The (liberal's) Rejection of Religion...

Before I begin on this subject, I wish it to be known that I am not a godly person. Far from it. I do not hold to many traditional notions of Christianity, finding in them less a way of life than I usually interpret them as a consequence of mythology and long-useless tradition: the Pope sits on the Vatican Hill in Rome much as the Roman Pontifex Rex of yore did, a simple figurehead, to whom is attached much ceremony, superstition, and attribution of sacredness that is otherwise unwarranted -- as was true of his Roman prototype 1,000 years before.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is less religious man than politician. This is obvious if one reads the history of England with a critical eye, and if one takes note that the modern Archbishop has, for all intents and purposes, no bishopric -- the pews are empty, the English non-conformists never took the COE seriously, and the good Anglican simply selects which bits of dogmatic flotsam and jetsam best fit their version of bastardized Christianity (mostly the ones where they get to rationalize what would once have been considered sinful) --  and he becomes one more symbolic anachronism, a Man simply going through the motions of pomp and circumstance, in keeping with traditions that most people cannot recall the origins of. Nor do they care to recall.

Islam is obviously not a religion; it is a military code, at best, and at worst, it is a rationalization of the Nomadic Code of the Arabian Desert -- do unto others before they do unto you, and if they manage to do first, then whine like a bitch about what a victim you are while plotting your sneaky-ass-revenge-from-behind-because-you-have-no-balls. If Islam is anything, it is, at heart, a "me-too" religion; if the Jews can consider themselves chosen, and the Christians can be considered the only ones worthy of "saving", then we'll just co-opt their religion and reserve the same chauvinism for ourselves.

Apathy Explained...

My apologies for such a long absence. I normally would not have gone this long without making a post of any kind, but truth be told, I'm in a phase where I could really give a shit.
Sure, I could have posted 500 of the Obama/Pelosi/Liberals/Feminists/Muslims-Are-Stupid-type articles over the last month and a half. Heck, I can do that in my sleep. The problem is that it gets repetitive. One can only make the same self-obvious statements (well, to anyone with a pulse and a baboon-level IQ, that is) before one begins to feel as if there is no point to it. That is to say, there is no point in making the same points.

The Circular Firing Squad...

Darwin was wrong.

The idea that living organisms evolve in order to take advantage of the circumstances of their environment, and adapt to changing conditions in order to assure the survival of the species, is belied by the existence of a certain subsection of the American electorate which is apparently so stupid and so stubborn that they are doing everything in their power to ensure their own disappearance.

And in the process, make life hell for everyone else.

This strange creature, which seemingly has embraced suicide as a strategy, is a certain brand of person who goes by a most deceptive, inaccurate, and self-bestowed appellation.

They call themselves "True Conservatives".

A Friendly Letter to Evangelical Christians...

Dear Evangelical Douchebags,

This is to inform you that I will no longer defend you in any political arguments that I have with Libtarded Obamabots. You have shown, by your otherwise inexplicable reluctance to vote for Mitt Romney in the last Presidential Election -- probably because Pastor Bob told you he was a Mormon, and thus, the next, best thing to a devil worshiper -- that you are no longer worthy of the effort.

By staying home on Election Day, you allowed the agents of the Anti-Christ (Obama and the democratic party) to win.Your inability to let your good sense override the dictates of your phony-baloney religion has allowed Evil to prosper, and in the process, you have failed in your responsibilities to your country and your fellow Man.

I hope that make-believe God that you grovel and give money to is busy striking your names off the Rapture list as we speak.

I used to defend you, even if I didn't agree with you, to Libtards, but no more. There is no defense for what you have done, and now the rest of us will have to suffer for your "principles". No wonder the Romans wanted you dead.

Please kindly take those Bibles you thump and thrust in people's faces and shove them up your collective ass. Sideways. I hope your rectums bleed from the massive number of papercuts that the book of Revelations alone should inflict.

I hate to have to say this, but Julian Bond was correct -- there is a Taliban Wing in the GOP, and they sat home on Election Day. They have done more damage to this country than the real Taliban ever could.

Fuck You and Have a Nice Day.

Signed,

The Lunatic

This Just In: Islam is a Violent Criminal Mental Disorder for Retards...

So says a Danish psychiatrist. No shit, Sherlock?

It appears as if this article is mostly a straight translation from the original Danish. The grammar can get a bit rough.

The result of this doctor's research?

Islam demands criminal behavior from it's followers, and then puts them in a peculiar mental state that prevents then from distinguishing right from wrong.

Sort of like Al Sharpton and Je$$e Jackson.

The solution the author advocates?

Stop 'positive discrimination' (i.e. affirmative action) in favor of Muslims, and demand they integrate according to Danish standards.

Say that in this country and a picket line starts to form on your front lawn. I applaud this man for having a set of balls.

"Fake, But Accurate" Was Good Enough for Dan Rather...

I can just see some guy standing before a Sharia Court exclaiming, "But Your Honor, it was the only time she would hold still..."

Whoops! The whole "Muslim Necrophilia" thingy that I blogged about yesterday might be some kind of internet hoax.

Necrophilia, Egyptian-Style...

The next person who recycles that Leftard-approved trope about “all cultures being equally valid” within earshot of me is gonna get punched in the fucking mouth.

News from Egypt, Fountainhead of that New-Fangled, Oxymoronic Islamic Democracy Thingy we learn today that what passes for a Parliament there is considering a law that would make “Farewell Intercourse” with your wife a legal right.

On Mormons and Evangelicals...

It has been a frequent assertion on this page that one Willard "Mitt" Romney, Presidential Candidate, would have to endure a grueling uphill slog towards that office based upon the simple fact that his Mormon faith makes him suspect in the eyes of Southern Religious Conservatives, who view Mormons as the next, best thing to apostates and child rapists.

Recent events -- i.e. The GOP southern caucuses and primaries -- have shown this to be true. It didn't take a rocket scientist to predict this outcome; all one needed was some first-hand experience of Southerners, in general, and Southern Religious Doofuses, in particular, to figure this out.

On Condoms and Catholics....

RE: The recent tempest regarding the ObamaCare mandates on birth control vis-à-vis religious institutions.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me that Muslim religious institutions must comply with the law, too. There has been a curious silence on this matter. One would either expect that any Muslim negatory response would come with an ostentatious explosion, or since one has been lacking, that another 'secret' deal has been brokered behind the scenes which exempts the Exploding People from this provision of ObamaCare.

I'm also waiting to hear from all those Left-wing retards who screamed about the draconian threats to personal liberties and privacy that were embodied in the Patriot Act to explain why it is that the government should respect a terrorist's right to privacy, vis-a-vis wiretapping in order to prevent a mass murder, and that it should have the right to drag people's sexual lives into the light of day and infringing upon people's right of conscience in order to score a cheap political point on behalf of a walking-wounded President who hasn't got the proverbial snowball's chance in hades to be re-elected.

I'm not expecting to hear anything especially logical or coherent on either account, so there's no point in waiting for answers.

The Religion of Peace, My Ass...

Muslim douchebags in my hometown hope to show The Softer Side of Islam.

A little punch, a little sponge cake, maybe a DJ, and then something will probably explode shortly thereafter. Happens every time you put more than three Muslims together in the same place, don’t you know.

Or maybe they just want to hold a symposium on the joys of Donkey Sex?

Of Catholics and Contraceptives...

On the newfangled-and-iron-fisted idea that Barack Obama (supposedly a Constitutional Scholar? Go figure!) and a bunch of died-in-the-wool Libtards can force the Catholic Church to provide contraceptives and abortion benefits for it's employees in violation of the First Amendment, I have the following thing to say:

Barack Obama can force the Church to provide the Morning-After Pill to it's employees just as soon as:

Obama mandates that every mosque in America should allow unfettered access to it's grounds, members and records by the FBI,24/7/365.

Why Conservatives Fear Newt Gingrich...

I used to think I was a Conservative, but that was before I realized what the difference between a Conservative and a Republican really was. This realization didn't just sneak up on me, arriving with one of those "Eureka!" moments where the skies seem to part and thunder echoes across the valley, with the trumpets of angels heralding some great epiphany.

Stuck In Neutral...

It must really suck to be Mitt Romney. I mean, if you took away the rugged good looks and the vast personal fortune you'd start to wonder just what was left, and then, upon reciting your (extremely short) list of remaining virtues, slowly begin to understand just why it is that Mr. Romney can't seem to break the 25% mark in most presidential polls these days.

Straight from the Horse's Ass: Mormons are a 'Cult'...

I’ve said it before many times on these pages; it’s something that should be obvious to anyone with enough brain cells to breathe without mechanical assistance: Evangelical Christians are amongst the most obnoxious of douchebags in America today.


It’s also been said on these very pages that the biggest obstacle in Mitt Romney’s road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is his Mormon Faith. When the subjects of ‘Evangelical’ and ‘Mormon’ collide, the resulting stupidity is usually one-way, and serves as a warning that maybe we shouldn’t be too hasty about banning abortion on demand, just yet.

Can We Please Start Sending These People Back Where They Came From?

Muslims have to invent 'hate crimes' so as to garner sympathy. It's part of the jihad, you know; it's not enough to simply kill the infidel, you have to make him feel like it's his own fault that you blew his office building up, or sawed his head off.

In some libtard-dominated precincts of this country, irrational guilt is mightier than the sword, and the primary victims of the jihad (the ones who won't fight back in the name of  a 'tolerance' that only ever goes one way) will do their level best to hold perfectly still while someone cuts their throat...just to be helpful, neighborly, and PC.

You would think that if you were going to mastermind a fake hate crime, you could have done just a tad better with a little more planning and attention to detail. This attempt is so incredibly transparent. The giveaway: I rather doubt someone who wants you out of his country would go through the trouble of asking you to do so in your own language.

Then again, people this monumentally stupid and anal-retentive are, perhaps, unworthy of any sympathy, at all.

People who are capable of beating otherwise-innocent and unsuspecting people to a pulp in a gang attack, and who have the absolute gall to walk the streets looking like this while they do it, are likewise, unworthy of sympathy.

So far as I'm concerned, until the day comes when Western Muslims can be relied upon to turn in their batshit-insane brothers and uncles before they detonate, and until they take to the streets in the name of tolerance and liberty in the same way as their fellows take to the streets in support of jihad and bloodletting, they're not going to be given any respect or consideration from me.

I hold out no hope that such will ever be the case, so let's save everyone a lot of hassle: leave now. This way you don't have to whine and feel put upon, leading you to craft fake hate crimes, and so I can go back to using airplanes anytime I want to, and I don't have smell you.

(H/T FiveFeetofFury, SteynOnline)

End-of-World Fearmonger Disappointed...

The man seems beaten and dejected, and is perhaps the first casualty of a long, silent war against extreme Christianity?

And yeah, it is extreme Christianity. If we can have Extremist Islam, why not Extremist Christianity? Anything which disguises itself as a religious faith, yet fervently prays for the End of the World and the horrible deaths of billions of people it considers 'sinners' while screaming selfishly for it's own salvation -- fuck everyone else! -- is extreme.

And fucking crazy.

We may have just seen the first 'convert'; a formerly-dedicated follower of this stupidity just had his deepest and most cherish beliefs tested. And they failed. In front of crowds, television cameras, newspaper reporters, in front of the entire world. Now Mr. Fitzpatrick apparently wants nothing more than to withdraw from the world, and there's even hints that his own family has now ostracized him. I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost, because I happen to know he got a good education (I went to the same high school as Fitzpatrick) and I know they taught him how to think. He forgot that, and instead let unquestioning credulity (they call it 'faith') guide him instead of his innate reason. Where did it get him? He's flat broke now, having squandered $140,000 on bus and subway ads telling people to repent. He's been embarrassed before the eyes of the world. His family holds him at arm's length. Everything he's believed in or ever felt passionately about turns out to have been a false hope.

I'd be fucking depressed, too.

Some people just weren't fazed at all and will continue on with their mindless stupidity as if nothing had ever happened, and these are the really dangerous ones, if you ask me. The true fanatics. Under different circumstances, every last one of them has the makings of a suicide bomber.

It's Not The End of the World...

Warning: This is going to be offensive...very offensive. And on so many levels, too. You were warned.

So, it wasn't the End of the World, but it was supposed to be. Let's put aside, for a moment, the mentality that was on display by the so-called Prophets of Doom; we'll get to that in a minute. While I was always pretty certain that the so-called Bible-approved Date of Departure wasn't really coming, the really disappointing part of the whole "May 21st is Doomsday" hoax was that it's almost a shame that it didn't happen. I said almost.

It's disappointing in this regard: Had Reverend It's-This-Time-For-Sure been right, some of the great questions which have caused so much rancor, hard feelings and bloodshed would have been answered unequivocally. If you're a Christian, you would have known that all that kneeling and mumbling had not been in vain, and the proof -- that God, does indeed, exist -- and the Christian version of Her (I figure God must be a woman, because only a woman could fuck things up this badly and then still have the nerve to demand to be worshiped) would have been upheld above all others. You would have been proven right, and those Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists would have been left standing there with egg on their faces, boy!

Wouldn't they have felt retarded knowing they had been worshiping at false altars? Could you imagine what, if it were possible to find out just what they might be thinking at that exact moment of...ahem...revelation, Osama Bin Laden and Ayotollah Khomeni might have thought? Would it have been "Ooops! Sorry!" or would it be "Damn, I guess this elevator is on it's way to the ground floor, after all!"

Another interesting question that would have been answered would have been "Will Tim the Annoying Jesus Freak From Accounting be getting Raptured, or is he just the sanctimonious putz that I always took him for?" By that, I mean would all the self-satisfied people you know who are so secure about their eventual place in Heaven -- and can't stop talking about it -- still be here, and could you imagine both the surprise and the horror on their faces if they weren't? But I guess that's mean of me to think of it that way.

Imagine the confusion, consternation, and the sound of 2 billion simultaneous palm-to-forehead smacks if the Christians, Jews AND Muslims had been left behind, and only the Druids were Raptured? The Jedi Knights? The Moonies? Talk about being pissed off and played for suckers!

Anyhow, if you're like me (and you survived 10 years of Catholic schools without murdering someone) you pretty much knew the whole thing was bullshit, if only because, well...consider the source. The Great Non-Event will be explained away in the coming days in the following manner;

The True Intent of the Almighty is often simply beyond the means of Man to discern, and despite what we think about our having 'knowledge' we truly have none when it comes to whether, when, or how, God will see fit to finally bring about the End of Days. The ways of God are mysterious, and we've made a grave mistake in trying to get inside God's mind instead of doing that which we are commanded to do, which is to get inside God's Good Graces. We've sinned by trying -- the sins of Pride and Arrogance -- and because we've sinned, God has decided that we're just not ready to see fulfillment of Her Prophecy at the present time. She will do so on Her terms, and not our's. Still, if it brought one person back into God's loving Embrace, and made just one Sinner repent his sins, it doesn't matter whether we were right or not: a much greater good has been served.

And five years from now Reverend Global-Holocaust will be entirely forgotten. He'll still be exceedingly rich and running his nationwide radio empire (it's amazing how that happens), but forgotten. At least until he makes another (wrong) prediction based on his peculiar blend of prophecy, Bible study, and numerology (Shocking! Numerology is usually so goddamned accurate!) This is the second time he's been wrong about the Date of Departure for his fellow morons, but apparently being wrong about Armageddon is sort of like being a stockbroker: You still get paid no matter what.

Considering the system Reverend Camping uses to predict these things is pretty much the same thing your broker uses to calculate a P/E ratio, I figure they're more or less in the same business -- selling false hopes, usually based upon faulty data, a great big wild-ass guess, and questionable accounting methods.

Oh, by the way, Reverend Camping has also predicted that God will incinerate the Universe sometime in October. Mark that date on your calendar. But even this beggars a question: if God is going to destroy the ENTIRE UNIVERSE, why bother to destroy this world five months early? For someone who's supposed to be All-Wise, this doesn't sound very smart to me. Why not do it all in one go, and save some time and effort?

Then again, God doesn't appear to be very smart at all. A cursory reading of Genesis -- the very first book of the Bible! -- pretty much tells you that God hasn't always got Her shit together;

There's actually TWO versions of the Creation of Man in Genesis. In the first one, Man and Woman are created together from the dust of the Earth. In the second one, Adam is all alone, and so God puts him to sleep, grabs a rib and makes Eve. Woman isn't even made from a Prime Cut. This would, taken literally, make it seem as if Adam has TWO wives. In many interpretations of Genesis, this is indeed the case; the First Woman (named Lilith) simply refuses to play a subordinate role to Adam and is banished from Eden for being a complete bitch and not knowing 'her place'. She believes that since she and Adam are created simultaneously that they are equal.

You would have thought that a perfect, all-knowing God-with-a-Master-Plan would have anticipated that if Her intention had been otherwise. Anyways, Lilith proves an unsatisfactory companion for Adam, and so God creates Eve, or as I like to refer to her "the Original Airhead". God, apparently, had this very same problem with Her other Creations, the Angels. Some of them didn't take too kindly to the idea that Man would be held higher in the esteem of God, even though She created them first. One of them was Lucifer, and another, Satan. You would think She would have seen that coming, too.

So Men, next time you wonder why it is that you just can't understand Women, just think of it this way: Even God took two swings at it -- She fucked it up twice -- and then gave up, probably in frustration.

We're told that God is All-Knowing and All-Seeing, and yet, God is often curiously absent when critical events take place in the Bible. When Eve is tempted by the Serpent, God isn't there to save her. After all, Eve doesn't know any better and needs guidance, especially so because God forbid her to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, which means God probably intended to keep us all stupid in the first place. And if so, then why put a Tree of Knowledge in the Garden at all? And what a rotten trick to play: put a Tree of Knowledge in there and then tell Eve not to eat from it, knowing full well that God has implanted the Human Nature Chip in us... and then She punishes us for following our programming! I'm telling you, someone's off Her game. When Cain kills Abel, God is, likewise, AWOL; She only knows something has happened because Abel's 'blood calls out' to Her. She doesn't even know what's happened, or who did it, which is pretty lame when you consider there ain't that many people to keep track of at the time. You don't need Columbo or Sherlock Holmes for this case. Why is Abel dead in the first place? Because God didn't like Cain's gift, the ungrateful witch!

Maybe She was making a sandwich or taking a dump when those things happened? Maybe it's just me, but you would think a being capable of creating an entire universe in the blink of an eye would at least have the ability to multitask.

Yeah, yeah, I know: you aren't supposed to take it literally, because it's only supposed to be illustrative and instructive. In that case, why take "Thou Shall Not Kill" literally? Why even take "Love one another as I have loved you" literally? Either it's the Truth, and meant to be taken literally (otherwise, why even bother?), or it's just a handy tool that can be used to justify anything; today's "don't take this literally" is tomorrow's "But God said...".

God, I think, must have been a lawyer.

See, this is the problem with having been educated in the Catholic Schools. On the one hand, the Catholic Schools teach you to think when it comes to mathematics, sciences, or even writing in a simple business letter, but then on the other, it demands unblinkered credulity when it comes to matters of Scripture. Only they call it 'faith'.

That's the problem with religion, period. You're expected to believe without having to think, react without thinking, behave without thinking, to just accept without critical thought.

Which is why I'm positive that this past week that someone blew his life savings, simply giving it away in the belief that he wouldn't need the money anymore. After all, he was going to be Raptured. Pastor Bob said so. And now that he hasn't been Raptured, he's going to have survive and feed his kids, and put a roof over their heads, and maybe not have the wherewithal to do it because he believed -- he had faith -- in a different outcome.

I'm almost going to guarantee that some people, perhaps many, actually committed suicide in anticipation of the destruction of Planet Earth to spare themselves -- and maybe they took their families with them? -- the horrors of a post-Apocalyptic World. Reverend Douchebag's 'Whoops! Got the date wrong, but I meant well" excuse isn't gong to bring those folks back, is it? I wonder how he'll square that circle with the Almighty when he's finally -- he hopes -- measured for his gossamer wings and halo?

I wonder how many people died around 6:00 Saturday, and how many of those deaths can be attributed to the stress and anxiety of wondering whether the world would end, how it would happen, or whether they would be saved? It's impossible to know, but I'd bet there were some who just couldn't take the suspense and keeled over.

How many people actually LOST THEIR FAITH -- disillusioned by the false promise of a complete knucklehead -- when the Prophecy didn't come true?

And what about the sins Reverend Camping inadvertently encouraged with his little piece of stupidity? In these parts, there were actually Doomsday Parties (I attended one!), and the debauchery at many would probably rival that of Caligula's Court. Hey, if you're gonna die, might as well get drunk and laid one last time before you go, right? So the "it still brought people to Jesus" excuse is pretty much nullified; I can promise you that while there might have been an awful lot of folks on their knees Saturday, the vast majority of 'em probably weren't praying. Maybe some were begging, but certainly not for Salvation.

Religion, I guess, is what you make of it. If it provides you with a moral compass, a guide as to how to live your life, an inner peace, or just a plausible explanation of all the Great Questions of Existence -- why are we here? what is my purpose? why do the wicked seem to prosper and the good die young? is Life a series of accidents, random events and occurrences, or is it all some sort of logical plan? what happens to me after I die? -- then good for you. I don't happen to agree with you, but I'm not going to stop you or try to convince you to give it up.

My only request is that you please keep your religion to yourself.

Because when some people insist on foisting their beliefs upon others, bad things usually happen. Airliners get hijacked and flown into office buildings. Thousands get slaughtered over a piece of desert. Billions are set against each other and use the Word of Fill-in-the-Blank as an excuse for murder, rape, dispossession, slavery, and worse.

And then some idiot who can't extend that reasonable courtesy to others, and instead broadcasts his stupidity around the world -- like when you insist you know the exact date and time of Armageddon -- and his predictions do not come to pass, you make the good folks who can keep their faith to themselves, and who just want to believe in something beyond the work-a-day world, look and feel obscenely foolish and you make them an object of ridicule or maybe even hatred or a target for violence. And that's just not fair.

Now, if that's how one 'brings people closer to God' -- by scaring the fertilizer out of them, causing them to do all sorts of stupid things, cause them to question their deeply-held beliefs in a negative way because they accepted your mistake, or lie, as serious truth -- then someone is a fucking dipshit, and taking that person's advice or seeking his opinion on anything, let alone the Will of God or the End of Times, is probably asking for trouble you could better do without. Reverend Camping and his friends deserve to be ignored.

If there were truly any Divine Justice in the Universe, Reverend Hump and his Acolytes would be taken away, alright...to a cloud with rubber walls.

Tomorrow, 50,000 People Are Gonna Beat The Piss Out of Him...

Staten Island Douchebag who predicted End of the World on May 21st calmly awaits his Mother Ship.

Notice that with less than 24-hours left until Armageddon, Dickhead still found time to give a newspaper interview. You would think a guy about to move into the Pearly-Gated Community would have better things to do.

What's stranger? This dispshit went to the same High School that I did.

Tomorrow, when we're all still here, expect to hear the following explanation as to why God didn't pull the plug when The Signs were all pointing to it:

We must have misinterpreted the prophecy. You know, the ways of God are mysterious and we mortals simply cannot fathom his ways. Perhaps The Almighty meant for this to be a dry-run, a drill, if you will, a warning to us all that we should repent before it's too late. If I brought just one person to repent and closer to God with my little misunderstanding, then it was worth it -- the media attention, the panic, the unwarranted trepidation and feelings of impending doom, the fear-mongering and needless anxiety, the seventy or eighty suicides which will soon be linked to my prediction -- and justified in the Eyes of God.

I'm betting one of the following things happens after this 'prediction' turns out to be false:

1. Mr. Fitzpatrick goes back to being the same crazy dickhead who will take the word of a radio televangelist on all matters Armageddon. The fact that the prediction turned out to be false having absolutely no effect, being unable to penetrate both his thick skull and the thick layer of batshit-insane just below it. His 'Street Cred' gets raised amongst the Rapture-and-God-Hates-Fags Crowd, and he gets fantastically rich -- flogging his books -- because if there's anything a good Evangelical Nutjob wants to do more than suck God's cock, it's give gobs of money away to people who bullshit them and excuse it with an assertion that "I did it for Jesus..."

2. Mr. Fitzpatrick loses his faith and realizes that he's pissed $140k away. He seeks out the 'Reverend' Camping and beats his fucking brains out with a baseball bat. Publicly humiliated and ridiculed, he will find himself a nice quiet place to lay down and drop half a bottle of Percocets before wrapping a Hefty bag around his head, securing it firmly with a roll of duct tape. Just in case he manages to fuck that up, too, he intends to stock the quiet place with about 50 gallons of unleaded regular and light a stogie with a blowtorch before he finally nods off.

I'll see you all at 6 pm, tomorrow, assuming the earthquake, the rain of fire, the exploding gays and all the Angels trumpeting conspire to keep me from my 'puter

When Religion and Insanity Collide...

..it could cost you $140,000.

Man bets life savings that world will end on May 21, 2011.

I wrote about stuff like this earlier this week, too. It practically writes itself, really.

I have to really question the motivation and mental state of anyone who gets involved in any religious organization for the express purpose of 'saving' themselves when the world comes to an end. Many do this, it seems, not for love of God, or not because they want to become a better person in some way, but because they are so fucking disgustingly selfish that their personal salvation -- whether here or in The Great Beyond -- becomes the driving force in their lives. In fact, it often becomes the only thing in their lives, this pre-occupation with the Next Life and Their Place In It, and this makes them susceptible to all sorts of douchebags ready to take advantage of them.

Like a doofus (who calls himself an Evangelist) who mixes 'numerology' and religion to predict the end of the world...every few years. I wonder how one squares this sort of 'prophecy' with the Bible's prohibitions against witchcraft and false prophets and so forth, but then again, there I go applying logic to 'matters of faith'.

Prophecy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's a load of bullshit. If you don't believe me, consider this: how many self-professed Nostradamus scholars do you know that became Billionaires utilizing his prophecies, rather than by selling books about their opinions on Nostradamus? Do you think Warren Buffet gets up in the morning and starts pouring over the Book of Isiah looking for stock tips? What do you reckon is the percentage chance on any given day when a prediction given to you by a medium you called on your telephone and paid $1.99 a minute to turns out to be correct? How often does your horoscope make any fucking sense, let alone give you any useful information?

Why is it that no prophecy ever seems to make sense until AFTER something has happened?

Giving Prophecy it's one prop, it is this: given enough time and the vagaries of history and circumstance, literally any prediction can come true. When Jesus says of the Temple in Jerusalem "not one stone will stand upon another..." it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that his real meaning is that "nothing is permanent".

Today's 'prophecy' is tomorrow's eventuality, sometimes, but the Prophet's defense when his prediction proves false is always "God doesn't take orders from me...".  Yeah, but some idiot with cash to burn is.

Having said these things, some may ask "But Matt, isn't this dope spending his life savings in order to save and warn other people; Isn't that evidence of a selfless motivation?"

And my response would be: Nope, he really isn't. What he is doing is stroking his own ego. He's attempting to score Brownie Points in Heaven. His religion tells him that he has been selected (the key phrase is the bit in the article about how God has 'appointed watchmen') for some important job, and it's that thought that drives him, because he believes it. He needs to believe it because otherwise his Life would be small, threadbare and pitiful, probably. Taken at first glance, I'm certain there's really nothing extraordinary about Mr. Fitzpatrick (not that I can make any claim to superlative accomplishment, myself), but he needs to think there is, because deep down he probably doesn't feel himself special. Religion -- especially extreme variants -- preys upon people like this the same way lions prey on crippled wildebeests.

The fact that he's managed to find a special brand of stupidity that mixes religion, prophecy, and numerology tells me that this is someone who has spent his entire life searching for...something...anything...that takes him out of his preoccupation with his crappy life. He's quite probably bounced around from one philosophy or discipline to another, and never showed any sort of constancy in his lifetime until someone came along and consolidated the disparate threads of his thinking and personal philosophies (if he ever developed any), and wove them into a tapestry that would guide him through the rest of his (soon to be over, if he's correct) Life. I know plenty of people like this, scattershot thinkers with no self-esteem, absorbed by astrology, numerology, and "the healing properties of crystals", and they almost, invariably, always wind up in a Church somewhere.

Now, whether they wind up there because religion makes some sort of sense to them, or because they have no place left to go, is open to debate. I just know that religions, historically, are very good at identifying the lost, the slow, and the stupid, and manipulating them. These people find no comfort or satisfaction in Life, and so they become pre-occupied with the Afterlife, and religion makes it easy for them to do so by telling them that all they have to do to gain their just reward is to follow the nonsense shouted at them from Scripture.

No one seems to realize that you first have to be dead in order to receive that reward, and that when it's described to you, it's always in allusions to the esoteric. At least Islam says there's 72 Virgins: Christianity either spins out a tale of a certain-to-be boring eternity of sitting upon clouds playing harps, or it describes the Afterlife in purely emotional terms, i.e. a state of continual bliss in the All-Encompassing Love of God.

Sorry,but I never saw Bob Barker give that away on the Price is Right.

The fact that it's Jerusalem which appears in the center of Mr. Fitzpatrick's apocalyptic poster tells you all you need to know. Not London, Not New York, Ankara, Beijing, or Wheeling, only Jerusalem. Even when these ultra-Evangelical douchebags support Israel, it's only because Israel is a necessary ingredient in the formula that will bring about the Rapture. So, support of Israel is, conversely, something the religious doofus only professes for the sake his own personal salvation. Once Christ returns, these idiots will tell you -- often with great glee -- the Jews won't be saved, anyway. Their only purpose is to, ultimately, be the rungs on the ladder of Christian Salvation.

Under different circumstances, Mr. Fitzpatrick would have probably become a suicide bomber, or would have poured gasoline over his head and ignited it on a public sidewalk. If he had tits, he would have become a 'Feminist Scholar'. Fifty years ago, this sort of soft-headed mindset and single-mindedness of purpose would have made Mr. Fitzpatrick the perfect Leftist Revolutionary. Instead, his religion just tells him to waste his money, which I guess makes him harmless enough.

At least his money didn't go to another one of those destructive douchebags that society pays far too much attention to: the psychiatrist. Somewhere there's a pill-pushing defective with an M.D. who's pissed off that he won't be able to get the leather upholstery in the new BMW this year.

And on the remote, slight, lottery-like, off-chance that Mr. Fitzpatrick and his Evangelical Numerologist just happen to be right, I'll be happy to apologize to him. I just hope I can find the right cloud in all the ruckus.

I expect to get a shitload of e-mail from the I-don't-take-a-dump-without-permission-from-my-Pastor Crowd, and it's entirely predictable what it will say; I can't prove that God doesn't exist, I can't prove that the Rapture won't happen, and I can't prove that Evangelical Numerology is an invalid predictor of the End of Times. You're right, but then again, your argument for these things is no better; you can't prove that any of these things actually do exist, or will happen, either, and simply believe that you don't have to. They're "matters of faith" (and credulity), after all, and it never ceases to amaze me that people who will argue for concrete proof of my assertions and beliefs, insist that I take everything they say seriously without them ever having to offer any of their own, secure in the smugness-bordering-on-arrogance-of-the-bulletproof-stupid hypocritical belief that they don't need to offer any.

P.S. I wonder how many people will leave this brand of stupidity in absolute disgust if Mr. Fitzpatrick and his Evangelical Numerologist turn out to be wrong? I'm guessing the actual number will be really small, because in the end this isn't about reality or truth, it's about people's feelings.

The World is Coming to An End: Film at 11...

I was talking to my friend Mike the other day, and he told me about something that was so uproariously stupid that I feel compelled to write about it, and share it with you all. It's what we do here at the Asylum; point out the stupidity of others and laugh our asses off over it.

Mike, it turns out, has been listening to Evangelical Christian radio. Not because he fears for his immortal soul, or because he believes in an Invisible Man in the Sky Who's All-Knowing and All-Powerful, yet somehow managed to create violent, irrational human beings, the platypus, the camel, and ABBA, but because he finds it so funny.
 
He was telling me about one of these radio Evangelists (you will not get his name here, because this is a seriously dangerous douchebag) who has told his retarded audience that the World Will End by May 31, 2011. I guess if you have any hope of being Raptured to the Right Hand of the Father, you'd best start packing now. Anyways, it appears as if people call this idiot for last-minute advice on all manner of things; people ask if they should take new jobs (the answer: No, dispshit, because the World will explode in a couple of weeks), should they still go ahead with that June wedding they had planned (answer: No dipshit, because the World will explode in a couple of weeks), and, naturally, How Do I Save Myself When the World Explodes in A Couple of Weeks? (answer: Go pray a lot...and send me money, Dipshit).
 
Now, apart from the obvious stupidity of people seeking life-altering guidance from someone who makes his living telling them they'll all be dead unless they pray real hard, the real stupidity lies in the premise that when the World Explodes that anyone is going to be 'saved'.
 
Mankind, in case no one ever told you, is ultimately doomed. Thousands, maybe millions even, of other life forms that have inhabited this planet have all gone extinct at some point in history,and there is no reason not to think that we too, in our turn, will also go the way of the Wooly Mammoth, the Triceratops, or the Dodo Bird. One of the consequences of Life is the Possibility of Extinction. How we ultimately meet our final fate, I think, matters not: the planet could be hit by a comet or asteroid, the Earth's crust might burst asunder under the strain of volcanism or tectonic forces, some minor flu will evolve into a super-strain that kills us all, we'll extinguish life with nuclear war, or our Sun will go nova and bake this tiny planet in an instant. There is little that we can do to stop these things. Our science and our intelligence only takes us so far, and short of Men making the great leap across the Universe to other worlds, we're going to be extinct, and  little to no trace of us will be left.
 
If it makes you feel better to believe that your soul, spirit, ghost, essence, chakra, ki, whatever, will persist after death, then by all means, be my guest. Far be it from me to tell you that I have all the answers, or that you shouldn't believe what you want to believe, but it seems that nowadays everyone is obsessed with the End of Everything.

It's gotten so bad that the History Channel now produces a show called Life After People, which is all about what happens to the world after mankind disappears, which is pretty stupid if you think about it: the History Channel is running a show about a time when History --as we perceive it --comes to an End. Go figure. Then again, it's probably better -- and more topical -- than Ice Road Truckers, or Swamp People. It's certainly more interesting.

Apocalyptic Christianity has become a big business, and is mostly a scam, in my opinion. It's purpose is to frighten people into the fold, and in the process, pry their cash from them. I'm certain when Pastor Asshole- on-the-Radio's prediction fails to come true on June 1st, he'll still be on the air, if only because people are truly dopey, and he has a ready-made excuse for why what he said will happen didn't; God will destroy the World Only When God Sees Fit To, and he cannot be prodded into it before he's ready to by Man, or, he was really just trying to get people to repent and make their peace with God before God really does Her thing with his Chicken Little routine. Or my personal favorite, the one that's supposed to end all debate or stop all questions; God Works in Mysterious Ways. No matter; the Ends justify the Means, especially if the Ends were several million bucks in donations and commercial fees and a higher public profile for Pastor Dickhead, and a few more fannies in the pews. I'm sure that will comfort the people who called off their weddings, or didn't take that lucrative job offer on his advice, to no end.

What people tend to forget is that the Bible was written by people -- and it might not be the best thing to take literally -- because as is often the case, people make mistakes, they misinterpret things, they let their biases creep onto the page, or they have agendas that they're pushing. Lately, there's been much talk about 'Bible Codes' in which it is said that there are coded messages hidden within the text of the biblical passages that can foretell future events, but I believe this about as much as I believe in my Lucky Astrology Mood Watch. The Bible is not the Word of God (beings that do not exist do not leave Words behind); it is a history --and a heavily-biased one, at that -- of the Hebrews and early Christians which seeks to provide a divine justification for what they have done. Mostly that was to kill and disposses Caananites and Phillestines and all the rest, because God 'promised' the land to them. You would think that an All-Powerful, All-Knowing God would just promise them an uninhabited place to live in, seeing as She (if there is a God, it must be a She) had just told them five minutes ago in the desert that Thou Shall Not Kill, Steal, Lie or Covet Your Neighbor's Goods (wouldn't that mean his land, too?), and all that.
 
The New Testament, as we know it today, is very much a political document; it was supposed to authenticate and legitimize Christianity, and thus, give it's great champion, Constantine, the divine cover he needed to explain his otherwise treasonous activities, i.e. leading a civil war and usurping the power of the Emperor of Rome. It had to be compiled and rewritten in such a way as to ensure that Christ could always be seen as the ultimate expression of ancient Hebrew prohpecy concerning a Messiah. The fact that the Christ myth as we know it seems an awful lot like the Roman adaptation and worship of the Persian god Mithras is conveniently forgotten... or mostly unknown.
 
If you're going to depend upon an ancient document, full of 'prophecy' as your guide to the End of theWorld, you could at least pick an ancient document that hasn't been (mis-)translated four billion times from seven thousand languages, and which has not been subjected to the requirements of political and cultural propaganda, I would think. The Bible as predictive tool is useless, in my opinion, because it has been so-obviously manipulated.
 
Another Apocalyptic theme that has gained much popular attention these days is the Mayan Prophecy, in which it is said that the ancient Mayans of Mexico have pinpointed the exact date of the End of the World, supposedly sometime in December of 2012. Which would really suck if a Republican managed to beat Barack Odumbass in November. The 'proof' that theMayan Prophecy will come true is that the Mayan Calendar comes to a complete halt in December 2012. Now, there could be a number of reasons why this should be so that don't necesarily mean Apocalypse; perhaps the astrologers/mathemeticians engaged in the project saw no need to go any further. Perhaps they were tired of making calculations. Maybe, there's another Mayan Calendar that picks up where the last one left off that we haven't found yet?
 
All I know is that people who suposedly had the smarts and the capabilities to accurately predict the future in such fashion should, logically, have been able to foresee their own demise; you would think they would have predicted the arrival of the Spanish...and smallpox. You have to wonder just how accurate and efficacious their predictive powers were if they couldn't even use them to save themselves.

Then there's the Nostradamus Idiots who constantly tell us that their hero has predicted every major event in modern history. The problem with Nostradamus, however, is that we never seem to hear of his 'predictions' until after something has happened. If Nostradamus was of any use, you figure someone would be able to tell you about it beforehand. So, we're told that Nostradamus 'predicted' the rise of Hitler (a claim long since disproven as Nazi propganada), the assassination of JFK, and 9/11, but always the announcement that Nostradamus 'predicted' this, that or the other comes only after the fact. Some prophet. Nostradamus is about as useful as a broken condom, or those Astrologers in your local newspaper. The Champions of Nostradamus will tell you this is because if they told people about one of these traumatic events beforehand, no one would believe them, but this is pure horseshit; I can say to you today that one day someone will have monkeys fly out of their rectum, and it's quite possible, given the vageries of time and history, that it might actually happen. Will I be celebrated as visionary prophet when that day comes? I rather doubt it.  
This, incidentally, is one of the problems with some modern scientific methods, too, like the Theory of Evolution; given a time scale of billions of years, and pure random chance, literally anything is possible. It doesn't make it true.
 
Still, I find it fascinating to watch people knowingly worry themselves stupid about something they have absolutely no control over. If the world comes to an End (as it surely must) just what, if anything, do you, the individual, expect to be able to do about it? Will you, personally, deflect that asteroid headed our way? Will you be able to keep the Earth's magnetic poles from shifting? Can you identify and find a cure for that Super-Virus that's out there waiting to kill us all? Probably not. And your government will probably be unable to do much of anything, either, and certainly not your Church; religions usually get people to do things which only benefit the religion, as an institution.
 
As for me, I keep a six-pack of Heineken's in the fridge, so that when the fateful day finally arrives, I can sit on the front porch with my Holocaust Heinies, and watch the fireworks, secure in the knowledge that when it's all over, one way or another, I will at least not have to pay another goddamned credit card bill, or scratch an income tax check, or sit through another Barack Obama use-lots-of-words-to-say-absolutely-nothing speech.
 
The Apocalypse, you see, isn't all bad news.