Evidence

A couple of nights ago, while reporting in its usual brown-nosing way on Ratzinger’s visit to France, Italy’s TG2, the state-run evening news programme, talked about the 'appearance' of the Madonna at Lourdes. Except that, the way it was said, there weren't any inverted commas around appearance. And I didn’t hear any of those qualifying words like ‘claimed’, or ‘presumed’ or, well, ‘possibly never happened’. Apparently, for Italian state television, she really did appear. The physical presence of a woman who’s been dead for damn near two thousand years in a small French town one and a half centuries ago is a fact. Like Russia invading Georgia, or Berlusconi representing Italy at G8. (Hmm.)   

This was followed by an account of a recent 'miracle'. There was an interview with the head of some preposterous religious organization set up to ensure the validity of religious miracles who said that, yes, this was a miracle. Apparently we’re supposed to believe the man because many so-called religious miracles are shown to be false, which makes this one true. Next thing, we’ll be asking Russell Davies if being on the cusp really makes a difference to the way we relate to Sagittarians. Publish Post

Business

An amusing, if slightly chilling, story from today's Guardian. The headline? Pilot restrained after 'talking to God' on flight to Heathrow. At first I thought the pilot was under the impression that God was actually on the plane with him, presumably in business. Still, it could have been worse. The final paragraph reads:

In 1999 a New York-bound EgyptAir flight crashed into the Atlantic shortly after the co-pilot, who was controlling the plane, was heard to say "I put my faith in God" as the autopilot was switched off. The plane then plunged into a steep dive and crashed into the sea, killing 217 people.

If talking to God is so dangerous when pilots do it, shouldn't we be a little more worried when political leaders do the same? Why should it be a sign of mental breakdown in mid-air and moral integrity at mid-term? I rather like the idea of a handcuffed Blair being escorted through the Arrivals lounge of Brussels airport.

Facts

Let's start the year with a fanfare for rationalism. World-class scientists were asked what, if anything, had changed their minds by John Brockman, a New York literary agent and the man behind the site, Edge. All of them confessed, for want of a better word, that new information, new evidence, had led to new formulations. Well, of course. This is how science works. Now let's ask a similarly eminent group of religious leaders the same question and listen to them ramble on about revealed truths.

As Brockman says: "When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy. When God changes your mind, that's faith. When facts change your mind, that's science."

Knock, knock, who's there?

Never heard of Sylvia Browne? I hadn't either before I read this article by Jon Ronson in today's Guardian Unlimited. Apparently, she's the most famous psychic in the United States. If you'd like to ask her a question about, say, your missing cat or why your boyfriend killed himself you can pay $750 and wait four years for a 30-minute telephone consultation. Alternatively, pay €4000 and go on a cruise, where she might just pull your name out of a hat during one of her lectures. This is the kind of in-depth information you're likely to get:

"Am I ever going to have a better relationship with my father?" another woman asks.

"No," Sylvia replies. "He's narcissistic. He has sociopathic tendencies. Forget it. There's a darkness there."

"Thank you, Sylvia," she says.

Sylvia seems to be psychically diagnosing a lot of people with narcissistic personality disorder today.

"Will you tell me exactly the time and place my father died?" the next woman asks.

"Ten years ago in Iowa," Sylvia says.

"Iowa?" says the woman, surprised.

"I'm the psychic," Sylvia snaps. "I'm telling you. Iowa."

"Thank you, Sylvia," the woman says, cowed.

The next woman asks, "What happened to my dog? Is she still alive?"

"No, honey," Sylvia says.

The woman bursts into tears.

Read the whole thing. It's worth it. And if you'd like to buy one of the old fraud's inspirational books (titles include: Christmas in Heaven, Animals on the Other Side and, for only $14.95, God, Creation and Tools for Life), just click here.

A mamma, li turchi

Remember Adnan Oktar? Of course you don't. He's the nutter behind the Atlas of Creation, a lavishly produced load of anti-evolution shite mass-mailed throughout Europe, as well as attempts to outlaw Darwinism in his own country and others. You can read more about all this here.

The Ministry of Truth now has a fascinating post about his latest efforts to impose his loopy agenda on the world, as is usual with revealed truth cranks by trying to shut other people up. Thanks to Mr Oktar and his gang of lawyers, all Wordpress blogs are now banned in Turkey. If you're Turkish and want to carry on reading this or any other Blogspot blog, don't breathe a word to Oktar...

God hates Lily Tomlin

I’m in England for a few days, enjoying the drizzle and the best that UKTV has to offer. Bit of a glut last night, as I moved from Emmerdale to a programme about a house so dirty the most hygienic niche was to be found inside the cage of a rat. This was followed by Embarrassing Illnesses (slightly disappointing after the exhilarating haemorrhoids of the first episode – a penile spot, heavy periods, cystitis: embarrassing seems to equate with weary regularity to the genital area, although there was an epic case of athlete’s foot and an armpit boil so deep it swallowed half a q-tip). Thirty minutes of Big Brother, yawn, followed by half an hour of one of those holiday from hell things. By this point, I’m working through the six sudokus offered by my mother’s paper and waiting for a promising documentary about the God Hates Fags gang from Topeka. (You know, the ones who picket the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, with placards saying they deserved to die, surrounded by shocked but fawning cameras jostling for a shot.)

These people (essentially an extended family and six imported loonies) have the terrible logic of most convinced interpreters of revealed truth, which is as near madness as matters. They’re obsessed by rimming, though they prefer to call it ‘eating faeces’. Fags (sic) eat faeces and there are fags in the army. American soldiers are dying in Iraq. Ergo America is doomed. It isn’t logical, but logic isn’t the issue here. They have placards that run the whole gamut of fag-hating delirium, attacking everyone from Lily Tomlin to Elton John: their preferred victims are media figures (as they are), though they’re not averse to picketing a local hairdresser, who stubbornly refuses to repent. I’d rather be Elton than him, despite a local radio person assuring Keith Allen – whose documentary this is - that no one pays them much mind.

Hmm. The problem is that Keith Allen can’t argue and these people can. It’s rather like watching a fifth former trying to hoist the petard of his history master. It isn’t a question of who’s right, but of who’s competent, and seeing Allen repeating ‘fool’ like a mantra to someone who deserves a thorough trouncing at a slightly higher level (i.e. of argument) is simply depressing. The best thing, clearly, is to ignore these people, whose nuisance value far outweighs their significance. If we can’t do that, at least let’s send an interlocutor who can wipe the floor with their medieval nonsense. In other words - Christopher Hitchens, where are you when we need you?

PC vs RC

It's extraordinary the way the people who complain about political correctness (without which it would still be perfectly acceptable to call a person with Down's syndrome a Mongol) are the first to get their holy knickers in a twist when someone says something tasteless about religion.

The Italians have a useful phrase in this context: due pesi, due misure (two weights, two measures). It's fine, in other words, to insult a person, or group of people, or life-style, or accident of birth. Just don't touch the revealed truth lobby...

Revealed truths 6

From Popbitch (what would we do without it?):

This is an excerpt from May 31st, showing an
end-of-term performance by the kindergarten
class of the Islamic Association in Gaza:

Host: Stay with us to watch this performance
by the children of Palestine.

The boys' show:
"Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah.
Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah.
Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah.
Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah.
Who is your role model? The Prophet.
What is your path? Jihad.
What is your most lofty aspiration?
- Death for the sake of Allah.

It's a far cry from the oath I was supposed to learn to become a boy scout. All I had to do there was declare undying allegiance to the Queen, Commonwealth, er, God...

I just couldn't learn it. That must be why I never got my camping badge.

It must have been quite a week...

Now, let's see. Monday, light, Tuesday, space. No, wait a minute. Monday, light, Tuesday, the land and the sky and the oceans. Oh hell. (No, that was later.) And all the things that creep on the surface, etc. Wednesday? Thursday?

I wonder which day he made the gigantoraptor on.

PS The image is blurred because it's a very old photograph.

Revealed truths 5

A Pentecostal teaching assistant in Croydon recently quit her job after refusing to listen to a seven-year-old girl read from a Harry Potter novel on the grounds that the book glorifies witchcraft, described in the Bible as an 'abomination'. She is now seeking compensation for 'religious discrimination'.

For more details, click here.

Revealed truths 4

Cranks in the Czech Republic are using information from a higher source to wrap children in duct tape and leave them to dehydrate on bare floors. An article in today's Independent - titled: Chance discovery of abused child reveals bizarre Czech grail cult (you couldn't make it up, could you?) - begins like this:

A flickering image of a small naked boy, lying tied-up on the bare floor of a room, was the clue that drew the Czech Republic into a tale of child abuse, obscure sects and a mysterious vanishing girl that has shocked and baffled the nation.

The picture was spotted by a father keeping an eye on his baby, when his video monitor received a stray signal from a similar device being used in a neighbouring house in the quiet town of Kurim, close to the south-eastern city of Brno.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Revealed truths 3

This comes from The End of Faith, by Sam Harris:

When the members of the 'Heaven's Gate' cult failed to spot the spacecraft they knew must be trailing the comet Hale-Bopp, they returned the $4,000 telescope they had bought for this purpose, believing it to be defective.

Revealed truths 1 and 2

Fundamentalists in Israel have complained about the use of cotton and linen in the same garment, as this is contrary to Talmudic law. The clothing retailers Zara, with 30 stores in Israel, have complied and removed the garment.

An Egyptian theologian issued a fatwa a couple of days ago according to which a woman working in the same office as a man could regularise her position by removing her veil, lifting her gown to a suitable height and breastfeeding her colleague. Five times. As far as Islamic law was concerned, this would make him a member of her family.