Time Immortal

Erf writes in after a lengthy hiatus, and brings up a subject I have studiously avoided thus far:

Hi, Ken,

Although I’ve been sadly lax in reading your blog lately I know you’ve been following the doings of the American presidential campaigning with some interest, especially since you’re always interested in the use of lies and litigation to pursue an agenda. Thought you might be interested in this excellent discussion of the attempts by the Republicans to shut down the “ACORN” project — whose only crime is getting poor people registered to vote — by accusing them of voter registration fraud:

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/10/block-the-vote.html

This is the sort of dishonesty and outright scary behaviour that has me very, very glad that Barack Hussein Obama has a strong lead over John Sidney McCain. The corruption in JSM’s campaign has been so _blatant_ I can’t imagine what he would do if he got into office…

(How come you never use McCain’s middle name like you do with Obama’s, anyway? Just curious.)

Anyway, I figured you’d be interested in this discussion. (Slacktivist is pretty consistent in its coverage of this sort of thing, and is very good about keeping it about real issues like poverty and international relations, rather than getting personal. Recommended reading!)

Cheers!
-Erf.

I’ve been trying to avoid commenting on the whole ACORN business, good Reader, although I am not unaware that the whole affair reeks to high heaven. Not being an American citizen, and thus not having a vote to register against Obama, I’ve tended to focus on the only aspect of the entire presidential race that I can honestly say I find to be more or less agreeable, at a political and/or philosophical level: Sarah Palin.

If I may, I’m going to answer Erf’s letter in reverse (more or less). The above certainly addresses my interest in this particular aspect of the campaign: I’m aware of it, and following some of the details, but I had previously decided not to touch on the matter with an article. I suppose, for the purposes of an answer I’ll be giving presently, that I will now have to enumerate many of those details, and will do so in a while.

Concerning the bit about names, and why I use Obama’s middle name but not McCain’s: it’s the tagging system on the website. It’s a very handy convenience feature, not only for the good Reader to quickly find additional discussions about key topics in articles I have written previously, but also for me, in that the same tags that can be used to point the Reader to other material on the site can also be used to publicize written articles over e.g. Technorati, increasing the “reach” of what I write and (hopefully) boosting my readership a little bit. The disadvantage of the tagging system is that once something has been tagged, it’s “locked in,” and I cannot violate its format.

To give one example, consider what happens if I try and tag the word Morality. Though I’ve written the word with a small ‘m’ at its beginning, it should appear with a capital ‘M’ when displayed on the site. That is because in the first instance in which I tagged the word, it was at the beginning of a sentence, and so had been capitalized. And the tagged word will now always be displayed with that capital ‘M’ at its front.

So too with Obama’s name: the first time I tagged it, it was in an article which used his full name. When first I tagged John McCain’s name, it was in an article that did not include his middle name. Because I try and avoid needless duplication in the tags (there are over 4,000 of them as is!), I’m not inclined to go about tagging, for instance, just Obama’s last name, or just his first and last name. He’s already in the system, so to speak…he doesn’t need to be in there in triplicate. I’ve opted to just obey the convention that the tagging system has established for me, because it’s the most hassle-free course of action.

Even if I do have to pause to explain the decision every once in a while.

Now, as to the matter of dishonesty and scary behaviour in each candidate’s presidential campaigns…well, let’s be realistic: attack ads have been a fixture of American politics since the days of Thomas Jefferson (yes, that link is to a humour site, but the history is real). As troubling as it is, one expects it to happen…and happen it does, from both sides. And sometimes, it’s downright nasty stuff that gets said.

One recalls, for instance, the anti-McCain ad from the Obama campaign that lambasted McCain for his “computer illiteracy,” mocking his inability to do something as simple as send an email (McCain has been open about the fact that his wife helps him check his messages). Now, if McCain actually didn’t know how to use a computer, or how to check his email, that would actually be a concern…but the truth is, of course, somewhat more interesting. McCain is a Vietnam war veteran, and was captured and tortured during the course of that conflict. The injuries he sustained were severe, and the effects have been permanent and somewhat tragic: “McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.“

As to fraud and corruption, much the same could be observed. I note that Slacktivist doesn’t provide all that much in the way of examples of actual fraud or corruption perpetrated by the McCain campaign, although I’m sure examples could be found if one did some digging. But if one wants to avoid a candidate for fear of the corruption of his campaign, one would do better to avoid the Obama campaign, then. Massive online credit card fraud is, I submit, rather staggeringly corrupt, especially since Obama may have netted as much as $100 million in donations by this fraudulent means.

In the broad strokes, what has happened is this: the Obama campaign’s online donations website appeared to have AVS (the Address Verification System, a fairly basic security feature of every online credit card payment software) disabled, and then for an unknown duration. This means, of course, that when people submit a name and address along with their credit card information, so as to donate money to the Obama campaign, the submitted name and address do not have to match the billing information for the credit card.

What does this mean, then?

In the United States, electoral law prohibits an individual from donating more than $2300 to a presidential candidate. Were AVS being used, it would be very easy to maintain a database of contributors to prevent illegal donations (i.e. donations from individuals which exceed that limit). John McCain’s donations website uses this security feature. Its absence on the Obama campaign’s site, however, means that by simply giving a fraudulent name (which is, I remind the good Reader, illegal), a person could easily contribute many thousands of extra dollars to the Obama campaign without restriction or oversight.

For example, certain Mary T Biskup of Manchester, Montana, just found out that she had apparently donated over $174,000 dollars to Obama. Or, rather, she found out that her name had been used for multiple donations totalling up to that amount. Another noted Obama donor is a Mr. Adolfe Hitler, of #1 Reichstag Building, Berlin, Germany A Ms. Della Ware of 12345 No Way also managed to donate some funds to Obama, but failed in her attempt to donate to McCain using the same fraudulent name and address.

To be fair, McCain has had a few embarrassing contributors as well, because there are ways to get around verification schemes. But there’s a difference between getting past a verification scheme and turning the verification off altogether, which is what the Obama campaign did, thus opening the doors to the possibility (and probability) of massive credit card fraud.

And to be fair, if one wants to get into the finer points of the scary behaviour of each candidate, one has to pause for a moment — especially if one is a faithful Christian — to reflect on the blatant hagiography that Obama has been subjected to. As Binks notes, “WHATEVER OBAMA BELIEVES, it’s not classical Christianity. As we’ve noted before, no Christian would permit music, accolades and statements to be made about them that infringe on the turf of divinity. The One? Halo-pictures? If that was me being divinized, I’d rightly fear the flames of eternal punishment for presumption. But so far as I’ve heard, Obama hasn’t called it off, whatever he’s heard of thusfar. Indeed, he seems to have deliberately wrapped himself in Religion: healing the planet, change, hope, transformation! That’s why his opponents are given heresy-trials in the media, before their media-executions. It’s ironically fitting for the non-absolutist left to long for an absolute candidate; no secularity, just Obama & anti-Obama. Soon, like the Taliban, there will be trials for any blasphemy and desecration and doubting of The Obama. It’s evil to claim God’s proper praise for oneself.“

As to Obama’s being ahead in the polls: that doesn’t mean much, especially once one corrects for the latent pro-Democrat bias in polls and poll reporting. Obama’s lead is not as strong as it looks.

Now, as to ACORN: if ACORN’s only “crime” was getting the poor registered to vote, there’d be no problem, no controversy, and no story here. But ACORN’s interests seem to extend beyond ensuring that the poor are not disenfranchised. They also seem to be striving to ensure that other traditionally disenfranchised demographic segments of the American population — the non-existent and the deat — are properly registered to vote.

One ACORN worker, Clifton Mitchell, helped to register over 2,000 voters for ACORN — and not one of them was an actual, living person. And Mitchell wasn’t acting alone. Nor was he the only ACORN worker to submit fraudulent voter registrations: Jemar Barksdale submitted 18 fraudulent forms using the names of extant voters, and an additional 22 applications with fictional names. Even one of ACORN’s in-house lawyers suggests that ACORN and its 174 branch offices/affiliates may have committed illegalities in their drive to get voters registered.

And the rabbit hole gets deeper still. Fully 100% of ACORN’s voter registrations in Lake County, Indiana, were found to be fraudulent (although the YouTube video covering the story may have since disappeared). In Ohio, many people have come forward testifying that ACORN encourage them to (fraudulently) register to vote multiple times (shades of Capone: “vote now, vote often!”). Another 10,000 fraudulent registrations turned up in Cincinnati, again as part of an ACORN campaign.

In fact, ACORN’s activities have become so suspect, they’ve attracted the attention of the FBI. And yet, in spite of the mountain of evidence against ACORN an in support of allegations of voter registration fraud, Obama has suggested that those attempting to investigate voter fraud should be prosecuted.

(Note: fraudulent registrations are one thing. They’re concerning, to say the least, but, in the end, a voter registration doesn’t impact the outcome of an election. A fraudulent vote, on the other hand, can do just that. And ACORN has been explicitly linked to fraudulent votes cast in, for example, New Mexico. It would test the boundaries of reason to suggest that this is, and will remain, one isolated incident. Fraudulent registrations, after all)

There’s one other fly in the ointment here: Obama is very closely linked to, and involved with, ACORN. So much so, in fact, that he recently contributed some $800,000 to the group, and also provided the group with his 2007 donor list, something that the Obama campaign has guarded closely in other circumstances. There’s also mounting evidence that Obama and ACORN may have been involved with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the whole sub-prime mortgage mess.

Again, I don’t pretend that McCain is blameless. Personally, I don’t much agree with McCain, although I find him more palatable than I do Obama. Realistically, the only person in this whole campaign that I’d feel comfortable voting for is Sarah Palin — McCain is a fairly typical establishment Republican, despite his “maverick” image, and both Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, are abortion supporters of a fairly egregious sort. McCain is little better, given his support of embryonic stem cell research — only Palin really has any solid pro-life bona fides.

For Catholics, which both Erf and I are, Obama’s stance on abortion should automatically disqualify him from receiving our support. Oh, one desires not to be a one issue voter, and one shouldn’t be. But still: if one is faithful to the Church and her teachings, one has to take Canon Law into consideration when making any informed political decision. And in Canon Law, a person who “deliberately and knowingly provides essential or substantial means for any woman to procure an abortion also commits a mortal sin and also incurs the…sentence of excommunication.”

Now, typically, the concept of “knowingly providing substantial means for any woman to procure an abortion” does not extend to voting in favour of political candidates; Catholics may vote in favour of pro-abortion candidates under certain circumstances, provided that the candidate in question, should he or she gain power, not do anything to expand the legality or pervasiveness of abortion in society.

With Obama, however, that won’t happen. Not only did Obama enjoy Planned Parenthood’s endorsement above and beyond even Hillary Rodham Clinton (there I go, following the tagging conventions again) during the primaries; he has pledged to make legal the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). This comprehensive bill would abolish legislation against partial-birth abortions, get rid of parental notification laws across the U.S., and make abortion fully taxpayer funded. He has also spoken out against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA), which mandates that those infants which are “accidentally” delivered alive as the result of an abortion must be given live-saving care, rather than be left to die in a closet. There is good reason to suspect that Obama might attempt to see this act repealed.

It should also be noted, good Reader, that FOCA could potentially strip freedom of conscience protection from doctors and nurses who refuse, on moral grounds, to perform or assist with abortions.

Thus, the argument could be made that a vote for Obama is an act of “knowingly providing substantial means for any woman to procure an abortion,” and as such is a Canon Law violation. Not that any bishop or priest is likely to go to such lengths and deny Communion to Obama supporters post-November 4th, of course. But the moral argument is there, and so are the facts at hand: a vote for Obama is a vote for a candidate who will vastly expand abortion “rights” in the United States. In general, that not a vote that a Catholic should make, and it should be troubling to Catholics that a candidate who is so ardently pro-abortion appears to be leading in the polls, even against an otherwise despicable candidate.

John Zmirak, whose article I link to above, likens the electoral choices facing the American people to the line of soldiers outside the Tsar’s palace, facing the advancing mob and being given the order to fire. “They must choose,” he suggests, “between a crooked, bumbling oligarchy prone to starting futile wars — and a ravening, reckless mob. While it’s mostly made up of citizens rightly enraged, the mob is led (or will soon be led) by vicious ideologues who promise to persecute Christianity.” The soldiers given the order to fire know this; the know whom they defend, they know his crimes, and they know the grievances of those rushing forward. Do they fire, or turn on their officers and join the mob?

Discussing the implications of FOCA where freedom of conscience is concerned, as noted above, Zmirak concludes thusly. “So President Obama and his congressional supermajority would force every Christian hospital, doctor, or nurse either to abandon their faith, or go out of business. By federal law, believing Christians would be banned from a major industry (and apostolate). This is literally equivalent to a law banning faithful Jews from owning newspapers.

History tells us that steps such as this aren’t where religious persecutions end. It’s where they begin. Things are already scary enough in neighbouring Canada, where Christians are now routinely hauled up before human rights tribunals for repeating what the Bible teaches concerning sex. Who knows what some Obama-appointed judge, 20 years from now, will make of a pastor whose sermons attacked the “fundamental right” of women to kill their children? How many churches and seminaries will face crippling civil judgements and have to close?

It can happen here. It is about to happen here.

Unless we obey our worthless officers, and fire on the mob. With all that in mind, I’m endorsing Tsar Nicholas II — er, John McCain — this November 4.”

The comparison is rather apt, especially at the level of moral implications.

McCain is little better on life issues, of course, but at least there is the reasonable probability that abortion law won’t be expanded under a McCain presidency (especially not with Palin in the VP’s seat). A lack of expansion is not the same as a reduction (and reduction is preferable), but perhaps it will have to do. But if McCain is essentially neutral on the issue of abortion, he is still supportive of stem cell research, which is morally problematic. And he’s also supportive — or, at least, will do nothing to abate — the “interrogation methods” used at places like Guantanamo Bay (read: torture).

So in a very real way, a vote for McCain is also, in its own way, a sinful act, not unlike the sin of a soldier obeying the order to fire on the advancing mob. And perhaps, for American Catholics, the trip to the polls will have to be followed up with a trip to the confessional; were I in the position to have to make the decision myself, that would probably be my course of action. It might seem best to do as Mark Shea often proposes, and cast a vote for a quixotic candidate, but I think Zmirak nails this option to the wall only too well when he notes that this is rather like firing into the air rather than at the mob; in the end, the mob may still win because the responses of the soldiers facing them are divided — given the implications of an Obama victory, there is every reason to avoid subjecting the Republicans to a form of “the Nader effect.”

Aspentroll writes back, after a lengthy hiatus, with a response to my previous reply to him (which dates back to May of this year). I’m thinking that I will break this one up and answer it piece-by-piece, since he jumps between topics in a manner that might make for a distracting response if approached as a whole. Rest assured, O Reader, that all of the text of Aspentroll’s message will appear below, in un-edited form, and in the same order in which it arrived.

Hi I’m back. I know it’s been awhile, but, all we atheist require would be some acknowledgment from theists.

I’m not completely sure what possible relation could exist between Aspentroll’s 5-month silence and the lack of theistic acknowledgement that atheists (some? all?) apparently perceive. I’m also curious why theists — including myself — owe it to atheists to grant them any kind of acknowledgement, apart from the Christian mandate to acknowledge all people as fallen creations of God in need of salvation from sin and death? No such entitlement, apart from the mentioned caveat, exists…at least, not to my knowledge.

Former President Geo. Bush Sr. once said that he didn’t believe atheists had any place in government and went on to say that he believed they shouldn’t even be considered citizens of the US.

It would be interesting to see a source for this claim, but Aspentroll does not provide one. These days, sorting out urban legend from actual fact is becoming increasingly difficult, especially thanks to the internet. It was reported that George Herbert Walker Bush once said: “No, I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God,” while still Vice President. Ostensibly, this was uttered at Chicago’s on or about August 27, 1987, at some kind of press conference.

But no video or audio recordings exist which corroborate the quote, nor have other witnesses confirmed it to be a legitimate quotation. Indeed, the only known source for the quote is an atheist activist, one Robert I. Sherman. The Reader will, I trust, forgive me if I find no reason to assume that Mr. Sherman is being wholly, or even partially, truthful in his attribution of the above quote to the then-Vice President.

That very statement is exactly what atheists are angry about.

It would seem, then, that most atheists are angry about a highly dubious statement. Given Aspentroll’s previously stated dismissal of religious people as delusional, I have to wonder how inflamed anger over a potentially imaginary quotation can be equated to reason and rationality?

Or perhaps it is the case that atheists are simply angry people in general, and who prefer to use things like this false quotation as a kind of focal point for their frustration, until a different focal point can be found. If it’s not a 21-year old quotation, it’s Sunday schools (which seem to make Richard Dawkins fairly angry). If it’s not Sunday schools, it’s Sarah Palin (we’ll come to her in a minute or two). If it’s not Sarah Palin, it’s the Church or the Pope, or…something. It’s always something, and (to me, at least, atheists seem to always be angry.

Atheists are constantly being blamed for the actions of Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin.

Well, Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin, yes: both men are excellent examples of what can be expected to transpire when atheism becomes an explicit policy of the state, as well as examples of what happens when strongman leaders apply a “morality” derived from the mere “is”-es of atheistic philosophy to a human population. Vox Day — in his book The Irrational Atheist — goes into great detail on this subject, and his conclusions paint a very bloody picture of atheism’s “Red Hand.”

At any rate, because Stalin and Pol Pot are such excellent examples of the murderous nature of state-endorsed atheism, Aspentroll will ignore them from here on in, and focus on the Godwin-bait instead.

Hitler was historically a Catholic in good standing with the Pope of the day.

Now, one is used to the occasional bit of historical fallacy when one debates atheists, but this particular example takes the cake, given that it manages to encapsulate two distinct historical errors in one convenient sentence.

The issue of Adolf Hitler’s religious beliefs is a complex one, and one that has been explored to great length. But let’s look at the raw facts of history. Hitler was raised by a Catholic mother and a nominally Catholic, “freethinker” father (Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth, Bradley F. Smith, Stanford/California, 1967 pp. 27 & 42). Hitler himself began to reject Catholicism and the Church in his youth. As an adult, he never attended Mass, nor did he participate in any of the Sacraments. (Hitlers Gott. Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators, Michael Rissmann, Zürich München: Pendo, 2001, p. 94-96)

As attending Mass on Sundays is generally considered a minimum requirement for being a Catholic, let alone one in “good standing,” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2041-2043), it can safely be said (I think) that Hitler was about as Catholic as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time.

Which brings us to the second historical inaccuracy, because the Pope of the day — Pope Pius XII — was no friend of Hitler, or of Naziism. Indeed, Pius XII was often openly critical of the Nazi regime, and of the many evils perpetrated by them. In one encyclical that he drafted for his predecessor (Mit brennender Sorge), he denounced anti-Semitism as un-Christian. In that same writing, Hitler was denounced as insane and arrogant (A Concise History of the Catholic Church, Bokenkotter, (2004), pp. 389–92) — this document, then, led to several rather brutal repressions being launched by the Nazi regime against Catholic priests, monks, and congregations. (A History of Christianity (1995), Chadwick, pp. 254–255)

It is true that during the formal duration of the Second World War, the Church — under Pius XII’s guidance — adopted a policy of strict neutrality. That didn’t prevent more than 2500 Catholic priests from being imprisoned at Dachau, nor did it stop Pius XII from turning the Vatican into a sort of aid centre, missing persons agency, and coordination centre for the evacuation of thousands of Jews — many of them children — from German territory during the course of the war. Indeed, at one point, nearly 500 Jews were hidden in the Vatican proper.

So let’s review: not only was Hitler a nominal Catholic at best (it is more likely that even by the time of his ascent to power, neither he nor any Catholic official would have considered him a part of the Church), but his relationship with the Pope of the day was anything but friendly. And, in fact, the Pope of the day, despite guiding the Church to adopt a neutral stance as far as the war was concerned, worked against Hitler’s machinations and policies to a great extent. The concept of “Hitler’s Pope” is a myth.

Indeed, if Hitler had any Religion, it was Positive Christianity, a rather esoteric concoction that attempted to re-cast Christ as an Aryan champion and active opponent of Judaism — it is thus a historically indefensible parody of the Christian faith, and nothing more or less than an utter heresy. Other aspects of Naziism flirted with the occult, or with forms of paganism. And it must be noted, vis a vis my comment above about the Grand Mufti, that various Islamic officials also worked closely with Hitler, the Grand Mufti even going so far as to send troops to assist Hitler in his campaign against the Jews.

It may interest you to know that there are many more atheists and agnostics and other forms of unbelievers alive and well in the US than you have imagined. Some are in the closet because of statements like that of Bush Sr. They all pay their taxes, give to charities, hardly ever trip old ladies with canes and would really like to be recognized as first class citizens just as the theists.

I don’t deny the existence of moral, charitable atheists; good for them. And yet it remains the case that atheists — or, more broadly, secular folk — are about 3.8 times more likely to be incarcerated for crimes. It remains the case that while crime in America tends to be higher in “red” (read: Republican, stereotypically more Christian) states, the hotbeds of crime in those states tend to be “blue” (read: Democratic, stereotypically more secular) counties (see The Irrational Atheist for more and better detail on these figures).

But remember: nobody can take credit for simply abiding by the law. The law is the minimum standard — as Chris Rock might say, “you’re supposed to pay your taxes, motherfrakker! What do you want, a cookie?” And he might also say, “you’re supposed to not trip old ladies, motherfrakker!” Personally, I think Aspentroll is overstating when he bemoans the fact that atheists do not enjoy recognition as “first class citizens”; I know more than a few atheists personally who are models of their communities, and good people besides. But then, it’s not hard to be a model citizen; one need only obey the law, participate a bit in community events, and treat other community members with respect.

If it really is the case that atheists do not enjoy recognition as citizens in good standing in their communities, it is probably the case that many atheists fail on one or more of these metrics. This conclusion seems, at least, somewhat more probable than the alternative conclusion, that the lower standing of atheists is due solely to a massive theistic conspiracy.

Unless, perhaps, one is a paranoiac. But one cannot be a paranoiac and claim the “high ground” of reason, which atheists often do.

The facts on the ground seem persuasive: religious inclination promotes charitable actions, religious conservatives are more likely to donate to charities and to work in charitable organizations than are secular folk and/or progressives, and religious people are less likely to cheat on their spouses. That’s all stuff I’ve commented on in the past, and then just the stuff I found after a two-minute search. I’m sure, were I to comprehensively examine the archives, that I’d find many more such examples…but these will suffice to demonstrate the point being made: it’s great that some (many?) atheists are good folks and decent citizens…but so what? They’re still the exceptions, rather than the rule.

The biggest problem is that fundamentalists are taught in their churches to discount anyone who believes differently than they do.

This is often the case, yes, and I can only assure both Aspentroll, directly, and the good Reader, more generally, that I am just as much on the receiving end of evangelical exclusivity as any atheist. Being Catholic, the things that I say, and the things that I believe, are very often completely (or near-completely) discounted by the likes of fundamentalists.

But then, it should be noted that atheists are not guilty of doing the same thing. Aspentroll himself, in the writing which I responded too previously, specifically attempted to play the “atheism is reason/religion is delusion” card; is this not a form of automatically discounting “anyone who believes differently” than Aspentroll himself does? And can’t people — young and old alike — be taught to be exclusive in just this way?

Methinks the answer is a resounding “yes!”

This may be because Religion in the US is a big business and will do their utmost to hang on to their positions in church and government. Pat Robertson, Huccabee, Palin come to mind.

Actually, most fundamentalists do it for a far simpler reason that that they are all participants in a massive conspiracy to discount, and possibly disenfranchise, the godless. 2 Corinthians 2:14-18 reads thusly: “Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Be’lial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’”

So in “discounting” non-Christians, evangelicals are simply living out their interpretation of this teaching from St. Paul. Of course, their interpretation is incorrect in and of itself…but that’s not the point. The question that Aspentroll raised was one of motive, and this Biblical excerpt is at the heart of the motive of fundamentalists if they make any attempt to discount atheists or other non-Christians.

Now, I promised that we’d come to discuss Sarah Palin a bit more.

I just saw the videos of Sarah Palin being prayed over by the black Priest from Kenya who was attempting to protect her from being taken over by “witches”.

Please, if this is “the common sense” that comes from organized religion, then we have stepped back a century or two, wouldn’t you think?

We all have the right to worry if this twit makes it into government.

I fail to see the cause for worry. Yes, it’s damned odd that some priest from Kenya saw fit to pray that she be protected from witches (more on that in a moment), but why does that make her a twit? And why does it impact on her ability to govern, or to fill the office of Vice President of the United States? And why should we worry about it? It’s just the actions of one priest…he can hardly be said to be representative of Christianity as a global religion, nor of Sarah Palin’s faith, nor of her competence (or lack thereof) to govern.

As to the odd prayer for Palin’s preservation from witches, it should be observed that Christianity often absorbs regional customs, and what we’re seeing here is the result of a conflation of Christian religious tradition with some local Kenyan traditions, methinks. A lot of African tribal cultures still have strong beliefs about possession and witchcraft, as did the ancient Hebrews. That’s not a result of their Christian faith, for the most part; it’s a remnant of their pre-Christian cultural traditions, which has been partially grafted onto their Christian worship practices.

No, it’s not the most sensible thing in the world, good Reader…but give it a few centuries, and it also won’t be an issue any longer, methinks.

In all honesty, there are some Christians that make me cringe by what they do, or for the sometimes esoteric beliefs that they hold. Christians are capable of being “less than rational,” as surely as are all human beings. But methinks that Aspentroll is doing something again which I called him on once before: he would hardly be the first atheist to look at, say, oddities particular to one Christian denomination in an isolated region, and declare that all religions are weird and sub-rational as a result. That might come as news to the many educated, wise, rational, reasonable Christians in the world, but not everyone can be counted on to let facts get in the way of good rhetoric, especially if it sells books with provocative titles. And yet, a more reasonable, rational person would notice that there are many critical differences between, say, Christianity with local tribal influences and formal Catholicism.

And at the end of the day, for as weird as some Christians can be, atheists and other secular folk are still more likely to pursue pseudo-science and the paranormal. Indeed, if one wants to tie this back to the presidential race currently underway, one could reflect that while “36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. [Barack Hussein Obama]’s former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin’s former denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.”

I respectfully submit to Aspentroll that, if it is honestly his desire that the candidate most closely associated with “common sense” be elected, his vote should not go to the Obama end of the ticket come November.

I know you won’t post this, because it will not be in your best interest.

Sorry to disappoint, Aspentroll.

Predictably, Shaukat Khawja is not pleased about this, and blames it all on “Zionist” media spin.

Like the US — the Zionist-contrlled mass-media in Britain also tells the public that Muslims are becoming a threat to the so-called “Western values”, refuse to integrate with local non-Muslim societies and don’t accept national practices of “liberalism” and “freedom of speech”.

That sounds about right. Shall we review?

First, there’s the issue of no-go areas, communities of predominantly Islamic immigrants into which non-Muslims venture at their own peril (Denmark has them too!). Then there’s the widespread support of things like Sharia law and legal disparity between men and women among younger Muslims in Britain (whose voices will be a part of what shapes what is to come for that country). The incitement to violent murder that is often preached in mosques in the United Kingdom is also concerning, as is the rampant and well-documented misogyny that accompanies Islam — and, in particular, Sharia law — wherever it spreads.

As to freedom of speech? Don’t. Get. Me. Started.

Not to be deterred by anything so inconvenient as the truth, however, Shaukat (a.k.a. Rehmat) continues:

Now, how idiotic these blames are, can be found from a speech given by professor Martin Amis of Manchester University — “Muslims are gaining on us demographically at huge rate. A quarter of humanity now, and by 2025, they will be third. ….Muslim community will has to suffer until it gets its house in order….I don’t hear from moderate Muslims, do you?….Strip searching Muslim people. Discreminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole Muslim community and they start getting tough with their children.”

Now, just imagine someone make the same statement with replacing the world Muslim with “Jews” — and find out how much “freedom of speech” exist in UK or the US or in UE countries. Mind you, it was in Europe that Jewish communities were expelled from almost every country — England being on the top of the list — for 350 years!

This is called shooting yourself in the foot, methinks; to at once demand proof that one can’t say unkind things about Jews and then follow it up with the observation that Europe has a massive, lengthy history of anti-Jewish bigotry is a textbook case of a self-defeating statement.

Not that I would expect any less from my good friend in Pickering, Ontario.

Of course, what’s even more amusing is how the quote from Amis and follow-on “thought experiment” actually do nothing to prove “how idiotic these blames” that Shaukat highlights are. The dispute over whether the media in Britain is or is not reluctant to print unkind things about Jews is irrelevant to whether or not the fears of the British populace are warranted or “idiotic.” It may well be that every media outlet in Britain is controlled by the Zionists…but if Muslims in Britain are something worth fearing, then the rest of the British people are still right to fear them, aren’t they?

British folk see Muslims as a growing threat in their midst. Is this really the fault of the distorted lies propagated by the Zionist-controlled media? Could there possibly be a more tangible reason? Could people possibly have a very real, true-to-life reason to be uncomfortable with their new Muslim neighbours?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Jay Currie has been busy, and deserves a ton of credit for breaking this story. Assists, as I understand it, go to Dr. Dawg and The Black Rod.

Briefly, what has transpired is this. Yesterday, Jay broke the story of Liberal Party of Canada candidate Lesley Hughes, who had for years been publishing Twin Towers conspiracy theories of an anti-Semitic nature on the internet. In one such writing, she asserted that Jewish businesses vacated the World Trade Centre in the days prior to the 2001 attacks.

(The “Jews were Warned!” meme is a fairly common one in the circles of those who insist that the most devastating act of Islamic terror perpetrated yet in North America was, in fact, an inside job or the work of the Israeli Mossad.)

Not twenty-four hours later, after initially defending his candidate and refusing to take action, Stephane Dion asked for, and received, her resignation from the electoral race in the Manitoba riding of Kildonan-St. Paul. This was a story that emerged, and was carried, almost entirely in the blogosphere — the mainstream media has been struggling to play catch-up.

And in a somewhat ironic twist, the Liberal Party’s “Team BC” website yesterday ran a story about an NDP candidate who is also a “troother” (e.g. a 9/11 conspiracy theorist), one Bev Collins by name.

Methinks that Jay has opened himself a rather large can of worms here. If you ever needed to see a quick demonstration of the power of the blogs, O Reader, look no further than this example.

Also: very sweet…I haven’t used the “Conspiracy nonsense” category in a while!

Update: Welcome, Steynians!