REligious ducks

Ever wondered how ducks go to church?

some pigs are more equal than others

The new artwork on the side of Saint John's church in Edinburgh makes a nice comment on the greedy pigs-in-the-trough mentality of so many of the right dishonourable Members of Parliament who've been caught with their sticky trotters in the cookie jar, grabbing every bit of tax payer's money they could rip off.

Galilelo, Galileo, do the fandango...

The Popenfuhrer has announced that Galileo Galilei might have had some interesting ideas. Which is nice, shame it is 400 years late following the great scientist's intimidation and bullying by the Catholic Church, but I suppose its better late than never. Ah, the church of the all-loving god, doing the Almighty's will by persecuting a frightened, elderly man for pointing out the truth...

Strathaven in autumn 3

Strathaven in autumn 3
Originally uploaded by byronv2

Its Scotland and its autumn and (when it isn't raining) it is stunningly beautiful - the blue of the sky, the soft, golden autumnal sunlight, its low angle creating long shadow as the year draws to its final quarter and the trees are a wonderful mix of green and gold and red. The wind carries leaves around in little spirals, slowly drifting on invisible currents to the earth where they gather in piles against walls, just waiting for a foot to kick them back up into the air again. Travelling through to dad on the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow at the weekend past harvested wheat fields, the remaining stubble glittering gold in sunlight, short and wiry tufts like the face of a man who hasn't shaved for several days, lines showing the patterns the farmer made upon the soil.

Hunting werewolves

Full moon this weekend, good werewolf hunting weather (hey, everyone needs a hobby and it gives me some exercise and gets me out into the fresh air):



(all this scene needs now is Christopher Lee in his Dracula cape; click for the bigger version on my Flickr)



(the full moon reflecting on the Union Canal; fun to compare this to summer evening pic of this same location I took a while back on my Flickr)

No lycanthropes were harmed in the making of these photographs, although my fingers got sodding frozen.

Tutu attacks homophobia in the C of E

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has attacked the homophobic stance of much of the Church of England (and rather a lot of other organisations which supposedly believe in loving your brother) and the Archbishop of Cantebury for being so bloody wooly and weak on the subject. He also, rather sensibly, I thought, pointed out that the church leaders seem preoccupied with the issue of gay Christians and gay clergy when frankly there were far more important matters they damned well should be thinking about: "Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and Aids - a devastating pandemic, and conflict. God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality... If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God."

Thank goodness there are at least some folks looking at this debate with some sensibility and sensitivity - then again, I'm sure Tutu has first hand experience of what it is like to have a large organisation discriminating against you because you might be 'different' from them. You have to wonder that this sort of point even has to be made in this day and age, let alone among clergy of a religion supposedly about peace and love, but then again plenty of them are still narked about female clergy. Get over yourselves, we have enough uneducated bigots spewing hate against different sexualities, colours, nationalities or religions as it is without supposedly educated church ministers adding to it. If it isn't okay to discriminate against someone on grounds of skin colour - something most of us take as gospel - then how can it be okay to discriminate on any other grounds without making yourself a hypocrite?

Looney Tunes Bishop - condoms are deliberately infected with HIV

There has been a huge amount of highly dangerous bullshit from the Catholic church, especially in the developing world, over the use of condoms to try and stem the high levels of HIV infections. Despite the vast numbers of people infected they continue not only to oppose the use of prophylactics but stories abound of certain church groups and even charities doing their best to stop locals using them, knowing full well that it will fuel further infection, because of fixed views on birth control laid down by a bunch of eejits in a male-only club who never have sex themselves (except sometimes with young altar boys, of course). Now Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, head of the Catholic church in Mozambique is claiming that condoms shouldn't be used because certain un-named European countries deliberately infect some condoms with the HIV virus to wipe out Africans. No, I'm not joking, that's what this crazy fuckwit actually said.

Africans are doing a pretty good job in spreading the infection without any conspiracy theory like this being used, an infection rate boosted by the retarded stance of the (supposedly) celibate male priests of the church, yet here is this hypocritical bugger claiming it is the fault of shady, un-named countries. So he gets to scare people into doing what he wants them to do, knowing full well that he is leaving them exposed to a greater likelihood of infection as a result and manages to blame someone else at the same time and pretend he's doing the Lord's Will, so it is all okay then. Almost Machiavellian in one aspect, atrocious, irresponsible and diabolically irresponsible in all other aspects. Then again if you follow rules on sexual matters from a bunch of celibate old men who are mortally terrified of women then you're a fucking idiot and probably too stupid to live, so go ahead, follow his advice and end up winning yourself a Darwin award.