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Yorktown

Yorktown's Journal
Yorktown's Journal
September 29, 2015

Pope Francis Silly in the US: #3 : Gay Rights is Colonization (**facepalm**)

Africa is the continent where Christianity is gaining market share.

It is also the continent where Christianity is hardcore and bareknuckled.

To cut a long story short, Christ seems to want the death penalty for African gays.

Uganda is likely to pass a law within months that will make homosexuality a capital offence, joining 37 other countries in the continent where American evangelical Christian groups are increasingly spreading bigotry

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/13/death-penalty-uganda-homosexuals

Francis could have leveraged his UN speech to preach more tolerance.

Not to mention, restrain his African flock. Did he try to help put the fire out?

Ya betcha: he took potshots at the firefighters:

Family in UN Address

(Pope Francis) condemned “ideological colonization” as he had done in the encyclical Laudato Si, in a reference to basing aid to poor countries on their acceptance of population control and other focuses offensive to their people and against domestic laws like homosexual rights.

http://anglicanmainstream.org/pope-speaks-out-for-unborn-natural-family-in-un-address/

Why would the Catholic Church care about African gays? What counts is doctrinal purity.

Catholics want to revive Uganda’s ‘kill gays’ bill

Uganda’s Catholic bishops are calling for the revival of the notorious ‘kill the gays’ bill, despite previously opposing it.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which calls for the execution of gays in the African country, was effectively shelved last year by the government, following sustained pressure from international donor countries.

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/catholics-want-revive-ugandas-kill-gays-bill110612/

See? The anti-gay Bill was shelved thanks to foreign “ideological colonization”

Thank Jesus, Catholic bishops reversed that colonization and gays can now be burned.

Yay!



September 29, 2015

Pope Francis Silly in the US: #2 : Brutal Colonialist Made a Saint

First time ever anyone is made a 'saint' by a Pope on US soil: Junipero Serra.

The -rather transparent- reason why: demographics. Pandering to the RCC hispanics.

But was Junipero Serra really such a good guy?

Ran forced labor camps:

One way to answer the question of whether Junipero Serra was really good for the Native Americans he purported to serve was how natives were treated on the missions themselves. ..The contemporary picture of the missions is less a "bucolic arcadia" than a feudal labor camp, with natives beaten if they violated Catholic teachings or didn't work hard enough.

Was hellbent on erasing the local culture
And that is at the heart of contemporary opposition to Junipero Serra: .. that he helped to erase and destroy their culture.

Some critics call this "cultural genocide." .. Serra was interested in assimilating natives into "civilization." And for native groups, and many other contemporary progressives, it's a cultural imperialism that doesn't deserve to be honored.

But hey, who cares?
What counts in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church is that he did it the Catholic way:
It's usually a bad idea for non-Catholics to assume that Catholic saints were good people by non-Catholic standards. (Mother Teresa's .. advocacy against condoms at the height of the AIDS epidemic).

Pope Francis isn't an American progressive; he is a Catholic pope. And it's not surprising that he believes the "saving" of Native American souls was a good thing in and of itself.


http://www.vox.com/2015/9/24/9391995/junipero-serra-saint-pope-francis
September 28, 2015

Pope Francis silly in the US: #1 : Women

Starting a series on the nonsense Francis uttered in the US, #1: women.

Maureen Dowd hit the nail on the head:

(...)
shortly after he was elected, Francis flatly rejected the idea that the institution could benefit from opening itself to the hearts and minds of women. Asked about the issue of female priests, he replied, “The church has spoken and says no,” adding, “That door is closed.”

Francis preaches against the elites while keeping the church an elite boys’ club.

(...)

Paul Vallely, the author of a respected biography, “Pope Francis: Struggle for the Soul of Catholicism,” calls women the pontiff’s “area of greatest weakness.”

“He understands there is a problem with the role of women in the church and talks frequently about the need for a ‘new profound theology of women,’ but he has no idea how to implement this,” Vallely told me. “In practice, he is a man of a certain age from a macho, Latin American cultural background who has limited understanding of the women in the modern world, ..

(...)

a priest in San Francisco, Father Jack McClure, was being sanctioned for appearing at a conference on women’s ordination in Philadelphia last weekend (...) Father McClure got a message from his archbishop in San Francisco, the archconservative Salvatore Cordileone — who supported a pastor who banned altar girls this year — that he could no longer celebrate Mass, starting in October. (...)

If only the pope could apply this Golden Rule: Do unto women as you would have them do unto you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-francis-the-perfect-19th-century-pope.html
August 23, 2015

Religious devotion: a risk factor for mental illness?

From the summary of a paper by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. (link to full paper below)

religiosity (..) may lead to an increased propensity to develop obsessive- compulsive traits. (..)

there is a growing body of evidence to support the proposition that increased religiosity may lead to religious-type OCD symptomatology.
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/PDF/Elizabeth%20Cosgrove%20Religious%20devotion.%20A%20risk%20factor%20for%20mental%20illness.x.pdf


In layman terms: religiosity can make you nuts.



August 21, 2015

I am back from the dead to guide you towards Pastafarian salvation

Verily, verily, I say unto thee:

my account was in the valley of death for three months that were like eternity,

and from my celestial abode, I watched and prayed for my brothers pastafarians.

And now I am reborn, which pretty much makes me the Pastafarian Messiah.


Now all please kneel and pray unto me as you should.

Ramen.

June 24, 2015

Teaching the Holocaust to Muslim Germans, or Not

In Germany, field trips to concentration camps sites for all senior High School students is a way to make sure there are no Holocaust deniers in Germany.

Problem: some students of muslim descent (Turkish, but more markedly, Arabs) balk at the visits as they inject in the Mideast conflict (in families antisemitic on religious-political grounds)

Which shows how religion pollutes something which had been planned as progressive nation building, modern Germany owning up to and differentiating itself from its past.

Teaching the Holocaust to Muslim Germans, or Not
By ALISON SMALEJUNE 17, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/world/europe/teaching-the-holocaust-to-muslim-germans-or-not.html

BERLIN — In Germany’s ever-swirling debate about its past, it is a relatively recent, always delicate question: How do you teach Muslim Germans about the Nazis and the Holocaust?

The topic has bubbled up in recent weeks, after discussion in Bavaria about a proposal for all eighth or ninth graders there to visit a former concentration camp or the newly opened center in Munich documenting Nazi crimes.

In Bavaria today, only pupils in a gymnasium, the top rank of high school, are required to make such visits. (..)

One conservative lawmaker, Klaus Steiner, praised the intent, but he suggested that Muslim pupils would need special preparation and implied that some might be exempted.

Lower-ranked secondary schools, he said, have a higher proportion of immigrant pupils, often recent arrivals whose parents sought refuge from war and hardship. “Many are from Muslim families,” Mr. Steiner said. “These children and their parents will need time before they can identify with our past.”

He further questioned whether anti-Semitism, “which is certainly latent here and there,” could “really effectively be countered” with obligatory visits to former camps.
(..)
Gisela Sengl, a lawmaker for the Greens, argued that it was precisely the less educated who were susceptible to antiforeigner, anti-Semitic chauvinism.
(..)
Outside Germany, the debate predictably stoked controversy. Details appeared in The Jerusalem Post, and the head of the European office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris wrote an open letter to Germany’s federal education minister.

Mr. Steiner’s language, wrote the director, Shimon Samuels, “reeks at best as Holocaust denial and, far worse, a German endorsement” for radical Islamists’ assertion that the Holocaust “is a lie.” He went on to link Mr. Steiner’s behavior to Germany’s recent decision to establish centers for Islam at a number of major universities, part of a program to train educators and scholars to serve the estimated four million Muslims now in Germany.

That program is intended to counter what many experts see as radical Islam propagated at some mosques in Germany, given that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were conceived and perpetrated in part by Muslims who met in Hamburg.

Mouhanad Khorchide, a Palestinian from Beirut, Lebanon, and a professor of Islamic studies in Münster, said any question about teaching Muslim students about Nazi crimes against Jews was an extension of Middle East politics.

“If there was no Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would look different,” he said by telephone.

The idea of Muslim Germans visiting former concentration camps “is more and more strongly accepted,” Professor Khorchide said. But the effect depends on family background. “Especially Arab children whose parents grew up in the Middle East have stronger prejudices” than, say, Turks or Kurds, he said.

(..)
June 24, 2015

'Saudi Cables' reveal secret Saudi influence in Australia

What makes the article interesting is that it shows the Saudi petrodollars are promoting their rigid, intolerant version of Islam in western mosques.

As a consolation, we also learn that Saudi money is not all spent on promoting radical Islam. Some is used to counter Shia Islam, and some to make sure its own nationals are believers.

WikiLeaks 'Saudi Cables' reveal secret Saudi government influence in Australia
June 20, 2015
http://www.smh.com.au/national/wikileaks-saudi-cables-reveal-secret-saudi-government-influence-in-australia-20150620-ght4kp.html

WikiLeaks has revealed secret Saudi Arabian influence in Arabic media and Islamic religious groups in Australia as well as covert monitoring of Saudi students studying at Australian universities.
(..)
"The Saudi Cables lift the lid on an increasingly erratic and secretive dictatorship that has not only celebrated its 100th beheading this year, but which has also become a menace to its neighbours and itself," WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange said
(..)
reveals sustained Saudi efforts to influence political and religious opinion within Australia's Arabic and Islamic communities.
(..)
payment of large subsidies
(..)
The Saudi embassy is also revealed to pay close attention to the political and religious beliefs of Saudi university students
(..)
The documents show the Sunni kingdom's (efforts ..) to counter Shiite influence.
(..)
The documents reveal extensive Saudi efforts to influence and neutralise critical opinion in foreign media, including widespread use of monetary contributions and subsidies.

"Most world governments engage in PR campaigns to fend off criticism and build relations in influential places. Saudi Arabia controls its image by monitoring media and buying loyalties from Australia to Canada and everywhere in between," WikiLeaks said in a written statement.
(..)
The embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not available for comment.







June 21, 2015

When did you become a Pastafarian and why?

Now that you are a believer in the one and only true god, the Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster,
why not share the joyous news of how, when and why you became a true believer?

What led you to see its noodly light? What convinced you? What were you before? A bronze age religion cultist? Some other religion cultist? Or **shudders** an atheist?

This thread will serve at least three beautiful purposes:

•1• reinforce our beliefs by seeing how we all followed different paths to the one true Truth.
•2• help non believers visiting our forum to see the light by examples they can relate to
•3• give believers a toolkit of reasons to convince pastastheists, unbelievers in the holy FSM.

I am joyously impatient to hear all your wonderful unique paths to His Truth, the total beatitude one can only find in the infinite goodness of Pastafarianism.

RAmen.

June 20, 2015

A surprising display of pastafarianophobia

As you pastafarians and friends of pastafarians know, this group is brand new.

We haven't had time yet for grand, majestic threads detailing our creed, launching a contest for new pastafarian hymnals, reviewing seriously which beers should be served at the great beer volcano in the sky or starting internecine fights between opposing pastafarian subsects.

And yet, 6 people have chosen to already 'trash' this group, i.e. make sure not to see what we post.

That is interesting, and begs some questions: What do these people think?
- that their own faith is now competing with ours, and becomes the enemy? (religious war posture)
- that their religion is holier than ours? (superiority complex of the bronze age religions)
- or is it weakness?

Could it be that such people fear that reading about a new religion would, by comparison of equally unsubstantiated claims abouts cosmology and morality, weaken the certitudes they thought they harbored?

If so, harken me hearties, the pastafarian ship is charging full speed ahead.

June 10, 2015

Religion in action: one year of ISIS in Mosul (BBC report)

The BBC managed to get witness accounts of what it is to live under literal religion.

The article has 6 parts, each with witness reports and one video.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32831854 (four comments in italics by me.)

Inside Mosul: What's life like under Islamic State?

Exclusive footage reveals how Islamic State wields power over people's everyday lives in Iraq's second city, Mosul, a year after it was captured.
Secretly filmed videos obtained by the BBC's Ghadi Sary show mosques being blown up, abandoned schools, and women being forced to cover up their bodies.

1. Control of women

women are forced to cover up, with one woman challenged for not having her hands fully covered.
Hanaa: "IS is very strict about the dress code for women. Women have to be fully covered up in black, head to toe.

"We had heard stories of men being flogged because their wives didn't put their gloves on. Another woman's parents were banned from driving their car. Those who objected would be beaten and humiliated.

2. Persecution of minorities

The footage, which was passed from house to house before being smuggled out of the city, reveals how homes belonging to Mosul's ethnic and religious minority communities have been confiscated by Islamic State. Many residential areas once popular with minorities now stand empty.

Christian homes marked with 'N'Arabi. Many Christian neighbourhoods are now empty

3. Intimidation, punishment and torture

Clips also show mosques and shrines being destroyed. (it's OK because they are the 'wrong' mosques..) Residents speak of brutal punishments for anyone contravening the jihadists' interpretation of Islamic law, which is imposed across the "caliphate" whose creation they proclaimed weeks after seizing Mosul.

"Theft is punished by amputating a hand, adultery by men by throwing the offender from a high building, and adultery by women by stoning to death. (literal application of religious texts) The punishments are carried out in public to intimidate people, who are often forced to watch.

4. Disruption of daily life

Hisham: "Daily life has changed in an indescribable way. Those who were in the military and day labourers no longer have any income because there are no jobs anymore.

The rich have been relying on their savings, those with a salary are just about getting by, but the poor have been left to the mercy of God. (so theocracy leaves the poor to god; full circle) "Meanwhile, my brother was given 20 lashes just because he didn't shut his shop during prayer time - as if you can just impose religion by force!"

5. Indoctrination and surveillance

Mahmoud: "My 12-year-old brother remained in school despite the fact that it became controlled by IS. We thought that, with no alternative available, he would at least be able to continue some sort of education, and that it would be better than nothing.

"But one day I came home and found my little brother drawing Islamic State's flag and humming one of its most famous songs. I went crazy and began yelling at him. "I've come to the conclusion that the goal of this organisation is to plant the seeds of violence, hate and sectarianism into children's minds."

6. IS tactics and logistics

Zaid: "IS knows the army will try to retake Mosul, so they're taking precautions. They've destroyed the city by digging tunnels, building barricades, planting mines and bombs, and filling the city with snipers, which will make it very difficult for the army.

"The government should arm local people so that they can protect the city themselves. With the help of God, we will defeat IS." (With the help of god? Thought IS was acting on god's words?)

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