Pew-pew-pew

Because it's always a losing bet to say the state of things in the United States couldn't get any weirder, today we have: a priest holding a mass of exorcism to protect Brett Kavanaugh from a spell cast by witches.

I wish I were making this up.  You might have heard about the witches, who were so pissed off about Brett Kavanaugh's nomination and ultimate accession to the Supreme Court that they hexed him.  Twice.  Once before the confirmation vote, and once, for good measure, afterwards.

The event, sponsored by spiritualist/occult book store Catland Books, explained it thus:

We will be embracing witchcraft's true roots as the magik of the poor, the downtrodden and disenfranchised and [its] history as often the only weapon, the only means of exacting justice available to those of us who have been wronged by men just like him. 

[Kavanaugh] will be the focal point, but by no means the only target, so bring your rage and all of the axes you've got to grind.  There will also be a second ritual afterward — "The Rites of the Scorned One" which seeks [sic] to validate, affirm, uphold and support those of us who have been wronged and who refuse to be silent any longer.

Well, far be it from the Righteous to take this lying down.  So Father Gary Thomas, who serves as an exorcist for the Diocese of San Jose, California, decided to take some serious action.  "Conjuring up personified evil does not fall under free speech," Thomas said, making me wonder what laws it would fall under.

Spinello Aretino, The Exorcism of St. Benedict (1387) [Image is in the Public Domain]

Although given the current administration's reputation for doing whatever the evangelicals want, I wouldn't be surprised if the next bill to go through Congress is a Satanic Attack Protection Act.  Or perhaps a law preventing demons from immigrating into the United States.  Or maybe just a suggestion to build a wall along the border between the U.S. and hell.

Thomas went on to explain further:

They are going to direct the evil to have a permanently adverse effect on the Supreme Court justice.

When curses are directed at people in a state of grace, they have little or no effect. Otherwise, [I have] witnessed harm come upon people such as physical illness, psychosis, depression and having demons attach to them. Curses sometimes involve a blood sacrifice either through an animal or a human being, such as an aborted baby...

The decision to do this against a Supreme Court justice is a heinous act and says a lot about the character of these people that should not be underestimated or dismissed. These are real evil people.

I suppose this is to be expected from someone in my position, but to me this really sounds like two kids fighting with finger guns, one saying, "Pew-pew-pew!  I got you!  You're dead!" and the other saying, "No, I'm not, I got my magic invisible shield up in time!"

Only these are adults, and I have the sneaking suspicion that a significant proportion of Americans think this is perfectly normal behavior.  And these people vote.

So that's today's contribution from the Department of Surreal News.  I keep thinking that we have to have plumbed the depths of government-endorsed insanity, but I keep being wrong.  A friend of mine thinks that all this is happening because we're living in a computer simulation, and the programmers have gotten bored and now are simply fucking with us to see what we'll do.

And I have to admit, it makes as much sense as any explanation I could have come up with.

***********************************

This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is something everyone should read.  Jonathan Haidt is an ethicist who has been studying the connections between morality and politics for twenty-five years, and whose contribution to our understanding of our own motives is second to none.  In The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics, he looks at what motivates liberals and conservatives -- and how good, moral people can look at the same issues and come to opposite conclusions.

His extraordinarily deft touch for asking us to reconsider our own ethical foundations, without either being overtly partisan or accepting truly immoral stances and behaviors, is a needed breath of fresh air in these fractious times.  He is somehow able to walk that line of evaluating our own behavior clearly and dispassionately, and holding a mirror up to some of our most deep-seated drives.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Bulk discount on demons

As you undoubtedly know, there are people who take the whole exorcism thing with the utmost seriousness.

And given the current chaos in the world, both man-made and natural, it's no wonder that some religious types think that demons are causing it all.  If you're already a believer in supernatural forces (good and bad) controlling things, I suppose it's natural enough that when things get crazy, you're more likely to think that none of it can be due to natural causes.  So according to these folks, demons are directly causing the natural disasters -- and as far as the human-induced ones, it's demons acting through people, directing their actions, that's causing them to do awful things.

Although as far as the natural disasters go, I've heard them attributed to other sources as well.  Noted theologian Kirk Cameron, for example, thinks that Hurricane Irma was sent by god himself in order to teach us "humility, awe, and repentance." He said:

The storm is causing us to remember that it’s God who supplies our life, breath and everything else so that you and I reach out to him...  Remind [us] that God is the blessed controller of all things.  He is the one who gives us peace, security and strength in the midst of the storm and that he uses this to point us to him and to his care for us.

Myself, I doubt that people in the middle of Hurricane Irma are thinking any such thing.  I'm guessing that most of them are trying to figure out how not to have their asses blown into the next time zone, and/or dodging wind-driven projectiles like pieces of houses and, in some cases, entire cars.

Then there's Reverend Lance Wallnau, who has become something of a frequent flier here on Skeptophilia for saying things like god told him the Chicago Cubs were going to lose the World Series because President Obama was from there (the Cubs won),  that Donald Trump's administration has turned into a slow-motion train wreck because he was being cursed by witches, and now that Hurricane Irma will spare Florida if you just pray at it hard enough.  He suggests the following approach:

We command that storm… in the name of Jesus, you will go off to the ocean, you will bounce off in a direction away from the coast… we don’t have to accept this destruction.  And we’ll see it wobble and off to the ocean it goes, out into the open ocean it goes…

Well, I'm not seeing much in the way of a wobble at the moment, and in fact, every forecast I see is more and more certain that southern Florida is directly in the bullseye.  Maybe we haven't hit the minimum number of prayers that is acceptable for god to turn the hurricane aside, I dunno.

Anyhow, my point is that we have a great many people who still engage in magical thinking, and attribute everything from one's own personal behavior to large-scale events like earthquakes and hurricanes to the direct intervention by spirits, both good and bad.  So with all this demonic stuff going on, it was only a matter of time before we had an exorcist...

... offering a quantity discount on demon-eviction.

The exorcist in question is Father Cataldo Migliazzo of Palermo, Sicily, who does his group exorcisms on Tuesdays.  People gather, and he exorcises them all at once.  In fact, Migliazzo says the whole thing works better when there are at least eight possessed people there.  No explanation of why, although it does seem to be a somewhat more efficient way to approach it.  Paul Seaburn, who wrote the article I linked for Mysterious Universe, describes what happens at one of these evil entity meet-ups:

[A] woman begins to groan, a couple of people growl and spit and one man vomits.  All are then attended to by other priests who allegedly are also trained exorcists. They hold some of the people down, put crucifixes in their faces and, in one case, throw flour in the face of a woman.

Which seems like an odd thing to do.  Do demons have gluten sensitivity, or something?  In any case, the whole thing seems like a combination of auto-suggestion, superstition, and histrionics to me, but I guess that's unsurprising.

St. Francis Borgia Performing an Exorcism (Francisco Goya, 1788) [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Federica di Giacomo, who a documentary on modern exorcists, seemed oddly accepting of the whole thing.  "As the priests said to me," di Giacomo said, "people go to the psychiatrist, they go to the magician, they go to other kinds of healers, and they spend a lot a lot of money.  When they finish the money, they go to the priests."

Kind of a troubling progression, that.  Implies that if the psychiatrists can't fix you right away, the only possibility is that you're possessed.  The truth is, many psychological disorders are remarkably intractable, even considering modern medicine and therapy techniques.  The idea of someone who might be schizophrenic going from a psychiatrist to a magician to a priest is actually kind of horrifying.

But Migliazzo thinks he's got the right approach, and apparently his Tuesday demonic socials are quite the rage.  The article didn't mention his success rate, at least in terms of how many people felt better afterwards.  My guess, given what these people are most likely suffering from, any successes would be short-term at best, and end with them becoming repossessed, or whatever the appropriate terminology is.

Myself, I think if you're inclined to growl, spit, or vomit in a public place, you need professional help, and not from a guy in a white robe chanting incantations or throwing flour around.  But I'm not expecting this to change anyone's mind.  If we still have people who think you can pray away a hurricane, all of this exorcism stuff doesn't seem that much crazier.

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.

Exorcism While-U-Wait

In the latest from the Bizarre Religious News department, we have word that Catholic exorcists in Italy are being told to take it easy by the powers that be.

The Archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Giuseppe Bertori, has become concerned that priests are conducting too many exorcisms.  There's a danger, Bertori said, that some of the purported possessed actually are suffering from conventional mental illnesses, and would be better off consulting a psychiatrist than a priest.

Saint Francis Borgia Conducting an Exorcism by Francisco Goya [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Well, yeah, I'd agree, especially if you substituted the word "all" for "some."  But Bertori obviously still thinks that the whole demonic possession thing is real, because instead of telling the Get-Thee-Behind-Me-Satan crowd simply to knock it off, he's telling them that they have to apply for and receive permission from the higher-ups before going through with it.

This strikes me as simultaneously appalling and hilarious.  Because if bureaucracy is good at anything, it's dragging its feet.  Can you see the problem here?

Italian church member:  Father, you need to come conduct an exorcism on my wife.  She froths at the mouth whenever anyone near her says a prayer, can't stand the sight of crucifixes, chews on the upholstery, and recently turned her head a full 360.  It's scaring the pets. 

Priest:  I'll have to apply for permission.  I'll get right back to you. 

*a year and a half later* 

Priest:  Good news, we've got permission!  I have you on the calendar for March of 2018.  I hope that works for you.

So that could be problematic.  But Bertori et al. seem to be more worried that unauthorized exorcisms are making the church look kind of... silly.  So he's sent all the priests a manual called (I'm not making this up) "Regarding Magic and Demonology," telling them to pay special attention to the section called "Exorcisms and healing prayers… pastoral rules and recommendations."

"Some priests, with the best intentions," a Catholic spokesperson said in an interview in La Nazione, "are making themselves available to listen to these people and sometimes perform exorcisms on them in a way that is not permitted, not regular and not coordinated."

Well, the last thing we want is uncoordinated exorcisms.  And lest you think I'm simply being snide, allow me to point out that there are regular reports of people dying during exorcisms -- just this week a man in Zambia died during a ritual to expel evil spirits, in which the victim was given a poisonous liquid to drink because supposedly the demons would be poisoned, not the man.  It didn't turn out that way.  The pastor, once he realized that his ritual had killed the man he was supposed to be helping, dumped the body and is currently on the run from the law.

This sort of thing hasn't stopped the practice, nor diminished the support of many religious leaders.  And no one is more convinced than Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's "chief exorcist," who claims to have expelled 70,000 demons in his 25 years of service in the position.  Keep in mind, though, that this is the same dude who thinks that yoga is "satanic," and that it "leads to evil, just like reading Harry Potter."

So we're not talking about someone with a particularly sound grasp on reality, here.

In any case, I am heartily in favor of anything the church patriarchy can do to cut back on the exorcisms being conducted by the rank-and-file.  It'd be nice if they'd abandon "magic and demonology" stuff entirely, but that's probably too much to hope for.  In the meanwhile, if you need an exorcism, you might be looking at a long wait.  I might suggest trying a good psychologist in the meantime.

Skype exorcisms

Some of my regular readers may remember that a few months ago, I posted about a trio of young and extremely Christian ladies who were invading Britain to rid the country of demons that had been brought there because so many British children read Harry Potter.

One of them is named Brynne Larson.  It will come as no surprise that Ms. Larson is from an fundamentalist household; hard to imagine your believing anything that ridiculous if you didn't learn it as a very young child.  Be that as it may, Ms. Larson's father is Bob Larson, an evangelical preacher, talk radio host, and general wingnut.  Larson has been doing his dog-and-pony show for a while; I remember listening to him back in the 80s when I lived in Seattle.  I'd turn the show on when I got stuck in traffic, which was often, because I figured that the best thing to keep you from experiencing road rage is to listen to a radio show that distracts you by making you even madder at something else.

Well, Larson is still around, and just this week announced that he's out there fighting the Evil One just as hard today as he was thirty years ago.  He has, he claims, performed over 20,000 exorcisms in his life.  Doesn't that seem like a lot, to you?  It would imply that a good many of the people we meet on a daily basis are possessed, which I kind of doubt.  I don't think I've seen anyone lately who was guided by a demon, with the exception of the woman who ran a stop sign and cut me off in a Syracuse mall parking lot last weekend during a snowstorm, and I don't think she was possessed by anything but the evil spirit Dumbassimus.

But Larson begs to differ.  The demons are out there, he says; "there'll never be a shortage."  There are so many, in fact, that Larson can't keep up with the requests.  He receives so many that now he has to do his exorcisms...

... via Skype.

I don't know about you, but my first thought upon reading that was, "How could that work?"  Here you have a wicked, dangerous minion of Satan, who has latched on to some poor unfortunate soul in Hogfoot Junction, West Virginia.  And a guy shows up on Skype and says, "Get thee gone, evil spirit!" from 2,000 miles away via an internet connection, and the demon has no choice but to retreat in disarray?  If I was a demon, and Larson showed up babbling at me to Return to Hell From Whence I Came, the least I would do is to flip him off and then cause his computer to experience the Blue Screen of Death.

I mean, it can't be that hard.  My computer does that often enough without any demons being involved.

And it has to make you wonder what's next.  Will he start distributing general exorcisms through Twitter?

Get thee behind me Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord Amen #ChalkAnotherOneUpForMe #IGuessThatShowedYou

What if he doesn't finish his magical incantation before he runs into the 140-character limit?

My overall impression is that he's fighting a losing battle, trying to use the internet to fight Satan.  Just considering the volume of pornography alone, out there on the 'net, I think that so far it's Larson 0, Satan 1,489,352.

Larson, of course, doesn't see it that way.  When asked in an interview with ABC15 if his Skype-your-way-out-of-hell method was nothing more than a fire-and-brimstone circus act, he said, "It’s real.  There would be no reason to theatrically stage this for any reason.  Why would anybody do that?  I have no idea."

I'll pass over the fact that he used the word "reason" twice, and that his worldview isn't exactly one in which reason, in its literal sense, is the driver.  But really, Reverend Larson?  You can't think of any other incentives for doing what you're doing, other than the need to fight the Evil One?  How about money?  Notoriety?  Being interviewed by a major news outlet?

But other than those, nothing, right?

Of course, right.

So that's the latest from the world of religious wingnuttery.  I live in hope that most Christians recognize whackjobs like Bob Larson for what they are, but the sad fact is that there are enough people still listening to Larson that his show, Talk Back, is still being aired, and his ministry still gets followers.

And he still gets people, over Skype, who are eager for him to free them of demons -- for just a small donation to support the ministry, of course.

Attack of the teenage exorcists

In previous posts I've described a lot of examples of Poe's Law -- a rule that states that it is impossible to tell the difference between a sufficiently well done satire and the real thing.  Today, I want to look at a different phenomenon -- the difficulty of determining when someone is making a claim because (s)he actually believes it to be true, or simply because it has the potential to generate a lot of money and notoriety.

It's the problem with psychics, isn't it?  Given the human capacity to lie convincingly, you can see that it would be difficult to determine if people like Psychic Sally Morgan sincerely believe that they can "see what's hidden," or if they are simply hoaxers and charlatans, in it to make money from the gullible.  (Note that even if the first is the case -- Morgan et al. actually do believe that they are psychic -- it has no relevance to the additional question of whether they are right.  There are lots of people who sincerely believe lots of things, and who are simply wrong or delusional.)

Which brings us to the trio of teenage exorcists who are currently embarked upon a quest to eliminate demons from England.

An upcoming documentary, filmed by Dan Murdoch and airing tomorrow on BBC3, chronicles the efforts of sisters Tess and Savannah Scherkenback and their friend Brynne Larson to exorcise the evil spirits that are currently troubling Great Britain.  These bad guys, the three say, were always kind of oozing around the place, but really gained a foothold recently...

... because of Harry Potter.

"It has been centuries in the making, but I believe it came to a pinnacle with the Harry Potter books," Savannah told reporters for The Daily Mail.  Her sister Tess agreed, adding, "The spells you are reading about are not made up.  They are real and come from witchcraft."

Funny, then, how when I shouted "Petrificus totalus!" at a student in my class who wouldn't stop talking, nothing happened.  Maybe the demon who is helping me was taking a nap, or something.

Be that as it may, these girls have gone all over the world with their dog-and-pony show, Casting Out Unclean Spirits and making Satan Get Thee Behind, um, Them, and raking in lots of money at each appearance.  It's clear that a lot of the audience members believe they're for real; there's the usual screaming and rolling-back-of-eyes and so on that accompanies exorcisms, followed by hallelujahs and praising of Jesus when the all-powerful Evil One is once again, surprisingly enough, vanquished.  But the question remains:  do the Weird Sisters themselves think that they're banishing demons -- or are they just charlatans who are in it for the money and publicity?

One thing that would argue for the former is that Brynne Larson is the daughter of Reverend Bob Larson, who is an evangelical wingnut of some proportion.  He's been around for a while; I remember listening to his radio program, Talk Back, in the 1980s when I lived in Seattle.  His major theme -- harped on in just about every single show -- was how the music industry was infested by demons, and how listening to rock-and-roll was going to endanger your soul.  He's written several books on the topic, including Rock & Roll: The Devil's Diversion, Hippies, Hindus, and Rock & Roll, Rock & the Church, and Rock, Practical Help for Those Who Listen to the Words and Don't like What They Hear, as well as the more general titles Larson's New Book of Cults and In The Name of Satan: How the Forces of Evil Work and What You Can Do to Defeat Them.  So it's pretty clear that Larson himself believes what he's saying, even though most of the rest of us think he should see a doctor about getting some antipsychotic meds.

Actually, my most vivid memory of Larson's radio show is that he was notoriously slow on the five-second delay button when people would call up to harass him, which happened with clock-like regularity.  On one extremely memorable occasion, a woman called up, asked a couple of misleading questions about how to invite Jesus as her personal savior to get Larson off his guard, and then said, "I'm just curious to ask, Reverend, can god get it up?"

Larson, clearly not understanding, said, "I beg your pardon?"

She said, "Can god get it up?  You know?  Because after all, man was created in god's image, and my boyfriend has a hard-on pretty much constantly.  And god made the Virgin Mary pregnant, and all, so I was just wondering..."

*click*

Then followed a fifteen-minute rant about how the forces of Satan were constantly attacking him, and how evil and twisted and depraved they were, and how that woman must have been possessed by a devil to call him and say such a thing.  No mention was made about how his (human) tech crew should be doing a better job of screening his calls, which is the reaction I would have had.

But I digress.

My guess, about the teenage exorcists, is that they probably are at least nominal Christians, but that they know full well that what they're doing isn't real.  "Reality" is the last thing that "Reality TV" turns out to be, and I suspect that that this is no exception.  I also suspect that the British, who are in general considerably less religious than Americans, will simply roll their eyes at the documentary and then proceed to forget all about it.  And the trio will have to take their Malleus Maleficarum roadshow elsewhere.

I'm sure, however, that this isn't the last "documentary" of this sort that we'll see.  Because, after all, the exorcists aren't the only ones who are motivated by profit.  If Teenage Exorcists is successful in garnering anything approaching high ratings, it will probably be only the first of many such shows.

All of which makes me glad that we don't watch television.

Saturday shorts

Well, it's Saturday, the beginning of the weekend, and here at Skeptophilia we're hard at work following three stories for your facepalming enjoyment.

First, we have an update from the bible-is-literally-true crowd.  Long-time readers of this blog may remember that back in 2011 we had an announcement from Donna D'Errico, former star of Baywatch, that she was going to be spearheading an expedition to Mount Ararat in Turkey to try to find Noah's Ark.  D'Errico's qualifications for leading the mission seem to be twofold: (1) she has dreamed of finding Noah's Ark since she was ten; and (2) she likes people to take videos of her.  The climb went off without a hitch, unless you count the fact that they didn't find Noah's Ark because it basically doesn't exist.

Of course, you shouldn't let a little thing like reality stand in the way of pursuing your dream, so D'Errico and her team are trying to launch another expedition, this time using a Kickstarter project to fund it.

Even if she gets the money -- and when I looked, she'd raised $2,900 of the $10,000 she's asking for -- she'll still have a rough time ahead, she says.

In a quote I swear I am not making up, D'Errico wrote on her Kickstarter page, "To get to the area where we believe the ark is located, we will have to climb using ropes, traverse cliffs, circumvent rock slides, avoid mountain rebels, survive blinding blizzards, and fend off vicious sheepdogs."

As far as objections to the entire Great Flood story, and how anyone could believe it was true unless they had the IQ of a grapefruit, D'Errico says that it's completely logical.

"If you do the math, the total cubic volume inside the ark would have been roughly 1.5 million cubic feet," she told The Huffington Post by email. "That’s the equivalent of 569 modern railroad stock cars. The average stock car can accommodate 240 sheep, which would have been the average size animal on the ark.  Keep in mind that the Bible did not say two of every species, but rather two of every kind. That means that one feline kind, rather than every species of feline, would have been taken aboard the ark.  Smaller animals would have been kept in cages that could stack on top of each other. As few as 2,000 animal kinds could have been taken aboard the ark, which would have resulted in all of the species we have today."

Right.  2,000 "animal kinds" resulting in 15 million species in 5,000 years (give or take).  Not to mention the fact that the entire Earth being covered in salt water would have killed all of the plants.  Not to mention the wee problem of bringing, for example, the wombats back to Australia after the waters receded.  Nor the problem of where exactly the waters receded to.

But other than that, it's completely logical.


Speaking of not being in touch with reality, we have a story in from Poland that there is going to be a meeting of exorcists soon.  On the agenda: discussing the threat of Madonna.

You would think that, given that these people apparently believe that the world is being besieged by evil supernatural emissaries of Satan who are trying to destroy our souls, they would have more pressing issues to discuss than a 54-year-old has-been pop star.

You would be wrong.

"Part of the conference is dedicated to the hidden subliminal message in communication, and the choice of this subject was inspired by the woman who dares to call herself Madonna," said Father Andrzej Grefkowic, a trained exorcist who is one of the organisers of the conference.  "We've been worried about her concerts."

Well, one of the reasons that Madonna dares to call herself that is that it's her actual name.  And I don't know how "subliminal" you can call her message, given that she once staged a mock crucifixion at one of her shows.  But okay, I can grant them that she pisses off Catholics with great regularity.

Other things that Grefkowic et al. will be discussing are how the increasing popularity of tattoos and body piercings represent a means of ingress for the devil into people's lives.  But as I've discussed before, this is rather thin ice for me personally, so perhaps I'd better just move on.


If you're not in the mood for discussing the evils of pop stars, but you'd still like to find out about the bizarre side of religion, perhaps you should sign up for the "Defending the Faith" cruise sponsored by Catholic Answers.  This holy voyage will be from November 2 - November 9 of this year, and besides some of the usual shipboard activities (a pool, a rock-climbing wall, an ice skating rink, a spa, a nightclub, and several bars) there will be talks, lectures, and panel discussions on Catholic apologetics, not to mention daily Mass.

In particular -- and they must feel it's important because it was quoted on the front page -- Catholic Answers Director of Development Christopher Check will be giving an interesting talk.  "On the cruise, I’ll be defending the Church against the charges that the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition are events for which we Catholics need to apologize," Check writes.

Now, I'm a staunch believer in the idea that no one is responsible for bad things his or her ancestors did (or should bask in the glory of good things they did, either, for that matter).  But the Catholic Church, which just recently issued a 400-year-too-late apology for placing Galileo under house arrest for the remainder of his life for publicly stating that the Earth went around the Sun, really does have a lot to answer for as an institution.  And it's reprehensible that Check and his comrades seem to be claiming that the Catholic Church at the time was acting within its rights to launch people off to "reclaim the Holy Land" from innocent people who had lived there for generations, and to torture and execute thousands for heresy and witchcraft.

But if that sort of thing is your cup of tea, have at it.  Failing that, you can go to Poland and discuss the most recent depredations of Madonna.  Or go to Turkey and join Donna D'Errico in an expedition to once again not find Noah's Ark.  If you believe this stuff, there are thousands of pointless activities you can participate in!  Me, I think I'll stay home and weed the garden.  And frankly, it seems like in doing so I'll accomplish a great deal more toward improving the world.