US Religion

The full time whinger Rajan Zed is upset at Fate/Grand Order (FGO) mobile role-playing video game, developed by Japan's Delightworks, for reportedly introducing goddess Parvati as one of the new servants; saying it trivializes a highly revered Hindu deity.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed urged Delightworks to withdraw the character of goddess Parvati in its free-to-play FGO video game.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that in this mobile game set-up, the player became the Master who summoned and commanded servants controlling their movements, including goddess Parvati; while in reality the devotees put the destinies of themselves in the hands of their deities.

Moreover, goddess Parvati depicted in FGO appeared more like a belly-dancer than the Hindu deity devotees were used to seeing, Rajan Zed pointed out, and termed it as incredibly disrespectful.

Rajan Zed further said that Hindus were for free speech as much as anybody else if not more. .. BUT... faith was something sacred and attempts at belittling it hurt the devotees. Video game makers should be more sensitive while handling faith related subjects, as these games left lasting impact on the minds of highly impressionable children, teens and other young people, Zed added.

A US religious morality group is campaigning against a a 45-foot steel statue of a nude woman on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Concerned Americans with Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) launched a petition urging the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., to deny a final permit for the artwork.

The statue has received tentative approval to go up at the annual Catharsis on the Mall event. It was used earlier at the Burning Man festival held outside Reno, Nevada.

If the final permit is issued, the nude statue called R-Evolution would go up around Friday, November 11. It would face the White House, between the Washington Monument and the World War II Monument.

C. Preston Noell III, spokesman for TFP,  wrote:

25 million children, families and tourists visit the Mall annually. They will be exposed to this unexpected display of female nudity.

Parents don't want their kids to see this stuff. Nor do tourists expect to see nudity on the Mall. That's why so many decent people are standing up in peaceful protest.

16,000 people have signed the petition in just a few hours, urging Park Service authorities to reject this indecent display on federal property. Every single voice against public nudity counts. This needs to be stopped and common decency restored.

What the Bible actually says  about sex robots, (give or take a letter) Esther 2:7 Mordecai had a 'cousin' named Hadassah, whom he had bought up because she had neither father nor mother. This young woman, who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful.

It's the worst sin. Sex robot users anger God and will go to HELL, Christian preachers spout.

Sex robots are warped copies of real humans and sinners who use them will be condemned to hell, leading Christians have claimed.

One sex robot named Samantha, 'who likes to be touched' and has eight different modes, including romantic and family mode, is already on sale worldwide. And now a few Christians have been whingeing to the Daily Star about the morality of sex robots.

Dr Richard Land, president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, in North Carolina, US, said:

Sex with a non-human is rebelling against God.  The widespread use of sex robots could have catastrophic consequences for human relationships.

Referring to a passage in Corinthians 6 in the Bible, Dr Land said perverting God's purpose for sex is the worst kind of sin. He said:

The Bible is very clear that god created sex to make two people one person. Any sexual relationship that violates that purpose for sex is rebelling against God. That would include sex with a non-human, for instance a robot.

Dr Christopher Benek, religious commentator and pastor in South Florida, US, said someone who has sex with a robot risks separation from God and being sent to hell. In traditional Christianity, it is a sin to commit idolatry...the worship of an idol, icon or statue.

Mother! is a 2017 USA horror mystery thriller by Darren Aronofsky.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem and Ed Harris.

A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.

'A film review on the Catholic News Service writes:

What's all too apparent, however, is that the film's treatment of religion -- one of the major themes it seeks to address -- is relentlessly negative and briefly sacrilegious.

The author's celebrated work is clearly meant as a stand-in for the Bible. But those on the receiving end of his revelation misunderstand and misuse it.

After a pregnancy troubled by the disorder surrounding her, moreover, Lawrence's title character gives birth to a son whose fate recalls the death of Jesus. In depicting his version of the Passion and the Eucharist, though, Aronofsky grotesquely caricatures both.

Viewers who shun Mother! on that basis will also be sparing themselves a two-hour ordeal and quite a bit of head-scratching.

The film contains blasphemous images, a negative portrayal of religion, much strong and sometimes gory violence, semi-graphic marital lovemaking, a glimpse of full nudity and occasional profanity and rough language. The Catholic News Service classification is O -- morally offensive.

US catholics have become an early victim of newly introduced censorship measure from YouTube presumably because their teaching is considered offensive due to politically incorrect attitudes towards gays and abortion. Catholic Online writes:

More media organizations are criticizing YouTube's increasingly oppressive soft censorship policies which are now eliminating mainstream news reports from the video sharing network. Many content creators on YouTube are losing millions in revenue as the Google-owned firm reduces and cuts off payments in pursuit of profits and control.

YouTube is censoring content though various indirect means even if that content does not violate any terms of service. The Google-owned firm is removing content that it deems inappropriate or offensive, and is taking cues from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The result seems to be a broad labeling of content, and the suppression of even mainstream news. Many of Catholic Online's bible readings have been caught up in YouTube's web of suppression, despite containing no commentary or message other than the reading of the scriptures.

YouTube is not a government agency but a private platform, so it is free to ban or restrict content as it pleases them. Therefore, their policies, no matter how arbitrary, are not true censorship. However, the firm is practicing what some call soft censorship.

Soft censorship is any kind of activity that suppresses speech, particularly that which is true and accurate. It takes many forms. For example, broadcasting celebrity gossip in place of news is a form of soft censorship. Placing real news lower in search results, preventing content from being shared on social media, or depriving media outlets of ad revenue for reporting on certain topics, are all common forms of soft censorship.

For some unknown reason, Catholic Online has also been targeted by these policies. Saints videos and daily readings are the most common targets. None of this content can be considered objectionable by any means, and none of it infringes on YouTube's terms and conditions. It is suspected that anti-Christian bigotry, such as that promoted by liberal extremist organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, are to blame.

The problem for content creators and media organizations is that there are few places for them to go. Most video viewing takes place on YouTube, and there are no video hosting sites as well known and widely used as YouTube. Other sites also restrict content and some don't share revenues with content creators. This makes YouTube a monopoly; they are literally the only show in town.

The time has come for governments around the world to recognize that Facebook, Google, and YouTube control the public forum. If freedom of speech is to be protected, then these firms must be compelled to abide by free speech rules.

The latest episode of AMC's Preacher has upset the Catholic League thanks to a scene depicting Jesus Christ having sex on the night of The Last Supper.

The AMC drama is based on a comic book about a modern-day Preacher who is losing his faith and encountering many different demonic entities and monsters. In the second episode of Season 2, which aired Monday, the main character goes on a hunt to find a descendant of Christ.

The first seven minutes of the episode, titled Dirty Little Secret , depicts Jesus and a woman having sex, speaking graphically about various acts and showing the two's various positions in silhouette. Later, he tells her to keep it a secret before saying that he's got to go off to do something for his father. It later becomes clear that this is the night that Jesus would be eventually crucified.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said in a statement:

Depicting Jesus in a grotesque sex scene is an assault on the sensibilities of all Christians, as well as people of good will who are not Christians.  We have been treated to this kind of fare from some pay-per-view channels, but we are not accustomed to AMC getting into the mud. If this is a signal of what it aspires to become, we will rally Christians against it.

VooDoo is a 2017 USA horror by Tom Costabile.
Starring Samantha Stewart, Ruth Reynolds and Dominic Matteucci.

When Dani, an innocent southern girl, vacations to Los Angeles to evade her increasingly complicated life, she learns that escaping her past isn't as easy as she hoped.

Tom Costabile's brutal horror flick Voodoo, now showing in theaters across the US, has the religious community up in arms over its extreme and controversial view of hades and stance on all things holy. From spiritual forums and bloggers, voicing their opinion about Costabile's depiction of hell (in one shocking sequence our heroine is molested by a demon) to other religious elements within the movie, to personal emails from offended churchgoers, the film is definitely gaining notoriety.

At the other end of the scale, the paranormal horror film -- which fixes on an innocent girl journeying down a frightening, gory path that only the worst of nightmares could summon -- is winning praise from some of the country's top critics for it's originality, old school-style scares and risk-taking.

Russian officials are coming under pressure to check if Disney's new film Beauty and the Beast breaches the country's discriminatory law against gay propaganda .

Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said action would be taken after the checks while an MP described the film as shameless propaganda of sin .

The live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast features Disney's first ever gay character and love scene. Director Bill Condon has spoken of an exclusively gay moment in Beauty and the Beast.  It involves LeFou, who is a sidekick of the film's main antagonist Gaston. LeFou, played by US actor Josh Gad, tries to come to terms with feelings for Gaston that swing between lust and admiration, as a side-plot to the main story.

In another groundbreaking moment, the film is to feature the first interracial kiss in a Disney live-action film.

Vitaly Milonov, an MP of the governing United Russia party, urged the culture minister to hold a screening of the film before it was released to see if it complied with the law and to take measures to totally ban it if he found elements of propaganda of homosexuality . Vitaly Milonov is one of the main supporter of the Russian law of 2013

But don't think that Russia is singularly homophobic country who is whingeing at the film. A cinema in the USA is also refusing to show the films for homophobic reasons. The owners of the Henagar Drive-In in Alabama explained:

It is with great sorrow that I have to tell our customers that we will not be showing 'Beauty and the Beast' at the Henagar Drive-In when it comes out, When companies continually force their views on us we need to take a stand. We all make choices and I am making mine.

For those that do not know 'Beauty and the Beast' is 'premiering' their first homosexual character 206 If we can not take our 11 year old grand daughter and 8 year old grandson to see a movie we have no business watching it. If I can't sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it.

I know there will be some that do not agree with this decision. That's fine. We are first and foremost Christians. We will not compromise on what the Bible teaches.

25,000 people have signed the following petition:

Beginning January 15, HBO plans to air in America a European TV series which will culminate with an IMPURE ATTACK on the PAPACY in one of its final episodes.

This program, The Young Pope, offends God, insults and slanders the good reputation of the Papacy, thus doing serious harm to souls, and, using the 'pontiff' in a scene of an adulterous sexual act, implies that holy priestly celibacy is too much of a struggle to maintain.

For HBO to bring this scandalous and anti-Catholic series, and especially this impure episode, to its nearly 40 million American subscribers is a great offense against God and ruinous to America's soul.

The following are two headlines about the episode:

• Actor Jude [Law] grabs Ludivine Sagnier's bare breasts as his character Pius XIII struggles with celibacy in shockingly racy scene from The Young Pope .

• LOOK away now if you're easily offended -- as Sky series The Young Pope prepares to broadcast a shocking sex scene involving the pontiff.

Actor Jude Law plays the fictional Pope Pius XIII as he gets to grips with a blonde's breast while in his holy white robes.

SIMPLY OUTRAGEOUS!