Curses

. . . that all the good Christians who read this piece were just shaking their heads:

Nigerian car thief turns into goat!

Abuja, Nigeria – In Nigeria recently, an angry mob demanded that police jail a goat. Vigilantes insisted the animal was a human car thief who transmogrified upon being apprehended. Nigerian law doesn't recognize magic, witchcraft, or voodoo. Yet, faced with an angry mob, police acquiesced, arresting the goat.

* * *

Not infrequently, police hear reports that a man claims someone cast a spell to capture his spirit. Tradition here holds that if you sleep in bed with your feet at the headboard, you are communing with witches. Criminals buy charms from witch doctors to become invisible and escape arrest. A hairdresser tells of a client of another customer who reported a snake in her house that turned into a young woman. When the girl was taken to a Pentecostal church service she turned back into a snake. The journalistic canon of having two independent sources to confirm a news story becomes irrelevant when an entire congregation insists "it really happened."

The desecration has begun...

...and ended, apparently.

That wasn't very noteworthy at all. Watch out for suicide Frackincrackerterians, PZ!

CENTERTON, Ark. -- The mayor of an Arkansas town resigned on Wednesday, claiming he was abducted and brainwashed by Satan worshippers nearly three decades ago.

Centerton Mayor Ken Williams said he has been living under an assumed name for nearly 30 years. He had been mayor since 2001.

Oh yeah, I believe him. Because there are just packs of Satan Worshipers running around the Ozarks. I've seen 'em. There are times when you can't risk going into the woods, or the Devil's minions will nab you, force you to change your name and move, avoiding the expense of divorce and child support payments. Man, sometimes they're just thick as deer ticks - it's awful!

Jim Downey

I was surprised to hear that Bibles may be partly responsible for helping spread the hospital "superbug" methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

But the only information I could find on-line concerning a link between MRSA and the Bible was from a 2005 series of articles in the UK. Please see:

Superbug threatens Bible's place in hospitals

However, this might be an item of concern. According to WikiPedia:

The major issue is that there are a number of factors that can lead to someone's death, and it is believed that patients with MRSA bacteraemia are sicker and will consequently have a higher mortality because of their underlying illness. However, several studies including one by Blot and colleagues that have adjusted for underlying disease still found MRSA bacteraemia to have a higher attributable mortality than MSSA bacteraemia.

Precisely those people most sick, and I assume most likely to be interested in after-life issues, are most likely to pick up a Bible and potentially infect it. Because it can't be cleaned with traditional methods without destroying the book, the "bug" can sit on a Bible and await its next victim.

Again, according to Wikipedia:

As MRSA has the capability to survive on surfaces and fabrics including privacy curtains or garments worn by care providers, the need for complete surface sanitation is necessary to eliminate MRSA in areas where patients are recovering from invasive procedures.

So, should hospitals and the Gideons stop providing Bible at patient bedsides? I'm assuming the patient's could bring their own from home or the hospital chaplancy could provide them on an as-requested basis.

Your thoughts??

Over the years I've had a lot of folks argue with me about my atheism, and I've argued right back - fiercely in some cases, but mostly with good humor and and real try at understanding what the other person is trying to say - and where they are coming from. I've been prayed for by an entire "prayer cell" of Salvation Army Church members in the UK, been the subject of a few sermons in my local churches, shocked the heck out of one set of grandparents with my atheism, and was shocked by the casual acceptance of it by the other set. I've had drunken, hours-long discussions with my brothers about God™, The Universe™, and the Nature Of Reality™. I've lived my life with gusto and tried to create meaning for myself and for my family. This is because I know - with a crystal clarity - how very fleeting all of our lives are on the grand stage of our universe, and how extremely fortunate we are to have appeared on that stage at this particular time - when we can recognize and appreciate our lives.

But this is the very first time I've ever been stealth-cursed by a commenter on my own blog.

Here's the comment. It was placed on an old post of Darksyde's from 2005 about the science of lightning. The commenter called themself "lightning", and linked their nickname to this site called "Satan's Kingdom":

[link] I bind you and cast you out into the bottomless pit and/or lake of fire by the Spirit of God and in the Holy Name Jesus Christ.

The bottomless pit and/or lake of fire? I get a choice? Hmnn. I guess I'll choose bottomless pit. Sure, it'll be boring, but not as painful as that whole lake of fire deal.

Thanks lightning, good buddy!

(Check out the HTML source of the page for a little extra dose of deluded Catholic lunacy. Apparently this internet cursing thing has been around since 2004 and lightning is just now getting around to UTI. It's tough being a wackjob, but is obviously made easier with modern communications technology like the web.)