Brayton Looks Ahead

Ed Brayton posted an intriguing little item on his blog today. I just have to share his conclusion with you.

If the current situation holds, 2012 could be a very interesting year.

– the chaplain

 

Helloween is Almost Here

Here in the northern hemisphere, the colorful, falling leaves of late October remind fundogelicals to put on their holy underwear armor and fight the forces that corrupt our culture every year with the wickedest holiday of all – Halloween! Offhand, I can think of three tactics that fundies employ to protest this evil evening.

1. Some people refuse to participate in any Halloween events at all. They don’t dress in costumes and they don’t distribute treats to neighborhood children. They either lock their doors, turn off their lights and pretend they’re not home, or they arrange to be somewhere else (such as church – I kid you not) on Halloween night. They also refuse to let their children participate, even going so far as to keep them home from school, lest the little tykes be tainted or tempted by Halloween festivities in those secular (read: sinful) environs.

2. Some churches launch a counteroffensive in the form of Hell Houses. Rather than corrupting children’s minds with the obviously fake, fun and funny “terrifying” sights and sounds of Haunted Houses, fundogelical churches opt to – literally, they hope – scare the hell out of kids with their own twisted spectacles of horror.

Hell Houses are a relatively new evangelistic technique used by many hundreds of fundamentalist and other evangelical churches in North America. One intent is to proselytize the unsaved public. Another is to promote certain conservative Christian beliefs, such as:

• That abortions kill human persons;
• That sexual orientation is a matter of choice, is changeable, and that God hates same-sex behavior;
• That everyone who is not saved will go to Hell when they die. They will then be eternally tortured without any hope of mercy or release;
• That underground Satanic cults engage in widespread sacrifice of humans.

Some hell houses are disguised to resemble conventional secular haunted houses. The customer only realizes that they have a religious theme after they have bought their ticket and gone part of the way through the scenes.

Typical scenes are:

• A phoney reenactment of the murder of Cassie Bernall, a teenager victim at the Columbine High School in 1999-APR. She was allegedly asked whether she believed in God, answered yes, and was murdered on the spot. The incident never happened. But the story has taken on a life of its own. She is frequently referred to in conservative Christian magazines, books, and radio programs as a Christian martyr.
• A person being sacrificed during a Satanic ritual. The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) web site warned of Wiccan rituals and stated “… evidence persists that some Satanists and voodoo groups offer sacrifices — usual animals, but, possibly, human babies” at this time. Satanic Ritual Abuse was a widespread hoax that was commonly believed during the 1980s and early 1990s.
• Women undergoing very bloody late-term abortions, complete with screaming, lots of blood, and particularly insensitive, uncaring health providers. Some of these scenes have been partly abandoned in recent years in favor of a portrayal of guilt and depression arising from Post Abortion Syndrome.
• Gays and lesbians being tortured in hell for all eternity because of their same-sex behavior while they were alive on earth.
• The dangers of “dabbling” in the occult and becoming demon possessed.
• Personal tragedies arising from pre-marital sex.
• Disastrous tragedies and loss of life resulting from drunk driving.
• A man having an argument with his wife and is later seduced by his secretary.
• Witches pressuring a depressed teen to murder his fellow students.
• A 9/11 ground zero scene.

Look at the bright side. Once Halloween is over, the Fundie PR machine automatically switches over from the Scare the Hell Out of Kids message to the Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men message. We and our children just have to get through one more week with our wits intact. We can do it!

3. Some people skip the expense and bother of Hell Houses and just tell kids straight up that, if they celebrate Halloween, they’ll go to Hell. That message, which was circulated in the UK recently, is more direct than this one, which I saw this morning:

The sign is not about Halloween, but its message is compatible with Hell House pageants and You’re Going to Hell flyers.

Churches! They steal sheep from each other so that they, rather than their competitors, can have the privilege of scaring them senseless. In the meantime, I’m sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out whether this stuff is sordid or sidesplitting. Right now, I’m thinking it’s a little bit of both.

**********
UPDATE: A good old-fashioned book burning may be tactic #4, if it’s not a POE. Does anyone know if this is serious? The holy rollers at Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, will counter Halloween’s evil effects by burning lots of non-King James Version Bibles, as well as “Satan’s music,” and “Satan’s books,” which were written by heretics like Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Charles Swindoll, James Dobson…. On the one hand, this smells like a POE, but, on the other hand, the church’s belief statements look like true-blue, far-right, wacko Christian fundamentalism, minus snake-handling and poison kool-aid (as far as I can tell).

– the chaplain

 

Stealing Sheep

The Vatican announced a bold move to steal disgruntled sheep from the Anglican fold. The alleged motive is “to make it easier for Anglicans to convert, reaching out to those who are disaffected by the election of female and gay bishops to join the Catholic Church’s conservative ranks.”

Sheep stealing is one of the oldest practices in the religious playbook, second only to multiplying by dividing, i.e., breaking away and forming new sects. I recall a time several years ago when a local pastor, aware of some difficulties that were going on in the church my family and I attended, unabashedly invited us (several times) to escape from it all by joining his church. We were not impressed.

I understand why church leaders find the temptation to steal sheep overpowering. Luring people away from another church into one’s own is a lot easier than actually winning new religious converts. Swiping sheep is a quick and easy way to get more butts in the pews and more coins in the coffers. Not that I’m suggesting that the Vatican’s interests may be so mundane. No – I’m sure the Church’s concern is entirely as advertised. Well, I suspect it’s at least partially as stated. After all, if people become disaffected with their churches, they may end up doing something really extreme, like giving up religion altogether. Wouldn’t that be dreadful?

– the chaplain

 

Another FFRF Billboard

I don’t think the Freedom from Religion Foundation ever sleeps. One of the group’s recent activities has been the placement of a new billboard in Grand Junction, Colorado, where the foundation “is working with area members and Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers, to ask local government officials to stop praying on government time.” Sounds like a reasonable request to me.

The organization’s newest billboard looks like this:

As you can see, this billboard is a variation on a previous one with a similar message:

Some past FFRF billboards have included these:

I haven’t always agreed with FFRF’s tactics. For instance, I thought the sign they posted in a Christmas display last year was rather morbid:

I would have preferred an uplifting message for a festive season. Nevertheless, I’m glad that the FFRF is campaigning and pursuing legal action on behalf of nonbelievers. I’m sorry to report that I haven’t seen any of these billboards myself. Have you?

– the chaplain

 

Atheist Inspiration #5: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

This installment of Atheist Inspiration features a woman I admire greatly, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. If you haven’t read Infidel, you really should put it on your reading list, as it’s full of insights into Muslim culture, religious deconversion, the immigrant experience and many other aspects of human growth. The excerpt for this post comes from her contribution to The Portable Atheist, a piece entitled, “How (and Why) I Became an Infidel,” which she wrote especially for Hitchens’ anthology.

When I finally admitted to myself that I was an unbeliever, it was because I simply couldn’t pretend any longer that I believed. Leaving Allah was a long and painful process for me, and I tried to resist it for as long as I could. All my life I had wanted to be a good daughter of my clan, and that meant above all that I should be a good Muslim….

I did feel constricted by my family and our Somali clan, where family honor was the overriding value, and seemed principally to reside in the control, sale, and transfer of girls’ virginity. Reading Western books – even trashy romance novels – gave me a vision of an astounding alternative where girls had choices.

Still, I struggled to conform. I voluntarily robed in a black hijab that covered my body from head to toe. I tried to pray five times a day and to obey the countless strictures of the Koran and the Hidith. I did so mostly because I was afraid of Hell….

Ultimately, I think, it was books, and boys, that saved me. No matter how hard I tried to submit to Allah’s will, I still felt desire – sexual desire, urgent and real, which even hellfire could not suppress. It made me ashamed to feel that way, but when my father told me he was marrying me off to a stranger, I realized that I could not accept being locked forever into the bed of a man who left me cold.

I escaped. I ended up in Holland. With the help of many benevolent Dutch people, I began to gain confidence…. I decided to study political science, to discover why Muslim societies – Allah’s societies – were poor and violent, while the countries of the despised infidels were wealthy and peaceful. I was still a Muslim in those days. I had no intention of criticizing Allah’s will, only to discover what had gone so very wrong.

It was at university that I gradually lost my faith. The ideas and facts that I encountered were thrilling and powerful, but they also clashed horribly with the vision of the world with which I had grown up….

Then the Twin Towers were toppled in the name of Allah and his prophet, and I felt that I must choose sides. Osama bin Laden’s justification of the attacks was more consistent with the content of the Koran and the Sunna than the chorus of Muslim officials and Western wishful thinkers who denied every link between the bloodshed and Islam….

I picked up a book – The Atheist Manifesto by Herman Philipse, who later became a great friend. I began reading it, marveling at the clarity and naughtiness of its author. But I really didn’t have to. Just looking at it, just wanting to read it – that already meant I doubted. Before I’d read four pages, I realized that I had left Allah years ago. I was an atheist. An apostate. An infidel. I looked into a mirror and said out loud, in Somali, “I don’t believe in God.”

I felt relief. There was no pain but a real clarity. The long process of seeing the flaws in my belief structure, and carefully tip-toeing around the frayed edges as parts of it were torn out piece by piece – all that was over….

[I]nterviewers often asked if I had considered adopting the message of Jesus Christ. The idea seemed to be that I should shop for a better, more humane religion than Islam, rather than taking refuge in unbelief….

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely; we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.

I suspect that many former religious believers besides me can identify with much of this story. Since I’ve shared my un-testimony in bits and pieces over the past (nearly) two years, I won’t reiterate it here. Instead, I’ll encourage you to add your thoughts about Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s story in the comments and to add Infidel and The Portable Atheist to your libraries if you haven’t done so yet.

– the chaplain