The answer to the question “Is Obama ushering in the apocalypse?, according to Tim Lahaye — the evangelical minister and co-author of the vastly lucrative Left Behind publishing empire — is an unequivocal “yes.” He actually said that to Mike Huckabee on his Fox News show. Huff has the story, along with supporting video (WebCite cached article):

Evangelical Christian minister Tim LaHaye says that the policy initiatives put forth by the Obama administration are bringing the country “closer to the apocalypse.” …

“Our present president doesn’t seem to get it,” LaHaye explained. “He doesn’t understand that some of the things he’s introducing that many of us call ‘raw socialism’ — it’s a different name, but it’s essentially government control and government domination of everything.”

The evangelical voice said of the political platform maintained by the Obama administration, “It’s going to work against our country and bringing us closer to the apocalypse.”

The video of this brilliant exchange of remarkable evangelical Christian thinking is available on Youtube:

Note that LayHaye’s claim is similar to — although not quite identical with — Georgia Congressional candidate Ed Martin’s claim that Obama’s politics prevents people from getting salvation through Christ. So, as insane and outrageous as this claim may be, it doesn’t really surprise me that someone like LaHaye said it. What’s surprising is that things like this aren’t being said more often than they are.

Also, does anyone seriously think that Tim “Left Behind” LaHaye and ex-Governor Shucksabee are somehow not going to agree we’re in the throes of “the End Times” right now?

Hat tip: Mark at Skeptics & Heretics Forum on Delphi Forums.

Photo credit: Ms. Max.

Mary and Jesus have manifested, together, in Granbury TX. They showed up in the form of a pair of rocks discovered by one Stephanie Madden. A report on this amazing discovery is courtesy of KTVT-TV in Dallas (WebCite cached article):

To Stephanie Madden of Granbury, a pair of ordinary rocks are as precious as rubies. …

When Madden first spotted the stones on the ground in Granbury, she didn’t think much about it, but a closer look was all the confirmation she needed.

“It was like the closer I got to God the more I saw him in things,” she said, “That looks like Mary holding baby Jesus to me.”

There is an accompanying video provided by CBS News:

The video even includes a helpful graphic overlay to show the resemblance … just in case you (like me) can’t manage to see a “madonna” in these rocks:

Ms Madden ostensibly concedes this is a “coincidence,” but just as quickly declares that it cannot be one — for reasons that remain unclear, even though she thinks she explained them:

The resemblance she admits could be a mere coincidence.

“Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous,” she explained, “In the bible it says that people who do believe, will see.”

I simply cannot make sense of her claim that “coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.” It’s gibberish. Completely nonsensical.

She’s all the more convinced her rocks are divine, because someone else pointed out a Biblical connection to her:

“I was showing them to people at church Sunday morning and one of the members said ‘hey do you know in the bible it says, in Luke 19:40, ‘If my people become silent that even the rocks will cry out’.” She said, “That hit me as confirmation that I’m supposed to say something.”

Well, that does it, I guess. For her, anyway.

Folks, there’s nothing to see here. Literally! This is merely another case of pareidolia, a well-known phenomenon of psychology in which the brain tries to make sense of something vague or amorphous. It’s no different from the other examples of pareidolia I’ve already blogged about … such as the Virgin Mary in a door or between panes of a window or in a chunk of wood, or Jesus on a laundry iron, or a cross on a calf’s head. It’s also no different from the “grilled cheese Virgin Mary” that made headlines a few years ago (cached). So yes, Ms Madden, this is “coincidence” and nothing more, no matter how much you might wish it to be otherwise.

Photo credits: Screen shots from CBS News.

The lieutenant governor of Tennessee, Ron Ramsey, is trailing in his primary bid for the Republican nomination for governor of his state. So what did he do to get some electoral support in the primary? He appealed to the Tea Partiers and the Religious Right by throwing Muslims under the bus. I found about this this story from the New York Times Lede blog, based on a story originally reported by other outlets (WebCite cached article):

Mr. Ramsey, who hopes to win the Republican nomination for governor in a primary next month with support from Tea Party activists, was asked by a constituent this month to explain his position on the “threat that’s invading our country from the Muslims.” As Jeff Woods of The Nashville Scene reported [cached], a tape of the exchange posted online shows the lieutenant governor responding, “I’m all about freedom of religion,” before casting doubt on Islam’s credentials as a religion by saying:

You could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion or is it a nationality, way of life or cult, whatever you want to call it.

A video of this lunatic’s idiocy is available on YouTube:

Mr Ramsey tried to “clarify” his remarks, but only succeeded in making a merely-stupid comment into an outright-hypocritical one:

On Monday, Mr. Ramsey responded [cached] to a request for comment from Evan McMorris-Santoro of Talking Points Memo by writing in an e-mail message, “My concern is that far too much of Islam has come to resemble a violent political philosophy more than peace-loving religion.”

The hypocrisy, of course, is that Christianity in the United States is every bit as “political” as any other politically-oriented religion anywhere in the world … and some of those politically-motivated Christians are quite violent about it. Mr Ramsey just indicted himself and his own religion, in his attempt to justify taking away the religious freedom of the practitioners of another.

Photo credit: Ramsey for Governor Web site.

Harold Camping, a presumed Bible scholar who runs a network of Christian radio stations, claims he knows when the Second Coming of Christ will take place: May 21, 2011. He and his ministry are so confident in that prediction that they’ve taken out bench advertisements around the country to warn people of it. Lauri Lebo at Religion Dispatches has the story (WebCite cached article):

A friend snapped this photo on the way to work in Colorado Springs:

Apparently, these pictures have been popping up around the country, with sightings from Erie to Waco to the Bay Area.

Lebo points out that Camping’s past predictions have not panned out too well:

This is not the first time Camping has predicted Judgment Day:

On Sept. 6, 1994, dozens of Camping’s believers gathered inside Alameda’s Veterans Memorial Building to await the return of Christ, an event Camping had promised for two years. Followers dressed children in their Sunday best and held Bibles open-faced toward heaven.

But the world did not end. Camping allowed that he may have made a mathematical error.

Camping’s ministry’s Web site also proudly announces the May 2011 date (cached), and he appears to want to beat the New Agers and their “Mayan prophecy 2012 doomsday” at their own game:

We are living at a time when mankind seems to sense that the end of all things is very near. Just about everyone has a theory as to how the world is threatened and when that end might come. The media and the Internet are full of doomsday speculations concerning the New Age “Mayan Calendar” and the year 2012.

The crap about the Mayans predicting the end of the universe in December of 2012 is complete bullshit, as I’ve already blogged. The Mayans themselves couldn’t even predict the coming collapse of their own civilization, which happened around 900 CE, so one can hardly expect them to have been any more accurate about the end of the universe.

Camping and his followers claim he’s some sort of Biblical scholar, however, he — and they — appear not to have read this important verse, concerning the coming of the Son of Man:

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. (Matthew 24:36)

Thus, the Second Coming cannot be predicted. Anyone who says s/he knows “the day” or “the hour” it will happen, can only be lying, because only “the Father” knows when it is. Jesus admits even he does not know when it will be! It also means the name of Camping’s Web site — “We Can Know” — runs contrary to scripture.

Not only is this not the first failed prediction Camping has made, the history of Christianity is littered with past failed predictions of when “the End” was supposed to have come — but didn’t. James “the Amazing” Randi compiled a list of some of these, and they comprise Appendix 3 (cached) of his Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural (which is available online for free). “End of the world” predictions are common and apparently easy to rationalize away when they fail. My guess is that, on May 22, 2011, Harold Camping will be rationalizing away the failure of his Jesus to show up and vacuum the Christians off the surface of the planet.

Top photo credit: Sister72. Middle photo credit: Religion Dispatches.

At one time I had thought that education — especially pointing out erroneous and fallacious thinking — would help people understand the world better and dispense with ignorance. Over time, though, I haven’t seen that things have improved much. Most people are still as mired in irrationality and fallacy as they ever were, and no amount of fact-teaching seems to make any difference. For instance, the Birther delusion lives on, in spite of it being based on lies and mistaken suppositions. Barack Obama was born in Hawai’i to an American mother, but the Birthers refuse to accept that, even though it’s been factually demonstrated many times over; see this (cached) and this (cached), just for starters. I’d wondered if, perhaps, there are just a lot of mentally-ill people out there, all experiencing the same delusion. But depressingly, the truth about human beings is much worse even than that; it turns out we are hard-wired to reject even irrefutable, demonstrable facts that we find emotionally unsatisfying. The New York Times Idea of the Day blog reports on this sobering revelation (WebCite cached article):

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. But you might want to rethink that axiom, recent University of Michigan research suggests. It “found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds,” writes Joe Keohane in The Boston Globe [cached].

He explains the cognitive studies reviving longstanding concerns about voter ignorance:

In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we choose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote.

Humanity, I fear, is lost. Those of us willing to think critically — and to try to encourage others to think critically — are apparently fighting a rearguard action against an enemy (i.e. emotional thinking) which neuroscience suggests we cannot defeat.

No wonder hyperreligiosity rages on, even in this era of science and technology. No wonder people are embracing New Age gibberish and nonsense like never before. No wonder political partisans steadfastly refuse to acknowledge even the slightest flaw in their own ideology or the slightest virtue in their foes’. No wonder critical thinkers are hated, vilified, and viewed as a threat by many folks.

The classroom of humanity is empty, and it will never be filled. No one cares about “truth” or “veracity” any more; they only care about how they “feel.” And that’s just the way they are.

It’s great fun to critique and ridicule religious fundamentalism. It is, after all, so easy to do, since religious fundamentalism is always so utterly irrational and immature. In many ways, religious fundamentalism satirizes itself. But some real entertainment can be had by watching religious fundamentalists tear into other religious fundamentalists. A classic example is the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL. I’ve blogged about this childish crew’s antics before, but the Religion News Service (via the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life) reports they’ve decided to up the ante a bit more (WebCite cached article):

A Florida church with “Islam is of the devil” signs in its front lawn plans to host an “International Burn A Quran Day,” on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this year.

The Dove World Outreach Center, a non-denominational church in Gainesville, has marked the date in previous years with protests against Islam. …

They’re engaging in this juvenile and incendiary behavior, they claim, as a favor to the world’s Muslims:

“We feel, as Christians, one of our jobs is to warn,” said [Pastor Terry] Jones.

The goal of these and other protests are to give Muslims an opportunity to convert, he said.

As a fundamentalist Christian, Jones of course worships his own set of scripture, that being the Christian Bible. I wonder how much of a “favor” he’d interpret it as, if a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists were to burn some Christian Bibles. I can’t really prove it, but I suspect he’d be outraged over that.

Hat tip: The Friendly Atheist.

Photo credit: Doctor Yuri.

As if the Roman Catholic Church didn’t have enough problems, especially with misbehaving clergy, an Italian magazine has exposed priests in that country attending gay clubs and having sex in churches. The (UK) Telegraph reports on this Panorama magazine exposé (WebCite cached article):

A journalist from Panorama, a conservative weekly news magazine owned by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, used a hidden camera to film interviews with three gay priests, who introduced the journalist to the gay clubs they apparently frequent, and allowed the journalist to film their sexual encounters with strangers, including one in a church building.

One of the priests, a Frenchman identified only as Paul, celebrated Mass in the morning before driving the two escorts he had hired to attend a party the night before to the airport, Panorama said.

The Panorama article (in Italian) is available online (cached version). The Catholic Church responded in a conflicted, paradoxical manner. On the one hand it denounced the priests involved and ordered them to quit the Church:

The Catholic Church in Italy, still reeling from the paedophile priest scandal, responded on Friday by ordering homosexual priests who are leading a double life to come out of the closet and leave the priesthood.

On the other hand, it denied the men filmed in the magazine exposé were Catholic priests:

The Vatican did not comment on the Panorama investigation, but a senior source said: “This is the usual silly season rubbish to attract readers during the quiet summer months.

“There is no proof that the people involved are from the clergy.”

This story has similarities to one that recently came to light in my own state of Connecticut, as a Catholic priest in the Nutmeg State has been charged with embezzling upwards of a million dollars from his own parish, spending it on various escapades in New York City, among other places (cached article).

In the Connecticut case, it was the archdiocese of Hartford that caught on to the priest’s antics and turned him in to the authorities — likely because they think he had stolen from them. But in Italy, the Church refuses to acknowledge the scandal. They remain delusionally in denial concerning the moral collapse which is rapidly consuming their organization. The facts speak for themselves, even if the Vatican refuses to accept them.

Missouri Congressional candidate Ed Martin has declared that President Obama and other Democrats are preventing people from acquiring their salvation from Jesus Christ. Yes, folks, he really said it. Fired Up Missouri has the story, as well as the audio (WebCite cached article):

Speaking on the Gina Loudon radio program this afternoon, Congressional candidate Ed Martin told listeners that “we have to be very, very aware” of policies pursued by Barack Obama and Russ Carnahan that will “take away” the freedom to be a Christian. …

MARTIN: … And part of that freedom — when you take a government and you impose, and take away all your choices. One of the choices you take away is to find the Lord. And find your savior.

And that’s one of the things that’s most destructive about the growth of government. It’s this taking away that freedom. The freedom — the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation. And to find Christ, for me and you.

If you wish, you can listen to the recording, directly from YouTube:

Now, I’m not sure how this works, exactly. If salvation comes from God through Jesus Christ, I don’t quite understand how any human being — not even a president of the United States — could possibly get in the way of it. I know I’m just a cynical godless agnostic heathen, but I just don’t see how anything in the universe can thwart the will of a truly omnipotent being.

Do you?

… Didn’t think so.

Hat tip: Pulling to the Left.

Photo credit: Ed Martin campaign Web site.

As I’ve mentioned before, it appears Oklahoma has become the new Kansas. Writer Thomas Frank famously posited in 2004 — in his What’s the Matter with Kansas? — that the Religious Right had used his home state as a kind of crucible in which to construct a suitable following for its religiofascist agenda. It certainly appears, over the last couple years (as I’ve touched on a time or two here on this blog), that they’ve drifted one state to the south and are now trying to make Oklahoma into a second crucible. The latest example of this militant religiofascism is something known as the Save Our State amendment. Its goal is to prevent Islamic shari’a law from being followed by Oklahoma courts. ABC News reported on this insanely misguided effort (WebCite cached article):

Oklahoma is poised to become the first state in the nation to ban state judges from relying on Islamic law known as Sharia when deciding cases.

The ban is a cornerstone of a “Save our State” amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that was recently approved by the Legislature.

The amendment — which also would forbid judges from using international laws as a basis for decisions — will now be put before Oklahoma’s voters in November. Approval is expected.

There are two problems with this amendment. The most important is that it’s based on the paranoid delusion that Oklahoma courts may soon follow shari’a law. There is absolutely no evidence that this has yet happened, however, nor is there any evidence it’s on the horizon. The Religious Right is going to war over a mirage.

The second problem is that — where American courts following international-law precedent is concerned — that ship has already sailed. It has been done, and it might be done again; and because the US Supreme Court has done it, that means a state constitutional amendment cannot prevent it.

T. Scott Brown, Atheist Examiner for Oklahoma City, goes over this in more detail (including providing a list of relevant court cases).

I’d like to be clear on the fact that I am opposed to shari’a law being imposed on anyone, Muslims included. It’s a metaphysically-based legal system closely tied to Islamic religious doctrines and practices. As a form of justice, it leaves much to be desired. Metaphysically-based legal codes are nearly as detrimental to humanity as metaphysically-based medicine is. I’ve also blogged on the evils — and the follies — of shari’a law. I’ve also pointed out the foolishness of allowing shari’a law in UK courts. So by pointing out that Oklahoma’s “Save our State amendment” is insane, I am not “defending” shari’a law. What I am saying is that passing a state-constitutional amendment preventing something from happening, which is not currently happening and will never happen, is paranoid-delusional thinking, and that sane, mature adults do not engage in this kind of thing.

The hosts of Religiofascism are on the march, folks! They not only have taken over Kansas, they’ve pretty much got Oklahoma in their corner too.

Hat tip: OKC Atheist Examiner.

Photo credit: dustout.

The country’s most famous paranoid schizophrenic, Glenn Beck, continues to rail about “social justice” and how it’s not Christian to want to give to others. As I’ve blogged before, Beckie-boy’s reasoning is fatally flawed because he conflates terminology; specifically, he is ferociously angry about the use of certain terms that once had served as Communist “catch phrases.” That these terms happen also to have meaning to other people — for other purposes — appears to be something he’s blissfully unaware of. This leads him to say and do things that end up appearing nonsensical, if not insane. The Time magazine Swampland blog recently took note of one such example (WebCite cached article):

This time he claimed that black liberation theology—theology that believes Jesus saves victims from their oppressors—forces whites to unnecessarily confess to racism and inspires the government to redistribute money from wealthy whites to victimized minorities. Because Jesus is not a victim, in Beck’s words, “Social justice isn’t in the Bible.”

However three days before the resurrection, Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, himself was tortured and hung on a cross. Beck says that even then Jesus was only a victor — “If Jesus was a victim he would have come back from the dead and made the Jews pay for what they did.”

Beckie-boy thus redefines the reality of Christian legend by declaring Jesus — who supposedly had been tried on a trumped-up charge, beaten, tortured, falsely convicted of that crime, and executed for it — was not actually a “victim,” because in Beckie-boy’s mind, being a “victim” means you also must react violently.

I haven’t actually taken the time to look it up, but I’m pretty sure no dictionary definition of “victim” requires that a “victim” also kick the asses of his those who victimized him/her. Obviously the Beckster made that part up, just so he could find something to bitch and whine about. To say that Jesus cannot have been a “victim” of Roman justice, is laughable!

So, all you Right-wing religionists … I have to ask … why do you continue to let this off-the-rails batshit-insane lunatic, who clearly hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about, speak for you? Haven’t you had enough of this circus yet? When are you going to ask that Beckie-boy be returned to the asylum he escaped from?

For the benefit of Glennie and his sycophantic, mindless followers, here is but one of Jesus’ teachings for you to consider:

But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.”

Then the righteous will answer Him, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?”

The King will answer and say to them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”

Then He will also say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.”

Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?”

Then He will answer them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:31-46)

I suggest that Glennie and his screaming Right-wing minions get ready for that latter judgement … because if Jesus does return someday, they’ll find themselves in big trouble!

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore.

For a while now the Vatican has been promising to issue new guidelines for handling clerical abuse claims within the realm of Church law. The unspoken implication behind the Holy See’s promises has been that the procedures would change for the better … that is, by tightening accountability of all involved and declaring that accusations should be relayed to local civil authorities. But one of the things the Vatican is most famous for is its reluctance to change; thus, it’s no surprise that its newly-announced guidelines are really not much more than a restatement of the status quo. The New York Times reports on this latest piece of evidence that the Catholic Church is in the throes of a moral collapse (WebCite cached article):

In its most significant revision to church law since a sex abuse crisis hit the United States a decade ago and roared back from remission in Europe this spring, the Vatican on Thursday issued new internal rules making it easier to discipline priests who have sexually abused minors.

But in a move that infuriated victims’ groups and put United States bishops on the defensive, it also codified “the attempted ordination of women” to the priesthood as one of the church’s most grave crimes, along with heresy, schism and pedophilia.

Note here the effort at diversion: In the midst of responding to one issue, the Catholic clerical abuse scandal, the Vatican couldn’t resist getting a dig in at another — completely unrelated — issue, that being the (potential for) ordination of women. How obvious … not to mention juvenile!

Of course, the Vatican is denying reality and misrepresenting the nature of this document:

In a statement, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the changes were a sign of the church’s commitment to addressing child sex abuse with “rigor and transparency.”

There is, in fact, nothing “rigorous” about this, and nothing has been done to enhance “transparency.” Bishops are still free to shuffle clergy around and allow abusers to prey on new victims, even when their wrongdoing is known. There is no accountability for the hierarchy. None whatsoever. That was the case before, and it remains the case now.

Photo credit: missliz.

About a year ago I blogged about a church pastor in Kentucky who insisted that all good Christians carry guns around. He felt that guns and Christianity are inseparable, even if guns hadn’t existed in Jesus’ time and there is no evidence he had so much as touched any kind of weapon (aside from the scourge he used in the Cleansing of the Temple).

Well, it’s not just a pastor in Kentucky who wants worshippers to pack heat when they go to church; the ferociously Religious Rightist governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana signed a law specifically promoting exactly that, as reported by Politico (WebCite cached article):

Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed a law allowing holders of concealed-weapons permits to carry guns into houses of worship.

The bill, signed Tuesday night, allows permit holders who take an additional eight hours of tactical training each year to bring a gun into “any church, synagogue, mosque or other similar place of worship.”

I honestly do not get how any rational Christian could possibly view arming him/herself as a valid way of worshipping the man who said — among other things — “do not resist an evil person” (Mt 5:39), “turn the other cheek” (Lk 6:29) and “whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword” (Mt 26:52). There must be something about Jesus’ own plain words that I don’t get … because I can’t see any place in the gospels where he even began to suggest that his followers needed to arm themselves. It’s just not there. The phrase “militant Christianity” is a contradiction in terms, if one looks at Jesus’ actual teachings as recorded in the gospels; yet it seems to be an expectation of all Christians, by Jindal and the rest of the Religious Right.

Photo credit: Counterlight’s Peculiars.

Perhaps you’ve heard that Christopher Hitchens — one of the three so-called “New Atheists” whom theists despise more than anything else in the world — has come down with cancer, and ended a book tour abruptly in order to get it treated. This news has caused theists to lick their chops and salivate at the prospect that Hitchens might convert to worship as a result of it. The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, for example, opines as follows (WebCite cached article):

But Hitchens’ rebellion against God has been so public that God may require a very public humbling.

The author is saying that cancer is God’s humiliating retribution against Hitchens for having written God Is Not Great. I suppose this kind of tactic is natural to the deity who tortured Job outrageously, then railed at him over it.

This comes after the obligatory … but factually incorrect … claim that “there are no atheists in foxholes.” Of course there are atheists in foxholes — I can even introduce you to some, if you don’t believe me!

Then there’s this little number from the (UK) Catholic Herald (cached article):

Perhaps visiting his doctor will be a wake-up call for Hitchens?

Again with the belief that God is using a physical affliction to coerce Hitchens into converting … coming from a member of the so-called “Religion of Love” (aka Christianity).

Isn’t it amazing the kinds of truly wicked contortions Christians will engage in, in order to think better of themselves and of their God, and worse of their non-believing foes? What childish nonsense.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Hat tip: USA Today Faith & Reason blog.

I think I’ve been too lenient on the Roman Catholic Church, over the past couple weeks. I posted just a little while ago that it seemed the Pope might have been just a little more contrite about the clerical child abuse scandal that’s plagued his institution for the past 10 years or so and has reached full-boil since late last year. Clearly, I underestimated the R.C. Church’s hypocrisy. You see, a couple weeks ago, Belgian authorities raided Church facilities looking for documentation concerning this scandal within their country. The Vatican responded by throwing a tantrum. Der Spiegel reports on the raid and the Church’s furious reaction (WebCite cached article):

But now that secular investigators have decided to take action, [Pope Benedict XVI] has condemned the “surprising and regretful” circumstances of the Belgian raid. In a message of solidarity with the bishops in Belgium, Benedict argued in favor of cooperating with the secular justice system, but he insisted on the church’s right to conduct internal investigations.

Benedict’s allies in Rome wasted no time in ensuring that relations between the Catholic Church and the secular world took another turn for the worse. The Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire sees the desecration of the graves as a “brutal act that strikes right at the heart of the church.” Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone — the second most powerful man in the Vatican — expressed outrage at the fact that it was possible to hold venerable bishops for so long without food or drink, “as if they were children.” Not even under communism were church officials treated as poorly, he said.

Essentially, then, the Church has reasserted that it is above the law of the land in all the countries in which it operates … a principle which it had asserted in the Middle Ages, often successfully, but which over the centuries — especially after the Reformation — it had been forced to concede.

Apparently, that all went out the window, when Belgian authorities decided to investigate the R.C. Church as it would have any other institution that may have victimized Belgians. That can’t be permitted, in the eyes of the Vatican.

But while the Church rages and fumes and stamps its feet that it’s being investigated by secular authorities over accusations that it may have victimized people, the Church has a completely opposite view of secular authorities, when it is a possible victim of a crime. The archdiocese of Hartford, here in Connecticut, called on the state to investigate and prosecute a priest who may have embezzled money from the Church, as the Hartford Courant reports (cached):

A well-known Roman Catholic priest who stole $1.3 million from the Sacred Heart parish over seven years said he “had grown to hate being a priest” because the Archdiocese had given him the “worst church assignments” where he would “have to fix problems made by the previous priests,” according to his arrest warrant. …

Waterbury [CT] police launched an investigation after the archdiocese came to them May 27 and said it had uncovered unauthorized payments from church funds to accounts held by Gray and other suspicious transactions, according to the affidavit, which was prepared by Waterbury Police Detective Peter Morgan.

So the Roman Catholic Church is more than happy to ask those evil “secular authorities” to help them out when they need it … but not willing to cooperate with them when their own misdeeds are being reviewed.

I can only think of four words to describe this: Hip. Oc. Rih. See. You know … the tendency to say one thing but do another? You know, that all-too-common human compulsion, which the founder of the Church’s own religion — Jesus Christ — himself, in the flesh, and in clear, unambiguous terms, specifically ordered his followers never, ever to engage in? Yeah. That “hypocrisy.”

Is anyone now not clear on what a festering sewer full of assorted putrid vermin the Vatican is?

Photo credit: Homini:).

One would think that, in the United States of the 21st century, blasphemy laws would have been a thing of the past … relics of, say, the Puritanical origins of the New England colonies. But if you thought that, you would have been wrong. Apparently the commonwealth of Pennsylvania had such a law. The reason I know about it, is because a federal judge just declared it unconstitutional, as reported by the AP via the Philadelphia Inquirer (WebCite cached article):

A Pennsylvania law banning blasphemous or profane words from the names of corporations is unconstitutional because state employees who apply it must base their decisions on their own religious beliefs, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson in Philadelphia issued a summary judgment Wednesday in favor of an independent filmmaker who sued over state officials’ rejection of his application to name his company “I Choose Hell Productions, LLC.”

Now, I have no idea why this guy wanted to call his company “I Choose Hell.” But whether or not I think it’s a good idea, is irrelevant. This is a free country, last I knew. Anyone who dislikes the name of the business or is offended by it, can simply avoid patronizing it. See how that works? Isn’t freedom wonderful? Fortunately, Judge Baylson saw right through the law’s solely-religious purpose:

Baylson said the 1977 law barring the use of “words that constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing or that profane the Lord’s name” violates the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and protections against laws that promote any religion.

The law’s “plain language, historical context, and the specific sequence of events leading to its passage inevitably lead to the conclusion that … the statute was introduced and passed into law with a predominantly religious purpose,” the judge said in a 68-page ruling that traced Judeo-Christian anti-blasphemy laws back to biblical times.

When I first noticed this story I assumed this blasphemy law had originated back in colonial times … but that turned out not to be the case. As the Philadelphia Inquirer also reported in another article on the subject (cached), this law had actually been written in 1977:

Thomas H. Lee II, Kalman’s attorney, encountered a surprise when he researched the case. “I assumed that this was a statute that was left over from either the 19th or early 20th century. I was surprised to find that it dated only to 1977,” Lee said.

That was when a gun-shop owner in Western Pennsylvania incorporated the name “The God Damn Gun Shop” (that was what his wife called it) and put up a sign, angering local ministers. House Bill 371 soon followed, declaring that corporate names “shall not contain words that constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing, or profane the Lord’s name.”

In this way, the 1977 Pennsylvania legislature bent over for these outraged ministers and did their bidding, by forbidding any “blasphemous” business names. This sort of thing, of course, is just childish … no more or less childish than (say) the government of Pakistan banning Facebook and Youtube within its borders over their supposed “blasphemous” content. Grown adults can tolerate the “blasphemy” of others, without stamping, fuming, screeching, wailing, and demanding the passage of laws against it. So the question is … why won’t they?

Photo credit: Digitized Chaos.