Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
It is often quite interesting to look at how a specific event is reported, and note the tone of the article. Such a comparison often tells us quite a lot about the bias that is introduced by the article’s author and perhaps also reveals a hidden agenda. Here now is an interesting example of this:
There is a claim that Christopher Langan is the smartest man in the US. However, he also claims that intelligent design and evolution are compatible … really!! … in that case, I can only suggest that he is perhaps not as smart as some consider him to be. OK, to be fair let’s clarify something – Intelligence … Read more
There is currently a case taking place in the UK that involves a girl known as “JGE”, who was sexually abused while a six-year-old resident at The Firs, a children’s home in Portsmouth run by an order of nuns, the English Province of Our Lady of Charity. JGE was sexually abused by Father Wilfred Baldwin, a priest of the Roman Catholic diocese of Portsmouth and its “vocations director”, who regularly visited The Firs during the 70s. Her legal team claim the nuns were negligent and in breach of duty, and that the diocese was liable for Baldwin’s alleged abuse as he was a Catholic priest engaged within the work of the diocese.
Honestly, I’m quite happy for folks to believe whatever they wish, and as long as they behave in a decent manner, I’ll not show too much interest … which perhaps explains why I, and many others, are constantly banging away at both Islam, extreme evangelical kooks, and also Catholicism. For not only are their beliefs truly bizarre and utterly insane, but the manner in which they treat others is quite frankly appalling.
Today, on-side, joining us in valid criticism of the Catholic cult of insanity is the president of the Irish Republic, Enda Kenny. What is most surprising and completely “unprecedented” about his verbal attack upon the Vatican is that it comes from a Fine Gael taoiseach, whose political base lies in the conservative west of Ireland, who has led from the front. It should of course not be a surprise, for quite some time now case after case of abuse and cover-up has come to the surface. In the latest report, we find that the Vatican are still obstructing the civil power, ie the Garda Síochána, in their inquiries into allegations against priests in the County Cork diocese. Here is the Video of his speech …
You can read an interesting article in the Guardian about all this here.
Back in 2009, the Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Diocese of Dublin (Nope not my grammar, that is what they called what was also known as The Murphy report) was published with the details of some truly horrifying child abuse. It was not the end-game and so they did not stop there because the last Irish government had agreed to extend the Murphy commission’s remit to include Cloyne, so further investigation proceeded. On Wednesday 13th July they finally issued their report.
To give this a contextual time line, the commission was asked to investigate the handling of sex abuse allegations in Cloyne by church and state authorities between 1 January 1996 – when the church’s first-published guidelines, its Framework Document, came into play – and 1 February 2009. In other words, this is restricted to a period of time that “starts” from the day they claimed to have cleaned up their act and does not consider any of the historical abuse prior to 1996.
First the link so that you can go read it yourself. Here is the full report. At 421 pages in length, it is not a quick read.
If I asked you, or any decent normal human, the question, “Is it OK to murder somebody who does not hold the same beliefs?”, I remain confident that the universal answer would be obvious. In fact, I’d be astonished if anybody would actually suggest it was a great idea …. well … prepare to be astonished, because Islam belief does indeed appear to consider it to be a viable response to valid criticism of utterly insane and delusional beliefs.
Here now is a video clip taken from an interview given by Shaykh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni on the Egyptian satellite television station al-Hikma on 7 July 2011. Now least you wonder, this is no fringe kook, he is a popular Islamic preacher known for spouting nonsense like this.