Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1917

This Public School District Was Taken Over by Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Men and Then All Hell Broke Loose

I’m late to this one, but I finally had the chance to listen to a recent episode of This American Life which documents the true story of how a group of ultra-orthodox Jews took over a public school district in East Ramapo, New York.

The gist of the story is that the Jews were upset about having to pay property taxes that went to the public schools since their children didn’t even attend them. They launched a successful campaign to become the majority seat-holders on the school board in order to revise future budgets… and what transpired after that is just ridiculous.

It’s an incredible story. I hope you get a chance to listen to it.

(Thanks to Virginia for the link)

In Oklahoma, a Muslim Ex-Con Tries to Convert Co-Workers, Gets Fired; Then It’s Time For a Beheading

Alton Nolen, the Muslim ex-con accused of an ex-colleague’s brutal beheading in Moore, Oklahoma on Thursday, identified strongly with the violent ways of his extremist foreign brethren.

In March, Nolen took to his Facebook page, where he calls himself Jah’Keem Yisrael, and posted an image of a beheading by Islamic fundies, captioned with a verse from the Qur’an:

I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off of them.

That same day, he added a photo of a protest sign reading

Islam will Dominate the World: Freedom can go to hell.

Another public missive of Nolen’s featured a picture of the burning World Trade Center in New York City, along with the observation that

Everything God says don’t do Amerika does.

By that, Nolen clarified, he meant the consumption of alcohol and bacon, the legalization of same-sex-marriage, and the availability of sex toys — among multiple other complaints.

Nolen/Yisrael made a habit of signing all his status updates with “****InfoFromAMuslim****.” Over the last half a year, he sometimes posted photos of himself in prayer, frequenting the Oklahoma City mosque.

This past Tuesday, two days before went on his rampage, he wrote what appears to be a religious tirade against masturbation:

SHALOM ALHAKEIUM (O YE MUSLIMS) ALLAH (sWT) SAYS IN THE LAST DAYS “PEOPLE WILL BE LOVERS OF THEMSELVES, PROUD AND UNHOLY”. SO TO ALL OF U THAT’S MASTURBATING WHICH I THINK IS 80% OF THE WORLD AND FOR WHATEVER THE DESIRE IT IS IN YOUR HEART THAT U DOING IT FOR-U CAN GET! (WARNING) THIS IS THE LAST DAYS….2ND TIMOTHY 3:2

Nolen had recently been fired from the Vaughan Foods plant in Oklahoma where he met his two female victims, including Colleen Hufford, whose head he severed. His former co-workers said that during his employment, he’d been trying to convert everyone to Islam, but it’s unclear if that was the reason for his dismissal.

His second victim, Traci Johnson, whom he was stabbing and slashing when he was shot by the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Mark Vaughan, is said to be in stable condition and is expected to survive. The same is true for the beheader himself.

Can Vegetarian Catholics Accept a Communion Wafer if They Literally Believe It’s the Body of Christ?

The Humanist runs an advice column and this may be my favorite question yet:

If Catholics truly believe that the substances used in communion are the body and blood of Christ, can there be such a thing as a vegan or vegetarian Catholic? My mother thinks I’m stupid for even thinking about this but I want to hear someone else’s opinion.

It turns out there are vegan-friendly wafers and wine — success! — but if you actually believe Catholic doctrine, then taking Communion would technically mean you’re eating an animal product and the actual ingredients wouldn’t matter.

Maybe some vegan/vegetarian Catholics can clarify for us in the comments how they handle this…

(Image via Shutterstock)

Persecution Porn: Many Australian Christians Spread the Canard That Their Homes Are Secretly Marked By ISIS

(Warning: Several links in the second half of this post lead to web pages with extremely violent, NSFW visual content.)

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A bit of flimflam that’s been spreading like wildfire in Australia plays expertly on Christians’ never-ending persecution complex:

New South Wales police have been moved to reassure Australians that text messages claiming members of Islamic State (Isis) are knocking on people’s doors and marking Christian houses are a hoax, as concerns grow about the threat the extremist group poses.

The text message states: “There are members if Isis going door knocking on homes. They greet you with ‘Salam Alaykom’, and then pretend they are trying to collect money for orphans. They come with a black folder and ask you if you want to donate. I have just had one approach me at home just 2 hours ago. Please — do NOT Talk to them or open for them.”

The message, which references areas in the south-west suburbs of Sydney, exhorts people to “spread the word” and apparently convinced enough people for the police to feel compelled to tell them that there was no truth in it. In a tweet on Friday, the police included a picture of the offending text message with “FALSE” written in bold red letters across it. An accompanying message said: “Don’t be fooled by social media myths exploiting the current political climate.”

No sane person has any doubts about the depths of the moral depravity that hardline Muslims in ISIS are capable of. All the same, the group is also being accused of purely fictional crimes that are nonetheless eagerly recounted by Christians to further their religion’s core narrative.

Take, for instance, reports saying that

… ISIS had “systematically beheaded children” and put their heads on sticks in a park in Mosul, Iraq. As far as we can tell, no other sources have corroborated [these] claims, although the phrase “systematically beheaded children” has been making the rounds in media echo chambers. Google is now saturated with sites claiming children were beheaded in Mosul.

Surprise:

[W]e found zero pictures or videos of kids’ heads on sticks anywhere in the world. We can’t verify that the news is false; however, it’s highly unusual that not one person in Mosul took a photo or video if such a ghoulish display is actually out in public there.

For a closer look at how this persecution porn spreads, consider Catholic Online, which last month ran a demonstrably false article under the headline

WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTOS (RAW) — ISIS begins killing Christians in Mosul, CHILDREN BEHEADED

The very disturbing pictures (proceed at your own risk!) that accompany the piece were misappropriated; the Catholic Online editors fraudulently described them as evidence of ISIS atrocities against Christians.

Although the lie was uncovered more than a month ago, the Catholic Online article is still up — unchanged, uncorrected, and as mendacious as ever.

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P.S.: Late last year, I exposed another falsified claim of anti-Christian oppression that supposedly took place in the Middle East, again involving straight-up lies about the subject of a photo.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Under This Rule, Even Brigham Young Would Have Been Kicked Out of Brigham Young University

If you attend Brigham Young University, you have to abide by a few faith-based rules like no drinking alcohol, no pre-marital sex… and no beards.

That last one was put into place more than four decades ago because, back then, beards were seen as signs of “protest, revolution and rebellion against authority… They are also symbols of the hippie and drug culture.”

Even if you accept that reasoning, that’s certainly not the case anymore. But leave it to religion to keep with a tradition long after it ceases to make any sense. It’s especially ironic given that Brigham Young (below) and several other Mormon Church leaders sported beards in their time:

When even Brigham Young would be kicked out of Brigham Young University, you know there’s a problem.

On Friday night, approximately 50 BYU students held a protest against the beard ban claiming it was no longer needed:

“Bike for beards!” they chanted, some wearing cardboard versions fastened with elastic, others sporting real tufts. The group of mostly men unraveled a petition asking the school to rethink its no-fuzz policy.

Junior Shane Pittson, a 23-year-old international relations major, said he considered organizing such an event for a few years but finally decided a few days ago to make a website and plan a rally.

“I love BYU, I love being a student here,” he said, “but the rule on beards I find particularly outdated.”

…

University spokeswoman Carri Jenkins noted that students agree to the grooming standards before their first day of class.

“It’s nothing against beards,” she said of the policy. “It’s just how we choose to represent ourselves at the university.”

That’s a pleasant way of saying, “We just want to control our students as much as we can.”

It’s nothing against beards. But if you have one, we’re going to expel you.

There are some exceptions to the rule — like if you have a scar or you’re unable to shave for whatever reason — but that just makes the ban even sillier. If there are reasons when a beard is allowed, why bother with the restriction in the first place?

It reminds me of the old joke about why Baptists oppose pre-marital sex: Because it might lead to dancing.

Nothing bad’s going to happen if some students have beards. Just like BYU won’t come crumbling down if students have some coffee. Unnecessary, irrational restrictions like these are precisely why many Mormons end up leaving the Church. They finally realize that their faith is more interested in micromanaging their lives than searching for the truth.

(Image via Wikipedia. Thanks to Jaynee for the link)

Pennsylvania Priest Faces Decades In Jail For the Alleged Rape of Honduran Children During Mission Trips

A Pennsylvania priest is behind bars this weekend — and possibly for as many as 40 years — on suspicion that he frequently traveled to Honduras for mission trips with the actual purpose of having sex with local children.

The Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr., 69, was arrested Thursday and will remain in custody until a hearing Monday before a federal magistrate in Pittsburgh.

[Federal agents] learned Maurizio made regular trips of two to three weeks each to the Central American country from 1999 to 2009…

Maurizio also faces a child porn charge based on images of a prepubescent boy posing on a bed with his genitals exposed. The images were found on a computer hard drive seized during a search of the rectory, a criminal complaint said.

If convicted, Maurizio could go to jail for 30 years on the child-rape charges; he faces another 10 years for the alleged possession of child porn.

The case bears more than a passing resemblance to the one involving Father Jozef Wesolowski, the former papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic, whose alleged serial rape of Dominican children got him defrocked and arrested by the Vatican this year.

So far, Maurizio denies any wrongdoing, claiming that the sex-abuse charges against him are the result of a secret plot by the Honduran government to smear him and undermine his charity work. Investigators, on the other hand, claim to have a strong case against the man of God: they say they interviewed multiple witnesses,

… including children, who accused the priest of fondling boys, photographing them naked and offering them chocolates or money to perform sex acts on one another or with him.

On Monday, a judge will decide whether Maurizio will stay locked up until his trial.

A College Professor Explains How He Dismantles the Concept of “Nonoverlapping Magisteria” for His Students

Professor David P. Barash writes in today’s New York Times about “The Talk” he gives his students regarding evolution and God. They are free to believe that God plays a role in the evolutionary process, whether He began it or guides it, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against the worlds overlapping:

I conclude The Talk by saying that, although they don’t have to discard their religion in order to inform themselves about biology (or even to pass my course), if they insist on retaining and respecting both, they will have to undertake some challenging mental gymnastic routines. And while I respect their beliefs, the entire point of The Talk is to make clear that, at least for this biologist, it is no longer acceptable for science to be the one doing those routines, as Professor [Stephen Jay] Gould and [the idea of "nonoverlapping magisteria"] have insisted we do.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there are complaints about this piece: Look at how that professor is pushing his atheism upon the students! But when all the evidence ever found points away from religion, professors owe it to their students to let them know that.

What I’d like to know — what Barash didn’t include in his essay — is what the reaction is from his student. Do they challenge him on this front? Do they change their minds by the end of the course? He says at one point, almost giddily, that the students “shift uncomfortably” in their seats as he gives them The Talk, but how does that impact the class afterwards? I’d love to know.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Joyce Meyer Wisdom

Yeah, pesky atheists. Stop it with your silly questions and book-learning and wanting to understand everything…

What’s ever scarier is how many of the replies are along the lines of “That is so true!”

Now That’s What I Call an Introduction for Neil deGrasse Tyson

Before Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke at Apostacon last weekend, spoken word artist Victor Harris gave a fantastic introduction that involved some beautiful wordplay. The video quality isn’t great, but the audio is what matters:

You can read the full poem right here.

Atheist Puts a Stop to City-Sponsored Prayer Breakfasts in Eureka, California

In early 2013, atheist Carole Beaton along with attorney Peter Martin (below) filed a lawsuit against the city of Eureka, California and Mayor Frank Jager for promoting prayer breakfasts with city resources:

Jager said he still plans to hold the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast at the Wharfinger building in Eureka on Feb. 7 at 7 a.m. despite the lawsuit’s claim that his use of his official position as mayor to promote a sectarian prayer breakfast is unconstitutional.

”I was elected by the people, and I do my best to represent all of the people in Eureka,” Jager said. “I can’t separate Frank Jager from the mayor. I sponsor a number of things, it’s part of what I am and what I do in Eureka. It’s perfectly acceptable for me to sponsor something like this. You bet I feel what we are doing is fine within the law.”

That was nearly two years ago.

This week, a month before a trial was set to begin, both sides agreed on a settlement that looks more like a victory for Beaton and Martin:

The settlement prohibits the city from using its resources, city seal and the title of mayor to promote or support prayer breakfasts and requires the city to pay Beaton $16,500 for attorney’s fees. As part of the agreement, both sides state the city is not admitting liability and the settlement is not an admission of the case’s claims. The documents will be submitted to the court today for approval.

“I think it’s an agreement that is fair to both sides,” Martin said.

Martin will still try to appeal a prior ruling that allows non-sectarian invocations at city council meetings. The Supreme Court may permit it nationally, but Martin believes California law is more strict about these things.

I’m not sure how successful that appeal will be, but the bigger settlement is what matters here. It ends the cozy relationship between church and state in Eureka and makes sure taxpayer funds aren’t going to promote Christianity. All because of a couple of terrific activists.

(Thanks to Becky for the link)