Rules for miracles

In today's News of the Surreal, we have: the Vatican is tightening the rules on what it's willing to call divine supernatural phenomena.

It's tricky business, isn't it?  In science, there's a well-established protocol for evaluating the strength of a claim, involving stuff like evidence and logic (and, if possible, a statistical analysis of the data).  But how do you do that in religion, where the only real rule is God does whatever the hell he wants?  Most of the claims of miracles are, by definition, one-offs; after all, if the same sort of thing kept happening over and over, it wouldn't be a miracle.  It's not like when Moses saw the Burning Bush, he was able to say, "Okay, let's compare this to other times we've had booming voices speak out of a flaming shrubbery, and see if this is a real phenomenon or if maybe I shouldn't have eaten those suspicious-looking mushrooms at dinner." 

So now, according to the new rules, bishops are being given the unenviable task of deciding whether a given apparition or miraculous healing or whatnot is real.  The first hurdle, apparently, is to determine if it is an outright lie to make money -- and the problem is these sorts of claims are ridiculously lucrative, so such scams abound.  The apparition of the Virgin Mary in the little village of Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, wherein six adults were supposedly blessed for their faith and told such surprising revelations as "don't have an abortion" and "same-sex marriage is naughty in God's sight," led to it becoming the third most popular pilgrimage site in Europe (after Fátima in Portugal and Lourdes in France).  Over a million people visit the shrine every year, bringing in huge amounts of revenue; in 2019, sixty thousand young Catholics from all over the world descended on the village, accompanied by fourteen archbishops and bishops and over seven hundred priests -- despite the Vatican making the rather equivocal statement that such pilgrimages were okay "as long as there is no assumption the [apparitions of Mary] are confirmed to have a supernatural origin."

One of the many gift shops in Medjugorje [Image licensed under the Creative Commons Sean MacEntee, Virgin Mary Statues (5778409684), CC BY 2.0]

Don't try to tell me that religion isn't big business.

Once the bishops determine that any given claim isn't simply fraudulent, they issue a nihil obstat ("there is no obstacle") decree, which is the religious version of "Whatever floats your boat, dude."  Nihil obstat effectively says, "Okay, fine, we can't stop you from worshiping this thing, but we're not saying it's real, either."  In the new guidelines, bishops are warned against going from there to stating outright that the phenomenon is divine in origin; issued prematurely, the Vatican says, jumping from nihil obstat to "this is a message from God" can lead to "damage to the unity of the Church" and could "cause scandals and undermine the credibility of the Church."

Well, yeah, that's the problem, isn't it?  There is no good evidence-based litmus test for differentiating between a "real" supernatural event (whatever that means) and a mere delusion; if there was, the event wouldn't be supernatural, it would simply be natural.  So we're still down to the sketchy grounds of having a bishop say, "I prayed to God and God said it was so," which then hinges on whether the bishop himself is telling the truth.

Because I can't think of any times bishops have been involved in hinky stuff, can you?

So the new rules don't really solve anything, just kick the can down the road to give the impression that there are now hard-and-fast rules for determining the veracity of something that by definition doesn't obey the laws of nature.  The BBC article where I learned about this story (linked above) ends with what has to be my favorite line I've read in a news source in months, to wit: "And so the Vatican, an institution peppered with mysticism, and which still communicates via smoke signals when electing a new pope, will be hoping its new rules can regulate claims of the supernatural."

Heh.  Yeah.  The Catholic Church, of course, is kind of in an awkward position, because they do more or less accept science most of the time, as long as the science doesn't fly in the face of the status quo.  The Big Bang Model was actually the brainchild of an astronomer who was also an ordained priest (Monseigneur Georges Lemaître) and the Vatican stated outright that the Big Bang was completely compatible with Catholic theology in 1951.  They officially pardoned Galileo in 1992 (better late than never), and have at least refused to condemn biological evolution.  But the fact remains that -- as the writer for the BBC News stated -- the entire institution is rooted in mysticism, which is a deeply unscientific approach to understanding the world.  I suppose I'd prefer this sort of waffling to (say) the views of the fundamentalists, who pretty well reject science in toto, but it still strikes me that trying to play it both ways is not gonna turn out to be a winning strategy.  Once you accept any kind of evidence-based criteria for establishing the truth, you're solidly in science's wheelhouse, and -- despite the "non-overlapping magisteria" stance of people like evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould -- the result for religious claims has almost always been a solid thumbs-down.

In any case, there you have it.  New rules for miracles.  I guess it's a step up from the bumper sticker I saw a while back that said, "The Bible said it, I believe it, and that settles it," but given the other options, I'm still going with the laws of scientific induction any day of the week.

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Possession profession

Looking for a job with excitement and travel opportunities?  Do I have news for you!

Of course, there are a couple of downsides.  These include (1) you most likely have to become a Catholic priest to be eligible, and (2) it requires you to commit yourself to fighting bad guys who almost certainly don't exist.

What I'm referring to is an urgent call that was issued last week by a spokesman for the Vatican regarding a drastic shortage of exorcists.  The announcement was made by Valter Cascioli, who is the "scientific consultant" for the Vatican-endorsed International Association of Exorcists, which in my mind is a little like being the "reality consultant" for Looney Tunes.  Cascioli, we find out, also teaches a course in exorcism at the Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum in Rome.  This makes me wonder if there's a required lab class that goes along with the course.  Do you get graded on how thoroughly squelched the demon is after you exorcise it?  Do you get points off if your subject is eventually, as it were, repossessed?

Be that as it may, Cascioli takes the whole thing pretty seriously.  "The lack of exorcists is a real emergency," he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa.  "There is a pastoral emergency as a result of a significant increase in the number of diabolical possessions that exorcist priests are confronting.  The number of people who take part in occult and satanic practices, which lead to serious physical, psychological and spiritual damages, is constantly rising."

Saint Francis Borgia Performing an Exorcism by Francisco de Goya (1788) [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Amongst the difficulties I see with the whole concept of possession is that you'd think an atheist like me would be a sitting duck with respect to demonic attack.  I mean, I don't do all of the Vatican-approved things to protect myself, e.g. wearing a crucifix, making the sign of the cross, praying, and sprinkling myself with holy water.  And yet, here I sit, neither turning my head a full 360 nor puking up pea soup all over my computer.  In fact, atheists never seem to be the victims of demonic possession -- it's always people who believed in the devil and all of his assorted pals in the first place.

I wonder why that is.

This doesn't seem to occur to Cascioli, however.  In fact, he says, "There is a broad spread of superstitious practices, and with that a growing number of requests for help from people who are directly or indirectly struck by evil.  It is dangerous to underestimate a phenomenon that is caused by the direct actions of the devil, but also by a decline in faith and values."

Note that Cascioli attributes the rise in the demand for exorcisms with the "spread of superstitious practices," which is true, but not for the reason he thinks.

In fact, Cascioli thinks that exorcist training programs need to be expanded dramatically.  "There doesn’t exist a training institution at university level," he says.  "We need an interdisciplinary approach in which science collaborates with religion, and psychiatrists work with demonologists and exorcists."

And of course, there's just one problem with that, which is that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that demons exist, so a scientist collaborating with a demonologist would be sort of akin to a scientist collaborating with a unicornologist.  Not much chance there of getting funding, much less making it past the peer review process.

Nevertheless, Cascioli is getting a lot of support from his fellow demon-eviction squad.  Father Vincent Lampert of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, who is called "America's top exorcist" and whose activities have been featured on the television show Paranormal Witness, concurs with Cascioli's call for more exorcists.  "We’re gaining all sorts of knowledge, but there’s still that emptiness within us that is being filled with addictive behavior such as drugs and pornography," Father Lampert said.  "The decline in faith goes hand in hand with the rise in evil."

Well, all I can say is that if pornography led to demonic possession, the vast majority of single males (and a good many of the married ones) would be possessed.  In fact, it's hard to imagine the demons keeping up with the demand.

In all seriousness, the whole thing strikes me as kind of dangerous.  Not the demons, but the exorcists themselves.  How many people who are mentally ill -- especially schizophrenics and people with panic and anxiety disorders -- have been frightened by the combination of their experiences and the superstitious nonsense being thrust upon them into undergoing an exorcism rather than seeking legitimate medical attention?  Despite Cascioli's confidence that he can tell the difference between a mental illness and demonic possession, I'm unconvinced.

Of course I would be, given that I don't think demons exist in the first place.  But still.  The idea that some poor tortured soul would seek out an exorcist rather than getting help from a doctor is appalling.

So there you have it.  Today's dip in the deep end of the pool.  Myself, I can only hope that the shortage of exorcists isn't because the demons have been busier, but because belief in this dangerous superstition is on the decline.  The fact that there are still people like Cascioli and Lampert around is indicative of the fact that we're not fully in the 21st century yet -- but perhaps we're moving in the right direction.

The twisted history of religious conspiracy theorists

Following hard on the heels of yesterday's post, about some Muslims in Algeria who claim that attacks by purported Islamic terrorists are actually being carried about by magical shape-shifting Jews, we have a second, competing claim, from over at the site Bibliotecapleyades:

Islam itself is a hoax, and Muhammad and the Qu'ran and the rest of it were inventions of some evil Jesuits in the Vatican.

I would like to tell you that this is a spoof site, but I'm 99% sure it isn't.  Here's how they begin their argument, if I can dignify it by that name:

A Jesuit cardinal named Augustine Bea showed [Alberto Rivera, a Jesuit priest working in the Vatican] how desperately the Roman Catholics wanted Jerusalem at the end of the third century. Because of its religious history and its strategic location, the Holy City was considered a priceless treasure.

A scheme had to be developed to make Jerusalem a Roman Catholic city. The great untapped source of manpower that could do this job was the children of Ishmael.

The poor Arabs fell victim to one of the most clever plans ever devised by the Powers of Darkness.

Augustine Bea, by the way, is quite real, and was a scholar in biblical archaeology as well as being a powerful Vatican insider (he was, for a time, confessor to Pope Pius XII).  But his biographical details mention nothing about his being part of a grand Muslim hoax conspiracy.  Not that they would, of course.  Because these things have to be kept top-secret, you know, so secret that no one would ever find out about them unless they Googled "Cardinal Bea Muslim hoax."

Bad Bad Cardinal Bea [image from one of the inimitable "Chick Tracts"]

They go on to say:

Early Christians went everywhere with the gospel, setting up small churches, but they met heavy opposition.

Both the Jews and the Roman government persecuted the believers in Christ to stop their spread.

But the Jews rebelled against Rome, and in 70 A.D. Roman armies under General Titus smashed Jerusalem and destroyed the great Jewish temple which was the heart of Jewish worship - in fulfillment of Christ's prophecy in Matthew 24:2.

On this holy place, where the temple once stood, the Dome of the Rock Mosque stands today as Islam's second most holy place.

Sweeping changes were in the wind. Corruption, apathy, greed, cruelty, perversion, and rebellion were eating at the Roman Empire, and it was ready to collapse. The persecution against Christians was useless, as they continued to lay down their lives for the gospel of Christ.

The only way Satan could stop this thrust was to create a counterfeit "Christian" religion to destroy the work of God.

If this is true, Satan sure is a procrastinator, because between the destruction of the Temple and the founding of Islam was a little over 500 years.  You'd think that being the Prince of Darkness and Super-Evil Bad Guy and all, he'd have gotten right on that.

So anyhow, there are all sorts of writings, the author says, that show that Muhammad was basically a no-count Arab trader, and that the Muslim conquest of the Middle East was encouraged by the pope.  Why?  Who knows?

When Cardinal Bea shared this information with us in the Vatican, he said: "These writings are guarded because they contain information that links the Vatican to the creation of Islam."

Both sides have so much information on each other that, if exposed, it could create such a scandal that it would be a disaster for both religions.

In their "holy" book, the Koran, Christ is regarded as only a prophet. If the pope was his representative on Earth, then he also must be a prophet of God. This caused the followers of Muhammad to fear and respect the pope as another "holy man".

The pope moved quickly and issued bulls granting the Arab generals permission to invade and conquer the nations of North Africa.

From what I've read, the Arab generals didn't give a rat's ass what the pope did.  The pope granting them permission to conquer North Africa would be a little like a guy whose house is burning down saying, "Okay, okay, if you insist.  Go ahead, I give you permission to burn."

Anyhow, what earthly purpose would the Catholics have to conspire with the Muslims?  Apparently, it was to stop the missionary work of true Christians:

As a result, the Muslims were allowed to occupy Turkey in a "Christian" world, and the Catholics were allowed to occupy Lebanon in the Arab world. It was also agreed that the Muslims could build mosques in Catholic countries without interference, as long as Roman Catholicism could flourish in Arab countries.

Cardinal Bea told us in Vatican briefings that both the Muslims and Roman Catholics agreed to block and destroy the efforts of their common enemy: Bible-believing Christian missionaries.

My question, non-historian that I am, is: what Christian missionaries were around back then besides the Catholics?  Okay, there were various weird sects, Arians, Monophysites, Docetists, Ebionites, and a whole bunch of others whose names escape me at the moment.  But they were mostly small and not very influential, and got the crap smote out of them at every turn by the Catholics for being heretics.  The point of this article, honestly, seems to be that American bible-toting Christian fundamentalist missionaries were being persecuted in the 7th century.

If you thought that a jump of 500 years between cause and effect was a lot, now we jump 1,300 years, all the way to the early 20th century.   Apparently, during the intervening years, Satan and the Vatican et al. must have been taking a long siesta.  But once the year 1910 rolled around, they were mad as hell and weren't gonna sit around and take it any more:

The next plan was to control Islam. In 1910, Portugal was going Socialistic. Red flags were appearing and the Catholic Church was facing a major problem. Increasing numbers were against the Church.

The Jesuits wanted Russia involved, and the location of this vision at Fatima could play a key part in pulling Islam to the Mother Church. In 1917, the Virgin appeared in Fatima. "The Mother of God" was a smashing success, playing to overflow crowds. As a result, the Socialists of Portugal suffered a major defeat.

Roman Catholics worldwide began praying for the conversion of Russia, and the Jesuits invented the novenas to Fatima, which they could perform throughout North Africa, spreading good public relations to the Muslim world.

The Arabs thought they were honoring the daughter of Muhammad, which is what the Jesuits wanted them to believe.

As a result of the vision of Fatima, Pope Pius XII ordered his Nazi army to crush Russia and the Orthodox religion, and make Russia Roman Catholic. A few years after he lost World War II, Pope Pius XII startled the world with his phony "dancing Sun" vision to keep Fatima in the news. It was great religious show biz and the world swallowed it.

Not surprisingly, Pope Pius was the only one to see this vision.

Because isn't that the way visions work?  If lots of people see something, it's not called a "vision," it's called "reality."

So anyway, there you have it.  The Vatican of the 7th century didn't like the depravity in Rome in the 1st century, so they invented Islam so as to stop Portugal from becoming socialist in the 20th century, resulting in Pope Pius XII sending the Nazis to conquer Russia.

Makes perfect sense.  All we need is to add some magical shape-shifting Jews, and we'll have all of the batshit insane bases covered.

Alien round-up

Yesterday's post, which involved fact-free speculation about UFOs being a "macro-scale quantum effect," made me realize that it's been a while since we looked at what was happening in the world of UFOlogists and alien aficionados.  So I did some research, and I'm glad that I did, because there are three stories that certainly merit a closer look.

First, we have an article over at the wonderfully loony website Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal called "Chatting With the Axthadans," in which we learn about an extraterrestrial species that I, at least, had never heard of.

The Axthadans are sometimes confused with the "Greys," we read, although there are some significant differences.  The "Greys" are much shorter, the author tells us, and come from a planet only thirty light years distant.  The Axthadans, on the other hand, are benevolent aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy.

Upon reading this, I immediately thought, "How can you be from a whole galaxy?"  I mean, it's bad enough that some woo-woos think that there are life forms that come from a constellation, given that this is just a loose assemblage of a few stars that are all at varying distances from the Earth, and only seem to be near each other when viewed from our vantage point.  But an entire galaxy?  Made up, according to recent studies, of one trillion stars?

How could that possibly work?

Also, there's the little problem that the distance from the Earth to the center of the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years.  In other words, so distant that even at the speed of light, it would take 2.5 million years to get there.  I seem to remember that even the writers of the original Star Trek recognized that the Andromeda Galaxy was kind of far away -- in one episode, evil aliens try to hijack the Enterprise and take it there, for some reason that escapes my memory at the moment, and they convert almost the entire crew into little geometrical solids for the duration of the voyage, which saved not only on upkeep but also on salary for hiring actors to portray Red Shirts who were just gonna die anyhow.  But fortunately, the un-converted members of the crew save the day, and prevent the ship from being taken on a voyage Boldly Going Where No One In His Right Mind Would Ever Attempt To Go.

So, however unlikely it is that we've been visited by beings from another star system, it's orders of magnitude less likely that we've been visited by beings from another galaxy.  The distances are simply prohibitive, even presupposing some kind of super-advanced technology.


(Much) closer to home, we have a woman in Wales who thinks that the aliens are abducting Welsh people because of their superior DNA.

Hilary Porter, "UFOlogist and public speaker," says she herself has been abducted so many times that she's lost count.  The first time was when she and her husband were on their way to visit a friend in Llanelli, and had a time-slip after which they found themselves near Cardiff with no memory of what had happened for some hours previous.

"It was damned frightening," Porter said.  "We just blacked out and had no idea how we got there.  I didn’t feel well at all.  My husband thought we must have gone to sleep, but that didn’t explain how we got there...  When we got home I got changed and found triangular suction marks on my stomach, blood suction marks. I thought 'flipping hell, look at that.'"

Which is a fair enough response, I suppose.  As far as why they abducted her, and why that area of road is an "abduction hotspot," Porter speculates that it's because the aliens want DNA from "the Celtic tribes" because their "DNA is of more interest" and is "compatible for creating human/alien hybrids."

I suppose I should be concerned, given that I'm a quarter Scottish by ancestry.  I'm not sure if the other 3/4 (which is mainly French) outweighs the Celtic-ness, though.  I can understand it if the aliens aren't interested in French DNA, given that a human-alien hybrid that was only interested in sitting around in the intergalactic café drinking red wine and looking smug probably wouldn't be much use.  But if a quarter Scottish is sufficient, I want to invite the aliens to abduct me.  I would love to see the interior of a spacecraft.  Also, meeting an extraterrestrial intelligence is high on the list of things I want to do.  I'd be happy to roll up my sleeve and give them a vial of blood, if that's what they're after, although I'd appreciate it if they'd give me a pass on the whole body-cavity probe thing.

Last, we have word from none other than Pope Francis himself that if aliens exist, he'd not only welcome them, he'd baptize them.

I'm not making this up.  The Vatican has taken a great interest in astronomy in recent years, probably out of guilt feelings over what they did to Galileo and Giordano Bruno.  And the pope himself is deeply intrigued by the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

In his weekly homily, given on Monday, Pope Francis said, "If – for example - tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here... Martians, right?  Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them...  And one says, 'But I want to be baptized!' What would happen?...  When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, 'No, Lord, it is not prudent!  No, let's do it this way'... Who are we to close doors?  In the early Church, even today, there is the ministry of the ostiary [usher].  And what did the ostiary do?  He opened the door, received the people, allowed them to pass.  But it was never the ministry of the closed door, never."

So that sounds pretty open-minded, although I do have to wonder why exactly the aliens would want to be baptized.  I mean, if the pope is right about god and salvation and the whole shebang, presumably the aliens already know about it.  There's no particular reason why they'd have to go to the trouble of coming all the way to Rome (Italy, Earth, Solar System) to get access.

And then, there'd be the inconvenience of the aliens having to fly their spaceships to Mass every Sunday, and sending their kids to catechism classes and all.  Nah, I'm pretty sure they'd just prefer to stay home and keep whatever religious beliefs (or lack thereof) they already had.

But that's the whole problem, isn't it?  According to the UFOlogists, we have all of these aliens, coming here all the time.  To listen to people like Hilary Porter, Earth is a regular Stellar Grand Central Station.  And the people who believe in the Axthadans think that they came all the way to this tiny, insignificant little speck of rock, 2.5 million light years away, to "guide our development" and "prepare humans for possible integration into the universal culture."  And they've been coming for a while, too; apparently the biblical book of Ezekiel, which reads like almost as much of a Bronze-Age bad acid trip as the book of Revelation, was a chronicle of a visit from the Axthadans.

It all seems pretty unlikely to me -- given the distances involved, and the how generally unremarkable our planet and Solar System seem to be.  So sad to say, but I think we probably haven't been visited.  Meaning my DNA and yours (if you have Celtic ancestry) is reasonably certain to be safe from extraction.

Papal prophecies

Well, it's begun.

I knew that as soon as Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, the wingnuts would have a field day with it.  And sure enough, the woo-woo websites were hopping yesterday.  The words "conspiracy" and "prophecy" and "antichrist" and "apocalypse" were used.  Obviously, it couldn't be just what the Vatican said it was -- that Benedict was retiring because he was too pooped to pope.  No.  It had to be something much bigger than that.

Let's start with the fact that shortly after the pope announced his resignation, lightning struck St. Peter's Basilica in Rome:

According to a story in USA Today, experts have analyzed the photograph and found that it's actually not a fake (which was my first thought when I saw it).  On the other hand, I'm not ready to say it's a sign from god, either.  After all, according to lightning expert Martin A. Uman, there are over eight million lightning strikes in the world every day, which is a crapload of signs from god if that's what they are.  Maybe god's "smite" button is stuck on, or something.

But that's not where the nonsense stopped, unfortunately.  According to the site International Tribunal Into Crimes of Church and State, the pope's resignation was because "a European government" was planning on issuing a warrant for his arrest.  The upshot was that the "European government" had its sights set on the Vatican because "...Pope Benedict's complicity in criminal activities of the Vatican Bank (IOR) was compelling his eventual dismissal by the highest officials of the Vatican."

Because that's plausible.  We all know how much the Vatican complies with the demands of other governments.  If the president of, for example, Bulgaria were to ask for the pope's arrest, the Vatican would have no choice but to turn him over.  (Chaos would then ensue as other world leaders gave their two cents' worth, with Hugo Chávez demanding that everyone in Vatican City subscribe to Socialist Worker's Monthly, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad requiring that nuns switch to wearing burqas, and Kim Jong Un asking the College of Cardinals to adopt a "really sexy new hairstyle.")

Then the apocalyptoids began to chime in.  There was a prophecy, they said, made back in 1139 by a guy named Saint Malachy, who either received a vision from god or else had a really bad acid trip, and who claimed that each of the popes was fulfilling a prophecy.  Saint Malachy listed 112 popes, and said that the last one, "Petrus Romanus" (Peter the Roman) would reign throughout the Tribulation, and his reign would end with Jesus returning to judge us all.

Pope Benedict XVI was number... 111.

Dun-dun-DUNNNNN.

Of course, most modern scholars think that the "Prophecies of Saint Malachy" are a late 16th century forgery; even Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro, an 18th century Spanish monk, thought the whole thing was ridiculous, noting that the "prophecies" prior to 1600 are extremely accurate, and the ones thereafter seemed like wild guesses.

There are a couple of hits, though, if you squinch your eyes up and look at the prophecies juuuust right.  For example, the prophecy for John Paul I is that he came from "the midst of the moon," and his month-long reign began during a half-moon.  (Okay, I know that half-moons happen twice a month.  Just play along, okay?)  Then we have his successor, John Paul II, whose line has to do with the "labor of the sun," and he was supposedly born during a solar eclipse and buried during a solar eclipse.  But even if eclipses aren't as common as lightning strikes, they're still pretty damn common, with between two and five occurring somewhere in the world every year.  So some date relevant to John Paul II would be bound to occur near an eclipse, no matter what.  The prophecy of Benedict himself requires yet a further reach; his is "gloria olivae," the "glory of olives."  And the best they could do with that was that Benedict was named after St. Benedict of Nursia, who founded the Benedictine Order, which has as its emblem a picture of St. Benedict holding an olive branch.

So, anyway.  Saint Malachy (or whoever forged all of this nonsense in the 16th century) says that the next guy, Petrus Romanus, will have a bit of a rough go:

In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis civitas septicollis diruetur, & Judex tremêdus judicabit populum suum. Finis.

In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations: and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people.  The End.

So the College of Cardinals had better be careful.  If I were a cardinal, I'd made sure to vote for a guy named "Steve" just to be safe.

Anyhow, that's the latest from the world of crazy quasi-religious prophecy.  It'll be interesting to see what happens next.  Myself, I'm guessing that the College of Cardinals will vote in a new pope, who will pretty much keep doing what they've always done, and everything will settle down, with no further lightning strikes, arrest warrants, or tribulations.  But who knows?  Maybe Saint Malachy was right.  The whole "terrible judge" thing sounds pretty dire.  Maybe I ought to invest in a smite-proof bunker. 

D'Oh!

New from the News You'll Think I'm Making Up But I'm Not department, officials at the Vatican have declared that after some years of serious study, they have found that The Simpsons are Catholics.

First, we had the Muslims claiming that Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan.  Then we had the Seal-the-Borders Cadre howling that Dora the Explorer was an illegal immigrant.  Now, we have the leaders of one of the most powerful and influential religious sects in the world claiming a family of cartoon characters as members of the flock.

The official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore, has stated that a Jesuit study of the program has found that Homer and company "pray before meals, and in their own way believe in the beyond," and that this has led them to the inescapable conclusion that they are Roman Catholics.

I had always thought that becoming a Catholic was more difficult than that.  I figured that if you weren't born to it, you at least had to take a class or something.  Now, we find that technically, you don't even have to exist. 

Interestingly, the producer of the show, Al Jean, has weighed in on the topic.  "We've pretty clearly shown that Homer is not Catholic," Jean was quoted as saying, when he found out about the Vatican press release, citing the fact that Homer really would not be into the whole no-meat-on-Fridays thing.  (Which, as an aside, I thought the Catholics didn't even do any more?  I never seem to be able to keep up with what's on the Sin List and what's on the Not So Much A Sin Any More List.)  Jean also went on record as stating that actually, the Simpson family are members of the Springfield Presbylutheran Church.

Predictably, my reaction is:  WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE GET A GRIP?  Cartoon characters, which last time I checked aren't real, can't be "actually" anything.  The question of what breed of dog Scooby-Doo actually is is meaningless.  The question of whether Tinky-Winky the Teletubbie is actually gay is meaningless.  Are we reasonably clear on this point now?  Excellent.  Now all of you who were worrying about such things can go back to passing the time by chewing on the straps of your straitjackets, okay?

I'm simultaneously amused and amazed at how much time and energy people will spend arguing over issues for which no answer exists.  On the lighthearted side was the pair of students who came to me to help them settle an argument over who would win in a fight, Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Captain James T. Kirk.  (My answer was that Kirk would clearly win.  He would whip out his superior overacting skills and leave Picard in a fetal position, twitching on the floor.  At least that's what always happens to me when I see William Shatner.)  However, this same tendency to debate the unanswerable plagues us all the way up the scale, to the endless battles (both figurative and literal) that the religious fight with each other over what "god really wants us to do."

It's pretty critical, I think, to establish the ground rules for what is a decidable proposition.  For me, one of the most fundamental ground rules is the reliance on hard evidence.  You want me to believe something, agree with a viewpoint, accept what you're saying?  Show me the goods, and you're halfway there.  Whatever you're claiming had better be planted in the firm earth of reality, or I'm much more likely to roll my eyes or simply guffaw in your face.

So if you want me to take you seriously, don't come to me and start blathering about the religious views of cartoon characters.  Except, of course, for Bullwinkle, who is clearly a Zen Buddhist.  But other than that, if you spend your time making pronouncements about the "actual" views of fictional characters, all you'll have accomplished is destroying your own credibility.