Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Mormon Leaders accused of Covering Up Abuse

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There’s an unspoken rule in large religious organizations: if you’re ever caught abusing someone, the church will go above and beyond to protect you. Now, as a decent human being, you might be curious as to why religions are so fond of covering up abuse. The reason is simple: it all boils down to money.

As we recently reported on TGA a few days ago, when the Mormon Church was threatened with a lawsuit for allowing the continued abuse of a young girl, despite having heard the confession of her abusive father, an Arizona judge decided that the church’s right to confession was more important than the good of society. Who knows how many millions of dollars they would have lost in such a suit.

Abusers are naturally attracted to organizations like Mormonism that provide not only fresh victims, but also give them the full authority of church doctrine to excuse their behavior. They also benefit from laws that protect them from legal ramifications. In the case of the Church of Latter Day Saints, it’s especially easy to get in:

Victims who spoke to DailyMail.com said [spiritual confession] was repeatedly used as an excuse for bishops to hide abuse from authorities, often allowing it to carry on for years.

Women claimed church culture acts as a breeding ground for abuse, pointing to the belief within Mormonism that local bishops – laymen with no pastoral training – are divinely called by God and led by spiritual revelations, meaning their authority cannot be questioned.

The DailyMail released a pretty scathing report on Mormon abuse, supposedly inspired by the case in Arizona. They interviewed a number of people abused by their priests, and all of them shared a familiar story: The church is more interested in squashing potential lawsuits than stopping rapists.

Keep in mind that this is the same church that has over 100 billion dollars in the bank. They could obviously afford a few lawsuits. Can you even imagine any other organization in the world that would survive this level of corruption and evil? Just imagine if a modern corporation was guilty of silencing employees, preventing them from going to the police when they find out their colleagues are raping kids. We even allow religious organizations to file for a special type of bankruptcy protection in order for their money to be protected even when they lose judgements against them!

Will there even be a time when we wake up from this abusive con game? I have a question for believers out there: how many of your kids need to be raped before you decide that maybe, just maybe, you should stop financially supporting these guys? I mean for fuck’s sake, people have boycotted companies over not liking how someone identifies, but they can’t do it for an organizations that knowingly allows the sexual abuse of children? I will never understand why the blinders of religion allows them to get away with murder. It’s a moral failing I hope to see corrected in my lifetime.

Nigerian pastor faked kidnapping to extort parishoners

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Nigeria has a big problem: the country is cursed with a recent glut of kidnappings. For enterprising criminals, this has become a daily activity. Just last month, 50 people were kidnapped in a raid in the village of Bagega, a small mining town in the north of Nigeria.

There are so many kidnappings, in fact, that people now have to contend with fake ones instead. There’s a cottage industry of fakers who use the fear of death to extort people they know out of money. One such scammer is Pastor Adegoke Adewuyi, who decided that the best way to get rich was to kidnap himself, and trick his flock into paying for his “release”. His congregation was actually in the middle of getting the money together when the police busted down the door to Adewuyi hotel room, and arrested him, along with his accomplice.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has condemned pastor Adewuyi’s conduct, saying it was ungodly and unbiblical. Chairman of the association, Rev. Joshua Orikogbe said such conducts bring Christendom into disrepute.

Meanwhile, a church member of pastor Adewuyi revealed that he was in the habit of engaging in fraudulent activities, including forging signatures to withdraw money from the church’s accounts.

Let’s recap: a known thief, elevated to a position of authority, abused his power and scammed his own flock. When that wasn’t paying the bills, he kicked it into high gear. This time, it blew up in his face.

Honestly, this sort of thing doesn’t surprise us nonbelievers. Taking people’s money by offering them a place in the afterlife is already a con. You are literally charging people to sell them piece of mind. Orders of weirdos in outfits have been making large claims and demanding people’s money for a long time. It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine someone taking this deceit to the next level. Who knows what kind of innovations pastors like Adewuyi have in store?

Did anyone learn a lesson in all of this? No. If you hoped that perhaps Ademuyi getting arrested might have taught him a lesson, then allow me to dispel such illusions. He’s blaming Satan for what happened. You see, it had to be the devil that possessed the poor man, since the only alternative would have been to take accountability for his actions.

I got 10 bucks that says he’ll eventually be forgiven, and goes right back to preaching once the heat has died down. I mean, his living appears to rely primarily on stealing money from his own church to enrich himself. Since Christians are always falling over themselves to forgive scumbags, all he has to do is say he’s repented, loves god, and they will give him the red carpet treatment.

Vatican forced to reveal secrets in UK court

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The Vatican is often portray themselves as a religious order, but it’s important to remember that they operate much more like a corporation that a religious order. However, there are often times when they like to blur the lines, and in the process of enriching themselves, some of the deals the Church involved itself in occasionally go bad. When that happens, they suddenly require the intervention of the secular legal system.

In a recent ruling in the UK over a real estate deal gone bad, the court is forcing the Vatican to turn over communication between two pontiffs who spoke about the deal over a variety of phone application. The Vatican had tried to argue special privilege, but the court was not having it:

In a landmark ruling in the High Court, a judge, Mr Justice Foxton, overruled the Vatican… and ordered that they should disclose the highly-sensitive correspondence.

The documentation is at the centre of what is known as the Vatican’s “trial of the century,” where British financier Raffaele Mincione is seeking to clear his name after being accused of defrauding the Catholic Church over a property deal.”

It’s quite hilarious that two of the priests involved tried to argue that their communication over electronic apps somehow fell into the sacred realm. They went so far as to claim that revealing the documents that the court requested in discovery would amount to “a grave sin”.

Imagine having to do business with a mega rich organization that will pretend that their special rights, which I have argued strongly has absolutely no business existing in the first place, extends also to business dealings. It just goes to show how little they value it moralistically. It is simply a tool to be used to their advantage, whenever possible. Only a gullible fool would believe that the intention of these protections are solely for the faithful. They are instead used to shield a secretive and sinister organization that covers up countless crimes.

Ohio Priest Gave Opioids to addicted Children to Rape Them

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If you’re playing Catholic Rapist Bingo, then congratulations for those of you with Ohio on your card. You’re one step closer to the grand prize, which is a lifelong hatred of the church. I’ve won this prize long ago, so it’s up for grabs.

Yet another depraved human being operating under the watchful eye of the Catholic Church has been arrested and charged for the crime of sexually abusing his young flock. In this case, it sounds like the sort of dramatic fiction that belongs to serialized dramas, and not real life.

For 15 years, Rev. Michael Zacharias used his influence, and the power granted to him by his position to lure troubled kids into a life of drug addiction and sexual slavery.

Testimony and evidence at trial showed Zacharias developed relationships with the victims’ families when they were young to gain their trust, prosecutors said. As the victims got older, he exploited their fears, their housing instability and their criminal records to force them into commercial sex.

If you’ve ever wondered how these kinds of crimes can perpetuate for so long, look no further than the cult of secrecy that manages it. The Catholic Church is the master when it comes to covering up crimes. They make even the most terrifying drug lords look like rank amateurs. The fact is that reporting abuse has far reaching consequences to anyone with career aspirations. The internal “legal system” of the church allows pastors to sue each other for slander and libel if the charges are not proven (which given the timeframes of the crimes can be quite difficult). They also face excommunication in some cases, which to a believer is equivalent to being cast into the fiery pits of hell.

It angers me that even the news outlets that has covered this story didn’t publish any testimony from the victims, but allowed a guilty man to continue to preach his innocence, as though he had nothing to do with the decades of abuse he perpetuated. Every news organizations that report on priestly abuse tend to bend over backwards to publish the bullshit lies from the PR department of the Vatican, which pretends to give a crap about the abuse of children.

Zacharias had been moved several times during his career. These types of shuffles are not uncommon for priests who start getting complaints from upset parents. I’d like to hear impact statements from the victims, not the crocodile tears of the very institution that had this man on paid leave while the investigation into the abuse continued. They had access to the same information the police did, and no doubt more, and yet they chose to stand by him until he was found guilty.

Now if there is any credit to be given to the church (and very little should be), it’s that they quite literally invented the word for pedophilia. In their twisted view, they want credit for discouraging the practice societally. I would grant it except for the fact that there are plenty of other cultures that reject it, so it does not take a great deal of moral fortitude to be against the abuse of children. Given that I know from my own father’s experience in the Catholic educational system, I can assure you that sexual abuse was only one of the forms of torture visited upon children by this vile institution. Decrying something, and then performing these same actions in the safety of the worlds most secretive organization should impress no one. It only highlights the failings of the priestly class to live up to the most basic moral precepts. Who else but a group of sexless men would want to be congratulated with inventing the word for abusing kids? As this generation’s youth would say, that’s highly sus.

Christianity is a sinister death cult

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The term death cult is not often used to describe Christianity, but it should be. I believe it is only because we have become numb to the sinister nature of this religion. It seems that every so often, we need to be reminded that their obsession with the afterlife is a driving force of their ideology.

How about something so terrifying, you would think it the plot of some horror movie: a mentally deranged woman, fed the lie of the afterlife, killed her young son in the hope that doing so would send him to be with “Jesus and God”.

The report said when James Short and the officers went into the bathroom, they discovered the 11-month-old who had been stabbed. The child was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after.

When interviewing April Short following her arrest, the court document said she admitted to hurting the child. Her two children told authorities that she told them she was doing it because then the child could “be with Jesus and God.”

This horror show is courtesy of a lifetime of delusion, and the absolving of personal responsibility by claiming it to be the work of a higher power. God is merely the unleashed ego of people who wish to behave in troubling ways that their own conscience cannot bare.

For how long did people ignore her troubling behavior because it masqueraded as religious devotion? This is how pervasive this death cult has become: even as their adherents tell us openly that they pray for the day we are all destroyed so that they no longer have to live in a world that challenges their beliefs. What else is heaven but a safe-space for Christians, who want to bask in the certainty of their choices. And where else but a make-believe fantasy land could offer them such satisfaction, when even they cannot agree on matters as trivial as the to which part of the triune nature of their god is more important?

Pennsylvania Satanic Temple Gets it Done

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I’ve often said that the only way to fight the encroachment of Christianity in public schools is to use their own tactics against them. If you recall a story I covered a few weeks ago about a group called “Lifewise Academy” operating in Ohio, you might remember that these guys regularly bus kids out during school hours to indoctrinate them. I said they were a walking lawsuit, and if the recent ruling from Pennsylvania is any indication, it’s only a matter of time before it happens.

When the Satanic Temple was wrongfully prevented from engaging in after school activities with students in Pennsylvania, they sued the school district, arguing that if Christian organizations were allowed to hold events, they should be as well. A judge agreed, and it cost the Saucon Valley Middle School $200,000.

“Thanks to the court’s order, we were able to hold ASSC meetings at the Saucon Valley Middle School, and the kids who attended were overjoyed. It’s for them that we took on this legal fight in the first place, and we won’t hesitate to do so again if other school districts continue to enact discriminatory policies.”

This is only the beginning. Other school districts who employ these sneaky religious tactics are about to get their asses kicked. Once you open the floodgates for religious indoctrination, then they shouldn’t be surprised when ideologies they are uncomfortable with begin to try and influence their children. We all know the Satanic Temple is a harmless organization that uses the name as shock value, and it works. Christian parents were outraged; a small taste of what it’s like for nonbelievers when their children are targeted with their nonsense.

If other schools want to avoid this kind of expensive lesson, than they have a choice: stop all of these types of curriculum, and if parents wish to brainwash their kids with the idea of god, let them do it on their own dime and in their spare time. The rest of us want kids to learn real stuff in school, not make-believe bullshit. Score one for the good guys.

Atheist wins Religious Coercion Lawsuit

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Imagine you go to prison, and when it’s time for your parole, you get denied because the only way to get accepted into the program is to take a bullshit religious 12-step program.  Would you fight it, or out of desperation to get out, just go along with it.

That wat the dilemma that Andrew Miller faced. I think most of us, with the prospect of freedom on the line, would have just suffered through it and pretended, just like most people, that these types of programs worked.  Credit where credit is do, he chose to stick to his conviction, and even took the matter to a federal court to make it so that no one else like him would need to do the same.

American Atheist, in cooperation with Mountain State Justice, an organization designed to help lower income West Virginians that need legal assistance, won a judgement on behalf of Miller, which included the removal of the requirement for the 12 step program, and $80,000 to cover the legal fees. Now, because of their good work, other criminals who seek to reform themselves won’t have to do so under the guise of religion.

Now, is it our fault that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the prison population? At least now you can rest east knowing that if you commit a crime in West Virginia, your freedom won’t be contingent on some pastor’s bullshit 12-step program. We celebrate the small victories, people.

House Speaker thinks Separation of Church and State “a misnomer”

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As faith is slowly dying across the western world, it’s put a fire under the feet of religious political figures, who see themselves as martyrs in a “great cause”. As religious affiliation continues to decline, the dying animal of organized religion refuses to simply crawl into a corner and perish. Instead, it seeks to consolidate its worldly powers in the vain hope that by forcing their faith on people, it might get a glorious comeback.

This explains why so many US politicians are doubling down on faith. Take for example House Speaker Mike Johnson. Possessing the personality of a busted robot, he can’t stop acting as though the secular nature of government is a minor inconvenience that no one understands but him.

“Separation of church and state … is a misnomer. People misunderstand it,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” when asked about him praying on the House floor. “Of course, it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote is not in the Constitution.”

“And what he was explaining is they did not want the government to encroach upon the church, not that they didn’t want principles of faith to have influence on our public life. It’s exactly the opposite,” the Speaker added.

This might be true if you ignore the very first phrase in the Constitution, which makes it abundantly clear that religion is not invited to the party when it comes to creating policy.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”

It’s important to understand the context of why the “no law respecting an establishment of religion” was added in the first place. This is because when it came to the separation of powers, the inspiration for the document had come from European Enlightenment thinkers such as David Hume and John Locke, who knew full well that the encroachment of religion could spell disaster for any government. Europe’s nations had been entangled for over 200 years in the Great Wars of Religion, and hard lessons of the involvement of religion in political affairs had been well documented. If America wished to avoid such entanglements, it had to take an official stand on just how much place religion would have in politics. The decision was simple: there should be none.

Of course, what non-thinkers like Mike Johnson, who seems to value piety over service to his fellow American, fail to understand that the “Wall of Separation” that Jefferson wrote about in his letters was to reassure a small congregation of Virginia Baptist who were wary of the abuse they had suffered at the hands of their fellow Christians. They too had faced adversity in Europe, and had no wish to further the conflict in their new home. Jefferson reassured them, as he did the rest of the nation, in guaranteeing that the propensity of religion to take the reigns of power would have no effect there.

It was this decision that allowed America’s various religious traditions to flourish. Unlike Germany or England that had official faiths, Americans were free to experiment with religion to their hearts content. This is why so many different branches of Christianity have flourished; a fact that morons like Johnson are completely ignorant of. These deluded fools think that all forms of Christianity are compatible, despite the hundreds of years of conflict that punctuate their existence.

Is it not enough that these organization pay no taxes, benefit from laws that protect them (even from police prosecution for crimes that anyone else would go to jail for), and have such a vaulted place in society? Already pastors preach politics from their pulpits, a clear violation of the rules that allow them tax exempt status to begin with. Now they want the whole enchilada.

If you want the bit of good news in all of this, it’s that the message of Johnson or his ilk is becoming less and less effective. Sure, their base is usually fired up by this rhetoric, but the rest of the nation remains unimpressed. It’s why Republicans across the country are getting slaughtered in the polls. It turns out that when you double down on religion, the voters that have no great affiliation with any political party quickly jump ship. He’s hoping that this reality check hits these troglodyte where it hurts: at the polls.

Richland Pastor convicted of sexual Abuse

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In yet another case of a religious leader using his position to perpetuate abuse, a jury of his peers in Richland, Mississippi found Samuel Lamar Taylor guilt of sexual battery, and the antique sounding “gratification of lust” (the state doesn’t like the word “molestation” apparently).

The victim was an 11 year old child that this monster was the legal guardian for. When the boy approached a councilor at his school, to their credit, the school called the police. They acted quickly to arrest the Taylor and have the child was immediately removed from his custody. Had this happened a few decades ago, I’m sure nothing would have become of it. Keep in mind that people were always reluctant to believe children over adults, especially when these people cloak themselves in religious garb. Luckily, we now know better.

It’s impossible to know just how many victims he raped, as at least one person also came forward saying that had been sexually abused as far back as 1990, when Taylor was working an a YMCA councilor.

The good news is that this vile sack of crap will be spending the rest of his life in jail without the possibility of parole. He’s also in for a a bad time in prison. Typically, child rapists are considered the lowest form of life behind bars, and it’s not uncommon for these people to be regularly beaten, terrorized or sometimes even outright killed. While I’m not usually a fan of vigilante justice, I won’t be losing any sleep over this guy. I doubt anyone else will either.

Judge Dismisses Child Abuse Lawsuit due to “Privilege”

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If I was a criminal organization, I would definitely cloak myself with the veneer of religion. Regardless of your egregious actions, if you’re associated with a recognized faith, there is no crime serious you won’t get away with.

Take a recent example in Arizona, where a judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Mormon Church on the grounds that spiritual confessions are a sacred right, regardless of what crimes are being confessed. This means that any church official who fails to report serious and ongoing abuses are immune from any responsibility. How outrageous is the crime in question? How about a father who perpetually raped his daughter, confessed to it, and the church did nothing to stop it.

When a young girl was being habitually raped by her father, his confession to his pastor did not warrant the church to communicate with authorities to put a stop to it. He was able to continue to abuse his poor daughter for another 6 years, and had even begun to turn his attention to her 6 week old baby sister.

The church decided to excommunicate the man instead of calling the police, and washed their hands it. Since the man (if he can be considered one) had confessed to his monstrous actions in the presence of a another man trained in the art of make-believe, when the girl finally grew up and tried to sue the church for doing nothing to stop her sexual torture, an Arizona judge made sure that the one being protected was the mega powerful Mormon Church:

In a ruling on Friday, Cochise County Superior Court Judge Timothy Dickerson said the state’s clergy-penitent privilege excused two bishops and several other officials with the church… from the state’s child sex abuse mandatory reporting law, because Paul Adams initially disclosed during a confession that he was sexually abusing his daughter.

“Church defendants were not required under the Mandatory Reporting Statute to report the abuse of Jane Doe 1 by her father because their knowledge of the abuse came from confidential communications which fall within the clergy-penitent exception,” Dickerson wrote in his decision.

 

Let me remind you that this type of immunity is unique to religion alone. The closest analog we have to this privilege would be that of a lawyer, who is allowed to know about your crimes, without having to reveal details to the authorities. It is not without limitation, however. If there is a possibility of the furtherance of a crime, then your lawyers have a legal (not to mention moral) obligation to notify the police of your future plans. No such limitation exists when it comes to religious “confession”.

The major problem with this kind of immunity isn’t only that it allows criminals to continue to act with impunity. It’s far more sinister than that. Confession is also a way for these monsters to be absolved of their crimes morally. Faiths like Mormonism may claim that believers are bound by an objective morality, but in practical terms, churches have always found ways to involve themselves in the absolving of immorality, if not primarily because it has such good financial returns. It was indulgences that paid for the St. Peter’s Basilica, and the monetary benefits of offering salvation that has the the full power of secular law on its side, with legal protections of such magnitude, continues to fill coffers and puts asses in pews.

There is no end to my discuss when it comes to the privileges afforded to religions, especially when we know for a fact that they are so underserving of it of them. There are few world organizations that should have LESS protection than the major religions, who have fought for years to protect the rapists that live among their ranks. Remove their fancy vestments, or shave their overgrown beards and you would see them for what they are: a bunch of gangsters, rapists and embezzlers that would be right at home in a place that has bars on the windows.

Hit and Run Pastor Seeks Leniency

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There’s no denying that cars are dangerous. In the United States alone, vehicles account for roughly 40,000 deaths a year, with the numbers increasing year on year. The problem is particularly bad in states like Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina, which have twice the average road fatalities when compared to other states. One place that tends to have a much lower average is Washington, DC. Perhaps people tend to drive more conservatively there.

Still, it doesn’t mean some people don’t driving recklessly. On October 4th, Reverend Samuel Holloway, drove his car dangerously close to a small family, pinning a 6 year old boy’s foot was under his SUV’s tires after he accelerated past a crosswalk they were using. Following the frightening incident, it appeared that the man was pulling his vehicle over when instructed by a witness, but instead he quickly fled the scene.

Unaware that his accident had been caught on camera, when Holloway finally turned himself in (after 2 weeks of being in what he called a “mental fog”)  it turns out that he also had a suspended license. Now, rather than getting jail time, his attorney is requested leniency, claiming that there were extenuating circumstances that led him to both hit the family, and drive away.

Holloway’s motion goes on to say that at the time of the accident, he had not eaten or taken his blood pressure medication. The document states that a “stressful day,” “high blood pressure” and “mental confusion” following the crash, all contributed to Holloway’s “uncharacteristic, unacceptable and unreasonable flight response.”

Holloway is trying to use his status in the community to skirt responsibility and jail. It’s unsurprising. Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he wants instead to be given a slap on the wrist. He’s likely to get his wish, as American judges tend to have massive blinders when it comes to the priestly class.

While there hasn’t been an official decision, I’m willing to bet that he walks away scot-free. It’s the great advantage that pious people can still boast. All they need to do is look sad, say they love Jesus, and the rest is forgiven. No wonder they love their religion so much; it’s a goddamn get out of jail free card!

Church Punishes Priest that Exposed Abuse

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If you ever believed Church rhetoric that they’re working hard to purge abusers from among their ranks, than I have a bunch of magic beans I can sell you.

Take the case of a Portuguese priest named Joaquim Nazaré, who recently exposed a dozen of his colleagues by reporting them to an Independent Commission specifically set up to investigate priestly abuse. When his employer found out, they reacted the way you would expect: they punished him for it.

You see, the problem was that one of the priests, Nuno Aurélio, had committed his vile acts 19 years ago, which meant that it passed the statues of limitation (which I should stress, was the result of the Church pushing hard to impose these limits). As a result, Aurélio claimed that the accusations amounted to slander, which the church agreed:

“Given that the burden of proof is on the accuser, it is clear that the defendant’s statements are defamatory and slanderous”, the ruling, reached last summer, continued.

“Nazaré – who had never appeared before the court – was condemned in two forms: he had to apologize not simply “personally” to Nuno Aurélio, but “publicly through diocesan channels” as a form of “reparation for the scandal”, and pay a month’s salary out of his pocket..

So imagine that your coworker sexually abused a child to the point that this person later kills themselves, and when you tell a commission specifically created to expose this kind of monstrous behavior, you’re forced to apologize to the abuser, and pay a month of your salary in punishment. I’m sure you would be thrilled.

Luckily, Nazaré is a badass who refuses to back down. He’s been removed from any position of authority as punishment as a result. His career prospects are now dead, but in my opinion, its better for him this way. Who wants to work for such a corrupt organization anyways? He’s obviously too good for them.

Keep in mind that not a single priest has actually faced any justice as a result of this investigation that found that over 5,000 people has been abused since 1950. That’s the equivalent of one kid getting raped every week (with some change left).

Irony, Thy Name is Religion

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A former student of Bogan High School in Chicago was awarded $150,000 after she sued the school, claiming that she was forced to participate in a Hindu meditation ritual. Outraged that she was obligated to go along with a religion that was not her own, this individual (who has never walked a day in the life of an atheist’s shoes) decided that this egregious act deserved financial compensation, and a dipshit judge agreed.

In the lawsuit, Green alleges the “Transcendental Meditation” program was held during school hours, and students were required to participate in an initiation ceremony called a “Puja” — an “expression of gratitude” to the dead founders of the practice.

 

During the “Puja,” instructors chanted words in Sanskrit containing “statements recognizing the power possessed by various Hindu deities and invitations to those same Hindu deities to channel their powers” without telling students what they meant, the suit states.

So let me just reiterate this so that you don’t choke to death on your own bile: a school mandated prayer session violated a woman’s core beliefs. Who knew that it was possible to get such a windfall from having a foreign religion shoved down your throat?

Now, because of how precedence works in the legal system, I am strongly encouraging my fellow atheists in Illinois to use this case as a springboard for their own forced religiosity. How many school programs have discriminated against non-believers in similar ways? I agree that this mandated prayer session didn’t belong in school, and that this should apply to all religions. Of course, for that to occur, Christians would have to stop being a bunch of crybaby hypocrites who think the rules don’t apply to them. Fat chance that will ever happen.

Woman targets Jews, mistakenly attacks hate group instead

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Conflict often brings out the worst in people. When Palestine attacked Israel by kidnapping and murdering over 1400 people, the retribution visited upon them has been tenfold, with over 10,000 people now dead. It is not a pleasant equation, and undoubtedly, countless innocent lives have been lost as two rival ideologies seek to annihilate each other. Israel wants revenge, and Palestine wants to see the destruction of the lonely Jewish state surrounded by Muslim neighbors. The outcome of such hatred and animosity is depressingly predictable. Things are bound to get worse instead of better.

The rest of the world has also reacted poorly. From fights in the streets to protestors chanting anti-Semitic rhetoric, it’s an unpleasant time to for those of us that cherish peace and good will towards men.

This brings us to the story of one Ruba Almaghtheh, a 34 year old woman who drove her car into what she thought was a Jewish school. It turned out to be a sect of “Black Israelites”, called the Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge. These Black supremacists have been identified as a hate group, but Ruba had only seen the star of David on the building, and that was all she needed to know to ram her vehicle into the structure.

The “school” teaches things like hatred of gays, white people, Jews, with a generous dash of sexism. The locals, however, are usually more worried about the decibel level of their protests rather than their hateful message, which seems more silly than terrifying.

Some homeowners say that the group accuses white and gay people of destroying historically black neighborhoods, and at least one resident has complained of being called a “cracker, a slave owner, [and] a white devil,” but they reiterate that the volume of the group’s message, rather than the message’s content, is the real problem.

Ruba is being charged as a terrorist, regardless of attacking the wrong group, who no doubt shares some of her ideology. Such a label is bound to only extend the prison sentence she faces. https://fox59.com/news/indy-police-arrest-terrorist-for-purposely-driving-her-car-into-home-used-by-hate-group/

Mormon Church sued for improper use of tithing

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The Mormon Church is in the hot seat again. You may recall that TGA reported on a whistleblower that exposed the church’s finance as being primarily about business and investments rather than charity (their portfolio being over 100 billion dollars). Keep in mind that the main reason that religions are allowed their tax free status is the understanding that monies collected are supposed to be for charitable services. As a result, they were fined a paltry 5 million dollars, which represents roughly .00005 % of their wealth. It would be the equivalent of committing 100,000 dollars of fraud and being fined 5 bucks. Who wouldn’t commit crime with this kinds of punishment?

Not every Mormon is thrilled that money is being used for purposes other than religious. Three members of the church are suing following the whistleblower report that demonstrated that the church uses the funds for everything BUT charitable work.

The church’s corporate arm, the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solicits donations for humanitarian relief with promises that all donations are used to help those in need. But those promises are untrue, the latest lawsuit argues.

Instead, the church allegedly hid the fact that some if not all donations are permanently invested in accounts never used for charitable work.

I would be surprised if this leads anywhere. It’s notoriously hard to get churches to be held accountable for their scams, and with 100 billion in the bank, it’s not impossible to imagine that quite a few palms will be greased before this is all over.

What should happen is fairly obvious: the Mormon Church needs to be taxed on properties and investments which do not meet the standard of charitable contributions. In this case, this would mean that a large portion of their coffers would finally be placed under the same scrutiny of any other major financial organization. However, I can already predict that gutless government agencies will bend over backwards to accommodate these scammers, for fear that they might be accused of being anti-religious (as though this is a bad thing).  Anyone expecting justice to be delivered when the guilty are religious organizations are bound to be extremely disappointed. At least it’s nice to know that many of their own members have serious misgivings about continuing to tithe the church. That’s a start, at least.