God on trial

First it was me, now it’s God. God is being sued by State Senator Ernie Chambers of Nebraska.

Chambers lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in Douglas County Court, seeks a permanent injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.

The lawsuit admits God goes by all sorts of alias, names, titles and designations and it also recognizes the fact that the defendant is “Omnipresent”.

In the lawsuit Chambers says he’s tried to contact God numerous times, “Plaintiff, despite reasonable efforts to effectuate personal service upon Defendant (“Come out, come out, wherever you are”) has been unable to do so.”

The suit also requests that the court given the “peculiar circumstances” of this case waive personal service. It says being Omniscient, the plaintiff assumes God will have actual knowledge of the action.

The lawsuit accuses God “of making and continuing to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons, including constituents of Plaintiff who Plaintiff has the duty to represent.”

It says God has caused, “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.”

The suit also says God has caused, “calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction.”

Chambers also says God “has manifested neither compassion nor remorse, proclaiming that Defendant “will laugh” when calamity comes.

Chambers asks for the court to grant him a summary judgment. He says as an alternative, he wants the judge to set a date for a hearing as “expeditiously” as possible and enter a permanent injunction enjoining God from engaging in the types of deleterious actions and the making of terroristic threats described in the lawsuit.

This may surprise you, but God should call upon me to defend him. After all, I’ll show that God is neither omnipresent nor omniscient, and that those are just vague rumors spread by people who actually don’t know him. I’ll also demonstrate that God is utterly ineffectual, that not only doesn’t have the power to cause those horrible events that harm people, he doesn’t even have the capability to help anyone. And that he doesn’t show compassion or remorse, and contrary to Chambers, won’t laugh … because he is an entirely nonexistent, fictional character.

When the case is dismissed, we will then go on to sue all the priesthoods of Earth for misrepresentation of my innocent and entirely harmless client. We won’t countersue Ernie Chambers, though — I think I like that guy.

(Hat tip to the Lincoln Secular Humanists)

It won’t work

Saint Gasoline speculates about a common idea: using a time machine to travel far in the future to reap the benefits of compound interest. It won’t work!

  1. Lots of bank accounts get abandoned — forgotten, the owner dies, etc., but you don’t have a lot of bankers sitting around fretting, “Uh-oh, Marcus Junius Glabrius deposited 15 denarii in 61 BC, and never closed his account. I sure hope he doesn’t come strolling in tomorrow, or we’ll have to give him Switzerland, France, and a couple of small African nations to cover the interest.” No. That’s because the bankers sit around watching their accounts, and when Marcus doesn’t stop by for a century they say, “Oh ho! That money is mine, now!” Either that or the next regime sweeps in, confiscates all the money and sets fire to the records, and uses the bank building to quarter their horses or mistresses.

  2. St. G regrets that his plan has the unfortunate glitch that while he is a billionaire, he has to live under the tentacles of the giant squid overlords. This is of no concern. When the squid overlords see St. G, they don’t see a banking customer: they see a pleasing sample of mushi (it’s like sushi, only it’s from the future, and it uses mammal meat and doesn’t bother with the rice and seaweed. Or the little cups of sake. Or table manners.)

My money woes are over

I have a daughter of marriageable age, and here is a useful service:

Marry Our Daughter is an introduction service assisting those following the Biblical tradition of arranging marriages for their daughters.

Those who wish to list their Daughters with our site should click on SIGN UP OUR DAUGHTER on our main page for a form to fill out.

Those who wish to propose to a specific Daughter should click on the PROPOSE button on the Daughter’s INFO CARD.

Each entry has a single snapshot, a short one-paragraph blurb, a link to let someone propose, and a bride price (it’s biblically justified!), which seems to vary between $4K and $100K. You can pick up a cute 14 year old girl for only about $8K. I don’t quite see how they set the prices, and suspect it must be like selling horses — the budget girls must have some ungodly flaws, while the high prices represents the parents’ perception of their own bloodline.

Alas, though, I don’t think an uppity godless girl could fetch anywhere that sum, so it hardly seems worth the effort. Also, the testimonials might make one a wee bit suspicious that one’s leg is being tugged upon.

Urbanized

Would you believe the Urban Dictionary has an entry for PZ? It’s lousy—I can’t believe anyone uses the term that way, and I can’t imagine how they pronounce it. And pzizzle isn’t any better.

Myers, at least, has some punch to it: “Last name of any various white masked knife weilding bad muther *uckers.” I still think most of these entries are jokes sent in by people, especially when the spelling and grammar are atrocious, and that they don’t really have any common usage.

On the utility of mice

I’m soon to run off to a class in which we’re going to discuss 16th-17th century science (Vesalius, Bacon, Harvey, Hooke, etc.), and there’s an amusing passage in J.A. Moore’s book that I have to share. It’s a description of a bestiary by Edward Topsell that explains the importance and usefulness of various animals, including mice. Mice seemed to do everything.

A mouse can be skinned, cut in two, and placed over an arrow wound to help the healing process; if a mouse is beaten into pieces and mixed with old wine, the concoction will cause hair to grow on the eyelids; if skinned, steeped in oil, and rubbed with salt, the mouse will cure pains in the lungs; sodden mice can prevent children from urinating too much; mice that are burned and converted to powder are fine for cleaning the teeth; mouse dung, prepared in various manners, is useful for treating sciatica, headache, migraine, the tetters, scabs, red bunches on the head, gout, wounds, spitting of blood, colick, constipation, stones, producing abortions, putting on weight, and increasing lactation in women.

One does wonder if there was a plague of people running around with hairy eyelids in 1607, and I’m almost tempted to try the pulped mouse in wine for the effect. The toothpaste recipe…eh, only if I never wanted to be kissed again.