Offending the invisible friend

Do you remember the Da Vinci Code back way when? Yes, that one where all the Christians and Catholics rallied to boycott the movie. Oddly enough, I watched it with my mom when I was still very much in faith. I liked it. My mom liked it and she's hates blasphemy.

Anyway, a recent report states the [Sith] Pope Benedict of The Vatican banned the filming of Angels and Demons in any of the churches in the City of Rome. The reason? The story is an offense to God and hurts the religious faithful.

Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, head of the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, said that Dan Brown had “turned the Gospels upside down to poison the faith. It would be unacceptable to transform churches into film sets so that his blasphemous novels can be made into mendacious films in the name of business.”

It's funny how they don't see the irony. Religion if fine to inject itself into the public sphere with its contaminated message. There are Christian sects that invade homes with their ridiculous claims of an invisible man and his zombie son. What's wrong with doing the similar thing in your so called "house of god?" What? Did he give you the stern look down at your and said "My house my rules! If you don't like it get out?" The religious need to realize that fiction often inspires more fiction.

Dirty Little Catholics

Reuters reports that the Vatican will excommunicate women priests. I say good! Why would women want to be part of your penis waging, boy-loving men only club? Those women better wake up and smell the coffee and leave the faith all together. The Catholic doctrine is a sexist piece of work. How can anyone follow a faith when it doesn't adhere to future generations? If god is all knowing and eternal he should know about the ever changing society within these two millennial. In fact, the men who wrote the bible were all sexist! How were women portrayed in the Bible? Well, let's see they were prostitutes, beggars, lepers... oh, yeah and rape victims who were raped in the name of faith!

The report explains more on the Vatican's decision. The Vatican says, "[The Church] cannot change the rules banning women from the priesthood because Christ chose only men as his apostles. Church law states that only a baptized male can be made a priest." Now ain't that a good piece of PR. I see this as a battlefield situation. Command [in this case the bible and old Vatican law] says you need to kill the hostages to save the world, but the private [present day followers of the Catholic faith] make their own judgements. The leader, decided to take commands word for it, but the private thinks otherwise and there should be another way. The leader takes matters into his own hands and shoots himself in the foot and gets his private killed by the ricochet. Talk about depressing! The Vatican knows that these times are different from back then, but they refuse to buckle and change law. WHY? I remember back in the day learning about Catholicism where the first and second Vatican council decided not to do mass exclusively in Latin and that the priest should look at the congregation. What about another Vatican council? In fact, I think it's a good move on the Catholic faith, because it means more people will leave the faith. I'm all about leaving religion behind.

Catholics Go Home

My mother and father are non-practising Catholic or in other words, they pray to God when they want good fortune. The house we live in was owned by a Catholic family, but that's another story I will get into in later entries. Right now I just need to tell you what I found in the mail: A copy of The Catholic Register! I sure as heck know that it's not my mother's or father's, so I'm going to assume the subscriptions belongs to the previous owners of the house. Woot! Free subscription! Well, with my new found non-religious mind-set, I didn't initially want to throw it out. I stood there holding the copy in my hands and I thought I'd give it a go, read some articles and see what I could pull out as total Bullshit. I found one and it won't be too pretty once I tear into it.

Article 1:
Headline: Aliens our "Extraterrestrial brothers"?
Subheading: Vatican astronomer ponders alien life and faith

I read this article with mental laughter and physical strain as my brows pursed upwards in a WTF? fashion. Apparently my former Catholic leaders have finally found reason to believe that there may be life on other planets. [Well, fuck me with a broom-stick Jesus, because this is absolute news to me. I am absolutely flabbergasted! Pray, tell more.] A Jesuit Father, Jose Funes, the director of the Vatican Observatory says, "Christians should consider alien life as an 'extraterrestrial brother' an part of God's creation." He goes on to say that aliens on other planets are just as possible, because, our planet contains various animals. "These potential life forms" the article goes on to say, "could include those that have no need of oxygen or hydrogen." [*gasp* I, for one call bullshit! You're telling me god tried several gaseous elements on Adam and Oxygen just stuck? whodathunkit?]

Now here's the kicker! "This is not" Funes says, "in contrast with the faith, because we cannot place limits on the creative freedom of God." Full-stop! Holy Shit! What the EFF! Yes it is! He goes on to back-up his claim with a quote from St. Francis, "If we consider earthly creatures as 'brothers' and 'sisters', why can't we also speak of an 'extraterrestrial brother'?" Yeah, sure you do that, but I'd like to point out that you fucked yourself with two contradictory statements to your doctrine. First and foremost the Bible states that man was created in god's own in image. So these aliens would have to be human to make your statements right. If the aliens turned out to look like gods inbred aunt... I'd be very cautious if I were you. And that quote from St. Francis is questionable. Googling that very quote, brought a tonne of articles ridiculing your so-called E.T. religious epiphany and none leading to a devout St. Francis of Assisi page or a book.

One thing that caught my attention was this quote, "As an astronomer, I can say that from the observation of starts and galaxies there emerges a clear evolutionary process." The article continues, "He said that in his opinion the big-bang theory remains the best explanations of the origin of the universe from a scientific point of view. Above all it's a reasonable explanation"... Wow, just wow, who would have thought a man of cloth would say things an be content with where he stands. I guess the Vatican pays more than any observatory.

At the end of the article I had to agree with one point he made, "The Bible is not fundamentally a work of science." Say it brother... I mean father! "It is a letter of love that God has written to His people, in a language that was used 2,000-3,000 years ago. Obviously, at that time a concept like the big band was totally extraneous." Yeah... You got me up to and until you said 'Bible' and 'not work of science'. If the Bible is a love letter to humanity with no mention about these extraterrestrials... Then that means... God is a two timing whore!