Showing posts with label Moral Compass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moral Compass. Show all posts

Saturday, 4 October 2025

A Female Archbishop of Canterbury - As The Christian Church Struggles to Catch Up With Evolving Morality

Dame Sarah Mullally - Confirmed as next Archbishop of Canterbury

Sarah Mullally named as new Archbishop of Canterbury - BBC News

The news that Dame Sarah Mullally has been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury – spiritual head of the Anglican/Episcopalian Communion – marks a landmark moment, signalling just how far Western Christendom has moved from the brutal, tribal misogyny of the Bible. It underlines a central truth: religions do not provide society’s moral framework. Rather, morality evolves as societies progress, and religions are dragged along, sometimes kicking and screaming. The alternative, as history shows, is increasing irrelevance and rejection – a trajectory the Christian churches have been on since at least the mid-20th century.

In this blog-post, I’ll trace the historical shifts that culminated in the abandonment of what was once considered a cornerstone of Christendom: male domination and female subservience. For centuries, the priesthood was the exclusive preserve of men, while women were consigned to serving men, bearing children, and running households – denied political and economic power, which was also reserved exclusively for men.

The Foundational Misogyny - the Bible Commands it.

This appointment is all the more striking when set against the backdrop of Christianity’s long history of misogyny, rooted firmly in the texts that its adherents call sacred. From the earliest books of the Hebrew Bible to the letters of Paul in the New Testament, women are depicted as subordinate to men, defined largely by their roles as wives, mothers, or temptresses. The Bible reflects the values of the patriarchal tribal societies from which it emerged: women were property, often bought and sold, and their value was bound up in fertility and obedience.

The Bible even incorporates an attempted justification for this misogyny and strictly 'ordained' roles with the myth of Adam and Eve, with Eve's 'sin' justifying hers and her female descendants' role as the obedient servant of men (Genesis 3:16). Eve herself was supposedly created as 'an helpmeet' for Adam when none of the animals God created proved suitable (Genesis 2: 20-23).

Far from being accidental, this patriarchal framework was codified into doctrine. The Church Fathers and later ecclesiastical authorities reinforced and extended these norms, presenting them not as cultural artefacts of an ancient Near Eastern society but as divine commandments. Through the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the Church institutionalised this male dominance: the pulpit, the altar, and every position of authority were reserved exclusively for men, while women were consigned to silence and obedience.

In short, what today’s Anglicans celebrate as progress would have been regarded by their predecessors as a dangerous heresy – a betrayal of “God’s order” that they believed was revealed in Scripture itself.

The Beginnings of Tension as Society Moves On and Religion Digs In

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

1 Corinthians 13: 33-34

While the Church clung to its patriarchal order, the wider world was changing. From the Enlightenment onwards, secular society began to question inherited hierarchies and champion ideals of liberty, equality, and human rights - ideas which, along with democracy and accountability of government to the people, are conspicuous by their absence in the Bible. The 19th and 20th centuries saw women gain access to education, property rights, and, eventually, the vote. Women entered the workforce in ever greater numbers, proved themselves in politics, science, and the arts, and demonstrated beyond question their ability to lead and to think independently.

But rather than welcoming these changes, the churches often resisted them. Theological arguments were marshalled to justify the exclusion of women from authority, with biblical passages cited as though they were immutable law. As late as the 20th century, mainstream denominations still argued that women were unsuited to the priesthood, that leadership was divinely ordained for men, and that women’s “natural role” was in the home.

Even when the wider culture embraced women’s rights, churches dragged their feet. The ordination of women priests in Anglicanism came only after long and bitter struggles, with many within the Communion still objecting to this “innovation.” And the idea of women bishops – let alone a female Archbishop of Canterbury – was dismissed as unthinkable not long ago.

...the majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy. [Dame Sarah's support for the blessing of same-sex couples, promotes] unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality.

Most Reverend Dr Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of Rwanda
Chairman of Gafcon's leadership council.
This tension illustrates the larger pattern: religion does not set the pace of moral progress but resists it, adopting change only when the alternative is to risk irrelevance. Religions function as a break on moral development.

Religion as Follower, Not Leader.

The slow acceptance of women in positions of church authority is not an isolated case but part of a broader pattern. Time and again, when societies have evolved morally, religion has followed reluctantly, often only when it could no longer credibly resist.

One clear example is slavery. For centuries, Christian churches not only condoned but actively profited from slavery. The Catholic Church sanctioned the enslavement of non-Christians through papal decrees such as Dum Diversas (1452) and Romanus Pontifex (1455)[1], while the Church of England owned slave plantations in the Caribbean through its missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, branding its enslaved workers with the word “Society” [2].

...Jesus Christ recognized this institution [slavery] as one that was lawful among men, and regulated its relative duties... I affirm then, first (and no man denies) that Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command; and second, I affirm, he has introduced no new moral principle which can work its destruction...

Rev. Thomas Stringfellow, (1855) Baptist minister
Culpepper County, VA, USA.
In America, Protestant denominations divided over slavery, with Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists defending it as divinely ordained. Preachers such as Thornton Stringfellow and James Henley Thornwell published tracts asserting that Scripture sanctioned slavery [3]. Slave-owners and their clerical allies proclaimed that slavery was sanctioned by God, woven into the divine order. Yet when society at large began to turn against slavery, recognising its inherent brutality and injustice, churches slowly shifted their stance. Today, no mainstream denomination defends slavery, and many even try to portray abolition as a Christian achievement – despite the historical reality that the loudest opposition came first from secular reformers and only belatedly from church leaders.

The Church’s official position matches the clear teaching of scripture by saying that sex belongs within one man, one woman marriage. Nevertheless, bishops and clergy have been allowed to sow endless doubt about what Christians throughout history and around the world have recognised is God’s pattern for sexuality.

Christian Concern (2022)
A more recent example is LGBTQ+ rights. Only a generation ago, many denominations vehemently opposed any recognition of gay and lesbian people as equal citizens. Homosexuality was routinely denounced from pulpits as sinful, deviant, or even demonic. But as society became more accepting, churches have been forced to soften their rhetoric, reinterpret their scriptures, or face growing irrelevance among younger generations. The debates now raging within the Anglican Communion over same-sex marriage echo almost exactly the debates that once surrounded the ordination of women.

These cases make the point starkly: religion does not set the moral direction of society; it trails behind it. Whenever churches are credited with progress, it is usually because they have belatedly adopted values that society had already embraced.

The Significance of a Female Archbishop.

The appointment of Dame Sarah Mullally to the role of Archbishop of Canterbury is undeniably historic, yet its deeper meaning lies less in what it changes and more in what it confirms. It does not represent a sudden leap forward by a bold and progressive church; rather, it is the latest step in a long, reluctant journey towards aligning Christian institutions with the moral expectations of the society they serve.

The symbolism is powerful: the office once occupied exclusively by men for nearly five centuries of Anglican history is now open to a woman. It signals that, at least in the West, the Anglican Church has finally accepted what most of society accepted long ago — that leadership ability is not determined by gender. But this change comes decades after women became heads of government, judges, scientists, business leaders, and university chancellors. In that light, the Church’s decision looks less like moral vision and more like institutional survival.

Nor is this acceptance universal. Across much of the Anglican Communion, particularly in its more conservative provinces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, women are still barred from senior leadership or even from ordination. These branches of the Church continue to argue that scripture forbids women from holding authority over men — an argument that mirrors the one once used to justify slavery and, later, segregation.

So, while the headlines hail this appointment as a triumph of progress, it might better be seen as an admission that the Church can no longer afford to cling to ideas that the wider world has already rejected. The step is historic, yes — but also overdue.

A Mirror, Not a Moral Compass.

The appointment of a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury is a milestone that reveals, not divine inspiration or timeless moral leadership, but the adaptive instincts of an institution struggling to stay relevant in an age that has outgrown its ancient prejudices. Far from leading moral progress, Christianity has repeatedly shown itself to be reactive — changing only when resistance becomes untenable, or, in this case, when church attendance has fallen to the point where the survival of the church itself is in doubt; when baptisms and church weddings are both at new low points and the biggest problem facing many parishes is now what to do with all the redundant churches.

Religions survive by reflecting the societies in which they exist. As the moral consensus of those societies evolves, doctrines once held sacred are quietly reinterpreted, downplayed, or abandoned. The Church that once defended slavery, opposed democracy, condemned contraception, and excluded women now presents itself as a champion of equality and compassion. The moral direction did not come from revelation but from human reason, empathy, and social progress, what was once accepted as normal is now seen as repugnant.

This latest development therefore stands as a testament not to the moral leadership of religion but to the capacity of human societies to evolve beyond it. Every concession, every reform, every “first” within the Church follows a pattern: first denial, then resistance, and finally reluctant acceptance when the old position becomes morally indefensible.

In that sense, the first female Archbishop of Canterbury is both a symbol of progress and a reminder of how slow religious institutions are to embrace it. She embodies not a triumph of theology but a victory for secular morality — a morality forged by people, not imposed by gods.

Conclusion

Religions are not the architects of morality but its reluctant beneficiaries. As societies evolve, their moral and ethical frameworks adapt to new realities — driven by reason, empathy, and lived human experience. Religions, bound to ancient texts and traditions, must then reinterpret themselves to survive in this new moral landscape. Those that fail to evolve become fossils of a bygone age, preserved only as reminders of the prejudices humanity has outgrown. Christianity’s slow acceptance of women’s equality is one more example of this evolutionary process: the faith adapting to a changing moral environment in order to avoid extinction. Like any organism in nature, a religion that cannot adapt to its surroundings will not endure — and the churches, however unwillingly, know this.

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.

Arthur C. Clarke, interview with New Scientist, 10 February 1990.


We do not need God to be good or to have good morals. Morality predates religion.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006).


The moral sense is not a gift from religion. It is a product of evolution.

Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011).


You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the coloured races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organised churches of the world.

Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927).

Thursday, 13 March 2025

US Christianity In Decline - But Not Because Of Evangelical Support For Trump And The Far Right


For Sale: Hundreds of Abandoned Churches. Great Prices. Need Work.

The Northeast is the only region for Southern Baptist growth, analysis shows

Despite the impression that their numbers are growing in line with the volume of the preaching and naked political opportunism, the Evangelical Christian churches in the USA, as represented by the Southern Baptist Convention, has actually seen a near-catastrophic decline in membership over the past 5 years, according to a report by Lifeway Research.

Lifeway Research is an evangelical research firm that is part of Lifeway Christian Resources, an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention that conducts the Annual Church Profile in cooperation with local associations and state conventions affiliated with the SBC.

The SBC annual report is often used to indicate the statistical state of the national denomination, which decreased to 12.9 million members according to the most recent profile in May 2024, marking the lowest numbers since the late 1970s for a denomination that reached its peak at 16.3 million in 2006.

And a deeper dive into the data paints an even bleaker picture for those who make their living from preaching and tithing and generally begging for money from their captive congregations.

The only parts of the USA to have seen a growth in numbers are the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont which saw a 10% increase between 2018 and 2023.

However, Lifeway Research point out that there are only 30 SBC churches in New England, so this figure could be a statistical anomaly. For instance, an additional three members in a population of 10 is a 30% increase, which is statistically insignificant in a nationwide decline of 3.4 million. All the other states saw a decline of between 8% and 18%, but the 8% decline in the South West was only held up by the high population growth in Texas compared to the rest if the country.

According to this report in the New York Times, more abandoned churches are coming onto the market for conversion to homes, just as they have in the UK.

However, in the UK where there are strict conservation laws, a problem now facing the moribund Anglican Church is that many of its disused churches are in urban settings where they are listed buildings, and there is a general prohibition on building on graveyards, so, in addition to the decline in members, the Anglican Church, and the churches in Scotland and Wales all have the problem of having to maintain disused grade I and II listed buildings.

Thursday, 8 August 2024

Refuting Creationism - Moral Values Are The Cyclical Product of Human Biology, Not God-Given Objectivity


Christians displaying Medieval 'objective morals'.
People’s moral values change with the seasons

Although religions claim ownership of human morality and demand the 'God-given' right to dictate right and wrong to the rest of us, there is no evidence at all that being religious make a person more moral than others.

The children's story-teller and self-proclaimed Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, once claimed to have found proof of the Christian god in the 'fact' then he could tell right from wrong. He reasoned that because he had no objective way of doing so, he must have been given his morals by a god - who of course was assumed to be the one he was promoting. Sadly, he had failed to establish a priori, that any such god exists, so his argument was never more than the intellectually dishonest circular reasoning and the false dichotomy fallacy, coupled with the arrogant assumption that he had the 'right' morals, so demonstrating the exact opposite of what he claimed as his 'proof'.

'Objectively moral' American far-right Christian Nationalists during the Jan. 6, 2021, failed violent coup d'etat
In fact, the evidence is that antisocial, far-right extremists are much more likely to be hiding behind religion, merely using it as an excuse for hate and violence. The same can be said for the Christian priests, prelates and nuns who routinely used their supposed high moral status to gain trusted access children and vulnerable adults and to cover up and facilitate the sexual abuses of others around them. Meanwhile the pro-social center-left are more likely to be Atheist/Agnostic and are demonstrating a much higher regard for others.

And now, new research involving long-term study of a cohort of 230,000 Americans has shown that moral values are, at least in part, influence by seasonal changes - people are more likely to enforce moral values that improve social cohesion in spring and autumn, than in summer and winter. A similar pattern was found in smaller studies in Australia and Canada.

The research, by Ian Hohm and Professor Mark Schaller of the Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada and assistant professor of psychology, Brian A. O’Shea of the School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, is the subject of a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Firstly, as a fascinating background to the subject of moral values and how they originate and impact on society, here is a dialogue with AI ChatGPT 4.0:

Monday, 22 July 2024

Creationism in Crisis - Decline in Creationism in USA is Accelerating While Acceptance of Evolution Increases


Majority Still Credits God for Humankind, but Not Creationism Evidence of the continuing decline in creationism, which coincides with increased access to the Internet and exposure to creationist fundamentalists, was published by Gallop today.

The percentage of American adults who believe in creationism has fallen to a new low of just 37% (a figure which would be astonishingly high for most of the developed world where creationists languish in the lower few percentiles) while those who believe God played no part in the evolution of humans from less advanced life forms has risen to a new high of 24%.

The equivalent figures for 1999 were 47% and 9% respectively, and the signs are that these changes are accelerating.

Although correlation is not proof of causation, it is evidence of correlation and there is a strong correlation between access to the Internet (and so exposure of creationism to critical analysis, and exposure of the hypocrisy and inherent intellectual dishonesty of most creationists). This exposure has revealed that many creationists are using it as an excuse to pose as the superior of other people.

The arrogant assumption that the Universe was created with them in mind and that they have a special relationship with the creator of everything, so this provides an excuse to pose as more expert than the experts, without the bother of learning.

Wednesday, 24 April 2024

Catholic Sex Abuse - Spain To Compensate Victims of Predatory Catholic Priests


Cardinal Juan Jose Omella
President of the Spanish Conference of Bishops
Spain approves plan to compensate victims of Catholic Church sex abuse. Church will be asked to pay | AP News

After years of ignoring the issue and long after many other European countries had launched enquiries into the systematic sexual abuse of minors by Spain's Catholic clergy and its cover-up and facilitation by senior figures in the Catholic Church, in 2022, the Spanish government finally caved in and commissioned an enquiry by ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo.

The government was forced to act by public outrage following allegations in the newspaper, El País, that more than 1,200 people had been sexually abused by Catholic priests.

A Madrid-based law firm is conducting a parallel inquiry ordered by the Spanish Episcopal Conference, which for years rejected the idea of taking a comprehensive approach to investigating sex abuse.

That commission has now concluded that some 440,000 individuals were sexually abused by people linked to the church, half of whom were clergy. It has recommended that the victims be compensated, and that this compensation should be financed by the Catholic Church.

However, Spain’s Bishops Conference has rejected the plan on the disingenuous grounds that it doesn't compensate victims 'outside the church circle'. In other words, because it doesn't compensate people who were abused by people not connected with the church.

This is the same Bishop's Conference that resisted the idea of an enquiry and refused to launch its own, unlike Churches in many other countries. Now they have suddenly discovered a concern for all victims of sexual abuse, not just their own clergy's victims.

Tuesday, 13 February 2024

Atheism - Eight Things You Probably Didn't Know


8 facts about atheists | Pew Research Center

Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of any god or gods, nothing more and nothing less. This position is based on the self-evidence fac that the only intellectually honest basis for belief is evidence and the equally self-evidence fact that there is not (and cannot be) any definitive evidence for the existence of anything supernatural because, by definition, nothing supernatural can be detected. All there is, is the material universe and anything beyond that has nowhere and no time to exist in and could not interact with or influence events in the material universe, so is indistinguishable from nothing. Belief in anything supernatural is thus a superstition for which there is no supporting evidence.

Atheism is a belief position, not a knowledge claim. Since again the only intellectually honest position is that all knowledge has a degree of uncertainty, atheism is not Agnosticism since Agnosticism allows for the possibility of Atheism being wrong, but any assessment of the probability of the existence of any god must be subjective since there can be no observations to base it on. So, an Agnostic cannot express that probability without it becoming a belief position. As it is, Agnosticism is a pedantic knowledge claim which has no measurable probability of being different to Atheism, in the accuracy of its claim.

Recently, the Pew Research Center published 8 facts about Atheism based on its opinion polling in the USA and elsewhere. Most of them refer to Atheism in the USA, where Atheists make up 4% of U.S. adults, according to their 2023 National Public Opinion Reference Survey. That compares with 3% who described themselves as atheists in 2014 and 2% who did so in 2007.

That figure of 4% for the USA lags someway behind the UK (12%), Netherlands (17%), Sweden (18%), France (23%) and even once staunchly Catholic countries of Spain (10%) and the Republic of Ireland where 14.2% gave Atheist/No religion, as their religion, (if any) in the 1922 census (an increase of 187% since 2011). However, with a great deal of stigma still attached to Atheism in the USA and pressure to conform with regular church attendance, the true figure for Atheism is probably very underestimated and hidden within the large and growing 'Nones, which currently stands at 28% in the USA.

Pew Research Center's eight fact about Atheism are:

Sunday, 23 July 2023

Lesson from France - The Bloody Extermination of the Cathars at Béziers - "Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His!"


Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His!

Abbot Arnaud Amalric of Citeaux
Papal legate in charge of the Cathar genocide.
Citing 2 Timothy 2:19
Burning the Cathars at Béziers
Another reminder of the brutal, blood-soaked history of Christianity is to be found in the history of the French town of Béziers on the banks of the River Orb, in the Languedoc region, southeast of Montpellier, on the edge of the Camargue.

It has been, in turn, along with much of the area south of Toulouse, under the control of Greeks, Romans, Visigoths, Moorish Moslems from Andalucia, Catholic Spain and latterly, Catholic France. Until recent times, the local language was a dialect of French, Occitan, which has close links with Catalan. This gave it a sense of a separate identity from that of France - something that concerned King Philip II, keen to exert the same control over the southern provinces as he had over the North.

Béziers is now a peaceful, quite little market town and cultural centre but it was not always so. It was, until 1209, a stronghold of the Cathars, a religious sect which rejected Roman Catholicism and the authority of the Pope, which was brutally suppressed in the 'Albigensian Crusade' on the orders of Pope Innocent III in alliance with King Philip II of France.
For more information on the Albigensian Crusade and Pope Innocent III's and King Philip II of France's reasons for launching it, see:
  1. Lesson from France - Massacre of the Cathars of Carcassonne, or How Christians Settled Theological Differences
  2. Feel That Christian Love!
  3. Brotherly Love - How Christians Settle Disputes
Fresh from their success in laying siege to and then massacring the inhabitants of the Carcassonne, the crusaders moved on to other towns in the area, including Béziers.

Wednesday, 12 July 2023

Historical Christian Abuse - New Museum to Scotland's Witch Hysteria


New museum remembers Scotland's dark era of witch hysteria

News that there is now a museum to the Scottish witch hysteria, prompted me to do a little bit of research into witchcraft and societies changed attitude toward the idea of witches casting evil spells and suspending the laws of nature with their thoughts.

Our modern-day attitude toward the whole idea of witches and witchcraft, compared to what it was when the atrocities of witch-finding and witch burning were being committed, mostly but not exclusively, by the Catholic Church at the behest of the Pope, shows how our morals are evolving and consigning religious 'morals' to the dustbin of history where they belong.

On of the main driving forces behind witch hysteria in Europe was a book, "Malleus Maleficarum" (Hammer of Witches) written by a sex-obsessed and misogynistic German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institor). This classified witchcraft as heresy and thus punishable by burning alive, and recommended torture as the best way to discover the truth. Kramer's hatred for women whom he blamed for tempting him to 'sin', could scarcely be disguised, and on that faith-based misogyny, the witch burnings were based.

Although it was rejected by the Catholic Church at the time, "Malleus Maleficarum" was later revived by insecure royal courts during the renaissance for the same reason witch hysteria has been promoted since - to unite a frightened population behind a 'war' against an internal threat. The same way America's Republicans are waging a 'culture war' against the 'evil of liberalism' today.

Protestant Christianity also did its share of the persecution and murder of (mostly) unmarried or widowed women, of course, as the Pendle witch trials in England, the Salam witch trial in the Puritanical Massachusetts Bay Colony in Colonial America and the witch trials in Presbyterian Scotland attest.

The change in attitude towards the idea of witchcraft between then and now illustrates how societies do not get their morals from religion but religions get their morals, such as they are, from society. No organized church ever spoke out against the witch trials and demanded they cease or preached that they were immoral. But the churches, inspired by the Bible (Exodus 22:18) were very much the instigators of the atrocities, as they still are in some parts of Africa, where children are regularly targeted by preachers and accused of witchcraft in order to spread fear and distrust amongst their followers to keep them dependent on the church for 'protection against evil'.

What brought about the changes was an injection of a large dose of enlightened Humanism into western culture, with its sense of fairness, justice and evidence-based decision-making in place of faith-based superstition and reactionary dogma.

Monday, 10 April 2023

Creationism in Crisis - The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback Thanks to Human Cultural Evolution

Creationism in Crisis

The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback Thanks to Human Cultural Evolution
Monk seal, Monachus monachus
Creationism in Crisis

The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback Thanks to Human Cultural Evolution
Monk seal, Monachus monachus
Creationism in Crisis

The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback Thanks to Human Cultural Evolution
Monk seal, Monachus monachus
Creationism in Crisis

The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback Thanks to Human Cultural Evolution
Monk seal, Monachus monachus
Creationism in Crisis

The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback Thanks to Human Cultural Evolution
Monk seal, Monachus monachus
Creationism in Crisis

The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback Thanks to Human Cultural Evolution
Monk seal, Monachus monachus

Monk sealMonachus monachus
The Mediterranean Monk Seal Is Making a Comeback | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

With 99% of all known species having gone extinct, creationists still like to imagine an omniscient god created them. One must assume, therefore, that they believe it created them to go extinct!

It's a strange sort of intelligence that would intelligently design something to fail, but that's the sort of double think creationists need to be capable of to be members of their anti-science cults.

But the good news is that one of these 'creations', the Mediterranean Monk seal, is making something of a comeback, having been reduced to about 800 individuals, mostly around the coast of Greece.
The Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) is one of the world's most endangered marine mammals and is the only seal species endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. The species is characterized by its monk-like hood, and its gray-brown fur with lighter colored undersides.

Here are some key facts about the Mediterranean monk seal:

Habitat: Mediterranean monk seals are found in the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Atlantic Ocean, primarily along the coastlines of Greece, Turkey, and North Africa.

Population: According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Mediterranean monk seal population is estimated to be between 500 and 700 individuals, making it one of the rarest mammals in the world.

Threats: The primary threats to Mediterranean monk seals include habitat loss, human disturbance, entanglement in fishing gear, and hunting. The species has been heavily exploited for its fur, oil, and meat, and has suffered from a decline in its prey species due to overfishing.

Conservation Efforts: The Mediterranean monk seal is protected under various national and international laws, including the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals and the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. Several conservation organizations are also working to protect the species, including the Mediterranean Monk Seal Conservation Society and the Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk Seal.

References:
ChatGPT. (10 Apr 2023). Tel me about the Mediterranean Monk seal, with references, please. [Response to a user question]. OpenAI.
The Monk seal was once abundant around the Greek coast and used to breed on the beaches but evolved a change of habit due to persecution by humans who saw it as competition for fish. It now breeds in sea caves and tends to stay in them when not in the sea.

The Greek poet, Homer, mentioned what is probably the monk seal in his Odyssey:
Homer, the ancient Greek poet, mentioned the Mediterranean monk seal in his epic poem, the Odyssey. In Book 4, lines 345-347, he describes the sea-monsters that inhabit the waters around the island of Pharos:

…and the great seal (phoke) was in attendance upon her from the bottom of the sea, even the seal that was wont to come forth last from his lair to bask upon the shore.


In this passage, the Greek word "phoke" is used to refer to the seal, which is believed to be the Mediterranean monk seal. It is interesting to note that the word "phoke" is also the origin of the English word "phocid," which refers to the family of true seals that includes the Mediterranean monk seal. It is worth noting that the Odyssey was written in the 8th century BCE, long before the Mediterranean monk seal became endangered. At the time, the species was likely abundant and well-known to the ancient Greeks.
It is a sign of cultural evolution that humans are now more inclined to protect endangered species than to persecute them, consequently, the monk seal population has rebounded, and they are now present in Croatia and Albania from where they had disappeared. When a female monk seal, nicknamed Argyro, who became so familiar with humans on the island of Samos that she would lounge in beach chairs and hang out in a cafe, was shot, it caused an outrage throughout Greece. In earlier times, Greek fishermen would boast that they had killed a monk seal as this was considered a good thing to do.

This cultural evolution in humans, where the primitive notion that a god had given all the animals on Earth to humankind to use or abuse as they wished, to one where we realise we all share this one planet and depend on maximising biodiversity if we are all to survive, has allowed the monk seal to reverse its cultural evolution and once again start to come out of the sea caves and appear in numbers on beaches. This is another example of how Humanism is replacing the old, harmful religious superstitions as human ethical evolution rids itself of the regressive influence of religion.

Long may this Humanist trend continue.

Thank you for sharing!






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Tuesday, 14 March 2023

Hypocrisy News - How Piety is Used to Self-Licence Exemptions For Religious Sex Workers and Their Clients

Hypocrisy News

How Piety is Used to Self-Licence Exemptions For Religious Sex Workers and Their Clients

Uncovering the secret religious and spiritual lives of sex workers

The psychological phenomenon of self-licencing or awarding themselves exemptions from the standards they demand others live by, is a characteristic of the pious, and often the reason for the public display of it.

It's as though the pious see their piety as building up credit they can draw on later to provide themselves with a little relaxation of the rules without running the risk of adverse judgement later. Then, of course, there is the useful Christian notion of forgiveness through confession, in effect having your sin counter zeroed by confession and penance.

In this article from The Conversation, Daisy Matthews, a PhD candidate in Sociology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK and Jane Pilcher, Associate Professor of Sociology, Nottingham Trent University, explore the extent to which piety is used by sex workers and their clients to free themselves from any feelings of guilt or responsibility for acts which are condemned as sinful by their respective religions. There is a noticeable flexibility of belief where arbitrary lines are drawn and, so long as they are not crossed, anything else is permitted within the religion.

The practices are not restricted to Christians of one denomination or another but extends to Muslims, Jews, and others.

The article, part of the Insight series, is reprinted under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original can be read here.



Uncovering the secret religious and spiritual lives of sex workers
Shutterstock.

Daisy Matthews, Nottingham Trent University and Jane Pilcher, Nottingham Trent University

Tanya* is telling me just how important her Methodist Christianity is to her. We’re chatting over a video call, and I can see Tanya’s living room in the background. This also happens to be her workspace because Tanya, who is 50, is a full-time phone and cam sex worker. For Tanya, earning her living through sex work does not conflict with her religious beliefs at all. Tanya tells me that she had a client who talked to her about his enjoyment of wearing women’s clothing. He confided in her because they both shared the same religious identity.
He [the client] started talking more and more … he said I listen … he told me he goes to church every Sunday and was a church elder and he opened up. I also said to him … that I used to go to Sunday school every week and so we connected … because I am not going OMG when he told me. And he asked me if I still go to chapel now, and I said no but I still pray and believe in God, and he said that’s nice.
Tanya reassured her client that there was “no need to feel guilty”, that what they were doing wasn’t “wrong”. She even told him: “I bet there are other people in the church who do it”.

Tanya was one of 11 sex workers I spoke to who all had spiritual and religious beliefs. I wanted to discover how these two seemingly opposite life choices could interconnect and coexist. I discovered people like Tanya, who spoke to their clients about God and religion, but I also spoke to women who used religion as a kink to arouse their clients or as a tactic to earn more money or, in some cases, protect themselves when they felt threatened.

I found out that rather than being incompatible, religion and spirituality can create unique connections and meaningful experiences for both sex worker and client. Tanya’s story shows how sex work experiences are not one dimensional, and are not only about selling sex for money. They can hold multiple meanings. As the journalist Melissa Gira Grant suggests in her book, sex work is a role where social skills and empathy are regularly performed.

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My PhD research attempts to shine a light on the realities of the everyday lives of religious sex workers, which include positive experiences as well as distressing ones. I spoke with sex workers who were Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Norse Pagan and spiritual. All the women were over the age of 18 and were consensual sex workers.

Religion, sin and ‘morality’

So, what do different religions say about sex work? Research by independent scholar Benedikta Fones, suggests that in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament representations of sex workers are typically negative. That perhaps doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. The stereotypical “religious” view of sex before marriage is that it is immoral, so why should sex work be any different? Fones argues that these religious ideas, about sex work being “unacceptable”, then spread into wider culture.

Research shows that sex work is generally considered an immoral act within Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

That said, there are some religious organisations or charities that do provide essential support for some sex workers. But there are also “saviour charities”, whose existence gives further insight into the complex relationship between sex work and religion.
A stained glass window depicting Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden of Eden on a stained glass window in the cathedral of Brussels, Belgium.

As the sociologist Gemma Ahearne has written, some religiously motivated groups aim to stop people working in the sex industry and aim to eradicate sex work entirely.

And it’s not just religious doctrines which find sex work to be immoral – some religious sex workers do too, as a research project in Thailand discovered in 2015. But the women I spoke with rejected that narrative of religious condemnation. For them, religion and sex work can co-exist and both were a meaningful part of their lives.

Using religion to earn more

One of my first discoveries was how some sex workers use religion to earn more money. One example of this was how one sex worker had decided to capitalise on her Muslim heritage to boost her “brand”.

Zahra and Islam

Zahra is a 26-year-old British Muslim. Zahra was inspired by other women who use the hijab when sex working. From this, she created her alter ego, where she wore the hijab when she made online sexual content and when working as an escort. She said:
On Twitter … I networked with this one girl, she wears a hijab, not in her real life but using it to make more money and mix it up and she is like earning 150k, she’s up there with celebrities and stuff and so, yeah I decided I would have an alter ego, my “hoejabi”, that’s what I called it and I made content wearing a head scarf and like that and I had jobs coming through from that.
So Zahra utilised the hijab and, in her own words, “made a lot of money from it”.

However, this coexistence of identities – as sex worker and religious person – is not simple, and must be managed by a process of constant internal negotiation. Zahra spoke to me at length about the requests she has had from clients which she turned down, because to agree with them would have challenged her religious values and morals.

She added: “I have had clients go, ‘can you sit on the Qur’an and cum or can I bring a Qur’an and ride it whilst saying this and that’, and I say no. That is too extreme for me.”

So although Zahra uses her religion to earn more money by sexualising Islamic symbols like the hijab, she is still a Muslim woman. She believes in Allah in her private life. She set boundaries within her work to ensure that she doesn’t go against her own religious beliefs.

But sexualising religion in this way can come with risks. In 2015, the former porn actor Mia Khalifa starred in a porn film while she was wearing the hijab. She received death threats as a result and was strongly criticised by some people in Muslim communities. Some claimed she was letting down the Islamic faith (although Khalifa herself was raised Catholic).

But despite – or perhaps because of – the controversy around her film, Khalifa became one of the most searched-for stars on the adult movie site Porn Hub.

Being a Muslim and sex worker may be risky - but for Zahra, it was empowering and positive. And she is not alone. There is a Muslim group called Muslims for Full Decrim whose members are also current and former sex workers who support the decriminalisation of the sex industry. Clearly, religious communities like Islam are diverse and this is reflected in how people feel about their religion and sex work.

Maya, yoga and spirituality

Another sex worker I met used elements of her spiritual life to increase interest from clients. Maya, a 25-year-old British woman showed me her bedroom over a video-call. Maya, like Tanya, is a cam sex worker, so her bedroom is also her workspace. But Maya’s bedroom is also the space where she practises yoga. She told me that she performed yoga on camera for her clients:
Good spiritual link, customers have said they find it relaxing to watch. Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t mention that! I think it’s even like, called a subculture … I sent a video of myself into the site proving I can do it [yoga], you add it to your list of specialities so people can find you for specifically doing that.
For Maya, yoga can be relaxing and a way to connect with her spiritual identity. But it is also a way to make money and it shows how religion and spirituality are becoming more diverse and less bound by traditional religious rules and doctrines. Maya was managing her beliefs flexibly. This was also true for Zahra.
Silhouette of woman doing a yoga pose.
Woman practising yoga in a studio.
Maya’s and Zahra’s stories show the evident demand from some clients for religion when they are paying for sex. Zahra and Maya sexualise their religion and spirituality when sex working – meeting the desires of clients who get off on that.

Khan, a trans Norse Pagan

But there were other women I met who needed religion to help them belong. Khan, a 41-year-old transgender woman, was raised Christian but now has a Norse Pagan religious identity. She told me how she changed her religious path because she felt conflicted between her gender identity, sex work identity and, specifically, her Christian identity.

She said that being a transgender woman created challenges to being a Christian and that Christianity would not accept her occupation as an escort.
I don’t think there is a way to reconcile the sex work with Christianity.
It is these kinds of religious ideas about the immorality of sex work that meant Khan looked for and found a religion – Norse Paganism – which better suited her feelings and identities. Norse Pagan practices are diverse and people engage with the religion differently. An introduction to Norse Paganism on spiritualityheath.com states that it “is an inclusive spiritual practice, open to all who are moved toward it”.

The inclusivity offered by this religion seems to enable people with diverse and marginalised identities to feel accepted within it – in other words, it is a religious community free from judgement. For Khan, it was a welcoming religion. It helped her to overcome the challenges she had experienced as a transgender woman sex worker within the Christian faith.

Khan’s story supports the idea that religious beliefs are becoming more fluid and that people are able to tailor religion to better align with their “self”.

But, as Tanya’s story showed, there are Christian sex workers who do not feel conflicted in the way that Khan did. Religious beliefs – even those within mainstream religions like Islam and Christianity – are diverse and one size does not fit all.

Enhancing sexual pleasure

Another topic I was keen to examine was whether sex workers themselves experience sexual pleasure while working. This point is seldom addressed. But according to a number of the women I interviewed, they not only enjoyed sex with some of their clients, but religion and spirituality sometimes increased that pleasure and led to more of a connection.

Amy and spiritual vibes

Take Amy, for example. Amy is a 23-year-old American porn actor who has a spiritual identity. Our interview lasted nearly three hours. She explained to me how being a sex worker and being spiritual were not at “odds with each other”. She described how they are two separate things within her life. However, she also told me that sometimes her sexual encounters (for example, when she is creating pornography) can be a spiritual experience.
Sex can still be spiritual for me … And even if you don’t have, like, a connection with the person and you’re not gonna see them again or don’t care about them, or whatever, you can still enjoy … the moment.
Amy told me that sex could “turn her brain off” and “that’s kind of like a spiritual experience”. Amy’s spirituality concerns “high vibes”, which are positive qualities such as love, and “low vibes” associated with negative qualities such as hatred. So for Amy, although sex work and spirituality are separate, there was also a blurring of lines between them, and some sexual experiences when making porn gave her “high vibes”.

LRE, astrology

Another sex worker I spoke to said that the sex part of her work could become especially enjoyable when she and her client connected over a shared love of astrology and star signs.
An ancient clock showing zodiac signs.
Zodiac signs on ancient Torre dell'Orologio clock in St Mark’s Square, Venice, Italy.

LRE is a 22-year-old British woman who works part-time as an escort and sexual content creator. Like Amy, LRE’s spiritual identity could sometimes enhance her sexual pleasure with clients.
Oh, he was a Sagittarius [client]… we did bits and then halfway through he was like, what star sign are you? I was like, ‘you are my new favourite person ever’ … he was like laughing and smiling and I was like ‘no seriously, I love that you asked me that’ … and I thought … this is why there is such sexual chemistry.
Although the stories of Amy and LRE have some things in common, their spiritual identities were present in their sex work in different ways. In Amy’s case, her spiritual identity was not necessarily known to the fellow porn actor she had sex with. But for LRE, her spiritual identity was known and openly discussed with her client.

Belief as a coping strategy

Despite the many empowering and sex-positive stories I heard, there was sometimes a reminder that not all sex worker experiences are positive.

Lilly, Christian Orthodox

Lilly is one such example. Lilly was a 25-year-old escort, originally from Romania. She is Christian Orthodox and lives in the UK. She told me how she prays in her head when she is with a client who makes her feel uncomfortable:
If I have a problem or think something is wrong with this guy, I start to pray in my head, and it helps me not to think because if they feel I am scared, they will take advantage. So, when I start to pray, I forget I am scared and go away from those feelings and so, he will be quiet as he doesn’t feel like this.
Safety challenges are an occupational hazard for sex workers. It is important to say, though, that for Lilly at least, feeling unsafe with a client was not a regular occurrence.

Lilly told me that sex work provides her with greater opportunities to earn more compared to other jobs available to her. I did feel concerned that Lilly, at times, was made to feel scared by her clients. But it was also clear to me that, for Lilly, these negative experiences do not outweigh the positive benefits she says she gains from being an escort.

Decriminalisation

One way to keep sex workers like Lilly safer is to decriminalise the sex industry. Those who oppose decriminalisation seem to be under the misconception that all sex workers are coerced, trafficked or exploited. Although this is true for some, it is not true for most and the misconception that all sex workers are victims is itself, as research shows, a result of stigma and lack of knowledge about the industry.

It is also important to differentiate between criminalised, legalised and decriminalised sex industries. Criminalisation of the sex industry makes all sex work-related practices illegal. Legalisation of the sex industry is where sex work is legal under specific state defined conditions.
Protestors hold a banner that reads: 'Decriminalise sex work safety first'
Protest in London in July 2018.
For example, under legalisation laws within the UK (except for Northern Ireland, who have adopted the Nordic Model) sex work practices are predominantly legal. However, some engagements with sex work such as soliciting on the street and working with another sex worker within the same house (as this is considered a brothel) are criminalised.

Decriminalisation is where sex work is stripped of regulations and sex workers can operate freely. I support the decriminalisation of the sex industry globally because it is under these conditions that sex workers can best protect themselves and it is the first step in abolishing stigma. Research has also shown it is the best strategy for harm reduction.

Stigma heightens risks

Although it is not the belief of all sex workers, the women I spoke to argued strongly for the decriminalisation of the sex industry. Stories told to me by Khan and LRE, who are both escorts, are cases in point.

Khan lives and works in a US state where escorting is illegal. So, if she has a violent client, she will tell staff and security at the hotel where she is working that she is on a date that has gone wrong.
… God forbid, something does happen, like there’s staffed or security and I will say I was on a date and this guy went crazy …
Khan is forced to hide her sex work from staff when she is in potential danger due to fear of prosecution. LRE faces similar issues in the UK. She told me how she has to hide her income around her hotel room when she is escorting to reduce the likelihood of theft and violence.
… If you get money, put like £100 in the safe and then anything else, just stash it around the room …

All the women I spoke to informed me they do not report violence from clients or thefts to the police. This is not surprising, given evidence that women, men and transgender sex workers are all at heightened risk of police sexual misconduct in comparison to non-sex workers.

Not ‘just’ sex workers

I think my interviews show that sex workers are not just sex workers – they have complex and multifaceted identities. You absolutely can be a sex worker and be religious or spiritual. But it is not necessarily easy to always get a balance. It is the result of constant and skilful identity management. The stories of women like Tanya, Maya, Zahra, LRE, Amy, Lilly and Khan underline how important it is to recognise the sheer diversity of people who work in this industry.

Although there are negative experiences in the sex industry, the women I spoke to, on the whole, felt empowered by their profession. They saw it as providing great opportunities for earning money and offering them positive experiences.

And, importantly, it didn’t get in the way of their religious and spiritual beliefs. As Zahra told me at the end of our discussion:
…I do believe in God and believe in Allah and in my private life. I believe in it.
So whether it was Tanya consoling a church elder, or Zahra finding a way to utilise her Muslim faith, these women were opening up new discussions about what it means to be a sex worker.


All names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.


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Daisy Matthews, PhD candidate in Sociology, exploring the lives of religious and spiritual sex workers, Nottingham Trent University and Jane Pilcher, Associate Professor of Sociology, Nottingham Trent University

This article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
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Saturday, 17 December 2022

Catholic Priest Sex Abuse - And Still They Come

Archdiocese of Chicago list of alleged sex abusers who are priests, clergy expands by 72 names - ABC7 Chicago
Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago.
"Regretted our failure to qddress the scourge of clerical sexual abuse"
You might think a 28-page list of Catholic priests from the Chicago Catholic archdiocese alone, against whom substantiated allegations of the sexual abuse of minors have been made, would more or less cover the scale of the danger the church and its priests represent to the children of Chicago.
But not a bit of it!

A further 72 names are to be added to the list. These are of deceased priests who have been posthumously accused of sexual abuse.

So does that total of 150 names cover it?

Not according to SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) who point out that the attorney’s office has said there at at least another 500 [sic] names that have not yet been made public!

And this is just one American Catholic diocese.

Nor is that likely to be an end to the matter, since each release of names normally results in even more people finding the courage to come forward with yet more allegations against yet more priests. The Catholic Church is paying the price for decades of acting as a de facto paedophile ring with coverup and facilitation the norm. The question isn't so much whether there had been abuse in any Catholic diocese or institution but by who and how many victims there were?

Religion - Providing Excuses for People Who Need Excuses

Tuesday, 14 June 2022

Religious Sexual Abuse News - #ChurchToo is Revealing an Epidemic of Routine Sexual Abuse in Christian Churches

A 'washing line' of women’s' dresses donated by sexual assault survivors from Amish and other plain-dressing religious groups beneath a description of each survivors' age and church affiliation, on Friday, April 29, 2022, in Leola, Pa. The exhibit's purpose was to show that sexual assault is a reality among children and adults in such groups. Similar exhibits held nationwide aim to shatter the myth that abuse is caused by a victim's clothing choice.

AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski
#ChurchToo revelations growing, years after movement began

Far from routine sexual abuse being the preserve of the Catholic Church, the #ChurchToo movement is revealing a culture of routine sexual abuse in America's fundamentalist Protestant churches to equal anything a Catholic diocese can produce.

About the only thing they have in common is hypocritical pastors pretending to act with God's authority and so having a hold on superstitious and gullible people, conditioned to accept that 'men of God' act from the purist of motives and would never knowing harm anyone or exploit their vulnerabilities.

In a video which has had well over 1 million hits worldwide, pastor, John B. Lowe II, of an independent church in Illinois, confessed to years of “adultery,” moments before his victim, Bobi Gephart, who was 16 when the abuse started, went on stage with her husband and took the microphone because Lowe was being 'economical' with the truth.

Lowe subsequently resigned from the New Life Christian Church & World Outreach in Warsaw, Illinois.

This has encouraged many more abuse victims to come forward in much the same way the #MeToo movement encouraged abuse survivors in other walks of life to come forward and talk about their abuse.

The Amish, of course, whom many people assume are gentle, kind and sincere followers of Jesus in all they do, if a little fanatical, are not immune to accusations of sexual abuse, as this documentary shows:


Possibly motivated by concern for the damage these abuses do to the survivors, although the damage they are doing to the Christian churches in the USA where church attendance and affiliation are now dropping at the rate they did in Europe in the late 20th century, can't have gone unnoticed, ministers like Jimmy Hinton of the Church of Christ in Somerset, Pennsylvania are becoming active advocates for abuse survivors and see the #ChurchToo movement as a good thing which will help expose the "absolute epidemic of abuse in the church, in religious spaces". He says that “Survivors have far more power than they ever think imaginable", on his Speaking Out on Sex Abuse podcast.

Hinton turned in his own father, then a minister, now serving jail time for aggravated indecent assault.

Although 'liberal' churches have had their share of abuse cases with the Episcopal Church releasing details of abuse allegations during its 2018 Conference, and an Anglican Church of Canada archbishop, Mark MacDonald, resigning in April following "acknowledged sexual misconduct", the majority of abuse cases are coming from the conservative Protestant churches - the very churches that saw no problem with Donald Trump's serial adultery, sexual assaults on women, using the services of prostitutes and criminal conspiracies.

Duggar Family, 2004. A highly sexualised, conservative Christian 'purity' culture which advocated male authority and female modesty and subservience and a "Don't tell" code of silence.
In these churches there is a 'purity culture' which advocates male authority and female modesty, where dating is discouraged in favour of traditional courtship and marriage.

It was from this background that the reality TV star of 19 Kids and Counting, Josh Duggar, came. The Duggar family were the darlings of American conservative Christians and advocates of chastity, home-schooling and traditional courtship. Josh Duggar is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for child pornography offences. As a teenager, he is alleged to have molested his younger sisters. Prosecutors said he had a 'deep-seated, pervasive and violent sexual interest in children'. Among the images on his laptop were videos of toddlers being raped.

This unhealthily sexualised culture of male authority and female subservience, coupled with a reluctance to complain or inform the law enforcement authorities, and a willingness to 'forgive' and stay silent, creates a culture where the men feel entitles to sexual relations with women and the women feel they don't have the right to refuse or a right to redress, but should just forgive and move on. And all with good biblical authority in God’s Holy Word. An ideal culture for sexually predatory men to find and exploit vulnerable women and children.

Give these men the title ‘pastor’ and put them in positions of even greater authority as God’s personal representatives, over the women and children in their congregations and the temptations to abuse are too great to be resisted, and anyway, she won’t tell, and if she does, no-one will do anything and all will be forgiven. The result of this is the current deluge of abuse allegations coming out under the #ChurchToo movement.

As good an example as you could wish for of how, far from providing a decent moral compass and a decent, kind, caring and compassionate society:

Religions provide excuses for people who need excuses!

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