Anti-Catholic? Moi?

Here we are in 2010, and as we watch the Catholic Church implode, let us spare a thought for those sheeple placing their shekels in the collection plates each week knowing that the group they have financially supported has covered up child rape and other forms of paedophilic abuse.
The Pope will visit London in the Autumn and he expects to be greeted by a loud group of protestors who have enough of this charade, this parade of nonsense.
The Catholic Church has a limited life span, most cults do - although this has lasted a couple of thousand years so as people move away from the confused, mixed messages we will undoubtedly see the new generations moving towards reason and rationale.
A friend of mine said recently, 'You are anti-Catholic'. I responded: 'No, I'm not anti-Catholic, I'm anti-bullshit.'

Powerful Testimony of the Effects of Religious Sexual Abuse

Brilliantly sad. If there was ever a need to dismantle religion then this is it.
If you comment then I promise to respond.
I will write another post about the Pope's'apology' shortly.

Roman Polanski and the Cosa Nostra Pope

Currently on this blog I have a series of images which highlight child abuse - all in the name of religion. Yet there is something in the news at the moment which confirms even more (if further confirmation is required) that we are not smart animals. This whole issue with Roman Polanski, who pled guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor" - with a 13-year-old child, i.e. raped.
You either know about the story, (so I won't bore you with the details) or you don't (you can read it HERE).
Now, correct me if I am wrong but when did these polticians and Hollywood-types believe they needed to defend a self-confessed paedophile? The law appears to be made only for those who are plebs. The thing to do is commit a heinous crime, escape justice but make your name as a person of note in the arts and people who made money via you will ensure you are protected and stage protests and appeal to the relevant authorities to overturn any decision to place handcuffs on you many years later.

The mindset of those clamouring for him to be released from Swiss custody is very difficult to fathom. Not one of those people would say the same thing had it been their 13 yr old who had been sexually abused. It is worrying when there are so many abusers watching how this will play out and persons in position of responsibility, who are held up as role models, are protecting and playing down the fact that Roman Polanski abused a child. If he wasn't a famous person, would they have supported him?

Then, if that wasn't enough, the Pope, yes, the head of the original Cosa Nostra has through his 'crime family foot soldiers' issued a statement regarding the large numbers of people who criticise the Catholic Church but don't realise that the church is very busy and in any case there are other religions where more cases of sexual abuse occurs and people don't seem to give them a hard time. Incredible. Maybe now people will start to wake up to the greatest con which enables people with sick minds to cover themselves with a religious cloak as they abuse relentlessly. Hopefully they will all argue over who has the most sexual predators and the flock will start to think for themselves.

History will judge us very badly. We are truly living in The Dark Ages.

Prisoners of a White God

I chanced upon this film which I felt compelled to post here. It is disturbing and illustrates why I consider religious indoctrination to be mental, social and psychological abuse. Watch how a community is slowly destroyed by men with rituals, fancy gowns, screwed up world views and a need to control.
Excuse the slight delays but as it is subtitled it does not take away from a sensitively presented film.

If you are unable to watch it now then I implore you to watch whenever and wherever you can - let me have your views.

Time For...Critical Thinking

I have a question.

When are black people going to start to be rational? When are black people going to, en masse, throw out all those tired old scriptures which bring negative, old outdated traditions which stifle and intimidate? When are we (I hate to use we when talking about race as there is only one race and that is 'human' - just humour me) going to realise that believing in a 'god' or 'gods or even one that I hear more and more, 'universal conciousness' is not promoting progress.

I listen to the news, read newspapers, magazines, and lately I have been reading a few blogs to get a giste of what the general views are out there. I have also tried to look for sites written by or about black people who are rationalists, free-thinkers and/or atheists. I am saddened to report that there are too few references to the above.

I'm tired of listening to Oprah pretending to present a balanced view of what a 'non-believer' or 'skeptic' is. I'm tired of Dr Phil, who has one of the most patronising manners in the history of television, make references to god and 'being spiritual'. I'm tired of the Pope, Benedict XVI (or Benny 16 as he is known in some circles) popping up in the news media with some crass comment about the social ills - this from the catholic church (let's not go there at this moment).

I'm tired of reading blogs about how black people are 'angry' yet skim down the text and you read some lauding of 'what god has done for me'. Arrgghhh! Please, People, please! Let us get a grip. Let us empty our minds and start using some critical thinking skills. Let us focus on what evidence we have for anything we believe. It is not only important but crucial for the development of our species. It is not okay to teach our children to believe what we believe just for the sake of it. It is not okay to pick up a book and believe every word it says because it tells you to do so. Doing that is called two things: laziness and ignorance. Both things lead to extinction.

If you have a child and teach him/her to believe without thinking, you are not doing the best for your child. It is a bug-bear of mine but I think if you are drawing up some resolutions or plans to change your life this year then you could do worse than add 'critical thinking' on your list of must do's. But please don't take my word for it! Check things out for yourself.

Carl Sagan has a Baloney Detection Kit which you would do well to print off and read often - and maybe even share it with other people who you think might benefit from this kit. You could buy 'self-help' books but I have yet to read anything which puts it in a nutshell like Carl Sagan. Save your money and click on the above link.

I don't expect everyone to think like I do but it would be nice if we were having a discussion that we followed the critical thinking path. Some people could perceive this as boring and no fun but is it fun when we are promoting ignorance and passivity when charlatans are conning you out of your hard-earned money each week? Is it fun when people are refusing to use condoms because the church says so? Or refusing to vaccinate their children against preventable diseases such as polio because the church says so? Or discriminate against gay people because the believers have scriptures to back up their bigotry? Is it fun? Is it fun when black people are killed because they are considered Hamites and there to serve as 'it says so in the bible' and therefore are born to be slaves with no rights?

The saddest part about the whole fiction-as-fact history of belief is to consider how much farther humans being would have been if we had dismissed religion and theism as concepts many hundreds of years earlier.

Start today.