South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual animal slaughters to bless stadiums for the 2010 World Cup tournament ahead of the start of the showcase event next June, they said on Friday.
Zolani Mkiva, chairman of the Makhonya Royal Trust, a grouping responsible for co-ordinating cultural activities, said the tournament, the first to be held in Africa, needed to be blessed in true “African style.”
“We must have a cultural ceremony of some sort, where we are going to slaughter a beast (cow),” said Mkiva.
…
“We believe that from the start we’ve got to do things in accordance with our own traditions,” Mkiva said.
Wait, what?!
Even if this is part of their culture, screw their traditions. How does animal sacrifice do anything for the soccer match? What does it mean to bless the stadium, anyway? Is someone afraid it’s going to collapse?
I suppose we can be thankful that their traditions don’t involve human sacrifice and female circumcisions…
When people arbitrarily select which indigenous traditions they’re going to highlight for outsiders, that’s a choice. We’re not talking about religion here. We’re talking about a bloody manufactured spectacle across 10 soccer stadiums –- both soccer and stadiums already being a departure from Africa’s “own traditions” –- done to emphasize “style.”
Personally, I don’t think it’s any different from religion. It’s superstitious ritual that has no actual effect on the stadium (or the world).
I hope the World Cup Local Organizing Committee has the good sense to put a stop to this before it gets anywhere.
If you’re not convinced how ridiculous this is, Grahame L. Jones of the LA Times suggests how this scenario would look in another part of the world:
Imagine that it is 1994 again and that the opening game of the World Cup is about to take place at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Or perhaps it’s the first game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, or at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, or at any of the other six venues used during the ‘94 tournament.
Now, imagine the crowds outside the stadium, the fans in a festive and anticipatory mood, children among them. Now imagine a cow being led on a rope to a designated spot outside the stadium and having its throat cut and its blood drained as part of the pregame ritual.
Unthinkable? You bet. Sickening? Absolutely.
It wouldn’t be allowed here and it shouldn’t be allowed there.
A few weeks ago, I posted about the cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School in Georgia and their pro-Christian banners:
No doubt the banners were inevitably going to lead to a lawsuit. A parent complained and the cheerleaders were told to stop their proselytizing.
It was the right decision.
The Christians who thought they were being “victimized” by following the law here had an easy way to counteract this if they chose to — students could just bring their own pro-Christian signs to the game. That would be perfectly legal.
… a month later, the new policy has produced an unexpected result: more biblical verses than ever at football games, displayed not by cheerleaders but by fans sitting in the stands.
Startled and dismayed by the district’s policy, this town of 9,600 people has taken up the cause — and the signs — of the cheerleaders. Calling themselves Warriors for Christ, a twist on the school’s Warriors nickname, fans have held rallies at churches and a local polo field and sold more than 1,600 T-shirts bearing passages from Deuteronomy and Timothy.
A couple things stand out to me about this article.
First, we have the soundbyte from an atheist student:
Even Caleb Wickersham, a 17-year-old atheist from nearby southern Tennessee, acknowledges that fans are exercising a legal right to free speech. “From an atheist’s standpoint, it’s frustrating because I don’t want more religion in my face,” Caleb said. “But it’s their constitutional right.”
I love that quotation because he shares the sentiment I think a lot of us would have. He may not like it, but he acknowledges the legality of what the students are doing.
How many times do we hear about atheists publicly sharing their beliefs in a legal way (e.g. the atheist billboards, getting an atheist license plate, wearing a Scarlet A button, etc.) and the Christian response seems to always be, “This is offensive and it needs to stop”? I’m not saying it’s always the case, but it’s not very often I hear Christians saying “I don’t like it but it’s their constitutional right.”
The second interesting thing I learned is who led the way for the cheerleaders to stop using their pro-Christian banners:
The parent who contacted the school, Donna Jackson, is a graduate student at Liberty University, the evangelical Virginia institution founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Ms. Jackson, who had taken a law class, says she was just trying to protect the school from litigation.
I’m shocked: A Liberty student who actually knows the law?! Impressive.
Some Christians are still pissed off they can’t display their banners on the field, but those are likely the same people who would get offended if the banner in question was anything other than Christian.
Do you think they’d be equally supportive of a banner that read:
“There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and play the game.”
For over five years, the cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School in Georgia have been rooting for their football team by using pro-Christian banners:
Apparently, ripping through the word Christ helps you win games?
But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that’s illegal. You can’t endorse religion like that at a public school event.
A former class president of the school (and current youth pastor) doesn’t seem to understand the legal problems here:
“The cheerleaders are not trying to push a religious cause, to shove religion down someone’s throat,” said local youth minister Brad Scott, who was LFO High’s class president in 2004. “The cheerleaders are just using Scripture to show motivation and inspiration to the players and the fans.”
After a complaint was lodged last week, the school board banned the Christian banners.
… Cobb vehemently disagrees with the ban and said he’ll call on the City Council to support the cheerleaders and their signs.
The signs don’t infringe on anyone’s religious rights and are good for school spirit, he said.
“I’m totally against them doing away with it,” Mr. Cobb said, adding that the cheerleaders’ rights are being abused.
The mayor doesn’t seem to give a shit about any of the students who are not Christians, or the students who are too afraid to come out as non-Christians, or the Christians who don’t see a need to ram their faith down everyone else’s throat.
The Christian Law Association’s Barbara J. Weller is trying to advise students on how to subvert the system in a legal way:
… there is another way around this problem. The students themselves have free speech rights at the school, including the right to discuss religion. Therefore, if the students themselves make other banners with Bible verses that are not part of their official cheerleading activities or an official banner for the game, these student banners would be protected free speech.
So I have been advising those who call us that while the students may not continue to put Bible verses on the banners they have been making officially for the games, the students have the right to make other banners with Bible verses on them, as long as they make the banners away from the school and bring them to the games to display on their own, without the school’s approval, permission or participation.
…
Finally, if the official school banners merely used the words, ‘Power, Love, Self Discipline’ on the official banners without reference to the Bible verse that includes them, this would not be religious expression and would not serve as the basis for a potential lawsuit.
While there’s a lot of controversy surrounding these banners, the school board made the right decision. The school must remain religiously neutral and not endorse a particular faith. Whatever kids want to do on their own regarding faith is their decision.
***Update***: Some of you take this waaaay too seriously I’m not going back on what I wrote below — I don’t think Blower’s call is as impressive as it has been made out to be. It just so happens that many things (that I find relatively predictable) came together all at once. That is pretty cool — I’m not denying it — but it’s not all that unusual. If we took stock of all predictions, with this degree of specificity, made by broadcasters, I suspect we’d find that just about all fall short. But a few will get several points right, as Blowers did. He’s not a psychic, nor did he claim to be. I’m not attacking him.
I’m just saying the hype over the call is overblown.
As I state below, people always tend to remember the hits and forget the misses. In this case, we’re making a big deal out of a hit (that is indeed expected to occur once in a long while).
Don’t forget that events having a one-in-a-million chance of happening still occur thousands of times a day.
Detailed predictions like this are made all the time by sports broadcasters. There are several different predictions every week regarding the final score, the quarterback’s accuracy, and a certain player’s rushing yards, etc. for every football game in the country. Just about every one of those predictions is wrong.
We never talk about those, though, because humans are wired to remember the hits and forget the misses.
Blowers’ call seemed to get a lot of hits, though… so let’s examine them.
1) He would hit his first major-league home run that day…
Not an unusual prediction to make for a promising rookie. I do wonder if Blowers ever made this prediction anytime before… but let’s give him credit here.
He’s 1 for 1.
2) … off of pitcher Brian Tallet…
Well, Tallet was the starting pitcher. It doesn’t take a baseball expert to know Taller will be pitching for most of the game, barring a really bad day. Blowers doesn’t get credit for this.
He’s 1 for 2.
3) … during his second at-bat of the game…
A nice, specific prediction, right? Not really. There’s a good reason he made that particular call. Blowers said, “I thought he would take some pitches in his first at-bat, because he’s a rookie.”
Indeed, players are less likely to swing early in the game so they can see more pitches, get a feel for the pitcher’s style, and take advantage of it all later.
He’s 1 for 3. (Though this one is arguable.)
4) … on a 3-1 count…
Blowers gets no credit for this one. Typically, a pitcher will make difficult pitches early in the count to see if anything works against the batter. But if the batter doesn’t swing, a 3-1 count (3 balls and 1 strike) isn’t out of the question. Not only that, but pitcher Tallet was known to be “a little wild” according to Blowers himself. That is to say, he’d work himself into a 3-1 count more often than other pitchers.
When the count gets to 3-1, a batter can expect to see something hittable. You can assume pitchers don’t want to walk a player with a 4th ball, so they try to throw something in the strike zone. Indeed, a 3-1 count is known as a “hitter’s count.”
He’s 1 for 4.
5) … it would be a fastball…
On a 3-1 pitch, one would expect to see a fastball. As stated a little bit ago, the pitcher doesn’t want to walk the batter. He’s not going throw a curveball or a slider that could get away from the plate. A fastball has the best chance of fooling the batter… in fact, the commentators even sayright before the pitch “It’s going to be a fastball.”
The upside to this for the batter is that he knows what’s coming and he prepares to swing fast and hard at the ball. I don’t have the stats in front of me, but I would suspect the number of home-runs hit on 3-1 fastballs are higher than you would find for just about all other pitches and counts.
He’s 1 for 5.
6) … and the ball would land in the second deck of the Blue Jays’ stadium…
This one just didn’t happen. Rachel Maddow was actually wrong in the clip above when she said Blowers nailed every prediction.
He’s 1 for 6.
7) … in left center field.
Tuiasosopo is a right-handed batter. Most of his balls are going to be hit toward the left side of the field. Blowers doesn’t get credit for pointing out the obvious.
He’s 1 for 7.
…
1 for 7 isn’t impressive in the least. Plenty of people have had better accuracy when playing the lottery.
So let’s not make Blowers’ call a big deal. It was entertaining, but it wasn’t impressive.
Posted in General, Sports at 6:00 pm by Hemant Mehta
You’ve likely seen the clip of tennis star Serena Williams cursing out a line judge in her semi-final match at the U.S. Open this past weekend — the outburst cost her a point, which ultimately meant the end of the match for her.
Williams, however, is a Jehovah’s Witness. Is she allowed to do that?
Cursing, then, is a sin among Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it’s a “nonjudicial” one — meaning it’s not sufficiently grave to merit formal censure from Witness elders and cannot lead to “disfellowshipping” (expulsion from the congregation). Infractions for which you might be disfellowshipped include abortion, sexual abuse, adultery, heresy, and murder. The Sept. 8, 1989, edition of Awake! recommends that “if a fellow Christian lapses in his or her speech,” the best corrective is “a kindly reminder — not a lecture.” Habitual cussing, however, may warrant a talking-to from a fellow Witness or some kind of disciplinary action from family members.
I don’t think swearing is some horrible sin. But the outburst just shows how a religious label does little to change one’s behavior if the person isn’t too serious about it.
If you don’t want to live up to the ideals of your faith, why bother labeling yourself in the first place?
Brothers and Sisters, I saw on Fox News the other day that some secular scientists opened up the tummy of this African gal and found a couple of testicles floating around up in there! Oh my Lord! These are truly the last days! Where God Himself has forgotten that He only creates males and females!
…
Lord God, why would You create something that looks almost human — only for it to be damned to Hell from the day they pop their little head out from betwixt their momma’s legs to breath their first breath of air? We’ll never know till we get to Heaven!
Secularists call this abomination a Hermaphrodite, but God… Your Word — The Holy Bible — doesn’t mention Hermaphrodite unless it might have been some small town outside of Philistine that King James could have translated incorrectly.
Posted in General, Sports at 6:05 pm by Hemant Mehta
A while back a man sued the New York Yankees because they wouldn’t let him go to the bathroom during the singing of “God Bless America.”
Now, three teenagers are suing another baseball team — the minor league Newark (N.J.) Bears — because they were forced to leave the ballpark after not standing during the same song.
The boys say their constitutional rights were violated when they were asked to leave Newark’s Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium in June by Bear’s president co-owner Thomas Cetnar.
Cetnar confirms the boys were asked to leave but declined to elaborate.
The boys — Millburn High seniors Bryce Gadye (gah-DEE’) and Nilkumar (NIHL-koo-mahr) Patel, both 17, and junior Shaan (shahn) Mohammad Khan, 16 — sued in federal court Friday seeking unspecified damages.
…
The Ledger reported that Mr. Cetnar had yelled, “Nobody sits during the singing of ‘God Bless America’ in my stadium,’” and “Now the get the (expletive) out of here.”
If this story is accurate, then good for the boys. I hope they win their case.
No one has to stand up for that song. I can understand an argument that it might be more polite to do so, but it’s not mandatory by any means. Anyone who overreacts about it needs to relax.
If you think the boys are overstepping their bounds here, just think about those students who are coerced into standing for the Pledge of Allegiance in school every day — but who don’t want to make any oath to an imaginary god. If they were kicked out of the classroom for not standing, I suspect atheists would be almost universally in support of the students’ actions.
A reader sent in this story (identifying info has been removed).
It shows how simple it can be to correct a policy you think is illegal — without the use of lawsuits, angry words, or drawn-out battles:
My state university (I graduated a few years back) has a pretty good football team, is almost always in the top 25, and has a head coach who is very well respected in the university community.
Like any other football program, we have plenty of players who thank God in interviews and on the field for the blessings of talent, luck or whatever it is that let’s them play big time football.
The team even has a chaplain (paid entirely by donations) from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I read on a university sports message board that the head coach of the football team instituted a “No Cussing” policy at practice for coaches. For each offense, coaches had to pay a fine. The fines were then apparently being donated to charity. Unfortunately, the charity seemed to be the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
I posted on the board that I though this seemed unconstitutional and asked if anyone had an idea of who I should send an e-mail to. Naturally, this was met with a large amount of indifference and an equally large amount of indignant frustration that I would even question such a program.
I decided to send an e-mail to the university athletic director, director of football operations and head coach expressing my concerns that this could be seen as a violation of the establishment clause.
The head coach is an employee of a state university and appeared to be compelling his underlings to donate to a explicitly religious organization. I figured better to send a letter raising the question than find out later that the school and football program I love were about to be on the wrong side of a lawsuit.
I quickly received a reply indicating that the situation had been corrected.
I am sure that any coaches who support the FCA will see that their money gets there one way or another, but it will be because they choose to donate, and not because they were compelled by an an authority figure at a state university. Sometimes just a quick e-mail is enough to change the way things are done.
Has anyone else achieved a victory (be it small or large) doing something so seemingly harmless?
Secular Student Alliance Member Todd Stiefel has agreed to match all donations to us by 12/21/2009 up to a total of $50,000. Double the value of your support and help us get the whole match by donating now.
I’m not going back on what I wrote below — I don’t think Blower’s call is as impressive as it has been made out to be. It just so happens that many things (that I find relatively predictable) came together all at once. That is pretty cool — I’m not denying it — but it’s not all that unusual. If we took stock of all predictions, with this degree of specificity, made by broadcasters, I suspect we’d find that just about all fall short. But a few will get several points right, as Blowers did. He’s not a psychic, nor did he claim to be. I’m not attacking him. 
