Rev. Billy vs. the Devil(s)!

Rev. Billy puts a hex on Chase!

Rev. Billy Goes downtown!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/voterevbilly/ / CC BY-NC 2.0 via laughing squid

Jesus vs. Pope

via huffpo

Afghan Women's Rights

One of the things the Bush's touted about their success in Afghanistan was the vastly improved state of the rights of women. It is true that things are better for women.

But, a husband can now legally rape his wife. That's right, its a new law, the Afgani President just signed a law allowing that behavior. It seems that the President signed the law in an attempt to court hyper-religious-crazy Shiite Muslims. Bravo Afghanistan and crazy fundamentalist religion!

God Does't Believe in Global Warming

So, I guess we should sit back and do nothing because the Bible says so. How silly. What's next, applying the teachings of the Bible to Social Security? How about Pork Barrel Spending?

via The Daily Dish

Pope: Condoms Are Really, Really Bad

The Pope spoke out against condoms the other day, which isn't really anything new. The problem is that he said that the use of condoms won't solve the AIDS epidemic in Africa (while he was in Africa mind you) in fact condoms, yes, condoms, will actually worsen the situation. How might that happen? Something to do with God's silly wrath and the sin of birth control or something?

I think the Pope should stick to talking about things we can actually trust his opinion about, like what robe, or scepter, or crown he likes, or what hymn to sing or whatever holy pinkie-ring he wants you to kiss. As far as I can tell that kind of stuff doesn't end up with babies being born with deadly diseases.

The George Bush Countdown: 10 Days

What ten issues will we most remember about George Bush? With ten days to go until he's out, and Obama is in, here is one thing I'll surely remember: The role of religion and science. Here are some of the Religion/Science greatest hits.

• Grand Canyon National Park officials not allowed to reveal actual age of the canyon due to pressure from Bush appointees.
• Bush places federal funding restrictions on stem cell research.
• Bush proclaims his favorite philosopher is Jesus Christ.
• Bush says he talks to God about foreign relations.
• Oh, and he didn't do too much about Global Warming either...
  

Farewell.

You Can Has Teh Old Testament

From a particularly inspired, if not scholarly, "translation" of the Old Testament,

Genesis 1:1

Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

Teh full Old Testament is right here.

Also, this bit from Exodus,

Moses an Aaron can has famblies and kittenz

Aggen I telz U dat abowt Cieling Cat. He tellz Moses an Aaron to get Israelites out uv Egypt sandbox.

Dese R teh famblis uv Israel. Reuben can has sunz Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron an Carmi.

Simeon can has sunz Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul. Shaul mama wuz Canaanite.

Levi can has sunz Gershon, Kohath and Merari. Levi livz 137 yrs. (Dats a loooooong taim.)

Gershon can has sunz Libni and Shimei. (Jus 2, eezy 2 rembember.)

A Governor and an Exorcist

The Governor of Louisiana is a young (37), eloquent and smart politician. Much like Barack Obama, he is relatively new to the political scene but has had a lot of success. Many people have called for John McCain to choose Jindal as his running mate.

My opinion: He would be an excellent choice, exolent!

Governor Jindal is a crazy devout Catholic, and by crazy I mean he has participated in an exorcism...

AN EXORCISM!!!!?!!!?!

This isn't a new story, in fact I heard about it a while back but I just watched the Governor speaking in an interview on the t.v. and his talking about what the people want in a President got me to thinking about what I don't want in a Vice-President: first and foremost no one who believes he has exorcised a demon from a human being. (By the way we've already had an Attorney General who anointed himself with holy oil and substituted Crisco when the good stuff wasn't available)

In the past Jindal's political campaigns have been successful at portraying questions about his religious past as attacks on his religious beliefs. I think it is fair to attack the belief that demons can enter someone's body and then can be exorcised from the person through a variety of ritualistic activities and a shit-load of prayer.

Rapture + Internets = Funny

Check out youvebeenleftbehind your one stop online shop to notify your friends when Jesus comes back and takes you to heaven leaving all your heathen friends and family behind to wonder where the hell you went.

Here's how it works. You pay 40 bucks or so and you get a little online space to store documents (presumably letters to people in your life). Also, you can set up an email message to over 50 email addresses to let people know that your kissing Jesus' pinky ring while they are sitting at work checking their email and reading their friends' cool blogs. The system is automatically triggered when 3 of the 5 designated "team members" fail to log into the system for three days. Then, three more days will pass just to make sure there isn't any funny business. So, 6 days after the rapture your designated recipients will receive an email from you bragging that you were not left behind like their sorry asses.

Mormon Polygamist Cult vs. Texas Cowboys

There are a lot of interesting issues surrounding the recent raid on a polygamous group in Texas that resulted in the state taking custody of the groups children. A court just recently ruled the children should not have been taken. Issues of government intervention and freedom of religion are all over this story and I am not completely sure what I think of the whole thing but what strikes me on a surface level is the Cowboy vs. Prairie Women theme going on.


Texas Child Welfare Officials



Mormon Mommies

White John McCain, White Pastor

Here is a video of one of the right wing religious figures that John McCain has actively sought and gained the support of. This guy thinks the United States was created to destroy Islam. McCain has also sought the support of the late Jerry Fallwell, who said September 11th could be at least partially blamed on the abortionists and feminists and John Hagee who said Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for a planned homosexual parade. (see video of Fallwell and Hagee)

Speaking of John Hagee, be honest, which of the following is actually more likely to be the truth?

1. Rev. Wright's suggestion the AIDS was a government conspiracy against African Americans.

Or,

2. John Hagee's assertion that a homosexual parade pissed God off so much that he drowned people, the vast majority of which were not gay.

Here Comes the Pope!

It's alright.

The Pope is coming to America, NYC included.

Check out this scather from Bill Maher about the polygamous cult in Texas and the Popa and the Mortgage crisis for that matter...

Baptists, Catholics Becoming Crazy Tree-Huggers

Both the Southern Baptists and the Catholic Church are taking public steps to promote the crazy idea that the Earth is worth trying to keep clean and perhaps even save.

All of this despite the coming rapture.

The Catholic Church has come out and listed "causing environmental blight" as one of a set of new modern sins (never mind the weirdness of coming out with new, more modern sins).

Southern Baptist leaders have declared that the church has a biblical duty to stop global warming. In addition to this positive development they threw in a little caveat that supporters should not promote sinful activity such as abortion for population control (!) as a way to combat global warming.

Hmm...I was wondering about that population control effort because it's a really great idea!

Jesus Switch

Do I really have to say anything about this? [Flickr via Giz]

Hello Florida! Please Teach Us About Life

The Florida Department of Education will be voting soon on a science curriculum that teaches evolution in schools. Nine of Florida's counties, Baker, Clay, Hamilton, Holmes, Jackson, Madison, St. Johns, Taylor and Washington have lodged formal complaints against the proposed curriculum claiming that the theologically based story of creationism should be taught along with the scientifically based theory of evolution. For those of you not familiar with Florida, those are the exact counties you would expect to have a problem with science.

Anyway, Florida has 64 counties, one would think the protests 9 of the more sparsely populated wouldn't have much of an effect on the school board. But, two of the board members have spoken out against evolution in the past. That's right, two of the people of the state of Florida education board may not believe in evolution!

On a related not I hear a number of other counties will soon be teaching that wine does not come from grapes but rather magic water, people can live for hundreds of years, incest does not result in serious genetic mutations in offspring, and you can easily live inside a whale, for a while at least.

Idiots To Picket Heath Ledger's Funeral

The Westboro Baptist Church, best known for picketing funerals and hiding their own latent homosexuality has announced they will show up at Heath Ledgers funeral, to be held in Manhattan, because of his role in Brokeback Mountain. I can only hope these bigots get lost on the subway and end up in the West Village and maybe realize their deepest urges they are so painfully bottling up. At the very least they will, hopefully, face a pretty sizeable counter protest. Here is their disgusting announcement:


link

Remember the Ultimate Warrior? He's an idiot too.

Congress To Vote For Christmas

The following resolution has been introduced to the House of Representatives, which means there will be a vote on it. What a cheap political ploy. Check it out,

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;
(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;
(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;
(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;
(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and
(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

What about Geol?

It's Almost Geol!

Only 15 days left until Christmas aka Geol. Geol was the name of the winter festival onto which the Christian holiday celebrating the Spring-time birth of Jesus was stapled. It was a clearly brilliant move by the church to use pagan festivals and turn them into Christian holidays, even keeping some of their pagan symbols and rituals to make them more appealing to heathens. But it may be an even more brilliant move to now bitch and moan about how Christmas is being attacked and that Jesus has been removed from the holiday.

Many people don't like Christmas because of its religious connotation. But just remember, it's so easy to remove God from your Christmas Tree.

Wouldn't a palm tree be much more appropriate to celebrate the birth of Jesus anyway?

Let's Get Religious

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is set to give a speech about his faith today. Romney is a Mormon and a lot of people think that's a little wacky. It is a little wacky. Here is a quick sampling of Mormon beliefs,

"What is now Jackson County, Missouri was the location of the Garden of Eden and will be the location of the future New Jerusalem, and God has led numerous groups to the western hemisphere in search of freedom, including several groups of ancestors to the Native Americans whose stories are told in the Book of Mormon."

"The plan of salvation, as taught by the church, describes humanity's place in the universe and the purpose of life. The church teaches that there was a pre-mortal existence, a place which existed prior to mortality in which all people and all life were created in spirit for. Central to this is the notion that humans existed as spirits before birth, were raised by Heavenly parents and had essential human characteristics such as gender."

"The earth, according to church teachings in the temples, was created by Jehovah which the church identifies as the pre-mortal Jesus, and Micahel the Archangel, who is identified as the pre-mortal Adam. The earth was "organized" from pre-existing matter, as were other planets with their inhabitants. Michael's spirit was implanted in a body created by God the Father and Jehovah, and became Adam." (all three quotes come from the Wikipedia entry for LDS but they are backed up by real sources in the Wikipedia entry, most sources are the Book of Mormon).

Mormonism isn't any more whacked out than any other religion. They are all ridiculous if you don't believe in them yourself, if you don't have faith. Religion is not for the rational mind and it shouldn't be discussed at all in politics. Romney, who would make a terrible President for a million reasons not related to his religion, shouldn't have to defend his faith. Yet, so many candidates for high office stumble all over themselves and others in attempt to be the 13th apostle.

I want my government officials to keep their mystical fantasies to themselves.

Evolution vs. Creation

In the on-going skunking tet-a-tet between scientists and creationists (the score, by the way, is now scientists 1,444,880,666 creationists 0) a new study has come out that may demonstrate one of the reasons bipedalism evolved from quadrupedal knucklewalking. There are at least two well known theories as to why this happen. First, the ability to carry hunting implements for scavenging purposes, this way food could be carried back to groups instead of eaten immediately upon finding the food. The second reason is safety, walking upright allowed for a longer line of sight so that big cats wouldn't bite their heads.

The University of Arizona study cites energy efficiency as another, more empirical reason. The study looked at data from a handful of chimps and a handful of adult humans as they walked on a treadmill. The chimp with the longest stride, therefore longest legs, was the most efficient upright walker. Study of fossil record of early hominins demonstrate the biological adaptation of longer hind legs which, in turn, would mean they would be efficient upright walkers. From the article,

"We and many others have found these adaptations [such as slight increases in hindlimb extension or length] in early hominins, which tells us that energetics played a pretty large role in the evolution of bipedalism.”