Catholic Abuse News - Pell Knew About Child Sex Abuse

Cardinal George Pell speaking to the media at the in Rome in 2016 after giving evidence via video-link to Australia’s royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Photograph: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images

George Pell: cardinal was aware of children being sexually abused, royal commission report finds | Australia news | The Guardian

According to this report in today's Guardian, The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has released previously redacted sections of their report which show that Cardinal Pell knew of instances of child abuse.

Pell was recently acquitted by the Australian High Court following his conviction and imprisonment for the sexual abuse of two choir boys, despite his defence lawyer arguing for leniency in the original sentence, on the grounds that the sex was 'vanilla sex' where penetration was brief and didn't result in ejaculation.

Winning With Science

Towards antibodies against COVID-19

What is noticeable more than anything during the current Covid-19 pandemic is the contrast between science and religion in how they see their responsibilities to the world at large.

On the one hand, we have religious leaders treating the whole thing as a get-rich-quick opportunity, selling magic spells and quack snake-oil cures to those gullible enough to fall for the scams and others campaigning to end the social distancing measures so they can continue to fleece their congregations.

On the other hand, we have hundreds of scientific research programs like this one, aimed at producing treatments and, in the long run, cures in the form of vaccines, whilst creationists continue to decry science as 'scientism' in an attempt to reduce it to the status of creationism as though it's also an evidence-free superstition.

This research program for example, has produced what could be a valuable treatment for people who already have the virus. It is an antibody that binds to and neutralises the 'spike' proteins that enable the virus to bind to the surface of a cell before inserting it's contents into it. If this treatment proves effective, it will prevent the virus infecting new cells and so damaging the tissues and producing more copies of itself.

Antibodies like this supplement the body's own defences but are relatively short lived because they don't stimulate the body to produce its own antibodies, unlike a vaccine which does just that. Hence they are useful as treatments but not prophylactics.

This is just one example of the multi-pronged attack on the Covid-19 virus being launched by medical science.

Apart from scamming their credulous dupes, what have religions been doing? In particular, what has the creation industry, which tells anyone who'll listen that it's definitely a science, not religion is disguise, been doing? Where are the creation 'science' laboratories in all this and what results have they produced?

None at all, of course. Although they will undoubtedly rush in to claim the credit for their god when we, as we will, have the cure and tha pandemic recedes into history. Hopefully, history will remember how it was science that produced the goods, whilst religions just used the opportunity to fleece the gullible and stupid and was quite prepared to spread the virus in pursuit of greater profits.

Covidiots - Russian Orthodox Fruitloops

Patriarch Kirill, in the white headdress, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, at a procession in Moscow last month. Experts say his reluctance to enforce orders against church gatherings has led to an explosion of coronavirus cases in monasteries and convents.

Photo credit: Patriarchal Press Service, via Reuters

A ‘Breakdown of Trust’: Pandemic Corrodes Church-State Ties in Russia - The New York Times

It might be some comfort to Americans that they are not the only people whose lives are being put at risk by religious nutjobs and fauds more interested in keeping their income stream flowing than in ensuring the health and safety of their families and society at large. Russian Orthodox Christian nutjobs are at it too.

According to this report in the New York Times:

A physics student at Moscow State University, Dmitri Pelipenko turned away from science in 2018 to devote himself to God, enrolling as a novice monk at Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Malevolent Design - Covid-19 Mutating

A colorized scanning electron micrograph of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Photo credit: NIAID

Mutations in SARS-CoV-2 offer insights into virus evolution

As I've remarked before, if you've fallen for the intelligent [sic] design hoax, you need to be able to explain why evolution is the only explanation for the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) that doesn't leave your putative creator looking like a malevolent, anthropophobic, genocidal psychopath.

That problem just got worse with publication by the University College, London (UCL) Genetics Institute that they have discovered close to 200 recurrent genetic mutations in the virus. They found these by examining the genomes of the virus recovered from 7,500 patients. Covid-19 looks for all the world like it's evolving, or, in ID hoax believers terms, being intelligent redesigned.

Coviots - Christian Pastors and Their Dupes Are Dying of the 'Phantom Plague'

Services at Life Tabernacle Church in the suburb of Baton Rouge, La., are continuing despite the governor’s order banning large gatherings to fight the spread of the coronavirus. On Sunday, 1,265 congregants attended morning services at the church, the pastor said.

Photo credit: Woody Jenkins / Central City News

'A phantom plague': America's Bible Belt played down the pandemic and even cashed in. Now dozens of pastors are dead | The Independent.

It is tempting to talk about Darwin Awards and score points about these sad deaths, but I need to keep reminding myself of the basic Humanism in John Donne's "No Man Is An Island" - "Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee."

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each person's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Let's not forget that, no matter how stupid they were; no matter how brainwashed they had been to believe superstitious nonsense and carefully cultivated paranoias, these were still people; fooled by frauds and lied to by cheats who took advantage of their credulity, certainly, but still people.

If any good is to come of this tragic pandemic, it is that their sad deaths should remind us of the danger religion poses to humanity when it induces stupidity on this scale, puts money above people, and exploits the stupid and gullible to serve the naked greed and avarice of the frauds who promulgate it.

Evolution News - Yet Another Transitional Species

In this image of one of the new ancient species’ reproductive structures, elliptical impressions of sporangia can be seen in one row, while on the right, another row displays preserved carbonized spore masses.

Image credit: Andrew Leslie

New ancient plant captures snapshot of evolution | Stanford University.

What with their problem explaining why evolution is the only explanation for Covid-19 that doesn't leave their putative designer god looking like a malevolent, genocidal psychopath, the last thing creationists needed was another one of those annoying transitional species that so bedevil their precious dogma.

But here we are, with another one, announced just yesterday. This time an extinct plant showing evidence of transition from spores to seeds - an essential step in the evolution of the flowering plants, or angiosperms.

And once again without any effort or intent, science has again refuted creationism with evidence.

One of the major advances in plant evolution was when the gymnosperms (cone-bearing) and angiosperms (flowering) plants broke free from the constraints of the reproductive methods used by the ferns and club mosses, which required moist conditions to allow their motile male gametes to reach the sedentary female gametes.

IDiot Designer Blunder - He Got The Wrong Species!

Scientists were inspired by antibodies produced by this llama, named Winter, to develop their antibody against SARS-CoV-2. Winter is four years old and still living on a farm in the Belgian countryside operated by Ghent University’s Vlaams Institute for Biotechnology.

Photo credit: Tim Coppens.

Antibodies from Llamas Could Help in Fight Against COVID-19 - UT News

You'd expect an intelligent designer to know what it's doing, wouldn't you?

Not so creationism's intelligent (sic) designer, it seems. It's only gone and given a species that doesn't even suffer from Covid-19 the ability to create immunity to it!

Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA and the National Institutes of Health and Ghent University in Belgium have discovered that a llama produces two natural antibodies when vaccinated with Covid-19 'spike' proteins, that, when linked together:

...binds tightly to a key protein on the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This protein, called the spike protein, allows the virus to break into host cells. Initial tests indicate that the antibody blocks viruses that display this spike protein from infecting cells in culture.

As the University of Austin press release explains:

When llamas’ immune systems detect foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses, these animals (and other camelids such as alpacas) produce two types of antibodies: one that is similar to human antibodies and another that’s only about a quarter of the size. These smaller ones, called single-domain antibodies or nanobodies, can be nebulized and used in an inhaler.

Covidiots - Covid-19 Problems for Theists.

The Covid-19 pandemic currently devastating economies and killing people by the tens of thousands is a major problem for religions, especially the Abrahamic religions who believe everything is created by a god who personally supervises and controls events, making things happen, or not happen, according to its will and plan.

For example:

1. The question of how the virus arose. All the Abrahamic religions hold that there is a single creator god who alone is responsible for its creation. The entire intelligent (sic) design industry, popular with both Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, and probably with the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects, depends on the belief that everything is intelligently designed by an omniscient, omnipotent creator - who just happens to be similar in all respects to 'the one true God'.
   
   This god, so it is assumed, knows exactly what its creations will do. They will do precisely what it designed them to do, nothing more and nothing less, hence it deigned the Covid-19 virus to behave in exactly the way it is behaving - killing indiscriminately the believers and non-believers alike, and differentially selecting the elderly and sick to kill.
   
   The problem for these fundamentalists is that by any measure, this portrays their supposedly loving creator as a malevolent, anthropophilic, genocidal psychopath, and leaves the detested scientific explanation - mindless, unplanned and amoral evolution - as the only explanation that doesn't present their god in such an appalling light.

Covidiots - Followers of Bishop Climate Irungu Wiseman

Coronavirus: London church selling ‘plague protection kits' for £90 consisting of oil and red yarn | The Independent

Perhaps Americans can feel a little less embarrassed by the antics of their religious fundamentalist when they learn that we in the UK are plagued with them too. This example is from Camberwell in London where 'Bishop' Climate Irungu Wiseman of the Kingdom Church is cashing in on the Covid-19 pandemic emergency by selling a quack 'cure' for £91 for a 'kit'.

The kit consists of a bottle of 'Divine Plague Protection Oil' and a length of red yarn. 'Bishop' Wideman, who runs Bishop Climate Ministries claims:

It is by faith that you can be saved from every pandemic by covering yourself with the Divine Cleansing Oil and wearing the Scarlet Yarn on your body. That is why I want to encourage you, if you haven’t done so already, to get your Divine Plague Protection Kit today! Available to order online and ship to you right away.... That is why the Lord has instructed me to prepare special oil that has been mixed with cedar wood, hyssop, and prayer. Yes this special oil has sat upon the altar for 7 days. It’s called Divine Cleansing protection Oil. As you use this oil, along with a special scarlet yarn, every plague and any other deadly thing will pass over you. Just like the children of Israel were spared from death, just like Rahab and her family were saved from destruction, the same will happen for you.

Malevolent Design - Does 'God' Hate Honey Bees More Than Humans?

Honey bees

Photo credit: Newcasle University

Emergence of deadly honey bee disease revealed - Press Office - Newcastle University

If you buy into the creationist hoax of intelligent (sic) design, you must wonder why the putative designer is being so hateful at the moment. Not only do you need to explain it's apparent malevolent, genocidal mendacity in designing the Covid-19 virus to indiscriminately kill people, but we now hear that it's apparently designed another nasty little virus.

This one is a virus that is spreading quickly in the UK and which kills honey bees, often wiping out the entire hive, as though the Varroa destructor mite wasn't doing it quickly enough. It's as though this putative intelligent (sic) designer hates honey bees almost as much as it hates humans.

More Evidence of Americans Losing Faith

This Chart Shows How Quickly Americans Are Abandoning Organized Religion | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

More evidence, if any were needed of the steep and accelerating decline in religiosity in the USA as more and more Americans turn their backs on organised religion.

This evidence comes in the form of a report released yesterday, by Adjunct Fellow Lyman Stone for the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, which should set alarm bells ringing in the ears of those whose livelihood depends on Americans continuing to go to church and support them with money. This chart, based on data from multiple sources and methodologies shows how all the measures of religiosity show the same thing - American religiosity has fallen off a cliff edge and is plummeting downwards at an accelerating rate.

Thank You For Being Humankind Again!

It's with great pleasure that I can report another donation to Oxfam from money I get for advertising Amazon products on this blog. This time a donation of £100.02. This sum has been slowly accumulating in my account with Amazon and finally triggered a payment by crossing the £100 threshold (just!).

This time I have donated the money to Oxfam's Coronavirus Emergency appeal. I produce all relevant receipts here because in previous years these donations have produced a near-hysterical response from fundamentalist Christians and online scammers which Oxfam GB needed to become involved with, to verify that all donations had been paid as reported.

It seems that professed Christianity is no barrier to bearing false witness nor trying to prevent charitable donations aimed at bringing famine relief to those less fortunate than ourselves, so I hereby give Oxfam GB permission to reveal all details of my contributions to Oxfam, other than details of my name and address, should anyone wish to verify this donation.

Should you wish to support me in this small fundraising effort, please buy products from Amazon through this blog. On a laptop, scroll down to the Oxfam search tool and search there. This will then record the search against my account. The other way is to click on the Amazon ads for books and other products. Basically, clicking any ad bearing the Amazon logo will be recorded against my account.

Regrettably, Amazon are unable or unwilling to make these commission payments directly to a nominated charity.

Of course, you can always make a donation directly to Oxfam, here.

From Oxfam's website:

Covidiots - Magi Spell

Covidiots ignore social distancing and put their children at risk in support of Pastor Tony Spell's bid for martyrdom and in defence of Christian privilege.

Phone lines at Central police are 'tied up' by calls from Tony Spell supporters, officials say | Coronavirus | theadvocate.com

As part of Pastor Tony Spell's campaign for martyrdom and the right to spread the Covid-19 virus as widely as possible in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA, supporters have now blocked the local police departments phone system after his mother, Magi Spell, published their phone number on her Facebook page and asked people to ring it.

Supporters are also demonstrating outside the Louisiana governors house demanding a lifting of the house arrest order intended to prevent Spell from holding church services in defiance of the social distancing order forbidding gatherings of more than ten people.

How Christians Lie To US - False Prophets are Still Right!

Pastor Jeremiah Johnson "The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said..."

Self-Described “Prophet”: Even When My Predictions Are Wrong, They’re Still True | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Q. When is a false prophet not a false prophet?

A. When he makes a false prophecy, obviously!

Pastor Jeremiah Johnson, of Behold the Man Ministries in Lakeland, Florida, is a Trump-supporting evangelical, preaching the 'prosperity gospel', and self-proclaimed prophet who recently declared that Dr Anthony Fauci had been sent by Satan to thwart Donald Trump.

He also prophesied that a businessman would become a millionaire based on what he said was a "sign from God".

The problem was, the man went bankrupt shortly afterwards.

Americans Losing Faith

Americans losing grip on most basic tenets of Christian faith: survey - The Christian Post

I wish could claim credit for it with my book, "Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without it" but Americans are rapidly losing faith in the Christian god, as the result of this recent survey shows. The survey was conducted by researcher George Barna for the recently-founded Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University.

The result must have come as a shock to them.

Covidiots - Pastor Tony Spell's Desire for Martyrdom

Pastor Tony Spell, "Wanna be a martyr!"

Despite House Arrest Order, the COVID-19-Defying Pastor Preached at Church Today | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Covid-19 is a godsend for disingenuous Pastor Tony Spell, in his desperate search for martyrdom. The social distancing measures needed to slow down the spread of the lethal virus to prevent health services from being overwhelmed, has provided him with just the excuse he needs to get himself arrested and imprisoned so he can play the victim card for all it's worth.

As reported yesterday, he is subject to a court order forbidding him to leave his own home because he refused to comply with Louisiana state orders banning gatherings of more than 10 people - including in places of worship. He has been fitted with an ankle monitor device to ensure his compliance.

Covidiots - Kenneth Copeland Has Killed Covid-19 - Again

Kenneth Copeland, "Coronavirus is over"

Scamvangelist, Taking Credit for California Heat Wave, Declares COVID-19 “OVER!” | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Earlier this month, while he was killing Covid-19 by blowing on it and casting magic spells at it, mega-rich Christian televangelist Kenneth Copeland also called on God to cause a heatwave at Easter to kill the Virus in New York (as though his magic wasn't going to be enough).

He declared:

All God needs to do to deliver us is a heatwave, a supernatural heatwave. You know, usually you get what they call the Easter spell. When you think everything is warming up and all of a sudden you get a cold front. Well now, this year it’s going to be a[n] Easter heatwave, It’s going to get so hot in New York City. It’s going to get so hot and muggy, glory to God! It’s going to hit that place and it’s going to burn that virus. It’s going to, you know what it’s like in New York City at 85 or 90 degrees. It’s going to get however hot it has to get there to kill that thing right now all over this nation and the rest of the world where it’s needed.

Covidiots - Pastor Tony Spell under House Arrest

Pastor Tony Spell
"Give me your stimulus checks!"

COVID-19-Defying Pastor Tony Spell Placed Under House Arrest | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Readers may recall how pastor Tony Spell managed to exceed the normal abysmal standards of fundamentalist Christian evangelist greed by demanding that unemployed people should send him their stimulus checks. He has been placed under house arrest for refusing to assure a judge that he would not encourage people to gather together in his church by holding open services.

He had been arrested and charged “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon". He is now deemed to be too much of a threat to society to be allowed to leave his house.

Covidiots - Intelligent Design Creationists

Scientists Are Tired of Explaining Why The COVID-19 Virus Was Not Made in a Lab

News that scientists have established beyond reasonable doubt that the Covid-19 virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2 was the result of natural mutation in an animal host and not the result of a laboratory experiment that 'escaped' is terrible news for intelligent (sic) design creationists who now have to explain one simple thing:

Why is this evolutionary explanation the only explanation for Covod-19 that doesn't leave their putative creator god looking like a malevolent, genocidal, anthropophobic psychopath?

Covidiots - Kenneth Copeland's Credulous Dupes

Kenneth Copeland, Top televangelist scam artist

Scamvangelist Praises Donors for Buying Him the World’s “Finest” Private Jet | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Kenneth Copeland is the sort of American Christian televangelist whom Europeans look at and ask themselves, "What is wrong with these people?"

He is also obscenely rich because people give him lots of money, believing this will buy them special favour with God who wants them to help make Kenneth Copeland obscenely rich - because Kenneth Copeland says God told him he does.

Multi-millionaire televangelist Kenneth Copeland tells his "partners" (i.e. donors) that they deserve all the credit for buying him one of the finest private jets in the world. pic.twitter.com/4mY4ndzFDQ

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) April 24, 2020

For example, after his recent 'success' at ridding America of the Covid-19 virus with some magic spells, his followers gave him enough money to buy himself 'the world's finest jet' - the Gulfstream V - so he can travel in safety and not have to travel in as 'long tube full of demons'.

True to form, and as though to distance himself from the obvious greed he displays, he blamed his 'partners', i.e., the dupes he scammed for donating enough money.

According to this report in the Independent:

American televangelist Kenneth Copeland, recently claimed that the coronavirus pandemic will be “over much sooner you think” because “Christian people all over this country praying have overwhelmed it,” has summoned the “wind of God” to destroy the novel coronavirus during a recent sermon.

Before blowing at the camera, he said: ”I blow the wind of God on you. You are destroyed forever, and you’ll never be back. Thank you, God. Let it happen. Cause it to happen.”

Leading a chant surrounded by members of his church and preaching to an empty room, he called out: “Wind, almighty, strong, south wind, Heat: Burn this thing, in the name of Jesus. I say, you bow your knees. You fall on your face.”

According to the same report, after he had "executed judgment" on the virus he declared the virus ”finished” and “over” and made the US ”healed and well again.” and told his audience that they would be cured by touching their TV screens!

He also told Americans that it was "vital" they keep paying their tithes, even when out of work.

At the time of writing (26 April, 2020), there have been 959,000 cases of Covid-19 in the USA with 54,161 deaths. The USA is accounting for almost 32% of the 2.9 million cases worldwide. American evangelist are campaigning to have restrictions of social gatherings to be lifted so Christians can again crowd together in church to sing and shout and spread virus particles, 'safe' in the knowledge that their collective magic spells have driven the virus away.

According to Celebrity Net Worth Copeland is worth at least $300 million and maybe as much as $750 million or even over $1 billion. He lives in a $6.3 million lakefront mansion and has now appealed to his 'partners' to donate $17-$20 million so he can upgrade his private runway and hanger for his brand new Gulfstream V private jet.

Kenneth Copeland purports to follow Jesus, who, according to the Bible, told his followers to sell their possessions and give to the poor.