These were composed by a twelve-year-old satirist : 

1. Thou shalt not commit global warming

2. Thou shalt only eat organic food

3. Always claim that anything thou dost is for the poor

4. Remember that only whites are racist

5. Depend on the government to make thy decisions

6. Remember that anyone richer than thou is just being greedy

7. Feel good about thyself and thou needest not think well of anyone else

8. Recycle

9. Thou shalt not use more toilet paper than is strictly necessary

10. Ride the bus

11. Thou  shalt not smoke

12. Thou shalt not fatten

13.  Judge not that ye be not criticized

14. Remember that a cold house is a good house, but use not air-conditioning

15. See no war, hear no war, speak no war

16. Remember that marriage is a union between two or more living things

 From the Telegraph:

Children from Crarn accused of being witches and wizards, protesting outside the Governor’s headquarters. Photo: Mags Gavan, Redrebel Films

Ostracised, vulnerable and frightened, she wandered the streets in south-eastern Nigeria, sleeping rough, struggling to stay alive.

Mary [five years old] was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been branded witches, blamed for all their family’s woes, and abandoned. Before being pushed out of their homes many were beaten or slashed with knives, thrown onto fires, or had acid poured over them as a punishment or in an attempt to make them "confess" to being possessed. In one horrific case, a young girl called Uma had a three-inch nail driven into her skull.

Yet Mary and the others at the shelter are the lucky ones for they, at least, are alive. Many of those branded "child-witches" are murdered – hacked to death with machetes, poisoned, drowned, or buried alive in an attempt to drive Satan out of their soul.

The devil’s children are "identified" by powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have combined to produce a deep-rooted belief in, and fear of, witchcraft. The priests spread the message that child-witches bring destruction, disease and death to their families. And they say that, once possessed, children can cast spells and contaminate others.

The religious leaders offer help to the families whose children are named as witches, but at a price. The churches run exorcism, or "deliverance", evenings where the pastors attempt to drive out the evil spirits. Only they have the power to cleanse the child of evil spirits, they say. The exorcism costs the families up to a year’s income.

During the "deliverance" ceremonies, the children are shaken violently, dragged around the room and have potions poured into their eyes. The children look terrified. The parents look on, praying that the child will be cleansed. If the ritual fails, they know their children will have to be sent away, or killed. Many are held in churches, often on chains, and deprived of food until they "confess" to being a witch.

The ceremonies are highly lucrative for the spiritual leaders many of whom enjoy a lifestyle of large homes, expensive cars and designer clothes.

Ten years ago there were few cases of children stigmatised by witchcraft. But since then the numbers have grown at an alarming rate and have reached an estimated 15,000 in Akwa Ibom state alone.

Some Nigerians blame the increase on one of the country’s wealthiest and most influential evangelical preachers. Helen Ukpabio, a self-styled prophetess of the 150-branch Liberty Gospel Church, made a film, widely distributed, called End of the Wicked. It tells, in graphic detail, how children become possessed and shows them being inducted into covens, eating human flesh and bringing chaos and death to their families and communities.

Mrs Ukpabio, a mother of three, also wrote a popular book which tells parents how to identify a witch. For children under two years old, she says, the key signs of a servant of Satan are crying and screaming in the night, high fever and worsening health – symptoms that can be found among many children in an impoverished region with poor health care.

 The preacher says that her work is true to the Bible and is a means of spreading God’s word. "Witchcraft is a problem all over Nigeria and someone with a gift like me can never hurt anybody," she says. "Every Nigerian wants to watch my movies." She denies that her teachings and films could encourage child abuse.

 We believe neither in the Christ nor the Antichrist, but greatly like the poetry of the Jewish and Christian bibles in the English of King James’s translators.

In the Book of Revelation, St John the Divine predicts the end of the world, preceded by spectacular calamities caused by the destructive power of terrible beasts. One beast, traditionally the Antichrist, is numbered 666.

He is an economic egalitarian, who will severely curtail the free market, according to Revelation 13:16-18:  

‘And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is the wisdom, Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.’ 

Well now, for believers, or for those who enjoy such oddities, here’s the news: 

The day after the election, November  5, the winning number in the Illinois state lottery (evening pick 3) was 666.

Think what you will. 

 A fine and depressing example of what a pesky nuisance religion is in human affairs, this passage from a report (read the whole thing here) on the Macedonia region of erstwhile Yugoslavia:

“Oh yes,” he said. “Because the Serbian church is supporting the Greek church against recognizing the Macedonian church as independent. The Greek church can recognize the Macedonian church as independent, but not under this name. They are not recognizing the name of the state and they are not recognizing the language, plus they are not recognizing the church. The Muslim community is supporting the Orthodox church against this Pope, and saying You should be independent, and this Pope should have his own church in Macedonia. The Muslim community is supporting the Orthodox church, so the Orthodox church is supporting the Muslim community against us. And the Macedonian government is under the influence of the Orthodox church. Plus, this political party – the national political party – they are investing a lot of money in the church building process, mosques also, etc. So you see, this government is sacrificing Bektashism because of the problem of the Orthodox Church with the Pope.” 

 Human rights groups are too preoccupied with blaming Israel for defending itself against Palestinian terrorists to notice or care what the Muslims are doing to Christians.

Here is another extract from  Robert Spencer’s study:

 What Justus Reid Weiner, an international human
rights lawyer, stated in December 2007 about Christians
in Palestinian areas applies to Christians in the Islamic
world generally: “The systematic persecution of Christian
Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly
total silence by the international community, human rights
activists, the media and NGOs.” He said that if nothing were
done, no Christians would be left there in fifteen years, for
Christian leaders are being forced to abandon their followers
to the forces of radical Islam.”70

 David Horowitz’s Freedom Center has just published a short book on this subject by Robert Spencer, the dependable expert on Islam.

It can be found at Front Page Magazine and needs to be read. This is from the introductory pages: 

Fearful of offending Muslim sensibilities, the

international community has averted its gaze

[from the massacre of Christians in Indonesia],

allowing the persecution to take place in the darkness. Nowhere else is

religious bigotry legitimated by holy writ, in this case the

Quran, or by a significant number of religious leaders, in this

case imams. Nowhere else does religious bigotry have such

bloody consequences. Nowhere else does such religious

bigotry take place almost entirely without comment, let

alone condemnation, from the human rights community.

Christian persecution by Muslims has become a familiar

narrative, repeated with terrifying frequency in Muslim

controlled areas throughout the world …

 

 – and an apostate, when, as an adult, he embraced the Rev Jeremiah Wright’s kind of Christianity. By Islamic law this makes him deserving of a death sentence.

His Muslim background apparently embarrasses him now. So do many other facts about his past which he has tried to conceal.  

His popularity is an outbreak of the madness of crowds.  Melanie Phillips calls it ‘Princess Obama Derangement Syndrome’ (on the model of the madness that gripped Britain when Princess Diana died). 

Read what she has to say about all this here.