This month in the worlds clear bastion of love and equality known as Saudi Arabia a woman is to be whipped for the heinous crime of driving while being under the influence of…. being female. This in a country that does not yet allow women to vote but has finally announced a willingness to allow this. Maybe. But not until 2015.
Still with the vote coming and many women taking to cars despite the ban it is clear that theocracy is no longer enough to control our planets women like pets.
Guest post by Atheist Ireland member GT.
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In a recent letter to the Irish Independent a correspondent noted that the Irish state’s new law term on the 3rd of October will commence with a roman catholic mass attended by representatives of the legal profession, judiciary, An Garda Siochana and the Defence Forces.
Why the Irish state should pay judges, policemen and soldiers to attend catholic mass in this day and age is beyond me. But I was not surprised when I recalled the religious worship forced onto me and colleagues in a previous occupation…that being a member of the Defence Forces.
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Back to form after last month’s horrific pedophile story being a clear winner, there is a two way tie again this month in the voting for the August prize, which should add to the horror of trying to pick an overall 2011 winner in January.
The LA Times this month carried a story on Catholics who still have an issue with Galileo for trying to take away the teachings they still hold on to from 4 centuries ago about the earth’s position in the universe.
Matching it at the number one position this month however is Christian Midwife Hannah Adewole who thinks she should be exempt from wearing the same uniform as all the other people she works with because of her faith. Deuteronomy in her mind bans her from wearing trousers or any clothes “meant” for the opposite sex.
Clearly god with his infinite powers, intellect, knowledge and goodness finds cause to worry about who wears the pants down here on earth. Sure what else would god have to worry about? Probably not the muslim girls being raped merely because they are “capable” of having sex. No. Trousers are much more important than that.
Unusually there was one clear winner this month but the surprise fades away when one realizes why as it is yet another example of Religion being involved in the sexual abuse, and justification and/or cover up of the sexual abuse, of Children.
Despite some votes going to Austria for acknowledging the religious rights of it’s citizens to follow their Flying Spaghetti Monster religion by wearing a colander on their head in their Driving license photos…. and to Poland for hosting a meeting of Exorcists against Vampires…. top spot was taken this month by a new Saudi Fatwa that defends Pedophilia as “Marriage”.
Dr. Salih bin Fawzan the issuer of this particular fatwa is keeping his options wide open by declaring that even girls „in the cradle“ are old enough to be married off.
One can only hope that the rest of the world continues to be able to tell the difference between the words Pedophilia and Marriage. And between the words consummate and rape. And will realize that people like Mohammad did not “consummate” a marriage with a 9 year old. He raped her.
The sick pedophiles concerned simply declare that sex is not permitted until the child is “capable”. One wonders whether they have any concern for the child’s capability to refuse.
In the true style of it being impossible for Atheists to agree on just about everything, Junes believer award was a three way split between the comical, the serious and the tragic showing that the vagaries of religion can leave us open mouth at just how badly the religious can mess the world up in just about every way.
The tragic has my thoughts going out to the family and friends of 58 year old taxi driver who was so infected with his own true belief that he nailed himself to a cross in an act of self-crucifixion. All too often those who spout religious beliefs are lending credence to those amongst us who have genuine medical issues and start to hear voices or have delusions of religious grandeur. Rather than seeking medical assistance they attach false significance to their symptoms and here we have yet another victim of that mindset. The blood of this man’s death is on the hands of all those that spread the lies of religion that allow such people to interpret their symptoms in the light of such lies and follow through with them.
The serious comes from Trevor Phillips the chair of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights commission who… with all the concern of a man interested in Equality and Human Rights… claims that churches should be free to discriminate against anyone they like from women to homosexuals. I will leave others to pick over that one and it’s implications on the role he holds.
Finally the comical or as comical as something can be when it is also actually a tragedy but sometimes one can only laugh in the face of the tragedies religion brings to our world… I speak of laughing from despair not mirth…. A pastor in South Africa was murdered by people who accused him of possessing…. A Magic Penis. Not before his wife metamorphosised into an animal to terrorize the community. Her animal of choice being a snail. Terrifying creature indeed, but clearly not as terrifying as what religion and superstition does to the human mind. They should be more terrified of what their ignorance and religions have turned them into.
Another month of two winners. Can Atheists not agree on anything. Herding cats indeed 
The first of the winners is Kirk Cameron… the guy who on a hot day once started talking to himself in cars and decided that rather than this meaning he required serious medical input into the state of his mind…. decided instead that this new development meant there must be a god. As he tells it he started talking to himself in a car one day and “I opened my eyes and realised something had changed in me”. Damn right Kirk. You had just become the kind of guy who sits in hot cars alone on the side of the road talking to himself. Something HAD changed very fundamentally, and it needs to be diagnosed.
How did he come to the attention of this months award however? Well it seems that he has decided to take the sum total of all his scientific notions and to apply them to the works of Stephen Hawking, which he sums up by saying that Hawkings idea only get a free pass because he is in a wheelchair and this makes other scientists too embarrassed to critique him and it would be like bullying a blind man to do so.
Joining him in first place with the lunacy stakes is recent Stroke victim Harold Camping who… possibly fueled by whatever medical condition affected his brain in such a way as to have him hospitalised, decided that the Judgement day would fall in this month, followed by the end of the world sometime in October. The money he has made from this canard in the form of donations or devotional offerings is likely currently funding his medical bills…. showing that on one level at least he had his timing JUST right.
Theist obsession with sex figures yet again in this months winners list as we have two winners in joint first place around the topic of sex and sexuality.
The first of the winners is the lugubrious Bill O’Donoghue who sees fit to tell us that many Child Abuse victims were actually willing participants, making us wonder if we need to start a “no means no” campaign to teach him exactly what is required for someone to be “willing” in sex.
Joining him on first place however is another complete failure at understanding what it means to be a victim in the first place as a catholic bishop tells us that the real fictims in the gay rights discourse are those that are opposed to Gay Rights. Poor dears.
Child Abuse figured heavily in this month’s polling results for the award.
As usual when it appears the Vatican figured high in the polls. This month’s claim from their Top Exorcist is that the increase in child sex abuse and rape claims is the fault of Satan waging war on the Holy See. The rest of us who are not exorcists think the increase in claims is because raping children is illegal and it is a good thing to report crimes.
The excuse for child molestation being related to Satan was beaten in the polls this month however by this month’s winner. The winner Brent Girouex claimed that having sex with teenage boys was his duty as a Pastor to clear their minds of evil thoughts, which he claimed could be achieved through ejaculation. Why he too was required to orgasm during these sessions, instead of his impure patients, therefore is as yet unexplained.
Conveniently for him it appears such thoughts quickly come back, and repeated…. therapy…. was required…. with numbers like 50 to 100 being mentioned. His victims must have the cleanest souls in America.
One thing is clear from both of these stories however. When people get caught using religion to get laid, they will avoid admitting their perversions and guilt in every way possible, from blaming the invisible actions of Satan, to claiming they were just cleaning their victims souls in the eyes of their personal god.
South Dakota has put itself on the map of Truly True winners for Feburary by giving us a tale that sounds like it should be taller than their very own Mount Rushmore.
A bill under construction in the stranger of the States is moving to make preventing harm to a fetus a “justifiable homicide” in many cases.
This move could make it legal to kill doctors performing abortions, though I am unclear myself if they have to be in the process of performing one at the time.
The bill is no coincidence either, as “Justifiable Homicide” has been the defense used by many attempting, or even succeeding, in murdering doctors who provide the service. The religiously motivated really do know how to equivocate over the difference between “Thous shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not murder”.
The really, truly True Believer™ of the Month Award October 2011
Divine healing is the target for the ire of this months Award where on the advice of Evangelist Pastors three HIV sufferers have died following a cessation of medication. The women were advised to stop taking their drugs in favor of the healing of god.
In a world where one could be locked up if one leads a person to their death through trickery or lies… it is abhorrent that one can cause the death of another… let alone three others… in such a way without facing criminal charges.
But that is the world of religion where it is one set of laws for the religious and another set for the rest. Name calling can get you arrested in the heat of argument but standing premeditated on a church pulpit and calling all homosexuals “sinful” and “abominations” is ok.
Litter by dumping wood on the side of a road can get you arrested but hammer a wooden cross into the side of the road in a random place and that is all ok.
Tricking someone into death can get you arrested but causing the death of people by tricking them out of medication in favor of godly healing is a-ok. Yet the world has seen enough of the result of god’s healing.
If we are to have laws, should we not prosecute them equally?