The Book Of Revelation In ‘The Graphic Canon’
[disinfo ed.'s note: Russ Kick, the first disinformation author has, gasp, written not one but three books for another publisher (it's okay, we like them), the first of which is coming out on May 22nd: The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1: From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons. Russ and Seven Stories Press have kindly given us a sneak preview.]
The final book of the New Testament, and thus the Christian Bible as a whole, the Book of Revelation just might be the strangest work in the entire literary canon. Populated by the Whore of Babylon, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Beast, a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, locusts with human faces, a seven-headed dragon, a false prophet, Satan, angels blowing trumpets of destruction, and other bizarre characters, this series of four visions has been interpreted as a literal guide to the fiery, blood-soaked end…
Catholic Church Looking for Missing Exorcist After ‘Possessed’ by the Devil
Richard J. Brennan writes in the Toronto Star:
A perceived demonic possession in Saskatoon has caught the Catholic Church there off guard since it has no one trained to perform an exorcism.
The Saskatoon Archdiocese is investigating after a priest was called to a home in late March where a 41-year-old man had carved the word Hell on his chest and was talking in the third person, saying, “He belongs to me. Get out of here.”
Church officials told CBC the priest did his best to calm the man down, including blessing him, before the man was taken to Royal University Hospital for a voluntary assessment.
Bishop Don Bolen told CBC it was not clear if the Saskatoon man was possessed or experiencing a mental breakdown. “I would think there are perhaps more stories about exorcisms in Hollywood than there are on the ground,” Bolen said. “But the Catholic Church teaches that there is…
Kopimism (The IP Pirate Religion) Takes Root In America
American online pirates now have places to worship, reports Jason Koebler for US News:
A Swedish religion whose dogma centers on the belief that people should be free to copy and distribute all information—regardless of any copyright or trademarks—has made its way to the United States.
Followers of so-called “Kopimism” believe copying, sharing, and improving on knowledge, music, and other types of information is only human—the Romans remixed Greek mythology, after all, they say. In January, Kopimism—a play on the words “copy me”—was formally recognized by a Swedish government agency, raising its profile worldwide.
“Culture is something that makes people feel much better and makes people appreciate their world in a different way. Knowledge is also something we should copy regardless of the law,” says Isak Gerson, the 20-year-old founder of Kopimism. “It makes us better when we share knowledge and culture with each other.”
More than 3,500 people “like” Kopimism on Facebook, and…
Daniele Bolelli Tackles Religion on The DisinfoCast with Matt Staggs
50 Things You’re Not Supposed To Know: Religion | The DisinfoCast with Matt Staggs: Episode 06
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Mixed martial artist, professor of religion and international raconteur Daniele Bolelli joins me for The DisinfoCast. Daniele is the author of Disinformation’s recent 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know: Religion, a slim tome chock full of fun (and true!) stories that include a mass murderin’ Moses, the Zombie Pope and much more.
Daniele schools me on Zen, tells me which religious figure he’d most like to fight MMA-style, and ponders whether there’s a such thing as an “enlightened asshole.” Get a blasphemous beatdown in in this episode of The DisinfoCast.
Vatican: American Nuns Are Too Liberal, Pursuing ‘Radical Feminist Themes’
Reports Agence France-Presse via the RAW Story:
The Vatican has issued a scathing condemnation of the main association of Catholic nuns in the United States for taking liberal stances on contraception, homosexuality and female priests.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) said in a statement on Thursday it was “stunned” by the Vatican report which pointed to “serious doctrinal problems” and “unacceptable positions” on a range of issues.
It accused members of LCWR, which represents around 45,000 US nuns, or 80 percent of the total, of “corporate dissent” with the Church’s teachings against homosexuality and said it was pursuing “radical feminist themes”…
Esoteric Astronomy: ‘Secrets in Plain Sight’ (Video)
“Secrets In Plain Sight” is an exploration of great art, architecture, and urban design which skillfully unveils an unlikely intersection of geometry, politics, numerical philosophy, religious mysticism, new physics, music, astronomy, and world history.
Phishing For Trolls With Jesus
This is a test. This is only a test. Had this been an actual religious emergency, the omnipotent creator of the universe would surely be sending plagues and pestilence, lightning bolts, or perhaps a herd of stampeding unicorns to trample all of the blasphemous infidels slandering his good name. But …. being as no such divine punishments have thus far materialized, I guess we’ll just have to settle for the inevitable intervention by a mob of his angry, self-proclaimed minions here on Earth. Or, failing that, I suppose any highly-opinionated Internet surfers will suffice.
Before jumping straight into throwing rocks at the hornets’ nest though, it might be useful to first define a few key terms just so there’s not any confusion among a certain segment of combative readers as to what particular words actually mean. Semantics, after all, is extremely important if language is to be anything other than meaningless…
Sexual Symbolism in Religion (Video)
What does sex have to do with religion? Was sex worship and fertility ever apart of Christianity? What are the symbols behind sex worship?
What Kind Of Believer Are You? Take The Dawkins Test
As Mark Cheney writes on Big Think, the criteria:
Richard Dawkins’ Belief Scale Scoring Rubric
1. Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.
2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.
3. Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.
4. Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.
5. Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.
6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.
7. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.Do you believe in God? Sometimes this question warrants more than just a yes or no answer. To categorize one’s own beliefs about the possibility of the existence of a deity, Dawkins proposed a…
The Godfather of Christianity
The Roman emperor Constantine is one of the great heroes of Christian history. As legend would have it, he singlehandedly put an end to religious persecution and became the first Christian emperor. His impact was nothing short of miraculous, and this is why his name is often adorned with superlatives: he is Constantine “the Great,” or as some branches of Christianity regard him “Saint” Constantine. More than any other figure, he is the true Godfather of Christianity, who helped it turn from a small troubled sect into the dominant religion of the empire.
But the word godfather applies to Constantine in more ways than one. Think Don Vito Corleone kind of Godfather (actually, I like Don Vito Corleone, so more like Michael Corleone). The historical reality is that Constantine was a brutal dictator who used Christianity for his own self-aggrandizing means and probably never even converted (some say he converted on…
Scientology’s Heretic
Mark "Marty" Rathbun
This Easter enjoy the strange case of “Church” of Scientology’s very own Judas Iscariot, as told by Guy Adams in the Independent:
The men who came for Marty Rathbun wore a kind of uniform: dark glasses, clipped facial hair, and light blue T-shirts. Each carried either a microphone, or a video camera. On their chests were pictures of a squirrel, upon which a photograph of Marty’s head had been crudely superimposed. Topping off the ensemble were black baseball caps with an embroidered slogan stitched in white above the peak. It proclaimed: ‘SQUIRREL BUSTERS’.
There were four of them, and they appeared around lunchtime on 18 April last year. Marty was making a sandwich in the kitchen of his home in Ingleside on the Bay, on the Gulf Coast of Texas. When he heard them knock, he grabbed a video camera kept on his sideboard for such an occasion. Then he…
Atheist Symbol Rejected By Capital One, But Jesus Is Preapproved
Chris Morran writes on the Consumerist:
Consumerist reader Mike has a Capital One credit card. He’d hoped to get one of the bank’s customizable “Image Cards” printed with a big red “A” for atheism. His initial upload was rejected by Capital One, which sent him a long list of possible reasons. And when he called to appeal, things just more bizarre.
The first person Mike spoke with said they had no idea why it was rejected and submitted his appeal.
Then the image was rejected a second time. “I spoke to someone after the second rejection that someone there said that there was a note in my file regarding the fact that they do not allow religious or anti-religious images,” Mike tells Consumerist.
And yes, far down that list of possible reasons for rejecting a card, CapOne does list “Controversial subject matter such as political or religious statements and/or images.”
Thank You God for Killing My Enemies’ Children
[Site editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the recent Disinformation title 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion, authored by Daniele Bolelli.]
Often, the stories at the origin of many religious holidays sound like sweet fairy tales.
Think of Christmas, for example, with the shooting star, the three wise men bringing gifts, and baby Jesus being born in the midst of all the happy barn animals. It has a “God meets Old-MacDonald-Had-a-Farm” feel to it.
The story at the roots of the Jewish holiday of Passover, on the other hand, doesn’t sound quite like a fairy tale—unless perhaps one created by Stephen King. What exactly is celebrated during Passover? Our tale begins in Egypt over 3,000 years ago—or at least so we are told, since there is less historical evidence for the authenticity of this story than for the existence of the Yeti and the Loch Ness monster. No source for…
Scholar: Resurrection Of Christ Was An Optical Illusion
Basically, the claim is that Jesus’s rising from the dead circa 2,000 years ago happened much in the same way as his being spotted in potato chips today. The Daily Mail writes:
A sensational new theory about the Turin Shroud claims to destroy the core belief of Christianity – that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
Art historian Thomas de Wesselow is convinced the Shroud is real and did touch Christ’s body. But the Cambridge academic insists that the image on the cloth fooled the Apostles into believing Christ had come back to life, and the Resurrection was in fact an optical illusion.
His theory is that in the mind of a person 2,000 years ago, the image on the Shroud would have been astonishing – far beyond their normal experiences and truly unsettling. ‘They saw the image on the cloth as the living double of Jesus,’ he said. ‘Back then images had a…
Remembering ‘The Passion of the Christ’ (Video)
Via South Park Studios:
Kyle goes to see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” He leaves confused about Judaism.
The Passover Plot
This year Passover begins in the evening of Friday, April 6, 2012, with Easter Sunday falling on April 8, 2012. While many people celebrating the religious holidays this weekend think they know what happened in Golgotha, Israel a couple of thousand years ago, there is in fact tremendous controversy, spurred not least by a best-selling 1965 book by British Biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot.
Based on scholarly research into the social and religious culture in which Jesus was born, lived and died, into the source documents of the Gospels, and into other literature, Schonfield reached the following conclusions:
- That Jesus was a deeply religious Jewish man, probably well-versed in the teachings of the local northern sects such as the Nazarenes and Essenes.
- That growing up in Biblical Galilee he had a skeptical and somewhat rebellious relationship to the hierarchy and teachings mandated by the authorities (the Pharisees) of the Temple…
A Quest For De-Baptism In France
Reports Eleanor Beardsley for NPR:
In France, an elderly man is fighting to make a formal break with the Catholic Church. He’s taken the church to court over its refusal to let him nullify his baptism, in a case that could have far-reaching effects.
Seventy-one-year-old Rene LeBouvier’s parents and his brother are buried in a churchyard in the tiny village of Fleury in northwest France. He himself was baptized in the Romanesque stone church and attended mass here as a boy.
LeBouvier says this rural area is still conservative and very Catholic, but nothing like it used to be. Back then, he says, you couldn’t even get credit at the bakery if you didn’t go to mass every Sunday.
LeBouvier grew up in that world and says his mother once hoped he’d become a priest. But his views began to change in the 1970s, when he was introduced to free thinkers. As he didn’t…
The Politics of Belief
Photo: Padraic Ryan (CC)
A tribal shaman was once interviewed by a skeptical anthropologist and asked whether or not he actually believed in the truths behind the spiritual medicine he practiced. The shaman’s reply was surprisingly candid, for he admitted that his technique was completely fraudulent, and yet he still defended it for the simple reason that it often seemed to heal the patients. This brief exchange cuts to the core of the issue of why some people are religious and others are not. It all boils down to two simple questions – “Is it true?” and “Is it good?”
An atheist is someone who answers “no” to the first question, and usually (but not always), “no” to the second question as well. As such, there are a variety of tactics that atheists will employ in promoting arguments against religion. Charles Darwin, for example, was supposed to have been nudged permanently over the…
Republicans Rally Against ‘War On Religious Freedom’
AFP on the widespread belief that there is a war on Christianity in America:
Life has gone from bad to worse since Donna Sturdivant’s husband was laid off four years ago and now the thing which brings her comfort — her faith — is under threat. “We’re starting to see our religious freedom taken away. Our Christian faith is being stepped on. Like kids in the schools — they can’t talk about God,” Sturdivant, 60, told AFP. “There’s something wrong in America.”
At a recent rally in Wisconsin, Rick Santorum painted the upcoming election in stark terms: “The lights of freedom may well go out if we don’t win this election.”
Barry Dean, who like Santorum home schools his many children, is also deeply concerned about the direction of the country. “Christians are persecuted in many other countries and I think this is the next one,” said Dean, sipping a soda after the rally.…
Priest Accidentally Plays Gay Porn Slideshow to Congregation
Reports Clodagh Sheehy in the Ulster Herald:
A priest has denied knowing how gay porn images appeared on a screen during a presentation he was giving to parents of children preparing for First Communion. Fr Martin McVeigh was setting up the PowerPoint display when the explicit sex scenes flashed up on the screen.
He was about to give a talk to the parents of First Communicants but abandoned the presentation after the pornographic images appeared. One of those present said the pictures appeared on the screen after the priest put a USB memory stick into the computer at St Mary’s School in Pomeroy, Co Tyrone.
“There were plenty of shocked faces. There’s a lot of parents very angry about it.”
