Occasionally gets a membership application from someone who has a rough idea of what we stand for. They may have read few Socialist Standards and perhaps been to a meeting or two. They’re fired up and want to get involved so they ask for an application form, fill it in, – and suddenly they’re puzzled. – Why do we ask them their views on religion? (It’s not just religion we ask them about of course but their understanding and agreement with our case generally but it’s often a religious view that proves to be a sticking point)....
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“Noted Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, commented this week that “the recent defamatory reporting on Pope Benedict XVI, especially by the New York Times, was prompted by the devil.” Speaking to News Mediaset in Italy, the 85-year-old exorcist noted that “the devil is behind the recent attacks on Pope Benedict XVI regarding some pedophilia cases. There is no doubt about it. Because he is a marvelous Pope and worthy successor to John Paul II, it is clear that the devil wants to grab hold of him.” Father Amorth added that in instances of sexual abuse committed by some members...
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From this month’s Socialist Standard It was the political power that the Catholic Church once exercised in Ireland that allowed it to cover up for so long the child abuse exposed in the recent Ryan Report. I travelled to Dublin in the early 1950s as a member of a delegation from a Northern Ireland Labour group. Our purpose was to discuss with the leaders of the Irish Labour Party the desirability and feasibility of extending this party into Northern Ireland. The Irish Labour Party was then part of the coalition government which abandoned the constitutional ties with Great Britain...
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Christian Right Lobbies To Overturn Second Law Of Thermodynamics “The second law of thermodynamics, a fundamental scientific principle stating that entropy increases over time as organized forms decay into greater states of randomness, has come under fire from conservative Christian groups, who are demanding that the law be repealed. “Calling the second law of thermodynamics “a deeply disturbing scientific principle that threatens our children’s understanding of God’s universe as a benevolent and loving place,” they are spearheading a nationwide grassroots campaign to have the law removed from high-school physics textbooks. The plan has already met with significant support in...
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On October 8, 2008, an article in the Toronto Star (Credit Crunch Shows Futility of Money : Pope) should have set to rest the minds of any who are worried about the worlds financial crisis. “Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on crashing stock markets and capitalism, concluded that, ‘money vanishes, it is nothing’ and that, ‘the only solid reality is the word of God. He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career, and money, builds the house of his life on sand’, the pontiff told bishops at an assembly in the Vatican.” This represents one of...
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“For as long as man has worshipped a god, there have been forgers, crafty hucksters who seize on a believer’s desire to possess material proof of the divine. In Jerusalem, it is a bountiful trade. The old adage is that if all the splinters of the True Cross were gathered from across Christendom, it would yield a wooden crucifix the size of a Manhattan skyscraper. Even back in the Middle Ages, pilgrims visiting Jerusalem told of hawkers who sold counterfeit bones and relics of saints. But indisputable historical evidence that Jesus Christ, or any of the other Biblical prophets, truly...
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Gods do exist, in a certain sense (I use the word “gods” as a gender-neutral term that includes goddesses). Humans create them in their own image, though without being aware of doing so. The fact that gods are male or female in itself strongly suggests that they are creatures of the human imagination. But they infest the mind as powerful, capricious and mysterious beings who demand endless worship and praise, reverence and obedience, devotion and propitiatory sacrifice. The gods in the head of the believer thwart the development of confidence, self-respect, rational enquiry and independent judgment. In this way...
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Isn’t it nice to have a few days off from work, warming the cockles of our overgenerous souls after spending the past year producing large sums of wealth for the parasite class, singing Santa songs by the hearth, drinking mulled wine and pretty much anything else that will get us tipsy, opening our presents, and living those few golden days of celebration that we would wish for the other days of the year as well? But these holidays will end all too soon. We have barely begun to relax in our holiday mode when the alarm clock awakens us...
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Atheism—thank god—is gaining in popularity and in converts. Books by atheists have been appearing on non-fiction bestseller lists, such as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith. Even Christopher Hitchens, who has been cheering on the US imperialist crusade with his Christian comrades in the 101st Keyboard Brigade, has cashed in on the trend with his new book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. These prominent atheists have pointed out the ill effects of religion on society and exposed the errors and outright stupidity of religious thought. Such efforts are all-too necessary...
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