Monday, April 26, 2004
Bush-League Lysenkoism: The White House bends science to its will.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
The dangers of abstinence-only education
For those who want to know about the dangers of abstinence-only education, a solid study is available online, titled "Toward a Sexually Healthy America" by Martha E. Kempner, MA.
The topic of abstinence-only education, and in general that of family planning policies in the US, is quite interesting in that it shows the current heinous mix of 'born-again'/Catholic fundamentalism and conservative tardiness acting to create a stifling Taliban-like nation where the rights of people are not recognised, ignorance and manipulated news are spread around for the sake of 'faith' and where there is no respect for people who don't share the same religious views or vision of life as some tard fundamentalists. Many of these fundamentalists probably regret the time of burning: they would happily burn at the stake the 'non-Christian', the 'non-abstinent', homosexuals, pacifists, evolutionists, socialists and so on. Once esterminated the 'evil-doers', they could concentrate better at administering justice drawing inspiration from Iran or the like, and lead religious wars to make the sacred ideals triumph! And of course if someone noticed that by coincidence the US is interested in spreading democracy in nations who have oil (Iraq), or through which important oilducts pass (Afghanistan), and not in the dozens of antidemocratic places in the world, those would be words of Satan!
I hope many people will join the pro-choice marches in the US. An important opportunity to state clearly one's opinions against the aggression of people's rights and the spreading of ignorance and intolerance.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
You have to see this cartoon presented in the blog of N&A, it is hilarious. Talking about "manly" Christian (dumb) fundamentalists! The US would be better off with a "Nancy-Boy" president (reference is made to my previous post), as long as it had some brain and balance. Christian fanatics should not have anything to do with politics. And USA should not turn into a theocratic Christian version of a Taliban State.
is intrinsically sodomitic
The author, Doug Giles, writes "Have you ever asked yourself, “Self … why do churches today look more like the lingerie department at Wal-Mart, than a battalion of men poised to plunder the powers of darkness?” Why do men avoid going to church, and what can be done about it?"
and
"Put an end to preaching by cheesy, whiny, quiche eating, preening Nancy Boys ... right now! It freaks us meat eaters out. Get it? Hire a pastor who throws off a good John Wayne vibe instead of that Boy George feeling. Know what I mean? And cheer on “Pastor Wayne” to serve up the solid meat of the scripture … the stuff that prods the congregation to biblical maturity rather than prolonging their infancy."
Doug Giles' article is entertaining and DrChrist appears to agree with him. However, at a closer look, the article is quite simplistic and does not really tackle the core of the problem of "Nancy-Boys-Priests" and the shortage of, let's say, 'manly' passion in religion matters. What he talks about is really consistent with the situation I have quite often commented on, that is the massive presence of homosexual people within the Roman Catholic Church clergy, around 50%, as published studies have proved. But the whole situation is not a matter of external attitude, or John Wayne vs. Boy George, and not even a matter of sexual orientation after all, the problem lies in the some contents of the Christian religion itself, particularly the Catholic religion, as I will explain later, and in the associated hypocrisy and duplicity.
First of all a premise. I don't have anything against homosexual people. Surely it is absolutely fair and acceptable that people with any sexual orientation should be free to join any career they wish, including a religious career.
However, what is particularly despicable is the silence, if not stubborn denial, of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) on such a massive presence of gays amongst priests, while homosexuality is at the same time aggressively, and hypocritically, condemned. Gay people will always be massively present within the RCC for reasons related to the very theology and practices of the church, which have a special appeal to gays. This is the core of the whole situation.
On a side note it is not a coincidence that the author of the quoted article is Protestant. The image of a more “manly”, 'warlike' Christian clergy can hardly be associated to Catholic priests, while is more plausible with Protestant priests (who by the way are not obliged to remain publicly chaste). And it’s worth mentioning that the first example of Protestant, Martin Luther, had the balls, to challenge the Roman Catholic Church, particularly perverted in its adherence to the Christian message.
Catholic religion: a realm of gay symbols
Martin Luther had the balls to challenge, justly, the 16th century perverted Church. But let's face it, the Catholic Church encourages people not to have balls, theologically and philosophically, and not to use them biologically: it (sorry I won’t use the ridiculous “she” for the RCC) encourages passivity, compliance, meekness, obedience, all qualities traditionally associated to being females or to the state of eunuchs.
Not by coincidence, the church itself is normally referred to as a female entity, a "she". And, in the Old Testament often the "prophets compare the Mosaic Covenant to a 'marriage covenant' between God and Israel" (quoted from here).
The same bridal symbology can be found in the New Testament:
For we are members of his body: "For this reason shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh". This is a great mystery, but I am speaking of Christ and the Church. - Ephesians 5:30-32 (quotation found here).
God is the male, the Church (assembly of believers) is the female. Surely the intrinsic homosexual connotation of such a symbology cannot be neglected, as also anthropologist Ida Magli has pointed out.
Consistently, priests themselves appear to look at their ordination with the trepidation a bride would have before her marriage: they become ministers of the Church-bride, therefore brides themselves.
The Myth of the Virgin Mary represents a secret disgust for biological real women.
Another aspect is worth mentioning as it shows a very particular way of considering women by the Catholic Church, consistent with a homoerotic inclination: the creation of the de-corporealised non-biological-female: the Virgin Mary. The book by Ida Magli (“La Madonna”) solidly proves how the image of the Virgin Mary has increasingly been constructed through the centuries (the last dogmas were proclaimed in 1950 and 1964) by the RCC to extol the 'spirituality' of Mary while diminishing, if not completely annihilating, her true biological reality of female. How not to consider particularly cogent even just the five dogmas regarding the Virgin Mary?
- She is the mother of God
- She is ever virgin, before and after the birth of Jesus who is conceived, without a human intercourse thanks to the Holy Ghost
- She is born without the original sin
- She is assumed 'body and soul' in heaven, that is her body does not undergo the corruption of biological beings
- She is the mother of the Church.
In other words, the Roman Catholic Church has been obsessed through the centuries with the construction of a mythical woman who has nothing of all the common features of a female, let alone of a biological being. This reveals a rejection by the Church, if not a disgust, of the true reality of women as biological beings. A rejection consistent with a substantial form of homosexuality and reflecting the millennary rejection of Christians for the corporeal world (St. Paul was a neoplatonist, and St. Augustine too thought that the greatest philosophy was that of Plato), sexuality and women. On a side note, it comes as no surprise that the Catholic Church shows so little sensitivity for family-planning needs of women.
Priestly celibacy
And what about the concept of celibacy in priests? Surely this does not add to the idea of 'masculinity' amongst the Catholic clergy: priests are asked to become eunuch-like. This position appears to derive both from a Platonic strategy of rejection of the corporeal world, and from a 'queerness' that can often be found in religious ministers, even in other religions.
Queerness of rituals, vestments and objects
Much in Catholic rituals shows a high degree of queerness: fetishism related to attire and objects. Often objects appear to be considered more for the material appearance, worth and esthetical beauty, than for their symbolic value. Catholic priest vestments, with crinoline, laces and embroidery would, technically, make any woman envious, if they were not so absolutely gloomy, ugly and pretentious.
Effeminate ‘pious’ and meek postures seem to be encouraged with an utter result of queerness. Often priests do sing in church with a voice which exceeds the ‘gaiety’ of Boy George. Not to mention the concept of the Communion: truly a ritual with a cannibalistic-fetishistic connotation, in which the actual body of Christ (legs and arms included) is eaten. I don’t want to sound gratuitously ‘blasphemous’ (though I would not care) but that’s the actual concept of the communion, as according to the RCC the eucharist is not a symbol, but is really body and blood of Christ. The Catholics define it "transubstantiation".
Not to mention the constant exposition to naked or semi-naked males (Jesus and saints), and the fetishistic representation of tortures and scourging. St. Sebastian is notoriously the favourite saint of gays (read here). Many of these aspects have been mentioned by professor Mark D. Jordan in his book "The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism".
In the light of the above is it really so strange that the Roman Catholic Church has a special appeal to gays?
Queerness and priestly vocation
Also, one should mention that the RCC really appears to become for many gays a place where the feeling of ‘being different’ can find a free expression: they don’t have to marry with women, or they don’t have to have sex: often a strict Catholic upbringing creates problems dealing with both. On the other hand, in seminaries, gay people can feel they have a place in the world, they can think that their ‘difference’ has even a theological meaning, it is the expression of being chosen by God.
Virtual chastity, clandestine sex
As I have said in other occasions, at least 50% of Catholic priests don't respect the vow of celibacy, but are sexually active, though hypocritically, and clandestinely, likely with guilt.
Fifty percent, at least, is a large number. Despite this, the church fails to consider the actual meaning of such a percentage: clandestine sex by supposedly chaste priests cannot be considered an occasional 'weakness' or a 'deficit of will', rather is the simple outcome of the rejected sexual nature of humans that cannot be thwarted, but emerges anyway, even pervertedly at times, if subject to unhealthy suppression. Considering the unchaste behaviour of Catholic priests as a mere reflection of 'secularism' is simply psychologically and biologically inaccurate, a distortion of reality, a manipulation of truth.
In the light of the above, considering the current presence of a massive gay orientation amongst catholic priests a coincidental or a temporary condition produced by Second Vatican Council is also a distortion of truth. Catholics with a bit of sense should open their eyes, and try to acknowledge the indubitable presence of a relation between queerness and priesthood, which does not equal to saying that all priests are gay, but that a relation does exists, and is obviously related to contents of the Catholic religion which have an appeal to gay people and/or are liable to creating a homoerotic behaviour ("The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism" by Mark D. Jordan, professor of theology at Emory University).
Do Catholic have the balls of pursuing truth?
A real dedication to truth would oblige to inquire these aspects. But that this should happen is very difficult and the reason is that Catholics, as pretty much all theists, don't really feel they need to inquire reality to find truth: they think they already have it. There is no need to pursue truth to them: one should only comply with truths considered as absolute and told by others (parents, priests). In most cases, theists grow into believing what they believe by means of a ‘de facto’ indoctrination since birth: one of the most formidable and despicable form of abuse of children’s mind. Part of the indoctrination has a self-maintaining feature: the belief absorbed is considered absolute, unquestionable, and whatever does not make sense is justified by the concept of mystery. And faith must be blidn anyway. Of course, given this indoctrination, it is no wonder that many Catholics think they are intellectually honest.
“Masculinity” is not compatible with mental passivity.
The above facts lead to another important point. True 'masculinity' (but really the more proper term would be 'intelligence', 'intellectual honesty' and 'humanity') should not be measured by the degree of correspondence to John Wayne's style as opposed to Boy George. The point is not raising one's voice to join the hoard of 'masculine' fundamentalists. The point is first and before all not to be mentally passive, to retain freedom of thought, independence, capacity to explore reality without physically and mentally castrating dogmas and without subjecting oneself to a religion that want you meek and tame, and a blindly loyal, silent passive bride. 'Masculinity' should mean to retain the capacity to say "no", even if the church (made of humans) says something different. To be able to say, for instance, "I believe in God, but the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church is holy crap in many of its parts". This would be 'masculine', or better it would show human dignity of thought.
As it is, Catholic religion, and many other religions for that matter, favour sodomy of thought, mental passivity, which is the worst thing of all.
And who cares to have 'manly' John Wayne-like priests who are mentally passive and hypocritical? Better to have "Boy George"-like ones then, as long as intellectual honesty and independence of thought are retained, and they get rid of any hypocrisy and duplicity.
priest scandal, upbringing & education, religion & mental illness
Friday, April 23, 2004
From U.S. Newswire:
"Catholic Hierarchy and Political Fundamentalism Harm Women, Families Worldwide, Says 'Catholics for a Free Choice' "
"It is sometimes hard for Catholics, who are overwhelmingly prochoice on all reproductive health issues, to call their own religious leaders fundamentalists. But the fact is that every form of fundamentalism has as one of its central tenets the control of women's lives, especially over reproduction."
"There is no religion that is more rigid in its attempt to control women's reproductive lives than the Catholic church. No other religion has blanket prohibitions against contraception for married couples and against abortion for all reasons, including when a woman's life is in danger. George Bush's global gag rule cuts off family planning services that would prevent abortion; the Vatican's global gag rule prevents Catholic hospitals throughout the world from providing education and services that would prevent HIV/AIDS, provide abortion and emergency contraception, and save women's lives in childbirth."
Read the whole article here.
From U.S. Newswire:
Young Activists to Capitol Hill: 'My Voice Counts'; Young People to Lobby for Honest Sex Education on 'Youth National Advocacy Day'
WASHINGTON, April 22 /U.S. Newswire/ -- On Monday, April 26, 2004, over 80 youth from 15 states across the country will travel to Capitol Hill for the Youth National Advocacy Day in support of comprehensive sex education -- education that provides information about abstinence and contraception, including condoms.
"Our government has to get real about teens and sex," said Kayley Harrington, a student at American University who will participate in visits with Reps. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. "We must all embrace a realistic, comprehensive approach to sex education that discusses the realities of young people's lives. Some are sexually active, some are not. Any sex education program should address their health care needs."
Standing in the way of this common sense approach to sex education is the current administration's support for abstinence- only-until-marriage programs -- programs that promote a 'Just Say No' approach while censoring any information on the health benefits of condoms. In his new budget, President Bush doubles federal funding for these programs even though recent evaluations from states, including Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, show these programs ineffective.
Read the whole article here.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Umberto Eco on The Passion of the Christ: "It is not a religious movie, it is a splatter film".
Quite interesting and hilarious comment of Umberto Eco (the author of "The name of The Rose") on Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ".
Amongst the other things, Umberto Eco states that the movie does not retain absolutely the "sublime reticence" of the Gospels: "Where the Gospels only say that Jesus was scourged (three words in Matthew, Mark and John, nothing in Luke), Gibson first has Jesus beaten with canes, then with straps full of nails, and finally with a mace, until he is turned into what the MacDonald's public imagine meat minced to the utmost possible degree should be like, that is like a rare hamburger."
According to Umberto Eco, when finally God let people hear his voice (though a hurricane and an earthquake) at the end of the movie, the viewer equipped with some good sense, and hopefully the believer, perceives that God's utterance is really to express his being pissed off with Mel Gibson!
The whole article (in Italian) can be read here.
"Globally, the Administration has used American might to advance an agenda pleasing to Christian conservatives at home."
Read the article here.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
The US needs a different leadership
The occupation of Iraq by the United states and all the other extras, has to finish, although it should never have started: an illegal, illegitimate, stupid war moved by a president who could not do anything but impersonate a "war president", while he had failed to defend his own country before Sept. 11. A short-sighted move, that did not care about the explosive consequences in the whole area, a replicating deflagration of violence, destroying thousands of lives. Is this the idea of democracy and 'resolve' that Americans want? I don't think so.
Americans know that muscles shall be ruled by intelligence, and war shall always be the very last action, when no other action is really possible. Was that the case of Iraq? No. Was it really necessary and right to act against the United Nations in a unilateral way? No. Was Saddam such an enormous danger? No. Many people in the US have been tricked into thinking that a unilateral war was necessary, through manipulation of news, lies repeated ad nauseam only to make them sound almost a truth. US, and the world, deserve another president. Bush and all the PNAC neo-imperialists (Cheney, Rumsfeld) should quit and do something else.
Now it is time to stop all this, and let the United Nations take the lead, as soon as possible.
Peace.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
The American unilateral 'resolve' comes straight from the wacky American Destiny doctrine applied to the whole world.
In her blog, N&A mentions today the PNAC organization, an American "think tank" established in 1997 whose statement of principles is signed by people like Dick Cheney and Ronald Rumsfeld. One of the directors, Robert Kagan, is the author of a book "Paradise & Power", published in 2003, which self-condescendingly, and a bit schematically, presented the United States as "mired in history, exercising power in an anarchic Hobbesian world [...] where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might" as opposed to a Europe emprisoned in a Kantian illusion of "perpetual peace".
I don't know how much of PNAC is known to the general American public. I remember reading some articles on it before the onset of the war in Iraq, and it seemed absurd to me that people would not talk more about it. How could one not see the danger of having a leadership in the US with people part of an organization which states (from their Web site):
The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle; and that too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership.
"American leadership is good both for America and for the world" (!). If one considers the above unmistakable idea of imperialism, mix it with the semi-mystic wacky idea of Manifest Destiny (adjusted to a global scope for the second millennium), and with an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, one can have a pretty good idea as to where the current American unilateralism comes from.
Given the above, it comes as no wonder that, in April 2002, Condoleeza Rice might have descibed the war to Iraq as an "enormous opportunity", and said that.America "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities.", as John Pilger reported in an article, and that the Bush administration would not have any second thought about starting a war to Iraq, after a spiteful and arrogant rejection of the role of the United Nations.
As much as I could love the US as a country, frankly I rather not have a world ruled by the United States, prepared to start a war whenever deemed necessary, no matter what the people in the whole world and the other nations think. Which seems exactly what the hallucinated group of the PNAC has in mind
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
How soothing, comforting, reassuring the idea of God, the fact of having such a powerful father with whom we entertain a privileged relationship that all other beings, imperfect, brutal, if not mere inert matter, cannot enjoy! We are the offspring of God, and we can walk in the world, made for us, with a condescending smile, which suits our rank. We can look at all other beings, and to the material reality itself, and feel pity for its miserable finitude: we are made of another matter, immortal, and the soul dwelling in us its the proof. Except, our reason, which allows realizing all this, is not the evidence, or the effect, of the divine, rather its cause.
We are clever producers of contrivances, able to live in a hallucinated state, result of our omnipotent ego.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Mentioned today in an article by Eugenio Scalfari: "World on Fire: How Exporting Free-Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred & Global Instability", by Amy Chua.
I found an article Amy Chua wrote for the Guardian, commenting on the export of democracy to Iraq.
For all, amongst my readers, who have this stern, severe, grave, gloomy propensity to chastise and raise high their indignant-sounding (albeit not for this more credible) voice to oppose secularism and sins of our times; particularly Catholics and Catholic priests, experts in bad faith and duplicity, which account for the most remarkable capacity of moral funambulism and hypocrisy, moral sleep-walkers who, when publicly speaking, would never admit how their actions are in contrast with their words (but in case they would simply label them as a contingent sins which do not stain their immortal souls, therefore, in a way, negligible), for all of these people a nice opportunity to exercise their most vibrant tones of disgust while secretely rejoicing their eyes!
Here you go. "La Repubblica" online has given news of the a beauty contest which took place in Thailand.
Below the three winners.
They are all men.
The beauty contest is "Miss Tiffany", and elects the most beautiful transvestite in Asia. The article of La Repubblica can be read here (in Italian).
Ahhhh the Fall, Adam and Eve, the Original Sin, Sodom and Gomorrah, the will of God, the prophetic role of the Church blah blah blah ! Christian things can be hilarious sometimes, a bit like a "Lord of the Rings" ante litteram.
Friday, April 09, 2004
I was reading the recently discovered blog www.alltoohuman.org and, in particular the post of March 26, commenting Bush's "joke" of searching WMD in the oval office. A picture actually shows the fact. Bush's 'comedy' appears to be an example of how TV narration, reality, invention and soap opera can mix in a combination that is both tragic and ridicululous. It seems to be a variation of the hallucinated world described in Oliver Stones' "Natural Born Killers" where every sense of proportion is lost, everything goes, and what remains is only an omnipervasive non-sensical TV blabbering that requires 'fixes' of growing intensity. Bush's 'joke' passes any limit of taste and respect and reaches new heights of idiocy. Just this would deserve an impeachment for moral ineptitude. Just this, if American society is healthy, should imply an immediate rejection of this president. Did Mr. Bush mean to entertain those who are in Iraq and die on a daily basis? The first meaning of "patriotism" for Americans today should be requiring a president with different standards and vision, not one who occupies a position to indulge in an inane irresponsible, game-like delirium that mixes tragedy and comedy, with potential dreadful outcomes which we are already seeing but could get even worse.
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Patronizing indocrination even through billboards
That billboards like the above (in Montana) should be used to 'advertise' abstinence till marriage has something grotesque and pathetic. While unintended pregnancies rage in the Uniteds States amongst teenagers (1,000,000 every year), and consequent abortions, and STDs preventable with condoms properly used, and despite the fact that most teenagers have sex before marriage (even those who sign pledges given to them by these fanatic organizations of adults), groups of organized fundamentalists intentionally ignore the real world and conduct patronizing campaigns of rhetoric indoctrination of teenagers. Campaigns which only produce the effect of leaving young people in an irresponsible state of ignorance, subjected to messages that humiliate their intelligence and their rights to personal choice and privacy.
According to a national survey, American teenagers are against abstinence-only education and in favour of a comprehensive education. Which is a more sensible thing to do and acknowledges the fact that teenagers should not be considered objects of manipulative indoctrination but subjects with the right to get all the information possible to then decide with their own mind, but at least with important notions to avoid pregnancies and STDs.
The picture was found in an article informing on a campaign in Montana.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
The hypocritical sissyness of the Roman Catholic Church
I came across some reviews of what appears to be a quite interesting book on Catholics and Homosexuality: "The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism" by Mark D. Jordan, professor of theology at Emory University.
This an excerpt from a review (stress is mine):
The real issue is the book's major point. The intrinsic culture of Roman Catholic orders and its priesthood is tied to the Church's homosexual fixation, its homoerotic imagination, and the connection of these to the exercise of power in the definition of the priesthood. The Church's tedious on-going rhetoric about homosexuality is geared to maintain confusion and keep LGBT advocates busy and at bay. At the same time, the internal priestly culture consists of an unspoken queerness.
Priests are called to display and act in all the ways Western European cultures consider "sissy, faggy, queer, and gay" (Look at how priests, bishops, and even Vatican leaders dress at the mass, or look at the fabulous display of the high mass itself.). But the fact that many priests, bishops, and others are gay, including those who are keeping the closet door closed, locked, and exclusive, must never be spoken.
This gayness of priestly culture ("clerical camp") explains why the Church is more concerned with gay men than lesbians. It also explains the emotional needs fulfilled by the closeted gays in hierarchy as dominant men disciplining those at the bottom.
To protect itself, the Church must always portray LGBT people as outside its ranks, as outsiders looking in. And keeping them outside is essential to the Church's image and its politics.
The whole review can be read here.
Other reviews and/or presentations: 1, 2,
A review of The National Catholic Reporter.
Do ideology or fanaticism want to prevail over science?
There is a widespread feeling amongst scientists that the Bush administration ignores or rejects results of scientific resurch when they don't match his views. The Economist dedicates an article to this topic.
Also read here.
And the Union of Concerned Scientits Web site
But maybe pot brings Catholic priests closer to God?
N&A presented a piece of news form Associated Press regarding a Catholic priest who got probation for growing pot.
A Roman Catholic priest received two years of probation Tuesday for growing marijuana in his church residence. The Rev. Richard Arko, 40, pleaded guilty to two counts of illegal cultivation of marijuana related to 35 plants in the rectory of Prince of Peace Roman Catholic Church.
[...]
Cosgrove asked Arko why he jeopardized his career by growing marijuana. Arko said he strongly believes in the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes and has seen it benefit people with illnesses. He said he looked forward to the day when it would not be illegal.
[...]
I have a few other possible hypotheses on why the priest grew pot:
- possibly he was using pot to be closer to God, and desired to melt together the views of Jamaican Rastafarians with Catholicism (see picture below from news.bbc.co.uk)? We are not told whether the Catholic priest had dreadlocks or listened to reggae music instead of religious music, yet that could be an explanation!
Maybe this is the way the Catholic priest actually looked like?
- "some Indian tribes chew to enable them to resist privations and hardships" Freud writes in a letter to his fiancée Martha Bernays on April 21, 1884, quoted here. Possibly the priest did the same and smoked pot to resist the hardships of a priest's alienated and dissociated life, obliged, as he is, to live in an unnatural, though not actually respected, thus guiltly ridden, "celibacy"? Not to mention the fact of having to comply with and preach various other absurd teachings?
- Perhaps the priest realized that by smoking pot the faithful believes more! I am sure if I were stoned I could believe anything. Some people are naturally stoned, others need some ...drug support! Maybe if one used LSD he might reach the heights of St. Augustine?
But, who knows, maybe the reason stated by the priest was actually the true one. 35 plants though, wow! He was probably actively helping lots of people!
Interesting article on abortion laws. An excerpt (stress is mine):
Like most Americans, I find abortion a difficult issue, because a fetus seems much more than a lump of tissue but considerably less than a human being. Most of us are deeply uncomfortable with abortion, especially in the third trimester, but we still don't equate it with murder.
That's why it makes sense to try to reduce abortions by encouraging sex education and contraception. The conservative impulse to teach abstinence only, without promoting contraception, is probably one reason the U.S. has so many more abortions per capita than Canada or Britain.
Portugal's experience suggests that while many people are offended by abortion on demand, they might be even more troubled by criminalization of abortion.
"Forbidding abortion doesn't save anyone or anything," said Sonia Fertuzinhos, a member of the Portuguese Parliament. "It just gets women arrested and humiliated in the public arena."
The upshot is that many Portuguese seem to be both anti-abortion and pro-choice. They are morally uncomfortable with abortion, especially late in pregnancies, but they don't think the solution is to arrest young women for making agonizing personal choices to end their pregnancies.
Read the whole article here.
Monday, April 05, 2004
I have discovered by chance that there is a blog with a name similar to mine. And is definitely worth reading: http://www.alltoohuman.org/
"The first great Christian missionary and writer of a significant part of the New Testament--Paul of Tarsus--fused the philosophy of Plato with the story of Jesus. ". Article here.
Do facts, or ideology only, support Bush policies?
From www.contraceptiononline.org
Given the above data, the Bush administration, Catholics and other fundamentalists should cut their c*ap and get to work with serious and realistic policies. Keeping young people ignorant on contraception is an idiotic policy which is a factor in the huge number of unintended pregnancies amongst teenagers (around 800,000 in US only) and abortions.
Bush and Christian organizations help maintain ignorance
These are some facts, established by a survey. They reveal a situation of appalling ignorance amongst some teenagers. The ignorance that Mr. George Bush and some religious organizations contribute to maintain (stress is mine):
The "National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults: Sexual Health Knowledge and Experiences" is a nationally representative survey of more than 1,800 young people ages 13 to 24. According to the 136-page report, about one in 10 respondents said that sex without a condom occasionally is "not a big deal," reports USA Today. In addition, one in five respondents said that they thought that birth control pills protect against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and one in 10 said that condom use is not necessary unless "you have a lot of sexual partners". Julia Davis of the Kaiser Family Foundation said the study shows that young people have "a lack of knowledge about core sexual issues and how sexual health issues impact their generation." She added that the report shows many young people subscribe to a lot of "myths and misinformation." (For more information, go to www.kff.org).
The above paragraph was found here.
Bush and some religious organizations probably think it is ok that young people have that kind of misinformation.
Read also here.
Reasonable article on education.The initial quote is the following:
"Slogans that teach young people to 'Say No’ to drugs or sex have a nice ring to them. But…they are as effective in prevention of adolescent pregnancy and drug abuse as the saying 'Have a nice day' is in preventing clinical depression."
--Michael Carrera, Ed.D., testifying at the Presidential Commission on AIDS
It has lately been discovered that there is an excellent way to avoid risks of getting any disease, even the simplest cold. Not being born at all.
Sunday, April 04, 2004
The psychology of the fundamentalist
The fundamentalist considers an abstract idea of good yet to reach, and unreachable by most, as the meter for humanity. All that does not reach that ideal (that he himself often falls short of) is classified as sinful. This particular form of conceptual short-sightedness (literally so: a form of obsessive indulging in one's own mental constructions, without being able to see the larger scope of reality), really seems to hide an undeclared hate for real people, an incapacity to accept the real world, a form of dissociation.
The majority of teens are against abstinence-only education, survey reveals
If the opinion of teenagers counts someting, let alone some reasonability in general (simplistic fundamentalistc policies are not sufficient to solve the complex problems in our society), most teenagers think abstinence-only education is wrong, and that teens need a comprehensive education. This points emerged from a national survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, as this article reports.
From the article:
"No matter what adults say, some kids are going to have sex anyway," Hennen said.
Time and time again during interviews, young people agreed that it is generally best for teens to wait to have sex. Some have gone as far as signing pledges to remain abstinent.
But a significant number also found the "only" in abstinence-only education troubling - including Hennen and classmate Laura Gebhardt - when a speaker at their Roman Catholic high school suggested that giving their significant others a "peck on the cheek" was as far as they should go.
"Let's be realistic. Maybe that's how it used to be. But things have changed," said Gebhardt, a 17-year-old senior. She has chosen abstinence for herself but, given the choices some of her peers are making, thinks it's vital that sex education include information about contraceptives.
Their opinions are shared by a majority of teens, according to a national survey released in January by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks health issues. The study was done in conjunction with Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and National Public Radio.The survey of seventh- to 12th-graders found that while 95 percent thought it was appropriate to teach high school students to wait until they are older to have sex, not quite two-thirds agreed that abstinence was the "expected standard" for all school-age children.
Meanwhile, 94 percent of students said teaching high school students about birth control was appropriate, and 87 percent said it was appropriate for teachers to explain how to use those contraceptives and where to get them.
The obsession with borderline issues.
An extremerly interesting article can be read here. It analyses the dangers of what is defined the "obsession with borderline issues". It takes as a starting point issues related to the Islamic world, but interestingly the points raised can apply to other religions too, Christianity included. Which makes it even more understandable the fact of defining many Christian fundamentalists as Taliban-like.
Some parts of the article:
The concept of dividing everything between two extremes was originally a Persian, or Zoroastrian idea that was included into the Jewish thoughts during their exilic period. Both Islam and Christianity adopted this concept of two extremes into their dogma. It leaves out a great deal of gray area between extremes of black and white, heaven and hell, virtues and profanity and good deeds versus sins.
[...]
Using the idea of two extremes in every situation is simplistic and sometimes outright stupid. The biggest weakness of such a simplistic concept is its resistance to reformation (interpolation and extrapolation).
[...]
When knowledge and ideas are confined too closely to narrow dogmatic concerns (restricting pertinent, unbounded evolution of thought) then the use of propaganda/marketing techniques, to enforce absolute and unquestioned submission becomes a necessity. In order to keep the faithful well away from thinking about a middle way, balanced and rational, exaggerated and obsessive controversy over borderline issues (issues which show no potential for becoming truly significant) is promoted by the self appointed custodians of Islam, and presented as a danger of immense proportion.
What can I say? The article from which the above paragraphs are taken was written with the problems of the Islamic world in mind, but I really see that the problems mentioned are the same of the Western Christian world. Many Christians are emprisoned in an obsessive black and white cage and this limits greatly the credibility, reasonability and practicality of their approach to problems in society.
Pledges and Vows
(c) Joe London
Some people do make sense as regards sexual education.
From an interview of Deborah Roffman, expert on sexuality education, which appeared on Startribune.com. (Red emphasis is mine)
Q Aren't there any abstinence programs that show good outcomes?
A There are "abstinence pledge" programs -- in which outside groups come into schools -- that encourage students to sign a promise that they'll abstain from sex until marriage. That strategy appears to delay first intercourse for up to 18 months.
Q Well, that's something, isn't it?A Yes -- and no. Any delay in engaging in potentially risky behaviors is excellent. The downside is that these teens, when they do become involved, don't effectively protect themselves against disease and pregnancy.
Q Why don't they?A It's assumed that kids will fully keep the pledge, so the programs see no need to teach them about protection -- and would even consider such teaching a mixed message. When teens do break the pledge, they likely feel some guilt and loss of self-esteem. When people don't feel good about what they're doing, they're much less likely to take good care of themselves. And finally -- most importantly -- these abstinence programs rob kids of ownership of their own choices.
Other points covered staments of Deborag Roffman:Instead of giving dictums, we have to clearly state our values, help teens look ahead, and set clear limits about the choices available to them. Our job is to nurture them toward becoming sexually healthy human beings -- and that is truly comprehensive sex ed.
The abstinence folks are controlling the debate such that "comprehensive" sex ed has come to mean "abstinence-plus." We need to go even further. We have to focus on the quality and depth of our children's understanding of intimacy -- and cultivate their ability to make wise choices.
The whole interview can be read here.
