Yes There IS Something in the Water

Another popular meme in mainstream esoteric spirituality is the buzz about the Japanese guy who takes pictures of water crystals at a microscopic level, to prove that water responds appropriately to negative and positive input.

Dr. Masuru Emoto is enjoying the proceeds from his book, The Hidden Messages in Water. Mr. Emoto's book reveals photographs of water crystals which apparently respond to certain words positively or negatively in correlation with the nature of the words. He contends that not only are thoughts things, but that these thing-thoughts can alter the shape and design of water crystals. As if water has emotion.

No one in the legitimate scientific community is taking it seriously, and Stephen Lower, a Chemistry professor, even debunks this on his site. [1]

First, according to Lower, these photographs are not of water molecules, and "convey no information about water." And apparently, Mr. Emoto has only published in "Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing." This would seem to cover the peer-reviewed journal stipulation of credibility, and Emoto reportedly did a double-blind and a triple blind study. This would normally impart a stamp of credibility on the work, but let's ask the questions: who were the "peers" in this journal, and was it really a double-blind study?

Who Were His Peers?
It is my understanding that invoking the "peer" stipulation, implies the peers are reputable, and accordingly scientific. This does NOT refer to HIS peers, since his title of "Doctor" comes from his certification from the "Open International University for Alternative Medicine" in India.

According to The Skeptic Dictionary,

"For $3,750 USD one could buy any of the following degrees: M.D. (M.A.), M.D. (T.M.), Dr. Ac., or Ph.D. These letters stand for Doctor of Medicine (Alternativa Medicina), Doctor of Medicine (Traditional Medicine), Doctor of Acupuncture, and Doctor of Philosophy. Registration was an extra $1,000..." [2]

Okay, a diploma mill for a shady institution. It's bad enough to get a fake diploma from a RESPECTED educational institution, but to buy a fake diploma from a fake one...well, that's just rubbing it in.

Among his "peers" --the ones who "Reviewed" his findings--are:

Larry Dossey, M.D., the author of Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine and Prayer Is Good Medicine and How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer. First of all, prayer is NOT medicine. The ineffectiveness of prayer has been debunked many times over in legitimate scientific experiments, and I debunked it again in my own book, Supernatural Hypocrisy: The Cognitive Dissonance of A God Cosmology.

Among the many other claims embraced by Dossey:

Uri Geller's powers; voodoo and "distant hexing"; a "93 percent accurate" cold-reader "Therapeutic Touch" (the New Age technique recently scandalizing the Colorado Board of Nursing); Robert Jahn's random-event generator experiments which "transcend space [and] time" (and which have since been debunked in a parapsychology journal!); William Braud's experiments showing that "the mental images of one person can modify the activity of the autonomic nervous system of a distant person [who is] unaware that the attempt is being made"; the Biblical story (Joshua 10:12-14) of the sun standing still: "In addition to standing still, could time become 'disjointed,' such that the future would precede the present, or the present precede the past?" (Anecdote: an unidentified man was spontaneously cured of colon cancer through his minister's prayer before the prayer was even said!) " [3]

Another peer? Dean Radin, who "has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Illinois. He is director of the Consciousness Research Laboratory and Senior Scientist and Laboratory Director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He also does research for the Boundary Institute. He’s been active in psi research for several decades and has published more than 200 papers related to parapsychology." [4]

Interestingly, Radin was both a peer who reviewed it, and a co-author. Radin admitted to removing the double-blind aspect to get rid of some results that didn't match what he wanted to see. That's most definitely NOT scientific. Nor is it honest.

Radin is also the the Co-editor-in-Chief of....wait for it...

Explore.

The journal that published Emoto's work. Do you smell a rat? I do.

Was it Double-Blind?
Only to the truth, apparently. Dean Radin, Emoto's partner in aqua-crime, has a reputation that precedes him; albeit a bad one.

"Radin has been known to select data that fits his hypothesis and ignore that which doesn't, and so there's no reason to think that hasn't happened here. Radin even admits he un-blinded the study to eliminate some data he didn't like. Add the fact that there was no control group, the null hypotheses were not even rejected, and the only interesting thing they found required some (admitted by the authors) post hoc rationalization, and there really isn't much left worth looking at." [5]

In a paper entitled, "Review and analysis of Dr. Masaru Emoto’s published work on the effects of external stimuli on the structural formation of ice crystals," Vermont's Castleton State College professor Kristopher Setchfield had this to say:

" It is this crucial lack of scientific foundation that prevents Dr. Emoto’s work from attracting interest by widely accepted and respected scientists at long-standing research institutions. This is unfortunate for the world if there is, after all, truth to his claims--as reproduction of his results by any scientist would lend much credence to his work. A little change in Emoto’s experimental design would do great things for the credibility of his claims. I recommend the following to ground his work in sound scientific principle:

• * Eliminate the possibility of the scientist’s bias affecting the experiment’s results by implementing double blind procedures.
• * Publish the entire collection of photos for all water sample tests that he has performed, not just the ones that support his claim.
• * Minimize the sources of possible error in his procedures, such as variation in temperature and humidity between sample.
• * Pay more attention to the time-tested methods of the scientific community rather than disregarding them. Emoto’s research could go much farther if he could interest scientists around the world in testing his hypothesis.

After the lengthy review of Emoto’s research methods and results, I have come to believe that Dr. Emoto is offering pseudoscience to the masses in the guise of defensible research. Only time and review by others will tell if there is any truth at the heart of Mr. Emoto’s claims, as Emoto himself thoroughly believes in his findings but does not value the scientific method or community. What is truly fearsome is the great numbers of people that accept his words as proven facts without looking deeper to find out if his claims are truly justified. While I respect Dr. Emoto’s desire to save the Earth’s water from contamination and pollution, unless he can produce a scientific paper and get it published in a scientific journal, I believe that he will continue to be ignored by the scientific community, and his claims will never be soundly proved or disproved." [6]

James Randi, the infamous debunker of all things paranormal, has offered his usual one million dollar prize to Emoto if he can reproduce, in a REAL double-blind study, showing all his methods and results, that his claims are true. Emoto has not accepted the offer.

This is a sure sign of esoteric spirituality at its most embarrassing. Now, there is a whole slew of products based on this magical water, and gullible consumers are lining the pockets of those who offer it.

I can only call on an altered version of that beloved Styx song and say, "Domo arigato, Mr. Emoto." Thank you for giving us another reason to scoff at the scientifically ignorant, and for the opportunity to expose you for the charlatan you are.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Water Cluster Quakery: The Junk Science of Structure-Altered Waters
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/clusqk.html. Stephen Lower is a retired faculty member of the
Dept of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University Burnaby / Vancouver, Canada
[2] http://www.skepdic.com/microacupuncture.html
[3] http://www.gpposner.com/Healing_Words.html
[4] http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/radin1.html
[5] Skeptico: Critical Thinking for an irrational world. Mar 28, 2009. "Distant From Science"
[6] Vitalis News. http://www.vitalisnews.com/emoto.htm

Yes There IS Something in the Water

The Kill of Rights

The Recurrent Amnesia about Separation of Church & State

excerpt from
Supernatural Hypocrisy:
The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology
by Kelli Jae Baeli

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate
their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.
It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and
amenable to reason." ~ President Barack Obama

CLEARLY, THE FOUNDING FATHERS intended for religion to remain separate from government, though modern Americans continue to forget about this, or twist it to their own purposes. The Intention of our Founders, and United States Constitution are clear about this matter, yet there are myriad examples of its violation.

We actually entertain the idea of having creationism taught as fact in our schools. When we vote, we often have to go to a church to do so. When we go to ballgames, we must listen to some local pastor say a prayer; when we enter the halls of government buildings, we must pass by marble displays of the biblical Ten Commandments; when our tax dollars go to the upkeep of faith-based schools; when we celebrate a National Day of Prayer; when we pay for something with money that has "In God we Trust" stamped on it; when our children recite the Pledge of Allegiance, to include "One nation, under God"; and when the newly elected President of the United States is inaugurated, and has to place his hand on a bible to take his oath of office.

John Locke, an English philosopher of the 17th Century, wrote about a "Social Contract" theory, in which individual conscience was left to the individual, and should never be given over to governments. This eventually developed popularity and was ultimately referred to as separation of church and state.

The phrase, "Separation of church and state" stems from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802, addressed to the Danbury Baptists:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

In the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 states, "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…" And Jefferson went on to say,

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.[1]

The proper place for the study of religious beliefs is in a church or temple, at home, or in a course on comparative religions, but not in a biology class. There is no place in our world for an ideology that seeks to close minds, force obedience, and return the world to a paradise that never was. Students should learn that the universe can be confronted and understood, that ideas and authority should be questioned, that an open mind is a good thing. Education does not exist to confirm people's superstitions, and children do not learn to think when they are fed only dogma." [Tim Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism]

James Madison was the primary author of the Bill of Rights, and in it, he also reiterated the importance of separation of church and state. Jefferson echoed this sentiment in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

Though these words exist as underpinning to our dealings with religion and service, it is near impossible for a person of no faith to get elected. Recently, in the 2008 elections, Republican candidate for North Carolina senate, Elizabeth Dole, ran an "attack ad" which labeled her opponent, Kay Hagan "godless." At the end of the ad, a woman's voice is heard saying "There is no god." This was an underhanded way to implicate Hagen as an unworthy candidate, because the recording was not of Hagen. Dole has since been sued by Hagen for liable and defamation, and Hagen felt the need to run her own ad professing her Christianity. Dole, incidentally, lost the race.

This is another example of how religion permeates our society, even in the realm of politics. I fail to see the correlation between lack of religion and an inability to serve honorably, but most Americans don't seem to agree. The reason seems to be that "godless" people are somehow less trustworthy, less moral, less ethical and less capable of serving in an office that seeks to represent the common good.

There are many historical figures who agree. One of them said,

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President-should he be Catholic-how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

This, from one of our nation's most beloved public servants, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America. And he was, as is common knowledge, a practicing Catholic.

I hope to one day be called to testify in a court of law. Because when they say "Raise your right hand…do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

I will say, "Not so help me, God, no."

I will enjoy the tittering and mumbling moving through the spectators.

The judge will lean over and say "Why not, Ms. Baeli?"

And I will say, "I believe in the separation of church and state, and furthermore, I'm an atheist. But I'll be happy to swear on the value of my own ethics."

When we give churches and clerics and theologians and pastors our power; when we allow them to dictate our behavior, our thoughts and even our own feelings, then we have divorced ourselves not only from our own innate intelligence, but from hope. The facsimile that the religious leaders would have us put in place there, in that gaping hole, is a false promise. Carrier elaborates:

...religion has become a factory-made commodity, sold off the shelf to the masses, who assume it must be good if it is really old and lots of smarter and better educated people say it's a good buy ("8 out of 10 experts recommend Christian Brand Salvation!"). People think they can just plug such a goodie into their lives, maybe with a few unskilled adjustments of their own, and never have to think about whether it is well-constructed, well-thought-out, or even true. Some people, more creative but no wiser, take a shallow glance around and tear pieces from existing products, or grab whatever pops into their heads, and throw together something of their own, with little in the way of careful investigation or analysis (p. 4).

Recently, I watched all the episodes of the Showtime series, The Tudors. Investigating the historical accuracy of the show, I was impressed to learn that almost all of it was true to the actual events as known by historians. The most troubling thing about the series is that it reveals the unfathomable power the Catholic church has had in our history. The power not only to control the masses through fear of deprivation, hellfire, or simple starvation and execution, but the power also to legitimize the crimes that these godly people commit. Whenever a person in power wanted something, all he had to do was find a way, by any means available, to get it sanctified by the church, and he could have it.

When King Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, he had to convince the church to annul his marriage to Catherine. Since they didn't cooperate, he managed to remove those who opposed him and place someone else in that position who could make it happen. And Catherine was exiled, along with her daughter, whom she never got to see again. Then when the machinations of other people with an agenda got so convoluted that there were accusations made against Anne, regarding her behavior with other men, accusers were easily found, due to their fear of being executed themselves. Same with the Inquisition. If you inflict enough pain or fear of pain or death on someone, they will admit to anything, and that means, the truth is never known. Anne and her whole family, plus some others, were beheaded, by the way.

H.L. Mencken, the infamous journalist who covered the Scopes "Monkey Trial,"[2] said, "You can safely say that you have made God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

That's exactly what was happening with Henry Tudor and all like him; and what has happened throughout history when politics were mixed with religion, when faith was mixed with fear, and when greed and human nature does what they always do. How many people throughout history have been going about their business, harming no one, when some headhunter with an agenda coerced them--even terrorized them--into snitching on someone else? And how many people throughout history have dedicated their lives serving this unseen, unknowable entity called God, only to wind up either old, poor, miserable, with nothing to look forward to but a promise that never comes to fruition, or worse--with their heads on a chopping block, and a steel blade sluicing through their skin? Many a martyr had a rude awakening when their lives were just over, and there was no Pearly Gates, nor loving savior to greet them. Those tragedies alone are enough to rival all other tragedies.

I share this to make the point that when a monarchy or a church has God, ostensibly, on their side, they can justify anything they might desire. A religion that easily corrupted cannot possibly be real. This is another searing example of the need for separation of church and state.

So, it is only a small step to advance to the ideals of humanism. To live your life ethically, as you already know how to do without stone tablets to tell you, to seek joy whenever possible to love and laugh and make the most of the time we have, because life is precious, and this is all we have.

----------------------------------------------

[1] Notes on Virginia, 1782
[2] For the uninitiated, that was State v. Scopes. In 1925, John Scopes, a school teacher, was arrested and charged with violating the Butler Act, which deemed it unlawful to teach anything but creationism in the classroom. He had used material from Darwin’s Origin of Species in class. This trial was about so many things, but it pitted William Jennings Bryan (prosecution) against Clarence Darrow defense) and was the fuse that lit the debate among creationists and evolutionists. For a quick and entertaining explanation, rent the 1960 movie, Inherit the Wind. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

The Kill of Rights

The Stuttering Murderer Who Was God's Bitch

Excerpt from
Supernatural Hypocrisy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology

WHILE A PHARAOH WAS ordering all male Hebrew babies killed, the mother of Moses attempted to spare his life by placing him in a basket as a three month old infant, and sending him floating down the river, where the daughter of Egyptian royalty found him and raised him. All very dramatic, but not in the least original.

In fact, this story was originally a Babylonian tale about King Sargon, rendered a very long time before Moses was born. Again, this is a borrowed myth found in the bible, but presented as a unique bit of biblical history.

According to scripture, Moses was a humble man with a speech impediment. God never praised him for his servitude, other than to say "...my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house." (Numbers 12:7). That's why I see him as God's Bitch.

Chosen by God, though he was, Moses was nonetheless a murderer. One wonders why God chooses murderers as his favorites. Moses had killed an Egyptian man for beating a Hebrew man, and escaped once his crime was found out (Exodus 2:11). Maybe the tainted past of Moses is precisely why he was chosen. God wanted him to do some unsavory things. He needed to know he was capable of it.

And he even broke the Ten Commandments—literally. Broke the tablets. When he returned from the mountain, with those big, huge, heavy tablets in hand, and saw the big party going on, he threw them down and broke them in anger (Exodus 32:19). Now, if you had words written “by the finger of God” in your hands, would you thoughtlessly throw them down and break them? Just a postscript. In the famous Rembrandt painting, Moses is depicted holding these two stone tablets over his head, as if they were made of Styrofoam. This would of course be true for Charlton Heston in the movie version, but obviously wouldn’t be true at the alleged event. I just find things like that comical.

Oh, and the story of the tablet? Also previously found in Babylonian myth of Hammurabi. A child is born in secret, the child had to be sent away because of events going on, the child was placed in a basket of bulrushes, sealed with tar and sent adrift on a river, and then the child was discovered by someone who became a foster parent. Just like many of the stories in the bible, this one is no different. There can be found striking parallels to other ancient stories. The birth of Moses is merely one.

Later, Moses gets married and becomes a shepherd, and then sees the burning bush, and it’s God, who introduces Himself and tells him He wants Moses to free his people (The Hebrews) from the oppression of Egypt, and guide them all to the Land of Canaan, where there is milk and honey and all that jazz. But first, he has to take the magical powers God will give him and show the Egyptians, so they’ll let him go, and God also demonstrates a few magic tricks, then gives Moses permission to plunder the Egyptians before he begins the journey.

Moses is still a little hesitant, because he doesn’t communicate well, and has a speech impediment, and God assures him he will be able to do it properly because He will help. Moses is still unsure and this makes God mad, so he says he will allow his brother Aaron, who is well-spoken to relay God’s message, and so Moses can tell Aaron, and then Aaron can do the talking. And what does Moses finally have to say, at the behest of God Almighty? "Israel is my son, My first-born[1] and...Let my son go so that he may serve me, but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your first born.” So, more killing, sanctified by God.

God then decided to kill Moses, but no one seems to know why, and changed his mind, when the mother of that first-born, cut the end of her baby’s penis off[2] and threw it at Moses.

When Moses confronts the Pharaoh, his parlor tricks weren’t all that impressive, because it seems the Pharaoh’s magicians could do the same things. So what was so special about God giving Moses the same abilities?

Then, Moses turns the river to blood, and the magicians could do that too, so the Pharaoh still didn’t listen. The Nile was polluted and undrinkable, yet the Egyptians lived for 7 days, and maybe longer, who knows, with no water. Egypt, kids, is in Africa. It was hot. Wonder how everyone survived?

Then came the plague of frogs, which the magician’s were also able to replicate.

Then the plague of gnats, and the magicians couldn’t seem to replicate that trick, and thus announced it “the finger of God” finally.[3] The same type of thing happened repeatedly with different plague-forms afterward; from dying cattle, to boils, to hail, to locusts.[4] But notice that with the plague of boils, the repeated phrase, “But the heart of the Pharaoh was hardened” or “but Pharaoh hardened his heart” then became “And the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”

Now, if God was trying to convince the Pharaoh to listen to Him, through Moses, then why in the world would He harden Pharaoh’s heart? God was playing his own Devil’s Advocate. Makes no sense.

Then when the Hail Plague was on its way, the bible states that those who did not heed the warning would die. If God wasn’t yelling this from the heavens, how did everyone know about it? Again, a flaw in the plot written by God.

After the hail, the Pharaoh finally got the picture and admitted he had sinned against God. Then changed his mind when the hail ceased. Was God toying with him again?

Next, God sent the plague of locusts (because the gnats weren’t insecty enough, I suppose).

Then finally we see that God was indeed doing all this so he could make fools of the Egyptians and word would travel about how God doesn’t screw around. But why would an omnipotent being need to go through this song and dance when he could have just smote the Pharaoh and left a burning, handwritten message on the floor next to him?

Then the Pharaoh repented again, but God flipped the hard-heart switch and he reneged once more. Then the same thing happened with three days of darkness over the land, and finally, Pharaoh was so flustered by being bandied about by the manipulations of God, that he told Moses to go and take his livestock and his people, and if he ever saw his face again, Moses would die, and Moses said something like “you’re right, I won’t see your face again!” These men were just marionettes for the Almighty.

Then for good measure, God sent one more plague.[5] And it was a doozy. He decided to kill all the first born sons of every family in Egypt, (to include the first born of the animal kingdom present there). Seems God was just as fond of killing first-born sons, as Pharaohs. In this case, when God saw enough blood running in the streets, he would protect the Hebrews from the massacre He Himself rendered. And this, my friends, is known as Passover. The lovely festival celebrated by Jews. A holiday rendered in the blood of innocents. Amen, and praise His name.

This was by no means the whole story of Moses, but with these points in mind, it’s hard to view the Pentateuch[6] as anything other than another myth, unless you instead choose to worship a god of this ilk. And yet, Christians base their beliefs on information of this sort.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] That would make Jesus the Second-born?
[2] AKA, circumcision.
[3] Though why it wasn’t the “hand of God” I cannot surmise; perhaps because gnats are small, they assumed it must only take a God-Finger.
[4] Didn’t he already do the insect thing?
[5] He must have been having too much fun and couldn’t help Himself.
[6] The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also called the Torah. In Greek, the word Pentateuch means “five volumes.”

The Stuttering Murderer Who Was God's Bitch

Father Furniss & Jesus Camp

Excerpt from Supernatural Hypocrisy: 

The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology 

by Kelli Jae Baeli

Available February, 2011

Father Likes the Furniss

"We are the pure and chosen few

and all the rest are damned.

There's room enough in Hell for you—

we don't want Heaven crammed."

~from an old saying of smug Jehovah's Witnesses

A popular booklet for children in the late 19th century was authored by Father John Furniss, an English priest who wrote "books for children." But his material will never share the same shelf as The Velveteen Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, or Winnie the Poo. That’s because Furniss delighted in describing the horrors of Hell. And not as fiction, but as a scare tactic to indoctrinate youngsters into the Christian fold:

...his eyes were like two burning coals. Two long flames came our of his ears...sometimes he opens his mouth, and breath of blazing fire rolls out. But listen! There is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle boiling? No. Then what is it? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalding veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones. Ask him why he is thus tormented. his answer is that when he was alive, his blood boiled to do very wicked things.[1]

and,

A little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out! See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire! It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. You can see on the face of this little child what you see on the faces of all in Hell—despair, desperate and horrible.[2] 

Father Furniss was paradoxically dubbed the "Children's Apostle." Some kind of horrible irony.

To illustrate the collusion present in hideous garbage such as this, one only has to glance at the top of this booklet, where there is the following statement:

Approbation: I have carefully read over this Little Volume for Children and have found nothing whatever in it contrary to the doctrines of Holy Faith; but, on the contrary, a great deal to charm, instruct, and edify our youthful classes, for whose benefit it has been written. (William Meagher, Vicar General, Dublin, December 14, 1855). 

Charm? There is nothing charming about this publication, unless you’ve taken leave of your senses; and to deem it so is a blatant lie, and an insult to every compassionate person on Earth.

     This publication is the most horrid, manipulative, fear-mongering collection of words I’ve ever seen. And it’s all designed to frighten children into honoring the church. Any child, I imagine, who read this abhorrent sewage was vexed with nightmares and hopelessly trapped in foreboding. It is nothing less than psychological child abuse, the likes of which few social workers have ever seen in this age or any other. The damage it offers to inflict is criminal, and I can only hope its author experienced at least a portion of the torment he describes.

     Hopefully, this information requires no further comment from me.

Jesus-Camp

"I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of  

Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam…

I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the Gospel,

as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine."

~Pastor Becky Fisher

Another example if insidious indoctrination?

Jesus Camp.

     In 2006, documentary filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing recorded the goings-on at a Pentecostal summer camp, wherein children could practice their "prophetic gifts" and were taught how to "take back America for Christ." The documentary, Jesus Camp, was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. The damage was done, however. Jesus Camp shut down in response to the negative outcry against them from all types of Americans, including Christians. The charge—rightly so—was that Jesus Camp was nothing less than a camp to train juvenile Christian jihadists.

     Pastor Becky Fischer ran the camp. She called on American Christians to become more radicalized. "Pastor Fischer equates the preparation she is giving children with the training of terrorists in the Middle East," an article in The Guardian states. "I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam," she tells the camera. "I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the Gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine."[3] 

     David Byrne described the camp as "the Christian version of the Madrasas[4]...both sides are pretty much equally sick."[5]  These children are told, via common methods of brainwashing, that they will be part of "An Army of God." The film shows many scenes of emotional breakdowns wherein the children cry and pray over issues like abortion, war, and the unacceptable number of unsaved souls.

     The "Kids On Fire School of Ministry" near Devils Lake, North Dakota, is also run by Becky Fischer and her Kids in Ministry International. The film focuses on three of the children at the camp, all three self-described "devout Christians." Many of the kids at the camp are home-schooled; their curriculum includes "Creationism Science," the belief that global warming is a hoax, and that a theocracy should be ushered in as soon as she succeeds in ushering democracy out. In "training" sessions with these Jesus Camp children, all manner of cultish mechanisms are employed, to include the old Christian chestnuts, guilt and fear. Children are reduced to sobbing lumps and only saved by accepting the tenets of Fischer's theocratic fascism. Her tactics are nothing less than psychological, emotional and verbal abuse of children. She should be brought up on charges.

     As an aside, did Fischer forget the verse in her own Bible that says "A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet"? Is this why she tries to corrupt the children instead?

     On the Message in a Matrix blog, the blogger, Terry, elaborates:

Fischer, of course, believes that the Earth is decadent and that it doesn't matter if we abuse it or use up its resources because the Rapture is coming when Christ will rescue us all. The planet isn't forever (in a sense) in her eyes! She continues: "Muslims train their children…so must we!" When the children are on their feet (she uses the 'crescendo' method like Hitler) she gets the children to chant: "God, I'm here to be trained. I'll do what you want me to do. I'll give my blood for Jesus."

The hysteria begins, and seeing this, Fischer instructs: "Let's pray in tongues" as she bursts into a chorus of Hebrew. The children join in and many begin to cry, apparently overwhelmed by the 'power of the Lord'. The room is eventually filled with screaming, crying and gesticulating wave of hysterical children eagerly joined by their parents.

Fischer later brags about how she can lead children to the 'Lord' in minutes and how they train converted kids to influence their friends. There's repeated use of the verb (an action) 'to train'.

Fischer makes all the "phonies"—those who pretend to be normal, or behave as themselves, at school—stand at the front. This is a 'name and shame' tactic that causes the kids to cry with guilt. The supervisors monitor the crowd looking for those who are not getting fully involved in the brainwashing. You can see the utter confusion and anxiety in the children's' faces. This anxiety is a recurring feature: it's as though the false version of the world preached (forced?) into their heads clashes with the reality that they occupy, and so, they are constantly battling internally with their own identities and their own world view. Is this not the beginnings of psychosis?[6] 

Another blogger chimes in on this subject: 

Satan is everywhere according to Pastor Becky at Jesus Camp, but most of all he is in Harry Potter books.

"If Harry Potter had been in the Old Testament, he would have been put to death," rants Becky, conveniently forgetting that Moses hit a rock with his shaft (oops, pardon,) and water gushed out, Ezekiel "connected dem dry bones" and Jesus was into tricks with water and wine, bread and sardines and raising revitalizing stiffs. just think, if he had confused himself and turned the water into sardines history might have taken a different course.

Had Harry Potter been in The Old Testament he would have been put to death before he ever got his wand out to impress The Daughters of Israel. He is a gentile, a non Jew and the Jews were on a mission to prove they were God's chosen people by killing everybody who wasn't a Jew. Nothing much changes in Israel.[7]

In the Jesus Camp documentary, one of the children, Rachael, calls non-evangelical churches "dead churches" and says that her particular establishment is a church "God likes to go to." Wonder where she got that? If there is a more blatant example of a brainwashing, anthropomorphizing, religious elitism cult, I'd like to hear it.

     The documentary also shows one of the children in the film attending New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to hear a pastor they admire. The pastor's name was Ted Haggard. You might recall him as the pastor who was caught up in a scandal involving soliciting a male prostitute and purchasing methamphetamines in 2006, only a few months after the release of Jesus Camp. Haggard was jettisoned to special counseling with four of his minister-friends, and they later pronounced him cured of his homosexuality. Once again, this misses the point repeatedly. Somehow Christians always manage to blame anything immoral or unethical on their version of dark outside forces such as homosexuality, lack of faith, the Devil, or other various and sundry religious scapegoats.

     Regarding Jesus Camp, David Edelstein of New York Magazine said,

There is far more demagoguery on display in Jesus Camp, a frightening, infuriating, yet profoundly compassionate documentary about the indoctrination of children by the Evangelical right. The directors, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, bring the same rapt attention to the faces of little Christian campers that they brought to the subjects of their wrenching The Boys of Baraka. Except that these impressionable children are "saved" by being bombarded with the rhetoric of holy war and commanded to blow up that wall between church and state. Although the film tracks several kids—among them the adorable, snub-nosed Rachael and the dapper budding evangelist Levi—its dark heart is preacher Becky Fischer, who tells children that in the Old Testament a warlock like Harry Potter "would have been put to death." Oh, sure, she believes in democracy, she says to Air America host Mike Papantonio, but "we can't give everyone equal freedom because that's going to destroy us." Jesus Camp makes the best case imaginable for atheism.[8] 

Papantonio also asks the burning question: "Why does a 5-year-old feel like it is necessary to cry about their spirituality?"[9]

     The answer is, that five year old was brainwashed by an adult with an agenda.

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[1] John Furniss. “XXVII. The Fourth Dungeon: The Boiling Kettle.”  The Sight of Hell (PDF). http://www.saintsworks.net/books/Fr.%20John% 20Furniss%20-%20The%20Sight%20of%20Hell.pdf.

[2] John Furniss. “XXVIII. The Fifth Dungeon: The Red Hot Oven.” The Sight of Hell (PDF). http://www.saintsworks.net/books/Fr.%20John% 20Furniss%20-%20The%20Sight%20of%20Hell.pdf.

[3] Dan Glaister. "They Cry, Pray To Bush And Wash Out The Devil—Welcome To Jesus Camp." The Guardian, 29 September 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/sep/29/usa.danglaister.

[4] Madrasa - A building or group of buildings used for teaching Islamic theology and religious law, typically including a mosque.

[5] David Byrne. "American Madrassas." David Byrne's Journal. 2 August 2006. http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2006/08/american_madras.html.

[6] Terry. "Jesus Camp—the Western Nightmare." Message in a Matrix. 10 March 2007.

[7] Ian R Thorpe. "Satan in the Spreadsheets: Fundamentalist Christianity Just Gets Crazier." 7 May 2008. http://www.authorsden.com/visit/ viewArticle.asp?id=39214.

[8] David Edelstein. “Wake up Fall.” The Movie Review, New York Magazine, 25 September 2006. http://nymag.com/movies/reviews/21366/ index1.html.

[9] ABC News. “Jesus Camp Pastor Says She Does Not Manipulate Children.” 28 September 2006. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/ story?id= 2501819&page=3.

(c) Kelli Jae Baeli

Father Furniss & Jesus Camp

PROOF: Shroud of Turin Face is NOT Jesus

This is one example of why I love science so much!

The image on the shroud has the same proportions as Da Vinci's face, a study found

By
Martin Evan
Wednesday July 1, 2009

AN image that has intrigued the Christian world for hundreds of years is a fake, it has been revealed.

A study claims to have unearthed evidence proving that the image on the Turin Shroud is not that of Jesus but is in fact Leonardo da Vinci – the Renaissance painter and scientist long suspected of ­faking the hallowed relic.

Experts believe the image was transferred to the cloth using early photographic techniques, the details of which have come to light thanks to computer technology.

The discovery was made by Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York, famous for her theory that the Mona Lisa was also based on a self- portrait of Da Vinci.

Ms Schwartz used sophisticated computer scans to reveal that the faces of the Mona Lisa and the Turin Shroud bear exactly the same dimensions as Da Vinci’s head.
Experts have described the breakthrough as the most exciting discovery in the shroud’s mysterious history. Da Vinci has long been suspected of faking what is believed to be Christ’s burial cloth and historians believe he would have had the necessary skills to pull it off.

According to the research, which will be revealed in a ­documentary on channel Five tonight, Da Vinci created the image using a primitive photographic technique known as camera obscura. He hung the fabric over a wooden frame in a blacked-out room before coating it in a light-sensitive substance.

Then he used a sculpture of his own head and face to project an image onto the linen.

The permanent print was scorched on the cloth when the sun’s ultra-violet rays passed through a crystal lens set in one of the walls.

Ms Schwartz came to prominence in the 1980s with her experiments to measure the Mona Lisa and compare it with a self portrait of Da Vinci.To her amazement, the faces lined up perfectly, leading to the conclusion that the famous painting must have been based on his own image. When she was asked earlier this year to compare another Da Vinci self-portrait to the face on the Turin Shroud, she was stunned to discover the proportions of the key facial features were again identical.

She said: “It matched. There is no doubt in my mind that the proportions that Leonardo wrote about were used in creating this shroud’s face.” The program claims Da Vinci was not only a heretic with no qualms about faking Christ’s burial cloth but was the only person in that era with the knowledge to produce it.

He was also a pioneer in the field of primitive optical technology, with his notebooks containing one of the earliest drawings and descriptions of a camera obscura.

The theory is that Da Vinci’s forgery was commissioned to replace an earlier version that was exposed as a poor fake, which had been bought by the powerful Savoy family in 1453 only to disappear for 50 years.
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from http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/111039/Leonardo-da-Vinci-is-face-on-Turin-Shroud-

PROOF: Shroud of Turin Face is NOT Jesus

Just once...

Just once, I'd like to knock on the door of a Mormon household, clutching my copy of The God Delusion, and say, "Have you rejected Jesus as your Lord & Savior?"

Just once...

A Sign of the Times

I've had repeated problems with who i call Door Christians. I resorted to putting a sign on my door to fend them off.
But my previous sign was not enough to deter these religious zealots who knock and want to share their myths with me.

Since I often sleep during the day, this is usually cause for great irritation.

I had to go to a sign that was more caustic.

{it's really harsh, but it still makes me laugh}.

A Sign of the Times