The Hazards of Belief

The Mad Hatter

Galvasean wrote: »

Really? Based on the still he looks like he has something up his bum! :eek:

edit: Did he just list Special K as a drug?



Well, I'll be damned..

Special K

Dades

I play soccer with an awful player who's name begins with "K".

We call him 'Special K'.

</ot>

vibe666

Dades wrote: »

I play soccer with an awful player who's name begins with "K".

We call him 'Special K'.

</ot>

i went to school with a lad everyone used to call "toowot" that after one of the teachers had called him it on his first day (he even had it written in tip-ex on his school bag at one stage).

as long as i knew him, he had no idea that he was actually being called "2 Watt" (because he wasn't very bright).

bless.

although to be fair, he must be a lot brighter now that those CFL bulbs are out.

Galvasean

I know a guy whose nickname is the Blade because he's so sharp and on the ball. Alas, it doesn't quite run in the family so they call his son the Blunt.

robindch

Years ago, I worked in a company where one of the managers was a guy named Alex, aka "Ice Cold". Ice appointed a friend of his to try to manage us lot, but since the friend only ever came out when all the hard work was done, the guy was christened "Blister" (and he never figured out why).

Another junior manager in the same company was a clueless guy named Mark. We called him "Question Mark".

Fun times :rolleyes:

magicbastarder

vatican radio causes cancer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10634977

Pompey Magnus

I suppose this story is more "Hazards of Disbelief when surrounded by fervent believers"

Muslim apostate found hanged after admitting he was an atheist

A YOUNG Muslim, who had been investigated by his employers at Malé International Airport in the Maldives for apostasy, was found hanged from the airport’s control tower yesterday.

The death of Ismail Mohamed Didi, a 25 year-old air traffic controller, prompted deep concern on the Islamic website Raajjeislam which reported that Ismail “was a person inclined to atheism” and had: "Declared his atheism to his friends"

Link

Pompey Magnus

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Delusion and cognitive dissonance are eventually going to kill this guy. Just look at his face and eyes when he starts talking about his wife (near the end).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWaN0xnzYDw

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

cavedave

Not only are women priests as bad as child molesters the Vatican have been beaming cancer into children.There is a "coherent and significant connection" between radiation from Vatican Radio aerials and childhood cancer

MrPudding

robindch wrote: »

Years ago, I worked in a company where one of the managers was a guy named Alex, aka "Ice Cold". Ice appointed a friend of his to try to manage us lot, but since the friend only ever came out when all the hard work was done, the guy was christened "Blister" (and he never figured out why).

Another junior manager in the same company was a clueless guy named Mark. We called him "Question Mark".

Fun times :rolleyes:

We have a guy at work and his secret nickname is slinky, he would only be useful if pushed down the stairs.

MrP

sensibleken

Boy dies during exorcism

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2010/07/14/14708651.html

Galvasean

Man stabs mother to death believing she was the devil:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/man-stabbed-mum-to-death-believing-she-was-the-devil-2264843.html

Man rapes and murders 4 year old - blames devil:
http://tribune.com.pk/story/28995/neighbourhood-%E2%80%98uncle%E2%80%99-held-for-raping-4-year-old/
(never mind that he shares a name with the tiger from the Jungle Book)

Galvasean

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

I suppose this story is more "Hazards of Disbelief when surrounded by fervent believers"




Link

cavedave wrote: »

Not only are women priests as bad as child molesters the Vatican have been beaming cancer into children.There is a "coherent and significant connection" between radiation from Vatican Radio aerials and childhood cancer

sensibleken wrote: »

Boy dies during exorcism

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2010/07/14/14708651.html

Galvasean wrote: »

Man stabs mother to death believing she was the devil:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/man-stabbed-mum-to-death-believing-she-was-the-devil-2264843.html

Man rapes and murders 4 year old - blames devil:
http://tribune.com.pk/story/28995/neighbourhood-%E2%80%98uncle%E2%80%99-held-for-raping-4-year-old/

Kind of flies in the face of the IONA Institute's 'Religion Is Good For You' poster campaign...

goingpostal

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Delusion and cognitive dissonance are eventually going to kill this guy. Just look at his face and eyes when he starts talking about his wife (near the end).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWaN0xnzYDw

He almost, almost had me convinced that he had joined Ted Haggard in the ranks of the completely heterosexual. But then I saw the scarf. And the collar of the shirt. And the sculpted hair. And the animal desire in his eyes for some serious man-lovin'. Jesus hates figs. FIGS, you Christian morons. (Matthew 21:18-22) I pity the poor wife. I hope her Rampant Rabbit is well charged.

rainbow kirby

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0725/croaghpatrick.html

10 year old child being treated for spinal injuries after falling on Croagh Patrick. On a day where the weather is crap, it's just pure cruelty taking a child up there in the name of religion.

Coriolanus

rainbow kirby wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0725/croaghpatrick.html

10 year old child being treated for spinal injuries after falling on Croagh Patrick. On a day where the weather is crap, it's just pure cruelty taking a child up there in the name of religion.

FFS.

mehfesto

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/rape-victim-receives-101-lashes-for-becoming-pregnant-2031669.html

16 year old flogged and her father fined, for her becoming pregnant having been raped, in Bangladesh.

Wacker

Faith healing in Oregon: A picture worth a thousand words

The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office obtained photographs of 8-month-old Alayna May Wyland that show the fast-growing mass of blood vessels that may cause blindness in her left eye. Her parents, Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, were ordered to hand Alayna over to state officials, and could also face criminal charges.

We've talked long enough about faith healing in Oregon. We've shared countless earnest conversations about religious liberty and parental rights.

The time for words is over. Now it's time for pictures.

Another couple from the Followers of Christ church in Oregon City stand accused of criminal mistreatment for deliberately withholding medical care from their child. Timothy and Rebecca Wyland of Beavercreek believe in treating sickness with prayer rather than medicine, even when prayer doesn't work.

Their infant daughter, Alayna, has a serious eye problem, which they chose not to treat. Someone notified authorities and the state intervened, and now the Wylands are trying to regain custody of their daughter.

Those are the words, wholly inadequate.

Only the pictures do the story justice.

Photographs obtained from the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office show Alayna as a sweetly chubby baby with a grotesque protrusion on her face, distorting her eye. The mass is angry and purplish red and painful-looking with the radius of a tennis ball. In the grocery store, it would be visible from five aisles away.

A reasonable person wouldn't keep this child from a doctor.

A reasonable person would break down doors to find a doctor.

Medical experts describe the eye problem as a hemangioma, a fast-growing mass of blood vessels. Normally the condition could be diagnosed and easily treated at the first signs of swelling or discoloration. Left untreated, the mass pushed Alayna's eye down and out, placing profound pressure on her eyeball and eye socket, as The Oregonian's Steve Mayes reported.

It's not clear whether Alayna will go blind in that eye or somehow recover. The only certain thing is that the Wylands deliberately withheld medical care, and admitted in court to doing so, from a baby whose injury was painfully obvious.

This is a not a sad instance of an unanswered prayer. This is a textbook case of medical mistreatment and neglect, with photographs to answer the questions that words cannot.

Over the past three decades, more than 20 Oregon children whose parents belong to the Followers of Christ church have died of treatable illnesses, according to the state medical examiner's office. Yet Oregon grants special leniency to faith-healing parents, singling them out favorably in state policy and protecting them from being charged with certain crimes.

In a 1999 compromise, the Oregon Legislature stripped away some of those legal protections but gave judges the authority to give lighter sentences to faith-healing parents. In recent years, Clackamas County authorities have successfully prosecuted two couples for the preventable deaths of their children. Things are moving in the right direction.

Still, Oregon remains a national outlier for its level of deference toward faith-based crime.

Oregon should get rid of its remaining double standards. Juries have proved themselves to be fully capable of taking faith into account as they weigh criminal intent, much as they consider addiction and other factors in other sad cases involving children.

Meanwhile, maybe we should spend more time studying the photographs of these kids. The smiling ones, now gone. The injured ones, now recovering.

These children might not fully appreciate Oregon's treatment of faith healing as an abstract intellectual issue, one requiring lots of discussion plus the perfect blend of libertarian distance and liberal tolerance.

Given a choice, they might prefer more action, fewer words.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/susan_nielsen/index.ssf/2010/07/faith_healing_in_oregon_a_pict.html

Rev Hellfire

A rather unpleasant side of religion and the state.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/21/arab-guilty-rape-consensual-sex-jew

Galvasean

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

A rather unpleasant side of religion and the state.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/21/arab-guilty-rape-consensual-sex-jew

That popped up in another thread here. Scary stuff indeed. Something tells me if a Jew 'tricked' a Palestinian into consentual sex in such a way there wouldn't have been a problem.

amacachi

Wacker wrote: »

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/susan_nielsen/index.ssf/2010/07/faith_healing_in_oregon_a_pict.html

I wish I were in favour of the death penalty when I see **** like that.

bnt

Headline says it all: Baby drowns after baptism.

We couldn't believe it but we thought the priest must know what he's doing, but he didn't. When we got him back there was nothing that could be done anymore,

No doubt the priest thinks that, because he finished the baptism, the baby's now safely in "heaven". :mad:

Galvasean

Woah! Forget that whole 'Better baptise the baby just in case' lark!

Dades

bnt wrote: »

Headline says it all: Baby drowns after baptism.

I could barely finish reading that story it galled me so much. :mad:

MrSir

rainbow kirby wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0725/croaghpatrick.html

10 year old child being treated for spinal injuries after falling on Croagh Patrick. On a day where the weather is crap, it's just pure cruelty taking a child up there in the name of religion.

God I must be a horrible person because I laughed so much when I read that.

Canis Lupus

Galvasean wrote: »

That popped up in another thread here. Scary stuff indeed. Something tells me if a Jew 'tricked' a Palestinian into consentual sex in such a way there wouldn't have been a problem.

Sure men have been obtaining sex by deception since time began.

legspin

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Sure men have been obtaining sex by deception since time began.

Indeed for a goodly chunk of us it was the only way of a getting a shag.... I fear I may have said too much

Galvasean

Vatican Bans Shorts :eek:
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=%7B8A5CC9FC-1640-4ED6-B95D-0F7D80AA09C3%7D

robindch

Galvasean wrote: »

Vatican Bans Shorts

Burka-ban my bum -- this rule applies to everybody! Help, our freedoms are under attack!

Galvasean

robindch wrote: »

Burka-ban my bum -- this rule applies to everybody! Help, our freedoms are under attack!

"Yeah but if you don't like it then you shouldn't have come to this country in the first place!", said some bigot the Vatican.

Delirium

that actually looks like a 'ratio of 2 women to 1 man to be maintained' sign

magicbastarder

Galvasean wrote: »

Vatican Bans Shorts :eek:

well, they're allowing women in pantaloons. progress is being made.

robindch

koth wrote: »

that actually looks like a 'ratio of 2 women to 1 man to be maintained' sign

And how come the guy is dressed up in what seems to be a pink wetsuit, while the two ladies are a fine shade of protestant orange? Mind you, if the two figures in the top panel are both kids, then fair dues to them for warning priests away, though it's a bit late in the game for that.

Perhaps they should redesign. I'm not sure it's sending out the right signals at all actually!

Delirium

robindch wrote: »

And how come the guy is dressed up in what seems to be a pink wetsuit, while the two ladies are a fine shade of protestant orange? Mind you, if the two figures in the top panel are both kids, then fair dues to them for warning priests away, though it's a bit late in the game for that.

Perhaps they should redesign. I'm not sure it's sending out the right signals at all actually!

and it could mean no austrian boys allowed based on the top right image.

Galvasean

koth wrote: »

and it could mean no austrian boys allowed based on the top right image.

More proof that the Pope is a nazi! :pac:

Dades

robindch wrote: »

Burka-ban my bum -- this rule applies to everybody! Help, our freedoms are under attack!

To me that looks like a ban on wearing a wife-beater. :pac:

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

To me that looks like a ban on wearing a wife-beater. :pac:

Based on the recent hub-bub about the Pope's attitude toward women, I would have thought a wife-beater would be a necessity! :pac:

smokingman

Woman in France kills her 8 newborn babies because she didn't want to use contraception (against her religion).

magicbastarder

i've read she was shy of going to the doctor for contraception because she was shy because of her weight, rather than religion playing a significant part?

Wacker

Another case of people praying for a healing rather than trusting the doctors:

A family from Texas is racing to stop a woman from having her toes amputated, because they want to let the prayer have more time to work.

They started praying 5 heart attacks ago.

The lack of circulation has left her toes black and doctors fear that if they don't act soon, her condition may worsen.

Still after all the needless suffering that her family and their beliefs have caused her, they are convinced that their prayer is the only reason that she is still around.

"It's everything," said Dwight Wright. "It's the reason my wife's still here, I believe."

It is also the reason that she had 5 more heart attacks and the reason why she may die.

She may not have had things progress this far had they simply opted to pray AND let the doctors do their work.

They have even gone so far as to go against her wishes as she had consented to the procedure at one point. Her husband feels that it was the trauma and the medication that led to her consent to life saving surgery.

"I want her here; but I want her to have every opportunity she can have to keep the rest of her foot, because that's all she's got," Dwight Wright said.

If dogma didn't blocked their rationality they would realize that she also has her LIFE, and she could have her family if they weren't fighting so hard to take away every chance she has.

The sad fact is that dogma has replaced common sense here, and a husband may lose his beloved wife as a result.

Even sadder is it will be his fault if she dies.

He would never know it. If she dies, he most likely will think his was the right course of action and that she died because their God wanted her "home".

Not because of the families gross neglect and irrational behavior.

Sad.

Even if there is a god (against all rationality) do people really think that he gave us brains for us to develop fantastic medical technology and then wish for us to deny ourselves the fruits of our intellect?

I understand the need for hope and for the illusion of a higher power for some people in times like this, but there is a saying about prayer in secular circles;

"Prayer is the only way to do nothing and still think that you are helping"

There is another one even among the religious;

"Pray to be safe, but still put on your seat-belt"

http://atheistevolution.blogspot.com/2010/05/beyond-belief-news.html

One thing I'll say in defence of the husband: he has an awesome name!

ColmDawson

More like Dwight Rong.

robindch

Senior Philippino RC cleric says:

Pedro Quitorio wrote:

Children are fragile creatures. The [education] department should be very, very careful not to teach children about matters they will imitate the following day

He was talking about sex education, and the church's wish to keep children in the dark. More here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10552591

cavedave

Some people being guided in life by God seem to put too much faith in their GPS

Isolated village mistaken for Lourdes thanks to pilgrims' GPS blunders

Stercus Accidit

cavedave wrote: »

Some people being guided in life by God seem to put too much faith in their GPS

Isolated village mistaken for Lourdes thanks to pilgrims' GPS blunders

article wrote:

Putting your faith in GPS, it appears, is not as reliable as putting your faith in the Lord.

GPS has a higher success rate though, silly journalist.

Dades

cavedave wrote: »

Some people being guided in life by God seem to put too much faith in their GPS

Just ask Moses after his 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

sonicthebadger*

robindch wrote: »

Senior Philippino RC cleric says:He was talking about sex education, and the church's wish to keep children in the dark. More here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10552591

Knowledge is power. If you know what it's called and what it's for you can tell your parents where you were touched. You can make your own decisions about what you feel is the right thing to do with your body. They don't want that.

mehfesto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrFBX03Bnno

Saw this linked to, as a matter of importance on the other side earlier. It's just amazing. Goes through what Jesus saw on the cross, or something. The message isn't really that clear. It starts off fairly tame (and understandable) with 'woulds of greed, sexual impurity' etc., etc. ...Then it attacks Stem cell research and poverty.

...Then it has a go at Child Abuse and AIDS. Seriously.
With no mention of any religious bodies fault. Other than saying this is what Christ suffered for.

Which means that either :
A. He knew this would happen in the future and suffered for it, but didn't tell his Da. Y'know, yer man who runs the universe, and try stop it from happening. So he suffered for nothing.

Or B. He was a failure. He suffered for these things that were occurring then, but it didn't work and these things kept on going on... gay sex, child abuse, stem-cell research...

That all said, it's high production qualities *nearly* won me over.
If only it wasn't all bull****.

Dades

^^ Strangely that was "Sony Music Entertainment" and has been removed.

Can't find it anywhere else other than YouTube.

Galvasean

The embedded video seems to be working again.

edit: so wait, atheists are the Illuminati now? Can someone clarify this? I have yet to see Angels & Demons.

sonicthebadger*

Galvasean wrote: »

The embedded video seems to be working again.

edit: so wait, atheists are the Illuminati now? Can someone clarify this? I have yet to see Angels & Demons.

Seriously? Awesome! I always wondered what it was like to be a light. Doesn't feel much different from being a human really.