GOP, The Party Of Rape | Republican Rape Quotes We All Should Remember!


The Party Of Rape Culture: 40 Republican Rape Quotes We All Should Remember

 

Party of rape culture: 40 worst rape quotes from the GOP. Rape-Nuts -- Grapenuts cereal logo with spoon full of GOP leaders' heads.

‘Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.’ – Former TX gov. candidate Clayton Williams. And here are the other 39. Image unattributed, via Gawker.com.

Republicans are obsessed with rape.

Republicans are obsessed with rape. It is perhaps the one issue that caused the GOP to implode during the 2012 Election. The foot-in-mouth disease carried by the party has revealed much about the current beliefs of conservatives and it has spread like a plague in just the last year or two, and as Republicans have continued to attack rape victims, they have united women like never before against their extreme anti-abortion agenda.

In just the last six months alone, Republicans have forced draconian anti-abortion legislation into law in Kansas, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Arkansas even after they acknowledged that they needed to do more to attract women voters. Well, apparently Republicans don’t care about what women think because they have done nothing but double down on the war on women they have been viciously waging since 2010, when Tea Party Republicans took control of state legislatures and governorships in states across the nation. Today’s Republican is required to oppose abortion exceptions for rape victims in order to avoid a primary challenge from someone further to the right. And because of that, Republicans have been saying some really stupid things about rape and rape victims. Here is a comprehensive list of 40 quotes uttered by Republicans about rape that women should keep in mind the next time they go into the voting booth in 2014.

When the next election rolls around, let’s not forget these 40 egregious rape quotes from the GOP.

 1. “Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that’s been raped? We need to protect innocent life. Period.” -Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, declaring that raped women must be additionally forced to carry and give birth to their rapist’s baby against their will in front of an all male crowd at the National Catholic Men’s Conference, June 2007.

2. “Nobody plans to have an accident in a car accident, nobody plans to have their homes flooded. You have to buy extra insurance for those two.” -Barbara Listing, leader of Right To Life, comparing rape to a car accident, May 2013.

3. “In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out.” -Texas State Senator Jodie Laubenberg, absurdly claiming that rape kits are used to abort a pregnancy, June 2013.

4. “Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.” -New Mexico State Rep. Cathrynn Brown, HB 206 language stating that rape victims would be charged and arrested for getting an abortion, January 2013.

5. “Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it’s an act of violence, because the body is traumatized. I don’t know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don’t know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act.” -California GOP assembly President Celeste Greig, saying rape victims don’t get pregnant because it’s a traumatic act, March 2013.

6. “Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.” -Rick Santorum, stating that God sanctions rape to give women the “gift” of pregnancy, January 2012.

7. “I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” -Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, repeating Rick Santorum’s belief that rape is sanctioned by God, October 2012.

8. “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” -Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, claiming that women can shut down the reproductive process during rape to prevent pregnancy, August 2012.

9. “Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject — because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low. But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. And in this case that’s impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. And that’s what completely negates and vitiates the purpose for such an amendment.” -Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, claiming that getting pregnant via rape is rare therefore there shouldn’t be any exceptions for rape victims in anti-abortion bills, June 2013.

10. “Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way and I’d be open to hearing discussion about that subject matter. Generally speaking it’s this: that there millions of abortions in this country every year. Millions of them are paid for at least in part by taxpayers. I think it’s immoral for us to compel conscientious objecting taxpayers to fund abortion through the federal government, or any other government for that matter. So that’s my stand. And if there are exceptions there, then bring me those exceptions let’s talk about it. In the meantime it’s wrong for us to compel pro-life people to pay taxes to fund abortion.” -Iowa Rep. Steve King, saying he’s never heard of a child becoming pregnant by rape and that he won’t support abortion under any circumstance until proof of such a thing is presented to him, August 2012.

11. “What Todd Akin is talking about is when you’ve got a real, genuine rape. A case of forcible rape, a case of assault, where a woman has been violated against her will through the use of physical force where it is physically traumatic for her, under those circumstances, the woman’s body — because of the trauma that has been inflicted on her — it may interfere with the normal function processes of her body that lead to conception and pregnancy.” -AFA’s Bryan Fischer, agreeing with Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment, August 2012.

12. “Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape. I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.” -Mike Huckabee, defending Todd Akin’s rape comments and zero exceptions for rape victims by talking about how much of a positive gift rape is, August 2012.

13. “Abortion is never an option. At that point, if God has chosen to bless this person with a life, you don’t kill it.” -Missouri Republican central committee member Sharon Barnes, echoing Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock that rape is God’s way of blessing women with children, August 2012.

14. “I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.” -Paul Ryan, referring to rape as a method of conception after being asked about Todd Akin’s rape comment, August 2012.

15. “He also told me one thing, ‘If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry. Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she’s not going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.’ All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she’s underage. And he just said, ‘Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,’ he said, ‘they rape so easy.’ What the whole genesis of it was, it was advice to me, telling me, ‘If you’re going to go down that road, you may have consensual sex that night and then the next morning it may be rape.’ So the way he said it was, ‘Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.’ -Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard, claiming that some girls are just easy to rape, October 2012.

16. “I lived something similar to that with my own family. She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to.. she chose they way I thought. No don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape… Uh, having a baby out of wedlock… put yourself in a father’s situation, yes. It is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.” -Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, comparing rape pregnancy to getting pregnant out of wedlock, August 2012.

17. “A life is a life, and it needs protected. Who’s going to protect it? We have to. I mean that’s, I believe life begins at conception. I’m not going to argue about the method of conception. It’s a life, and I’m pro-life. It’s that simple.” -Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, saying that rape is just another method of conception, August 2012.

18. “You know, I’m a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.” -Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle, claiming that God plans rapes, June 2010.

19. “I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.” -Sharon Angle, saying that a 13 year old who gets pregnant by her father should get over it and have the baby, July 2010.

20. “I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak.” -Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey, claiming that Todd Akin’s rape comments were “partly right,” January 2013.

21. “If you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception… and he also immediately issued a clarification saying that he was referring to the act of conception and he condemned rape. Romney has condemned rape. One part of this is nonsense. Every candidate I know, every decent american i know condemns rape. Okay so, why can’t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it?” -Newt Gingrich, defending Richard Mourdock’s rape comment by telling women to get over it, October 2012.

22. “There are very few pregnancies as a result of rape, fortunately, and incest — compared to the usual abortion, what is the percentage of abortions for rape? It is tiny. It is a tiny, tiny percentage… Most abortions, most abortions are for what purpose? They just don’t want to have a baby!” -Maryland congressman Roscoe Bartlett, falsely claiming that rape pregnancy is rare, September 2012.

23. “Each of these lines attempts to serve a portion of our population for which we extend our sympathy and encouragement. But nevertheless, it is only a small portion of South Carolina’s chronically ill or abused. Overall, these special add-on lines distract from the agency’s broader mission of protecting South Carolina’s public health.” -South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, referring to raped and battered women as ‘distractions’ after vetoing funding to prevent rape and abuse, July 2012.

24. “Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this. I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that’s part of the counseling that goes on.” -Idaho State Rep. Chuck Winder, saying women don’t even know what rape is, August 2012.

25. “We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life? I have spare tire on my car. I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.” -Kansas State Rep. Pete De Graaf, saying that women should plan ahead to be raped, August 2011.

26. “If I thought that the man’s signature was required… required, in order for a woman to have an abortion, I’d have a little more peace about it…” -Alaska State Rep. Alan Dick, suggesting that all women, including rape victims, should have to get permission from men to get an abortion, March 2012.

27. “If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, and I would give them a shot of estrogen.” -Ron Paul, echoing Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment 7 months before Akin actually said it, February 2012.

28. “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse.” -Former Colorado Senate Candidate Ken Buck, claiming that the victim may not have really been raped even though the perpetrator admitted that he committed the crime, March 2006.

29. “Through our conversations, I’ve heard, ‘what if somebody has a sincerely held religious conviction about dispensing the emergency contraception medication? What about their rights? How do we address those… It’s not about the victim.” -Scott Brown, putting religious belief above the needs of rape victims, 2005.

30. “When you enter into a marriage, you enter into a contract for all sorts of different things with your spouse. Why should we take it to a Class 2 felony and put a husband away who’s been a good husband for however many years … based off of something that was OK in a marriage up until that point?” -Arizona State Rep. Warde Nichols, equating spousal rape to consensual sex, March 2005.

31. “The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.” -North Carolina Rep. Henry Aldridge, making the Todd Akin “legitimate rape” claim over a decade earlier, April 1995.

32. “Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.” -Texas Gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, March 1990.

33. “The odds are one in millions and millions and millions. And there is a physical reason for that. Rape, obviously, is a traumatic experience. When that traumatic experience is undergone, a woman secretes a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm.” -Pennsylvania State Rep. Stephen Freind, ignoring medical science, March 1988.

34. “Fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive.” -Arkansas Republican Fay Boozman, making the Todd Akin claim, he also allegedly called this “block” “God’s little shield,” 1998.

35. “Sometimes we’re actually right when we go with our gut and stand on principle in supporting underdog candidates.” -Sarah Palin, responding to Todd Akin’s rape quote, August 2012.

36. “Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.” -Bill O’ Reilly, claiming that a murdered rape victim was asking to be raped because of the way she dressed, August 2006.

37. “I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That’s what marriage is all about, I don’t know if maybe these girls missed sex ed.” -Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, saying that men can force their wives to have sex against their will, March 2007.

38. “Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.” -Judge James Leon Holmes, Bush appointee, in a 1980 letter.

39. “Richard and I, along with millions of Americans – including even Joe Donnelly – believe that life is a gift from God.  To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous.” -John Cornyn, standing by Richard Mourdock’s rape comments, October 2012.

40. “The young folks that are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23. Gee whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. So we’ve got to be very careful how we address it on our side.” -Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, blaming the outrageous number of rapes in the military on hormones, June 2013.

… and click here for the worst Republican rape quote of all.

It’s time to take America back from these Republican rape nuts.

As anyone can see, conservatives have been saying stupid things about rape since at least the 1980s. But up until recent years, the extreme Republican stance on rape had remained on the fringe of the party. Today, Republicans proudly wear their extreme views on rape in the open for all to see. It doesn’t compute with them that the vast majority of women reject those views, and that medical science and rape statistics completely refutes them. That’s why it is so important to make sure people across the nation know all about what Republicans have said about rape and rape victims, and what they have done as a result. The most important election in our lifetimes will be in 2014 and we cannot afford to sit out like many did in 2010. There is a reason why Republicans gained the power to push their crazy anti-women agenda. It’s because voters failed to show up, thus handing victory to a party that doesn’t deserve it. Americans must do better in 2014.

We must take back state legislatures, governorships, and the House of Representatives away from the GOP. It is the only way to preserve the rights and freedoms that women have fought so long for. That includes the right to choose whether or not to end an unwanted pregnancy. Republicans have no right to make reproductive health decisions for women, especially since the great majority of those in the GOP making such laws to do so are men. That being said, women should resoundingly say ‘no’ to Republicans in 2014 and beyond until the GOP war on women is not only ended, but reversed. If Republicans ever want to hold public office again, they will abandon their anti-women agenda and their vile rhetoric. Until then, women will always remember in November.

Refuting the myth that Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were atheists


"God With Us"

Atheist Foundation president David Nicholls says the comments are an act of desperation by the church.  Personally, I think “desperation” is an understatement of epic proportions.   There are so many things wrong with Jensen’s statements that I had to sit here and stare at my screen for quite a while before I even found a starting point.  I gave considerable thought to expounding on the sheer arrogance that a god rules the world regardless of whether or not anyone actually believes in one, the utterly ridiculous notion of a struggle between god and man, or their dogma about not being able to achieve peace, happiness and harmony in our society without their god.  However, time being at a premium today, I decided to a different route.

First of all, there is no such thing as state-imposed atheism.  A state can ban religion, but it cannot ban atheism because it is not a belief, a faith, a set of doctrines or dogmas and cannot be imposed on anybody.  Atheism is an absence of belief, and you cannot ban something that does not exist.  I have heard the argument so many times from believers who think that atheism is a belief. They compare it to a religion.  They say it takes faith.  They accuse us of hating god.  Believers really need to find another line of fire, as all of these arguments only serve to make them look like complete idiots, which is unnecessary, as many believers are otherwise intelligent individuals.  I will not bother to extrapolate  the reasons why these are illegitimate arguments, as many of you already know the details. Those of you who don’t can look them up yourselves, and perhaps better arm yourselves for the times when you are confronted by theists who offer them up.

Today, though, we are going to examine Jensen’s claims about Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mass Murder and Broken Relationships.  We’ll start with the people he mentioned, and, as far as I’m aware, none of them said “I don’t believe in god, therefore I will slaughter lots of innocent people“. Let’s start with Adolf Hitler…

On Adolf Hitler…

Christians have been trying to discredit Hitler’s faith for decades, turning their eyes away from history books. From the earliest formation of the Nazi party he expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. He was baptized as Roman Catholic in Austria, attended a monastery school and was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.  He was confirmed as a “soldier of Christ” and his goal was to become a priest.  He was never excommunicated or condemned and the church had stated that he was “Avenging for God” in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.  Look it up…

Hitler was given veto power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany and forged a treaty whereas the National Socialist state was officially recognized by the Catholic Church.  In a letter to the Nazi party, he wrote “…this treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie.”

He allied with Pope Pius in converting German society and made a deal with the church whereas the church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons, and in turn, Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education.  This lead to Hitler enacting doctrines of the Church as law.  He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home.

He was quoted as stating, “The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity.  It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today…Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.”

In fact, the Holocaust grew out of Hitler’s Christian education due mainly to Jews having an inferior status in Christian Austria and Germany.  The Christians there blamed the Jews for the killing of Jesus and the hatred that Hitler fostered against Jewish people began from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany.  It is well known that Martin Luther held a livid hatred for Jews and their religion.  Luther wrote a book titled “On the Jews and their Lies” which set the standard for Jewish hatred all the way up to World War 2.  Hitler, of course, expressed a great admiration for  Luther.

The Nazis began to control schools insisting that Christianity was taught.  They included anti-Semitic Christian writings in textbooks and were not removed from Christian doctrines until 1961. Nazi soldiers wore religious symbols and placed religious sayings on military gear.  The official army belt buckle read “God With Us“. They got sprinkled with holy water and listened to Catholic sermons before going out on maneuvers. The Nazis had a secret service called the “SS Reich” that would act as spies on the dealings of other citizens and if anyone was suspected of heresy they would be prosecuted.

Here are a few quotes from Hitler:

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith.  We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter.  It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth!  In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders.  How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.  To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross.  As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…  And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”  -Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922

“Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars.  Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition.” -Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”  -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

Had enough of Hitler?  OK, let’s move on to Stalin:

Joseph Stalin was raised to be a Catholic Priest and I remain curious as to why his Christianity is shoved aside in all these arguments. Yes, there is no way to get around the fact that in his early career, Stalin made a vast effort to rid Russia of religion, but that had nothing to do with atheism.  It was the only way he knew to seize power of the country.

For generations the entire populace of Russia had been taught that the head of state was supposed to be close to god.  At the time in question, the head of the church in Russia was a tyrant.  The Russians were already disposed to servility and all Stalin did was exploit these two facts, and place himself in the position of god.  Once Stalin was firmly seated in office, he revived the Russian Orthodox Church in order to intensify patriotic support for the war effort.  Stalin was part of a council convened to elected a new church Patriarch.  Then the Russian theological schools were opened, and thousands of churches began to function. Even the Moscow Theological Academy Seminary was re-opened, after being closed since 1918.

So, while Stalin was no peach, he was not exactly what you would call a died-in-the-wool atheist.  He was more a secular minded religious opportunist, which is a personal character trait.  He did not use atheism to gain control, but religious principles that were modified to fit his own, sick and twisted method of revolution.

What about Pol Pot?

Truly a monster, having killed some twenty-five percent of the entire population of Cambodia.  Pol Pot targeted not just different religions, but education, science and medicine in his quest for total domination.  Now, let’s take a head count of atheists who are against education, science and medicine.  Thought so…  Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge were composed of Buddhists and Pol Pot was a Theravada Buddhist. He studied at a Buddhist monastery and then at a Catholic school for 8 years.  Cambodia’s communism was influenced by Theravada Buddhism.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk said, “Pol Pot does not believe in God but he thinks that heaven, destiny, wants him to guide Cambodia in the way he thinks it the best for Cambodia, that is to say, the worst. Pol Pot is mad, you know, like Hitler.”

So, while Pol Pot was definitely not a Christian, he was also definitely not an Atheist.

Let’s get on with some Mass Murder, shall we?

Add up the deaths that were attributed to Hitler, Stalin and Pot.  Then round up for good measure.  You can safely say that the number is staggering.  Probably upwards of fifteen million.  However, consider the following conflicts where the only differences between the opposing factions were and are religion:

  • Albigensian Crusade, 1208-49
  • Algeria, 1992-
  • Baha’is, 1848-54
  • Bosnia, 1992-95
  • Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901
  • Christian Romans, 30-313 CE
  • Croatia, 1991-92
  • English Civil War, 1642-46
  • Holocaust, 1938-45
  • Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598
  • India, 1992-2002
  • India: Suttee & Thugs
  • Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947
  • Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-
  • Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92
  • Jews, 1348
  • Jonestown, 1978
  • Lebanon 1860 / 1975-92
  • Molucca Is., 1999-
  • Mongolia, 1937-39
  • Northern Ireland, 1974-98
  • Russian pogroms 1905-06 / 1917-22
  • St. Bartholemew Massacre, 1572
  • Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE
  • Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38
  • Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91
  • Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834
  • Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64
  • Thirty Years War, 1618-48
  • Tudor England
  • Vietnam, 1800s
  • Witch Hunts, 1400-1800
  • Xhosa, 1857
  • Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE
  • Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-
  • Al Qaeda, 1993-
  • Crusades, 1095-1291
  • Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609
  • Nigeria, 1990s, 2000s

If you add up all of the lives that were lost in the name of one religion or another, you come up with a staggering figure that is in excess of eight-hundred-million. That’s eight-hundred-million.  An eight, followed by eight zeros.  So, even if the believers who are uneducated enough to think that Hitler, Stalin and Pot were psychotic mass murderers because they thought these men were atheists, it is horrifically clear that religious murder wins out.

Abortion and Broken Relationships…

I won’t cover abortion here, as I have already wrote a piece on it that can be found by doing a search within my profile here at the Birmingham Atheism Examiner.  Clearly, though, to attribute abortion to atheism is utterly ridiculous, as there are many Christians who support it.

As far as broken relationships go, it is common knowledge that the divorce rate amongst Christians is about on par with non-Christians of all types.  Most Christians already know this. However, what they might not know is that the divorce rate amongst specifically non-believers of any faith – atheists – is demonstrably lower than that of believers, which only proves that the reason, rationality and personal responsibility that is dominant in most atheists serves as a better base for a relationship than an imaginary being that requires credulous servitude and a conceited desire to place himself above that of ones spouse and family.

Although the audacity of the Catholic Church continues to astound me in their attempts to bury their dirty laundry, the majority of the Christian community blaming atheism for the atrocities that have been committed largely in the name of religion or religious ideologies remains on of the pinnacles of arrogance.  If I listed in this article all of the atrocities committed directly by the church from it’s inception,  you would be finished reading it right before the coroner arrived to collect you for death by old age.

By and large, the church is only interested in protecting itself, it’s power and it’s wealth and will do so however it can, using whatever means necessary. It will not end until it is either forced to by international law or it is eradicated from existence by the abandonment of it’s membership. Either one would be fine with me

Stephen Colbert Interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson | Catholic League Defends Inquisition!


spanish inquisition

Stephen Colbert Interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson | Catholic League Defends Inquisition!

Comedy Central
Comedy Central

Any show that can get the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue to defend the Inquisition is OK in my book: “COSMOS” SMEARS CATHOLICISM – Catholic League.

At first I thought he was just going to deny the Catholic Church had anything to do with the Inquisition, but no — he actually defends it as a force for “order and justice.”

The propagandists involved in this show, represented most conspicuously by Seth MacFarlane, told viewers last night that “the Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs. And it wasn’t long before [Giordano] Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police.”

The ignorance is appalling. “The Catholic Church as an institution had almost nothing to do with [the Inquisition],” writes Dayton historian Thomas Madden. “One of the most enduring myths of the Inquisition,” he says, “is that it was a tool of oppression imposed on unwilling Europeans by a power-hungry Church. Nothing could be more wrong.” Because the Inquisition brought order and justice where there was none, it actually “saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.” (His emphasis.)

As for Bruno, he was a renegade monk who dabbled in astronomy; he was not a scientist. There is much dispute about what really happened to him. As sociologist Rodney Strong puts it, he got into trouble not for his “scientific” views, but because of his “heretical theology involving the existence of an infinite number of worlds—a work based entirely on imagination and speculation.”

In short, MacFarlane, who is no stranger to the Catholic League, has once again shown his true colors.

 

Fake Arrests of Ohio Ministers Designed to Sell Christian Persecution Myth


Fake Arrests of Ohio Ministers Designed to Sell Christian Persecution Myth

By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson

FakeArrests
Because there is no actual footage of Christians being persecuted in this country – you know, because no Christians are actually BEING persecuted in this country – a group of Ohio ministers had to stage some arrests, employing actual cops to help them.Hint: Groups that actually get arrested don’t have to stage arrests – they can show actual footage. Guess which group that doesn’t include: Christians. Here is a short video of one arrest, just to give you an idea:

Here is the far more gratuitous full version, complete with suggestive blood graphics, set to the song “Bad Boys” – you know, “Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”

In all, three ministers – the Rev. Melford Elliott, pastor at Greater Bethel Baptist Church; the Rev. Robert Golson, pastor at Prince of Peace Baptist Church; and the Rev. Vincent Peterson, pastor at Providence Baptist Church – were “arrested”  at their churches, in front of their congregations (Pope Francis will no doubt be relieved that none of his flock participated in this foolishness).

All of this was, reports the Akron Beacon Journal, “to make people more aware of what it takes for pastors to defend the Christian faith beyond preaching on Sundays.” Yes, because American pastors are regularly subject to arrest by the government while preaching to their flock. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. Seriously, they are more likely to be shot by fellow conservatives armed to the teeth by Republican lawmakers and fired up by Fox News. A video of the “arrests” posted on the Internet made a big splash and forced Summit County Sheriff Steve Barry to explain that “the arrests were simulated as a prelude to an upcoming production at the Akron Civic Theatre.” The video, it turns out, was meant to be a marketing tool (it was a production of Larry James, who is general manager of Cleveland-based KAZ Radio Television Network). Barry said, in defense of his actions (two of his deputies were actually on duty and being paid),

“I feel we have an obligation to the community as part of our community policing and community relations. It took nothing away from their assignments and it was a good way to continue building relationships.”

Yes, because paid public employees should participate in activities that present Christianity as a persecuted religion. In fact, the Beacon Journal points out, “most parishioners were unaware that the arrests were fake.” Apologies? None from the sheriff. And Edra Frazier, marketing coordinator for production said only in defense of letting viewers think the pastors were actually being arrested, “We do, however, need to do a more adequate job of tagging the posts with production information.” Right. That’s all they did wrong. As the Friendly Atheist wrote at Patheos yesterday, “Putting on a stage play is one thing. But that church officials are reduced to staging arrests by bad-guy cops (who clearly represent the long arm of government) is the best illustration yet of how absolutely deranged the Christian persecution narrative has become.” Deranged is a good word for it.

Conservative Christianity has never been busier persecuting everything outside itself – women, the LGBT community, Muslims, ethnic minorities, atheists, secularists, Pagans and other religious minorities. We have filled the virtual pages of PoliticusUSA with post after post, tracking their activities across America. The scope of their hostility is truly staggering. They want to outlaw everything they say their Bible doesn’t approve of, they want to legalize their persecution of people they say their Bible doesn’t approve of, they want to withdraw First Amendment protections from other religions, insisting they apply only to Christianity (no matter what the First Amendment actually says). At CPAC – the Conservative Political Action Conference – this year, Media Matters reports that,

[C]onservative columnist Ken Blackwell, who also holds leadership positions at the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Family Research Council (FRC), used health care reform to compare the Obama administration to a “totalitarian” or “authoritarian” regime and conspiratorially claimed that Obamacare was designed to “destroy the family” and “silence the church.”

They claim your having health insurance is a persecution of their religion. They want to forcibly take it away from you in the name of their God. And yet, as they force your children to die for want of medication they won’t let you have, they claim themselves to be the true victims of persecution. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) points out, Behind the ‘Religious Freedom’ Attacks on Gay Rights Lurks a Broad Attack on Civil Rights. Yes, they are deranged. But no less dangerous for it. This video, and the activities of these pastors and these deputies, illustrate the depths to which they will sink in order to perpetrate their persecution myth on America.

Psychic Huckster Rose Marks Gets 10 Years for Fraud


fraud

Psychic Huckster Rose Marks gets 10 years for fraud

Alleged “psychic” Marks was found guilty of all counts of fraud last year. She has now been sentenced to jail time.

Psychic fraud: Rose Marks sentenced to 10 years – Sun Sentinel.

Convicted psychic swindler Rose Marks was sentenced to just over 10 years in federal prison Monday for defrauding clients of her family’s fortune-telling businesses out of more than $17.8 million.

Looking frail and downtrodden, Marks, 62, of Fort Lauderdale, sobbed as she apologized to her victims, her family and everyone she hurt, saying her former clients had been some of her best and closest friends.

“At the time, I didn’t realize what I was doing was wrong,” she said, begging the judge for mercy. “Now, I realize that I caused a lot of hurt and disappointment.”

She could have been sentenced to 27 years but instead got 10 and one month. Interestingly, the judge did not consider novelist Jude Deveraux to be a credible witness. Marks took the most money from her in a convoluted and wacky story about stolen embryos and channelling celebrities like Brad Pitt. Deveraux claims that Marks took more than 12 million from her but the judge would not use her unsubstantiated claims to punish Marks more. Deveraux had destroyed previous financial records prior to the Marks investigation.

Sun Sentinel reporter Paula McMahon has been covering the story thoroughly.

Previous stories about the Marks’ family string of psychic fraud charges (and convictions) are here. rose_marks

Crazy Eyes Michele Bachmann: American Jews Sold Out Israel To Help Obama; Bible Predicts US Will Turn Against Israel In End Times


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Who would have thought that crazy eyes, Reich Wing retard Michele Bachmann, would blame Jews as the harbingers of the Apocalypse!

“The congresswoman was echoing an End Times belief that holds that a massive battle will take place in Israel, triggering the Last Days.”

Bachmann: American Jews Sold Out Israel To Help Obama; Bible Predicts US Will Turn Against Israel In End Times | Right Wing Watch.

School Principals in Revolt


“With widespread apathy about what passes for religious education in schools, our classrooms are increasingly being used by religious groups to carry out their missionary work. Terry Sanderson explains how Australian parents have led the way in removing evangelists from schools.” The

The Australian Independent Media Network

Joe Kelly1One interesting characteristic of an undersea earthquake or a tsunami is that, for the most part, it is silent until it reaches land. Using that as an analogy one could say an undersea earthquake has erupted within the ranks of Victorian school principals and their school councils and has reached land. Its objective: to end the practice of religious education programs in their schools. This earthquake arrived last week when a courageous school principal, Joe Kelly from Cranbourne Primary School, went public on the nature of Christian Religious Education (CRE), being provided by Access Ministries, the organisation providing the service to public schools in Victoria. Mr Kelly’s concerns were the subject of an article by Konrad Marshall in The Age newspaper on 17th February.

Mr Kelly stated that he would no longer allow Access Ministries in his school. “It is not education,” he said. “It has no value whatsoever. It…

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Abbott is the Most Moderate Prime Minister In the History of Australia.


At first it was easy. Bernardi, Joyce and Pyne have always been a satirist’s dream. You just have to repeat what they’re saying and most people laugh and tell you that you have a marvelous control of irony. And since his election, Abbott has made himself look even more ridiculous than that trio – which, I think you’ll agree – is an impressive achievement.

The Australian Independent Media Network

windows, i think

At first it was easy. Bernardi, Joyce and Pyne have always been a satirist’s dream. You just have to repeat what they’re saying and most people laugh and tell you that you have a marvelous control of irony. And since his election, Abbott has made himself look even more ridiculous than that trio – which, I think you’ll agree – is an impressive achievement.

Going from “elect us for a strong economy” to “what do job losses have to do with us” in the space of a few months ranks with George W. telling us that the French didn’t have a word for “entrepreneur”. But then, we had Scott Morrison’s “Well, what do you expect when people leave the safety of the compound?” changing to “Sorry he didn’t leave the compound, but we’ll have a full inquiry into this and no, I’m not answering questions, I never answer questions because that…

View original post 431 more words

My Life As A One-Man Band : Tommy Emmanuel


My Life As A One-Man Band : Tommy Emmanuel at TEDxMelbourne       

Tommy Emmanuel created a life for himself as a one-man band and has become one of Australia’s most respected musicians. With light vim and pure talent, he demonstrates his unique playing style, which is notably a development of the Travis picking technique and blending of rhythm and melody.

In his career, he’s played on recordings for Air Supply and Men at Work and in his twenties he joined one of Australia’s biggest rock acts, Dragon. Now, as a two-time Grammy nominee with a career spanning five decades, he has, for several years, performed over 300 concerts annually. He’s worked with Martin Taylor on a jazz-inspired duet album The Colonel and the Governor. His most recent original material is Little By Little (2011).

When The Right Loved Vladimir Putin


When the right loved Vladimir Putin

When the right loved Vladimir Putin

Back when Putin was in the news for oppressing LGBT people, many conservatives said he had his virtues

Following Russia’s de facto annexation of Crimea this weekend, Republican leaders have begun forcefully criticizing President Obama, blaming his supposed weakness and tendency toward indecision for Putin’s aggressive move while suggesting that Russia’s autocrat wouldn’t have seized Crimea if he were more intimidated by U.S. power.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has long been one of Obama’s most hawkish Republican critics on issues of foreign policy, said on CNN that America has “a weak and indecisive president,” a situation that “invites aggression.” GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, meanwhile, complained on Fox News that Putin was “playing chess” while the U.S., under Obama’s leadership, was merely “playing marbles.”

Yet all this tough talk from Republican circles is obscuring a salient fact: Until recently, conservatives were far more divided when it came to their estimation of Russia’s president. While no high-ranking Republican in his or her right mind would ever praise Russia itself, it wasn’t so long ago that many conservatives — especially those of a more socially reactionary bent — were celebrating Putin for his country’s controversial anti-gay laws, which they described as being interested primarily in saving Christianity and “traditional” values rather than discriminating against LGBT people.

Here are just a few examples of right-wingers cheering on Putin:

The American Conservative’s Pat Buchanan and Rod Dreher

Back in December, the former strategist and speechwriter for Richard Nixon won some attention for a column in which he asks, “Is Vladimir Putin a paleoconservative? In the culture war for mankind’s future, is he one of us?” After a lengthy diatribe expounding on all the ways unelected judges and perfidious progressives had forced their radical, secular morals on the rest of the country, Buchanan comes so very close — just a centimeter away, really — from answering his own questions in the affirmative and welcoming Russia’s president into the paleocon fold. “While his stance as a defender of traditional values has drawn the mockery of Western media and cultural elites,” Buchanan writes, “Putin is not wrong in saying that he can speak for much of mankind.”

The American Conservative’s socially conservative blogger Rod Dreher, meanwhile, also had kind words for Putin, writing that the Russian leader “may be a cold-eyed cynic” but was nevertheless “also onto something.” Acknowledging that he’s merely putting forward a “guess” as to Putin’s motivations, Dreher writes, “If Russia is going to have a future, [Putin] must figure, it must be built on organic Russian traditions, which includes Orthodox Christianity.” Dreher went on to guess that Putin “believes that Russia’s rebirth depends on its rediscovery of a life-giving Christianity, which depends on rebuilding a sense of social respect for and trust in the Orthodox Church and its teachings.” Dreher also seems to endorse this reasoning, writing that “Orthodox Christianity is the only coherent basis for rebuilding the Russian nation from the ruins left by Bolshevism.”

The Weekly Standard’s Christopher Caldwell

Writing for the Financial Times in early February, one of the neoconservative magazine’s editors, Christopher Caldwell, reprimanded Putin’s critics in the West for focusing on “a short list of causes beloved of western elites” instead of all the good things Putin’s done. “Certainly Mr Putin’s respect for the democratic process has been fitful at best,” Caldwell grants, but then goes on to argue that those in the West who opposed Putin’s anti-gay laws are hypocrites. As evidence, he cites the fact that some of the most prominent opponents of Putin’s anti-gay law were previously supporters of an anti-blasphemy law that passed in the U.K. in 2006.

In the end, Caldwell implies that Putin’s critics aren’t much better at the whole democracy thing than he is, writing, “Those countries lecturing him about ‘healthy democracy’ … have lately shifted power from legislatures to executives and from voters to bureaucracies. In Europe it has been done through delegations of power to the EU. In the US, it has been done through judicial reversals of democratic election results (including on gay marriage) and congressional abdication (on trade, warfare, healthcare and intelligence gathering).” Caldwell finishes his column by claiming that the distance separating civil rights in the West and Russia “is not quite so obvious as it was 10 years ago.”

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber and the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer

These two hardcore social conservatives both praised Putin for his anti-gay laws. In a December column for WND.com, Barber wrote that, during the Obama years, Putin has been able to claim for Russia “the mantle of world moral leader” and that Putin’s anti-gay laws were an example of his being able to “out-Christian our once-Christian nation.” He describes the controversial laws as banning “sexual anarchist propaganda.”

Fischer, for his part, was even more effusive in his praise for Putin, calling the Russian a “lion of Christianity” back in October. Putin, according to Fischer, is “the defender of Christian values, the president that’s calling his nation back to embracing its identity as a nation founded on Christian value.” Fischer went on to describe Russia as “more advanced spiritually than the United States.”

Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on politics. Follow him on Twitter at @eliasisquith, and email him at eisquith@salon.com.

Faith-Based Politics: Kinship Between National Socialism and Roman Catholicism


Faith-Based Politics: Kinship Between National Socialism & Roman Catholicism

pope-pius-meets-hitler

 

In Christian Nations, Christians Rationalize the Blending of Religion, Politics

By

It’s common for Christians to assume that Christian churches resisted Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. The truth is that not only did few even go so far as to voice criticism, much less overtly and publicly resist, but some actually made serious arguments for the idea that Christianity and Nazi ideology were totally compatible. Such arguments for compatibility could either focus on the ideologies’ specific teachings, on their general approaches to life and society, or both.

Fusing Christianity & National Socialism

A focus on the “essence” of Christianity and National Socialism was probably more common, and Christians who did this also tended to discover that both were inherently more compatible with the German character. The idea that there was something essentially “German” about “true” Christianity might seem bizarre today, but it’s not that different from Christians in America acting like Christianity is especially compatible with American politics, American market capitalism, the American character. Just how often do we see Americans behaving as though they believe their god singles out America for special blessings and favors?

Protestants in Nazi Germany, not unlike their counterparts in modern America, tried to fuse Christianity with their contemporary politics much more than Catholics, but Nazi Catholics were able to rely on the fact that their own church is so authoritarian. If authoritarian control is acceptable within the church, it’s hard to argue that it’s unacceptable for the government.

There were certainly Catholics who believed that Nazi ideology was contrary to and incompatible with their Catholicism, but there were also plenty who just as sincerely believed that Nazi ideology was compatible with their Catholicism. I’m not arguing that the latter were more right than the former, but rather that the latter were just as sincere as the former and could offer serious theological and historical arguments to back their case.

Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany

In Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany, Robert A. Krieg describes the five points offered by Catholic theologian Joseph Lortz when he argued that “the basic kinship between National Socialism and Catholicism” was becoming evident to all Christians in Germany:

(1) like the church, “National Socialism is essentially an opponent of Bolshevism, liberalism, [and] relativism.” It affirms what popes Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII explicitly taught: authentic civil authority is much more than the will of “the majority.”
(2) like the church, “National Socialism is the declared opponent of the atheist movement and also of the lack of ethics in society.” Building on this healthy formation, the church can address “the great task of the present age: the creation of a new ‘Catholic human being’ who will replace the Sunday Catholic.” As Lortz saw it, this kind of cooperation between church and state occurred in Italy, where Pius XI and Mussolini initiated in 1931 collaboration between the Catholic youth organization and the state.
(3) National Socialism and Catholicism affirm “the natural order of creation.” National Socialism is intent upon leading Germans back to their cultural and ethnic origins so that they may once again flourish as a people. Since Catholicism believes in the complementarity of nature and grace, it can endorse Nazi efforts in this regard and simultaneously build on this foundation while it focuses on the spiritual realm.
(4) National Socialism and Catholicism hold that a society is not merely an association of individuals but rather a social unity in which individuals participate. Pius XI himself called for a corporatist society in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno.
(5) National Socialism and Catholicism aim at overcoming modernity’s “spiritless intellectualism.” Both emphasize the “spiritual life” that undergirds intellectual inquiry.
Finally, these five points indicate at National Socialism and Catholicism share a “kinship of essence.” For this reason, in relating to the Nazi state, the church should “work for the fulfillment of the genuine essence of National Socialism.”

Many may be surprised at attempts to draw such detailed parallels between Nazi ideology and Catholicism, but this happens in many other cultures with many different political and economic systems. Everywhere you turn, you can find people trying to argue that “true” Christianity already anticipated or is most compatible with whatever political and economic systems they happen to be living in and we need to realize that neither will be entirely fulfilled until they are blended with other. We can find such arguments with communism and capitalism, democratic and authoritarian politics, liberalism, and conservatism, and so forth.

So Joseph Lortz wasn’t doing anything unusual — it’s just that he was doing it with a political and social ideology which everyone has come to realize is evil. No one who tries to blend Christianity with market capitalism or liberal politics wants to think that their project shares anything at all with what Christians like Lortz were doing, but ultimately they are all far more similar than they are different. Particularly significant here is the fact that as a professional theologian, Lortz can’t be dismissed as not being a “real” Christian — a common response from Christians when faced with stories of fellow believers whose political and social beliefs led them in a different direction.

Naturally the lesson here is not limited to Catholicism alone, or even just Christianity alone. Protestants and adherents of other religions engage in very similar behavior, though in my experience it seems to happen more often in the context of Christianity than other religions. I’ve never read about anyone trying to blend capitalism with Hinduism, or democratic politics with Buddhism. The ability of Christianity to blend with a variety of cultures, politics, and social systems has been part of what has made it so successful.

At the same time, though, it has led Christians to forget the degree to which contingent political ideologies, cultural traditions, and other external factors have become enmeshed with their faith. It might be wise for them to care about this and avoid actions which could serve to embed aspects of contemporary politics or economics into their religion. That’s one possible consequence of current faith-based politics which seeks to encourage greater political activism that is motivated by religious belief.