monday morning mayhem...

militancy...

my thanks to Richard Scott for the heads up on this one...

home invasion; just when you thought you were safe...

A man breaks into a house to look for money and guns. Inside, he finds couple in bed. He orders the guy out of the bed and ties him to a chair.

While tying the homeowner's wife to the bed the convict gets on top of her, kisses her neck, then gets up & goes into the bathroom.

While he's in there, the husband whispers over to his wife: 'Listen, this guy is an escaped convict. Look at his clothes! He's probably spent a lot of time in jail and hasn't seen a woman in years.

I saw how he kissed your neck. If he wants sex, don't resist, don't complain... do what ever he tells you. Satisfy him no matter how much he nauseates you. This guy is obviously very dangerous. If he gets angry, he'll kill us both. Be strong, Honey. I love you!'

His wife responds: 'He wasn't kissing my neck. He was whispering in my ear. He told me that he's gay, thinks you're cute, and asked if we had any Vaseline..... I told him it was in the bathroom.



research confirms that drinking gives you the same benefits yoga does !!!







i don't understand why Maxx isn't in better shape!!!

Pascal's Wager...

..."God is, or He is not."
Blaise Pascal's Pensees

you cannot determine either by reason.

therefore you have to take a leap of faith or place a wager...

what are the possible consequences?

if you believe there is a god and there is, you then reap the rewards that the mythology promises;

if you believe there is no god, and there isn't, you lose nothing;

if you believe there is no god, and you are wrong and there is, you suffer all of the horrors the mythology forecasts;


of course, there is Richard Dawkins' anti-Pascal Wager -

"Suppose we grant that there is indeed some small chance that God exists. Nevertheless, it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc."

from The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

however, no one will make any odds available...


now, not to waste Pascal's thinking, it is responsible for four really important things: 1) charted new territory in probability theory; 2) one of the first attempts at using the idea of infinity; 3) the first use of decision theory; and 4) made possible the future philosophy of pragmatism.

not bad for a non-betting man...

my wager?

i prefer playing the ponies...



Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted using ShareThis

weekender...

A new priest at his first mass was so nervous he could hardly speak.

After mass, he asked the monsignor how he had done.

The monsignor replied, "When I am worried about getting nervous on the pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass. If I start to get nervous, I take a sip."

So next Sunday, he took the monsignor's advice. At the beginning of the sermons, he got nervous and took a drink. He proceeded to talk up a storm.

Upon his return to the rectory after mass, he found the following note on the door:

Father -

1. Sip the vodka, don't gulp it.
2. There are 10 commandments, not 12.
3. There are 12 apostles, not 10.
4. Jesus was consecrated, not constipated.
5. Jacob wagered his donkey; he did not bet his ass.
6. We do not refer to Jesus Christ as the late J.C.
7. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Daddy, Junior and the Spook.
8. David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him.
9. When David was hit by a rock he was knocked off his donkey, don't say he was stoned off his ass.
10. We do not refer to the cross as the "Big T".
11. When Jesus broke the bread at the Last Supper he said, "Take this and eat for it is my body." He did not say, "Eat me."
12. The Virgin Mary is not called "Mary with the Cherry".
13. The recommended grace before meals is not: "Rub-a-dub-dub thanks for the grub. Yay, God!"
14. Next Sunday there will be a taffy pulling contest at St. Peter's, not a peter pulling contest at St. Taffy's!

Thank you,
Monsignor

i would bet that the members of the parish were listening better than they ever have in the past...



like Maxx goes to church...
he worships Queen Victoria.
her picture is on the label of
Bombay Sapphire!

weekender...

before you take the kids to church on Sunday, you may want to think about these angelic antics first...



A Sunday school teacher asked her little children, as they were on their way to church service, "And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping!"

____________________________________________________________

The Preacher was wired for sound with a lapel mike, and as he preached he moved briskly about the platform, jerking the mike cords as he went. Then he moved to one side, getting wound up in the cord and nearly tripping before he jerked it again. After several circles and jerks, a little girl in the third pew leaned toward her mother and whispered, "If he gets loose will he hurt us?"

____________________________________________________________

Six year old Angie and her four-year old brother Joel were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang and talked out loud. Finally his big sister had had enough. "You're not supposed to talk out loud in church!" "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked. Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, "See those two men standing by the door? They're hushers!"

_______________________________________________________________

My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo while I asked, No, how are we alike?" "You're both old, " he replied

_______________________________________________________________

A ten year old, under the tutelage of her grandmother, was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible. Then one day she floored her grandmother by asking, "Which Virgin was the mother of Jesus? The Virgin Mary or the King James Virgin?"

_____________________________________________________________

A Sunday school class was studying the Ten Commandments. They were ready to discuss the last one. The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it was. Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted, "Thou shall not take the covers off the neighbors wife!"

_______________________________________________________________

And one particular four-year old prayed, "And forgive us for our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets!"

______________________________________________________________

A little boy was overheard praying: "Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am!!!"

____________________________________________________________

and the absolute best for last...

One Sunday in a Midwest city, a young child was "acting up" during the morning worship hour. The parents did their best to maintain some sense of order in the pew but were losing the battle. Finally, the father picked the little fellow up and walked sternly up the aisle on his way out. Just before reaching the safety of the foyer, the little one called loudly to the congregation, "Pray for me! Pray for me!"
______________________________________________________________

is there a law...

or court case that mandates what a church or minister or rabbi or priest must do?

yes, i know that there are cases on record that say that an adoption agency cannot discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation, but the caveat here is if the agency is receiving governmental funding. the provision reflects that the government cannot sanction a religion over another or support religious beliefs and the use of tax monies that discriminate against someone would be against federal and constitutional law.

the spate of laws being debated in state legislatures right now on same-sex marriage or civil unions almost all have some language in them excluding a church from being forced to marry someone that they don't want to in light of their dogma.

again, is there a law or court case that mandates that they would have to do that?

it seems to me that these provisions in and of themselves are pandering and creating a protected group - religion.

don't get me wrong, i don't give one wit if a church doesn't want to marry someone. the Catholic church refused to marry my parents because there wasn't enough time before Dad was shipped over to England during WWII. the bans of marriage requirement could not be met, so they wouldn't marry them. they married in an Anglican church here in Chicago [my father's religion], and he went off to war.

the problem came when i was to be baptized. when the Catholic church discovered they were not married in a sanctioned church ceremony, they wouldn't baptize me. my parents remarried an hour before my baptism in the church rectory.

[the best part of this for me is that the church considered me a bastard. i loved it and have gotten all the mileage i can out of it over the years!]

hypothetically, some foolettas are going to demand their church marry them somewhere down the line and take the church or minister or priest to court. the way i read the existing laws, this type of case would be tossed out before it even got to an actual trial.

if the churches are afraid of this, then put the silly provisions in the laws. i don't think it makes a difference one way or another.

except...

by now creating a special group - the religious - who do not want lgbtq being considered a special group because they don't believe in special groups.

hellloooooo!

obfuscating obfuscations: turn the other cheek - your ass or mine...?

christians consider themselves under attack today. they believe that they are the ones against whom persecution is aimed. they think that the secularism in the world is crushing them out of existence.

well, they forget how they used persecution throughout their history right from the beginning to foist their beliefs on everyone else.

from a book by James J. O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire -

"Christians resisted persecution well--both the ordinary spasmodic kind and the infrequent broader campaign--because their communities were many-headed, did not have substantial real property, and lived so fully intermingled with Roman society that they could not simply be carved out and attacked. A century after Galerius, when Christian emperors set out to--we might as well use the word--persecute 'pagan' communities and practices, they were far more devastatingly effective. They halted the supply of state funds for traditional practices, crippling much of what had been long familiar. Then they seized buildings and banned ritual in them, sweeping the landscape nearly clean of the old ways. What survived--and much did--was personal, small-scale, or highly localized. Over a relatively short time, the new bludgeoned the old into submission and eventually supplanted it. That's what real persecution could do, unafraid to use violence but not needing to use very much of it. But Christianity never faced anything like what it would later visit on the traditional cults."

they were the real experts at persecution. we see this all the way down to the present day. there is no hesitancy on the part of christianists in trying to bat the world into submission to their way.

sadly, they set the example. we see in the world of Islam the same type of fringe groups, eg. Al Quaeda, who adopted this christian view to their own imagined advantages.

like i said, turn the other cheek...

plain words...

i found this on one of the French blogsites i haunt - L'homme est un concept - Man is a concept.


Comme ca c'est clair*



this makes me very sad. there is absolutely no excuse for this. it is tragic that people who say that their very core beliefs are based on love but deny love as they pigeon-hole it based on a narrow minded interpretation of a three word sentence they hold sacred - god is love.

Nietschze said that God is dead. i think what he really meant is that mankind killed god by its hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

if there was an original sin that would be it...



*literal translation is "Like that, it's clear"; idiomatically, i'd translate it as "How stupid"

obfuscations in the news: the pope needs a psychiatrist - desperately...

from the Panzerpapa

Vatican accuses AIDS groups of intimidation

(Vatican City) The Vatican on Friday denounced the criticisms of the pope’s comments about condoms and AIDS during his trip to Africa, saying they marked an unprecedented attempt to intimidate him into silence.

Pope Benedict XVI said last month that condoms weren’t the answer to Africa’s AIDS epidemic and could make the problem worse.

France, Germany, the U.N. AIDS-fighting agency as well as the British medical journal The Lancet criticized the comments as irresponsible and dangerous. The Belgian parliament passed a resolution calling them “unacceptable” and demanding that the government officially protest.

365Gay.com & The Associated Press

intimidation?

INTIMIDATION?


how about The Inquisition? the Knights Templar? Galileo? The Holocaust? the...

why mention more? the catholic church has killed more people than all wars put together over the centuries. all in the name of their god.

these bear repeating again and again and again...

as i've quoted Henry II before, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

and

If Jesus were alive today, the last thing he would be is a christian.

i have never said anything like this in my life before... but the best thing that could happen for the world would be the death of benedict xvi. the only problem is that whoever the hierarchy of the church [the oldest, most inflexible, and basest men in the world] might be worse! he along with them continue advocating the deaths of people around the world. not just through statements on AIDS but in forcing women to have children they don't want - among other things.

he is a deceiver out of touch with the world around him; and he makes me see red.

more and more, he is looking like the anti-christ the believers preach of...

a question...

why do we need to have an ambassador to a fake country that does not pull its weight, does not give us any support, does not believe in democracy, and does not punish its own malicious predators?

Vatican blocks Caroline Kennedy appointment as US ambassador

Vatican sources told Il Giornale that their support for abortion disqualified Ms Kennedy and other Roman Catholics President Barack Obama had been seeking to appoint.

Mr Obama was reportedly seeking to reward John F Kennedy's daughter, who publicly gave her support to his election bid. She had been poised to replace Hillary Clinton as New York senator, but dropped out amid criticism that she lacked enough experience for the job.

Telegraph.uk

on this day that is considered the most important religious holiday of the church, it shows its true christian nature.

as i've quoted Henry II before, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

pernicious, hurtful, destructive, inimical, noxious, malignant...

i become extraordinarily hateful on beautiful days when confronted by obnoxious obfuscations by men who live in the 19th century and call on their god to condemn and foment against others while boisterously advocating free choice and will. they malign the basis for what they believe.

as i've also said before, "If Jesus were alive today, the last thing he would be is a christian."

in spite, no because, of this i'm going to have a great day with the kids, the easter egg hunt and the fried turkey. the religious meaning of this day has been bastardized, as has Christmas. i prefer to acknowledge that both days are really about the children - Celebrations of the Child.

Blogswarm: Blog Against Theocracy 2009...

below is a reposting of the one i did last year. it is still relevant and probably always will be as long as the country has fringe groups that believe that they own the only right to foist their beliefs on everyone else. they forget that we were instituted as a nation of immigrants who were searching for a place to live as they believed was right for themselves.

on Hardball tonight Christopher Hitchens was on with a religious who smiled for the entire time as Hitch made logical point after logical point based on fact not innuendo and not unquestioning faith that is highly overrated. when Hitch said that Benjamin Franklin was an atheist [well documented] i thought the man was going into apoplexy. when the point was made that the Puritans came to the Americas do be free to worship and believe as they wanted not enter another land that said they could only do it one way, the man twisted it to say that it was proof that we have a christian nation.

b***s***!

Blogswarm Against Theocracy 2009: April 10-12, 2009

One of the cornerstones of the U.S. Constitution insisted by the Founding Fathers was Freedom of Religion. They were aware that the New World was made up of many peoples from many lands who had a myriad of beliefs. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, et al lived in an empire that had little tolerance for other beliefs and religions with a state sanctioned religion - The Church of England. The Church of England was founded purely for political expediency - Henry VIII's hunger for an heir.

Over the course of history, there have been many examples of theocratic governments and it is obvious that they all had one thing in common - repression of anyone or any belief that did not fit into their world view. Most often this repression was violent.

Today, we see perfect examples of theocracy's rule in the Muslim world by extremists who have highjacked the religion of Mohammed to meet their own thirst for power and control. Countless citizens are maimed, murdered, exiled and tortured simply because they do not believe as others think they should.

The guarantee of the Constitution by Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

was written into the document to prevent the abuses so often foisted by theocratic governments.

Sadly, in the U.S. today we have been bombarded by rhetoric and innuendo by certain political forces that believe we should be subjected to a form of christianist sharia. They believe, wrongly, that the country was founded on christianist principles when the Founding Fathers overwhelming in personal writings warned of christianist inequities. In fact, most all of them viewed themselves simply as deists - "the belief that the existence and nature of God comes from reason and personal experience."

Inherent in "freedom of religion" is the idea "freedom from religion. There are people who, through the use of reason and personal experience, have come to the conclusion that there is no god. This is as unique a conviction as choosing a denomination or sect with which to identify for others. During this current presidential campaign it has been invoked time after time that the one type of person who could never be elected president would be an atheist or agnostic, and nearly 100% of people believe it.

The logo at the beginning of this post was created for a blogswarm addressing the support of Freedom of Religion. The purpose of this tactic is to make as many people aware of a certain issue as possible, to bring focus on a problem or possible injustice, and to foster understanding and acceptance.

I find it interesting that the group initiating Blog Against Theocracy 2008 chose Easter weekend for this action, a time of rebirth and reaffirmation. It is appropriate to remind people that their right and freedom to believe as they choose is written into law, that it is under attack at all times, and that there is always a demagogue right around the corner believing they have the answer to everything - no questions allowed.

You can find out more about the blogswarm by clicking Here

originally posted March 21, 2008

papal obfuscated audacity...

I know this doesn't come directly from the Panzerpapa but he is the one who started this entire brouhaha by re-communicating [can that be a real word?] the bishop in England who denies the wholesale slaughter of Jews in WWII - Williamson - and is now trying to rehabilitate him.

Pope's Holocaust denier agrees to investigate whether Holocaust actually happened - rejects visit to Auschwitz Americablog, February 7, 2009.

"Since I see that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently, I must look again at the historical evidence," the British bishop was quoted as saying.

He's going to revisit the historical evidence? What universe is this man living in? Why is he refusing to go to Auschwitz? What is he afraid of? The truth?

When I visited Dachau near Munich, I cannot describe the sense of overwhelming dread, sadness and shame I felt for humanity, or should I say lack of it. This man is the epitome of what caused this to happen.

For the church to even consider recognizing him would be a sin in their catechism and dogma. Hell, he should be drummed out of the human race not just the RC church.

the way i see it...

there is a huge, major difference between organized religion and humanism or atheism.

the vast majority of the world's organized religions see themselves as more deserving, more special and more equal than anyone else because of the beliefs in their gods, who promise them that their worship will give people a better chance of happiness and salvation. in that respect, it is all right to detract and discriminate against someone who does not believe. they are doomed and of no importance. [sort of shoots the idea hate the sin, love the sinner all to blazes.]

humanism and atheism, on the other hand, believe that ALL people have happiness and don't need salvation but a rewarded by the way they treat and revere others right here, right now, where it is the most important.

the second part of this is humanists/atheists don't go around overtly trying to convince/convert religious to come over to their side. they are willing to let the religious believe as they wish - as long as they allow them to believe as they wish, but even then, we tend to keep our mouths closed. this is usually not because of the heated exchange that might follow but because it's just not worth arguing logically with others who believe in myth rather than reality.

actually, when you think about it atheists are also humanists. interesting.

at least that's the way i see it...

there "probably" is not a god?

From London via the New York Times: Atheists Send a Message, on 800 British Buses

In response to a religious message on the side of a London Transit bus Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, checked out the web site on the sign and found out that she was going to hell. She was taken aback.

and then she thought, how about putting some atheist messages on the bus, as a corrective to the religious ones?

And so were planted the seeds of the Atheist Bus Campaign, an effort to disseminate a godless message to the greater public. When the organizers announced the effort in October, they said they hoped to raise a modest $8,000 or so.

But something seized people’s imagination. Supported by the scientist and author Richard Dawkins, the philosopher A. C. Grayling and the British Humanist Association, among others, the campaign raised nearly $150,000 in four days. Now it has more than $200,000, and on Tuesday it unveiled its advertisements on 800 buses across Britain.

“There’s probably no God,” the advertisements say. “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Wow! Think there may be a little backlash going on to the ever-present propaganda coming from the religious?

One very telling comment in the article struck me:

“I think it’s dreadful,” said Sandra Lafaire, 76, a tourist from Los Angeles, who said she believed in God and still enjoyed her life, thank you very much. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don’t like it in my face.”

Well, Sandra Lafaire, 76,a tourist from Los Angeles, how do you think some of the rest of us feel when at every turn in our daily lives we are bombarded by your opinion?

I get pretty sick of it.

As far as the probably in the ad as well as this blog title, the word had to be used in the ad because of laws and rules in England!

An interesting element of the bus slogan is the word “probably,” which would seem to be more suited to an Agnostic Bus Campaign than to an atheist one. Mr. Dawkins, for one, argued that the word should not be there at all.

But the element of doubt was necessary to meet British advertising guidelines, said Tim Bleakley, managing director for sales and marketing at CBS Outdoor in London, which handles advertising for the bus system.

For religious people, advertisements saying there is no God “would have been misleading,” Mr. Bleakley said.

“So as not to fall foul of the code, you have to acknowledge that there is a gray area,” he said.

and advertisements implying that there IS a god are NOT misleading?

just asking...

happy new year from Benedict...

A new statute coming into effect on January 1st will allow the Vatican to bypass Italian law.

This comes in the wake of a row at the UN, where the Vatican refused to sign up to a universal declaration of human rights regardless of gender or sexuality.

Under current laws, the Holy See must accept Italian laws automatically apart from in the case of "radical incompatibility" with canon law.

The new statute signed by Pope Benedict XVI will put an end to this system.

From the start of the new year, all Italian laws will be subject to scrutiny by Vatican authorities before being implemented in the city-state itself.

"Vatican breaks with Italian law after refusing to sign UN sexuality declaration" from PinkNews.co.uk

of course, he has his mouthpieces not connecting it to the UN resolution but to the myriad of Italian laws that are impossible to wade through. [how convenient...]

President of the Commission for the Revision of the Code of Vatican Law Jose Maria Serrano Ruiz said that the decision to change the legal system was due to the "instability" and "exorbitant" number of Italian laws.

see, here's what they really believe -

The Vatican's observer at the UN claimed last week that the declaration will somehow be used to force countries to recognise same-sex marriage.

"If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations," said Monsignor Celestino Migliore.

"For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as 'matrimony' will be pilloried and made an object of pressure."

so this is what we have. it is all right to discriminate against certain groups [that he chooses] but not to discriminate against others - like him. oh, by the way, the U.N. declaration makes no mention of marriage whatsoever - just advising that no one should be legally victimized because of their sexuality.

talk about obfuscation...

as i've quoted Henry II before, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

"THE" Newsweek article...

i finally read the article in Newsweek - Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy - published Dec 6, 2008. if you've missed it, i recommend that you click on the link to read it.

the article, if you are not familiar, uses the Bible, just as the anti-gay marriage people do, as a means of supporting same-sex marriage. it's interesting and i've been familiar with most references in the article. the main points are 1) that there is no direct reference to homosexuality in the either the New or the Old Testament and 2) the message of Jesus was inclusion of all people in the love and joys of his father.

the more interesting part of the article is the comments following it from readers. [Note: Newsweek has had to suspend people from making additional comments because the server couldn't handle it. interesting!]

the comments have the usual mix of arguments that have been going around for the last number of years. there are people who say that the Good Book cannot be wrong; there are others who say that the book was written for the specific times it makes rules for and a lot is lost in translation; some comments are very well thought out and written and others are, well, ridiculously blind.

i was especially struck by the latter. the people who have their blind faith with no question or thought are especially rancorous. it is almost as if they are threatened that their entire world will end if same-sex marriage becomes widely accepted. of course, the article and the comments also point out this similarity to slavery, but it makes no difference to them.

personally, after reading both the article and its comments, i more firmly believe something that i've thought for a long time:

if Jesus were alive today, there is one thing he would not want to be - a christian!

blasephemy? afraid not. i'm no longer a believer in the mythology. only in its inherent message of brotherly love and equality of all.

the vatican's stance on in-vitro fertilization...

seems off their message concerning marriage.

The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.

Vatican Issues Instruction on Bioethics, New York Times, Dec 13, 2008

Given the church's stance on marriage is for procreation and is only allowed in opposite-sex partnerships, doesn't this rule go against a core belief? if a couple marries to have children and discovers that it is impossible in the normal way [normal according to the RC] why is it wrong for them to use any means to bring more members into the church? It is a life in their definition.

The article in the NYT cites the “Dignitas Personae” that has just been released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document is much broader than just in-vitro. It includes stands on abortion, birth control, stem cell research and other bioethical issues, as they define them.

One should understand that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is made up of a bunch of old men, clergy, who are not supposed to have sex and are responsible only to the pope and two-thousand years of mythology. Their stand not only applies to the faithful but to all medical and scientific persons who would administer or research no matter what their faith.

A representative from a U.S. organization of catholic medical members explained in-vitro this way:

Kathleen M. Raviele, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Georgia who is president of the Catholic Medical Association, said she tells her patients: “God creates through an act of love, and that’s not what’s happening in the laboratory. It’s the technician who’s creating. What in vitro does, is it separates the creation of a child from the marital act.”

Why would concieving a child in-vitro not be considered a marital act of love? If a couple wants to have a child and they are incapable themselves, why not use in-vitro and, I'd assume, in some cases, a surrogate mother? A life is a life.

Of course, I'm sure there are other considerations behind this "The Dignity of the Person" document, icluding the timing of its release - same-sex marriage, Obama's defense of stem cell research, birth control use in the U.S., etc.

I long ago left the RC of my own volition first, because I couldn't handle the hypocrisy and second, because I no longer could believe in the mythology. There is an issue with faith and believing but, in its present two-thousand year old formulaic incarnation, it declines the one thing that is the basis of that faith and belief - free will.

A bunch of old men, in their infinite wisdom, set out the rules in the guise of guiding the faithful to act as they should but take away the one right they possess - the right to chose.

ironic or hypocritical? i'm not certain into which it falls. maybe both...

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Henry II referring to Thomas Becket who was once his closest adviser and became his greatest enemy when he took the side of the church. [that would be the Roman Catholic church.]

We are faced again with meddlesome priests who want to destroy people's rights, control people's lives, and threaten them with eternal damnation if they don't support the things they want them to.

Today, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Fransisco has compared the people who supported Prop 8 in California to abolitionists and civil rights marchers [Queerty: SF Catholic Archbishop Compares Prop. 8 Supporters to Abolitionists & Civil Rights Marchers. So, now they are the victims. They have the sole responsibility of deciding who is worthy of equal rights. This man was the person who brought the Mormans into the fight in California though only 2% of Californians are Morman, along with $20 million. Oh, would it also surprise you that Niederauer was the R.C. bishop of Salt Lake City, Utah before going to S.F. Don't say collusion to me...

Two days ago, December 3, 2008, the Vatican and its man in red decided to enter the fray in another way: The Pope's Christmas Gift: A Tough Line on Church Doctrine Times.com.

s, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, has announced that the Vatican will oppose a proposed U.N. declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals.

Why? Because some religious are against LGBT and no one should interfere with their beliefs. Huh? That's real christian of them.

Oh, wait. On the same day Benedict, aka God's Rottweiler, the Panzercardinal, as he has been called in the past, also sent this little message to the United Nations: Holy See refused to sign a UN document on the rights of the disabled because it did not condemn abortion.

Following the Vatican's controversial opposition this week to a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican envoy to the UN, has confirmed that the Holy See also refused to sign a UN document last May on the rights of the disabled because it did not condemn abortion or assert the rights of foetuses with birth defects....

...the Vatican supported the rights of the disabled, but could not accept a clause in the UN declaration affirming a right to "sexual health and reproduction" because "in some countries such rights include the right to abortion".

you read that correctly.

It's all right to discriminate against all kinds of people if they don't agree with your isms. It's all right to allow at-risk people to suffer and hurt because some people do not agree with your dogma.

real christian, don't you think?

just asking...


again, though i in no way advocate violence of any kind, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

rather than priest, i would replace it with the word religion. i think religion has outlived its usefulness and the likes of Benedict, Dobson, Falwell, Bush and all the others know and fear just that. they will lose their power. they will lose their influence, and, most important, they will lose their money.

unbelievable ignorance...

the American Family Association is selling these online for a suggested donation of $81.85, to people who are Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season...





a burning cross?

this is not a joke. you can click on the link before the photo to see it for yourself, but be careful not to hurt yourself...

these people have lost their minds.

i can't wait to hear the African-American reaction to this...

i'm also wondering if this is not a reaction to the election results of November 4, 2008. subliminal or otherwise...

and, of course, the christianists will scream that people are trying to stop their right of free speech and freedom of religion as an excuse when this makes the news and shows up on more and more websites. when did they become the victims?

one friend's reaction when i emailed him was: I won't have to work all day stringing lights in the front of my house. One cross will do.

i think we may have just officially entered the Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Scare Tactics all at the same time.

unf****** believable ignorance!


thanks to The Box Turtle Bulletin for the heads-up on this.

make up a sin...

any sin. Or so it seems.

A Roman Catholic Priest in South Carolina is urging parishioners: Priest advises penance for Obama vote - Parishioners shouldn't take Communion until they do because of president-elect's abortion view, he says

The priest at St. Mary's Catholic Church in downtown Greenville has told parishioners that those who voted for Barack Obama placed themselves under divine judgment because of his stance on abortion and shouldn't receive Holy Communion until they've done penance....

In a letter posted on St. Mary's Web site, Newman wrote that "voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

This is one of the reasons that the Catholic church is loosing members. It has never gotten the idea that U.S. citizen's have a different outlook than other parts of the world. The idea of "free choice" is embedded in not just our rule of law but in our psyches.

Unlike the LDS that can put out an edict demanding that its members unquestioningly support specific causes with money or action [yes, i mean Prop 8] or face excommunication, most U.S. religions don't do fatwas. There has been a continuous battle between religion and law all over the world. The church has never recovered from its loss of power after the Middle Ages.

Makes you want to go back to times like, oh, say Henry II - Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

I'm not suggesting Henry II's solution. I just wish that they would get their noses out of politics and focus on the all important message they spout as the ultimate commandment - Love they neighbor as thyself.

before you decide...

but it might just be a little slice of heaven...