OK, anger it is

Honestly, the sheer cheek of some people is breathtaking.

Not content with his spectacular and very public failure to predict something that will never occur, Harold Camping is now at it again. The Rapture won't be on May 21st 2011 but October 21st 2011, after all that.

Quite why this date is a dead cert when the previously predicted two also were and then weren't is not clear. I'll have a guess though. It has something to do with Harold Camping being a clueless lying fuckwit trying to impose his ridiculous interpretations of a ridiculous superstition on the real world, then desperately trying to cover it up when it all goes tits up because he knows the truly stupid won't miss a beat as they accept this new date and his rationalisations.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say the real world is going to win this one. Again.

The sad thing is that people will still suck this shit right up and pretend its chocolate. Who knows though, maybe it'll be third time lucky. But I wouldn't cancel any plans you have for the 22nd October 2011.

Pity? Anger? Amusement? I'm just not sure

Well, you didn't really think I was going to let the failed Rapture pass without comment, did you?

Now, I'm honestly not sure exactly what I should be feeling about this whole thing. Should I pity the people who believed Harold Camping and gave up money and more? Should I dismiss them as gullible and stupid? Should I feel they got what they deserved for their lack of critical thinking and arrogance? Should I direct my feelings towards Camping in the form of anger and disgust? Or should I just point and laugh?

Right now, I'm going for a mixture of most of the above. But I think I can rule out pity, except for the innocent victims. Those who have no college fund now because their parents are fucking morons. Those who will suffer because others fell for this fast burning stupidity.

More Catholic excuses

I say more, but what I really mean is "More of the same." A recent anonymous comment was added to an older post about the Catholic Church desperately trying to find anyone to blame but themselves for the recent and ongoing child sex abuse scandals revealed in multiple countries around the world. Rather than try to fit my reply into a couple of seperate comments thanks to bloggers annoying comment length limit, I thought that it was a good excuse for a new post, since I've been quiet for a while.

Our intrepid anonymous commenter (henceforth known as Beatrice) basically trotted out two excuses used with disturbing monotony by the Church and its apologists:

1. But it wasn't every priest doing it.
2. Blame it on the gays. If there were no gays, this wouldn't have happened.

Seen it before, often out of the mouths of very senior members of the Church. They were both bullshit the first time we heard them, and they're still bullshit now.

Health and prayer, and why God can't lose

The job I started last year takes me into a lot of hospitals, and a large percentage of them are actually religious institutions - and all of these religious facilities are Christian. I find these latter hospitals strangely contradictory places that, without knowing it, are particularly damning of the idea that prayer works. I've been going to these places for a few months now and had the vague feeling I wanted to blog about them but wasn't sure how and why, until recently when a number of things intersected and gave me a direction to take. One day I saw a picture in one facility that, in equal measures, creeped me out, made me laugh out loud and certainly cemented my decision never to have surgery there. Just before I saw the picture and afterwards, there were then a number of medical scares to close family members (one of my children and my dad) and finally I've been reading "Why Won't God Heal Amputees?" Which I've linked to before and flicked through but never taken the time, until now, to read in its entirety.

In all honesty, if you've ever taken the time to read "Why Won't God Heal Amputees?" then none of this should be new to you. But it is my take on some of the ideas presented there with a couple of new bits thrown in. If you haven't read it then why the hell not? It is much better than anything I've ever written on the topic!