The government's attitude towards Christians is very negative. The church cannot operate freely and Christians are restricted in their roles in their families and communities. Many believers experience extreme physical and emotional pressure to renounce their faith. In 2010, 29 Christians were killed and at least 20 were arrested and held without trial. A number of churches were destroyed. In January 2010, 11 Christian families were forced out of their villages into the forest when they refused to recant their faith. Despite high levels of persecution, the church is growing.

Pressure on Uzbek Christians mounted in 2010. The number of raids on churches increased, resulting in more court cases. Fines for illegal religious activities were up to 100 times the minimum monthly wage, and short-term prison sentences (3-15 days) were given out more frequently as a punishment for religious activities. A 27-year-old Baptist was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Many churches lost their registration and some their buildings. Christians experienced job loss, beatings, social rejection and often expulsion from the family home.

Reading one of the religious message boards today, there is a long discussion about why born-agains as they are called are so miserable.

My issue is why is this term used as a derogatory term? All Christians are born again and you cannot become a follower of Jesus until you have been born again.

What does Born-Again mean? I shall ponder on this and come back to it ...

Take a look at the video on this link, it is hilariously bad. It shows an appalling lack of knowledge about history (bronze age Palestine indeed!), Jewish history (Jesus' command to do no harm wasn't original he points out but Jesus was quoting the law and the prophets!) and Christian practise. It really is amusing and most enlightening. Then there is the oh so clever insistence on using the name Yeshua ben Joseph as if we have never heard that before.


Jesus through the eyes of an atheist

Iraq is home to one of the world's oldest Christian communities and has suffered a great deal in recent years and this is not the place to discuss them. Our Christian brothers and sisters have suffered a great deal and they need to have our prayers and love

Violence against Christians increased in 2010, with large numbers of believers killed and injured. There were a number of attacks on Christians in Mosul in the run-up to March's elections, leading to an exodus of Christians to villages in the Nineveh plains. Attacks on church buildings and Christian institutions increased in the second half of the year. In October 2010, at least 58 Christians were killed and many were injured in a bomb attack on a church in Baghdad.

Christians are standing in Iraq and are dying, please God support them and keep them safe.

Amen

There has been a good deal of rushing around in  atheist circles these last few days. Their god, Richard Dawkins has gotten himself into a good deal of trouble. It all started when a female atheist who was at a conference in Dublin was propositioned in a lift early in the morning. She had spent a good deal of the day explaining how she disliked being propositioned and that it had happened quite often (this is a brief summary). Now she blogged about how this made her feel uncomfortable and the message was put out on the pharyngula blog by PZ Myers. The 'great' Dick Dawkins decided to comment and in his best sarcastic tone he wrote this


"Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard"

Apparently for Professor Dawkins there are worse things to worry about in the world for women so the person who felt propositioned shouldn't complain.


He compounded this with a later comment which said

Here's the argument I was making. The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics' privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker. PZ didn't physically strike any Catholics. All he did was nail a wafer, and he was absolutely right to do so because the heightened value of the wafer was a fantasy in the minds of the offended Catholics. Similarly, Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they'd have had good reason to complain.
Richard


There was no offence really he argues; its the same as someone chewing gum and making him feel uncomfortable.

But wait, there was a third comment from him too

Many people seem to think it obvious that my post was wrong and I should apologise. Very few people have bothered to explain exactly why. The nearest approach I have heard goes something like this.
I sarcastically compared Rebecca's plight with that of women in Muslim countries or families dominated by Muslim men. Somebody made the worthwhile point (reiterated here by PZ) that it is no defence of something slightly bad to point to something worse. We should fight all bad things, the slightly bad as well as the very bad. Fair enough. But my point is that the 'slightly bad thing' suffered by Rebecca was not even slightly bad, it was zero bad. A man asked her back to his room for coffee. She said no. End of story.
But not everybody sees it as end of story. OK, let's ask why not? The main reason seems to be that an elevator is a confined space from which there is no escape. This point has been made again and again in this thread, and the other one.
No escape? I am now really puzzled. Here's how you escape from an elevator. You press any one of the buttons conveniently provided. The elevator will obligingly stop at a floor, the door will open and you will no longer be in a confined space but in a well-lit corridor in a crowded hotel in the centre of Dublin.
No, I obviously don't get it. I will gladly apologise if somebody will calmly and politely, without using the word fuck in every sentence, explain to me what it is that I am not getting.
Richard



That's ok then, were she being assaulted all that was needed to escape was to press a button. I am so glad that she had that option.


Perhaps it is better for him to stick to the day job. What is that?

It was the church fete today. As exciting as one would expect. There was the bric-a-brac stall, here the cake stall and over there the sweet stall. Tea and biscuits for sale in the church centre and in a nod to modernity a Wii was set up in the church itself.

Now this got my mind to thinking. Today was all about raising money for Christian Aid and every pound we raised was going to be trebled by the EU. What I was wondering is why do we keep on with the same old things (quite apart from the fact that I am stunned that the £17,000 spent on the new sound system could have become £68,000 for Christian Aid). Each year we try things and each year it seems they become less and less successful. When we review it seems that we will say oh well it'll be better next year.

Will it though? Must we keep on doing the same old things? Perhaps it is time to step out and think of something new.

Imagine a church year without the summer fete and the winter one too. Imagine a church where we sought to raise funds in a way which not only glorifies God but that interacts with a community that isn't shying away from our building. I wonder what ideas we can come up with!