Lots of people are sending me this news story about Stephen Green, the British evangelical Christian fanatic. In case you’ve never heard of him:

Green, 60, is founder and director of Christian Voice, a fundamentalist group he set up in 1994, whose website thunders against the vices — family breakdown, crime, ­immorality and drink among them — that are ruining the lives of ‘real people’. Green’s ­pronouncements are often outrageous. For example, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed more than 1,600 people, he claimed it was a result of God’s wrath and had purified the city.

I could stop right there, couldn’t I? You already know how this will end: Green will turn out to be some kind of pathological monster when the cameras aren’t rolling in his face.

Caroline Green was often punished by her husband Stephen for failing to be a dutiful, compliant wife, but his final act of violence against her — the one that prompted her long-overdue decision to divorce him — was all the more chilling because it was coldly premeditated.

Stephen Green wrote a list of his wife’s ­failings then described the weapon he would make to beat her with.

‘He told me he’d make a piece of wood into a sort of witch’s broom and hit me with it, which he did,’ she recalls, her voice tentative and quiet. ‘He hit me until I bled. I was terrified. I can still remember the pain.

‘Stephen listed my misdemeanours: I was disrespectful and disobedient; I wasn’t loving or submissive enough and I was undermining him. He also said I wasn’t giving him his ­conjugal rights.

‘He even framed our marriage vows — he always put particular emphasis on my promise to obey him — and hung them over our bed. He believed there was no such thing as marital rape and for years I’d been reluctant to have sex with him, but he said it was my duty and was angry if I refused him.

‘But the beating was the last straw. It ­convinced me I had to divorce him.’

Ah. So he was a vicious judgmental control freak who felt a profound sense of privilege for being a Christian man. But you could already get that from the first paragraph I quoted.

Next big item of non-news: the media continues to flock about Stephen Green, flogging his sensationalist hatred to the public, despite his patent hypocrisy.

The Vatican claims to want to talk with atheists, so they’re having a conference. How nice.

The Vatican announced a new initiative aimed at promoting dialogue between theists and atheists to be launched with a two-day event this March in Paris.

The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture will sponsor a series of seminars on the theme of “Religion, Light and Common Reason,” at various locations in the city, including Paris-Sorbonne University.

The odd thing is that I don’t know of any atheists who’ve been invited, nor has the Vatican made any mention of who will be there. So who is this for? Are they going to actually bring in some of the argumentative atheists who have deep differences with religion, or will they just stock the place with atheist-butteries and nice atheists who love the church?

And what will they do there?

The events will conclude with a party for youth in the courtyard of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, followed by prayer and meditation inside the cathedral.

Oh, right. Two days in Paris and we’re going to hang out in a medieval church and pray. If they want to have a dialogue, they should split the events between religious la-de-da, organized by the Catholics, and secular indulgences in the fleshpots of the city, organized by local atheists. Then we’ll see which worldview wins.

But this isn’t about learning anything about how us atheists think. It’s about converting us, and is fundamentally inimical to atheism. It’s definitely not about “promoting dialogue”.

The pope has made turning back the tide of Western secularism one of the major campaigns of his papacy. The Vatican last year established the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization to focus especially on promoting Christianity in Europe.

Good luck with turning back secularism by burying yourselves in an old stone relic and mumbling at Jesus, fellas!

It’s shocking. How dare they. The Australian writes about our puritanical television viewers and how British television has to be stripped of religious criticism before it’s aired here, or our citizens get all Muslim-cartoon-rioter over it.

It’s not as if those real Americans are pretending to be thin-skinned. This is not faux outrage. They are genuinely shocked that outsiders do not take Christianity as seriously as they do.

Oh, yeah? We’re thin-skinned zealots from the land where “God can’t take a joke”? We’ll teach you what’s funny. The cruise missiles and predator drones are standing by on our aircraft carriers.

(Hmm. That would be funnier if it weren’t a little bit true.)

Stand in awe of the loving grace and harmony that church brings to the community! Here’s a letter one evangelical church sent to a congregant because she’d committed a sin.

They are handing her over to Satan! Worst collection agency ever.

Oh, and her sin was…getting divorced. How dare she break the sacred bond to her lord and master, a man?