Steubenville Rapists = Pedophile Priests?

The teens who violated a teenaged girl were found guilty on Sunday, and Sunday is when television journalists and pundits are live for hours on end.  They had plenty of time to say things they no doubt regret now.  Many of them empathized with the boys, who were tried as juveniles and will serve just a few years in detention.  If they had been tried as adults their lives may indeed have been "ruined."  Because they were tried as juvies, their college football careers are "ruined," but not their lives.  They will have decades of freedom after they get out, at the tender age of 21.

CNN's Candy Crowley announced the verdict just before Reliable Sources, the show I watch because it (used to) cover the media.  How ironic. I'm sure they'll be discussing their colleagues next week, if they really want to discuss the press.  The link below has video of the objectionable stuff:

http://mashable.com/2013/03/18/cnn-rape-apologist-steubenville/

Later, the father of one of the boys admitted to not being much of a father and to having regrets for not helping the boy to develop better morals.  I wanted to reach through the telly and hug that guy!  And the journalist on the scene did point out that the girl was violated.  So I'd rate CNN just a smidge higher than the wailing classes, but only a smidge.

Now, some pundits are talking about a "Rape Culture," which I think is purely ridiculous.  There is plenty to decry in this situation all around, but is there really a rape culture?  Is there a whole group of guys who go around raping as a lifestyle?  Do they have a clubhouse?  Do they have a handshake?  (Oh wait... bad question)

So anyway, I had to ask why was there so much sympathy for the boys and not for the victim?  The telly and blogs and Facebook weren't cutting it for me.  It's another Rorschach test in the media.  What people have been saying says more about themselves than the situation.

So why not just jump in and risk revealing more about myself than enlightening the situation?  I do have a few thoughts, and I did give this some thought.  No knee-jerk reaction here.  (I was still too sleepy to be outraged at the time)

For one, the boys were on TV and the victim wasn't.  Her face is never shown on TV.   We sympathize with people we SEE.  One boy broke into tears in court.  Big strapping football-playing girl-raping macho boy turned into a ball of boo-hoo.  We're not used to seeing guys cry.  We're not used to seeing anybody cry, really.  So... we saw him cry when he received his verdict.  We didn't see the girl cry when she learned that pictures of her naked body were on the internet.  So naturally, people reacted to what was shown to them.  It takes a further leap of imagination to consider what the girl felt about the whole thing.  In the heat of the moment, the excitement of "BREAKING NEWS" and all, they didn't go that extra step.

For another, the damage done to a rape victim isn't what it used to be.  We no longer stone rape victims or force them to marry their rapists.  Her her pain will be internal and invisible.  The boys' loss of freedom is visible- we see them cry, we see or can imagine them in handcuffs or behind bars.  We can imagine their future as convicted sex offenders.

But perhaps the most important reason the press sympathized with them is the social position that athletes, especially American football players, enjoy.  Sports are supposed to teach good values like teamwork, perseverence, and the ability to handle disappointment.


These are indeed very good values, but they are not moral values.  They are life skills.  On the other side, they get special favors and are cheered by their school, the local paper, and boosters (community fans).  Their elevated status gives them a sense of privilege and innoculation against the consequences of destructive actions.  They operate as an island culture, far removed from the rules of everyday society.  The football team has special perks, a group of cheerleaders (who cheers at science fairs?), and an audience to show off in front of.  When a sports hero, even a small-town minor one, turns out to be immoral, the media are shocked.

I'm not.

If you are the graduate of a public high school in the United States (or a Catholic one, if you grew up where I did), you don't need to be told this.  At the college level it's even worse.  At my small liberal arts school, the football players were the worst behaved students at the school despite our perpeturally low standing in our "league" and the total lack of a future in football for those guys.  They were held in some regard for the mere reason that they played football.  We had some truly stellar genius-level students in other fields.  They didn't have their own frat house, and the newspaper didn't write about them. The football team had a culture of its own, marked by cheating and drinking and drug-dealing.  As a team, they were "cohesive," and none of this ever came out though it was a well-known "secret."  One of my friends was the girlfriend and later wife, of one of these guys. Out of deference to her I won't go into more detail.  Suffice it to say, they are not the pillars of the institution that our society wants to believe them to be.

So.... a sports "star" getting a jail sentence is a kind of a man-bites-dog story if you've bought into the lie that sports builds character and if you don't question their privilege.

And then we have the priesthood.  They live in a fraternity house, have ready access to all the wine they want, enjoy (at least until recently) automatic respect and trust of the community by virtue of membership on a revered "team," and they are presumed to be exemplars of morality for the community.  Like football players, they got away with sex crimes and for centuries nobody dared question them.  If they did get caught, their bishop or cardinal or pope smoothed things out for them or blew off the victims' concerns just as the Steubenville coach did.  (Want to bet that coach dropped Rohypnol into a few girls' drinks when he was in college?)

I have often heard it said that football is a religion.  It seems even more so this week.

Reason Rally Videos

Boy howdy did we miss a good time!  Right after the Reason Rally I saw some of the speeches online, but there was a a lot of good stuff happening in the crowd too.  There were professional videographers, uppity would-be videographers hired by uppity creationists, and a bunch of people with off-the shelf Best Buy cameras recording all the goings-on.  Here are a few that I found on Youtube.

Brilliant take-down.  Best line:  (Q: What is your name?) A: "All I know is Jesus died for your sins." 




Aron Ra vs Christian dumbass. Best line:  "Abra Fucking Cadabra"

Aron Ra vs another Christian dumbass: 

Best lines:  "Gullibility is the ONLY criteria" (to get into Heaven)  and "If you don't believe that monkeys MIGHT fly out of my ass can I consider you irrational?"

Idiot who thinks the King James Bible is the best version of the Bible vs. ordinary atheist who knows the Bible chapter & verse, and knows that if a servant is considered "property" that's called SLAVERY: 





Atheist in the military: 



Fox News interview and the story they ran on O'Reilly later: 

Reason TV: What We Saw at the Reason Rally: 

Best sign: "Freedom requires freethinking."

Thunderf00t and ...?  vs. preacher who claimed it was okay for God to kill babies in Noah's Flood. Best line: "The Bible is clearly a borderline incoherent [inaudible] series of stories"  The best part of this video is the audio.  The rain sounds like the crackling flames of Hell!

Thunderf00t vs Eric Hovind, with Thunderf00t's commentary:  http://thunderf00tdotorg.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/eric-hovind-confesses-to-being-an-atheist/  or more briefly http://youtu.be/ZiqTU7N9EY8 with commentary/review.

Hovind tries to bait PZ Myers too:


(Cheesy "Creation Today" commercial begins @ 2:35)

He also stalked James Randi: 

(cheesy commercial begins at 5:20)

Randi shuts him down.  Hovind's pal is even lamer.  They were way out of their league.  Best line: "This is very juvenile and I don't get involved in juvenile arguments."

The cameraman couldn't resist flipping the bird in this one: 

Best line:  "If I wanted to walk around dressed as a pink unicorn all day... it would be no different in 100 years than if I stared at a blank wall and died of starvation."  


That's supposed to be some kind of argument for Christian morality.  Well, if he believes that making idols to false gods is immoral, and he dressed like the invisible pink unicorn, making it therefore visible and an idol, then uhh yeah he'd still be immoral according to his code.  I'd like to see him explain that to the fellow inmates in Hell.  "Why are you here?  I'm here for fucking 10-year-old boys up the ass."  "Oh, well I'm here for dressing up like a pink unicorn."  "Is that a metaphor?  *wink wink*"

No Reason Rally would be complete without the Westboro Baptist Church and their hateful signs:



Photo slideshow with rather good atheist rap soundtrack:

March 16 Links

 

Ancient mummies had hardening of the arteries. 

Woman sues Catholic Church to have headstone with sports logos
"the council determined the monument wasn't acceptable because of its secular nature. He said he informed Carr of the decision."  Secular?  NASCAR and the NFL are religions!

Freedom from Religion Foundation and 19 other plaintiffs are suing to take In God We Trust off of U.S. currency.

Study finds that atheists become emotionally aroused when imagining God doing something horrible.   I'm too cheap to pay $37.00 to read the article, but there's a summary here.

I've had some memory problems ever since a bad contrecoup concussion years ago.  Now studies show that this is not uncommon.

Inside the peepal conclave.

Ex-Westboro member outs Fred Phelps as racial bigot.

Fellow woman atheist blogger cuts to the chase about patriarchal atheist communities.  (found via Pharyngula, where another woman called me an asshole).  In response to her responses she's offered some advice to atheist men.

Baptists didn't get the answers they'd hoped for when they polled Americans on their attitude toward gays.

Christian missionaries in China promise practice learning English but are really trying to convert... to bring about Armageddon:  "radical evangelists believe in the biblical notion of the “Great Commission” — that Jesus can only return when preaching in every tongue and to every tribe and nation on earth is complete."


40 freethinkers protest a Good News Club's deceptive practices.

Homeschoolers want their kids to learn evolution, no really -- learn EVOLUTION, not learn about the evils thereof.

If Darth Vader had become an Evangelical Christian...

Did you know there are Jews in Iran?  I know one who left and now lives in Indiana.  I should ask him how he feels being surrounded by fundy Christians here.

A mother and her two kids are found dead in a creek... with a Bible nearby.  How many more religious nutters have to take children's lives before we stop saying religion is "beneficial?"

Bart Ehrman Lecture on the King James Bible

Fundies believe the KJB is the definitive text, which of course it's not.  But don't take my word for it, skip to 9:30 (unless you want to hear a lot of speechifying) and check out what Bart Ehrman has to say about it:

March 9 Links, a rather motley assortment

 Texas Christians teach the Bible in public schools, but they teach it objectively and they're inclusive.  Uhhh yeah right.

The Scarlet S:  Getting Branded for Being Single.  I didn't write it, but I could have.

Evolution in action:  one invasive species of ants seems to be doing better than another invasive species of ants.

I think the woman who got killed by a lion deserves a Darwin award.   Seriously.  Look at these pictures.  Just because you love big cats doesn't mean big cats love you!

Make your own fossils!  (shhh don't show this to creationists!)

Kansas Republicans pass an anti-abortion bill that includes a provision preventing employees of clinics that provide abortions from bringing cupcakes to their children's schools.  Yes.  Really.

Amnesty International calls on Bangladesh to protect minority Hindu population

Meanwhile, in India, Hindu radicals are reportedly attacking minority Christians.  They claim they only do "moral policing" and speak up for their gods and goddesses. 

Bulgaria "expresses regret" for deportation of 11,000 Jews during the Holocaust.  Better late than never?  Fortunately for 45,000 other Jews, the public didn't want them to be deported.

Muslim teens in the Netherlands think Hitler didn't go far enough.

At least the Jews of Venezuela can breathe easier now that Chavez is dead.... or can they?  If they are descendents of the Sephardic Jews who were kicked out of Spain in 1492, they are now welcome to come back.  Better late than never?

Turn off your irony meters!  The ambassador attending a ceremony to honor a French woman who saved Jews during the Holocaust is named "Bigot."  Really.  Looky here.

Bill O'Reilly sows a tiny seed of accommodation in an interview with creationist Jeffress.  Ken Ham fries his bacon.  Hilarity ensues.  Pop the popcorn this hatefest is just heating up.

"Club Beyond" is beyond the pale in prosletyzing to military youth.

How Trustworthy is the Bible?

Can anything in the Bible be considered well.... gospel truth?  Christianity is based on the factual truth of most of the New Testament, leaving aside the parts that are inconvenient to one's prejudices, of course. 

People who want to take the Bible literally should be aware of some well-known facts about their favorite book: 

• No part of the Bible survives in manuscript sources from the time they were supposedly written.
• None survive in copies that agree 100%
• None are error-free in any copy
• There are many, many contradictions in the Bible, even in the most "recent" parts
• The New Testament wasn't codified until 325 C.E.
•  The Torah (First Five books) took final form ca. 900 - 450 BCE
•  The Talmud was completed ca. 200 CE & 500 CE (two parts)
• The Old Testament was codified after the New Testament was
• Writings that were widely believed to be legitimate were not selected for inclusion
• Writings that have proved to be forgeries were selected for inclusion
• The Synoptic gospels were written at least 50 years after the death of Christ
• The Book of John was written almost 100 years after the death of Christ
• Mark, the earliest Gospel, says Christ will return before the apostles' demise, but he didn't
• Mark, Mathew, Luke and John didn't actually write the books named for them, nor do they have any connection to them whatsoever
• Paul went against Jewish law, insisting on Baptism rather than circumcision, in order to appeal to gentiles.
• Paul was not the undisputed leader of early Christians
• Paul never met Christ in person, and he was at odds with people who did
• Many of the letters attributed to Paul are forgeries
• The Gnostic Christian theology was suppressed because it disagreed with the idea that Jesus could be both God-spirit and human (they thought he was God-spirit only)
• The Ebionites were suppressed because they disagreed with the idea that Jesus could be both God-spirit and human (they believed he was human only)
• The places mentioned in Exodus were only settled at the same time during the 7th Century B.C., not during the supposed time of the Exodus
• Old Testament stories made Israel look bad because the final editors were residents of Judah and were trying to establish Judah as the true heart of the Jewish faith
• The New Testament's anti-Jewish bias dates each part - the more anti-Semitic, the later the book was written, because the earliest Christians considered themselves Jewish
•  Old Testament law was only thrown out so that gentiles didn't have to get circumcised or change their diets to become Christians, i.e., the O.T. laws were inconvenient
• Mathew & Luke are based on Mark, with some embellishments that seem to have specific agendas.

If your history textbook had this many problems, you would throw it out!

The Bible, on The "History" Channel

I was hoping for a history of the Bible, but no, it's a depiction of the Biblical stories.  Phooey.

Here's the Huffpo write-up:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/the-bible-history-channel-miniseries_n_2767706.html

Part entertainment, part evangelism, "The Bible" is accompanied by a tremendous commercial push, with trailers in movie theaters and ads across A+E Networks channels, including Lifetime. There are also three books based on the series and a DVD study kit....The series' website includes lesson plans for pastors who want to incorporate the show into Sunday sermons and study groups.

I think I'll pass.