The Hobby Horses of Belief (and assorted hazards)

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120383089#Comment_120383089

Thanks, very much my take on it too though I do see a number of 'Stay Woke' memes on my social media feeds and was wondering if that was actually a thing in this part of the world.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120383117#Comment_120383117

perhaps they are using it ironically? that is the only thing i can think of

Hotblack Desiato

She had to get the thing about homeschooling in there, didn't she?

Peregrinus

"Woke" comes from African-American Vernacular English, going back to at least the 1920. It did start off a as a positive term, which people might use about themselves, or (more often) use approvingly about other people.

The basic meaning is "alert, aware" - awake as opposed to asleep. But it was used mainly in a context suggesting alertness to prejudice or discrimination that other people do not see — typically concealed prejudice/discrimination, or institutional or systemic prejudice/discrimination. Coming from the African American community, it nearly always referred to racial prejudice or discrimination. But its use wasn't confined to political matters; you could be woke in a cultural sense, meaning aware of/appreciative of emerging trends in music, arts, fashion, etc that others had not yet picked up on.

By the 1960s, probably under the influence of the civil rights movement, it had broken out of the African-American community and was used by (mostly liberal, progressive) white Americans. But it didn't really take off until the BLM protests about police shootings, where it was perfectly suited to distinguish those who recognised the systemic racism at work from those who didn't recognise it or were in denial about it

I don't know whether its use in a positive sense ever broke out of the US. The American right very quickly picked up on it as an abusive term to replace "politically correct" — handy for labelling things that they don't like, but can't articulate why or would be embarrassed to articulate why. It can be (and has been) applied to virtually anything - a rise in women wearing trouser suits, a trend away from cooked breakfasts, too many black faces in ads on the telly. And that's the usage that we are most familiar with internationally. It may be that "woke" is still used positively in some circles in the US, but outside the US it's almost exclusively used as a pejorative.

robindch

It may be that "woke" is still used positively in some circles in the US, but outside the US it's almost exclusively used as a pejorative.

Yes, it's used positively in far-left circles by people who apply the term to individuals who either a) more so, have similar views to themselves, or b) less so, are members of groups which the woke claim have not had access to some privilege which other individuals or groups have enjoyed, or who were victimized in some way. Such latter groups include, for example, non-whites, women, LGBTQ+, indigenous tribes, travellers, gypsies. Many on the far-left also assert - without discussion or agreement outside their own circles - that individuals belonging to groups which, in the past, might have victimized another group, or who might have had access to some privilege are, de facto, unable and unwelcome to take part in discussions regarding that victimization or that privilege; and the views of members of groups who, in the past, did not have access to some privilege or who were victimized, are to be trusted uncritically, regardless of whether the views themselves, over the group as a whole, are consistent or not. The term "woke" appears to have taken over the space generally occupied by the earlier term "social justice warrior" (SJW).

To borrow one of Peregrinus' examples, the solution to privilege white people doing all the ads on telly years ago might be more black people now - but how many? The far-left might call for black-only ads to make up for previous white-only ads; the wide center might be happy with black representation in line with society at large; the far-right would probably be unhappy with any blacks at all.

Outside of the far-left, usage of the term "woke" appears to be entirely pejorative.

Igotadose

RCC still at it, deviant sexual practices in one of its ministries, but this time an investigation.

https://apnews.com/article/vatican-larche-catholic-abuse-disabilities-vanier-philippe-cb07166b8eda78a8a446a1c7a22008cb

robindch

Burke back in Court, ranting and raving. Film at eleven.

https://twitter.com/Orlaodo/status/1640659929869742085

robindch

More details of the burkology going on today:

https://mobile.twitter.com/SeanMJourno/status/1640662287731105792

Hotblack Desiato

Seems hinduism has become very hazardous lately...

https://www.thejournal.ie/death-toll-from-india-temple-collapse-rises-to-35-6033407-Mar2023/

THE DEATH TOLL after a floor collapsed at a Hindu temple in India had risen to 35, with rescue operations underway to find one person still missing, a local official told AFP.

Dozens of worshippers celebrating a major religious holiday yesterday plunged into the stepwell – a stair-lined communal water source – after the floor covering it collapsed in the central city of Indore.

Deadly accidents are common at worship sites in India during major religious festivals.

At least 112 people died in 2016 after a huge explosion caused by a banned fireworks display at a temple marking the Hindu new year.

The blast ripped through concrete buildings and ignited a fire at a temple complex in Kerala state where thousands had gathered.

Another 115 devotees died in 2013 after a stampede at a bridge near a temple in Madhya Pradesh.

Up to 400,000 people were gathered in the area, and the stampede occurred after the spread of a rumour that the bridge was about to collapse.

About 224 pilgrims died and more than 400 others were injured in a 2008 stampede at a hilltop temple in the northern city of Jodhpur.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/indian-police-arrest-five-men-accused-of-human-sacrifice

Indian police have arrested five men accused of conducting a human sacrifice, nearly four years after the discovery of a woman’s headless body at a Hindu temple left officers baffled.

Shanti Shaw, 64, was killed and decapitated with a machete in 2019 after visiting the temple in Guwahati, a city in India’s remote north-east.

Police made no progress in the case until Shaw’s body was finally identified in January, sparking a renewed investigation that tracked down several culprits, with others still at large.

“The five planned the killing of the woman,” the Guwahati police commissioner, Diganta Barah, said on Tuesday. “A total of 12 people took part.”

Barah said the alleged ringleader, Pradeep Pathak, 52, had orchestrated the killing as part of a religious rite to mark the anniversary of his brother’s death.

“The accused apparently believed that the sacrifice would appease the soul of the deceased,” he added.

India’s National Crime Records Bureau lodged 103 cases of human sacrifice in the country between 2014 and 2021. Ritual killings are usually conducted to appease deities and are more common in tribal and remote areas, where belief in witchcraft and the occult is widespread.

Last year, two men were arrested for allegedly killing a six-year-old boy in the capital, New Delhi. The culprits, both construction workers, told police they murdered the child as an offering to the Hindu god Shiva to get rich.

Note how it's necessary for any "respectable" media outlet to differentiate between "religion" and "cults". Sizeable proportion of readership and/or critical letter writers = "religion". Non-sizeable bunch of nutters doing exactly the same insane things = "cult".

Igotadose

In unsurprising news, decades of priest abuse in the US State of Maryland is in the news, apparently there's been a report published about it, lots of priest shuffling, lying by the clergy and so on. 600 children and 150 priests, including at least 1 school with multiple abusers on staff simultaneously.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-rel-church-abuse-maryland_n_642df743e4b001e12d702df3

Odhinn

Meanwhile, in Whatthefuckville.....

"The Dalai Lama has apologised after footage showed him asking a boy if he wanted to suck the Tibetan spiritual leader's tongue.

His office said he wanted to apologise to the child and his family "for the hurt his words may have caused".

The video also shows the Dalai Lama kissing the child on his lips."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65229327

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-41115427.html

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has removed the national police director who had talked about using exorcisms to catch fugitives.

Neither Mr Petro nor the Defence Ministry elaborated on reasons for the dismissal of General Henry Sanabria, a staunch Catholic who was appointed by the president in August last year, but Gen Sanabria was under an internal investigation by the ministry over whether he had inappropriately allowed his religious beliefs to infringe on his duties.

The general had sparked a debate about the impact of his faith on the police after his statements in an interview last month including that police had used exorcisms to catch drug kingpins and guerrilla leaders.

He also issued a strong condemnation of abortion, which is legal in Colombia.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65274520

Kenyan police are investigating the deaths of four people suspected to have starved to death on the orders of the leader of a controversial cult.

Pastor Makenzie Nthenge is alleged to have told his followers in the coastal area of Kilifi to starve themselves in the hope of getting to heaven quickly.

Following a tip-off, police found 15 seriously ill people on Thursday, but only 11 made it to hospital alive.

Police are also looking into reports of a mass grave in a nearby forest.

Last month Mr Nthenge was charged in connection with the deaths of two children whose parents had joined his Good News International Church.

He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. The current whereabouts of the pastor are not clear.

Police said they began their search for followers of the Good News International Church after receiving intelligence that "ignorant citizens" were "starving to death in pretext to meet Jesus after being brainwashed by a suspect".

They were also warned about "a mass shallow grave of victims of that brainwashing totalling to 31 bodies in an unidentified place at Shakahola Forest", the police statement said.

Good news, eh?

Odhinn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478135#Comment_120478135

Is there anything as useless or as undeserving of respect as a priest?

robindch

The majority of the RU orthodox church stands solidly behind Putin's genocidal war in Ukraine, none more so than popular priest-blogger, Fr Andrey Tkachev, who last year announced that the invasion amounted to a "religious war" (https://spzh.news/en/news/91228-tkachev-vojna-s-ukrainoj--religioznaja-gde-rossija--novyj-izraily). Recently, he also announced that the role of women is to make porridge, hang curtains and be happy:

https://mobile.twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1645717894360096776

Meanwhile, Ian Garner is publishing a book on the radicalization of RU's youth

https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/z-generation/

How did Vladimir Putin win Russians’ support for his genocidal war in Ukraine and why are so many of them willing to embrace fascism? This vivid, bottom-up narrative reveals the dark realities of youth fascism in Russia—and the darker future awaiting the country if that hold cannot be broken. Wartime Russia is drowning in fascist symbols. Zealous patriots attack journalists, opposition activists, and anyone suspected of betraying the motherland. Hordes of online trolls and sleek videos of angry young men urge citizens to join the cause. State television terrifies viewers with false tales of anti-Russian conspiracies and genocidal yearnings. Child soldiers proudly parade across Red Square. This is Russia in the 2020s: a land of performative rage and nationalist untruth, where pretence and broken promises are a way of life, and an apocalyptic mindset is seizing tomorrow’s Russians. As compelling as it is chilling, Z Generation shows how Russia has ended up here, and where its young people may be headed: a fascist generation more violent and ideological than anything the country has seen before.

Odhinn

"Kenyan police have exhumed 47 bodies near the coastal town of Malindi, as they investigate a preacher said to have told followers to starve to death.

The bodies of children were among the dead. Police said exhumations are ongoing.

The shallow graves are in Shakahola forest, where 15 members of the Good News International Church were rescued last week.

Church leader, Paul Makenzie Nthenge is in custody, pending a court appearance.

State broadcaster KBC described him as a "cult leader", and reported that 58 graves have so far been identified."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65363585

Igotadose

Maybe Rupert Murdoch dumped Carlson because ol' Tucker was becoming a bit too messianic for his tastes. Also, looks like Rupert's ex-fiancee was another end-times loony, must've been a hoot at parties:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/tucker-carlson-fox-news-rupert-murdoch

Hotblack Desiato

Did Murdoch never hear the aphorism "Never stick your d### into crazy."

Although George Burns did say "Sex after age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope."

Odhinn

Praise the lord and start the litigation

"A Limerick woman who campaigns for safe zones around facilities offering abortion services has apologised for a “highly defamatory” tweet she posted about David Quinn, chief executive of the Iona Institute.

Karen Sugrue, one of the founders of the Together for Safety group, has also paid €8,000 to Mr Quinn in settlement of a threatened High Court action for defamation arising from the tweet she posted in May of last year."

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/05/16/david-quinn-settles-with-campaigner-over-highly-defamatory-tweet/

Hotblack Desiato

Couldn't DQ have turned the other cheek like?

Hotblack Desiato

Shameless.

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/05/16/psychic-medium-told-man-his-late-father-wanted-him-to-give-her-10000/

On one occasion, he said, Paget invited him to “a reading” and he thought this was a fortune telling and that he would find out about his future. He said that that during the session Paget started talking about his father and then told him: “Your father said you are to give me €10,000.”

He said that he felt pressurised and gave his word to give her the money.

Mr Byrne said that Paget told him that if he did not give her the money “it will be a sin and the devil will get you”. He said that he later gave her €10,000 cash in an envelope after withdrawing it from his bank account.

Asked why he gave her the money, Mr Byrne said: “I believed my father told her to tell me to give her the money, that’s what I believed.”

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.irishtimes.com/health/your-family/2023/05/17/why-i-have-said-no-every-time-ive-been-asked-to-be-a-godparent-to-my-friends-and-familys-children/

Have to take issue with some of this:

We don’t go to Mass but we want a church wedding.

Well "we" don't really because the majority of weddings no longer take place in a church.

We lazily mock some of the Church’s anachronisms but happily allow our kids to attend Catholic national schools.

Most of us don't have a choice given that 90% of primary schools fall into that category.

We’re apathetic about religion but we want our kids to have godparents.

Really? CBA about the whole thing, never had a different relationship with someone because they were my 'godparent' or not.

Perhaps we’re in a confused period of adjustment, a collective existential crisis about our ritualistic behaviours.

Some of "us" clearly still are 😁

Humanist naming ceremonies have sprung up which resemble traditional Christenings, but with less God. Guideparents replace godparents.

Fine if you want to, don't if you don't, our family didn't, I don't know anyone personally who did either.

Siobhan Walls, a celebrant with the Humanist Association of Ireland, says that while non-religious naming ceremonies are on the rise, there are only a few hundred a year. Contrast this with the fact that almost 12,000 babies were Christened in the Dublin Archdiocese alone in 2019 and you get an idea of just how attached we still are to traditional rituals.

Would be interesting to know where he got that figure and how it compares with say 5 or 10 years earlier, removal of the baptism barrier has to have an impact.

Odhinn

"Salema Masha speaks softly, but her slender frame is animated by an inner strength that saved the lives of her five children.

One day in March she walked them out of a remote wilderness where followers of a Kenyan televangelist were starving themselves to death in the belief that they could meet Jesus faster.

Among the horrific stories emerging from the Christian doomsday cult in the East African country, Salema's stands out.

More than 200 bodies have been recovered so far from mass graves in the vast Shakahola forest on the southern coast of Kenya, and more are being dug up every day. Survivors are still being found hiding under trees and bushes in the 800-acre territory."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-65635784

Hotblack Desiato

Shocking stuff, will exceed Jim Jones at this rate.

robindch

[Hotblack] Couldn't DQ have turned the other cheek like?

I think that was one of the bits of the bible which ultracons have, er, cancelled.

robindch

Cometh the weekend, cometh the Burkes back to the High Court to receive some heavenly justice, to wit:

https://twitter.com/frankgreaney/status/1659581125717811200

High Court rules that Enoch Burke’s suspension from Wilson’s Hospital School last August was lawful. In his judgement, Mr Justice Alex Owens also awarded €15,000 in damages against Enoch for trespass. He’s also of the view that Enoch should pay the school’s legal bill.

Hotblack Desiato

Bad news for the bouncy castle brigade

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/children-left-distraught-after-total-abandonment-by-trusted-bouncy-castle-operator-on-communion-day/a1197422200.html

Hotblack Desiato

Seems Katie wasn't praying hard enough after all 😁 it's not easy being part of god's chosen family you know.

robindch

From the "Oh, was he still alive?" folder comes news of the death of preacher and bigot, Pat Robertson, a man for whom it's time to recycle Hitchen's line about Falwell:

"If you gave him an enema he could be buried in a matchbox”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65846402