Religion's Untouchable Status

In an increasingly secular world, just about everything and every issue can be held up for discussion, deliberation, and as when and where required, criticized without reservations.

Everything and everyone, except religion and its scriptural tenets, that is. Religion, it seems, occupies a unique, privileged spot in the hearts and minds of even the most liberal-minded individual. In fact, it is so taboo that the most heinous crimes done in the name of religion can simply be whitewashed away with wishy-washy excuses that would have made the worst criminal blush with embarrassment.

Religion's Bigotry: Outright Demand For Respect

Even the most bigoted politicians, such as President Bush or even President Kim of North Korea, would have trouble demanding outright respect from the masses, however despotic and tyrannic these monsters (and fool for Bush) may be. After all, no Republican supporter or candidate will claim that his political aspirations and beliefs are somehow infringed upon by members and Democratic Party. In short, politics presents a fair playing ground for trading barbs and insults, and that kind of playing ground extends to other issues too.

Yet, religions, with all its demands for piety and servitude from their flocks, demands respect from everyone, non-believers included. No questions ask, period. You either believe in the bible or you don't, but you are not expected to dissect and criticize a religious scripture, for such an act could be deemed as a slight against the particular religious group, and opinions can become so irrational that any form of anti-religiosity is deemed as outright racism, even if it has nothing to do with the believers in the first place.

In Singapore, two unfortunate teenagers have been charged, rather ignominiously of course, with the Sedition Act. Their crimes? One for criticizing Islam, the other for drawing cartoons depicting Jesus chomping off cute baby heads.

If this kind of servile bigotry is allowed to run riot in a supposedly "secular" nation, goodness knows what would happen have they been in Iran or some theocracy. I bet it would be their heads which would have to give way from their bodies.

Terror In The Muslim World: Secular World Stands Idle In the Face Of Deadly Theocracy

In the Muslim world, blasphemy as defined by Muslims, includes libels and criticisms against the Prophet Muhammad, and if such a charge is dished out by a Muslim cleric against a perceived infidel, the consequences can be dire: A death sentence in the form of a fatwa can be issued by a Muslim cleric against any persons involved in such a blameless crime, and I dare say blameless because blasphemy is, in its most basic form, part and parcel of free speech in a secular society.

Alas, as Salman Rushdie found out, even the most secularized nations in Europe could very well buckle in its knees when it came to free speech: As riots broke out all over Europe after his now-infamous book, " Satanic Verses" was published in 1988, none of the European nations, including Rushdie's adopted country, Great Britain, had the balls to condemn this fatuous, blatantly oppressive fatwa, issued by then Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini.

How dare a religious and political leader in a foreign country issue such a death sentence on any individual! What temerity! Wait....Khomeini did it to defend the dignity of his religion. After all, Salman proved himself to be the great infidel by alleging that Allah had tacitly acknowledged the existence of three pagan Goddesses, therefore, in the name of respect, Salman deserves to die, as a punishment for such a grievous insult to Islam! Great cop out, literally.

When the terrors of 911 began to unfold in front of TV screens almost 6 years ago, everyone was falling and fawning all over themselves trying to explain this inexplicable tragedy, with politicians proclaiming that this was the work of extremists, not mainstream Muslims. As the identities of the terrorists began to roll out in front of our very eyes, the fact that these terrorists were Muslims, and essentially pious, fundamentalist Muslims, became unmistakable.

Yet, few, if any, criticisms were heaped at the very root of these calamitous acts of religious piety and cruelty. These terrorists, mostly with degrees and bright futures, were motivated primarily because of a distinct belief in an afterlife, an eternal reward that was promised to them by the treacherous plotters of this heinous act. Such suicidal acts could only have been achieved with the persuasiveness and awe-inspiring clout of religion and its violent-strewed scriptures.

Not only was religious criticisms far and few in between, the perceived demagogue for religion, or specifically Islam, was echoed by moderate Muslim clerics, who simply parrot each other with the "Islam is a religion of peace" mantra. Curiously, though, no Muslim leader was able to clarify whether these "martyrs" were supposedly enjoying the fruits of their deadly labor: A eternity of sexual ecstasy with 72 virgins in paradise.

Just try to picture this mentally, if you will: SS guards from Hitler's Gestapo kidnaps the Jews and packs them off in cattle trains to concentration camps for incarceration and torture. Instead of condemning Hitler for his heinous acts, European politicians commence blaming SS guards for their dastardly cruelty, while praising Hitler's Nazi Party as a "Party of Peace". Sounds incredulous, callous, and essentially bullshit? Well, simply change "Nazi Party" to any form of religion, irrational piety is invoked. No questions asked. Period.

The Vatican's Murderous Lies

While the Vatican officially renounces violence of the terrorist sort, it is difficult to abstain criticism against this huge, redundant institution when it is at least partly responsible for abetting the AIDS epidemic.

Consider these "noteworthy" quotes, all spoken from the lying lips of religious leaders with at least the rank of Bishop:

1. “The truth is not in condoms or clean needles. These are lies, lies perpetrated often for political reasons on the part of public officials…by some health care professionals who believe they have nothing else to offer persons with AIDS…lies told by often well-meaning counselors.”

Cardinal John O’Connor, accusing health care professionals of dishonesty in promoting condoms [“Pope Condemns Bias Against Victims of AIDS,” Washington Post, November 16, 1989].


2. “Parents must reject the promotion of so-called ‘safe sex’ or ‘safer sex,’ a dangerous and immoral policy based on the deluded theory that the condom can provide adequate protection against AIDS.”

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo and Bishop Elio Sgreccia of the Pontifical Council for the Family [“The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality,” Origins, February 1, 1996].


3.“Use of this product is harmful to health.”

Condom warning label suggested by Mexico City Archbishop Norberto Rivera Carrera [La Jornada (Mexico), August 29, 1997].


4. “[W]idespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms [is] an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV-AIDS. …[C]ondoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV-AIDS.”

From the text of a statement issued by the bishops of South Africa following their semiannual meeting, where they considered a change in their official condoms policy in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic [Karen DeYoung, “AIDS challenges religious leaders,” Washington Post, August 13, 2001].

One wonders how many lives could have been saved, particularly innocent children, have such dastardly lies not been spewed by religious leaders hell-bent against sex for any other purpose save pro-creation.

Yet, few, if any political leaders, dare to voice out against such monstrously deadly, irresponsible lies, when millions have died, and millions more will die, from the ravages of the AIDS pandemic. (For a more detailed read, kindly proceed to the WHO website regarding the AIDS pandemic, here).

Should religion be allowed to get away, scot-free, by members of the "free press", who, for the sake of a few religious sensitivities, allow such moral travesties to sneak pass under their radar?

Or are we, as a human species, so used to this religious virus, that no amount of harm inflicted upon our human brethren can cause us to stop for a moment and decide why we should allow our rights to be trampled all over by the religious rights, at our own damn detriment?

Religion Does Not Deserve A Free Pass From Critics

To sum it up, religion does not deserve its "Get Out Of Jail" free pass. Just as Democrats, Republicans or any other political group are opened to criticism, religious groups and cults should not receive any preferential treatment, given its horrendous records (if I were to trace and detail the ills and monstrosities of every religious atrocity of just the monotheistic religions, I'd be writing an encyclopedia, not a blog post).

One could argue that it is the individuals, not the respective religions per se, that should be held accountable. But that cannot exonerate the crimes of religions when their original texts are virtually littered with unspeakable violence and injustice. It is time for the secular world to say enough is enough: No more bullshit kowtowing and grovelling speeches to appease the religious masses. Just the plain, old sickening truth will do.

Thoughts of A Thinking Atheist

As a committed, open atheist for more than a decade, I have been asked, probed and questioned about my beliefs, or a distinct lack of.

In a society that is numerically dominated by religions, the voice of any atheist can be drowned out in a sea of prejudice and fear, and the idea of stepping out into the great unknown (Or abyss, if you are unfortunate enough to belong to a family inundated with religious fundies) with no divine protection (imagined or otherwise), can become a really scary reality.

While I cannot speak for every atheist, I will attempt, in this post, to perhaps elucidate some of my thoughts and world views, and to take this opportunity to dispel some of the misconceptions which our theist counterparts may have been harboring.

1. Religion is not a great moral guide for human behavior.

In many of my posts, a discerning reader will realize that I am a fervent skeptic against the idea of moral absolutes and its religious adherents.

If one is to follow the laws of the ancients, one would be quite appalled at some of the punishments that are meted out to perpetuators of crimes, real or imagined.

The Old Testaments, for example, advocates death to gays, stoning to death for women who are unfortunate enough to be caught or framed for adulterous affairs. If you are unfortunate enough to work on the odd Sabbath, you risk the chance of being put to death by the moral police. Even disobedient children are not spared from such barbaric legations.

Religious fundamentalists who argue for a literal interpretation of the bible will quite often attempt to snake their way out of such embarrassing verses in the context of the Old Testament (OT), using the "Jesus" pass: Since Jesus' role was essentially that of a sin-ridding messiah, such barbaric OT rules naturally do not apply in the New Testament (NT) age.

This type of argument, however, cannot explain away the fundamentalist's insistence in obeying biblical scriptures in its entirety: You either obey the bible literally from page one to the last, or you simply pick the ones that suit current moral trends and secular laws. Using this argument, I will surmise that one can easily dismiss the entire concept of religious absolutes and scriptural moral codes, borne out of an archaic, Jewry-inspired age that have neither bearing nor reverence to a modern, secular-humanist leaning age of the 21st century.

2. Atheists don't believe in God because they don't believe in pink unicorns.

Many Christian apologists would argue for the existence of God in what I dub "An argument from Silence". The argument goes that since atheists cannot prove the non-existence of God, we cannot be 100% certain that God does not exist.

This kind of arguments, shallow as they are, can easily be refuted, and one need not go further than Bertrand Russell's splendid metaphor, which he dubbed "The Celestial Teapot":

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Invisible Pink Unicorns

Ever since the invention of the cool teapot, unproven invalids such as Invisible Pink Unicorns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Dubbed lovingly as the FSM) have been added into a collection of atheist-inspired "deities".


The moral of the story is this: We cannot accord any validity to an invented phenomenon on the sole pretext of unfalsifiability. One could argue that even if that was the case, some theists would argue that the "majority factor" can somehow tips the balance of fact vs fiction over to the theist's favor.


Unfortunately, the basic tenets of truth lies in the existence of proof, not democracy. Just because the majority thinks that a rabbit is male, doesn't make it one. Neither does the Flat-Earther's insistence of a flat earth: You can't make a pancake of Earth just because you believe it is so.


3. Atheists Are Reasonable People, for Fuck's Sake!


The truth is, I find it strange in a way, that I have to explain this, but on second thoughts, I feel that our religious brethren may feel "threatened" by the presence of atheists, because very little is known about people with minds that are not conditioned by religious brain-washing.


Atheists are not animals or demons in disguise. Despite all the hoohahs about "militant atheists" in the form of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, atheists are, by their very non-religious nature, are adverse towards any form of religious violence.


Sure, atheists hate religion. As for myself, I commit blasphemy five times a day, scoff at holy ghosts, and generally have a very skeptical outlook on most religious concepts and institutions. As Christopher Hitchens puts it aptly with his book title:"Why God is Not Great-How Religion Poisons Everything", every religion-inspired effort, from forming charities to schools to hospitals, become centres for religious propagation rather than for the good of the Common People.


Even so, most atheists respect the individual's right to his or her own beliefs: You can believe that the Earth is flat, or that Earth was created in 6 days, but please don't smuggle your bullshit into government schools and teach that kind of ludicrous nonsense as Science.


You have the right not to use contraception and deny yourself an abortion, but kindly refrain from denying this right to others who need them desperately.


If religious hospitals refuse to dispense morning after-pills to rape victims or vitro-fertilization for lesbian couples, kindly close down these hospitals or let secular ones take over. After all, as the mantra goes, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".


Ye Christians can build as many churches as ye wants, but please stop clamouring for tax-free statuses. Churches are money-making enterprises, charity institutions, and as such do not deserve tax-free statuses or even tax-free grants. Build your churches, extol the virtues of your stupid deities, but for Jesus' sake, pay your damn taxes!!!


4. Atheists tend to be non-violent.


Sure, atheists can, and tend to be more vocal these days. We throw vitriol in the direction of fundy nutjobs who simply bushwack their way into the upper echelons of politics and mess with our personal freedoms. We berate religions for spreading lies and misconceptions that will have a detrimental effort on society. But we can't be caught with strapped bombs and blowing up innocent men, women and children in subways and buses. Neither do we insist on stoning people for the slightest misdemeanour.


5. Life Is Better Without the Belief In Deities

Driving the Ass Can Sometimes Be a Pain In The.....Erm, You Know Where.........

This sounds a little awkward for theists who are used to, and buy into the concept of driving the donkey with a carrot and a stick: In order to drive a donkey forward in one singular direction, you need to lure the donkey forward with a dangling carrot in its sights. The donkey, conned by the illusion that the carrot is probably just a nose away from its mouth, drives incessantly forward, only for the carrot to remain unreachable. The stick acts as an insurance to the slavemaster, in the event the donkey somehow smartens up and realizes that he has been dubbed into one hell of a masterful conjob.

That, in sum, is the gist of religion: In order to maintain the throngs of faithful worshippers within its fold, it needs a carrot in the form of an utopian heaven, and a invented masochistic whip known as hell, to maintain this rather slippery rope.

The idea that a person somehow finds himself in an eternity of BBQ simply on the pretext that he is somehow unfortunate enough to believe in the wrong deity, or even worst, the right deity but alas, a religion that somehow does not belong to a god-approved (Sounds a bit like the ISO standard, don't you think???)"real" denominational religious sect, smacks of bigotry and utter injustice. If a deity of such vindictiveness exists, one would be better off worshipping the image of Hitler than grovelling to this tyrant and terrible despot.

For a person to do good simply on the pretext of doing what is morally right under secular law and sheer humanism is definitely far better than doing what a religion teaches and enforces in an "arse while" manner.

Fear and rewards are poor substitutes for doing the right thing. Like acts of charity, one must always have a moral compass that acts separately from imagined threats of punishment and rewards.

Interfaith Dialogues: An Exercise In Futility, Or Potential Bigotry?

In the aftermath of the September 911 attacks, one of the first knee-jerk reactions amongst religious moderates was to "reach out" to Islam and its "radical" elements in the form of "interfaith dialogues".

As with all knee-jerk reactions, interfaith dialogue is a uniquely novel political gimmick: By addressing and renouncing "fundamentalist" ideals through the united voices of a mismatched interfaith group of religious leaders, the voices of unreasoning in the name of religion could be "drowned out" and ostracized by a largely sympathetic, religious public.

According to some moderate religious scholars and even politicians, the idea is that "interfaith dialogues" (The very allegory seems to indicate that different people of various faith can only talk about faith and pretty much nothing else) involving bishops, imams and various "luminaries" from all religious sects will help resolve any misunderstandings between various religious groups, thereby promoting some obscure form of religious harmony in the form of religious understanding and tolerance.

Blair: Wants to have another go at "interfaith" gimmicks, after failure in Iraqi debacle

Such is the popularity and novelty of the "interfaith" game, that according to The Guardian, even the outgoing British Premier, Tony Blair, is dipping his hands into muddled waters: His 3.5 million pound home at Connaught Square may jolly well serve as his "headquarters" for a new interfaith dialogue movement. I guess Blair needs something corny to salvage his already-battered political image, mired by accusations caused by his unholy matrimony with Bush as his "unofficial poodle".

In this post, I will attempt to play the Devil's Advocate by presenting a case against such farcical officialdom: If anything else, Interfaith dialogues are almost always doomed to fail even before taking off and, as I shall present in my post, will constitute a new, unprecedented form of bigotry against the secular, freethinking world, if they were to somehow succeed in reconciling their polarizing differences.

A Question of Polemics?

Without question, all faiths share varying degrees of mutual exclusivity that defines them from one another.

Major religions from across the globe fall under three categories: Monotheism, Polytheism and Philosophical/Quasi-religious sects.

Of particular interest here is Monotheism, since it is the most exclusive and polemic of all three groups: The largest amongst them include Islam, Catholicism and Christianity, with Judaism having a profound influence in all three.

While these religions share the same Abrahamic forefather of Judaism, their differences are as polarizing as even the staunchest left-wing/right-wing divide: A Muslim, for example, will vehemently disagree with the Christian belief of a human super god dying on the Cross for Man's Original Sin, while the Christian would simply take note and disapprove of the Prophet Muhammad's obsession with marrying multiple wives (including a 9 yr old girl).

The internal strife within the Judaic sects across the sectarian board is all too evident throughout history.

Hitler: Brought Anti-Semitism to New Heights, Never Been Excommunicated, And Much Loved by The Catholic Church, Despite Staunch Denial

Anti-semitism, an almost singular industry that arose from the supposed betrayal and death of Christians' beloved Messiah, Jesus by Jewish priests (Jesus, curiously, was a Jew), would escalate into one of history's worst racial genocide against any single race through the systematic annihilation of Jewry via Hitler's (Hitler was a Catholic who, until today, has never been excommunicated) infamous gulags of World War II, run by Gestapo and SS thugs armed with sufficient hatred & knowledge to kill and little else to go along with.

Today, almost two millennial since Jesus' supposed death, Jewish settlers in the Middle East are still constantly forced to defend for their lives against suicide bombers and Islamic fundamentalist nations, all armed to the teeth for an eventual ouster of Israel and the "accursed" Jews.

Given such irreconcilable differences and deep-seated enmity, the presumption that an interfaith dialogue could somehow erase 2000 years of religious strife is as bogus as George Bush going through a speech without stammering and tripping over his own words.

Monotheistic religions aside, polytheistic religions, such as Hinduism, are pretty much regarded as "pagan" and "heretic" by monotheistic religions. While polytheistic religions are quite obliging in accommodating their rather more assertive monotheistic hosts, one should not be expecting too much from the more dogmatic monotheistic counterparts.

Religions more aligned with philosophical teachings, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, formed the final portion of this religious trinity. While these quasi-religions generally promote peace and harmony, certain virtues attached to them, such as the role of the submissive women and overtly-emphasized piety, can be just as every bit stifling and archaic as their monotheistic counterparts.

For any multi-faith dialogue to be successful, there is always a herculean leap of faith that has to be surmounted. Religious differences of the kind that goes with "I believe in A, he believes in B, therefore we cannot co-exist" may seem trivial, until you realize that each person's beliefs are aligned with a God in the Sky. Throw in the fact that every religion has his or her own personal heaven and hell, you get a potential confrontation and mayhem that may erupt anytime during a typical "interfaith" session.

Religious Violence & Terror Abetted By Moderates?

Because of the 911 incident and the subsequent spate of attacks in Britain and Madrid, there is a perceived need to "reach out", so to speak, to religious radicals of Islam, and the naive thinking that these terrorists are somehow "indoctrinated" by end-of-the-mill religious clerics and not mainstream ones seem to fuel the desire by moderates and interfaithers to reach out to them before the radicals do.

The real problem, however, is far more subtle. By relying on the perceived pluralism of religious moderates that somehow "tones down" the singular exclusivity of religion's tenets, moderates are ignoring the fact that religion is actually the core problem at hand.

While a religious moderate shuns violence, his adherence to beliefs that a supernatural being exists to fuss over his every need as well as people of his creed, and that everyone else who doesn't follow suit will find themselves becoming unwitting objects of everlasting torture in hell's eternal BBQ inferno, are so utterly egoistic and one-dimensional that his beliefs could have been very well-suited and subverted by radical fundamentalists, who simply reject the moderate portion of the benign moderate's beliefs and transform it into a dastardly recruitment tool for potential terrorists.

By constantly promoting the fundamental aspects of religion, moderates unwittingly provide fuel and heat for consistent propaganda, which, ironically, are used by radical religious teachers to spread and recruit more extremists.

In his article, The Problem With Religious Moderates, Sam Harris writes succinctly:

"While moderation in religion may seem a reasonable position to stake out, in light of all that we have (and have not) learned about the universe, it offers no bulwark against religious extremism and religious violence. The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism. We cannot say that fundamentalists are crazy, because they are merely practicing their freedom of belief; we cannot even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivaled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don't like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. This is not a new form of faith, or even a new species of scriptural exegesis; it is simply a capitulation to a variety of all-too-human interests that have nothing, in principle, to do with God. "

In sum, interfaith dialogues are completely useless in reaching the intended targets: No matter how concerted the attempt to feign religious solidarity amongst various religious sects, the real underlying cause of the problem still lies with religion. The idea that the various sects, particularly monotheistic ones, can speak of tolerance and understanding of other religions while brandying exclusivity to God's unique channel and grace, is, to put it mildly, too quaint for even the most "liberal" fundamentalist (kind of like arguing about the squareness of circles), although the words "religious and political hypocrisy" may seem more apt here.

A More Sinister Motive?

At this point, I would like to consider what I perceive to be my own conjuncture, at this time of writing, on my part. Assuming, then, that interfaith dialogues work, what then, would be the inevitable outcome?

Taking today's political model as a rough blueprint, religion is, and has always been a significantly powerful political and lobbying force, in religiously-dominated countries such as USA and Iran.

Any political ideal, no matter how absurd, can transform into mainstream formality as long as you press the right political buttons. From spreading religiously-slanted doctrines into schools and eroding civil rights, religion has a way of buttressing the national consciences of many a nation, and herein lies a sinister undertone to this article.

In the face of what I perceive as another form of Renaissance by left-wing minority movements such as the Gay Movement and the more recent revival of the Atheist movement, religious fundamentalists, peeved with what they perceive as a form of rapid secularization of their respective countries, may find cause to unite with other like-minded creeds in order to combat these fledgling movements.

A Christian right-wing group, for example, could rally themselves with their Muslim counterparts under the banner of "Ban Abortion Now!", put aside their doctrinal differences, in order to strike a very powerful message of religious piety amongst the public. Such a move, if successful, could very well signal the first down-spiralling of human rights straight towards the nearest dumpsters.

Welcome to the world of burkhas and Creationist Museums.

Dialogues Need Not Be Interfaith

In concluding this post, it is important for me to highlight the importance of dialogues between people of various religions and creeds. By engaging in meaningful, sincere dialogues, one would be better adept in understanding each other's respective cultures and differences, which is of paramount importance in a increasingly globalized world.

This kind of dialogue, however, should not be restricted and monopolized by religion. Interfaith dialogues tend to foster the kind of depraved imagination that religious moderates seems to be at home with: That only religious leaders of various sects can communicate under the umbrella of religion, and no other forms of engagement exist outside this perceived hegemony.

The idea that imams, priests & reverends (religious scumbags, mostly in the Falwell mould) can come together for high tea, with smirks on their religiously-etched faces as they nod their heads at each other's parsimonious jokes against gays, atheists and other infidels that they share a common hatred against, resembles a modern-day meeting of Al-Capone and his merry gang of trigger-happy mobsters.

As an atheist, I find it infuriating and utterly ridiculous that atheists, agnostics and people with alternative or no faiths are somehow "non-existent" in the equation, despite the emergence of many a infidel in the mainstream circuit. In the minds of interfaith organizers, people like us cease to exist outside their sphere of self-imposed religious bigotry, which really is the main reason why I am so irked with interfaith dialogues.

Now that I am finished with this article, anyone care for a piece of halal-style smoked pork*???

"All talk and No Food Makes Jack an Angry Boy." Ok, I made that one up. Bon Appetite!

*"Halal" in essence refers to food prepared to make it palatable for Muslims. Since pork itself is categorized as an "unclean animal" under the Koran, "halal pork" still remains an incompatible oxymoron.

Religious Lunacy 101: Hospital Staff Refuses to Dispense Morning After-Pill to Rape Victims

It is a curious trait in monotheistic religions: Women are somehow inferior to men in every aspect: Not only are women look down as weaker counterparts of men, they are being discriminated by conservatives who seem to have this fixation with enforcing archaic, misguided rules and regulations upon women.

One need not look further from the annals of the bible to figure this misogynous attitudes towards women:

After Adam is created, Eve was created from the rib of Adam, suggesting that Eve, as the first woman (According to the Talmud and other religious texts, Lilith was the first woman created for Adam), was created only for the sake of alleviating Adam's boredom (and perhaps his sexual urges???).

In short, Eve, as a representative of women, must submit to her Man (in this case, Adam), because thanks to God's warped logic, she is now no more than an extension of Adam's rib.

According to the Original Sin concept, Eve, in the role of a temptress, persuaded Adam to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, after she had been similarly tempted by a talking snake (Which, according to Genesis, was Satan's animistic guise).

For her unflattering role, Eve was condemned to be a bearer of children, an inextricable fate which not only has to be borne by her, but every other women since.

If one buys into, and beliefs in this bullshit tale wholeheartedly, it is not difficult to understand the "moral" precepts behind this sad, misguided tale of neglect, heartlessness, and pure biblical misogyny.

Rape Victim Victimized By "Holier-Than-Thou" Doc???

Doctors' beliefs hinder patient care
New laws shore up providers’ right to refuse treatment based on values
By Sabrina Rubin Erdely
(MSNBC)
Updated: 2:26 p.m. ET June 22, 2007

Lori Boyer couldn't stop trembling as she sat on the examining table, hugging her hospital gown around her. Her mind was reeling. She'd been raped hours earlier by a man she knew — a man who had assured Boyer, 35, that he only wanted to hang out at his place and talk. Instead, he had thrown her onto his bed and assaulted her. "I'm done with you," he'd tonelessly told her afterward. Boyer had grabbed her clothes and dashed for her car in the freezing predawn darkness. Yet she'd had the clarity to drive straight to the nearest emergency room — Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, Pennsylvania — to ask for a rape kit and talk to a sexual assault counselor. Bruised and in pain, she grimaced through the pelvic exam. Now, as Boyer watched Martin Gish, M.D., jot some final notes into her chart, she thought of something the rape counselor had mentioned earlier.

"I'll need the morning-after pill," she told him.

Dr. Gish looked up. He was a trim, middle-aged man with graying hair and, Boyer thought, an aloof manner. "No," Boyer says he replied abruptly. "I can't do that." He turned back to his writing.

Boyer stared in disbelief. No? She tried vainly to hold back tears as she reasoned with the doctor: She was midcycle, putting her in danger of getting pregnant. Emergency contraception is most effective within a short time frame, ideally 72 hours. If he wasn't willing to write an EC prescription, she'd be glad to see a different doctor. Dr. Gish simply shook his head. "It's against my religion," he said, according to Boyer. (When contacted, the doctor declined to comment for this article.)

Boyer left the emergency room empty-handed. "I was so vulnerable," she says. "I felt victimized all over again. First the rape, and then the doctor making me feel powerless." Later that day, her rape counselor found Boyer a physician who would prescribe her EC. But Boyer remained haunted by the ER doctor's refusal — so profoundly, she hasn't been to see a gynecologist in the two and a half years since. "I haven't gotten the nerve up to go, for fear of being judged again," she says.

Here, our good Dr Gish (Gee, doesn't his name bear some resemblance to that erstwhile director of Institute For Creation Research - Duane Gish?) refuses to dispense any form of assistance to the rape victim, despite the fact that doctors are sworn, by profession, to dedicate their lives to assist patients.

Perhaps, a few thought processes might be going through his mind:

1. It is better for the rape victim to bear the rapist's child - after all, what can a woman do, besides giving birth to and raising babies???

2. It must have been the victim's fault: If she had covered herself from head to toe in a burkha, tragedy would not have descended upon her like the plague. Conclusion? She deserves to be raped.

Seriously, is this the kind of vindictive, callous doctor we would expect to save our lives in times of difficulty? The type who would dispense religiously-slanted moral tidbits and bias instead of lifesaving, pain-alleviating health care?

Religious Nutjobs and Their Erstwhile Hospitals

From a personal perspective, I have never approved of religious encroachment into any education and medical institutions of any kind. Having witnessed firsthand how religious morons can basically screw up secular education to fit into their silly medieval concepts, I find it morally reprehensible that religious groups are actually allowed to roughshod and pervert the medical profession.

Incidents like this merely reinforce my belief in not only the Separation of Church and State, but the separation of the Church from just about everything else: Everything that the Church touches turns into a convoluted form of the Midas Touch: Education becomes a religious comedy of the Flintstones variety, hospitals become agents of enforced pregnancy and loss of civil liberties, and donations to mega churches are fleeced by bastards in the form of wealthy, fat, obnoxious Reverends.

The MSNBC Article further enthuses:

".....Catholic and conservative Christian health care providers are denying women a range of standard, legal medical care. Planned Parenthood M.D.s report patients coming to them because other gynecologists would not dole out birth control prescriptions or abortion referrals. Infertility clinics have turned away lesbians and unmarried women; anesthesiologists and obstetricians are refusing to do sterilizations; Catholic hospitals have delayed ending doomed pregnancies because abortions are only allowed to save the life of the mother. "

In a survey published this year in The New England Journal of Medicine, 63 percent of doctors said it is acceptable to tell patients they have moral objections to treatments, and 18 percent felt no obligation to refer patients elsewhere.

Religious Stupidity Has No Place In The Field of Medicine

If anything else, this episode highlights the need to ostracize religious-based medical institutions, particular those which force patients to submit to their religiously entrenched, archaic regulations which would have been more at home during the time of the Crusades than 21st century Medicine.

If religious hospitals do not wish to play God and dispense with medication, kindly close shop and allow secular ones to do so.

After all, no woman should deserve the ignominous suffering of rape, plus mental rape and abuse dispensed by self-righteous bastards in labcoats and stethoscopes.