedly ended in the religious iconography being removed from public land, the residents of Whiteville acted as though the law was something only applicable to them when it is convenient. Residents, businesses and organizations around the town have responded by displaying crosses on their own properties and attitudes towards non-christians seem to have become very negative.

I was even told by someone from the area that a number of residents have taken to the streets in the pick up trucks, trying to find the person who went to the FFRF.

Rather than treating their town and country as home to christians and non-christians alike, these residents stand convinced that their’s is a land which needs to rule those under its control with christian principles.

Why is it these christians cannot remain content ‘knowing’ that they believe in ‘the truth’?

The Case of Jessica Alhquist

Jessica Ahlquist. Image via s3.amazonaws.com

Jessica Ahlquist is a self-described atheist teen living in Rhode Island who, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, won a legal challenge against her school, Cranston High School West, which had a prayer mural on display. Like the case of the Latin Cross in Whiteville, this also involved a violation of the Establishment Clause. Alhquist won her case, but has since been subjected to bulling, harassment and threats. Recently even State Representative Peter Palumbo has gone on record, calling Alhquist an “evil little thing“, adding further that she is being “coerced by evil people“. Palumbo, a ‘representative’ of the people of the State, not to mention Alhquist’s peers and schoolmates, have ridiculed her publicly for taking legal action to remove a symbol of christian belief from a public institution. (You can read more about Palumbo’s comments here.)

Rather than embracing religious freedom, individuals like Palumbo make it very clear that religious freedom should be applicable only to christians at the end of the day. Apparently it became a little harder for these people to keep their religious faith when they were told this iconography had to be removed.

Religion in the Science Class

Another perennial issue is religion being taught in science classes. Many christians believe in creationism, and for no reason other than the blinders religion has given them, believe that many tenets of the sciences, including that of evolution by natural selection, are bogus. These people will not rest until, at the very least, creationism is taught along side evolution as a plausible theory.

Here is the thing though: there is zero reason for believing that christianity had anything at all right, including this ridiculous concept of creationism. As with many other concepts and beliefs, christians expect others to learn as truth what they admit is nothing but faith, regardless of whether or not the people that would be subject to these teachings are christian, and whether or not they ever found any evidence to justify their pet notions.

As with the examples above, christians seem to be unable to have the beliefs they do unless they are actively engaged in trying to force everybody else in the world to think as they think and behave as they behave.

So much for religious freedom…what does this say about the nature of these christian beliefs?

Conclusion

A vast number of christians seem to be concerned with nothing but subjecting the whole world to their infantile system of belief: they betray their intentions time and again, making it very clear that they believe religious freedom can only exist when they hae the freedom to make the world religious in their own image. But putting aside the issue of religious freedom, what does this incessant need that christians seem to have to dominate everyone with their faith mean?

A person who carefully studies and learns about the world and reality will not deem it necessary to have every other person to believe as they do: this person will experiment and study the world, and are willing to pursue new ideas or challenge conventionally held truths on the strength of the evidence alone: having other people believe as he does will not make the beliefs of this person any more real. With christians, on the other hand, over and above this need they have to control and censure one another, they have a need to try to make the whole world believe as they do, which seems to be more indicative of just how fickle and immature these beliefs are, rather than proof of their validity.

Related articles

• Pope Ben-the-Dick: Charlatan and Hypocrite (philosophershaze.com)
• Christianity and Islam: Violent, Arrogant and Clueless (philosophershaze.com)
• NALC: Bishop Bradosky joins American religious leaders in defending marriage and religious freedom (pueblodedioslutheranchurch.wordpress.com)
• SCOTUS Issues Landmark Religious Freedom Ruling (npr.org)
• Save the Day: Religious Right Hijacks Religious Freedom Celebration (secularnewsdaily.com)
• The religious pro-choice (bluemilk.wordpress.com)
• Marriage vs. Religious Freedom (crossexaminedblog.com)
• An Critical Issue to Be Watchful of And Active About in this New Year. (adw.org)
• The Unification Call – NYC vs. Churches (jdeclemente.wordpress.com)
• The new conservative political opportunity in Canada and the Office of Religious Freedom (mobilizingideas.wordpress.com)

Edvard Munch's "Scream". Image via Wikipedia

Every time we turn around we are confronted with individuals whom we are told are experts or are otherwise authorities in any given realm of experience. Over and above those experts in fields like finance, science, home repair, nutrition, education and medicine; we even have experts in such things as prison survival these days. These authorities will tell you what you ought to do in this situation or that: they will tell you what school is best, or what wine you should be drinking, or even that this religious faith is true while all other traditions are merely mistaken. Experts are consulted by governments for such pursuits as military engagements, economic strategizing, and even social planning. But like most people, I am sure that you, the reader, can think of at least a handful of examples of times when experts or authorities gave advice or said that x is the case, but were shown to be completely wrong.

Over the past few days I have watched a few different documentaries on issues such as authorities and what we can legitimately consider to be knowledge, and two in particular stand out as being particularly helpful for analyzing these issues. The first comes from CBC’s DocZone called The Trouble With Experts and the other is written and directed by Dr. Carmen Boulter of the University of Calgary titled The Pyramid Code: the first documentary demonstrates why you should be skeptical of those people who are labeled as experts or authorities in any given field, while the second documentary uses the issue of Egyptology (and in particular the study of the pyramids and other archaeological evidence) to demonstrate how what we are being told by Egyptian and other authorities about Egyptian and human history may be intentionally falsified. Each of these documentaries can be found below.

The Trouble With Experts

This documentary is 43:15 long and is hosted by Ann-Marie MacDonald. This doc looks at a handful of different types of experts in specific situations in order to ascertain whether or not these people are actually worth listening to. What the documentary shows is that you are probably better off taking your own advice, or the advice of some other ‘lay person’, not an expert. The types of experts that are analyzed in this doc include those in the fields of wine tasting, art appraisal and business management. I will briefly discuss each of these below.

Wine Tasting

Many of us have been told that if you would like to bring a bottle of wine to a friend’s house, or keep a bottle of wine in the house that will impress these friends or other company, that we have to be willing to spend a pretty penny; inexpensive wine, we are told, is cheap wine and not worth buying. But is this the case? Need I spend $100 or more on a bottle of vino, not $20, in order to enjoy a great grape experience? You might be surprised to learn that expert wine tasters are by and large not worthy of that title, for it seems that these experts experience precisely what they expect to experience, which is to say, if a wine expert samples a $25 and a $100 bottle of wine, they will expect the $100 bottle to be better, and so end up proclaiming the $100 wine to be better when the test is over. This is demonstrated time and again in experiments conducted by Professor of oenology (science of wine) Frédéric Brochet from Bordeaux University. The experiments he has conducted in the past, many of which you can find by doing a Google search for his name, were designed to demonstrate the fallibility of these vino experts.

• In one experiment he takes two bottles of red and tells a bunch of experts that in one bottle is an inexpensive table wine and in the other is an expensive Bordeaux, when in fact both bottles contained the same wine. However, when the experts reported back to him, 54% preferred the wine in the expensive bottle.
• In another experiment he takes a $30 bottle and a $500 bottle and swaps their contents. In the tasting, someone who works at the store snootily proclaimed the wine in the expensive bottle to be the better wine, while a lay woman who also participated rightly determined that the wine in the less expensive bottle was actually the better wine.
• In another one he takes a bottle of white wine, pours two glasses per professional taster, but in one he adds a drop of red food colouring and then asks the professionals to indicate which wine is better or more preferred. Not one professional was able to discern that the two wines were actually the same.

So the next time you want or have to go and purchase a bottle of wine, how will you decide what bottle to get? Are you going to go and drop a couple of hundred dollars because you were read a review, or will you decide on a bottle that suits your preferences or the preferences of the person you are buying it for?

Art Appraisal

I have never had the money to go out and purchase a masterpiece of art, though I would thoroughly love to have the original of Edvard Munch’s Scream hanging on my wall. Until such time comes that I do have the money to make such a purchase I have to be content with settling for obvious copies in the form of a poster or wallpaper for my laptop. For many people, not to mention all the museums around the world, only originals will do, and these people and organizations are willing to spend big money on expert appraisers whom they rely on to determine if the piece of art in question is authentic or a forgery. Yet despite the millions of dollars that are spent on hiring these experts, forgeries are passed off as authentic on a regular basis. To exemplify this, the documentary looks at Dutch artist John Myatt, who was charged with painting forgeries and spent one year in jail as a result.

With the assistance of a partner, Myatt produced over two hundred forgeries, from Monet‘s to Matisse’s, which he sold to private collectors and museums around the world, using modern canvases, household paints and KY jelly. While he is still surprised that so many of his pieces were accepted as authentic originals, he believes it is for one reason alone: these high-paid experts are told what they are going to see and thus they expect to see it. A museum curator interviewed in the doc agrees with Myatt, adding that art experts, as with expert in many other fields, are eager to make the next great discovery, and in this eagerness they may fail to ensure all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, resulting in mistakes being made. In one example shown in the film, an expert mistakenly accepted a piece of art as being an authentic masterpiece, when in reality it was painted by a chimpanzee.

It seems that even with a high paid expert by your side, you might fare better simply by rolling the dice than taking their advice.

Business Management

When I am not blogging, I work as a values and ethics officer, which means I work within the organization to promote a new way of doing business, one which places a greater emphasis on the values of the organization than on the rules of the organization. The reason for this shift in focus is that rules tend to be ineffective in prohibiting or discouraging inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. People tend to treat rules and laws as obstacles to be overcome, ignoring the spirit in which these were originally crafted, and trying to identify loopholes. Another challenge with rules or laws is that they are reactionary in nature: we cannot anticipate every type of wrongdoing or undesired behaviour we will encounter in the future. As such, new rules are always bound to follow anytime already extant rules or laws are ineffective or when the fail to anticipate the behaviour in question. Another challenge with rules and laws is that there are just so damned many of them. While we tell people ignorance of a rule or law is not an excuse, who can honestly expect anyone to know the totality of every law or rule to which they are subject? These are the reasons that there is an increasing trend for organizations to have an ethics program in place and why there is a shift towards focusing on values rather than rules. The challenge for this area of business management, as with all others, is deciding if you want to do this for your organization, and if you do, how to best implement these new business processes (this is also a subject brought up within the field of business ethics). In other words, which professionals do you turn to for expertise in this or that field of business management?

The documentary turns to former business management consultant turned author Matthew Stewart (The Management Myth: Why The Experts Keep Getting It Wrong), who with only a philosophy degree (not that I am in any way discounting the value of a philosophy degree) and a three week management course, traveled around the world providing businesses and governments with management advice. And Stewart says that anyone, even without any actual knowledge in one of these fields, can also become an expert, provided they are tall, wear lots of expensive clothes and accessories, drive the right cars, stay in the right hotels, and be able to master a set of keywords or jargon: maximize, minimize, proactive, total quality management, bottom line, and of course, who can forget about the ever powerful term synergy. Stewart says with these tools in mind, plus a winning attitude, you can be an expert.

The challenge with these experts Stewart insists, is that so many of them think that they have discovered some sort of secret formula for how all business should function, in the same way that physicists are trying to identify an equation that will encompass all physical laws of the universe. The reality is that there is no universal formula for how business should be conducting any aspect of their business. Every business is unique, facing their own challenges and with their own advantages, their own particular operating and business environments, which means that the approach used in one organization is not guaranteed to work in any other organization.

What, then, does all of this mean? Quite simply, it means that in business as with any other area of life, it is a very bad move to treat someone as an authority simply because they tell you they are an authority, or because others tell you they are an authority, or even just because they sound like an authority.

Conclusions of the Documentary

Regardless of the field of expertise, authorities should not be taken as infallible beings. This is not to say that all experts are frauds or that they are all ignorant or that all expert advice will lead you astray. It does give us exceptionally good reasons for treating all persons claiming any type of authority with a natural suspicion or skepticism. Do your own research on the person and on the subject matter in question. Determine what advice other experts in the field have to offer on different issues and see how they compare to the expert you are considering. In short, use your head and put those critical thinking skills to good use people. Never take any fragment of information or knowledge for granted. And if the only reason you have for believing x or taking a particular course of action is because Mr. Authority told you to, then you have only yourself to blame for your blunders.

On this note, of taking no knowledge for granted and treating no expert as infallible, I would like to turn to issues within the field of Egyptology: issues regarding archaeological evidence that is challenging recognized authorities and the story of human history that they present us with.

The Pyramid Code

As I indicated above this documentary is written and directed by Canadian researcher Dr. Carmen Boulter. The documentary is comprised of five parts, which brings it two approximately three hours and forty-five minutes long, and challenges the conventional claims of authorities in the field of Egyptology and human history, specifically with respect to how far into the past human civilization has existed. This conventional knowledge being challenged is that humanity is currently the most advanced it has ever been, and that it was only around 6,000 B.C.E. when humans were still only in the hunting and gathering stage. Boulter and some others that she interviews and follows in this doc believe that human civilization may have existed in a golden age upwards of 38,000 years ago (or approximately as far back as 36,000 B.C.E. In this section of this post I will discuss the evidence presented in the documentary that challenges these recognized authorities. I will also tie this discussion back into the discussion above of just why it is so dangerous to blindly trust any expert.

In order to best present the information discussed in the documentary, I will divide this section into three parts: disabling the academic and scientific communities, high-level technology, and a new chronology. There are other aspects to the documentary that I will not touch on here, but that are absolutely fascinating and worth checking out.

Disabling the Academic and Scientific Communities

Though this issue is addressed throughout the different parts of the documentary, I consider it to be of sufficient importance to spend a moment or two discussing before engaging in the other aspects of the doc. Despite the importance of the pyramids to the history of all Egyptians, not to mention humanity, access to the pyramids and other important archaeological sites for scientific and archaeological research is being denied in nearly all cases by the Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA or the Ministry of State and Antiquities). The Giza Plateau is now surrounded by a twenty mile long, fourteen foot high security fence, and the pyramids and Sphinx are patrolled by approximately 100 military guards at night. Tourists are now restricted from taking photographs throughout the Egyptian Museum, which is further limiting the ability of anyone outside the inner sanctum from being able to study these remains. The SCA is currently denying all new applications for research at the Giza Plateau or in Upper Mountain (northern pyramid). In areas where research is permitted to take place, researchers must pay for and are always under the watchful eyes of a guide that reports directly to the SCA. For a complete understanding of restrictions placed on research by the SCA, please click on the link to their website above and go through the materials available there.

When the authorities that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo when it comes to the picture of Egyptian and human history restrict research that could challenge this worldview in any way, one must question why they insist on such secrecy. If they had nothing to hide, why would the SCA and other authorities be so concerned about legitimate research being conducted?

One can really begin to understand just how much information about our past we could be missing out on if they were to look at a map of Egypt. If you follow the western side of the fertile ground on the west side of the Nile, you will find a number of pyramids and other structures, many of which remain buried to this day. Then pan out on your map and look at how much of Egypt is unexplored. So much potential knowledge about the history of Egypt and humanity lies hidden beneath the sands, and the SCA is pretty much ensuring things remain that way.

High-Level Technology

We are led to believe by historians and the books they write that human civilization has never been as knowledgeable about the world and universe as it presently is, and it has ever as as technologically complex and capable as it is currently. But is this the case? Is human civilization currently sitting atop the greatest apex it has ever mounted? Or, might have at least some of the civilizations of our past been more intelligent and technologically capable than we are presently? As laughable as we are taught to think this is, archaeological evidence from Egypt and other ancient civilizations is revealing that we might have a large number of misconceptions about the past.

One of the plainest things to consider is that to this day we remain incapable of creating even a miniature version of the Great Pyramid, let alone a full-size version. Some of the blocks that were used in the construction of the pyramids weighed in excess of 250 tons, a feat for even most modern cranes, and they were positioned so closely together that not even a razor blade or a piece of paper will fit between them. But in addition to the sheer size of the pyramid, not to mention the skill required to build it, we must also consider why it was built.

Contrary to the belief that the pyramids were built as tombs, not a single mummy has been found in a pyramid. Also consider that tombs are also decorated and there are markings left to indicate who the tomb belongs to, but in the pyramids, like the Great Pyramid, the walls and corridors are plain, which suggests again that these pyramids were designed and built with some other purpose in mind. But what might this be?

There is evidence to suggest that the Ancient Egyptians had an advanced knowledge of the electromagnetic and telluric currents. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines a telluric current as a:

natural electric current flowing on and beneath the surface of the Earth and generally following a direction parallel to the Earth’s surface. Telluric currents arise from charges moving to attain equilibrium between regions of differing electric potentials; these differences in potential are set up by several conditions, including very low-frequency electromagnetic waves from space, particularly from the magnetosphere incident upon the Earth’s surface, and moving charged masses in the ionosphere and the atmosphere.

As with electromagnetic energy, telluric currents are stronger in some areas than they are in others, and the builders of the pyramids, not to mention those who built other megalithic sites, seemed to build the pyramids in one of these areas – areas or lines which intersect, one with a good ability to conduct electricity and one that has a poor ability to conduct electricity (also known as the disputed ley lines). Though the existence of ley lines is disputable, it is not difficult to understand that the energy produced by the earth not be dispersed across the globe in an even manner, but that the geophysical composition of different areas will affect such things as electromagnetism and telluric currents. I do find it interesting that many ancient peoples, separated in some cases by oceans, built megalithic structures at points on the earth where even today there are detectable surges in energy produced by the earth (the ancient Chinese referred to the ley lines as Dragon Lines).

Now, you may ask why it is important that I discuss these telluric currents. Well, as the documentary explains, there is evidence to suggest that pyramids like the Great Pyramid, were built to take advantage of this increased presence of energy – perhaps even to harness it. The Giza pyramids are built using dolomite, which is a calcium magnesium carbonate – and because of its high magnesium content it is a good conductor of electricity. The outside of the pyramid was sheathed in tura limestone, which is a poor conductor of electricity. This, in effect, amplified the energy within the pyramids while minimizing the amount that was leaked – in the same way that electrical wiring uses conductive metals internally and surround them with non-conductive (insulating) materials. The corridors of the pyramids were built using granite which is slightly radioactive and is capable or ionizing or electrifying the air around it. Then there is also the limestone aquifer found in the ground beneath the pyramids. And when rain or flood water passes through aquifers likes this, it generates electricity.

Were the Egyptians and other ancient peoples aware of how to harness naturally occurring energies and use them to their own advantages? Could a system such as the one being proposed here actually be capable of producing fields that affect the environment?

During the 1800′s Nikola Tesla was investigating alternative methods of delivering energy and information, and pursued a wireless approach. to do so Tesla made use of telluric currents (which had just before this been identified by modern science) and positioned the machine that would deliver the wireless energy and information directly above an aquifer like the one found under the Giza pyramids and other megalithic sites. You can read more about Tesla and his quest for free, wireless energy and information on my post Energy for Anything…Anywhere…Anytime? While I may not agree with the conclusions being reached for the ultimate purpose of the construction of the Giza pyramids, I do believe there is evidence to suggest an awareness of the energy being produced by the earth and an attempt to harness it for some reason.

Thus, while I believe we have zero reason to think the pyramids were designed as tombs, I also believe they are evidence that ancient Egyptians and those of other civilizations had awareness of natural processes that we have only recently become aware of or do not yet fully understand.

A New Chronology

We are told that the pyramids, such as those at Giza, were built at approximately 4,500 B.C.E., and a similar time frame is proposed for the Sphinx at Giza.  But we have good reason for pushing this time frame back to at least 7,000 B.C.E. and perhaps as far back as 36,000 B.C.E. Part of the rationale for this proposed adjustment to the chronology of history in Egypt is that the Sphinx has endured water damage, caused by running water in the form of run-off from mountains and from rain water. One would have to go backwards to at least 7,000 B.C.E. to have environmental conditions present which would make this type of damage possible.

Then there is the placement of the Giza and other pyramids. The pyramids seem to have been designed to incorporate flowing water and there is evidence of a dried-up river bed suggesting that the Nile once ran right to the foot of the pyramids. The amount of time that would be required for the Nile to move from where the pyramids are to where it is located today – a distance of eight miles – could be in the span of thousands of years – such that the time frame of 36,000 B.C.E. for the construction of the pyramids and sphinx could actually be accurate.

Also consider artifacts such as the Palermo Stone, which traces the leadership of Egypt backwards in time to approximately 36,000 B.C.E. As the experts in the documentary state, it is surely a sign of the arrogance of modern scholars when they believe they have a better understanding of ancient Egyptian history than the ancient Egyptians themselves.

Conclusions of the Documentary

The SCA and government of Egypt seem convinced to stonewall research into the history of the Egyptian people and are even making it impossible to take photographic evidence of the array of historical treasures on display in the Egyptian Museum. This obstinate behaviour is made even more suspicious when one considers the evidence already available that suggests the history of humanity being pushed on his by established authorities may not exactly be accurate.

Conclusions

At least some of those who consider themselves to be experts are unworthy of that title. The Trouble With Experts discusses the reasons why experts tend to be mistaken so often, and this has to do both with the expectations or preconceived notions they have about any given subject or issue, as well as with the extent to which they are unable to deviate from what they perceive to be an established truth or formula. The documentary reinforced the need to treat all individuals and sources of authority with a healthy degree of skepticism. This point is also made by Nietzsche in his Thus Spake Zarathustra in part 3 of The Bestowing Virtue:

I now go alone, my disciples! Ye also now go away, and alone! So will I have it. 

Verily, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he hath deceived you.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.

One requiteth a teacher badly if one remain merely a scholar. And why will ye not pluck at my wreath?

Ye venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you!

Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers!

Ye had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account.

The danger, then, is not simply that others might be intentionally deceiving you, or themselves, but that the deception might be taking place at a less than conscious level. You do no one, including yourself, any favours if you remain all of your days content to simply accept as truth what you are told is so. This makes you nothing short of a fool – and if we were all content to act so sheepish, we would as a species still be trying to figure out how the hell fire fucking works.

The case of the pyramids, Sphinx and the history both of Egypt and of all humanity, as presented in The Pyramid Code, demonstrates that even that information such as this which is regarded as being nearly sacrosanct by some of those in positions of historical authority can be mistaken. It reinforces the need to treat no one and no thing as being infallible – this is the only way in which we can confirm whether or not we know anything at all, or whether we are only knowledgeable in our imaginations.

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Pope Ben-the-Dick spoke to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps today, in which he essentially censured countries around the world today for failing to adhere to the word and command of the roman catholic god – I would have written ‘christian god’ rather than ‘roman catholic god,’ but as the Pope has argued in the past, no other catholic or christian community is on the correct path of understanding and ethical living (see this post). This world is in this present state of discord and uncertainty because, according to this hater par excellence: people are ignoring god and their relationship with god; freedom of religion is being denied to many people around the world; and, abandoning roman catholic ethics for an ethics of secularism and selfishness (these latter two can be regarded under the rubric of human rights). Ben betrays his willful ignorance and ever-burning contempt for those who do not fall in line, and I hope to examine these issues I have just identified, making explicit reference to Ben’s speech (not relying on the reporting or accounts of others), in order to show just how much of a charlatan, hypocrite and ethically bankrupt individual this imp is.

Image via Wikipedia

The following comments of Ben-the-Dick can be found in the document Address of his holiness Pope Benedict XVI to the members of the Diplomatic Corps.

People are Ignoring god and Their Relationship With god

According this fish-hat-loving imp, a lot of the world’s problems can be attributed to the fact that so many people neglect or deny the religious dimension of life.

The religious dimension is an undeniable and irrepressible feature of man’s being and acting, the measure of the fulfilment of his destiny and of the building up of the community to which he belongs. Consequently, when the individual himself or those around him neglect or deny this fundamental dimension, imbalances and conflicts arise at all levels, both personal and interpersonal.

Here’s the thing though: this religious dimension that he speaks of does not exist – there is absolutely nothing to religion which is anything more than wishful or deluded thought processes. Remember, after all, that in moments of overflowing honesty, roman catholics and those of other religious faiths will admit that what they believe in and discuss is not knowledge or wisdom, but a reality that can only be embraced by making an absurd leap of faith. The bible and other religious texts are evidence of about one thing alone: that people have and continue to be willing to believe in many ridiculous things if someone tells them it is an unquestionable truth. But when people neglect or deny this ridiculous notion of a ‘religious dimension’ it is they, according to Ben, who create social ills and disturbances.

Ben and other religiously-motivated ethical sophists are all guilty of accusing apostates and heathens (unbelievers) for what is wrong with society, but never do they actually justify these claims. Just as with the tenets of their religious beliefs, you simply have to take them on their word. But as troubling as we ungodly types can be, we do not seem to cause the chaos and violence that is typical of the interactions between many different religious groups; in fact, a lot of the violence being committed around the world right now is being committed in the name of one religion or religious sect against another, whether we are discussing Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, or the Americas, you can be assured that somewhere a conflict is being waged between members of different religious groups, motivated by religious differences.

Society starts to fall apart when the individuals who comprise that society no longer regard one another with respect and fail to work cooperatively to ensure their long-term survival. While a society could be religious and maintain this spirit of respect and cooperation, it is not necessary that is be religious.

On this note I would like to turn my attention to human rights, as it encompasses the issues of religious freedom and the adoption of secular ethics.

Human Rights and Religious Freedom

Would you be surprised if I told you that Ben-the-Dick believes the most essential of all human rights is that of religious freedom. He states:

Ladies and Gentlemen, your presence on this solemn occasion is an invitation to survey the countries which you represent and the entire world. In this panorama do we not find numerous situations in which, sadly, the right to religious freedom is violated or denied? It is indeed the first of human rights, not only because it was historically the first to be recognized but also because it touches the constitutive dimension of man, his relation with his Creator. Yet is this fundamental human right not all too often called into question or violated? It seems to me that society, its leaders and public opinion are becoming more and more aware, even if not always in a clear way, of this grave attack on the dignity and freedom of homo religiosus, which I have sought on numerous occasions to draw to the attention of all.

Ben himself might be surprised if he looked to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) at all, as religion is not regarded as being as primary as he would like like to convince others that it is. Article 1 states:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

The first article of the UDHR says nothing whatsoever about religious freedom. What seems to be the most important take-away from the UDHR is that the most primary consideration is for how each person, regardless of their individual characteristics, is deserving of the same dignity and rights as everyone else – no one should be treated as less than human in any way. Article 2 states:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

In this Article freedom of religion is mentioned – but it is not treated in any special manner here. It is listed along with race, sex, colour, language, political or other opinion, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, Article 3 states each person has the right to “…life, liberty and security of person.” So, while the UDHR does grant religious freedom, as Ben-the-Dick claims, it is not regarded as having a special standing amongst the rights belonging to human persons. The right to be free of religious discrimination is no more special than the right to not be discriminated against because of one’s race or sex, and certainly cannot be regarded as trumping any other right, including such rights as the right to life, liberty and security of person.

The most essential characteristic of humanity would not be its propensity for religious belief. Reason, tool use and language are some of the most essential characteristics of humanity, without which religion would not be possible. When you consider further that not all humans subscribe to religious beliefs, statements by imps like Ben-the-Dick along the lines of “homo religious” does a disservice to all people and is dishonest about how essential religion is to our nature: religion is not our nature, our nature makes religion possible.

Before I go any further, please consider the statement made by Benedict at the end of this speech: “I would repeat that the Church seeks no privileges, nor does she seek to intervene in areas unrelated to her mission, but simply to exercise the latter with freedom.” He openly states that religion seeks no special privileges, only to live as they believe they are commanded to, and to be able to do so freely. It is important to keep this sentiment in mind, especially while reading the following excerpt:

…I would like to state once again that the right to religious freedom is not fully respected when only freedom of worship is guaranteed, and that with restrictions. Furthermore, I encourage the accompaniment of the full safeguarding of religious freedom and other humans rights by programmes which, beginning in primary school and within the context of religious instruction, will educate everyone to respect their brothers and sisters in humanity.

Among the norms prejudicing the right of persons to religious freedom, particular mention must be made of the law against blasphemy in Pakistan: I once more encourage the leaders of that country to take the necessary steps to abrogate that law, all the more so because it is clear that it serves as a pretext for acts of injustice and violence against religious minorities. The tragic murder of the governor of Punjab shows the urgent need to make progress in this direction: the worship of God furthers fraternity and love, not hatred and division. Other troubling situations, at times accompanied by acts of violence, can be mentioned in south and south-east Asia, in countries which for that matter have a tradition of peaceful social relations. The particular influence of a given religion in a nation ought never to mean that citizens of another religion can be subject to discrimination in social life or, even worse, that violence against them can be tolerated. In this regard, it is important for interreligious dialogue to favour a common commitment to recognizing and promoting the religious freedom of each person and community. And, as I remarked earlier, violence against Christians does not spare Africa. Attacks on places of worship in Nigeria during the very celebrations marking the birth of Christ are another sad proof of this.

According to this pope, the only way we are going to ensure religious freedom is protected is to have a number of programmes established, including in education within the context of religious education. What he seems to mean is that under educational regimes, religion should be the vehicle by which religious freedom is promoted. How insanely ridiculous is this notion? Each religion promotes itself as being the most accurate with respect to understanding their god and what it expects of people. But according to Ben, religion class should be the vehicle by which religious tolerance is promoted. This is just as insane as suggesting that the KKK be responsible for teaching children about social integration: when one group believes and preaches it is favoured above all others, they advocate discrimination against these groups (i.e. Ben believes only the roman catholics have it right – everyone else is wrong).

Also notice how the examples of religious discrimination and violence against religious groups portrays christians as persecuted around the world. Ben-the-deceitful-Dick doesn’t provide examples of christians affecting the religious beliefs of others, or inciting violence against others because of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Examples of violence being committed by roman catholics and other christians can be found throughout my posts on Philosopher’s Haze.

I agree with Ben insofar as he believes that peoples should be free to believe in anything they choose, so long as they freely choose to believe (not compelled). Provided this is the case, you can believe whatever you like. But your religious rights do not extend so far that you can use them to affect others. And on this note, I would like to proceed to the next section, as the nature of the discussion is changing somewhat.

The Right to Religion and Its Relationship to Other Rights

Contrary to what charlatans like Ben-the-Dick would have you believe, his roman catholic church does not in any official capacity support the totality of the contents of the UDHR: just as with the bible, the roman catholic church picks and chooses what he accepts and does not accept. Consider the following statement:

Turning our gaze from East to West, we find ourselves faced with other kinds of threats to the full exercise of religious freedom. I think in the first place of countries which accord great importance to pluralism and tolerance, but where religion is increasingly being marginalized. There is a tendency to consider religion, all religion, as something insignificant, alien or even destabilizing to modern society, and to attempt by different means to prevent it from having any influence on the life of society. Christians are even required at times to act in the exercise of their profession with no reference to their religious and moral convictions, and even in opposition to them, as for example where laws are enforced limiting the right to conscientious objection on the part of health care or legal professionals.

Despite what he claims above, the roman catholic religion, in an official capacity, is seeking to do more than be able to practice its religion freely amongst those that believe: Benedict admits that his religion should influence or affect society. This means Ben-the-Dick does not support freedom of religion; what he supports is freedom of his religion to dictate or otherwise affect how everyone in society lives their lives, not just those of this religious persuasion. But instead of being honest about this, he says there is something sick in society when it attempts to restrict the ability of individual religious groups to affect society at large. In doing so, organizations like the roman catholic church are guilty of advocating that people ignore or disregard those human rights it has a problem with, the first of which is Article 18:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

and Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Note: there is a very real difference between having your position of issues acknowledged and considered, and expecting others to do as you tell them. Not one of the rights in the UDHR gives the roman catholic church (or any other religious groups) the right to dictate how other people live their lives.

Also consider Article 16:

1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

The UDHR grants every person the right to marry, provided that it is entered into by both persons with free and full consent. This article also specifies that the State will protect this right for every man and woman to marry. If you’ll notice, this Article says nothing about marriage necessarily being between a man and a woman. But Ben-the-Dick is openly hostile towards such notions as marriage between members of the LGBTQ community (gay marriage); so openly hostile that they regard them as less than human and trying to deny them full participation in the community of rights. Gay marriage is an example of secular ethics: ethics developed by society in light of our continuously enhanced understanding of human nature and the nature of reality. The roman catholic church wants to make it impossible for the LGBTQ community to every marry because the roman catholic faith believes it is evil.

It would be one thing if the roman catholics kept this bigotry confined to their own flock, such that it does not internally support these relationships. But this religious group wants to tell everyone that it is unethical and to make these unions illegal.

This is commonly rebutted by arguing that by making it legal, the rights of these religious groups are being infringed upon, and thus their right to religion and conscience is being infringed upon. What the pope and roman catholics do not understand is that they are not obligated to think gay marriage is okay just because gay marriage is legal. But the roman catholic church seems to suffer from an inferiority complex (just like its god), and can only feel good about itself if everyone believes what they believe and does what they do.

To Ben-the-Dick and all like-minded catholics: you have the right to believe whatever you like. You do not have the right to tell society how to conduct its affairs – your religion is not an ethical beacon – your religion is a diseased and corrupting mental virus.

Conclusion

Pope Ben-the-Dick is both a charlatan and a hypocrite. He has zero justification for the content of his speech. He never justifies what he says and is very much in favour of human rights, but only insofar as they favour his religious beliefs and denounce or prohibit those things which it deems to be sinful.

When will the roman catholic church just come right out and admit that they will not rest until the Vatican is able to tell us all how to live?

Related articles

• Catholic Church: Propagandists of Ignorance (philosophershaze.com)
• Pope Benedict XVI appeals for end to discrimination against Christians (guardian.co.uk)
• Pope Benedict XVI’s new friends: Greenpeace and the Socialists (ncronline.org)
• Den Tandt: A serious approach to religious freedom should begin at home (vancouversun.com)
• Pakistan. Death Threats for Asia Bibi’s lawyer (mumbailaity.wordpress.com)
• Religious freedom office defended by Baird (cbc.ca)
• The Masks of Roman Catholicism and Islam (philosophershaze.com)
• Liberal family values, same-sex marriage a threat to the future of humanity: Pope (life.nationalpost.com)
• Pope: Financial crisis having “profound impact” (cbsnews.com)
• Baird defends religious freedom office (thestar.com)