Joseph Ratzinger (AKA Pope Benedict) finished his trip to the Middle East last week. In disingenuous lip service he urged peace between the non-Christian Jews and Muslims. After having toured Israel, the Pope made the following comment:

Those deeply moving encounters brought back memories of my visit three years ago to the death camp at Auschwitz, where so many Jews — mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, friends — were brutally exterminated under a godless regime that propagated an ideology of anti-Semitism and hatred.

–Pope Benedict XVI

Let’s get this straight. Adolph Hitler came to power not in spite of, but as a result of the Catholic Church’s support. Pope Pius XI signed the 1933 concordat with Germany acknowledging Hitler and his regime. The Vatican ordered all of the bishops to accept and support Nazi Germany. Hitler could not have come to power without the support of the Catholic Church. Hitler was born and died a Catholic. In his infamous book Mein Kampf, Hitler stated the following:

Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work.

–Adolph Hitler

Hitler was a Catholic. Perhaps if he was an atheist the world would have been very different. For the Pope to blame the atrocities of the Germans in WWII on the “godless” is a blatant lie which I object to. It was a Catholic dictator commanding a Catholic military under the approval of the Catholic pope that committed the atrocities of WWII. Once again atheists get blamed for something that was perpetrated by the theist majority. As I’ve said before, the Pope is a perverted, sadistic, dogmatic anachronism that spreads hatred and lies.

For those of you that are not familiar with this, I strongly encourage you to take the time and read this article. The Good News Clubs, run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship is actively going after elementary school children and trying to convert them – after they teach them that everyone who doesn’t convert is a sinner. The story of the Jewish child that was accosted by her Christian classmate is horrible. What’s worse, the Christian child was covertly recruited to do exactly what she did. She attended an after school brainwashing class at her public school. She was taught that everyone who not one of them was a sinner. So she relayed that sentiment to her Jewish friend.

Good News Clubs are sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), a worldwide     organization founded in Warrenton, Missouri, more than 70 years ago. The declared mission of the CEF is to produce conversion experiences in very young children, and thus to equip them to “witness” for other children. “I was told that a child at five, if properly instructed, can as truly believe as anyone,” said Mr. J. Irvin Overholtzer, who founded CEF in 1937. “I saw that if there was any truth in this statement, there was a door of opportunity lying open before us.” As of 2008, according to CEF Vice President of U.S.A. Ministries Moises Esteves, there were approximately 3,410 Good News Clubs in public K-6 schools around the country.

This is a very serious issue that will most likely affect all of us at some point. What do you do when your child’s school tells other children that your child is a sinner and will go to hell? That’s exactly what happened to this six-year-old girl. The CEF has been doing this for some time all across the country. It was eventually brought to the Supreme Court but the right wing of the court out-maneuvered the left and the moderates. In writing the court’s opinion; right-wing-theocrat Clarence Thomas stated that is was all right for the CEF to indoctrinate children in public schools (Good News Club v. Milford Central School)!

All of us have a responsibility to our children to protect them from hatred and prejudice. They do not deserve to be mentally abused because of their parent’s ignorance. Religion has always been the supreme force for child abuse; this case clearly defines why. If these awful, divisive,  duplicitous people (Good News Clubs) are in your community or do come to it in the future, be prepared to fight them. Your child’s eternal future could depend on it!

Reading, Writing, and Original Sin: An Evangelical Group Sets its Sights on Santa Barbara’s Public Elementary School Kids (original article).

Hey everyone tomorrow, May 7th,  is the National Day of Reason. This was started originally as a protest to the National Day of Prayer. I realize it is a reaction to something that should not even exist. But we need to do something. Go to the National Day of Reason to get more information. And tomorrow when all of your colleagues and friends are pausing to pray perhaps you could recite something form Robert Ingersoll or some other freethinker. Or better yet, take an extra hour for lunch to go somewhere to think!

President Obama has had a full plate since he took office just over 100 days ago. But nothing, not Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea, the banking industry, the automotive industry, health care, the swine flu, nothing, will have more of an impact on our lives than picking the next Supreme Court Justice. All of the mentioned subjects do greatly affect our lives. And to those that are suffering directly from the recession (job loss, house foreclosure); you have my most sincere sympathy. But picking a new Supreme Court Justice will not just affect our lives, but perhaps those of future generations, as well.

The Supreme Court is our last line of defense. It is the entity of government that protects the individual or individuals from unconstitutional actions. The current Supreme Court is finely balance between right wing radicals that are against keeping abortion legal and do not agree with the first amendment (Scalia and Thomas, for example) and those that do believe in a woman’s right to choose and also in the first amendment establishment clause (Ginsburg and Stevens, for example). Justice David Souter will be stepping down at the end of the current session. Souter has historically been more liberal and has consistently supported separation of church and state even though he was hired by a conservative republican (Bush Sr.). We further have to consider that Justice Stevens is eighty nine years old and most assuredly will be retiring during Obama’s administration too. Ginsburg is seventy-six.

Back before the presidential election I urged voters to keep the Supreme Court in mind when considering candidates. Our freedom of and from religion was literally at stake. It would make sense for Obama to hire a woman – we only have one presently serving. When Sandra Day O’Conner retired, George Bush Jr. took the opportunity to replace her with a conservative white male. Personally I do not care about race, sex, heritage, etc. I care about someone opposing Scalia, Thomas and the theocratic hegemony they are trying to create. I have yet to meet a single African American who agrees with even one decision that Thomas (an African American) has made. He speaks only for the the white male extreme religious right. And Scalia has argued that Christianity should be taught in public schools. Both of them, along with the conservative Bush appointees Alito and Roberts are a serious threat to our first amendment rights. If another right-wing radical is appointed, we are all screwed! I personally feel Obama will hire a woman to fill the next vacancy. Based on Obama’s actions during his first 100 days, she will most likely be a moderate rather than a liberal. Coming from a legal background Obama must realize what is at stake. I just hope he does not reach too far across the isle and tip the scales in the wrong direction.