Bankruptcy & Lies

Sep 20, 2010 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Religious Values, Values

Bankruptcy & Lies

Paedophile Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe

 Pope Shocked. Shocked!

 

I wish I had written this, because I agree wholeheartedly with what she says. I wish I had written what she wrote but thank goodness she did. Joan Smith’s whole article in the Independent is more than worth a read, it’s almost compulsory.

“ I’d be happy never to write another word about Christianity, Islam or any other supernatural belief system if their leaders didn’t keep telling me that their ethics are better than mine.

I wish she didn’t need to write it, because as much as I wish the whole appalling human waste of time, money and human effort that is religion would go away so that I didn’t feel the need to talk about it; much as I wish the whole lying, damaging, dangerous, manipulative, greedy, exploitative, self-serving, illusory, entirely man-made pretence would disappear,.. it doesn’t.

The other day in Britain Ratzinger said,

“ I express my deep sorrow to ze innocent victims of zese unspeakable crimes, along viss my hope zat ze power of Christ’s grace … vill bring deep healing and peace to zeir lives,” acknowledging “ze shame and humiliation vich all of us haf suffered because of zese sins”. He expressed his deep sorrow but did not, of course, as he never has been able to, apologise on behalf of the church.

You would have to think, hearing or reading this, that the church was moving heaven and earth swiftly, deliberately and remorselessly to repair the damage, to bring the perpetrators to justice and to bring recompense to the victims. But no. The utter bankruptcy of his crocodile tears is obvious. at the very moment he was weeping for victims of these unspeakable crimes one perpetrators former <strong>Bishop of Bruges

At the very moment he was weeping for the victims of these “unspeakable crimes”, one of the perpetrators, the former Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who repeatedly abused his nephew for 13 years – starting when the boy was just 5 years old and Vangheluwe was a priest and continuing after he was made a bishop – was comfortably untouched by the church.

Even five months after he was exposed and resigned.

Indeed he had been protected by the church in Westvleteren Abbey. It is reported that on 12 September he announced that he would leave the abbey and “as of today, I will contemplate my life and future somewhere hidden”.

Of course he will.

Somewhere safe from accountability.

The church takes no action. It just expresses its deep sorrow. And Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Inquisition, always allowed this as policy.

The church is morally bankrupt. And it lies. Specifically, Ratzinger lies (breaking the commandment against bearing false witness).

As Joan Smith says,

“ “The revelations for me were a great shock and sadness,” he told journalists during his flight from Rome to London. I couldn’t help wondering why he was shocked; after all, in his previous job, he was the Vatican official responsible for investigating allegations of sex abuse. Indeed, he’s been accused of a cover-up after writing a letter in 2001 to every Catholic bishop, asserting the church’s right to hold its inquiries in secret.

Sir Roger, with all his faults, is more moral and ethical than the pope. He, an atheist, is more christian than Ratz is and cares more about human beings than he does. Sir Roger, for example, is not complicit in the deaths of millions in Africa because of some hocus pocus about birth control and condoms – he is not complacent about massive suffering for the sake of some wacky, untestable theory about “saving people’s ‘souls’”. (And all right, he admits he may be slightly less humble than Ratz.)

So, as Joan Smith says, don’t lecture us on morals, Ratzinger.

Here’s a taste of a fresh (and mercifully short) Hitchens piece in Slate which is worth reading in full:

“ As we have recently been forcibly reminded, the Roman Catholic Church holds it better for the cries of raped and violated children to be ignored, and for the excuses and alibis of their rapists and torturers indulged, and for a host of dirty and wilful untruths to be manufactured wholesale, and for the funds raised ostensibly for the poor to be paid out in hush money and shameful bribery, rather than that one tiny indignity or inconvenience be visited on the robed majesty of a man-made church or any limit set to its self-proclaimed right to be judge in its own cause.

 

r’Amen !

Let Us Prey

Sep 18, 2010 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, OzPol Values, PedoPriests, Religious Values, Values

Let Us Prey

Sunday Sacrilege — Early Edition

 

 

 

Leader of the World’s Largest Organised Paedophile Ring Visits Britain

The leader of the world’s largest organised ring of paedophiles has been greeted by Queen Elizabeth with all the courtesy and panoply that the British could gather in her eagerness to do appropriate honour to the celebrity confidence trickster¹ who leads an enormous, globally-tentacled society of professional rapists and child molesters which enjoys worldwide political patronage, legal protection and financial privileges.

 

 

 

Cue Geoffrey Robertson:

“For 30 years, as Cardinal Ratzinger, from 1981 on, he was in charge of what to do about paedophile priests and he declined on the whole to even defrock them,” Mr Robertson said.

[ … ]

Mr Robertson also argues that the Vatican should stop protecting paedophile priests by abandoning canon law – the laws and regulations made and adopted by the church.

“Canon law is not law at all,” he said.

“It has no punishment. The problem with the church is that it’s been treating paedophile priests as sinners and not as serious criminals.

“Canon law is a medieval procedure. There’s no cross-examination, there’s no forensic testing and it’s run by priests who judge priests so not many get convicted.

“It’s a biased court, and … there’s no punishment. The Pope even said last week that he thought penance was quite sufficient for child molesters.

“[Penance] means being asked to go away and pray for your victims.

“Of course, victims don’t want their abusers to say prayers for them. They want justice and they want to make sure the abuser doesn’t offend again.

“Canon law is hopeless. The church has got to give it up if it’s going to deal with this massive crisis.”

Thousands of catholic priests, ordered to do penance, are reported to have rushed to their cells, fallen on their knees and begun to pray for little boys.

Reacting to the first remarks of the Pope on his state visit, the British Humanist Association has expressed its disappointment.

‘The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in god. The notion that it is non-religious people in the UK today who want to force their views on others, coming from a man whose organisation exerts itself internationally to impose its narrow and exclusive form of morality and undermine the human rights of women, children, gay people and many others, is surreal.’

An Open Letter to the Pope has been signed by 50 British “celebrities” and intellectuals including Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins, Professor Susan Blackmore, Terry Pratchett, Baroness Blackstone and A C Grayling, along with lots of Drs, Profs, Baronesses and Sirs. The letter is at the British Humanist Association website. Here are the main points:

The Pope is a head of state and the state and organisation of which he is head has been responsible for:

  • opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of AIDS
  • promoting segregated education
  • denying abortion to even the most vulnerable women
  • opposing equal rights for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people
  • failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation.

 

Meanwhile Queen Elizabeth has met the Pope and kissed papal arse … sorry? … sorry, kissed the papal ring.

And here’s the excuse of His Saintliness, as well as the head of the British chapter of the paedophile ring:

Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged flawsa in the church’s handling of the child abuse scandal as he as arrived in Scotland for the opening of his four-day visit to Britain.

The head of the Catholic Church in England, Bishop Vincent Nichols, also addressed the scandal as he waited for the Pope to arrive in Edinburgh.

“We have said, I think quite consistently, ‘Yes we did let you downb. Yes, we did. We did not get these things rightc,’” Nichols said. “But we’re learningd, and I hope everybody is learning that child abuse is not an easy thing to deal with, and we all have to deal with it, sooner or latere.

“We’re learning and we’re in a good placef. And anyone who entrusts their children or their elderly people to the care of the church can be quite sure that they’re safeg.”

 Notes:

The two greatest liars, sophists and spinners internationally (now that Bush’s Press Secretaries are out of a job at the White House) are Israel’s Mark Regev and the Catholic Church corporately. Note how Ratzinger and Nicholls have done it here.

PR Trick #1: “Reframe” the problem from shocking to mild and even forgivable.

a. “Flaws?” It’s not that serious, it’s merely a flaw. We’ll just get O’Brien in to fix that little crack (Oh, no, for god’s sake don’t mention little cracks! It makes me think of rock spiders.)

PR Trick #2: Admit to and show touching contrition for a much lesser crime, for which the penalty is, you know, penance, not prison. In Rugby League the usual script is something like [strike out whichever does not apply]: “I’m real ashamed of meself. I know I shouldn’t of done it. I let me wife down, I let me kids down, I let me family down, I let me mates down, I let me club down, I let me fans down. I let meself down. All I can say is it was out of character. It wasn’t really me. Now I wanna put the past behind me so I’d like youse all to respect me family’s privacy so we can hopefully get back to living a normal life.”

b. “We let you down.” No, you didn’t “let you down”. You buggered little boys up the arse. You did it constantly, systematically and systemically. You knew about it. People at the highest levels in your paedophile organisation knew all about it. You didn’t do anything about it. You concealed it. You protected the perpetrators. Constantly, systematically and systemically and as a matter of official policy. You protected each other from any consequences and you moved your rapists to other parishes full of juicy crops of fresh new innocent little victims. (You know they want it.) There is no difference between you and your paedophile ring and any other paedophile ring – except that other paedophiles often get to go to prison and the Queen of England doesn’t welcome them with gifts.

c. “Get these things right?’ Yes, of course it’s not about a systemic corruption of everything your organisation pretends to stand for, it’s a simple matter of minor adjustments to “get things right”. Really, the whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

PR Trick #3: Say you’re already taking steps to fix the problem, and that you’re already improving, as long as that doesn’t involve anything anyone can test.

d. “We’re learning.” Of course, learning is good, education is good, everyone knows that, so if you do education that means you’re good and we forgive you. And this way you don’t have to actually do anything that we can see.

PR Trick #4: Identify with your audience. Insist that you both share the same problem. This way you can suggest that they are no better than you are. This way they should cut you some slack. “Hey, deep down, everyone’s a paedophile, aren’t they?”

e. “Child abuse is not an easy thing to deal with, and we all have to deal with it, sooner or later.”

We “all” WHAT!!!????   No we don’t. You do. Contrary to what you seem to think, most of us aren’t even vaguely tempted to sodomise boys as young as two, or to rape little girls. You have to deal with it. And you don’t.

PR Big Mistake #1: Don’t tell people your personal comfort is important. Remember BP’s Tony Hayward saying “I want my life back”? The guy who was spotted having a nice day out sailing during BP’s biggest crisis? Where is he now? Siberia.

f. “We’re in a good place.” No you’re not in “a good place”. You’re in a bad place. You’re in hell. You as an organisation bring hell to young, trusting, powerless people. You are evil people.

PR Big Mistake #2: Never claim anything that everyone knows is a lie.

g. “Your children are safe with us.”One thing we know for sure is that no-one is going to trust you and your paedophile organisation with their children. We know they are in danger and we know that your paedophile ring will protect the perpetrators and not the children and that you continue to delay taking the action which is required. Your offers of counselling and prayer are laughable, cheap and totally free of accountability. We know who  and what you are and you should not tell us our children are safe with you. That’s what you told us before and then you went and fucked our babies.

 

in nom-nomine patris et filii succulenti …..

 

Time Magazine reports the latest Catholic buggery news:

In the past few months, harrowing tales have emerged from almost every congregation in [Belgium] about priests raping and assaulting young parishioners. This week … church investigators published an explosive report on 475 claims of sexual abuse over a 50-year time span.

[ … ]

The commission, headed by respected child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens, found that most of the cases concerned young boys and teenagers, but there was one incident involving a 2-year-old boy. Assaults on boys usually ended by the time they were 14, but abuse of girls — who accounted for about a third of all the cases — sometimes continued into adulthood, the report found. About half of the abusers have died, and 13 victims are known to have committed suicide.

[ … ]

The bulk of the revelations in Belgium were triggered by an especially shocking case involving the veteran bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who resigned in April after admitting to raping his own nephew in the years between 1973 and 1986. Vangheluwe’s confession came just before his nephew was expected to go public, and that appears to have motivated other abuse victims to come forward and contact Adriaenssens’ commission.

At the same time, the church seemed to confirm widespread suspicions of a cover-up when Léonard’s predecessor, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, was caught on tape urging Vangheluwe’s victim to keep quiet. As for Vangheluwe, he is still part of the priesthood and is staying in a monastery near Bruges. The Vatican — which has the ultimate power to defrock bishops — has yet to impose any disciplinary measures on him.

The Catholic Church promotes the power of prayer. It purveys a brand of metaphysical legerdemain which posits a god which can — from its place in some imaginary immaterial dimension which is separate from the physical universe — see what every single person in the world is doing and hear every prayer that is prayed and answer every single one of those prayers by controlling the natural laws of the phenomenal world to materialise the supplicants’ desired physical outcomes.

“And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”

Matthew 21:22

 

All things. Whatsoever. Ye shall receive.

This is the sacred, unqualified, unconditional promise of the church. The “divinely inspired” word of god. The very words of Christ himself.  It cannot be parsed, or modified, or analogised. Whatsoever ye shall ask; no mention of “as long as it’s reasonable, or you’re not being greedy, and if we have it in stock”.

It is in stone, immutable and undeniable. According to them. And they swear the bible is 100% authentically written by this god (or his various ghost-writers).

If I want a Ferrari I can have it.

If I want a 15-inch dick it’s mine overnight.

So you can imagine thousands of tormented priests around the world on their knees every night praying to the lord jesus and whatever other supposed saint they can think of to make them stop drooling to sodomise little boys, praying that their dicks might fall off, or anything, anything, to stop them sinning and harming people, to save them from hell.

But it doesn’t work. Their prayers aren’t answered.

So apparently:

  • The bible is bullshit.
  • Or there’s no god.
  • Or he’s not as clever as they claim.
  • Or of course there’s that rider: “believing”. Do their prayers go unanswered because they don’t truly believe?

In that case the church is a secular international paedophile ring no different from all the others, and catholic “priests” are no different from your ordinary neighbourhood child rapist.

So which is it? The bible is bullshit? god is bullshit? or priests don’t believe all that bullshit? It has to be one or more (or all) of these.

 

And just a related local political note:

 

 

The local representative of the worldwide patron of the paedophile ring is the fatuous, unctuous and cavernously stupid Cardinal Pell who is the moral mentor of Tony Abbott, MHR

Just saying

 

 

¹ Confidence tricksters of course don’t need to own the bill of goods they “sell” to their victims. But a disgruntled victim might want to extract revenge, or get their money back, or call the police.
The brilliance of the religious confidence tricksters is that the very absence of their product is its major selling point and they never have to deliver any product at all.
“You will get your reward in heaven.”
So you have to die to take delivery of the goods.
If I’m right?   Another satisfied customer.
If I’m wrong?   You’re never coming back to get revenge.
Meanwhile I’ve got your money! (and access to your little children) —here and now, where it counts.

Who wouldn’t start their own religion if they had no conscience at all?

 

UPDATE:

At the risk of offending against Godwin’s Law, we note that the man whom christians constantly claim to have been an atheist was in fact deeply and fanatically christian as you can read at Pharyngula. For example,

“ I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.” [Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]”.

But Hitler also said this, which explains something about catholicism:

“ For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? … Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas… it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.”

[Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

 

 

Tony Blair: All the Perfumes of Arabia

Sep 5, 2010 | Australian Values, Corruption, OzPol Values, Religious Values, USPol, Values, War

Tony Blair: All the Perfumes of Arabia

 Doctor: What is it he does now? Look, how he rubs his hands.

Gentlewoman: It is an accustom’d action with him, to seem thus washing his hands.

Foul Whisp’rings Are Abroad

 

S ir Roger has been listening and reading about Celebrity War Criminal Tony Blair’s 720 page excuse for his inexcusable war crimes, TONY BLAIR: A JERK.

And, as he listens and reads, Sir Roger’s mind is flooded with lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

“  Macbeth:
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.

[ … ]

Lady Macbeth: 
Yet here’s a spot.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why, then ’tis time to do ’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

What, will these hands ne’er be clean?—Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale.

I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on ’s grave.

To bed, to bed! there’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone.


Exit.


Doctor:
Foul whisp’rings are abroad; unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

More needs she the divine than the physician.

God, God, forgive us all!

… except Tony Blair, who “loves not Caesar less but loves Rome more”.

Yet do I fear Blair’s nature; It is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness” to be authentic.

In fact, what Blair has done, has endorsed, has pursued, has prozelytised for, has lied through his teeth for and has conveniently forgiven himself for is, simply, unforgivable.

And on top of all this, of course, what he did has made the world a much more dangerous place for the rest of us.

He says that he has wept for those he sent to their deaths and that he was truly upset by those who died. But if he were truly sensible to, and authentically sorry for, the horrors for which he is personally responsible for inflicting on so many thousands of people he would by now have gone completely mad, leapt naked into a pit of thorns and snakes, covered himself in ashes, and begun flailing himself with chains, because the horrors he has for political expediency visited on, in fact, millions, are so awful that it is impossible to grasp their true enormity, ugliness and inhumanity.

Blair’s simpering, smirking, self-congratulatory, self-indulgent, self-promoting self-forgiveness is insufficient. It is as shallow as Lake Eyre in a drought and as intelligent as a dead slug.

 

 

Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand

 

 

 

“  And also with bloodied hands of course the vile Bush and Howard (and by extension those who endorsed them, up to and including Pell). There is another, the one man who probably had the power to stop the madness but chose to be its champion – Rupert Murdoch.
~ Wanderer 

 

A Brief History of Dog

Sep 4, 2010 | Arts, Australian Values, Cultural Values, Media Values, Religious Values, Science Values, Values

A Brief History of Dog

 

Clever Brainiac Shorthand

 

The (£1-a-day) Times has released excerpts of Stephen Hawking’s soon to be released new book, co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design.

“ The universe can and will create itself from nothing,” he says. “Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

The press are all over Hawking for this, claiming that Hawking used to believe in a god somehow. (You know, they love a good backflip.) The Guardian says:

“ In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. But in the new text … he said new theories showed a creator is “not necessary”.

What Hawking said in 1988 was,

“ If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.”

“Had seemed to accept“? Sir Roger can understand this conclusion if, as is so often the case with journalists, the writer knows nothing about science or scientists and never actually read the original book. The line about “the mind of God” was the last sentence in the book and very few people got that far. Sir Roger may be one of the few who actually tackled the world’s smallest ever, and least read, coffee table book.

Many journalists are overworked, if not really lazy, and they have to get a readable story out quickly and so they grasp at angles, thoughts, probably get a bit of an idea from something like Wikipedia or their own archives and rush the story through. But when it comes to god stuff they really ought to be a bit more careful.

Scientists are stupid, of course, which is strange because intellectually they tend to be on the smarter side and like to make jokes. They make up clever brainiac shorthand. Remember the University of East Anglia emails and the “trick of adding in the real temps to each series”?

Well, the silly atheist scientists keep talking about gods. The Higgs Boson or “God particle”. Einstein’s “God does not play dice wth the universe”. And Hawking’s “then we should know the mind of God”.

Don’t bloody say that stuff! It just confuses stupid people (and journalists after an angle with an angel). And god-botherers.

So let’s be clear.

Einstein didn’t believe in any god the way other people define it. Higgs is an atheist. Hawking is an atheist (although he may at some stage have been an agnostic deist) and he never meant you to take that last line literally. It was an analogy. Smart scientist shorthand. Okay?

Meanwhile, chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, criticised Hawking’s book. Having complained that science and religion are different (“Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation”) he went on,

“ The Bible simply isn’t interested in how the universe came into being.”

Beg pardon? What was all that stuff in Genesis about? Genesis I, Chapter 1, Verse 1? you know, where god creates the universe? The only part of the Bible that creationists care about??

1    In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2   And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3   And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Explain that again about how the Bible isn’t interested in how the universe came into being?

 

 

The Meaning of Life

Aug 28, 2010 | Arts, Australian Values, Cultural Values, Lifestyle & Life, Religious Values, Values

The Meaning of Life

Sunday Sacrilege

 

Insights from the great Joseph Campbell, Mythologist, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion, author of The Power of Myth, The Inner Secrets of Outer Space, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces amongst many others.

His work was the basis for the structure of George Lucas’s Star Wars and — for his sins — subsequently for most of today’s Hollywood movies.

He’s speaking with Bill Moyers at the Skywalker Ranch. 

 

 

Also from Joseph Campbell:

“ Life is like arriving late for a movie having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.

 

 

“ Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

Sacrilege Break from the B-Graders

Aug 20, 2010 | Australian Values

Sacrilege Break from the B-Graders

In the IVth Crusade the western Christian countries, rather than defeating Islamic Egypt, decided to sack the Greek Christian city of Constantinople instead.
For which they were excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Own goal?

 

Christian Nations

 

J ust like to mention to one or two American religious patriots (like Sarah Palin) who know even less about their own country’s birth and history than a simple person like oneself, and who insist that the United States is a “Christian nation” …

In the US Constitution  Article VI proscribes the use of any religious tests as a requisite qualification for public service. The First Amendment begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, the most influential of the Founding Fathers, wrote in a letter to John Adams:

“  The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

and James Madison, fourth President of the United States, wrote

“  During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”

which leads us to what someone else (unknown) said, conjuring that most American of entertaining pastimes:

“  Humanity without religion is like a serial killer without a chainsaw.

 

And in case there are those who think that Australia is ‘a Christian country’,  the Australian Constitution says, at Section 116,

“ The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

 

(Just for a little break from all the B-Grade politics that is swirling around us here like grey water.)