The Bishop of Tenerife provided an interesting explanation for the vast numbers of children raped by Catholic priests: They asked for it.

In 2007, when the American Catholic Church was reeling from sex abuse scandals but not so much Europe, the Bishop of Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez, made some interesting Christmas holiday comments.

In a Christmas Eve interview with La Opinión de Tenerife, Bishop Alvarez said that there are children who want to be abused:

“There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you.”

Old news, but read more at Secular News Daily.

Case. Meet Rest.

Thought I’d share this old recording I recovered of me playing the famous Intermezzo by Brahms!

An Intermezzo is a:

a term used since the early 19th century for movements or sections, generally within larger works; also for independent pieces, often for piano solo and predominantly lyrical in character.

via LOL Happens

The first day or so was spent at Sentosa.  My memory of it is that of sitting excitedly in the monorail and traversing the vast underwater world — every kid’s dream, to put it simply.  The next morning we went on what I believe was to turn into a day-long shopping spree, which was every kid’s nightmare (mine especially), but Mum was wise to promise us a visit to the toy-shop afterwards, and that alone must have kept us shuffling along nigh uncomplainingly.

The shop was Toys R’ Us, but only if my memory serves me correctly.  Whatever it was, it was the most impressive depository of playthings I ever saw, and I must have been as excited as any nine-year-old boy could have been.  Now one of the things I was obsessed with as a kid was Army Men.  In our living room I used to build up massive battlefronts of ‘little green men’, and my childish imagination would lead me to believe that I was the general commander of the ‘good guys’, that we were somehow poised on the brink of defeat, yet against all odds I would manage to save the day… despite the grimmer fact that friendly casualties very often numbered in the dozens.

So by chance, or possibly by fate, as it would then have occurred to the nine-year-old me, I stumble across this shiny squad of Army Men which, once it had caught my attention, wasn’t so willing to let go of it too easily.  I was quickly mesmerised by it, and immediately made it my mission that I wasn’t going to leave the shop without it.  But extraordinary toys come at extraordinary prices, and Dad was unconvinced that it was entirely worth the money, or that I was sincerely attached to it rather than just being premature, as the nine-year-old me must often have been.  (If you happen to wonder how a squad of Army Men could be so costly, it was that it came ready with tanks and artillery and many other shiny gadgets, all of which seldom looked plastic, well, at least to my boyish eyes).

But it was apparent at the time that unless he bought it, I would surely leave the store pouting, and possibly pout all the way back to the hotel, which must have been in itself quite a grim prospect, but he did allow it to happen.  He hinted to me that it was too expensive a toy, and that I should pick something else in its stead, but overwhelmed with disappointment as I was, I didn’t, and I did pout all the way back to the hotel.  I even recall to have said something to my mum along the lines of “I don’t want any presents for Christmas,” which was at best a punchline craftily devised to get my parents’ attention, or perhaps to get them to feel a little guilty, but nonetheless, they seemed wholly unaffected by this whole matter.

Then came Christmas, and I must have felt a little queasy at the thought of getting absolutely no presents, and worse, the fact of it was that I had brought it all upon myself, and so deep down inside I probably knew I deserved the misery.  My brother sat with his playthings in his lap; and I imagine that I, sitting by him, would have felt secretly overwhelmed with a sense of being left out, bordering on unwitting jealousy.  It seemed like the worst feeling a boy can experience, and I must have tried my best to hide it from the family, although probably unsuccessfully.

The hotel room we stayed in was more like a little studio in that it had a small lounge area where there was a (green) sofa and a TV in the corner.  I vaguely recall to have been sitting in this lounge area, possibly watching TV, when Dad approach me with this wrapped present tucked under his arm, and he handed it over to me.  Words fail to describe how surprised I would have felt.  I can imagine my nine-year-old self scrambling to unwrap the present, and I would have been speechlessly transfixed with awe to see what was inside, beneath the ever-obscuring veil of wrapping paper.

It was exactly as I had hoped it to be.  I don’t quite know if Dad had sneaked back to the shop to buy it, or whether he actually bought it on the day behind my back, or what, but it was there now resting on my own lap, and just like that, I had transformed from the sad sod I was earlier, to becoming possibly the happiest boy out of this planet.  I began furiously tearing apart the rest of the wrapping paper, but was also nimble and delicate when it came to the actual unboxing process, making sure not to damage them precious little things which were tidily nested inside.

The tanks and stuff came with projectiles which they would fire out if you pushed the right buttons, and one of the artillery unit would disassemble itself if you pulled this tiny lever on its back, which I thought was thoroughly amazing.  But it wasn’t only me who was thrilled to the marrow by this entire experience.  I remember my little brother was so excited (I imagine he would have been peeking out from behind my shoulder and watching me unbox the present with unblinking eyes) that he even distanced himself from his own toys to sit by me on the carpeted floor, as one by one I unveiled these precious little figurines.

But it was my present, and not his.  As always, he began fooling around with the little bits and pieces, all the while I probably worried that things would get lost underneath the sofa and whatnot, so I told him to stop.  He didn’t.  He went up on the sofa and took some of the figurines with him, and started playing with them.  Then I caught him sort of pushing one of the Army Men into the little crevice between the sofa cushions (for whatever reason, I don’t know — possibly to simulate the trenches of the Great War?!), but it made me snap — and so I socked him one.

Needless to say Mum and Dad were shocked and angry at what I did, because my brother was crying, as it was the hardest punch I had ever given to anyone or anything in my life (and so you know, I used to kickbox as well).  I on the other hand was dead convinced I had done the right thing, and stood by this conviction even as I was being told to apologise or threatened with all kinds of punishments… punishments which I probably eventually received.  But for all I cared the boy fully deserved what he got.

I  don’t remember much of what happened next, but my brother didn’t talk to me again for a long time (probably the rest of that day, though it did seem long, at the time).  I don’t think I ever did apologise to him, or if I did, it would not have been a sincere apology, because I’d indoctrinated myself to believe that it was anything but my fault.

But all he was — was that he was excited for me that I got the present I so desperately wanted for Christmas, and all he wanted was to play it with me.  He wouldn’t have thought I was capable of hurting him in such a way, and I wouldn’t have known it myself, had it not been for Christmas, Army Men and sofa crevices.

I sometimes wonder if he ever forgot the incident, or whether he ever forgave me for it.  It wasn’t the way I would want him, or anyone, to remember me by, if it was the last thing I ever did.

The greatest gift you could ever give to someone is the gift of love, and of kindness.

Don’t keep it hidden away under your own tree, for too long.

1. You were not born a Christian. You were raised as one.

Your religious faith is not something you were born with or are stuck with for life. You, like almost everyone else, were born and raised in a religious community, and chances are you are religious as a consequence of that upbringing.  Now is the time to start thinking for yourself.

2. You feel Jesus. They feel Allah.

Christianity is not the only religion out there.  Yet you are so convinced that everyone else’s is wrong, but yours is Truth.  As Mark Twain famously said: “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”

3. Broken moral compass.

There exists no context in which God ordering men to rape women and to beat children to death can ever be morally justified.  The fact that we know now that these things are dreadful and wrong is proof that our morality is ever constantly changing, not set in stone as the authors of the Bible would have it.

4. Retarded philosophy.

The apple and the snake and the naked couple and the flood and the whale and the vegetarian T-rexes and the unicorns — need I say more? The fact that millions of people believe in the same set of fairy tales doesn’t make it any less retarded, unfortunately.

5. Biblical inconsistencies.

… self-fulfilling prophecies, revolting passages and pages after pages of sheer stupidity. Ricky Gervais once speculated that the surest path to becoming an atheist is to read the Bible from cover to cover. Who would ever want to waste time doing that I dont know; but the first two chapters should be telling enough.

6. Failed prayers.

God cured your cancer. Congratulations. Now say that to the families of 7.6 million less-privileged people who die from cancer each year.

7. Re: Wishful thinking.

“[God] created us sick and then order us, on pain of eternal torture, to be well again. To wish this to be true is to wish to be an abject slave!” – Hitchslap.

8. Self-appointed dictator.

We didn’t ask to be created. We didn’t ask to be sinful. Even if this imaginary God of yours existed, we would owe nothing to him — just as a baby owes nothing to its parents for the sole fact of it ever being born. At least most parents won’t sit around and watch their children starve to death, or set them eternally on fire should they refuse to love them in return.

9. Reason.

Never take seriously a book that begins with a naked woman being seduced by a talking snake to eat a magical fruit which would cause her to menstruate … well, unless you’re into that erotic (exotic?) kind of stuff.

10. Sleep-in Sundays

Hell, I feel this reason alone might just render the rest of what I’ve written above utterly redundant. Drat.

Feel free to add to this list.

I grew up in Christianity and I want it to be true.

First of all I don’t see why anyone should wish for Christianity to be true.  A god who punishes people on the basis of whether or not he/she believes in him is not worth worshipping, to say the very least.

I want Christianity to be true because I don’t want to have built my entire life on a lie.

This is a good point, and I can sincerely relate to the sense of loss one feels when he or she is disconnected with “God”.  It is as if the foundations upon which all things are built have been removed as to leave you floating senselessly in the air, pondering the very questions of your own existence — but at least now you are free.

So I “came out”. To myself at first, and gradually to others. From born-again believer to dead-again agnostic.

How I congratulate you!

But I’m not in rebellion. Not intentionally anyway. Heck, I’m still a 32 year-old virgin and I’d still like to marry someone who believes in that marriage is sacred and sex within marriage is the ideal (more on that later). I still want the Christian family with five kids in the mini-van, singing Veggie Tales tunes on the way to the Sunday School picnic. Please believe me when I say that I want to believe!

This is where I believe a critical response is due.  Knowing as you do know, you should have every reason to be in rebellion with Christianity.  It goes without saying that you should wish to raise your children to become critical thinkers, not to bind them into an endless loop of dogma from which you yourself have scarcely emerged.

I gather from your other article that you label yourself as neither theist or atheist:

I am an agnostic. I don’t worship Satan and I’m not an atheist. There may be a God, or there may not be one. I don’t see evidence of a loving omnipotent deity, but I won’t rule out the possibility. “Agnostic” comes from two greek words: ‘A’ as in “Not” and ‘Gnostis’ as in “Knowledge”. My faith creed is simply this: “I don’t know”.

I know I must have explained this countless times, but here it is again.  Agnosticism is a position on the nature of knowledge.  Atheism and theism, are on the other hand, epistemological statements.  ”There may be a God”, sure, and I say that as an atheist.  I rule out no possibilities, but at the same time I accept no claims which are baseless and unfounded upon evidence.

I rather think that you are complicating things for yourself by identifying yourself as an agnostic-full-stop.  Your want for a return to Christianity stems from the fact that you see yourself as sitting on a hypothetical fence, from which the leaps to either end are equidistant.  Undecided is a good term, but arguably, if you are undecided, then you do not yet believe in God, which would technically make you an atheist.  Semantics aside, my feeling is that you are also over-estimating the value of “Christian” ideals, as if they were in any way pleasant and desirable.

They are not.