Creationism in Northern Ireland

This video, recorded in Ireland, is called Giant’s Causeway.

By Peter Frost:

McConaghie shares the fate of Titanic

Thursday 22 November 2012

I love Northern Ireland. I go as often as I can.

With the opening of the Titanic quarter in Belfast, a brand new visitors’ centre at the Giant’s Causeway and Derry becoming 2013 City of Culture there has never been a better time to visit.

Derry’s rich political history, its city walls and the music you hear wherever you go make it a city of history and culture. In 2013 that will be officially recognised.

The north Antrim coast road is perhaps my favourite drive in the world. It swoops along with the sea as your constant companion and takes in tiny fishing ports and bustling holiday resorts.

At Carrick-a-Rede every spring, salmon fishermen stretch a rope bridge worthy of Indiana Jones across the maelstrom between the cliffs and a rocky offshore outcrop.

Brave souls can cross the swinging bridge for themselves.

Belfast’s shipyards in 1912 built the largest, most luxurious passenger liner the world had ever seen. They launched her into Belfast Lough and proudly named her the Titanic.

A century later Belfast has created the Titanic Quarter.

Much more than a museum, you can still visit the original dry-dock and slip where the mighty behemoth of the oceans was built and launched.

Today Belfast is peaceful. I walked up the Shankill and down the Falls, two roads that have featured in many headlines over recent years.

Huge political murals make this a fascinating place to visit.

The best pub in the city is called The Morning Star.

At Bushmills they have been making whiskey for the last 400 years. After a taste or two I had to agree they have just about got the recipe right.

Best of all is the Giant’s Causeway (above) – the jewel of Northern Ireland’s landscape.

The new multimillion-pound visitors’ centre seeks to tell its story. But the National Trust has chosen to tell the Causeway’s history in several ways – at least one of them unbelievable.

Science tells us the thousands of regular sculpted hexagonal basalt columns are the result of volcanic activity. Cooling liquid rock sculpted the vast and unique outcrop jutting into the waves.

Here in this land of myths you can perhaps understand why the National Trust also relates the ancient legend of the giant Finn McCool and how he created the Causeway.

Much more incredible is that here in the new centre the National Trust has caved in to local religious bigots and included a good dose of creationist nonsense.

You can read, in this supposedly educational centre, the theory that God created the Earth and thus the Causeway, fully formed, just six thousand years ago and that Darwin and his evolutionary theories are nonsense.

So who persuaded the National Trust to include this garbage?

Let me introduce David McConaghie, leader of the Caleb Foundation.

This fundamentalist fire and brimstone bunch is closely linked to Ian Paisley, his Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and his Free Presbyterian Church as well as the Orange Order.

It is totally male, rabidly anti-Catholic, against abortion under any circumstances and nastily homophobic.

And its main mission is promoting creationism in Northern Ireland.

In his day job McConaghie was election agent, speechwriter and office manager for Upper Bann DUP MP David Simpson.

McConaghie is also a minister of Ian Paisley’s fundamentalist Free Presbyterians. He is press officer and spokesman for the church.

With the Independent Orange Order, he donned his bowler hat and orange sash to join provocative marches through Northern Ireland’s Catholic communities.

You may find the name David McConaghie familiar. Perhaps because this upstanding member of Ulster society hit the headlines recently when he was arrested in connection with the placing of a voyeuristic camera in the public toilet in the MP’s office where he worked.

I’m sure his God will forgive McConaghie but I’m not sure Paisley, David Simpson MP or those down at the Orange lodge ever will.

Meanwhile the best news is that public opinion has made the National Trust think again. Last month they watered down their creationist rubbish at the Causeway visitors centre.

Related articles

• Creationist Suspected of Bathroom Voyeurism (sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com)
• National Trust amends controversial creationism exhibit (secularnewsdaily.com)
• #Creationism to be included in the [#GiantsCauseway] exhibition, as a grant condition. (sluggerotoole.com)
• Activists march through Belfast for abortion rights (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Former aide to NI MP arrested after camera found in toilets of his constituency office (independent.ie)
• MP aide quizzed over toilet camera (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)

Libyan fundamentalists kill US ambassador

This is a video of an armed Ansar al Sharia demonstration in Benghazi, Libya, in June this year. It was deleted by YouTube.

Here is another video about that subject, still on YouTube.

From ABC News in the USA:

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens Killed in Consulate Attack in Benghazi

By DEAN SCHABNER, ENJOLI FRANCIS and ANTHONY CASTELLANO

Sept. 12, 2012

Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya has died as Libyan militants stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Stevens, 52, was killed on Tuesday as 20 gun-wielding attackers stormed the U.S. consulate, angry about an American made film that depicts Prophet Mohammad as a fraud and womanizer.

Nearly a dozen Americans were inside the consulate at the time, guarded only by Libyan security. For nearly 20 minutes the Libyan guards exchanged fire with the attackers, who hurled a firebomb inside.

The militants burned down at least one building in the attack. It remains unclear whether Ambassador Stevens was killed by smoke inhalation or in a car trying to escape which may have been hit by a mortar. Another American was killed from smoke inhalation. Two more individuals who worked with the Americans, possibly guards who were trying to get Stevens out of the area, were also killed.

Stevens, who was a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and served two tours of duty in Libya, was nominated by President Obama to be ambassador to Libya early this year. His term of appointment as ambassador to Libya began on May 22.

The U.S. is now evacuating all Americans working with the state department from Benghazi, and the U.S. is also bracing for more attacks in the Middle East, considering this an extremely dangerous situation in the region right now. …

The group that attacked the consulate is called Ansar al Sharia, according to Libyan sources. The group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but did not mention the movie as motivation. The group is close to al Qaeda ideology and exists in east Libya.

…

These armed al Qaeda-ish gangs were the allies of NATO during its bloody war in Libya. That war replaced the dictatorship of Colonel Gadaffi with the dictatorship of NATO, with the dictatorship of multinational oil corporations, with the dictatorship of anti-women interpretations of sharia law, with the dictatorship of anti-black people racist murder.

Will the USA now retaliate for the murder of its diplomats with “humanitarian” bombing in Libya? Hardly. They already did that to create this “new” Libya last year. And those al Qaeda-ish gangs are, right now, also the allies of the CIA and the Pentagon in the bloody war in Syria.

From 1979 on, the United States government supported violent Islamist fundamentalism in Afghanistan, to fight “atheist communism”. To fight that “atheism”, they helped to create groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban. The “blowback” came later, on 9/11 2001.

Now, in Libya, the “blowback” comes really soon after the NATO “liberation”.

According to The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and Egyptian media, the movie is called “Mohammed, Prophet of the Muslims” and has been promoted by Terry Jones, the controversial Florida preacher whose Koran burning in March 2010 led to the deadly violence in Afghanistan.

See also here.

Washington’s plans for oil-rich Libya have been thrown into disarray after the assassination of its ambassador and several other embassy staff: here.

Right-wing extremism at heart of Libya envoy slaying: here.

US religious Rightist Robertson advocates wife-beating

This video from the USA says about itself:

Pat Robertson laments that it isn’t legal to beat your wife in America, advises viewer to move to Saudi Arabia.

From the Huffington Post in the USA:

Pat Robertson, Televangelist, Encourages Man To Become Muslim So He Can Beat His Wife

09/11/2012 6:30 am

Once again, Pat Robertson has said something ridiculously offensive and cruel.

Past targets have included gays, feminists and pagans, atheists, people with Alzheimer’s, adoptive parents, Haitians and people who don’t pray enough. This time, the televangelist focused his ire on wives who fail to properly obey their husbands.

On Monday’s broadcast of Robertson’s television show “The 700 Club,” he answered a question from a viewer named Michael about how to repair his marriage to a woman who “has no respect for me as the head of the house.”

Robertson’s response: “Well, you could become a Muslim and you could beat her.”

Bizarrely, this comment elicited laughter from Robertson’s co-host, Terry Meeuwsen.

Unfortunately, Robertson didn’t stop there.

“I don’t think we condone wife-beating these days but something has got to be done to make her.”

He also called the woman a “rebellious child” who doesn’t want to “submit to any authority.” However, since the Scripture doesn’t allow for divorce, Robertson urged the husband to “move to Saudi Arabia,” where, ostensibly, beating the woman would be permissible.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE.

According to Right Wing Watch, the very same clip was edited when posted on the Christian Broadcast Network’s website in order to remove the offensive rhetoric.

And if you’re tempted to write off Robertson as just a fringe character, know this: He spent last weekend hanging out with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, NBC News reported.

For more outrageous Robertson quotes, check out the slideshow below here.

Pat Robertson: Muslims ‘go crazy’ because they have the spirit of a ‘wild donkey’: here.

US Christian fundamentalist self-mutilation

This video is called Self Injury Awareness.

From World Science, about the USA:

Gospel of Matthew linked to bizarre trail of self-mutilations

June 13, 2012
Special to World Science

It hap­pens only spo­rad­ic­ally—a bit more than eve­ry three years on av­er­age, judg­ing by pub­lished med­i­cal re­ports—but that makes it no less dis­turb­ing each time for hos­pi­tal staff faced with the situa­t­ion.

“It” may be de­scribed by cit­ing the most re­cent ex­am­ple, re­ported in a med­i­cal jour­nal last month: that of a 62-year-old man whom physi­cians dubbed Mr. P to pro­tect his pri­va­cy. Mr. P showed up at the emer­gen­cy room of St. Joseph’s Hos­pi­tal and Med­i­cal Cen­ter in Phoe­nix, Ariz., com­plain­ing of a case of “Mat­thew 19:12.” Asked to clar­i­fy, he just kept re­peat­ing the same thing: Mat­thew 19:12.

The nurse on du­ty searched the In­ter­net for Mat­thew 19:12. The re­sult was, to put it mild­ly, wor­ri­some. The Bib­li­cal verse, as she learn­ed, reads as fol­lows.

“For there are some eu­nuchs, which were so born from their moth­er’s womb; and there are some eu­nuchs, which were made eu­nuchs of men; and there be eu­nuchs, which have made them­selves eu­nuchs for the king­dom of heav­en’s sa­ke. He that is able to re­ceive it, let him re­ceive it.”

As it quickly be­came clear, Mr. P had made this hos­pi­tal vis­it un­ac­com­pa­nied by his pe­nis. That, he ex­plained, he had flushed down the toi­let three days ago af­ter sev­er­ing it with a pock­et knife. His tes­ti­cles were al­so ab­sen­t—re­moved four years ear­li­er at Mr. P’s re­quest by a doc­tor in Mex­i­co.

Al­though his speech and thoughts ap­peared mud­dled, Mr. P did state that he had “done this be­cause his pe­nis had caused him to sin and as an eu­nuch he could be clos­er to God as de­scribed in Mat­thew 19:12,” three re­search­ers af­fil­i­at­ed with St. Joseph’s wrote in a re­port de­scrib­ing the in­ci­dent. Mr. P al­so claimed to have pon­dered the de­ci­sion for months be­fore act­ing.

Mr. P. re­ceived ur­gent med­i­cal treat­ment at St. Joseph’s, in­clud­ing a skin graft on­to the stump. He was then con­fined to a lo­cal psy­chi­at­ric hos­pi­tal by court or­der, leav­ing lit­tle but ques­tions be­hind.

The three in­ves­ti­ga­tors pro­ceeded to search an on­line med­i­cal lit­er­a­ture database, PubMed, for oth­er cases of this na­ture. They dis­cov­ered that the Bi­ble—in­deed, the Gos­pel of Mat­thew spe­cif­ic­ally—has left a trail of self-mutila­t­ions in­spired largely by four of its verses.

The bloody toll list­ed in case re­ports dat­ing back to 1967—PubMed does­n’t go back much fur­ther—in­cluded three par­tially or fully am­pu­tat­ed pe­nises; four pairs of cas­trat­ed tes­ti­cles; three am­pu­tat­ed hands and 11 se­verely dam­aged eye­balls. Saws, cir­cu­lar saws, screw­drivers and pen­cils were among the tools used for the hor­ri­fy­ing pro­ce­dures, al­though sev­er­al pa­tients put out their eyes with their fin­gers alone.

“Our lit­er­a­ture re­view re­vealed 16 pa­tients in ad­di­tion to [Mr. P] who had in­jured them­selves in con­nec­tion with spe­cif­ic re­li­gious tex­t,” the re­search­ers wrote. Their re­view of the cases is pub­lished in the May 29 on­line is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Psy­cho­so­mat­ics.

Matthew 19:12

For there are some eu­nuchs, which were so born from their moth­er’s womb; and there are some eu­nuchs, which were made eu­nuchs of men; and there be eu­nuchs, which have made them­selves eu­nuchs for the king­dom of heav­en’s sa­ke. He that is able to re­ceive it, let him re­ceive it.

Mat­thew 18:8
Where­fore if thy hand or thy foot of­fend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is bet­ter for thee to en­ter in­to life halt or maimed, rath­er than hav­ing two hands or two feet to be cast in­to ev­er­last­ing fire.

Mat­thew 5:30
And if thy right hand of­fend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee: for it is profita­ble for thee that one of thy mem­bers should per­ish, and not that thy whole body should be cast in­to hell.

Mat­thew 5:29
But if thy right eye of­fend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee: for it is profita­ble for thee that one of thy mem­bers should per­ish, and not that thy whole body should be cast in­to hell.

NATO kills Afghan anti-’Reverend’ Jones protester

This video is called Afghanistan Sept. 2009 A German War Crime.

From Reuters:

One shot dead in Koran protest in A[f]ghan north

10 Sep 2010 09:26:40 GMT

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Sept 10 – One man was shot dead when protesters, angry over plans by a U.S. pastor to burn copies of the Koran, attacked a NATO base in Afghanistan‘s north on Friday, a provincial government spokesman said.

A crowd, estimated at 10,000 by a spokesman for the Badakhshan province governor, had earlier poured into the streets after special Eid prayers. Some later hurled stones at a NATO base run by Germans and a protester was shot when troops inside opened fire, spokesman Amin Sohail said.

A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul said ISAF was aware of protests in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan, and were investigating.

(Reporting by Ahmad Elham and Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

In corporate media, you hear a lot about free speech for the “Reverend” Terry Jones and other anti-Muslim bigots. You hear a lot less about free speech for Afghan and other Muslims. I am not aware of NATO killing any anti-Muslim bigot anywhere. It seems that Afghan lives are a lot cheaper to NATO.

Quran burning plan fuels protests: Thousands stage demonstrations across Afghanistan, as US pastor announces Quran: here.

Thousands of Afghan citizens have rallied across Afghanistan to demand the withdrawal of all occupation troops and condemn an US church’s plan to burn the Koran: here. And here.

Why Peaceniks Should Care About the Afghanistan Study Group Report: here.

The corporate-controlled US media has maintained a virtual blackout on Pentagon documents released Wednesday that reveal grisly atrocities by American soldiers in Afghanistan, including murdering civilians and cutting off their fingers as trophies: here.

Afghanistan election problems will take years to fix, says watchdog: here.

Occupying powers should split up Afghanistan along ethnic lines and leave the south to the Taliban, a former US national security adviser has declared: here.

The Afghan government rejected on Monday Nato assertions that an air strike on a convoy in Takhar province killed a “top insurgent,” saying that the victims included a candidate in next weekend’s parliament elections and his civilian aides: here.

It was 1am and 64-year old Mohammed Akram was playing chess with a family friend when 30 soldiers came crashing through the door of his Kabul apartment: here.

The US Department of Defense is seeking to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of a book written by a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer about his experiences in Afghanistan: here.

A 9/11 New Yorker reflects: The only people who can desecrate Ground Zero–& America–are the Islamophobes: here.

The far Right in the USA: here. And here. And here.

Tea Party: These are People Who Were Wearing Sheets Over their Heads 25 Years Ago: here.

Over at the Huffington Post, a new survey from the Democratic-affiliated firm Public Policy Polling is featured, which found that more Republicans support constructing a strip club than a mosque near Ground Zero: here.

Blog post from Mehdi Hasan: “Crazy Republicans prefer strip clubs to mosques”: here.

US fundamentalists helped by Dutch queen

Translated from Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad:

“Wilhelmina helped evangelicals from the U.S.A”

Published: February 6, 2010 10:50 | Updated: February 6, 2010 10:50

By our correspondent Tom-Jan Meeus

Washington, Feb. 6. Queen Wilhelmina [of the Netherlands] in the fifties actively contributed to the establishment of a society of US American evangelicals in Europe.

The secretly operating organization, The Family, according to the American religious researcher Jeff Sharlet, has by now become “by far the most powerful fundamentalist society of the USA”.

The Family, organizers of the the annual National Prayer Breakfast in the USA, is discredited because they have recently advocated the death penalty in Uganda to punish some expressions of homosexuality. The Family last year also played a role in sexual affairs of well-known conservatives in the U.S. The Family aims at “totalitarianism for Christ”, Sharlet says, and in order to get this secretly recruited hundreds of politicians in the U.S. and abroad.

The society was founded in the nineteen thirties by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant in the U.S. After the war he sent an American pastor, Wallace E. Haines, to Europe to propagate the message of the group. Wilhelmina in the fifties, after she had given up the throne to her daughter Juliana, was Honorary President of the European branch of The Family.

From the archives of the deceased Haines, to which his son Stephen in part has given access to NRC Handelsblad, it becomes appartent that Wilhelmina had a close relationship with the pastor. She “was the principal mentor of my father in Europe”, says son Stephen Haines. She “treated [my father] like a brother,” said David Haines, another son of the preacher.

Today in NRC Handelsblad a profile of The Family, the most powerful fundamentalists of the United States.

The Family is also known as The Fellowship.

US religious right supports Japanese whale killers

This is a video about humpback whales; one of several species almost exterminated by past whaling, and now in danger from Japanese whale killing ships.

The religious right in the USA has links to foreign fellow ultra rightist loony Christians; like Ugandan extremists who want to kill gay people; and Nigerian mad evangelists killing little children as “witches”.

Now, it turns out that the international solidarity of the United States religious right extends not just to fellow extreme Christians, but to non-Christian killers as well.

On 15 January, the loony Rightist “Christian Newswire” in the USA has come out in support of Japanese whale killers; denouncing opponents of those killers as “terrorists”.

Because those whalers are Christian? Hardly. Christians of any sort are a very small minority in Japan; so, probably in the taxpayer subsidized whale killing industry as well.

Probably, most Japanese whalers are Shinto (traditionally, the state religion in Japan, considering emperors divine etc.). The United States religious right has a tradition of attacking non-Christian religions like Shintoism as horrible “Satanic” paganism.

Why are they not doing so in this case, but, on the contrary, proclaiming international solidarity?

The “Christian Newswire” does so, not because of any recently discovered religious tolerance, but out of spite against Charles Darwin, dead for almost 150 years. As becomes apparent in their screed: “The Whaling Controversy Resolved: ‘Mysterious Islands’ DVD Shows Sea Shepherd Pirates to Be Darwinian Extremists”.

They say (no, I am not linking to them):

The Galápagos Islands were not only a once-great international whaling hub, but –thanks to Charles Darwin — this archipelago holds the distinction of being the birthplace of the modern animal rights movement.

Messrs the ultra religious wingnuts forget to mention why the Galápagos Islands are no longer a “great” whaling hub. Because nineteenth century whalers not just exterminated at least one tortoise species there, but also killed so many whales that whaling around the Galapagos became commercially unviable. No “fault” of Charles Darwin, Greenpeace, or Sea Shepherd.

World Vision hires only Christians under its $250 million in government foreign aid grants. Obama promised to change that. So why hasn’t he? Here.

Humpback and Fin whales off Wexford and Waterford, Ireland: here.

California Sushi Bar Caught Selling [Sei] Whale Meat: here.

Proposals to resume commercial whaling have been dealt a blow by DNA detective work showing that restaurants in the US and South Korea illegally sold whale meat from Japan: here.

British Christian Rightist supports killing Ugandan gays

This video from the USA is called Rachel Maddow on Rick Warren, ‘The Family’, and Anti-gay Uganda.

From Pink News in Britain:

Christian leader supports death penalty for gays

December 21, 2009 – 11:06

A far right Christian group has urged fellow Christians to support Uganda’s proposed law that would make homosexuality punishable by death.

Stephen Green,

a former Chairman of the Conservative Family Campaign

leader of the Christian extremist group ‘Christian Voice‘, remarked:

“The Bible calls for the ultimate penalty for sodomy (Lev 20:13) and for rape (Deut 22:25), and our Lord upheld the death penalty when He called for the accusers of the woman caught in adultery to cast the first stone (John 8:7) – if, that is, they were not implicated in adultery themselves.

“The contrast between our politicians and those of Uganda could not be more stark. A Parliamentarian in Uganda is trying to protect his nation’s children. The House of Commons of the United Kingdom is trying to corrupt ours. Which country is the more civilised, I wonder, in the eyes of Almighty God?”

The law would impose the death penalty on those convicted of having gay sex with a minor or disabled person or someone infected with HIV.

Friends and family members of gay Ugandans who do not report them to authorities could also face up to three years in prison.

People who “promote” or assist homosexuality could be jailed for seven years. The bill would also punish Ugandan citizens who have gay sex abroad.

The bill’s sponsor, David Bahati MP, has argued that it will curb HIV infections and protect the “traditional family”.

It has been subject to worldwide condemnation and since the first reports emerged in mid-October and has received widespread media attention. …

Christian Voice opposes abortion, homosexuality, no-fault divorce and safer sex education. Additionally it supports the death penalty and does not recognise the concept of marital rape.

On 2 September 2006, Green was arrested while handing out what were considered by the police to be homophobic leaflets at the Cardiff Mardi Gras.

He was arrested for an alleged “homophobic incident”, detained for four hours, and charged with public order offences. The Crown Prosecution Service decided to withdraw their prosecution of Green on the grounds of insufficient evidence, though the police stated that this did not “challenge the legality” of his arrest.

Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill: Inspired by the U.S.: here.

Uganda’s oil production sharing agreements point towards a resource extraction programme designed for company profit, not country development, writes Taimour Lay: here.

Christian fundamentalism in the USA

This video from the USA is called Chris Hedges – Who Are the American Fascists?

From British daily The Morning Star:

The new fascism

(Sunday 27 January 2008)

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the war on America by Chris Hedges
(Vintage Books, £8.99)

STEVE ANDREW warns that the lightning growth of US fundamentalist Christianity should not be ignored.

For the past few decades, one of the major vehicles for extreme right ideas within US politics has been the Christian fundamentalist movement.

All too often mocked and patronised by those who really ought to know better, its lightning growth is shocking to say the least and as Chris Hedges’s book notes, the brown-shirted born agains now stand to start conquering the highest echelons of state power.

Already, some 45 per cent of US citizens believe that the world really was created in six days and “intelligent design” [see also here] – the new buzzword for old-fashioned creationism – is taught in schools and universities up and down the country.

The greatest selling author in the land which gave us Mark Twain and Jack London is today some berk peddling lurid accounts of rapture and Armageddon.

Legislation around same-sex marriage has been dismantled, gay lifestyles demonised and abstinence promoted as the only safe and godly path.

Women had better watch out too. Led by a bunch of crazed patriarchs, its not surprising that they see a woman’s destiny as one of submission to the holy trinity of family, church and state.

And single mothers? Heaven forbid! Or should that be forbids? Hedges argues that, just like the fascist movements of the 1930s, fundamentalism has powerful allies in government circles and big business who are only too happy to bankroll its ongoing battle for the US.

Related articles

• Why Blog | Basics of Christian Fundamentalism I (descryingme.wordpress.com)
• Pro- and anti-gay protesters clash in Paris (sfgate.com)
• Rupert Murdoch, ‘pro-Israel’ anti-Semite (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Even Christian Fundamentalists can’t Agree on the Basics (new.exchristian.net)
• The Gary Null Show – Chris Hedges – 11/06/12 (prn.fm)