The Hazards of Belief

Is there any research which documents the religious beliefs of the offspring of self-described "fundamentalists", specifically documenting the religious beliefs of their offspring? Multi-generational research would be even more welcome.

MINNEAPOLIS - Taxi drivers who refuse service to travelers carrying alcohol at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport face tougher penalties despite protests from Muslim cabbies who sought a compromise for religious reasons, officials said Monday.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission said new penalties were needed to ensure customers get safe and reliable taxi service, and voted to suspend a driver’s airport taxi license for 30 days for the first offense and revoke it for two years for a second offense. The new penalties take effect May 11.

Airport officials say more than 70 percent of the cabbies at the airport are Muslim, and many of them say Islamic law forbids them from giving rides to people carrying alcohol.

Under the old rules, a driver who refused to transport someone carrying alcohol would be told to go to the back of the taxicab line. Airport officials said that since January 2002, there have been more than 4,800 instances of drivers’ refusing to take alcohol-carrying travelers.

Commissioners said the old rules didn’t prevent customers from being stranded at the curb or — as reported in a few cases — dropped off before their destination after drivers learned of their alcohol on board.

Some Somalis who testified Monday urged commissioners to reject the new penalties and find some other solution.

“We see this as a penalty against a group of Americans only for practicing their faith,” said Hassan Mohamud, an imam and an adjunct professor at William Mitchell College of Law.

The airport had proposed one pilot program that had drivers who wouldn’t transport alcohol display a different top light on their cab, but the public’s reaction was overwhelmingly negative and taxi drivers feared it would make travelers avoid taxis altogether.

5uspect wrote:

Maybe this calls for some aggressive secularism?

Limerick Post wrote:

Castleconnell area was base for child sex cult, claims victim, by Mary Earls

THE shocking story of a religious cult which, it is claimed, set up base in the Castleconnell area in the 1990s, is detailed in a new book published by Harper Collins. THE Children of God Cult, in which orgies and sex between adults and children was considered the highest expression of love, had one of its communes in county Limerick in the late 1990's, it has been claimed in a new book. And Julianna Buhring, who lived in one of the religious cult's rented homes somewhere near Castleconnell for over a year, said she is "positive" the organisation is still active in this region. [...]

"Not Without My Sister" is a newly released book, penned by Julianna and her sisters Celeste and Kristina, about their struggle to escape the perverse community that robbed them of their childhood and saw them live in dozens of countries world-wide to maintain secrecy. The Children of God cult, which was founded by warped leader David Berg, is now known as 'The Family'. And today the three sisters work for a new organisation called RISE International set up to protect children from abuse in cults.

Speaking to the Limerick Post, 26-year-old Julianna alleged that "from as early as three years old, we were treated by our 'guardians' as sexual beings". "Sexual activity was actively encouraged. We received love letters and sexual advances from men old enough to be our grandfathers, and were forced into openly abusive relationships. We were also denied access to formal schooling, forced to beg on the streets for money, and were mercilessly beaten for 'crimes' such as reading an encyclopedia. [...]

"We used to dress up as clowns in Limerick and make a living doing face paintings and going to shopping malls etc. And we raked in loads of money but this all went to the family leadership. I always dreamed about breaking free, but the group constantly instilled fear into us from a young age as regards the outside world. When I finally left at aged 23, I had no money and no idea of how to function in the outside world. People wondered where the hell I'd come from, because I'd no bank account etc. And after I left, I was shunned by family and friends It takes a lot to get out of the clutches of the cult because you were born into this and don't know anything else," she said. [...]

Daily News, Tanzania, 2007-08-28 wrote:

THAT water bodies are believed to be the gateways to the underneath spirit world, is not altogether uncommon belief but never has a man boasted to descend to the “gates of hell” by jumping into a river under the full glare of chanting and dancing onlookers.

Unbelievable? That is what happened at Masigo village in Mpanda district last Saturday when traditional medicine man cum soothsayer Nyasio Alfonsi (40) threw himself into Ifuma River amid chants and drumming promising to resurface after three days “with revelation from the ancestral spirits for the village on planned tribal rituals.”

Four days later, Alfonso was nowhere to be seen as the villagers too awoke from their stupor to mount a search only to fish out his decomposed body some metres downstream. Rukwa Regional Police Commander Mr Daudi Siasi confirmed the incident which he said, was reported to police by village leaders. It was not immediately clear whether the tribal rituals would go on as planned later this week but Masigo is certainly a grieving village now rather than the proud source of prophesy from departed ancestors.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in Rukwa region and traditional medicinemen are often held in awe and feared for their spells believed to be ‘divine’ prophesy and judgement. The region is also notorious for grotesque murders with bodies found skinned and private parts removed in what is often believed to be killings associated with belief in witchcraft.

Whereas humans are believed to practise ‘astral travel’ or shedding the mortal body to travel in spirit to great distances and through physical obstacles, practitioners would still die if they failed to rejoin their bodies or casing for the soul, before daybreak.

The Alabama Press-Register, 2007-09-16 wrote:

Last year in Mobile County, 4,629 new cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported -- enough instances of the sexually transmitted diseases to account for one out of every 87 people, according to a Press-Register review of state and federal statistics. That was about three times the rate in New York City and more than twice as high as Washington, D.C. While the numbers seem shocking, they're not at epidemic levels, according to health officials.

"If you don't do this for a living or you're not an OB specialist or you're not an infectious disease specialist, and you look at the numbers, you go, 'Oh my God,'" said Paul Piepho, disease intervention program manager at the Mobile County Health Department. "We're not at that point." Statewide, syphilis cases were up 60 percent last year, compared with 2005 (from 583 cases to 931). Chlamydia has also been on the rise, increasing 44-fold from 509 cases in 1994 to 22,560 in 2006. "And I think we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg," Piepho said.

Eight counties -- poor and sparsely populated except for No. 2-ranked Montgomery County -- had higher STD rates in 2006 than Mobile County, statistics showed. A lack of education weighs heavily on a county's rate, health officials said. In Alabama public schools, students are taught abstinence-based sex education as part of a half credit of health education in high school. Students learn that "abstinence is the only protection against pregnancy, HIV/AIDs and STDs," said state Department of Education spokeswoman Edith Parten. The subject of condoms, under the state course of study guidelines, is not broached, she said. "(Ages) 15 to 29 is the high-risk group, and it's typical of a lot of things," said Monica Z. Knight, director of the bureau of disease control at the Mobile County Health Department. "They think they're invincible or they have no knowledge or they don't care or 'It's something that's going happen to that person, but not to me.'"

Lower incomes and higher poverty also play roles in infection rates, officials said. Baldwin County, for example, had one of the state's lower STD rates last year, with the equivalent of one in every 302 people diagnosed with one of the three diseases. In Baldwin, median household income in 2004 was $42,227, and Census data showed that 10 percent of people lived below the poverty line. That same year in Mobile County, the median household income was almost $10,000 less, and the number of people living below the poverty level was 20 percent. Hale County in west-central Alabama had the highest STD rate, with the equivalent of one out of every 58 residents being diagnosed last year. In Hale, 22 percent of the population lives below the poverty level.

"Having been an educator myself and teaching teenage girls ... I don't think we address sex education well in the schools. At all," said Dr. Nancy O'Neill, chief of staff at Hale County Hospital. Officials pointed to more and better testing as a big reason that STD numbers are higher. "Before about two or three years ago, we were not even able to do chlamydia testing on males," said Victor Creagh, disease intervention supervisor at the Baldwin County Health Department. "And I'm not sure all females were getting tested as they should have at that time."

Now, one sample from a urine test can be checked simultaneously for chlamydia and gonorrhea. But just asking to get tested can be a major problem for some people. "Your personal intimacy behavior in any population is generally not something you run around sharing with people," Knight said, "and you don't know -- in any age group -- who you are exposed to by exposing yourself to a partner who swears they're healthy, swears they've never done anything, swears they are saint of the month. "And guess what? They're not."