Tag Archives: Christianity

Atheist morality: shallowness redefined

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Atheist, Sam Harris has written a book explaining how science, not religion, should be the basis for morality.

From here:

His long-awaited new book, “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values,” deals head-on with issues that many atheistic thinkers have been skirting for years. If religion is so bad, where should humans look for a moral authority? The answer, for Harris, is science. Harris defines morality as anything related to the “well-being of conscious creatures.” Since many scientific findings have implications for how to maximize well-being, Harris believes scientists should be authorities on moral issues. As Harris sees it, scientists not only have every right to make moral arguments, but should be the authorities of the moral realm.

Harris has put forward a crassly tautological argument for basing morality on science.

It’s all very well for him to define morality as “anything related to the “well-being of conscious creatures”, but where does that come from if not from a sense of “ought” which science cannot explain?

Harris, in starting from the assumption that when our conscience – natural law – tells us that we ought to care about the well-being of our fellow man, has already presupposed a ready-formed morality that was not derived scientifically – a moral law expounded by that which he so despises: religion. In Christianity’s case: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

Christianity, if true, is entitled to tell us that we should care about the well-being of concious creatures (Matt 7:12); science, true or not, isn’t.

Double, double toil and trouble in Moose Jaw

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From here:

It was not long after sending out the fall issue of its newsletter announcing a Halloween fundraiser that the Western Development Museum in Moose Jaw started receiving complaints; pastors came to the museum in person, emails and phone calls rolled in and concerns from church groups and community members were expressed to politicians saying the planned séance and ghost walk was “inviting evil” into the community….

“The feeling was expressed that by doing an event like this we were inviting evil to our facility and our community,” said Katherine Fitton, manager of the museum.

“That we would be opening Pandora’s Box, so to speak. These folk felt quite strongly that there was no way to avoid evil when engaging in these things, that there was no such thing as being light-hearted about it; that we’re looking for trouble.”….

Hired to host the event was Jeff Richards, a 25-year-old Regina showman inspired by David Copperfield. He said part of the controversy over the show is that it was scheduled in a place that receives public money; but mostly he put it down to a local church group using it as an “opportunity to grandstand.”

“I knew there would be some push-back from the religious community,” Mr. Richards said yesterday of the Moose Jaw booking. “But I’ve never had a mass outcry like this before.”

“I understand people having this fear of things they don’t understand. People have great concern over evil forces being unleashed but that stems from them not understanding what we were doing,” he said.

In our preposterously value-levelled culture where witches routinely demand equal time, it’s not particularly surprising that when Christian pastors act in a way that is consistent with their beliefs, their stand is met with astonishment and condescension.

The pastors’ resistance to holding a séance – mock or not – is not so much an example of “people having this fear of things they don’t understand” but people refusing to countenance things that they understand only too well: if evil forces exist – I don’t see how anyone who is a Christian could think they don’t – why engage in practices that seek to consult them, even if it’s in “fun”?

It’s Jeff Richards who lacks understanding

A magistrate in Britain is scolded for calling 16 year-olds “absolute scum”

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From here:

A magistrate who branded two boys ‘absolute scum’ after they desecrated a cathedral faces disciplinary action.

The 16-year-old boys wrote racist and sexually-abusive graffiti in prayer books, and bent a priceless John The Baptist cross out of shape at Blackburn Cathedral, causing £3,000 damage.

Pages were also torn out of the prayer books and insults written in the prayer and visitor books included: ‘I will kill all Jews. Don’t underestimate me’, and lurid sexual comments about ‘the vicar’.

They were caught after they wrote their names in the visitors’ book.

Chairman of the bench at Blackburn Magistrates’ Court Austin Molloy labelled the boys ‘absolute scum’ during the sentencing yesterday at the Youth Court.

But he was immediately criticised by the court clerk who stood up and objected to the use of the ‘inappropriate language’.

The mother of one of the boys said she would be making an official complaint.

I would agree that the scumminess of the miscreants has not yet had the time mature to the degree of perfection or completeness to warrant the use of “absolute”; perhaps the magistrate should have said “lesser scum”, although this seems overly generous.

Here is a brief history of “scum”:

scum
1326 (implied in scummer “shallow ladle for removing scum”), from M.Du. schume “foam, froth,” from P.Gmc. *skuma- (cf. O.N. skum, O.H.G. scum, Ger. Schaum “foam, froth”), perhaps from PIE base *(s)keu- “to cover, conceal” (see hide (n.1)). Sense deteriorated from “thin layer atop liquid” to “film of dirt,” then just “dirt.” Meaning “lowest class of humanity” is 1586; scum of the Earth is from 1712. Adopted in Romanic, cf. O.Fr. escume, Mod.Fr. écume, Sp. escuma, It. schiuma. Adj. scummy first attested 1577; transf. sense of “filthy, disreputable” is recorded from 1932. Slang scumbag “condom” is from 1967; meaning “despicable person” is from 1971.

It is a shame that, on a rare occasion when the law was not an ass, a court clerk felt impelled to analyse the “appropriateness” (an overused and meaningless epithet) of a magistrate’s description of 16 year-olds who, for recreation,  enjoy writing “I will kill all Jews” in the Prayer Book.

Britain has become a strange place.

Gilles Duceppe makes anti-Christian remarks in parliament

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From Lifesite News:

OTTAWA, May 11, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a May 6 speech criticizing the Conservative Government for defunding various pro-abortion groups, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe made remarks mocking Christianity which have shocked even members of the Commons.

With laughs and guffaws coming from opposition benches last week, Duceppe blasted the Conservative Government for the “ideological decision” to fund “religious groups that believe in the imminent return of the Messiah and translate the Bible into African and Asian dialects.”

In a follow-up comment Duceppe went further, saying sarcastically, “Will it really help women to send preachers … to Africa or to have the Bible translated. What a huge help and so essential.”

Mary Ellen Douglas of Campaign Life Coalition reacted with disgust to Duceppe’s remarks. “How sad and deplorable that a Canadian political leader would disgrace Parliament with such anti-Christian comment,” Douglas told LifeSiteNews.

Duceppe is no stranger to “ideological decisions”. He used to be a member of the Maoist Workers’ Communist Party of Canada and was an ardent Maoist until well into his 30s. Although, with most of his energy devoted to splitting up Canada and mocking Christianity, he now spends less time as apologist for a regime that murdered 40 million people.

Are we alone in the universe?

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Stephen Hawking is convinced that aliens exist; if the universe is free-running and has produced intelligent life in one place seemingly by accident, why could it not produce it somewhere else, too? As a Christian I don’t find this particularly convincing; on the other hand, I have little difficulty in believing that God made man in his image, that life is not accidental and that God, being extravagant, created a very large universe just for us.

Here – from Premier Christian Radio – is an illuminating conversation between astrophysicist Paul Davies and Christian mathematician and philosopher, John Lennox which sheds light on life, the universe and everything. And the likelihood – or unlikelihood – of ET.

Rev. Franklin Graham: "I Said Islam Was Wicked and Evil"

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Rev. Franklin Graham was disinvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer for speaking the truth about Islam; so he prayed on the sidewalk outside instead and later talked to media:

Here he confirms that he believes that salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone. Whatever next:

The latest danger to Christians wearing a cross

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Apparently it’s the horror of being mistaken for a rabid fundamentalist.

Ruth Gledhill, who identifies herself as a liberal Christian, has become aware of this ever present danger:

I believe some of what Ruth says here about persecution is spot on: Christians in the West are more inconvenienced than persecuted – although we seem to be heading in the direction of persecution.

As for the rest: well, I think I am going to have to start wearing a cross so that I can have the pleasure of being easily identified as someone with extreme right-wing fundamentalist views.

Intolerance of Christianity

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Prejudice against Christians seems to be at a fever pitch. I was chatting to an Anglican priest today who told me that he was with a group of non-Christians who, when asked what a clerical collar meant to them, said they associated it with paedophilia.

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are paying a lawyer in an attempt to have the Pope arrested when he visits the UK in September – not, I am sure, to satisfy even their own fanciful and provincial sense of atheistic justice, but to discredit and preferably destroy the Catholic Church.

Christians in the workplace are being singled out and made examples of by what Archbishop George Carey believes are biased judges:

The Church and the judiciary are two of the most venerable pillars of the establishment.

But in an explosive development, war has been declared between them over one of the most fundamental aspects of our society – freedom of religious conscience.

In an unprecedented move, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, and other church leaders are calling upon the Master of the Rolls and other senior judges to stand down from future Court of Appeal hearings involving cases of religious discrimination because of the judges’ perceived bias against Christianity.

Christian hoteliers, although they won their case for the supposed hate crime of calling Mohammed a warlord and expressing the opinion that Muslim women are oppressed, are still losing their business:

The two Christian hoteliers cleared last year of insulting a Muslim guest are being forced to sell up because their business has collapsed.

Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang are putting their nine-bedroom hotel up for auction in May because they can no longer pay the mortgage.

Despite donations sent to them by Christian supporters from around the world, they still have debts of well over £400,000.

Meanwhile, although a Christian woman is not allowed to wear a cross for fear that it might scratch a patient, Muslim women are allowed unhygienic long sleeves for “religious reasons”:

Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed to wear long sleeves for religious reasons – despite the risk of spreading deadly superbugs.

The Department of Health will allow female Muslim staff to opt out of a strict NHS dress code to cover their arms and protect their modesty.

But campaigners warn that the NHS is putting lives at risk because guidance that all staff should be ‘bare below the elbow’ was introduced after long sleeves were blamed for spreading MRSA.

So long Western Civilisation, it was nice while it lasted.

Holy Land Christians call for protest…

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Against the Muslim  persecution of Christians in Palestine?

Don’t be silly. The protest is against something much more important, something discriminatory: Israeli travel permits for Easter.

Christians call for protest against Israeli travel permits for Easter.

Holy Land Christians are calling on their religious leaders to protest against the travel permit system imposed by Israel during Easter celebrations.

The situation is complicated in 2010 by the overlapping of Easter with the Jewish feast of the Passover.

“Any system which assigns entry permits to Easter celebrations necessarily denies the rest of the faithful their rights of participation in these religious events,” they wrote in a letter that has been circulated during the month of March.

Some 103 Christian lay leaders and 21 Christian organizations of all denominations, including the Near East Council of Churches, Gaza and Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees, Sabeel, the YMCA-Jerusalem, Bethlehem Bible College, Norwegian Church Aid and Arab Orthodox Society, signed the document.

Like all West Bank Palestinians, Christians must have permits to travel to Jerusalem.

“This is further proof of the inherently discriminatory nature of the denial of the basic rights to religious observance”.

A Muslim student doesn’t want ‘in the year of our Lord' on his diploma

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And he has convinced a cadre of mindless dupes to go along with him:

A group of students at Trinity University is lobbying trustees to drop a reference to “Our Lord” on their diplomas, arguing it does not respect the diversity of religions on campus.

“A diploma is a very personal item, and people want to proudly display it in their offices and homes,” said Sidra Qureshi, president of Trinity Diversity Connection. “By having the phrase ‘In the Year of Our Lord,’ it is directly referencing Jesus Christ, and not everyone believes in Jesus Christ.”

Qureshi, who is Muslim, has led the charge to tweak the wording, winning support from student government and a campus commencement committee. Trustees are expected to consider the students’ request at a May board meeting.

Other students and President Dennis Ahlburg have defended the wording, arguing that references to the school’s Presbyterian roots are appropriate and unobtrusive.

Founded by Presbyterians in 1869, Trinity has been governed by an independent board of trustees since 1969 but maintains a “covenant relationship” with the church.

“Any cultural reference, even if it is religious, our first instinct should not be to remove it, but to accept it and tolerate it,” said Brendan McNamara, president of the College Republicans.

McNamara pointed out that Trinity displays other signs of its Christian heritage, including a chapel on campus, a chaplain, Christmas vespers and a Bible etching on the Trinity seal.

Why, I wonder, did a Muslim student attend a college with such overt Christian symbolism in evidence if he is too fastidious to have “in the year of our Lord” on his diploma?

This could not possibly be an attempt to subvert Christianity in the interests of promoting Islam could it? Surely not.