Author Archives: Jacob Fortin

Focus on the Family narrator gets busted

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I’m tired of every Christian I speak to thinking their religion makes them more moral than others. What bugs me the most is this stupid idea that the Bible is an adequate moral compass. It really isn’t. If one passage isn’t telling you to stone your children, it’s telling you not to eat shellfish. If pigging out on shrimp is wrong, then I don’t want to be right, dammit.

Here’s an article about Juan Alberto Ovalle, a Spanish narrator for Focus on the Family who just got busted for solicitation of a minor. Undercover agents posing as young girls caught him trying to seduce what he thought was 15 year old girl into sleeping with him. He’s obviously a pillar of society.

I went to the site to see if they would make a statement, but obviously they are too mortified to comment on the arrest. I did, however, find this quote in their ‘About’ page that I thought I’d share with you on the eve of Juan’s arrest:

Since Focus on the Family’s primary reason for existence is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a practical outreach to homes, we have firm beliefs about both the Christian faith and the importance of the family. This ministry is therefore based upon six guiding philosophies that are apparent at every level throughout the organization. These ‘pillars’ are drawn from the wisdom of the Bible and the Judeo-Christian ethic, rather than from the humanistic notions of today’s theorists (my quote marks). In short, Focus on the Family is a reflection of what we believe to be the recommendations of the Creator Himself, who ordained the family and gave it His blessing.

Would you like to have a ‘good Christian’ like Juan Ovalle reaching out to your family? I think I’ll stick to people with more humanistic notions…

Playing with fire gets you burned

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The attacks of September 11th, 2001 had a profound impact on Beverly Giesebrecht. Unlike most of her Canadian peers, Beverly felt the attacks were more than justified, and she quickly converted to Islam and began work on a website with clear pro-Taliban leanings. She traveled to Egypt for two years to study the Qur’an before finally ending up in Pakistan where she met up with them. The meeting, however, appears to have gone differently from what she hoped for. Rather than take her into their fold, the Taliban kidnapped her and are holding her hostage. She is now pleading for her life, and the Canadian government is trying to rescue her.

Beverly’s problem was she failed to realize what she was getting herself into. Her interpretation of the events, and of the organizations involved, was quite obviously flawed. The Taliban are not ‘freedom fighters’ that combat the oppression of the West; they are a militant religious organization which hold extreme conservative views, and as far as they are concerned, Beverly’s worth to the cause is as a hostage, not a peer.

She is now begging for her life, only a few days away from the deadline. I have to wonder the degree of commitment the Canadian government has to save her. They are, more than likely, unwilling to negotiate with the Taliban, and they may feel that Beverly betrayed her country in favor of Islam. Regardless of what she may have said and done, it’s obvious her comprehension of the issues were flawed. She had hoped to ally with Al Qaeda to fight ‘Western oppression’, but in truth her allies have no need for an educated woman in their ranks. They would rather a 300k paycheck.

I have a feeling this story will end in tragedy. The Canadian government is unlikely to bust their asses saving her, and the Taliban will quickly grow tired of their hostage. If the situation is resolved, I have the feeling that Beverly may look well to lose her pro ‘terrorist’ leanings. I just hope she has that chance.

British Teachers’ Union fight faith schools

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Faith schools are a terrible idea. I’m not only referring to the fact kids who go to these schools are taught a great degree of non-sense, or that a significant proportion of the British population disproves of them. The biggest problem with these schools is they segregate the population along religious lines, and in any multicultural society, this is extremely undesirable.

Britain has over 7000 faith based schools, the vast majority of them being primary. There were relatively few before Tony Blair’s government decided they were a good idea, and since then they’ve been springing up like hotcakes. Blair, the neo-con that he was, probably thought it would be a cheap way to educate kids, since the thinking was church money would pay for at least part of the cost. So far, the state pays roughly 90% of the operation costs. Nice one, Tony.

Now teachers are displeased, and realize the education policies of these schools are preventing kids from becoming properly integrated into society, and they are trying to make sweeping changes which would in effect obliterate the way these schools do business. I’m unsure how much pull they have, but I’m glad there are at least a few people out there who are fighting to end the ability for state funded faith schools to operate.

Extreme Cult Behavior

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A cult that incorporated more elements of the Old Testament? Toys and enjoyment are considered sin? Physical and verbal abuse is commonplace (with a cattle prod apparently)…Sounds like a damn hoot. The woman in this video shares her experience living in a small, creepy cult. Some pretty insane stuff.

Afghanistan’s government plans to introduce scary laws

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I’ve spoken many times about the fact Canada needs to leave this country. Proportionally, we’ve taken the heaviest casualties, and even with the hard work accomplished, the country still seems bent on converting itself into a theocratic hellhole. Here are some of the proposed amendments to their constitution President Karzai is trying to pass:

Article 132 says. “Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”

Article 133 reintroduces the Taliban restrictions on women’s movements outside their homes, stating: “A wife cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband” unless in a medical or other emergency.

Article 27 endorses child marriage with girls legally able to marry once they begin to menstruate.

The Canadian government has threatened to pull its troops if these amendments aren’t killed, but even if they are, it’s only a matter of time before they eventually become law. It’s inevitable. The religious conservative element is too big and too entrenched to ever leave. All we can do is hold them at bay, but the second we leave they’ll jump in, establish their own religious government, and prove this entire thing was just a gigantic waste of time and human life.

As much as we’d like to believe other countries envy our modern values, the truth is much of the world doesn’t really care about concepts such as human rights, women’s rights, or personal liberties. We believe these values are the building blocks of any free society, and we find it shocking when a country, like Afghanistan, begins to introduce draconian laws which allow marital rape, or child marriages to occur. We feel insulted that anyone would refuse to live by our code of conduct. We are confused because we are under the delusion that the rest of the world wants to be like us. Why wouldn’t they? We rock, don’t we?

Step outside your own world view for a moment and imagine you were born and raised in a culture that sees women as second class citizens. Your neighbor recently killed his daughter because she kissed a boy, and when you hear the details about her stoning, you find yourself agreeing the punishment fit the crime. Now your country is invaded by individuals with a much different set of values attempting to impose them on you. They set up a democracy for you however, and so you do the only thing that seems rational to you: you demand the government change its constitution so the code you live by (and everyone you know lives by as well) is now accepted as law. This isn’t rocket science; you cannot hope to change the opinions of a generation, especially one with already established customs and rituals laden with values, with ideas that drastically conflict with their own.

A democracy in the hands of ethically unenlightened population only brings tyranny back into power. We naively believed the only reason the country was so fucked was due to being ruled by the ‘Iron Fist’ of the Taliban. If a heavily trained army with sophisticated weapons can’t stabilize the place, then why would we assume a shitty poorly armed group would be any different? Afghanistan is so poorly developed many areas are essentially self governing entities much more like ancient tribes than modern cities. The reason is for more than 1000 years, the area has seen nothing but bloody conflict after bloody conflict. The longest recorded political stability in this country was 40 years. That’s it.

I’m not saying everyone in Afghanistan is religiously conservative, or they don’t wish to secularize. In the past, the country’s leaders tried at various times to modernize their own governments. One of these reformers was assassinated. The other was overthrown. In other words, the country is a quagmire.

I wish it wasn’t this way at all. I wish we really could go there, free their population from religious tyranny, and let the population live happily ever after. We are stuck in a no-win situation. We can’t win by staying there, since we only delay the inevitable and continue to send more soldiers to die. If we leave, the country falls into chaos.

UN should protect people, not institutions

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Here’s an interesting article from The Economist that deals with the UN’s resolution to make defamation of religion illegal. We’re all aware of how toothless the UN really is, but it doesn’t change the fact this resolution attempts to protect religious institutions instead of individuals.

Think of it this way; when the UN was created shortly after the end of the Second World War, world governments realized powerful institutions were at the root of the problem, so the focus was placed on individual liberties and protections. It was understood that by themselves, institutions can easily become corrupt, evil, and destructive, but so long as individuals were able to pursue their own interests without fear of persecution, it would at least indicate they were indeed free. A resolution that seeks to protect a religious institution from defamation is really trying to protect it from criticism, and nothing more. Imagine the same protection was afforded to fascism, communism, or any other institution for that matter? We wouldn’t stand for it, simply because we recognize the danger in protecting institutions rather than individuals.

Let’s stop beating around the bush and recognize precisely what this resolution is intended to do. Islam is tired of being criticized, and it wants all of us to play nice. Sorry, no can do. The fact of the matter is I consider this religion to be barbaric, cruel, destructive, and dangerous. I recognize individuals within Islam can be kind, loving, and caring; but as a whole, it is a religion that remains incompatible with our modern values. With this resolution, Islamic countries seek to make their position immune to outside criticism. So long as you torture and kill people in the name of God, I will continue to criticize your beliefs, regardless of how many stupid UN resolutions they try to pass.

Canadian parliament member James Lunney is an idiot

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I’ve often been accused of being anti-American. It’s true I love to criticize the crazy things that go on down there, but I’m well aware stupidity, ignorance and bigotry are not uniquely American. Here’s a classic example of Canadian idiocy care of James Lunney, Conservative member of Parliament:

Mr. Speaker, recently we saw an attempt to ridicule the presumed beliefs of a member of this House and the belief of millions of Canadians in a creator. Certain individuals in the media and the scientific community have exposed their own arrogance and intolerance of beliefs contrary to their own. Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science. For science establishes fact through the study of things observable and reproducible. Since origins can neither be reproduced nor observed, they remain the realm of hypothesis.

In science, it is perfectly acceptable to make assumptions when we do not have all the facts, but it is never acceptable to forget our assumptions. Given the modern evidence unavailable to Darwin, advanced models of plate techtonics, polonium radiohalos, polystratic fossils, I am prepared to believe that Darwin would be willing to re-examine his assumptions.

The evolutionists may disagree, but neither can produce Darwin as a witness to prove his point. The evolutionists may genuinely see his ancestor in a monkey, but many modern scientists interpret the same evidence in favour of creation and a creator.

See? Canadians are just as stupid as Americans. We’re just less ‘in your face’ about it.

New Scientist sees through the deception in Texas

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There’s more info from the New Scientist about the proposed changes to the science textbooks over in Texas, and it doesn’t look too promising. The Board voted to completely remove the age of the universe from the textbooks, and more importantly, they claimed students will not be penalized if they subscribe to a specific opinion on science. In other words, if a student answers on a test that the earth is 6000 years old, his answer won’t be considered wrong.

The article also goes on to say the real brains behind this is obviously the Discovery Institute. They desperately want teachers to get sued for teaching religion in science classrooms, especially in a state where they have a strong chance of getting a different outcome than the Dover trial.

Luckily, it’s not all gloom and darkness. Senator Rodney Ellis and Representative Garnet Coleman are trying to introduce a bill that would transfer the authority of textbook adoptions to an organization run by people who actually know something about science. The Texas School Board of Education is also having elections next year, so hopefully they put a few more scientists and a few less real estate agents and dentists.

Exchange student nightmare

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Think about how paralyzing it must be to go to another country as an exchange student only to learn your host’s parents are crazy fundamentalists trying to convert you. That’s what this kid had to live through, and despite the annoyance, he seemed more upset at the fact he had to escape their clutches and leave them feeling hurt. One part in particular was telling about the true motivations of some people:

They wanted me to help them set up a Fundamentalist Baptist church in my home country of Poland. It was God’s will, they said. They tried to slip the topic casually into conversation, but it really shocked me — I realized that was the only reason they had welcomed me into their family. They had already started construction work in Krakow — I was to help them with translations and with spreading their faith via the media.

Not too surprising really. Evangelicals are always looking for new flock members. They must have figured they could just expand their religion and spread evangelism to Poland. Didn’t some German guy take over Poland once before? How did that turn out again?

On a side note, I admire the kid’s patience. I would have flipped the fuck out, personally. Being woken up at 6am every Sunday morning to go to church is a special form of torture.

The Godfather Dilemma

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I don’t have very many religious friends, so I haven’t often been put in a position where my beliefs were really challenged. I received an email from a friend recently concerning a very interesting dilemma he’s facing (I’m including most of the letter intact since James is an excellent writer):

[T]here’s something atheism-related that I’d be interested to get your input on. In fact, if you feel it’s a topic worthy of discussion on one of the podcasts, please feel free to bring it up. Basically, a lifelong friend of mine (he’s my Karate instructor, who I’ve known since I was six) is having his kid Christened, and asked me to be a godparent. Obviously, as an atheist, there is something of a conflict of interest there.

At face value, I have no problem with it, and don’t take my own anti-theism so seriously that I can’t stand there in the house of our lord, chuckle a little bit at the biting irony, and just spout the Biblical gobbledegook for the sake of ceremony. What matters is that I’m pledging to do right by this kid, to set good examples and make sure he turns out to be good peoples – all the Christian mumbo jumbo is just that. I don’t feel the need to be militant and tell my friend that, “Your religion is full of shit and I want nothing to do with putting this poor little bastard on the evil path of the Church,” even though that’s basically how I feel.

But here’s the thing; my other half is a Zen Buddhist (essentially Buddhism without a lot of the mumbo jumbo – it’s basically more like Taoism). She finds Christianity just as ludicrous and offensive as I do, but she was asked earlier this year to be the godparent of her brother’s newborn baby. She felt a lot more conflicted than I did, and was initially going to refuse on the grounds of her own beliefs. But when she saw how cool I was about being a godparent for my Karate instructor’s kid, she decided that she’d likewise just chuckle at the irony of it all and do her part.

So, I’m sitting there in the Church, watching her stand there in front of all the gaudy trappings of Christianity while some crossdressing kiddy fiddler talked about how the godparents were pledging to “surrender to Our Lord Jesus Christ” and all this crazy shit, and I’m thinking to myself, “Fuck me – if I was her I’d probably have to walk out right about now, because this is just bullshit.” It was one thing to play it cool in principle, and say that I would bite my tongue to service the message, not the missive, but seeing my other half standing there while all this pantomime morality was going on… it made me feel genuinely queasy.

I’m now very torn on the matter. One half of me is still of the opinion that the guy (who, incidentally, really doesn’t like religion or the church at all – I think he’s just doing the Christening because it’s “what people do” with a new kid) should do what he wants, and his intentions are honourable, and I don’t want to be as bad as a Christian missionary by throwing my own beliefs in his face, especially on such an occasion. But on the other hand – thanks to my increased awareness of atheism and the atheist community, which is entirely the fault of you and your site – I really don’t want to be the one to let the side down by cowtowing to this Christian bullshit. And of course, there’s the fact that my Buddhist partner only stood there with gritted teeth because she knew her atheist boyfriend was going to do the same thing…

Seeing as how this is mostly a consequence of poor James being tuned into atheism, it seems more than fair that I should answer the man. For starters, I understand exactly what you mean when you refer to the quiet rage you felt listening to these guys talk. When you’re off the bullshit wagon, you begin to see all the subtle and manipulative things the church does and says. So yes, in that regard it can be pretty damn difficult to suffer through it.

In regards to your friend, you probably both realize that the purpose of the ceremony is merely to make something as personal as the status of godfather seem more concrete. Say what you will for their dogma, but Christianity has always had a stellar reputation in understanding how to help foster the bonds of trust. A ceremony is nothing more than a way of making sure everyone involved is on the same wavelength. Think of these guys as the equivalent of a bunch of bureaucratic lawyers with a religious bent.

You mention being confident in your beliefs, but there is obviously a part of you that still feels threatened by the whole affair; the lone atheist surrounded by believers who demand that you conform to their ceremony. You can change that by adding your own part to the process so as to reclaim it. In other words, if you find a way to create your own form of bonding ceremony that is not religious with your friend, you won’t feel cheated out of the experience. Your time in church listening to the sermons will seem quaint.

The tough part about being an atheist is that we have no real ceremonies and custom that allow us to connect with other human beings the same way religions do it. It is ultimately what makes them infinitely more popular. It does not mean that we cannot find our own ways of expresing the most beautiful of human emotions; we just have to work a little harder at it.

Saudi women are becoming bold

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I am not a rebel. Although I like to think I am controversial, in reality if push came to shove, I would probably retreat to the safety of conformity rather than suffer an ignoble fate. It’s why I find the following story so striking: It’s an article in the Saudi Gazette about all girl coffee shops, which is where today’s young Saudi girls are going to let loose, have fun, and enjoy life. All of this is highly subversive, and there are lots of people who want to see them shut down.

Women have no real rights in this country. They instead have duties and responsibilities, most of them unpleasant and restrictive, that do not allow them to truly enjoy life. Although they make up about 70% of University graduates, they make up only 5% of the workforce. So to escape their shitty lives, young women are retreating from this cold reality by going to these all girl coffee shops, putting on makeup, and smoking shisha until their throats hurt.

Government officials and religious clergy are aghast at this type of behavior, which they see as the corrupting influence of the west. They aren’t wrong. We believe individuals are free to pursue their own interests, regardless of gender. But to the Saudi, this type of rebellion is usually met with swift and brutal action. I wouldn’t be surprised if these types of places were soon shut down, and the women who frequent these establishments were punished. It’s just the way things are in that part of the world.

The human need to rebel is strong, and some of these women may not realize to what degree they are challenging their country’s social mores. I hope this all ends positively, but considering women still aren’t allowed to drive in that part of the world, it doesn’t look too promising.

More religious tragedy

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Your average, moderately religious person is deathly afraid of cults. It’s not the brainwashing they are afraid of, but rather the type of brainwashing that is used. After all, the most distinguishing characteristics of cults is that they usually take a very literal approach to their religion, and this uncomfortable reality often reminds the faithful there is a dark side to their own belief system.

Consider the following case in Baltimore: a mother denies her 16 month old son food and water because he did not say “Amen” at mealtimes. This of course may seem harsh by modern ethical standards, but in most old world religions, this type of stuff happened all the time. It’s not uncommon for parents to commit filicide (murdering your own child has a name, so you know it happens quite a bit), and the Bible has special rules about disobedient children that demands they be stoned to death.

If this was the end of the craziness, it would be only another sad tragedy brought to you by religion, but this case is special: The mother along with other congregants of the ‘One Mind Ministries’ prayed over the boy’s body for days thinking they could resurrect him. The court psychiatrist concluded before the trial the mother was not insane since she was following religious doctrine, and her beliefs were shared by others who also participated in the neglect of the child (see, if one person believes they are Napoleon, he’s crazy. If 20 people agree with him, he’s a prophet). If this sounds like a massive cop out, consider what their ‘expert’ psychiatrist said before the trial:

Although an inability to think critically can be a sign of brainwashing, experts said, the line between that and some religious beliefs can be difficult to discern.

“At times there can be an overlap between extreme religious conviction and delusion,” said Robert Jay Lifton, a cult expert and psychiatrist who lectures at Harvard Medical School. “It’s a difficult area for psychiatry and the legal system.”

It’s only difficult because we refuse to admit all religious convictions are a form of delusion. Most of the time these delusions are benign, but when books like the Bible are suddenly taken literally, the result is often sad, tragic, and terrible. To some degree or another, all religions are cultist in nature; how much devotion and uncritical thinking they encourage will determine whether or not they can coexist with society. Personally, I find them all equally revolting, but for vastly different reasons.

Another sad death caused by religious stupidity, gullibility, and the unenlightened words of the Bible. Why are we still reading this fucking book in the 21st century? If it’s any comfort, the woman in this story agreed to cooperate, but asked that the sentence be reduced if her son is resurrected during her incarceration. Yep, totally sane woman here, doc.