Libby Purvis pointed out in the Times religion blog that baptising kids to get into a specific school isn’t the irrelevant ritual that many parents imagine it to be.

OK, obviously it is an irrelevant ritual. But it’s a big deal to the Catholic Church. The Vatican page that Libby Purvis linked to is a mite chilling. It makes a lot of contradictory claims. The unbaptised have to go straight to hell without collecting their free pass. Except, if they are really small, Jesus will probably feel sorry for them….

Otherwise, the unbaptised can basically only go straight to heaven if they die doing some noble Christian work. This is called the “Baptism of Blood.” It sounds so much like a Goth band that I want to learn to play the guitar right now, just so that I can put the name on a street poster, in dripping red letters on black…..

I am getting a strong whiff of the abbattoir in “god’s purpose” for humanity, the thing that religious folk keep banging on about. Fresh meat seems to be the answer. You can’t have baptism removed. It’s like a cattle-brand n your soul.

Some soul eater needs to know if you count in heaven as the spiritual equivalent of “halal” or “kosher”. What with the Baptism of Blood image, as well. And believers being the Churches “flock.” Didn’t Jesus claim to be a Fisher of men? These are pretty blatant admissions of an agricultural purpose for humanity, methinks.

The National Secular Society produces a de-baptism certificate that you can download. It appears that you can get declared not a Catholic but you can’t undo the historical fact of having been baptised. The Church of England (Episcopalian?) is also unwilling to strike names from its register of baptisms, on the evidence of a letter from Chris Taylor.

I emailed the diocese where I was dunked many years ago asking if I could be struck from the record as I have always thought it to be a load of old rubbish and said that if my parents had given me the choice of going through some sort of black magic voodoo ceremony performed by a probable child abuser in a dress I would, even at the age of 6 months, have said thanks but no thanks. I received a reply telling me that there was nothing that I could do about it.

Well, if your destiny is being earmarked for some spiritual being’s special dinner on 6th November 2058, once you are on the menu, you’ve had it…

It is wonderful, isn’t it. I go offline for a few days and the wonderfully strange concoction of people who make up our fair planet feel safe to come and comment here. Amazing.

Just over a week ago, I wrote a post looking at the insanity alternate world view that makes up a Bravenet board called “Rapture in the Air.” This seems to have resulted in a massive amount (for this blog anyway) of responses – oddly aimed at the related Shelly Corbitt post – including ones from the supposed founder of Rapture in the Air. They are almost as funny as the board. However, the pinnacle (for me anyway) of unintentional humour came in the form of a comment from Rita Cosby. I liked this so much, I felt the need to fisk it in full in a new post. Here goes…

WOW….

Thank you. We aim to impress.

you guys really are prejudice toward Christians.

Well, actually no. We aren’t even prejudiced against Christians. Generally speaking we are happy to challenge any line of nonsense, whatever its source. There is, of course, a larger amount of posts here looking at the illogical nonsense Christians throw about like chaff. The reason for this is not that we hate Christians more than any other fantasy religion, but we live in a Christian nation. The madness of Christianity actually has a direct impact on our day to day lives. It is basically, shoved down our throats on a regular basis so of course, it is going to get the most attention here. We have tried to include all religions though, and if you were actually bothered to spend more than a second looking you would see this. However, I suspect you have simply come here with this idea because some one in your religious group told you it was true, and you are conditioned not to question…

What if you find out in the near future that what your read at this site [assumed to mean RITA] is true, do you realize that by then it will be to late to repent and all of you will have to go through the tribulation.

An interesting variation on Pascals Wager. Interesting yet equally flawed. I do not for one second doubt that there is the possibility that the erm, future described on Rapture in the Air might come true. However, this possibility has to be weighed up against the possibility that the world will end in Ragnarok. What if you find out in the “near future” that the Giants have attacked Asgard and it is too late for you to take your place by Odin’s side in the final battle?

The future you anticipate is but one of an infinite number of possibilities. The chances of it happening are basically 1 divided by infinity. I am more likely to repeatedly win the lottery every week from now until the day I die.

Now, I am sure that the good fundies can simply refute any other end of times myth on the basis that the Bible tells them their one is true. However, this is poor reasoning. Even without having to worry about the Bible’s accuracy, the fact remains that “rapture” obsessed Christians are a minority of your own religion – most Christians do not believe in this nonsense, so it can’t really be viewed as doctrinally sound.

Of course, you will still have one more opportunity to give your life to Christ, if of course you live through the chaos and destruction that will take place during the 7 years of tribulation.

Phew. I was worried things would get bad. If you die in the tribulation what happens? If you die before the rapture what happens? What has happened to the countless millions of people who were born and died before the “Born again” cult took off?

I just thought I would give you a heads up folks, you can either take or leave my advice,

I’ll leave it, but thanks anyway.

but ignoring Jesus and His free gift of salvation you are in for eternal life separated from God in a place call hell………..

Where is this “place call hell?” Can you point to it on a map?

this will not be a very nice place to be, especially for all eternity.

Yeah, this brings me to another point of interest. You claim to worship a loving, caring deity who has, basically, pushed the forgiveness idea quite strongly. There is a two thousand year tradition of your deity granting all humanity with free will and the right to choose their own actions. The New Testament is a tribute to forgiving those who wrong you, being kind to all humanity (etc). From a purely moral point of view, the NT is fairly good.

Then you present this evil, nasty spiteful deity who is not content with a bit of smiting those who have the temerity to offend his divine majesty but will condemn them to an ETERNITY of torment. Wow. That is amazing.

Shall we look at this in the manner of an analogy? I think so.

Imagine, a conversation between a man and his wife. The husband tells his wife he loves her and she means the world to him. One day, the wife goes shopping and forgets to buy the husband’s newspaper.

In the REAL WORLD, the husband – even if he is a bit upset – would be expected to say “Ok, I still love you.” If he punched her for this, he would (rightly) be open for some jail time. If he beat her repeatedly he would be (again rightly) be spending a lot of time in jail. If he killed her, well in some places he would be on death row.

Now, in the land of your deity, a similar infraction will result in not just a black eye or broken ribs but ETERNITY in hell.

Where is the love there? The loving, all good God is actually a monstrous dictator who commits acts so vile they would shock the world if a human did it. He is the ultimate terrorist.

Do you really not see the logical flaw in saying to people “You have free will to do whatever you choose, but if you do not do exactly what I tell you, you will be punished worse then you can ever imagine“? I think we can all agree that dictatorships are a BADTHING™. If God was called Saddam Hussein, America would have bombed heaven to the dark ages.

Think about it.

It may surprise you (but it shouldn’t) but I have thought about it. Have you really thought about it?

In light of recent campaigns by Christian or Islamic school children to be allowed to breach their chosen school’s uniform code so that they can wear their own weird religious symbols (isn’t it verging on idolatry for the monotheists?), it seems Sikhism has felt left out. Not any more.

Today, the BBC reports:

A legal challenge has been filed in the High Court on behalf of a 14-year-old girl excluded from a Cynon Valley school for wearing a Sikh bangle.

Oh please. Is this really what the education budget should be spent on? No wonder schools up and down the country are struggling to fund real lessons (allowing creationism to sneak in), when all their budgets are spent defending against petulant teenagers wanting to rebel against the school dress codes. Gone are the days of wearing your blazer round your waist, or a funny knot in your tie, now we have court cases over esoteric religious jewellery. Wonderful.

Sadly, the much maligned liberty gets in on the act here and (IMHO) damages is standing in future causes:

Campaign group, Liberty, has made the challenge, saying the school had breached race relations laws.

Well done Liberty, you just couldn’t pass up this chance to get in the news, could you? This is not a race relations issue, it is not even a religious freedom issue. The school is not discriminating against this school girl because of her religion, race, gender, shoe size or anything else. It is attempting to uphold a uniform standard. If the school had demanded she take off the bracelet and wear a crucifix instead, then yes, I would be up in arms about it. The BBC continues:

The school bans all jewellery and has said their policy ensures equality.

After filling the challenge, Liberty said the school has also breached human rights laws.

It really is enough to make you want to cry.

I have to wear a tie to work, will Liberty defend my human right to not do so? I doubt it. Will they pay my wages when my employer sacks me? I doubt it. This girl’s parents will have been aware of the school dress codes before she started there. Why did they send her to a school which prohibits jewellery if wearing a bloody bracelet is so important?

Sadly, the BBC article continues to show humanity at its worst. It provides paragraphs of ammunition for right-wingers and neo-Nazis to continue to argue that “these people” (i.e. intelligent people who dont follow their particular brand of hatred) shouldn’t be allowed in the country. It panders to the right-wingers who bemoan how “PC” we have become and that this is a bad thing. It weakens every other “human rights” argument because this is nothing to do with fundamental human rights. I feel sorry for the Welsh Assembly (unusual for me…) being dragged into this, but at least they say it is down to the school not them.

This is not political correctness, it is stupidity. Win or lose, every one pays the price for this.