Megachurch leader perjures himself over sexual coercion

Megachurch leader perjures himself over sexual coercion.

Georgia sex scandal:

An 80-year-old leader of a suburban megachurch who is at the center of a sex scandal has been charged with lying under oath for saying he had sex outside marriage with only one other woman, court documents show.....

Former church employee Mona Brewer is suing Paulk, his brother and the church on allegations that Paulk manipulated her into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. In a 2006 deposition stemming from the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer.

But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother's son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church. As part of Brewer's lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk.

Oh noes! LOLtheists

I can has cheezburger is getting some competitionh from loltheist.com.



This one is "You just can't hide them."

Hell and damnation!

Local, that is, Toronto-area imams apparently will not pray for Benazir Bhutto because she wasn't radical enough.

By Tarek Fatah and Salma Siddiqui, National Post

Ms. Bhutto had not yet received a proper burial before the attacks on her character started appearing. The vice-president of the Canadian Arab Federation circulated an article lambasting Ms. Bhutto, mocking her as stooge of the West. It did not end at that level. Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star dedicated an entire column to attacking Ms. Bhutto's legacy and labelling her as corrupt and, God forbid the thought, pro-West. As if her being pro-Western was somehow anti-Canadian.

If attempts by Islamic writers to disparage Benazir Bhutto were distasteful, the conspicuous silence of Canada's Islamic organizations was equally disturbing....

At one Mississauga mosque where supporters of Ms. Bhutto had requested a prayer for their departed leader, the imam refused to utter her name from the pulpit. A few kilometres away in one of Canada's largest mosques run by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Skeikh Ala ElSayed refused to utter the words "Benazir Bhutto" from the pulpit, as if it was a profanity....

In another twist, the mosque hosting the prayer event to commemorate Benazir Bhutto missed the point altogether. Instead of honouring the women who came to attend the prayer event as a mark of respect for Benazir Bhutto, they were told they would not be permitted to enter the prayer area from the main entrance. All women were asked to take the rear staircase.

Faith-based schools?

The inimitable Q_pheevr has observations on the Canadian Conservative Party's campaign promise to fund more kinds of faith-based schools.

Oh, yah, we're really science!

Now I see why Bill Dembski ran like a rabbit from testifying at Kitzmiller vs. Dover. Other creationists at the trial were perjuring themselves to say that religion was not a factor. But he's on record time and again as a theologian stating that, as far as he is concerned, the Designer in Intelligent Design is his god.

Here's Dembski's latest declaration, from an interview at that bastion of scientific objectivity, Focus on the Family:

Q. Does your research conclude that God is the Intelligent Designer?

A. I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.

Hat tip to Pharygula for the link.

Muslim defends Jews from Christian hooligans

A group of about ten Christians on the subway in New York decided to beat up a few Jews after one of them wished him Happy Hanukkah in return for "Merry Christmas" (on a day of Hanukkah). A Muslim student from Bangladesh jumped to their rescue and was roughed up himself. Fortunately, the rowdies are now in jail. Police are considering whether to charge them with assault or with a hate crime (assault with intent to intimidate a group).

Nice going, Hassan Askari!

[Walter] Alder was treated at Long Island College Hospital for injuries that included a fractured nose and a cut lip that required several stitches, while [Hassan Askari] suffered a black eye.

The suspects are to appear in Brooklyn District Court on February 7 on charges that include assault, attempted assault, menacing, harassment, unlawful assembly, riot and disorderly conduct, Silverstein said.

You see, the human thing to do, untainted by religion, is to jump in and help.

Which god creates parrot images?

On Neatorama blog archive, there's an entry about a couple who sold their foul-mouthed parrot, only to find a parrot image in a bag of potato chips a few days later. It's obviously a divine message, but from whom?

Tree of Knowledge

A good friend sent this picture of the atheists' Tree of Knowledge on the Chester County courthouse lawn. As you can see, it's not in front of the Christian nativity scene.


With all those book covers, perhaps it should be called the Tree of Literacy!

Another "honor killing" shocks Germany

A young German women was shot down in the street, apparently by her three brothers.

Teenage girl is in critical condition after hijab dispute

A teenage girl from Mississauga is in critical condition. She was fearful of her father and brother after arguments about whether she had to wear loose clothing and a hijab to school. Her father called 911 and told police that he had killed his daughter. She is in critical condition. Her father will be charged with murder or attempted murder depending on whether she dies or lives.

Immigrants used to beat their children for adopting new-fangled ways but they didn't think that they had the right to kill them.

Religion is a wonderful way to control people, especially women, but it doesn't work as well when not everyone is obeying the same rules. A few years ago, a girl in Vancouver was apparently murdered in India on her mothers orders when she refused an arranged marriage. According to CBC TV, the girl had spoken to her friends of such an outcome but the mother was never charged.

UPDATE: The girl has died.

Science approach vs.Creationist approach

This is pretty much the way the arguments go on the discussion threads. If science can't explain everything from before the first atom, which by the way is all lumped in under "evolution": "How did water evolve, huh? Tell me that!" then obviously Goddidit!

Why do people laugh at creationists? 6

Here we go: a "scientific" video from Kent Hovind's Creation Science Evangalism ministry tells us that clouds block X-rays.

Why do people laugh at creationists?

This diagram will help to explain. It compares the scientific explanation to the explanation contaminated by religion.

More plagiarism by Kent Hovind's "ministry"

While we're talking about plagiarism, I noticed this in a video created by Kent Hovind's "ministry." He announced at the beginning of the video that it was not copyrighted and we were welcome to use his videos and spread them around - his "ministry" had made more than a million videos. There was one little hitch. I'm pretty sure that I recognize this image as the work of an America comic artist, who sells it as one of a series of pricey greeting cards. The style is distinctive. So I suspect that this image isn't Hovind's to give away. And I'll bet he didn't ask permission before using it - because permission wouldn't have included the right to release it into the public domain for unlimited copying. The image was innocently picked up in the critical analysis, "Why do people laugh at creationists? (part 6)".

And the mask is definitely off. What objective science lectures are promulgated by a ministry? I thought that ministries left the science to scientists and concentrated on religious or social rhetoric.

Update: The artist whose work I suspect this is is Mike Scovel. It certainly looks like his style (caution! music, lyrics, fart button!), especially for women. Perhaps I should write, "More apparent plagiarism" because I haven't heard back from the artist yet.

"Behead those who say Islam is violent"

Y'know, I always hoped this was a sick joke. It does sound like something out of the Goon Show, or Monty Python, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, or The Colbert Report.

But they're back: Sudanese Muslims call for the death of a public school teacher who let small children name a toy bear after a classmate named Muhammad. Why don't they get right to the source and execute the children?

Now that they've proved that Islam is violent, perhaps we could let them stew in their own self-created misery, and just give refugee status to any apostate, atheist, or woman who wants to leave the country.

While they're working themselves up into a frenzy, let's hope there are some rational elements out there. Anyone?

LOL creationists

Christeomormons

There's nobody here but us Christeomormons... Just as "Christeomormons" would grate on Christian ears, so "Judeochristians" grates on Jewish ears.

I believe that such terms are a way for the upstart cult to borrowing the roots, traditions, and respectability of the older religion.

Where will He appear next?

I don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but if you look at the catalogue of Cthulhu statuettes, Number 57 has a face of Jesus on the side. And Number 56. And number 58. Is there a message here? Or is it just the mind's ability to see patterns?

Ontario Conservatives back off on funding "faith-based" schools

The promise to fund all sorts of religious schools and not just Roman Catholic schools, has proved so unpopular with voters that the Conservatives are backing off. They still want to bring up the issue in Parliament, but now say that they will let Conservative Members of Parliament have a free vote. That's probably not enough for people who mistrust the idea; but it disappoints the religious groups who want to have their own schools with public funding.

Saint Che?

Ayd��n ��rstan at Snail's Tales has a note about "Saint Ernesto" in the The Creation of a God.