The pharynguloid hordes continue their reign of terror, marching through foreign lands and laying waste to their polls. Today, we crush Norway. An article about a faith healer wants to know whether you think this guy is a:
Placebo (23%)
Helbreder (healer) (61%)
Overtro (superstition) (9%)
Lureri (scamming) (8%)
I think he’s a superstitious scammer who’s taking advantage of the placebo effect, so basically anything but a healer. So go stem!
I’m a pilgrim today, traveling far to the east to the mysterious land of Wis-con-sin, where I shall spend some time in adoration of the son.
My middle child, the cute and monkey-like Connlann, is graduating from the University of Wisconsin Madison tomorrow, with a degree in English. Hooray for the hard work and success of our boy! Hooray for rituals of completion! Hooray for the end of chunky great tuition payments!
So, anyway, I shall be spending most of my time today driving, and most of tomorrow driving, and a good spell of tomorrow sitting in uncomfortable seats watching a ceremonial parade of strangers, but it is all worth it.
(Thanks to Lisa M for sending me the charming Happy Monkey illustration.)
So a wingnut gets a cartoonish version of religious history:
Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of “mother earth.”
And what do you think that reminds him of? I think I’m wrong: he’s not making a metaphor, he’s saying that modern-day liberals are the direct descendant of Baal worshippers.
Modern liberalism deviates little from its ancient predecessor. While its macabre rituals have been sanitized with flowery and euphemistic terms of art, its core tenets and practices remain eerily similar. The worship of “fertility” has been replaced with worship of “reproductive freedom” or “choice.” Child sacrifice via burnt offering has been updated, ever so slightly, to become child sacrifice by way of abortion. The ritualistic promotion, practice and celebration of both heterosexual and homosexual immorality and promiscuity have been carefully whitewashed – yet wholeheartedly embraced – by the cults of radical feminism, militant “gay rights” and “comprehensive sex education.” And, the pantheistic worship of “mother earth” has been substituted – in name only – for radical environmentalism.
Well, I think modern conservatism is descended from ritual cannibalism, so there.
A reader sent me this caricature. I do make a rather grim looking cleric, don’t I?
Still, it’s an interesting proposal. I think we need a pope who would blow raspberries at the rituals and laugh at the beliefs, and I can see myself thwapping Bill Donohue with that stick a few times. Is there an application form for me to fill out? How many members of the college of cardinals are among my readership?
Lack of self-awareness is a tragic disease running rampant in the fundagelical community. Here’s an amusing instance: what happens if you tell children about Santa, and then they find out the truth? Why, they go on a terrorist rampage of murder and mayhem, of course.
Right. I’m sure you all remember that day when you discovered Santa Claus was just-pretend, maybe when you were 4 or 5, and you right away ran out and burned down the pre-school and strangled the cat. Funny, isn’t it, how everyone reading this figured out that Santa isn’t real and managed to survive the trauma without committing any felonies.
Not this poor kid, though. Look how he ends up.
Guess what? I bet Osama bin Ladin doesn’t believe in Santa Claus either.
Alas, this Chick comic has a very muddled message. It seems to be that you shouldn’t teach kids to believe in fairy tales, because they’ll be disappointed when they find out the truth…but somehow, he thinks the fairy tale of Jesus is different.
Since everyone is sending me this link, I’ll go ahead and mention the amusing comparisons between various religions and programming languages…however, I am deeply offended. They left out the greatest programming languages of all, Pascal (especially Object Pascal) and Modula-2. What’s with all this praise for obscurantist C and its dialects? Wirth’s languages win on clarity and structure.
Perhaps it is because they can’t be compared to religion in any way.
Now someone else is giving away a free book to commenters — it’s like Christmas or something. Leave a comment at Domestic Father and maybe you’ll win a copy of Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), which is a really good deal, since that book isn’t yet available in the US, and I’ve been itching to get my hands on it for a while.
I was tempted not to tell you all, just to improve my chances of winning, but altruism won out.
This one is for the godless among us: a survey on Coming Out as an Atheist. It’s a little longer than the previous one, I’m afraid.
Help the National Academies out:
What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you’d like to learn more about. They invite you to participate in a brief survey. You can find that survey here.
In the 2-minute survey you’ll be presented with a list of topics and asked to select the five that matter most to you. At the end, you can see how your answers compare with the results so far. And you can enter a drawing to receive a National Academies tote bag!
Let the National Academies know what topics you think they should focus on so they can be sure to provide you with materials that are informative and useful. Your participation is greatly appreciated.
(from Mark Whittaker’s personal collection of dive photos)
