We haven’t fed the lions in quite awhile, but I say it’s about damn time! Poor kitties are starving!

All the stale little trolls who have been coming out of the bowels of the blogosphere lately just aren’t very satisfying. The lions want a more substantial “main course.”

So, since one fat, juicy troll keeps sniffing around here just asking to be the main course, we grant his wish and make Weapon of Mass Instruction at the blog called “Fanciful Land of Evolution” the lion’s next meal. I just hope the kitty kats don’t get severe indigestion after such a long fast!

Weapon has managed to get himself (maybe herself, but for now we will assume it is a he for sake of not having to take up space with political correctness) asshatted here several times right from the start for being an obnoxious drive-by troll.

Apparently, Weapon has appointed himself as “the voice of those who seek intellectual honesty protecting our children from those who have a radical hatred towards God and anything that represents him.”

The subtitle of his blog states “Adding sense to Evolutionists’ fanatical hatred toward God, conservatism, and anything that represents them.”

Weapon “intellectually honest”? LOLOL! Now, that is hilarious! “Hate god and all that represents him?” How can we hate something that doesn’t exist?

Mr. “Genius” also has our friends at Pharyngula and The Bronze Dog listed under “Blogs to Waste Time and Make Fun Of.” (After this it wouldn’t surprise me to find GifS listed there next…oohhh I’m scared, are you?)

Some little gems from Weapon’s delusional website include:

ID is on the Verge of Some of the Most Important Scientific Discoveries in the History of Science

In brief, we are about to realize that our universe does not have a Big Bang origin, but a seed origin, which initial and perpetual cosmic seed represents the zero-point of creation. For reasons of its own this seed-point created the universe for the production of human beings in its own image, similarly as an acorn creates a mighty oak tree for the reproduction of itself.

The True Nature of Atheism Revealed

There is only one problem: They have nothing good to offer to society. They only have hate.

Looking through the comments, I see that atheists aren’t the only ones laughing at Weapon.

I could list more, but we don’t want to pollute our website too much with his bullshit. You can go there and check out the idiocy for yourselves and bring some little piece of “brilliance” back and tell us what you found.

Chow down!

The Story Thus Far: German Inquisitor Johannes Nider wrote Formicarius (“The Ant Hill”), the second major work on European witchcraft, in 1435 CE (see Hunting Witches in Print, Part Two – “Can They REALLY Fly?”)…

(Note of Caution: I found it really tough to find Internet sources that even attempted to be unbiased, and fewer with clear primary source references; a book I was unable to get a hold of and which might answer some questions is The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft by Hans Peter Broedel.)

By this time, an Alsatian boy named Heinrich Kramer had probably turned about five years old in Schlettstadtt, whose local Dominican chapter house he would later join at a very young age. The chapter soon appointed him prior despite his youth and before 1474, he had become Inquisitor for the Tyrol region and Salzburg in Austria; and Bohemia and Moravia in today’s Czech Republic. Rome recognized him for his eloquent sermons and zeal, and the Archbishop of Salzburg made him his right-hand man.

Born one to two years after Nider published his treatise, Jacob Sprenger also entered the Dominican order in his place of birth, Basel, Switzerland. Around 1475, Pope Sixtus IV named him General Inquisitor of Germany, and before he became Inquisitor Extraordinary of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, Germany in 1481, he attained the position of Dean at the prestigious Faculty of Theology in the University of Cologne.

Unlike his fellow Dominican Kramer, he appears to have shown very little if any interest at all in witchcraft…

Whatever the true nature of the relationship between the two contemporaries, on December 5, 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull entitled Summis desiderantes, in which he clearly stated that he had received reports of men and women engaging in witchcraft in parts of Germany. He pointed out that despite their papal authority to oversee these cases, Sprenger and Kramer (referred to by the Latinized version of his name, “Institoris”) had encountered opposition from clergy and laity in these areas because their letters of deputation didn’t specifically mention these suspects. Innocent gave the two Inquisitors full jurisdiction over any instance of reported sorcery in these regions and ordered local Roman Catholic Church officials to facilitate their efforts.

Kramer for one seems to have begun writing a treatise on witchcraft at about this time, and in 1485 he directed a trial of no less than 57 witchcraft suspects in the Austrian city of Innsbruck. However, his insistence on the details of the defendants’ sexual activities soon drove the Bishop of Innsbruck to close the trial down, declaring that the Devil was in the Inquisitor, not the witches!

Kramer bounced back from this setback with a vengeance: on May 9, 1487 he submitted to Sprenger’s Faculty of Theology a compilation of his witchcraft manuscript; popular current beliefs and practices; and generous helpings of both Nicholas Eymerich’s Directorium Inquisitorum (1376) and Formicarius (though to be fair, he did credit Nider by name). He entitled his book Malleus Maleficarum, a.k.a. The Witches’ Hammer, Hammer of the Witches, or my favorite, the German Hexenhammer.

Having hoped for the Faculty’s approval, he quite possibly falsified the letter of endorsement from four professors included as a preface along with the papal bull in subsequent editions. At any rate, his manual got published 13 times between 1487 and 1520, a runaway literary success for that era outselling all other publications except for the Bible.

All editions after 1519 credit Sprenger himself with co-authoring the Malleus, but his current Wikipedia entry based on Montague Summers’ Introduction to the Malleus Maleficarum (1928 Edition) claims that he “used his powerful position whenever he could to make Kramer’s life and work as difficult as possible.” These don’t sound like the actions of a collaborator, but historian Jenny Gibbons asserts that he had co-written the work at the Pope’s insistence, only to fall out with Kramer over the Faculty’s denunciation of the book and the older theologian’s forgery of their approval. Sources seem to agree that the Inquisition (perhaps the Spanish) condemned the Malleus, Kramer, or both in 1490, and that the Church listed the book on its Index of Forbidden Works (although I couldn’t find a date).

Still, Gibbons’ claim that the Alsatian monk’s peers did not respect him suffers in light of his later professional achievements and his handbook’s continuing success. The younger Sprenger died “suddenly” in 1494, but in 1495 Kramer obeyed a summons to deliver some very popular lectures in Venice, and in 1500 he received authorization to officially oppose the Waldensians and Picards. At the time of his 1505 death, he appeared to be still a Catholic and Church official in good standing, and his Malleus was still going strong – with or without Church support.

So after all this history and the ongoing debates over its origins, what does the blasted book actually say?

Next: Hunting Witches in Print, Part Four – “They Can Make My WHAT Disappear!?”

This was sent to me by a friend of mine…

Wayward Christian ‘Takes the Long Way Home’ in Semi-Autobiographical Novel

Thirty-year-old Jessica Parenti of Haddonfield, NJ, releases a semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman who finds her way back to the Cross after having rebelled from her priceless Christian upbringing. [...] A pastor’s daughter, Stephanie Cavelli knew everything about the Lord. She loved Christ as a child and was determined to live a life pleasing to Him. When she became a teenager, however, she began to compromise her faith. It started very small, with lying and sneaking, but eventually grew to a lifestyle of rebellion, culminating in a pregnancy at sixteen. Stephanie continued her course of rebellion into her twenties, searching for peace in materialism. But now, at thirty, she looks back and realizes how empty her life has become because she immersed herself in the world instead of the Word.

What exactly is “peace in materialism,” anyway? Well, whatever. The entire point, obviously, is to provide justification for the Word — because, as we all know, without it, all we’re left with is drunken slobbery, rape, stealing, lying, and pedophilia. (”I mean, without God, who’s to say what’s right and wrong, anyway.” Ugh. Groan.)

If you can stomach it, you can try reading the first chapter of her book here.

The thing really reminded me of Bruce Almighty.

Dr Lee E. Warren writes :

“Guilt is one of the most powerful emotions within a man’s consciousness that shapes human personality and society. Guilt governs our behavior, colors the way we perceive ourselves, and slants our outlook of the world.

We can understand guilt if we view it as a self-policing feeling and an emotion of self-punishment that all societies must encourage and maintain to influence individual actions. A person that is guiltless is a detriment to himself and society for there is nothing to prevent him from doing harm to another human. Psychologists call individuals that are guiltless psychopaths. This is the positive and healthy side of guilt.”

However, as with any principle, it has a negative side, which often stems from religious guilt which instills feelings of remorse, self-doubt, or personal responsibility that results when a religious person engages in what according to one’s religion is believed to be, sinful acts.

Wikipedia states : “even though there is proper guilt from doing ‘wrong’ instead of doing ‘right,’ people endure all sorts of guilty feelings that don’t stem from violating universal moral principles.” Many people go through life torturing themselves with unnecessary and undeserved guilt because of some ancient, irrelevant and unnecessary moral codes laid down by ancient men in eras long past.

This video by the Pet Shop Boys depicts these feelings of guilt and unnecessary psychological self-torment people put themselves through because they were taught to believe the are bad when they are not bad. The singer is gay, therefore often hears how “evil” he is according to god believers. Most religions are all about making people feel bad about who they are….for merely being human.

How did we miss this?

GROWING IN GRACE WHACKADOO WEBSITE

At first I thought it was a parody, but it’s a true story about another whackadoo who claims to be the man “Christ Jesus” who came back to earth to live in the lap of luxury in Doral, Florida… and sheeple flock to him! His followers lavish him with gifts, houses, cars and money and they really believe he is Jeebus in the flesh returned to earth as a pimp daddy!

“This self-proclaimed Son of God is a 60 year old former heroin addict and convict.”

Jeebus no longer has any hang-ups with material wealth, and has no problem taking advantage of stupid people. He has brought news that sin no longer exists! He is on his second earthling wife. The has clarified that there is no devil, and no hell…and prayer is a waste of time! Glory Halleluia!

This is from the Today Show on 8/22/06.

Newslink: The Man Who Claims To Be Jesus

CNN INTERVIEWS GOD ON EARTH

Newsflash from the Freedom From Religion Foundation website: Can the president set up an office in the White House to promote religion without court review or scrutiny?

That is the question the U.S. Supreme Court will decide this year in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation. Oral arguments will be held February 28.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation challenging the government preference for religion shown by the creation of the White House Office of Faith-based Initiatives. The Supreme Court has agreed to consider the Bush Administration’s claim that it can use taxpayer money to support religion without complaint by taxpayers.

The high court on Dec. 1 accepted the Bush Administration’s attempt to stop the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s taxpayer lawsuit, challenging the White House Office of Faith-based Initiatives.

The Foundation, along with its three taxpayer plaintiffs–Dan Barker, Annie Laurie Gaylor, and Anne Nicol Gaylor–filed suit in 2004, challenging the faith-based office at the White House and at several Cabinets. A federal judge dismissed the challenge, saying that Barker and the Gaylors did not have standing to sue over something the executive office did with general appropriations, if Congress had not designated those actions.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year reinstated the lawsuit, holding that tax money raised by Congress, which then goes to executive officials, cannot be used to support religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. The Bush Administration appealed the Foundation’s victory to the Supreme Court.

“We believe that the Court of Appeals was correct in its decision,” said Dan Barker, Foundation co-president. “We welcome the Supreme Court’s review to eliminate any doubt. If in fact Congressional appropriations can be used by the Administration in disregard of the Establishment Clause, then Congress and the American public should know that.

Supreme Court Accepts Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation

The case is one of nine lawsuits the Foundation has taken challenging various parts of the faith-based initiative. So far, the Foundation has won five significant victories in federal court, with four additional ongoing lawsuits, including major challenges of the infusion of faith and religion into the Department of Veteran Affairs, and at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Foundation is also awaiting judgment in its federal challenge of a 24/7 bible-based residential program at a prison in New Mexico.

Over at PZ’s site there’s a nice little ditty about how atheist kids can kick some serious ass.

After her kid gives some dumbass teacher a smackdown (yes, crazy to believe, I know — what are the odds?), the mom then explains to us what the teacher told her kid afterward:

After class, possum#1 said that her teacher told her she couldn’t be an atheist because her “ability to care for others feelings isn’t an atheist trait.” and that her “attitude was very Christian.” WTF?!

But the real hooter here is some idiot pastor:

It’s obvious that your daughter is already lost. You will allow her to spin off in to the darkness of atheism and all of those consequences? I will pray for your daughter and for your family and that your “smart” children will see that there choices are not smart and that all of the wisdom in the world can not by you the love that comes from simply accepting Jesus Christ into your heart.

Love that, obviously, is shown in the above sentences — and in the way this pastor saw the kid’s essay online, printed it out, and read it aloud to his church to make his point.

I mean, a kid’s atheist essay read aloud to some congregation? Sounds kinda cool to me. (Well, except for the small detail that it was read by a religious fanatic obsessed with martyrdom and eternal damnation.)

And it gets better in the comments section:

I don’t have to know rapists to know that they sow the sins of evil. I know all that I need to know about atheists and the Non Prophets show has shown me that atheists are foul-mouthed and full of themselves. We don’t have drinking games in our church. I don’t have to assume that atheists are bad people. I can see the lack of Christ in their lives and how it impacts their spiritual lives. There may be some atheists who can feign morality, but they will not pass the judgement of God. [...] If I had a daughter, she wouldn’t dare speak to an adult in the ways that Possums daughter speaks to adults. I do not tolerate insolense in my home. I would be ashamed of that essay. [...] In my ministry, I wouldn’t allow this sarcastic parenting to go on without trying to counsel the parents. I have a duty to the children in my flock. God has trusted me with people’s lives and spirits. May God bless you.

It always amazes me how much hate, intolerance, and judgment precedes the classic closing: “May God Bless You.”

Over and over again, whenever their beliefs are questioned or challenged, many xians automatically cry “PERSECUTION!” (and, yes, often in capital letters for emphasis). Merriam-Webster’s definition of persecution is “to harass or punish in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict; specifically : to cause to suffer because of belief. Many xians (and not only fundamentalist evangelicals) seem to thrive on imagined suffering and abuse because of their “faith” in their imaginary friend.

Krystalline Apostate from biblioblography has written a guest post in response to this martyr complex:

I have made no bones in the past about this: persecution is a simple ploy, on the part of the religious (in this country, at least) to garner sympathy, to play on that empathy that most folks have for the underdog.

In other countries, certainly, there is persecution. There is a degree of intolerance that’s deplorable, whether we speak of Christianity, Islam, or any other faith large or small.

But in this country? The good ole U.S of A? We hear the nonsense about the pilgrims coming here on the Mayflower, fleeing from persecution (this is mostly folderol: they lived unmolested in Amsterdam for 12 years prior to shipping out to the Americas). There have been instances of persecution among different sects, true enough (such as the anti-mormon movement), but overall, Christianity has always been, and still is, in the ascendancy.

But more than once we have been ‘treated’ to cries of ‘foul!’, more than once we have heard the bogus concept that ‘secularization is poisoning the sancrosanct values of the West’, and we are told that we are bigots for daring to criticize that which had carte blanche in the pre-9/11 days.

Or, to quote Jon Stewart:
“Does anyone know…does the Christian persecution complex have an expiration date? Because…uh…you’ve all been in charge pretty much since…uh…what was that guys name…Constantine. He converted in, what was it, 312 A.D. I’m just saying, enjoy your success.”

But they do not. We have seen three instances of ‘Justice Sunday’. We see increasing efforts to theocratize our government (wait: doesn’t their holy book say that their kingdom is not of this world? Yes it does). The misperception of persecution is stoking the fires of discontent. And persecution can be a mental disorder (culled from the American journal of Psychiatry):

“People with persecutory delusions selectively attend to threatening information, jump to conclusions on the basis of insufficient information, attribute negative events to external personal causes, and have difficulty in envisaging others’ intentions, motivations, or states of mind.”

I encourage you all to read the entire entry. It’s eerily…apt.

Any of that seem familiar? As well it should. We’ve seen multiple occurences, on this blog alone – a small sample, perhaps, but if indicative, scary to the degree of double-locking one’s doors.

It ‘s not historically unusual, that a large majority is hesitant to lose their status quo. It also isn’t unusual, that they will go to great lengths to ensure that said loss doesn’t occur.

But how on earth are they ‘persecuted’? They have tax-free exemptions on their temples. Indeed, in some areas, there are churches just about everywhere (I can drive through Hayward for ten minutes, and see one per minute). Are people being yanked from their homes in the wee hours of the morning, due to their beliefs? Do we have a Guantanamo Bay for fundies? Are there mass executions (or even one or two), based on someone’s Christianity? When the holidays are upon us, aren’t the TV airwaves literally inundated with religious propaganda? Don’t they have more than one channel devoted to their fantasies? Are there trainloads of Christians being carted off to some unknown concentration camp? Are there mobs publically denouncing or attacking them? Are their children being castigated and humiliated in the public schools? Are churches being bombed? Are their children being whisked away? Are ‘militant atheists’ throwing bricks through Bible bookstores? Are they being targeted for hate-crimes?

All twelve are rhetorical questions, of course: the answer is a firm, resounding NO.

So my response is this: Got Martyrdom? No? Go do missionary work in Cypress, or Palestine, if that is what you seek. You won’t find it here. If anything, y’all get to slaughter the fatted calf every Sunday, and barbecue the bloody thing.

So cut the lamentations and the rending of your clothes (keriah), and please, do stop flagellating yourselves: it’s an embarrassment, no matter who does it.

The British have a great phrase: sod off, you wankers.