I thought it was just razor blades in the apples

Kimberly Daniels of the Christian Broadcasting Network has a warning for trick-or-treaters.

“[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches,” Daniels wrote. “I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.”

I think Kimberly is just one of those obnoxious cheapskates who wants an excuse to hand out bible tracts on Halloween. Although, if I were a witch, I’d totally want a full-time job in a candy factory.

Oh, give it a rest, Bill

Bill Donohue has put me on his mailing list, so I get these ‘alerts’ from the Catholic League several times a day. Here’s the latest (the colors are as sent to me: I guess it was very important!)

On Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 8:45 am ET, Catholic League President Bill Donohue will appear on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.”

He will discuss the recent attack on Jesus on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

“Attack on Jesus”. Jebus, what a loon.

Well, you know what the only reasonable response to such foolishness is. We must watch the Attack on Jesus, and laugh, even if I didn’t think it was that funny.

You know, I still have a stash of holy crackers. I might just have to escalate some more, just to witness Donohue’s public meltdown, and make a point: nobody, especially anyone who is not Catholic, has to revere Catholic icons, and demanding that we do is only gonna get Jesus hurt some more.

I’ll be traveling tomorrow, so I’ll have to miss the execrable Fox and Friends…but I’m sure the swollen and empurpled spitting Donohue will be on youtube when I get back.

I get email

It’s rather pathetic when banned loons like “help ma boab” come crawling back, begging to be released from the dungeon…especially when their apologies are this insincere. It just reaffirms why he got tossed in there in the first place.

I’m Sorry

I’m sorry that I trod on someone’s arrogant, over-inflated, preposterous ego. Can I come back onto your blog? I promise I won’t do it again. Pretty please?

No.

They really are that crazy

Answers in Genesis, that site that tries to promote an alternative view to natural origins, has put up an article to answer that question that I’m sure is pressing on everyone’s mind as we get close to Halloween: Are demons real?. You won’t be surprised to learn that AiG’s answer is that yes, they are.

According to the Bible, demons are real spiritual and personal beings, not just forces or phenomena in the physical and psychological realm. Various Bible passages reveal that they have intellect, emotions, and will. They think, hate, and choose plans of action against God, Christ, and mankind. They especially hate believers in Christ because believers belong to Christ and are foes of Satan.

The Scriptures provide many details about demons. They are spirit beings created by God and responsible to God (Colossians 1:16). They are creatures limited in space, time, and powers. They have become morally perverted and are called “unclean spirits” (Matthew 10:1) or “evil spirits” (Luke 7:21). They promote immoral and sensuous lifestyles (2 Peter 2:1-18). They cause false teachers of depraved minds to oppose the truth and appeal to carnal and selfish impulses (2 Timothy 3:6). They sow false followers of Christ in the world (Matthew 13:37-42). They blind the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing God’s salvation through faith in His Son (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

Wow, they’re everywhere. The best part, though, is the next paragraph.

Demons promote primitive religions, magic, superstition, and worship of evil spirits. They are the dynamic behind idolatry and their devotees, whether worshipers of the gods Marduk, Asher, Zeus, Jupiter, Apollo, Ra, Diana, Aphrodite, or a host of lesser manmade deities.

“Like Jesus,” I ask, innocently?

I will agree that belief in demons is a sign that you’re dealing with a primitive religion and superstition.

Whee! More jousting!

Peter Irons sent this little comment to Stuart Pivar on receiving the news about his failed lawsuit.

Hi Stu,

Good news! The story is already up on Pharyngula (PZ didn’t waste a
minute) and the mocking has begun. Enjoy!

By the way, what pissed me off the most about you was not the PZ suit, but
your lie about giving the eulogy at Steve Gould’s memorial service. Don’t
ever repeat that lie again.

Here’s Pivar’s rejoinder.

I never said I gave a eulogy at Steve Gould’s memorial.

The day after Steve died I read the Kaddish service at the funeral obsequies in his small library, the minion including the Rabbi, the preparators, artist Steven Assails who made a drawing, and anatomist Eliot Goldfinger who took a death mask. Rhonda Schearer Gould, Helen Matsos and I then accompanied the body to New Jersey for cremation.

Your information re the case is also incorrect. You are seeing the first step in an agreed change in venue.

I’m making popcorn.

Pivar gives up on another suit

In August, Stuart Pivar once again threatened to resolve a scientific dispute by waving a team of lawyers at it, when he tried to sue a scientist, Robert Hazen, for daring to insist that Pivar stop using his name to promote Pivar’s pseudo-science of balloon animals. I just heard from Peter Irons that he had received notification from some of the lawyers involved in that case.

Good morning Peter,

We are pleased to report that Pivar’s counsel called and offered to
dismiss the action with prejudice. We recently filed the executed
Stipulation of Voluntary Discontinuance. The action is officially
dismissed with prejudice (though it may be a few days before the Clerk
changes the case status to inactive). Thank you,

Monique E. Liburd
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

This is becoming a tradition.

Doug Wilson is a nasty piece of work

As I mentioned yesterday, Christopher Hitchens is touring the country with a pastor, Doug Wilson, doing public debates. A reader wrote in to inform me of who Wilson is, and I was appalled. He has a ministry in Idaho which has ties to the white supremacy movement! Doug Wilson has an entry at the Southern Poverty Law Center that explains that he coauthored a book, Southern Slavery As It Was, with Steven Wilkins, a neo-Confederate, that was essentially a mangling of history and theology to assert that slavery in the South wasn’t so bad after all. He runs a private school in Idaho that celebrates Robert E. Lee’s birthday; he wants a “cultural reformation” in America, and his model, his ideal, is the antebellum Confederacy. He’s a regular speaker at Christian Reconstructionist conferences sponsored by the League of the South. His ideological heroes are Robert Lewis Dabney and Rousas John Rushdoony. Here’s a collection of links that point to the vileness of this sleazebag.

He doesn’t confine his bigotry to other races, either. He’s a wanna-be theocrat who wants to return to biblical barbarities.

Wilson used the Bible’s view on homosexuals as another example.

The Bible indicates the punishment for homosexuality is death. The Bible also indicates the punishment for homosexuality is exile.

“So death is not the minimal punishment for a homosexual,” Wilson said. “There are other alternatives.”

I don’t understand at all why Hitchens would want to be associated with such a creature, unless he was specifically seeking out the very worst that American Christianity brings to the table. Unfortunately, he’s contributing to the reputation of a monstrous blight on the Palouse, a racist, theocratic ideologue whom people of that region deplore.

Physics!

Oh, look. A homeopath explains physics to us all.

I’m sorry. Did I break your brain?

Here’s a non-homeopathic cure. It takes an hour of Lawrence Krauss to counter 8 minutes of that kind of lunacy, I’m afraid.

She ain’t dead, she’s ascended

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, who some of us will recall from the 1980s, when her survivalist, apocalyptic cult, the Church Universal and Triumphant, was digging in in Montana, has died. Another end-of-the-world weirdo bites the dust before the world does.

There was one odd comment in her obituary.

Elizabeth Prophet, who died on October 15, is survived by three daughters and two sons, one of whom is spiritual leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant. For some years she had been suffering from dementia.

“Some years”? Like, about 40?

Piling on Bill Donohue again

It’s cruel, but he is such a tempting target, so full of himself and so, so crazy. It seems The Simpsons tossed out some mild one-liner making fun of communion (“What kind of civilized people eat the body and blood of their savior?”), and Bill Donohue has fired off another angry fax (“mocking the heart of any religion always crosses the line, and mocking the Eucharist does it for Catholics.”)

Too bad, Bill. Silly superstitions will always be a magnet for mockery.

You can see the whole Simpsons episode and Donohue’s full complaint at The Friendly Atheist.