CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/7/2019

Thailand, Animal Abuse, Transcendental Meditation, Marianne Williamson, Documentary, Pastafarians, NXIVM

RNS: Half the tigers rescued from Thai temple reported dead

"More than half the tigers rescued three years ago from a Buddhist temple in Thailand where they served as a popular tourist attraction have died of disease, wildlife officials said Monday.

The tigers were vulnerable to illness because of inbreeding, leading to laryngeal paralysis causing respiratory failure, said national parks official Patarapol Maneeorn. Eighty-six of 147 rescued tigers kept at government-run wildlife sanctuaries have died."

" ... Police found tiger skins and teeth and at least 1,500 amulets made from tiger bones when they raided the temple, as well as 60 cub carcasses stuffed in freezers and in formaldehyde in jars.

Tiger parts, such as ground bones, are popular as traditional medicine in Asia. Tiger hides can sell for tens of thousands of dollars in China."

FiveThirtyEight: Why Marianne Williamson's Brand Of Spirituality Isn't Working

" ... Something about Williamson's unconventional candidacy, though, has certainly sparked voters' curiosity. After all, a candidate who flits between the worlds of traditional, institutional religion and New Age spirituality is a rarity in presidential politics. And she was the most-searched candidate after the first night of the July debate, when she accused President Trump of harnessing the "dark psychic force of collectivized hatred" and declared that she wants "a politics that speaks to the heart."

But the more voters learned more about her, the less they seemed to like her."

" ... According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of Democrats identify as "spiritual but not religious" — an amorphous identity that has a lot in common with Williamson's nondenominational spiritual practice. She identifies as Jewish and still attends High Holiday services, but she also practices transcendental meditation. She rose to prominence as a commentator and teacher of "A Course In Miracles," a mystical book published in 1976 whose author claimed to be dictating revelations from Jesus.

'She's really the definition of spiritual but not religious," said Laura Olson, a political science professor at Clemson University, about Williamson. "In that sense, she represents — and you'd think might be able to reach — a very sizeable group of Americans.'"

The Guardian: Documentary follows Pastafarians as they strain for recognition

"Some time next year, the European court of human rights will decide on the case of a Dutch woman who feels unfairly treated because her country's highest court has told her she cannot wear a plastic colander on her head for her ID photo.

It may combine Mienke de Wilde's plea with that of an Austrian former MP, Niko Alm, who proudly wears the offending kitchen utensil on his official documents but now insists his country recognise Pastafarianism – the faith both follow – as a religion.

Watching the pair closely is Mike Arthur, an independent American film-maker whose smart, funny but above all thought-provoking documentary, I, Pastafari, about the world's fastest-growing faith premieres in the US in October."

Complex: Former Nxivm Member Reveals How She Recruited People to Sex Cult

" ... In an interview with Refinery29, Edmondson role-played her way through a typical pitch for the cult's seminars. She showed the ways that she focused on insecurities that a recruit might have and used them as an opening to bring them on-board. 

"Well, first things first: You don't attempt any kind of a pitch until you have established a rapport. That's something that has always come naturally to me, just chit chatting and engaging with people. Part of pitching is that you kind of want to tailor the approach to the specific person and what they're looking for," she said. 

She said that similar approach went all the way up the line, with senior officials convincing others that the sex and rituals were also part of a path to betterment. Edmonson has the founder's initials branded on her and said it was sold as self-improvement. 

'If you look at the branding ritual as an example, they convince you that you are triumphing over your own weakness," she said. "One of the things that can be helpful in terms of an explanation is to look at the ways in which cults are similar to abusive relationships. Nobody seeks out an abusive partner, but so many people stay in these relationships longer than they should — they make excuses, they ignore red flags, and they allow themselves to be emotionally manipulated.'"

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Documentary follows Pastafarians as they strain for recognition

Film-maker has spent three years showing how the colander-wearing religion is more than a joke


Jon Henley Europe correspondent
The Guardian
@jonhenley
September 18, 2019

Some time next year, the European court of human rights will decide on the case of a Dutch woman who feels unfairly treated because her country’s highest court has told her she cannot wear a plastic colander on her head for her ID photo.

It may combine Mienke de Wilde’s plea with that of an Austrian former MP, Niko Alm, who proudly wears the offending kitchen utensil on his official documents but now insists his country recognise Pastafarianism – the faith both follow – as a religion.

Watching the pair closely is Mike Arthur, an independent American film-maker whose smart, funny but above all thought-provoking documentary, I, Pastafari, about the world’s fastest-growing faith premieres in the US in October.

All in all, it is shaping up to be quite a big few months for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose believers wear strainers on their heads in homage to their deity, strive to be nice to pretty much everyone, and conclude their prayers with “r’amen” rather than “amen”.

It sounds, of course, like a joke. On one level, it is. But for Arthur, who has spent three years working on his film, and for many Pastafarians who believe their faith embodies some profound – and profoundly important – principles, it is a lot more.

“We live,” says Arthur, sitting in an Amsterdam cafe, “in the age of unreason. We no longer value the best idea, but the loudest idea. From Brexit to Trump, we applaud blind faith and are sceptical about overwhelming observable evidence.

“The problem is that rationality is just no match for irrationality. That ship sailed in 2016. People now don’t change their minds, they double down on their irrationality, and using facts, science and reason to contest the unreasonable is simply driving us all further apart. Maybe it’s time to try a different approach.”

A different approach is, undeniably, what Flying Spaghetti Monsterism offers. The church was founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson, at the time a 25-year-old US physics graduate, as a response to Christian fundamentalists demanding the teaching of creationism in Kansas school science classes. Its name is a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarianism.

In an open letter, Henderson argued that if intelligent design was to be taught alongside evolution, so should the belief that, with the aid of His Noodly Appendages, an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, probably after drinking heavily (thus explaining its many flaws).

Like other religions, the church has a gospel and, rather than commandments, eight “I’d really rather you didn’ts” (two having been lost). These suggest ways to live your life happily without infringing on others’ rights to do the same – a morality based on harmonious co-existence, nonjudgmental conduct “and generally not being a dick”.

Henderson’s basic point, expertly if satirically made, was that since intelligent design was every bit as much of an evidence-based theory as the unshakable belief that the world was created by an omniscient flying monster made of spaghetti, nothing should be taught in science classes bar science.

Mathé Coolen, an archbishop of Pastafarianism, wearing his colander in court in a still from the documentary. Photograph: www.ipastafaridoc.com

But as it has grown – there are now Pastafarians from Poland to New Zealand and Italy to Taiwan, and the church is officially recognised in at least four countries – it has begun posing bigger questions: what actually is a religion? Who gets to decide that? And why should faith – or lack of it – have anything to do with rights?

For Derk Venema, an eloquent Dutch legal expert who has worked with De Wilde, his former student, to develop her arguments for wearing a colander on her driving licence photo, Pastafarianism raises genuine human rights issues – even if (or perhaps because) it is also satirical.

“I started out thinking this was just a big joke,” Venema says. “But the more you look at it, the more you see it is about fundamental principles. The Dutch courts have denied it has any serious message, but it manifestly does: non-violence, tolerance, loving each other – the same principles as many established religions.”

The European court has previously determined that to be recognised as such, a religion must be cogent, coherent, important to its followers, and “serious”. On the latter point, Venema argues that the humour and good fun of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is simply a more modern, accessible way of getting its message across.

As De Wilde – who after three long years is starting to struggle with wearing a colander every day, but whose determination to take her case to the European court remains undimmed – puts it: “The fact that the church is fun doesn’t mean it isn’t serious in what it stands for.

“I can imagine it all looks very odd if you’re not a believer. But that’s the case with many faiths – people who walk on water or split themselves in three, for example. Personally, I find other religions unbelievable.”

Moreover, argues Venema, even theologians have “never really been able to agree on what constitutes a religion. So should the state really get to decide? For me, if it looks like a religion, with certain customs and traditions; if its followers call it a religion; and if they call themselves believers, that should be it.”

Most importantly, in many societies belief in an established religion comes with certain privileges: from the right to sport religious headwear on your ID photo in the Netherlands, to faith schools in the UK and full-scale tax exemption for US megachurches. “We say, as long as there are special rights for believers, they should apply to all religions,” says Venema.

Alm, a journalist, writer, publisher and former MP, has fought his five-year court battle to get Pastafarianism recognised as a religion in Austria as part of a broader struggle for a true separation of church and state and genuine religious freedom – which, he argues, should include freedom from religion.

“All we ask is a level playing field,” he says. “Total neutrality of the state towards whatever belief I hold. We don’t want anything forbidden, but the law must apply equally to all of us, whatever we believe in and whether we believe nothing at all. Complete freedom of religion. It’s political.”

He readily concedes, however, that Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is a diverse church. “For some, it’s not a political thing at all. In some countries, Pastafarians mainly just want to have fun and eat pasta.”

Bruder Spaghettus, a leading German Pastafarian, by a ‘noodle mass’ sign in Templin outside Berlin Photograph: www.ipastafaridoc.com

Arthur, whose film follows Venema and Alm through their court battles and also features Bruder Spaghettus, the luxuriantly bearded leader of the Kirche des Fliegenden Spaghettimonster in Germany, says Pastafarianism is like other religions, with a supernatural deity, a prophet, and lessons of morality in holy scriptures.

“Unlike other religions, it’s left out hate, bigotry, violence and dogma – its only dogma is that there is no dogma. But by challenging innocuous privileges like the right to wear religious headgear on an ID photo, it makes us think about others, like the right not to vaccinate your children, say, or to use tax-free income to buy private jets so you can fly round preaching science is a conspiracy.”

So Pastafarians, says Arthur, whose film premieres at the Nashville film festival in the first weekend of October, “are actually saying, ‘Look, if no one’s going to talk to each other like adults any more, let’s try something else.’

“By putting their own beliefs on display, in a fun way, they make us think more deeply about ours. And in a time of flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, fake news and alternative facts, they may just be the saviour we’ve been waiting for. R’Amen.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/18/documentary-follows-pastafarians-strain-for-recognition

Don Macpherson: Your Quebec tax money at work: a study on 'Pastafarianism'

DON MACPHERSON

MONTREAL GAZETTE
April 25, 2016

 

If you haven’t filed your Quebec income-tax return yet (you have until midnight May 2), maybe you shouldn’t read this column about how your provincial tax dollars are spent.

Last week, it was disclosed that Stéphanie Vallée, justice minister in a Liberal government that boasts of its financial “rigour,” had the transport department pay $16,140 for an expert study on whether “Pastafarianism” is a real religion.

It isn’t. Pastafarianism, or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is a satire of religion.

It originated in the United States in 2005 as a protest against the teaching of creationism in public schools. It has grown into a movement whose supporters purport to believe in a creator resembling spaghetti and meatballs and in pirates as the original Pastafarians.

The question of whether it’s a real religion came up in Quebec in 2014, during the debate on the former Parti Québécois government’s proposed “charter of values.” The charter, which was not adopted, would have forbidden public employees from wearing “conspicuous” religious symbols such as the hijab, the head scarf worn by some Muslim women.

A Montreal activist, apparently to protest against the “reasonable accommodation” of religions by public bodies, wanted to be photographed for her driver’s licence wearing a tricorne pirate hat as a symbol of her Pastafarian “religion.”

The clerk refused, and a second attempt was also rejected by the SAAQ, the public automobile-insurance board that issues the licence. So the activist, Isabelle Narayana, hired civil-rights lawyer Julius Grey and took the SAAQ to court.

This led to the justice minister’s decision to have the transport department commission the study on Pastafarianism from an associate professor of the science of religions at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Louis Rousseau.

The department awarded the contract to Rousseau without seeking competing bids. Since Rousseau’s study has not been made public, we don’t know what he did that was worth $16,140.

But a simple Google search taking a few minutes and costing nothing answers the question he was asked.

As it turns out, the transport department spent its money — or rather, ours — for nothing. The SAAQ didn’t need the study to convince the judge hearing Narayana’s case that Pastafarianism is not a real religion.

Superior Court Justice Stéphane Sansfaçon reached that conclusion on his own. Last October, he rejected Narayana’s request to order the SAAQ to allow her to wear either a pirate hat or a pasta strainer on her head for her driver’s licence photo.

In his decision, he admonished Narayana and the lawyers for both sides for wasting the court’s time with such a frivolous matter, and Grey for even taking her case to court.

Somehow, the judge’s decision eluded the attention of the justice minister, even though Vallée was a defendant in the case along with the SAAQ, and even though the decision was reported in the newspapers.



For it wasn’t until 16 days after the decision was rendered that, at Vallée’s request, the transport department concluded the $16,140 contract for a religion professor to produce an opinion on a matter on which a judge had already created jurisprudence.

There is, however, some good news in this story.

The Coalition Avenir Québec member of the National Assembly who disclosed the payment, Nathalie Roy, says the incident proves the need for new guidelines for handling requests for religious accommodations.

If anything, it proves just the opposite. The clerk who refused to take Narayana’s photo, the SAAQ and Justice Sansfaçon were all able to handle Narayana’s request properly by relying on what Quebecers call “le GBS” — le gros bon sens, or plain common sense.

They might not have been able to define exactly what a real religion is. But to paraphrase what a former United States Supreme Court justice once said about defining pornography, they knew a request for an unreasonable accommodation when they saw it.

http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/don-macpherson-your-quebec-tax-money-at-work-a-study-on-pastafarianism

Pastafarian marriages approved in New Zealand

Helena Horton
THE TELEGRAPH
December 17, 2015

Ever wanted to get married while wearing a colander on your head?

Move to New Zealand - they just gave the right to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to perform marriage ceremonies.

Members of the church call themselves Pastafarians and believe that the world was created by an airborne spaghetti and meatballs-based being, although its own website notes that some followers consider it to be a satirical organisation.

The announcement that the church is now allowed to perform weddings was made on the government gazette.

Registrar-general Jeff Montgomery defended the decision, saying that it was made on the basis that the organisation promotes religious beliefs.

He said that it is not based on how valid the religious claims the organisation are.

The registrar-general told stuff.co.nz that the request was valid because the purposes set out by the church were educating and training people, particularly atheists and superstitious people, about Flying Spaghetti principles and practices.

He said: "In considering the matter I have referred to the Objects of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, reviewed material available online about this organisation and considered other organisations already able to nominate marriage celebrants.

"A review of media and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's international website show a consistent presentation of their philosophies. While some claim this is a 'parody organisation', members have rebutted this on a number of occasions."

The church's anonymous leader, who asks to be referred to as the Top Ramen, told Radio New Zealand that the next step is to nominate a marriage celebrant for approval. "We are a bona fide church, and our people do like to get married, some of them several times," she says, adding that Pastafarian wedding attire can range from pirate outfits to the traditional colander headgear. "We can wear the pirate gear, we can wear the pasta gear, we're quite flexible."

'Pastafarians' are earning legitimacy around the globe. Recently, a Massachusetts woman earned the right to wear a colander on her head as a 'religious accessory' in her driving license.

The woman, Lindsay Miller, said: "As a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I feel delighted that my Pastafarianism has been respected.

"While I don’t think the government can involve itself in matters of religion, I do hope this decision encourages my fellow Pastafarian Atheists to come out and express themselves as I have."

AT A GLANCE

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

• It came into being in 2005 after an open letter was published aimed at the Kansas school board, asking for the church to be taught just as Christianity was taught in local schools. They argued that the church was just as legitimate as any other religion.
• They claim that they have millions of followers
• Many think that the church is a thought experiment or satire, and has been used as such in Richard Dawkins' book 'The God Delusion'
• They say on their site: "We believe religion – say Christianity, Islam, Pastafarianiasm – does not require literal belief in order to provide spiritual enlightenment. Much of the transcendent experience of religion can be attributed to the community. And while some members of religion are indoctrinated True Believers, many are not. There are many levels of Belief and each is no more or less legitimate than the other."That is to say, you do not have to Believe to be part of our Church, but we hope in time you will see the Truth. But skeptics, as well as members of other religions, are always welcome."
• Their heaven apparently contains a 'Beer Volcano' and a 'Stripper Factory'.
• They ask their female members to dress as 'Pirate Wenches' and to send pictures to the church of themselves dressed as such
• Their official headgear is a colander

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/12055350/Pastafarian-marriages-approved-in-New-Zealand.html

Pastafarian who fought to wear pirate hat or colander in driver's licence photo scolded by Quebec judge

National Post
Paul Delean

Postmedia News

October 13, 2015

A woman who took legal action in Montreal seeking permission to wear a pirate hat or colander in her driver’s licence photo not only got denied in Superior Court, she got a rebuke from Judge Stéphane Sansfaçon for wasting court resources.

In his ruling, the judge said the time of employees and lawyers and a half-day of courtroom availability were devoted to Isabelle Narayana’s suit, at a time when judicial resources are limited.

“Too many people implicated in real litigation with consequences that could affect their lives or those of their children or enterprise are waiting their turn in court for us to be silent about the monopolization of these resources to determine if the plaintiff can be photographed wearing a colander or pirate hat,” he said.

“We forget too often that the courts are a public service with limited resources that must not be abused.”

Narayana, who claimed to belong to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster whose members are known as Pastafarians, went to court after the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) said she couldn’t wear a colander or pirate hat in the photo. She’d shown up to renew her permit at an SAAQ office in March 2014, in full pirate attire, but was denied. Only medical or religious exceptions are allowed to the no-head-covering rule.

Narayana argued that since the exception applies to Muslim women, it should apply to her as well, given her religious affiliation. Court was told she subsequently showed up at an SAAQ office for the photo wearing a head scarf, which she told the court was the costume of a female pirate who happened to be Muslim. The head scarf met SAAQ rules and the photo was taken, but she said she still wanted the court to rule on whether her rights were violated by the original denial.

“I believe that I have the same right to express my personal beliefs and chosen religion as much as someone wearing a kippah, a hijab or a turban,” she maintained.

Judge Sansfaçon said the fact she had a valid driver’s licence while wearing the accoutrements of her “religion” meant there was no real question to decide.

The case “raises no real charter question,” he wrote, adding “it’s not up to the courts to rewrite charters, it’s up to legislators, if they choose to do so.”

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/pastafarian-who-fought-to-wear-pirate-hat-or-colander-in-drivers-licence-photo-scolded-by-quebec-judge