Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1877

The Story of Samson is Weirder Than I Thought

DarkMatters2525 tells the story of Judges 14 featuring a Schwarzenegger-esque Samson:

Love the close-ups of Samson near the end

I don’t know why they aren’t showing these videos in Sunday School… I’d take them over listening to a sermon any day.

Christian School Won’t Host Alaska State Wrestling Tournament After Officials Refuse to Stop Prayers Before Matches

Anyone who competes in a high school sport or competitive activity in Alaska knows the state tournaments are run by the Alaska School Activities Association. They decide things like which schools will host various state championships.

That’s why it’s a problem when the host of the state wrestling tournament for small schools, Anchorage Christian Schools,

The tournament drew athletes from 1A, 2A and 3A public and private schools around the state, [administrator Tom] Cobaugh said. The school made no money from hosting the event, he said.

About 240 wrestlers and up to 1,500 spectators typically attended the two-day tournament. A prayer — usually led by a pastor or other school staff — was a regular feature of the tournament.

“We would pray at semifinals or finals,” he said. “We do the Pledge of Allegiance, the flag is displayed, we sing the national anthem, say a prayer and then we wrestle.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, acting on a tip from an attendee of the tournament, sent the ASAA a warning that they couldn’t allow this to happen in the future. Since the Christian school officials refused to eliminate the prayer — which is their right — that meant finding a new venue for the tournament.

Billy Strickland, the ASAA’s Executive Director, explains what unfolded on the state wrestling tournament website:

ASAA referred the issue to its own legal counsel for evaluation and opinion. After the ASAA Board reviewed the matter at its recent meeting, it was concluded that an ASAA statewide tournament, even though hosted by ACS or other private school, is nevertheless sponsored by ASAA and is therefore subject to longstanding legal case precedent forbidding the use of prayer at an event sponsored by a public entity.

…

Anchorage Christian School was then informed by ASAA that a public prayer could not be used in conjunction with any future ASAA statewide tournaments. Anchorage Christian School informed ASAA they would no longer be willing to host the tournament under those circumstances.

ASAA is grateful for ACS’s undertakings to host past ASAA statewide events, and hopes that ACS will be willing to do so in the future. ASAA appreciates the Anchorage School District’s willingness to help us by allowing the tournament to be held at Bartlett High School.

It’s the right move and, really, the only option the ASAA had. Now, try telling that to the commenters at the Alaska Dispatch News who are

Fort Worth Police Department Under Fire for Its Unholy Alliance with Local Clergy Members

It was only September when we learned that police officers in Rochester, New York were working with clergy members in order to patrol the streets. The unholy partnership, while it may have had strategic aims, still promoted religion in a questionable way.

Turns out Fort Worth, Texas is doing the same thing. In fact, the Clergy and Police Alliance (CAPA) has its own website, Facebook page, and slideshow:

Some of the goals of this program include: pray for our City, city leaders, police officers and special needs; assisting the police in non-traditional roles; provide calm in crisis situations to prevent an escalation to violence; assist in domestic situations where a minister is requested or needed; offer support to victims; relay factual information back to the neighborhoods using your established networks; and emergency and disaster response training through the Citizen Emergency Response Team (CERT).

Oh. And the Facebook page is apparently used to raise money for the purchase of Bibles:

To casual observers, this may not seem like a big deal. It’s smart for police officers to partner with community leaders. The problem, though, is that the way this program is structured, it’s a government endorsement of Christianity.

The American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center explained as much in a letter sent to city officials yesterday:

Note that even the name of the program is disconcerting, as it implies that religious police are patrolling the city’s streets — an image that is abhorrent to a free and democratic society. But the problematic aspects of the program go even much further. In directly contradiction to constitutional standards, the department is officially calling upon clergy and their followers to pray — hardly standard police policy or procedure, and a direct endorsement of religious practice. Moreover, the department even acknowledges that the program serves the purpose of allowing religious clergy to “extend your ministry outreach,” thus making the intent and effect of the program unconstitutional.

Attorney Monica Miller also notes other potential problems:

There is nothing preventing a pastor from proselytizing religion or from coercing citizens to pray. A citizen approached by a pastor vested with apparent police powers may feel compelled to conform to the religious beliefs of the clergy in order to avoid adverse consequences of law enforcement. Worse, the clergy may unfairly target members outside of his religious congregation for differential treatment.

The AHA is asking the police department to eliminate the program altogether if it wants to avoid a potential lawsuit.

It’s incredible how officials never thought this would be a problem; it would be easy, and perfectly constitutional, to change this program so that all community leaders are invited to participate, not just religious leaders.

While the goals of the program are laudable, there are plenty of ways to achieve them without expanding ministerial opportunities for pastors — something they should be doing on their own.

After Raping a Pre-Teen Boy, Christian Broadcaster Will Spend More Than 25 Years in Prison

According to its Facebook page,

WCSG [Radio] is a ministry of Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI. Our mission is to encourage, energize, and equip listeners toward a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

As you might expect, the place is thick with cloying Jesus jive and Bible verses such as 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Despite such rock-solid divine guidance, one WCSG staffer fell perhaps a teensy bit short of that standard.

A former Grand Rapids Christian radio host was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to raping an 11-year-old Battle Creek boy.

Image from John Balyo’s now-defunct Facebook page

(Other reports say the boy was 12. Not that it makes any difference legally or morally.)

[John] Balyo told the judge… the child performed oral sex on Balyo. Balyo said another man was in the room at the time, and investigators have alleged that Ronald L. Moser of Battle Creek provided children for sexual acts with Balyo.

The sexual assault took place in the same month that Balyo got married. Police officers who searched the perp’s belongings found a bondage kit that included handcuffs, chains, and duct tape, as well as folders with magazines and articles about missing children… plus (extra-strong churn of the stomach) children’s obituaries.

Dark stuff – so, for some indispensable levity, go ahead and insert your own joke here:

[Balyo] was arrested at a Christian music festival in Gaylord.

As for the young victim, God said fuck him (and He might have meant it literally): the omnipotent and omniscient Ruler of the Universe, without whose celestial consent not a blade of grass can grow, was otherwise engaged when Balyo criminally attacked the boy.

Another Ponzi-Scheming Pastor Gets Sent Up the River: the Reverend Luis Serna Stole $7 Million From Hispanic Poor

Fleecing the faithful was all in a day’s work for the latest in a long line of devout swindlers.

The pastor at San Fernando-based Zion Living World Christian Center, formerly known as Amistad Cristiana, admitted to running a Ponzi scheme that involved soliciting loans and saying the money would be invested in foreign currency.

Instead, [Luis Alonzo] Serna said his firm Architects of the Future Investments only used a small amount of the money to invest in foreign currency. He used most of it to placate people who had given money previously.

Serna has 82 known victims, whom he bilked out of almost seven million dollars. CBS Los Angeles reports that the reverend’s wire fraud scheme

… targeted Spanish speaking victims of meager means.

“This case involves an egregious fraud that targeted non-wealthy victims who believed in the defendant because he was a pastor,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memo to the court.

Well, there’s your problem.

“Serna has caused not only financial loss, but the loss of homes, the loss of ability to pay for education for children, the need to declare bankruptcy, psychological damage, physical damage and endless suffering,” prosecutors said.

A judge sentenced the ostensible man of God to 10 years in prison, and also obligated him to pay his marks $4.6 million in restitution.

(Image via Shutterstock)

A Final Note on the Continuing Journalistic Hucksterism of Charisma News‘ Michael Brown

A reader politely asked me this morning why, in yesterday’s fisking of Michael Brown‘s dishonest post over at Charisma News, I hadn’t addressed Brown’s strenuous defense of homophobic evangelists Scott Lively and Lou Engle.

The answer is that the passage in question wasn’t there before (and I read the shoddy piece several times when it came out).

To cover his backside (?), I presume Brown or his editors added it after reading my critique — without noting anywhere that theirs was a post-publication, um, refinement.

By any reasonable journalistic code, it’s a no-no to make major alterations to a published article without then indicating that you’ve done so. (Fixing a typo or a minor flub is one thing; adding a critical paragraph with completely new content requires disclosure.)

In yesterday’s post, I would gladly have addressed Michael Brown’s white-washing of the role U.S. conservative Christians like Engle and Lively played in stirring up violence and persecution against Uganda’s gay population. And, unlike Mr. Brown, I would’ve provided corroborating links.

But I’m not prepared to chase after this editorial huckster under these circumstances. He could change his prose again, moving the goal posts, and people would have no way of knowing.

He’s made other changes too. For instance, his puzzling reference to “Thinking Atheist” has now been corrected to “Friendly Atheist.” I’ll take that as a sign that at least he’s not impervious to all factual truths.

On a not-quite-so-optimistic note, I’ve occasionally thought that we can have a halfway decent verbal duel with these folks without the need to take screenshots of their entire articles first.

I could be wrong.

(Thanks to the Starship Maxima)

In Sharia-Happy Malaysia, Not Being a Muslim Might Cost You Your Kids

A marital spat over religion cost one Malaysian Hindu woman her baby. Her husband insisted his spouse become a Muslim; when she refused, he grabbed their 11-month-old daughter and disappeared. That was more than five years ago. Though a civil court granted the mother custody, she never saw her child again, because her legal victory was canceled out by the father gaining custody in an Islamic (Sharia) court. As reported by the Associated Press,

Police have been unwilling to enforce the civil court’s decision.

Religion and politics are heavily intermingled in Malaysia: the country has

… [a] divided legal system, where majority Muslims use Sharia courts for religious and family issues such as conversion, divorce and death. The other 40 percent of the country — mainly Christians, Buddhists and Hindus — use a secular legal system inherited from the Southeast Asian country’s British colonial rulers.

Critics accuse the ethnic Malay Muslim-dominated government of doing too little to resolve problems when those legal systems collide. The government has become increasingly reliant on support from Islamist and right-wing pressure groups as other constituencies flock to the opposition.

In Malaysia, everyone is equal. It’s just that some are more equal than others.

Some lawyers and legal experts say spouses in especially bitter custody battles sometimes convert to Islam to gain an upper hand. A Muslim with a non-Muslim spouse who seeks custody from the Sharia court is almost certain to win because the spouse has no standing. … [A] cabinet decision in 2009 to allow minors to be converted only with both parents’ consent has yet to be made legally binding.

This is what happens when a religious majority doesn’t stop at simply worshipping, but seeks to legislate and impose its will as well.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Christian Conference Organizers Asked Me to Share My Views on Gay Marriage… So This is What I Sent Them

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from the organizers of the NINES, an online-only conference for evangelical Christians. (People would presumably purchase the live-stream and watch it with their small groups or church staffs.) Because the theme was “Culture Crash,” they asked me if I wanted to make a video discussing my views on same-sex marriage. They gave me five minutes and no restrictions (other than, you know, please don’t swear because there may be kids watching).

That was quite courageous of them to do, I thought, and the video I made is now online on the Atheist Voice channel. Take a look:

A rough transcript of the video can be found on the YouTube page in the “About” section.

I hope you feel like it was a fair message to send, though if you would’ve said something different, I’d love to know.

Atheist Billboards Go Up in Iowa

It’s been a while since we’ve seen these, hasn’t it? Welcome back, billboards!

The newly-formed Central Iowa Coalition of Reason and Eastern Iowa Coalition of Reason have put up billboards announcing their presence:

The four billboards will be located in Des Moines (2), Davenport, and Moline (Illinois).

Reaching out to the like-minded isn’t the only goal of the effort. “We want people to know that nonreligious folks like us are a regular part of communities all over the state,” added Rory Moe, coordinator for the two coalitions. “Nontheistic Iowans are your friends and neighbors, your coworkers and family members. And we believe we should be as free as anyone to express our views in a public way.”

The billboards, which will be up for a month (through Thanksgiving), cost $10,000 and were funded by the United Coalition of Reason, a group that has now placed signs in 37 states in addition to the District of Columbia.

In 2009, a similar ad campaign (on buses) became the subject of a lot of controversy because 1) Governor Chet Culver said he was offended by the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers‘ innocuous ad…

… and 2) A bus driver refused to do her job if the ad appeared on her bus. She was disciplined for her actions.

So far, there’s been no backlash or vandalism to the UnitedCoR billboards. But give it time.

Turkish Military Sheds (Some) Secular Principles: Game of Thrones Is Out, Studying the Qur’an Is In

Remember how proudly secular Turkey was since the days of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk? Unusually for a country where 98 out of a 100 citizens still self-identify as Muslims, Turkey became a secular, democratic republic close to a century ago. In the last two decades, driven in part by its remarkably thin-skinned, immoderate Islamic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who rarely misses a chance to push his religious agenda, that ideal has been hollowed out.

And so we get this:

The Turkish Armed Forces has updated its set of regulations for the high school academies that it administers, inserting an article in the chapter for “protection of students.” It advises a ban on screening films or shows that depict “sexual exploitation, pornography, exhibitionism, abuse, harassment and all negative behaviors.” [The national newspaper] Hurriyet cites Game of Thrones as one of the main culprits.

Alongside this addition to the regulations is another more telling one: the introduction of classes on Islam for the first time in military schools. Students can sign up for courses on “basic religious education, the Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad.”

It’s a striking development for an institution known to be notoriously secular. …

Critics… spy a creeping authoritarianism in Erdogan’s rule and some point to a parallel Islamization of Turkish society. The latest edicts for military schools may be a sign of the latter.

The Jerusalem Post casts a similarly wary eye on Turkey’s vanishing commitment to keep theocracy at bay, and on Erdoğan’s enthusiasm for nanny-state excess:

Tension between religious and secular elites has long been one of the underlying fault lines in the predominantly Muslim but constitutionally secular republic, forged from the ruins of an Ottoman theocracy by Ataturk 90 years ago.

Turkey’s “Kemalists” flinch at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan advising women on the number of children they should have, fostering restrictions on alcohol and expressing moral outrage over male and female students living together in the same house or flat.

Ishaan Tharoor at the Washington Post speculates that the state’s aversion to Game of Thrones may have less to do with religion, and more with

… military censors… objecting to the depictions of the Dothrakhi, a fearsome group of horse-riding nomads who venture from their lands of steppe and tall grass to torment wealthy cities to the West. The Dothraki are an admittedly crude reworking of the conquering hordes that emerged at various stages out of Central Asia; the Turks see their identity linked to nomadic Turkic tribes that settled in Anatolia.

Perhaps. But the Dothraki are clearly fictional, whereas Allah — oh, wait.