And You Thought You Were A Geek

Puppet Camp for Jesus. Next thing you know they'll be "imagining" stuff everywhere... like preachers who, like, make-up stuff and all.

"Welcome Hell-Bound Atheists!"

Think we'll see the Holiday Inn out by the Gwinnett Civic Center put that up May 18-19?! Now that would be priceless... but not in my lifetime.

Is religion a "controlled psychosis?" Scientist and author, Robert Sapolsky, takes on the matter in a fascinating essay/speech called "Belief and Biology." From the essay:

What I've just been considering is the superstructure of religion--the big building blocks: there are multiple deities, there is but one god and he is Allah, "I am who I am," any version of this--is an awful lot like schizotypalism. Who is it that invented the notion that virgins can give birth? Who is it who first came in with the extremely psychiatrically suspect report about hearing a voice in a burning bush? In most of the cases we don't know much about the psychiatric status of these folks. In the more recent historical cases, we certainly do, and schizotypalism is at the heart of non Western and Westernized large theological systems.

Now the second chunk of neuropsychiatry and religion I want to talk about is one that shifts to a different scale of what religion is about. Certainly a big chunk of religion is these big theological bits of superstructure that you build your whole belief system on. But what religion very often really is about is the daily behaviors. The daily rituals. Insofar as the devil is in the details, god is in the details too. It's in that realm where we can get insight into the roots of this aspect of religiosity: another neuropsychiatric disorder.

Full piece here.

Modesty Not So Pointless In The Blogosphere

No, it was not easy for me to do this, but I felt bad enough about something I'd done in the blogosphere to write a (heartfelt) apology; mine to Will Hinton in Peach Pundit is here.

John Edwards Plays The Donald

...and gives bloggers a second chance. Did the un-fired gal bloggers cry their mascara off for the media too? Get to keep their bloggerati crowns? Have to go to re-hab? Maybe they should to help further any lingering campaign issues.

My my my. The boy Edwards' and his people have a spine! And they aren't afraid to flex it. I'm loving this. Chalk one up for those "liberal feminist blogger" types. (And Sara/James: you'd have sold us down the river pretty quick-like, eh? I'll remember that.) From today's NYT:

Mr. Edwards announced on Thursday, after 36 hours of deliberation, that he would keep on his campaign staff two liberal feminist bloggers with long cybertrails of incendiary comments on sex, religion and politics. Mr. Edwards could keep the women on his staff and have to answer for the sometimes vulgar and intemperate writings posted on their personal blogs before he hired them late last month. He could dismiss them and face a revolt in the liberal blogosphere, which is playing an increasingly influential role in Democratic politics and could be especially important to his populist campaign. Some bloggers saw the controversy as manufactured by conservative groups.

Most importantly:

He (Edwards) also said he would not allow his campaign to be “hijacked” by religious conservatives who had pointed out the bloggers’ most provocative comments and demanded their dismissal.

Well... back to the cauldron for me! Gotta go stir-up lots more "incendiary" comments on sex, religion and politics. There's a lucrative future in it now.

True Confession: I'm totally sucked into Anna Nicole Autopsy Watch. Yeah, so who's the media 'ho now?!

Buddhist In The House

Let's mix our politics with a different religion this go-round. Hank Johnson, who took over our 4th from Cynthia McKinney, is a Buddhist.

Yoweee... Georgians elected a black Buddhist! Johnson will be sworn in tomorrow. Now this is one for the record books. From a NYT blog:

Representative-elect Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat who ousted Representative Cynthia McKinney in the Democratic primary, became a Buddhist decades ago, though his family does not share that faith. A spokesperson said that Mr. Johnson plans to use a Bible, citing tradition.

Besides, there is no book in Buddhism that’s equivalent to the Bible or the Koran, said Representative-elect Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat. She said she probably would not use any book, but that in the past, when she was sworn in as lieutenant governor, she used a friend’s family Bible.

Full entry, with comments, here.

Johnson's campaign website has no mention of his Buddhism, so it's hard to say if he's a practicing one or not, but Congresspedia does. Maybe he'll give a few tips on meditation and karma to us in the Anglican community.

God Talks Too Much

She just told Pat Robertson all her dirty little secrets. Again.

Get Out Of Your Liturgical Comfort Zone

Here ye. Here ye. Come all ye Buckhead Episcopalians, etc. Have a moment tonight with Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye, those former TV creature-preachers of PTL fame, fortune and, ultimately, the Big House (for Jim).

Son Jay is a fascinating preacher-creature himself, and former Atlantan. Tonight, a docu-show about his life, well titled One Punk Under God, makes me wish I had the Sundance Channel so I could watch along. The six-part series premiers there at 9pm. We do breed such terrific oddities in America!

In keeping with simplistic God notions his parents infused him with, if not their fashion sense, here's a bit about his life's work:

Jay and Amanda Bakker relocated from Atlanta in August and Bakker quickly established an arm of his Revolution church here (Brooklyn, NY). His brand of Christianity calls for inclusiveness and embraces gays and lesbians, a recent evolvement that caused his conservative financial backers to bail.

Revolution, said Bakker, "is about letting people know that Jesus is inclusive and loves everybody and welcomes everybody. It's kind of showing that we're not all right-wing Christian Coalition neoconservatives. You can care about social issues. You can care about the poor and the hurting."

Full story here.

Could I Be A (Closeted) Southern Baptist?

A WASPy Episcopalian nightmare I must admit. But let's not forget the pretty, sparkly Magic Dust that gets sprinkled on our heads when anyone seriously thinks about running cultists (Mormons) for positions of the highest global proportions.

In all Spacey fairness, one of my favorite families in my 'hood is Mormon. They sure don't seem cult-y, just cool and smart and sensible. Their kids are the brightest of the lot, too. I'm not going about looking at undergarments though, that's fer sure. Just don't need to go there. No one does, come to think about it.

The boys over at Political Insider have some bizarre reminders about all that Mitt stuff here.

Other news... what a priceless line from that cranky-hilarious Peachtree Screed:

The government calls it the War on Drugs because it knows Americans are attracted to the word "War" the way primitive people are drawn to shiny trinkets.

To think I have an entire closet devoted to accessories alone! Are you ready for your dose of Jesus Dust?! Can I get it in a pale dove-grey pashmina?