Religious Protestors Prove Religious Displays Don't Belong on Pulbic Property

From kgw.com today...

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in front of the Washington state Capitol Sunday, outraged over an atheist display inside.

The display stands next to a nativity scene. It has a sign that says "there are no Gods" and that religion is but a myth and superstition.

Outside, the protest included an opposing sign that portrays Governor Christine Gregoire as the Grinch. It also shows a balloon featuring Bill O’Reilly punching the governor.

Excellent. Now maybe Governor Gregoire will get a damn clue and realize that religious displays of any kind on public property are (besides grossly unconstitutional) ultimately disruptive of the government doing it's job (which does NOT include establishing an official state religion) and don't fucking belong there.

Atheists Teaching the Bible?

I got a good chuckle when I read this letter to the editor on the Lufkin Daily News. I couldn't find the original story it referenced.

"Teaching religion, a recipe for legal trouble" (LDN March 30, 2008) makes a good point. The state mandated teaching of the Bible in public schools will most certainly lead to many devastating lawsuits eventually costing local school districts millions. But be of good cheer Bible believers because there may yet be some light at the end of this narrow tunnel.

Will the Bible be taught as literature, history, sociology or religion? I say history, because the "Good Book" has a long and interesting secular history stretching back some 5,000 years. It's all very well researched and recorded, often in great detail. However, the perplexing question is, "Who will do the teaching?" No self-respecting Roman Catholic parents would allow a Protestant to teach the Bible nor would Baptist parents stand for a Catholic teacher. By the same token, orthodox Jewish parents would be well within their rights to reject a Christian teacher in favor of a rabbi. Needless to say, they would all disallow a Muslim. The obvious answer then is to require that all Bible teachers be atheists.

An atheist would be ideal for this job because in addition to being knowledgeable about the Bible and its history, as many of them are, atheists would bring no preconceived agenda of proselytizing to the class-room. They are the only ones who could be completely objective and honest in presenting the often controversial and contradictory course material.

The atheist teacher would have no reason to play favorites by being partial to any particular group of students and would therefore treat them all equally and fairly. In doing so those time and money consuming lawsuits, so correctly warned about in the above-mentioned editorial, would be avoided, and the students would come away with an unbiased view of the Bible for what it really is — an ancient cultural artifact originally produced by an obscure Middle Eastern tribe of ignorant, superstitious, desert-wandering nomads.

Christian Monks Brawl in Jerusalem... Again.

Mike, of Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant posted a news story today about Monks from two different Christian Sects in Jerusalem engaged in a knock down drag out fight, all over who would be allowed to participate in a silly parade.

The news story Mike links to says that...

Six Christian sects divide control of the ancient church. They regularly fight over turf and influence, and Israeli police are occasionally forced to intervene.

No kidding. I recall a news story from last December when the monks were cleaning up another church after Christmas services when one monk put his ladder in the wrong spot, and... you guessed, mayhem ensued.

Witnesses said that the robed and bearded priests scuffled for more than an hour using fists, brooms and iron rods as weapons.

These are not harmless "fights" with a bunch of robbed monks calling each other names and maybe pushing each other around a bit. In both fights, people were hurt, blood was drawn and the fight had to be broken up by Israeli police, who also got hurt in the process. These "good christians" are are not just politely disagreeing, they're beating each other with weapons intending to do real harm.

Don't Just Leave Your Potatoes Lying Around

A Vicar turned up in agony at a hospital — with a potato stuck in his bottom.

The clergyman told stunned casualty nurses he fell backwards on to his kitchen table while hanging curtains.

He happened to be nude at the time of the mishap.

The embarrassed reverend, in his 50s, had to undergo a delicate operation to extract the offending vegetable.

The spud was yesterday revealed to be among a litany of objects medics in Sheffield have removed from people’s nether regions.

Others include a can of deodorant, a cucumber, a Russian doll — and a carnation.

Like most of the other patients, the red-faced vicar insisted to staff at the city’s Northern General Hospital that his predicament was NOT the result of a sex game gone wrong.

Somali Rapists Not Forced to Wed Victim

From a recent news report.

A 13-year-old girl stoned to death on accusations of adultery had apparently been raped, according to the UN.

The girl was put in a hole and stoned in Kismayu on October 28, in the first public killing by Islamic militants for about two years.

Local leaders claimed she was guilty under sharia law, while witnesses said they thought the victim was a 23-year-old woman.

In a statement, UNICEF said: "Reports indicate that she had been raped by three men while traveling on foot to visit her grandmother in the war-torn capital Mogadishu.

"Following the assault, she sought protection from the authorities, who then accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death. The child was victimized twice - first by the perpetrators of the rape and then by those responsible for administering justice."

UNICEF said the incident showed the vulnerability of girls and women in Somalia, which has suffered civil conflict for the last 17 years. In the latest cycle, Islamist rebels are fighting the government and their Ethiopian military backers.

A Human rights group identified the girl as Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow and said she was killed by 50 men who stoned her to death in a stadium in Kismayu, in front of around 1,000 spectators.

Her father and other sources said that she had been raped by three men.

When the family attempted to report the rape to the al-Shabab militia who control Kismayu, she was accused of adultery and was detained. None of the men she accused of rape were arrested.

A horrible tragedy, by any measure. If the rape had occurred in a good and civilized Christian country where laws are derived from the Bible, then this poor girl would still be alive today and the rapists would have been severely punished.

They would have been required to pay fifty shekels of silver each to the girl's father, and then, they would have all been forced to marry the girl and keep her as their wife for the rest of their lives.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

Obviously a more appropriate punishment. According to the Bible, you may only put the girl to death if she was married at the time of the rape.

Deuteronomy 22:22-24

If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman:

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;

Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die;