jealous god

God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When god says the same we call him “loving” and build churches in his honor.

William C. Easttom II, skeptic at icon dot net

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Certain so-called Christians of the “make up any old crap as long as it’s sensational” school are publishing nonsense about Halowe’en and witches cursing your candy. Well, it’s true that the gods of an old religion tend to become the devils of the next religion, as Baal became “Beelzebub” and the Virgin of Baal became “Jezebel”. But, really, that doesn’t mean that the old Celtic festival of late harvest, time to slaughter pigs, smoke bacon, and store turnips, time to pray the souls of the recent dead across to Summerland, must be a time for witches to curse Hallowe’en candy. The church re-purposed this time of the thinning of the barriers between now and the hereafter as All Soul’s Day and All Hallows’ Eve. But to pagan priests and priestesses, Christianity would have been just an upstart newcomer and largely irrelevant to their agricultural calendar cycle. On the contrary, it was Christians who borrowed the pagan calendar, from Hallowe’en to the winter solstice and the rebirth of the Sun–for Christmas–to Easter, the time of ferment and fertility–for the rising of their reincarnated avatar of the traditional hero-myth.

Some bloggers, such as Evolved and Rational, are reporting that the cult of Scientology appears to be in disarray. We can always hope. As people needing psychiatric care have died under their treatment, they are reported to engage in attacks by litigation, and their founder’s principles for raising children remind me of Dickensian child abuse, the sooner the better. And who drowned the judge’s dog when the judge was presiding over a $cientology case?

Yet another unfulfilled prediction:

Apocalypse when?

Bill Maher points out that swine flu proves evolution:

In the process, he gets in a few good one-line jokes and takes a dig at creationism.

Hat tip to Tara C. Smith at Aetiology.