Defending Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais, comedian extrodinaire.

I haven't written an interactive snark-piece in quite a while.  I suppose I lost my enthusiasm for it and tried my hand at new forms of literary scrutiny.  Tonight I find myself somewhat riled and inspired to lay a curmudgeonly type-lashing to a one Josephine Vivaldo of the Christian Post.

Aside from being exceptionally poorly written, Vivaldo's comatic awareness of her subject material reads as an insult to her own intelligence.  But to spare you from my own nitpicky appraisals of Vivaldo's technical abilities, let's just jump right into the slaughter, shall we?

In her piece, Vivaldo has singled-out Ricky Gervais, a public atheist, brilliant comic, and first-class actor (see: Ghost Town, The Invention of Lying) who, during the Golden Globe Awards, made a playful remark:  "Thank you to God for making me an atheist."

Vivaldo's ignorant little scribble can't even be bothered to quote Gervais properly, let alone take the comedian's jibe in context:

"During the Golden Globe Awards, host and professed atheist Ricky Gervais said, “Thanks to God for making me an atheist,” but in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN, he says he was not mocking Christians."

The conspicuous absence of the personal pronoun "you" in Gervais's joke let's us know that Vivaldo's reporting is lackadaisical at best.  I wouldn't usually take interest in such a triffling detail, but let's face it: Gervais's comment wasn't so long as to make missing words a strong possibility.  But then to cite Gervais's rebuttal to the ridiculous allegation that he was mocking Christians only shows that Vivaldo is pedaling mealy-mouthed tripe fed to her by other jaded, evangelical alarmists.

Half a second of thought would illuminate to Vivaldo and any of her like-minded and equally addled co-conspirators that Gervais was taking a playful poke at the untold scores of actors who, year after year, curry favour with the wider public by tossing out superficial homages to 'God'.  This fact is made startlingly clear when Vivaldo goes on to report that CNN reporter Piers Morgan challenged Gervais with a note on the American Christian population:

Morgan began by pointing out to the British comedian and actor that millions of Americans are in fact Christian and it seemed obvious that he was poking fun at that particular religion. In response Gervais negated the assumption of offending American Christians, especially when he personally doesn’t find it offensive when people say “thank God” all the time.

Notwithstanding the fact that the use of the word 'God' is not exclusive to Christians, it really doesn't help Morgan's case to make such blunders when Gervais openly admits that he doesn't find people's use of the phrase "thank God" in any way offensive.  This highlights a strange irony: the demand for religious tolerance is openly upheld as long as no-one is irreligious.

In North American countries, a Christian can careen headlong into a blowhard speech about evil, gay Teletubbies, or the insidious, creeping poison of condoms; and in doing so, write off a whole culture of people as godless, sinning, reprobates who will never be whole without their particular brand of Christianity, and the God they envision.  But because Ricky Gervais took a harmless poke at a customary exit quip made during celebrity galas ("thank God"), he must be mocking Christians, and should damn-well be dragged through the media's kangaroo court.

Having turned his pedestal upside-down so he can more assuredly stick to it, Morgan pressed the issue further by "rephrasing" his original question:

Morgan continued on by rephrasing his question and Gervais, 49, said “no no, I’m not mocking them, people’s beliefs aren’t my concern at all, I certainly don’t differentiate religions either, I look at all religions the same, unlike religious people I look at all religions equally.”

American Christian Jesus

Gervais's response further emphasizes my point that the amorphous title 'God' is not the exclusive property of Christians, much less "American Christians" (as if their nationality makes their spirituality somehow a purer pedigree).  The fact that Gervais considers all supernatural views as part of a homogenous batter called 'religion' rips the stuffing right out of Morgan's juvenile insistence, and any other puerile attempts at directing Gervais's remark to any specific religion at all.  And good for Gervais for pointing out that segregating between religions is the practice of religions, not the areligious.

Gervais also pointed out that the religious don't have a monopoly on what is 'good', and that,

“Some people say who says what good is but you know what I say ‘I do’ I’m good to people because it’s the way I want to be treated and I don’t believe I’ll be rewarded in heaven, I will be rewarded now.”

Despite the awkward wording of Gervais's remark, he brings up a good point: what is 'good' is not good because certain people, or religions say it is.  What is good is 'good' on its own, and if you practice those things that are evidentially good (e.g., treating people the way you'd like to be treated), then that goodness will be its own reward now.  If you're religious, you may also believe that you'll have some kind of reward for your present goodness when you're in heaven.  But the point remains that by practicing what is evidentially good now, that goodness will be rewarded or enjoyed now, in the present.

Not to be undone too easily, however, Morgan moved on to suggest that atheists, in their dotage, must feel a sense of waste if this life is all they have.

Morgan expressed his sentiment about how “the problem for atheist it must be doom and gloom when you get to like at 70 or 80, to think that’s it, that’s the end of everything, so you must fear death ten times more than Christians”.

Morgan's intensely ignorant segue, notwithstanding, Gervais responded eloquently by noting that there are many different conceptions of 'God' and that, by implication, if the aggregate number of gods in the world has still not reasonably assured people of their present and future states, why should anyone think atheism is on the deficient end of the spectrum?  Says Gervais:

“I can’t help what I believe anymore than you can, it’s up to you what you believe in. This thing about not believing in God, there are 2,780-odd gods, and if you’re a Christian you believe in one of them and you don't believe in all the others.”

Far from being a "dispute" as Vivaldo mislabelled it, the exchange was a simple exchange between two people with contrasting points of view.  Gervais, I think, came out on top of the intelligible end of things.  And as far as I'm concerned, reviewing Gervais as a tasteless air-pounder with a preachment up his sleeve is the kind of moronic ignorance Morgan and Vivaldo should be repenting of.  Gervias was who he is: a comedian with an observation and ironic comment to make, not to Christians in specific, but for the sole purpose of a joke.  Besides, if celebrities can rig galas for the singular focus of "roasting" each other, why should Gervais be harangued for telling a joke when that is what he was specifically employed to do?

John Paul II: Saintish Update

This blood's for you!

Apparently a vial of the pope's blood drawn from him shortly before his death will be installed in the alter at a Polish church.  This "relic," as it is being described, will serve as a vampiric reminder of John Paul II's something-or-another.  I think it's really rather creepy, to be frank.  But I suppose Catholics will come up with all sorts of theologies surrounding veneration (of the dulia variety, mind), and defend their adoration of a dead man's blood come hell or high water.

Maybe the pope's second miracle will be that he prevents the blood from turning brown.  Or maybe the church will employ a bit of scientific know-how to prevent that from happening.  Personally, I think they should leave it alone and see if this pope is one of the necrotic superheroes, The Incorruptibles.

Normal

I don't like the word 'normal.'  It's one of the most overused, thoughtless, and empty words in the English vocabulary.  Mathematics defines normal as 90°.  After that, normal gets weird, dodgy, connotative and, well, abnormal.

You see, there is no normal in philosophy -- that strange application every one of us does to varying degrees in our lives.  Science really has no normal beyond importing the mathematical definition of the word.  Social sciences harbour freakish political mindsets abstracted from reality and imposed on fledgling minds; their 'normal' is the particular partisan persuasion of the institute teaching the social sciences.  And most often that persuasion happens to be in conflict with reality.

Economics doesn't have a 'normal'.  There's no 'normal' in environmental sciences.  There's no 'normal' in music.  Really, 'normal' just doesn't exist beyond being a sentiment that reinforces the guilt we're taught we should feel if we don't quite "fit in."  Add to the injury of that guilt the insult that mainstream media chats into our ears: be an individual.  So while it is that we should be concerned about 'fitting in', so that we don't appear abnormal, we should also be individuals (just like everyone else!), which is a message to stand in stark contrast to the status quo (i.e., the normal expectations around us).

Well, having explained my bafflement with the uncouth concept of normality, I will leave off this article with Ellen Goodman's famous quotation about what constitutes 'normal'.

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

Yeah. There's nothing like aspiring to mediocrity. How pathetic is that?

Muzzle the Man, Please

Darth Benedict, head of the Catholic Empire, has used his force to publish a book.  Again.  This time, in Light of the World, one of the topics he tackles is the subject of condom use -- something he and his other spindly-fingered, virgin Sith Lords know a lot about.  I suppose when we want advice, we're all be beholden to the experts, right?

Anyway, Catholicism's chief mouth-breather has announced it to the Empire, and to the scattered remnants of the Rebel Alliance (i.e., Protestants and Non-Catholics alike) that people can hereby use condoms in exceptional circumstances; e.g., if you're going to have sex with a male prostitute.  Or perhaps he should add "if you're going to have sex with a priest."

In any case, people are going to hit the sheets.  There's no exception to that reality.  So, just what kind of "exceptional circumstance" warrants capping one's John-Thomas?  Why, if one's John-Thomas is going to potentially threaten the life of another, of course!  But if you just want to have an hour well-spent with your partner, and not be given over 9 months later to an 18-20 year responsibility, well that's just wrong, evil, sinful, and damnably ungodly.

So are condoms valid in AIDS-riven Africa?

"The Pope made clear in his view condoms were no answer to the Aids pandemic."

So there you have it, commmoners, Darth Benedict has indicated that despite the exceptional circumstances of sexually transmitted diseases that will kill you, they are not the kind of exceptional circumstances that warrant a latex moment. But if you're an African male prostitute, perhaps with AIDS, well that's fine. Go ahead. It's exceptional only when it's exceptional, and not all exceptions are the same. Excepting exceptional circumstances, your circumstances are only exceptional if they're exceptionally exceptional. Then you can put a cap on it. But don't do it if you're just out for some fun. That would make you an evildoer.

Catholic Collusion

The Catholic “Declaration on the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells,” makes a fitting irony alongside its other inclinations, wouldn't you agree?



Yes, that's right: they're fine with covering-up the rape and torture of children, but you damn-well better leave those stem-cells alone.

In Christ(ianese)

Self-actualization is a long process. Maslow was well-aware of the difficulty in achieving an individuated selfhood. One must climb, as it were, "up" the eschelons of self-awareness until, by degrees, one is a fully realised, fully actuated person with all personal potentials being utilised. It is an existential reality everyone must grind through, and it is often fraught with vast pains, remorseless joys, and common experiences between those extremes.

More, our interactions with others add to, or detract from our self-actualization. However, our self-realization and self-actualization happens, on a fundamental level, alone. No-one else self-actualizes for another.

With that in mind, I cannot help but call into question the teachings I was attendant to at a Pentecostal church recently. The subject was, essentially, identifying who you are and becoming fully you. The catch was that in order to be who you fully are, you have to be that person "in Christ".

Well, far from being a religious critic, I must admit that this phrase put me off straightaway. I was ripped out of my nostalgia by a sudden sense of urgency; urgency that perhaps I had just listened to an interesting preamble about self-identifying and self-actualizing, but that such a disposition could only take place "in Christ".

What does the phrase "in Christ" even mean? Are we somehow enwombed in this man, Jesus, people call "the Christ"? And given that last question, how can we relate to the preposition in Christ, when what is being suggested is that we are included in his title of 'Christ', or 'Messiah'? Linguistically, the phrase simply doesn't make sense. What does it mean to be "in Christ"? No-one really knows, but we acknowledge it on a notional level, we give the connotation a favourable nod; we feel all soft inside, as if we've been rolled in a giant warm-fuzzy. But the phrase means literally nothing on a practical level. It is wanton Christianese.

Particular idioms like "in Christ" should be expected in Christian assemblies, however. In-groups have their own fashionable expressions, their own method of meaning that out-groups simply cannot partake in. And it's not as if the inability to partake of in-group lingo is forced on out-groups; I'm sure this particular Pentecostal church would like nothing more than to swell its ranks. The difficulty is that in-group lingo is fixed against the sensible notion of making what one says intelligible. Or, as Paul put it in 1 Cor. 14:10-11,

"Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me."

So while it is that in-group lingo is fashionable and expected, I can't help but wonder why any church would allow it if the net result is that outsiders feel alien? The church's mandate, as far as I've been educated, is to make Jesus the Christ understandable, convincing, persuasive, graspable, intimately familiar, not vague, imperceptible, elitist, and contradictory. And it is phrases like "in Christ" that do just that: remove understanding from outsiders and render communication bleak.

Another catch-phrase was thrown at me when I asked a couple questions of the leaders. The phrase "prayed-up". I was struck by the overt insincerity of this nugget. In essence, the phrase "prayed-up" implied that one can simply go to the prayer-bar, in much the same way one would go to a gas-bar, and fill their spiritual tank. Simply drop to your knees, pump the spiritual sagacity in, and then carry on your merry little evangelistic way. Rubbish and poppycock!

Look, if the context of a lesson is going to be about how a person can self-realize and self-actualize, then importing confusing mumbo-jumbo about how that can happen in somebody else as long as they are filling up on prayer (spiritual gas, that is) is contradictory and inane. There's no sense trying to convey large concepts like self-realization and self-actualization by speaking about them in connotative language that means literally nothing to outsiders, and is internally contradictory, even when examined from the perspective of an insider. Why add confusion if what you're trying to do is bring clarification? Lingo should never trump the content of the lesson. When it does, as it did in the case of my experience with this Pentecostal group, all that's left is to state firmly, "do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence." In other words, shut-up.

Disbelief ≠ Pro-Government

Says Landon Oakes:

"So-called skeptics claim that they no longer believe in the superstitions and vain ideas of old; but this is only partly true: the more skeptical one becomes of God the less skeptical he becomes of government. Of all the tried ideas, including religious belief, none has been disproved so thoroughly as a large government."

See article here.

See my response here: false. Many a skeptic are anarchists, and apolitical. They really couldn't give a whit about governmental ideas and systems. Freethinking libertarians are necessarily disinterested in government, and avoid the titles 'anarchist' or 'minarchist' because they don't want to answer to the governments that would hold them in suspicion because of their philosophical anarchism.

More, the above quote is post hoc ergo propter hoc, and a prime example of the missing middle. Exactly how does the disbelief in God entail the support of government? More, what are the steps between disbelief in God that lead to endorsing governmental structures.

Perhaps the cracked lense of American politics breeds this kind of black-and-white thinking. Especially on the right-wing diet. Too bad black-and-white thinking forgets the spectrum of colours outside of its self-imposed limitations.

Ratzinger's Plausible Deniability Is Bunk

Apparently the pope needs no defense: he's clean, he's without stain, and he never involved himself in the alleged cover-up of child-raping priests. Everybody should be slapped on the hand for even thinking that Ratzinger might have something to do with protecting deviant priests, and the image of the church. Afterall, that reporter shouldn't have been so insidiously rebellious to question the authority of a leader he has no allegiance to. He deserved that slap. We should all practice assault when we don't like how questions make us feel, or when they show up our hyporcisy.

On the other side of papal obstructions to justice, the Vatican has offered three reasons why it isn't liable for the abuses thousands of its faithful have endured over the past 50 years:

1. As the head of the Vatican, a city-state, the pope has immunity;
2. American bishops who abused thousands of wee uns weren't actually employed by the Vatican;
3. The 1962 document Crimen Sollicitationis does not provide proof of a cover-up.

Perhaps I'm out of my depth making comments on international politics and their interface with religious powers and power-mongers (e.g., the pope). So be it. But it does seem a matter of practical logic, to me, that if crimes are committed internationally, by priests of various nationalities, and who all happen to trace their legal fiat back to a single religio-political entity called The Vatican, that perhaps that single religio-political entity and the person who oversees it should be made accountable for the actions of the people he is claiming sovereignty over.

When Saddam Hussein slaughtered the Kurdish people, his immunity as head of the Iraqi state wasn't worth spit. On December 30th, 2006, Hussein was executed for his crimes against humanity. I'm certainly not calling for the exectution of the pope, not by any means. However, I am concerned that the pope's factual involvement in protecting the image of Catholicism, and the offices of the priests under him, amounts to nothing more than a chance for Ratzinger to plead plausible deniability on the world stage.

Let him deny it, if he dares. But to then move on and say that the bishops involved in covering up the actions of lecherous priests were not actually employed by the Vatican is a clear-cut case of four-square stupidity. If they weren't employed by the Vatican, they wouldn't have been acting in their offices. There wouldn't be any question of their alleged cover-ups because they wouldn't have been Catholic bishops. How fucking stupid do they really think the observing public is? The medieval period is over, Ratzinger. We're not baffled by ecclesial Latin anymore, and you certainly can't moonshine us any longer by suddenly changing the story and preying on our illiteracy.

Still, Crimen Sollicitationis is not proof of a cover-up. I'll quote the document, and you be the judge about whether it is a blatant attempt to keep sexual crimes secret, or just an exercise in fancy rhetoric.

"As, assuredly, what must be mainly taken care of and complied with in handling these trials is that they be managed with maximum confidentiality and after the verdict is declared and put into effect never be mentioned again (20 February 1867 Instruction of the Holy Office, 14), each and every person, who in any way belongs to the tribunal or is given knowledge of the matter because of their office, is obliged to keep inviolate the strictest secrecy (what is commonly called "the secrecy of the Holy Office") in all things and with all persons, under pain of automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication, incurred ipso facto without need of any declaration other than the present one, and reserved to the Supreme Pontiff in person alone, excluding even the Apostolic Penitentiary."

To end this article, I would like to draw your attention to the words of Christopher Hitchens, who wrote the following on March 29th, 2010. I echo his sentiments, and could not have phrased them any better.

"This is what makes the scandal an institutional one and not a matter of delinquency here and there. The church needs and wants control of the very young and asks their parents to entrust their children to certain "confessors," who until recently enjoyed enormous prestige and immunity. It cannot afford to admit that many of these confessors, and their superiors, are calcified sadists who cannot believe their luck. Nor can it afford to admit that the church regularly abandoned the children and did its best to protect and sometimes even promote their tormentors. So instead it is whiningly and falsely asserting that all charges against the pope—none of them surfacing except from within the Catholic community—are part of a plan to embarrass him.

This hasn't been true so far, but it ought to be true from now on. This grisly little man is not above or outside the law. He is the titular head of a small state. We know more and more of the names of the children who were victims and of the pederasts who were his pets. This is a crime under any law (as well as a sin), and crime demands not sickly private ceremonies of "repentance," or faux compensation by means of church-financed payoffs, but justice and punishment. The secular authorities have been feeble for too long but now some lawyers and prosecutors are starting to bestir themselves. I know some serious men of law who are discussing what to do if Benedict tries to make his proposed visit to Britain in the fall. It's enough. There has to be a reckoning, and it should start now."

The Vatican and the Devil

Apparently the Vatican is possessed. Well, maybe not possessed as such, but definitely not doing too well in its fight against the devil. At this point, some cynics might add the words of Christ that "a house divided against itself surely cannot stand" (Matt. 12:25).

But that's okay, really, because the gates of hell won't win out against the Holy See, right? 'Cause it was a religious city-state Jesus was talking about when he assured his followers that hell would do its best but fail in its attempt to replicate the falling of the walls at Jericho. Where's Linda Blair when we need some head-spinning proof?

E.T.A.: Is the Holy See really endorsing the "devil made me do it" excuse for all their misdeeds? Pedophile priests, ambiguity toward genocide (Pius XII), residential schools, witch-burnings, the Crusades, etc... It all falls under the clause "the devil made me do it"? What kind of wing-nuttery runs the Vatican? Who are these dottering fools that they can write-off their personal culpability, their responsibility and accountability by stating that it's the devil's fault?

Nevertheless, I think the chief exorcist is right: the devil is in the Vatican. He's a legion of priests, bishops, and deacons that use their position to exploit the vulnerabilities of others. And who can hold them accountable? No-one. They are an autonomous entity enveloped within the religious city-state called The Vatican. They answer to themselves, and hold court on their own, by their own terms, and in their own time. And despite how much they like to reach out and touch others, they are themselves completely untouchable.

E.T.A. #2: Christopher Hitchens has weighed in on the issue, and I have to say that I quite agree with his conclusions. Read for yourself here. And for a more in-depth depiction of the cirque du corps rampant in the Catholic church of late, here's Foreign Policy's article.

Dear Christians,

It may come as no surprise that gossip is not greeted warmly in Scripture. For those of you who may be having trouble with the concept, the words of James are ringingly clear:

"...the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water."

Yes, that dirty little wagger that rolls your food and picks between your teeth is a "world of unrighteousness" that sets "on fire the entire course of life" and is itself "set on fire by hell." It is, metaphorically, the instrument of hypocrisy, deceit and death.

The question now becomes, what is gossip? Simply stated, it is "idle talk or rumor (sic), [especially] about the personal or private affairs of others." Frivolous talking and rumouring about other people's personal lives is an active poison spat out by serpentine tongues. For a Christian, the allusion to being a snake should give pause for concern, yes? Afterall, who was it that hissed out his venomous words in the Garden? Just who's image and likeness are you living, anyway? Think about it.
But that only deals with direct gossip. That is, purposeful, knowing talk about other's lives that you don't have any business chattering on about. Then there's indirect gossip, or what I like to call "pastoral gossip." This is the kind of gossip that slithers its way into conversations because someone has a 'Christian concern', or 'needs advice', or 'would like an objective perspective', or a 'third-party look at the situation'. Let me save you the work of figuring out why this is not acceptable: because until you have approached the person you are 'concerned' about, you have no business involving anyone else. At all. Ever. Period. Your business, should you have a concern, is to lovingly go to the person you're concerned about, and express yourself. Meeting at restaurants, or on the telephone, or whispering through darkened windows, from car to car, or in the privacy of a confessional to keep people up-to-date, as it were, on why so-and-so needs 'prayer' is still gossip. When you disclude the person who is the focus of your thoughts, you are a gossip.

Quite simply, that makes you a betrayer, a hypocrite. When that sort of thing is done on a mass scale, say, for political purposes, we call it treason. People are executed for treason. We don't execute people for gossip, but people who gossip certainly execute friendships, trust, potential relationships, and on-going opportunities. If you measure your concerns by clauses such as "this is confidential," or "I'm not supposed to say this, but..." you are a gossip. You are more satanic than godly at that moment.

So, two pieces of advice before you start chin-wagging and jaw-flapping (directly, or pastorally):

1. Go to the person(s) you are wanting to talk about. Then talk with that person(s). After that, unless you have permission from that person to talk with others, shut yer festerin' pie-hole.
2. Since gossip seems to be the bar for many Christians, try raising it to something better (like honesty, just for shits and giggles. You can graduate to honesty as a principle as you are capable), instead of living under it as if it were a roof.

Gossip is something that the religious and the non-religious alike are guilty of. It just seems to be the rampant modus operandi, the on-going and preferred trend amongst Christians. Being a Christian doesn't cede the moral high-ground to a person with a concern; it doesn't award pastoral status to whoever is within earshot; it does absolutely nothing to endorse an open-mouth policy where others' personal lives are a possible subject. In fact, being a Christian should mean shutting-up, being respectful of other's privacy, and taking care to observe (according to Christian beliefs) with even more diligence than non-Christians that you are direct with the person in question. Anything less puts you more on level with Cain than Abel.

Mary Mother of Toast

This is old news, but it does need reporting again. From me. Because I'm interested.

Apparently the Virgin Mary Mother of God showed up on toast back in 1994. She wasn't content to hang out with God in heaven. She felt the need to impress people with a crumby miracle. So, she emblazoned herself on Diana Duyser's toasted cheese sandwich.

Nice of Mary to show up, really. Now if she would only do that in diners all across the globe. Then I'd be impressed.

That aside, however, I'd like to know if the bread is Wonder Bread. 'Cause wouldn't that just be the most awesomest blending of human ingenuity and divine intervention: "Need you wonder anymore, mortals, what bread thou needest? Thou shalt take of mine Mary loaf and be blessed"? And really, if you're going to theophanize on burnt bread, why not open a franchise and share the miracle with everyone? It'd certainly be a way to outstrip Jesus's feeding of the 5000. He only had five loaves to work with. But Mary, were she to snag a deal with Wonder Bread, would be able to claim the feeding of the, say, 2 billion!

Still, why would Mary want to run the risk of having her head bitten off? Or much more, invite quips such as "Bite me" into her celestial repose?

I wonder if Mary noticed she has some competition in the miracle-toast department? The late King of Pop, Michael Jackson has his face applied in cineresence, too. That's some pretty stiff competition, if you ask me. But Michael was one-up on Mary in this case. He had a prophetic voice that went ahead of him, Weird Al Yankovic, who in his higher wisdom, told us to "Eat it."

And if I could just put one final word in: I think this "miracle" displayed to a 52 year-old, gambling Catholic (sinner!) was rather milquetoast (i.e., timid and weak) of Mary. C'mon, Mary! You can do better than that. Remember the days of Lourdes? What about in Tepeyec, Mexico? Or Akita, Japan? Now those... those were miracles.

Pricks

So it seems there's going to be a vaccine for the swine flu. The flu itself is very mild and most people recover easily. Kinda like having a common cold, really. Which is why we should roll up our sleeves and let those pricks stick us with it (oh, and all of the toxins that otherwise wouldn't be in my body).

Seems a little overblown, doesn't it, to inject a vaccine that will potentially be more harmful than the thing it's supposedly vaccinating against?

"The decision to start vaccinating people against swine flu — which so far remains a mild virus in most people — will ultimately be a gamble, since there will be limited data on any vaccine. Until millions of people start receiving the shots, experts will not know about rare and potentially dangerous side effects."

By all means! Experiment on us.

Since only 429 people (of who knows what age, level of fitness, and dietary habits) have died out of the reported 95,000 people who have contracted swine flu, it seems it would be worthwhile to jump headlong into the 1976 swine flu fiasco.

"The public health community may still be scarred by the U.S.' disastrous 1976 swine flu vaccination campaign, which was abruptly stopped after hundreds of people reported developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing disorder, after getting the flu vaccine."

But of course we wouldn't repeat that mistake. We're much smarter now. We have more better technologies. And we won't use the same ingredients. Your cocktail will be shaken, not stirred. And we may just put stuff in it to make an extra-strength version, but don't tell anyone that we really don't know what that stuff will do to you.

"Several drugmakers are currently considering using adjuvants, ingredients used to stretch a vaccine's active ingredient, which could allow for many more vaccine doses. But little or no data exists on the safety of vaccines with adjuvants in populations including children and pregnant women. And in the U.S., there are no licensed flu vaccines that use adjuvants."

Perfect! Stick 'em all with something potentially more harmful than the flu itself, and make sure it includes a little extra bang for our buck just to make sure it maximizes possible adverse events. That'll get 'em.

I think there's a good parallel between gangsta culture and Big Pharma: one says "blap, blap" when you take a shot, the other says "ca-ching, ca-ching"; and they both pump you full of heavy metals. And make sure you don't cross either one, 'cause they both know somebody, and they're not afraid to call in favours.

E.F. Briggs: An Ignoranus (Yes, the misspelling is intentional)

Now, when it comes to horrifically ignorant signs like these (and there are many spread across the United States), I can completely understand, and sympathize with why secularists would desire the abolition of religion.



If religious people are so willing to publicly mischaracterize their fellow civilians because they may, or may not believe in God, what does that say for a) the integrity of their beliefs; and b) their desire to see an actual united civilian loyalty?

Or, as my wife pointed out to me, "God is certainly not a patriot. You don't have to believe in God to be an American." So there's really no correlation (or at least, a stupendously wide gulf) between what a person believes and how loyal they will be to their country.

More unfortunately, the sign seems to suggest that a civil war could be warranted if atheists don't repatriate by becoming believers. I wonder if these same believers would be just as quick to throw the switch, or pull the trigger as a punishment for treason, if in fact they actually believe non-belief is as much a danger as treason? Wouldn't that be an abrogation of the 5th Commandment (6th depending on your tradition)? How would they legitimize such an action? Personally, I don't think they'd do it. Which is what makes Rev. E.F. Briggs's statement the statement of an ignorant blowhard.

I Give Up

I can't read Richard Dawkins's book, The God Delusion. It's just too damned fatuous, and presumptuous. David Berlinski was right: Dawkins is a "crappy philosopher".

This being my third attempt, I thought it would be the charmer (ah, the stupidstition!). Instead, I find myself literally hitting my head against my desk, and tempted for the first time in my life to rip a book apart and put it in the garbagio (my personal term for a fashionable visit to the dump).

I will now move on to Michel Onfray's Atheist Manifesto which has been re-titled for paperback as In Defense of Atheism.

Nasty Remark

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."  H.L. Mencken

Can I get an 'amen'?

Hellvangelicalism

It came to my attention today as I was watching The Root of All Evil -- a documentary by famed atheist biologist Richard Dawkins -- that religious fanaticism in America is indeed a sick and grotesque parody of the message of love, and non-judgmentalism that Christ demonstrated. Dawkins brought to light the oppressive, fear-based tactics of a particular group of fundamentalist evangelicals who caper about under the name Hell House Outreach. This particular brew of insanity purposefully sets out to frighten people -- children in particular -- into belief in God.

Really, it's not unlike the equally distorted, and fear-mongering tactics of Canada's Heaven's Gates Hell's Flames. A shameless, base production that feeds off of people's confusion, ignorance, and (like has been said already) fears.

I do have to wonder what drives a person to the point where they find it morally acceptable to make a circus display out of separation from God? And why is it permissable to promote hellfire and the cruelties of the demonic world to particular target audiences -- more specifically, children 12 and up? Are they mature enough at 12, suddenly, that depictions of callous hatred, malevolence, torture, and brutality are reasonable psychological tools to win their minds over to Christ? Is that what Christ said would display the love of God the Father? Are we looking to fashion the theater after the Inquisitions? And why do these kinds of productions always present good and evil, God and the devil, heaven and hell in such simpleminded, hackneyed ways? Haven't we exhausted the market on binary notions of good and bad, light and dark, God and the devil, etc.?

I put this kind of stuff on level with Fred Phelps and his band of bigoted butt-holes.

Education

There used to be a time when education was for its own sake.  People desired education because they wanted to know, to understand, to gain wisdom, and to have something to pass on to those they know and love.  Times change -- an obvious fact to any who have breath, intellect, and the privilege to live to a semi-aware stage of the I; that is, the self in relation to things, and others.

Now, people educate for the purpose of getting a career.  Preferably, a high-paying career.  Education is a marketable product meant to yield worker drones in a culture of conflicting hive queens.  People pay hand-over-fist to have some committee elected 'expert' plug in the puzzle pieces for a job that will round out a well-to-do wallet, and prefabricate an otherwise flexible mind.

That's not education.  It's the machinations of a kleptocratic system filching the vibrancy, and potential from innocent minds.

Pack Your Bags!

Well, folks, I think this is good-bye. Armageddon is just about upon us, so it seems we ought to make pre-emptive niceties toward each other, shake hands and say adieu.

Anne Graham Lotz (daughter of famed Billy Graham) has declared that we're now at the great convergence in history when we can expect to see the end of human existence.

“We’re looking at the end of human history,” said Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of renowned evangelist Billy Graham and president of AnGeL Ministries, at the recent convention of the National Religious Broadcasters. “That our generation is the generation that precedes the return of Christ, what a privilege, what a responsibility to share the gospel with the world in this generation.”

You know, that's really a sentiment that I've never understood: how is it more of a privilege to share the Gospel in the end times than to share it in the times before? If we hold to the conviction that time is not linear to God, then why do we suppose that there's a higher premium on sharing the Gospel toward the end of our interpretation of the times than before the end? Will the outcome be different somehow?

And when did it pass by the attention of educated, or just interested Christians that the advent of Christ was the beginning of the end? I mean, His physical presence on earth marked out the half-way point, didn't it? Wasn't it like the old English math question, "how far can you walk into a forest before you're walking out?"

Answer: half-way.

Well, it would seem that Christ's birth marked the half-way point in human time, so haven't we been on our way out of time since then? In which case, the seeming especial importance of sharing the gospel at the end of time has been the historical norm since the earth received Christ some 2000+ years ago. That would mean that it was just as important to share the gospel then as it is now. This by that, there is clearly no difference in degrees of importance sharing the gospel now than there was then.

Nonsensical sentiments like that drive me batty.

In any case, haven't we heard these kinds of predictions before? Hal Lindsay, Grant R. Jeffrey, Swedenborg, Jack Van Impe, etc. They've all set their dates. Those dates have come and gone. They've thus shown themselves to be false prophets. I suppose we'll have to wait and see if Ms. Graham Lotz and her band of merry prognosticators show themselves true, or not. For now, I think I'll hold on to Malcolm Muggeridge's quip about pining after the eschaton:

"We love to think of ourselves as positively the last generation of people: it enhances our sense of importance."

Christ and the Basketball Girls

These girls beat the other girls 100 to 0 in a game of basketball. That's a sizeable win. However, their coach thinks it's not Christ-like because the margin of victory was too large. He feels it was an honourless victory and wants to forfeit the win.

Criticism and Snark: I'm certainly glad that Christ didn't feel the need to repent for his lopsided victory over the devil when He beat satan ∞ to 0. It was a game, Coach, and your girls trounced the other girls. That happens. Get on with things, and spare the rest of us the disturbing pretences and platitudes.

Guitar Hero

I've been playing guitar for 20 years now. It's an enjoyable skill, and I'm pretty good at it. Then along came Guitar Hero and reduced the value of developing an 'actual' skill on an 'actual' guitar to a virtual mockery in the form of a game.

There. My cynicism about that aspect of Guitar Hero is officially done.

A few days ago, I played Guitar Hero for the first time and had a lot of fun! Mind you, it was a tad confusing for me when I was following along with the scrolling dots playing a Metallica song I can actually play, and my fingers wanted to play the song for real. Needless to say, there were a lot of misplaced (even though they were properly placed for really playing the song) fingers.

But then this morning, while I was reading an article about some Gospel singers making a convention for the Superbowl (cough, gag, sputter, spew), I came across this advertisement -- Why, dear God? Why?

Yes, that's right: Guitar Hero has been Christianized. Now, instead of having to listen to those evil, nasty, satanic, and godless rock-bands, you can listen to the good, peaceful, godly, and worldless rock-bands. And all-the-while you'll be tapping four fingers over five fret-buttons, developing the same gaming capacities but without the possibility of cognitive dissonance from exposure to other creative human endeavours.

Oh, and let's not forget the appeal to pity in the advertisement for Guitar Praise: the wee 'uns so happily rockin' it out without the parental discomforts of CGI rock stars, and their studded shoulder pads. But don't worry, you can still send your hyper-Christianized kids to public school where they'll get a first class education in pornography, drugs, anti-Christian ideas, negative peer attachments, outcome based learning, and evil rock music.