yayyyyyy God

[phorbesie]

timouse, KK posted a pic of the quote (or a version of it) recently, pretty funny

[Kanada Kev]

^^^^^

I quite liked that one

As for karma it is simply another nice way to explain how the unexplainable happens. Past lives? That opens up a whole other can o' worms. Again, interesting to fantasize about, but really? Another human construct to give us "understanding" of what essentially is balance. It's all about balance ... which is statistics of a form. Some people have a big streak of "bad luck" but is it really from a previous life or simply being on the wrong side of success in a 50/50 situation?

On a very basic level, religion is simply a way to have an "answer" derived/interpreted from texts/elders that could otherwise be unexplained (until such time as humans are able to find logical reasoning).

Just like Esau said earlier ... if it works for some people, FANTASTIC. But follow the rules in the Penis/Religion sign above

[phorbesie]

oh i think everyone knows how you feel about religion KK! :grin:

atheism (and/or science) can be taken as a type of religion too when it reaches throat-shoving levels!

Edited October 9, 2010 by Guest

[Kanada Kev]

Yup. Agreed.

What is different is that you don't normally see non-religous/scientists spouting off on street corners or running TV shows to collect money from followers and promising eternal happiness after they die (but follow these rules while you're here or you won't).

I think that a lot of the people that speak up against those that utilize their faith for greed/manipulation do so simply because nobody else does.

For me, I think that it is something that should be a personal choice. The division of Church/State is important and needs to be maintained IMHO.

Give thanks to your turkey this weekend. Gobble Gobble

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

As for karma it is simply another nice way to explain how the unexplainable happens. Past lives? That opens up a whole other can o' worms. Again, interesting to fantasize about, but really?

I've never seen anything myself that would convince me that there is anything like a soul that transmigrates from body to body, affected by moral conduct in each given life - I'm inclined instead to believe that our identity is formed in the gray matter, and when that decays after death, that's it for any sense of self - but if it works for anybody and helps them not mess anybody else up, great (though this kind of argument gets complicated - PromiseKeepers used to get kudos for getting deadbeat dads and so on back on track, but it was bundled with all sorts of pretty dodgy stuff as well).

It's always going to be complex as soon as you buy into any system, though. The traditionalist Hindu view worked just fine to let some people stand on the heads of others so long as they thought following dharma (subjugating women, lower caste people, etc.) had everything to do with good karma. I imagine similar stuff is going on in evangelical Buddhism (Soka Gakkai, e.g.), too.

I do like the idea of karma in its simplest sense: it translates just as "action". I'd like to think that there's something there - from the Upanishads onwards - that sees good action as its own reward (and bad action creates its own hell), because if we are ultimately identical with the Absolute, nobody has any kind of given advantage over anyone else; we all share in the same identity. In other words, what applies across the board is the Golden Rule: don't do to other people what you wouldn't want them to do to you (negative form), or, do to others what you would have them do to you (positive form). This is that ethic that interfaith advocates are all over. Great starting point, imo, for "redeeming" religious ethics.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

[Kanada Kev]

^^^^^

NICE!

I wish I was at home so that I could receive my "communion"

[Kanada Kev]

[Kanada Kev]

[Kanada Kev]

Wow! 48 of these vile humans in the San Diego area alone? I know it's over a period of years, but come on.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/24/san-diego-diocese-sex-abu_n_773178.html

San Diego Diocese Sex Abuse Case: Lawyers Release 10,000 Unsealed Documents

SAN DIEGO — Attorneys for nearly 150 people who claim sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests made nearly 10,000 pages of previously sealed internal church documents public Sunday, revealing at least one previously unknown decades-old case in which a priest under police investigation was allowed to leave the U.S. after the Diocese of San Diego intervened.

After a three-year legal battle over the Diocese of San Diego's internal records, a retired San Diego Superior Court judge ruled late Friday that they could be made public. The records are from the personnel files of 48 priests who were either credibly accused or convicted of sexual abuse or were named in a civil lawsuit.

The 144 plaintiffs settled with the diocese in 2007 for nearly $200 million, but the agreement stipulated that an independent judge would review the priests' sealed personnel records and determine what could be made public.

The files show what the diocese knew about abusive priests, starting decades before any allegations became public, and that some church leaders shuffled priests from parish to parish or overseas despite credible complaints against them.

"We encourage all Catholics, all members of the community, to look for these documents," attorney Anthony DeMarco said at a news conference. "These documents demonstrate years and years and decades of concerted action that has allowed this community's children to be victimized, and it is not until the community looks at these documents that this cycle is ever going to be ended."

At least one of the priests, Gustavo Benson, is still in active ministry in the Diocese of Ensenada in Mexico, DeMarco said. In a 2002 interview with The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Benson said he ministered to children there but had not done anything inappropriate. It wasn't immediately known what Benson's position at the diocese is now.

A phone message left Sunday night at the office of the Archbishop of Tijuana who oversees the Ensenada diocese was not immediately returned.

In at least one instance, the files included documented abuse by a priest whose name had not before surfaced in any lawsuit or criminal case, the Rev. Luis Eugene de Francisco, who was originally from Colombia. Police investigated de Francisco for allegedly abusing children, but the diocese convinced authorities to drop the case if the priest would return immediately to his Colombian diocese and never return to the U.S.

"In early August 1963, Father was placed under arrest by the civil police of the City of San Diego for violation of the State Penal Code," then-Bishop Charles F. Buddy wrote the Colombian bishop in the Diocese of Cali. "At that time, arrangements were made between this Chancery and the civil authorities of San Diego in which, if Father left the United States with the promise never to return, the charges against Father would be set aside by Civil Law."

Buddy wrote that de Francisco had crossed the border at Tijuana, Mexico, and was "directed to return directly to the Diocese of Cali."

DeMarco said the papers in the files were the first time attorneys became aware of de Francisco. No one filed a lawsuit, the church never revealed the complaints and it's unclear what happened to the priest or if he is still alive, he said.

Church files indicate he also served in Florida and Texas before arriving in the San Diego diocese, where he worked with migrant workers in the Coachella Valley about 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

"You have won a reputation as a zealous worker and devoted to the poor," Bishop Buddy wrote the priest in a December 1962 letter.

"On the other hand, the 'incidents' at Indio were more serious than first presented to me, especially inasmuch as the police have made a record of them. You know how word gets around, so that you be certain that the police here will be on your trail. ... It will be more prudent and more secure for you to return to your own diocese."

Donna Daly, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of San Diego, did not immediately return a call on Sunday and no one answered at the main diocese number. Maria Roberts, an attorney for the diocese, did not immediately respond to a message left with her office on Sunday.

Another case outlined in the files involves the Rev. Robert Nikliborc, who was sent to a psychiatric treatment facility in the 1950s after the diocese received complaints, then became director of a Roman Catholic residential facility for troubled boys called Boystown of the Desert in Banning, Calif.

Boys who lived there filed lawsuits against Nikliborc and were part of the 2007 settlement, DeMarco said. The priest died while litigation was under way.

In a 1956 letter written to Nikliborc while he was at a "special retreat," Buddy referred to two incidents involving the priest without describing them, and said Nikliborc must decide whether to stand with God or against him.

"The fact is that your defects on both occasions were reported by lay people, who gave absolute proof which you could not gloss over or deny," Buddy wrote. Still, he held out the possibility that Nikliborc could again celebrate Mass.

The papers also contain documents from the files of Rev. Anthony Rodrigue. In 1976, a group of parents at Rodrigue's parish in Heber, Calif., complained he had molested their children, according to court documents.

The priest was sent to a psychiatric facility in Massachusetts for treatment but was put back in ministry despite the recommendations of those who treated him.

Rodrigue later admitted he had molested between four to five children a year over a span of 22 years, said Irwin Zalkin, an attorney for the plaintiffs. About 30 people filed lawsuits against the diocese alleging sexual abuse against the priest, who died within the last year, he said.

"He was probably one of the most prolific abusers in this diocese. ... And they knew about this guy from his days in the seminary but kept him in ministry," Zalkin said.

Attorneys are still trying for the release of an additional 2,000 pages of documents.

The release of records is biggest so far in a U.S. church case, said Terry McKiernan, founder of the website Bishop Accountability.org. The website collects and publishes internal church papers that have been released as the result of litigation on clergy abuse nationwide.

"I think as we absorb this, it will shed a lot of light on these issues. It's amazingly rich," McKiernan said. "These documents are providing a window into the California experience that we haven't had before."

Lawyers for plaintiffs have been trying to get similar internal church documents from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for years, but have not had success. That diocese settled with more than 500 plaintiffs in 2007 for a record-breaking $660 million in a settlement agreement that also called for the disclosure of priests' files.

The only other release of church files in California came after a 2005 settlement between plaintiffs and the Diocese of Orange. About 4,000 pages were made public.

___

Online:

Unsealed documents: http://bit.ly/9U4FWC

[Kanada Kev]

A little early for Xmas, but this one did make me chuckle today:

[bradm]

Apocrypha In Your Browser: Google Is Putting The Dead Sea Scrolls Online

In a matter of months, it will be possible to peruse the Dead Sea Scrolls from the comfort of your computer chair. Because now that Google’s digitized one priceless national treasure, this is the next logical step.

The keepers of the scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority, announced Tuesday that as part of their 20th anniversary, they are launching this project to digitize all of the 30,000 fragments that make up the earliest known copy of the Hebrew Bible. Taking a page out of the PopSci handbook, the IAA is entrusting Google with the task of preserving their sacred, prophetic treasures. This is the first time since the 1950s that the entire collection will be photographed.

U.S. company MegaVision developed the high-resolution imaging technology that is to be used on the project. According to the IAA, the resulting images will be just as good as looking at the scrolls themselves. This will allow not only widespread access to the collection, but also minimize the need to expose the delicate 2,000-year-old parchment and papyrus to the harsh effects of light and air.

Once the project is complete, researching the scrolls will be easier than ever. Google Israel and the IAA plan to include transcriptions, translations and a bibliography with the images so you won’t have to be an expert, or even able to read Aramaic in order to decipher the scrolls.

Aloha,

Brad

[Kanada Kev]

[Kanada Kev]

Would be great if this pastor is able to open a few eyes/minds/hearts of some believers into accepting that homosexuality is not going to destroy humanity as we know it.

[SaggyBalls]

Isn't it useful to be able to separate the masses into sheep and realistic objective thinkers?

If the people that would otherwise believe that Homosexuality is different than Heterosexuality (aside from the 'lifestyle' that often overshadows the orientation) were to accept it then what's going to happen when the genetic stock mixes?

I think that'll be a potentially awful and scary thing.

Rights and freedoms will come around before that happens...I hope anyway.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I'm confused by that. Please explain.

But in the meantime - this is what freaks me out today:

BBC's Panorama claims Islamic schools teach anti-semitism and homophobia

[i'll gloss over the fact that Arabs are also Semites.]

Haroon Siddique

The Guardian, Monday 22 November 2010

BBC's Panorama claims Islamic schools teach antisemitism and homophobia

Thousands of British schoolchildren are being taught Saudi national curriculum, according to programme

Children in Islamic schools are being taught antisemitic and homophobic views from textbooks, the BBC's Panorama will claim tonight.

A textbook used in some weekend schools reportedly asks children to list the "reprehensible" qualities of Jews, according to the programme.

It claims to have found 5,000 Muslim schoolchildren being taught that some Jews are transformed into pigs and apes and that the penalty for gay sex is execution. Some textbooks are said to teach the correct way to chop off the hands and feet of thieves. A spokesman for the programme said the pupils, aged six to 18, attend a network of more than 40 weekend schools across the country which teach the Saudi national curriculum to Muslim children.

One book for children as young as six is said to ask them what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam – the correct answer is "hellfire".

Investigators claim to have also found a text for pupils aged 15 which reads: "For thieves their hands will be cut off for a first offence, and their foot for a subsequent offence."

British Schools Muslim Rules, which will be aired tonight on BBC One at 8.30pm, says other texts for the pupils are said to claim that Zionists want to establish world domination for Jews, a spokesman said.

Michael Gove, the education secretary, told Panorama: "Saudi Arabia is a sovereign country. I have no desire or wish to intervene in the decisions that the Saudi government makes in its own education system. But I'm clear that we cannot have antisemitic material of any kind being used in English schools."

At present, part-time weekend schools are not inspected by Ofsted but Gove said the educations standards watchdog would be reporting shortly on how to ensure part-time provision is better registered and inspected in the future.

In a written response to the findings, the Saudi ambassador to the UK said the teachings were not endorsed by the Saudi embassy.

[SaggyBalls]

you're confused?

I thought that I summed it up rather well.

Edited November 23, 2010 by Guest

[hamilton]

Think again.

[Kanada Kev]

Think again.

[bradm]

If the people that would otherwise believe that Homosexuality is different than Heterosexuality (aside from the 'lifestyle' that often overshadows the orientation) were to accept it then what's going to happen when the genetic stock mixes?

Whose genetic stock(s) are you referring to being mixed? That of homosexuals and heterosexuals, or that of "people that would otherwise believe..." and "people that wouldn't otherwise believe..."?

Aloha,

Brad

[Thorgnor]

you lost me

[SaggyBalls]

"people that would otherwise believe..." and "people that wouldn't otherwise believe..."?

It's a pretty strong distinction.

[Thorgnor]

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

This should be interesting - tickets sold out faster than for any other event before at Roy Thomson, apparently.

Debate: Blair vs. Hitchens on Religion