Pat Robertson has his foot in his mouth again

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 Ṭeveth 5770 (Parashath Wa’era’).

Today’s holiday:  Friday of the First Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Take Action: No legitimacy for Bashir | Save Darfur”.  Furthermore, probably practically everyone by now has heard of the disastrous earthquake in Haiti.  Both the Red Cross and Orthodox Union are taking donations.  If you do not have money and are able (or even if you do have money), please consider donating blood, which they can also use.

Topic 1:  Reviews I have written relevant to this week’s Torah portion:  “There can be miracles when you disbelieve: a review of The Prince of Egypt” and “You cut up the Bible, you bloody baboon!:  A review of The Ten Commandments and The Ten Commandments: The Musical”.  Note that the story in these movies and musical stretches over several Torah portions, so expect to hear mention of these again.

Topic 2:  Televangelist Pat Robertson made a claim recently for which “controversial” would be an understatement:  he claims that the Haitians made a pact with the Devil and this has caused bad things to happen to them ever since.  This is documented here, including this video:

The idea that the Haitians are suffering for having made a pact with Satan does not sit well with a lot of people.  Denny Burk in “What is Pat Robertson talking about?” does the history legwork and identifies the alleged pact with the Bois Caïman Ceremony, an Voodoo ceremony which allegedly took place during a rainstorm on August 14, 1791 to give rebels victory over the French; the ceremony may have never actually happened, and there is no explicit mention of the Devil in the description.  Other articles criticizing Robertson include “Pat Robertson blames Haiti quake on 'pact with the devil'” (finding it hard to swallow people being punished for something their ancestors did or that you judge sinfulness by the extent of disaster), “A message for Pat Robertson” (asking people to not give Robertson’s remarks any attention because they are obviously unworthy of attention), “My Two Words for Pat Robertson: Shut Up!” (dealing with how far Robertson has shoved his foot up his mouth and is hurting others in the process), and “Is Pat Robertson a Prophet?” (which notes that Robertson has his facts wrong and cites the New Testament to show that he gets his theology wrong, too).  Their criticism largely covers the issue, but I myself would like to note the Book of Job, the whole message of which is that bad things happen to people who do not necessarily deserve them.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “I Can Has Credit?”:

To quote the description to make it make any sense:

Ceiling Cat [the god of the LOLcats] is always watching you… even when you’re at the store or gas station. He’s just making sure you’re buying enough catnip and cheezburgers for your kitteh.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

In praise of Westboro Baptist Church (sort of)

Greetings.

Jewish date:  19 Kislew 5770 (Parashath Wayyeshev).

Today’s holidays:  Saint Nicholas Day (Christianity), Second Sunday of Advent (Roman Catholicism), Saint Day for Nicholas the Wonderworker (Greek Orthodox Christianity).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Divided We Fail:  Real people, real stories”, “Senate: Don't Compromise on Public Option! - The Petition Site”, and “DemocracyForAmerica.com » Enough is Enough”.

Image of arch-hate-monger Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church via Wikipedia

Topic 1:  “Westboro Baptist will protest Hillel Monday”.  Let me be frank:  everyone your humble blogger has ever heard give an opinion of the Westboro Baptist Church thinks they are a bunch of hate-filled bigots with a poor grip on reality.  They are most infamous for insensitively (to put it very mildly) protesting at military funerals, claiming that homosexuality is the cause of war deaths.  They are rabidly anti-homosexual, anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, anti-Eastern Orthodox, anti-Hindu, anti-Islamic, anti-Jewish, anti-American—pretty much anti-anything other than themselves.  The reasoning given for the protest (and probably every protest they ever had) makes no sense.  They just give insults, paranoia, and verses from the Christian Bible out of context.  Relevant to this particular protest, they do not seem to know anything about the historical Hillel or the modern organization named after him.  And yet, in all this, there is something to be said in their favor:  they are nonviolent.  They do not injury people.  They do not kill people.  They do not commit acts of terrorism.  All they do is go around the US and protest, claiming that God hates everyone who does not agree with them.  Contrast what happens in certain other parts of the Earth when one group opposes another:  oppression, violence, and death.  (Just out of my folder for stuff to be possibly posted on this blog:  “Al-Qaida Kills Eight Times More Muslims Than Non-Muslims”, “AZERBAIJAN: Officials deny Alternative Service commitment, as victim challenges sentence”, “TAJIKISTAN: Court bans Baptist church”, “KAZAKHSTAN: 'I could now be deported at any time'”, “Indonesian Theology Students Withstand Threats, Illness”, “Vietnam Buddhists complain of ongoing harassment”, “Swiss party leader calls for ban of separate Jewish and Muslim cemeteries”.)  Are the Westboro Baptist Church good people?  According to a lot of (if not most) moral systems, no.  They may be hate-mongering lunatics, but all they really accomplish is to annoy people.  As far as accomplishing evil goes, they are nothing more than comic relief.

Topic 2:  “Catholic League slams PETA ad featuring Joanna Krupa holding crucifix over nude body”:  The Catholic League is complaining about advertisements from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) ripping off Christian imagery and containing nudity.  It must be noted that no one is adverse to adopting pets.  The problem is that PETA’s public relations committee, while having mastered  the art of getting attention, seems to have no clue that needlessly offending people is a horrible way of spreading their message.  Not to mention that PETA has no clue what angels look like.  Usually they get described as “men”, but Ezekiel 1 has a truly psychedelic description which is anything but humanoid.

Topic 3:  To end on a lighter note, I would like to note that the Jewish holiday of Ḥanukkah starts this Friday night, and present the humorous list “Top Ten Signs your Family is unsubtly hinting to you to lose weight during your family Chanukah party”.

Peace.

Aaron

Non-believers, religious persecution, and a mindbogglingly immoral law

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 Marḥeshwan 5770 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s holiday:  Saint Day of Margaret of Scotland (Roman Catholicism).

Topic 1:  “Non Believers”:  This Dry Bones cartoon deals with how wishful thinking about Islamists never, ever works.  Come to think of it wishful thinking never, ever works, and physical reality never conforms itself to what we want it to be.  Human beings are also pretty stubborn in that way, too.  Sometimes even people recognize the truth they may want to cover it up anyway, e.g., “Memorial to Conn. 9/11 victim halted as town refuses to make reference to 'Muslim terrorists'”.

Topic 2:  More religious persecution:  “Egypt's Copts facing persecution”, “BELARUS: "We have Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims – all the others are sects"”, “”KYRGYZSTAN: Why is new Religious Education Law being hurried?”, “KAZAKHSTAN: "They can meet and pray to God, but the Law says they have to register"”.  Governments trying to dictate or censor the truth does not work either.

Topic 3:  “Phoenix Methodist church loses appeal; can no longer offer meals to the needy”:  I cannot make something like this up.  It makes no sense to me.  A church was feeding the homeless, and for some reason this is considered illegal in a residential zone.  This is a disgraceful violation of freedom of religion—yes, helping the needy is a religious duty—and senselessly antisocial.  May the legislators of Arizona change the law soon, and may everyone break it if they do not.

Peace.

Aaron

KJV Onlyism, plagiarizing the Terminator franchise, FlashForward, and The Golden Compass

Greetings.

Jewish date:  30 Tishri 5770.

Today’s holidays:  Ro’sh Ḥodhesh (Judaism), Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Padwa & Govardhan Puja (day 5 of Diwali; Hinduism).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Take Action: No Lobbyists for War Criminals”.

Topic 1:  There is a joke about a church lady who held by the King James Version (KJV), reasoning that if “Bible English” was good enough for Jesus, it was good enough for her.  This is funny because, as is well known, the Hebrew Bible was composed originally in Hebrew with a little Aramaic and the New Testament was composed probably in in Koine Greek.  The KJV, published in 1611, is merely a translation.  Rabbi David Radinsky (formerly of Brith Shalom Beth Israel in Charleston, SC) claimed it is an excellent translation—except where it is wrong—but it is a translation nevertheless.  And as such, it perforce suffers from the major problem of all translations:  that it does not mean quite the same thing as the original text.  As such, reason demands that original texts, being better sources of information, must always be given primacy, i.e., if one wants to really know the word of God, what really counts are the actual words of God.  Irrationally, nevertheless there is still a King James Only movement which at its best prefers the KJV and at the worst considers the KJV a new revelation, despite no claim thereto or the total lack of evidence thereof.  On Friday I heard about probably the worst case of KJV Onlyism ever:  “Amazing Grace Baptist Church to Burn Bibles, Other Books for Halloween”.  Pastor Marc Grizzard of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, plans this Halloween to burn non-KJV Bibles, as well as various Christian literature and music of which he does not approve.  Grizzard reportedly is not only a KJV Onlyist, but considers all other versions to be “perversions” and “Satanic”.  I really have no idea what he is thinking.

Topic 2:  “99 Red Balloons singer Nena in Damanhur naked time travel sect”.  Oberto Airaudi, the founder of the Italian group Damanhur claims he has invented a time machine which can only transport naked people.  Putting aside the fact that this time machine has not been reliably demonstrated yet—science publications would be crowing about the breakthrough if it were—is not the nakedness-only limitation of the device something right out of the Terminator franchise?  If one is going to make an outrageous claim, then one should at least have the audacity to make an original claim, rather than plagiarizing science-fiction.

Topic 3:  It was suggested out to me that I ought to be watching FlashForward, as the show purportedly deals with prophecy.  I therefore watched the four episodes available so far on Hulu.  Despite what was purported, the show deals with anything but prophecy.  Prophecy is receiving messages from divine beings, such as YHWH or angels, and seeing the future (prescience) is not a requirement for prophecy at all.  FlashForward, on the other hand, is centered around (almost) everyone on Earth blacking out for 137 seconds on October 6, 2009 at 11:00:00 AM (Pacific Time) and having a vision of what will happen to them on April 29, 2010 at 10:00 PM.  Though there is speculation that this may be prophecy—along with lots of other rampant speculation—there is no proof any divine being being the cause (direct or indirect) of the visions.  What this show is really about is the question of free will versus predestination.  There is much speculation on whether the prescient visions are truly necessarily the future or whether what is seen can be prevented.  Though some of the characters have pleasant visions, others are troubled by what they see.  E.g., a happily married woman foresees evidence that she will commit adultery.  Her husband, an FBI agent, foresees that there will be people coming after him.  Another FBI agent sees nothing, and he receives a phone call from someone telling him she foresaw reading an intelligence briefing claiming that he will be murdered on March 15.  Already the plot has crept towards fulfillment of many of the visions, with the characters seeking ways to avoid unwanted destinies.  Considering how the show is structured, we can only expect them to get increasingly desperate as April 29 approaches.

Topic 4:  I have now read chapters 4-10 of The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1).  It must be noted that I cannot always predict in advance what parts of the story will prove theologically relevant.  Even before chapter 4 someone was kidnapping children for some mysterious purpose.  Since then the reader is told that it is purported that a department of the Church known as the General Oblation Board is behind this dastardly deed.  I am crying fowl over this, because this use of “oblation” is in violation of the accepted meaning; an oblation is something offered, while these children are not offered, but taken under false pretenses.  Furthermore, I am not aware of the Roman Catholic Church ever practicing or condoning the kidnapping of poor children, and it certainly does not do so today.  Yes, I am aware that His Dark Materials is fiction, but so far as this fiction reflects reality, the General Oblation Board does a wretched job.  If one is going to write fiction to criticize religion, it makes no sense and is not legitimate to criticize a practice which does not exist.

Peace, and have a happy new month.

Aaron

Lack of freedom of religion

Greetings.

Jewish date:  18 Tishri 5770.

Today’s holidays:  Ḥol hamMo‘edh Sukkoth (Judaism), Samhain (Wicca).

Topic 1:  Unfortunately, there is a lot of religious intolerance by many of the governments of the former Soviet Union:  “AZERBAIJAN: Police chief deports local-born Baptist – with no documentation”, “RUSSIA: 'You have the law, we have orders'”, “KAZAKHSTAN: Officials who raid religious communities 'merely fulfilling their duty'”, “TAJIKISTAN: 'It seems that reading the Bible together is now a criminal offence'”.  Vietnam and Turkey also have problems along these lines:  “Buddhist sect decries lack of religious freedom in communist Vietnam” and “Overlooking religious minorities”.  The folly of a government trying to dictate truth should be obvious; reality really does not care what people or groups thereof (such as governments) think, but it is whatever it is nevertheless.  It must also be noted that this is illegal under international law.

Topic 2 will be in a separate post because Blogger is giving me some nonsense about posts being limited to at most ten labels, and I have another topic to write about.

Aaron