God helps those who help themselves

The Wire: Lakewood Church — the giant Houston headquarters of celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s evangelical empire — alerted its congregants that as much as $600,000 in cash and checks were taken from the building over the weekend. Even more concerning: The stolen goods include envelopes on which congregants wrote down their credit card information.

According to an email from Lakewood,  the theft “is limited only to those funds contributed in the church services on Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9, 2014,” and does not include donations made electronically. A church employee discovered the theft on Monday morning.

Pastors Joel and Victoria Osteen are well-known proponents of a modern version of the prosperity gospel — a theology that believes God blesses people with material success. Among evangelicals, it’s a theologically controversial, yet obviously appealing approach to Christianity…

Osteen’s “prosperity gospel” scam is almost beautiful in it’s simplicity. The marks are told that God rewards the righteous with money, so they should send the church money and then God will reward them. Those God favors most are therefore the richest, so obviously the wealthiest Christians are the most righteous and the obvious leaders. Shut up and do what rich people tell you to and you’ll get rich too. Coincidentally, Osteen — having collected all this money from the marks — is the richest guy in his church. So he says send him more money and lather, rinse, repeat. And, of course, the flock has to go out and spread the Gospel, which means Osteen gets even more of everyone’s money as time goes on.

It’s a tremendous perversion of everything taught in the Sermon on the Mount, but since when have evangelists given a damn what Jesus actually said?

But seems that someone in Osteen’s congregation decided that God was getting a little slow in the rewarding department. That person is now more than a half-million dollars more blessed and Osteen’s church is now out that money — with the very real possibility of further loss. By the rules of his own con, Osteen’s righteousness and fitness to lead has take a pretty decent hit and some unknown prophet/thief is now a half-million dollars closer to the Almighty.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Speaking of deadly religious extremists…

Associated Press: A couple serving probation for the 2009 death of their toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor could face new charges now that another son has died.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith healing. They lost their 8-month-old son, Brandon, last week after he suffered from diarrhea and breathing problems for at least a week, and stopped eating. Four years ago, another son died from bacterial pneumonia.

[…]

A jury convicted the Schaibles of involuntary manslaughter in the January 2009 death of their 2-year-old son, Kent. The boy’s symptoms had included coughing, congestion, crankiness and a loss of appetite. His parents said he was eating and drinking until the last day, and they had thought he was getting better.

Once again, the Schiables made sure that their child got the very best health care available to any person in the stone age. They have seven other children and they should so lose custody of them. None of them are safe in their parents’ care. If you need a measure of the power of prayer in healing, here you go; prayer was identical to neglect. I always say that the only difference between praying and doing nothing is intent — and it’s stories like this one that back me up.

But hey, it looks like we finally found the Republican alternative to healthcare reform.

Pope Rewrites History to Attack Atheism

I was going to write about this at length, but events conspired against me and now I'm running behind. But I can still post a shorty on the subject.

The Guardian:

Benedict XVI used the first papal state visit to Britain to launch a blistering attack on "atheist extremism" and "aggressive secularism", and to rue the damage that "the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life" had done in the last century.

The leader of the Roman Catholic church concluded a speech, made before the Queen and assembled dignitaries at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, with the argument that the Nazi desire to eradicate God had led to the Holocaust and a plea for 21st-century Britain to respect its Christian foundations.

"Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society," he said. "In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate.

"Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms; and may that patrimony, which has always served the nation well, constantly inform the example your government and people set before the two billion members of the Commonwealth and the great family of English-speaking nations throughout the world."

Yeah, the "Nazi atheism" crap again. Needless to say, this is completely wrong. For one thing, Hitler wouldn't shut up about religion. For example:

We are determined, as leaders of the nation, to fulfill as a national government the task which has been given to us, swearing fidelity only to God, our conscience, and our Volk.... This the national government will regard its first and foremost duty to restore the unity of spirit and purpose of our Volk. It will preserve and defend the foundations upon which the power of our nation rests. It will take Christianity, as the basis of our collective morality, and the family as the nucleus of our Volk and state, under its firm protection....May God Almighty take our work into his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with the trust of our Volk.

I don't know about you, but that looks to me like someone doing a really lousy job of eradicating God. "Pope Benedict seems to have forgotten Germany and Europe’s long, sordid tradition of Christian antisemitism," wrote Charles Johnson, "a tradition that was one of the dark roots of the Holocaust, and a tradition in which the Catholic Church was arguably one of the worst offenders."

If the crazy old wizard's plan was to replace church-sanctioned antisemitism with church-sanctioned anti-atheism, this would be a fine first step. Here's a crazy idea Wiz, next time you need to scare people with a dark enemy in their midst, try using child molesters. I understand there was a big child molester conspiracy at one time. That sounds pretty scary.

Maybe you ought to do something about that, rather than create boogeymen by rewriting history.

The Rise of the Godless Heathens

It's a big day for science and medicine. President Obama has removed the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Bush had banned the funding, kissing up to those who believe every fertilized ovum deserves a Social Security card. The Bush ban was -- not surprisingly -- based on a poorly thought out argument; that we shouldn't be destroying life to save life. But, even if you believed that a mindless collection of frozen cells constitutes "life," Bush's ban did absolutely nothing to save any of them. The embryos were created for in vitro fertilization and unused embryos are just discarded. All Bush managed to do was to keep those embryos from being used in research, not from being destroyed. Bush's ban didn't "save" a single embryo.

During a signing ceremony reversing Bush's executive order, Obama also signed a pledge to "restore scientific integrity in governmental decision making." Clearly, this is the first step toward an anti-human dystopia ruled by the cold hand of science.

When the controversy over stem cell research began, Republicans quickly took the position of the religious right. Embryonic stem cell research was the worst thing ever, the wanton destruction of human life by medical science gone mad. Some still believe this. "If an embryo is a life, and I believe strongly that it is life, then no government has the right to sanction their destruction for research purposes," wrote Sen. Sam Brownback in a statement... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: An Atheist Christmas

Ah, Christmas time. The carols and the trees and Santa and the Kentucky Fried Chicken and the belly dancers. The holly and the booze and the Christmas cakes and strippers. What does Christmas mean to you? That depends on where you happen to be.

In Japan, Christmas has more in common with St. Valentine's Day, with cakes instead of candy. There's still Santa and trees and rampant consumerism, but it's more about love of another than love of humanity. The television media runs stories about "romantic miracles" and restaurants and hotels clean up on what is basically national date night. It also marks the beginning of year-end celebrations, which is basically a month-long drunk.

Kentucky Fried Chicken has convinced everyone that the traditional western Christmas dinner is -- big surprise -- KFC and you actually have to order your Genuine Christmas Chicken Dinner beforehand. They make a killing. By the way, I'm entirely serious about this. It's true.

But real Christmas weirdness comes to us from Turkey. I wrote about this a couple years ago and it sounds awesome. Turkish Daily News reported at the time that "Turkey has for decades been having the weirdest New Year's Eve celebrations on earth. Symbols of Christmas are infused into 'crazy parties' of heavy drinking, gambling, belly dancing and even strip shows." In Turkey, they wrap Christmas and New Years Eve up together and kill two birds with one stone. Kids get gifts from Santa Claus, then everyone goes out, gets hammered, and watches belly dancers. This is a holiday I can get behind and support...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: God, the Unelected

The election of Barack Obama has inspired some to hope for a better future, some to consider the moment's place in history, and some to plumb new depths in their ignorance, gullibility, and lunacy. Case in point, Annenberg Fact Check felt obligated to answer a question on many idiots' minds lately; "Is Obama planning a Gestapo-like 'civilian national security force?'"

The answer, of course, is no. But the question was brought up by a Congressman from Georgia, Rep. Paul Broun, not some right wing talk radio loon like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage."It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Broun said. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun went on. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

You'll notice that none of this makes any sense at all. What he seems to be saying is that Obama will be a Marxist, just like Hitler. Except, of course, Nazism was an anti-communist movement. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to make complete asses of themselves in wire service stories, I guess...

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Griper Blade: How to Become a Real Christian

Right wing Evangelical blowhard James Dobson will not ever vote for John McCain -- never. He's made that clear in the past. As a matter of principle, Dobson can't bring himself to vote for a man who's not as Bible-bangin' crazy as he is. After all, it says right there in the Bible that... Umm... Well...

OK, so the word "vote" doesn't show up in the Bible -- but neither does the word "abortion" and we all know how Jesus felt about that. Sure, abortion was a common practice in Israel in Jesus' time, he never said anything about it, but we know he was against it because... Umm... Well...

Never mind about that. Faith is about believing stuff, not knowing stuff. If you believe something hard enough and long enough, faith makes it 100% true. This is why Creationism is so true, despite the fact that all the evidence is against it. You can choose what's true, the religious right believes, and your faith magically transforms the universe to fit your beliefs. At least, that's the way it's supposed to work. God, after all, works in mysterious ways and sometimes refuses to rebuild the reality to fit your beliefs...

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Griper Blade: More Catholic than JFK?

No offense, but as an atheist, here's my take on the news; an old wizard came to America yesterday. He'll take a short tour of the northeast, do some wizard stuff with other wizards, then he'll go back to his big wizard-city in Rome. Needless to say, I don't see the visit by the pope the same way a lot of people do.

Like John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI is pretty much a mixed bag. I guess when you try to apply the religion of bronze age nomadic shepherds to the 21st century, the results are predictably iffy. While the former Cardinal Ratzinger is somewhat more conservative that his predecessor, Benedict's pretty much a 50/50. Sure, he's as homophobic as any previous pope; anti-abortion, anti-birth control, and anti-embryonic stem cell research to boot. He's also committed to expanding the use of exorcism in the world, a development that has mental health experts more than a little alarmed.

But he's also committed to world peace, fighting poverty, and leading on climate change -- under Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican will become the world's first carbon neutral state. I guess, when you're dealing with old wizards, you get your good and you get your bad. So yay for the good and boo for the bad. Can you start to see the roots of my ambivalence here?

Another person who thinks the pope is a mixed bag is President Bush. With the possible exception of the expanded exorcism thing, what Bush sees as the good and the bad of Benedict is exactly the opposite of what I do. The anti-war, anti-poverty, environmentalist pope is a problem, while the anti-abortion, anti-stem cell, and anti-gay pope is an ally. But Bush, with approval ratings in the tank and his party's '08 candidate getting a big bear hug from an anti-Catholic demagogue, needs the ally pope more than the problematic pope.

So Bush is pushing the idea that he's more Catholic than John F. Kennedy -- literally. A puff piece put out by the Religion News Service shows us just how high the administration is shoveling it. The headline; "NEWS ANALYSIS: Is George Bush leading America's first truly Catholic presidency?"

Seriously...

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Griper Blade: When Faith is Neglect

Madeline Kara Neumann
There's a trend in American thought -- I don't know how global it is -- that's very disturbing. It's the idea that you can choose what you believe to be true. A sort of "wishing makes it so" line of thinking that allows the subject to not only believe things that are obviously untrue and unsupported by any evidence, but to berate others for not believing the crazy stuff the subject believes.

We've all come across it. I've had conversations with people who believe that not only did Saddam Hussein definitely have ties to al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction, but planned to conquer the world, Hitler-like. That no one ever claimed that Saddam had plans of world conquest is beside the point. Reports by the Pentagon that have shot down the ties to al Qaeda and the fact that any WMD in Iraq (not to mention any evidence for them) would've been found by now are irrelevant to these people. It's true because they believe it so hard and so much.

In no area is this line of thinking so popular and so dangerous at the same time as the area of science. If a small group believes something crazy, then suddenly decades of sound science are in doubt. We see it in issues ranging from stem cell research to evolution to climate change. If someone out there doubts, we're all supposed to doubt -- no matter how loosely based in reality their doubt is. The media does it's part in pushing these phony "controversies" by treating crazies as if they were mainstream. If you've got a foundation with a few million in endowments, you get to go on CNN as an "expert" and tell everyone the freakin' Grand Canyon was caused by the biblical flood and that Noah had dinosaurs on the Ark. The media, in a misplaced attempt to be unbiased and objective, removes all BS filters and allows equal time to liars, fools, and crazies.

Think back to the Clinton years, where we were assured by many industry shills that there was no evidence that second-hand tobacco smoke was bad for you. Now think about that. First-hand smoke is pretty much poison. What magic was it supposed to be that only made tobacco hurt the person who was using it? Does it know who's lungs it's supposed to harm? The claim is stupid on its face. Yet there were no shortage of people making this claim in the media and no real criticism of it other than "equal time."

There are times when this idea that you get to choose which universe you get to live in is deadly. When facts you don't like are either discarded as lies or rationalized as mistaken become times that are invitations to disaster. When you superimpose your own "facts" over reality and try to apply them in the real world. The magic fails and the results can be tragic.

Wausau Daily Herald:

The family of a town of Weston [WI] girl who died Sunday from an untreated medical condition did not know she had diabetes, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said this morning.

Madeline Kara Neumann died of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that develops when a person’s body has too little insulin, police said. She reportedly had not received medical treatment since she was 3 years old, said Vergin, whose department is investigating.

The family chose to pray for the girl’s health rather than seek medical intervention, Vergin said.

Kara Neumann was 11 years old...

[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: Choosing the News

I haven't posted in the past few days because I've been sick. Actually, it wasn't being sick that was the big problem, so much as having been medicated. I won't say what I took, but it left me scatterbrained and blocked -- I couldn't think. I guess I'll never be an Ernest Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson, using chemicals like alcohol and cocaine to spur my creativity. I can't think unless I'm sober. At least, not enough to write.

I used to take this stuff that worked great when I got sick. Alka-Seltzer Cold Formula worked great. It left you with a bone-dry and unmuddled head. I'd say that if the flu were 0% and healthy were 100%, it made you feel about 75% -- which is pretty damned good. It's been my experience that most over the counter medications don't really make you feel any better, they just break up the monotony by making you feel different.

The problem with Alka-Seltzer Cold Formula is that they changed it. They actually had to recall it because it did something terrible to pregnant teenage girls. It seems to me that this isn't a huge segment of the population and other medications are so specific that you could still market it to everyone else -- maybe call it Alka-Seltzer Cold Formula for People Who Aren't Pregnant Teenage Girls. We make special formulas for babies and the elderly, don't we?

Of course, there's a certain segment of the population who aren't extremely happy with pregnant teenage girls. Not just the average person who's concerned about teenage pregnancy, but crazy people who believe that every teenage pregnancy brings this once-great nation closer to its doom. That and gays and Muslims and Catholics and Mormons and feminists and people who believe in evolution.

While I was out, many things happened. Not the least of which was Barack Obama's "race speech." That would be the speech where Obama explained his relationship with his newly controversial pastor without dismissing him. The New York Times called "Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage." There was a lot there that needed to be aired, a lot of concerns that needed to be discussed, a lot of things that everyone knows -- but no one talks about.

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Griper Blade: On a Mission from God

You know Eliot Spitzer's hooker problem? Turns out that's not the only thing that's happened in this young week. While Spitzer's reputation as a law and order straight arrow makes his story a "man bites dog" one, there's been an almost as surprising turn around elsewhere. The gay-hating, abortion-fighting, evolution-denying Southern Baptist Convention has decided not to be crazy about an issue. It's not really a fundamental shift -- it's been coming for some time -- but good news out of these guys is so rare that it pays to stop and pay attention to it.

Associated Press:

In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination has been "too timid" on environmental issues and has a biblical duty to stop global warming.

The declaration, signed by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention among others and released Monday, shows a growing urgency about climate change even within groups that once dismissed claims of an overheating planet as a liberal ruse. The conservative denomination has 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the U.S.

The signers of "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" acknowledged that not all Christians accept the science behind global warming. They said they do not expect fellow believers to back any proposed solutions that would violate Scripture, such as advocating population control through abortion.

However, the leaders said that current evidence of global warming is "substantial," and that the threat is too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend.

Real science wins out in the SBC -- wow...

[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: A Christian Nation?

John McCain was down in the polls -- way down -- in the fall of 2007. Far from being the presumptive nominee, it was widely believed that the Straight Talk Express had been sidelined and was on its way out. So John, believing he had very little to lose, decided to kiss a little evangelical right butt.

McCain had been mending fences with the religious right for some time, carefully distancing himself from his reputation as a "maverick" and recasting himself as a typical Republican robot with no opinions outside the right wing orthodoxy. An interview with Beliefnet offered a golden opportunity.

Q: A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?

A: I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn't say, “I only welcome Christians.” We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.

All that poll really proved was that 55% of Americans had never read the Constitution -- if they had, they'd realize that it doesn't talk about Christianity at all. McCain, with his decades as a Senator, couldn't honestly make the same claim of ignorance. Clearly, he was lying to tell the religious right what they wanted to hear. John McCain had entered that self-confirming right wing echo chamber. "Yes," he might as well have said, "Whatever Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell say about the Constitution is true."...

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Griper Blade: Romney's No Kennedy

Mitt Romney has a problem. Being a Mormon, more than a few on the right believe he's not really a Christian. "I told [Mitt], you cannot equate Mormonism with Christianity; you cannot say, 'I am a Christian just like you,'" Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina told Bloomberg News in October. "If he does that, every Baptist preacher in the South is going to have to go to the pulpit on Sunday and explain the differences."

The same Bloomberg article points out the problem that Romney faces with "Values Voters":

Yet for conference-goers [to an Evangelical summit] such as Noah Crowe, a Southern Baptist pastor from Robbinsville, North Carolina, there's nothing Romney can do to overcome their distrust of Mormonism. "His faith is not the faith I believe in, teach and preach," said Crowe, who added that he studied Mormonism at his Bible college in a course called "Cults and False Religions."

A CBS News poll taken last June showed that 43% of voters wouldn't vote for a Mormon. Wrote Bloomberg, " Republican strategists argue that time is wasting for a Kennedyesque speech to explain the role religion will play in a Romney White House."

Now, news has come out that Romney will make that speech.

CBS News:

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will deliver a much-anticipated speech on religious faith at the George H. W. Bush library on Thursday, CBS News has confirmed. Romney's Mormon faith has been an underlying theme of his presidential candidacy but, until today, it has been an area he and his campaign have shied away from addressing directly.

"This speech is an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation and how the governor's own faith would inform his Presidency if he were elected," said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden in a statement released Sunday evening.

"I probably could never do something that would compare to what John F. Kennedy did -- his was a masterpiece in American political history," says Romney. There's another reason why he couldn't give Kennedy's speech -- the pricks he's reaching out to would hate him for it...

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Griper Blade: War on Christmas? What About the Genocide on Christmas?

I've written about the right's valiant fight in the "War on Christmas" recently. If your city puts out white lights, instead of colored lights, or the checkout clerk at Sears says, "Happy Holidays," instead of, "Merry Christmas," you're the victim of oppression.

The public voice of this defense of Christmas against the oppressive forces of "secular progressives" is FOX News blowhard Bill O'Reilly, who explains things this way:

See, I think it's all part of the secular progressive agenda... to get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square. Because if you look at what happened in Western Europe and Canada, if you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage, because the objection to those things is religious- based, usually.

See, when that seemingly nice lady at Walgreens says, "Happy Holidays," it means she wants to get wasted, kill her sick parents, have an abortion, and marry that butch chick that works at the photo counter. And the only way she'll be able to carry out her nefarious plan is to destroy Christmas.

Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But, then again, it doesn't really have to. He's not speaking to the concerns of deep thinkers here. O'Reilly, who doesn't really strike me as someone who'd be overly familiar with the inside of a church, pulls this "war" out of his butt every year for the right wing religious nuts in his audience.

Meanwhile, there's an actual war on Christians going on and Bill's a big fan. "It may be the end of Christianity in Iraq," Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, Syria told Catholic News Service. "This is very sad and very dangerous for the church, for Iraq and even for Muslim people, because it means the end of an old experience of living together."...

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Griper Blade: Tlön, Iraq, Orbis Tertius

I've always been a fan of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Many of his stories are metaphors for religion and God; by taking these structures and beliefs and placing them in different contexts, Borges showed their absurdity.

Two stories have come to my mind lately -- Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius and The Babylon Lottery. Both show how a weird -- or even false -- idea can take over a culture or even the world, changing it forever. And not always for the better. In Lottery the idea is an unseen lottery that guides people's lives -- a lottery which may no longer exist, but people see messages from it in the random events that surround them (i.e., omens and prophecy), while Tlön is the story of a false encyclopedia entry for a fictional country (i.e., heaven) which eventually becomes so important to people that Borges tells us that "English and French and mere Spanish will disappear from the globe. The world will be Tlön."

These stories are about the absurd -- and dangerous -- power of religious belief. But they can also be seen as being about something that surrounds us every day. They can be seen as a metaphor for ideas that get away from us. These are the human inventions that grow beyond human control -- economies, for example. The concept of currencies and markets has created something so complex, so outside our control, that people who devise ways to affect them get nominated for the Nobel Prize. It's not like chemistry or physics, it's not a part of nature, but it's become an organic thing that people study. It's become as much a part of our world as the weather -- complete with forecasters who try to determine what it'll do tomorrow.

Yet, to a large extent, it only exists as a concept. All currencies really are are slips of paper and shiny metal disks. Economics is both earth-shatteringly important and absurd at once.

But, as I say, economics is only one example. Nations and borders are another. Nations exist as legal fictions in the most realistic of terms and borders are arbitrary lines drawn on maps. Viewed from space, the world isn't really a multi-colored patchwork of nations, like the globe on your desk. It's obviously one place, not a collection of places. Yet the idea of nations, like economies and The Babylon Lottery, can destroy lives and ruin cultures...

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Griper Blade: Bye Bye, Religious Right

For the first time in 20 years, the homosexual lobby proudly endorses a Kentucky candidate for governor: Steve Beshear. Beshear is receiving major support from out-of-state gay activists and has publicly committed to same-gender relationships, employment of more homosexuals in state government including teachers, and support for homosexual adoption of children.

If you believe these rights are fair please vote for Steve Beshear for governor. Visit Fairness.org.

That's the text of a robocall Kentuckians received prior to yesterday's elections -- the audio is here. No one will take credit for it -- mostly because it's probably illegal -- although it tries damned hard to seem like it came from Fairness.org, a Kentucky gay rights group.

It may try hard, but it fails miserably. The references to the "homosexual lobby," "out-of-state gay activists," and "homosexual adoption of children" ensure that only those with room temperature IQs would fall for it. Not surprisingly, despite this brilliant political maneuver, Steve Beshear won his election, easily beating the hopelessly corrupt and indicted Republican Ernie Fletcher.

Fletcher tried pretty much every trick in the book to get the religious nuts to the polls. He played up the fact that he was once a preacher. In an incredibly transparent move, he ordered that the Ten Commandments be displayed in the Capitol on the day before the election.

For some voters, the 2004 theme of "God, gays, and guns" worked. "I think his problems have been mostly politics," one voter said. "I think he's done a fine job. I think he's got high morals, and that's what the state needs." It's hard to figure how someone has "high morals" when just about everyone who's been paying attention knows that Fletcher's hiring scandal will likely put him behind bars. In response to the initial wave of indictments, Fletcher issued his own wave of pardons -- there's corrupt and then there's shamelessly corrupt.

Fletcher's humiliating loss may reflect the future of the religious right nationally. Hounded by high profile scandals and hypocrisy, split in support for candidates, and facing an electorate much more concerned about the economy and Iraq than what people do in bed, the religious right may find themselves not much of a player in 2008...

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Griper Blade: The United States of Jesusland

He's pretty much nobody. The bio with his op-ed in the Roanoke Times explains, "[Al] Bedrosian, of Roanoke, is a former political candidate for the Virginia General Assembly (1997 and 1999). He hosts a 10-minute commentary program on local AM radio" -- i.e., a right wing nut who's lost two elections and who's only other accomplishment is coming up with ten minute rants every day. A professional loon, an inconsequential nutjob, the local extremist.

Still, his op-ed (brought to my attention by Karen at Christianity General) represents a much broader opinion -- although one that's rarely stated so bluntly -- that the principle of religious liberty is a scam liberals have created. Check this out:...

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NY, Judge, Mom, Religion, Not Funny... You Know the Drill

OK, now they're just jacking us around. A new development in the case of Rachel Bevilacqua, AKA Reverend Magdelen.

The High Weirdness Project:

July 23, 2007: Today I (Modemac) wrote an email to Magdalen, asking how things were going and looking to see if she was going to lay her case to rest. She wrote back, saying there have been some new developments in the case. These new developments have caught everyone completely off guard.

I'm talking The Twilight Zone here.

For legal reasons, I obviously can't go into too many details, becase there are other parties involved in this. Basically, some time last week, [legal custodian and biological father Jeff Jary] was in a car accident involving a brick wall, a lot of alcohol, and another passenger -- NOT MAGDALEN'S SON, praise "Bob." Because of past incidents involving him and at least one other DUI, he is now facing at least two felonies, a misdemeanor, and three traffic charges -- which, combined, could land him in jail for up to eleven years.

All of this means that, due to the sudden extreme circumstances, Magdalen has temporary custody of her son at this time. There will be a new custody hearing in the middle of August. Jeff's criminal hearing will be in September, but that is an entirely different matter.

BUT, that's not the strangest thing to happen here.

JUDGE PUNCH IS BACK ON THE CASE.

Anyone who's been following this the way I have knows that Judge James Punch is a freakin' idiot. In fact, he was 90% of the problem in the first case. This is practically going back to square one, although it's hard to imagine that even a complete moron couldn't see who the better custodian would be now.

Strike a blow for religious freedom; check Modemac's site for info about what you can do.

New York Rules That You Can't Find Religion Funny and be a Parent

A quick update on the story of Rachel Bevilacqua and her son Kohl has turned out to be a loss.

Bevilacqua lost custody of her son, in large part because of her involvement with the satirical Church of the Subgenius. Turns out that, in the state of New York, it's illegal to be a parent and think religion's ridiculous at the same time.

I really don't have a lot to add here; Rachel's left with over $70,000 in legal bills to pay for and I don't know whether or not an appeal is open to her. Read up on what I've written about her case here and here. If it pisses you off as much as it did me, click on the banner below to see how you can help.

Sorry it wasn't better news, but this is the 'Bringer of Bad Tidings,' after all...

Griper Blade: Monument to BS Works Out Pretty Much the Way You'd Expect

Just outside of Cincinnati -- in Petersburg, Kentucky -- stands a 60,000 square foot, $27 million monument to gullibility, fanaticism, and the ability to believe the stupidest damned things despite all evidence to the contrary. Answers in Genesis's Creation Museum features exhibits showing humans co-existing with dinosaurs, offers 'proof' that there was once a global flood, and warns us not to judge Cain for marrying his sister.

Yeah, it's that nuts.

It turns out that a literal interpretation of the biblical book of Genesis looks more like The Flintstones than anything you'll see on The Discovery Channel. We're told that dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark, despite the fact that a global flood would be a really good way to explain why they're extinct. The Bible itself offers plenty of evidence against this -- mostly in the way the ark couldn't possibly be big enough for dinosaurs, let alone all the species on Earth...

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