I've never been sceptical enough to suggest that Jesus never existed, neither have I ever been tempted to adorn him with the epithet 'Christ'. I'm relatively confident that a man called Jesus really did wander around the banks of the Sea of Galilee, talking the righteous talk and inspiring a new religion in much the same way as, in more recent times, Sun Myung Moon, David Koresh, Jim Jones and Adolph Hitler. Like these men, he was an inspired and charismatic leader who didn't allow his illusions of greatness to interfere with his life's mission.



However, for the sake of this argument, I'm prepared to suspend my disbelief for a second and assume for a second that Jesus really was the 'Son of God'.


Now lets move forward 2 millenia to the present day and imagine Christ's return. I'm guessing that his first stop would probably be The Vatican,the foremost vehicle of His Word.


Would a man who chose to live his life in abject poverty endure the fact that the Catholic Church is the world's largest land owner? Could the man who kissed and forgave society's degenerates abide his Church's intolerance of human moral frailties? Would the Son of God, a man who spoke consistently of austerity and simplicity be happy to sleep in the great mansions of bishops?

The fact is that today's church bears little more than a passing resemblance Christ's vision and as such most realistic christians (an oxymoron?) should conclude that the organised Christian Church should not bear His .


Dr. David Starkey, in a series on BBC Radio argues a simiar point, highlighting the 5 major historical figures who have 'Killed Christianity'. His candidates:
1. St. Paul

2. Emperor Constantine
3. Martin Luther

4. Sir Isaac Newton

5. Pope John Paul II

Beatification: the first step towards canonization and public veneration (sainthood)


Last May’s announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that his predecessor’s beatification would be effectively fast tracked has been followed by a wall of silence from The Vatican. This would be puzzling, except for the secretive nature by which the Catholic Church has chosen to conduct its affairs over the last 20 years. In a world which, for all its faults has become more open and information friendly since the 1980s, the public’s perception of the lack of accountability of the Church in Rome is becoming a rod with which the Church is flagellating its own back.





The beatification if Pope John-Paul II (and there is no need to bring into question his greatness at this point) is fundamentally unethical by the Catholic Church’s own standards as it flies in the face of centuries of tradition.


1. A suitable interval (5 to 7 years) must be observed before the beatification process can begin ? this was deliberately established by The Church as a safeguard against a wave of support for an individual who later proved to be a fraud. In fairness, Pope John Paul II himself contracted the interval to 4 years in the case of Mother Theresa.
Inthis case it was almost immediate


2. There needs to be ‘irrefutable evidence’ that, since death, the individual has performed at least one miracle (2 by the time of sainthood): this is significant in that it prevents well-meaning mortals (like Gandhi or from being canonized while holding the door open for good Christians.

There have been no postumous miracles attributed to John Paul II


3. A support group must approach their local bishop
Didn't happen

4. After Rome’s approval, an investigation is launched
There has, to date been no publically announced investigation

5. The findings are then sent to the ‘Congregation for the Causes of Saints’ for their endorsement
To date, no such congregation has met regarding John-Paul IIs specific case

6. The case is presented to The Pope
Didn't need to be, it was his idea


7. After this, an individual is nominated to present the worst possible case against the nominee (The origin of the phrase ‘Devil’s Advocate’). In the case of Mother Theresa, bizarrely, it was Christopher Hitchens; a Vanity Fair writer whose sole qualification for the job was based on a book he wrote called ‘Missionary Position’.

Nobody has yet been nominated to act as Advocatus Diaboli for J-P.


Are we soon to get to the stage whereby Popes can issue beatifications the way presidents issue pardons?


That The Holy Catholic Church has chosen to ignore its own doctrine may be seen as nothing more than another example of well documented ecumenical hypocrisy and to be fair, to a non-catholic, such rituals and traditions are of little intrinsic interest. Indeed, none of this would matter, were it not for the absolutely intransigent attitude of the Roman Catholic hierarchy towards many of its more dangerous and stupefying doctrines. Thousands of people in the developing world are dying because they are not able to use condoms; others enduring unabashed misery because of abortion adjudication. Yet they see no problem with bypassing their own laws when it comes to ‘promoting’ one of their own.


Until the Catholic Church achieves a greater level of transparency, they will not be able to lose the labels attached by myself and other, better qualified critics. As I’ve said, I hold no strong views about the Pope getting his ‘due’, but if really is such a straightforward matter to ‘modernise’ their canonization doctrine, surely they can at least attempt to move with the times in other regards.



Prove me wrong……please!

Got Psychic Friends?


I have to admire psychics. All of them without exception have resisted the temptation to win the lottery every week.


Thank You - by your selfless and charitable consideration, you've enabled poor unfortunate people throughout the land to hang onto the vague sliver of hope that they might, one day, become rich and be able to tell the boss/wife/dole office to piss off!


On the downside, however, why don't these spiritual giants use their extraordinary powers to rid the world of some of its woes, like Cancer, Aids or Bird Flu?
Why did we have to wait for Alexander Fleming to accidentally drop a petridish into the sink before we had penicillin? Surely Nostradamus or one of his mates could have done it in 1550and saved countless millions throughout the ages.





Or are all psychics only tuned into two questions 'When am I getting paid?' and 'When am I getting laid?'


We often hear of sad, bereaved folks being told that 'Grandpa is well and wants you to be happy', but how about once in a while tempering the pain by adding something like, 'Oh yeah, by the way, he really wants you to know that he left a couple of grand under the begonia pot in the shed'.


Which segways nicely onto Dionne Warwick. Well not her specifically, but those in her employ. As we all know, back in 2002, her massive company of psychic friend went belly up. I'm reminded of when I heard of Lou Gehrig dying of Lou Gehrig's disease - you'd think she'd have seen that coming...



Several years ago my hero, Dr. James Randi offered $1,000,000 to anybody who could prove that they have psychic powers - so far there have been no takers. Hmmm....

I had a good rant about these annoying little things on our sister site, Bullshitblog


It seems the argument has opened a can of worms as there is some (though not much) evidence which suggests there may be a limited ammount of validity to these bracelets after all.


Oh well, can't always be right

Browsing through one of my favorite websites: ‘Gullibility Isn’t In The Dictionary’, I hit on an article that really caught my imagination:


[Italian]Father Enrico Righi is being sued by Signor Luigi Cascioli because the former denounced the latter for saying that Jesus Christ is a myth.
Signor Cascioli’s one-man campaign came to a head at a court hearing last April when he lodged his accusations of “abuse of popular credulity” and “impersonation”, both offences under the Italian penal code. He argued that all claims for the existence of Jesus from sources other than the Bible stem from authors who lived “after the time of the hypothetical Jesus” and were therefore not reliable witnesses.


Signor Cascioli maintains that early Christian writers confused Jesus with John of Gamala, an anti-Roman Jewish insurgent in 1st-century Palestine. Church authorities were therefore guilty of “substitution of persons” [a crime according to Italian Law].


Gaetano Mautone, the judge hearing the case, has ordered Father Righi to appear and prove that Jesus actually existed.





So who’s this Luigi guy? Well I’ll tell you who he’s not – he’s not the foolish brother of the world’s most famous plumber. If you read his website www.luigicascioli.com he’s obviously thoroughly researched his source material as well as penning a major book on the subject, ‘The Fable of Christ’. It’s this work that seems to have attracted the ire of the Catholic Church and in particular, Father Enrico Righi who couldn’t contain himself and proceeded to denounce the good Signor. The Catholic Church itself tends to back away from such debates, realizing that there’s little mileage in the exists/doesn’t exist argument.


The Catholic Church has never chosen to debate the existence of God, or the significance of Christ. A couple of hundred years ago, they didn’t have to bother: ‘Don’t believe? Burn at the stake then’. Nowadays, the situation is, irritatingly, more complex. Most developed countries currently have a moratorium on stake-burnings and the Church is hardly going to enter into a good-old 20th Century public debate, a debate that they cannot win as their ‘evidence’ is unable to hold up to rational scrutiny, reliant as it is on a time-honoured belief systems and archaic ritual. So they leave it to this poor sap, Righi who’s clearly way out of his depth and who responsed to Cascioi by saying: 'If the sun is shining, he cannot sue me because I see it and he doesn't'.


According to The Time Online: Signor Cascioli said that the Gospels themselves were full of inconsistencies and did not agree on the names of the 12 apostles. He said that he would withdraw his legal action if Father Righi came up with irrefutable proof of Christ’s existence by the end of the month.


Luigi’s lawsuit was actually filed in September 2002, but only got interesting a couple of months ago, after a prolonged tennis match of requests and objections.


One thing’s for sure, the mighty Church in Rome are unable to shake Luigi just yet. Though this particular commentator feels that they’ll do all they can to break the man before any ‘evidence’ is presented.