The 'Funny (ha, ha)' side of religion

Delirium

https://twitter.com/esarty/status/877899852977516544

silverharp

Peregrinus

Now I have to see Total Recall.

thesandeman

Peregrinus wrote: »

Now I have to see Total Recall.

I've seen it before but I can't remember any of it.

magicbastarder

can someone check on mary kenny? i am concerned for her.

https://twitter.com/aifreckle/status/880797249579700224

marienbad

magicbastarder wrote: »

can someone check on mary kenny? i am concerned for her.

Whatever she's on I want some .

Worztron

CabanSail

So that's the opening of my dystopian novel, or drama, which I'll call At The Sign of the Fish

Does it come with lemon or is it just served with nuts?

M5

CabanSail

^^^^ That has to be a wind up!

I would have thought the proof was that the years were reducing up until his birth and then they started to increase. Explain that!

robindch

Bacon and God's Wrath - a film short about an 89-year old jewish lady who abandons god and takes up with bacon.

A short review is here.

And the video is here - though individuals may need to check their browser privilege level (by using Internet Explorer or Safari instead of Chrome):

http://player.cnevids.com/embed/575efc08ba4aa14e3c00001b/53ada37269702d58e0180000

robindch

New law makes it legal for atheist doctors and nurses to refuse care to religious patients

http://thesciencepost.com/new-law-makes-it-legal-for-atheist-doctors-and-nurses-to-refuse-care-to-religious-patients/

TheSciencePost wrote:

JACKSON, MS – A new law in Mississippi has made it legal for doctors and nurses to refuse care to certain patients on religious grounds .

The law allows medical staff to refuse treatment to members of the LGBQT community on the grounds that it violates their religious beliefs. It would serve to reason this would also pertain to atheist doctors and nurses who could refuse to treat patients who are religious.

“No, no, no. This isn’t the point of the law at all,” said an angry senator Frank Danforth (R). “The law is supposed to protect doctors and nurses who follow the teachings of God and our Lord Jesus Christ from having to treat patients who practice an unholy lifestyle.”

Many doctors and nurses in Mississippi are against the law, but have expressed that will also follow it to the letter and refuse treatment to patients who they feel are bigoted against certain lifestyle choices.

“Of course not all religious people are against LGBQT’s, just like not all atheists are against religion,” said Dr. Susan Jewer, atheist. “But if medical professionals are allowed to refuse care on religious grounds, I am more than happy to oblige.”

To date, there have been no reports of atheist doctors or nurses taking advantage of the new law.

Hotblack Desiato

You sure that's satire?

Peregrinus

The article is indeed a spoof but, as Hotblack hints, it’s not completely divorced from reality.

A bit over a year ago, Mississippi enacted the "Religious Liberty Accommodations Act". It’s not mainly about medical treatment; it contains a slew of provisions all of which prevent the state government from “taking discriminatory action” against various organisations or bodies for acting in specified ways in accordance with “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction”.

The “sincerely held religious belief or moral convictions” protected by the Act are only those listed in the Act itself. They are the belief/conviction that:

- marriage is or should be the union of one man and one woman

- sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage

- “male” and “female” refer to immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.

So, for instance, the state government may not take discriminatory action against a religious organisation on the grounds that it declines to solemnise same-sex marriages (s. 3(1)(a)); the state government may not take discriminatory action against a prospective foster-parent or adoptive parent on the basis that the person will guide, instruct or raise a child in accordance with the specified sincerely held religious beliefs/moral convictions (s. 3(3)), etc.

Tucked in there is s. 3(4); the state government may not take discriminatory action against a person who declines to provide sex assignment counselling, surgery etc, or who declines to provide psychological, counselling, or fertility services based on sincerely held religious beliefs/moral convictions. So you could, for instance, refuse to provide sex counselling to same-sex couples, or indeed to unmarried couples, and the state couldn’t penalise you for that.

But s. 3(4) does not protect doctors/hospitals who invoke their beliefs/convictions deny anyone visitation rights, next-of-kin status, etc, or who deny necessary emergency medical treatment.

I think you could argue that it does mean that the state can’t penalise a medical professional who, e.g. denies non-emergency family planning advice/treatment to an unmarried person. I’ve not heard any suggestion that anyone is doing that, and if they were the Act only prevents “discriminatory action” by the state government. Presumably their professional ethical obligations and their general legal duty to act in a patient’s best (medical) interests would still apply.

To my lasting regret, the Act can’t be turned around in the way suggested by the spoof article. In the first place, only the particular beliefs/convictions specified in the Act itself are covered; a belief in a norm of equality or non-discrimination is not protected. In the second place, the Act doesn’t protect you if you deny treatment/services/whatever to someone because you disapprove of him or his lifestyle or whatever; it only protects you if you deny treatments, etc, that are directly involved in infringing the specified beliefs/convictions. So a doctor can deny someone gender reassignment treatment, but he couldn’t deny the same person medical treatment unconnected to gender reassignment.

The Act was challenged in the courts - no surprise there - and the Mississippi Attorney General, who is not a fan of the Act, announced that he was not going to waste public money defending it in the courts. The State Governor, who is a fan of the Act, then retained a private lawyer to deal with the case, using private funds. A provision in the Act which would have protected state officials/employees who declined to issue same-sex marriage licences is of course unconstitional, but the attempt to strike down the rest of the Act recently failed in the Court of Appeals.

thesandeman

Stolen from the Liveline thread. Sorry if a repost.

silverharp

Hector Savage

Peregrinus wrote: »

Cartagena, Spain. Also a wonderful place. Founded by the Carthaginians, hence the name.

They've been doing the pointy hat thing since medieval times, and they're not about to be stopped by some fascist American blow-ins. It's not just in Cartagena, though; you'll find them in lots of Spanish cities. They work off a wider colour palette than the KKK.

Are yanks really trying to get it stopped in the south of Spain ?

silverharp

whoever runs the COE twitter made a good attempt to start off a religious conflict. funny to read the thread

https://twitter.com/c_of_e/status/882879351020294144

Hotblack Desiato

That's just bizarre.

Hotblack Desiato

@DoylePope

Worztron

Pherekydes

When suicide bombers go to heaven they get to shag all the blastocysts.

Boom boom!

silverharp

Hotblack Desiato

Anyone remember the insurance company Church and General? This Donegal driver appears to be a fan.

silverharp

robindch

silverharp

robindch

^^^ As retweeted by no less a humorist than the delicious, white-skinned, Katie Hopkins

Satiria itself seems to be the source of variations on the theme of cut'n'pasted hard-right trope plus unrelated background image.

Here's another thigh-slapper from the same media outlet - how could the sight of third-world brownies flopping about in their own wee and poo not reduce even the hardest cardboard leftie to fits of helpless laughter? :rolleyes:

silverharp

^^

am I guilty of wrong think?

Hotblack Desiato

They have a point in that case though. The priorities of the political classes in India are up their ass. The world's largest democracy continues to fail the vast majority of its people.

Nuclear weapons / Space programme / Hindu nationalism / Ban beef when it should be Sanitation / Food security / Poverty reduction.