Video Roundup: What Religion Has Done For (To?) the World This Month

The latest video compilation from Conversation With A.

Holy Family Gettogether

Via Space Avalanche.

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Reverend and Psychic Ordered to Pay Million$ for ‘Mass Grave’ Allegations Against Innocent Couple

This hasn’t been a good year for psychics, and I’m glad.

First, we witnessed the high-profile flameout of Sylvia Browne, the bee-otch spiritist who inflicted unimaginable misery on the mother of missing young woman Amanda Berry, on national TV no less, by insisting that Amanda was dead. We know now that Browne couldn’t have been more wrong.

At the Psychic Hotline

Now one of Browne’s acolytes, flim-flam artist Presley “Rhonda” Gridley, has been ordered to pay 6.8 million dollars after she pulled this:

…created a national frenzy by telling authorities that a Liberty County couple, Joe Bankston and Gena Charlton, had a mass grave on their property. She has been ordered to pay the couple $6.8 million. …

Gridley goes by the name “Angel” and called the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office and falsely claimed that 25 to 30 dismembered bodies were buried in a mass grave at the plaintiffs’ residence.

The cops, unbelievably enough, then alerted the media, who dutifully descended on the Charltons’ street to report on the large-scale police search taking place at the house, complete with cadaver dogs and helicopters. All on the basis of Gridley’s “vision.” No bodies were found.

It turns out that Gridley also called a police station two hundred miles away, telling a dispatcher that she is a “reverend and a psychic” and that they would find the bones of dozens of missing children in the walls and “stuff written all over the walls in blood.”

Gridley’s false claim against the Charltons has ruined her financially; she is bound to die in poverty. Despite her psychic abilities, I guess she didn’t see that coming.

[cartoon by Dan Piraro, via source]

U.S. Immigration Officials to Candidate Citizen: ‘Your Agnosticism Is a Big Problem’

Margaret Doughty, 64, hails from the U.K., but she’s lived in the United States for more than 30 years. Doughty is a well-known consultant on literacy projects who, from Baton Rouge to Oklahoma City, has led countless people on the path to proficiency in English. Many of those people are immigrants and recent citizens. Her clients have included the city of Los Angeles and the U.S. Department of Education.

Doughty

When Doughty recently decided to acquire U.S. citizenship herself, she had no reason to think it would be a hard slog.

“I have worked hard to fight for the rights of others, and change laws and systems to do a small part in building a better nation. That sounds like what a citizen should do,” she told me today. “So I decided to apply, not thinking at the time that it would turn out to be such a complicated issue.”

The reason her application stands a good chance of being denied is that Margaret Doughty is not religious.

Why would that matter?

Well, the topic of her religiosity came up when an USCIS official asked Doughty to confirm that, when asked, she would take up arms in defense of the United States. Doughty, who had just been made to swear an oath to tell the truth (as is customary with citizenship applications), felt honor-bound to answer the question…truthfully. She responded that she would be unfailingly loyal to the United States, but that her conscience doesn’t allow her to inflict violence on another person.

The immigration agent explained that the question, in Doughty’s case, was pretty much academic. The United States does not put sexagenarians on the front lines. Doughty, however, felt helpless to change her answer, and the agent told her that was going to be a problem, claiming that the USCIS recognizes only religiously-motivated objectors (Doughty isn’t religious; she identifies as an agnostic).

The official wasn’t kidding. Doughty received the following letter from the USCIS’ Houston office, telling her it must receive

doughtydoc

It’s a useless demand, as the USCIS already knows full well Doughty doesn’t belong to a “congregation” and thus cannot produce a letter written by “two church elders.”

To add insult to injury, USCIS is demanding that Doughty responds with the requested document by June 21 — “failure to do so may result in the denial of your application.”

Doughty is appealing to her Congressman, Blake Farenthold, for help with her case, and has been heartened by a letter written by Freedom From Religion Foundation attorney Andrew Seidel, who let the USCIS know in no uncertain terms that the law is not on the agency’s side. Wrote Seidel:

Either the officers in Houston are inept, or they are deliberately discriminating against nonreligious applicants for naturalization.

Seidel, however, cannot act as Doughty’s attorney, and the applicant has a call in to a local immigration lawyer who might.

As an agnostic American myself, as well as a first-generation immigrant, I hope that Doughty’s argument will prevail. “The USCIS should recognize conscientious objection on both religious and moral grounds,” she believes.

Giving religious applicants a benefit that is withheld from non-religious ones would be hostile to bedrock American ideals. It’s a sign of Margaret Doughty’s worthiness as a future American that she not only understands this, but is willing to fight for the point.

At the same time, it is surely an embarrassment for the USCIS that a non-citizen immigrant should have to educate the agency on what our country truly stands for.

Super-Religious Pakistanis Adore Gay Porn

Pew research, illuminated by Mother Jones:

Among the least [gay-]tolerant nations surveyed was Pakistan, where only 2 percent of those surveyed said society should accept homosexuality. That statistic might be unsurprising, considering that gay sex is illegal under the Pakistani penal code. But what is surprising is how those views compare to Pakistani search traffic around gay-porn related terms.

GayMuslimeez

As of this writing, Pakistan is by volume the world leader for Google searches of the terms “shemale sex,” “teen anal sex,” and “man fucking man,” according to Google Trends. Pakistan also ranks second in the world (after similarly gay-intolerant Kenya) for volume of searches for the search term “gay sex pics.”

Little Miss Sunshine: Follower of Breatharianism is Prepared to Die By Living on Sunlight Only

A Seattle woman has pledged to prove her religion is real by starving herself on camera.

Naveena Shine is a practitioner of Breatharianism, an obscure Eastern faith that holds that people can survive on nothing but sunlight and spiritual energy. Shine has started an experiment that aims to

…bring into our Universe a whole different paradigm of living. In this paradigm of living, human beings do not have to eat or ingest any kind of food into their stomachs in order to thrive in this world.

The movement’s guru, yogi Prahlad Jani (pictured), claims he hasn’t ingested any food in 70 years. Sunlight, he says, is all he needs.

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Four known deaths have occurred by Breatharians following in his footsteps.

According to Freethinker News,

Shine is attempting to document her six-month sunshine-only diet by surrounding herself with video cameras also used to ensure that she does not cheat. She claims that the reason others have died is that they simply did not believe enough.

Her ‘progress’ is plain to see:

Shine

[images via Freethinker News]

Pastor Buggers Deacon…in Church

For the love of God?

A community in Manchester [Jamaica] has been left in a state of shock when a male pastor and a deacon were caught having sex inside the church.

A church member who spoke to The Weekend Star said that the men were discovered having sex when a young church brother, who had been suspicious of the pastor’s ‘undercover activities,’ one night came across his vehicle at the church.

His suspicions were further fuelled by the realisation that there were no scheduled meetings that night, and that the grill to the front of the church was also closed.

It was said that the church brother decided to ‘screechie’ into the church from a window at the side of the building.

On entering the church, the young man was hit with the sight of the men in a sexual act.

Friday Religion Roundup

• Writer in Egypt sentenced to five years in prison for insulting religion. Prosecutions of alleged blasphemists on the rise.

• On Saturdays, Ohio church youth leader Jeremy Pettry would invite 11- and 12-year-old boys to his home to play video games and watch movies. He’d rape them, and then he would take them to church on Sunday as if nothing had happened. Pettry just got 10 years in jail.

• A transportion company fired two Muslim truck drivers for refusing to deliver alcohol. The U.S. Equal Opportunity Commisson is now suing the company.

• Church organizes “Smash Camp,” where kids are invited to beat cars with baseball bats, pry bars, hammers, and other objects. ‘Cause nothing says “I love Jesus” like destroying shit with hammers and pry bars.

• Church youth counsellor Roderick Kyle Janssen gets 14 years for raping six young boys and using them to manufacture child porn.

• Kenya: Islamic militants bomb and maim 16 Christians at their church.

• Samuel Ciccolini, an Ohio Catholic priest who embezzled a million dollars from an alcohol-and-drugs rehabilitation center he founded, has retired after serving a prison sentence in a tax fraud case. Good riddance to the good padre, but it’s worth noting that he didn’t even go to jail for the theft — just for for the tax fraud. I wonder if, let’s say, atheists would be so lucky if they stole a million bucks.

• And here’s the Muslim equivalent of Jesus’s face on burned toast: Believers in Kazakhstan see the name of prophet Mohammed in a lamb’s fur. Agnus Dei?

Scientologists vs Aliens

The church of Scientology, which claims humans are aliens who landed on earth, wasn’t amused when London newspaper the Sun published an article about flying saucers that had been sighted over Scientology’s headquarters in the English countryside. Church authorities demanded an apology for the article, and got one.

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When the Drug of Religion Isn’t Enough

Opium for the masses!

A Christian minister successfully smuggled more than 6kg (13 lbs) of heroin through five countries before being busted in Darwin because Jetstar lost her luggage, a court has heard.

drugs

New Zealander Bernadine Terry Prince, who is the head of international ministry Oasis of Grace, faces a maximum penalty of life in jail.

She was refused bail yesterday after being charged with smuggling 2.87kg of methamphetamines and 6.15kg of heroin into Darwin on May 24.

Worst Porno Ever? Imam’s Homemade Sex Movie Leaked, Hits the Interwebs.

This could be the worst porno ever made.

The future of an imam in Tajikistan is in question after he appeared having sex in video clips posted on the Internet.

The scandal erupted last week when three video clips appeared on YouTube and Facebook showing a couple involved in sexual activities.

Charliehebdo

In one clip, a stocky, naked, middle-aged man appears to put a mobile phone on a table or shelf before climbing into bed and having sex with a woman wearing a green head scarf.

Oh, good. So at least she’s modest ‘n’ all.

The face of the man, who has a dark beard, appears clearly.

The videos were removed by YouTube and Facebook within a few hours. They appeared again for several hours on June 11.

Law enforcement officers have questioned the imam of a mosque in the village of Bolshevik in Rudaki district, near the capital, Dushanbe, as part of an investigation.

Local police say that the imam has acknowledged filming himself having sex with his wife on his mobile phone.

The imam, whose name has not been made public, denied posting the videos and claimed he had lost the phone.

Of course, Islam forbids pornography. The faithful are not amused.

According to the Department of Fatwa of Tajikistan’s state-backed Council of Ulema, it is a sin to take pictures of sexual intercourse.

The council, which has a consultative role, says it will discuss the scandal on June 20.

The fate of the imam is uncertain. If the Allah-promoting gig doesn’t work out, maybe he’ll consider a career in adult entertainment. I’m getting hot just thinking about it.

Christianity News Roundup

• Catholic Church leaders are sparing no expense to try to stop legislation that would make it easier for victims of sexual abuse to seek damages in court.

• Faith-healing couple that let second kid die is ordered to stand trial: “They did nothing to help that child,” prosecutor Joanne Pescatore said at the court hearing. “That’s why it’s murder.”

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• Superstition in action: Wilmington church holds blessing of motorcycles. Next up: blessing of skateboards, blessing of Segways, blessing of kids’ tricycles?

• Kansas pastor admits to ripping off several landlords with worthless checks.

• Well-regarded community and education leader of First Presbyterian Church in Lake Wales, FL, solicits sex from cop posing as a 14-year-old girl.

• Church gives child-raping, serial-adulterer pastor a generous severance package.