Sorry, but it’s difficult to keep track of all these murders: Witness: God Gave Christy Edgar Idea to Tie Up Children as Form of Discipline

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Siblings of a 9-year-old boy who suffocated while wrapped mummy-style in duct tape described for a jury how they, too, were sometimes tied up overnight for stealing food and water.

And where on earth would anyone get such a crazy idea?

Williams, a 30-year-old mother of nine, said church members believed that God spoke to Christy Edgar and had at one point gave her a new way to discipline children — tying them up.

Ah, yes, more evidence of God’s divine glory…

Here we go again. How to be a Moron: Sect leader’s wife found competent to stand trial in infant son’s starvation death

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — A mother accused of letting her infant son to starve to death because her husband believed it was God’s prophecy was found competent to stand trial Wednesday.

So, she’s up for trial. And her husband is already in prison for life. So far so good. But the defense for her trial is paradoxical, given what already happened to her husband.

Krowski [her lawyer] has said she is not criminally responsible for Samuel’s death because she was brainwashed.

Now why does she get to be brainwashed? I really hope the jury sees through this bullshit and sends her away as well.

So, we’re all pretty used to the pathetic cries of “anti-Christian bias” when anybody gets even a little bit in the way of the imposition of Xian dogma on everybody — you know, the courts are “anti-Christian”, the government is “anti-Christian”, etc. And I don’t have to explain to anybody reading a blog called “God is for Suckers!” what a pathetic bunch of victim-playing bullshit this is. (Of course, I’m anti-Christianity, but I’m obviously a fringe character.) But this “Dad! They’re picking on us!” was good enough to mention:

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie has served notice that the GOP will likely defend marriage in the party’s 2004 platform… [and] pointed out in a Washington Times interview today that “religious bigotry” is being promoted by homosexual activists, who are attempting to use government to force their views on everyone… Gillespie said, “I accept people for who they are - and love them. That doesn’t mean I have to agree or turn my back on the tenets of my faith when it comes to homosexuality. I think when people say, ‘Well, no. That’s not enough that you accept me for who I am, you have to agree with - and condone - my choice,’ that, to me, is religious bigotry, and I believe that’s intolerant. I think they are the ones that are crossing the line here.”

Those fucking gay bigots! What do they think they’re doing, asking that they not be treated like shit and banned from the benefits of society? Does their bigotry know no bounds? RNC’s Gillespie Gets It Right on Marriage, ‘Gay’ Activists’ Intolerance, CWA Sayssquirting milk girlsnude teens tiny pics youngnaturist asian photossex nasty hot gaykaterina atk natural hairyfucing fist analdaughter fucks mom looks story dadgrandma cunt mature Map

This letter appears in today’s New York Daily News:

Religion and movies
Brooklyn: To Mel Gibson: I have an interesting subject for your next movie. I am sure the Vatican officials will cry, but not because of “profound spiritual intimacy with Jesus Christ.” The title will be “The Inquisition.”

Luz NoοΏ½l

Some student who’d heard my rant — uh, I mean, my reasoned observations of how the really smart people are atheists gave me the old “How about Einstein?” chestnut. After being pleased that he’d heard of Einstein at all, I rubbed his face in my favorite Einstein quote. So I’ll share it as a thought for the day:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

And not only that, but I heard he once did Marilyn Monroe.

As if reality TV wasn’t bad enough. It gives new meaning to the “idiot box”: And Word Was Given Unto the Networks

Richard Dawkins has an essay in Wired pushing the Bright movement (Religion Be Damned). I like this part:

We brights are not claiming to be bright (meaning clever, intelligent), any more than gays claim to be gay (meaning joyful, carefree). Whether there is a statistical tendency for brights (noun) to be bright (adjective) is a matter for research. I would dearly like to see such research undertaken, and I know the result I am betting on, but it is no part of the definition of the noun.

I still dislike the name, but I’ll march in the Bright Pride Parade.

Here’s a piece on the Vatican’s rush to make Mother Teresa a saint. The author tries to maintain her objectivity as a documentarian, but you get a pretty clear sense that the Church’s canonisation process is all about good public relations. She ought to mention, though, that Mother Teresa’s case is particularly fishy, especially regarding the “miracle” she performed by “curing” a woman with a tumor. The woman’s husband and doctors all say that she simply responded well to medical treatment — and the Missionaries of Charity stole her medical records. (see What’s Mother Teresa Got to Do with It? )