Melbourne Atheists Media

Nigerian Court throws out ‘humanist’ case

Nigerian Humanists have won the latest round in an ongoing battle with witch hunters. Today, 4 Feb. 2010, the Federal High Court in Calabar struck out the case brought against Leo Igwe, International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) Representative in West Africa, by Helen Ukpabio of the Liberty Gospel Church.

In November last year, Ukpabio went to court claiming that conferences organised by the Nigerian Humanist Movement to tackle witchcraft related abuses infringed on her right to spread the gospel. She asked the court to order the child rights campaigners to pay her two hundred billion naira (1.3 billion US dollars) as damages for “infringement of their rights”.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KND44ZR5CKE

“The Church instituted this court action to stop their arrest and prosecution for the attack of July 29 in Calabar,” said Igwe, referring to a physical assault on him last year. About 200 members of the Liberty Gospel Church disrupted an anti-witch hunt conference that Igwe organized in July 2009.

The conference highlighted the role of Liberty Gospel Church in ‘trials’ of children suspected of being witches. Many children have been killed after having been found guilty by such ‘trials.’

Read Full article

Tags: Cults, Fundamentalism, IHEU, Nigeria, Witchcraft

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 Scams, Skepticism No Comments

‘The God Fraud’ by Sam Harris

In her article (“Think Again: God,” November 2009), Karen Armstrong discovers that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and I have mistaken “fundamentalism” for the totality of religion. (Sorry about that.) But do Richard and Christopher really hold religion responsible for “all human cruelty”? That is a surprise. I hadn’t realized that they were idiots.

In any case, I am hopeful that Armstrong’s winsome depiction of Islam will shame and enlighten them, as it has me. They will discover that Hassan al-Banna and Tariq Ramadan are paragons of meliorism and wisdom, while we are ignorant bigots who know nothing of theology (of course), politics (Christopher, are you listening?), human nature (what’s to know?), or the proper limits of science (um … narrower?).

I can’t quite remember how we got it into our heads that jihad was linked to violence. (Might it have had something to do with the actual history and teachings of Islam?) And how could we have been so foolish as to connect the apparently inexhaustible supply of martyrs in the Muslim world to the Islamic doctrine of martyrdom? In my own defense, let me say that I do get spooked whenever Western Muslims advocate the murder of apostates (as 36 percent of Muslim young adults do in Britain). But I now know that these freedom-loving people just “want to see God reflected more clearly in public life.”

I will call my friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali at once and encourage her to come out of hiding: Come on out, dear. Karen says the coast is clear. As it turns out, those people who have been calling for your murder don’t understand Islam any better than we do.

Continue reading at SamHarris.org

Karen Armstrong replies:

It is clear that we need a debate about the role of religion in public life and the relationship between science and religion. I just wish this debate could be conducted in a more Socratic manner. Socrates, founder of the Western rationalist tradition, always insisted that any dialogue must be conducted with gentleness and courtesy, and without malice. In our highly polarized world, we really do not need yet another deliberately contentious and divisive discourse.

When I was a student, I was taught to listen to all sides of a question, examine the evidence impartially, and be prepared to change my mind. For many years, I wanted nothing to do with religion and would have agreed wholeheartedly with Sam Harris; my early writing definitely tended to the Dawkinsesque. But my study of the history of world religion during the past 20 years has compelled me to alter my views.

Continue reading at SamHarris.org

—–

Tags: Dawkins, Debate, Fundamentalism, Hitchens, Sam Harris

Sunday, February 7th, 2010 General No Comments

Conspiracy of silence

This documentary exposed a network of religious leaders and Washington politicians who flew children to Washington D.C. for sex orgies. Many children suffered the indignity of wearing nothing but their underwear and a number displayed on a piece of cardboard hanging from their necks when being auctioned off to foreigners in Las Vegas, Nevada and Toronto, Canada.

At the last minute before airing, unknown congressmen threatened the TV Cable industry with restrictive legislation if this documentary was aired. Almost immediately, the rights to the documentary were purchased by unknown persons who had ordered all copies destroyed. A copy of this videotape was furnished anonymously to former Nebraska state senator and attorney John De Camp who made it available to retired F.B.I. chief, Ted L. Gunderson. While the video quality is not top grade, this tape is a blockbuster in what is revealed by the participants involved.

————

Tags: Conspiracy, Controversy, Crime, Politics, USA, Video

Friday, February 5th, 2010 Education, Health, Human Rights, Society, Video 2 Comments

Iran voices concern over drug war tactics, failures

From AlJazeera:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_EW2B1PGWE&feature=sdig&et=1264557349.12

——————-

Tags: Drug War, Islam, Scam, Terror, USA

Thursday, February 4th, 2010 Human Rights, Society, Video No Comments

Non believers in Haiti & Islamic ‘brutality toward rape victims’

Thanks to © Free Thought Radio:

“Nonbelief relief for Haiti and the biblical roots of Islamist brutality toward rape victims will be discussed. Guest Jerry Coyne is professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, where he speciallizes in evolutionary genetics. His new book, Why Evolution is True, has been much praised by Richard Dawkins, next week’s guest!”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download audio here

Tags: Audio, Human Rights, Islam, Podcast

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 Evolution, Podcast No Comments

Adams Rib

The clay tablets of the extinct Sumer civilisation were written about 5,000 years ago. According to Harry Gersh’s The Sacred Books of the Jews, the earliest part of the Jewish Bible, “The Song of the Well” was composed about 1200BCE. The Torah (or the five books of Moses) was not canonised until about 400BCE. That means the paradise described by Sumer was more distant in time from the canonisation of the Torah than the canonisation of the Torah is from us.

The Bible in large part merely puts its own spin on much older legends. To study any work of literature one should be aware of the cultural matrix in which that work was produced. To study the Bible as a work complete in itself while ignoring the cultural matrix in which it was written is not studying the Bible.

In Genesis there are two accounts of the creation of human beings (I’m citing the King James Version (KJV) of Genesis which is close to the Jewish Publication Society and Soncino versions.).

The first: Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” shows man and woman created as separate entities.

In the next chapter in a departure from the way other humans are formed woman is created from man:

Genesis 2:20, “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

The most obvious explanation of the two accounts is that the biblical narrative patches together two separate stories of human creation. This is a logical thing to do when you have two conflicting accounts and no way to differentiate between them. In the different accounts God is called by two different names in the original Hebrew. The KJV reflects this difference by referring to God as “God” in Genesis 1:27 and the “Lord God” in Genesis 2:22.

In the Hebrew the God of Genesis 1:27 is Elohim (אֱלהִים). Recent scholarship is that it reflects the common Middle Eastern view of a supreme god, referred to in Genesis 1 by the generic noun “Elohim”, god, which is itself in a plural form. Christians have traditionally interpreted the plural as evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity.

› Continue reading

Tags: Archeology, Bible, Magic, Myth

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 General No Comments

Check Your Timezone. Select "Australia - Victoria - Melbourne" in the first field. Select your location in the second. Don't forget to select 23/11pm in the hour field. Amaze and astound your friends in a timely fashion.