Friday, April 2, 2010

America's Religious Future

The future of America when the Talibaptists are elected:
(Courtesy of Chuck Shepard and "News of the Wierd")

Latest Religious Messages

Japan's Mantokuji temple in Gumma province was historically the place where women went to cleanse themselves in divorce, aided by the temple's iconic toilets, into which the bad spirits from the failed liaisons could be shed and flushed forever. The toilets have been modernized, according to a February Reuters dispatch, and today the temple is used by the faithful to rid themselves of all types of problems. (The upgrades also permitted a solution to a longstanding annoyance at the temple, of visitors mistaking the iconic toilets for regular commodes.) [Reuters, 2-26-10]

American Taliban: Michael Colquitt, 32, got a judicial order of protection in January against his father, Baptist preacher Joe Colquitt, in Alcoa, Tenn. According to Michael, Pastor Joe had threatened him at gunpoint about his poor church-attendance record. [Daily Times (Maryville, Tenn.), 1-29-10]

Kevin Johnson, 59, was arrested in Madison, Wis., in February and charged with using a stun gun repeatedly on a local dance instructor, whom Johnson believed was a "sinner" (also a "fornicator" and a "peeking Tom") who "defiles married women" by teaching them dances involving bodies touching. [Wisconsin State Journal, 2-9-10]


Child-Unfriendly Religions

Jeff and Marci Beagley were sentenced to 16 months in prison in March after a jury in Oregon City, Ore., found them guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of their teenage son, whose congenital urinary tract blockage was treated only with oils and prayer prescribed by the Beagleys' Followers of Christ Church. Doctors said the boy could have been saved with medical treatment right up until the day he died. (The Beagleys' infant granddaughter died in 2008 under similar circumstances, but no criminal conviction resulted.) [CBS News-AP, 2-1-10]

A 7-year-old girl died in February in Oroville, Calif., and her 11- year-old sister was hospitalized needing critical care, after being "lovingly" beaten by their adoptive parents, Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz, who are followers of religion-based corporal punishment. The Schatzes, as recommended by a fundamentalist Web site, had whipped the girls with quarter-inch-wide plumbers' rubber tubing, to supposedly make the children "happier" and "more obedient to God." Criminal charges against the couple were pending at press time. [Chico Enterprise-Record (Chico, Calif.), 2-12-10]


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I am interested in CNG vehicles because they are good for the environment and aren't powered by dead Marines. I still have a little hope for the world. Read the musings and enjoy.