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Post by dodger on Oct 20, 2013 3:55:30 GMT
"Almighty God, Please Feed the Poor--
Stop Them Keep Bloody Bothering ME!!"President Aquino-Philippines.
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Post by dodger on Oct 22, 2013 19:59:11 GMT
www.onelawforall.org.uk/Visit the above website..... “One Law for All Campaign against Sharia law” in Britain. The campaign, supported by the Council of Ex-Muslims, women’s organisations, secular organisations, equality organisations, numerous MPs, Lords and others, calls upon the government to ban the practising of Sharia law courts and religious tribunals.
The campaign demonstrates that Sharia law and religious tribunals are discriminatory against women and children, and undermine British law and civil rights. It also shows that the functioning of these tribunals creates even greater segregation of minorities within Britain as they promote an insular apartheid mentality.
According to campaign organiser Maryam Namazie, “Even in civil matters, Sharia law is discriminatory, unfair and unjust, particularly against women and children. Moreover, its voluntary nature is a sham; many women will be pressured into going to these courts and abiding by their decisions.”
The English Civil War, fought over 350 years ago, stopped religious courts and religious bigotry. We cannot allow them to be smuggled back into Britain by pandering to religious obscurantists, medievalists and charlatans.
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Post by dodger on Oct 26, 2013 23:32:15 GMT
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Post by dodger on Oct 28, 2013 3:13:40 GMT
www.workers.org.uk/opinion/opinion_0905/statement.htmllondon bombings: cpbm-l statement
WORKERS, SEPT 2005 ISSUE The barbaric bombing of Londoners on Thursday 7 July is to be utterly condemned, without reservation. This massacre of British workers, deliberately timed to kill and maim people travelling to work on tubes and buses, succeeded insofar as many died and were injured. But the brilliant skills, creativity, indomitable spirit and rationality of British workers displayed in London on the day, and since, give the lie to the inhuman fascists who carried out, or connived in, these acts, wishing to push us into a dark age of unreason and fear.
They will try to blame their inhumanity on others. But terrorists are responsible for their crimes and we must hold them to account. There can be no excuses given. All workers must assist to unmask these mass murderers.
The state in its increasing corporatism will attempt to use this atrocity to impose further controls on our lives, in the name of protecting us against terrorism. But the only defence against terrorism is the working class itself. Terrorists are tiny in number: we are millions. We have the power to make it impossible for them to operate in Britain, and this must be the responsibility of every one of us.
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Post by dodger on Oct 28, 2013 8:37:17 GMT
www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/The Agnostic Christmas. by Robert G. Ingersoll The Journal, New York, December 25, 1892.
**** ****
AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the God of day over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over Delilah, and Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris rises from the dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more. Again Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of light, destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival of Thor, of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus, and Chrishna eludes the tyrant.
This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be universal.
This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all religions -- the worship of the sun.
Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.
The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying, the all-loving.
This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for revenge.
All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness, of shadow, of night. And so I say again, this is the festival of Light. This is the anniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the hosts of Darkness.
Let us all hope for the triumph of Light -- of Right and Reason -- for the victory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over Superstition.
And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the Sun. -- ...............................................................................................................................
No less eloquent in his view of "Eight Hours MustCome".... Robert G. Ingersoll .
www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/8hours_must_come.html
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Post by dodger on Nov 4, 2013 11:10:28 GMT
Reflections on Churches’ Witnessing with Human Rights Victims
Rev. Kyoung Gyun Han
Asian Ministries Coordinator, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ)
November 4, 2013
At the time I was based in the Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in the Philippines, local villagers including indigenous people who resisted mining operations and militarization have been forcibly displaced from their communities.
The seminary served as sanctuary for the refugees, despite the threat of harassment and intimidation by state security forces. For the students’ theological training, they were encouraged to be aware of the plight of the poor and marginalized sectors, especially the victims of human rights atrocities.
I believe the UTS support for the refugees is one good example of church solidarity with the victims of injustice. Walking and working with the poor is not optional. It is in fact, a basic role and sacred duty of the church.
Prophetic Voices Silenced
During my ministry in the Philippines I have personally met some of the clergy and lay church workers whose lives were brutally taken as they were known to be outspoken critics of government corruption and human rights abuses.
One of them was The Most Rev. Alberto Ramento, Bishop of the Philippine Independent Church, an active supporter of striking sugarworkers of Hacienda Luisita. He was not only a Bishop of the Church – he was a dearly beloved Bishop of the Poor. Assassins broke through the rectory where Bishop Ramento was staying at around 4:00 am of October 03, 2006 in the Parish of San Sebastian, Tarlac City. He was awakened in his sleep when the assassins had entered his room and stabbed him seven times to death.
Hacienda Luisita is one of the country’s biggest land monopoly controlled by the Cojuangco-Aquino clan. Bishop Ramento was added to the long list of poor peasants and genuine land reform advocates who were brutally silenced by those who are determined to maintain their excessive wealth at the expense of the poor.
Global Voices Denounce Incessant Killings
As hundreds of Filipinos became victims of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration, my co-workers in the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK) along with other member-churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) expressed indignation over the Philippines human rights crisis.
As current Asian Ministries Coordinator of Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ), I was invited to attend the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (ICHRPP) last July in Manila through the support of Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA). I was very happy for the chance to return to my second home, where I spent more than 7 years of ministry in Southern Luzon, one of the regions with the highest number of documented rights abuses.
It was a big conference of over 200 people from around the globe. It is such an honour to be part of a global network including churches actively supporting the Filipino people’s quest for justice and peace. The ICHRPP deplored the fact that far from his 2010 election promise to deliver justice for human rights victims of past regimes, Pres. Benigno Simeon Aquino’s 3-year administration now holds a record of ZERO conviction of perpetrators of rights abuses and added more victims: 142 extra-judicial killings, 540 illegal arrests, 76 cases of torture, 30, 678 forced evacuations, 31,417 cases of threats/harassment/intimidation, and 27,029 cases of use of schools, medical, religious and other public places.
NZ Churches in Solidarity with Philippines
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) was born out of the conference which I attended in Manila.
Coming back to New Zealand, I pledged to watch out Philippine situation, engage in solidarity action and strengthen migrants’ ministry particularly in Auckland and Christchurch, where hundreds of Filipinos are coming over for project rebuild. Our efforts to support the clamor for justice and peace in the Philippines include the following actions:
On 19th August, Rev. Stuart Vogel and I joined the Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS) in making paper cranes (Japanese origami) in support of the campaign to Surface James Balao and all victims of enforced disappearances. Based on the ancient Japanese legend that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, we expressed support for all the families awaiting the return of their loved ones who have been abducted by state agents.
On 5th September we sent a joint PCANZ-Methodist letter of concern to the Philippine Embassy regarding the harassment of another pastor of our partner, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), among other persistent rights abuses under the Aquino presidency. We also highlighted call urging the Government of the Philippines to immediately resume formal peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
On 17th October, marking two years since the killing of Fr. Fausto ‘Pops’ Tentorio, PIME, we gathered at St John's Presbyterian Church to remember the martyrdom and lighted candles for justice for Fr. Pops. Rev. Prince Devanandan of the NZ Methodist Church shared his reflection, “We live today in a world where money has become more important than human life. The military in the Philippines and many countries controlled by the multinationals are only taught to kill those who resist injustice, but not taught to respect human life and dignity.”
In support of the goals of the ICHRP, I vow to hold the Filipino people always in our prayers, and hope to engage more New Zealanders in global ecumenical solidarity actions for justice and peace in the Philippines.
From: cafca@cyberxpress.co.nz
cafca
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Post by dodger on Nov 5, 2013 9:46:13 GMT
Fr. Joe Dizon, revolutionary Catholic priest Communist Party of the PhilippinesNovember 5, 2013The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) expresses its deep sense of loss over the death of Fr. Joe Dizon. He passed away last night at the age of 65.
The leadership and entire membership of the CPP pay tribute to Fr. Joe Dizon, revolutionary Catholic priest, patriot and humble servant of the working class and the toiling masses.
He was among the pioneer organizers of the Basic Christian Community in the 1960s which put into practice the progressive Catholic social teaching of having preferential option for the poor. Such an advocacy was being advanced by the Christians for National Liberation (CNL) against the traditional leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. Like many priests infused by the spirit of serving the people, Fr. Joe helped organize urban poor and workers communities.
By being with the workers and peasants, Fr. Joe knew firsthand their travails and sought to change their situation and improve their wellbeing. He championed their national democratic aspirations and became tempered in their struggles.
Confronted with the people's enemies, Fr. Joe was militant and courageous. He organized workers defying the threats of the big capitalist compradors. He founded the Workers' Assistance Center in 1995 based in Dasmariñas, Cavite. The WAC extended help to the workers inside the Cavite Export Processing Zones, who were among the most oppressed and exploited. Fr. Dizon was a trailblazer in building various types of workers associations and unions within the EPZs, where factories are run like Nazi prison camps by big foreign capitalists in cahoots with the military, police and government bureaucrats.
He joined the people in mass demonstrations and immersed himself in workers' picketlines and peasant communities. Under Martial Law, he was among the people in their struggle to overthrow the US-Marcos dictatorship. He was among the stalwarts in the people's uprising of 2001 which brought down the Estrada regime. He was a vocal critic of the Arroyo regime and vigorously denounced the Arroyo regime for widespread corruption and cheating in the 2004 and 2007 elections.
Fr. Joe was among the convenors of the group Kontra Daya which exposed various forms of electorial fraud through the automated counting system, including the 2010 elections which brought the current Aquino regime to power. Recently, he was among the leaders of the broad movement against the Aquino regime's pork barrel system.
Fr. Joe was an advocate of human rights and social justice. He firmly opposed US interventionism in the Philippines and actively joined efforts to bring progressive and patriotic thought into the Catholic Church. He was among the convenors of Solidarity Philippines and the Clergy Discernment Group, which sought to encourage priests, nuns and religious workers to advance the cause of social justice.
He will be remembered as among those who carried forward the revolutionary tradition among the Filipino clergy, pioneered by Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora (GomBurZa) who stood up against Spanish colonialism, and carried forward by the likes of Frs. Pops Tentorio and Willhelm Geertman who dedicated and sacrificed their lives serving the masses, and revolutionary martyrs Frs. Frank Navarro, Fr. Zacharias Agatep and Fr. Nilo Valerio who marched the path of the people's war and dedicated their lives as armed fighters of the people.
With his demise, Fr. Joe Dizon's name is now etched into the granite stone of the Filipino people's gallery of heroes and martyrs, where it will inspire future generations to dedicate their lives to the struggle for national and social liberation and the struggle to end oppression and exploitation.
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Post by dodger on Nov 9, 2013 16:08:37 GMT
now......
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Post by dodger on Nov 10, 2013 6:56:12 GMT
The heresy that there is only one life was a crucial step in the British people's struggle to assert its right to think for itself....Death comes alive: the end of the afterlife
WORKERS, FEB 2006 ISSUE One of the most important native English heresies was the idea that when a person died that was it, they died. Or in a milder form, their soul slept until humanity arose from the condition of exploitation. Either way, the English tradition of appreciating that all things die was profoundly revolutionary, and always linked to the struggle for social change, science and culture.
Radicals who believed in this "mortalist" idea – first expressed, perhaps, by William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English in the early 16th century – were considered by all others, including the grandees of the Reformation, beyond the pale. And rightly so. To say when you're dead, you're dead, challenges all religious ideas of whatever denomination. It represents the beginning of fighting for a decent collective life on earth. Animals live on earth, but the idea that you died and could return as an animal did not take hold in a land that had dealt with its tribal and pre-agricultural heritage quite early on.
Mortalism was a long-standing intellectual tradition in England that gained a simple expression at the time the first trade unions were born. William Blake wrote in The Everlasting Gospel, around 1810: "Thou art a man: God is no more: Thy own humanity learn to adore."
The Ploughman, from Holbein's Dance of Death
Where did it come from?
But more interestingly where did it come from in the first place? It was a humanist tradition, which stemmed from the survivors of defeated peasant rebellions of the 1380s who recognised that the struggle to improve things on this earth was the primary thing and any illusion that there was another world to fight for was daft. This was especially sharp in their minds as they had seen monarchy and Church, believers in this other world, disembowel their fellow rebels.
Around the same time, a group called the Lollards, interestingly one of the first to respect women's democratic political contributions, was also one of the first to disseminate this simple idea. Humanity, not divinity, forced its way onto the agenda through them and many other craftsmen and enlightened peasants who had endured the mud and superstition. Instead of rewards and punishments bestowed by the church, society was really controlled by the consciences of people. The Muggletonians, who arose in the aftermath of the English Civil war and were also knows as radical Puritan, and who were by far the most revolutionary force ever known in England until the formation of a Communist Party, particularly extended the logic of the death of the afterlife into all aspects of morality and behaviour. In so doing, they paved the philosophical way for English materialism.
At death the body returns to the elements, hence no such thing as heaven, purgatory, or hell. This thinking laid the basis of opposition to Catholicism, and was also essentially scientific. The Bible, once a source of external control, could then be made into poetry, an allegory, an account in reality of human beings and their beliefs, rather than a creed or a dogma.
Many woodcuts survive from the medieval period called The Dance of Death. The most famous sequence is by Holbein. What you should look out for are firstly those sequences which try and frighten you by the thought of death to make you "obey the priests and the Church or when you die you will go to hell", and on the other hand those sequences which depict death as a liberated happy character levelling the rich and undermining existing social hierarchies. One tradition stems from the feudal ruling class and its clergy; the other comes from the feudal socialist tradition.
One early expression of this thinking would be the opposition to church marriage. The most precious bond of social relations would be formed in a civil, non-religious ceremony. People came together in the eyes of friends and society not in the eyes of non-existent gods. The poor old Church of England has been seeking to recoup the ground, and donations to the offertory, ever since.
Interestingly, a sect that combined such views was called the Familists, early dissenters who arose in the mid-1550s. In turn their ideas greatly influenced the progressive forces in the mid-16th century who in turn influenced the revolutionary forces of the English Civil War. Remember, throughout the period people holding such views were hideously tortured in the name of God. There was about a 400-year Inquisition in England, Scotland and Wales with thousands of progressive people being slaughtered for their views.
The trends called humanism, the Reformation and then the Enlightenment, were pale reflections of deep-seated and forcefully revolutionary ideas. A few fanatics apart, who really believes God created the earth and who really believes that there is a heaven and a hell?
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Post by dodger on Nov 15, 2013 12:49:19 GMT
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Post by dodger on Nov 20, 2013 7:54:27 GMT
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10458380/Christianity-at-risk-of-dying-out-in-a-generation-warns-Lord-Carey.htmlLord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, warns Christianity "a generation away from extinction" in BritainHe called for an ambitious campaign aimed at the “re-evangelisation of England”, on a par with the ministry of the northern saints such as Cuthbert, Hilda and Aidan who spread Christianity in Anglo-Saxon times. The Synod responded by voting to set up a committee.
Meanwhile,,,outside York Minster......a random shopper was seized her children left traumatized, as their mother was purified of her sins. Only set at liberty after she and all the children had promised to devote their lives to the teachings of St Cuthbert. To cries "He's a witch!!" from the crowd this poor fellow was carted off to the Market Square to be dealt with. The Mole on his chin, the fact he would not stay under, and strong Rumanian accent--clear proof. British Ecclesiastic Justice at it's best. Sharia Law a poor, poor second if you ask me!!
't A visitor who arrives at our shores will find christian fellowship and welcome in our warm northern waters.
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Post by dodger on Nov 27, 2013 8:20:16 GMT
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Post by dodger on Nov 27, 2013 13:57:49 GMT
Volunteers delivering Bibles........Farming implements and protection against Typhoon......Christians, just gotta love'm!!!!
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Post by dodger on Nov 29, 2013 14:15:23 GMT
Only 10k signatures req'd to reach100k on anti Female Genital Mutilation campaign.C'mon support @leylahussein ! epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52740 the tweet says it all. all power to Leyla Hussein. Get this thing done.
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Post by dodger on Dec 3, 2013 13:14:45 GMT
mises.
It is a myth that religion is essentially good and that violence is a fundamentalist deviation f Brilliant study of religion's effects, 4 April 2008
This Will Podmore review is from: Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (Hardcover)
In this brilliant and original book, Biblical scholar Hector Avalos presents a new theory for religious violence. “Most violence is due to scarce resources, real or perceived. Whenever people perceive that there is not enough of something they value, conflict may ensue to maintain or acquire that resource … Unlike many non-religious sources of conflict, religious conflict relies solely on resources whose scarcity is wholly manufactured by, or reliant on, unverifiable premises. When the truth or falsity of opposing propositions cannot be verified, then violence becomes a common resort in adjudicating disputes.”
In religion, these scarce resources are: access to divine messages (holy books), sacred spaces (e.g. a holy land, holy cities), group privileges (chosen people) and salvation (the elect). He asserts that religious violence is always immoral because it is based on false premises. The foundation texts of the Abrahamic religions all, in places, endorse violence. For example, “You shall annihilate them – the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites – just as the Lord your God has commanded” Deuteronomy 20:17. “Slay the pagans wherever ye find them” Koran, Sura 9:5. The New Testament supports deferred violence, promising that unbelievers shall be plunged into eternal torment. There are no similar explicit commands for genocide even in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
In these holy books you can find either a peaceful or a vengeful god. Both are in the text, both are equally unverifiable. Which bits of the texts do you choose to take literally? Take your pick - liberal or evangelical? Protestant or Catholic? Shia or Sunni? It’s all equally arbitrary and subjective, and all equally fundamentalist.
Religious writers blame nationalism, secularism, colonialism and globalisation – anything but religion - for wars, but the holy texts all predate these modern phenomena. Avalos writes, “All three Abrahamic religions have imperialism, control of the entire earth, as a fundamental goal if one judges by their basic sacred scriptures. The Hebrew Bible speaks of God’s (Elohim) possession of all the earth (Psalm 82). Jesus commands the spreading of Christianity over the entire world (Matt. 28:18-19), thus following the model of the Roman Empire long before the rise of Constantine. Islam, likewise, envisions the whole world under the command of Allah. If there is anything ‘essential’ or ‘fundamental’ in all of the Abrahamic religions it is the idea that the particular god each worships has or should have universal dominion.” A perfect formula for perpetual conflict.
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