JonnyRadar
The Living Force
Guardian said:... For example, Catholics and Jews generally have far less problems drifting in and out of and back in to their traditional faiths ...
Oh... I think that's the best joke I've heard this week...
Guardian said:... For example, Catholics and Jews generally have far less problems drifting in and out of and back in to their traditional faiths ...
Guardian said:...
Hey Laura, since you are now apparently the "most enlightened person on earth." according to Szimhart, can you please tell me what would happen if I decided to quit the Fellowship, and say...become a Methodist? Yes, yes, I know I'd never hear the end of it from my Heathen and Pagan friends...but I'm talking about this group right now...
Megan said:We would mourn your passing when you died of boredom.
Guardian said:Megan said:We would mourn your passing when you died of boredom.
LOL....now, now, I picked Methodist for my hypothetical change of heart because I have a lot of Methodist friends, and they're kewl folks. :)
Laura said:What's interesting is that we have only ever had to deal with people who simply could not deal with the fact that we didn't want them and tossed them out! What kind of cult does that? OR, they couldn't stand the heat of the way we work - which is laid out clearly in our Forum Guidelines - and when they felt that their cherished sacred cows were being maligned, they went on the attack. So, we defend when attacked. What's so weird about that?
What nobody ever talks about is the fact that hundreds, if not thousands of people come, check us out, go away, and nothing is ever said about it at all on either side. They have their way, and that's fine with us. We don't go preaching anywhere, people come and go as they like, but those few pathological people who can't bear to be excluded because we think they are psychos or those who suffer from "Right man syndrome" make all the noise and get all the attention.
Lots of people spend time here on the forum engaged in those topics that interest them in a civilized way who never engage in "the Work" as we refer to it. That's fine with us.
We currently have over 4,000 members and we regularly purge the membership if a person hasn't posted in a year or two, so we've probably had about 10,000 or more members since the forum has existed.
I would say that it says something about us that only about 20 to 25 people, in the past 14 years have acted this way out of the thousands of people who have come and gone from this forum. What's that percentage? .25% ??? Not even 1%!!!
You can't please everybody, but I think we aren't doing too bad. It also highlights the pathology of the attackers, including Szimhart.
I also think Szimhart is going to be very embarrassed when he learns the history of his "insider" who is giving him the scoop.
Guardian said:I just read this on Szimhart's slander site, and about fell out of my chair laughing. Since MCES is run by Catholics, Jews, and at least one Mennonite...those are considered "Healthy Cults"
Healthy cult formation has far less tension with the outside world, thus a member can quit without the panic and anxiety. For example, Catholics and Jews generally have far less problems drifting in and out of and back in to their traditional faiths than does anyone that has had the misfortune of believing in Laura Knight Jadczyk's "experiment" as the cult likes to call its agenda.
Oh yeah, no "panic and anxiety" if someone leaves the Catholic or Jewish cults, their family just ostracizes them and their soul is damned forever....no problem.
Hey Laura, since you are now apparently the "most enlightened person on earth." according to Szimhart, can you please tell me what would happen if I decided to quit the Fellowship, and say...become a Methodist? Yes, yes, I know I'd never hear the end of it from my Heathen and Pagan friends...but I'm talking about this group right now.
Would I have to stop posting on the forum? Would yawl stop being my "friends" as Szimhart puts it in quotes? Could I still use all your kewl research?
name said:@Moderator
I can't edit my posts more than 2x. Is that intended? Would it be possible to let me edit/correct my posts more than 2x after posting? Thanks.
P.S.: I notice that Joe Szimhart lives less than 20Km from the MCES.
Religious Education by Parents is “Child Abuse”: Center for Inquiry Proposal
Mon Jun 18, 2007 11:15 EST
By Peter J. Smith
NEW YORK, June 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Religious education is a form of child abuse and violates the rights of children, contends a thesis to be considered by secular humanists at the Center for Inquiry’s congress in Beijing this October.
The Center for Inquiry, an organisation recently awarded special consultative status as an NGO at the United Nations (UN) will consider the proposals of Innaiah Narisetti, the chairman of the Center for Inquiry’s India chapter, that portend the next stage in the assault on the rights of parents to educate their children.
Nasiretti called the influence of religion a "severe shortcoming in the global campaign to protect children" and a contributor to child abuse saying, "In one form or another, all religions violate the rights of children."
"Such abuse begins with the involuntary involvement of children in religious practices from the time they are born," says Narisetti. "All religions, through ritual, preaching, and religious texts, seek to bring children into day-to-day religious practice."
"This gives holy books and scriptures, as well as those who teach them, an early grip on the developing minds of young people, leaving an indelible impression on them," said Narisetti, calling Sunday schools, madrassas, or Jewish or Hindu temples, centers of indoctrination for children.
Nasiretti’s proposal would reject the long-recognized inherent rights of parents to educate and provide for their children’s religious instruction in favor of regulating children’s exposure to religious influence by world governments abiding by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
"The time has come to debate the participation of children in religious institutions," continues Narisetti. "While some might see it as a matter better left to parents, the negative influence of religion and its subsequent contribution to child abuse from religious beliefs and practices requires us to ask whether organized religion is an institution that needs limits set on how early it should have access to children."
The UN forum proposed by Narisetti would debate the "pros and cons" of religion on children and determine whether religion contributes to global child abuse.
"The UN must then take a clear stand on the issue of the forced involvement of children in religious practices; it must speak up for the rights of children and not the automatic right of parents and societies to pass on religious beliefs, and it must reexamine whether an organization like the Vatican should belong to the UN," stated Narisetti.
"Until this happens, millions of children worldwide will continue to be abused in the name of religion, and the efforts made by the UN will continue to address the symptoms but not the disease."
US reports on religious kidnappings in Japan
Posted on July 31, 2012
Today the US State Department has published its annual International Religious Freedom Report. The Analysis contains a section on religious kidnappings and forced conversions in Japan. The HRWF Report (FOREF has previously published the findings of Human Rights Without Frontiers) has been quoted as a source (see below).
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The constitution and other laws and policies protect religious freedom and, in practice, the government generally respected religious freedom. The government did not demonstrate a trend toward either improvement or deterioration in respect for and protection of the right to religious freedom.
There were few reports of societal abuse or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice.
The U.S. government closely monitored the situation of religious freedom, conducted regular outreach to minority religious groups, and discussed religious freedom issues with the government.
Section I. Religious Demography
Since the government does not require religious groups to report their membership, it is difficult to determine accurately the number of adherents of different religious groups. The Agency for Cultural Affairs reported that membership claims by religious groups totaled 207 million as of December 2008. This number, substantially more than the country’s population of 127.4 million, reflects many citizens’ affiliation with multiple religions. For example, it is common to practice both Buddhist and Shinto rites.
According to the agency’s current yearbook which shows statistics for 2008, 108 million people identified themselves as Shinto, 88 million as Buddhist, and 2.3 million as Christian, while 8.9 million followed “other” religions. There are no governmental statistics on the number of Muslims in the country.
Section II. Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom
Legal/Policy Framework
The constitution and other laws and policies protect religious freedom.
According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, approximately 183,000 religious groups were certified by the government as religious organizations with corporate status. The government does not require religious groups to register or apply for certification; however, certified religious organizations receive tax benefits. More than 82 percent of religious groups had been certified by 2008.
The Religious Juridical Persons Law, as amended in response to the 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system by Aum Shinrikyo, provides the government with the authority to supervise certified religious groups. The law requires certified religious organizations to disclose their assets to the government and empowers the government to investigate possible violations of regulations governing for-profit activities. Authorities have the right to suspend a religious organization’s for-profit activities if the organization violates these regulations.
The government does not observe any religious holidays as national holidays.
Government Practices
There were few reports of abuses in the country. In May, 14 Muslims filed a lawsuit against the government after documents accidentally leaked onto the Internet revealed that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the National Police Agency had systematically collected their personal information, including their religious activities and associations, allegedly solely because of their religion. The lawsuit was ongoing at year’s end.
The government granted temporary humanitarian protective status to Chinese individuals who were Falun Gong (also referred to as Falun Dafa) practitioners resident in Japan and who filed for this status. Some of these individuals reported that the Chinese Embassy in Japan would not renew their Chinese passports due to their faith. This temporary humanitarian status allowed these individuals to remain in the country and to travel overseas using travel documents issued by the government of Japan.
Section III. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom
There were few reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief or practice.
In October 2010 a vehicle parked in front of a mosque in Fukui Prefecture with a sign reading “Foreign People Get Out” was set on fire. Leaders at the mosque, attended primarily by foreign university students living in Fukui, portrayed the incident as isolated and unusual and said they had positive relations with the local community. Police arrested an individual for this incident late in the year.
For several years deprogrammers working with family members have reportedly abducted Unification Church members and members of other minority religious groups. The number of reported cases has declined sharply since the 1990s, but research published in December by the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Human Rights Without Frontiers International maintained that abductions and deprogramming of Unification Church members continue to occur. Other NGOs, however, accused the Unification Church of exaggerating or fabricating these reports. The Unification Church reported two cases in which church members were abducted during the year as well as three cases of suspected abductions. According to the church, one abductee escaped after five months of confinement and the other was released after three weeks; the three individuals whom church officials suspect were abducted all withdrew from the church. Two other members who reportedly remained confined at the end of 2010 withdrew from the church. The Unification Church also asserted that cult prevention workshops and campaigns held at universities throughout the country urged students to avoid groups affiliated with the church and contributed to a hostile campus environment for Unificationist students.
While Japanese society has been largely supportive of the right of Falun Gong practitioners to practice freely, there were reports that the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo carried out an active campaign to harass and undermine the organization by trying to persuade Japanese organizations to discriminate against Falun Gong practitioners. Some of the country’s top facilities have refused to host Shen Yun Performing Arts, a New York-based performance group associated with the Falun Gong, but other smaller theaters have hosted the group. Other Falun Gong-affiliated performers have performed at large facilities. Likewise, while some Japanese companies have given in to Chinese pressure and not advertised in the Epoch Times, others have continued to advertise in the publication.
Significant interfaith efforts continued during the year. The Japanese Association of Religious Organizations, an interfaith NGO, worked to promote religious culture and interfaith harmony. Members from the Islamic Center Japan spoke at churches and participated in interfaith peace prayers with Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist groups. The World Conference on Religions for Peace Japanese Committee, composed of various religious groups, hosted interfaith symposiums during the year and participated in relief efforts led by many religious organizations in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Section IV. U.S. Government Policy
As part of its overall policy to promote human rights, the U.S. government closely monitored the situation of religious freedom, conducted regular outreach to minority religious groups and NGOs, and discussed religious freedom with the government.