Archive for category Religious Extremism

Mourning the dead. Enduring the living.

Posted by Lab Kat in 9/11, Current Events, Racism, Religion, Religious Extremism on November 6, 2009

JS stopped on his way out the door this morning and admonished:

“Don’t read the blogs. You’ll just make yourself angry and frustrated. You don’t need to get really upset right now.”

The boy knows me pretty well.

He was, of course, talking about all the spew going on regarding the shooting at Fort Hood yesterday. The event brought back ugly memories of being a young, new reporter sent to cover what was then the largest mass murder in U.S. history:  the Luby’s shooting in Killeen in 1991. It took me years to come to grips with what had happened that day. I knew no one inside that restaurant, but watching people being told someone they loved had died, looking into the blank eyes of those who survived… it was slow-moving nightmare. The major networks came and went, but for those of us who lived there, it hit you on a personal level. They were our neighbors. Pulling baseless accusations and guesses out of our asses to fill space and airtime was akin to firing bullets at those people all over again.

And, here we are again. My heart goes out to all those poor souls involved. The horror, the pain, the mind-numbing confusion of it all. It saddens me because I’ve seen that kind of horror up close. It fills your nose for days. Your mind can’t find the right file to put the images. Your heart feels torn in two.

So, Jim was right. I can’t read the insanity today. It was bad enough that someone I’ve know since college (a conservative christian) wrote “Anyone who does not believe Islam is a religion of violence is either naive or a fool” on his Facebook page yesterday. While I have not commented on his equally stupid posts before, the anger at the utter contempt and hatred of that statement forced me to respond. And, to my surprise, many others did as well, a great many christians who were admonishing him on his unchristian-like behavior.

The filth that bubbles up like sewage from the gutters is reeking today. The self-proclaimed “good” christians denouncing all Muslims (or anyone with a last name other than Smith), screaming “terrorism” and somehow linking this horrific crime to our President… it all makes me choke. I feel for Muslims or anyone from the Middle East who lives, peacefully, in our country right now. Somehow, in the minds of all the raving pundits and blogging idiots, all of these people are evil and responsible for what happened yesterday.

The blood spilled on 9-11, in the name of Allah, is no more horrific than the blood spilled at the Salem witch trials in the name of God. Or the Inquisition. Or the Crusades. Or that of a doctor shot to death entering his church. No religion is free of its extremists and violence. No religion is exempt.

But, in the face of such carnage, we want immediate answers and someone or something to punish. We want someone to suffer. We, as a nation, somehow think the answer to violence is always more violence. Eye for an eye. Arm for an arm. Death for death.

It makes me tired. And sad.

So, I’m trying very hard not to read blogs and much of the news today. There will be nothing new. The investigation has barely started. No one knows why yet. So, the vacuum will be filled with endless speculation, no matter how hatefully, incendiary or wrong.

I wish peace to those involved… the families of both the victims and the suspect, the law enforcement and emergency personnel and those who live and work at Fort Hood.

And, I wish peace for those of us who just hurt today. Because while, in times such as this, humanity can be at its best, it is also at its absolute worst.

*bimbles off*

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“Indoctrinating” our students

Posted by Lab Kat in Conservatives, Government, Liberals, Politics, Religious Extremism, Republicans, Texas, Wingnuts on September 3, 2009

So.

Okay.

Let me try to understand this.

Amend that. We are talking about Texas conservatives here, so “understanding” may be stretching it. I’m still trying to understand why my best friend of 17 years – also a devote Republican and conservative – decided to axe our friendship because I dared argue with her about atheism. Sometimes you gotta file it under “No place to file.”

*deeeeeeeep breath*

So. Forcing children to learn about the bible – a christian ideological text – in secular, tax-funded classrooms in not indoctrination.  Having a state board consider removing all “liberal” historical figures from textbooks and replacing them with right-wing individuals (Newt Gingrich) and organizations (The Moral Majority) would not be indoctrination. Having former President George W. Bush – a Republican – speak to students across the nation about the importance of education and urging children to write him is not indoctrination.

BUT, our current president, Barack Obama, speaking to classrooms across the nation about the importance of taking responsibility for themselves and succeeding in their education IS indoctrination? Apparently, the first steps toward brainwashing our children with such concepts as working hard and respecting people in authority. Only a few steps from another Hitler Youth and the total socialist takeover of our country by a man who is half black.

There are real, live school districts in Texas that are banning his speech from classrooms (Witchita Falls and Lewisville) and some were “debating” today over whether or not to carry the president’s speech (Hurst-Euless-Bedford). And parents – whom I suspect are proud teabaggers – are actually keeping their children home from school. All because the President Obama is going to speak to students. About the importance of education. Being responsible. And, all that other liberal propaganda.

I’m sorry, but where do I get off this crazy train?

I’ve gone from amused to angry to frightened to righteously pissed. The hypocritical bullshit that spews from Texas conservatives’ mouths in the name of “protecting” the children, the country and the good ol’ white American way of life has finally stepped on my last nerve. Remember when Bush, with the assistance of a Republican judge in Florida, stole the presidential election and we liberal folk were told to just suck it up, fer god’s sake, and be adults. We were supposed to respect the president, his Orwellian vice president and all their decisions?

Remember?

Well, right back at ya, motherfuckers. I’m sick and tired of right-wingers being allowed to act like a bunch of unruly, petulant 2-year-olds and no one is calling them on it. They have screamed and mocked and viciously attacked people at town hall meetings regarding health care. They want to indoctrinate students into christianity in taxpayer-funded school districts, yet howl when atheists insist on the separation of church and state. They want to control a woman’s medical decisions through the government, yet rant about their grandmothers being left to die if the government offers a public option in health insurance.They have unrepentantly brought guns within shouting distance of the president. They have called for his death from their pulpits and called his children whores. They have said they are the “real” Americans and they want their country back.

No. You can’t have it back. Real Americans voted in the majority last November and elected our current president.

Or, to put in terms you wingnuts will understand… “Our country. Love it or leave it.”

*bimbles off*

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Religious extremism and the catholic church

Posted by Lab Kat in Religion, Religious Extremism on July 20, 2009

The hypocrisy of “ordinary” christians who seek to distance themselves from atrocities committed in their god’s name never ceases to amaze me. Mothers who drown their babies because “god told them to” or men who shoot doctors on the steps of their churches are decried as fringe elements, not representative of christianity as a whole. Funny, the same people will hold up 9-11 as an excuse to hate all muslims, but hey, let’s not get bogged down in details.

Well, here’s one you ordinary christians, you denouncers of “extreme religious behavior” can’t duck.

You may recall earlier this year, a nine-year-old Brazilian girl – raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins – underwent an abortion to save her life. The Brazilian Roman Catholic Church first tried to get the government to intervene and stop the procedure (abortion is illegal in Brazil, but judges can make exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger or the fetus has no chance of survival). When the government refused, the church responded by excommunicating everyone involved in the procedure and the girl’s mother. Apparently, raping a nine-year-old is not a grave enough crime to merit the same “punishment” as the stepfather was exempt from the church’s wrath. According to Archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife, “A graver act than (rape) is abortion to eliminate an innocent life.”

The ruling outraged the Brazilian community and the world. The Brazilian church was trying to force a child who had suffered the trauma of rape to carry twins to term – at risk to her own life. But, hey, those wacky Brazilians. They aren’t “real” christians. Surely, the Vatican would step in and stop this atrocity being committed against those who would seek to help a child in the direst of circumstances.

Apparently, not just no, but a heavenly “Hell, no.”  In an official pronouncement on the case, the pope has stated the girl’s mother and the doctor and medical team who performed the procedure will remain excommunicated.

“We have laws, we have a discipline, we have a doctrine of the faith,” the official says. “This is not just theory. And you can’t start backpedaling just because the real-life situation carries a certain human weight.

And, there you have it. From the Vatican itself.  A rapist remains in the church while her mother and those who helped save her life are punished. By the way, the girl was spared excommunication due to her age. Funny, that. Old enough to be a mommy, but not old enough to understand the inner workings of the catholic church.

So, the next time you catholics want to argue “fringe elements” and “acting on their own” and “true” christians don’t act that way, save your breath. Your church is not interested in caring for people, in helping those who need it, in “doing unto others” and all that warm fuzzy stuff. It’s an institution concerned with one thing – retaining power and control over the indoctrinated.

Because when “principle” trumps the well-being of a child who has been abused, raped and impregnated, I’d say that’s extreme religious behavior.

*bimbles off*

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