Belief in things like astrology, psychics, ghosts, tarot cards and reincarnation etc. remain as popular as religion. Recent surveys show that roughly 75% of the population in the US believes in the paranormal. Since the US is made up of about 86% who believe in supernatural magical gods, it makes sense that most would also believe in things paranormal. Several reasons given for belief in the paranormal can also be the reasons people believe in god:

They make people feel special or important in an otherwise chaotic and apparently random, uncaring universe.

They offer a sense of meaning or control over things that are otherwise beyond our understanding.

They offer a sense of comfort by ‘connecting the dots’ and creating a sense of order and structure in life.

Because believers don’t understand how to be skeptical and hold such claims up to basic standards of logic and reason.

Then there are those who blindly believe those things are obviously true and real.

This is a very good two-parter by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins emphasizes the point that while it is okay to mock those who believe in the paranormal, religion is protected from the same scrutiny and open skepticism.

Part One

Part Two

Well, just so we’re all on the same page (cuz, like, it’s kind of important)…

The power to imprison U.S. citizens without charges

…[T]he President has the power to arrest U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the U.S., and imprison them indefinitely in a military prison, without charging them with any crime, based on his assertion that the imprisoned individual is an “enemy combatant.” [...] [T]he President can order anyone in the U.S. imprisoned in a military brig as an “enemy combatant” — even if they have never fought on a battlefield or with a foreign power against the U.S. Rather, mere accusations by the President of “terrorism” are sufficient to justify the indefinite incarceration of such an individual as an “enemy combatant,” who is then denied basic Constitutional guarantees. To say that such individuals can be held “for the duration of relevant hostilities” means, of course, that such individuals can be imprisoned by the President in a military brig not just for years but for decades. [...] Most critically of all … this decision applies every bit as much, and to exactly the same extent, to U.S. citizens on U.S. soil as it does to non-citizens (such as al-Marri) who are in the U.S. legally. [...] So, then, the President has the power to imprison in a military prison even U.S. citizens inside the U.S. — who are pure civilians, having not been anywhere near a battlefield — indefinitely and without having to charge them with any crime.

Enjoy the rest of your day…

And God Bless America

Registrar Who Won’t Serve Gays Because of Religious Beliefs has Illegitimate Child

Lilian Ladele recently won a suit against Islington Council alleging discrimination after she was punished for refusing to do her job and perform civil partnerships for same-sex couples. A judge ruled that Ladele was within her rights to deny service to homosexuals as a staunch Christian. However, it has now been revealed that Ladele is also a single mother to a child, now 27, born out of wedlock. So Ladele is so firmly Christian that she can’t possibly marry same-sex couples, but not so religious as to remain chaste until married. Presumably God will forgive the sin of extramarital sex but not the “sin” of joining two people together in a loving relationship. The discovery that she has an illegitimate son could cast suspicion on some of the testimony she gave at the discrimination tribunal. The tribunal wrote: “Ms Ladele is a Christian. Her unchallenged evidence was that she holds the orthodox Christian view that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others and that marriage is the God-ordained place for sexual relations.” “She told us that she believed this to be contrary to God’s instructions that sexual relations belong exclusively between a man and a woman within marriage.”

Ah, yes, moral xians…

Sorry, but this stuff always cracks me up…

Catholic school principal caught in public gay threesome

The principal of a New York Catholic school was arrested Sunday after being caught naked with two other men on a vacant property. “Two men got out and met a third person on the side of my house,” nearby resident Rich Pacheco told WCBS, “and they went on that property and that’s when I called 911.” 41-year-old Gabriel DeJesus, who heads Sacred Heart School for the Arts in Mount Vernon, is currently being investigated by the New York Archdiocese. Officials said that he “has been a well-regarded educator,” and he was still serving as the school’s principal as of Monday. DeJesus would only say that he “made a mistake” when asked for comment.

The only mistake I can (maybe) see here is that you had sex in public.

Well, that, and being catholic (definitely).

But gay threesomes? Go nuts, dudes! (Pun intended.)

In an opinion piece by USA Today’s Tom Krattenmaker, he states:

“The specter of violent religion certainly hangs over us in these times, especially when it comes to certain followers of the world’s two dominant religions. Christian and Muslim conflict-mongers drone on against “Islamic terrorists” and “Christian infidels,” respectively, while violence continues erupting in the name of Islam, and conservative Christian figures in America, like Pat Robertson and John Hagee, urge violent solutions to foreign policy problems. (Robertson, you’ll recall, spoke favorably of assassinating Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Hagee, the Texas mega-church minister of falling-out-with-John McCain fame, has repeatedly called for immediate military attacks against Iran.)

Yes, there appears to be considerable truth to the oft-heard claim that Christian-Muslim co-existence must be achieved lest our collective future turn out brief and brutal. Which is why it might appear outrageous to suggest, as I’m about to do, that religion may also be just the catalyst we need to steer us clear of the apparent collision course.

Religion — a solution to the problem of religiously motivated conflict and violence?

While religion has been the cause of many of the world’s violent conflicts and confrontations, Krattenmaker points out that each religion also offers teachings of peace and unity (which we rarely see even within the religious sects and denominations of the same religions themselves.) Krattenmaker suggests that while religion has been the justification for going to war and invading other lands, religion can also end wars. Call me cynical, but when I hear those words I automatically think of Revelation and how fundamentalists from both sides are looking forward to the great and believed unavoidable “final battle” for imaginary heaven and an imagined “renewed” Earth.

Krattenmaker answers his own questions:

Religion — a solution to the problem of religiously motivated conflict and violence? Yes, actually. Because in their best traditions, the world’s two dominant faiths do promote peace, both through their central teachings and the lessons-by-example taught every day by innumerable Muslims and Christians who take their scriptures seriously.

But that depends on WHICH scriptures both sides want to pull out of their ancient texts to take seriously. There is support for both. So, how can we ever expect for both sides to end war and come to any kind of resolution when based upon their contradictory and inconsistent guidebooks?

Krattenmaker sums up his essay with more idealistic questions and answers:

“So how we will know religion in the final analysis? By its peace or by its violence? The scriptures have had their say. It’s now up to the believers — through their words and works — to settle the account.”

I am not holding my breath. And like I said above, I remain cynical . . . pessimistic based on what we have seen from religion thus far. The fundamentalists like the evil parts of their mythology books too much to give them up.

The only hope for this world is with the moderates of both religions. But when it comes down to making a choice, which side will they ultimately choose?

Todd Bentley - Raging Lunatic!
BAM! I found out this tattooed freak faith healer when reading the Religion News on Yahoo. This looney comes to us from Vancouver, Canada (as if we don’t have enough of our own)!

His name is Todd Bentley, of Fresh Fire Ministries, and someone needs to take him away to somewhere safe and get him on some medication before he kills someone.

Well, it’s been a while, but you’ll all be relieved to know that The American Family Association has found another subject to boycott: McDonald’s. Why? TEH GAYS! Those evil, subversive hummersexuals have infiltrated all that is holy and truly Amurrican-the Big Mac, the Quarter Pounder, the Sausage McMuffin, the Adam’sApple Turnover and anything Supersized! How’d they do it? Brace yourselves, ugly words ahead…tolerance and, dare I say it? Diversity! McDonald’s donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Yowsers!

From here, this apparently means that

McDonald’s, as a corporation, [is] refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars. McDonald’s has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.
Full weight? Does the AFA think that $20,000 check was supersized with a few extra zeroes before the decimal point? Mickey D’s probably throws out $20K worth of grease a day.
AFA is upset at McDonald’s for refusing to condemn Vice President of Communications Richard Ellis’s decision to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). AFA President Donald Wildmon said the situation is “strange” because “it’s the family that McDonald’s appeals to — children’s playland, you know, all the little toys, all of that. And they are promoting a lifestyle that would utterly destroy the traditional family.”

Yeah-destroying the traditional family-one clogged artery at a time!

McDonald’s has come back at the AFA with this statement:

We treat our employees and our customers with respect and dignity, regardless of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or other factors. We support our employees’ personal involvement in organizations of their choice.

In other words, if our customers and employees want to hold the cheese or hold the lettuce, what they want will not upset us. Oh wait, that’s Burger King…Maybe the Burger King and Ronald McDonald are secretly a couple!

I highly recommend a reading of Chris Kelly’s rollicking Huffington Post article McDonald’s Makes Jesus Cry, which is where I first read the news. Hat tip to alexatheist over at NoGodBlog.

Here’s a fun link to read some of the responses to the AFA boycott ad, but I didn’t see any nearly as funny as the ones Chris Kelly mined.

And another funny item I came across when doing some searching on this post: apparently the AFAOneNewsNow site has a filter which auto replaces the word”gay” with the word “homosexual”. And it ends up with some unfortunate results, such as sprinter Tyson Gay being renamed Tyson Homosexual. See here.

Now, I don’t really eat at Mickey D’s all that much, but I think I’m Lovin’ It tonight! How about you?

With all the religious whackadoos in the world, we never run out of idiotic news stories to mock. I found this one by PZ Myers at Pharyngula about a student who smuggled (out of a church ) a small bread wafer that Catholics believe transforms into the literal body of Christ after saying some magical words and waving some incense around. While we find it rather amusing, Catholics are furious and even though the sacred cracker was returned, the delusional are calling it a hate crime, and some have even made death threats to the student. As PZ says, IT’S A FRACKIN’ CRACKER!

PZ writes:

There are days when it is agony to read the news, because people are so goddamned stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid. And nothing makes them stupider than religion.