The saga of the Butcher of Mt Vernon

John Freshwater, the fanatical evangelical school teacher who burned a cross into a sudent’s arm, is in the midst of a hearing in Ohio right now. It doesn’t sound like it’s going all that well for him. Richard Hoppe has been attending the hearings, and has a regularly updated summary at the Panda’s Thumb. Hoppe is being very circumspect and professional in his descriptions, however; if you want cruel flair, look elsewhere.

One good name rescued from the trash bin

You will all be pleased to know that the Brazilian UFOnuts who named their organization after Carl Sagan have backed down and removed Carl’s name from their masthead.

They’ve named it after Galileo instead.

Oy vey. Couldn’t they name it after a more appropriate historical figure? I recommend calling it the Bozo Institute. Or if they want to be more subtle, how about the Arthur Conan Doyle Institute? He saw things that weren’t there, too.

The heritage of Abraham

How about those modesty police?

In Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such “sins” as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.

In recent weeks, self-styled “modesty patrols” have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.

“These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community,” said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots. “If it takes fire to get them to stop, then so be it.”

And the significant difference between Judaism and Islam is…? I guess it’s merely a matter of degree: a Muslim cleric wants women to wear clothing that covers up all but one and only one eye, while the Jewish fundamentalists, I presume, still allow women to use both eyes. So far.

Hey, I have a suggestion for all those fearful people who want to punish women for being so darn tempting. Instead of targeting women, let’s have all orthodox, fundamentalist men fitted with devices that measure penis enlargement, and that set off blinking lights and whistles mounted on the gentleman’s hats when significant arousal is detected. Then the clerics and rabbis and orthodox mobs can patrol the streets and stone anyone with a flashing hat — one way or another, the visible responses to perfectly ordinary human forms will disappear, the clerics will be able to claim victory over temptation, and they can stop abusing innocent women.

I’m sure there’s a clever dick somewhere who can come up with such a device.

Bill O’Reilly is a big fat idiot

Forgive me if this amazing tale of ego and inanity makes you recoil in disgust.

And O’Reilly cites himself as proof there is a God:

“Next time you meet an atheist, tell him or her that you know a bold, fresh guy, a barbarian who was raised in a working-class home and retains the lessons he learned there.

“Then mention to that atheist that this guy is now watched and listened to, on a daily basis, by millions of people all over the world and, to boot, sells millions of books.

“Then, while the non-believer is digesting all that, ask him or her if they still don’t believe there’s a God!”

Mmm-kay. Let’s see…do I still believe there is no god? Let me ponder on it.

I think…no. Definitely not.

Was that exercise in pomposity supposed to persuade me?

Bookclub on autism

The ScienceBlogs Book Club has started up again, and this time around the book under discussion is Paul Offit’s Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Offit has an entry over there right now, and more will be piling on soon.

This is a good subject to tackle, too: the anti-vaccination clowns are yet another outbreak of lunacy and innumeracy and anti-science nuttery, and Offit’s book fights the good fight. Expect howls of outrage from the clowns.

(By the way, one of the circuses full of clowns is trying to oppose our poll-crushing. If you haven’t voted for Amanda and science yet, get on over there and make them cry.)

I am a very naughty boy

I’ve barred the doors — I’m sure that any moment now, a squadron of goose-stepping nuns will come marching up the street to wag their fingers at me and rebuke me for what I’ve started. It seems the Youth of Today are going on YouTube and…flaunting their disrespect for crackers!

People can find a video of almost anything on YouTube: babies’ first steps, Saturday Night Live skits, news clips, concerts and now – to the shock of Catholics everywhere – desecration of the Eucharist.

YouTube has long been a destination for Catholics seeking video clips of Masses, apologetics lectures or devotions, but now Catholic outrage is growing as the site has become home to a string of videos depicting acts of Eucharistic desecration, including flushing a host down the toilet, putting one in a blender, feeding one to animals, shooting one with a nail gun and more.

They don’t provide links, perhaps fearing that this could become even more popular. Here you go, somebody is having lots of fun with his crackers. Gosh, maybe more people will be publicly committing heresy now!

You can guess what the response is.

“I don’t know what to say,” said a stunned Msgr. C. Eugene Morris, professor of sacramental theology at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, when told about the videos. “I am outraged that YouTube is tacitly supporting this and giving this behavior an audience.”

Hey, Eugene! It’s just a cracker! Get over it — as long as people aren’t disrupting your services or pilfering chalices, there has been no interference with your religious freedom, and no harm done.

Thomas Serafin is president of the International Crusade for Holy Relics, an internet watchdog group of Catholic laymen. His group has been fighting online affronts to the Catholic Church, including the sale of the Eucharist and of relics of the saints online, for more than a decade.

“YouTube has to be held accountable and stopped,” Serafin said from Los Angeles. “If Catholics don’t take a stand right now, they can expect such outrages to continue.”

Serafin added: “The internet is, in many ways, a new world, and it is our duty to evangelize this world, but we have to speak up and be heard to do that.”

Thomas and his organization are more than a little creepy — death cultists oblivious to their own bizarrely morbid obsessions. They have a right to evangelize if they want, but others have a right to mock and laugh at them, too. These wackos are organizing now, though, to get YouTube to censor and blacklist anyone who visibly makes fun of religious beliefs. YouTube has not cave in yet, though, and I hope they hold out — it is absurd to say that Catholic videos of blood and bones are not offensive, while videos of demolished bits of bread are outrages that must be yanked.

Serafin said people should call or write YouTube to demand that the videos be taken down. YouTube’s public relations email address is press@youtube.com

People who think YouTube should not be in the business of prosecuting blasphemy should also write and let them know that you are pleased they are not the religion police.

Now whose fault is all this? Mine. I am so proud.

One name still making the rounds in YouTube and bloggers’ discussions on Eucharistic desecration is Paul Z. Myers, the University of Minnesota professor who asked his blog readers in July to “score” him “some consecrated communion wafers.”

“If any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare,” Myers wrote in response to the case of a University of Central Florida student who stole a consecrated host the previous month.

Myers later posted a picture of a host – which he claimed was consecrated and sent to him via mail – as well as pages from the Koran and atheist Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” in a trash can, underneath coffee grounds and a banana peel.

As for the current YouTube videos, Dominique cited Myers as inspiration for the video series.

This is great! Everyone should join in! It makes me so pleased to see growing, vocal opposition to the fundamental absurdity of religion, do keep it up.

Of course, the price we pay is a lot of complaints back at us, which is fine — annoying, but it’s their right. Since I just got back from a long weekend, I thought I’d peek into the eucharist auto-trash folder and see what’s dribbled into my email lately, and you’ll find a sample below the fold. I just grabbed the top 15, so it’s also fairly representative of the content.

[Read more…]

AFA has been alerted!

Well, this is amusing. Someone sent in a complaint to Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association about this post using my email address, which meant that the helpful people at AFA sent their response to me. Here it is:

Thank you so much for sharing this information with us. We are aware
that there are hate-filled groups out there that are trying to disrupt
our work for Jesus and we are taking steps to fix the problems they have
created with the pastor’s pledge.

We would encourage you to add these groups to your prayer list, what a
blessing it will be when God takes what Satan meant for evil and turns
it into good!

Again, thank you for your willingness to get involved.

Sincerely,
Anelese
AFA Staff <><

—–Original Message—–
From: anon [mailto:pzmyers@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 8:59 AM
To: faq
Subject: faq: fyi

This is an enquiry e-mail via http://faq.afa.net from:
anon

The SPAM at http://www.afa.net/pastorspledge/ you are experiencing is
partly due to this –

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/take_the_pledge.php#comments

I guess I’m on another prayer list now.