Author: Ophelia Benson

This is insane. That camp of horrors in Texas –

The sect’s lawyers had sought to limit a search but have agreed temple records can be scrutinised under supervision. A representative of the sect will be appointed to vet documents, computer files and family Bibles for records that should not be used as evidence for legal or religious reasons, the Associated Press reports.

A representative of this pack of male lunatics that imprisons women and children and forces them to act as baby-factories will be appointed to decide what documents and files should not be used as evidence for religious reasons? What ‘religious’ reasons? They have god’s signatures on them? They might include god’s password? ‘Religious’ reasons are the problem here, so how can they be given veto power over what can be used as evidence?

I’ve said it before – the free exercise clause has a lot to answer for.

Why the human brain evolved. So that it could dream up pastimes like this:

A radical rabbi once linked to a plot to fire a missile at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, is hiding in Canada, Israeli police said Monday, announcing that he is wanted for his alleged role in a series of ghastly abuses of his followers’ children…[H]e has been described as the “spiritual mentor” of a group involved in the systematic abuse of children, allegedly using his status as a rabbi to convince a mother of eight that her children’s shortcomings could be beaten and burned out of them…Two of the eight children, aged 4 and 5, were hospitalized in serious condition two weeks ago after Mr. Chen allegedly ordered two of his followers to, among other acts, hit the children with hammers and light their fingers on fire, as a way of “correcting” their behaviour…The mother is alleged to have locked her two youngest children in a suitcase for three days, letting them out for only brief periods during that time. She also allegedly shook and beat them, burned their hands with a lighter and a heater, made them take freezing showers and forced them to eat their own feces. The goal, according to police, was to beat “devils” out of the children…The mother and the other two “educators” are also suspected of pouring salt on the burn wounds, gagging the children with a skullcap, and forcing them to drink alcohol until they vomited…Police searched Mr. Chen’s apartment on Thursday, and discovered journals documenting the violence…The notebooks describe how to prepare special drinks for the children, made of alcohol, salt, pepper and turpentine. The children were forced to drink the liquids until they vomited. “You see, they vomit the Satan inside them,” a letter tells the mother. The notebooks also detail how to beat the children with batons and then pour alcohol on their wounds, describing in exact detail how much time to leave the burning liquid on the body of the sufferer.

Makes you proud of the species, doesn’t it?

Blair doing God.

Issues of faith have clearly been consuming Mr Blair. Since leaving office, he has converted to Roman Catholicism. This requires much thought and reflection. After confessing serious sins, a convert must make the “Rite of Reception”, including saying that: “I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God.”

And saying that requires thought and reflection? Wouldn’t you think it requires something more like the avoidance of thought, the abdication of thought? To say you believe all that the ‘Holy’ Catholic Church proclaims to be revealed by God is to say you believe something very all-encompassing, very broad, very dogmatic, and very evidence-free. What does that have to do with thought? Dogmatic belief is not the same thing as thought, and in many ways it’s the negation of it.

While Mr Blair may have changed the subject to talk about religion, he remains to his fingertips a politician. He knows that, while the fact of his religious faith is essential to making his initiative work, the content of it might get in the way.

Ah – well that would explain it. The fact of his ‘faith’ is essential while the content is a nuisance. That so often is the case, isn’t it – the word ‘faith’ is used as a self-congratulatory lapel-pin, while the actual literal things people are supposed (by clerics if no one else) to believe are tactfully not discussed. Blair’s ‘faith’ is all label and no content, at least for purposes of public discussion.

But if that’s the case – why call it faith at all? Why attempt to eat your cake and have it? What’s it all about – just having a place to go with the spouse and kids on a Sunday? If the actual content is too awkward to talk about…why hang on to the exoskeleton like grim death?

Who knows. The ways of the faithful are mysterious.