Tag: religion

Reality Check

NASA released a fantastic photo this past week depicting the Earth as a pale blue dot through the rings of Saturn. The photo was taken by the Cassini space probe that is in orbit studying the giant gas planet and it’s moons. This picture brings to mind other humbling NASA shots like the photos of the Earth and the moon together taken by numerous spacecraft(here, here and here) and the ‘family portrait’ of the Earth and the other planets in our solar system from Voyager as it left our solar system in 1990. Everything that we know and all the history of humanity and life as we know it has originated from that tiny grouping of pixels. Clone stamp it in Photoshop and suddenly, no Earth exists. However, the rest of the Universe keeps going even if we humans and our mythologies and religions disappear. Just think of how advanced our civilization would be if all children started learning about astronomy instead of religion in grade school.

The Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn sends a reality check to all religious people on the pale blue dot called Earth.

 

Holy Wiretapping!

With all the latest news about surveillance, we thought we’d dust off a little article from our June 19, 2003 issue, almost ten years ago. Remember those halcyon days when super christian John Ashcroft was Attorney General, the Patriot Act had just been enacted and Ari Fleischer, doing his impersonation of a Stasi agent, warned us we had to watch what we said. Yes, Big Brother had just started to trample on our civil liberties and it hasn’t gotten any better. Guantanamo Bay is still open, too. Feeling safer yet? We didn’t think so. Thanks Dubya!

Ashcroft To Wiretap Prayers

In his latest attempt to halt terrorism in its tracks, Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced a plan to wiretap prayers to determine possible plots against the United States.

“Our scientists have made a breakthrough in prayer technology that will enable us to intercept evil prayers from evil doers and bring them to justice,” said Ashcroft. “We’ve built a device that will allow us to monitor all prayers from all American people no matter what religion they may be. We can determine to which God they are praying and for what they are praying.”

Ashcroft then gave an example. “Let’s say Mohammed Muslim starts praying to Allah and asks him to destroy the United States. Our agents can intercept the evil prayer, trace it back to its sender and have him locked up in Guantanamo Bay before you can say Jesus Christ.”

Ashcroft then added, “But don’t say Jesus Christ. It’s a sin to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

When asked if this was an invasion of personal privacy and freedom of religion, Ashcroft retorted angrily, “Look! George Bush and I are tight with God. We are doing his work! He wants us to win and the only way to win is by monitoring the minds of every single American and make sure they have no evil thoughts against the Bush Administration.”

When asked what he thought about the wiretapping of prayers, Jesus Christ said from his palatial mansion in heaven, “Hey it’s what I’d do. I’m tight with these guys okay. They know my mind. Excuse me now but I’ve got to watch the Reds-Dodgers game. Fred McGriff didn’t pray yesterday so I think he’ll be striking out a lot today. Who says I don’t care about sports.”

Time To Update The DB Connection

Much has been said about the right wing’s ‘War on Science’ in recent years (Links here and here and here). There is definitely a love connection with Republicans and religious conservatives but that’s not surprising. Most religions are authoritarian by nature, where all believers are supposed to follow their ‘exalted’ leaders or suffer the consequences. Right wing politicos also obey the hierarchy of authoritarianism. A prime example of this is when then Vice-President Dick Cheney, shot an acquaintance, Harry Whittington, and Whittington apologized to Cheney. And of course any criticism, even if it valid, logical and reasonable, is evil because it goes against the vaunted authority figure: for example, the catholic church’s support of child molesting priests. Or the religious right saying that evolution couldn’t possibly be real because God created man in his image. Of course, they never consider that maybe man made God in his image.

A huge criticism of religion is that while religious texts from thousands of years ago may provide some insight into human nature, (human nature really hasn’t changed since then), it is woefully inadequate in explaining the mechanics of the universe. So much information has been obtained through scientific inquiry and study in the last 400 years alone, in all branches of science, that one really has to question the logic of believing in traditions established when the the knowledge base of the universe was so small. Perhaps it’s time for some people on planet Earth to update their database connections.

 

Some denizens of planet Earth need to update their database connections.

Massachusetts and Salt Lake City Love…Obama?

One thing that is really interesting to us here at the Bucket is that no one is mentioning that Spiff Romney is trailing President Obama in polls by 15 points in his home state of Massachusetts. 15 POINTS!!! Remember in 2000 when media observers made such a big deal about Al Gore not being able to carry his home state of Tennessee. Well no one in the so called ‘liberal’ media is mentioning this juicy tidbit. No one is mentioning his low 40% approval rating when he left the governorship after one term either.

Another thing we noticed today is that the Salt Lake City Tribune endorsed Barack Obama for President yesterday. We find this rather astonishing since Salt Lake City is the mecca of Mormonism, which is Romney’s religion, and dealt considerably with Romney in the 2002 Winter Olympic games. Though Romney will no doubt carry Utah, it’s shocking that the largest daily newspaper would NOT lend it’s support to one of the most high profile Mormon politicians in the country. Things that make you go hmmmmm!

GOP candidate, Spiff Romney, receives a reality check from one of his Mormon brethren in Salt Lake City.

 

RNC 2004: The Big Endorsement

Continuing with our RNC 2004 retrospective…

In America, the Republican Party has become the party of God and Jesus. Well, we shouldn’t be surprised because Jesus was all about supporting the rich while despising the poor. We’re sure if Jesus came back today he’d be wearing a well tailored Armani suit, driving a BMW and/or a pickup, be a member of an exclusive country club, eating caviar, drinking the finest wines and carrying a loaded gun in case any poor person would think of threatening him. And as for healthcare, he’d say, “If you can’t afford it, well that’s your fault for being poor. Why should I help you?” That’s life in a christian nation. We’re also sure that it was Jesus who steered Tropical Storm Issac away from a direct hit on Tampa and instead directed it toward other red states like Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, which have many poor people,  because, you know…he loves Republicans so much.

President Bush pulls some strings with the Big Guy and gets Jesus to appear to endorse his candidacy.

The Ryan Hypocrisy

In the words of Ricky Ricardo, Paul Ryan has some “‘splaining to do”. It seems that Spiff Romney’s new GOP Vice Presidential candidate has some conflicting beliefs that need some clarification. On the one hand, he’s supposedly a staunch Catholic, which means he’s a follower of Jesus, who preached to share and care for your fellow human beings. On the other hand, he’s a staunch fan of Ayn Rand (an avowed atheist), who preached that one should be selfish and be concerned only for yourself and that caring for others is weak and undesirable. These two philosophies seem to be contradictory.  It seems to us that Mr. Ryan and those other conservative christian Republicans, who tout the prosperity gospel while at the same time want to deny basic healthcare to some people in our country, may be hypocrites. Make no mistake: if Romney and Ryan get in, senior entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are gone, while corporate entitlements will be handed out like candy at Halloween. I wonder what Jesus would say, because we all know how much of a capitalist he was.

Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, has nothing but praise for GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his Randian philosophy.

Just Gaffeing Around

The world got a good look at Mitt Romney last week and … they don’t like him. He made gaffe after gaffe with world leaders and certainly didn’t improve foreign perceptions of the United States. About the only meeting that went off without a hitch was Romney’s meeting with former Solidarity Union leader and Polish president Lech Wałęsa, who seems to be backing Romney. Which begs the question, why would a union leader support Romney? Conservative Republicans hate unions. If Wałęsa’s movement was in the United States, Romney would be trying to dissolve it. Wałęsa is a very religious man, so we’re thinking in this case that religion trumps common sense.

Or just maybe, Romney managed to pull a boner and the media just swept it under the rug. Why that’s blasphemy! How could we even suggest such a thing? The news media never looks the other way when it comes to Republican candidates.

Former Solidarity leader and Polish president, Lech Wałęsa, seems to be having second thoughts about his endorsement of Mitt Romney in the upcoming American presidential election.

 

The Powah of Prayer

Here’s more religious BS from our September 10, 2007 issue, not long after Hurricane Felix slammed Central America killing 130 people and causing $720 million in damages.

Man Forgets To Pray; Causes Hurricane Felix

Members of the Fourth Evangelical Church have announced that they have found a suspect they believed caused Hurricane Felix. The church says that Gainesville, Florida resident, Dave Nielsen, caused the storm by neglecting to attend church and praying the Sunday before the hurricane hit Nicaragua and Honduras.

“We think that this man is responsible for that devastating hurricane that hit Central America because he didn’t come to church and pray this past Sunday,” said Pastor Jonathon Scheister. “Rumor has it that he was out drinking and womanizing Saturday night over at that den of sin, Gator Gulch, and was so tired he couldn’t drag his sorry behind out of bed to go and worship the Lord. There is no doubt in my mind that he caused this event, just as I’m sure all the gays and lesbians caused 9/11.”

Televangelist Maureen Kay said “Let this be a lesson to all of you, praise the Lord. Our Lord is a loving God, praise the Lord, but also a vengeful God, praise the Lord. You must put God first in your life, praise the Lord, and pray constantly or God will cause much pain and destruction, praise the Lord. Only by constantly acknowledging how great God is, praise the Lord, will the people of Earth be saved. Oh God, I hope I said enough praise the Lords. I better just repeat the phrase for another hour or so just to be safe. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord…”

Thirty year old Nielsen said, “You gotta be kidding me! Hey, I worked a twelve hour shift Saturday over at the University laying concrete. I went out afterward with a few friends, shot some pool and had a few beers. I was zonked. I mean I worked 55 hours that week. I’ve got child support payments to make. I’ve got alimony to pay. I’ve got rent to pay. I’ve got insurance to pay. I’m sorry. Sometimes I just can’t make it to church. I’m sure Jesus would understand.”

Scheister took offense to Nielsen’s explanation. “How dare he say that Jesus would understand! He doesn’t know what Jesus thinks! I’m the pastor. I’m the only one in our church who truly understands what Jesus would do. I talk to Jesus all the time, just like our beloved President Bush and he tells me what is right and wrong. Like last night, Jesus said it was perfectly okay to use church funds to buy that new Armani suit for myself because if I’m going to sell the Lord’s word, I’ve got to look good, right? Hallelujah!”

When asked if Nielsen had indeed caused the Hurricane, heaven spokesperson St. Sixtus said, “Well we’ve traced our prayers in our prayer center and we’ve found that if we would’ve gotten one more prayer, say from one David J. Nielsen, God would’ve evaporated Hurricane Felix right there in the Caribbean-o. But noooooooooo. Mr. Beer Drinker, Mr. get-a-divorce-rather-than-stay-together-in-a-loveless-marriage, David J. Nielsen, had to skip church. So God done brung it. So don’t blame God, people of Central America; blame David J. Nielsen. And Bill Clinton, of course.”