“Good Friday” is creepy. As a holiday, I’d say it ranks pretty high up on the weirdo-meter (the biggest one in my book is the cryptic and disturbing celebration of Passover, where Jews celebrate God killing the first born children of Egyptians and “passing over” their own kids). For starters, millions of Catholics celebrate the crucification of their messiah, as though his supposed torture and eventual death is something to celebrate. The big joke, of course, is that Easter is nothing more than a pagan holiday, but you can’t seem to convince the faithful that their precious celebration is nothing more than a copyright infringement.

In an effort to try and show some degree of neutrality towards religion, the city council of Davenport, Iowa tried to change “Good Friday” on their municipal calendar to simply “Spring Holiday”. As you can guess, religious folks totally lost their shit, and forced city officials to change it back. They now say that the name change was “an error”.

Just another example of tantrum religious people have whenever they aren’t shown any special treatment. They might frame it as a religious rights issue, but I don’t exactly see a lot of Christians fighting for the rights of other religious denominations to have their holidays officially recognized by the government. Bunch of crybabies.

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Normally, if you hear about a plot by an armed civilian militia trying to kill government officials, you figure it’s happening in some unstable developing country. It’s hard to believe that in this day and age, the most powerful and wealthy country in the world also seems to have similar problems with armed maniacs trying to overthrow the present authority.

A few days ago, police and FBI agents arrested 9 home grown “terrorists” who were planning on killing a cop in order to later murder a bunch of police officers at his/her funeral. The small militia is composed entirely of Christian fundamentalist, and claim that the name of the group, the”Hutaree” means “Christian warrior”(although by all accounts the word is simply made-up).

These religious nutjobs are very anti-government, and are convinced that the former Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana, is actually the Antichrist. Their plan is simply: to defend Christianity be waging war on those who oppose the divine authority of Jesus Christ (in other words, anyone who has half a brain). Their “About Us” page says it all (including the fact that it’s illegible at times):

“We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ. All Christians must know this and prepare, just as Christ commanded…The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so [sic] God wills it.”

This has to be the part of their scheme that confuses me the most. The Bible “predicts” that the Antichrist will come, but this is all supposed to lead up to the event Christians call the Rapture, where true believers get whisked up to God’s magical-sky-playland. Only non-believers will be “left behind” to face-off against Jesus in the final conflict. So what exactly do these fundamentalists think their job is? Do they think they are responsible for bringing down the Anti-Christ and failing to let prophesy be fulfilled?

Of course you could argue that religious nutbags simply find in their respective texts whatever they want to find; in this case, these paranoid weirdos needed some kind of moral justification for the twisted evil they were about to commit. This is what makes religions conviction so frightening; anyone wanting to find reason to harm, torture or kill their neighbor can find plenty of religious passages encouraging violence in their respective holy texts; there’s no limit to the kind of twisted logic you’ll be capable of if you put enough time and effort into looking for it. If you think there’s a difference between these assholes and the fuckfaces who blew up the World Trade Center, you’re underestimating just how crazy fundamentalists really are.

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When health care reform was first proposed in the United States, one of the talking points raised by conservative idiots trying to scare the general public was the dreaded “death panels“, a supposed government entity that would be “whacking” old people willy-nilly. Rational minded policy makers failed to dissuade the public (who were spoon-fed this nonsense by right wing talking heads) that this threat was simply a fabrication. The controversy ended up being about “end of life” services; essentially giving people the ability to chose when they want to stop receiving treatment for terminal ailments, rather than letting the choice be made by other people. It’s a responsible way to look at the realities of death; not everyone wants to keep fighting when they’ve been in pain their whole lives.

In the end, the real controversy about “end of life” services is actually over the fact that the religious right abhors euthanasia, which they regard simply as “a sin”. Take the story of this New Zealand woman who can’t seem to be able to die in peace: After suffering a cerebral hemorrhage 20 years ago and living in pain ever since, she’s recently decided to stop eating and simply let herself die. Her own fellow citizens, however, are trying to prevent this, motivated by the primitive thought that a supernatural being would not approve of her actions:

Margaret’s life is important she is a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God’s loving creation. The taking of one’s life is contrary to the moral law. Our life is a gift from God. We are but stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. The decision to kill oneself, is not a rational decision. She has been assessed by psychiatrists as being lucid, but was she also assessed as being severely depressed and if so, why is she not being treated for this condition?

The problem for these religious folks trying to force Margeret Page to eat is that this is actually a form of assault in their country, so although it’s apparently illegal for someone to kill themselves (a law I’ve come to realize is entirely motivated by religious sentiments), it’s also illegal to shove food down their gullets to keep them alive. Hello paradox!

The doctors may still choose to keep her alive if she become unconscious from malnutrition, since it’s unlikely that they would be charged with assault (i’m hoping of course that this won’t happen). The religious organization “Right to Life” is asking the authorities to save her, but when is someone actually going to bother to listen to the person who’s actually living that life? She no longer wants to suffer and wishes to die, but religious opposition is making even this simple request impossible. This is the degree of control religion wants to have over every single human being. They may mask it under the guise of “respecting life”, but their need to dominate all aspects of human life makes it impossible for them to respect anyone’s right to actually make their own choices.

**NOTE** She recently succeeded in choosing to end her own life. You can read all about it here.

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It must be nice to not have to answer to any authority whatsoever when you’ve committed a series of heinous crimes. While the secular world tries to grow enough balls to bring Pope Benedict XVI to justice (I really wouldn’t hold my breath, people), the pontiff is still free to try and play down the seriousness of the allegations against him and other senior officials in the Vatican. Recently, the Pope sent out a broadcast on Vatican radio praying for the victims of earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, and for “all the victims of child abuse”.

Isn’t just like a Christian to do something wrong and then ask for forgiveness? It’s a lot easier than actually bothering to do the right thing or actually bothering to pay for your crimes. Hey, don’t they believe that a 2000 year old dead Jewish guy has already paid for their past and future sins? Must be nice to not have to deal with anything and instead beg some invisible sky-daddy to be absolved.

During his address, he sated that “From God comes the courage not to be intimidated by petty gossip”. Yes, I’m sure it takes a lot of courage for you to simply ignore your role in furthering the abuse of priests, and harboring them from prosecution. You’re so brave! All that “petty gossip” about hundreds and thousands of kids being abused must really bother you when you’re enjoying all the luxuries afforded by your position.

Every time this sack of shit opens his mouth, he’s sending a big “fuck you” to the rest of the world that doesn’t believe in his fairytale bullshit. We’re too damn gutless here in the West to do anything about it, lest it offend people of “religious faith”. Yep, because he’s a religious leader, we’ll kick up some dust and condemn his actions, but it’s doubtful we’ll have the balls to do much more. If we could finally start standing up to these religious loonies, we would live in a much different world, that’s for damn sure.

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Yes, I’ve always wanted to use a headline like this, and today seemed like the perfect time to do it. Plus it helps that it’s completely true; the New York Times has supposedly come up with definitive evidence that Ratzinger was not only aware of Reverend Peter Hullerman (formerly known only as “H”) had molested children and, rather than notify authorities, simply transfered him to another parish despite a letter saying he was still a potential “danger”.

Of course, the problem here is that no one is going to do anything about this. The only way he can get fired is if his Invisible friend in the sky decides he needs to go, and since he’s supposedly  a voice only Ratzinger can hear, I have a feeling “Sky-man” won’t call for his resignation anytime soon. Would you want to stop living in the biggest and most luxurious palace in the world? He eats on gold plates for fuck’s sake; that was pimp even back in the middle ages.

You have to wonder what kind of weird power struggles go on in the Vatican. I mean, it can’t please everyone that Pope Benedict is dragging the whole church into the ground, and even though they can’t force him to resign, there still has to be a lot of folks within the halls of power that never liked him in the first place. It’s just like high school, except the prom queen used to be a Hitler Youth.

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Ever wonder who God is? Well, apparently, he’s an Edmonton man with a criminal past! Yes, God was arrested and spent 5 years in Japanese prison after trying to smuggle a whole suitcase of weed into the country. Now back in Canada, God (formerly John Paul LaPointe), was coached into changing his name by a Russian mystic he met in India, leading me to believe that God hasn’t exactly stopped smoking the good shit. I like how offensive this is to religious people. Hey, if you change your name to God, how awesome must it be when a bouncer at a popular club checks your ID card; I mean, who isn’t going to let the Almighty in, right?

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