Human Embryos

…especially very small ones, actually have tails and gill slits. So do all mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and fish embryos. One would almost think they are related somehow. Thank goodness for modern Creation Science, which has taught us how to ignore, deny, or find some rationalization (anything at all will do) to explain away this and all other evidence of evolution. (Yes, Ernst Haeckel fudged his diagrams of embryos to emphasize the similarities among the youngest ones. But he didn’t make up the tails and gill slits. They’re there. Look closely at some of your favorite fetus photos. Quit writing me about this until you’ve done your homework.)

Unusual Babies

…with such birth anomalies as being born with a tail, or covered with fur. Tails (abnormally extended coccyges ) are more common than most people realize, since they are, of course, surgically removed immediately, and often the child himself is never told. For furry people, refer to the famous Mexican family, several of whom are circus performers.

These would, of course, be some of the “throwbacks” which creationists assert must, of course, occur if evolution is real. But since evolution is, of course, not true, the good creationist, upon being presented the very evidence he demanded, will, of course, not be fazed in the slightest.

Of course.

A small footnote: back in the good old days, when everyone was a literal-creationist, and religion was science (known as the Dark Ages, with good cause), such babies were identified as the spawn of Satan, and killed instantly, along with their mothers, who were, naturally, witches.

Their Own Coccyges

…when examined closely via X-rays or a prepared skeleton, look disturbingly like the vestigial remnants of tails . They certainly serve no purpose nowadays (or very little–the few muscular attachments they still have could easily be re-engineered onto a less vulnerable structure), and if you’ve ever broken yours, you’ve probably wondered why we were Created with such a useless source of potential agony. (Besides, coccyx sounds downright obscene.)

Their Appendixes

Same problem as the coccyx , only it’s even more likely to cause the average creationist great discomfort, and occasionally death. The scientifically literate, when cursed with appendicitis, might bewail the incomplete evolution that has left him with a useless and sometimes dangerous abdominal organ. Perhaps the creationist praises his Creator for blessing him with a “cross to bear.” (Part of the Improving the Gene Pool Project: If you’re a young-Earth creationist, the next time you have an attack of acute appendicitis, or better yet a ruptured appendix, rush with it to the nearest Peter Popoff Healing Crusade. Stay away from those modern “doctors,” who actually think we’re mammals ! And for those folks who have heard that the appendix may serve some role in endocrine or immune functions, in the words of Carl Drews, “Something that explodes and kills people is definitely a mixed blessing, even if it does help somewhat with immune functions.” Folks whose “god-given” appendixes have been removed don’t seem to suffer from their absence, and I’ve never met one who wished he had it back.)

The Cause of Cancer

And who wouldn’t hate that? But I don’t mean the carcinogens that set it off, like tobacco tars, asbestos, or solar ultraviolet; I mean the root cause that makes it possible for things like those to start cancers growing. And that cause turns out to be evolution in action! A cancer starts when a carcinogen, or sometimes just a random accident, causes a mutation in a gene of one cell. That mutation “switches on” genes that are normally “off,” and makes the cell start reproducing wildly, as though it were an embryonic cell, and not a dedicated part of an adult body. A mutation is one unit of evolution. In this case it is harmful, but the ability to mutate is so valuable to DNA–it lets it adapt to new conditions–that that mutability cannot be given up, even if it sometimes produces fatal cancer. It is perhaps significant (it makes evolutionary sense) that cancers in people are very rare until after their peak reproductive years.

The Hair on the Backs of Their Necks

…which stands up at the very thought that their children might actually be exposed to an evil-lutionist at school. When they stop to think why the hair on the backs of their necks should stand up, at that or any terrifying situation, the only explanation that makes sense is that it’s a vestigial reaction inherited from our mammal ancestors. Other mammals’ hair rises in response to “hair-raising experiences” as a defense. It’s a warning sign of aggression, and may make the animal look bigger and fiercer. We’ve apparently given up that signal, maybe in favor of words or other body language. About the only trace left is that creepy feeling about nape of the neck and scalp, which is almost impossible for others to see.
(suggested by Ron Tolle)

Goosebumps

(the bumps, not the books [although many creationists hate those "occult" books, too]) Goosebumps were obviously “created” to erect and “fluff up” the hair or fur on a hairy or furry mammal ancestor, thereby improving its insulation value against the cold. Since most of us nowadays have so little body hair as to render it useless for insulation purposes, goosebumps are another vestigial reaction whose tool (fur) is no longer with us.

A creationary epiphany! : since God wouldn’t create a useless bodily function, goosebumps were originally useful! Adam and Eve had FUR! (For folks who have stockpiled food and weaponry in anticipation of the Coming Race War, an epiphany is a sudden realization of a great truth.)

Wisdom Teeth

Steven Gay reminds us that wisdom teeth are a bit of a problem for modern humans–and any parts of our bodies that serve no purpose, are in the way, or are just more trouble than they’re worth are a bit of a problem for creationists to rationalize. Why would a Master Creator give us more teeth than will fit in our jaws? I don’t think I know anybody who has had all four third molars grow into place with the others and serve as useful chewing teeth. In some people they never erupt. My top two grew out, but having no bottom ones to work against, they were useless for chewing. A great many people simply have to have them removed or suffer severe dental problems–because modern jaws are just too small to accommodate third molars. Wisdom teeth make sense as evolutionary leftovers (probably in the process of evolving away entirely). What sense can creationists make of them (especially if one lives to the biblically promised threescore and ten)? (Thanks to the folks who have written to me to tell me that they have all four functional third molars. All have noted that they and their dentists recognize that they are rare exceptions.)

The Last Little Piggy

…the one who went, “Wee, wee, wee!” all the way home. (For those with deprived childhoods, I’m talking about little toes.) They’re one more body part that is in the way, all too easily injured, and, when you stop to think about it, useless. We don’t use them in walking. In parts of the world where people go barefoot most of the time, little toes missing through accident or disease are quite common, and don’t hinder the person’s mobility at all. Think we need them for balance or something? Our cloven-hoofed fellow mammals get by with two toes on the ground. Horses manage to be mighty fast with just one! Predatory mammals generally put four down. Do we need the extra because we’re bipedal? Ostriches are on their feet all day, and can outrun anybody you know–how many toes do they use? Think about it: other primates have prehensile toes. Kids notice right away that monkeys really have four hands . A fifth digit is pretty useful if you’re scrambling through branches (and secondarily manipulating objects). Our little fingers are truly useful and probably in no danger of disappearing. But we quit climbing in trees with our rear “hands” and they became feet–which explains why they have useless fifth digits. And while we’re at it…

Doggie Toes

What is that thing hanging off the back of your dog’s lower leg? It’s his “dewclaw,” and it’s entirely useless. On some dogs it’s so much in the way that it’s surgically removed. It’s not a result of selective breeding, either. Cats have ‘em, wolves have ‘em, tigers have ‘em. What would it possibly be except a now-useless fifth toe, in the process of disappearing through evolution?

Lower Back Pain

Kate Harrop-Allin asks the perceptive question: Why should this condition afflict such a huge percentage of the adult population (I read somewhere that more working days were lost for this than for almost any other reason) when we were supposedly “created” in our present bipedal form? Other associated problems with our relatively recently-acquired bipedalism (that other animals don’t seem to have much trouble with):extreme difficulty in childbirth, varicose veins, arthritis ……. all of which indicate that we evolved, and quite recently too, from an animal that was predominantly quadrupedal.

Their Own Eyes

…defeat them doubly. First, creationists trot out that old saw about how “nothing as complex as an eye could evolve in stages, since a half-eye is no good at all.” Darwin himself trounced that one roundly by merely observing that there are creatures alive today with eyes in all “stages of development,” from a few light-sensitive cells, to a cup-shaped receptor with no proper lens, to eagle eyes far sharper than ours. Other creatures seem to get along fine with half-eyes and even 1/100 eyes.

Then for the final insult, human (the pinnacle of creation) eyes are clearly an engineering mistake! The retinas are inside out. The nerves and blood vessels come out through the light-sensitive area of the retina, producing a blind spot, then spread over the front of the light-receptor cells, so that light has to get past the fibers into the receptors. Why aren’t the nerves and capillaries behind the receptors, where they would be out of the way and there would be no need for a blind spot? Squid eyes are arranged just that way. Since ours aren’t, one is reminded of the maxim that evolution has to work with the materials at hand, adapting systems already in place, with results that often seem jury-rigged or needlessly complicated. Would an Ultimate Engineer make such an obvious blunder, especially having got it right in creatures created earlier?

Their Own Fingers

The problem is, there are five. That puts us firmly in the mammal “family” (layman’s term). All other mammals have five digits per limb, or the vestigial remains thereof, or we can trace the gradual shrinkage and loss of digits through the fossil record (as with horses). But the principle remains: Mammals have five digits–even when there’s no good reason. Why should whales have the bones of exactly five digits buried in their flippers? Why should bats have wings seeming awkwardly stretched over exactly five fingers? “Similarity of design”? Oh, come on. The “Designer” found more efficient ways of making aquatic fins and wings for other creatures. Same old song: the commonality of five digits among the mammal family makes sense only if we are all descendants of a five-digited ancestor. Some of us mammals have good use for five digits, some have already got rid of a few, and some of us are still stuck with useless ones (like dolphins). Remember, that’s what a family is: descendants of a common ancestor.
-suggested by Kjetil Furnes

Snake Hips and Whale Pelvises

No, I haven’t finally gone around the bend. Although there’s not a trace left on the outside, boas, pythons, and blind snakes all have completely useless vestigial hipbones buried in their bodies. So do whales. Now why would an as-is Creation ex nihilo include creatures with functionless bones that really look like the evolutionary leftovers of lost limbs?

Sandy Petersen adds the following: “Pythons and boas actually have tiny vestigial claws on either side of their cloacas, which are [associated with] their useless hips. So you can pick up any python (I suggest a small one, like my family’s pet ball python), turn it over, and SEE the tiny, useless claws that would never ever be there if snakes had been designed ‘from scratch.’”

Chicken Legs

The lower part of a chicken’s legs are not covered by fur, hair or feathers. What’s there? Scales. Is this a sign of their evolutionary past when they evolved from their reptilian ancestors? I think this solves the chicken or the egg riddle: the egg came first in the form of the chicken’s ancestors.
-verbatim from Jim Lobach

Male Nipples

My grandfather, down on the farm, used to have a quaint expression, usually leveled at some lazy individual: as useless as the tits on a boar. Creationists, think hard and send me a carefully reasoned answer explaining why God would create both boars and men (and all other male mammals) with useless nipples (which can even be dangerous–men can get breast cancer). The simple biological-evolutionary answer is that as embryos we are all structurally female first, including proto-breast tissue. Only later in fetal development do the male hormones kick in and modify the feminine genital structures into the masculine. But we men are left with useless breast tissue and nipples, which never get the hormonal signal at puberty to develop into functioning organs. The whole thing seems a messy and cobbled-up system for producing two sexes. Why in Heaven’s name would a Designer worth His salt come up with so inefficient a system, with useless (and sometimes dangerous) parts left over? (Evidence of our heritage: in some of our more “primitive” relatives, gender is changeable throughout life. Some species of fish and reptiles can switch genders without the help of a Danish surgeon. They just respond to environmental cues.)
-suggested by David Pickering…but hey, I was thinking of it too!

Blind Cave Fish

…and other cave critters that still have vestigial but absolutely useless eyes. Evolution can be that sloppy, but can a perfect Creator?
-Donald Wilson

Their Own Hemoglobin

If hemoglobin were designed by God, it was designed to have far too much affinity for carbon monoxide. This great affinity has resulted in countless deaths.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless and odorless gas. This is, if anything, an even nastier bit of “design.” At the very least, carbon monoxide could have been given a smell to help warn us (unless the Designer was constrained by the laws of chemistry–surely no impediment). It remains one of life’s traps for the unwary, with its victims often being infants in poorly ventilated winter homes. Or perhaps it is just one of evolution’s quirks, a chance attraction which natural selection has not eliminated because there is too little selection pressure against it. Evolution can play seemingly malicious tricks (think about it: the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning is such a recent development in our evolutionary history that we have acquired no ability to detect it), but could a Perfect Designer? (suggested by Roger Scott)

Pseudogenes

Pseudogenes (also known as junk DNA) were discovered in 1994. They are remnants of genes that no longer function but continue to be carried along in DNA as excess baggage. Pseudogenes also change through time, as they are passed on from ancestors to descendants, and they offer an especially useful way of reconstructing evolutionary relationships. The more remote the last common ancestor of two organisms, the more dissimilar their pseudogenes will be. When the pseudogenes of a human and a chimpanzee are compared, the differences are relatively few. Slightly more differences are present when comparing the pseudogenes of a human with those of a rodent. Yet more disparity is evident between the pseudogenes of a human and those of, say, wheat. This is compelling evidence for an evolutionary origin of Homo sapiens.
(from Steven Mahoney)

And some cases in point from Kevin Dorner: Pseudogenes. One of the more “evolutionary” sets of pseudogenes I’ve read of are those of the sense of smell. There are about a hundred genes for odour receptors in humans. About seventy of them are pseudogenes (broken), but in other mammals they are all functional, indicating that our sense of smell was no longer as important at some time in our past, so is gradually disappearing. Dolphins also have a complement of odour receptors, but they have all become pseudogenes. As dolphins don’t have noses, this is difficult to reconcile with a sudden creation (without silly, untestable, ad hoc guesses, that is) but makes perfect sense if dolphins evolved from a terrestrial ancestor that returned to the ocean, as other cetaceans did, losing their noses in the process.

Vitamin C

Roger Scott has discovered that God is a dog’s best friend: Humans must have vitamin C in their diets. Without it they will develop scurvy and eventually die from vitamin C deficiency. Apparently we have a pseudogene for producing vitamin C. Dogs, on the other hand, have the real thing. Their copy of the gene actually works, and they do not need vitamin C in their diets. They make it themselves. Roger speculates that this may show how much more God loves dogs than humans. Being omniscient, God knew in advance that sailors on long sea voyages would suffer terribly, but did nothing about it. God made sure that dogs on these voyages would not suffer. Ships’ mutts were looked after, but not the sailors.

The Plantaris Muscle

Dr. Richard Brown of Bristol, UK, submits the following: Ever since I first dissected the plantaris muscle in the human calf as a medical student, I have been a convinced evolutionist. In the monkey it is a useful muscle which causes all the digits to flex at once, and thus is useful in swinging from trees by the feet. In the human it is atrophied, may be absent, and does not even reach the toes, but disappears into the Achilles tendon. There is no sensible reason for its existence in the human, except a common ancestry with monkeys. Try telling that to a creationist, however. In my experience they change the subject!

Shark Reproduction

J. E. Hill has a few questions for the Guy Who created sharks: Some sharks lay eggs, such as the horned shark; some sharks produce eggs which actually hatch inside of them, such as the gray, nurse and whale sharks; some sharks are placental, having live young, such as the great white and hammerhead. This seems so uneconomical for an intelligent designer or grand creator to spend his/her/its time on when one type would have been sufficient. Unless there is another explanation. Additionally, some snakes, such as the rattler, also have live young, while the majority of reptiles lay eggs. How did an intelligent designer determine which would and wouldn’t?

Their Own Eye Teeth

…which they would give for just ONE bit of evidence that would stand up. (From Michael Arndt) Another fact of the human body that cannot be explained without evolution is the size of the root of your upper canine teeth. In monkeys, the canine teeth are much larger than they are in humans, and as such, they require much larger roots to anchor them. In humans the canines are now much smaller, but if you run your finger over your upper gums, you can feel the bump of your unnecessarily large canine root (even through your lip).

Colorblindness

From yet another contributor: The ability to see colors in humans came from our “ape” ancestors. It evolved because a good portion of their diet (and the same goes for our modern cousins), when the fruits, berries, etc. were not in season, was leaves and stalks, etc. The most nutritious of these are the younger or new growth, which is red in a lot of cases instead of green. The ability to tell the difference would be a plus. Colorblindness, especially the difficulty in telling the difference between red and green, is on the rise in humans. With our ability to raise our own food, it is thought that this ability is not so important, and we are losing it. That’s a reasonable evolutionary explanation for the increasing incidence of colorblindness. Can you think of a “creationary” one?

The Human Genome Project

Here’s the shortest version: We have inherited our DNA from earlier species. We share genes with reptiles, fish, insects, worms, and even bacteria. We use the same DNA patterns to do things as other species do. We don’t have any more genes than an ear of corn, and only about twice as many as a fruitfly–and some we have in common with fruitflies. We have lots of useless “junk” DNA that was once useful to some remote ancestor. Bits of it can sometimes be “awakened,” with disastrous results. The scientists that have deciphered the human genome, and those of an ever-increasing number of other species, all agree that there is no other reasonable explanation for the cobbled-up mess of code that builds human beings except an evolutionary accumulation through a chain of ancestors leading back to bacteria.

Sudden Jerks

Not boors that surprise you by ringing your doorbell with a fistfull of Watchtowers, but those sudden jerks that you make when you’re asleep. A reasonable (but not proven) evolutionary hypothesis is that it was a defensive response that developed when we slept in trees. Any slight sense of unbalance would promote an automatic jerk and instant awakening. Sometimes it accidentally goes off even nowadays, even when you’re planted firmly on your Certa Perfect Sleeper. That’s the beauty of evolutionary explanations: there has to be one, and it has to make sense–but you don’t have to commit adamantly to it. A better one may present itself as more evidence is considered. Think of a good “creationary” explanation for those sudden jerks, preferably better than “God made us that way and He moves in mysterious ways.”

Their Prostate Glands

The urethra, essential for urination, runs through the prostate, which is vulnerable to infection. When the prostate becomes infected and swells, it pinches off the flow in the urethra, making urination painfully difficult.

Atheists and agnostics can never win. Some religious fundamentalists say atheists were put on the Earth by the Devil to challenge the faith of believers while agnostics are often labeled as being just plain lazy, as in  not wanting to do the hard research to make up their minds either way. Believe what you will, but some of the world's most influential people have been atheist or agnostic and some of these names might shock you. Here are twenty quotes from some of history's greatest thinkers.
1. "The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." - Ferdinand Magellan
2. "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." - Abraham Lincoln
3. "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson
4. "Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis." - Sigmund Freud
5. "There is so much in the bible against which every insinct of my being rebels, so much so that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end." - Helen Keller
6. "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." - Gene Roddenberry
7."A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." - Samuel Clemens
8. "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." - Albert Einstein
9. "It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so." - Ernestine Rose
10. "All thinking men are atheists." - Ernest Hemingway
11. "Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." - Richard Dawkins

Have you heard a Christian making an excuse for someone that commits an immoral act by claiming that person is “not a real Christian” even though that person was a Christian adherent?
So, I ask you…which one is a True Christian?

The guy (Pastor Rick Warren) that compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia?

The guy (President George W. Bush) that claimed God told him to invade Iraq?

The guy (Televangelist Benny Hinn) that uses the deception of faith healing to only heal his bank account and openly laughs about it?

The guy (Pope Benedict XVI) that wears gold while many of his followers live in much less lavish settings? Not to mention the possible cover up of child abuse committed by priests

The guy (Tomás de Torquemada) that lead the Spanish Inquisition and tortured thousands of Jews, Muslims and other non-Catholics in attempting forced conversion to Roman Catholicism?

 

Humans are designed by evolution to believe in God

Published on April 11, 2010

Found here

It is natural to believe in God, so more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheists.

Religion is a cultural universal, and its practice is observed in every known human society.  However, as I explain in earlier posts (Why do we believe in God?  Part I, Part II), recent evolutionary psychological theories suggest that religiosity may not be an adaptation in itself but may be a byproduct of other evolved psychological mechanisms variously called the “animistic bias” or the “agency-detector mechanisms.”

These theories contend that the human brain has been selected to over infer agency – personal, animate, and intentional forces – behind otherwise natural phenomena whose exact causes cannot be known.  This is because over inferring agency – and making a Type I error of false positive – makes you a bit paranoid, but being paranoid is often conducive to survival.  In contrast, under inferring agency – and making a Type II error of false negative – can result in being killed and maimed by predators and enemies that were incorrectly assumed not to exist.  So, evolutionarily speaking, it’s good to be a bit paranoid, because being paranoid can often save your life.  Religiosity – belief in higher powers – may be a byproduct of such over inference of agency and intentional forces behind natural phenomena.

If these theories are correct, then it means that religiosity – belief in higher powers – may have an evolutionary origin.  It is evolutionarily familiar and natural to believe in God, and evolutionarily novel not to be religious.  Consistent with this reasoning, out of more than 1,500 distinct cultures throughout the world documented in The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, only 19 contain any reference to atheism.  Not only do these 19 cultures exist far outside of our ancestral home in the African savanna, but all 19 of them without an exception are former Communist societies.  There are no non-former-Communist cultures described in The Encyclopedia as containing any significant segment of atheists.  Nor is there any reference to any individuals who do not subscribe to the local religion in any of the ethnographies of traditional societies.

It may therefore be reasonable to conclude that atheism may not be part of the universal human nature, and widespread practice of atheism may have been a recent product of Communism in the 20th century.  So belief in higher powers is evolutionarily familiar and natural, and atheism is evolutionarily novel.  The Hypothesis would therefore predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheist than less intelligent individuals.

Once again, analyses of large representative samples from both the United States and the United Kingdom support this prediction of the Hypothesis.  Net of a large number of social and demographic factors, including education, more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheistic than less intelligent individuals.  For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “not at all religious” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 103.09, whereas those who identify themselves as “very religious” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 97.14.

Even though past studies have shown that women are more religious than men, the analyses show that the effect of childhood intelligence on adult religiosity is twice as large as that of sex.  Remarkably, childhood intelligence has a significant and large effect on adult religiosity even when religion itself is statistically controlled for.  So it appears that more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be atheists than less intelligent individuals, and the Hypothesis provides one explanation as to why.

Recent Stories:

• More than 500 people in the Northwest filed claims against the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus in advance of a November deadline, alleging members of the Catholic order sexually abused them as children.[ref]
• 2009/09/30:
  Ottawa police have issued an arrest warrant for a Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia facing child pornography charges. ^[1]
• 2088/04/26:
  A former altar boy has sued the Catholic Diocese of Orlando, alleging that church leaders knowingly concealed a sexually abusive priest who molested him. ^[2]
• 2007/10/10:
  A Roman Catholic priest who compared himself to Jesus Christ was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for collaborating in murders, kidnappings and torture during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.^[3]
• 2007/10/08:
  Bishop Tod D. Brown was lauded three years ago for quickly handling Orange County's share of the nationwide church abuse scandal, reaching settlements totaling $100 million for some 90 victims.^[4]
• 2007/10/08:
  The statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington must pay more than $112,000 in legal fees for causing a mistrial in a priest-sex-abuse lawsuit this summer.^[5]
• 2007/10/05:
  A Roman Catholic priest who worked as a state prison chaplain was ordered to stand trial on charges he had sexual contact with an inmate, while the inmate will stand trial on charges he extorted $7,600 in hush money from the priest.^[6]
• 2007/10/05:
  Timothy Dane Tillmar, the former pastor of the Revival Center in Vincent, is charged with murder in the October 2005 shooting death of his wife.^[7]
• 2007/10/04:
  Prosecutors have decided not to press charges against a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a girl in Portland.
  The Rev. Joseph V. Hoang, 40, will remain on administrative leave while the Portland Archdiocese conducts an internal review, said Bud Bunce, a church spokesman. ^[8]
• 2007/10/04:
  The priest sex-abuse scandal claims some new, elderly victims.^[9]
• 2007/10/02:
  Riverside County authorities are looking for a former Roman Catholic priest charged with child molestation for allegedly sexually assaulting at least two altar boys at St. James church in Perris in the late 1980s, authorities said Tuesday.^[10]
• 2007/09/26:
  The Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph this week agreed to pay an Independence man $225,000, its biggest settlement ever in a case of alleged priest sexual abuse.^[11]
• 2007/09/24:
  A former altar boy from Windham who said he was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest in the mid-1980s has filed suit against the priest and Bishop Richard Malone.^[12]
• 2007/09/21:
  A Roman Catholic priest pleaded guilty to felony battery with a deadly weapon in an attack on a church soloist at his Las Vegas parish office early this year.^[13]
• 2007/09/20:
  The pastor of the Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church in Arlington has been removed from office Thursday by Bishop Kevin Vann after an investigation of allegations of past sexual harassment of two women while the priest served a parish in another state.^[14]
• 2007/09/19:
  Michael Porter, 38, of Okehampton Close, north London, got a three-year community rehabilitation order for abusing young boys. He reportedly used his position as a Jehovah's Witness to act on his pedophile tendencies.^[15]
• 2007/09/18:
  A RETIRED Catholic priest who committed buggery with a 13-year-old boy at a seminary and indecently assaulted two other teenage boys has been sentenced to seven years and three months' jail.^[16]
• 2007/09/14:
  A Roman Catholic priest was arrested and will face trial on charges of raping a 9-year-old girl' in 2004 and sexually abusing as many as a dozen others.^[17]
• 2006/09/13:
  The Reverend John Bonine is accused of molesting two girls. John Bonine's public defender says the Pastor of Sierra Heights Baptist Church could be facing life in prison if convicted because there are two children involved. Bonine faces more than 100 criminal charges of child molestation.^[18]
• 2007/09/11:
  Nuns to be evicted from convent because church must pay $660 million in sexual abuse cases.^[19]
• 2007/09/07:
  The Roman Catholic Church in San Diego, in the US state of California, has agreed to pay $198m (£97m) to settle 144 claims of sexual abuse by clergy.^[20]
• 2007/09/04:
  A high-profile pastor from Kanawha County says he's one of the sexual assault victims of another pastor -- and he's written a letter to the public.^[21]
• 2007/08/30:
  A fundamentalist church pastor had sex with two of his teenage daughters to educate them on how to be good wives, a South Australian court has heard. The 54-year-old man, who cannot be named, was today sentenced in the SA District Court to eight and a half years jail after pleading guilty to seven counts each of incest and unlawful sexual intercourse. The court heard that the man had sex with his daughters for nearly a decade from 1991 when they were aged 13 and 15 at the family property.[1]
• 2007/08/24:
  Television Evangelist Juanita Bynum, the hair stylist turned preacher, known for her inspiring and candid sermons about sexuality and marital responsibility, is recovering after allegedly being attacked by her estranged husband. Atlanta Police say Bishop Thomas Weeks III, founder of Global Destiny churches, will be charged with aggravated assault and terroristic threats. [2]
• 2007/08/23:
  A Webb City preacher, Roy Curtis Huling, has been charged with three counts of child molestation with a female who was under the age of 12. [3]
• 2007/08/20:
  A southwest suburban Southern Baptist congregation allowed a convicted child sex offender to preach for the last few years -- despite his past, and a warning from his previous church that he might still be dangerous, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. In 1996, Jeff Hannah was sentenced to nine years in prison for having sexual relations with four underage girls -- ages 15 to 17 -- while a married youth minister at Crossroads Church in Libertyville. [4]
• 2007/08/17:
  A longtime Round Rock pastor was arrested after telling authorities he embezzled at least $500,000 from his church, according to court records. Donald "Roddy" Clyde, 48, turned himself in to authorities Wednesday and was charged with felony theft of more than $200,000 from the Fellowship at Forest Creek Church. Clyde's bail was set at $400,000, and he could face 99 years in prison if convicted. [5]
• 2007/08/17:
  Pastor Leroy Cruz was arrested during a sex sting operation where a Denton police detective posed as a 15-year-old girl arranging to meet the man for sex. [6]
• 2007/08/14:
  The Rev. Jerry Sutton, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor who lost a bid to become president of the denomination, is now facing an upheaval in the megachurch he leads, including complaints that he spent church money on his daughter's wedding. [7]
• 2007/08/11:
  Pastor Dong Wan Park has been sentenced to spend 4 1/2 years in prison for filing fake visa applications. [8]
• 2007/08/10:
  A San Antonio pastor and an employee of his Christian boot camp were arrested today on aggravated assault charges, accusing them of dragging a girl behind a van after failing to keep up with others during a running exercise. [9]
• 2007/08/10:
  Arrest warrants have been issued for two officials at a Christian boot camp accused of dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van after she fell behind the group during a morning run, authorities said. Charles Eugene Flowers and Stephanie Bassitt of San Antonio-based Love Demonstrated Ministries, a 32-day boot camp, are facing aggravated assault charges. [10]
• 2007/08/09:
  A Catholic priest Dagoberto Valle Arriaga killed his son so the Church would not know he had broken vows of celibacy has been jailed for 55 years in Mexico City. [11]
• 2007/08/08:
  Rev. Acen Phillips has been charged with 12 felonies in Arapahoe County District Court; there are seven counts of theft and five counts of forgery related to insurance fraud. [12]
• 2007/08/08:
  The Rev. Robert Whipkey faces an indecent exposure charge after police said he went jogging in the nude about an hour before sunrise. [13]
• 2007/08/07:
  The Rev. Randy L. Rugh of New Alexandria, Westmoreland County, was charged with theft and receiving stolen property after he allegedly cashed a CD worth $23,540 without authorization. [14]
• 2007/08/03:
  Mark Comford, a janitor at Purdue University North Central and a youth leader at Faith Baptist Church in LaPorte, was arrested and then charged with seven counts of child molesting and two counts of criminal deviate conduct. Four boys, ages 9 to 13, were listed as victims in the charging information outlined in all of the counts. [15] [16]
• 2007/07/30:
  Pastor Tommy Tester was arrested charges of indecent exposure and public drunkenness. Police say the preacher was driving drunk when he stopped at a car wash and urinated with children present. Investigators say prior to his arrest, Tester, who was wearing a skirt at the time, made sexual advances to them. [17]
• 2007/07/22:
  Catholic priest Monsignor Alan J. Placa is accused of sexually molesting boys. [18]
• 2007/07/20:
  Rev. Geronimo Enrique Cuevas, an assistant pastor at a Catholic church was arrested for investigation of sexual battery after he allegedly groped an undercover sheriff's deputy near a private beach. [19]
• 2007/07/20:
  Troy Deal, 34, director of youth ministries at Chapel Hill United Methodist Church, was arrested on charges of using a computer to solicit a child for sex. [20]
• 2007/07/20:
  Wendel Nix, a part-time youth pastor from Aztec Bible Baptist Church, was arrested on charges that he had sex with a 14-year-old girl from his congregation. [21]
• 2007/07/19:
  Rev. Coy Privette, the president of the Christian Action League, a North Carolina ultraconservative Christian political organization based in Raleigh, has been arrested for soliciting prostitution from a female [22] and stealing nearly $200,000 from St. Margaret Mary parish on the North Side to give cars, plane tickets and thousands of dollars in cash to a male stripper [23].
• 2007/07/16:
  A California judge approved the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles's agreement to pay $660 million to people who claim they were abused by priests, in the biggest clergy-abuse settlement ever. [24]
• 2007/07/16:
  74-Year-Old Colorado Episcopal Priest Sentenced To 210 Years For Sex Assault. Donald Shissler was found guilty of 15 counts, including assault on a child and sexual exploitation of a child. He met the victims *after he retired from the clergy and after his foster parent license was revoked. [25]
• 2007/07/09:
  A Nixa pastor has been charged with child abuse for allegedly striking a 16-year-old female relative. [26]
• 2007/07/05:
  An associate pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church of Slidell was arrested Monday and booked Tuesday on two counts of aggravated sex crimes and 47 counts of possession of child pornography. [27]
• 2007/07/05:
  The mother of a Lake County boy who was sexually abused by Rev. Douglas W. Myers has sued the clergyman, two area churches and two Baptist groups, maintaining they should have protected her son. [28]
• 2007/07/07:
  A 32-yr-old married pastor at the most popular church in Akron is accused of grabbing two women at Chapel Hill mall. [29]
• 2007/06/30:
  Christopher Bennett, 30, of Apt. Z6, 200 Franklin Road NE, Atlanta, was arrested Wednesday in the Atlanta area and charged with second-degree sodomy. [30]
• 2007/06/29:
  Federal investigators are cracking-down on a bankrupt CEO who is also a pastor. He's charged with defrauding investors of more than a half million dollars. [31]
• 2007/06/28:
  Joshua Robinson is charged with two counts of lewd conduct with a minor and one count of sexually abusing a minor. [32]
• 2007/06/24:
  A Baptist minister from Cleveland Heights admitted Thursday that he molested two children, including one of his wife's relatives and an unrelated member of his church's flock who was 12 years old and deaf. [33]
• 2007/06/20:
  Suffolk pastor says disgruntled worker is behind his misdemeanor assault charge. [34]
• 2007/06/12:
  Stephen D. Shorey, 40, was arrested in April on a complaint of child sexual abuse. [35]
• 2007/06/09:
  The pastor of Emmanuel Apostolic Church was convicted yesterday of several sexual-offense charges involving a teenage girl who was a member of his church. He was sentenced in Forsyth Superior Court to at least 20 years in prison. [36]
• 2007/06/06:
  A former pastor was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for receiving child pornography videos he bought over the Internet. [37]
• 2007/06/01:
  Gerald Klever, then a pastor at First Presbyterian Church, allegedly forced a teenage girl to perform oral sex on him in his church office. [38]
• 2007/05/31:
  Pastor accused of diverting church money for personal use. [39]
• 2007/05/31:
  Priest Busted for Alleged Online Child Porn Possession. [40]
• 2007/05/26:
  Youth pastor guilty of having child porn. [41]
• 2007/05/23:
  Angela Hurt, 32, who was a part-time youth leader at Cornerstone Church in Springfield, was charged in November in Greene County Circuit Court with second-degree statutory rape and second-degree statutory sodomy for allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with the boy from January to March 2005. [42]
• 2007/05/19:
  Former youth minister David Baird, 45, of Penn Hills, was charged with statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviant intercourse, sexual assault, two counts of indecent assault, indecent exposure, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors and unlawful contact with a minor. [43]
• 2007/05/04:
  Corey Pritchett, 44, was arrested at the Sandy Public Library. Police charged him with several counts of theft and securities fraud in connection with multiple real estate transactions. [44]
• 2007/05/10:
  Chattanooga police arrested nine men Friday in a prostitution sting, including the pastor of Ringgold United Methodist Church. [45]
• 2007/04/20:
  A former Hebron minister, who is spending seven years in prison on sex-abuse convictions, is being sued by the two teenage sisters he victimized. [46]
• 2007/04/01:
  A former Rice Lake pastor is charged with raping a 17-year-old boy 20 years ago. [47]
• 2007/03/19:
  U.S. authorities seized $56,467 that Pentacostal leaders Estevam and Sônia Hernandes and other family members had hidden on their bodies and in luggage, according to the U.S. indictment. [48]
• 2007/03/12:
  Pastor Frederick Dew was booked into the Sacramento County Jail on suspicion of lewd acts with a child. [49]
• 2007/03/12:
  CNN anchor Thomas Roberts became a victim of sexual abuse at the age of 14; the abuse lasted three years. It took him nearly 20 years to gather the strength to help put my abuser behind bars. "My abuser was Father Jeff Toohey, a trusted man of God. He was the equivalent of a religious celebrity in my private all-boys Catholic school in Baltimore, Maryland. Father Jeff was every boy's friend and mentor. I considered him my mentor as well." [50]
• 2007/02/09:
  Pastor Ronald Hernandez Tovar of a Stanton church is accused of having sex with a 16-year-old female parishioner. [51]
• 2007/02/08:
  Rediger, a former youth pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, was sentenced to two terms of two years in prison to be served concurrently with no time off for good behavior. He will also be placed on five years of post-release control. [52]
• 2007/02/02:
  A Bexar County jury this morning convicted a former youth minister of capital murder in the deaths of his 17-year-old pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child. [53]
• 2007/1/18:
  Shawn Davies, a 33-year-old former music and youth minister, was sentenced Jan. 12 to 20 years in prison for molesting children at First Baptist Church of Greenwood, Mo. [54]
• 2007/1/12:
  The pastor of an Atlantic Beach church was arrested Wednesday as part of a prostitution sting. [55]
• 2007/1/12:
  The Rev. Kenneth Payne was found guilty of molesting and sodomizing a teenage boy he was formerly tutoring. [56]
• 2007/1/08:
  A youth pastor in Craig was arrested in connection with the alleged sexual assault of two teen girls he had worked with at First Christian Church. [57]
• 2007/1/05:
  Scott Hoppe, former youth minister and assistant pastor at Grace Church in Burlington, had sex with a girl many times when she was between 15 and 17 years old. [58]
• 2006/12/08:
  Rev. Brent Dugan commits suicide after sex scandal. [59]
• 2006/11/30:
  A 28-year-old self-styled pastor, Yaw Dadzie, who claim to have divine powers to heal the sick, especially lunatics, has been arrested by the police for his violent behaviour towards his patients. [60]
• 2006/10/29:
  A former Hickman Community Church pastor has been arrested on a murder warrant linked to the death of an 85-year-old Hickman man in 2004. [61]
• 2006/10/21:
  Riverside police arrested Pastor Dennis Bowling early Tuesday after a group of women associated with the Kingdom Harvest Church at 2360 Valley Pike told police Bowling had sexually assaulted female members of the congregation over a 10-year period. [62]
• 2006/10/16:
  Donald Richard Ryan, a high school pastor at Greenwood Community Church, admitted to being sexually involved with a 16-year-old girl. [63]
• 2006/10/04:
  Kent Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty of 58 counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faces a maximum of 288 years in prison. [64]
• 2006/10/02:
  A male prostitute alleges that he had a three-year relationship with prominent right-wing evangelical leader Ted Haggard, who has said that homosexuality is a “sin” and “devastating for the children of our nation and for the future of Western civilization.” [65]
• 2006/09/21:
  The 44-year-old Reverend Terry Hornbuckle has been convicted of drugging and raping three women, two of them former members of his Arlington megachurch. [66]
• 2006/09/18:
  Pastor Joseph Gary Torres was charged Monday with multiple counts of sexually abusing two girls who attended his church in the San Fernando Valley. [67]
• 2006/09/15:
  The Rev. Maurice L. Jackson, pastor of New Generation Church was found guilty of three sex charges with children in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. [68]
• 2006/09/12:
  The pastor Gregory Michael Butler has been indicted by a Burke County grand jury on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year old girl. [69]
• 2006/09/05:
  The Rev. Charles F. Mc-Keller faces civil suits by an estranged couple who claim that instead of counseling them to repair their marriage he drove them further apart by engaging in a sexual relationship with the wife. [70]
• 2006/08/31:
  Pastor Helge Fossmo has admitted involvement in the murder of his wife in their home in 2004. [71]
• 2006/08/23:
  Pastor Robert Holmes is being arrested for not reporting the abuse that a 12-year-old boy was suffering. [72]

 

 

Richard Dawkins, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

– via Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI

Dawkins and Hitchens hope to arrest the Pope when he visits Britain between September 16 and 19. The pair believe Benedict will be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because he is not the head of a state recognized by the United Nations, though the Pope’s tour is categorized as a “state visit”.

Barrister Geoffrey Robertson and solicitor Mark Stephens have been brought aboard to help with the legal arguments, and they both seem very optimistic they can get Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope.

There is already legal precedent for this type of order.

Last year pro-Palestinian activists persuaded a British judge to issue an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli politician, for offences allegedly committed during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza. The warrant was withdrawn after Livni cancelled her planned trip to the UK.

“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” said Stephens. “Geoffrey and I have both come to the view that the Vatican is not actually a state in international law. It is not recognised by the UN, it does not have borders that are policed and its relations are not of a full diplomatic nature.”

We now know the Pope had direct involvement in harboring criminals. When Pinochet was arrested in 1998, he was charged with 94 counts of torture. Surely, child rape should be considered a form of torture, and unlike Pinochet, Benedict cannot hide behind a head of state title. The Pope’s fantasies of grandeur may compel poor people to throw their hard-earned cash at the church, but in the real world, Benedict is just a former Hitler Youth who now wears a funny hat, and occasionally covers for child rapists. He’s a criminal — the head of a criminal enterprise — who can still be punished under the law.

Here is Robertson outlining the specific charges.

The ICC Statute definition of a crime against humanity includes rape and sexual slavery and other similarly inhumane acts causing harm to mental or physical health, committed against civilians on a widespread or systematic scale, if condoned by a government or a de facto authority. It has been held to cover the recruitment of children as soldiers or sex slaves. If acts of sexual abuse by priests are not isolated or sporadic, but part of a wide practice both known to and unpunished by their de facto authority then they fall within the temporal jurisdiction of the ICC – if that practice continued after July 2002, when the court was established.

According to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the total number of priests with allegations of abuse in the college’s survey is 4,392 for the period 1950-2002 (and not counting allegations that were withdrawn). Approximately one-third of all allegations were reported in 2002-2003, which falls within the window after the creation of the ICC.

The John Jay survey covers only US priests, and yet this single study proves the abuse was not isolated or sporadic. Additionally, the criminal enterprise has international reach extending to Ireland, Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, etc. So if the only prerequisites for arresting the Pope are that the allegations need to have been filed after 2002, and be systemic in nature, then Check and Mate.

The world need not remain silent in the presence of such evil simply because the Pope shields himself behind a veil of religiosity. In the past, sane members of our societies have drawn the line, and arrested religious charlatans for criminal behavior.

Warren Jeffs, the former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was arrested for two first-degree felony charges of accomplice rape for arranging extralegal marriages between his adult male followers and underage girls. In 2007, he was indicted in Arizona on eight counts, including sexual conduct with a minor and incest.

Through it all, Jeffs claimed to be a prophet (aren’t they always a prophet?) for one of the largest Mormon fundamentalist denominations, and yet he was not considered above the law when he began to facilitate the rape of little girls.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses proved to have their shit together more than the church when they kicked out George Arthur Cockerill, a former JW who was convicted of 19 rapes, four counts of sexual activity with a child, six counts of indecency with a child, one sex assault and two counts of indecency with a child. The sentencing judge said Cockerill used his religion as a “tool of subjection to control [his] victims.” Much like a nefarious priest manipulates a trusting child, and yet a UK judge did not permit Cockerill to use his religion as armor.

“As one victim said, you have stolen her childhood,” said Judge Roger Thorn QC. The Pope, and the rapist priests he protects, have stolen countless childhoods. They also must be held accountable.

MichaelParenti.org - Oct 27, 2007
http://www.michaelparenti.org

Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints

by Michael Parenti

During his 26-year papacy, John Paul II elevated 483 individuals to
sainthood, reportedly more saints than any previous pope. One personage
he beatified but did not live long enough to canonize was Mother
Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun of Albanian origin who had been wined
and dined by the world's rich and famous while hailed as a champion of
the poor. The darling of the corporate media and western officialdom,
and an object of celebrity adoration, Teresa was for many years the
most revered woman on earth, showered with kudos and awarded a Nobel
Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work and spiritual inspiration.

What usually went unreported were the vast sums she received from
wealthy and sometimes tainted sources, including a million dollars from
convicted savings & loan swindler Charles Keating, on whose behalf she
sent a personal plea for clemency to the presiding judge. She was asked
by the prosecutor in that case to return Keating's gift because it was
money he had stolen. She never did.[1] She also accepted substantial
sums given by the brutal Duvalier dictatorship that regularly stole
from the Haitian public treasury.

Mother Teresa's hospitals for the indigent in India and elsewhere turned
out to be hardly more than human warehouses in which seriously ill
persons lay on mats, sometimes fifty to sixty in a room without benefit
of adequate medical attention. Their ailments usually went undiagnosed.
The food was nutritionally lacking and sanitary conditions were
deplorable. There were few medical personnel on the premises, mostly
untrained nuns and brothers.[2]

When tending to her own ailments, however, Teresa checked into some of
the costliest hospitals and recovery care units in the world for
state-of-the-art treatment.[3]

Teresa journeyed the globe to wage campaigns against divorce, abortion,
and birth control. At her Nobel award ceremony, she announced that the
greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And she once suggested that
AIDS might be a just retribution for improper sexual conduct.[4]

Teresa emitted a continual flow of promotional misinformation about
herself. She claimed that her mission in Calcutta fed over a thousand
people daily. On other occasions she jumped the number to 4000, 7000,
and 9000. Actually her soup kitchens fed not more than 150 people (six
days a week), and this included her retinue of nuns, novices, and
brothers. She claimed that her school in the Calcutta slum contained
five thousand children when it actually enrolled less than one hundred.

Teresa claimed to have 102 family assistance centers in Calcutta, but
longtime Calcutta resident, Aroup Chatterjee, who did an extensive
on-the-scene investigation of her mission, could not find a single such
center.[5]

As one of her devotees explained, "Mother Teresa is among those who
least worry about statistics. She has repeatedly expressed that what
matters is not how much work is accomplished but how much love is put
into the work."[6] Was Teresa really unconcerned about statistics?
Quite the contrary, her numerical inaccuracies went consistently and
self-servingly in only one direction, greatly exaggerating her
accomplishments.

Over the many years that her mission was in Calcutta, there were about a
dozen floods and numerous cholera epidemics in or near the city, with
thousands perishing. Various relief agencies responded to each
disaster, but Teresa and her crew were nowhere in sight, except briefly
on one occasion.[7]

When someone asked Teresa how people without money or power can make the
world a better place, she replied, "They should smile more," a response
that charmed some listeners. During a press conference in Washington
DC, when asked "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" she said "I
think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share
it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped
by the suffering of the poor people."[8]

But she herself lived lavishly well, enjoying luxurious accommodations
in her travels abroad. It seems to have gone unnoticed that as a world
celebrity she spent most of her time away from Calcutta, with protracted
stays at opulent residences in Europe and the United States, jetting
from Rome to London to New York in private planes.[9]

Mother Teresa is a paramount example of the kind of acceptably
conservative icon propagated by an elite-dominated culture, a saint who
uttered not a critical word against social injustice, and maintained
cozy relations with the rich, corrupt, and powerful.

She claimed to be above politics when in fact she was pronouncedly
hostile toward any kind of progressive reform. Teresa was a friend of
Ronald Reagan, and an admiring guest of the Haitian dictator Baby Doc
Duvalier. She also had the support and admiration of a number of
Central and South American dictators.

Teresa was Pope John Paul II's kind of saint. After her death in 1997,
he waived the five-year waiting period usually observed before beginning
the beatification process that leads to sainthood. In 2003, in record
time Mother Teresa was beatified, the final step before canonization.

But in 2007 her canonization confronted a bump in the road, it having
been disclosed that along with her various other contradictions Teresa
was not a citadel of spiritual joy and unswerving faith. Her diaries,
investigated by Catholic authorities in Calcutta, revealed that she had
been racked with doubts: "I feel that God does not want me, that God is
not God and that he does not really exist. People think my faith, my
hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacy with God and
union with his will fill my heart. If only they knew," she wrote,
"Heaven means nothing."

Through many tormented sleepless nights she shed thoughts like this: "I
am told God loves me and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and
emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul." Il Messeggero,
Rome's popular daily newspaper, commented: "The real Mother Teresa was
one who for one year had visions and who for the next 50 had
doubts---up until her death."[10]

Another example of fast-track sainthood, pushed by Pope John Paul II,
occurred in 1992 when he swiftly beatified the reactionary Msgr. Josi
Marma Escriva de Balaguer, supporter of fascist regimes in Spain and
elsewhere, and founder of Opus Dei, a powerful secretive
ultra-conservative movement feared by many as a sinister sect within
the Catholic Church.[11] Escriva s beatification came only seventeen
years after his death, a record run until Mother Teresa came along.

In accordance with his own political agenda, John Paul used a church
institution, sainthood, to bestow special sanctity upon
ultra-conservatives such as Escriva and Teresa---and implicitly on all
that they represented. Another of the ultra-conservatives whom John
Paul put up for sainthood, bizarrely enough, was the last of the
Hapsburg rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Emperor Karl, who
reigned during World War I. Still another of the reactionaries whom
John Paul set up for sainthood was Pius IX, who reigned as pontiff from
1846 to 1878, and who referred to Jews as dogs.

John Paul also beatified Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, the leading
Croatian cleric who welcomed the Nazi and fascist Ustashi takeover of
Croatia during World War II. Stepinac sat in the Ustashi parliament,
appeared at numerous public events with top ranking Nazis and Ustashi,
and openly supported the Croatian fascist regime that exterminated
hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma (gypsies).[12]

In John Paul's celestial pantheon, reactionaries had a better chance at
canonization than reformers. Consider his treatment of Archbishop Oscar
Romero who spoke against the injustices and oppressions suffered by the
impoverished populace of El Salvador and for this was assassinated by a
right-wing death squad. John Paul never denounced the killing or its
perpetrators, calling it only tragic. In fact, just weeks before Romero
was murdered, high-ranking officials of the Arena party, the legal arm
of the death squads, sent a well-received delegation to the Vatican to
complain of Romero's public statements on behalf of the poor.[13]

Romero was thought by many poor Salvadorans to be something of a saint,
but John Paul attempted to ban any discussion of his beatification for
fifty years. Popular pressure from El Salvador caused the Vatican to
cut the delay to twenty-five years.[14] In either case, Romero was
consigned to the slow track.

John Paul's successor, Benedict XVI, [waived] the five-year waiting
period in order to put John Paul II himself instantly on a super-fast
track to canonization, running neck and neck with Teresa. As of 2005
there already were reports of possible miracles attributed to the
recently departed Polish pontiff.

One such account was offered by Cardinal Francesco Marchisano. When
lunching with John Paul, the cardinal indicated that because of an
ailment he could not use his voice. The pope caressed my throat, like a
brother, like the father that he was. After that I did seven months of
therapy, and I was able to speak again. Marchisano thinks that the
pontiff might have had a hand in his cure: It could be, he said.[15] Un
miracolo! Viva il papa!

1. Christopher Hitchens, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in
Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995), 64-71.

2. Aroup Chatterjee, Mother Teresa, The Final Verdict (Meteor Books,
2003), 196-197.

3. Chatterjee, Mother Teresa, 188-189.

4. Mother Teresa, Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1979:
http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html.

5. Chatterjee, Mother Teresa, 32, 179-180..

6. Chatterjee, Mother Teresa, 19-23, 106-107, 157, and passim

7. Chatterjee, Mother Teresa, 332-333.

8. Hitchens, The Missionary Position, 11 and 95.

9. Chatterjee, Mother Teresa, 2-14.

10. Bruce Johnston, Mother Teresa's diary reveals her crisis of faith,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11....

11. http://www.odan.org/escriva_to_franco.htm and Curtis Bill Pepper,
Opus Dei, Advocatus Papae, Nation 3-10 August 1992.

12. Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941-1945 (American
Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1961), 201-205 and passim; also How the
Catholic Church United with Local Nazis to Run Croatia during World War
II: The Case of Archbishop Stepinac (Embassy of the Federal Peoples
Republic of Yugoslavia, Washington, DC, 1947); posted 2 August 2004,
http://emperors-lothes.com/croatia/stepinac1.htm#11.

13. Barry Healy, Pope John Paul II, A Reactionary in Shepherds Clothing,
Green Left Weekly, 6 April 2005.

14. Healy, Pope John Paul II, A Reactionary in Shepherds Clothing.

15. New York Times, 14 May 2005.

[Michael Parenti's recent publications include: Contrary Notions: The
Michael Parenti Reader (City Lights, 2007); Democracy for the Few, 8th
ed. (Wadsworth, 2007); The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories, 2006). For
further information visit his website: www.MichaelParenti.org.]

A pedophile priest, not an atheist, claimed he was only giving his victim anatomy lessons.

Muslims in Pakistan stoned a Christian man to death.  His crime?  Drinking tea at a roadside stall that was designated for Muslims only.

When a Christian church that tortured a gay teen via an exorcism to rid him of his faggy demon was criticized for their stupidity, Dr Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission slammed the critics, accusing them of intolerance.

An Oregon couple let their 15 month child die of pneumonia, refusing medical treatment and praying for her instead.  If her parents had been atheists she would be alive right now.

A orthodox Jewish couple are suing their neighbors, claiming that an automatic hall light, which is triggered by people entering the hall, imprisons them in their apartment.  This, they claim, prevents them from leaving on the Sabbath.  If they were atheists instead of idiots they could leave whenever they want.

Eight people drowned a 22 year old mother of two trying to lift a curse from her.  She would have been much better off with atheist friends.

An Islamic woman starved one of her children to death, after torturing her, because she thought she was possessed.  Her other five children were seriously malnourished.  Too bad her mother wasn’t an atheist.

By Fr. Alphonse de Valk has declared that Atheism is a threat to civilization.  If he were an atheist he’d be smarter than that.  Not to be outdone, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor has declared that atheists are not fully human.

Opening a dialog between religions may not be a good idea.  Ernest McCullough, a Christan, got into an argument about religion with a Muslim, who ended the debate by shooting him in the leg.

In Maryland, a woman starved her son to death because he wouldn’t say Amen.  She’s expecting him to be resurrected.  That hasn’t happened so far.  Yet another child who would have been much better off with atheist parents.

In India at least 50 people went blind staring into the sun looking for an image of the Virgin Mary.  Atheists are never blinded by the light.

When woman with an atheist boyfriend asked Pat Robertson for advice about finding a middle ground with her atheist boyfriend, Pat told her to break up with him because he’s “serving the devil.”

In India a “Hindu Taliban” is attacking woman for drinking in bars and dressing inappropriately, including those wearing bathing suits at the beach and t-shirts with pictures of their deities on them.  There are no reports of atheists beating up women over religion.

In Afghanistan a Mullah who spoke out against suicide attacks was murdered by other members of his religion of peace.

In Russia two Jehovah’s Witnesses went on a murder spree killing 13 people to rid the world of sin.  (They should have just become vampires.)

In India two seven year old girls were married to frogs to prevent the disease outbreaks in the village.  Atheists don’t advocate girl-frog marriage.

A pretty sixteen year old girl was stabbed to death by her Muslim brother for listening to rock and roll and wearing makup.  He stabbed her 26 times.  He was preserving the family honor.

Q. Does "God" exist?
A. No. Don't be a fucking idiot.

Q. WWJD?
A. Nothing. It is a loaded question based upon the badly discredited premise that "Jesus" is (a) alive, and (b) in a position to do anything. The belief that this alleged "son of god" has (a) infinite and supernatural power, and (b) the inclination to use it to save Humanity is probably wrong considering he couldn't even get out on bail.

Q. Is Atheism a religion?
A. Only to those who suffer under the delusion that such verbal perversions have some undefined legal ramifications regarding prayer in school or other such nonsense. In reality, Atheism is pretty much the opposite of religion, so whoever told you that told you wrong.

Q. Is Evolution a religion?
A. Another religio-political verbal perversion which seems to occasionally work at school board meetings in some of the more theocratic states. Their "reasoning" seems to be something like this: the ridiculous biblical creationism fairy tale has nothing to do with a specific religion, but is actually a valid, though overlooked scientific "theory", while the actual biological science of Evolution is a "religion" unsupported by any evidence, and as such should not be taught in schools because that would be wrong. Those who find such "logic" attractive should go read a book and try not to show their ignorance in public.

Q. Is religion 100% grade A bullshit?
A. Yes

Q. Can fundamentalists handle constructive criticism?
A. No, they quickly anger when their superstition is questioned. Thinly veiled threats of eternal damnation are frequently made with the clear implication that no punishment is severe enough for those who don't blindly accept the xian god-myth.

Q. Are all god-believers idiots?
A. No, not all. They are merely misinformed and frequently boneheaded. Sometimes their skewed view of reality makes them behave like idiots. Sometimes it even makes 'em dangerous.

Q. So Atheists don't believe in anything?
A. Not in fairy tales. Not in flagrant contradictions. Not without some proof. I live in an objective universe and I am quite confident in its existence. It is abundantly clear that the uninformed, superstition-laden guesswork of the ancients regarding the workings of the universe was wrong. It is not necessary, nor is it beneficial, to "believe" in that silliness.

Q. Does the bible say not to kill people?
A. Yes

Q. Does the bible say to kill people?
A. Yes

Q. Is Karl Rove the anti-christ?
A. As you should be aware, if you read your bible, the antichrist appears after the rapture. The rapture cannot happen until the temple is rebuilt. Therefore, Karl Rove cannot be the antichrist. Karl Rove is Satan.

Q. Are you the anti-christ?
A. No. See above

Q. How do you know god doesn't exist?
A. Same way you know Santa Claus doesn't exist. It's a fucking fairy tale. Grow up.

Q. Prove it!
A. I am not going to waste my time proving that something doesnt exist when you should be the one proving that he does exist. I can say I can fly and you’ll tell me no you cant. If I say prove it and don’t show you I can fly then its the same damned thing.

Q. Well, I believe in god!
A. Sorry, that's not a question and you are just plain wrong.

Q. YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL FOREVER LIKE YOU DESERVE, MOTHERFUCKER!!!
A. Learn that in church?

A 14-year-old boy, Dennis Lindberg, killed himself under the instructions of a sadistic cult. This action was blessed by Skagit County (Washington) Superior Court Judge, John Meyer, who prohibited the State of Washington from interfering in the youth’s suicide pact.

Unfortunately, no criminal action will be brought against either the “Cult” or Judge Meyer, because the “Cult” is the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the method of suicide the youth chose was to refuse treatment that would have given him a 70% chance of survival.

TJM author Luci recently wrote about another senseless death associated with Jehovah’s Witness prohibition on accepting blood transfusions.

Basically, JWs are prohibited from consuming the blood of an animal. “Church” leaders decided that hospital patients can be fed intravenously, a blood transfusion is food.

What?

TJM reader Jerry Jones (his link) commented:

Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that when human blood is transfused into their body’s circulatory system that the transfused human blood remains to be human blood and continues to function as human blood. Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that if blood is eaten, then the ingested blood enters the body’s digestive system, where the blood would be treated by the body exactly the same as it would treat a hotdog, a potato chip, or any other food item.

Before you start thinking that I’m singling out JW’s, remember that MANY religions/dogmatic beliefs require the individual to harm himself/herself in the name of worship and/or conformity. Judaism (and others) requires the partial amputation of male genitalia. Sects of Islam require adherents to flog and/or lacerate themselves as a part of their worship. (Check out “Ashoura”) Female Genital Mutilation is still widely practiced in several locations around the world. Foot Binding, an old Chinese custom, has crippled millions of women.

Dogmatism turns otherwise rational people into lemmings. Religion is the single largest source of Dogmatism. Religion is also the most “Protected” in its application. Without Religion to back up this boy’s decision, his parents would have been brought up on child endangerment charges, he would be declared a ward of the court, and his doctors would be ordered to begin treatment.

Read more:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/11/religion_kills.php
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/29/jehovahs.witness.ap/index.html

Never Forget 9/11

Religion was the cause.

I pulled the following quote from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monsters website and it is an apparently very angry religious person pissed off that this religion has followers. I think its extremely humorous and leaves to mind these peoples sense of confusion. His argument states his own beliefs.

Dear dumb ass folowers of FSMism,

There have been a lot of weird things that i have seen in my life before, but this tops them all. Do you really believe that there is/was such a thing as a flying spaghetti monster? Seriously, how fucking old are you? I know there’s such a thing as freedom of speech and expression, but this kinda shit should be banned. Theres is only one God and one Holy Word. Why dont you people get that? How much sense does it make to say that decreasing numbers of pirates lead to an increase in average global temperature? Is that science or some fifth grader trying to sound smart?

You are the kinds of people I dread to meet in public. If I were to ever have the displeasure of meeting your retarded ass, I would probably beat you senseless untill your stupid childish mind thought like a normal person and believed in something that sounds correct instead of just saying “Eh, lets make a new religion..and what the hell, our ‘god’ should be a clump of spaghetti. Oh, and it should have eyes and be able to fly. Lets bow down to it and see how many people follow suit!”

Damn you all to hell!! Better yet, somebody should lock you in a fucking psychiatric ward for further examination because they obviously didnt do that enough when you dumb fucks were born. I hope this web page is taken off the web as quickly as it was put up.

–Sincerly,
ANNONYMOUS