Geocentrism? Sure, why not...

I was reading about geocentrists today.  I have to admit, they are a strange lot.  The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that their beliefs, while strange, are not really that far out their.  Relatively speaking, of course.  I mean a large portion of the worlds population believes that an invisible spirit of unlimited power got some girl pregnant and then when the child grew up he was killed so that we could all have an invisible, undetectable part of ourselves go for eternity to an invisible, undetectable place that no one has ever seen.  Compared to that the sun going around the earth seems pretty straight forward.  Hell, it even looks that way from our perspective.  Perhaps the reason that the geocentrists views are considered strange even among the religious is that they have been so thoroughly proven false.  Of course, this make me wonder why people who choose not to believe in evolution and climate change are not equally shunned.

It's like a sale!

Attention ladies, have you recently found yourself in a state of mortal sin?  Excommunicated from the Church?  Well, are you in luck, this week and this week only you can be absolved for your evils!  Stop by today!  (Only at participating Churches)

Now, I apologize for making light of a serious issue, and I am about as pro-choice as they come, but this just seems ridiculous.  I mean, people shoot doctors over this.  They take it very, very seriously.  What's next?  Murder: okay on nights and weekends?  Genocide?  Actually, apparently genocide won't get you excommunicated.

Rick Perry takes his crazy up a notch.

I hate to dwell on just one person, but this guy just keeps sending up red flags with me.  Gov. Perry recently had this to say about evolution.  Really?  Theory with gaps.  Okay, let's be completely fair.  I doubt we know everything there is to know about evolution.  Regardless, it is not really in question whether it does happen.  Creationism, on the other hand is a theory with only one gap, one gap that makes up the entire theory. 

Oh crap, another one.

Yet another reason to not like Rick Perry.

There is crazy...

...And there is crazy.  And then, there is this.  Sun goddess???  What?!  Does the empress know?  Compared to this, Russell's Teapot seems pretty down to earth (yuk yuk yuk).   

90 degrees.

I have heard only a little of the debate over the 9/11 cross, so I won't go to far into it.  I think perhaps both sides have blown this one out of proportion.  On the atheist side, I think a lawsuit might be a bit much.  I agree that a set of cross beams (get it? cross beams?) set at a 90 degree angle found in the debris of a collapsed commercial building being seen as a sign from god in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history is more than a bit of a stretch.  I am not sure what it is meant to be a sign of or a message about.  It just seems a bit weak.  That said, I kind of have a live and let live taste in my mouth about this one.  On the other side, however, things get a bit freaky.  Please see here, and here (or for just some general, if mostly unrelated, crazy, here).  A twelve gauge to the head?  Really, Joe Martinez?

I live in Japan...

Therefore, I am sometimes surprised when I get Jehovah's witnesses knocking on my door.  Today, it was two nice old ladies that were knocking, so I was on my best behavior.  I don't really speak Japanese, certainly not at the level of abstract language required to communicate about religion, so I didn't understand what they were saying.  They had a book full of colorful pictures.  First she pointed to a picture of a fish and a car.  Then to a picture of a salamander's foot.  I don't really know what this was all about, but I am guessing it has something to do with intelligent design.  On the flip-side, maybe they were saying that cars evolved from fish.  That would be hilarious.