To the Pope (NSFW... REAAAALLYYY NSFW)

To get this little ditty out of your head you will probably have to resort to Afternoon Delight, or maybe even Waterloo.  But it expresses things just oh so well.

OMFG (Oh, My Father Groped me) Part V

Courtesy of PalibanDaily...

Catholics aren't the only perverts and child rapists.

Pass The Loot and Load the Ammunition

This is Pastor Donnie Swaggart, son of Jimmy Swaggart:  "I've got my 45s loaded and polished."  Granted, the guy did not come from the highest quality genetic material (whether you determine quality to mean "ethical, decent human being", or "top-o-the-line huckster"), but this astounds me.

Whatever happened to followers of "the prince of peace"?  (Courtesy of Wikipedia - check out the second line on the page: "...(for) the religious figure, see Jesus.)  This bozo should be preaching about helping your fellow man, being good, acting good, etc.  Instead he proclaims that there is "a philistine in Washington".  Because of his perverted "holy" views, he feels violence may be justified.  After all, he has his guns loaded and polished.

The "man" needs to learn about the country he lives in.  Civilized people really, really need to learn about this country.  If you do not like somebody who is in office, fire them the legal way - by not electing them.  Have they broken laws?  Impeach them.  Don't like who they are working with?  Work to get your folks elected.  But to imply that armed revolution is justified now is simply treasonous.  I hope the Secret Service and FBI have their eyes on Swaggart.

Why is this guy NOT in a psychiatric ward?  If I were to go to a street corner, and start preaching that "there's an alien working in Cosmetics at the Macy's in Newark, the police would whisk me away for an evaluation.  But, because the voices this guy hears in his head are the same voices millions others claim to hear, he is given a pass.

Listen to the whole message if you can.  I did a while back, but could not bring myself to do it again for this post.

And I have mentioned this before, and I will mention it again - Swaggart and his ilk are not the only ones with guns.  I love my country, and I WILL defend its Constitutionally elected government.

I Can't Draw, but I Can Link

Mark your calendars for May 20th - it's the first annual Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!


I can't draw, so instead I'll just add a few links for fun:

The brouhaha

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/04/20/aims/
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/04/22/bear/
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/04/15/fear/

Just remember - the gods wrestle over who gets to smite/kill a cute little kitten each time you chuckle at one of those cartoons (unless you are a dog person - then they wrestle for a puppy!)!

STFU Unbelievers submission FTW

STFU Believers can be rude, crude, and even disrespectful.  Maybe that's why I like it so much!  Well, that and the brutal honesty of some submissions, and downright idiocy shown by some believers.

I really liked this one:  Via SullivanStreet

Bonus (2-parter):   Part-1, Part-2

Unbelievable

Based on polls taken by Gallup between May 2005 and May 2007, one-third of Americans believe the bible is literally true.  (h/t FriendlyAtheist for the link)

Can yo believe that?

One out of three people read the bible, and say "yes - that actually happened."  One-third believe Noah built an ark, filled it with 2 of every species (except unicorns and dinosaurs), and waited for the rain.  One-third believe that a man lived to be 969 years old (give or take a century or two).

I have already discussed bible literalists - but I did not realize (and have a hard time comprehending) that there were so many.... The US population is approximately 300,000,000, and some simple math puts that one-third figure at one hundred million.

Of course, some questions are raised by the thought of "the bible is the literal truth"...
 - The first has to be: "Which bible?"  (Why are there so many versions?)  Some list Methuselah's age to be 969 years at death, while others put it close to 700.  Was he a ghost only partially there for 200+ years?  Which translation is THE translation?  (As a bible literalist once told me - "if god can create the universe, the earth, and man, don't you think he could find a good publisher?"  Well - which "publisher" is right?)
 - How old is the earth?  Science and carbon dating put the earth at between 4-5 billion yeas old.  Literalists looking at genealogies in the bible put it close to 8,500 years.  (Detractors of the 4-5 billion year age claim the reason there exists conflicting or confusing "evidence" of the earth's age is that the devil put that false evidence there.  Hmmm - you think that if god could find a good publisher, he could also find a good groundskeeper to remove such rubbish.)
 - If these 100,000,000 true believers are REALLY true believers, and if failure to follow their god's words and commands are sins, why are theses 100,000,000 people not going around killing gays, adulterers, non-believers, etc?  Please do not get me wrong - I do not want them to do those horrid acts, and if somebody does try to follow through on those acts, I will do what I can to defend myself and others targeted by their brand of mythology.  But it seems to me that if your really Really REALLY BELIEVE, you should be doing something about it.

Am I ever glad I am not a science teacher right about now...

National Day of Prayer = Unconstitutional

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of Wisconsin has ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional.  I think that is appropriate - although the government can acknowledge that religion has played a part in this country's history, making a declaration of "OK - now EVERYBODY pray!" crosses that line that should exist between church and state.

Many religious may exclaim that the NDoP does not promote a single religion.  That is true - it does not promote a single religion, but prayer in itself is (to paraphrase Jim Morrison) a petition to a lord.  Whether that lord or higher being is jehova, zenu, the flying spaghetti monster, gaea, or buddha, the implications are that there is something out there.  The government, by declaring "PRAY!", takes that stance, and that is unconstitutional.

As PZ says:  Let the fireworks begin.

OMFG... Part IV

Well, at least that Bishop of Tenerife has some good company.  The troubles the catholic church is having with their child rapers?  As PZ writes - It must be…The Jews!!!

xkcd for the win (again)

Lego

As Funny as Telling a Kid His Parents Died in a Car Crash!

Practical jokes have always interested me.  Not in a "my gosh, I love practical jokes and admire those who pull them" way, but more in a "how low does some fool have to go to get his jollies?" manner.

Practical jokes have been part of mainstream entertainment for years.  Candid Camera hit the airwaves in 1948, and was broadcast in one form or another through 2004.  Punk'd has been a hit on MTV for years.  Scare Tactics and Boiling Points , two of the more vile versions of this type of show, have also had their runs.

Now, christians frequently claim that theirs is a religion of love and peace.  Where in the lexicon of "love and peace" does "scare the crap out of a fellow believer by convincing them that their greatest fear has come true" fall?  A so-called comedian tricks people into believing that the rapture has occurred, but those people were "left behind", taping their horrified reactions.  That's not "love and peace" - that's childishness and downright cruelty!  How funny would it be to tell a child that his parents died in a car crash just to watch his reaction, then tell the kid "ahhh, just kidding."  That's what these cruel SOBs are doing.

While researching these painful shows, I did notice one interesting (but not surprising) tidbit - Candid Camera was last broadcast on PAX between 2001-2004.  PAX TV was launched by a christian who felt there was too much violence and sex on TV.  I guess he also felt there was not enough abject cruelty on TV.

OMFG... Part III

Is this audacity?  Myopia?  Obliviousness?

My guess is YesYesYes.  The Vatican is now claiming that the pedophilia and rape allegations are due to people not liking the Pope and church's "stance on abortion and same-sex marriage."

"By now, it's a cultural contrast," Sodano told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. "The pope embodies moral truths that aren't accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors of priests are used as weapons against the church."

"The pope embodies moral truths"....  HE PROTECTED AND ENABLED PEDOPHILES AND RAPISTS!  I am curious as to which moral truths the protection and enabling of pedophiles and rapists embodies.

OMFG... part II

Try not to retch while reading this one from Pharyngula.

PZ links to a rather troubling (aka - completely disgusting) comment by a bishop.

My guess is that there will be a Part III, Part IV, Part V.... (I think the usage of Roman numerals is appropriate in this case.)

Maybe Hell Does Exist...

(No - this is not another post on raped kids, although the title certainly would fit.)

XKCD's version

Happy Happy Happy

Another gem from

Calamities of Nature

OMFG...

There are a few reasons I did not start writing about the catholic church and their serial rapist priests***.

First - So many folks were writing so much about it that I thought nothing more needed to be added.

Second - The atrocities were so numerous, once started where would I end?

Third - it was just so damned depressing.

This morning I was reading yet another story of yet another serial rapist.  This one involves not only a cover-up, but atrocities forced upon the weakest and neediest.  According to a lawsuit filed in Alaska, some pedophile priests were moved to low income, isolated areas in Alaska where the priests could run wild.  h/t Pharyngula for that story - read PZ's analysis/rant of disgust on the situation, but you may not want to read the whole story on a full stomach.  Preferably - have a good stiff drink next to you.

But wait - there's more.... Also courtesy of the same Pharyngula article, a link to a call for the Pope's resignation.

So, yes, there is still a lot being written, and I don't know where/when/how it will stop  And it is still so...damned...depressing.


***Please note - I do not believe that every priest or that even more than a small minority are sick rapists/pedophiles.  I attended catholic church for years, and even got to know the local priest in the catholic church during my teen years.  The Father lived in the house 3 doors down from me, right next to the church, and I delivered newspapers to him daily - he was a good guy, and was happy do discuss/debate religious issues in a constructive manner.  After a few of those discussions (some involving teachers and friends) we left each other agreeing to disagree - and to the best of my knowledge he never damned me to hell.  Most priests probably are very similar to him.  Sadly, the small percentage who are rapists and pedophiles were protected by a corrupt administration.

How Hard of a Concept is This to Grasp?

Don't.F**k.Children.

Rawstory.com shows how the Vatican has company in the Boy Scouts of America.  And not in a good way.

Pretty simple, really.  Everybody is born with 2 major orifices.  Females get 3, while males get to play fireman and have visual aids to count to 21..  (We'll ignore the nose and ears since those are not relevant to the situation.)  

It doesn't matter if you belong to the catholic church, Boy Scouts of America, NAMBLA (not the North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes, but the sick mofos), or fundamentalist Mormons, sex for adults should be limited to consenting adults.  That means NO KIDS.

Really - how difficult of a concept is that?

A Good Rundown of a Corrupt Organization, and an Abused One

OpenLeft has a nice description of a corrupt organization, and a good organization that was abused to death.

Read it and weep.

That's Funny, I'm Not Laughing...

Just as during Bush the younger's administration the truth sometimes came out most clearly from Comedy Central's Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report), the truth about the catholic church's cover-up of child-raping priests and the current Pope's involvement in that scandal can be quickly described by a couple of comics: http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/03/30/visit/ & http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=355.

Sadly, as funny as those two comics are, I am not laughing.

(Update - of course, The Onion has to get in their two bits:  The Onion's Take)

How can an organization that purports to do "god's work" and claim to be a tool for good let priests sexually abuse children, hide the fact that some priests did that, PROTECT those same priests from the law, and then reassign them to other dioceses to work with other children?

This happened in the US, UK, Brazil, Ireland, Austria, The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, as well as the pope's native Germany.  (ABC story about the popes and the pedophile in Mexico.)  There is no excuse.

I had a discussion the other day with a buddy who was raised and is still a Catholic.  I asked him what he thinks about the pedophilia and how the church has handled it.  I figured he is like most Catholics - disturbed by the priests who rape the kids, and disgusted at the church hierarchy for the cover-up.  That is pretty much how he felt, he had said.  You could tell the crimes really, really bothered him, but that he hoped the rest of the parishioners, clergy, and administration would help the church recover.

I was leaning towards that view - that the catholic church would recover and clean house, but then I read this.  Two instances - eight years apart, but all too similar.  Folks so caught up in the wonderfulness of their guy, that they look right past the rapist part of that guy.

“We didn’t need to clap him,” parishioner Maura McClean said afterwards, “because I think God will applaud him”.

“But that was the reaction of the decent people of Armagh. I think he’s a true genuine person who’s done no wrong.”

Even if I believed in such a creature, I do not think any god would applaud a pedophile enabler.  And to that parishioner who stated he had "done no wrong" - I can only hope that nobody "does no wrong" to a child he is close to.

As a reader of Andrew Sullivan notes, one-time Cardinal Ratzinger was a micro-manager.  I find it hard to believe that he would call an American university about firing somebody, yet would not know anything about a child molester in his organization.  The Pope has stated that his flock should not listen to "petty gossip".  I've not heard any gossip.  I've read stories of rape and pedophilia and cover-ups, but no gossip.

And for one final WTF approach to the whole priestly pedophilia/rape/cover-up situation, read this and try not to get sick to your stomach.  That "not me - the devil made me do it" bullstuff did not work for Family Circus, and it shouldn't work for the child rapists and their enablers.


In a previous post about being raised catholic, I wrote that one action I may take is to contact the diocese where my parents had me baptized and where my first communion was, and request they remove my name from their records.  That takes place Monday.