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The Hobby Horses of Belief (and assorted hazards)

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Comments

  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Not wishing to clog up the etherwaves in this forum with too much on the horror taking place in Ukraine, here's a short clip translated by Julia Davis and her team who are well-known and reliable observers of the media in Russia - which at this point, are required to deliver an endless stream of hardcore, projective propaganda. Davis's twitter feed has plenty of examples, all the more since February 24, but this clip here is memorable for being, I believe, the first to suggest that if RUGov nukes somebody else and there's a nuclear response, then at least any radioactive particles originally belonging to Russian citizens will go straight to heaven.

    Ukrainians well-disposed to Russia, who at this point can only be the tiniest percentage, refer to this process politely as зомбификация, 'zombification'. While RUGov soldiers are referred to generally as 'orcs' and Russia, frequently as 'Mordor', one of many old Soviet-era gags to have resurfaced in recent years and months.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,809 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    Klanmama, like a good Trumpist, when criticized, doubles down - "Just so we’re clear, bishops, when I said ‘controlled by Satan,’ I wasn’t talking about the Catholic Church. I was talking about you.”

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/marjorie-taylor-greene-catholic-church-militant-satan.html

    MTG calling out the Church for its laughable job with the priest sexual abuse scandals... priceless.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato



    Two former trustees of a non-denominational church have failed to have their bankruptcies annulled by the High Court.

    Brendan and Sheila Hade were trustees for the Victory Christian Fellowship (‘VCF’) and were adjudicated bankrupt in 2019 arising out of default on a €2.2 million loan advanced to them in 2008 by Bank of Scotland.

    The couple, along with another man, as trustees of the VCF, had also been advanced €17.6 million by the same bank to build a “new church and centre” on lands at Firhouse Road in south Dublin.

    Was the Bank of Scotland on drugs?

    In December 2013, the High Court entered judgment against them in favour of the bank for €18.5 million in relation to that loan.

    The bank sold their own loan to Feniton Property Finance in 2016 and applied to have them adjudicated bankrupt on the basis of €1.8 million still due.

    Before this however, the bank called in receivers over two properties they owned, including their home at Rockbrook Rathfarnham, Dublin, which had been used as security for the €2.2 million loan.

    If they get an annulment of the bankruptcy, they can, in their own right, bring proceedings over what they said was the unfair treatment by the bank in 2013 when it called in receivers.

    The appointment of receivers had followed the loss of VCF’s charitable status over its entitlement to claim relief from VAT on various items purchased for use in the construction of the new church.

    Although they exited bankruptcy in 2019, in order to bring proceedings they still need the permission of the court-appointed official, the Official Assignee (OA), who oversaw their bankruptcy. The OA’s position is that he is willing to discuss the possibility of allowing such proceedings to be brought if they failed in seeking an annulment.

    Feniton opposed the annulment application.

    The Hades, in affidavits, said when the bankruptcy process began they sought “guidance, help and solace within our church and its congregation”.

    Hades.... LOL

    Due to “our state of mind and health at that time” they discharged their lawyers and withdrew “into our spiritual home of our ongoing church at Victory Christian Fellowship”, they said.

    The ostrich approach never works.

    They did so because of the extreme difficulties they found themselves in and due to “the pressure we were no longer able to endure”. Media coverage of the problems at VCF also caused them enormous distress and caused them to adopt a “certain stance” to legal matters, the court heard.

    Among their arguments for annulment, was a discrepancy in the amount of the debt cited in the bankruptcy summons of €63 and this was fatal to the validity of such applications.

    €63? I should probably post this in the Freeman thread, it's right up there with "give me a free gaff because the bank put a comma in the wrong place"

    Feniton said it was a clerical error due to a simple inadvertent transposition of two digits in relation to the calculation of interest. The interest was put at €90,907.93 when it should have been €90,970.93, it said.

    So they were letting them off the €63 🤣

    Mr Justice Mark Sanfey dismissed their annulment application.

    He had sympathy for the predicament of the couple, who are both of an advanced age.

    However, he said “they chose not to fight their corner in the courts, but now want the court to come to their aid and set at nought” the efforts of Feniton to realise the value of their estates with a view to recovering the debt.

    He said it was difficult to see how such a course of action could be “just and equitable” to Feniton, or to other creditors as a whole.

    The total sum due, inclusive of interest, was some €1.8 million and this was the correct amount, the judge said. The Hades could have discharged this sum but did not do so and did not avail of their right to do so during the bankruptcy proceedings and did not contest that hearing, he said.

    He said “a few minutes with a calculator” would have made it clear to them the €63 discrepancy “was most likely a clerical error and that the demanded sum on the bankruptcy summons itself was correct”.

    He did not consider the particulars annexed to the bankruptcy summons invalidated the summons itself, which had demanded the correctly calculated amount of the debt.


    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Help help I'm being oppressed.


    A Catholic couple say they will go to jail rather than pay a €300 fine for travelling 70km to attend mass during lockdown.

    "I will go to jail before I pay it. I would rather go to jail, without a shadow of a doubt," Jim told the Sunday World this week.

    "I have no intention of paying them a fine for me going to mass - for doing what I have done my whole life."

    Jim's evidence before Cavan District Court saw him launch an impassioned defence of his religion.

    "Catholic lives matter," he insisted.

    🙄

    Judge Finnegan responded that he "wholeheartedly" agreed with the sentiment but it did not absolve the couple from the fact they had broken the law.

    He fined them both €300, giving them three months to pay.

    "You are not a judge," Jim retorted as he stepped down from the witness stand.

    "Jesus would be ashamed of you!"


    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,809 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    Pope Frank having words with Archprelate Rolex. Seems Rolex forgot all that Jeebud peace stuff. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/04/europe/pope-francis-patriarch-kirill-ukraine-invasion-intl/index.html



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Soon-to-be-ex-DAA CEO talks about how Gawd inspires his work, blah blah:

    🤢🤮

    I didn't realise arch-smugness was also a core Christian value!

    From the Morrison's Wikipedia article:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrisons

    Following a new three-year corporate strategy revealed in March 2014 aimed at recovering sales and market share, at Morrisons Annual General Meeting in June 2014, Morrisons former chairman Sir Ken Morrison blasted Dalton Philips and his new board of directors for destroying the company he inherited from his father; Morrison remarked on Philips's strategy to save the failing supermarket from the pressures of Aldi and other discounter stores, stating "When I left work and started working as a hobby, I chose to raise cattle. I have something like 1,000 bullocks and, having listened to your presentation, Dalton, you've got a lot more bull **** than me."

    2,600 people lost their jobs.

    YT Comment:

    Please do not put him in charge of entry to heaven after his chaotic time as CEO Of DAA where he was responsible for long queues with 1000 people missing their,flights on one day in May 2022 . It’s hard enough to get to heaven without him in charge of the entry point.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,809 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    Just another example of the pervasiveness of the RCC in Irish life and how much of a bad thing that is. Similar to this knob are the rank-and-file admins of the HSE - the highest percentage of them in Europe - whose main qualification appears to be RCC membership or endorsement. Uneducated, untalented and lazy, but members of the cult. So, they get jobs, their rellies get jobs, etc.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    He went to a so-called "public school" in England so there's a strong chance he kicks for the other team. You're probably not wrong though in relation to higher up hospital admin staff (who aren't HSE employees, but we still pay 'em). Bertie used to be a clerk at the Mater, his kickback to them decades later was the attempt to shoehorn the new National Children's Hospital into a completely unsuitable site on its grounds. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if a letter from the local PP got him the clerk job...

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    De Burkes again.

    The Workplace Relations Commission official in charge of solicitor Ammi Burke’s unfair dismissal case last month considered the option of calling gardaí in to remove her mother from the hearing room so the case could continue – but ruled it out.

    Ms Burke’s complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act against Arthur Cox LLC was thrown out last month.

    In a written decision on the case published this morning, adjudicating officer Kevin Baneham wrote that “sustained and deliberate obstruction and disruptions” by Martina Burke prevented a key defence witness from being sworn in.

    ...

    In the decision published today, he wrote: “I warned the complainant and escalated the warnings throughout the day. Unfortunately, the complainant did not desist with her objections and Mr Moore could not swear the oath, nor commence his evidence,” Mr Baneham wrote.

    He was left with various options, he wrote.

    The swearing of an oath requires “a moment of solemnity” which would be impossible with someone speaking over Mr Moore, he wrote.

    “Writing metaphorically,” he added, “issuing a summons for the sole reason of placating a party or allowing a party to hector the swearing in and evidence of a witness effectively amount to the defenestration of the adjudication officer” and the “extinguishment” of his authority “for all the world to see”.

    Another option was to have gardaí attend the hearing room to remove Mrs Burke, he wrote.

    “Whatever of the Circuit Court or the District Court (which both deal with heavy criminal lists), it would be completely at odds for the Workplace Relations Commission to have gardaí attend Lansdowne House to exclude a person,” he wrote, and this would also have “undermined public confidence in the hearing”.

    The only options left were to adjourn the matter or dismiss it entirely, he wrote.

    In light of what had gone on so far, he believed another hearing day would have “rehearsed the exact same impasse”, he wrote, and opted to dismiss the complaint.

    “I had discharged my statutory functions and I could not find against the respondent as the respondent had not been afforded fair procedures,” he wrote.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users Posts: 206 ✭✭Amenhotep



    I await the usual people jumping in to defend the extremists ...



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    ok so tell us how many cinemas in Ireland have banned it? some people have a muslim obsession even though (thanks be to fúck) that religion has no influence over the state-funded education and health systems here, meanwhile the catholic elephant in the room in conveniently ignored as usual

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users Posts: 206 ✭✭Amenhotep


    Right so the UK has no bearing on what happens in Ireland ?

    There is plenty of posts about global events on here , this is about the hazards of belief - if them having the power to get a film banned from a chain of cinemas is not a hazard , I don't know what is ... you won't bring yourself to admit that tho.


    Catholic elephant ?? come on, church has no power in Ireland anymore, and there is no problem with people standing up to it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,513 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    tell that to the parents who can't get their kid into the local school because their kid isn't baptised.



  • Registered Users Posts: 206 ✭✭Amenhotep


    They can go to educate together schools - religiously anti religious though ...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,513 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Come off it. I mean you even gave the game away in your first post

    "I await the usual people jumping in to defend the extremists ..."

    So it's perfectly obvious you're just here on a wind-up, unfortunately for you nobody is defending the extremists - why would they?

    As for stating the catholic church has no power in Ireland, control of 89% of taxpayer funded primary schools... then there's the health system. They also convinced the government to get the taxpayer to cover over a billion euro of their abuse compensation bill. Tuam, Bessborough and other places with illegal mass burials have been known about for years but are still not being treated as crime scenes. The recent report on women imprisoned in laundries was a complete whitewash. I could go on. The actions of these muslims in the UK are pathetic and wrong but have no impact whatsoever on my family, unlike the catholic church's malign influence on health and education here.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    ET schools are massively oversubscribed. Most parents who want to send their children to Educate Together schools don't actually ever get that choice.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 22,407 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    Educate together would have been our preference but there was zero availability. Our choice was the local catholic boys school or homeschooling.

    Given that I have not got the temperament (or time) for teaching we had to (by law) send him to the catholic school.



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Well, I never!

    Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who self-identifies as "Tommy" "Robinson", has admitted in court that he collected money from supporters and blew it on "drink, alcohol, partying". And £100,000 worth of gambling.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-61753172



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    More nonsense, they are not anti-religious, about half of kids in ETs make the catholic sacraments they just do the prep outside of the school day. What they don't do in these schools, unlike 94% of the schools funded by our taxes, is teach a specific religion as factually true during the school day.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    A fair percentage of the remainder are Muslim, and also a certain amount of Hindu in my daughters school. ET is very much about inclusivity, celebrating diversity and taking a secular stance to religion, where all religions are acknowledged, welcomed and accepted without discrimination but not taught as part of the curriculum.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    The appeal for help sounds like it was channelled from the TV show Stranger Things. “Exorcist: trained teams needed in parishes to fight evil spirits.”

    It is, however, the splash headline in this week’s Irish Catholic, Ireland’s biggest-selling religious newspaper.

    Fr Pat Collins, a priest of the Vincentian order and a prominent Dublin-based exorcist, told the weekly there was an urgent need for “deliverance ministry” to help people who feel oppressed by evil spirits.

    “As Ireland has secularised, there is a crisis of truth, and a crisis of meaning – people are getting into all kinds of things they wouldn’t have got into before. As a result, people are more open to spiritual forces that can be negative.”

    Unlike exorcism, which is conducted by priests given special permission from the Catholic church, deliverance ministry is prayer for people who are distressed and wish to heal emotional wounds, including those purportedly caused by evil spirits.

    Collins said Irish bishops recognised the need. “The demand is much greater than the supply.”

    The Guardian has contacted Fr Collins for comment.

    The priest, a trained psychologist, had made similar calls before. In 2018 he told Irish Catholic of being inundated with people who believed they were afflicted by evil spirts.

    “I think in many cases they wrongly think it, but when they turn to the church, the church doesn’t know what to do with them and they refer them on either to a psychologist or to somebody that they’ve heard of that is interested in this form of ministry, and they do fall between the cracks and often are not helped,” he said.

    Deliverance? Squeal like a pig, boy!


    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Letter in today's IT:


     Sir, – I suggest RTÉ provide the Angelus to those who want it by way of a mobile app instead. It could be called the RTÉ Prayer. – Yours, etc,

    CHRISSIE BYRNE,

    Sandycove,

    Co Dublin.

    😁

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Grand Canal, Canal Road, Dublin, Thursday.

    I remember seeing similar (or possibly a proper billboard with the same image) in Middle Abbey St sometime before Covid. Some bunch of weirdos behind them but it escapes me who. Needless to say, illegal.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    On a Dublin Bus, this evening.


    Is CIE so desperate for cash that they have to entertain this shyte?

    Scrap the cap!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Religion gets into bed with right-wing politics yet again - what could possibly go wrong?

    A divisive political figure in life, Shinzo Abe’s violent death on July 8th has inevitably divided Japan. Some are already grumbling about paying for a state funeral in September (the first since 1967) for a former prime minister whose legacy is still deeply disputed. The key element in his murder, however, appears to have been religion, not politics.

    Abe’s presumed killer, Tetsuya Yamagami (41), was apparently driven by hatred of the Unification Church. Smart and ambitious, his road to middle-class prosperity was blocked when his widowed mother drained the family purse in service to a cult. According to family sources, she donated about 100 million yen (€715,000), including insurance money from her husband’s death, to the church.

    Better known as the Moonies, the Unification Church claims to have about 600,000 followers in Japan. Family members say Yamagami’s distraught mother joined in 1991 after the suicide of her husband. An uncle told the media that the once prosperous clan fell into poverty, and her son had to scrap plans to attend university. “He was extremely smart just like his father ... and hardworking, too,” said the uncle. “I only have good memories of him.”

    The church has tried to distance itself from claims that it bankrupted the Yamagami family. Tomihiro Tanaka, the head of its Japanese branch, confirmed that Mrs Yamagami was a member, but denied extorting money from her. The Moonies have since insisted they returned much of the cash. A group of lawyers fighting the church for the return of hundreds of millions of dollars in donations says both of those claims are false.

    Either way, a picture emerges of a man who grew angry at his reduced station in life. Relatives have recalled phone calls from a young Tetsuya Yamagami and his two hungry siblings, demanding food. Instead of going to university, he joined the Maritime Self-Defence Force (Japan’s navy) in 2002, the year his mother declared bankruptcy. Thereafter, he slid down the social ladder and was unemployed and living in a one-room flat when he was arrested for Abe’s murder. Friends recall him being depressed and crying bitterly at his brother’s funeral.

    The assassination has highlighted long-standing links between the Moonies and right-wing politics. The South Korean church, founded in 1954 by Rev Sun Myung Moon, a self-professed messiah, has invested heavily in conservative causes, much of this financed by selling religious baubles in Japan. Fiercely anti-communist, it set up the Washington Times newspaper in 1982 as a platform for anti-liberal views and forged ties with a string of conservative American leaders, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.

    Last year Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe both gave back-to-back recorded speeches to a meeting of the Universal Peace Federation, an affiliate of the church. Though neither were members, both praised the group’s work fighting for peace and “family values”. Abe warned against progressive politics, saying: “Let’s be aware of so-called social revolutionary movements with narrow-minded values.”

    In the wake of Abe’s murder, journalists have begun again peering into ties between the church and the Liberal Democratic Party, the party Abe once led and which has governed Japan for all but a few years since 1955. One of the party’s elders, Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, was a former prime minister who some experts credit with bringing the church to Japan. Politicians in Japan and America saw the church as a way to promote anti-communist views and win votes.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    The former Bishops of Achonry certainly weren't slumming it...

    Non-paywalled link but you can only see the parts open to the public:

    And Irish people laugh at the "prosperity gospel" chancers from the US - they wouldn't hold a candle to what was going on left, right and centre in the immediate post-Famine period in Ireland - this palace, one among many, was built in 1864.

    Disgusting really.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,809 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose



    Stuff like this just makes you see red. 1864 they were spending money likely collected during the Great Famine. 20 years after this place is built, herself's grandfather and his family were living in the poorhouse in Leitrim prior to being forced to emigrate as they had been evicted from their tiny farm. While at the poorhouse, food and clothing were provided - by the Quakers.

    And still the Criminal Enterprise known as the RCC plays the 'we're so perrrrsecuted' game. Just like the GQP. I guess it works. Disgusting isn't a strong enough word.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,136 ✭✭✭Odhinn


    "Sir Salman Rushdie remains on a ventilator after being attacked on stage at an event in western New York state on Friday morning.

    Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was stabbed in the neck and torso as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.

    Rushdie, 75, was taken to surgery, and Andrew Wylie, his spokesperson, said in a statement early Friday evening that the author was put on a ventilator and had suffered significant injuries: “The news is not good. Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”

    Grim stuff



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    How useless is an ideology if mere words can make it topple.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,136 ✭✭✭Odhinn


    The Burkes strike again


    "A SECONDARY SCHOOL has secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing a teacher who opposes addressing a student with the pronoun “they” from either attending at its premises or from teaching any classes at the school while he remains suspended from his position."



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    At this rate nobody with the name Burke will be employable in this country...

    This eejit says the school is enforcing a belief system on students (as if the Irish education system traditionally regarded that as a problem..!) but actually it's him trying to enforce his medieval belief system on pupils and on a vulnerable pupil in particular. He is literally complaining about his "freedom" to act like a complete dick being taken away. Addressing people by the name and manner they wish to be addressed by is nothing more than common courtesy.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,136 ✭✭✭Odhinn


    He's probably delighted he's now a "martyr"

    "Teacher Enoch Burke has been found guilty of contempt of court and committed to Mountjoy prison until he purges his contempt or until further order of the High Court.

    It follows an application by a Co Westmeath school to commit one of its teachers to prison for breaching an injunction."

    https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0905/1320639-enoch-burke/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    If he goes on hunger strike I'll fully support him seeing it through to the end 🤪

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,136 ✭✭✭Odhinn


    "Enoch Burke has again refused to comply with court orders barring him from his workplace despite spending two nights in prison for contempt of court.

    “I can be a Christian in Mountjoy Prison or I can be a pagan acceptor of transgenderism outside it,” he told the High Court today.

    Addressing the court, Mr Burke made clear he had no intention of purging his contempt by agreeing by abide by the orders.

    "I will never leave Mountjoy Prison if in leaving that prison I must violate my well-informed conscience, and my religious beliefs and deny my God,” he said.

    He said that were he given the choice of either abiding by the orders or acting in accordance with his religious beliefs, his answer would be the same for the next hundred years."

    This brings up a serious dilemma - if he's sharing a cell, do the poor bastard(s) get time knocked off their sentence for their suffering?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,513 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    i'd say the prison chaplain has taken an extended leave of absence rather than get the ear wore off him.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,136 ✭✭✭Odhinn


    ..and then there's this gang of assholes.....

    https://www.isfcc.org/videos/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    On a distinctly more serious note:

    US healthcare plans that cover the main HIV prevention drug free of charge are in violation of the right to religious freedom, a judge has ruled.

    Employers are required to cover certain preventive services and medications in their insurance plans under US law.

    But a group of Texas Christians sued in 2020 over coverage of the HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, drug.

    They argued the drug can "facilitate or encourage homosexual behaviour".

    🙄

    The lawsuit filed by Austin-based attorney Jonathan Mitchell - who is credited with devising the state's six-week abortion ban - brings together self-proclaimed Christian businesses and employers.

    One plaintiff in the case, Dr Steven Hotze, argued that covering PrEP drugs for his employees would be contrary to his "sincere religious beliefs".

    Typical. Doesn't care if his employees get sick or maybe even die, provided he can save a buck and polish his halo at the same time.

    Unsurprisingly, he is described as a "megadonor to the Republican party and a frequent litigator on behalf of conservative causes".

    The federal government is expected to appeal Wednesday's ruling.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Adult son of one of the most prominent evangelical theologians in the US becomes critic of religion on Tik Tok:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/us/abraham-piper-tiktok-exvangelical.html

    Fame tends to develop faster online than in the pulpit. Within less than five months, Abraham Piper’s follower count on TikTok has almost caught up with his father’s one million on Twitter. His posts — more than 300 videos to date — tackle the idea of a literal Hell (“How are you going to take your family to Outback after church while millions of people are burning alive?”), the evangelical conception of God (“unequivocal thumbs down”) and the absurdity of youth group missions trips (“a white savior’s evangelical vacation that other people pay for”).

    He delivers his monologues in a cheerful version of the didactic tone that thrives on TikTok. And his posts are visually appealing, too, as far as mini-lectures go. He often records while strolling through a formerly industrial area of Minneapolis, his long gray hair peeking out of a series of goofy knit hats. His other interests on TikTok include popular philosophy, language and the jigsaw puzzle company he co-founded. (Mr. Piper also co-founded and is on the board of a media company called Brainjolt; he told CNBC in 2017 that the company expected to take in $30 million that year.)

    On a snowy day in February, Mr. Piper took 59 seconds to explain to his followers why it is absurd for Christians to make their children read the Bible. “While other kids are learning to read with comics or whatever normal parents have around the house, here fundie kids are — 6, 7, 8 years old — devouring stories of Jezebel being defenestrated and then eaten by dogs,” he said with a bemused smile, using a slang term for “fundamentalist.” The Bible is “basically ‘Game of Thrones,’” he added, “except if you don’t read it, you go to Hell.”

    Didn't know 'exvangelical' was a word...

    Scrap the cap!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    The judge said Mr Burke is entitled to hold his religious beliefs, which she had no doubt were genuine, but the decision by the school to place him on paid administrative leave was not an attack on those beliefs.

    Not quite sure whether they mean the beliefs are 'a genuine religion' or 'genuinely held' but I'd love to know the policies, guidelines or procedures which an Irish court might use to determine either.

    Such is the tangled web we weave when we refuse to separate church and state, and give religions privileges under law and in the organisation of state funded services.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,513 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    I dont think that quote says his religion is genuine. To me it says that his belief in his religion is genuine.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato



    A Montessori school with 45 pupils has been forced to shut, a girl’s national school has lost its PE facility and a number of community groups are without a venue due to a standoff with a local priest over access to the parish hall in Drumcondra, north Dublin.

    Public representatives, including Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Senator Mary Fitzpatrick are among those who have unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Fr Martin O’Shea about reopening the Corpus Christi hall on Home Farm Road in Drumcondra, which has been closed since March 2020.

    The Corpus Christi hall was built in 1967/68 – funded largely by a bequest. It has been school hall for the adjacent Corpus Christi girls’ national school and provided space to Irish dancing, Zumba and older people’s groups. The hall had been home to the Montessori Children’s Academy (MCA) since 1993.

    In March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began, the hall closed. In July 2020, Fr O’Shea wrote to MCA’s management advising occupation of the hall would be terminated due to fire safety concerns.

    Manager Christina O’Riordan told The Irish Times: “We immediately engaged fire engineers who inspected the premises and found that while some remedial works were necessary, the building was perfectly safe for occupation and that any works could be done at a relatively modest cost and with minimal disruption.”

    The MCA obtained a court injunction and sought production of the church’s fire-safety report. “The church said necessary works would cost in excess of €150,000. Our report found the needed works would cost about €25,000 and we offered to pay for them,” said Ms O’Riordan. “We also offered to take a long-term lease on the entire building, complete the works, and reopen the hall for the community. This offer was also rejected. At every step the only response from the church has been to insist that they want the building clear and unoccupied.”

    Scrap the cap!



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    MacMcAleese, still appearing to have trouble grasping RCC history, calls on the pope to remove from the Vatican website, a blatantly sexist tract from the second-century religious scribbler, Tertullian who wrote that women are:

    the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert – that is, death – even the Son of God had to die.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2022/09/13/document-blaming-all-human-ills-on-women-reinstated-on-vatican-website/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    For such an intelligent person you'd imagine she'd have a bit more cop-on. The RCC is what it is, it is not going to substantially change.

    You destroyed so easily God’s image, man.

    Have to admit I didn't grasp the intended meaning the first time I read that, man...

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,136 ✭✭✭Odhinn



    "The eruption of nationwide protests in Iran following the death in police custody of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman detained for allegedly failing to adhere to hijab (headscarf) rules is the most serious challenge Iran's leadership has faced in years."

    "So, the government has two options: To change its strict hijab rules, which are part of the identity of the Islamic republic. But doing so may encourage protesters to continue until they reach their final demand for regime change."

    ironic, given that the forcible ban on wearing the headscarf was a cause of dissent against the rule of the Shah.



  • Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,820 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    It's strange how hard some people find it to grasp a simple principle: stop preaching at women what they can and can't wear. Mandatory hijabs and hijab bans are equally stupid.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    But but... letting women do what they like? Society will go to hell in a handcart, etc.

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,467 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    On the front page of yesterday's Irish Times:

    Nice to know they've still got plenty of money to invest despite not properly compensating the victims of their abuses.

    Post edited by Hotblack Desiato on

    Scrap the cap!



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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Lovely get-out clause:

    "Deposit with 100% Capital Security at maturity from NatWest Markets NV"

    "Warning: if NatWest Markets NV were to default, you could lose some or all of your investment and potential interest. Warning: your investment is not covered by any Deposit Guarantee Scheme."



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