Radical Atheist

Anti-blasphemy laws are coming, I have little doubt. And they won’t be used to only protect Muslims from offense. Defenders of religious belief seem to think they are exempt from satire and criticism. One day soon they’ll have international law on their side and freedom of speech (where protected) will have to step aside to permit imprisonment or death for those who dare disagree with the church.

Am I over-stating the situation? I don’t think so. Consider the following:

A German cartoon mocking the Catholic Church has sparked holy outrage among believers here who say it incites hatred against the Pope and the Catholic faith.

The caricature, published in the Good Friday edition of satire magazine Titanic, shows a priest apparently having oral sex with a crucifix of Jesus on the cross.
The crucifix cartoon is a barbed commentary on recent revelations that 250 people in Germany were sexual abused at Church-run schools in the past decades. The scandal has shaken the German Church. A recent poll said Germans’ trust in the Catholic Church had fallen to 17% from 29% in late January and approval ratings for Pope Benedict have dropped from 38% to 24%.

The German Press Council reported that some 100 formal complaints have been filed since the magazine came out, a level of protest not seen since 2006, when German newspaper Die Welt reprinted the infamous Danish Mohammed cartoons.

Two criminal complaints have also been filed against the cartoonist and the editors of Titanic, claiming the picture slanders their religion. The state prosecutors office in Frankfurt, where Titanic is based, said it would decide next week whether to begin an investigation against the magazine.

“We were shocked — shocked! — By the reaction to the cartoon,” Titanic editor-in-chief Leo Fischer told THR, his tongue firmly in cheek. “It shows a priest cleaning the crucifix. … I find it strange that Catholics immediately think of sex when they see it.”

I wasn’t surprised when Muslim nations attempted to outlaw blasphemy by establishing an international law exempting religious belief from criticism. After all, Islam isn’t a religion noted for its tolerance of opposing views. I confess I wasn’t expecting the next nation to enact anti-blasphemy laws to be Ireland. I fully expect Vatican City to soon pass its own anti-blasphemy law. Perhaps the Catholic Church will follow the Scientology method of eliminating criticism.

I submit there are two primary motivations behind the efforts of religious sects to have their beliefs protected by law against criticism. The first is the unprecedented exposure of the less than savory aspects and activities of these groups on the internet. Never before have critics had a vehicle like the internet with which to publish and document religion’s dark side. Even those trapped in militant theocracies can speak out in anonymity to the rest of the world. Since the defenders of the faith cannot deny the allegations they attempt to criminalize the exposures.

The second primary factor is the increasing irrelevance of religion among the world’s citizens. As more natural explanations are found for those phenomena once attributed to the gods, the less all-powerful the gods become. As we enter the 21st century, 1st century explanations are unsatisfactory and easily dismissed. In our modern world there is little reason to believe in the gods. They serve no useful purpose and offer scant comfort. As the masses cease to allow the god’s representatives here on Earth total freedom to behave as they wish, the priests and imams begin to panic. Their hold on the people who once blindly followed them and excused them for their excessive and immoral lifestyles is lessening. They are no longer able to keep their sheep in line with threats of godly displeasure and eternal damnation. So they do what, in the end, all dictators and despots do. They attempt to use the force of law to enforce their beliefs. Not satisfied to demonize their detractors, they try to criminalize them. Non-believers might not be impressed with being consigned to a non-existent hell, but they can’t deny the living hell of being imprisoned.

Religious belief does not always simply fade away without a whimper. Too many times in history we’ve seen that just before a fanatical regime disappears it fights the hardest to survive. It has no regard for the damage it inflicts on humanity in its efforts to remain powerful and relevant.

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• Everybody’s a blasphemer – Herb Silverman (newsweek.washingtonpost.com)
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• Senior Vatican Priest Compares Scrutiny Over Abuse Scandal To Jewish Persecution (oliverwillis.com)
• A sense of the sacred | Nick Spencer (guardian.co.uk)
• Irish atheists fight new blasphemy laws (trueslant.com)

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Let some mentally challenged homeless guy mumble a drunken threat against the president and he’ll be swarmed by agents in dark glasses and locked away for a while. But let a religious believer use the excuse of his personal delusions to call for the president’s death and what you want to bet nothing will happen to him. Talk about a double-standard.

A former Southern Baptist Convention officer who on June 2 called the death of abortion provider George Tiller an answer to prayer said later in the day he is also praying “imprecatory prayer” against President Obama.

Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., and former running mate of American Independent Party presidential candidate Alan Keyes, said June 2 on Fox News Radio he didn’t understand why people were upset with his comments quoted by Associated Baptist Press from a webcast of his daily radio talk show.

Wiley Drake, domestic terrorist

“Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don’t like that, they need to talk to God,” Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. “God said it, I didn’t. I was just agreeing with God.”

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying “imprecatory prayer,” Drake hesitated before answering that there are several. “The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama,” he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake’s answer to make sure he heard him right.

“Are you praying for his death?” Colmes asked.

“Yes,” Drake replied.

“So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?”

“Yes.”

Colmes asked Drake if he was concerned that by saying that he might be placed on a Secret Service or FBI watch list, and if he believed it appropriate to talk or pray that way.

“I think it’s appropriate to pray the Word of God,” Drake said. “I’m not saying anything. What I am doing is repeating what God is saying, and if that puts me on somebody’s list, then I’ll just have to be on their list.”

“You would like for the president of the United States to die?” Colmes asked once more.

“If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

Here’s a fun thing to do; read the following quote from Wiley then lean your head back, close your eyes and picture in your mind that drunken, mental homeless guy and put these words in his mouth. Not hard to believe, is it?

Asked if he claimed to know God’s will, Drake replied: “In some cases I do. Not in all cases. I know this, that if I do die right now, I’ll go to heaven when I die because I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s why I’ll go to heaven and not to hell. And the reason George Tiller went to hell when he died was not because he killed babies, as terrible as that was. If he went to hell, and I think he did — that’s God’s judgment and not mine — but if he did go to hell it’s because he did not accept Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.”

Drake said he did not believe Tiller’s accused killer is a pro-life Christian.

“I’m of the opinion — and now everybody’s going to say ‘There goes Wiley down the conspiracy-theory road,’ I’m of the opinion that somebody in the Obama camp had this guy killed.”

“Who benefits the most from this man killing a doctor?” Drake asked. “We certainly don’t. Pro-life people certainly don’t. It hurts us. It damages us, but Obama will indeed advance it. This will be one of those crises to take advantage of, and he’s already done that.”

Drake said he had no evidence and admitted his opinion for now is “pure speculation.”

“Everybody said [Lee Harvey] Oswald was a lone gunman, et cetera, et cetera, too,” he said. “But I think we’re going to find there was somebody else involved.” (emphasis mine)

Now you might suspect that a story about this bat-shit crazy religious extremeist who has threatened the life of the president has to come from The Onion (”Abortion Doctor’s Murder Sparks Waves Of Calm, Rational Discussion“) or maybe The Landover Baptist Church (”guaranteeing salvation since 1620″). Nope. This exposé appeared on the Associated Baptist Press website. Lends a certain credibility to the tale.

So, Secret Service, does this person openly threatening the life of the POTUS qualify for the same treatment we see you hand out to other terrorists who threaten our president in the name of their god, Allah?

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With apologies to Art Linkletter and thanks to allgirlarmy.org where I saw the link to this site; a few of the crazier beliefs Christians have been kind enough to post for our amusement.

There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don’t know that much about it does not bother me in the least. AV1611VET, Christian Forums [2006-Sep-12]

You got it backwards. Creationism is based upon science, reason and tons of evidence. Evolution is based on the blind acceptance of superstitions and fairy tales. CRASH, Theology Online [2006-Jul-18]

I often debate with evolutionists because I believe that they are narrow mindedly and dogmatically accepting evolution without questioning it. I don’t really care how God did what He did. I know He did it. TexasSky, Christian Forums [2006-Aug-24]

[on the sunject of a Bible printing company] Yes, that is a great company. I bought one of their large print version (old eyes… what can I say?). The only thing I don’t like about them is they sell foreign language versions of the KJB. I don’t think that’s right. We know the only true translation is the 1600’s version in English. It’s too risky for anybody to translate that into other languages. Mistakes can creep in… and that can lead to heresy. True Christians should only read English. leyenda , KJB only [2007-Aug-06]

I honestly don’t care about your rights. If it were up to me, all Atheists would be burnt at the stake and or cast into a river with weights tied to their ankles and or placed before the firing squad, etc etc etc. Apologist, IIDB [2006-Jul-05]

[Am I in discussion with a human who has a functioning brain?] What does a functioning brain have to do with the Bible? LittleLambofJesus, Christian Forums [2006-Oct-16]

Seriously, does anybody ever cry at an Atheist’s funeral?

I mean, since Atheists have no value whatsoever as human beings (they’re not even human, but only inhuman animals), since Atheists are nothing but miserable Liars, Cowards and Murderers, after all, why would anybody in their right mind weep over the dead rotting corpse, or bone chips and ashes (that get mixed together with those of others from the crematory) of a worthless dead Atheist?

And what epitaph do you engrave on an Atheist’s grave marker? “Here lies the only good Atheist, which is a dead Atheist”. What else is there say? Nothing at all. No last words, no last rites, no flowers, no anything.

Every time an Atheist dies, the world is better off as a result of that dead Atheist being dead, & its damned God-forsaken soul burning in the fiery pits of Hades. :)

Which begs another related question, do Atheists cry at funerals? If so, why? Since Atheists hate God, and they hate Family, and they hate Country, who are they crying for? It is true: The only good Atheist is a dead Atheist. Daniel Joseph Min, alt.atheism [2007-Jan-07]

[One Christian speaking to another] You are banned. You are not a Christian for Christians don’t accuse brothers and sisters in Christ of being non-Christian. Troy, Bibliocality [2006-Feb-07]

What is called ‘Science’ today and ’scientists’ consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the ‘Priest-Entertainers’ for the common people. ‘Science’ consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of jibberish theory-theology… nothing good has ever come from ’science’ —- In fact, technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science. The Wright brothers said: “Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane.” By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth!

The Fact the Earth is Flat is not my opinion, it is a Proved Fact! While all we need to know is that the Bible says the Earth is flat (Is.40:22, Ez.7:2, Dn.2:35; 4:10-11,20, Mt.4:8)… but for a second can you imagine what these so-called ’scientists would have us believe —- If the earth really was round, that would mean there arre people who are HANGING DOWN, HEAD DOWNWARDS while we are standing head up? But since the theory allows to travel to those parts of the earth where the people are said to hand head downward, and still to fancy ourselves to be heads upwards, and our friends whom we have left behind us to be heads downwards! LOL! What foolishness! TheWHOLE THING IS A MYTH – A DREAM – A DELUSION – and a snare, and, instead of there being any evidence at all in this direction to substantiate this popular theory, it is plain proof that the Earth is Not A Globe!

Also, be sure to know the Sun and Moon are about 3,000 miles away are both 32 miles across. The Planets are ‘tiny.’ Sun and Moon do Move, earth does NOT move, whirl, spin or gyrate (1 Sam.2:8, 1 Chr.16:30; Job 9:6, 38:4-6; Ps.96:10, 104:5, Is.13:10, Mic.6:2). Australians do NOT hang by their feet under the world… this is a FACT, not a theory! Also a Fact the Spinning, Whirling, Gyrating Ball World Planet, Globe Idea is Entirely 100% now and at all times in the Past, a RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE… a Blind Dogmatic Article of Faith in the Religion for the Blind unreasoning beast of prey. No earthly reason for a Sane, Upright Member of the Elite True Christians to subscribe to it. Also a Fact, today the Elite of Earth ALL live on the Flat World. Only the illogical, unreasoning “herd”… prefers the way-out occult weird theology of the old Greek superstitution earth a spinning ball! Both Copernecious and Newton, the inventors of the “modern” superstitions (400 year OLD modern) have said: “It is not possible for a Sane reasonable person to ever really believe these Theories.” Thus sayeth Newton-Copernecious. What sayeth THOU? KettleWhistle, Israel Forum [2007-Mar-02]

Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history. Pat Robertson, Quotes From the Religious Right [2007-Nov-09]

The only solution we have to stop gays from recruiting other people is to cut off the source. They need to be taken to specialized containment centers where they will be forced to become straight and accept Jesus as thier savior and to repent from their disgusting, wicket, hatful, devilish ways. Those that refuse to go can either be forced, or banished from society in other specialized communities where they have no connetion to the outside world at all. Most would die of AIDS anyway. Anyone who refused any of the answers to make them better would have to be killed or banished. Meg, Myspace [2007-Aug-24]

Me and like-minded Christian students are trying to organize a mock stoning of openly gay students at our campus. We will be using crumpled up gray/brown construction paper to represent rocks, and will recite bible verses in opposition to their sinful nature. We will throw a volley or two of these “rocks” at every Gay person we happen to encounter that day. Rebelscum954, CARM [2007-Sep-12]

A woman for president is a bad idea. Hillary for president is even worse. Do you think America never had a woman for president by coincidence?

[You can transfer that logic to black people, seeing as there's been no black presidents - Anyway it's incredibly insensitive, stupid and unbased.]

As stupid as you think it sounds I totally agree. Blacks should not ever be in positions of power. They should be suppressed back in to slavery. bricks00usa, Christian Forums [2007-Aug-21]

Apes are just creatures twisted by Satan to mock Jesus by giving EVILolition credibility. Further more they are naturally lust crazed for human women. Since they are not natural creatures they should be exterminated forthwith as the tools of evil they are. BJ Tabor, Blogs4Brownback [2007-Aug-01]

To say the Bible was written by men and may contain inaccuracies completely contradicts the word of the Bible. Ia Orana, MSN Miss Manners [2008-Jan-01]

If the Bible is wrong when it tells us it is infallible, then it contradicts itself. If it contradicts itself, then it is unreliable. If it is unreliable, then our faith is totally shattered and Christianity is a lie. You need to seriously reconsider your logic. uscchica09, BibleForums.org [2006-Sep-03]

No one knows what’s happening until the flood comes (according to Matthew). And the flood is here – it refers to the apocalypse. There is a huge amount of supporting evidence on the site. For example, there is evidence for the wh0re of Babylon due to a 666 mile long penis in Mexico. alasdair, Christianity Board [2006-Dec-02]

From years of studying environmentalists I have come to the conclusion that they are both religion based and mentally ill. This makes for a dangerous combination. [...]

The mental illness of environmentalism manifests itself is three forms; Paranoid, Delusional and Criminal insanities. [...]

Since religious environmentalism is a mental disease it must be treated like one. Those afflicted by the malady must be gathered into central locations and be treated by counseling, drug therapy, shock treatments or whatever is necessary to restore their sanity and return them to being productive members of society. The state presently administers such treatments to other mentally ill citizen, even against their will, and therefore there is hope for environmentalists.

Legal methods – Once the sick mind of an environmentalist forces him to cross the line to the realm outside the law they are to be dealt with as any other criminal is. These criminal environmentalists are, in fact, terrorists. They seek to achieve their goals by terrorizing the general population by criminal actions. Like any criminal they have no regard for the rights or lives of their victims. Judges, no matter how liberal, owe it to the general public to protect them from criminal environmentalists by sentencing them as they would any rapist or murderer. They can show no leniency or preference in dealing with them. If their minds can be salvaged through mental treatments they can return to society. If not, then the general public is safer with them incarcerated. The population of a nation is not to be held hostage by the mind of a crazy person.

Mentally ill environmentalists working in the news media are to be treated as any other environmentalist. Counseling, drugs, incarceration, whichever turns them back into normal people.

Environmentalists can be saved from themselves. If we have the courage to act! Dr Samuel C Gipp, Essays and Ideas by Dr Samuel C Gipp, Th.d [2006-Dec-01]

What do the other human persons here think ?

No doubt someone will object, saying something obviously ridiculous like, but atheists are persons.

But clearly this is mistaken because anybody without a well developed belief in God is obviously not a full human person.

What could be more obvious than that ?

How many full human persons do you know without a well developed belief in God. Obviously none, because if they were full human person they would have a well developed belief in God.

Now some people might object to killing atheists for there (and obviously it is there and not thier as they are not whos but whats ) organs but think of all the full human persons that would benifit from the organs and the medical research that could be done on these non-persons.

How could anybody object, they are not human persons and if you think we should not kill them then that is just because of out dated ideas and because they must really just want people to suffer. For shame on you !

So what do people think ?

Should we kill these atheist human non-persons for the benifit of fully human persons ? Jason, TheologyWeb [2007-Mar-07]

These are just some of the ones I thought were funny, bizarre and ironic. If you click over and read those I didn’t include, you’ll see some that aren’t so funny. Some indicate serious mental deficiencies, anti-social attitudes justified by faith. It’s sobering to think that these people might be standing next to you at a bus stop, they may be bagging your groceries or piloting your next flight.

That isn’t quite so funny.

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THE Vatican has extended its list of mortal sins to include 21st-century problems and issues such as genetic experimentation, pollution, drug abuse and excessive wealth.

Published in the Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the revised list was revealed at the end of a week-long refresher course for priests on the sacrament of confession. Traditionally, mortal sins are those which are a breach of the Ten Commandments – murder, adultery, theft and lying, to name a few.

But now to this list has been added genetic experimentation, tampering with the order of nature, pollution, social injustice, causing poverty, accumulating excessive wealth, and drug abuse. (Source)

Finally, some good news for the religious right. There’s still a place where they can go to find those who share their philosophies and world view. The only downside is they’ll all have to become Roman Catholic.

That should pose no problem. As long as you get to be religious and right, the rest is just dressing.

Next week, Falwell declares excessive text-messaging a result of Satanic possession.

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Theists often contend that belief in gods has always existed and that atheism is a later development. They say that atheism is nothing more than a rejection of theism, a desire to sin and party without fear of divine retribution.

We can’t possibly know what humans believed prior to recorded history. We can logically suppose that they were superstitious, inventing stories to explain the natural phenomena for which they had no better explanation. We can suppose that because we can imagine and empathize. We can imagine ourselves in their position and conclude that’s what we’d do.

We do know that for every god mankind has invented there have been those who didn’t believe in them. They may have lived in a country where that god was unknown or not worshiped. They may have simply not accepted the priest’s or shaman’s stories. For pretty much every unsubstantiated belief there are those who don’t buy it.

The non-belief in gods is a base state of thought. No child has ever been shown to be born with a belief in any divine entity. We all start out from a position of non-belief. Once we are told about gods or a particular god we can move into disbelief. Non-belief is born of ignorance, disbelief is born of knowledge.

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Heidi Klum, who dressed up as Hindu goddess Kali, who symbolises death and destruction, for her Halloween bash, has left the Hindu community in America fuming.

And now upset Hindus have asked Klum to make a public apology for posing as a sacred figure.

“Goddess Kali is highly revered in Hinduism and she is meant to be worshipped in temples and not to be used in clubs for publicity stunts or thrown around loosely for dramatic effects,” Contactmusic quoted Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed as saying.

He added: “Hindus welcome Hollywood and other entertainment industries to immerse themselves in Hinduism, but they should take it seriously and respectfully, and not just use the religion for decoration or to advance their selfish agenda.

“Casual flirting sometimes results in pillaging serious spiritual doctrines and revered symbols and hurting the devotees.”

Other than Zed, various Hindu leaders, including Jawahar L. Khurana of the Hindu Alliance of India, and Bhavna Shinde of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, have condemned Klum for posing as Goddess Kali.

They went to the extent of calling Klum’s act as “denigrating”. (Yahoo)

The Muslims are all heady now. Their religion is finally being noticed again after being relegated to the status of a 3rd or 4th rate religion for last few hundred years.

Yeah, they were something once. Muslim contributions to Mathematics, Astronomy, and Philosophy in the Middle Ages are well documented. Then they started putting more emphasis on religion and turned their backs on their own discoveries. Their religion became as irrelevant as their culture until Islam started being interpreted by clerics with political aspirations as well as the means to control their people’s minds.

But now they’re famous, everybody’s aware of Islam these days. And like many celebrities Islam is getting a little carried away with its new-found fame. It’s getting a little snooty, it’s taking itself a bit too seriously.

It’s not enough that Islam is now acknowledged as a major religion. Islam’s own teachings, as interpreted by modern (only about 1500 years out-of-date) clerics, demand that non-believers are not acceptable.

There’s a lot of similarity between Muslims and fundamentalist Christians. They both lack a sense of humor. Neither can laugh at themselves, they are humorless theologies.

They both operate under the misconception that respect can be demanded of everyone without even trying to earn it. They can conceive of no reason why everyone shouldn’t share their beliefs, so they see nothing wrong with forcing their beliefs on others.

Well, sorry guys, but not everyone buys it. Not Islam, not Christianity, not Scientology, none of you. All your posturing and demanding respect makes no impression on us. Your threats of eternal damnation or worse don’t intimidate us. We are not awed by your displays of wealth, influence and firepower.

Those of us blessed by genetics with a sense of humor take you no more seriously than we take ourselves. We are happy blasphemers. We defend ourselves from you with mockery and exposure.

Quit being such drama queens and join the human race. Get over yourselves. Grow up. You won’t get your way by throwing a tantrum.

(Note: I’ve had a few comments asking if I was confusing Islam with Hinduism. No, but I wasn’t completely clear in the transition from the article quoted and my commentary. The attitude of the Hindus was illustrative of the current attitude of many religious, especially Muslims and fundamental Christians. Everything in my commentary applies equally to Hinduism, though they aren’t as obnoxious and demanding as their theological cousins usually.)

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Lot’s of people have what you and I would probably agree are screwed up moral codes. Humans are imperfect. To touch on the old Hitler “was an atheist” chestnut, he was raised with strict religious (Catholic) morals. Somewhere along the line he took what he believed and twisted it into a perverse belief system. A person who acts “immorally” is by definition not acting out of a belief in any moral code, theistic or atheistic. They’re acting without morals of any kind.

People behave immorally (according to so-called Christian morals). Are they all atheists? Hardly. A fellow atheist and friend, Mojoey, blogs about ministers caught molesting children. He’s been doing this for a while and his list is extensive. Surely these men were raised with good so-called Christian morals. What went wrong? Are these so-called Christian morals not strong enough to overcome our common flawed humanity? When I see so many people commit horrible acts against their fellow man and know that they were raised with so-called Christian morals, I have to ask; what about Christian morals makes them worthy of emulation or respect?

How many average criminals, people acting immorally or unethically, are atheist? I don’t know exactly, but I would expect they are represented among the criminal class to about the same degree they are generally in society. I suggest the majority of those we’d call immoral and unethical criminals are religious believers, raised on some sort of religious moral code.

I further submit that the majority of atheists in America live lives indistinguishable from the average theist’s. If they can melt successfully into society, they must be living ethically/morally enough to escape notoriety.

All our ethics/morals are instilled in us at an early age. We are all taught the rules for membership in our society. We are taught early on how to get along in this Western society.

In reality, there are no Christian or atheist morals; there are social morals that are different in each society. If morality was absolute, different cultures would all behave identically. All morals are relative to the context in which they are applied.

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Islamic law isn’t based on a single interpretation of the Qur’an. “Islamic jurisprudence is not codified law: it is a series of formulations developed across generations by scholars and clerics. Depending on the Islamic school or historical era, these formulations can differ and even contradict each other.” (from the following article)

Iran follows a form of Islam that’s perhaps the most brutal and disgusting of any Muslim country. In 2005 two Iranian teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari (16) and Ayaz Marhoni (18), were both sentenced to death for what some human rights groups claimed was “consensual gay sex”. And now they are endorsing the killing of Christians and others they identify as apostates.

Eighteen years ago, Rashin Soodmand’s father was hanged in Iran for converting to Christianity. Now her brother is in a Mashad jail, and expects to be executed under new religious laws brought in this summer.

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled “Islamic Penal Code”, which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.

Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran’s own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.

And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran’s constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the “crime” of abandoning one’s religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.

Today, Rashin’s brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran’s holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran’s new law.

Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. “I am terribly anxious about him,” she explains. “Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don’t think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim.”

But six months later, the police came back and took her father away again. This time, they offered him a choice: he could denounce his Christian faith, and the church in which he was a pastor – or he would be killed. “Of course, my father refused to give up his faith,” Rashid recalls proudly. “He could not renounce his God. His belief in Christ was his life – it was his deepest conviction.” So two weeks later, Hossein Soodmand was taken by guards to the prison gallows and hanged.

Life for Rashin, her siblings and her mother became extremely difficult. Some Muslims are extremely hostile to people of any other religion, never mind to those who they consider apostates: Ayatollah Khomeini declared that “non-Muslims are impure”, insisting that for Muslims to wash the clothes of non-Muslims, or to eat food with non-Muslims, or even to use utensils touched by non-Muslims, would spoil their purity.

“After the revolution of 1979, Iran’s rulers wanted to turn Iran into an Islamic state, and to abolish the secular laws of the Shah,” explains Alexa Papadouris of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights organisation that specialises in freedom of religion. “So the clerics instituted a mandate for judges presiding over criminal cases: if the existing penal code did not include legislation on whether a certain kind of behaviour is an offence, then the judges should refer to traditional Islamic jurisprudence.” In other words: sharia law.

There is another factor: President Ahmadinejad. “The President didn’t initiate the law mandating the death penalty for apostates,” says Papadouris, “but he has been lobbying for it. It is an effective form of playing populist politics. The Iranian economy is doing very badly, and the country is in a mess: Ahmadinejad may be calculating that he can gain support, and deflect attention from Iran’s problems, by persecuting apostates.”

The new law is not yet in force in Iran: it requires another vote in parliament, and then the signature of the Ayatollah. But that could happen within a matter of weeks. “Or,” says Papadouris, “it could conceivably be allowed to drop, were there a powerful enough international outcry”. (Source – The Telegraph)

As a non-religious humanist I denounce the killing of anyone for their religious beliefs. It’s not only inhumane but inefficient. You can’t kill a viewpoint.

It’s not only humanists who should be loudly opposing this violation of basic human rights. Christians and those of other, non-Islamic religions should be protesting this as well.

Islam will never be viewed by Western, may I say humane, societies as a peaceful and loving religion until these crimes against humanity have been forever renounced and abandoned.

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Here’s an example of religious “thinking” I came across recently:

A former Saudi diplomat-turned cleric, Sheikh Muhammad Munajid, has described Walt Disney cartoon character Mickey Mouse as “one of Satan’s soldiers” who turns everything around it impure.  The cleric, who worked with the Saudi embassy in Washington D C, said that under Sharia, both household mice and their cartoon counterparts must be killed.  According to a translation prepared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an American press monitoring service, he said: “The mouse is one of Satan’s soldiers and is steered by him.  If a mouse falls into a pot of food – if the food is solid, you should chuck out the mouse and the food touching it, and if it is liquid – you should chuck out the whole thing, because the mouse is impure.”

http://cicentre.com/news/islamic_jihadism.html

In 1583 Jeremias convened a council in Constantinople (establishing the Orthodox Church). It decreed in part:

That whoever says that our Lord Jesus Christ at the Mystic Supper had unleavened bread (made without yeast), like that of the Jews, and not leavened bread, that is to say, bread raised with yeast, let him depart far away from us and let him be anathema as one having Jewish views and those of Apollinarios and bringing dogmas of the Armenians into the Church, on which account let him be doubly anathema.

So some theists want Mickey Mouse (has anyone informed them he’s a fictional character?) dead and others insist you have to say that Jesus ate yeast or you can’t join their club. And they wonder why we consider them illogical, perhaps even mentally challenged.

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BORN AGAIN is the story of Director Markie Hancock’s evangelical upbringing and her 20-year struggle to get out. Excerpts from Hancock’s journals, home movies and student films reveal the strong grip of fundamentalist religion.

As a child, she revels in the security that promises of eternal salvation bring to both her and her family. Hancock only slowly begins to question the narrow path she has fervently followed when she falls in love with a woman. It is in Berlin when she finally begins to free herself from religion and from the family she loves.

Ultimately, BORN AGAIN asks, at what price do we believe what we believe and how do we live with others who believe differently?

Visit SnagFilms for more thought-provoking independent films.

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