Mel Gibson is a product of his sick ideology

Christopher Hitchens addresses the latest media meltdown by Mel Gibson. It’s great stuff; people are making all these excuses for him, that he’s not really a racist, he’s not really violent, he’s not really a misogynist, he’s not really a loathsome wackjob…but Hitchens cuts through it all.

This is extraordinary. We live in a culture where the terms fascist and racist are thrown about, if anything, too easily and too frequently. Yet here is a man whose every word and deed is easily explicable once you know the single essential thing about him: He is a member of a fascist splinter group that believes it is the salvation of the Catholic Church.

And then he follows up with damning examples from Gibson’s father and Gibson’s own actions.

It adds a fresh new perspective to all those fans of Gibson’s labor of love, The Passion, a sadistic piece of bloody anti-semitism. What Gibson rages about in (imagined) private and what he put on the screen in that movie are awfully hard to separate. One of Gibson’s most ardent defenders is right-wing Catholic kook Bill Donohue:

Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? And I’m not afraid to say it. That’s why they hate this movie. It’s about Jesus Christ, and it’s about truth. It’s about the messiah.

And Donohue is still flogging this line against anyone who criticizes Gibson:

[Frank] Rich is particularly angry at anyone who dares to mention the role played by secular Jews in fomenting anti-Catholicism. I am one Catholic who will not run from this charge. It is painfully obvious, that most of the anti-Catholicism that exists today comes from two major sources: ex-Catholics (and those with one foot out the door) and secular Jews.

It’s a disorder that isn’t restricted to Catholicism, though; the other recent expression of these anti-semitic views is none other than Glenn Beck.

Jesus conquered death. He wasn’t victimized. He chose to give his life. He did have a choice. If he was a victim, and this theology was true, then Jesus would have come back from the dead and made the the Jews pay for what they did.

Any day now they’ll be talking about blood libel. Isn’t it time now to stop pussy-footing around? These people are anti-semitic proto-fascists, their prejudices propped up by truly weird religious beliefs.

Eyes without a mind

Everyone should read the Washington Post’s recent effort in investigative reporting, Top Secret America. It’s distressing. Since George W. Bush, we’ve had this reckless, ridiculous, uncoordinated expansion of intelligence agencies, all sucking up tremendous sums of money, all with little oversight, and all producing floods of data…and it’s all a waste because the emphasis is on sucking in lots of data, and little is done about comprehending it all.

The terrorists really have been effective. They’ve turned us into bloated clowns stumbling over our own feet and doing ourselves far more damage than any hijacked plane could do.

The Irish amendment of the Copenhagen Declaration

I posted the Copenhagen Declaration here a while back. Atheist Ireland has done the right thing by taking it as a starting point and producing a simpler, and they hope clearer version. This is exactly what the motley hordes of the godless need to do: don’t expect one document to encompass everything exactly as everyone wants, because that will never happen. Tweak it so it fits your ideals.

We support this amended version of the Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life. We invite other people and groups to also support it.

Personal Freedoms

  • Freedom of conscience, religion and belief are unlimited. Freedom to practice religion should be limited only by the need to respect the rights of others.
  • All people should be free to participate equally in public life, and should be treated equally before the law and in the democratic process.
  • Freedom of expression should be limited only as prescribed in international law. All blasphemy laws should be repealed.

Secular Democracy

  • Society should be based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Public policy should be formed by applying reason to evidence.
  • Government should be secular. The state should be strictly neutral in matters of religion, favoring none and discriminating against none.
  • Religions should have no special financial consideration in public life, such as tax-free status for religious activities, or grants to promote religion or run faith schools.

Secular Education

  • State education should be secular. Children should be taught about the diversity of religious beliefs in an objective manner, with no faith formation in school hours.
  • Children should be educated in critical thinking and the distinction between faith and reason as a guide to knowledge. Science should be taught free from religious interference.

One Law For All

  • There should be one law for all, democratically decided and evenly enforced, with no jurisdiction for religious courts to settle civil matters or family disputes.
  • The law should not criminalize private conduct that respects the rights of others because the doctrine of any religion deems such conduct to be immoral.
  • Employers or social service providers with religious beliefs should not be allowed to discriminate on any grounds not essential to the job in question.

If you’ve got a great big fancy expensive machine, you’ve got to use it

I’m sure it was a moment of epiphany. Person in charge of an MRI takes avantage of an idle moment in the parade of patients to have lunch. Pulls a banana out of a brown paper bag. Looks at banana. Looks at MRI. Looks at banana. Looks at MRI. And the rest is history.

Give it time to load, and if you’ve got a slow connection, you might not want to bother; these are all animated images of 2-D slices scanned through MRIs of fruit and vegetables. The artichoke is my favorite.

Another theocrat for Kansas

Maybe somebody from Kansas can say whether this crazy woman has a chance. Joan Farr Heffington is running for governor, and she has a few priorities.

  • Require that a Biblical and Constitutional reason exist for the passage of any new laws

  • Allow teaching of Christianity vs. evolution in schools

I guess there won’t be any laws regulating GMO crops in Kansas, or prohibiting stem cell research, or funding the creation of any wind farms. Anything more recent than the 18th century is going to have to be neglected, along with anything not mentioned in the Constitution.

At least she’s upfront about the conflict between Christianity and evolution.

Quick, somebody reassure me that she’s a fringe candidate without a prayer of getting into office. Please. It’s Monday, the day is painful enough.

Pick your comic book gods

Is anyone going to Comic-Con? You’ve probably heard that the Phelps gang will be picketing it (IMPORTANT: you know Phelps is a litigious con-man who baits people so he can sue them, right?), so you may have to pick a god to annoy them. Here’s a list of appropriate comic book gods and goddesses. Praise Thor, piss off Phelps.

Although I would think being an atheist would be even more effective. For that, here’s a list of atheist comic book characters. It’s short, and unfortunately, most of them aren’t very memorable.

There is, apparently, a comic book called The Atheist. I’ve never seen it, but it sounds…interesting.

The storyline revolves around present day humans that are having their bodies being “possessed” by the souls from Hell similar to the possessions in the fifties horror movie “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. The souls from Hell then begin an extremely hedonistic and malicious lifestyle that includes raves, drugs, self mutilation, murder, and other violence. The possessed bodies then start congregating in Winnipeg, Canada.

That’s not very atheistic. But, yeah, it sounds exactly like Winnipeg.

Of course! It’s HuffPo!

Once again, the Huffington Post features front page quackery. In this case, it’s a ridiculous article that accuses dermatology of being a conspiracy to make doctors rich; you know that stuff about UV damage to the skin inducing melanoma? It’s all made up by doctors who are in the pocket of the vast sunscreen industry.

I don’t link to Huffington Post anymore, so you’ll have to settle for Peter Lipson’s deconstruction.