Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1841

The Satanic Temple’s Display Has Been Vandalized Just One Day After Going Up in the Florida State Capitol Building

As we know by now, the Florida State Capitol Building is home to a Nativity scene, a Festivus Pole, an atheist banner, and a display from The Satanic Temple:

But just like that, a day after it went up, The Satanic Temple’s display has already been vandalized:

A woman is in custody in connection with damaging the Satanic Temple holiday display at the Florida Capitol earlier today.

The diorama of an angel falling into a pit of fire is in the building’s lobby along with five other holiday displays. At this time, it’s unknown exactly how the display was damaged or the woman’s motive.

Samantha Andrews, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said the agency expects to make an arrest in the case.

In a statement, Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves said the following:

… Whatever the reasoning turns out to be behind the assault on our display, it is inappropriate to view it in the facile terms of Christianity vs. Satanism. The assault on our display, if thought to be done in favor of a Christian viewpoint, is more appropriately viewed as an assault upon religious pluralism and a rejection of Government viewpoint neutrality. It is a rejection of American constitutional values held dear by a large number of self-identified Christians — many of whom express support for The Satanic Temple’s right to religious freedom. It is time that the fundamentalists and religious radicals realize that they are the belligerent few, and we, who uphold the virtue pluralism, whatever our religious affiliations (or lack thereof), will not be silenced.

I’m not surprised it happened, but it would be nice to see some local Christian groups condemn the action unequivocally since they’re the reason this open forum is in the Capitol in the first place. This sort of vandalism would be unacceptable if it happened to a Nativity scene and it’s unacceptable now, too.

More on this story as details emerge.

***Update***: Well, at least the person who put up the Nativity scene condemned the vandalism:

Pam Olsen, who organized the manger display, said she doesn’t approve of the attack.

“I’m actually very sad that she felt motivated to do that,” Olsen said. “I do not like the display. I think it’s rude and it’s sad that he put it up to protest the nativity that means so much to millions of people, however I don’t think anyone should ever vandalize anything. Free speech is free speech whether we like it or not.”

Also, Americans United for Separation of Church and State released this statement:

“This act of mindless vandalism should be condemned by all decent people and all those who support true freedom of religion. It’s important to remember that free speech in an open forum is for all groups, even those whose message some deem controversial or unpopular.

“Our attorneys fought hard for our clients to win the right to display their diorama in the Capitol Rotunda, and we don’t intend to buckle under to this type of senseless destruction. We hope the display is quickly reassembled, and we call on authorities in Florida to prosecute the vandal to the full extent of the law.”

“Messenger of God” Action Movie Stars Sect Leader Who’s Accused of Rape, Murder, and Castration

Sikh religious authorities in India have asked the Punjab government to ban the wild new action film Messenger of God, because it stars Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim, the leader of a blasphemous (to Sikhs) sect called the Dera Sachcha Sauda.

The controversial leader of the Dera Sachcha Sauda sect, Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim, has starred in a film that some Sikh bodies say should be banned as it could cause trouble in Punjab.

Under pressure from radical Sikh groups, the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal body of Sikhs, has asked the Punjab government to ban “MSG” or “Messenger of God”, which is set to release on January 16. The movie stars the Dera chief in the lead role and shows him as a swashbuckling hero fighting “social evils,” in flashy costumes.

The theatrical trailer on YouTube is bizarre and very much worth watching:

Why are Sikhs upset?

Sikh bodies have expressed concern that the Baba’s dialogues in the film are provocative and appear to challenge Sikhs. … There have been frequent clashes between Sikhs and Dera followers since 2007, when Gurmeet Singh was accused of dressing up like Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh guru.

But Gurmeet Singh has bigger troubles brewing that have nothing to do with the movie. Although the Dera sect’s Wikipedia entry seems to have been heavily edited by his acolytes to reflect an organization of “secular” do-gooders whose mission is “to see the world as one, and believe in the same ONE God” (not a very secular goal!), disturbing new allegations paint Gurmeet Singh as a crazed god-man who demands to have his male followers castrated.

According to the Times of India,

400 Sadhus of Dera were allegedly castrated inside the Dera with the false hope that the males would be able to achieve God.

Whatever that means.

Just today, a higher court instructed India’s Central Bureau of Investigation to open a criminal probe into the sexual-mutilation accusations.

Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim is also facing trial in the 2007 rape of two female followers (evidence that he’s not a eunuch himself, assigning that fate exclusively to others); and in a separate case involving the murder of two people, including a journalist.

Evil-fighting Messenger of God, indeed.

Pat Robertson: Gays “Will Die Out Because They Don’t Reproduce”

Pat Robertson‘s show The 700 Club has brought us yet another gem about the nature of human attraction and reproduction.

Here’s the video, collected by Right Wing Watch:

A viewer asked the following question:

I’ve been in church all my life with my family. We are not allowed to date. The only ones in my church that are married already knew their partners before coming in to church. It is treated as a sin to show interest or to have a mutual understanding in church with the opposite sex. Most of the people in the church are frustrated because we’re getting older and no one is getting married. We pray about the issue but it seems like it is bouncing back. What should I do? — Crystal

Here’s Pat’s answer:

You know, those who are homosexual will die out because they don’t reproduce. You know, you have to have heterosexual sex to reproduce. Same thing with that church. It’s doomed, it’s going to die out, because this is the most nonsensical thing I have heard in a long time. This is absurd. God has made us to be in families, God has created the desire of men and women to have attraction to the opposite sex so that they will reproduce and have children. If I were you, I’d get out of that church as fast as I could, cast the dust of it on your feet, shake off the dust and run.

This question had virtually nothing to do with homosexuality, and Robertson found a reason to make it an anti-gay thing. He doesn’t go as far as advocating for premarital sex here, but apparently, he’s down for premarital mingling as long as it’s not the gay kind. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: he thinks about gay sex more than we do!

Feelgood Story of the Day: In Lovely Gesture, Muslim Bride Places Her Bouquet at Tribute to Sydney Hostage Victims

I’m glowing a little inside, and I don’t think it’s the eggnog:

As the Sydney siege memorial grows, a Muslim bride has made a pilgrimage to Martin Place on her wedding day. Manal Kassem was adorned in a white dress, hijab and veil when she laid her wedding bouquet on the river of floral tributes to the fatal Lindt cafe siege victims. After watching the wedding party approach, the city crowd broke into applause.

The 23-year-old bride had chosen the city for her wedding photoshoot, but was hesitant after the siege, says her wedding planner. “She was going to cancel [the photoshoot] because she didn’t want to be judged … celebrating her wedding in a scarf while people were terrorised,” wedding planner Dina Kheir told AAP. “But she made it her priority to visit the memorial site as the first pit stop. “She did it out of respect for her country, that will one day be the country of her children and grandchildren.”

The bride … approached the expanding floral tribute on Saturday with her groom, Mahmod Homaisi, as onlookers stared, a witness said. When Ms. Kassem laid her wedding bouquet onto the ground, they applauded.

Untold millions of Muslims have no sympathy for those who commit violence in the name of Allah, and Manal Kassem briefly served to represent them all.

Also, I have to commend the Ozzies on their reaction in the aftermath of last week’s fatal hostage-taking. More than 280,000 Australians took to Twitter with the hashtag #IllRideWithYou, offering to accompany Muslims dressed in traditional garb who might be nervous to go out in public.

Franciscan Group Says It Could Go Bankrupt Due to Multi-Million Dollar Theft By Its Own Friars

By their fruits shall ye know them:

One of the largest Franciscan religious orders, founded on the humble teachings of St. Francis of Assisi more than 800 years ago, announced it is on the brink of bankruptcy after admitting some of its friars embezzled funds from its accounts.

The Italian news magazine Panorama on Friday reported that tens of millions of dollars were missing from the Order of Friars Minor and had been invested in offshore companies.

Panorama also claimed Swiss prosecutors had seized Franciscan accounts in Switzerland because the account holders had allegedly invested in illegal operations that could include arms and drug trafficking.

If only the embezzlers had studied a certain book that magically imbues people with morality.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Anti-Gay Pastor Gaylard Williams Offers Priceless Responses After Getting Arrested for Groping Unwilling Man

The Daily Beast has the most detailed account yet of the gay gropefest attempted recently by the wonderfully named pastor Gaylard Williams of Praise Cathedral Church in Seymour, Indiana.

Ten days ago,

Williams drove over to Cypress Lake, which attracts local fisherman trying to pull channel catfish and largemouth bass out of the drink.

If the allegations are true, he was looking for a largemouth of a different kind.

[He] began propositioning a younger man by the waterfront who was talking on his mobile phone, according to a police report. The younger man rolled down his window to receive the approaching Williams “to see what he wanted.” [T]he pastor allegedly “reached in and grabbed him.” …  Quizzed by cops, the younger man said Williams grabbed “everything” and “squeezed [his genitals] and he got a good handful.”

“I don’t swing that way,” the shocked recipient of Williams’ attention says he told the pastor.

But, according to the report, Williams kept pushing the man for some fellatio. … Clearly, the advances were not reciprocated but Williams “continued to talk about sucking dick.”

Locals cops detained Williams after his victim called in the assault. They got permission to search the holy man’s car, finding nothing more incriminating than a gay-porn DVD. Williams blurted that it wasn’t his and he was just messengering it for a friend.

Also,

He said the video was “a promotional thing” that he received in the mail at his church office.

But wait, it gets better!

The investigators asked Williams if he’d ever committed sexual battery, and the pastor mistook the question to be about whether he’d been with a man sexually. In turn, he told the sheriff he had experimented with gay sex in college.

He denies groping the younger man by the lakeshore, saying he only touched him on the shoulder.

In public, as you might suspect, Williams is very much aghast at teh gay.

The pastor declared publicly in the past that intimacy among same-sex couples was wicked. “He stood by the pulpit and said, ‘The Bible is clear on that. That’s sin; you’re going to go to hell for doing that,’”

… recalled one source.

The church’s website has a few choice words about sin, too:

“We are to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh. … Sinful practices which are made prominent and condemned in these scriptures include homosexuality and adultery” and “are forbidden by God and lead to the worship of Satan.”

Pastor Williams is married, so if he’s guilty of the charge, he’s got both homosexuality and adultery covered.

His church says it’s due an explanation from their ex-shepherd. Yes, ex. The elders have decided they will welcome him back as a regular congregant, but won’t allow him in the pulpit anymore.

French Driver on a Rampage, Shouting “Allahu Akbar,” Injures 11 As He Plows His Car Into Five Different Crowds

Playing Carmageddon for Allah. From the Daily News:

A man who reportedly spent time in a psychiatric hospital shouted “Allahu akbar!” as he rammed his car into crowds at five different locations around Dijon in central France on Sunday, injuring 11 people in a half-hour rampage.

At least two people were critically injured in the attack by a 40-year-old man behind the wheel of a Renault Clio, who witnesses said was acting for the “children of Palestine” and yelled “God is great,” police said.

The incident comes one day after French police gunned down a knife-wielding assailant who allegedly attacked officers while shouting “God is great” in Arabic. The man had injured three officers – two seriously – at a police station in Tours, France. Counter-terrorist police are investigating the Tours attack amid general concern after several threats by Islamic extremist groups calling for attacks against France.

The government said the driver’s motives Sunday were unclear, but the man had run-ins with police dating to the 1990s and was “apparently imbalanced” having spent time in a psychiatric hospital.

With roughly six million Muslims, France has the largest Islamic population of any European country. Here‘s a summary of the handiwork of some of the radicals in their midst. “Anti-Muslim acts” appear to be on the rise, too, though they are typically on the order of graffiti sprayed on mosques or nasty comments made to headscarf-wearers, and are far less likely to involve violence.

(Image via CaféPress)

Ken Ham is Angry That the Creation Museum Was Used as a Punchline on Saturday Night Live

Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update segment featured the songwriting duo of Garth & Kat, who never seem to prepare their songs ahead of time. (You love ‘em or you don’t.)

The whole point of the sketch is that these two are pretty incompetent at what they do.

At one point, when anchor Michael Che told them they needed to leave the studio, they pleaded their case by saying “We came all the way from the Creation Museum!” (“Yeah! Moses had a dinosaur. Did you know that?”)

There were a few laughs, but the joke fell pretty flat.

Wouldn’t you know it, though, Ken Ham saw this as Christian Persecution in action:

The reason I’m posting this video is to demonstrate that the mocking of anything Christian in the culture is growing. We see increasing attacks by the secularists on Christianity — they have become so bold now that they’ve been successful in removing crosses, Nativity scenes, and Ten Commandments displays, and have been imposing their own atheistic religion on the culture. Recently, they have been increasingly spreading lies in a propaganda campaign of misinformation about our future Ark Encounter project (and had been doing that in regard to the Creation Museum for many years).

Imagine what would happen if the cast of Saturday Night Live mocked Muslims? I wonder if they have ever mocked atheists in the same way they do Christians?

First of all, this wasn’t mocking Christians. This was mocking a subset of Christians whose views are subjectively silly and objectively untrue, even to other Christians. And if this is what you consider an “attack” on your faith, then you have it pretty damn good.

It’s also not an attack when atheists defend church/state separation when Christian groups act like they’re above the law. No one was spreading lies about Ark Encounter, either. They were using Answers in Genesis’ own website to prove that they were not adhering to the requirements in applying for tax breaks.

What about mocking Muslims? Well, SNL has poked fun at Muslim extremists before. Some Muslims (as well as conservative Christians) were also offended by a parody of Django Unchained called “DJesus Uncrossed” in 2013.

SNL makes fun of atheists, too. When American Atheists President Madalyn Murray O’Hair went missing a decade ago (before her dead body was found), Weekend Update had a joke about how her family was asking “everyone not to pray.”

And don’t forget Louis CK‘s monologue from earlier this year when he misrepresented atheists’ views (even though I was laughing throughout his set):

I’m not religious. I don’t know if there’s a God. That’s all I can say, honestly, is “I don’t know.” Some people think that they know that there isn’t. That’s a weird thing to think you can know. “Yeah, there’s no God.” Are you sure? “Yeah, no, there’s no God.” How do you know? “Cause I didn’t see Him.” There’s a vast universe! You can see for about 100 yards — when there’s not a building in the way. How could you possibly… Did you look everywhere? Did you look in the downstairs bathroom? Where did you look so far? “No, I didn’t see Him yet.” I haven’t seen 12 Years a Slave yet; it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’m just waiting until it comes on cable.

The point is that none of these are “attacks” on anyone’s beliefs. They may rub you the wrong way, or you might not find them funny, but they’re not below the belt by any means.

Plus, it’s not hard to make fun of the Creation Museum since it’s already something of a parody. Did you notice how, in this weekend’s sketch, they didn’t even need to describe the museum to get laughs? All they had to do was say the museum’s name. That was the joke.

Ham should be thanking SNL for the free publicity, not acting like a victim.

An Atheist’s Guide to the Caricatures in the Forthcoming Christian Film Do You Believe?

Bo Gardiner created this helpfully condensed version of God’s Not Dead, and now he’s done the same thing with the recently-released promotional trailer for the movie Do You Believe?:

You can read more about the upcoming film here.

Reincarnation Gone Horribly Wrong

Image of unknown origin:

My friend Dave Hitt‘s comment:

“Of course, if this looked like a man with a beard, people would be flocking to worship it.”