Satan’s Garden

I’ve come to the conclusion that following the Mormon faith makes you into an idiot, even if you didn’t start out that way.

Case in point, the drivers in the state of Utah. This morning, while motorcycling to work, I once again nearly died due to the amazing ignorance of the typical Utah driver. I call them Utards, for short. It started off typically enough, with two cars on the south bound two lanes of a divided highway, driving side by side. Neither would speed up or slow down. They were a moving wall. Eventually the one to the left decided that he wanted to merge to the right and signaled (a rarity) but when he tried to speed up to make some space, the car on the right sped up as well, to keep in parallel with the other.

This stalemate lasted for about twenty or thirty seconds, until the driver wanting to merge finally decided that he needed to speed up more than he had been and finally got ahead and merged to the right, in front of his previous dancing partner. They remained in this position for several seconds, with no sign of change, so since we were still about ten miles per hour under the limit and the car which had been on my left had fallen well behind, I decided to change left and pass them.

About the time I was half way past the rear car, with a conveniently placed metal guard to my left, he decides to merge into me without signaling his intention, or obviously checking his blind spot. He didn’t even check his mirror, to be honest. I clamped down hot on the brakes and for once managed to hit the horn at the same time (often I don’t have time to do this.) He suddenly spots me, over-compensates and nearly goes off the other side of the road into the ditch.

With my heart in my throat, I make my way past both of these dimwits and take a left turn off onto a freeway entrance ramp. This ramp leads up to it’s own lane on the freeway, which ends after about a quarter mile - to allow for smooth merging during rush hour. As I’m approaching the last eighth of a mile of this lane, moving faster than the freeway traffic to my left, another moron decides to merge to the right - right into me. No checking of the blind spot. No checking of his mirrors. He just cheerfully starts to merge into me, as I’m moving past. A quick downshift and twist of the throttle and I’m barely out of harms way again, with the driver merging in behind me, suddenly braking hard as he spots me.

First off, why the hell was he merging into a lane that was going to end in less than an eighth of a mile? There was clear visibility on a straight, flat shot of road - with at least one sign indicating that the lane was going to end. Secondly, why would either of these idiots merge without even the slightest check of clearance? Thirdly, why do they react with absolute shock that a vehicle is suddenly in the position they never checked? It’s like the time I was rear ended in my truck and the driver of the car behind me claimed to the police officer that I was in his “blind spot”.

From conversations I’ve had with various Mormons in the state of Utah, I’ve come to understand that they are completely, utterly ignorant of anything outside of their religious teachings. A great example was a conversation with a supposedly “open minded” Mormon, who’s first question asked of me was “what religion I was”, as if everyone needs a religion to exist. When I told him that I was atheist, he clearly couldn’t understand the concept that I don’t worship anything and when I stated that I saw at least some reasonable ideas in Buddhist concepts, his reply was, “So you worship Buddha, then?” Silly me, here I assumed even Buddhists don’t worship Buddha. Buddhists don’t worship anything. Never would I have guessed that finding reasonableness in some religious tenant is a declaration of worship of the religion’s namesake.

It wasn’t until I had a conversation with another Mormon acquaintance that I found the answer to the driving dangers and other stances of ignorance in Utah. He is a lapsed Mormon, much to the ire of his family, and he plainly stated that most in the church have a deeply entrenched belief that God is protecting them from all harm. They believe that a mystical, magical figure is guiding their hand in every action and keeping them safe - no matter what.

So, there you have it. They merge without even looking in their mirrors, they turn and change lanes without signaling, they make U-turns through red lights at intersections, they check their makeup in the mirror while rolling backwards down a mountainside - because they believe that God is guiding them and keeping them safe. Like religious ostriches, with their heads planted firmly up God’s ass, they remain blissfully unaware of their surroundings, with the unwavering belief that their mystical maker is going to co-pilot every aspect of their life for them - allowing them to absolve themselves of any personal responsibility and any action of caution that others outside of this delusion would take for granted as required.

Perhaps I should just be thankful that they’re blissfully ignorant. If they knew what was going on around them, I’m sure the reaction of shock would be more than those outside of the Mormon church would want to deal with.

If this kind of thinking doesn’t scare you, then you’re not thinking at all.

The original KSLA news report.

President Bush signed several Presidential Directives allowing for full Executive Office control of all Federal, state and local offices under certain conditions; which have been kept mostly secret since their signing. What we know of it, is that these decrees allow the ability for the Executive Office to declare martial law over the United States, without any authority of Congress required, in the case of an “emergency” within US borders. This means that another 9/11 style attack, or a false flag of such an attack, is enough to suspend the Constitution and put every American under military rule.

There is absolutely no need for martial law in a Constitutional Republic. There is no excuse which supports the suspension of inalienable rights. President Lincoln was the first to commit this vile act and with the Posse Comitatus Act, it was never to happen again. I’ve mentioned it before and bears repeating, Congress had repealed the Posse Comitatus Act when it signed onto the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. That heinous act has since been partially repealed, bringing the Posse Comitatus Act back into it’s original wording and force, but that it was ever off the law books to begin with, should be a healthy warning to all who value what this nation stands for and shows just how much fear and ignorance guides our nation’s ruling body, even outside the Oval Office.

Though it does stand to reason that the government would want aid from the local clergy in times of national distress, the behavior of these clergy themselves is damnable. Once more they have proven themselves to lack the clarity of thought needed to be trusted. Their delusions hold total sway over their thinking. That deranged thinking will guide their flock as well, making themselves into admirable slaves, but very, very poor citizens.

One of the things not well known about 9/11, is that on that morning, when the real attack was taking place, the CIA and NORAD were holding an exercise of the exact same scenario, where aircraft were being used as guided bombs to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This Wikipedia article covers more. Coincidence, some would say. Coincidences like this bother me, especially when they are that unlikely. Whoever performed the attack on Sept. 11th, 2001, at least knew that the exercises were being held. As I’m convinced that all three buildings of the World Trade Center were brought down with controlled demolitions, I suspect major political backing from some government - not a bunch of sheep herders living in Afghan caves. Russia and Israel seem the two likely suspects, each for different motives. Russia, to cause our economic collapse through our over-reaction, just as they suffered with their over-extension over the cold war and the Afghanistan invasion and occupation. Israel, to expand their war against all things Arab. Those who think that the Israeli government would never cause harm to us in order to get their way, hasn’t kept up on all the information coming out these days on the Israeli attack against the USS Liberty or the number of incidents where they’ve planted fake radio transmitters, trying to goad our military into action. Now, before some drooling idiot accuses me of an anti-Semitic stance: it’s the government of Israel I’m pointing a finger at, not the People. They’re as innocent in this as we are in the US with our own out-of-control government.

Likewise, when the bombings occurred in the London Underground on July 7th, 2005, they happened exactly the same way as the civilian exercise which was going on during the actual attack. Let me be clear about this, according to Peter Power, who is a crisis management specialist who was coordination this exercise, the exercise mirrored the exact locations and times of the bombings! As I’ve already said, I don’t like coincidences like this. This implies, at the very least, that those who coordinated the attacks new the agenda of the drills, using it to their advantage to cause confusion.

Why do I bring all this up now?

This coming week another major exercise will be run. National Level Exercise, 2-08, which will be a large scale Homesec, Northcom and FEMA event in Washington state and Oregon, between May 1st and May 8th. Some ex-military think this may lead to a false flag event. I’m not convinced of that and it is easy to dismiss such rants as just another conspiracy theory. It staggers our sensibilities to even dwell on the idea. However, with our nation looking more and more like 1930’s Germany, I can’t help but worry that I’m wrong and the effect of the Reichstag fire is playing itself out again and again in modern times.

Bush has but a few months left. He’s proven himself both irrational and full of hubris. If he wants a war with Iran, which seems likely, then he has to win over the People to accomplish it. All it would take is another 9/11 to get people off of their worries about fuel prices, the popping housing bubble, middle class job loss and artificially constructed rice shortages; to rally once more around the flag to wield death on our “enemies”. If you can’t believe that this administration would stoop that low, you might remind yourself they they avidly support torture in interrogation and imprisoning people without evidence, warrants, due process or even simple legal representation - all on the whims of Presidential decree. They believe that the Executive Office does not need to account to the Legislative or Judicial branches and are on record, over and over again, of having modeled their view of our current situation in terms of, “You’re either with us, or against us.” Seriously, how much more scary do they have to get before you’ll believe that they’re willing to do anything to achieve their ends?

Time, as usual, will tell. I don’t want to be a clarion of wolf-crying proportions in any of this, but I don’t want to be caught off guard, either. I hate to think that such a false flag would ever be perpetrated or aided by elements of our own, but perhaps it is not so strange to think our government capable of such devious planning. After all, they’ve actually been caught doing this before.

Even if you close your eyes and discount Operation Northwoods and cannot bring yourself to believe that such false flag operations would ever spring from our own, bear this in mind: at least two major terrorist attacks happened exactly at the same time, in exactly the same fashion as the drills running at those moments. This alone should make people a little nervous about any of the drills being run, which are simulating terrorist attacks on the country. At the least, the copy-cats are out there and they seem to known our schedules as well as we do.

I’ve been asleep at the wheel over this story and wasn’t even aware it was going on until I stumbled onto a broadcast this morning on CBS, covering the story of Spc. Jeremy Hall.

Hall, like myself and others who deal with the empirical, just happens to be atheist because of this view of the world and such has gotten him into a world of hurt from his own associates in the military. As Hall’s lawsuit against the Department of Defense stipulates, he is being harassed and threatened with physical injury and death by many members of the military, who have come to conclude that the US military is a body of the church. All he’s asking for is equal respect for his beliefs. What he’s gotten so far is a round the clock body guard and the aid of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in his lawsuit. The MRFF press release sums up the current situation.

Austin Cline writes further on the egregious action, where Spc. Hall had gone through all the proper channels to attempt to hold a meeting of like minded individuals at the fort where he was stationed at the time in Iraq, which was sabotaged by an attending Maj. Freddy Welborn. Welborn had described himself as a “freethinker” but ended up instead berating the others at the meeting and said that he would charge Hall with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice and prevent his reenlistment.

Now, if Spc. Hall had only seen the Major’s MySpace page, he would have known the sabotage was coming before it did.

The most obvious risk in this environment, would be instilling a sense in our soldiers that we’re fighting a “holy war”. Pitting faith against faith, in this case Christianity against Islam, would do nothing but further Islamic distrust and hatred toward our forces, as our already untenable position becomes a new crusade. I can predict no good will come from delusional religionists pushing their distorted view of the Apocalypse onto impressionable youth (most of the military, that is). Knowing the Bush administration and it’s connections to Christian fundamentalism, I highly doubt anything is being done to slow this process down, but rather - like torture - they will promote it as being part of the general good and needed to face the “dangers” against our nation. Ludicrous, but predictable.

Like all things in history, what goes around comes around. As a recent documentary points out, we are back to the days of Constantine.

CNN covers more of this story. TruthOut has an interesting story on Christian fundamentalism in the military.

I’ve already mentioned the Papal lunacy heating up over exorcisms, but it would appear that Poland is bracing for a demonic invasion, due to the rantings of several professional village idiots.

They even had a convention of village idiots last July, with more than 300 exorcists gathering in Czestochowa, under the fourth International Congress of Exorcists.

Of course there are various recipes for demonic infestation, everything from New Age religions to Internet addiction, or so says Rev. Wieslaw Jankowski, with the Institute for Studies on the Family. One of the worst cases, according to Jankowski, was a woman who asked for a divorce just days after renewing her wedding vows during a marriage counseling session. Oh, the horrors! Only Satan could be responsible for this!

“According to what I could perceive, the devil was present and acting in an obvious way,” he said. “How else can you explain how a wife, in the space of a couple of weeks, could come to hate her own husband, a man who is a good person?”

Maybe because her husband is a worthless prick to her? After all, they were obviously having problems if they were in marriage counseling. Just because someone is forced into renewing their marriage vows for a marriage counseling session, doesn’t mean that there was feeling behind it, nor that there weren’t second thoughts going through her head. If this kind of thing is all these charlatan snake-oil peddlers have to support their loony ideas, then may their god help us all.

Apparently they are “still working” on this poor lass.

Exorcists claim to be careful not to treat those suffering from mental illness, but I think the unfortunate irony of the situation is that no one is being careful to keep those suffering from mental illness from “treating” innocent people.

Hide the epileptics and those with Tourette Syndrome, Pope Benedict XVI is on the rampage against Satanism!

According to this Raw Story, Father Gabriele Amorth, senior exorcist of the diocese of Rome, says that Pope is taking the problem of demonic possession very seriously, “setting up exorcism squads to deal with the rampant growth of Satanism.”

Though I haven’t seen any of these modern day witch hunters running around with vials of Holy Water, throwing Eucharist wafers to and fro like a demented Johnny Appleseed to keep the demons at bay, it’s probably just because I avoid wild packs of wandering lunatics as a habit. (I avoided the primary’s yesterday for the same reason.)

Apparently Pope Benedict XVI believes in evil, but cannot believe in evil unless Satan is behind it all. From my perspective, humans are pretty damn good at evil without any pitchfork wielding bogeyman behind the curtains. Perhaps this is how His Holiness is able to reconcile what he was caught up in during WWII with the Hitler Youth? To be fair, he never was a Nazi, but his claims that joining the Hitler Youth was compulsory in 1941 doesn’t match up with the history books. Membership in the Deutsche Jungvolk was compulsory, but he avoid that. Why join the Hitler Youth then? Also, though he deserted the German Army, he didn’t do so until April 1945, when the war was almost over. This guy was the best candidate they had?

In any case, if you’re Catholic and develop a neurological disorder, be prepared to be guided away from professional medical attention at the lieu of medieval ju-ju.

Of course, if you’re Catholic, why the hell are you reading my blog?

Gordon B. Hinckley died yesterday. For those unfamiliar with the man, who live outside of Utah’s 24/7 coverage of the event, Hinckley was the living profit, er prophet, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - also known as the Mormon Church. (I still think there’s one “M” too many in that name.)

For a prophet and a seer, as Hinckley was known to the church, his track record was abysmal. By far there’s too much to summarize here, so I’ll provide links to one of the better resources out there. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

The largest of the “prophet” scandals has to go to the entire Mark Hofmann “Salamander Papers” hoax and subsequent denial that the Church was even involved, because the forged papers were purchased with a “hidden” account outside of the church’s holdings. The fact still remains that Hinckley ignored several warnings from various people that the papers were likely forged and bought them up anyway - a strange act for a “prophet” to engage in. It can only be concluded that the Mormon Church was afraid that if the documents were true, it would show Joseph Smith for the fool and liar he was and tarnish the already shaky reputation of the religion. The legal wrangling that the Mormon Church attempted after Hofmann murdered two people and blew himself up in a failed third attempt, exposing the entire charade, is something else to behold.

Again, there is so much to read on this topic, this is just a tidbit.

Hinckley was to the Mormon Church’s adherents, a man to be revered, the same as the Pope is revered by Catholics. As such, you won’t find a believing Mormon who won’t ignore all of the data against Hinckley’s prophet status, nor will they believe he was willfully deceitful at any point. As faith in their religious beliefs support them, so does faith in their religious leaders. This shows, yet again, the power of faith over reason - the ability to ignore data which doesn’t support or contradicts the tenants of the faith. Faith is blind, after all.

For all of Hinckley’s issues, I cannot hold him in the same ire or contempt that I held men like Jerry Falwell. Hinckley lied, he avoided answering difficult questions which paint the Mormon Church in very poor light and generally acted as a well trained media man in public relations (which he was, by the way,) but he did not preach the fire-and-brimstone rantings that others with similar audience have. Whether or not he did so in the secret sessions of the Mormon Church, I don’t know, but he never did so publicly, and I have to give him some credit for that. Even his rantings against homosexuals was soft spoken, putrid as it was.

In any case, his legacy is over and once his funeral is done with, the church will announce the next prophet and so it continues. Maybe God will choose to be more accurate with the next one.

In some Protestant churches, mostly Baptist, the old becomes the new as churches return to the practice of shunning those it finds sinful and unrepentant.

Personally, I find this to be great news. The more medieval practices crop up, the more likely these churches will loose congregationalists. They’re eating themselves from within. Furthermore, as the various churches all move to copy this kind of thinking - and they will as they desperately try to restore themselves to “greatness” in society - the more repulsive their behavior will appear to rational people and the more polarized the argument over religion will become.

This will lead to turmoil, certainly, but in the end religion looses. Reason will eventually prevail over nonsense and this action on the part of these churches calls that dynamic squarely to attention and brings down the focus of reason, where it has been lackadaisical before.

Pat Condell has changed my thoughts about debating Christianity (and religion in general.) His points here are simply too compelling to ignore.

“I think to engage dogma in debate is to legitimize it…”

Pat, I think I finally agree with you. That nascent feeling that something was wrong with my approach, swimming in the back of my brain, has been nurtured by this simple message. There is no reason to be polite about this. It is time to stop giving superstitious nonsense anything but a sound, derisive tongue lashing. I’m done with appeals to logic, softly spoken words and side stepping comments that might cause pain through ridicule. Primitive superstition deserves nothing less than complete and utter ridicule and scorn.

I’m done being diplomatic toward nonsense. I’m done with my old hobby.

A sincere thanks, Mr. Condell.

Some things are just so spooky, that no added description needs be written.

Addendum: I should have written this 37 years ago. Moron. (Yeah, that’s me. Thanks to Adam for pointing out the obvious.)

Let this be a lesson to everyone, especially me, to read the faint print… I might as well remove the original response, as not to cloud the issue any with Google hunters.

Now, where did I put that plate of crow?