Keeping the flock herded together is what it’s all about in fundamentalist religions, because exposure to anything different, or anything that allows or even encourages time to clear the mind (meditation and relaxation) threatens the weak beliefs they have been taught to maintain. It’s interesting that the most “devout” are the most fearful of losing their beliefs at the influence of others. And so what does that say about their god/gods?

Malaysia Muslim council under fire for banning yoga

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – One of Malaysia’s highest Islamic bodies was under fire Sunday after its chairman said yoga was forbidden for Muslims because the practice would weaken religious faith.

Devotees of yoga and moderate Muslim groups criticised the ruling by Abdul Shukor Husin, chairman of the government-backed National Fatwa Council. Yoga is hugely popular in mostly-Muslim Malaysia.

“I don’t think it had caused any Muslim to convert to Hinduism, neither has it weakened their faith,” said Norhayati Kaprawi, an official with Sisters of Islam, a private group which champions the rights of Muslim women.

“It is just an exercise like tai chi, which has its roots in Buddism,” she told the Sunday Star newspaper. She said her group’s staff had been holding yoga classes for the past year and that they would continue.

Rulings by the Fatwa Council are not legally binding on the country’s Muslims, and there are no laws to punish those who ignore Council decisions — but it is an enormously influential body.

Abdul Shukor decreed that yoga was forbidden because it involves the recitation of mantras and that it encourages a union with God that is considered blasphemy in Islam.

“The practice will erode their faith in the religion,” he said on Saturday. “It does not conform with Islam.”

Billboard promoting atheism will be removed

Gaylor said the billboard was put up to recruit new members and provoke discussion. “It’s asking people to think,” she said. “We want people to realize you don’t need religion to do good, and that if we didn’t have religion, the world would be less divisive. . . . Think of how many people have been killed in the name of a supernatural being that there has never been any evidence for.” The inspiration for the billboard was John Lennon’s song “Imagine.” Judy Rooze, administrator of First Baptist Church of Rancho Cucamonga, which is two blocks from the billboard, was relieved it was coming down. Rooze said it was unsettling. “I understand people have freedom of speech, but this is taking it too far,” she said. “It’s very jarring.” Gaylor said Freedom From Religion, based in Madison, Wis., is looking for another Southern California location for a billboard. Religious viewpoints are constantly aired, but people rarely hear from atheists and agnostics, she said. “There should be some balance,” she said. “We’re supposed to have a marketplace of ideas in this country.”

Yes, xian crap in our faces all the time? Completely normal. But one fucking atheist billboard? “Very jarring.”

Someone obviously needs to get out more. Well, either that, or just SHUT THE FUCK UP.

From Pharyngula post this morning. Something we all know to be true. “Societies worse off when they have God on their side”

“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.

“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”

HA!! When facts like these are available for all to see isn’t it nice to know that we have been on the right track all along. And while the study does make clear that religion is not causing the problem. It is facinating to note that religion isn’t making the problems go away either.

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

The full article is here.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

This is an uplifting story I found in the Chicago SunTimes online edition. It should happen more often.

Missionary went to change tribe, but they changed him
BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff Reporter aherrmann@suntimes.com

The mission assigned to Daniel Everett after he graduated from Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute was to change the lives of members of a tiny tribe in the Amazonian rain forest.

It was, however, Everett who was changed.

Everett, along with his wife and three children, were met in the rain forest by the Piraha people of central Brazil — a primitive culture which has no words for numbers or colors and no concept of war or personal property. They live in the present.

For a missionary like Everett, then 26, that last part proved a stumbling block as he tried to find the language to talk about Jesus and an afterlife to people who never talk about the past nor the future.

In the end, Everett, now a linguistics professor at Illinois State University, abandoned his own religious faith, a tale he tells in his new book, Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes (Pantheon, $26.95).

“I had preached the evidence of Christianity could be seen in the lives of the believers,” Everett said Tuesday. “Then I realized, these people, were, if anything, more secure, happier.”

Oh, if only more self-righteous, intrusive god botherers would “see the light” and leave the innocent alone.

“The Piraha don’t feel poor — they feel satisfied and that’s the basis of their happiness,” said Everett. “If they start to feel a lack in their own culture, a need for western goods, that will be a very destructive force in their lives.”

Amidst all of the talk surrounding who Obama will be choosing for cabinet positions, what his policies will be, and other affairs that will demand his attention when he is sworn in, comes his least important decision:

Churches in the nation’s capital have started extending invitations to President-elect Barack Obama and his family, touting their African-American roots, their ties to presidents past and to Obama himself.

Obama has attended church sparingly in the past several months. Since winning the election, he has spent Sunday mornings at the gym. Many Washington-area churches hope that will change after he is inaugurated.

Yeah, why would he want to keep doing something that could actually benefit him like working out? So am I to understand that churches favor a sedentary lifestyle? That sitting on your butt praying to a make believe sky daddy is of greater benefit than a trip to the gym? My favorite part:

Or he could choose, as many presidents have done, not to attend services at all. President George W. Bush, for instance, has only infrequently attended services in Washington, occasionally going to St. John’s.

So our current president, holy man that he portrays himself as, doesn’t go to church? Is it because he already hears directly from gawd?

Full story here.

Obviously, even if you don’t agree with the rest of him, ya gotta admit that Roy done did some kick-ass shit…

Catholic Priest Faces Excommunication

The Vatican has informed a Roman Catholic priest in the United States that he will be excommunicated next week for participating in a ceremony it considers illicit and invalid: the ordination of a woman as a priest. The priest, the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, 69, has been a member of the Maryknoll religious order for 36 years. He said he was anguished at the thought of excommunication, but could not disavow his actions. “Who are we as men to say that we are called by God to the ministry of priesthood, but women are not? That our call is valid, but theirs is not?” he said in an interview. “We profess as Catholics that the invitation to the priesthood comes from God, and it seems to me that we are tampering with the sacred.” Father Bourgeois served as a missionary in Bolivia and El Salvador, and concerned by what he witnessed, returned to the United States and became nationally known as a peace advocate. [...] On a practical level, Father Bourgeois also faces the loss of his benefits and the $1,000 he receives monthly for living expenses. But, he said, “if I am without health care, I will be joining millions of people in the U.S. who don’t have health care.”

And you gotta love this follow-up on the whole deal:

After all, the RCC has never been wrong before… right? Or done immoral and downright horrible things before? Things like:

• Castrating alter boys in order to keep their soprano voice
• Teaching that slavery is acceptable
• Taught that parents must not give their children inoculations against disease because it would thwart God’s will. God was seen as expecting a certain percentage of children to die; inoculations would have prevented those deaths.
• Oh, and my favorite, placed under house arrest or burned alive a number of scientists and philosophers, such as Galileo and Bruno. Their “crime” was to promote concepts which conflicted with church beliefs — beliefs which have since been modified.

So – the Church now admits they were wrong about all those things, but they somehow think they are right in believing that women cannot perform a function that men can? You know, it looks pretty easy to me. Memorize a little Latin, wear a silly robe, and learn a few weird gestures. Any idiot could do it.

…and millions of idiots actually do it on a regular basis.

Man, this totally cracked me up…

The store at the American Family Association has a GREAT item: what looks like (no shit) a burning cross:

Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can…. with the “Original Christmas Cross” yard decoration. Light up your front yard, porch, patio, driveway, business, organization or church this holiday season with a stunning Christmas cross. This beautiful Christmas Cross is 5.5 feet tall, with 210 individual ultra bright lights. Decorate this holiday season with the Original Christmas Cross to remind your friends, family, neighbors, and all who drive by your home, office, or church of the real meaning of Christmas.

Anyone wanna guess how many of these will be purchased by African-American families this holiday season? Maybe they should place this decorative item on their front lawns…

AFA, once again, you kinda missed the boat. You people definitely have a screw loose somewhere…

Americans United for Separation of Church and State says it is. However, liberals are going to need to pay more attention to politics at the state and local levels where the Religious Right may still hold much influence:

Watchdog Group’s Election Analysis Suggests Religious Right May Target State And Local Government For Next Advances

The Religious Right’s access to power in Washington, D.C., has been seriously diminished, but its divisive influence at the state and local level remains deeply problematic, according to an election analysis by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“Religious Right forces did everything in their power to demonize Barack Obama and maintain their influence in the White House,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “but it didn’t work. The majority of white evangelicals voted predictably Republican, but most other Americans ignored the Religious Right’s shrill and partisan message.”

*snip*

Lynn, however, said he deplores the Religious Right’s continuing baleful influence at the state and local level. The movement engineered anti-gay measures and restrictions on reproductive rights onto many state ballots.

*snip*

Lynn said the Religious Right is likely to increase its activity at the state and local level, now that advances in Washington will be harder to obtain.

“The Religious Right is not dead,” concluded Lynn, “but I’m happy that most Americans seem very wary of the movement’s reckless merger of religion and politics. Those of us who value church-state separation must remain on the alert to counter the Religious Right’s next gambit.”

I am guilty of not paying as much attention as I should to politics at our local and state levels. Most of the time the flyers and things we get hanging on the door knob or in the mail don’t even say what party the candidate is affiliated with. I think it’s important that we pay as much attention to the local level candidates beliefs and where they stand on issues as we do for the presidential candidates, maybe even moreso.