I’ve always wondered what he looked like.

You may be somewhat disappointed. You haven’t yet seen the mind behind that rather ordinary face, though, which will leave you a lot disappointed.

A Republican Ohio state representative cited his religious beliefs to explain why he would not wear a mask as recommended by Gov. Mike DeWine (R) to help limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“This is not the entire world,” state Rep. Nino Vitale wrote in a lengthy Facebook post on Monday morning. “This is the greatest nation on earth founded on Judeo-Christian Principles.”

“One of those principles is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That image is seen the most by our face. I will not wear a mask,” he continued.

• This is not the greatest nation on earth — we are one among many, and we need to throw out these politicians who preach American exceptionalism. This unfounded arrogance hinders any effort to make the country better.

• We were not founded on Judeo-Christian principles, which is not even a thing. We are a secular nation. Or should be. Kick out these religious fanatics.

• It’s a rather limiting conception of the nature of the hypothetical supreme being of the universe to imagine he is an anthropoid ape with a human face, or even a gaseous vertebrate of some kind, as Haeckel put it. Nino Vitale is some kind of shallow Biblical literalist, I guess. We should also evict those. They aren’t smart enough to govern.

• I hope he is consistent in his beliefs to the point where if he comes down with COVID-19 or any other respiratory disease that he refuses to be intubated or to wear a mask; if he needs surgery he should do it without any anesthetic gas or oxygen. I want him to go to his maker with his bare face shining splendidly.

Vitale also doesn’t understand the data.

“This is not based on logic, this is based on fear and propaganda and every statistical, data driven study done in the last 2 weeks says death counts are low, the models were wrong, and this is more like the flu,” he continued.

Wrong on all counts. The data says we’ve been underestimating the effects, due to the lack of available testing, and that it isn’t anything like the flu.

It does not fill me with confidence that our government is packed with ignorant religious zealots who want to make policy counter to the evidence. It’s no wonder this country is screwed.

New York has given Franklin Graham the boot.

After weeks of scrutiny, it was announced over the weekend that the Central Park tent facility run by Graham’s charity Samaritan’s Purse will be wound up, closing to new patients from May 4, before the site is disinfected and dismantled. The eight patients currently being treated at the site will be moved elsewhere.

Notorious anti-LGBT+ evangelist Franklin Graham was granted permission to set up the site back in March, with NYC mayor Bill de Blaiso saying that he had received assurances the group – often criticised for exploiting disasters to evangelise – would not discriminate.

Graham went back against his word almost immediately – forcing all medical volunteers to sign a belief statement that disavows homosexual relationships, publicly comparing homosexuals to drug addicts, and bringing in a film crew to record sermons and evangelist videos.

As usual, Graham’s purpose wasn’t charity, it wasn’t a sincere effort to help people in need, it was a missionary crusade. I like that state senator Brad Hoylman told him to “pack up his tents and leave New York City for good” — can we do that with all the religious grifters? And do it everywhere? It would be a great idea to turn Franklin Graham into a homeless pariah who’d have to roam the world with a tin cup, begging for charity himself.

It’s just too bad that New York did not fully follow tradition and resurrect the old tar and feathers custom.

Oh, boy, Easter is this weekend! Aren’t you all excited and looking forward to it? When I was a kid, it was all chocolate bunnies and easter eggs, and we didn’t even think about the religious side of it. I think we might have gone to church services a few times, but that wasn’t something to be happy about, it was kind of a drag.

Now, though, I’m dreading it. A lot of Christians think Easter is a great excuse, even an obligation, to gather together in large groups and infect each other. I think we might even be able to predict a blip in the COVID-19 statistics 2-3 weeks after this weekend. God won’t save you because your purpose is pious, and he certainly won’t save me if you spew more viral particles around in the grocery store to infect me. Stay home. Go into your little closet and pray alone. Please.

We already know that a significant number of COVID-19 cases in South Korea can be traced directly to the Shincheonji cult, and their stealthy habits of congregating to infect each other, and then infiltrating other churches to recruit new members.

South Korea has been remarkably effective and efficient in controlling the disease, it’s sad that their efforts were being undermined by religious fanatics (Daegu, by the way, is where my daughter-in-law is from. Lovely city.)

What’s even sadder, though, are the gormless missionaries who are taking advantage of the idiot president of Brazil’s policies to actively seek out remote indigenous people and kill them with disease. In a time of pandemic, we’re all told to stay-in-place to inhibit transmission of the virus, which makes sense, but these clueless twits are doing the opposite, and charging off to assault uncontacted native tribes with the Lord’s Plague, and also the Lord’s useless Holy Book.

Just like Trump, Bolsonaro has appointed many such fundamentalists to important positions in his government. These appointments include placing evangelical former missionary Ricardo Lopes Dias at the head of the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), Brazil’s governmental agency charged with overseeing the interests of Indigenous populations. In an attempt to quell controversy over his appointment, Dias has said, “I don’t see this as a mission or an opportunity to find new converts.” And yet American missionaries smell an opportunity.

Representatives of the missionary organization Ethnos360, until recently known as New Tribes Mission, “arrived in the Deni Indigenous Territory in Acre state in late February” and acquired a helicopter for the purpose of making contact with uncontacted tribes, according to reporting by Sue Branford for Yes! Magazine. Headed by Larry M. Brown and a member of the Forum of Bible Agencies International (along with better known organizations like the Jesus Film Project and Wycliffe Global Alliance), Ethnos360 focuses on converting “unreached groups.” It also happens to be precisely the organization with which Dias was an active missionary from 1997-2007.

They’re doing more than flouting common sense and reason, they are breaking the law while Bolsonaro looks the other way.

To be sure, Ethnos360’s drive to reach uncontacted peoples contravenes standing FUNAI policy. It’s also certainly a violation of international law, and it arguably falls afoul of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution itself. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Dias will move against his former organization. And as for Bolsonaro, he once casually remarked, with truly stunning bigotry, “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry wasn’t as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated their Indians.” He may well allow uncontacted groups to be wiped out by missionary zealots.

Sometimes I think the real plague isn’t a physical virus or bacterium, it’s the mind virus of religion that leads people to do real harm with a smug smile on their face and a hymn in their hearts.

I just glanced at the front page of deadstate.org, and then I had to close the window before the rage overwhelmed me.

We’re doomed. As long as Christians, and especially evangelical fanatics, have any influence at all in this country, they’re going to destroy us.

Can I please go back to my state of innocence?

Drollinger is a minister of some sort who gets together with Trump’s cabinet every week to lead them in the path of righteousness through prayer. Like Trump’s “spiritual advisor”, Paula White, he seems to be a huckster and a grifter who’s there to influence powerful but stupid people.

The Drollinger-led Bible study meets every Wednesday morning with members of Trump’s cabinet, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Health Secretary Alex Azar. Carson and Azar, notably, are members of the coronavirus task force guiding the federal government response to the pandemic.

Vice President Mike Pence, a member of the task force and a listed host of Capitol Ministries, is also tied to the Bible study. Emails obtained by Gizmodo show administration officials coordinating with Drollinger’s group to schedule a session of the Bible study, including the possibility of hosting the weekly event in Pence’s West Wing office.

What could he be telling them, you wonder. It’s all predictable right wing bullshit. The pandemic is all the fault of China, homosexuals, and environmentalists.

“Relative to the coronavirus pandemic crisis, this is not God’s abandonment wrath nor His cataclysmic wrath, rather it is sowing and reaping wrath,” wrote Drollinger. “A biblically astute evaluation of the situation strongly suggests that America and other countries of the world are reaping what China has sown due to their leaders’ recklessness and lack of candor and transparency.”

Neither does he miss a chance to condemn those who worship the “religion of environmentalism” and express a “proclivity toward lesbianism and homosexuality.” These individuals, Drollinger argues in “Is God Judging America Today?”, one of the minister’s posts about coronavirus pandemic, have infiltrated “high positions in our government, our educational system, our media and our entertainment industry” and “are largely responsible for God’s consequential wrath on our nation.”

How many of these loons are influencing our country? Do they think Rasputin was a good influence on Russia, too? I sure hope we can get a president who can grab these scoundrels by the ear and kick their asses out the door.

I can’t recommend it. Not that it isn’t honestly reporting what the Right is doing, but that it’s more terrifying than I can take. A small sampling:

• Trump uses coronavirus fears to advance Bannon’s far right agenda

• Sebastian Gorka won’t stop blaming the left for coronavirus ‘mass hysteria’

• Liz Crokin: The coronavirus is cover for the military to make mass arrests

• Christians Should Be More Concerned About Hell-Bound Neighbors Than Coronavirus, Says Revivalist John Burton

• Josh Bernstein: The Coronavirus Outbreak Is a Democratic and Chinese Conspiracy Against Trump

Paranoia, conspiracies, End Times lunacy, QAnon garbage, it’s all there. The Left is accused of hysteria and overreaction when sensible and necessary action is taken to control the pandemic, but these looneytunes are taking it all to a new level. I’m waiting for the parade of flagellants and the right-wing coup in the midst of the chaos now.

If you want nightmares, watch creepy Kenneth Copeland curing everyone through their television screens.

Kenneth Copeland healed viewers of the coronavirus through their televisions last night. pic.twitter.com/8lwHufTIy4

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) March 12, 2020

What’s all over his hand? Ewww.

It’s almost a relief to turn to Answers in Genesis, where they just have a glitter in their eye and see the coronavirus as a mere opportunity to proselytize.

I’m convinced that this coronavirus outbreak is possibly the greatest outreach opportunity for the church worldwide. The coronavirus has covered the globe and, thus, brought missions to our own turf. The church needs to respond to the current situation sensibly and centered around the gospel. Here are some things we should be doing during this time of worldwide panic.

The “things” are to assemble a medical mission team (evangelize while treating people), buy up all the personal hygiene products from your local stores to bribe the local community, and write up Bible tracts to be distributed with your bottles of hand-sanitizers.

It’s horrible, exploitive, and ghoulish behavior, exactly what I expect from Christians any more, but it’s also almost quaint against the backdrop of the outright dangerous nonsense other groups are promoting.

So this is how civilizations die. I’d rather not be in the middle of it.

Oooh, the thrill of recognition. I got a whole paragraph, too, not just a one-liner. Here’s my moment in the spotlight:

To be sure, tentacles have lots of “suckers.” The squid’s suckers are even more effective than the octopus’ in capturing prey. P.Z. Myers spells it out on ScienceBlogs.com: “They contain a piston-like structure inside an interior chamber, coupled so that when something tries to pull away from the sucker, it lifts the piston, further decreasing pressure inside and strengthening its grip—like a Chinese finger-trap, the more you struggle, the harder it is to get away.”

Except…REWIND. What’s Charisma saying to lead into that quote?

What I didn’t know was that a sneaky squid spirit would soon start stalking me.

Right about now, you might be scratching your head and asking, with all sincerity—or with all mockery—”What in the world is a squid spirit?” Essentially, it’s a spirit of mind control but its affects go way behind what you would think.

In his classic book, Demon Hit List, Eckhardt lists mind control and defines it this way: Octopus and squid spirits having tentacles; confusion, mental pressure, mental pain, migraine.” Sounds a lot like witchcraft, and I imagine that’s what it actually is. There are many expressions—and many manifestations—of witchcraft.

And what comes immediately after the quote?

Here’s a lesson: We’re not wrestling against flesh and blood. We can’t overcome a squid attack in our flesh. The more we struggle in our flesh, the greater the hold this spirit seems to get on us. The more we get in our heads trying to figure things out, the more ground the squid takes because the squid is attacking our head (our mind).

Squids also have a chameleon persona. Reference.com reveals, “Squid have the largest nervous system in the animal kingdom. They have the ability to change colors because they have translucent skin. The colors come from chromatophores, which are pigment cells that are on the outside of the skin that expand or contract to show colors.”

Spiritually speaking, this chameleon-like characteristic means it can change its behavior or appearance to stay hidden. It’s sneaky! Squids are fast swimmers and some of them can even fly. Again, that’s why you need discernment in any spiritual battle. Internet checklists and articles can be helpful if the Holy Spirit illuminates the truths within them, but we must ultimately wage prophetic warfare if we are going to win the battle.

The ignominy of it all — I am reduced to sciencey-sounding window dressing to add one little tidbit of true facts to a heaping bowl of bullshit. I shall have my revenge. When I’m dead, my incorporeal spirit will command a legion of squid demons, and they will slake their thirst for vengeance on this author’s head.

Or not. There are no floating souls or cephalopod demons, sorry.

Is this the kind of drivel that gets routinely published in Christian magazines?