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A new page! "Abraham's Attempted Sacrifice of His Son Isaac: Genesis 22:1-18 and Qur'an 37:99-113" by Vexen Crabtree (2012) Genesis 22:1-18 and Qur'an 37:99-113 Abraham was tested by God and told to murder his own son. He obeyed, although God stopped him at the last moment, and gave him incredible rewards for his loyalty. Yet Abraham clearly failed any possible moral test: in going to murder his own son for God, he was displaying the worst signs of religion: insanity, murderous willingness to attempt spiritual gain at any cost, and an inability to question the true worth of his own beliefs. He followed criminal orders without asking why - a trend that in history has had terrible consequences yet is endorsed in the Bible. Not only that, he did not even question the highly likely probability that hearing voices is not a good thing. In Deut. 12:30-31 God specifically says that human sacrifice is an abomination for god, which "he hateth", and Jer. 19:4-6 says God does not command human sacrifice, so Abraham also failed to know God very well when he decided that murdering his son was the right thing to. The Bible is obviously full of contradictions: Abraham, revered and holy, is rewarded by God for mindlessly obeying an order to kill his son; an order which goes against the Bible itself. God, later on, goes on to sacrifice its own son. It was said to be a test, a trial, to see if Abraham was loyal. But to say that God needed to do a test contradicts the all-knowing nature of God. Therefore, this story is immoral, makes no sense, and contradicts scripture in multiple ways: It cannot be true or divinely inspired, and it does not deserve the attention of good people or believers in a good god. Tags: abraham, bible, christianity, islam, monotheism, murder, religion, violence
Current Location: Salisbury, UK
Listening To: "Massachusetts" by The Bee Gees
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Every year I like to report on one of the major Remembrance Parades held by the Armed Forces. This year, it is Blandford Garrison's turn. The 'Order of Service' was a printed leaflet detailing 8 pages of speech plus one page of notes on the Flanders Fields poem.
All eight pages of the ceremony was about Jesus Christ 'our Lord' and worshipping God. Only on the forty-sixth line of text does anything to do with Remembrance occur; comprising of only a few sentences. After that, comments on those we are remembering are slightly more frequent. The service included several Christians hymns most of which had no relevance to remembrance. For all intents and purposes, the remembrance speeches were, in entirety, a Christian sermon, catering only for Christians.
The soldiers had to attend - it was a "scale A" parade that cannot be missed. Present were atheists and many Ghurkhas, most of whom are Hindus and Buddhists. Yet over and over words were spoken such as "Let us confess to God" for sins, "Almighty God, who forgives all who truly repent ... through Jesus Christ our Lord", "in honesty and pride let prayers be said". So those who aren't Christians attended the service dishonestly? Most of those who attend can't "truly repent" in the name of Jesus, because the vast majority of soldiers aren't actually Christian and don't even believe in God. If they were listening to the Padre and if they understood theological words, the vast majority of those stood listening would be appalled at the way the sermon clearly excludes non-Christians.
The very first words of the Padre were: "We are here to worship Almighty God, whose purposes are good; whose power sustains the world that He has made; who loves us, through we have failed in His service; who gave Jesus Christ as the light and life of the world; who by His Holy Spirit leads and directs us in His way."
It is thoroughly unfair to force so many people to attend a Christian sermon so they can be preached at on a day when most of them want instead to remember the dead and departed - their colleagues and friends, known and unknown, who have died fighting for freedom. During every military Remembrance Parade I have attended I have spent most my time feeling ridiculed, excluded, annoyed, irritated and offended by the sectarianism coming from the front. Remembrance Day is not the time for preaching.</i>
"Let us remember before God ... all who have lived and died in the service of mankind" ... anyone who understands the values and standards of the British army - being based on equality and inclusion, and rejecting religious discrimination - knows that sentences like that should read "Let us remember ... all who have died in the service of mankind". Why is it necessary to exclude non-god-believers, with all the God talk? It is exclusionary and inappropriate to be preaching on a day of remembrance.
"We pray for an end to the destructive hatred of war [...] In the name of Jesus, Prince of Peace. Amen." The hypocrite who spoke those words may genuinely want an end to destructive war, but, I sincerely advise them to start with ending religious discrimination. That means, admitting that perhaps the majority of those remembering the dead should not be forced into a Christian sermon "in the name of Jesus", and perhaps the Padre should not be saying such things, when there are many present who hope (not 'pray') for an end to destructive war, in the name of compassion and remembrance, not in the name of 'Jesus Christ'. It is hypocritical to separate out non-Christians on a day like Remembrance Sunday, as many of our enemies are separatist religious extremists doing what they do in the name of God.
The official answer in defence of this Christian prejudice is that soldiers can for religious reasons exempt themselves from these parades. But the procedure is torturous and unknown to many, and more important, to do so is seen as strange and counter-cultural. To exclude oneself from a parade that everyone else has to attend goes against all training. Most do not dare.
There should be a compulsory parade of Remembrance Sunday in all military camps for the soldiers there. It should be a time of serious reflection, remembrance, solemnity and togetherness, no matter what the religion and beliefs of the soldiers. But there should also be a voluntary, separate, Church sermon for Christians who hold to Christian beliefs. The first parade, for all, should never be mixed with the purely Christian parade. At the moment, every Remembrance Sunday parade in the Army that I have attended has failed to live up to the Values and Standards of the British Army it is held for! Tags: atheism, christianity, military, religion, remembrance parade, remembrance sunday
Current Location: Salisbury, UK
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The Act of Settlement of 1701 (1) prevents Royals from marrying Roman Catholics, (2) gives male heirs preference of succession and (3) prevents Catholics from sitting on the throne. This emobodies two forms of discrimination; gender bias, and bias against one form of Christianity (Catholicism) for another (Protestantism). It has been an embarrassment for quite a while for the United Kingdom that this inequality exists at the very top of the institution. The government’s plans to scrap this discriminatory law were abandoned after opposition from the Church of England [1]. The Church of England has vested interested in boths forms of discrimination as embodied by the Act of Settlement of 1701, as (especially in history) it embraces a theological patriarchialism whereby males are set above females, and, has benefitted greatly from State support as a result of historical battles between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians. Hence why the Church of England has fought against this. The UK's second chamber of government is called the House of Lords. 26 Anglican Bishops and Archbishops exercise an anachronistic right to sit in this legislative body where they are known as the Lords Spiritual. These particular Bishops have in recent generations played a persistent, active, aggressive and decisive role in battling against anti-discrimination measures against gays in the present time, and against blacks, slaves and women, in older times. This is where much of the effective opposition to government plans to remove the bias against Catholics and women comes from.[3] So, the Queen herself accepted its effective abolishment at the Commonwealth level, above the government. "The leaders of the 16 Commonwealth countries where the Queen is head of state unanimously approved the changes at a summit in Perth, Australia.
On scrapping the ban on future monarchs marrying Roman Catholics, Mr Cameron said: "Let me be clear, the monarch must be in communion with the Church of England because he or she is the head of that Church. But it is simply wrong they should be denied the chance to marry a Catholic if they wish to do so. After all, they are already quite free to marry someone of any other faith."
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond welcomed the lifting of the ban but said it was "deeply disappointing" that Roman Catholics were still unable to ascend to the throne. [...]
The royal author Robert Hardman said there had been 11 attempts in recent years by individual MPs and peers to change the succession laws.
The laws are not a matter for the 54-nation Commonwealth as a whole, only for the 16 countries which have the Queen as their head of state, known as realms.
These are Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Papua New Guinea, St Christopher and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Tuvalu, Barbados, Grenada, Solomon Islands, St Lucia and the Bahamas.
BBC News (2011 Oct 28) It seems that even today, Christianity is embroiled in its usual inter-denominational power struggles, and battles still against equality; a problem I look at much more fully in Legislation and Faith: Section 7.1: Bishops in the House of Lords. [1] The Telegraph (2011 Apr 25) Alex Salmond calls for clarification on Act of Settlement. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/scottish-politics/8472401/Alex-Salmond-calls-for-clarification-on-Act-of-Settlement.html . [2] BBC News Girls equal in British throne succession (2011 Oct 28). [3] Barnett, Hilaire Constitutional & Administrative Law (2004). 5th edition. Originally published 1995 by Cavendish Publishing Ltd, London UK. Page 438. Tags: catholicism, discrimination, equality, gender equality, law, protestantism, religion, the queen, uk
Current Location: Blandford, Dorset, UK
Current Mood:  blank
Listening To: "Heaven is Oblivian" by Ultraviolence
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A new page! "The End of the World is Nigh! The Dangers of Apocalyptism and End-Times Beliefs" by Vexen Crabtree (2011) Including, of course, text on Harold Camping, the Mayan Calendar, suicide cults, the End-Times in the Christian Bible, and for balance, a real-life end of the world scenario from an object hitting the earth. "There have been thousands of end-of-the-world predictions. They have been the products of many great minds, many devoted believers in various religions and cults, with a lot of time and effort put in to each and every theory, building up supporting evidence from religious texts, historical trends and numerology. What do all these predictions have in common about the end of the world? They have all been wrong." Tags: religion
Current Location: Blandford, Dorset, UK
Current Mood:  pleased
Listening To: "Flieh Mit Mir" by Zeraphine
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