A Conversation for The Forum

The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9641

anhaga

It's a double-header:

Religion and football and alcohol: a deadly combination.

'Militant Protestant supporters of a Scottish soccer team beat to death a Roman Catholic man in the latest sign of how sports rivalries inspire sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland, police and politicians said Monday.

Witnesses said more than 20 Protestant supporters of Glasgow Rangers, many of them wearing the team's blue-and-white jerseys and scarves, drove into a Catholic district of the town of Coleraine after Rangers clinched the Scottish Premier League championship Sunday.

Billy Leonard, a former policeman and politician from the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, said several carloads of anti-Catholic extremists came armed with clubs "and literally attacked the first person they came across."

Kevin McDaid, 49, was fatally bludgeoned while his wife, Evelyn, and a 46-year-old Catholic neighbor, Damien Fleming, were both injured. Fleming was reported in critical condition.'

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,521721,00.html

and

Religion and guns and knives: a deadly combination.

' Investigators believe a sermon at a Sikh temple set off an attack that saw worshippers use a frying pan and microphone stands to fend off knife- and gun-wielding assailants who fatally shot a cleric, police said Monday.

The death sparked riots in several northern Indian cities.

Witnesses said the Vienna temple attended by lower-caste Sikhs was attacked Sunday by Sikhs from a higher caste who accused one or both of the preachers of being disrespectful of the religion's Holy Book.

"We're assuming that the content of the sermon was the trigger," Werner Autericky, a high-ranking Vienna police official, told the Austria Press Agency, adding that the motive was not definitive.

The attack set off a brawl that wounded 16. Police said they found a 9 mm pistol and several knives at the scene.'

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,521698,00.html?test=latestnews


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9642

Alfster

Hmmm, seems to be a common link with these to stories...scratch chin.

Here's another:

Religion and enforced celibacy and vulnerable children: a deadly combination.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6328015.ece

"The full horror of children’s lives destroyed by sexual, physical and emotional abuse meted out by Roman Catholic religious orders over decades in Ireland was revealed yesterday in an official five-volume report."


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9643

anhaga

They *really* struck again today. Pro-life indeed.


'Dr. George Tiller, one of the few providers of late-term abortions in the United States, was shot and killed Sunday in a Kansas church where he was serving as an usher.'

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/05/31/tiller-abortion.html

smiley - sadface


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9644

Alfster

Their twisted logic is that since the Dr was 'murdering' 'people' then by excuting him they have saved the lives of future people.

And since they did it in thier god's name they feel no remorse.


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9645

Spaceechik, Typomancer

Isn't it s slight against the very Christianity the killer claimed to support to slay Dr Tiller in the *santuary* of his own church??? I thought all Christians respected santuary?

Who died and made these wingnuts Ghod, anyway? It's like they don't believe Ghod is up to the task of enforcing the commandments they believe He wrote.

Dr Tiller smiley - rose


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9646

Spaceechik, Typomancer

PS, by "wingnuts", I'm referring to the people who somehow think it's okay to murder someone if you disagree with them performing LEGAL services for women.


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9647

Edward the Bonobo - Gone.

It's especially galling that they've targeted this particular doctor.

Even if you don't agree with them (which I don't), the arguments against early term, contraceptive abortions are at least respectable. Not the violemce against abortion doctors, but the arguments. In this case, however, we had a doctor performing late term abortions specifically to save the lives of women.


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9648

Ragged Dragon

But the OT specifically enjoins its followers to take a life for a life.

If Christians are not going to have people like this claiming to be following the word of the Lord, then they need to do a radical re-writing of their holy book. And then redefine everyone who doesn't agree with the new version as heretics and kill them... oh, sorry, no, there's a flaw in that somewhere....

--

Jez the heathen


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9649

Edward the Bonobo - Gone.

It should be pointed out that the doctor himself was a Christian.


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9650

Ragged Dragon

Yep. There's a problem with anyone claiming that their religion (whatever it is) is the reason they do something.

If people were more honest with themselves, then they would realise that what a person does is usually because they have decided to do it, then justified it afterwards in some way. Sometimes they choose religion, and followers of the religions of the book find their justification in the book. Atheists may find their reasons in different books, whatever.

Any religion which has a book of sayings attributed to a god which are self-contradictory is going to have problems.

--

Jez


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9651

anhaga

One thing that makes the Tiller case particularly frightening is that Fox News, which has bizarrely becoming something like the mainstream of News organizations in the U.S., has for years been fomenting hatred against Dr. Tiller, as they are now similarly doing against the President of their country. Looking on from the outside, the rhetoric chillingly reminds me of some of the hatred broadcast in Rwanda in the build up to the genocide. smiley - sadface


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9652

taliesin

"I wasn't even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn't Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?

In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I'm not Jewish and don't observe the Sabbath."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/06/2617502.htm


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9653

Alfster

From the piece above:

"Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.

Spit like rain

I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting - on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms"

Mindless animals, no other way to describe them.


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9654

TRiG (Ireland) A dog, so bade in office

More about that story from Israel:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/every_religion_has_its_insane.php

And related (this was not an isolated incident):

http://www.unattributable.com/2009/02/get-on-the-segregated-bus/

TRiG.smiley - smiley


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9655

anhaga

I found this story the other day. The young fanatic in this case does not display the sort of vile behavior of the last story, but her dishonesty and duplicitousness makes one wonder about the claim that Christianity helps one have moral behavior:

'Erica Corder was one of 15 valedictorians for the Class of 2006 at Lewis Palmer High School near Colorado Springs. The valedictorians voted that year to each speak for 30 seconds at graduation, and their speeches were to be reviewed by the principal prior to the ceremony.

Corder submitted a speech for review that made no mention of religion. At the graduation ceremony, however, she stated:

“We are all capable of standing firm and expressing our own beliefs, which is why I need to tell you about someone who loves you more than you could ever imagine. He died for you on a cross over 2,000 years ago, yet was resurrected and is living today in Heaven. His name is Jesus Christ. If you don’t already know Him personally I encourage you to find out more about the sacrifice He made for you so that you now have the opportunity to live in eternity with Him.”

School officials were predictably unhappy at Corder’s surprise sermon.

The school principal required her to issue a public apology in order to receive her diploma. . .

Afterward, Corder filed a lawsuit against the school, alleging her free speech rights were violated, as well as her freedom of religion and equal protection rights. A federal court threw out her case last year, and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision.'

http://blog.au.org/2009/06/01/pomp-and-circumvention-graduating-senior-had-no-right-to-substitute-sermon-for-speech-says-court/


I guess some believe it's alright to lie and cheat for Christ.smiley - sadface


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9656

Alfster

I've said it before: Islam and Judaism - different sides of the same coin.

The main difference is Judaism gets US funding so can afford proper weapons to attack 'the other side'. Islam has to indoctrinate followers enough to strap cheap explosives to themselves to attack 'the other side'.


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9657

Alfster

http://www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk/2009/07/08/jesus-shat-irelands-dail-passes-new-blasphemy-law/

Beware if you live in Ireland you can now be fined upto £25,000 for uttering a blasphemic statement.

Welcome back to the middle ages...


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9658

Edward the Bonobo - Gone.

>>"Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.

>>Spit like rain

>>I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting - on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms"

>>Mindless animals, no other way to describe them.


Sounds more like one of the better gigs of the 1970s to me. smiley - run


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9659

Edward the Bonobo - Gone.

>>The main difference is Judaism gets US funding so can afford proper weapons to attack 'the other side'. Islam has to indoctrinate followers enough to strap cheap explosives to themselves to attack 'the other side'.


nnn...

Firstly, even if extreme Judaism has unwarranted influence in Israel, taken as a whole Israel is one of the more secular nations on the planet. Further, amongst Jewish adherents both in Israel and worldwide, one finds individuals who are opposed to Israeli government policy. It seems to me that the US is funding Israel specifically, rather than Judaism generally.

Secondly...Palestinian suicide bombers may have been indoctrinated...but the indoctrination hasn't necessarily been Islamic. Bombers have included Christians, Druze and Atheist socialists. And, it surely goes without saying, there are Muslims who are opposed to suicide bombing.


The moral majority strikes again...

Post 9660

anhaga

'Sounds more like one of the better gigs of the 1970s to me.'


odd. I was expecting something like 'there are clubs in Berlin where they make you pay for that kind of treatment'.smiley - erm


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