Hergest Ridge

Heidi Baker has seen food multiply and more than a hundred people raised from the dead, the latter event described by the Christian Broadcasting Network host as “an incredible resurrection power-move by God.”

“We didn’t have enough chicken.” The cook now announced he was cooking fish. “They want chicken, so we prayed for chicken, and everybody ate chicken.” Later, bags and bags of chicken were taken home. Imagine the poor and dying children of northern Mozambique fretting over the Christmas menu. And just how do the poor and starving out there tell the difference between chicken and fish? Miracles abound when Heidi is around.

“It’s documented - god just made more chicken for us. Whether it flew in, or…” The host interrupted and the flying chickens joined the ‘divine secrets’ rank.

Ready for another miracle?

“I looked into the eyes of the girls and asked them what they want” for the girls didn’t want the stuffed toys. They instead asked for beads - stuffed toys are sooo passé in Mozambique, and next year if we cannot bring caviar and iPhones, Westerners might as well take their gifts and keel over in shame and for being useless.

Those ungrateful bastard children were first unwilling to eat fish, and now can’t even say “thank you” and shut up.

“I told my friend to look in the garbage bag and pull out what is there, and there were beads in the bag, because god cares.” Heidi just knew - no easter egg hunt for the beads.

How have these miracles changed how Mozambique sees Jesus?

“They know he is real. Hundreds of hundreds and thousands of syncretistic Muslims are getting saved everyday. We don’t even preach, we just say bring us the deaf, and the deaf person hears and then they just say ‘Yeees, we want Jesus!’ “

The poor of Mozambique need Jesus like the natives of North America needed the blankets from the white man. And we all need Jesus like another hole in the body. The notion of Jesus often maims and kills, with the healing left to the ER. The Spaniards of the roughly 350 years starting 1478 will attest, and 150,000 (an estimate from García Cárcel) people can’t be wrong. (Well, yes they can, but just take my word for it or read the daily news.)

The miracles happen “week, after week, after week, among those in northern Mozambique.” While Heidi is raising the dead with prayers, her husband Rolland “left Mozambique for the United States last November for prayer, treatment and rest. During this time he has been under the care of several doctors and has been meeting with counselors.”

The first one to argue for miracles in a context other than ‘a useful tool to oppress’ gets to wear a very pointy hat, and substitute for the poster in a game of “pin the tail.” As for the modern day con woman Heidi Baker with an historical act, I hope that hell does really exist.

“We shall abolish the orgasm.” That’s one of the goals of the Party in Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-Four. “There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother.”

Of course, many have succeeded at abolishing the orgasm through various forms of genital mutilation. Hundreds of millions more - perhaps billions - suffer from tremendous guilt at thinking about, discussing or pursuing an orgasm. Many more are able to enjoy the sexual experience only under rare and unlikely to occur circumstances - all of this thanks to religion. God is the in details, you know, and when it comes to sex, and orgasms, and pleasure, there are a lot of details.

As long as humanity prefers a bad explanation over no answer at all, I have to side with the “religion will always be there” camp with which Orwell associated himself with.

There are many good reasons for discussing Orwell and his works anytime, but today there is additional one: Orwell’s initial entry in his diary celebrates its 70th anniversary this August 9th. It, along with the entries that followed, are being made available online starting today, each to be published at orwelldiaries.wordpress.com exactly 70 years after its conception.

How arrogant, insatiable, vain, and egocentric, to stand on a mountain top with all the world below, and have the gull to ask for more from life than this? If there is anything that the Alpha Course makes apparent, it is that human self-importance really has no limits. Centuries after its been established that our planet is not at the centre of the universe, our egos remain where we once believed earth to be.

Well that is that and this is this.

Will you tell me what you saw and I’ll tell you what you missed,

when the ocean met the sky.

You missed when time and life shook hands and said goodbye.

When the earth folded in on itself.

And said “Good luck, for your sake I hope heaven and hell

are really there, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

You wasted life, why wouldn’t you waste death?

^{Excerpt from Ocean Breaths Salty by Modest Mouse}

^{(Good News for People Who Love Bad News)}

Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Several years back, in my hands I held a binder that belonged to a relative. The binder was covered with the phrase PUSH neatly scribbled in many sizes and styles. Had the acronym not been spelled out along side - Pray Until Something Happens -, I’d likely have forgotten the whole episode. Having recently seen the phrase again, armed with science, psychology and philosophy I dissect the phrase loved by so many Christians.

PUSH really brings out the benefits of religion, better than any other phrase I’m familiar with. First we have the psychological satisfaction and feeling of doing something about an issue, the psychological equivalent of crying¹. Second, we have a powerful message that every church loves for their members to believe - “Only God has control, and we are your best conduit to Him.” Third is the absolution from negative consequences - “Blame yourself not, for if you prayed and things went bad, such was God’s will.” As with most of religion, that’s just all too convenient, isn’t it?

Christianity often sees science as the forbidden fruit, the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden who’s fruit we humans mustn’t taste. Christianity’s advice is not to understand and counter or encourage an effect, but to leave it all up to man upstairs - to resign yourself to the natural course, to PUSH. Indeed, so far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.²

Hypocrisy is one of the nicest labels I can apply to the practice. We all line up for the benefits of a pill that cures everything from a headache to an infection, the convenience of planes, trains and automobiles, the dentists that keep our teeth from rotting in our mouths, the blood transfusion after an accident or operation, the comfort of a phone call with mom, dad, child on another continent… yet some of us are pompous enough to walk around proclaiming PUSH?

I’ve yet to meet a Christian that chose to pray for a safe trip home in place of learning the rules of the road. You might choose to do both, but when it comes to life and death, prayer alone will seldom do, even for a fundamentalist. On the other hand, most individuals armed only with the rules of the road and logic get home just fine, and do so in exact same proportions as those that do pray ahead for a safe trip. Prayer has no effect on the external reality. Our actions are what brings by change.

PUSH is a cop out mentality. The only reason you and I can sit and discuss its values and the lack thereof is due to the many men and women whom accepted the burden of reality, as should we. If actions speak louder than words, no one really believes that prayer is a realistic solution to anything. That being the case, I urge all to stop perpetuating the myth.

 
NOTES

¹ Crying is still a scientific mystery where theories abound and research is ongoing. The psychological release and feelings associated with it are but one proposition and factor of many on offer.

² Bertrand Russel

Alicja Tysiac, a mother of three has won her abortion case. The European Court of Human rights has decided that the Polish Government violated her rights after she was refused an abortion. She’s being awarded 25,000 Euros. That’s right, a mother of three - now legally blind - is getting a stinking 25,000 Euros.

When Alicja became pregnant in February of 2000, three eye specialists warned her that carrying to term would likely have devastating effects on her eyesight, and she could in the end become blind. Alicja gave birth, and suffered a retinal haemorrhage. Her remaining sight comes with the help of thick (donated) glasses, is limited to a metre and a half, and is deteriorating.
 

 
Since the fall of communism, Poland is run by the conservative party in drag and abortion is illegal.

To give you a perspective, during the communist years when abortion was available on demand, about 180,000 abortions took place every year. Since the Catholic church weaseled itself back into power, that number is down to below 200 state sanctioned abortions per year - but don’t worry, they’re working on further reducing the number. Right now, rape, incest, threat to the mother’s life, or a damaged fetus are the only grounds for a potential legal abortion. If the church has its way, a thirteen year old girl raped by her daddy will have to cherish the life in her womb, and become a mommy. Let’s just hope its not a girl, and that daddy gets hit by a fucking train soon. Real soon.

Poland already announced that the decision reached by the Strasbourg court will not deter it from attempts to further tighten the abortion laws.

It’s estimated that 2.2% of polish women use the pill, a result of misinformation and scare tactics. Condom use is demonised. The majority of school textbooks recommended by the Ministry of Truth Ministry of Education are based on the Roman-Catholic Church’s teaching on family planning. An excerpt from M. Ombach’s “In Search of Real Love”, a recommended school reading by the Ministry of Education:

Pages 86-7: Even if contraceptives had only the effect of preventing conception and if they did not damage the babies in the initial stage of their life, and if they were not harmful to the woman’s health, even then using contraceptives cannot be treated as the right human sexual behaviour, and this is because of the moral evil that it does to the human being.

Why? Let us illustrate this with the following example. A small boy is stealing apples from the neighbour’s garden. His act was effective because he managed not to get caught. No one, however, will judge his behaviour as right and worth following. The moral evil behind contraceptives comes from the fact that they limit the sexual contact to sole pleasure, thoroughly excluding possibility of parenthood.

Page 93: When at last will people become fully aware that fertility means health! Contraceptives which kill fertility harm human beings because they destroy their health!

Women’s groups say that abortions have been pushed underground, where 60,000 to 200,000 are performed every year. The estimate is denied by Polish pro-life groups who insist Polish women do not want abortions. So, why exactly do these pro-life groups exist? Communal knitting? Orgies? Since all hangers these days are made from plastic, I’m sure there is joke somewhere in here, to do with knitting needles and the aftermath of the orgies.

Alicja’s life will only get more difficult. Soon the world will forget her name and the money will run out, but if there is any justice in this world, history will remember her. Let’s hope that her voice is echoed until the sound can be ignored no more, and Poland finally wakes up from yet another Dark Age nightmare.

 
Sources & Related Articles

1. Polish woman fights abortion case
2. Abortion ship makes waves in Poland
3. The effects of the Anti-Abortion Law
4. Polish woman wins abortion case