If you’ve ever wondered why people prattle on so much about the importance of keeping religion out of government, make sure you read this entire article, about a group of Catholic bishops who intend to directly and “forcefully” confront President-Elect Barack Obama on the topic of his plans to immediately void some of President Bush’s abortion banning executive orders once he takes office.

We get such gems as:

“Any one of us here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow—die tomorrow!—to bring about the end of abortion,” said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis.

Ignoring for the moment the complete idiocy of that statement, I’d rather focus on the extremism being put on display here. The article points out the Catholic church is willing to “compromise” on issues like the economy, energy policy, and foreign policy, but that it has to stand firm on the subject of abortion. Does that mean it intends to launch an all-out political war against anybody who supports women’s rights like this? Read the full story...

Technorati Tags: Politics Religion Stupid People

As much as I loathe marketing and advertising in all its forms, I must admit the folks being paid to drum up interest in the movie Hamlet 2 have done a good job — they picked one relatively small aspect of the film that was likely to really piss off the religious nuts enough to start rattling their sabers, and they highlighted that part in most of the trailers.

The “offensive bit” itself — the song Rock Me, Sexy Jesus — occupies a whopping 3 minutes of the movie’s running time, and isn’t the dirty, innuendo-laden shot across Christianity’s bow you expect given the title. In fact, within the movie, it’s more a song of praise than of insult, and I’m laughing my ass off at the folks claiming the film is blasphemous. You can immediately identify anyone who hasn’t actually seen the movie: anyone who is pissed about Rock Me, Sexy Jesus and doesn’t mention a thing about Raped in the Face is a mindless tool just parroting the criticisms s/he’s overheard from other wankers that haven’t seen the movie.

The song appears during the performance of the titular play, a sequel to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which the lead character doesn’t die, but is instead rescued by Jesus and his time machine; he then goes back in time to save everybody that would otherwise croak at the end of Hamlet. As the play’s author reckons — doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?

The play is stupid. That’s the point. It’s aiming for “so stupid it’s funny” or “so bad it’s good” territory, and it hits the mark; amidst the insanity of the show itself is a strangely impressive message about forgiveness. Yes, the movie takes some jabs at the kind of people who typically protest/boycott movies like these, and bluntly, those people deserve it. When you don’t like some performance, movie, song, or writing, that’s fine; you’re even welcome to complain about it. It’s when you try to stop it being published and distributed, though, you’ve crossed the line. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head or forcing this stuff down your throat. Switch off your television (or change channels), close that book, take out the CD, and move on. Forcing your opinions or beliefs on others is crap, and always has been, and that’s why you deserve the ridicule you get.

The rest of the movie is quirky and funny throughout; the usual dull pacing most comedies acquire in their final half hour isn’t present here. I’m not entirely able to explain exactly why this is, but for Shannon and I the single funniest moment of the movie comes from an unexpected spot in the middle of the film: the protagonist has just started trying to write his new groundbreaking play, and has just suffered his first dose of writer’s block. He’s shown trying various things to shake the block, but ultimately he ends up staring at his computer. That’s when we meet his cat — it’s just calmly sitting there watching him. Then we notice he’s staring back at the cat. Finally, he looks straight at it and asks “what is your fucking problem?” in a slow, exacerbated voice. We laughed for 2 minutes straight after that, and even now as I recall the scene I’m chuckling enough that I worry I might awaken my buddy who’s asleep on the couch next to me.

The movie gives the classic lesson that, despite being taught and demonstrated over and over, never seems to be heard by the assholes that long to censor everything they hate: the more you complain about a movie, song, book, or blog, the more attention it ultimately gets and the more widely distributed it ends up. If you morons would quit whining about blasphemous movies, they wouldn’t do as well. But thanks to dipshits actually calling for a boycott of this comedy, more people ended up in the theaters to see it this week.

Technorati Tags: Humor Movies Religion

I laughed my ass off as I noticed an advertisement on TV this evening for “dianetics.org,” a Church of Scientology front (the book “Dianetics” is one of the cult’s more infamous recruitment tricks, especially combined with their “free personality test” tables). The advertisement itself wasn’t the source of the laughter, though it’s a remarkably ineffective ad (it even includes the volcanoes bit that the cult’s “secret scriptures” include in the backstory).

What made me chuckle was that it was aired during a run of South Park. Yeah, the same show that lampoons the cult mercilessly (particularly in Trapped in the Closet which you can go watch by clicking “lampoons the cult”). First they threaten to sue the show’s creators and broadcasters, but now they’re paying Viacom for advertising time? Heh. Morons. I guess if you’re nuts and you’re on the losing side, doing completely bat-shit crazy things is a completely valid tactic.

Be sure to visit Operation Clambake at http://xenu.net/ to read up on all the destructive and horrid things Scientologists have been responsible for over the years they’ve existed. Then laugh next time you see that stupid volcano ad.

Technorati Tags: Religion Stupid People

If I just sighed and shook my head in disbelief, you wouldn’t be too surprised, since this kind of thing always provokes that kind of reaction out of me. Still, let’s all point and laugh at “blessed” water in a 16.9 ounce bottle, yours for just $2 (not available in stores). The folks over at FARK are giving this the once-over, too, and are probably doing a better job of it than I am, but I thought this scam needed just a bit more limelight cast upon it. Read the full story...

Technorati Tags: Religion Scams Stupid People

Among the many feeds I have piled into Google Reader for my amusements is PFBlogs, the “Ad-Free Personal Finance Blogs Aggegator,” which culls various personal financing blogs and smashes them all together. In turn, they provide a single feed suitable for digestion by Google Reader.

The decreasingly useful content that trickles through this thing gave me a particularly strange site to skim through this evening. I was wondering, as I scrolled through the “All Items” pile of Google Reader this evening, why the hell is “Verse of the Day” an item on my list (complete with a fucking scripture quote)? I looked below that headline for the feed responsible, and was surprised to see it coming from PFBlogs. Loading the actual “article” led to a remarkably content-free quoting of the good ol’ bible — on the all-time fiction best seller’s list (though I was pleased to hear the Ikea catalog surpassed the bible in total copies published … that’s one of the few instances I’m happy to see consumerism beat out an ideology ). Read the full story...

Technorati Tags: Religion Stupid People

Fair warning: I’m picking on the religious loons again. If that offends you, you’d better bugger off now and go read a church bulletin or something.

A church in Florida (ugh, dammit … why the hell do people in Florida try so damned hard to earn that “Florida” tag on Fark.com?) has issued a 30-day sex challenge — if you’re married, have sex every day for 30 days; if you’re not, keep it in your pants for 30 days. They’ve included handy-dandy logbooks to help you keep track! It’s the new marriage therapy!

Ahem. Um, no. Stay the fuck out of my bedroom. Why the hell do churches give a rat’s ass what I do with my “junk?” Am I banging alter boys? Nope. Am I banging somebody’s wife? Nope. Piss off — it’s just not your business. When is the “right time” to have sex with your partner? Any damned time you both feel like it. Sex is not a function of “gosh, honey, do you think the minister approves?” Sex is a function of “hey, are you in the mood? Yeah? Excellent, let’s go!”

Churches really need to just back away from the whole “interest in sex” thing. Quit trying to control it, quit trying to pry into the sex lives of other people, and quit fucking the kids. That’ll help a lot more than what’s being done now.

Folks, if you need marriage counseling, go to a real marriage counselor. You know — the kind that had to actually go to school, read books, study things, and earn the degree they display on their wall.

Technorati Tags: Rants Religion Stupid People

The always-impressive George Carlin once did a small bit in one of his routines about the phenomenon that Kathy Griffin railed against last night. He growled with irritation about how professional athletes are eager to spring up and “thank Jesus and/or God” whenever they make a game-winning score or accomplish an impressive feat (often without thanking those who were actually involved, such as trainers, family, or even the player him/herself), but mysteriously leaves their deity figure out of the equation when they screw up (fumble a ball, miss a goal, etc.). Read the full story...

[acidfree:1784 size=300 align=left] Coming back from a “we’re bored — let’s torture ducks and geese with that green laser” trip this afternoon, my friend and I noticed a thoroughly hilarious sign posted on a street corner at the entrance to her neighborhood (it’s shown at left).

Oh, my sides hurt. When I see silly stuff like this, I’m reminded of the charming folks at ridescat.com who decided it would be a brilliant idea to call the Brevard County bus service “Space Coast Area Transit,” or “SCAT”. Morons

Now back to the sign above. I’ve blacked out the name and address of the church that’s hosting this “innocent” get-together. I’m sure it actually is innocent in their minds — bring together community members for fun and games, with just a little bit of preaching on the side for anybody who seems to be “looking for answers” or appears to be more than a little vulnerable. Maybe I’m just a bit cynical about churches (nothing is ever free, after all) but it always seems a little scummy to try to scoop people in with a mere offer of free food (c’mon, guys — even the cults offer up at least a bit of sex to lure in new victims ). Read the full story...

It’s a funny thing — I vaguely recall attending a little bit of elementary school at a place similar to this school (the difference being this page refers to a high school, while I was in 5th grade when my “misadventures” with a religious private school began).

Reading these “class descriptions” (that seem more like nonstop religious indoctrination with a bit of math shoved in to make it look like an “education”), I recall just how insipidly stupid some of the classes I attended were.

It’s impossible to read through this class list and not weep a little bit for the students that will be forced through this crap. This is how religions “recruit” new members — indoctrinating their young. These kids can’t even “escape” discussions of theology by retreating to a fucking Calculus class. Read the full story...

Y’know, despite the limited attention “intelligent design” has gotten in the press (because it’s widely recognized now as a dose of stupidity, and is the ultimate oxymoron as far as fundamental Christianity goes), it’s not a huge problem because evolution really does prune out the dumbest and least-fit-to-survive among us.

Read this list of quotes to see why we should really be frightened. People actually believe that shit. People who vote. People who carry guns and shoot people who don’t agree with them.

They will not be swayed by evidence — I thought the guy I argued with months ago about whether gravity existed or was just “God’s will” was half-way joking, trying to be a smart-ass, or playing devil’s advocate, but maybe he really did believe what he was saying. These people sure do. Read the full story...