The Last Crusade: In the Kingdom of Witches

John C Wright posted an article called The Last Crusade: In the Kingdom of Witches, part of his series on what's wrong with Western Civ.

The only takeaway from this that the usual crowd had was "JOHN C WRIGHT BELIEVES IN WITCHES TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD."

They have, once again, missed the point.

I have taken it upon myself to translate a great essay into small words, to be understood by small people. I hope I am stupid enough to live down to the task.

The following, believe it or not, contains spoilers for Love at First Bite.

Leftism as it stands today has always been a religion. Don't believe me? Modern Leftism bases most of their beliefs in your basic, boilerplate socialism of the Russian kind. And, since the Russian revolution took  a lot from the French revolution, there is a lot of blood as part of the Leftist faith, and a lot of anti-theist secularism.

Leftism has kept up this tradition, perhaps even better than the Soviet Union ever did. Communism killed a hundred million people in the last century, over the course of 70 years.

Just to highlight this one more time. That's a hundred million. 100,000,000 dead.

In the United States, we're up to, what, fifty million aborted children and counting?  Over the course of less than fifty years? We keep that up, abortion will have wiped out more people than Communism along the same amount of time.

What what do you want to consider a group of people who are hip deep in blood and want to dive in some more? I think witches is a good summary, don't you?

But JCW wants to go deeper.

But the essential nature of a witch, as she was portrayed in fairy tales (which contain a good deal more sense than newspapers) was of a withered, childless spinster: a woman with nothing to offer the community, but whom age and curiosity had opened the secret properties of plants and stars and other things easily turned to venom.

Welcome to Leftism. Nothing can be good and pure and simple. 

Maleficent cannot be an evil psychotic killer who will take deadly retribution over minor slights; she must be rewritten over a backstory where she's actually the heroine. 

Gaston and his henchman cannot be Alpha and lackey, but there must be a homosexual component to it. We don't even go into how many people tried to make Samwise and Frodo's relationship as gay. Or Holmes and Watson. Or Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe. Because good pure and simple friendships can't exist in their world, it must be sexual, because sex is everything, right?

Do we even want to get into the freaks that have been on parade? I refuse to call any of them protesters, or people who marched for Civil Rights, because, sorry, that's Martin Luther King Jr leading a parade of people down the street wearing their Sunday finest, because they all just wanted to join the main stream. I don't care if you look at the Occupy rioters living like animals and defecating on the streets and businesses of New York City, or if you want to look at the "womyn" in gynecological garb wandering around a few weeks ago, these are people who very clearly don't want to be maintstream. They want the mainstream to accept THEM, condone, bless, and accept whatever the BS du jour is -- and no, I don't mean "tolerate," as toleration means to put up with something that is abhorrent to you. "I don't care" is not allowed -- you will be made to care. You will be made to accept it and bless it, and kneel before whatever bull is being force fed you, the culture, and whatever else they can get their hands on.

And no, their isn't a mystical, black-helicopter "they." They're in plain sight, after all. Marching in the circus garb they call "a statement," when it's really more like a thousand clowns.

Witches subvert. Witches turn things that are good and pure into poison. THey turn children into child sacrifice. They turn the feminism of Susan B Anthony into genitalia on parade. They turn Christian Charity into entitlement programs to buy votes. They promise a great society and deliver a broken culture and destroyed family. 

Leftism has its own altars in the abortion clinic, and its own sacrifices called children. They have their own public displays of faith called riots, only disguised as "protests."

Leftism. Witchcraft. Subversion. Alinsky. Same Stuff, Different Decade.

And if you want more application of faith brought into a world like this, check out the Love At First Bite Series

Catholic Conspiracies 3: Jesuits, OWS, and the Vandals Are Here.

Vatican
Ninja
Remod
(Draft)

Once upon a time, very long ago, I discussed how the Catholic Church seems to be the favorite of multi-generational bands of abject nutcases.  I then expanded the topic, discussing how many fruit loops were involved, and that was titled The Revenge of the Vatican Ninjas.

In this case, we're going to add a bit of local politics.  And by local, I mean New York.

Has anyone heard of Occupy Wall Street?

If you haven't, that's okay, they're rather annoying -- essentially a fun bunch of anarchists hanging out in Zuccotti park who were told that 1968 was a really fun time, that bathing is bad for you, and it's quite okay to defecate wherever you deem fit.  It's not so much a political movement as an unruly mob. They're mad as hell, they're not going to take it anymore, and they are rebels without a clue -- when someone says they hate Wall Street, and the bailouts of Wall Street, yet they don't protest anyone who was bailed out, this spells stupid to me.

They've attacked police officers, and they want the redistribution of wealth, but they whine when their stuff is stolen.  At the end of the day, while they may appear threatening, they are mostly harmless.  And if you read any of the links, you'll notice that I spend most of my time making fun of them.  Just don't tell my editors, they may think I'm having too much fun.

So, what does this have to do with Catholic conspiracies?

Well, recently, I did a search on twitter for "Jesuits."

Big, big mistake. 

Apparently, now, the Jesuits are a crypto-Jews / Nazi / Zionist organization, bent on establishing the New World Order via Occupy Wall Street .... And, of course, founded by the Illuminati. 

As my friend Jason says,

"It's the internet. I'm not surprised about anything I find on it anymore. I think it was created by Cthullu, not Al Gore. It's a bottomless pit that WILL stare back at you if you look at it too hard. In the dark. On a cold winter night. With eerie music playing in the background (Cthullu has a MP3 player)."

I have to ask, now -- what are you people smoking?  Or is it that the internet goes to the loudest spammers, who happen to be nutjobs with unlimited time on their hands.

Either way, it's always good to see that nothing ever changes.

The amusing part of the Occupy Wall Street movement as "crypto-Jewish Jesuit conspiracy" is twofold, really.  One, they've got an emerging anti-Semitic group in there, with makes the whole "evil Jewish Conspiracy" part kinda stupid .... er.  

On the other hand, their fellow occupiers have issues with breaking other people's toys.

How so?

I'll give you one guess.

Their international branch at "Occupy Rome," in addition to firebombing cars, has taken upon itself to smash up religious icons.

All I can think is: if this happened to a synagogue, would the Mossad have already killed everyone in this photo by now?

But, no, it's just the Catholics.  So, who cares?

Ann Margaret Lewis, posted this to her facebook page and asked "Why?"

And isn't it obvious?  Because Catholics are "evil, baby-raping priests," and most of these people are too busy worshiping their iPads . And they like to talk about how they should "eat the Rich"-- and the Catholics are wonderfully rich and powerful, aren't they? They have so many shiny things, after all.... And, somehow, the sarcasm isn't burning a hole in my keyboard.

And, sure enough, someone said just that, responding with two recent stories.**   And by recent, I mean they happened the week before.  The words are "innocent until proven guilty ... unless he's Catholic," aren't they? But, it's nice to see anyone can justify a hate crime is the target is "right."

But, thus far, Occupy Wall Street has endorsements from the Nazi party of America, the Communist party, and David Duke.

Between this and the above "evil Jesuit plot," it seems that a faceless, aimless rabble makes for a great Rorschach test for ideologists of any stripe.  "Oh look, there's a group of angry protesters, they must hate who I hate," or "they embody everything I despise."

Vatican Ninja Chibi.
"Grr. Arrgh"

While it is quite entertaining to watch a group of people go slowly insane, it's time these guys ought to come up with a coherent message. Hell, the Tea Party's wants could be summed up as "We hate big government, we want fewer taxes, less spending and no Obamacare."

With the OWS, we have the Nazis, the Klan, the Communists, "we hate Jews / big business / brand names / we're wearing brand names/ we hate bailouts but won't protest those who got bailouts ...."  

Oh, yeah, and they're an evil Jesuit conspiracy.....

Can I have my Vatican Ninjas now?

**The footnotes are below the break.

Why I hate politics (Cont): Oslo terrorist a "Christian." Not.

Last week, I took a look at the Norway terrorist, and I labeled the article "Nazis, I hate these guys," because everything I had read about this guy meant that he was so far to the right, he was starting to orbit the planet.  And I was waiting for someone credible to label everyone on one side of politics (Republicans) for it,

The New York Times did not fail to disappoint.

This scumbag's name is Anders Behring Breivik.  The New York Times claimed that the Norwegian who staged two deadly attacks in Oslo was a "gun-loving," "right-wing," "fundamentalist Christian," opposed to "multiculturalism."

Well, that didn't take long.

Last week, there were fewer posts. There were no music blogs, and I failed to post on Thursday. Why?  Because I was trying to go through Breivik's gaseous 1,500-page manifesto, "2083: A European Declaration of Independence."

Dear God, this man is a windbag.  And he's about as "Christian" as Richard Dawkins.  Matt is more a Christian that this guy is.  At least in the traditional, American sense. [Read Below the break for more]

Gay Marriage: So What?

Gay marriage was deemed legal in New York State over the past weekend....

As someone who's spent a lot of time on this blog doing Catholicism for dummies, I guess I would be expected to comment on this sort of thing.

To which one part of my says ... "So what?"  My personal politics says who cares. I don't care what anyone else does as long as they don't harm anyone else. I'm a little libertarian that way.  In fact, I had proposed a few times that we just make all "marriages" properly labeled.  Atheists and gays can have civil unions (because, really, marriage should be something religious). and anyone who can get married in a church can get married in any church that will have them. The End.

[More below the break]

Index: Atheists, Lent, and Evil Religions

Throughout Easter and a Lent, I did a lot of what my friend Jason called "High Intellectual" articles.

I'm never making that mistake ever again.

However, since it did have some interesting fan support.... if "fans" could be people screaming for your blood ... I figured I'd put it into a nice, compact little section on the blog. Think of it as a season in review that, with luck, I'll never inflict on anyone ever again.

The Snarky Theology series. My way of translating dogmatic theology into something that human beings can understand.

Snarky Theology 1: Catholic Cannibals. Looking at the theology of Swallow the leader. Eating your deity.

Snarky Theology 2: FAQs about Lent. Some fun facts about Lent that turned into a minor war.


The Flame war is postponed While I was busy having a flame war with an idiot on the blog, someone did soething stupid online. I fought back in the name of all sane people everywhere.

Snarky theology 3: Evolution, Creationists, and other Irritants. Evolution, what is it good for? My answer: who cares?

Snarky Theology 4: "Things that go boink in the night." Catholicism on Sex and Gays Pretty much what it says.

GOD H8TS JAPAN; Twitting with Phelps & Co.  Hint, it was published on 4-1-11


Snarky Theology 5: The Passion, Jews, and Good Friday. 


Snarky Theolgy 6: Easter: HE IS RISEN



The Guest Blog Index -- "Catholic fiction"

-- I had two weeks off from Snarky theology for two virtual book tours. One was a bit of Sherlock Holmes with Murder in the Vatican, and some Catholic science fiction from Karina Fabian's Infinite Space, Infinite God II

Murder in the Vatican Author Margaret Ann Lewis.

Guest blog (on writing historical figures in fiction) and Interview (on writing a book on Sherlock Holmes and Pope Leo XIII), and a Review of Murder in the Vatican, which can be found at Amazon.com


I did the same for Karina Fabian.

The Guest blog: where she talks about writing religion and science fiction

The interview, where I unleash my inner nerdom ...

And a review.


I think that was the most fun I had had that Lent. They were both a joy and a pleasure to have.

Evil religion / Atheist: Conclusion.

This is the very last post of anything remotely "High-intellectual." I'm tired, and I want to take a nap now. If you've been tracking the blogs of the last day, you don't need the disclaimer. If you haven't, this blog will make no sense to you.

However, if you've been paying attention, you probably already know where I've been going with all of the Evil religion and Atheist blogs.

My Conclusion: Culture makes people stupid, not religion.

Anthropology has whole bookcases dedicated to how society treats “the other.” The other can look different (xenotype), or act different (behavioral traits), but it's just plain different.

I was the worst of all possible worlds in grammar school. I was a nerd, and I was the fat kid, and I was beaten up a few times—I went from passive to aggressive, and things toned down. In high school, I was the loner, and I read, and I wrote song parodies (more on that much, much later), and I was the nerdy fat kid. I played psycho, and things toned down … up until it bit my in the ass.

In college, when I explained to one sociology professor who wanted to listen to “The stereotypes inherent in upper middle class white society,” the professor was shocked when I told her that I was a candidate to be a future serial killer. She was still in shocked after a classmate explained “Well, no offense, but he seems really smart, and he's really quiet. So....”

So, three levels of education, and I managed to be the outsider every time. Nothing to do with religion. You can beat up on three groups of people in New York: Catholics, smokers, and fat people, and I'm 2/3.

Atheists say that religion causes all of the bigotry and hatred in the world. I say that people in general suck, religion or no religion. That's called culture.

Look at the "Blood libel": it's in no one's religion. Check the Koran, Haditha, the Vatican, the Bible, it's not there. It's not anyone's doctrine. Yet it's all over the middle east, and it's out of medieval Europe, dispite Popes pulling their hair out over it for centuries (the Wikipedia article only mentions two: look up Rabbi David Dalin for a full list of Popes who have ulcers over Blood Libel morons)

Since the majority of people on the planet have not been atheists, there is no control group to prove your theory one way or another that an atheist society would be perfect, or in any way better.

Most of the professional atheists out there claim to be smarter, better, and more educated than anyone else. Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris say “We're scientists, we know what we're talking about.”

I say: You might be scientists, but you're practicing lousy science. You're making statements of fact out of theories. You can't prove it, you don't have a big enough control group for study. You're not anthropologists, and you wouldn't know a culture if you had yogurt tossed at you (microbiology joke, sorry).

Also, saying that “all atheists are smarter than you” also has issues. I mean, hell, there is a survey out there that says that most atheists have aspergers syndrome.

Should I take that study as gospel and say that Dawkins is an idiot savant? No.

Besides, Aspergers usually result in someone very intelligent, and very asocial; in the case of Matt, he's more socially well-adjusted than I am.
 
Although in the case of Dawkins, it would explain a few things as to the manner of his disputes … or he could be merely British, it's hard to tell.

In my evil religion post on Islam: the problems of the middle east turned out to be a culture that hasn't changed much since 300, and Nazis.

In my post on pederast priests, the problem also turned out to be cultural: the culture of any bureaucracy to not move its butt to adapt to a different solution to its problems....

As for the rest ... I'm not going to reiterate every argument I've made. I think I've bored you all quite enough.

Anyway .... be well, all.  I'm going to take a long, long nap.

****
Beat me up. Slander me. Whatever. However, use foul or abusive language, or anything that wouldn't get onto network tv, I will delete your comment ... after I wake up, certainly. If you dedicate one of your blogs to shredding me, feel free to post a link below, just spell my URL right.

Atheist complaint: Conform!

Disclaimer [ Blah Blah, Atheist problems with religion ... blah blah ... "high-intellectual" blog posts .... I'm borderline brain damaged at this point, so please check out previous blogs (literally, the one rght before this one, for the full disclaimer). Short version: this is a long-winded, overwritten blog post for theology nerds and egg heads. If you have no interest in that sort of thing, run -- Our most popular blogs are in the sidebar, as are the short stories, what this book is about, and we have entries on why anyone can enjoy this book, any politics involved, spytech, and even a section for fans of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction. If we don't have something you like ... wait five minutes.]

-How religion encourages conformity and non-doubt

You mean how like every culture encourages conformity?

Yes, because non-coformity is so encouraged by governments. Deviancy has always been rewarded everywhere at all times …

Atheist complaints: Random beliefs

{A while back, I asked Matt, friend of this blog, artist, atheist, and a few other things, to generate a list of what he found to be problematic with religion. He gave me a few.

I promised him I would use it. And I keep my promises

This is the last week I'm doing what my friend Jason calls "high-intellectual" blog posts. They are time consuming, draining, a lot of work, and I'm not sure they are at all entertaining. They've garnered some response, much of it hate mail.

My replies are long-winded, so this may take a few posts.

If you find yourself here by accident, or have no interest in the topic, I invite you to look around. Our most popular blogs are in the sidebar, as are the short stories, what this book is about, and we have entries on why anyone can enjoy this book, any politics involved, spytech, and even a section for fans of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction. If we don't have something you like ... wait five minutes. :)

Anyway, onto the complaint ....]

-The randomization of beliefs (i.e. stone gays to death, but adultery no longer means execution)

How very dogmatic. I don't know if this is an argument for one world religion (in which case, come to Rome,) or how everything is so darned regional / pastoral.

With the examples given, no one stones gays to death anymore, unless the rock throwers are in the back end of nowhere, and even in those cases …. Does anyone remember the last, most famous example? I believe it was Texas, in the late 1990s? Two idiots tied a young gay male to a tree and threw rocks at him. No one remembers that the motives in that case were not religious: it involved two psychos who were on a week-long, meth-fueled rampage, who capped their week off with a murder.

And stoning had ceased to be an issue in the Christian faith five seconds after the line “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Anti-theist complaints: Superiority complexes

[DISCLAIMER ...  I know, it's getting tiresome. Think about how I feel.

When Lent started, I figured I would do a whole bunch of "Snarky Theology" blog posts, followed by "Evil Religion" blogs. And, while I was at it, I asked Matt, friend of this blog, artist, atheist, and a few other things, to generate a list of what he found to be problematic with religion. He gave me a few. I promised him I would use it. And I keep my promises

This is the last week I'm doing what my friend Jason calls "high-intellectual" blog posts. They are time consuming, draining, a lot of work, and I'm not sure they are at all entertaining. They've garnered some response, much of it hate mail.

My replies are long-winded, so this may take a few posts.

If you find yourself here by accident, or have no interest in the topic, I invite you to look around. Our most popular blogs are in the sidebar, as are the short stories, what this book is about, and we have entries on why anyone can enjoy this book, any politics involved, spytech, and even a section for fans of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction. If we don't have something you like ... wait five minutes. :)

Anyway, onto the complaint ....]

-Each Faith's intrinsic superiority complex over all others

Oh, you mean like every other -ism on the face of the planet? Communism? Socialism? Leftism? Liberalism (by Francis Fukuyama)? Capitalism? Catholicism? Evangelicalism? Fundamentalism? Racism? Imperialism? Nationalism? Imperialism? Protestantism? Fascism? Radicalism? Totalitarianism? Atheism? Anti-theism?

Seriously, which one of the above says that they are not superior to everything and everyone?

Yes, atheism claims a superiority. It claims superiority over every religion. Atheism is so superior, Dawkins insists that religion is a form of child abuse. The only religion I've ever seen exercise that kind of superiority is in the Sudan, and that's more of a civil war than anything else.

If you are an atheist that does not believe it is superior to everyone else, please send a letter to Mr. Dawkins at your earliest convenience, and tell him he's a moron. Thanks.

I'm Catholic. While there are aspects of “superiority,” I'll going to refer you to my “You're going to Hell” blog post.

As for the rest … you don't need religion to have an intrinsic superiority complex. That's what nationalism is for. Or racism. Or evolutionary racism. Or phrenology..... long story, it was part of the whole Darwin / racism / imperialism trifecta.

Everyone's going to claim being superior over everyone else at some point or another. As the French. Or the British. Or any Generalismo in Latin America. Or Michael Moore. Or Christopher Hitchens.

Anti-theist complaints: Doctrine

[Disclaimer: When Lent started, I figured I would do a whole bunch of "Snarky Theology" blog posts, followed by "Evil Religion" blogs. And, while I was at it, I asked Matt, friend of this blog, artist, atheist, and a few other things, to generate a list of what he found to be problematic with religion. He gave me a few.

I promised him I would use it. And I keep my promises

This is the last week I'm doing what my friend Jason calls "high-intellectual" blog posts. They are time consuming, draining, a lot of work, and I'm not sure they are at all entertaining. They've garnered some response, much of it hate mail.

My replies are long-winded, so this may take a few posts.

If you find yourself here by accident, or have no interest in the topic, I invite you to look around. Our most popular blogs are in the sidebar, as are the short stories, what this book is about, and we have entries on why anyone can enjoy this book, any politics involved, spytech, and even a section for fans of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction. If we don't have something you like ... wait five minutes. :)

Anyway, onto the complaint ....]

Problem: The picking and choosing of doctrine from texts while ignoring others.

Without specific doctrine, that's going to be tough. Picking and choosing of doctrine …

Keep in mind that context applies a LOT. Not to mention culture plays a part....This is gonna take a while.

I think the best argument / example I can use are atheist Jews.

Anti-theist complaints: Mormons, gays

When Lent started, I figured I would do a whole bunch of "Snarky Theology" blog posts, followed by "Evil Religion" blogs. And, while I was at it, I asked Matt, friend of this blog, artist, anti-theist, and a few other things, to generate a list of what he found to be problematic with religion. He gave me a few.

I promised him I would use it. And I keep my promises

This is the last week I'm doing what my friend Jason calls "high-intellectual" blog posts. They are time consuming, draining, a lot of work, and I'm not sure they are at all entertaining. They've garnered some response, much of it hate mail.

My replies are long-winded, so this may take a few posts.

If you find yourself here by accident, or have no interest in the topic, I invite you to look around. Our most popular blogs are in the sidebar, as are the short stories, what this book is about, and we have entries on why anyone can enjoy this book, any politics involved, spytech, and even a section for fans of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction. If we don't have something you like ... wait five minutes. :)

Anyway, onto the complaint ....

-Mormon (and other sects) mistreatment of homosexuals

Mormons, I hate these guys … I've been to Utah, and the Stepford Wives effect is creey as all hell.
However, I think that religion has nothing to do with the overall question...

Bear with me.

I'm going to define "mistreatment" rather loosely. I've heard mistreatment as being everything from stoning to simply not being married in a Catholic church. I'm going to go with the lightest definition of mistreatment, where you can define it as simply being considered "other."

Let's start by removing religion from the equation, shall we?

Anti-theist complaints: Literal Interpretations

When Lent started, I figured I would do a whole bunch of "Snarky Theology" blog posts, followed by "Evil Religion" blogs. And, while I was at it, I asked Matt, friend of this blog, artist, atheist, and a few other things, to generate a list of what he found to be problematic with religion. He gave me a few.

I promised him I would use it. And I keep my promises

This is the last week I'm doing what my friend Jason calls "high-intellectual" blog posts. They are time consuming, draining, a lot of work, and I'm not sure they are at all entertaining. They've garnered some response, much of it hate mail.

My replies are long-winded, so this may take a few posts.

If you find yourself here by accident, or have no interest in the topic, I invite you to look around. Our most popular blogs are in the sidebar, as are the short stories, what this book is about, and we have entries on why anyone can enjoy this book, any politics involved, spytech, and even a section for fans of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction. If we don't have something you like ... wait five minutes. :)

Anyway, onto the complaint ....

-The fostering of extremism through literal interpretations of religious texts

To start with, I have a problem with this argument. Consider for a moment that a small minority of any religion has extremists in it. However, in Islam, when 10% of the population isn't that large … there are about a billion Muslims on the planet, so that gets blown out of proportion. Also, see the article.

I can't paint everyone with this brush. In the Catholic church, literalism was a heresy that was stamped out within a few hundred years. By the time St. Augustine, one of the earliest Church Fathers, came on the scene, it was already dead. It got resurrected later on.

So, I should probably jettison it now and move on. The Vatican already did. But I never knew when to leave well enough alone.

Science and Religion … Stupid Catholics.

Every time I hear that all of religion is against science, I just sigh.

They want to cite Galileo. You can read about him in my evolution article. Short version: Considering that he found himself on trial by insulting the Pope, he was lucky, and merely put under house arrest. The charges basically amounted to being a jerk without a license … I should note that Richard Dawkins has such a license. He's British.

Well, I'm Catholic. I think I'm part of the only religion that has it's own observatory. Two of them. One of them is parked outside the Pope's summer home of Castel Gandalfo. We also have a very odd blessing … in 1924, the Church has a blessing for a seismograph.

My church is weird.

Then they whine: evolution!!!  I reply: the Church gave it its "blessing" in 1926 -- meaning that if it is true, that's merely the mechanism of God's action, and it's perfectly okay for Catholics to believe in it.

The major cry about religion being against science amounts to a cry of “Oh, what about embryonic stem cells. Waaaahhhh!!!!!” The short version on embryonic stem cells is that they have been portrayed as a potential miracle cure for practically everything from cancer to paraplegia, and the evil religious people are against it, because all religious people are against science, and progress, etc.

The stated position of most religions I've kept up on has been “Can we have a scientific advancement that doesn't involve killing infants in utero? Thanks.”

However.... Considering that, in 2007, Kyoto University researcher Shinya Yamanaka has already been able to transform skin cells into any other type of cell, I don't think stems cells are really relevant, do you? (Nature, June 6, 2007).

But, what do I know? I'm only the stupid Catholic. Richard Dawkins says that all religious people are stupid, and Dawkins is an educated man.

Let's go through a brief history of scientific research. However, I have a little list … actually, it's a long, long list, and a good chunk of them are here.

I think I'll cover the big names to start with. Below the break

Evil Religions: Atheism

[As I said in the preface, not everything here is as is appears to be. Read the damn blog first, thanks.]

Let's talk about atheists for a moment.

Some really militant atheists like to talk about how evil religion is.... They are generally referred to as anti-theists: not only is there a God, but anyone who believes in God is someone to be wary of / someone who is a danger to the human race. Religion for them is the source of all evil, makes people believe in fairy tales, goes after homosexuals, etc. We've covered a lot of these in prior articles.

How would things look in an atheist society? Better? Worse?

Let me start by being totally, utterly, and completely unfair. Let's look at how large bodies of atheists treat some of the same topics. We have four, count 'em, four large nations that have completely and totally eschewed religion.

Ten Commandments of Atheism

If you look at the group of professional atheists, who I will generally refer to as the Dawkins-Hitchens crowd, they like to say that they're better than everyone else, because they're moral for no good reason, other than the fact that “it's what's right.” They aren't beholden to any sky daddy, they don't need no stinking afterlife, they're just plain good.

At the other extreme, atheists have been called ethical parasites. They can't come up with their own ethical code, so they leach off of the customs established by religious codification of morality and ethics. They can't come up with a standard of right and wrong, so, therefore, they mindlessly ape those around them and call themselves perfect.

… I'm not with either of them.

Evil Religions 2: Baby-raping Catholic Priests.

Finn's Law: Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.

[Preface to the evil religion blog posts is here.]
I mentioned a while ago that some moron threatened me because I even implied that someone out in the universe could be more corrupt than the Catholic Church. I didn't defend anyone, didn't consider defending anyone. I merely posted some statistics from John Jay University and the Department of Education.

Objection: “The Catholic Church was abusing children in the 1950s” …
Answer: Were there priests abusing children in the 1950s? Yes. Was it the entire church? No. The church figured it could always be handled “in house.” Let's ship them away, let's put them away from any temptation, let's put them in the drunk tank to “dry out” for a few months. Then they'll be better. They'll be fixed.

Why would they do this? Why would anyone believe something that stupid? Aside from the fact that it was the 1950s?

Oh, BECAUSE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS TOLD THEM THAT PEDERASTS COULD BE FIXED.

I'm serious. The Church relied on medical professionals, on "science," instead of listening to one of their own priests, who told them to boot their asses to the curb.

Father Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of a group known as “AA for priests” (link above), noticed in 1952 that abusive priests were not being “cured,” and suggested firing them. The Church overruled him, and relied instead on psychologists. Even Boston Cardinal Bernard Law sent pederasts to psychologists for screening and treatment, and got clinical approval to put them back on the pulpit.

He got approval! By psychologists!

You see, a perfectly medieval church would have settled this the easy way. A whole bunch of villagers could have taken out the local pederast and thrown him in the river after a whole bunch of Unpleasant Things had been done to his body. But nooooo, Rome had to rely on "science" (psychology is a Bachelors of Arts degree, not of science). The Church was perfectly modern about it. Perfectly understanding about it …

And if anyone had just asked my opinion, someone would have been served an enema of hydrofluoric acid…


Actually, Ireland had the best response. One professor of mine, back at St. John's University, complained about a pederast who had been shipped “out of the way” from the Republic of Ireland. He shook his head and muttered repeatedly about how shameful it was. The pederast in question had been shipped to Belfast … the highly-violent, gun-toting, Catholic-killing slums of Belfast.

When I asked if anyone had heard from the priest ever again, the professor said, "Not that I know of, why?"

I didn't have the heart to explain to this fellow that they weren't “hiding” him; it's as close as they could get to an execution.

Anyway …

To get back to the conversation in general, I'm not sure how many people understood the concept of 100% recidivism in the 1950s. And I'm not sure how many do today. For example, I have a friend. He had been abused in grammar school, by a father-son pederasty team. My friend lives in Great Neck, New York, and ever since the bastards were put away, he and his fellow victims have been ridiculed, lambasted, accused of lying, of being bribed, of everything under the sun short of being serial killers. He still lives with this, today ... in secular Great Neck ... and all of this was over two public school teachers. Now, tell me, what would someone like him have gone through in 1950s America if the abusers were priests? Tell me the traumas wouldn't have been compounded with public attention …?

And if someone asked my opinion…

Moving on.

Objection: “Yes, but priests are still being moved around!”

Answer: Again, you mean the ones that aren't thrown in jail because the Catholic church threw them there? We can go for two possible answers. As I said above, priests within a closed system are protecting their own bad apples ... like Doctors and Policemen have been known to do ... and politicians, and lawyers, and most other human organizations on the planet ....

However, my thought? I suspect the answer is bureaucratic inertia.

Nope, I'm dead serious.

Consider: most priests now being hauled away in handcuffs entered the priesthood before psychological screenings were in place. All of their bosses entered when the accepted method of dealing with abusers was to send them to therapy. The whole upper administration is populated by people who were taught that psychology could fix these offenders.

Cardinal Law, mentioned above, is a prime example …

And, I want to ask this one more time: If these people were sent to shrinks, what freaking moron declared them fit for duty?

Finn's Law: Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.

Objection: “Yes, but priests are all baby-rapers!”

I love this argument too. Why?

The biggest number I've ever seen on pederasty in the church is a possible 8% of priests of OF THE LAST FIFTY YEARS. It's probably 4% or less, according to John Jay University, who did a study on this... click on this link to find it.

Let's look a little closer.

About 4 percent of U.S. priests ministering from 1950 to 2002 were accused of sex abuse with a minor, according to the first comprehensive national study of the issue.

The study said that 4,392 clergymen—almost all priests—were accused of abusing 10,667 people, with 75 percent of the incidents taking place between 1960 and 1984. [Author's note: before psychological screening was in place]

During the same time frame there were 109,694 priests, it said.....

The study, released in Washington Feb. 27, [2003] was commissioned by the U.S. bishops' National Review Board, ....

The study said the sharp decline in abuse incidents since 1984 coupled with the declining percentage of accusations against priests ordained in recent years "presents a more positive picture" than the overall statistics.

It said that 68 percent of the allegations were made against priests ordained between 1950 and 1979, while priests ordained after 1979 accounted for 10.7 percent of the allegations......

Regarding substantiated allegations against priests in ministry at the time, the most common action by church authorities was to send the priest for medical evaluation or treatment, said the study.

Although most of the incidents occurred before 1985, two-thirds of the allegations have been reported since 1993 .....

Hmm, so as time goes on, there seem to be fewer and fewer of these bastards. Funny that.

So, the US Bishops go to a secular authority in criminal justice, and make them look through all of their records. It's sort of hard to pull the wool over the eyes of people who work at John Jay University. And I suspect most Bishops get up around noon.

Trying to make a claim that there are sooo many hidden -- keep in mind, would you, that the 10,667 number is the number of victims that they are accused of abusing. Not convicted. Not investigated and cleared. Simply the accusations. Who keeps paperwork like that?

Welcome to the Catholic Church, we keep records on everything. Even accusations.

Objection: So what, why are so many pederasts priests?
Let me think, why would child molesters try to get into the priesthood … for the same reason they would be camp counselors and teachers, easy access. Protestants have a worse rate of pederasts, and the teachers…

Ah, teachers...

Statistics professor Charol Shakeshaft, of the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, estimates the between 1991 and 2000, 290,000 students were sexually abused by public school teachers and personnel. One in every ten American children has been sexually abused at school. And only 1% of allegations were investigated by the school board.

Catholic priests have had 10,667 allegations (not convictions, allegations) between 1950 and 2002. Of those allegations, 3% ended in a guilty verdict. 3%. So, hmm, at the end of the day, out of 4,392 accused priests, only about 131 were convicted over anything...

About 131 schmucks have been used as a stigma on an entire religion. Hmmm....

Now, obviously, some accusations turned out to be false, and some turned out to be not proven .... and let's assume that some were never reported, because some aren't. So, let's assume these numbers cancel each other out, and stick with 10,667 victims.

So, wait -- in nine years, public school teachers have abused twenty-nine times the number of children than an entire profession of priests over the course of sixty years?

On average, abusive priests have been accused of going after 810 kids per year, but the public schools have assaulted 32,000 per annum …

Wow, Catholic Conspiracies? Really? Rome has nothing on the teachers union....

Oh, and you will notice that it is unfair, and psychotic to make these arguments. Last week, we had a teacher note that by merely looking at the statistics is unfair and misleading, and worthy of someone in North Korea.

And he's right.

And blaming any group for what less than 1% of it's members have done over the course of five decades is just as unfair, and just as misleading.

Objection: “Yes, but priests abuse so many … ”
At the end of the day, do you know how much Catholic priest pederasty count for the worldwide crimes of pederasty? 1%. They account for one percent of all sexually abused children on the planet. And most of that is done by straight men who are married to the mother of their victims.

The priesthood, the Church, everyone, is raked over the coals because a minority of their priests are scumbags who should be set on fire, all of whom came in before psychology was able to screen for them in the priesthood.

Proper psychological the screenings were in place by the early 1990s, and we haven't had many, if any, problems with anyone who had been ordained after that. A proper system for reporting and investigating this crime was only recently established around the late 1990s, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who now goes under another name. The Pope. And he's been rather pissed about the whole thing. John Paul II was also annoyed, but his indignation was limited since he was busy dying.

The only reason anyone knows about the Catholic priesthood and their scumbags is because the Catholic Church keeps record of everything, so these bastards can be hunted down.

Hmm ... Before psychological screenings, and there were only 131 psychopaths let through. That's not bad.

Granted, thanks to "medical advice," some thought they could be "cured."

Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.

Objection: “Yes, but they should all be taken out and dealt with harshly.”
Oh, I'm an even bigger proponent of harsh treatment than anybody. See above for hydrofluoric acid. In fact, I would say “let's out and hunt down and murder every last one of the bastards, without trial.” My way would be to introduce painful methods of harm that would be recorded, and later shown to terrorists and Guantanamo Bay, and the terrorists would be given an option: this, or waterboarding.

But that's me. And I am a moderately deranged writer, who channels homicidal tendencies into novels, and I'm also the proud owner of a “Waterboarding Instructor” t-shirt.

But, courts and laws should be fair. We can agree to that, right? I mean, hell, if we wanted to, we could sign a law, and rid all statutes of limitations on all pederasts, forever. Period. I'm for that, how about you? Are you for that? Why not? Well, it doesn't matter, because no one listens to us …

Here's my problem. You have folks in the ACLU who cry out against pederast priests, and “lets go after them at every conceivable opportunity, no matter how old they are, or how old their crimes are”….

And they represent the North American Man-Boy Love Association at the same time. The motto of NAMBLA: Eight is too Late.

Conclusion.

You know what? Let's say the atheists are right. Let's say we get rid of all the churches on the entire planet. Let's get rid of the Catholic church.

Let all of the pederasts go into public school teaching, that way, they'll never get caught.

Now, if I were some people, I could take a look at the 32,000 abused children a year, and I could twist it, and I would say “Let's burn down the public schools, and shoot all the teachers.” This is more or less the logic I have seen applied to the Catholic Church in this regard..... but that logic is stupid, misleading, and psychotic. More than I am, anyway.

But, since I am a far more reasonable person than those nut cases, can I suggest that professions where children are easily accessible will always have problems, because pederasts will always try to get into those institutions, and it's hard to screen everybody?

But, for the record, I'm sending my kid to Catholic school. Or home schooling. Because my children have a better shot of being struck by lightning than being abused by a Catholic priest. And, in the occasion of a priest or Catholic school teacher abusing my kid, I know that the New York Times will come to my defense should he be doused in gasoline and set on fire.

At the end of the day, I think I can summarize my argument as follows: Doctors kill more people per year than car crashes, yet we still go to them. Some psychos gamed a bureaucracy that's slow to adapt, only the bureaucracy is made up of priests. It is an invalid argument to say that just because a small percentage were corrupt, and some were too stupid to know how to deal with them, every one of them is just as corrupt. Like every bureaucracy, it's slow and it's stupid. And .... everyone with me now ....

Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Equally Attributed to Stupidity.
The entire scandal is a fabrication – not that children were abused, but that the Church “did nothing.” When problems first appeared in the 1950s, Church officials consulted psychologists, who “treated” the accused and declared them cured. The priests who grew up with this method of dealing with pederasts were officials when the later scandals broke. Even Cardinal Law of Boston sent abusers to psychological therapy.

The true scandal is that the therapists were not sued, then hung, drawn and quartered for recommending that these priests be allowed back out among the general public.

Pope John Paul II did not let abusive priests go free under his watch. After the 1980s scandal, new screenings were put in place to keep new abusers from entering. When the second scandal broke at the start of the century, he had Cardinal Ratzinger establish a system for investigating these crimes. The problems of the scandals started when the Church broke from tradition – tradition would have had these priests immediately thrown out. Medieval tradition would have defrocked them, assuming the church could get to these priests before the local townspeople. When the Church tried a “modern” cure, that is when things started to go awry. Ironically, John Paul II was also criticized during his life for being too traditional in his thinking. We should be grateful that he was.

And, below you can see all of the rules and regulations the Church now has for stopping predator priests.

Evil Religions 1: Allahu Akbar.

An evil religion blog post.

When I first proposed the "Evil Religions" series of blogs, I figured I would make it ironic. You may all remember the "first" Evil Religion post back on April 1st. This is the real one.

Before you get your panties in a twist, I warned readers of this blog quite some time ago that there would be a series of “Evil Religion” blog posts, and that it wouldn't be what you think it is. Guess what, it's still not going to be what you think it is. Read the rest of this preface here.

Now, let's start with our first “Evil Religion.”  The following can be footnoted in the works of Bernard Lewis, David Dalin, Ralph McInerny, or Roy Schoeman’s “Salvation is from the Jews”

The Middle East has a problem, and it's not Islam. It's their culture... which is also not Islam.

Yes, sorry, hate to break it to all of you, the culture of the Middle East was not substantially altered by The Prophet. Mainly because there were no real fundamental building blocks for the culture to be altered …

The trouble with the Middle East, in part, can be traced to the Nazis.

No, I am not being allegorical, but literal.

If you're a newcomer to this blog, you may not have heard of the term “Hitler’s Pope”: that Eugenio Pacelli, aka Pope Pius XII, worked with, for, or around Hitler in support of the final solution of the Holocaust.

What I'm almost certain you never hear about is what has been labeled Hitler’s Mufti.

Preface: All Religions are Evil, Muahahaha.

No, they're not, but why be picky?

Before you get preemptively annoyed, I warned readers of this blog quite some time ago that there would be a series of “Evil Religion” blog posts, and that it wouldn't be what you think it is.

Guess what, it's still not going to be what you think it is.

I am sick and tired of the ignorant Bill Maher's of the world automatically blaming religion for everything wrong in the world. Guess what, Bill, people will still be stupid, with or without religion. I'd even make a case that people are dumber without religion, unless they replace it with philosophy – and there are fewer philosophy scholars than there are theologians.

The atheists I know personally are better people than I am, but then again, they tend to think; which is more than I can say for Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Bill Maher. I'll see if I can slap those three around at some point—since, let's face it, atheism is a religion too, and they want to be the high priests when they grow up.

I would include Christopher Hitchens in here, if I could take the man seriously. Most of his arguments are anecdotal, personal rants that are more about him than about theology or religion. It's less about atheism, and more about him being an obnoxious Brit ... which is redundant to me (I'm mostly Irish by background, I have to make fun of the British. I think it's in my contract somewhere.)

By the way, for the record, the only atheists I intend to drag into this mess are professional atheists, like Dawkins, Harris, or Maher. Because they make a living off of it. Because, in some parts of their philosophy, they really should know better, and because they're jerks.

Thus endeth the preface.  The war starts soon.

GOD H8TS JAPAN; Twitting with Phelps & Co.

Subtitle: Evil Religions 1: Shinto.

I mentioned a while back that I would consider possibly doing a series on Evil Religions, and that I would save this for later.  But I had to get this one off of my chest.  You see, if you've followed my twitter (Apiusmannovel) lately, you will have noticed that I've been having a battle of wits with the Phelps clan. 

Yes, Phelps, of Westboro.  I've mentioned them once ... or three times ....

However, my eyes have been open.  All of that stuff about Japan they've been saying?  It's been right.  God took Japan by the shoulders and shook it like a rag doll.

Why?

Because of Shinto.

Yes, Shinto is the most evil religion out there.

As Jim Butcher has noted, Shinto is a nature religion—everything in nature, Shinto says, has a spirit, a kami in Japanese. You respect the kami of a mountain, because it will crush you like a bug! With the kami of a pebble, it's a pebble, who cares?

But Shinto has spawned the worst evil ever known to mankind.

Worse than Imperial Japan.

Worse than the Bataan death march.

Because, in the 20th century, someone decided that they were going to take all of the worse elements of Shinto, and merge it with all of the most violent, horrific aspects of pro-Wrestling.

The result....

POKEMON!

We have to get them all .... and kill them!

This proves it!

All religions are eeeeevvvvviiilllll, AND MUST BE DESTROYED!!!

SHINTO DELENDA EST!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.

…..

…...

…..

….

Happy April Fool's Day, from A Pius Man.

Yeah, it was a little obvious, wasn't it?

A real Evil Religion blog series will start after Easter ... maybe.

Oh, for those of you following my duel with the Phelps Klan, I sent them my original article on phelps.  Their response:

 MargieJPhelps @APiusManNovel Too many boring words Zzzzzzzzzz @jabezphelps

When I suggested that I had been writing for grammar school, and I should have written for the inbred, their reply:

jabezphelps @APiusManNovel @margiejphelps Or maybe you could stop being #boring and get your own sign and you cry out against this nation.

So I sent them Ann Coulter's article on the Westboro Baptist Church. I figure the venom would penetrate no matter what.

I didn't want to give the game away, but the title of todays blog: Tweeting with Twits.
 
Do you think I used enough small words for them this time?

And, yes, having a battle of wits with the Phelps people is like they brought a knife to an artilery duel.