Scientology’s “Celebrity” Magazine Will Make Me Famous
The Church Of Scientology sent me another magazine in the post. This time, they’re offering to make me famous.
Read about it here.
Posted May 29, 2012 at 11:38am |
Hipster Christians Are Here To Save Dalston
Approximately nine months after I turned 31, I got a birthday card from my friend. She told me that she’d been walking past a shop in Dalston when God told her to go in and buy me one card for every year she hadn’t been to a birthday celebration of mine. She wrote inside: “Remember you are one of God’s daughters.”
Despite the clumsy (and ultimately unsuccessful) conversion attempt, I was amazed that someone I know who’s into cool things like art house cinema and club music is an evangelical Christian. How had she managed to hide it from me all these years? I thought Christians were supposed to wear badly-fitted clothing and form human barricades at abortion clinics for fun. Was this kind of evangelism going on elsewhere in Dalston?
Read the rest of this article here.
Posted May 24, 2012 at 6:46pm |
This Filipino Christian fashion blogger is feeling down because her “hubby” didn’t find her brilliant “modesty chic” styling of a paisley maxi-skirt over a conservative black midi dress with a collar and puff sleeves remotely attractive. What to do? Pray, duh! Despite the marital strife her Christian fashion choices sometimes cause, she knows that if she just prays hard enough, God will give her the power to make her husband crazy about her skirt-over-dress combos.
Posted May 22, 2012 at 12:02am |
IRAQI DERVISHES CELEBRATE GOD BY KNIFING THEMSELVES
The mystical twirling Sufi dervishes of southern Iraq are a peaceful and generally well-educated Muslim minority who live in poverty in hopes that it will teach them humility. Like most Islamic sects, they’re not appreciated by their religious brethren (especially extremist groups like Al Qaeda) and are regularly shunned, harassed, or even killed. And the continuing onslaught of extreme prejudice has worked; many dervishes have fled their homeland in recent years.
The few who remain continue to practice their rather intense brand of Islam, which occasionally includes a special form of zikr (a religious ceremony that involves the “remembrance of Allah” and repetition) during which men continually stab themselves in the head and abdomen with knives and spears. I was lucky enough to be invited to one of these prickly ceremonies.
Read the full article here
Posted May 14, 2012 at 11:01am |
Without question the best thing about being Jewish is the free sex vacation to Israel. Most Jewish youths between the ages of 18 and 26 have taken advantage of this miraculous perk to enjoy a weeklong, all-expenses-paid orgy in the desert. I am, of course, referring to Birthright. The goal of Birthright, which is partially sponsored by the Israeli government, is that young Semites will meet, marry and procreate, yielding little mini Jews. I am not religious but I do love hummus and making out, so obviously I had to go.
Read the full article here
Posted May 9, 2012 at 3:00pm |
QUESTION OF THE DAY - ARE YOU MAXIMISING YOUR HETEROSEXUAL POTENTIAL?
Remember when the internet was briefly outraged by this at the tail end of last week? It didn’t take the mayor of London long to realise it wouldn’t be great to have moving, bus-size adverts for homophobia parading through the city’s transport arteries, and stepped in to block them.
“Reparative therapy works to help men, who want to change their sexual orientation, naturally dissipate their homoerotic feelings and maximise their heterosexual potential,” said Reverend Lynda Rose, a spokesperson for Anglican Mainstream in the UK. Aside from making me wonder what gay men have done to Ms Rose to make her think that they’re all ill, it also made me wonder: Am I maximising my own heterosexual potential? Were the heteros of the UK maximising theirs? How do I know when I am “maximum straight”?
Read the full article here here
Posted April 16, 2012 at 11:10am |
HAPPY REAL LIFE CRUCIFIXION PARTY!
Reenacting the Passion of Christ is a popular tradition in parts of the Phillippines. Despite the islands calling a heavily modified version of Catholicism their state religion, voluntary crucifixion is not sanctioned by the church. Nevertheless, thousands of people stream to San Fernando Manila every year to cheer for (and beat) the participating martyrs.
Read the full article here
Posted April 6, 2012 at 4:38pm |
CATHOLICS IN MEXICO LOVE DRESSING BABY JESUS IN COSTUMES
Mexican Catholics think Baby Jesus is so goddamn adorable they can’t resist putting him in all sorts of cute little outfits and costumes. This is especially true in December, when the veneration of Niño Dios (God Child) kicks into full gear. On Christmas Eve, families gather around their Nativity scenes to delicately place a figurine of the newborn Christ into his manger, where he will rest until February 2, the date of the Candlemas celebration commemorating the purification of the Virgin Mary.
Read the full article here
Posted March 1, 2012 at 3:29pm |
QOTD: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO GOD?
Look, we don’t know if there is a God, gods, or we are just sentient beings floating through the void. But even if you aren’t a believer, you’ve probably thought about what you would say to God if you ever met it after death or at a cocktail party or whatever – at least you should be thinking about that, since the world seems to be hurtling ever closer towards the apocalypse. We hit the streets and asked people if they had their statements to god all worked out.
Read the full article here
Posted February 22, 2012 at 12:01pm |
DOGMAGEDDON - YOUR POCKET GUIDE TO MORALITY
Why do Christians care so much about gay marriage?
For the abortion debate, you can kind of understand the Christian position. (That is, as long as you can get past the whole “let’s keep women from being able to control their own bodies” blatantly sexist angle which, you know, it totally is.) Nobody likes going out and getting abortions. It’s not a fun thing. The women getting one, or potential father comforting her, isn’t throwing a party because of it. Even if you can’t connect to the evangelicals religiously, you can understand the argument emotionally. But for gay marriage, an event where all participating are having a jolly time, the reason to come out against it is a bit unclear.
Read the full article here
Posted February 20, 2012 at 3:26pm |
Tempered and withered by his quarter-century-long fight against Satan himself, 86-year-old Don Amorth is ailing. He was recently hospitalised, and his hearing and mobility are impaired. Yet he still has the nerve – or misguidedness, depending on your point of view – to appear on the local newscast days before my visit, declaring that good Catholics shouldn’t read or watch anything related to Harry Potter (which he says leads to Satanism, of course) and must abstain from yoga, because “you think you’re doing it for stretching, but actually it leads to Hinduism.” This is a man who, in his book Memoirs of an Exorcist: My Life at War with Satan, claimed that “the devil himself, speaking through a possessed woman, threatened to disembowel me in my sleep.”
Read the full article here
Posted January 23, 2012 at 4:51pm |
