Warren Jeffs – Mormon Child Rapist

Image via Wikipedia

Warren Jeffs is the hereditary leader of around 10,000 people who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This is one of the offshoots of the Mormon church. They declare that a man cannot enter heaven unless he has at least 3 wives. Jeffs obviously wants to guarantee his place in paradise because he is reputed to have 79 wives. I really don’t care how many wives or husbands a person thinks they need. It is none of my business, but the problem with Jeffs is that somebody can only become a wife if they are an adult who freely makes the choice to take on that role. 24 of those who Jeffs claims as wives were under 17 when he claimed them.

 

Jeffs has now been convicted of sexually assaulting a 15 year old, who had a child by him, and a 12 year old. Jeffs made audio recordings of his sexual activity with the 12 year old and also recorded himself instructing children and young women on how they should please him sexually.

 

Jeffs is not only a predatory paedophile of a very nasty kind, but he is also something of a sweetie when it comes to passing on the messages from his god. Jeffs conducted his own defence, if you could call it that. He made failed attempts to have State District Judge Barbara Walther removed and filed a brief based on what he said was a revelation from the Lord saying she will suffer a crippling sickness that will soon take her life. Nice stuff. You don’t need much imagination to work out what sort of revelations he passes on to the women and girls who might be reluctant to become the ‘spiritual’ wives of this 55 year old lecher.

 

Of course the behaviour of Jeffs fits in very well with that of other leaders of crank religious sects. Whether it is Wayne Bent, otherwise known as Michael Travesser, David Koresh or Jim Jones to name a few recent ones, the pattern is common. They have continual instructions from god that they must have sex with whatever women or children take their fancy and it is a religious obligation for everybody in their cult to assist them in doing this.

 

Jeffs is a menace and after sentencing in a day or two he will hopefully be put permanently in a safe place, but the 10,000 people who followed the ramblings of this criminal crank will not be safe. This organisation will not disappear and there are others still out of gaol who will be pleased to pick up where Jeffs left off.

 

Ten thousand is a lot of people to be taken in by the delusional nonsense of Jeffs and his ilk, but what about the much larger and more powerful religions? Mainstream Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith. He was a pathetic conman who spent his time trying to fleece the gullible by telling them he could find hidden treasure with ‘seer’ or peep stones. At some point he hit on the idea of getting a divine revelation and dragging in some more suckers. God, through the angel moroni, gave Smith some golden plates which he translated with the help of his stones into the book of mormon. Of course god took back his gold writings so nobody would ever be able to check Smith’s ridiculous story.

 

That book is now the basis of the massive, multi-million dollar Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (Mormons). I refer to the dollars deliberately. They are a very money focussed outfit. Those clean cut, be-suited young men you find on your doorstep calling themselves elders are the frontline sales team of a mega corporation whose only product is lies. Some of the lies are just silly, but there are others which are more sinister. For example the Mormon church is racist. According to Smith,god cursed Ham for looking at his naked father. The curse darkened the skin of Ham’s offspring (the Hamites). This is code for saying that black people are inferior. Modern mainstream mormons try to deny the racism without rejecting Smiths words. They removed the ban on black people being full members of the church in 1978. They realised that there was some lucrative recruiting to be done in Africa, but they are still racist and defend the revelation of god by which they justify their racist behaviour.

 

Jeffs is a criminal and most mormons are not. Even the members of Jeffs crazy cult fragment of mormonism are not all deranged, but you have got to question how and why people are taken in. Whether it is the criminal abuse of Jeffs or the straightforward con of Smith, their behaviour appears obviously deviant and yet large numbers of people have been willing to follow them unquestioningly.

 

Mitt Romney and John Hunstman are mormons and Republican politicians who are possible nominees to run for President of the most powerful country on earth. If their judgement with respect to their religious belief is so strange, how would they deal with the great issues facing America and the world?

Related articles

• Polygamist leader guilty in child-rape case (msnbc.msn.com)
• Polygamist leader guilty in child-rape case (msnbc.msn.com)
• Warren Jeffs Convicted of Child Sex Abuse (time.com)

Well Done Enda

Image via Wikipedia

For many years the Irish establishment connived with the Catholic Church. Police and government officials helped them to conceal the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children and vulnerable adults. Complaints were ignored, trivialised or even perverted into accusations against the victims.

Despite recent expressions of regret and protestations of intentions to be open by the church and the Irish state there has been little reason for victims to believe that things had fundamentally changed. The recently published Cloyne report was damning in its assessment of the behaviour of the Catholic Church at every level in the Irish Republic. That was good, but it is just another report. There have been many of those which have not brought about proper recompense for victims or indication that there is genuine contrition by the Church.

Now Enda Kenny, the head of the Irish Government, has said in parliament hat the Cloyne Report into how allegations of sex abuse by priests in Cork had been covered up showed that change was urgently needed. Mr Kenny said the historic relationship between church and state in Ireland could not be the same again. He said the report exposed the elitism, dysfunction, disconnection, and narcissism that dominated the Vatican.

“The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation’,” the Taoiseach said. “The Vatican chose to focus on the interests of the church rather than the children abused by its clergy and shielded by its leaders.”

During the debate, the church was called upon to publish the audits currently being sent to every Catholic diocese in the country.

All of this is long, long overdue, but it must be welcomed that the leader of the Irish Government is now recognising the reality of the extent of the crime and cover up that has occurred. Mr Kenny must follow through to make sure that the church can never again hold such sway that it can obstruct justice and conceal crime.

Related articles

• Dublin: Vatican Conspired To Frustrate Cloyne Child Sex Abuse Inquiry: Taoiseach (lostchildreninthewilderness.wordpress.com)
• Kenny attacks Vatican over abuse (bbc.co.uk)
• Irish prime minister attacks Vatican (guardian.co.uk)
• Ireland stands up to the Catholic Church (scienceblogs.com)
• Irish prime minister slams Vatican over child sex abuse (cnn.com)

The Seventh Commandment

Image via Wikipedia

You shall not commit adultery

First of all we need to be clear about what adultery is. You might think that is easy, but the commandments were written about three thousand years ago and things didn’t mean the same then.

People today tend define it as any act of sexual intercourse outside of marriage or, perhaps a bit more narrowly, any act of sexual intercourse between a married person and someone who is not their spouse.

The ancient Hebrews had a different understanding and limited it to just sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who was married or betrothed. The marital status of the man was irrelevant. A married man was not guilty of “adultery” for having sex with an unmarried woman.

This is because at that time women were little more than property — a slightly higher status than slaves but not full citizens like men. Because women were like property, having sex with a married or betrothed woman was regarded as misuse of someone else’s property. A married man having sex with an unmarried woman was not guilty of such a crime and thus was not committing adultery. If she also wasn’t a virgin, then the man wasn’t guilty of any crime. A man could have sex with slaves any time he liked.

Because adultery was about married or betrothed women, gay sex didn’t count. It was against other laws of Moses, but not the commandments.

Christians now tend to define adultery much more broadly, and as a consequence almost all extramarital sex acts are treated as violations of the Seventh Commandment. Many claim that adultery should include lustful thoughts, lustful words, polygamy, etc. This is justified by the words of Jesus: “You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not commit adultery: But I say to you, That whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.“ (Matthew 5:27-28). That makes life tough for a bloke and makes it fairly certain that nearly half the human race breaks the rules most days of their life.

Some Abrahamic religions still accept polygamy, so many Moslem men can have up to four wives. Much less need to commit adultery in that situation. Some parts of Shia Islam have the even more convenient concept of mutah or temporary marriage.  The temporary marriage contract is as follows: The woman says: ” I marry myself to you for the specified dowry (mention the amount) and for the specified time period (mention the time period)”. Then the man says: “I accept”.” That’ll be fifty bucks for your half hour luv. OK thanks.

Lock Up Your Virgins

Image via Wikipedia

Due to the glorious incompetence of the US justice system Wayne Bent (Michael Travesser) was released from prison.

Just as a reminder, Travesser is the crank cult leader from New Mexico. He set up his Strong City with his small band of followers, did a few calculations, as they always do, and announced a date for the end time, the rapture whatever you want to call the apocalyptic return of christ that these publicity hungry prats are always predicting.

The silly and shallow media did its normal thing as well and did a documentary on Messiah Travesser and his happy family. Well I say happy, but it isn’t clear that they all were. Just like David Koresh and most of the kooky cult clans, Travesser had some specific instructions from god to have sex with lots of the women in his group.

You need to understand that he didn’t want to do, in fact it was quite hard work and rather a burden on him, but when god tells you to do something you just have to get on with it or you are going to end up in the lake of fire and, of course, he didn’t want that.

Apart from ordinary women, god gave him some instructions about seven virgins as well. If you have ever been to New Mexico you will know that there isn’t a lot to do in this mind numbingly tedious place so virgins don’t last to long. You have to find them quite young.

Anyway, one of the naked teenage virgins that came to lay with Wayne was young enough to get him into trouble when he laid his hand on her heart. He was convicted of sexual offences and got 18 years in gaol which was reduced to 10 years.

Wayne, and his son Jeff who has been speaking for him recently, have forgotten all about the seven virgins now and their story is that the troubled girl was 16 rather than any younger. She came to Wayne for counselling which she wanted to take place while she was naked. He placed a healing hand on her sternum while they were lying together on the bed because that was the only place in his humble home where it was possible to counsel her comfortably. Wayne had no choice in this matter. God required him to do it and no naughty thought ever entered his head.

Now Bent is free and his little group of supporters are proclaiming victory. So he is innocent then. A virtuous man after all. Who knows, but the reason he is out of gaol and free to get on consummating in the name of god is that the breathtakingly idiotic legal system in New Mexico did not properly convene the grand jury that arraigned him and his trial has been nullified.

That public safety is entrusted to such idiots in the richest and most powerful nation on earth should be reason to make us all worry. We pass date after date for the coming of the apocalypse and it doesn’t happen. That’s because it is all bullshit and the people decoding the bible with their idiotic sums are con artists. No cause for concern there.

Organising our societies to make them safe from sexual predators and other criminals is a job for humans. Why do we continually fail to do it properly? Sort yourself out America. If there is proper evidence against Travesser. Put a properly constituted court in place and try him. It is an utter disgrace that a possible threat to children should be released because of a technicality.

BBC Thought for the Day used to create religious tension

There was a shocking ‘Thought for the Day’ on the Today programme a few minutes ago. The muslim speaker effectively condemned the Americans for not having buried Bin Laden correctly and talked about radicals re-naming the Arabian Sea as the martyrs sea. He was effectively inciting extremists to claim that their religion had been offended and to create a shrine for a mass murderer. Thought for the day must be ended now. Our taxes cannot be used to whip up religious divisions and discontent.

Koran Burners, Cranks & Criminals

A BNP candidate for the Welsh Assembly, Sion Owens, was arrested and charged with a public order offence after police viewed a video of a man apparently burning a copy of the koran. It was alleged that Owens burned the book in his back garden.

When he appeared in court, the Crown Prosecution Service withdrew the charge, but said that investigations into his actions were continuing and that “almost certainly other proceedings will ensue.”

Earlier this month Terry Jones a publicity hungry American stepped out of his usual role of running his own weird church and appointed himself a judge to put the koran on trial. Surprise, surprise he found the book guilty and sentenced it to burning. When news of this event reached Afghanistan some more people with weird religious ideas whipped up a riot in which several people were murdered.

Last year, after Jones had first announced his plans to burn korans and backed off from it, the repulsive Westboro Baptist Church decided this was too good publicity to miss so they put an American flag with a koran and burned both.

So who are the criminals, who are not and what should everybody else do?

Whackos like Westboro and Terry Jones should be endured and largely ignored as part of the price of freedom. Publicity seeking people with crazy ideas are only a problem when sensationalist and circulation hungry media want to use them for their own ends. It would obviously be better if we had more responsible information providers, but we don’t and that too is is a necessary part of free expression.

The sadistic butchers who use koran burning, or any other supposed affront, as an excuse for killing people and imposing their deranged dominance over others are criminals. These people are a genuine danger to society and they need to be brought to justice for their crimes.

In contrast to the freedom guaranteed to American cranks by the US constitution, in the UK our equivalent loon, Sion Owens, gets charged with a public order offence for something he is supposed to have done in his own back garden. When that absurdity collapses the CPS bureaucrats do a tactical withdrawal with a warning that they will go away and think up another crime that they can nail him with.

Owens is probably just as much an inadequate as many other people who swallow the nasty and ridiculous policies of the BNP, but that doesn’t make him a criminal. The right response to Owens and his like is to not vote for them and leave them to the obscurity they have earned.

Our judicial system needs to grow up and allow citizens the ability to make their own adult decisions.

The Sixth Commandment

You Shall Not Murder

 

This obviously didn’t apply to war or execution. God was always encouraging the Israelites to go to war and massacre their enemies and when you get to the laws of Moses there is plenty about people being put to death.

 

It seems then that it is OK for the state, tribe or whatever authority structure to kill people for the reasons that it decides, but individuals are not allowed to.

 

Well that seems a pretty reasonable rule on the face of it although I am against capital punishment in all circumstances (all justice systems are fallible and killing people for things they have not done is morally repulsive) and the way that the god of Abraham approved war is no guide that anybody should follow. Let us also not forget that this god would not have been a fan of the Geneva Conventions. He was entirely happy with genocide and killing prisoners.

 

Even when it comes to individual murder it seems that god himself was exempt from his rules. He was happy enough to kill poor Mrs Lot for the terrible crime of looking back. In the case of his chosen he also seems to have different standards.

 

When Moses killed the Egyptian overseer because of his cruelty there is no censure of him. Apparently the ten commandments did not apply to Moses himself. He cannot be allowed the excuse of self defence, because he was not personally under attack. The fact is that he took the law into his own hands. He killed an official of the Pharoah who was acting in accordance with the norms of his government. As is the case throughout the old testament, the life of an Egyptian did not have the value (in the eyes of god and Moses) of a Jewish life.

 

We should not be surprised that the old testament is racist, that merely reflects the times in which it was written, but it does mean that we cannot take biblical commandments as having any relevance to modern life.

 

I certainly think that you should not murder and that applies to everybody at all times. Not just to those who are alleged to be approved by god. We need universal standards not hypocritical and partial ones.

For The Love Of Little Children

A report was published yesterday on the abuse of children by Catholic Church organisations in Ireland. In many cases abusive priests were moved on and nothing done to stop the abuse or bring the perpetrators to justice.

 

For The Love Of Little Children

 

Hello! I’m Brother Blessed.

I have taken holy orders.

So that I may praise the Lord

and love the little children.

 

Straight out from the seminary

I was a brother teacher

Helping the sweet little ones

in learning to be good.

 

The wickedness within them

was the greatest of my burdens

The devil fought with vigour

before it left their

striped red cheeks.

 

I inject the love of Jesus

to the sobbing contrite cherub

and forgive him

for the pain he’s brought

by letting evil in.

 

My Lord the Bishop

thanked me for the

depth of my devotion

and gave me my own parish

to build the congregation.

 

I am Father Blessed

and all my little children

are angel faced, angel voiced

angelic of complexion.

 

My choir is a glory

of unbroken vocal chords

I love them each and every one

A love unknown, unspoken.

 

I devoted many hours

to more coaching in my room

bringing sacred music

to the mouths of

my best boys.

 

His eminence the cardinal

honoured my achievements.

On the holy Father’s orders

I was raised to greater things.

 

I am Father Blessed

Head and overseer

of the many teaching orders

spread throughout the land.

 

All the best and brightest scholars

are brought to my attention

that I might admire their qualities

and guide them on myself.

 

The lord has blessed us beyond words

with the beauty of creation.

I worship at the altar

of young bodies beautiful.

 

Now upon my later years

there is time for reflection.

Dear Mother Church has granted me

a care home and a pension.

 

I pray for the misguided

and the wicked lies they utter.

The dear lord will reward me soon

for I loved his little children.

Hospital Chaplains

The National Secular Society has calculated that hospital chaplains cost the National Health Service (NHS) £40 million each year.

About 35 years ago I spent a long time in hospital. It wasn’t a pleasant time and one of the things that made it worse was that each Sunday a christian priest came along with a helper. They handed out prayer books and service sheets then conducted a religious service at the end of a multi-bed ward. Being unwell I was not in the best of spirits and having this sectarian religion forced on me was most unpleasant. The fact that I was an atheist and refused their religion did not inhibit them in any way from forcing it on me and as far as I could see there was absolutely no regards to whether anybody in the ward was a follower of any non-christian religion or would not be happy with their particular brand of christianity. In short it was a completely arrogant imposition without regard for the views of others.

Some people may want religious support when they are in hospital and I certainly would not want to deny it to them, but if they have those religious elements in their lives they will probably be able to arrange to have the support continued while they are in hospital.

What is absolutely certain is that there will never be enough money to meet all of the medical needs of patients and the £40 million being spent on chaplains could, and most definitely should, be spent on the legitimate medical purposes of the NHS. Religion is a private matter. Its followers should practice their beliefs discreetly and above all any costs of so doing should be borne entirely by the religions concerned and their members. It is grossly offensive and immoral that taxes collected to provide health care should be misused on religious facilities.

My concern at this issue was aggravated even further when I discovered that there was a Parliamentary Group of 40 MP’s (members of Parliament) campaigning to make it a legal requirement for all hospitals to have chaplains at public expense.

The National Secular Society says:

“these chaplains are parasites on a service that is there first and foremost to provide medical treatment and health care.”

They are absolutely right. We should find out who these MP’s are and make it absolutely clear to them that we will not support them in any way unless they get out of this group immediately.

There are 20 members of this group shown on the Register of All Party Groups. They are:

Lindsay　Hoyle

Jim　Dobbin

Geraldine　Smith

Frank　Field

Jim　Devine

Sarah　McCarthy-Fry

Alan　Simpson

Keith　Hill

Jim　Cunningham

Kevan　Jones

Mike　Penning

David　Burrowes

Iain　Duncan　Smith

David　Gauke

Tim　Boswell

Greg　Clark

Stephen　Crabb

David　Amess

Shailesh　Vara

James　Brokenshire

The Fifth Commandment

 

Respect your father and mother

 

We are half way through and at last god has started looking at something other than his self obsession.

 

Most people would probably agree that children should respect their father and mother. I certainly hold that view in most cases, but really this commandment is such a generalisation that it’s value is very weak.

 

Humans are full of failings. Not because Adam ate a fruit or Eve was a temptress or that they were lead astray by a serpent, but because some people do very bad things.

 

Should a child respect a parent who abuses them? Sadly, some children are so badly treated that they are killed by one or other of their parents. Does respect for the abusive parent extend to the point at which the child should not tell anybody about their suffering and so allow it to continue until their life is taken or irretrievably damaged? Surely not.

 

I am in favour of laws being simple enough that they can be easily understood and enforced, but simplicity can be taken too far. In this case the exhortation to respect ones parents is fine for parents who respect their children. It is wrong to suggest that children have responsibilities to parents without reference to the responsibilities of parents to their children.

 

The commandments were a set of rules put together between two and three thousand years ago by people who lived simple, often brutal, lives in tribal communities without schools or any of the institutions of the twenty first century world. Children, like wives, were seen as assets of a male head of household. This demand of respect for parents is still worthwhile, but the relationship lying behind it in which children are not seen as deserving of the same should be put behind us as a more primitive stage of human development.

 

The fifth commandment stands up better than the four going before it, but it really isn’t very much use for the modern world and it suffers from the risk of giving an excuse to poor parents who demand undeserved respect from their children.