Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid Warns: Freedom of Speech Might Lead to Freedom of Belief

"A journalist, or one of those lowlifes, wants to... These people are a mixture of Western, local, and imported ideologies, but they want to express their views with regard to religious rulings. This is the prerogative of religious scholars, not of ignorant people, the prerogative of knowledgeable people, not of fools or heretics.

[...]

The problem is that they want to open a debate on whether Islam is true or not, and on whether Judaism and Christianity are false or not. In other words, they want to open up everything for debate. Now they want to open up all issues for debate. That's it. It begins with freedom of thought, it continues with freedom of speech, and it ends up with freedom of belief. So where's the conspiracy? They say: Let's have freedom of thought in Islam. Well, what do they want? They say: I think, therefore I want to express my thoughts. I want to express myself, I want to talk and say, for example, that there are loopholes in Islam, or that Christianity is the truth. Then they will talk about freedom of belief, and say that anyone is entitled to believe in whatever he wants... If you want to become an apostate – go ahead. Fancy Buddhism? Leave Islam, and join Buddhism. No problem. That's what freedom of belief is all about. They want freedom of everything. What they want is very dangerous."

Al-Majd TV on March 30, 2008, Memritv.org (Transcript)

Hehe, this really cracks me up.

Anti-gay church vows to take control of Microsoft

"An evangelical Christian pastor has vowed to take over Microsoft, one of the world's largest companies by packing it with shareholders who will vote against their policy of advocating gay rights. The Reverend Ken Hutcherson, a former Dallas Cowboys player is the self proclaimed head of the Antioch Bible Church, based in Redmond, the home of Microsoft's headquarters. Microsoft has a strong diversity policy and LGBT staff enjoy a well-funded employee group. Mr Hutcherson told a shareholders' meeting that he would be the company's "worst nightmare", threatening that he has the support of not only the 3,500 members of his church, but perhaps also millions of evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews."

Neowin.net, 18 November 2007

I think that would open up to a new era of Microsoft jokes.

Vandals egg house of local atheist

"The home of a local outspoken atheist was vandalized overnight Friday, police said -- with eggs tossed at the house and cars, and crosses and religious words scrawled in chalk on the driveway.
A church bulletin also was stuck on the front door.
The incident comes days after Rob Sherman's daughter, Dawn, led a successful effort to have the song "God Bless America" yanked from Buffalo Grove High School's homecoming celebration. Dawn Sherman is a freshman on the student council.
The vandalism likely was the retaliatory work of youngsters, police Sgt. Mike Millett said -- since it came on the heels of the school incident and because one of the chalked words, "Jesus," was misspelled. "

Daily Herald 9/23/2007

See also comment at Atheist revolution:

"The police are convinced that angry teens are the culprits rather than some local Christian terrorist organization. Their evidence? The vandalism closely followed the incident at Sherman's daughter's school, and "Jesus" was misspelled. They may have a point about the proximity of the vandalism to the school incident, but the misspelling sounds like they are assuming Christian adults must have some modicum of intelligence. I'm not sure this is a safe assumption.
Had racist slurs and symbols been used to deface the home of an African American student, I wonder if the police would have the same response that this was simply an innocent prank by teens. Well, maybe in Jena they would."

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

People who are atheists suffer from a lack of intelligence

"People who are atheists suffer from a lack of intelligence. Religionists believe that a Creation demands a Creator. My temple office is in the Back Bay. If any person would find a $1,000 watch there, it would dictate that there was a designer and a craftsman who could make such a watch. Common reason illustrates that someone had to leave the watch there. So it is the case with the universe.

Religion solves the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? The obvious answer is the chicken, because God created all its creatures. Many people mistakenly abandon religion because the world is billions of years old. You don't have to accept the entire Bible to believe in God.

Those people who don't believe in God have little meaning in life. Without a God, there is no morality or sense of social justice. What basis for these two principles would you follow? A sense of religion anchors you and gives you meaning. When something goes wrong with your life, you have something to fall back on. If one accepts that there is a God, then there are only two dilemmas in life: the problem of evil and pain. These are tough questions to answer. However, without a God or sense of religion, tougher questions arise — like a purpose in life. To the atheist, life is simply an accident without any purpose. If there is no God, then one must answer all the other questions that life poses."

Rabbi Marc Rubenstein Daily Pilot, Jun 01, 2007

Quite unintelligent views.
1. A creation does not a creator yes, but if it's not a creation it does not need a creator! The clock has a note saying "Made in Switzerland". There is no such thing on the earth, nor anything else pointing towards it being a creation so the comparison.is faulty.
2. Evolution solves the chicken and egg question, because a pre-chicken animal laid eggs that gradually turned into chickens. (I know this is hard to understand for many religious people)
3. Morality is evolutionary. Religions are just one way to explain and build upon our biological morals, and a very old and faulty one too. See: If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural

Atheists: Get off of our country!

OK, I have blogs for serious stuff about Atheism and religion, but there are so many psycho things that don't fit in there, so I'll have one for the psycho, fundie posts.

This first one's from Prosebeforehos.com