revised: Dec 2001
MOTHER TERESA UNPLUGGED from Canadian Atheist #8There are two Mother Teresas -- the illusory and the real. They are both revealed, and shockingly so, in Christopher Hitchens' book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa In Theory and Practice, reviewed by Michael Hakeem, Ph.D. in the August issue of Freethought Today.
The illusory was born out of BBC TV's own icon, the blithering Malcolm Muggeridge (who "found" Christ just around the same time he was losing his marbles). Muggeridge initiated the BBC filming of the obscure Mother 'T' and her work in Calcutta called "Something Beautiful for God" after having interviewed her for a BBC show. The besotted Muggeridge then followed up with a book of the same title that sold more than 300,000 copies, was reprinted 20 times and was translated into 13 languages. A star was born.
Based solely on "received opinion", Mother Teresa suddenly became "one of the few untouchables in the mental universe of the mediocre and the credulous." --- an impregnable icon. The mass adoration of this fanatical, "God-driven" woman came in the forms of honourary degrees from universities, invitations from heads of state including Presidents Reagan and Clinton, an opportunity to address the United Nations, pilgrimages and prizes including the l979 Nobel Peace Prize. Her advice was sought and her utterances recorded in books. Thus emerges the wisdom of the real Mother Teresa: a collection of "religious inanities, vacuous assertions and ignorant observations".
Matthew 19:16-30 (among others) - "The chance of rich man going to heaven is the chance that a camel can pass thru the eye of a needle." Comments. Per capita US income: $31,500. Average cleric's income? Per capita world income: $6600. Per capita incomes in a few of the poorest countries: Ethiopia $560, Eritrea $660, Sierra Leone $530. Source: CIA world factbook. It would console me to know that the clerics' chance of heaven are lower than mine, if it wasn't all just ancient superstition to start with.Dr Laura and biblical commands
A Montreal man, Nhu Hung Bui, has petitioned the Quebec Superior Court to ban the Bible from public places. He says that both the old and the new testaments "promote violence, racism, discrimination and incite incest." A university lecturer in his native Viet Nam, Bui says that it constitutes a serious violation of the freedoms guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadian Press Nov. 24/95
Are "prolifers" mostly the same people who have demanded for 50 years that our government prepare to annihilate all macroscopic life on the planet? Are they the same people who are opposed to government funding of abortion yet support the trillions of dollars spent on MAD (mutually assured destruction)? The same ones who oppose research on human eggs and embryos as immoral, but support their right to drive SUVs at the expense of hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives? Probably.
It is notable that all the "prolife" protesters at the local Planned Parenthood clinic are old men and priests, week after week.
"Prolife" bumper stickers claim that there are 400 abortions per minute worldwide, which is completely ridiculous when you do the math:
400 abortions/min = 24,000/h = 576,000/d = 210,000,000 abortions/yr.
world birthrate, from CIA factbook: 2.2 births/100 people/yr, so .022 x 6B people = 132,000,000 births/yr
divide alleged abortions by births: 210.4 M/132 M = 1.59 !!
That means, according to their numbers, that there are 8 abortions for every 5 live births. Their evidence: none.
The normal spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) rate is estimated to possibly be that high, but of course that is not what the bumper sticker decorators are protesting. And research on reproduction, sex, and contraception is something these people mostly disapprove of too! A significant point about the spontaneous abortion rate being that high is nearly all sexually active women will have abortions, know it or not, like it or not.Another common bumper sticker reads "Abortion stops a beating heart". This is partially true, but so does eating meat, and I haven't noticed a strong correlation of vegetarianism with anti-abortionism. That cow or chicken had more on the ball than the typical human fetus. But it is also true that some birth control devices and drugs prevent implantation of fertilized eggs or multicellular embryos, which do not have anything like a heart, and the extremists claim that these devices and drugs therefore are abortifacients, so the bumper sticker is partly false and completely hypocritical.
Furthermore, life does not "begin." Life continues. If a fertilized egg (a zygote) or free-floating blastocyst is a "person," why is an unfertilized egg or sperm not one? They have "potential" to be persons too. Can theologians divide personhood that finely? By what logic? Does it not imply a duty that all capable women should be always be trying to maximize the number of eggs brought to term? And that all capable men should always be trying to maximize the number of pregnancies they contribute to? Should there be mourning every day for the unfulfilled sperm, and every month for the unfulfilled eggs? (Don't pass this idea along to Hallmark or the funeral vultures!)
There is always a group opposed to new technology, whatever it is, whenever it was, using whatever "reasons" it can imagine. Passenger trains were opposed, for letting the lower classes get too mobile and disruptive. "If man was meant to fly, he'd have wings". All public health measures have been/are disparaged, from public sewers to vaccination to fluoridation. The Internet is leading to the downfall of Western civilization. Biotech will destroy the world ecosystem. TV is leading to the downfall of Western civilization. Radio is leading to the downfall of Western civilization. Contraception … Universal suffrage… Freedom of the press… Best to keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, down on the farm.
But the worst and most effective of the troglodytes use modern technology to enforce their medieval thoughts or fantasies: who would ever have heard of the Taliban if they rejected modern communications and weapons? Writing of hypocrites and troglodytes reminds me that Randall Terry, the anti-abortion priest, has been in trouble with his church again, for repeated affairs with several married and unmarried women. Terry supports replacing the Constitution with Old Testament laws and punishments (Free Inquiry, summer 2000). Unfortunately for the rest of us, his denomination is composed of wimps and hypocrites, so he hasn't been stoned to death. Perhaps they can't find anyone appropriate to cast that first stone, or maybe they're just relieved his victims are female. What does he do when they get knocked up?
9/11/00 Slate (This seems just the same as a religious controversy to me)
Indiana University President Myles Brand announced yesterday that men's basketball coach Bob Knight was fired due to "a persistent and troubling pattern of behavior," according to the WP, which couldn't resist the Web headline: "Knight's Days Over." Knight, a former U.S. Olympic coach who would have entered his 30th season with the Hoosiers this year, had been subjected since May to a zero-tolerance policy designed to keep his behavior in check. In addition to alleged confrontations with staff, opposing teams, and a policeman, Knight choked a former player in 1997, which cost him a three-game suspension and a $30,000 fine. Yesterday's announcement came two days after a freshman student alleged that Knight verbally and physically assaulted him. Both papers report that the freshman and his family have received threats since Knight's dismissal. The WP reports that riots broke out yesterday on the school's Bloomington, IN, campus as students protested Brand's decision. Police equipped with riot gear attempted to control students who were vandalizing school property and burning images of Brand and the freshman student.
From News of the Weird:
Moana Pozzi, 33, once Italy's most prominent hard-core pornographic film star, died of cancer in September and was profoundly praised by many of the country's Roman Catholics because of her turn to religion at the end of her life. The newsmagazine L'Espresso called her "Saint Moana" and noted that Jesus, also, died at age 33. The archbishop of Naples said, "She was an example that redemption is possible."
School bus driver Kerri Lynn Patavino, 28, was convicted of statutory rape in Bridgeport, Conn., in August for having sex with a 14-year-old passenger, who said she put a spell on him and made him lick her blood. According to the boy, the two had sex more than a dozen times, and she sent him love letters signed in blood. Patavino admitted that she is a follower of Wicca, an ancient, witchcraft-practicing religion.
In 1975, the Federal Communications Commission considered, then denied, a formal request from two citizens to investigate religious broadcasters' alleged abuses of reserved "educational" radio channels, but the rumor persisted that the FCC was about to kick religion off the air. In December 1992, noting that it had now received more than 21 million letters over the past 17 years from parishioners urging it to keep its hands off religious broadcasting, the FCC issued its annual admonition that the public should disregard the rumor.
8/22/99 Boston Globe:
A priest has been ordered to pay back $80,000 he embezzled while a pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Wakefield RI. But the church's insurance company, which acknowledged the priest's inability to pay, will probably pick up the tab. The Rev. Robert Allaire, 62, received three concurrent sentences of two years of home confinement and three years suspended with probation. The priest stole money from the church beginning in 1995, according to police. (AP)
11/99 Netscape News:
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A Brazilian priest caught with 11 kilos of cocaine hidden beneath his cassock told police he was trafficking the drugs to save a struggling day care center, local media said on Monday. Police caught Father Jorge Saliba trying to board a flight from Sao Paulo to Amsterdam in what the priest said was his fifth international drug run. Saliba said each delivery paid $30,000, money that he said went to a church-sponsored children's day-care center in Sao Paulo.
Slate 7/1/99 feature by Steve Chapman
Praise the Lord, Pass the Ammo: If teen violence is the question, religion isn't the answer.Addressing a "God Not Guns" rally of ministers near the Capitol a couple of weeks ago, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay offered this explanation for the Littleton, Colo., killings: "I got an e-mail this morning that said it all. The student writes, 'Dear God: Why didn't you stop the shootings at Columbine?' And God writes, 'Dear student: I would have, but I wasn't allowed in school.' "
The view among Republicans is that adolescent violence is inevitable given the decline of religion. Indeed, until the early 1960s' Supreme Court decisions on school prayer, displays of the Ten Commandments were common. And back then, crime was much less prevalent than today. So, the House voted to undo the "damage" by allowing states to mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools and other public facilities.
In social science terms, the Republicans believe there is a correlation between the influence of religion and obedience to the law. The Ten Commandments prohibit murder, so exposing people to them could tend to discourage lethal violence. The absence of religious faith and norms, on the other hand, might incline someone toward homicide. The argument has particular force in the context of Columbine, where the gunmen asked two girls if they believed in God, and when they answered affirmatively, shot them dead.
The correlation is not implausible, but a correlation is not the same thing as a cause. If we were to discover that none of the killers in the various school shootings were in the habit of eating pancakes for breakfast, we would have established a correlation. But no one would argue that the kids killed because they didn't eat enough pancakes--much less that the answer to school violence is a national campaign to get children to eat pancakes every day. Once you find a correlation between A and B, you still have to demonstrate that one causes the other.
In this instance, though, conservatives are claiming to have found a cause without even showing a correlation. Why not? Maybe because they can't. The United States is the most religious of all the industrialized nations. Forty-four percent of Americans attend church once a week, compared with 27 percent in Britain, 21 percent in France, 16 percent in Australia, and 4 percent in Sweden. Yet violent crime is not less common in the United States--it's more common. The murder rate here is six times higher than the rate in Britain, seven times higher than in France, five times higher than in Australia, and five times higher than in Sweden. Japan, where Christianity has almost no adherents, has less violent crime than almost any country. There are a few advanced nations that have high rates of church attendance and low rates of violent crime--Ireland, Italy, and Belgium--but they're the exceptions.
Within the 50 states, there is no evidence that a God-fearing populace equals a law-abiding populace. The Bible Belt has more than its share of both praying and killing. Louisiana has the highest churchgoing rate in the country, but its murder rate is more than twice the national average. The same pattern generally holds in the rest of the South. Tom DeLay's Bible-toting state of Texas has a murder rate triple that of Massachusetts, which is "ungodly" enough to have elected two openly gay members of Congress. New York, the very symbol of godless depravity, is perfectly average when it comes to extralegal slaughter. In Washington state, where Sunday morning slugabeds are more common than anywhere else in America, murder is 38 percent less common.
House Republicans have also failed to notice that the school shootings have not occurred in hotbeds of secular humanism--say, Berkeley, Calif.; Cambridge, Mass; or New York City--but in towns that Norman Rockwell and James Dobson would be proud to call home. Pearl, Miss.; West Paducah, Ky.; Jonesboro, Ark.; Edinboro, Pa.; and Springfield, Ore., are not exactly Madalyn Murray O'Hair country. Littleton was fertile ground for evangelical churches.
If there is any apparent correlation between the prevalence of Christian devotion and law-abiding conduct, it's the opposite of the one claimed by Republicans: Religion and violence seem to go hand in hand. That doesn't mean faith actually causes murder. But it does suggest that when Republicans contemplate the Ten Commandments, they should pay more attention to the ninth, which prohibits false witness.
Boston Globe: 10/21/1999. By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Correspondent
10 MORE CLAIM ABUSE BY DEFROCKED PRIESTTen former parishioners of defrocked Catholic priest John J. Geoghan filed lawsuits against him in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday, bringing the total number of people who say they were victims of his sexual misconduct to more than 50. Alleged victims say Geoghan molested children for four decades and in as many as six Boston-area parishes from the time he was ordained, in 1962, to 1995, when he was placed on ``sick leave.''…
From web site: http://www.pip.com.au/~chenderson/lawsnews/us080698.htm
Settlements in relation to offenses by ex-Rev John Geoghan:
With information received Mon 8th June 1998, with excerpts from The Boston Herald:
The newspapers last week came out with news of a settlement by the Archdiocese of Boston with approximately 50 victims of ex-Rev John Geoghan. The total amount of the settlements is said to be between 2.5 and 10 million dollars and range from $50,000 to more than $100,000 each. The amounts are significant because under Massachusetts law the church is shielded from liability for any events that happened prior to 1982 and since then has a civil liability cap of $20,000. Cardinal Bernard Law stated that all payments were covered by insurance policies in effect when the abuses took place. Geoghan is 63 and retired, but served more than 30 years at 5 local parishes. Complaints were lodged against him from the 1960's to as recent as 1992.
On Saturday, Cardinal Law announced the defrocking of Geoghan, who has been living at a home for retired priests. The defrocking was approved by the pope. In the announcement, Law said that he had never before contemplated the defrocking of a priest. Law refused to comment on whether he believes the allegations but stated that the stories were compelling.
Law's statements are a marked contrast to his earlier attitude. When the Porter case broke in the early 90's, Law had attacked the media and victims pleading for them to "leave the poor man alone". Porter is now halfway through a 7-year prison sentence for his involvement in 99 cases. Since then, more than 100 new disclosures have been made against Porter. In the Geoghan case, there are still more than a dozen lawsuits pending and prosecutors in two counties are considering criminal charges.
From the Boston Herald: "Not everyone was certain that the church had done the right thing. One woman attending Mass at St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, who declined to be identified, questioned the motives of the accusers. 'I'm not saying the priest was innocent,' she said. 'But I have to ask why these people didn't come forward sooner. Going to the authorities 20 years later makes it look like it's all about money'."
10/17/1999. Article 9 of 66 found. Boston Globe, AP:
LAWSUIT AGAINST PRIEST PROCEEDSA Superior Court judge has rejected a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against a Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting an altar boy. The Rev. Walter Coleman had admitted he shared a bed with the then 11-year-old boy, but he said he was asleep the whole time and cannot be guilty of sexually molesting him. The Diocese of Bridgeport had also asked that the lawsuit filed by the plaintiff, now 31, be dismissed based on Coleman's statement. The judge said a jury could conclude the priest was not asleep when the …
http://www.pip.com.au/~chenderson/laws.htm web site relevant, list of clerical abuse worldwide:
12/8/99 Three Sentenced to Death for Child Sacrifice
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - An Ethiopian court sentenced a flour mill owner, a sorceress and her friend to death for murdering a seven-year-old girl in a witchcraft rite, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported on Tuesday. Struggling miller Abametcha Abageda was so desperate to rid himself of the gremlins in his malfunctioning mill that he sought the advice of a local sorceress, the court heard. Shenfo Alenchena, the sorceress, told him the only way out of his problems was to sacrifice a suitable girl child and sprinkle her blood on the floor of the mill and mill house. She then paid four people $2.40 each to kidnap such a child and take her to Abametcha. The four kidnappers were all given life sentences when the verdicts were read on Monday. Mitiku Minota, a friend of the sorceress, took part in the killing.
11/28/99 Boston Herald
DA weighs charges in case of missing boysBy Dave Wedge
Investigators are considering charging members of an Attleboro (MA) religious sect - possibly with murder - even if police can't find the bodies of two missing boys the group is believed to have buried in Maine, a prosecutor said yesterday. ``We're trying to nail down a timeline and gather the best evidence we can in case we have to go forward without a body,'' Bristol County District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. said. The case could mark the first time in Bristol County history that someone is charged without police having found a victim.
Walsh also released further, shocking details about the alleged starvation of 1-year-old Samuel Robidoux. The boy's mother, Karen Robidoux, 24, became pregnant and stopped lactating while Samuel was still breast-feeding, but she refused to feed him out of fear of violating God's ``orders,'' documents obtained by the Herald show. After she stopped producing milk, Karen Robidoux began feeding the child almond milk and water but abruptly stopped after the boy's father, Jacques Robidoux, 26, had a ``vision'' that the child was only to be breast-fed. Other group members claimed it was ``God's will'' that the child die and discouraged the couple from feeding him anything other than breast milk.
``Samuel started only nursing as commanded by God,'' a journal kept by a group member states. ``As the days grew on, Samuel was obviously not being filled. He was thirsty and hungry.'' The boy suffered for at least a week and eventually starved to death, Walsh said. This was a horrible, agonizing, terrible death,'' he said. ``This was a test of the child's will. They thought, if God wanted him to survive, he would.'' Full text: Attleboro
7/20/00
Another churchly child molester:
Christopher Reardon, Middleton MA. Accused of dozens of crimes against children…
3/28/2000 Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe
There was long term collusion between the RC Church and gov't of Quebec in the 1940's and 1950's arbitrarily classified thousands of orphans as severe mental patients, because the reimbursement rate to the Church for such "care" was much higher….Duplessis Orphans
THE FOLLOWING IS A PARTIAL LIST OF PEOPLE MURDERED BY THE CHRISTIAN GOD DIRECTLY OR THROUGH HIS COMMAND, ACCORDING TO THEIR BIBLE.
The entire population of the earth except for eight survivors (Genesis 7:23)._Every inhabitant of Sodom and Gomorrah except for one family (Genesis 19:24).
_Every first born of Egypt (Exodus 12:29).
_All the hosts of the Pharaoh, including the captains of 600 chariots
(Exodus 14:27,28).
_Amalek and his people (Exodus 17:11,16).
_3,000 Israelites (Exodus 32:27).
_250 Levite princes who had challenged the leadership of Moses (Numbers 16:140).
_14,700 Jews in a plague who had rebelled against Moses following the killing of the princes (Numbers 16:4149).
_All the people of Bashan, including the king Og (Numbers 21:32-36).
_24,000 Israelites who lived with Moabite women (Numbers 25:4,9).
_All the males, kings, and nonvirgin females of the Midianites. (Numbers 31:7-18).
_The Ammonites (Deuteronomy 2:1921).
_The Horims (Deuteronomy 2:22).
_All the citizens of Jericho, except for a prostitute and her family (Joshua 6:17-25).
_12,000 citizens of Ai. (Joshua 8: 25)
_Joshua hung the king on a tree. (Joshua 8: 29).
_All the people of Makkedah (Joshua 10:28).
_All the people of Libnah (Joshua 10:29,30)
_All the people of Gezer (Joshua 10:33).
_All the people of Lachish (Joshua 10:32).
_All the people of Eglon (Joshua 10:34, 35).
_All the people of Hebron (Joshua 10:36, 37).
_50,000 men for looking into a forbidden "ark" (1 Sam. 6:19)
_42 children killed by bears for teasing a bald guy. (2 Kings 2: 23)
_70,000 Israelites by pestilence. (1Chron. 21:14)
_120,000 Judeans (II Chronicles 28).
_75,000 Persians (Esther 9:16).
_Discriminate slaughter. (Ezekial 9: 6)
Isn't he just a swell guy? from Canadian Atheist #1
A CRUSADER BY DEFINITION
James Randi from Canadian Atheist #4
James Randi is one of our genuine heros. He is an internationally famous magician and debunker of new age quackery and author of Flim Flam, The Mask of Nostradamus, etc. The following statement was gleaned from "the net" at We offer it to you: Any zealots out there who will enforce the law? It's about time that I made a move that I've been contemplating for some time now. This posting is a gauntlet that I throw down, and I encourage others who read this to do the same. This is 1995, a fact that seems to have failed to register with at least seven of the United States of America. These communities have laws against "blasphemy", meaning that any person who "reviles God or religion" is subject to fine and/or imprisonment. Mind you, these states have made one great advance, in that they have no laws against heresy. Small comfort for those who, like me, look upon gods, devils, ghosts, angels, etc. as childish fictions. Oops! By typing out the above, I have made myself culpable in: Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. Since I visit those locations regularly, I will henceforth post here a notice of each time I have plans to be in any of those states, and I invite concerned authorities there to charge me with this dreadful crime. And I agree in advance that I will admit my transgression. I'm in good company. Thomas Jefferson compared the Christian mythology to the equally incredible story of Minerva springing from the forehead of Jupiter. For that act, Mr. Jefferson could today be imprisoned "in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behaviour" in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The mind boggles. To make sure that my blasphemy is thoroughly expressed, I hereby state my opinion that the notion of a god is a basic superstition, that there is no evidence for the existence of any god(s), that devils, demons, angels and saints are myths, that there is no life after death, heaven nor hell, that the Pope is a dangerous, bigoted, medieval dinosaur, and that the Holy Ghost is a comicbook character worthy of laughter and derision. I accuse the Christian god of murder by allowing the Holocaust to take place not to mention the "ethnic cleansing" presently being performed by Christians in our world and I condemn and vilify this mythical deity for encouraging racial prejudice and commanding the degradation of women. (This comprehensive statement was arrived at by examining the statutes of those seven states that have remained in the Dark Ages, so that I might satisfy their definitions of blasphemy.) My present travel plans call for me to be in Holland in October and also in Japan. I don't know the situation in those countries, but would ask for any update on the state of enlightenment in those areas.
