"Teach your kids Santa Claus is dead and Jesus is alive!"

It's ironic that the South African-based ChristianView Network is declaring dead one fictitious man who keeps track of all the bad things you've done so that he can withhold undeserved rewards while simultaneously declaring another alive.

Below is a handy table from Unreasonable Faith comparing belief in Santa to belief in God. Click on it or the Unreasonable Faith link to view the full-size chart.

"Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice."

It's a rare day that finds me agreeing with Pope Super Bowl XVI, but it just goes to show that even a Jersey atheist and the head of a billion Christians can agree that punishing priests who raped and molested children--and the powerful men who failed to stop the rapes and molestation by shuffling pervert priests from one parish to another--is of paramount importance.

That's why I'm here to tell the pope where he can find one of those powerful men who aided rapists and molesters, one of the men who failed to protect children by putting the image of the Church before his duty as a human being. Using one of the most technologically advanced research tools known to man--Google--I have found a man who deserves to be on To Catch a Predator. I know his name, and I know where he works.

His name is Bernard Francis Cardinal Law, and he works at the Vatican. Yes, that Cardinal Law, and yes, that Vatican.

A quick recap: in 2002 Cardinal Law resigned as archbishop of Boston after it was revealed that he knew about complaints against priests raping and molesting boys and not only didn't report the crimes to the police but instead simply transferred the priest to different parishes, offering them a new life--and new children to rape and molest. Despite this stunning revelation, two years later Cardinal Law was named archpriest of St. Mary Major in Rome, a house of worship that Boston Magazine describes this way:

The church, which features a special altar reserved for the use of the pope, predates the fall of the Roman empire and contains 15 centuries’ worth of priceless art. Surely the man who raised a $1.5 million private donation to refurbish Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross appreciates the privilege of offering Mass surrounded by fifth-century mosaics and an ornate ceiling that is said to have been gilded with the first haul of ore Columbus brought back from the New World.

Cardinal Law should be in jail, and not just because he's praying under gold most likely mined with slave labor. He knew that children were being raped and molested, and instead of being punished he's being reward with a cushy position and a $5000-a-month salary

The pope is lying when he says he wants justice for the victims of rape and molestation at the hands of priests because he gave a job to one of the men who perpetuated the crimes. He is not concerned with the well-being of children anymore than Cardinal law was. If he were, he'd hand Law over to the law and let the pedophile protector live his last days not under an opulent canopy but as some lifer's bitch, making 12 cents a day in the prison laundry.

"I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth."

Barack Obama says these words in a new radio ad designed to convince Evangelicals that not only is he not a Muslim but that if he is elected president he will continue George W. Bush's work in making America a Christian theocracy. Even though I recognize the impossibility of winning the presidency without wearing Jesus on your sleeve and a flag on your lapel, I'm still disappointed to see Obama blatantly pandering to this vocal wing-nut section of the populace. It would have been refreshing to hear him say something like, "Yeah, I love Jesus, but do I really want to force that love down the throats of those who don't?" A man can dream.

"Only God who appointed me will remove me--not the MDC, not the British."

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe was named the seventh worst dictator in the world by no less of an authority on geopolitics than Sunday supplement Parade magazine. (Here's the entry on him: http://www.parade.com/articles/web_exclusives/2007/02-11-2007/dictators07.html.) So you know he must be bass-ass. Well, then what's with the God talk?

Well, he's a crazy dictator. In response to a planned runoff election that many--and by his reaction, Mugabe himself--believe would strip him of power, Mugabe instituted a campaign of violence against--read "killing members of"--the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC. Morgan Tsvangiri, head of the MDC, pulled out of the election, saying that the strong arm of Mugabe's government made the possibility of a fair election impossible. I'm guessing, too, that he's afraid for his life and the lives of his family.

The British government decried the violence and the effective cancellation of the runoff election.
"We do not recognize [Mugambe's] regime as legitimate," said British Prime Minister Gordon Browns. The British should know; in 1980, they handed Zimbabwe--then known as Southern Rhodesia--over to Mugabe.

Throughout history, crazy, power-hungry leaders have invoked a god's blessing as the reason for their ascent to power. If God wants Mugabe in power then anything he does to retain that power is justified--even killing and torturing those who oppose him. There is hope, though, and it comes from LA-based band Concrete Blonde: God is a bullet.

Have mercy on us, everyone.

"Even without a religion, we can become a good human being."
Oh, Dalai Lama, you had me at tashi dele.

"As there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, so there may be other beings, intelligent, created by God. This does not conflict with our faith, because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God."

Four hundred years after the Catholic Church prosecuted Galileo for heresy for recognizing that the Earth orbits the Sun, it comes out with this stunner: alien life forms almost certainly exist on distant planets and we should consider them brothers. Considering that there's a greater chance of ETs existing than God himself, I'd say this is a brilliant move on the Church's part.

It's clear what the Vatican is doing: it's positioning itself as peacemaker between the horrifying invading armies of renegade aliens that are standing ready in silent formation on the dark side of the moon and the helpless humans who are stand in the way of all that much-needed liquid water and precious iron ore. The Vatican hopes to spare itself from the wrath of the vengeful, invading hoards. If they succeed, the aliens will allow them stay on Earth to toil in the salt mines or to bury the human carcases of men who dared defy their new ET overlords as it carries away scores of humans to serve as humorous distractions in their intergalactic zoos.

Is there another reason why the Church would waste a breath on the subject of life outside our solar system? Is the Vatican so strapped for good PR that it releases such a nonsense story? No comment on the priest sex abuse scandal for years, but now we know its position how we should regard beings from another planet? Could this story make the Church any more irrelevant than it already is?

"You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the environment [and by] carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos.''

To paraphrase the Susan B. Anthony quote that appears atop this blog, the interesting thing about God's view of sin is that it always coincides with the personal view of whomever is speaking for him. Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said the above to the Vatican's official newspaper, l'Osservatore Romano. I might be convinced that creating a large carbon footprint offends God if God had said something about it before it became a cause celebre. Had a bishop said in, say, 1609, that the internal cumbustion engine would create a worldwide environmental catastrophe--that would be impressive. It would demonstrate that God has knowledge beyond what his followers currently know or believe. I'd like God, through the good Bishop Girotti, to make a statement concerning a currently unknown future sin. If Bishop Girotti says, "The use of interflilbegets will harm the ordfarts, and that is sinful," and then 100 years from now those things are either invented or discovered--who could deny that? I wouldn't be inclined to believe in God (I may be alive in 100 years, thanks to science), but it would definitely be an impressive display of prognostication.

"People don't really know, but my foundation has always been in Christ."
Foxy Brown, described in the New York Post as a "raunchy rapper," last week wrapped up an 8-month stint in Rikers Island. She was sentenced to a year in prison for violating parole when she used her Blackberry to hammer someone in the face. So, Foxy, do you really want to know why people don't know your foundation has always been in Christ? Because you went to jail for beating someone up with your Blackberry while on parole for attacking a manicurist. Maybe if you believed in Jesus they way you say you do you wouldn't have ended up in the clink. Just a thought.

"I'm not being whupped by the devil; I am being punished by my God. I know that my disobedience put me in the situation I am in."

That's Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, referring to allegations that he lied under oath during a whistleblower suit filed by two former police officers about his romantic relationship with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty. Months after a jury awarded the whistleblowers $8 million, text messages were discovered in which Kilpatrick and Beatty, who are married to other people, declared their love for one another, arranged get-togethers in motel rooms, and discussed the firing of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown.

Kilpatrick is right about one thing: he is being punished for being disobedient, but for disobedience to man’s law, not God’s. What always amazes me is the way people interpret the hard work of the police and prosecutors as the punishing hand of God. Kilpatrick lied under oath, and now that he's been caught and faces jail time for perjury God steps in to teach him a lesson? It’s difficult to imagine why God would choose to punish Kilpatrick’s perjury and not, say, the adultery itself. Both are frowned upon in the Ten Commandments. Allegedly.

So what is Kilpatrick doing here? Why, he’s creating the fiction that he is a God-fearing man, something that will no doubt help him if he ever faces a jury. It also creates the impression that God is already punishing him, so civil authority need not punish him further. It's a ploy to poison the jury pool, plain and simple.

Now let's hope that God continues punishing Kilpatrick by giving him incompetent counsel.

"If there's one thing in the world that God would truly damn, it would be war."
Sally Field, speaking to Matt Lauer about being bleeped during the last Emmy telecast for saying "goddamned war." Hate to disagree, Sally. It's obvious that if God loves anything, it's war. Lots and lots of war.