God Bless America and All Her Cant and All Her Hypocrisy
If I said this post was all about hypocrisy, (which it is) I would be doing disservice to those people who are shown here being murdered by United States of America. So this post then, is about both hypocrisy and unwarranted bloody murder.
To appreciate just how rank that hypocrisy, it becomes necessary to view the clip below, or, if you have already watched the first, then the second one is still fit for purpose.
Both clips speak for themselves and it requires little further from me. Other than that is, to listen to the Redneck and the Christian in the second clip. I only give them those names to differentiate between the two, but in actual fact they are both Rednecks, as are they all, Redneck being a philosophy not circumstance.
This hour long documentary is more than worthy of watching in its own right, and I can't encourage you enough that you do so. But for the purpose of this post I want to concentrate on two areas. Starting at the 25.30s mark the film shows an American attack helicopter murdering a dozen or more Iraqis who were doing no more than going about their daily business. The callow ease with which these men were murdered, is to say, horrifying. Compounded by, and showing these bringers of democracy for what they really are, common criminals, we hear the voices of the pilot and his gunner, and are treated to the likes of this.
Quote:
"Look at those dead bastards"
"Nice"
And when it is pointed out to this pair of killers, that the Good Samaritan they had just murdered, had his children in the vehicle with him, this.
"It's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle"
All this carnage and murder bad enough, but nothing prepares you for the next couple of minutes starting 40.35s. The narrator tells the story, I can't.
God bless America.
A seventeen minute version of the forty minute original.
It's not unusual when a visitor arrives at the blog via a Google search, for me to retrace that visitor path back to source. It's nothing other than keeping a finger on the pulse of things, the world view as it were, albeit a Google world view.
I followed one such path this afternoon and went on the proverbial mystery tour. I took a few screen shots along the way, shots far from earth shattering, but nonetheless, shots, that for one reason or another attracted my attention. Those screen shots now destined for yet another post.
I also opened a few of the Google links and among the places I ended up were, Good Quality Wristbands and The Sun, Murdoch's Sun.* Now there's a piece of work if ever there was; how it reminds me so of Fox News US. Both these ministries pandering to the similar demographics, their content aimed at similar fat arsed cretins, in the hope no doubt of achieving similar effect in its readership, no matter which side of the pond they dwell
There is however a slight difference, and for that we must be grateful. We are in the UK spared having everything coated in a sickly layer of Jesus Christ Almighty, something for which Americans have a seemingly unending appetite. Stuffing as they do, Jesus; with the same nauseating excess as their junk food, down their insatiable gobs. Still not terribly surprising is it? not with God being an American n'all, how else could there be one Nation under God.
Why am I off on this tangent? well I'll tell you, it's Sunday, I feel like it and I'm pissed. Pissed at the same cretinous fat arsed American Jezoids who wallow in ignorance like this below. *This, being a testament to ignorance and stupidity for which there is no metric, no scale, in fact it's so far off the scale its in fucking orbit. An orbit no doubt treading a similar path, not unlike Russell's Celestial Teapot. (Speaking of teapots and totally off topic, try this for size. The Apostate and the giant teapot)* Now at the bottom of the page.
Though I let it pass at the time, on the basis that I really couldn't be arsed replying to yet another cretin, the comment I received went on to be a stimulus. That comment plus yesterdays bit of found treasure combined, results in my writing today. And perhaps to be fair I should include a bit of Bill Bryson that I happen to be reading at the moment.* He being able to see things a whole lot clearer than the majority of his countrymen, I will just put it down to the twenty years he spent in civilisation. A mostly secular civilisation at that. *Notes From a Big Country
Death From Above.
I had already received two comments in a similar vane, arrogance, for an article I had featured in 2007. A level of arrogance I might add, that seems to be almost exclusive to the citizens of the one nation under God. So what was it about this last comment that made it so much different? nothing really, other than it was a bit more rounded, nearly the complete picture, and in so few words. The only thing missing in fact was that the Wrath of God hadn't been called upon to strike me dead for my blasphemy. Blasphemy against the Greatest Nation on Earth that is, not God.
I shall post the same offending intro here as I did then, with of course our featured comments.
Death From Above In reality, "Death from Above" means nothing less than mass murder from 15,000 feet. It means daisy cutters, bunker busters, cruise missiles, napalm, and white phosphorous. It means depleted uranium and cluster bombs littering the landscape for decades. It means rubble, destruction, the ruination of lives by the hundreds, by the thousands and more. It means Dresden, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. It means "shock and awe." It means 9/11. It means more than space allows me to explain, yet it's perfectly normal for an American to slap a "Death by Above" decal on his/her vehicle...right next to "support the troops" sticker. link
I shall not mention the grammar.
Anonymous 1 well the saying "death from above" is use to discribe the us paratrooper because we jump out of planes not freakin bombs and if it wasnt for soldiers enlisting then you wouldnt even be able to write this dumbass message
Such delightful arrogance, and a non-sequitur for luck.
Anonymous 2 Airborne -All the Way - defending your right to be an A-hole. ...and if you don't like being an American there are plenty of other countries to choose from.
Ah yes; bugger orf back to where you came from.
And then we have the icing on the cake. How he manages to cover so much in so few words is truly beyond me.
Anonymous 3 I stumbled upon this site looking for my death from above "Airborne" decal to put on my American made truck and I about puked when I read what the author had to say. Your the fag that drives a prius right...and never worked a day in your life in service of your country or anyone else for that matter. Keep cryin about the freedom my brothers preserve for you.....whata selfish P.O.S.
He doesn't help himself does he? In fact he sounds very much like the guy that once hailed Bill O'Reilly as, and I kid you not, a Great American.
Staying with death from above, Jesus and the Rapture I am afraid, will have to slide down the page a tad. Let us take a little look then at the organisation charged with that mission, the United States Air Force.
Never in all the annals of history has there been an institution quite like this one. Going so far as to say, an institution so wrapped in its own piety, so steeped in abject hypocrisy, and so murderous in intent, that by comparison the USAF makes the Catholic Church look positively enlightened. A shining star no less, a beacon for knowledge and understanding and I shall even throw for taste a hint of tolerance. Such is the reality and not just my opinion alone of the United States Air Force.
Earlier I stood accused of having: never worked a day in your life in service of your country.
How very right he is, not a day, not one day have I spent in the service of my country. Not one day flying half way around the world to drop by their millions of tons, indiscriminate bombs on the soft and vulnerable flesh of men women and children. Not a day spent on burning to death those that the bombs had missed by raining down upon those same vulnerable people, the horror of Napalm.
A legacy to last for generations not yet born, but a legacy that pales by comparison to the one that has been gifted to Iraq. A legacy of poisoned land, of similar * horrific birth defects as those visited on the Vietnamese, but a legacy that will last millennia, such is the legacy of Depleted Uranium. A legacy courtesy of that same One Christian Nation Under God, the sanctimonious and hypocritical United States of America and its equally sanctimonious and hypocritical Air Force. *Big site keep scrolling.
Lord Bless This Defender Of freedom
And Keep Him Safe in Your Hands
Lord bless this defender of freedom, the American psyche in a nutshell.
And if you think that one is a vomit in the making, wait until you've had six and a half minutes of much watch, United States Air Force Academy Campus Crusade for Christ. This below lifted from an earlier post.
USAF: A Most Ungodly Organisation United States Air Force Academy Campus Crusade for Christ. Six and a half minutes of film that epitomises everything that is wrong with religion, everything that is wrong with America, and consequently, everything that is wrong with religious America.
What could be more ungodly than an organisation that by virtue of it's very existence, its purpose being to reign death and destruction on people in their thousands, if not, as in the case of South East Asia, by the millions.
And finally we get to the culprit in all this, Jesus H and the Rapture.
I've said much today so I shall save you chapter and verse on this little display of cor bleedin' blimey!
Other than to say, and to say it is not at all unique, that most things that issue from the mouths of them that's got God, (of any stripe) if it didn't have a religious tag on it, the speaker would be a worthy candidate for the nut house. These fellows just take it one step further, their requirements being much the same as the other fellows, but accompanied by a straight jacket.
Only in Ameriki folks, only in Ameriki.
For those of you that came in search of what must have seemed like a phantom post, this one:
Pissing into a dying man's oxygen mask
My apologies. I published the post for no more than three or four seconds, just long enough in fact to determine which one of two video sizes to use. I have never had Google pick up on similar brief posts with the speed that it did. I shall endeavour to post it tomorrow.
Having other things to do, I hadn't planned on posting today, but something reared its head, and here we are again.
The latest bit of news out of Portugal reports on the McCann's latest attempt to hobble the ability of Goncalo Amaral to fund a court case, and I do think this action by the McCanns is as much about that as it is about the money. But how can anyone be sure what the true motivation is of parents who turn their deceased first born into a tacky, tasteless shop.
But the theme for today was born of these few words uttered by the much abused and long suffering (three years) Sofia Leal, wife to Goncalo Amaral.
“My husband and I have never abandoned our daughters, or allowed paedophiles in our circle of friends. I am shocked that a couple who affirm to be religious is seeking out to destroy our family”, said Sofia Leal.
The paedophile reference is taken care of at the link, but it is the other bit that draws my focus:
"a couple who affirm to be religious"
A couple who affirm to be religious, that's the bit in question. The first two texts apart, I am not going to offer you a mighty tome, or tirade even. What I shall do is post a few words of introduction with each link supplied.
This from a previous post explains my position on people who have got religion, or more's the point, say they have got religion. Emphasis on the last paragraph.
Whatever opinion people take away of me after visiting these pages, and I am sure there are as many as they are varied, I do hope it's not one of intolerance, because to be accused of such a thing would quite simply be wrong.
Laissez faire perhaps puts it a little too mildly, anarchy perhaps too far towards the other end of the scale, let's say I slot in somewhere between the two, extremely tolerant if you will.
To a sensible degree, most people I can forgive most things . But what I can't forgive however, and any tolerance I may have had vanishes in an instant, is when the twats of this world pull their stunts, misdeeds and crimes with a Bible clutched firmly in their sanctimonious, hypocritical, grubby little paws.
Although I shall giving other examples of the McCann's godliness, let us look at the most recent obscenity, if indeed not blasphemy, to have slithered out of the mouths of these reptilian creatures.
Gerry McCann breaks down as he tells how hunt for Madeleine 'is shaking his Catholic faith'
GERRY: If anything, when this first happened it strengthened my faith. I felt that there was such support and I really felt that may have been God’s work, that something good was going to come out of this.
I’m struggling much more now, without a doubt. I think that for one child to have been the recipient of so many millions of prayers, you think, ‘Well I do have my doubt’. If those prayers were going to work, they should have worked a long time ago.
KATE: I don’t hate God… I just can’t understand why so much could be allowed to land on one family and go seemingly unchallenged. So I would be angry with God but then I would voice that, I would let it out.
Prayers for abductor:
KATE: I usually pray for them to see the error of their ways, to have compassion and courage to come forward… The pain and the fear that it’s caused Madeleine and the pain it’s caused to our family makes it incredibly difficult to sit here and say ‘Yes, I forgive him’. It would be important to know who’s taken Madeleine and why.
GERRY: Until we find Madeleine and who took her we don’t know what we will be asked to forgive.
Such piety, doesn't it warm your heart?
You may find the link to this Daily Mail "story," a story I add, that has just about everything required to induce vomiting, not least this little example of child abuse:
Gerry McCann; Sean, in particular, talks about having an aeroplane and flying all over the world looking for ‘that man who’s taken Madeleine’ and when he gets him he’s going to rescue her and take his sword out.
Kate McCann: 'I always pray for the family. Most of the prayers are centred on Madeleine. But I pray for the people who have taken her and the people who know what has happened to her.' Kate McCann: About as Far Away From God as You Can Get
Such magnanimous Christian forgiveness, pity it doesn't extend to Goncalo Amaral and his family. Which of course is the whole point of this post.
Let us now away to that wonderful organ of State propaganda, the BBC. Mothering Sunday and Kate to appear on BBC2 Aled Jones radio show. The subject? God and mothering evidently. Loosing The Plot: The BBC and Kate McCann
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And the post show follow up: The Details Are in The Blasphemy where my total input consists of just one question. "Does blasphemy still count if you're certifiable?"
The rest is an article by a good friend of this blog, Dr Martin Roberts. A far better man than me, of better mettle, and possessing courage above and beyond as he wades through of some of the most despicable and shameless obscenities ever to come out of the mouth of person, let alone mother.
~
Plumbing The Depths A short post on Kate McCann praying for Mari Luz Cortes. The thanks in the last line from father Juan Cortes soon to change when he experienced what the McCanns/Mitchell were truly all all about. Unrelated to this post but links to Mitchell's low life antics here and here.
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Let me move away from the God slot, enough being too much for me. Let us take a look at the dignity in all this. Yes I know, dignity about as thin on the ground as truth, however.
A longer post on the same subject where I reply to this question.
...Having myself not able to cope with an armada of lawyers, I will not comment. But for us French, the process of opening a commercial site * The online store of Madeleine (Madeleine The Online Store) seems a bit strange. It is hard to imagine parents doing business selling search posters (£ 1.75 for 10), bracelets, or t-shirts bearing the face of their missing child (£ 7) ... This is not really in our culture.
A worthy read from Sam Harris, on what ails the Catholic Church.
I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Frankly, it always felt unsportsmanlike to shoot so large and languorous a fish in so tiny a barrel. This scandal was one of the most spectacular "own goals" in the history of religion, and there seemed to be no need to deride faith at its most vulnerable and self-abased. Even in retrospect, it is easy to understand the impulse to avert one's eyes: Just imagine a pious mother and father sending their beloved child to the Church of a Thousand Hands for spiritual instruction, only to have him raped and terrified into silence by threats of hell. And then imagine this occurring to tens of thousands of children in our own time -- and to children beyond reckoning for over a thousand years. The spectacle of faith so utterly misplaced, and so fully betrayed, is simply too depressing to think about.
But there was always more to this phenomenon that should have compelled my attention. Consider the ludicrous ideology that made it possible: The Catholic Church has spent two millennia demonizing human sexuality to a degree unmatched by any other institution, declaring the most basic, healthy, mature, and consensual behaviors taboo. more
You may wonder, or the more likely you don't, what is it about religions that really piss me off the way they do.
It's not religion per say that makes me feel the way I do, although this trilogy of articles posted here would be more than reason enough, what it really is I suppose, is that I see accepting religion as an act of betrayal, a waste, a waste of talents if you will.
For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 25:13-30)
Where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, I know just where you're coming from old lad, there is much in the world of theology that causes me the weeping and the gnashing.
Why betrayal then? well in spite of Mankind being a bollocks, and in far too many ways to even contemplate listing here, if we discount all our many negatives, I do think we as a species are the dogs, the dog's bollocks, the canine cojones. We are as that species, simply astounding, brilliant, wondrous, there are just not enough adjectives to describe us, our understanding and our achievements.
Awesome, lets run with that one for now. Just detach yourself for a moment or two and look at the big picture. No need for you to be stood in the middle of a thriving metropolis, no need to be watching a Shuttle launch, or watching re-runs of men walking on the moon half a century ago.
No need for all that, all you have to do is what you're doing now, just sit as you are and take in the amazing complexity and achievement that allows you to read this, and to read it instantly from quite possibly half a world away.
It's pretty amazing isn't it, sorry, awesome is the reference, and awesome it surely is. We don't need Science Fiction, we are Science Fiction. Ten thousand heavier than air flying machines scuttling round the planet at most given times. Probes of enormous complexity sent off to the farthest reach of the Solar System, and on and on it goes.
To think of just how far we have come in, shall we say the last three hundred years, in evolutionary terms a blink of the eye, is as I say awesome, and what is it that has brought us to this point; rational thinking, nothing more, nothing less?
What hasn't brought us to this point most definitely, is religion, and in particular, for it's doctrines and dogmas, steeped in ignorance and superstition, designed only to be self serving for perpetuity, what hasn't brought us here by any means is the Catholic Church, quite the opposite in fact.
The Catholic Church is a blight on humankind, as all religions are it must be said. To what degree, lesser or or greater, dependant I suppose on the severity of each individual, and for the most part, bronze age doctrine. And this to say nothing of those that interpret this nonsense, and then with an audacity that is little short of stunning, deign to speak on God's behalf! They are not of our time, man and religion both.
Rational thought, what a priceless gift, that which sets us apart from all other beasts in the field, rational thought that has given so many other wonderful things, and I speak not now of Science, but of other things, of music, of art, or just the ability to stand on this planet, this dust mote in the sky, and be blessed that we have the capability to philosophise about, and to loose ourselves in, it's beauty and it's wonders.
How then should we look upon those among us that choose to embrace these dark age myths,to cast upon stony ground the seed of knowledge, to bury this wonderful and priceless talent in the dark dark earth of theology?
How then should we look upon those among us that would have us believe in immaculate conceptions and virgin births, of putrefying flesh risen from the dead, to ascend to some mythical place called heaven, be it on horseback or nay?
How then should we look upon those among us that would have us believe the Earth is but ten thousand years old, and put here by some omnipotent super being, as they would also have us believe that the Grand Canyon was born of Noah's flood?
How then should we look upon those among us that would try to frighten us and control us with talk of Devils, of being consigned for all eternity to some mythical fiery pit, how then should we look upon those among us that talk of Original Sin. To have us believe we are born into this sin because a woman, made from the rib of a man, partook of an apple at the behest of a talking snake?
We should pity them, but we cannot, they are far too harmful to allow us that luxury.
~
And what finer example of the suspension of rational thought, of a doctrine that is not of our time, and of the pathetic, if not indeed loathsome excuses for, and those that put on the uniform of, this heinous organisation.
I shall make no highlights, and I shall remove the more frivolous accompanying graphics that I had originally intended to use, they detract from the piece.
Catholic sex abuse scandals are 'evidence the Devil is in the Vatican', says Pope's chief exorcist
By Nick Pisa Last updated at 6:03 PM on 11th March 2010
Child sex abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church are evidence of the Devil's presence in the Vatican, the Pope's chief exorcist said yesterday.
Father Gabriel Amorth, 84, who has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms in a career spanning 24 years said Pope Benedict 'fully agreed' with him in 'casting out evil'.
The Catholic church has been rocked in recent months by a series of sex scandals in Ireland, Holland and most recently Germany, where even the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger admitted hitting choir boys.
In his interview with La Repubblica newspaper Father Amorth, on who the Devil fighting priest in hit horror movie The Exorcist is based, said: 'His Holiness fully believes in casting out evil.
'The Devil lives in the Vatican. He has won over the confidences of people but naturally its difficult to find proof but the consequences are visible.
'We have cardinals who don't believe in Christ, bishops connected with demons. Then we have these stories of pedophilia. You can see the rot when we speak of Satan's smoke in the holy rooms (of the Vatican).'
Father Amorth gave his interview as part of a book launch for Italian religious affairs journalist Marco Tosatti who has written 'Memoirs of an Exorcist'.
Father Amorth said:' 'The Devil is invisible, he is a pure spirit. But in the people he possesses he can be seen through pain and blasphemies but he can also remain hidden.
"Sometimes he makes fun of me but I have to say I enjoy my work."
He added how he had 'six or seven assistants' to help him hold down possessed people when he carried out exorcism and that he kept ''nails and glass that they spit out in a little bag.
'From the mouths of the possessed people all sorts of things come out, bits of metal as long as a finger, rose petals.
'I have to have help holding them down and wiping up the saliva but seeing these people vomit doesn't upset me.'
Father Amorth also said that the attempt on the life of the late Pope John Paul II in May 1981 and the recent attack on Pope Benedict XVI during Christmas Eve Mass last year were all work of the Devil.
So too, he added, was a Vatican 'cover-up' after the deaths of the commander of the Swiss Guard Alois Estermann, his wife and fellow Swiss guard Corporal Cedric Tornay. All three were shot dead.
'They covered up everything immediately,' Father Amorth said. 'Here one sees the rot.'
The official Vatican line was that Corporal Tornay shot the commander and his wife before killing himself. However, this verdict has been disputed by Tornay's family.
Father José Antonio Fortea Cucurull, a fellow exorcist, immediately accused Father Amorth of having gone too far.
'Cardinals might be better or worse, but all have upright intentions and seek the glory of God,' he said.
'... to affirm that some cardinals are members of satanic sects is an unacceptable distance.'
Father Amorth told La Repubblica that the devil was "pure spirit, invisible. But he manifests himself with blasphemies and afflictions in the person he possesses. He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, transform himself or appear to be agreeable. At times he makes fun of me."
Father Amorth has frequently been a controversial figure.
In 2006, he gave an interview to Vatican Radio in which he said that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Russian Josef Stalin had both been possessed.
According to secret Vatican documents recently released wartime Pope Pius XII attempted a 'long distance' exorcism of Hitler which failed to have any effect.
In the past Italian Father Amorth has also spoken out against Harry Potter claiming that reading the novels of the teen wizard open children’s minds in dabbling with the occult and black magic.
Father Amorth, who was ordained in 1954 and who is president of the International Association of Exorcists, said of the JK Rowling books: 'Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil.'
He said Rowling's books contain innumerable positive references to magic, 'the satanic art' and added the books attempt to make a false distinction between black and white magic, when in fact, the distinction 'does not exist, because magic is always a turn to the devil'. The Wail
I have featured Father Amorth on other occassions, and he does feature in the post below. But we must remember it's Ratzinger that is in the driving seat, or should that be throne?
I had originally included in this post the Large Hadron Collider and photo's of as another example of our achievements, they too detracted from the post, but having come across this must see picture gallery at the Boston Globe, I felt I must include it if only here.
To further this post and to connect you to a monument to stupidity, ignorance and irrationality, this from the incredible Encyclopaedia of Creation Science, Creation Wiki. main page link.
I promise, you will never have to buy another comic as long as you live. Search the Grand Canyon, or coal, or whatever takes your fancy, it's something else.
Dinosaurs (Greek: δεινόσαυρος, deinosauros) are a group of large extinct animals classified as reptiles. The name dinosaur comes from the Greek deinos (terrible) and sauros (lizard). The word now used to define these terrible lizards was first coined by Sir Richard Owen, a creationist. According to the traditional paleontological interpretations of Earth's history, the dinosaurs are believed to have dominated the ecosystem for more than 100 million years. It is furthermore believed that they went extinct about 65 million years ago, about 55 million years before the first humans appeared on Earth.
However, most creationists believe that dinosaurs coexisted with mankind on Earth and lived recently. Biblical support for this perspectives is drawn from the Genesis 1 where it states that all animals were created on the sixth day of creation along with humans. It is furthermore presumed they were still alive at the time of the global flood and taken on board Noah's ark. Evidence to support this perspective includes:
1. The Bible specifically states that a breeding pair of every kind of animal came to the ark. 2. The fossil record is filled with the corpses of dinosaurs that were buried during the deluge. 3. The abundant physical evidence of recent existence of dinosaurs.
It should be noted that although the Biblical description of Noah's ark states it as large enough to host even the largest known specimens of dinosaurs, it is logical that younger / smaller varieties were taken aboard. Reptiles are the only terrestrial vertebrate that continuously grows as long as they live. Mammals on the other hand, have an adolescent period following which there is no further growth. Therefore, it is arguable that many of these "terrible lizards" were simply much older than modern varieties......
I copied this at some point today, from where I've no idea, I didn't save a link, but whoever he is, we're reading off the same page. Arnold Mendez and Noah's Ark have their own tag at Only in America.
To ignore every bit of common sense, every scientific fact, every geological timeline, (look up carboniferous period. coal, plate tectonics in Creation Wiki to name a few) ignore all and everything, talk the most ridiculous talking points, anything in fact, just make a case for the existence of a god, for Noah, and a bloody Ark, man oh man, and we as atheists are asked to show respect to the likes of Mendez and the millions of others just like him that wallow in this adopted ignorance they call religion.
This left in the comments on OIA, little wonder he's pissed.
Arnold Mendez is Beyond an Idiot he is dangerous. Let me tell you why. Arnold Mendez taught/teaches almost all the General Chemistry Laboratory Classes at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. On his own initiative, he added an indoctrination on why Radiological Carbon Dating is a farce.
He required the students to go to HIS listed fraud sites and write a report (basically supporting his crap). I was forced to do this for a grade in his class along with almost 1,000 students in a single semester.
When this situation was revealed to the University, they did absolutely nothing! Any reputable (REAL) University would have fired ANYONE who did this on the spot. I guess TAMUCC is just another Liberty University. DO NOT ATTEND this university if you want a ACTUAL Science Degree. I am still highly offended by this whole situation.
The Vatican has brought up to date the traditional seven deadly sins by adding seven modern mortal sins it claims are becoming prevalent in what it calls an era of "unstoppable globalisation".
Those newly risking eternal punishment include drug pushers, the obscenely wealthy, and scientists who manipulate human genes. So "thou shalt not carry out morally dubious scientific experiments" or "thou shalt not pollute the earth" might one day be added to the Ten Commandments.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell".
The new mortal sins were listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at encouraging a revival of the practice of confession - or the Sacrament of Penance in Church jargon.
According to a survey carried out here 10 years ago by the Catholic University, 60% of Italians have stopped going to confession altogether. The situation has certainly not improved during the past decade.
Catholics are supposed to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year. The priest absolves them in God's name.
Talking to course members at the end of the seminar organised by the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican department in charge of fixing the punishments and indulgences handed down to sinners, Pope Benedict added his own personal voice of disquiet.
"We are losing the notion of sin," he said. "If people do not confess regularly, they risk slowing their spiritual rhythm," he added. The Pope confesses his sins regularly once a week.
Greatest sins of our times
In an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Archbishop Girotti said he thought the most dangerous areas for committing new types of sins lay in the fields of bio-ethics and ecology.
He also named abortion and paedophilia as two of the greatest sins of our times. The archbishop brushed off cases of sexual violence against minors committed by priests as "exaggerations by the mass media aimed at discrediting the Church".
Father Gerald O'Collins, former professor of moral theology at the Papal University in Rome, and teacher of many of the Catholic Church's current top Cardinals and Bishops, welcomed the new catalogue of modern sins.
"I think the major point is that priests who are hearing confessions are not sufficiently attuned to some of the real evils in our world," he told the BBC News website. "They need to be more aware today of the social face of sin - the inequalities at the social level. They think of sin too much on an individual level.
"I think priests who hear confession should have a deeper sense of the violence and injustice of such problems - and the fact that people collaborate simply by doing nothing. One of the original deadly sins is sloth - disengagement and not getting involved," Father O'Collins said. The Jesuit professor now teaches at St Mary's University in Twickenham.
"It was interesting that these remarks came from the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary," he said. "I can't remember a time when it was so concerned about issues such as environmental pollution and social injustice. It's a new way of thinking." BBC
This from January 2008 Buggery Club To Start Witch Hunt
Well Satan hunt actually.
But if I start the new year off with this story I'm never going to find anything to follow it, not this year, not next year, not in a thousand years, this story takes Cor Blimey and Stroll On and turns them into totally ineffectual exclamations, then proceeds to cast them as redundant and inadequate into the literary gutter.
Short of employing some good Anglo-Saxon I'm actually lost for words, just what century does this tosser think it is?
Enough! have a read. Stroll on? Stroll, Christ in a fucking sidecar, on.
Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan
Satanism on the rise: Pope Benedict has unveiled plans to set up specialist exorcism squads
The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.
Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."
Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.
"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.
"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.
Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.
He said the Pope wants to restore a prayer seen as protection against evil that was traditionally recited at the end of Catholic Masses. The prayer, to St Michael the Archangel, was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.
The 1973 film The Exorcist deals with the demonic possession of a young girl: Now the Pope wants specialist exorcism squads in every parish
"The prayer is useful not only for priests but also for lay people in helping to fight demons," he said.
Father Paolo Scarafoni, who lectures on the Vatican's exorcism course, said interest in Satanism and the occult has grown as people lost faith with the church.
He added: "People suffer and think that turning to the Devil can help solve their problems. We are being bombarded by requests for exorcisms."
The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.
In theory, under the Catholic Church's Canon Law 1172, all priests can perform exorcisms. But in reality only a select few are assigned the task.
Under the law, practitioners must have "piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life."
The rite of exorcism involves a series of gestures and prayers to invoke the power of God and stop the "demon" influencing its victim. The Wail
I thought, here we go, the Mail is at it again, but as it turns the article was syndicated.
It was the headline that got my hackles up, the "repentant" pope is vilified, well it would wouldn't it.
Time is somewhat at a premium today, so I'm not going to delve into this thing as I might. Disagree as I may, perhaps it would be a tad uncivil of me to bad mouth a man, who by all appearances has never written a Madeleine McCann article, which I'm sure you would agree, has to count for something.
So just a little pasted here, the rest at the link.
Why is the unashamed child abuser Polanski lauded while the repentant Pope is vilified?
By Dominic Lawson
......The point is, I suspect, that whereas the Pope does understand that great wickedness has been perpetrated systematically by individuals within the Catholic priesthood, Polanski genuinely regards his conduct as blameless. He sees himself, not the 13-year-old girl he sodomised, as the victim.
Polanski, it might be said in his defence, is not a hypocrite. He never pretended to be a maintainer of any moral order.
This is why the behaviour of priests who abused children in their care, and any subsequent cover-up by the bishops, revolts us. more
Gender and numbers, they play a big part, Polanki's victim was female, and in the real world that still counts for something.
Polanski is one perp that's walking around, the Catholic Church has, I don't know how many thousands of perps walking around, with the likelihood of ne're but a handful ever being brought to book.
But it's the bit I've highlighted that is the salient point, individual bishops may well have covered up, in fact I would be amazed if they hadn't, but who led the cover-up for years, non other than the Nasty Nazi, Ratzinger, and that's the crux of the matter.
And personally speaking I think the article is crap, trying to juxtapose and compare Polanski to Ratzinger just doesn't work, apples and pears if you will.
And there is one other reason I'm running with this story, Lawson quotes an article by Richard Dawkins, which, if I post here, has a danger of being lost under the header I have used for this post. Consequentially the article in question is posted directly below this post, and if you arrived here via a search, here is the link.
"Should Pope Benedict XVI be held responsible for the escalating scandals over clerical sexual abuse in Europe?"
Yes he should, and it's going to escalate a lot further, as more and more victims break through the guilt of their childhood indoctrination and come forward.
"Should he be investigated for how cases of abuse were handled under his watch as archbishop of Munich or as the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer?"
Yes, of course he should. This former head of the Inquisition should be arrested the moment he dares to set foot outside his tinpot fiefdom of the Vatican, and he should be tried in an appropriate civil - not ecclesiastical - court. That's what should happen. Sadly, we all know our faith-befuddled governments will be too craven to do it.
"Should the pope resign?"
No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly - ideally - qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.
No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice - the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution - while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears. WaPo
I've resisted putting captions in the above because I've no doubt I would have been coursed by one or two Dawkins/FSM fans; not to mention fans of herself.
