1. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150291 by hmj on March 26, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Happy Birthday. Thank you for speaking out.

2. Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?

Comment #142855 by hmj on March 13, 2008 at 6:34 am

...and social injustice which caused poverty or "the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few"... and paedophilia, ...



What a bunch of hypocrites. When I was a child, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has taught me to admire king Leopold II of Belgium as an exemplary Roman Catholic.



This king had his own private priest, his confessor, living with on his estate. The idea was that the king could sin all he wanted, for the priest was on call to give him absolution on his deathbed. It is known that the king's taste was for under age English slum girls. A private priest was appointed with full knowledge of a bishop and the Vatican.



The RCC used and still uses "guild" to get a grip on people which can advance their cause.



Lately this king has been given some attention on this site. He is responsible for the death of more people than Hitler. His aim was to accumulate wealth. Please read King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild, a history book published by Mariner.



The article in this link is worth reading.



http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/grantwalliser/2008/03/12/catholics-modernize-their-mumbo-jumbo/

3. A Tyrannical Romance

Comment #126624 by hmj on February 13, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Female elephants do not have to support the weight of the heavier males when mating. It is a matter of technique.

Very interesting article.

4. Documents detail church coverup

Comment #121201 by hmj on February 3, 2008 at 5:04 am

John Mc Cann, a South African journalist, has published his personal experience "A story of hope from one who has survived sexual abuse" in Mail and Guardian Online on 26 December 2007. You can find it on the link below.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=328307

5. Happy Birthday Josh Timonen!

Comment #119686 by hmj on January 31, 2008 at 6:28 pm

Happy Birthday and thank you!

6. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111589 by hmj on January 15, 2008 at 4:34 am

Dear Mr Scales,

Thank you very much for your efforts to help liberate us. Thank you again for coming to the forefront in the struggle against religious dominance.

Get well soon.

Hendrik Jacobs
Belgium

7. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104866 by hmj on December 29, 2007 at 7:39 pm

Thank God that I am an Atheist and not a Satanist.

Does the Pope realize that he is contributing to the following ?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2224553,00.html

Comment #104644 by MouthAlmighty :

The last Catholic priest ordained in my province in Belgium, was a 53 years old village idiot. A chain smoker who had never been married and never done an honest day's work in his life. He claimed that he was ordained because he never had been married. For the next five years there will be no more ordinations because there are no candidates in training.

8. This Is Not a Test

Comment #99844 by hmj on December 17, 2007 at 5:08 pm

Chuck Norris seems to be supporting the campaign of Mike Huckabee. Beware.
More info on BBC Radio 4 : Friday Night Comedy : The Now Show. (2007-12-15, Pod cast download)

9. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #97799 by hmj on December 12, 2007 at 4:37 pm

"Now that you rightly have earned yourself the title of leader of the neo-atheist, secular activists,..."

To believe in the true God you have to be a Roman Catholic. To be a Roman Catholic you must believe in Mr Pope. To be an atheist you do not have to believe in Richard Dawkins. I read his books because they clearly explain my questions.
You and your Church should first and foremost stop speaking with a forked tongue.

Mr Morris I was born as an atheist so please do not call me a neo-atheist. Another of your silly tactics of divide and rule.

"Although the role of the Church in the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition is regularly exaggerated by simplistic readings of history,..."

What about the role of the Church (or rather the lack of it) in the activities of King Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo ?
This King has caused more deaths than Hitler. And he was a devout Roman Catholic with his own private confessor.

A full historical account can be found in the book "King Leopold's Ghost" by Adam Hochschild (1998).

10. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #97191 by hmj on December 11, 2007 at 5:11 pm

"In Hope We Were Saved" (Rom 8:24),

Why does the Pope make references to the Bible when he talks about religion ?
If the Bible is so important, why is the Bible not 'studied' in the RCC ?
Why are most of the teachings of the RCC about dogma ?
Why is the basis of RCC believe to be found in the Catechism under a system of "We pose the questions and we give the answers". A question outside the Catechism is not a valid one.
Why do bishops live in palaces ?

When priests of an institutionalized religion say something, I have questions for which I get no answer. Unless it is 'you must accept/believe'.
When I pose questions to humanists/atheists, they ask additional questions and try to give reasoned answers. That is why 'the moment of my conversion' is still far away.

11. Islam's Silent Moderates

Comment #95373 by hmj on December 8, 2007 at 7:31 am

But where are the moderates?

Thank you for asking this question.

12. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92906 by hmj on December 1, 2007 at 5:50 pm

Comment #92648 by Russell Blackford :
"The trouble is that traditional religious existing sexual morality is such a one-size-fits-all thing ... "

It is rather a two-size fits-all thing. Certainly the RCC has two sets of rules : one for nobility and the rich and one for common people.

13. Papal encyclical attacks atheism, lauds hope

Comment #92530 by hmj on November 30, 2007 at 5:47 pm

"Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope."
In other words : "Myths are functional and as such they become at due time part of history."

14. Papal encyclical attacks atheism, lauds hope

Comment #92528 by hmj on November 30, 2007 at 5:41 pm

Pope Benedict, in an encyclical released on Friday, said catholicism was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.

15. God-less

Comment #16662 by hmj on January 8, 2007 at 12:23 am

Re: 29. Comment #16463 by DavidJMH

"...but social morality was stolen by early society's leaders and put under a superstitious (religious) guise to wield power over the weak; it is easier and longer lasting to control the masses with fear and superstition than by wielding a big stick."

This is the best description of religion which I have read on these forums. It is not necessary to connect the word God with religion. Religion serves itself and the earthly powers that dominate the masses.

My own description is: Religion protects the rich against the poor and is parasitic on both.

In The Virginian by Owen Wister, at the end of the chapter "The Spinster Looses Some Sleep", you can find an interesting observation on morality.

16. Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians

Comment #16659 by hmj on January 8, 2007 at 12:07 am

Re: 22. Comment #16335 by k1mgy

Thank you for posting background information which proves that Mr Tobias got it all wrong.

"She is clearly too stupid to see the difference between somebody who wears a cross and somebody who is a Christian."

Even RD allows her to be a Christian if she lives like one and not just adheres to symbolism.

Christianity was a way of life which through the centuries has been turned into a tool, used by the powerful and corrupt, to get a grip on the people (to let the powerful do as they like). If you need an example on which the ink isn't dry yet, read "Doubt over archbishop's accession" amongst the latest BBC headlines.

This is what Mr Tobias Jones had to say:
"Listen to Richard Dawkins' comment on Nadia Eweida (the BA employee who refused to take off her cross): "she had one of the most stupid faces I've ever seen." Nice."

Shame on you Sir for distorting such an important sentence.

17. If they preach the cause of the poor, they're my people

Comment #16497 by hmj on January 7, 2007 at 12:16 am

Two religions and two Christmas messages.

The head of the Catholic church in England:

He spoke of the emergence of a culture that espoused "individual freedom as the fundamental value to which all others must be subject". This culture, he said, is the cause of a break with the moral traditions of humanity ...

The same hypocritical rhetoric as usually. The RCC has dominated and controlled the does and donts of many western societies for hundreds of years. If something is wrong the RCC is to blame as well. What is the Roman Catholic Church going to do, to correct past errors?


The Archbishop of Canterbury:

"Religious communities are among the increasingly few places that bring people together as citizens rather than as consumers - fighting for a living wage and against poverty."

Congratulations to the Anglicans. They have understood. In the past it was the Anglican church which has exposed the mass murders in the Congo (100 years ago) and has stood in the front line of the struggle against apartheid.

18. Pat Robertson: God told me of 'mass killing' in 2007

Comment #15950 by hmj on January 4, 2007 at 12:51 am

How much money does he want this time?

19. In case you didn't know I'm a fool, here's an article to prove it.

Comment #15944 by hmj on January 4, 2007 at 12:21 am

"Properly understood, therefore, religious practice does not mean blindly conforming to irrational dogma."

Five hundred years ago Dr Mark Dooley would have been executed by the Vatican for publishing and defending this simple sentence.

Recently we have been reading that the Pope was opposed to the execution of Saddam Hussein.
Progress has been made but I wonder if the utterance wasn't a ploy for getting media attention.
I suggest that the Pope first sweeps the doorstep and the pavement of his own house before he starts sweeping the streets of another religion. But the smallest gesture of honestly meant tolerance is a great step forwards.

Fifty years ago I was thrown out of a Roman Catholic Church school because they claimed that something was wrong with my belief.

Today I can publicly say "god does not exists" and neither church nor state can punish me. We have come a long way. But I am not going to say it. Every human being should have the right to believe , if he/she wishes, but without the manipulations of tyrannical, self serving and greedy institutions.

20. In case you didn't know I'm a fool, here's an article to prove it.

Comment #15781 by hmj on January 3, 2007 at 12:20 am

"We are a nation on which the old religious values of community, charity and sacrifice, have given way to the new liberal creed of individualism, greed and rights."

I want to tell Dr Mark Dooley about my new year celebration.

A farmer's family had invited me to share their meal with them. Sitting round a fire we ate meat and drank locally distilled alcohol. The family does not eat meat in every week of the year.
None of the food came from store shelves.

After the meal, leftover food was placed on a plate and everybody present touched the plate.
The eldest person thanked the spirits for the past harvest and asked for a good harvest in the new year. A ball of string was brought and the elders tied string around the wrists, asking the spirits to keep the family united and healthy.

This family is threatened in their existence by the combined forces of multinationals and organized religion. The multinationals want the trees from their forests and the minerals under their fields. Give them a chance and they take the food too. Organized religion wants them to attend meaningless theatrical performances in churches for which, add insult to injury, they have to pay.

What exactly did you mean when you wrote above sentence Dr Mark Dooley?

21. In case you didn't know I'm a fool, here's an article to prove it.

Comment #15672 by hmj on January 2, 2007 at 12:05 am

God told Noah to built a boat and move the family and two of all species on it, god was going to destroy all other live on this planet by a flood because of sinning.

One sentence from The Bible, consisting of two parts.

In the first part god indicates that he does not want to wipe out his species entirely.
The Bible is full of concepts and is this the concept of preserving the planet's biological diversity? This is also what science teaches.

Christian religions choose to neglect this part and teach only the second part to prove that god punishes people for sinning.

Dr Mark Dooley writes:"I agree with Dawkins that philosophical demonstrations of God's being always fall short of the mark."

I agree, god plays no role in my life, but religion, politics and science affect all of us daily.
Why should I live according to the dictates of a religion instead of those of science?
Religions had thousands of years to investigate and correct the foundations of society
but they have put self-interest above the well being of society. If there are problems with our society at present, religion has to take part of the blame.

Dr Dooley goes on: "There is , in other words, still plenty of room for a leap of faith. But is such a leap into the unknown irrational, unscientific and unphilosophical?"

What is the basis of this faith (or religion)? Answer: parts of The Bible with dogma added.

Imagine religion making the world a better place to live in. And what is Dr Mark Dooley going to do to achieve this?

22. In case you didn't know I'm a fool, here's an article to prove it.

Comment #15503 by hmj on December 31, 2006 at 9:58 pm

"Properly understood, therefore, religious practice does not mean blindly conforming to irrational dogma."
I understand this sentence as: Catholics do not have to conform blindly to irrational dogma.
Does this also mean that believers have rights? In any case what Dr Dooley says goes entirely against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) which can only exist on the basis of dogma.

"We are a nation on which the old religious values of community, charity and sacrifice, have given way to the new liberal creed of individualism, greed and rights."
I understand this sentence as: The people (nation) should have no individualism, no greed and no rights but stick with the old values. No individualism means that you can only say what the RCC wants you to say. No greed means that you have to work for the RCC. No rights means that the RCC can do whatever they like with you. This is the real Catholicism as I have known it. They want us back in the Middle Ages. Imagine six billion people living in the Middle Ages?

From the Internet I have learned that theologians use a language among themselves which is translated into another language for the believers.

For those who didn't know or have already forgotten: Doctorates in theology have been issued (but not by the RCC) to prove that apartheid in South Africa had origins in the bible.

I like to quote Seneca on theologians:
Common people say religion is true.
Wise people say religion is false.
Politicians say religion is useful.
Theologians say religion is my meal ticket.

23. In case you didn't know I'm a fool, here's an article to prove it.

Comment #15502 by hmj on December 31, 2006 at 9:53 pm

Referring to comments #12806, -11, -13, -24, -25, -27 and others

When I say:"I believe in the writings by Henry David Thoreau."
What am I: a believer, an atheist, any gradation in between, a Thoreauist, myself?
(The writings are on the Gutenberg site and they should be compulsory reading for atheists and believers alike.)
Please don't make a religion out of atheism with theologians bickering about the finer points.
After a scientist has given a label to a subject, he studies the subject and not the label.

Whatever label we carry, believer or non-believer, we have to go on living on this planet as the only species that can break the Darwinian rule "survival of the fittest" and apply a "live and let live" rule. "Living" is an applied science not a theoretical one. How are you applying the "live and let live" rule?

24. In case you didn't know I'm a fool, here's an article to prove it.

Comment #15399 by hmj on December 31, 2006 at 1:45 am

Referring to comments #12815 to #12826
How do you measure belief? What are you measuring exactly and how stable is the outcome of such a measurement in view of the continually changing circumstances in our lives?