Muslim GP faces disciplinary hearing for attack on gays

"The president of the Islamic Medical Association is to face a disciplinary hearing after making a ferocious attack on gay people in Pulse, the magazine for GPs.

In the letter, Dr Muhammad Siddiq says that gays need “the stick of the law to put them on the right path" and that they deserve neither help nor pity.

"There is punishment and fine if you throw rubbish or filth in the streets. The gays are worse than the ordinary careless citizen,” wrote the GP, who is employed by the Walsall Primary Care Trust in the West Midlands, “They are causing the spread of disease with their irresponsible behaviour. They are the root of many sexually transmitted diseases." The letter went on to say that a depressed transsexual awaiting gender reassignment was "twisted."

Dr Siddiq denies that he authored the letter and claims his son was playing a "cynical spoof" on him by forcing him to sign the letter and sending it to Pulse, a magazine for GPs. When the magazine checked with Dr Siddiq, he made no effort to deny that these were his views. Allegedly, he has privately told his colleagues that he had actually written the letter." [more]

National Secular Society, 27.07.2007

Lame views, but the excuse is possibly the lamest.
I guess his opinions won't be changed after reading this:

"Gay Artist Burns Rare $60,000.00 Koran"

I think that's shameless though. Think of all the money!

Stanley Fish Deconstructs Atheism

"Science today can no more explain ethics or human happiness than it could a thousand years ago."

Townhall.com, July 16, 2007

Dinesh D'Souza making a summary of something Stanley Fish has said.

I think this extremly ignorant statement by someone who should know better proves that religion truly is hampering progress. Here are four articles that I have postead earlier at the Daily Atheist that these two fellows must have missed:

Brain gets a thrill from charity

If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural

Revealing The Origins Of Morality -- Good And Evil, Liberal And Conservative

Is doing the right thing hard-wired?

Now let's hear if Augustin, Anselm or Aquinas ever came up with anything like this. I suggest Messrs D'Souza & Fish throw their Christian junk science out of the window and start reading a broad selection of newspapers and a couple of science blogs.

AN UNPLEASANT INCIDENT involving atheistic bumper stickers on my car

"We like to believe that we live in an America where reasoned, nonviolent ideas can be freely aired without fear of retribution. That isn't always true.
An unpleasant incident involving atheistic bumper stickers on my car harshly reminded me of the ability of religion to incite violent actions. An agitated individual approached me in a mall parking lot declaring his intention to "straighten out my views."
Only his love of God, he said, prevented him from "bashing my face in.""

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul. 05, 2007

I Want the Devil Dead

"I am exhausted with the devil today. I am sooooo tired of his relentless effort to destroy what's sublime, degrade what's worthy, weaken what's strong, mar what's beautiful. I'm angry at his willful stubbornness, his grossly misplaced pride, his shameless machinations, his fostering of irrationality, his waste of the precious, his victimization of the susceptible. I'm sick to death of his constant, venal corruption.

And he hides, of course; always, he hides. He ducks, and covers, and stays in the shadows. He quickly throws up shiny, vibrant diversions; he changes shapes; he always moves left when you go right--and then comes stealthily circling in behind you, his piercing weapons drawn.

And heaven forbid that weakling should ever go after anyone with any strength. I do (believe me) understand what a dangerous assertion it is to make, but the fact is that the devil's grip on me personally isn't anything for him to be crowing to his loser minions about. I'm strong; I'm smart (enough); I'm happily married--mostly, of course, I've got religion. I know who I am--and I sure know who he is. And he knows I know who he is. So I'm of limited appeal to him. No one likes someone who laughs at what they want him to take seriously.

Besides, why bother with me, when there's two little boys next door being cared for by "foster parents" who are drunks? What fun am I, when there's a depressed teenage boy right across the street from me who's just started smoking pot? Why struggle with me, when there's a whole world of hurting, vulnerable people out there that he can work like a ball of putty in his slick, hot hands?

I'm so sick of it. I'm so tired of having to witness and suffer through the endless little pockets of hell created by the king of the sleazeballs for his own pathetic delight. I'm tired of the trash he makes, the stains he leaves, the holes he digs, the walls he builds. I'm tired of his craven opportunism. I'm tired of his glittery, superficial, caustic sexuality. I'm tired of his toxic insidiousness. I'm tired of his bottom-feeding frenzy.

Jesus, I know you do everything in your own time. Of course! And one of the great, engaging pleasures of we on earth is to contemplate the magnificence of your eternal reality, to reflect upon the humbling truth that a moment to us is an eternity to you. That's certainly true.

And of course we know you know this--but if you wouldn't mind us saying it again: When, in your holy benevolence, you are moved to come down here and once and for all stomp out the devil like the scampering, spitting, diseased cockroach that he is, trust that we'll be there with a can of insecticide and a hammer (or a shoe, or a shovel, or whatever else we can get our hands on) faster than you can say, "You wanna take a shot?""

John Shore, crosswalk.com, 2. Jul 2007

Terrible isn't it?
But Mr. Shore may be relieved to know that he only needs to take a leap away from faith - and the devil is no more.

UK Bishop says flood is God's judgment

"A bishop, no less, has confirmed that last week's flooding of biblical proportions was indeed an act of God. And it means the Almighty is not at all pleased, according to the Bishop of Carlisle.

Graham Dow says the heavy rain is a judgement on the West for decadence, the introduction of pro-gay laws, lack of respect for the planet and a woeful ignorance of the Bible.

"This is a strong and definite judgment because the world has been arrogant in going its own way," says the bishop. "We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage we have caused."

He was supported by James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool. "God is exposing us to the truth of what we have done." he said. "If we live in a profligate way then there are going to be consequences."

The Sunday Times, June 1, 2007

Falwell reincarnated?
I might as well throw inn this comment by Thomas Sutcliffe in the Independent:

"When is a bishop like a suicide bomber?
On the face of it, the Bishop of Carlisle and the young man who staggered blazing from that Jeep at Glasgow Airport on Saturday afternoon don't have a lot in common. The Right Reverend Graham Dow is a grey-haired man with a twinkling smile, rarely armed with anything more lethal than a crozier.
That wannabe martyr - his 72 expectant virgins currently tapping their fingers impatiently in Paradise - had a head wreathed in fire and a Molotov cocktail in his hand. The Bishop of Carlisle is a diocesan bishop in the Church of England, not a sect commonly associated with acts of terror, while the as-yet-unnamed jihadi is, one guesses, an adherent of Wahabi Islam, a sect which very much is. And yet, on a spiritual level, it seems that they do share one thing. They both believe in a vindictive God.

Independent, 3 July 2007