Showing posts with label religious fundamentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religious fundamentalism. Show all posts

Monday, December 3, 2018

In A Mirror, Darkly

Hmmm.... When people get upset about posts or memes or statements on social media, specifically Facebook, criticizing Christianity...

"It's offensive!" They cry.

"Show respect to my beliefs!" They shout.

"Don't post that where I can see it!" They demand.

What's really offensive to me is the number of adults who go around driving cars, owning guns, raising kids and being allowed to conduct business, who act as if any of that stuff is real and get butt-hurt when anyone contradicts their little "world view".

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

A Little Note On Freedom Of Religion From Your Friendly Neighborhood Witch


A little note on freedom of religion, tolerance for diversity and equality for all in South Africa: This little notice appeared in a local SA Newspaper in Afrikaans, although I am still waiting for someone to tell me which paper it appeared in.

Very charming - and I suppose were an occult group to post a similar ad about a course covering 'the evils of Christianity' (and I might be tempted to list a few), then it would be reported as hate speech (and the complaint would be taken in a very serious light - not dismissed by the Press Ombudsman or SA HRC as all complaints on such articles have been), or the ad wouldn't be posted by the paper in the first place because it might offend the 'mighty christians'.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

...And That's A Wrap!



My pet gripe for today is religious bullies: 

Today I went and had some gifts wrapped at a little stall at a local shopping mall. I ignored the overtly Christian material draped all over the table the lady who was wrapping the gifts was sitting at, smiled and asked her to wrap my gifts. She agreed. I asked her how much it would cost. She told me she would take a donation for her non-profit organization that puts together food parcels for the poor and sickly including cancer patients in Port Elizabeth. 

I thought that his would work out rather well as an act of charity, and agreed.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Russia Has Lost It's Soul... And Its Mind



Russia has begun a very enthusiastic crack-down on LGBT people, and it's using Christian religion and junk-science being peddled by Scott Lively as justification. It's very concerning. Unfortunately this is what happens when religious conservativism is allowed to run riot, and when that very important line between church and state is erased.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

SA Govt Body Discusses Removal Of Sexual Orientation From Constitution




An article in the Beeld newspaper yesterday explains that there is a move in government encouraging the removal of sexual orientation protection clauses from the SA Constitution. 

Not to say "I told you so", but I've been warning about this eventuality for the past 5 years.

...So, "I fucking told you so!" 

The fact that there is a government body with power over the Constitution giving serious consideration to un-Constitutional suggestions which would not only violate the human rights of a significant portion of SA citizens - but would also stand in contradiction to several important UN mandates on human right as well, and is cause for significant concern indeed. It would set in motion a cascade-effect that would collapse the culture of human rights protections for numerous communities.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

WARNING - contains honest opinion of the author about ChristianISM (i.e. Christian terrorism), righteous indignation, and some good, down to earth home truths. 

The willfully ignorant may be offended.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Cry, Emo Kid - They Really ARE Out To Kill You



I was shocked and saddened today, when I saw news articles of STATE SANCTIONED AND ENCOURAGED MASSACRES in Iraq

The target of these unholy act of unspeakable barbarism? LGBT people, feminists - and Emo kids. That's right - Iraqi religious police assisted by fanatic religious militia have been abducting and murdering people - including children - because they don't approve of their hairstyles, dress, or if they happen to appear a little too masculine or feminine to their liking, for their idea of "appropriate" gender! 

Nobody is safe from their brutality and terrorism - not even children! 

Monsters!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Mirror, Mirror



As a non-Christian, I have never understood the need some people have to indoctrinate others, or to try and force their own views on them. 

When this sort of thing takes place during a time of grieving and mourning, such as at a funeral, it just makes it even worse.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

We Make Hate Great



Tolerance. Equality. Individual freedom. The right to self-expression. These are the things that make democracy great. These are the things that make life worth living.

And yet many people who claim to support these ideals, really do not. While they claim to, they see equality as something they are deserving of, while simultaneously they view anyone they do not personally approve of trying to gain equality with them as an attack on their own superior and privileged social positions. They distort facts and ideologies to serve their elitist and supremacist ideals, and hijack democracy in order to preserve a social order where words like "love" and concepts like "good" and "evil", and even terms like "family" and "marriage" become tools to exclude fellow human beings from equal, decent and humane treatment - and as weapons to destroy them.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Cardboard Armor & Quicksand


I have little patience for religious fundamentalist bigots who jump up and wave their fingers, condemning me and those like me for who we are - and using flimsy and baseless religious rhetoric as a foundation for their hatred and prejudice. You're running into battle wearing cardboard armor and waving plastic swords! Go back to school and ask for a refund!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

EC Mirror Casts Poor Reflection


Some of you know that my city, Port Elizabeth, will be hosting its first ever Pride event this year - an event which I am proud to say I am involved in, be it in my own small way. ECGLA, an organization I am part of, stands behind the Nelson Mandela Bay Pride - which will take place on the 24th of September - with one or two smaller events on the side during the month leading up to the main event.

I have to say that so far I have been pleasantly surprised to note that there have been no negative encounters, nasty letters in the press, and no hate mail specific to the Pride event. In fact, we were even surprised and excited to learn how positive the public appears to be about Pride. Of course, there always has to be one bad apple in the basket, doesn't there?

Today I was forwarded an email reply to a request sent out to newspapers in our area to publicize an event which forms part of the run-up to Pride.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 11:18 AM, Ec Mirror Admin wrote:

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Out And About


Outing.

How do you feel about it?

I'm referring to the willful public exposure of individuals against their will, and without regard for their health or well-being. Quite often this is an intentional act of spite - sabotage - intended to ruin the life of the victim. An act of malice, to injure them, sometimes an act of revenge.

Monday, June 27, 2011

A Place In The Sun


No matter what I am or what I have done, I am also just as human and just as flawed and vulnerable as anyone who thinks they are perfect, or stronger, or better than me. Nevertheless, it seems there are always people who think that because I am not straight like them, and not living the gender I was born in, that I am anti-social, have a persecution complex, a huge chip on my shoulder, and am either less intelligent than they are, or that I am just plain stupid.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Christo-fascism Anti-fun Police At Work In SA


In recent times I began pondering more deeply about religious matters. Having come from a Christian background, I am more familiar with the way things work in what Pagans tend to describe as a "book religion" - by this is meant - a religion which is defined by a set of rules in a book, and a dogma which is taught and enforced in its temples, homes and wherever its adherents go.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Bed-knobs And Broomsticks


If people today think of anyone who is sexual, or who enjoys sex, as "immoral", "deviant" or "undesirable" today - it is because of religious indoctrination. If we think of people who abstain from all sexual activity, and those who remain virginal through their lives, living by a code that sex is for procreation and not enjoyment, it is because of the puritan hangover left us by folks who were too afraid to see themselves naked lest it cause them to think sinful thoughts - and with an obsession about the afterlife and where they would spend it - instead of enjoying and celebrating the life they had.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Blasphemous Rumors



I know I have been quiet lately, but it's just because I've taken the weekend off. Honest. Rumors of my being "raptured" are greatly exaggerated - in fact, I am still here, and so is my underwear drawer, which still needs tidying. 

Damn.

I am typing this article on the morning of Sunday May 22, 2011. I am still here, and so is the house I live in - and the cars parked outside tell me the businesses across the road are doing their usual booming breakfasting business. The city around me is not on fire and there haven't been any tsunamis during the night. My mother woke up this morning, as usual, and shuffled past my door - so I knew she was still here. All is right with the world then.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Come To The Dark Side - We Have Cookies Too


Christians - you just can't seem to win with them. 

If you're gay, you're evil. If you're not religious, you're evil. If you're an atheist, you're a "willing pawn of the devil". If you believe in another god or gods, or even call their god by another name, you're "evil" or "lost". If you are tolerant of other faiths, or of homosexuals - then you're "misled", "backsliding" or yep, "evil".

If you're gay and a Christian (horror of horrors), they want to cut up your membership card and deny that you are part of their club (or ever were), and when you abandon their faith or even go so far as to change religions and want nothing more to do with them, they still persecute you because you have somehow "proved them right" - and then they see you as an even bigger "threat" to their paranoiac little "worldview".

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Not Seeing Is Believing


Ever hear a child put his hands over his ears, or sometimes closing her eyes too, and chanting loudly, "I can't hear you - lalalalala"?

Aside from the old adage that "there are none so blind as those who will not see", there are different names for this concept, such as "selective ignorance" and "self-imposed ignorance". I often use another term, because I think "willful ignorance" fits better due to the fact that it takes a conscious decision to decide to stay ignorant about an issue on purpose - especially when there is so much information available. We are surrounded by it, and so as far as I'm concerned, to remain ignorant about some things must take a supreme effort of will.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Spit Or Swallow?


Belief is subjective, you don't have to like somebody else's beliefs any more than somebody else might agree with folks standing in church waving their hands in the air. Some folks see religion as chicken soup for the soul - well, some folks like their soup with croutons, others with noodles. Some like tomato, others butter-nut. It would be a boring old world if we all just stuck to "hearty beef" now wouldn't it?

When I posted that on Facebook as a status, an old friend of mine replied, extending the metaphor: "Some people are vegetarian, others just hate soup, others say soup is for sick people, and some just eat soup cos they are too poor to eat steak."

Monday, March 7, 2011

Viva Secularism, Viva!

Many people today have moved beyond the confusion caused by mixing religion and affairs of the real world. Unfortunately there are still many people who cannot tell the two apart. To them there is no difference between politics, civil affairs, daily life and their own personal religious views. And for some unfathomable reason, whenever it is pointed out to them that they are being unfair for using their personal religious opinions to detract from the civil rights or equalities of others, they start whining childishly that it is they who are being picked on, and not their victims.