Church scandal’s Next Wave: Abused girls

Can we please disband this collection of stone-age imbeciles? Has all compassion been lost in the Catholic Church.

"Father Charlie told the girl with the cascading brown curls and frilly frocks that she was pretty. Special. One of his favourites.

In the small Ontario town of Pain Court, a French-Canadian community near Chatham, Father Charlie’s attention was prized by devout Roman Catholic families like Cecilia McLauchlin’s. His interest in their daughter meant the popular priest, once described as “next to God,” publicly approved of how she was being raised.

So when a gynecologist examined the girl for recurring vaginal infections, it didn’t occur to anyone that Father Charlie was the cause of her physical pain.

Cecilia McLauchlin was only 5 years old."

Now I'm not perfect, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend myself as a people turn to me everytime they have a moral dilemma but why people continually turn to "the church" for guidance is beyond me.

"Now 32, the Chatham woman is the youngest known victim of Father Charles Sylvestre, the smooth-talking priest who groomed his young prey with candies, trinkets and praise. He was convicted in 2006 of sexually assaulting 47 girls over four decades in southwestern Ontario — despite abuse complaints from victims to police, school and church officials during that time."

Can someone tell me why this continues to happen?

Read the Article

Willie Smits restores a Rainforest

TED Video: By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans -- and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.

Willie Smits has devoted his life to saving the forest habitat of orangutans, the "thinkers of the jungle." As towns, farms and wars encroach on native forests, Smits works to save what is left.

Watch the Video

China To Sterilise 10,000 To Curb Births

Health authorities are planning to sterilise nearly 10,000 people in southern China over the next four days as part of a population control programme.

Some of the people in Puning City will be forced to have the procedure carried out against their will.

Amnesty International says forced sterilisation "amounts to torture".

Reports in the Chinese media say that Puning Health authorities in Guangdong Province have launched a special campaign to sterilise people who already have at least one child in order to ensure local birth control quotas are met.

Read the Article

Sam Harris: Can the process of science answer moral questions?

Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.

View the Article

In the Beginning...

Some may wonder where the connection between being Atheist and being "Environmentally Conscious" comes from, or why I find the connection important enough to mention it on the start of my blog.

Well I guess I've recently been questioning faith in a higher power; not just my own but other peoples faith, the history of faith and whether we still need faith in modern day society.

Indeed, there are those with faith who see the destruction of our planet, or the mistreatment of our fellow man, as blasphemous. Surely these people should be sympathized with, they certainly seem to be good people with good intentions.

Of course the most important thing is that when we hear of something inhumane, or detrimental to the environment, we act to remedy those atrocities. Therefore, it doesn't matter if someone has faith, just that we have a good understanding of own moral consciousness.

However, a lot of people have the belief that religion or even the concept of a divine creator automatically helps them to develop a strong moral compass.

I think this concept that creating an allegiance with a particular religion, instead of using our naturally inquisitive mind, as a way of choosing what is right and what is wrong, completely misguided.

Throughout this blog I'll try to explain why I believe this, and more importantly why it is important that we must question what we hear from others, especially those who have power over the actions of others, be that political power, or religious power. We must be conscientious and use our own minds to make up what we think is right for a better society.

Today, I'll start with a little background on who I am. I am an Atheist, I have no belief in the supernatural and until someone can prove otherwise I can't see that changing, but it wasn't always that way.

I was born into a Roman Catholic family; my Grandmother, my father's mother, is the matriarch of our part of the Family Clan and is a devout Catholic. Throughout my childhood I remember my Granddad, attended church services with my Grandmother, and as far as I'm aware still does.

My father, has a certain level of spirituality or at least a theological idea on "God", that I've since learnt is called Pantheism, and he always taught us that we should feel connected to our planet, our environment and our fellow man, but he is not taken in by the dogma of any particular church.

My mother, comes from a Protestant family but did not attend mass unless it was for a wedding, christening or in the unfortunate event of a funeral.

Neither parent ever felt the need or desire to force religion on their children, so although we attended Catholic School which taught us the quaint traditions and superstitions of Catholicism we really saw it as just that, quaint traditions and superstitions.

At home we would pray and talk of God, as this is what we were taught at schools, but I was one of four brothers and as we grew up we preferred to spend our time outdoors, or learning about nature, animals, dinosaurs and anything else that sounded fun and dangerous.

When at school I learnt the theory of evolution all that exploration into the English countryside with my brothers and learning about various types of wildlife either native or exotic suddenly had an explanation that just made sense.

However, there was no need to question, or even think about labeling my faith, or lack thereof, until recently when I found out that a close friend of mine believed that the earth was 6000 years old. I just couldn't understand that people in 2009/2010 still believed something science had proven so wrong just because of her faith.

I've since tried to read as many books or blogs on faith and theology that I can get my hands, and listened to lots of great videos or podcasts available online and can now proudly call myself an atheist. Not just an atheist but an Eco-Atheist.

I believe that in order for Mankind to move forward and become a sustainable, environmentally conscious global community we must ditch the stone age theory that we are here on this planet to please a supernatural being, but instead work to build a society upon the principle of doing what is best for all human beings, all animals and this wonderful planet we call home.

This is my blog.