Pope charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. About time.

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Two German lawyers from Marktheidenfeld in Pope Benedict's home state of Bavaria have filed charges against the Pope in the International Criminal Court alleging crimes against humanity. The 16,500-word submission from Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel alleges “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.

Full details are available in the Irish Times.

The nastiest piece of hate-filled, homophobic filth I've seen in a long time

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Richard Carvath (@RichardCarvath on Twitter) calls himself a "British political activist and member of the CCF". (CCF = Conservative Christian Fellowship). According to this odd little interview, he apparently worked cleaning toilets in a restaurant in Manchester's gay village in 1997 and is banned from Salford Magistrates Court for life (due, he alleges, to a Freemasonic conspiracy). Back in November last year, he wrote a piece on his blog entitled Rightful Discrimination against Matthew Sephton.  You can read the full piece here (be warned - it will probably make you feel sick) but here is a flavour of his 'Christian' philosophy of life:

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Scary self-proclaimed Christian 'prophet' Cindy Jacobs says gays in the US military caused bird deaths

Just in case you feel that life is too short to sit through the full, deranged, 12 minutes 44 seconds of nonsense, here's the core of her argument:

"According to biblical principles, marriage is between a man and a woman , so we have to say “what happens when a nation makes a decision that’s against God’s principles?” Well, often what happens is that nature itself will begin to talk to us – for instance, violent storms, flooding. And you know there are actually some patterns that you can see where a nation will make a decision that is contrary to the principles of God and after that there is some kind of answer that God gives, being the God of creation, the God who created nature, but we don’t always understand what He’s saying.

Well, there’s something interesting we have been watching – let’s talk about this Arkansas pattern and say, could it be a pattern? We’re going to watch and see. But the blackbirds fell to the ground in Beebe, Arkansas, well the Governor of Arkansas’ name is Beebe. And also, there was something put out of Arkansas called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by a former Governor, this was proposed, Bill Clinton. As so, could there be a connection between this passage [Hosea 4] and now that we’ve had the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell where people now legally in the United States have broken restraints with the Scripture because the Scripture says in Romans 1 that homosexuality is not allowed.

It could be because we have said it’s okay for people who commit these kinds of acts to be recognized in our military for the first time in our history, there is a potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air."

Bonkers.

Happy Feast of the Circumcision of Baby Jesus

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Circumcision by Francesco de Goya

Aside from being New Year's Day, 1st January was traditionally the day that marked the circumcision of Baby Jesus - perhaps one of the lesser-known of the Christian feast-days. And if you have a little time to spare, why not read up on the subsequent adventures of the Sacred Foreskin (or foreskins - don't ask me how that happened, I assume it must've been a miracle)?

A Christmas message from Ricky Gervais: Why I'm an Atheist

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Ricky Gervais has written a very clear, logical piece explaining the reasons why he doesn't believe in God(s) over at The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog:

Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, “Why don’t you believe I can fly?” You’d say, “Why would I?” I’d reply, “Because it’s a matter of faith.” If I then said, “Prove I can’t fly. Prove I can’t fly see, see, you can’t prove it can you?” You’d probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ‘’F—ing fly then you lunatic.”

Read the full article here.

Pope ogles topless men in the Vatican

From Russia Today:

"A usually staid weekly Papal audience was spiced up this week with an acrobatic performance by a troupe of topless men. The four performers dressed in white suits walked across the stage towards the Papal throne and surprised the Pope by whipping off their shirts before beginning an acrobatic performance on Tuesday. The Pope looked on as the men hoisted each other into the air, one on top of the other, three high."

Glastonbury Thorn attacked by vandals

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The famous Glastonbury Thorn tree which, according to legend, grew from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea when he arrived in England from the Holy Land was attacked and chopped down on Wednesday night, 8 December. The Thorn has long been at the centre of legend and tradition and was said to bloom every year on Christmas Day.

It's not clear yet whether the Thorn will recover from the attack. If not, it can be re-established from cuttings taken from the tree previously and growing elsewhere.