This is the blog of Shockwave Plasma, a virtual entity who originated in Second Life.
Being a virtual person lets me look out into the real world from a different perspective.
The Church seems to be impressively quick to laicise and excommunicate a priest they think has supported women and gays, but child abusers are exempt from such quick action.
The article ends with:-
How does the Vatican operate in Australia? How does it interact
with the vast "submerged state" of Catholic education and welfare? What
kind of Church will survive the child abuse inquiry? Over the following
months New Matilda will be investigating the application of Catholic
power in Australia, the various mechanisms set up by the Church to
attempt to deal with the scourge of child abuse, and the work of the
Royal Commission. Tips can be sent to adam [dot] brereton [at] newmatilda [dot] com. Confidentiality and sensitivity guaranteed.
I would also ask how does the RCC interact with the two main Australian political parties and what it does with the state of it's uniquely tax free businessstatus.
Anyone got a tip for adam [dot] brereton [at] newmatilda [dot] com ?
"Nothing can be
more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and
common sense."
Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire)
"The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children,"
The was one of the most disturbing books I have read in a while, such as I had to put it down and leave it for a days before I would come back to it.
I still find it hard to believe in the 21st Century that we still have missionaries, occasionally most people will get the Jehovah's Witness to their door, occasionally seeing the Mormons coming round with their nice white shirts and little name badges.
But missionaries? Really?
In Katherine Stewarts book "The Good News Club" she shows exactly how the modern day missionaries have evolved, and are now targeting our children, she also reveals how much money is involved in this endeavour (LOTS!), and it's very very disturbing.
This is the story of how schools in the USA are slowly being used by Christian evangelical groups for after-school services for the express purpose in gaining child converts. The book details how the Alliance Defence Fund, the Liberty Council, the American Centre for Law and Justice, and other conservative groups have masterminded an assault on public education, these groups have combined budgets totalling over $US100 million per year. Add the free labour, and items donated by volunteers this produces a Christian outreach powerhouse.
Many of the people who run theses Clubs represent a very conservative, very fundamentalist, very evangelical type of Christianity. Many of these would even be called Christian Nationalists (or Dominionists if you prefer), for those who don't know the meaning of this term, it's taken from the Biblical phrase "God has given you dominion over all things" so they think Christians should be in charge of everything and everyone. But of course it has to be the "right" sort of Christian.
How did this start?
The first chapters of the GNC Katherine discovers the GNC starting up in her childrens school, and their attempts to infiltrate the school itself so to maintain a deception that it's is part of the school curriculum.
In the following chapters Katherine goes to some of the Child Evangelical Fellowship ( CEF )
meetings and just how they are pushing religion in schools via lawsuits. In general it's now been reduced to a free speech issue. Those who wrote the US Constitution deliberately made religion a special case.
Chapter 3 has some surprising history of religion and how the public school systems was started , followed in the next chapter by the legal maneuverings that allowed the GNC access to schools
Chapter 6 goes into the reasons why Christian Fundamentalists are now targeting children.
I was much surprised to find out that there are actually missionary expos.
Chapter 8 Examines the failed Abstinence programs, and the history of Sex-Ed or (Lack of).
Chapter 10 is very familiar if you recall the current Australian problems with Chaplains, and with Access Ministries
Chaplains are not allowed to evangelize in school hours, so will keep in contact via Facebook, and will offer weekend trips away to camps.
Back to Chapter 10.."Child transmitted communicable religion"..my title for the chapter :-)
Using children to spread religion in the playground, on the sports field. Social ostracism is quite the effective weapon on children.
Chapter 12 examines how the Christian Right at one stage tried to load the P&C with Christian activists then some decided to remove their children from the school system. (Homeschooling has shot up in the last decade), then the strategy seems to be to undermine the school systems and to make it a source of conflict.
To summarize: Evangelical groups are setting out to destroy public education in the USA. Tax exempt rich evangelicals have launched an all out assault on the minds and lives of children, "to reclaim the nation for God".
In a time where resources and investment in American schools are declining, and the USA starts slipping down its position in the league tables of education this is a truly dire event.
China is ruled by engineers and producing more and more scientists. Now is the time that western countries who want to keep up can't let their education system slip into turmoil, or spend time on imaginary beings.
American lawmakers in many states have been attacking evolution and woman rights (such as last week in Texas) which is about as sensible as attacking gravity. I can't ever see these Christian nationalists winning, but theirs is a trail of tornado style destruction, these people who are almost always American Republications are trying to move back into a past that never was, and in doing so, are helping the USA to eventually be bypassed by those countries that are looking to the future.
Here is Katherine Stewart, Richard Dawkins, Eric Cernyer and Sean Faircloth at
Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado. February 27, 2013 talking about the Good News Clubs. it's quite long at over 90 minutes, but it's worth listening to the audio, even if you don't watch the video.
One thing I learned from watching the video was finding out that the first good news club was established in 1926.
Eric Cernyar is also in the video, he's a former evangelical Christian who has put together a School facility use policy that may be useful if your local school is targeted by any religious group, not just the GNC.
Part of it states:-
Good Behaviour Requirement. No person, group or organisation shall be permitted to use a district facility if they:
a) engage in physical, emotional, or psychological mistreatment of children;
b) attempt to make children feel excluded, ashamed or unacceptable
because of the student’s lack of shared racial, ethnic, or national
origin, sexual orientation, or religious identity or commitment;
c) discourage children from critical and open thinking by employing
shame, conditional affirmation, or fear of natural or supernatural
reprisal; or
d) stigmatise children on the basis of race, colour, religion, creed,
ancestry, age, sex, sexual orientation, physical handicap or national
origin.
Take note of lawmakers trying to implement a school voucher system, this way public money can be diverted to the religious schools.
This post has taken me a while to write, as I have to go back to the book for references and then I am so sickened by the GNC, I have to put it down again.
The Freethinkers’ Pictorial Textbook by Watson Heston
I have seen this comic many times, and have often wondered where it came from, and if there has been many more like it, or it was a one-off from the artist. I had always thought it was from a British newspaper in Victorian times.
It's probably old news to many people, but it came from "The Freethinkers’ Pictorial Textbook" by Watson Heston (d.1905) who lived in the USA state of Missouri for most of his life. so not your typical resident of the time.
I have a few books on how to draw good comics that tell a story, and even though this style is considered old and "busy" it's still gets the messages across.
"The Freethinkers’ Pictorial Textbook book is available as a PDF from http://bankofwisdom.com
in two volumes, along with his other books The Old Testament Comically Illustrated (1890), and The New Testament Comically Illustrated (1898).
“To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.”
―
Isaac Asimov
Solidarity via cleavage and lots of it, so #convoyofcleavage was born at the instigation of Ms Bailey Woof.
Why should we do this, and what will it achieve we asked Jennifer?
She advised:-
Yes, this exercise is entirely frivolous and will achieve nothing. Yes, I
expect we will be gored by Helen Razer (after Baudrillard) for our
mindless capitulation to empty symbolism. Though as that lady recently
posted an image of her own cleavage, struggling to escape an appallingly
tasteless pink brassiere as she held aloft the dripping carcass of a
Peking duck, maybe not.
The hashtag has made the news in the UK Daily Mail, India, China (Aust users load up burst milk photos)* , and was a very non-serious response to a rather stupid comment.
By now I guess almost everyone on the Internet has heard of PRISM the alleged system where the NSA taps into the servers of big internet giants like Facebook or Google.
The EFF have produced a website Prism Break with links to secure/alternative aplications to some of the more popular offerings provided by the big companies.
Some idea are obvious, such as using Linux or FreeBSD rather than Windows, Firefox with HTTPS Everywhere installed rather than IE.
PiWik is a new one to me, I have looked at the demo it's much nicer than Google Analytics
The Android Apps section certainly has some good programs as suggestions, I would be using these if I was in Turkey right now.
The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties
through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small,
separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous,
even benevolent, and wholly justifiable. -Anon., U. S. Privacy Study Commission, 1977
Father Kevin Lee has published a book "Unholy Silence"
He says this is about his time in the church in Australia and all the coverups and abuse that he has seen, I haven't read it as yet,so I have no idea about the content, but it seems timely. He says he has a few unkind words for Cardinal Pell, and is publishing the book offshore. I image there are quite a few people with unkind words for Pell, but I don't think making the book only available via the web and published outside Australia will be much help
"Even in the dormitory I lived in, it was
nicknamed 'The AIDS Wing' because there was a belief that a lot of the people
living there were going to get AIDS because they were just so promiscuous," he
said.
“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things
and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes religion.”
―
Steven Weinberg
