Matthew (6:24) says that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” but we have recently seen ministers who seem focused on the latter than the former in their personal matters like St. Louis Pastor Alois Bell who scratched out a 18 percent tip for a large party and wrote in a “0” next to “I give God 10% why do you get 18.” The waitress was later fired from Applebee’s after Bell complained about her going public with the slight. Rev. Bell was widely ridiculed as a craven hypocrite. However, she could apparently open a new ministry of the “Good Work of Mammon” Church with Australian Rev. Terry McAuliffe, of St Paul’s Anglican Church. A couple, Clyde and Lesley Bevan, own the Friends Restaurant and dropped a $6500 gold and diamond bracelet in the carpark. It was missing for months. They were delighted when a new “friend” called to report that he picked up the bracelet until he told them that he wanted half the value if they wanted it back. Rev. McAuliffe insists that it is just a case of mammon from heaven: “I have been given a gift fallen from the sky.”
Category: Religion
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Margaret Doughty, a 64-year old woman originally from the UK, and living in the US for 30+ years applied for US citizenship. She was asked, like all candidates, if they’d be willing to take up arms in defense of the United States of America. She responded that her “duty of conscience not to contribute to warfare by taking up arms … my beliefs are as strong and deeply held as those who possess traditional religious beliefs and who believe in God.” The USCIS in Houston, Texas, informed Doughty that conscientious objection must be based on religious grounds and she was to “submit a letter on official church stationery, attesting to the fact that you are a member in good standing and the church’s official position on the bearing of arms.”
Continue reading “Atheist Denied Citizenship Because Her Morality Doesn’t Come From Religion”
This is one of those stories that can put some in a difficult position. On one hand, it seems like progress that a hateful Islamic Cleric was sentenced for destroying a Bible in light of the litany of prosecutions of people for insulting Islam. However, in the end, it is simply the same denial of free exercise and free speech under blasphemy laws. Whether it is a Koran or a Bible, the act (as hateful and obnoxious that it is) remains an exercise of free speech and should be protected as a basic human right.
Continue reading “Egypt Sentences Cleric To 11 Years For Burning Bible”
The Guardian is reporting a scene that is both chilling and comical in Istanbul. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been warning protesters that his patience is running out and his police force are using gas and water cannons to clear areas of the city. As discussed earlier, the media has been virtually silent about the media in final proof of the death of a free press in the country. However, Western reporters were surprised by Turkish reporters and cameras were seen at the park and then learned why: the government was about to stage a fake riot.
Continue reading “Turkish Police Caught Staging Fake Riot By Protesters”
We have previously discussed the striking similarity between religious extremists in the Islamic and Jewish faiths. This week we have yet another example after a group of ultra-Orthodox men on a “modesty patrol” attacked a car carrying ultra-Orthodox women who were viewed as dress immodestly. We have previously seen the work of such immodest patrols as well as vigilantes on buses and prayer areas.
Yoga appears to be the new menace these days with Catholic priests and Muslim clerics (here and here) warning of its satanic appeal. Now, E.W. Jackson, a Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Virginia, is campaigning against the practice yoga and meditation as making people vulnerable to Satan.
There are demon infestation problems and then there are problems like the one in the home of lawyer Madalin Ciculescu, 34. Ciculescu went to four priests to rid his home of farting demons that he and his wife insist are making their life miserable. When the flatulence continued, they sued the Bishop and church for “religious malpractice.” Putting aside the chance that this could be an “inside job” of one of the couple, it does highlight the fact that, even though money is exchanged, it is virtually impossible to hold religious officials to any objective standard for malpractice. Ciculescu was denied and hit with costs by the court.
Cindy Jacobs is not just some other television prophet selected by God to guide mankind. Jacobs not only walks in the path of God, she wears magical shoes with holy soles that do not get holey. In explaining how the faithful are given miracles in her 10 Minute Prayer School, Jacobs explained “I mean, I remember one time that I had a pair of shoes that I wore and wore and wore and wore and it just — for years, these shoes did not wear out. And I wore them years and years and years.” She also describes how in having friends of her kids over, God would multiple food in jars as she spooned out lunches and snacks.
Continue reading “Sole Searching: Television Prophet Discusses Miracle Shoes and Pasta Sauce”
The Obama Administration is currently struggling to deal with disclosure of its attack on the free press under Attorney General Eric Holder. Now, it’s U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Bill Killian, suggesting an equally disturbing attack on free speech. Killian told a meeting with local Muslim citizens that he wants to “educate” people about how civil rights laws can be used against anti-Muslim speech. He made these comments along side of the FBI special agent in charge of the Knoxville office.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The idea for this guest blog came from Anonymously Yours, who has been around at Jonathan Turley’s Blog, for at least as long as I have. We have had an E Mail relationship, offline for many years. He sent me the link that I’ll be basically using and I think his judgment was on the money. The topic is George Washington’s Farewell Address, how prescient our First President was and how much good advice he gave that we should heed today, after the passage of 218 years.
Like every other American child what I learned about George Washington came from school and little else. When I started learning about him and the revolutionary war, it was common when speaking about him to call him “The Father of Our Country”. As the years passed this description has seemingly fallen out of consciousness and we usually only see him referenced wearing a white wig and a tri-corn hat on President’s Day selling cars. Certainly too, as my education progressed through High School and College, the view of Washington as one of our Founding Father’s was diminished as compared to his more glamorous and brilliant cohort among the Founding Fathers, Jefferson, Franklin and Madison. It is easy to see why this change came about. When you think of Washington, most would see the famous portrait I’ve used as a picture above. The portrait shows a prim-mouthed, rather dour man with a wig. History has given us certain personal details like his famous wooden false teeth. History has also supplied a childish, hagiographic mythology that he never told a lie and threw a coin across the Potomac. There is even some debate about his competence as a General. Indeed, the traitor Benedict Arnold is considered by many to be the best military mind on our side during the Revolution.
So when AY sent me his E Mail, I was at first skeptical about the project until I read the link. While in some sense I knew about his Farewell Address in the back of my mind, rereading it and the commentary on it caused me to rethink George Washington. As I see now he was a great man, in a true sense and he at least gave this country a good start. He also made a contribution regarding how he felt this country should comport itself that is relevant today, although certainly not heeded. Let’s explore Washington’s message and see what wisdom we can draw from it today, or should have drawn in the ensuing 218 years since it was written. Continue reading “The Father of Our Country”
Many people in the world have been waiting for the departure of extremist Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From the sounds of his likely replacement, Saeed Jalili, some may look back with longing. Jalili is a former Revolutionary Guard who continues the extremist Islamic principles of governance of his predecessor. This week, he promised to “defend the rights of women as mothers” as opposed to what he referred to as “economic context” of feminists and the West. Men will continue of course to be defined as men as opposed to fathers.
The Catholic Church’s top exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth is calling on Pope Francis to relax current limits on priests performing exorcisms. He insists that the demand of the faithful for exorcisms is rising and the Church needs to increase the supply of the rites. For his own part, Amorth now claims to have sent 160,000 demons to hell — that is over 1818 a year or roughly 5 a day or one demon every 4.8 hours every day every week every month.
The Iranian government is continuing its crackdown on non-Muslim faiths this month with a shocking arrest of a minister in the middle of a service at Iran’s largest Persian-language Pentecostal church. One can only imagine the response of Muslims in the country if a Muslim cleric was arrested in the middle of a service in another country. However, the Iranian government pulled Pastor Robert Asserian off the altar and literally dragged him out of the church. The move is viewed as a warning to non-Muslims before the June 14 presidential election to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
We recently celebrated the showing of tolerance in Arizona when the legislators allowed an atheist member to give the opening “prayer.” Democratic Representative Juan Mendez, of Tempe, is an atheist and opened the session by asking his colleagues not to bow their heads but look at each other. That did not sit well with Arizona State Rep. Steven Smith who proceeded the next day to give not one, but two prayers. The second prayer was to express “repentance” of the secular invocation offered the day before by Mendez. He was joined by half of the Arizona lawmakers in using prayer as a condemnation of Mendez and atheists.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger