Today's Bizarro is brought to you by the Santa Claus For Grownups Corporation.I have no idea if the pope has a blog, but it is always interesting to me how organized religion can embrace modern ideas and technology, while keeping one foot so firmly planted in the dark ages.
The current Catholic Church still bans birth control of any kind and condemns homosexuality as a perversion. I'm too lazy to look it up, but it was only in the past few decades that the church officially admitted they were wrong in their persecution of Galileo when he dared to imply that the earth was not the center of the universe.
There are evangelical web sites teaching that the earth is 6000 years old, was created in its present form in 6 days, and that an invisible old man in the sky wants us to persecute everyone who isn't as loony as they are. The contradiction of using cutting-edge technology to espouse primitive ideas is delicious.
Not all ideas held by organized religion are primitive, of course. Some religions teach things like love, kindness, charity, forgiveness, justice. But wait, those things are naturally held to be virtues by virtually all people, non-believers included, so you can't really call them "religious" ideas. The only ideas that are unique to religion – invisible superheroes in the sky that can be called upon for everything from winning a war to finding a parking place, eternal life in a perfect world of constant ecstasy, eternal torture for bad guys– are as far-fetched as the Easter Bunny.
Note: I have no intent to offend those readers who believe in a higher power. Though I no longer believe in one, I have for most of my life and theism is clearly a somewhat natural state for humans, an almost irresistible idea. My disdain is not for those who believe, but those who use their beliefs to injure others.
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