Category: Religion

Woman Arrested in Poland for Painting Virgin Mary with a Rainbow Halo

Virgin Mary of Czestochowa with rainbow halo
This artistic depiction of the Virgin Mary of Czestochowa with a rainbow halo could land a Polish woman in jail for two years.

Truly disgusting. Blasphemy is a crime against the state in Poland. An artist has been arrested and faces two years in prison.

From our friends at LGBTQNation:

A 51-year-old Polish woman has been arrested for blasphemy after she painted the Virgin Mary with a rainbow halo.

Polish interior minister Joachim Brudzi?ski announced the arrest, saying she was detained for “carrying out a profanation of the Virgin Mary of Cz?stochowa.” The Black Madonna of Cz?stochowa is a Byzantine icon that is housed in the country’s holiest Catholic shrine.

“Offending religious feeling” is a crime in Poland punishable by up to two years in prison.

“Telling stories about freedom and ‘tolerance’ doesn’t give anyone the right to offend the feelings of believers,” Brudzi?ski said, adding that the paintings are “cultural barbarism.”

How close are we to this happening in the United States under Trump?

Seriously!


GOP Senator Wants to Take Away Health Coverage So People Find God

Mark Green, Tennessee, Medicaid, poverty, health care
Mark Green, Tennessee, Medicaid, poverty, health care
Tennessee state senator Mark Green opposes Medicaid expansion because it keeps people from knowing God. (Screengrab)

GOP State Senator Mark Green of Tennessee needs a Congress “Come to Jesus” talk. His radical, perverted, and twisted preference is for Tennessee to reject medicaid expansion because health care somehow prevents people from finding God.

Poor people, at least. I don’t see Mr. Green volunteering to give up his own medical coverage so he can get closer to Jesus.

That’s what he said. And Mr. Green now wants to go to congress. His opponent, Democrat Justin Kanew, shared this video where Green confesses to his death-panel mentality, sharing his desire to deny the people of Tennessee health coverage because the federal expansion of Medicaid would keep people from finding Jesus.

Disgusting.

From Justin Kanew:

NEW VIDEO: My opponent Mark Green explains the radical religious views behind his decision to reject billions of our federal Medicaid expansion dollars – which caused many rural hospitals to close and 300,000 Tennesseans to go without health coverage, including 30,000 veterans.

Here’s what Green says in the video:

… every person who came to Christ came to Christ with a physical need… People go to God because of a physical need and they walk away with a spiritual need met. That’s the story of the Gospels. And so government has stepped in, at least in this country, and done all the work for the church. And so the person who’s in need — they look to the government for the answer. Not God. And I think, in that way, government has done an injustice that’s even bigger than just the entitlement — creation of an entitlement welfare state. I think it’s even bigger. And in this setting, I’ll share the story… I think it interrupts the opportunity for people to come to a saving knowledge of who God is…

How easy it is for some of those who have to deny those who have not.


Synagogue Vandalized with Anti-Semitic Symbols: Will Donald Trump Tell Us There Are “Good People on Both Sides?”

vandalized synagogue, Nazi symbols, Indiana

vandalized synagogue, Nazi symbols, Indiana

Congregation Shaarey Tefilla in Carmel, Indiana, was targeted by vandals who spray painted a Nazi flag and other symbols on the property.

A synagogue outside Indianapolis was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered over the weekend.

From the IndyStar:

According to the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, the vandalism occurred at Congregation Shaarey Tefilla in the 3000 block of West 116th Street in Carmel. The vandalism occurred late Friday or early Saturday and was discovered Saturday morning.

The crime scene remained intact and surrounded in yellow police tape Sunday morning. The graffiti, which comprised a pair of Nazi flags and iron crosses, was spray painted on two walls of a brick shed that surrounds the property’s garbage bin.

On the grass in front of one of the Nazi flags, there are apparent burn marks in two places, and a portion of the graffiti bears a black burn mark, too.

Will Donald Trump tell us there are “good people on both sides” again? Will Sarah Huckabee Sanders tell us, “Look, obviously the president disapproves of vandalism of any kind,” when, in fact, nothing is obvious about this president at all?

Except that he never comes right out and condemns Nazis.

Except that he “dog whistles” to the racists all the time.

Except that we honestly don’t know where he stands on race and racism, except that we do.

We know exactly where Donald J. Trump stands on racism. He tells us every time a brown child is separated from her parents, stripped from her parents, as they come to America seeking asylum.

Donald Trump has told us repeatedly where he stands on racism.

He stands with Fox News. He stands with Steve Bannon.

He stands as one of the leaders of the Alt-Right in America.

From the Human Rights Watch:

Claiming the “animals” comment is just about MS-13 is a semantic trick – don’t buy it. Trump’s policies put immigrants in the crosshairs; he is increasing deportations of deeply-rooted, hardworking people away from their homes, families, and communities. While claiming to protect us from dangerous gangsters, he makes it US policy to rip children from the arms of their parents in order to criminalize migrants and asylum seekers and break families apart through massive deportations. Americans should see through this ploy and reject the inhumane policies that Trump’s rhetoric serves.

We should see through all of his ploys. He is a dangerous, dangerous man.

We must #resist.


Myanmar’s ‘Buddhist Bin Laden’

Wirathu Buddhist Bin Laden Myanmar

Wirathu, the ‘Buddhist Bin Laden’ of Myanmar.

Sharing this because I’ve heard it said that all of the world’s religions have some history of violence — except Buddhism.

Well, leave it to people.

Religion is a vehicle, like a car is a vehicle. The vehicle of religion is intended to help people arrive at a certain destination. But, like a car, the vehicle of religion can be misused.

Meet Wirathu, Myanmar’s ‘Buddhist Bin Laden,’ as he is called.

From The Star online:

Barbet Schroeder spent months with Ugandan dictator Idi Amin at the height of his power, when corpses would wash up every morning on the shores of Lake Victoria and Kampala was rife with rumours that he was eating his opponents.

But in his decades of documenting evil, the veteran Swiss filmmaker says he has never been as scared by anyone as he was by a Myanmar Buddhist monk named Wirathu.

“I am afraid to call him Wirathu because even his name scares me,” the highly acclaimed director told AFP. “I just call him W.”

“The Venerable W”, his chilling portrait of the monk who has been accused of preaching hate and inciting attacks on Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority, has been hailed by critics at the Cannes film festival as a “stirring documentary about ethnic cleansing in action”.

What dismays Schroeder is that Wirathu, whom Time magazine dubbed “The face of Buddhist terror” in a 2013 cover, is utterly unfazed by the chaos and suffering he has unleashed.

More here.


Illiana Christian To Become “Our Lady of White Flight,” Indiana

white flightLet’s not mince words at what’s going on here.

Too many people from Illiana Christian have made comments “on the side” bewailing the “changing demographics” at their current location in Lansing.

Let us pull no punches.

Illiana Christian is currently in the throes of a very expensive expression of white flight, running away to Indiana, close to St. John, Indiana, where the grass is apparently greener, but the faces are much whiter.

From the Chicago Tribune when the move was announced:

A Christian high school hopes to keep its doors open by moving to northwest Indiana, a decision that has upset some parents and alumni who want the school to stay in the south suburbs.

Illiana Christian High School voted last month to leave Lansing and head about 12 miles southeast near St. John, Ind., an area that has seen the most enrollment growth in recent years, Principal Peter Boonstra said.

So, according to Principal Boonstra, the school is moving, building new, in “an area that has seen the most enrollment growth in recent years.”

Let’s take a closer look at the two areas.

Lansing, Illinois, according to the Census Bureau in December 2015, shows a population of 28,486. 57.2% of the people in Lansing are white. 34.6% of the people in Lansing are African American.

St. John, Indiana, according to data released from the Census Bureau in December 2015, has a population of 15,456.

And here’s the rub…

90% of the people in St. John, Indiana are white.

Ninety percent.

1.2% are Asian.

Everyone else falls into the “Other Race” category. And those figures are small.

So, good for them.

Good for them.

As for me and my family, we will choose the Lord, continue to live in the South Suburbs of Chicago, that place that is wonderfully, wonderfully diverse. That place where people of many races, ethnicities, and faiths, get along every day, living side by side, building bridges.

Good luck, Illiana Christian, Our Lady of White Flight, Indiana, where The New Campus page shows three, smiling white children.

We know what you’re up to.

You’re running away, teaching your children to do the same.

Are you really that certain that this is what Jesus would do, that Jesus was white?

Because he wasn’t.


Donald Trump: God’s Gift To The Caliphate (Listen)

Just listen and enjoy.

And then campaign for Hillary, because this is true.


Vatican Cardinal Admits ‘Enormous Mistakes’ in Church’s Sex Abuse Handling

Cardinal George Pell

Cardinal George Pell

The Catholic Church has taken an enormous step in admitting ‘enormous mistakes’ in the Church”s handling of abuse cases – worldwide.

From the National Catholic Reporter:

One of the Catholic church’s highest ranking cardinals, Vatican official George Pell, faced four hours of questioning about his role in the clergy sexual abuse crisis in his native Australia in an extraordinary overnight hearing Sunday, in which he admitted the church “has made enormous mistakes” in its handling of dangerous priests.

And, in response to a specific question, Pell stated, “I am not here to defend the indefensible.”

The Cardinal testified via video-link, answering questions from “Gail Furness, the lead counsel assisting Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, [who] led Pell through years of the church’s response to sexual abuse, fact by fact.”

And this:

About 150 people attended Sunday night’s hearing in Rome, where Pell sat alone at a small table in the corner of a large hotel ballroom, testifying to a camera set up with a television screen. Security was extraordinarily tight, with Italian, Australian and Vatican officers scanning the crowd, and frisking everyone who entered the room.

Pell is expected testify via video link from Rome for the Royal Commission sitting in Sydney for at least three more nights.


Fox News Host: If You’ve Grown A Beard, You May Be A Terrorist (VIDEO)

Well, too bad for Jesus, I guess.


Netanyahu Derailed: Blames Palestinians for the Holocaust (Video)

Netanyahu is off the rails, blaming the Palestinians for Hitler’s Shoah, which lead to the death of six million Jews and five million others.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech to the Zionist Congress on Tuesday night that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” according to a transcript provided by his office. The prime minister said that the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, protested to Hitler that “they’ll all come here,” referring to Palestine.

“ ‘So what should I do with them?’ ” Mr. Netanyahu quoted Hitler as asking Mr. Husseini. “He said, ‘Burn them.’ ”

Prof. Meir Litvak, a historian at Tel Aviv University, called the speech “a lie” and “a disgrace.” Prof. Moshe Zimmermann, a specialist of German history at Hebrew University, said, “With this, Netanyahu joins a long line of people that we would call Holocaust deniers.”


ThinkProgress: Alabama Lawmakers Vote To Bring Back the Electric Chair

From ThinkProgress:

The Alabama House passed a bill this week that would allow the state to once again put people to death by electric chair if the currently low supply of lethal injection drugs runs out or if the Supreme Court places limits on which drugs can be used to execute inmates in a case currently pending before the justices.

The vote came just days after a majority Utah’s legislature approved a bill to bring back the practice of executing people by firing squad. Other states are debating the merits of using gas chambers.

After the European Union banned exports of drugs used to kill human beings in 2011, states have been scrambling to find a reliable supply, often turning to secret, poorly regulated sources.

These bills to revive older methods of execution were proposed following a series ofbotched executions in which inmates suffered long and seemingly painful deaths — calling into question whether the drugs are as effective and “humane” as their supporters claimed.

Yet medical experts say the electric chair — which was used for hundreds of years — is an even more torturous and gruesome method of execution. Because the equipment is old and few people know how to operate it, it has often malfunctioned.

How sad. How so terribly sad.

Read more here