Catholicism

He should just draw the Blessed Virgin on his head with a Sharpie instead of wearing a helmet from now on! Key quote from the article:

[link] There has been no word on if the Diocese of Monterey will investigate Lipton's leg as a legitimate apparition of the Virgin Mary.

My cognitive dissonance meter just exploded.

I think just about anyone would agree that Bill Maher should be considered an atheism activist. Yeah, he does so through his humor, but nonetheless he is very effective at pointing out the absurdities of religion.

I don't watch his show (I don't really watch any television these days), so I had missed the latest flap over something he said (go to about 3:30 on that clip). But this morning a friend sent me a link to this Chicago Tribune news item:

Calls to fire Bill Maher after criticism of pope, Catholic Church

While most of the media attention focused on Pope Benedict XVI's trip to the United States was overwhelmingly positive, one television show host's choice words for the pope and the Catholic Church landed him in hot water. And an apology has only stoked the fire.

Bill Maher, host of "Real Time" on HBO, spouted off a rant on his April 11 live show that had many calling for his resignation.

Brilliant:

Man, it'd been awesome if the Pope had said, in that "Fuck, Josef Mengele is about to inject my eyeball" voice of his, "Shit, that really contradicts my image of a nation of bloated, reality show-watching materialists who don't give a rat fuck that their government tortures and murders, who would rather suck a horse's dick than actually help the poor, and who toast their TVs whenever they hear about the latest execution, but, hey, sure, George, we'll go with your description for the next coupla days."

Read the whole thing.

Bush & the Pope deserve one another.

Jim Downey

Can anyone honestly say that this comes as any surprise?

Scam suspect taps sympathy time and again

Mourning son, ailing asthmatic, down-on-his-luck journalism student.

Alan Farha II told Columbia churchgoers he was all these things as part of a seemingly endless number of sob stories and pleas for money, police and church officials say.

"I need money to get to my dead father’s funeral," he told pastors and parishioners. "I need medication for my asthma." "My car broke down, and I need a lift."

In reality, police say, the 32-year-old native of Dallas is a smooth-talking con artist who has repeatedly preyed on area churches and their unsuspecting parishioners in recent months. His suspected scams have caused a stir among Mid-Missouri churches, with pastors and officials from at least 10 churches in Boonville, Columbia and Jefferson City claiming they’ve been swindled out of thousands of dollars in church funds earmarked for needy causes. Dozens of churchgoers also have said they were conned.

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, writing a "Gospel Commentary for Palm Sunday" in Zenit, the Catholic news service from Rome, Italy, has redefined atheism so that it means, well, theism.

How incredibly convenient!

[link] Jesus on the cross has become an atheist, one without God. There are two forms of atheism: the active or voluntary atheism of those who reject God, and the passive or suffered atheism of those who are rejected (or feel rejected) by God. In both forms there are those who are "without God." The former is an atheism of fault, and the latter is an atheism of suffering and expiation. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, about whom there was much discussion when her personal writings were published, belongs to this latter category.

On the cross Jesus expiated in anticipation all the atheism that exists in the world, not only that of declared atheists, but also that of practical atheists, the atheism of those who live "as if God did not exist," relegating him to the last place in their life. It is "our" atheism, because, in this sense, we are all atheists -- some more, some less -- those who do not care about God. God too is one of the "marginalized" today; he has been pushed to the margins of the lives of the majority of men.

So, as you can see, all atheists really do know that God exists, but they either choose to "reject" Him, or they are going through so much suffering that they lose sight of Him. Mother Theresa's atheism is a good thing, you see? It means that God was heaping on extra punishments and torment for no reason - because she was so saintly and good. Obviously she needed to be tortured her entire life. And this is proof that He exists! Hallelujah!

And God Himself is "marginalized"! The horror! The poor, put-upon, all-powerful Universal Creator of everything is sad because every time He punishes one of his most faithful creatures over the course of years, then refuses to provide any evidence that He actually exists in any real sense, they stop believing in Him. It makes me weep, really.

That means that all of us atheists who make the simple claim that god-belief of any kind is absent within us are delusional liars.

I see.

Thank you Father, for your enlightened Palm Sunday commentary in which you attempt to marginalize and demonize 12 to 15% of the world's population. But that seems to be one of the things the Catholic church does best. Create the illusion that a group of fellow human beings are somehow sub-human, then use that perception to get the upper hand politically

Great job! Mission accomplished! I am SO looking forward to your God making me suffer. Maybe I can be as big an atheist/theist as Mother Theresa if He keeps me alive long enough, and I get painfully tortured enough!

Yes! Religion is so great! And Catholicism is the best religion ever!

Here's a little tidbit from the news.

The headline?

50 people looking for solar image of Mary lose sight

Enough said.

So, last night I was listening to NPR, and I heard a long piece they did on Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's religious references in his various speeches. Fine, fine, we all know Huck wants to put the Law of Heaven above the Law of Man, et cetera. Right?

Well, maybe, maybe not.

See, what NPR found out when they started asking people about Huckabee's use of those allusions was that most people just didn't get 'em.

Huh? We're an overwhelmingly religious nation, according to just about any poll or measure you can come up with. Something on the order of 80 - 85% of Americans self-identify as one variety of Christian or another. Yet here's an excerpt from the NPR report, where they have gone out onto the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and talked to people:

We started by recounting this story: In November, as Huckabee surged in the polls, a student at Liberty University asked him what was driving his startling success. Huckabee responded, "It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people."

The convenience store was busy this morning. It's kind of a "last chance" stop before the commuters heading out to the power plant turn off the highway, so it's busy most mornings. I grabbed a black coffee and a newspaper and stood in line to check out. Eventually the line shortened and I ended up at the counter. I placed my coffee and newspaper down and reached for my wallet when I noticed something odd about the clerk.

"Hey," I gestured with a friendly smile, "you have a little smudge there on your forehead." I snagged a Kleenex from the box thoughtfully provided for customers between the registers and handed it to him.

I looked down at my wallet and dug out my debit card. When I looked up again I was taken aback... The guy was glaring at me!

Nervously I asked him, "is there something wrong?"

I saw him visibly struggle to settle himself down. "That'll be $2.75, Sir."

Then I remember. Today is Ash Wednesday. He's a Catholic, or some other sect that practices this particular ritual. "Ahhh... ," I said, with another smile to take the edge off his anger. "I didn't realize what today was."

He rang up my purchase, swiped my card, and I punched in my PIN.

"How," he asked with a supercilious sneer barely under control, "can anyone not realize it's Ash Wednesday?"

"Well, I'm an atheist, um," I peered at his name tag, "'David'. I don't usually keep tabs on every religion's quaint little rituals."

Then the minimum wage, pimply convenience store clerk, who happened to be participating in a stone age public religious ritual, with freakin' palm frond ashes that were rubbed onto his forehead by a magical shaman, has the gall to look at me like I was the crazy one.

I've heard and seen much mockery focused on the Tom Cruise Scientology video over the past couple of days. (I apologize if that link no longer works, but the video has been on and off the net and that's the best link I can find at the time of this article.) The truth is, while I believe that atheists (especially agnostic atheists), in general, have a leg to stand on in this case, I don't think the rest of the godders, or innumerable other groups, do. Let's look at a few things that Cruise says.

Tom Cruise: ...I think it’s a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist, and it’s something that you have to earn because a Scientologist does... has the ability to create new and better realities and improve conditions. Being a Scientologist, you look at someone and know absolutely that you can help them.

"But that’s what drives me... I know that we have an opportunity to really help... effectively change people’s lives and I am dedicated to that. I am absolutely, uncompromisingly dedicated to that.

Replace the words “Scientologist” with the words Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Nazi, Feminist, Vegan, vegetarian, socialist, communist, capitalist, geek, Sikh, or even self help guru and you'll see what I mean. This statement, minus the maniacal laughter, could have come from any of the groups I listed and a whole lot more. Let's move on to the next set; shall we?
more below the fold

Although I'm late to this game, I didn't feel like I could contribute to the argument without having seen the movie or read the book. I bought the trilogy recently, finished the first and have started into the second book.

Minor non plot spoilers ahead

As has been said other places, the people objecting to this movie have completely missed the boat. In Pullman's fantasy world there are multiple dimensions and, as is clearly explained in the books, no god. There is a being that calls itself god but it was simply the first self aware being. It's all there in print. The first being didn't create the universes and thus is not god. Their objections about "killing God" are not only silly, but entirely baseless.

Reading comprehension people. It works.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

Do you recognize the quote? Is it from some crazy militant atheist, some ACLU lawyer who hates this country's "Christian heritage"? Here's a bit more:

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

* * *

Here at UTI we have done this countless times before, but it is always very effective. I only had to change "atheist" into "Jew" twice, and one phrase "no evidence for the existence of God" into "no evidence that Jesus was the messiah."

What if Philip Pullman were a Jew? Would the book banning and movie hysteria make sense then? Would it be acceptable?

You decide.

[link] Board agrees to review British Jew's novels
Panel will evaluate literary, not religious, merits of Pullman book, educator says

JAMES RUSK

November 23, 2007

After a complaint that The Golden Compass, a popular children's fantasy book, was written by a professed Jew, the Halton Catholic District School Board is taking the book off shelves in school libraries while it reviews its suitability for students.

But the religious opinions of award-winning British author Philip Pullman will not be an issue when the book is read and reviewed by a committee of 15 people, who will pass their assessment on to the board for a decision, said Rick MacDonald, the board superintendent of education in charge of curriculum.

"It is the book we look at, not the author," said Mr. MacDonald, who said the board has also removed the other two books in Mr. Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials, from the shelves while they are reviewed by board librarians.

The public attention to The Golden Compass, first published in 1996, has been heightened because a film starring Nicole Kidman based on the novel - the first book of the trilogy - is about to go into distribution.

Mr. Pullman's views on religion are no secret. He said, for instance, in a 2002 question-and-answer session with readers of the newspaper The Guardian, that he saw no evidence that Jesus was the messiah.

Queen's University English literature professor Shelley King said the issue of whether the board should take Mr. Pullman's books from the shelf came up yesterday with her third-year class, and she and her students agreed it is a difficult question.

"It depends whether you are more interested in doctrine or in literary excellence. If your choice of reading matter is doctrinally driven, and you are not interested in challenges to received doctrine, then by all means, Pullman is not the man you want kids reading," Dr. King said.

Gordon Davies, head of languages, arts and sciences at the school of continuing education at the University of Toronto, said the school board's action has to be put into context.

It is not asking that the book not be read, sold or lent by a public library, said Dr. Davies, an expert on Catholic education.

"All the school board is saying is that it has a responsibility to provide education within the Catholic faith," Dr. Davies said.

You've undoubtedly heard of this before:

"It's just so funny," she said. "All the desperation out there."

Hicks was chuckling to hear that the measure she recently took to help sell her house -- burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the front yard -- is a growing trend as sellers try to offset hopelessness invading housing markets across the nation.

Seen by many as the patron saint of home and family, St. Joseph's popularity is growing at religious goods stores and on the Internet -- among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Hilarious! Man, I don't know when I have laughed harder than upon hearing that people caught in financial difficulties turn in desperation to religious mumbo-jumbo for help. Good times, good times.

*sigh*

Three quick items from the last few days you might enjoy...

Talk about your "Magic Man in the Sky" category:

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia has come up with the world's first comprehensive guidebook for Muslims in space as its first astronaut prepares to go into orbit next week.

The book, entitled Guidelines for Performing Islamic Rites at the International Space Station, teaches the Muslim astronaut how to perform ablutions, determine the location of Mecca when praying, prayer times, and how to fast in space, the Star newspaper reported on Saturday.

"The reason we formulated guidelines for Muslims in space is because we wanted to ensure our astronaut could fully concentrate on his mission, without having to worry about how he should perform his religious obligations in space," Abdullah Md Zin, a minister for religious affairs, was quoted as saying.

But that book isn't nearly as good as this one, I bet:

Man, not even us members of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy would pull a stunt like this:

The three nuns living in a modest building on Nopal Street received an eviction notice last month ordering them to be out by Dec. 31. Earlier "would be acceptable as well," the letter said.

Among those being forced to move is Sister Angela Escalera, 69, who, diabetic and able to get around only with a walker, had hoped to live out her days in the Santa Barbara convent.

Gads! What horrible soulless Big Corporation would treat aged nuns this way? Who would be heartless enough to kick nuns out on the street after a lifetime of service to mankind?

Oh, yeah, it's the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. You know, the local arm of the Roman Catholic Church. Why would they do this?

Um, because they can? Because they thought they would pull this kind of a stunt in the hopes of generating donations from loyal Catholics?

Atheists, Baptists, Mormons and all the rest of you non-Catholics, BEWARE! Il Papa has gone and got His-own-self an Air Force:

Budget flights of faith

The chartered flight service being launched by a Vatican-linked travel organisation along with an Italian airline has both lofty and more mundane goals. It aims to provide a journey of faith for pilgrims as well as turning a profit.

You can forget the complimentary bag of salted peanuts and plastic pot of orange juice because each plane ticket will come with unlimited spiritual refreshment, Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi (ORP) suggests.

Flights are planned from Rome to many of the sites which draw hundreds of thousands of Catholic pilgrims seeking solace and or doing penance each year.

Yeah, sure, it's "just" a Vatican-sponsored travel agency, arranging flights for pilgrims to various Holy Sites around the world. That's what they want you to think, anyway.

Last weekend a friend sent me a link to a long piece in the New York Times titled "The Politics of God", written by Columbia University humanities professor Mark Lilla. It was a difficult week here for me, so I didn't get around to reading the full article until this morning. I recommend you do so at your first opportunity, since the meat of the thing will help you to understand a fundamental threat that we face...it's just not the fundamental threat that the author of the piece talks about.

Time magazine has an extensive piece about a new book titled Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, subtitled "The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta". The Time article is itself titled: Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith and is a lengthy examination of just that, as seen in the 50 years worth of correspondence contained in the book. Specifically, this was correspondence she had with various church officials, including her confessors and superiors. It should be noted that this is correspondence Teresa did not wish to be kept or published, so presumably is more honest and revealing than material intended for a general audience.

What is revealed is that Teresa suffered from a complete loss of any sense of God in her life and work for almost the entirety of the fifty years which she maintained her Calcutta mission. From the article:

A friend sent me a link to this CBS News item this morning:

Atheists Make A Case Against God

Except that the article really isn't about that. It's more about where atheism fits in within our society, as seen through the vehicle of former Saturday Night Live actress Julia Sweeney, who discusses her own journey away from belief, and how it was received by her family:

Even more confusing for Sweeney personally was religion. She comes from a large Irish-Catholic family. But in her 30s, Sweeney says she began a spiritual quest. It led her away from any notion of God — a conversion she turned into a monologue, soon to be released as a film called "Letting Go of God."

But of course, many people would disagree with Sweeney, especially her mother, Geri. She said it was a great shock that her daughter decided that there wasn't enough evidence for her to believe in God.