The Obama inauguration brought out a number of protesters, seemingly all of the Christian variety. I don’t see what they’re complaining about, though: Obama is a professing Christian who will not do a thing to diminish their privileges. We atheists have more excuses to picket his god-soaked ceremony than they do … but then, we’re also not as stupid as this kind of person.

Nice. Tell me why I deserve Hell someday, and I’ll tell you why you’re in it right now, O Benighted Fool.

I’m not wildly enthusiastic about our new president, but he is so much better than the amoral sleazebuckets he is replacing in office that I have to see it all as a largely positive change. I also just read the speech … not bad. I’ll give him a few years to prove himself.

I also caught the brief acknowledgment of the existence of non-believers. It’s a small thing, but appreciated. Everyone seems to be a bit unsatisfied with his specific choice of word, and I agree a bit. The better choice, the word that would have been more inclusive and positive, is “freethinkers”. Someone let his speechwriters know.

We needed his deep insight to understand the plane crash on the Hudson river, and the media response to it.

One of the older arguments against god is that there seems to be some limitations on the kinds of miracles he’ll do, especially healing miracles. Faith healers can make some little old lady’s pain go away, briefly, maybe, but the big one doesn’t work: why won’t god heal amputees? That would be a vivid miracle!

I would have said that no magical regeneration of human body parts has ever occurred, but someone has pseudonymously claimed otherwise on the Minnesota Atheists forum.

There is MEDICAL PROOF and DOCUMENTATION that proves GOD HEALS AMPUTEES.
If anyone so desires, I WILL FURNISH THIS PROOF FOR YOU –
I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE – NOT CONDEMN THEM.

The TRUTH EXISTS for those who really SEEK THE TRUTH, instead of burying their heads in sand like an ostrich, and believing that things don’t exist.

Furthermore; there is SCIENTIFIC & HISTORIC PROOF of GOD’S TRUE EXISTENCE that could not have been 50-100 YRS. AGO.

WAKE-UP ATHEISTS BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR SOUL FOR ETERNITY – THAT IS FOREVER & EVER!

Despite his offer, alas, “The Prophet” posted under a pseudonym and without a public email address. So we’re going to have to go one better. The Sunny Skeptic is looking for volunteers, Christians of great faith, who are willing to trust in the Lord to fix an experimental amputation.

I don’t think I entirely approve of the protocol, however. It seems a great waste of a very useful power to lop off a limb and wait for regrowth, especially since veteran’s hospitals are full of people with debilitating injuries. I’d rather see The Prophet sweep through an amputee ward in a hospital and give us a demonstration of his god healing the broken and severely injured.

It sounds like the kind of thing military chaplains ought to be doing.

Details of some high-level Catholic tribunal and how it handles the most grievous sins have been revealed. In a very strange overview, we learn that murder and genocide, while truly horrible crimes, can be handled by lower members of the hierarchy. There are a few that only this tribunal and the Pope are qualified to cope with. They are briefly listed: trying to assassinate the Pope, a priest spilling the beans about what is said in the confessional, priests having sex, and abortionists becoming priest. But there is one other crime, which the article dwells on:

Defiling the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, is also considered a sin of extreme gravity and one which is on the increase, the high-ranking members of the tribunal said.

Cardinal Stafford said there had been a rise in incidents in which people would receive Communion and then spit it out or otherwise desecrate it, sometimes in Satanic rituals.

In July last year an American academic, to make a point about freedom of thought and religion, drove a nail through a Communion wafer and then threw it in a rubbish bin.

Paul Myers, from the University of Minnesota, said later: “I pierced it with a rusty nail. Then I simply threw it in the trash. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your Lord.”

Such sins, which can only be dealt with by the Pope, acting through the tribunal, bring automatic excommunication from the Church. If the Pope decides to grant absolution, the excommunication is lifted.

But how can I be excommunicated from a church to which I’ve never belonged?

And aren’t their priorities a little screwed up that they consider genocide a lesser offense?

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Pough sent along an illustration that I must use.

The Indianapolis Star has been running a pointless little prayer on page A2 of the newspaper for years. Not any more; the editor has decided to discontinue it. It isn’t because it has suddenly become a mouthpiece for militant atheism, though:

We appreciate that this has been a long tradition in The Star. But we are re-evaluating our mission and all that we do. I believe that prayer is a very personal thing and that offering prayers is something for individuals and their churches. We are a newspaper, not a church.

Also, we do live in a society in which there are many, many different beliefs. We respect all religions, and the prayer was written only from the Christian perspective.

Because of those issues, we have decided to drop the prayer. I’m confident that people will continue to offer their own prayers reflecting their own lives and faith needs.

Good for the Star! As you might guess, this decision has triggered lots of complaints. Here’s one that I thought was very funny.

Very disappointing decision. If you are able to print the horoscopes, then you should print a prayer …please reconsider.

They are on a par with horoscopes, aren’t they? Just as ineffective, and just as ridiculous…but that’s not an argument for keeping either of them.

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is angry.

It is time for the Christian bashing to stop and for Christians to no longer be treated like second-class citizens.

Second-class citizens who are virtually the only people who can get elected to political office, who whine piteously if anyone fails to kneel before their sacraments, who also claim that this is a Christian nation, who use their faith to justify war, corruption, oppression, greed, and who use their privileged position to deny non-Christians basic rights. Yeah, right. They’re a gang of hypocritical thugs with a persecution complex. It it time for Christian bashing to increase, I should think.

Now they’ve compiled a top ten list of Christian bashing in America for 2008, and oh, it is a pathetic thing. It is largely a list of people who mocked Christian excess: first on the list is the Proposition 8 Musical, starring Jack Black as Jesus. Bill Maher gets mentioned twice. I am in there for throwing a cracker in the trash. A sports announcer used obscenities. Come on, where are the lions? There aren’t any.

Most ridiculous of all, they have to invent slurs. Apparently, Barack Obama’s very existence is an example of Christian bashing.

According to research into President Elect Obama’s own statements about faith, and an examination of Obama’s position on moral issues, CADC has determined that by any biblical and historic Christian standard, Barack Obama is not a Christian, although he claims he is a “devout Christian.”

That’s it. Because they’ve redefined Obama’s beliefs as non-Christian, the fact that he holds those beliefs constitutes a defamation of Christianity. Poor pitiful CADC.

Charlie Daniels has chimed in with a little squeak of outrage at Newdow’s lawsuit. His post is titled “He Must Be a Miserable Man“, and I think it must be self-referential since it is an astonishing collection of stupidities. Foremost, here’s one that I can’t believe anyone would say:

If we deny God His rightful place in the affairs of this nation should we expect Him to intervene when we need protection? Just what do you think has kept us safe from terrorist attacks since 9/11? It certainly wasn’t the atheists.

I expect atheists did contribute, as did Christians and Muslims and other Americans. What does Charlie Daniels think has prevented further attacks? Does he seriously believe there’s an invisible man flicking away terrorists at the border?

I’m actually most curious about the logic behind the claim that a god gets credit for the absence of hijackings in the last seven years, though. What was he doing in 2001? Napping?