Gallstones - Another Little Gem From The Intelligent Designer

Opened gallbladder containing numerous gallstones

You have to hand it to the Intelligent Designer. Just look at the way it came up with the idea of gallstones. Whatever would we do without them?

A gallstone is a crystalline concretion formed within the gallbladder by accretion of bile components. These calculi are formed in the gallbladder but may distally pass into other parts of the biliary tract such as the cystic duct, common bile duct, pancreatic duct, or the ampulla of Vater. Rarely, in cases of severe inflammation, gallstones may erode through the gallbladder into adherent bowel potentially causing an obstruction termed gallstone ileus.

Presence of gallstones in the gallbladder may lead to acute cholecystitis, an inflammatory condition characterized by retention of bile in the gallbladder and often secondary infection by intestinal microorganisms, predominantly Escherichia coli and Bacteroides species. Presence of gallstones in other parts of the biliary tract can cause obstruction of the bile ducts, which can lead to serious conditions such as ascending cholangitis or pancreatitis. Either of these two conditions can be life-threatening and are therefore considered to be medical emergencies.

Source: Wikipedia - Gallstones

The archetypal sufferer from gallstones has the five 'f's:

• Female.
• Fertile.
• Fair.
• Fat.
• Forty.

Fair referring to skin colour.

However, many exceptions are found and gallstones are not uncommon in men, postmenopausal and thin women and non-Europeans although less so than in Europeans. They are very rare in young people.

The problem starts because body fluids with a high concentration of anything and especially salts, lend themselves to the formation of stones by simple chemical processes. Unfortunately, many of these fluids are collected in temporary stores such as, in the case of gallstones, the gallbladder. Stones may also form in places like the kidneys where they can obstruct the outflow of urine, causing kidney damage or be passed down the ureter to the bladder causing excruciating pain and sometimes accumulating there to obstruct urination, or salivary glands causing the flow of saliva to be obstructed and the face and neck to swell up as saliva accumulates.

The function of the gallbladder is to store bile until food is present in the small intestine. It then contracts squirting bile down the bile duct into the small intestine where it plays a role in digestion of fats. Bile is actually a waste product produced by the liver from dead red blood cells, or rather from the haem part of haemoglobin from which most of the iron has been removed and recycled. When the bile duct is obstructed bile is retained by the liver and passes into the blood where it causes jaundice and shows up in the urine which resembles freshly brewed tea or black coffee. If not treated, this can cause renal failure.

The problem is compounded by the fact that, for no apparent good reason, the bile duct joins with the duct from the pancreas to form the hepato-pancreatic duct before it joins with the small intestine at the 'ampula of Vater', so any obstruction in the hepato-pancreatic duct also obstructs the pancreatic duct. As well as controlling blood sugar levels with insulin, the pancreas also produces enzymes for digesting proteins so any obstruction or damage to the pancreas can also cause it to begin to digest and eventually destroy itself. Infections in the bile duct can also spread to the pancreas causing acute inflammation of the pancreas or pancreatitis which is fatal in about 25% of sufferers (though not all these are caused by gallstones).

It would be a particularly nasty and vicious intelligent designer who came up with this example of bad design which, in the time before anaesthetic surgery and before modern medicine would have been a common cause of death, especially of females in midlife and still is in people without access to health care. There is no purpose to gallstones; there is no purpose to them predisposing to infection by normally benign intestinal bacteria; there is no benefit from the pancreatic duct uniting with the bile duct and so making it easy for the pancreas to become involved with gallstones and any infection they may allow. Unless, of course, the purpose was to cause illness and death.

The entire system is a kludge; an "it'll do" solution which has its origins somewhere in evolution and particularly in embryology, and so we are stuck with it.

To understand why evolution, which we would expect to eliminate these kludges and lead to perfection of 'design', has not eliminated gallstones or 're-designed' the hepato-pancreatic duct we need to look at the common predisposing factors above. The reason is the same reason we have not eliminated cancer and degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, motor-neurone disease and Parkinsonism. There is little or no benefit to the genes from any mutations which would bring about these changes because they only present as problems after we have produced our offspring.

If there is no benefit to the genes there can be no evolution other than random genetic drift. The link to fair skin, which, in evolutionary terms provided some benefit particularly in a cloudy, relatively sunless north west Europe, suggests some linkage between changes in melanin (the dark pigment) production in the skin and gallstone formation, so they may simply be an unfortunate by-product of an otherwise beneficial mutation in the context of an environment with a lot of clouds. And that evolutionary change expresses before we produce offspring by reducing the incidence of rickets in growing children.

What benefit there might be to the genes in having mothers live long enough to be grandmothers, and so helping to raise the next generation carrying her genes is much less obvious than it would be if they affected her reproductive success directly, since her grandchildren are only one quarter her on average, but never-the-less we should expect to see some evolutionary change towards eliminating the formation of gallstones and/or reducing their potential seriousness over time even for that small advantage. But then we only evolved fair skin relatively recently so there will not have been time yet for this effect to be noticeable. Gallstones are probably part of the cost of evolving fair skin in a cloudy environment and we will still need to bear that cost for many years, possibly hundreds of thousands yet.

As an example of intelligent design and especially the design of an omni-benevolent designer, gallstones fail badly. Any designer who came up with this idea is neither intelligent nor benevolent. As an example of the mindless, undirected and amoral process of evolution, gallstones are readily understandable.

Sorry, Discovery Institute and your willing stooges who push fundamental Bible literalism disguised as science with 'Intelligent Design'. You have very many of these examples to explain. Ignoring them and relying on the ignorance of your credulous victims won't work with rational people.

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Sudden Rapid Evolution

If you're anywhere in Europe, and very many states in North America if not now then certainly very soon, you'll be able to look out of your window, or in any public garden or park and see an example of very recent evolution in the form of the Eurasian Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto decaocto.

I still remember seeing my first one in Woodstock, Oxfordshire when on my way home from working in Oxford. This must have been in about 1964. One of the technicians in our laboratory was also a keen naturalist and had told me excitedly only a few days earlier that he had seen a pair in Charlton-on-Otmoor.

How The Intelligent Designer Works

Lancet fluke (Dicrocoelium dendriticum)

If you're a Creationists you'll know already that the Intelligent Designer created the entire Universe and everything in it just for us, and especially for you.

If you're a Christian you'll know it did it exactly as the Christian Bible says the Christian god did. You'll also know that you must never say that the Intelligent Designer is the Christian god because that would make it harder to get fundamentalist Christianity taught in American public schools, and schools in other secular countries, as though it is a real science, and not a religion, which would be illegal. You'll already understand though that the Intelligent Designer is completely indistinguishable from the 'one true' god in the Christian Bible, so it must be all the omnis, including omni-benevolent, and never does anything which isn't done because it loves you... and everyone else, obviously.

If you're a Muslim you'll know the Intelligent Designer is call Allah and created everything exactly the way Muhammad said it did in the Qur'an especially for humans and in particular for you personally, because it wants you to love and worship it.

So this is a heart-warming story of how the one true Intelligent Designer designed a little creature which those mad atheistic scientists call Dicrocoelium dendriticum or the lancet fluke because it is shaped a bit like a medical lancet which used to be used for cutting into veins to let some unwanted blood out.

Dicrocoelium dendriticum is a member of a group of flatworms called trematodes. Scientists call flatworms Platyhelminths, which means - you've guessed it - flat worms. Why do they bother making up all these big words, eh?

The Intelligent Designer designed this particular flatworm, like a lot of other flatworms, which of course it also designed, to live inside the bodies of other animals as parasites. Parasites don't need to bother with looking for food, avoiding predators and things like that because the animals they live in do that for them. Isn't that a brilliant idea, if you're a flatworm?

The Intelligent Designer designed this particular parasite to live in the biliary ducts of animals like sheep and cows and sometimes even humans. The biliary ducts are the tubes which take bile from the liver to the intestines where it is used to help with digestion of fats.

But that idea gave the Intelligent Designer a problem because, when the flatworms want to breed, they lay eggs which end up in the gut of their host and eventually outside the hosts body altogether, along with other waste. But they need to be back inside the host, which is where they were designed to live. How to get them there?

This is where the Intelligent Designer came up with a typically brilliant idea. It got snails to eat the faeces of the animals, together with the parasite's eggs, which hatch out inside the snail. But then it realised that the host animals like sheep and cows don't eat snails, so it had another brilliant idea. It came up with a design to get them back out of the snails again. It made it so the snails don't like the baby flatworms inside their bodies so they surround them with a hard case and get rid of them as cysts containing several baby flatworms in the slime they use to make their slime trails.

But then the Intelligent Designer realised its plan had hit another snag, apart from the baby parasites being still outside their hosts: cows and sheep don't normally eat snail slime, just like they don't normally eat snails and if they waited till the slime had dried up the baby flatworms would dry up to and die.

Here is where brilliant idea number three comes in. The Intelligent Designer noticed that ants eat snail slime because they want the moisture in it, so he made it so they also eat the cysts the snails excrete with the baby flatworms in them.

But there was another problem! Cows and sheep don't eat ants either! So it was still stuck for a way to get the baby flatworms into the sheep and cows. It now had them inside ants instead, having tried with getting them into snails and having to think up a way to get them out again.

Now came the most brilliant trick of all. It had to think of a way to get the ants eaten by cows and sheep and what do cows and sheep eat a lot of? Grass of course. But there was never going to be a way to get grass to eat baby worms.

Here is where the Intelligent Designer pulled out all the stops and really got creative. It noticed that every cyst contained lots of baby flatworms so it made one of them go to the ant's nerve centre and take control of it so it behaves in a very odd way for an ant. Normally, when it gets dark and cold, ants go back into the ant nest for the night and come back out when the sun rises. Ants who have been taken over by baby lancet flukes don't go back to the nest. Instead, they climb up a blade of grass, grip the stem tightly with their jaws so they won't be knocked off, and wait for a passing cow or sheep to eat the blade of grass, and them with it.

Voilá! The baby flatworms are back where they started - inside the cows and sheep, and occasional humans who might accidentally eat a contaminated ant and who can then become very ill. The cows and sheep can also become very ill and the quantity of meat and milk they provide for humans is reduced, and we have to be careful to cook the meat from them in case we get these parasites into our bodies.

So, how did that benefit us, which is what the Intelligent Designer wanted to do? The answer is, no body knows. Lancet flukes don't seem to do anything at all for us and can even be a problem. One theory is that the Intelligent Designer sometimes stops making everything for us and sometimes makes the world look like it was all designed for parasitic worms, or viruses, or bacteria, or grass, or tsetse flies, or any one of a million other creatures. Obviously when it designed the lancet fluke the Intelligent Designer was having a day when it hated things like snails and especially ants and wasn't thinking of cows and sheep or even us at all.

Another thing no body knows is why an Intelligent Designer would design things like these parasitic worms with such a complicated life cycle when it could have just designed them to lay eggs which hatch out where they live and not need three different hosts and several different stages before the adults get back to where their parent came from. It must be hard for people who believe in an Intelligent Designer to explain why it often acts like a really stupid one, which is probably why they normally ignore things like that.

Some mad scientists even think the Universe looks just like it wasn't designed for anything in particular and that all the different creatures have just fitted in. They even say it wasn't designed at all just because it doesn't look like it was!

But Creationists could easily prove the Intelligent Designer designed everything just for us - if only they could think of why it designed parasites like the lancet fluke, and million of other things that either don't do anything for us or even cause us a lot of harm in apparently random ways. And if only they could prove it was designed at all and could explain why it looks just the way it would if it wasn't designed and there was no intelligence or plan.

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Why Believe The Holy Books?

Is it the act of a rational person to believe the stories in the Bible or the Qur'an, or any other holy book? All you have is someone else's word for it that the events described actually happened yet you are expected to believe without question. Why is that rational just because these events were alleged to have happened a long time ago and a lot of people have believed them without question in the meantime?

Their belief didn't make the accounts come true, and they certainly didn't witness them. In effect, you are believing something highly unlikely simply because someone else did.

Why don't you do that with things you hear about today?

Try this little exercise for yourself:

Take any story you like from your holy book - stories about what the prophets did or said, or about what different tribes of people are said to have done, or stories about what a god allegedly said to someone - preferably stories which form the foundation of your faith but not necessarily so.

Now, imagine someone passing along your street told you that this event was happening right now, or had just happened, a mile down the road. Would it make any difference if this person wrote it down? Would you believe them or would you think they were deluded, mistaken or lying to you for some reason and probably selling you something?

I suggest that only the most gullible and credulous of people or the insane would believe these stories without at least asking to see the evidence, if they were reported as happening today.

Yet the people who wrote those stories down in the Bible or the Qur'an or other holy books either believed people who told them they had happened or expected other people to believe them without any available evidence. And that's exactly what you've done, if you believe those stories are actually true.

How is that different to believing the person walking along your street? More to the point, where does it leave your faith if you have no rational basis for believing the stories in your holy book?

Try the little exercise above and let me know which stories you would believe and what would convince you to take the word of a complete stranger that these extraordinary events were taking place just down the road today, without needing any evidence.

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Farewell To Picasso's Child With A Dove

BBC News - Picasso's £50m Child With A Dove set to leave UK:

Sad that Picasso's Child With a Dove is to leave the UK, but what is even sadder is that this pivotal painting in Picasso's development and such an iconic painting has been bought by a private collector, which means it could disappear from public view to spend many years languishing in a bank vault.

Child With a Dove was one of the first paintings to fire my imagination and interest in art when, as child of about nine, we had a poster of it at my primary school in about 1955. We had to try to copy it. I believe it was an attempt as art education. My painting was singled out for special praise because the head mistress thought I have done the hands very nicely, which I felt a bit of a fraud about because I found that to be the hardest part to copy.

But what I saw in the painting was something which has stayed with me. I saw a child lovingly holding peace close to his/her breast (the child is actually, and I think deliberately androgynous) and treasuring it above all else, as symbolised by the forgotten toy ball on the ground. I saw it as anti-war and a tribute to the innocence of childhood.

The slaughter of World War II was then still fresh in many people's minds, including my father's who survived Dunkirk. The poor physical and mental wrecks of World War I still hobbled about on crippled feet from the trenches of Normandy, some with crippled lungs from gas and crippled minds from the horrors they endured as young men when those who could endure it no longer had summary execution for cowardice to look forward to. I remember too well when the new names from World War II were added to the war memorials which sprang up only a generation earlier in every town, village and hamlet. Child With a Dove told us we needed to hold onto our childish idealism if our generation was not to repeat the mistakes of earlier ones. Nothing is more precious than peace. Peace needs to be held gently but firmly, kept close and loved above all else. If we care more for peace than we care for toys we can make a better world.

I think Child With a Dove also influenced my political development.

Picasso was just 19 years old when he painted Child With a Dove in Paris in 1901. It represents a transition from his Impressionist style to his 'blue period' when he was probably in a sombre and reflective, even depressed mood following the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. His blue period is characterised with experimental paintings in a Post-Impressionist but still highly figurative style depicting 'the human condition'. Child With a Dove may represent Picasso's own farewell to the naive innocence of an Andalusia childhood. The child is distinctly Andalusian in appearance. Many Andalucian people can trace a North African Berber ancestry from a time when 'al-Andalus' was the Arabic name for Spain and Andalusia was a collection of Islamic Emirates.

Pablo Picasso never seems to have forgotten that childhood love of peace and was an inveterate peace-monger, depicting as he did the horrors of war with Guernica, and later on returning to the dove motif when he designed the poster for the 1949 Paris Peace Congresss. He named his fourth child, born the day before the 1949 Peace Congress, Paloma (Dove).

Addressing the 1950 Peace Congress in Sheffield, England Picasso said, "I stand for life against death; for peace against war". Almost fifty years earlier he had said that with Child With a Dove. I hope future generation get to see it too.

'via Blog this'

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A Quickie For Bible Literalists

I'm in a bit of a quandary! There's something about the Bible I just don't understand. I'm sure a Bible literalist who believes everything in the Bible is the absolute truth because it was written by an inerrant, omniscient god can explain it to me.

You see, according to Genesis, God killed every living thing outside of Noah's Ark after telling Noah to put a male and female of every species in the Ark and then setting it afloat in a flood for a year or so.

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

Genesis 6:19-20

A little later on, when the flood has subsided, God told Noah to disembark with all the surviving animals onto an Earth from which all living things have been removed.

And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him: Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

Genesis 8:15-19

Okay so far? So, if we go along with this, we know the only things alive on Earth at that point were the humans and the animals which had survived the flood by being in the Ark with Noah. That all seems perfectly straightforward, if a little extreme, and notwithstanding all the technical difficulties.

Noah was disappointed that no-one turned up for his barbecue.

Where I start to get a little bit confused is with what happened next:

And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Genesis 8:20-21

No, although it is a puzzle why an omniscience inerrant god would regret doing something and promise not to do it again, that's not what baffles me here. Nor is it the time needed for Noah and his family to catch and kill all the animals needed for the sacrifice.

What baffles me is, if Noah burned one of each of every 'clean' beast - and the Bible is quite emphatic and unambiguous on that matter, leaving no room for doubt - how did the remaining one breed and why are there still 'clean' animals when Noah effectively extinguished those species as a burned offering to God, making a great deal of the effort he put into saving them in the first place, a complete waste of time and effort?

Any thoughts?

[Update 13 April 2013]
As several people have pointed out, Genesis 7:2-3 talks of seven of each clean beast, which would leave some over for sacrificing. However, Genesis 6 is quite specific that it was two of each clean and unclean and that they be paired male and female. Hence, to use the Genesis 7 defence a Bible literalist would need to implicitly accept that the Bible is at best inconsistent and ambiguous and at worst contradictory, unreliable and thus useless as a source - which is of course true.

So, is any is Bible literalist prepared to use that defence and so argue that the Bible is not the literal word of of an inerrant, omniscient god? Please feel free to use the comment section below if so.

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How Embarrassing! Where Is The Fossil Evidence?

Grand Canyon. Where is the Flood fossil layer?

No, not that fossil evidence! The fossil evidence for Evolution is abundant for those not too afraid to look for and at it. In fact, every fossil is evidence for it to those who understand what Evolution is and how it works. The fossil evidence I'm asking for is the evidence that would be there if the Bible is a true account of history, and in particular, if the Noah's Ark story really happened as described in Genesis 6-8.

What we are required to believe is that, apart from a few specimens of each species on the Ark, every living thing on earth was killed almost instantaneously:

And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Genesis 7:21-23

What To Do With A Spent Loon?

Regular readers here and followers of the #atheism hashtag on Twitter will have heard of 'Sacerdotus' which is one of the many pseudonyms of an unemployed narcissistic, probably psychotic loon who spends most of every day boasting about his academic qualifications, claiming to hold various university degrees, tweeting and blogging about how he's about to 'destroy Atheism' and fantasising about being a Catholic seminarian about to qualify for the priesthood, whilst simultaneously displaying his crass ignorance about almost everything. In fact, he was expelled from St Joseph's Seminary, New York shortly after 2003 because of gross misconduct, thus ending his clerical career and simultaneously rendering himself unemployable.

Readers may also be aware that he has developed something of a psychotic obsession with me, inventing lurid tales of child abuse and terrorist activities and posting them on his blog. He also, rather pathetically, desperately tries to convince people that I have declined to debate him despite the fact that the record of his public display of cowardice in running away from my challenge to him to engage me in open debate can still be read in Debate: Is There Scientific Evidence Only For The Christian God?. I had challenged him to establish his claim to have scientific evidence proving the existence of the Christian god. The topic of the debate, which, had it been won would have established his claim, together with simple terms for ensuring transparency and unbiased moderation, and reducing his opportunity for his usual obfuscation, avoidance and quibbling over the meaning of words as a diversion, was laid out for discussion. As expected, his boasting proved to be empty and he refused to even discuss the terms, let alone producing anything resembling the scientific evidence he claimed to have or engage in anything resembling meaningful debate. It seems that the idea of open debate in a neutral forum is terrifying to him.

Following that public humiliation, 'Sacerdotus' went on a spree of abusive posts on Twitter, setting up impersonations of my account to post sexually explicit obscenities, campaigning to have me banned from Twitter, accusing me of being behind a conspiracy to have all Christians banned from the Internet, and issuing threats of violence resulting in Twitter intervening to take down all his accounts and any new ones, pending an undertaking to observe the rules he signed up to on joining. He was placed on special monitoring to ensure compliance. At the same time there were several crude and inept attempts to hack my Twitter account by changing the password.

In the traditional style of a deranged psychotic, he frequently claims to have provided reports to the FBI, NYPD and something called 'The UK Authorities' on my 'terrorist' activities allegedly provided by his many 'contacts' who he says are watching me, presumably imagining 'The UK Authorities' would need his assistance and that of his team of 'contacts' if any of this were true. No doubt in pre-word processor times these 'reports' would have been written in green ink and signed "A Consernd Cityzen".

So, having initially spotted 'Sacerdotus' as an inept, infantile fraud ripe for plucking, so to speak, and recruited him to help me discredit religion in general and Catholicism in particular, by putting him on a public stage for all to witness his dishonesty and ineptitude in the name of Jesus and Catholicism, what to do about him now?

He has just spectacularly failed yet another simple challenge in which he only needed to answer an easy question exploring a fundamental tenet of Christianity (see here). It's now become something of a sport on Twitter to challenge 'Sacerdotus' to a debate to see what excuses he will come up with next, or even if he will acknowledge having seen the challenge.

I have many more such questions which would also show his cowardly disingenuousness, but is there any point to this? Does it help further the cause of Atheism and to discredit Catholicism more (is that even possible after all the recent scandals?) to continue to expose this sad fraud who probably has a personality disorder or Dunning-Kruger Syndrome, and is possibly mentally ill, and who has probably outlived his use-by date as an example of the harm religion does to people?

Or should I just ignore him from now on, consigning him to the obscurity he probably fears most, bearing in mind that the reactions he gets on Twitter are probably his only means of self-affirmation and the only way he has to measure his perceived importance to the world, no matter how distorted that perception is?

I have prepared this little questionnaire. I will leave it up for a week. Please let me know your thoughts.

Now 'Sacerdotus' has spectacularly failed another simple challenge from me what should I do?
	Keep exposing him as a fraud by putting up more challenges for him to flunk every few weeks or months?
	Leave the infantile fool alone now and ignore him?
	Keep baiting him because he is such a good argument for Atheism?
pollcode.com free polls

[Update 19 April 2013]

Voting is now closed.

With the vote being 55:45 in favour of ignoring the infantile fool, serial Internet abuser and sociopath, Manuel de Dios Agosto, aka @Sacerdotus, in future he will now be ignored by me no matter what username he uses. I suggest others do likewise as that would seem to be the only way to help him control his psychotic behaviour.

It just remains for me to thank him for the sterling work he did for me, albeit unwittingly, in helping to discredit religion in general and Catholicism in particular. Would Manuel be the obnoxious little excrescence he is today if it hadn't been for the Catholic Church? Nice one Manuel.

PS. Just one last thing, for anyone who is tempted to believe Manuel's denial that he is the Manuel de Dios Agosto who was expelled from St Joseph's Seminary, and his claim that Manuel de Dios Agosto is a young child: here is the account by Claudia McDonnell of the announcement by Bishop Garmendia of New York in New York Catholic that Manuel de Dios Agosto was to be admitted to a Franciscan seminary. The Franciscan seminary in New York is St. Joseph's. The New York Catholic site was archived on 2 February 2003 so clearly this announcement was made more than ten years ago. Manuel left the now closed (for low academic standards) Grace H Dodge school in 2000 when he would have been 16. There is no formal lower age limit for admission to seminary but this is not normally before age 18, which would mean Manuel entered seminary in 2002 - consistent with the site being archived in 2003. Assuming Manuel was indeed 18 years-old at the time, this would make him 31 years old now. Although very clearly mentally still a minor, Manuel is chronologically not the minor he likes to pretend.

In fact, by trying to involve an unfortunate child who has the misfortune to share Manuel's name and who Manuel found on the Internet, by using him to divert attention from his psychotic fantasies and abject failure to ever substantiate a single one of his claims, is tantamount to the very child abuse he accuses others of.

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Another Embarrassment For Christians

Here's a fine how-do-you-do and no mistake.

Just when Christians are fighting a desperate rearguard action against the headlong advance of science by arguing that there is no incompatibility between religion and science despite the fact that science has answered so many of the 'mysteries' which were once quoted as the main or only reasons to believe in gods, along comes an American Christian fundamentalist organisation and pulls the rug out from under their feet.

Not content with that, they do it in spectacular style by having their Bible-based 'science' declared unscientific by losing a law suit against a university on the basis that what they were teaching in schools was not science. Moreover, this viewpoint was stupidly confirmed by their star 'expert' witness, a leading advocate for the ironically named, 'Intelligent Design' movement, who also inadvertently accused them of child abuse and violating their students' personal integrity and, by implication, their constitutional rights.

Earliest Human Ancestor Confirmed

Brain Shape Confirms Controversial Fossil as Oldest Human Ancestor | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network

A fascinating article appears in this week's Scientific American confirming that a seven million year-old fossil skull, nicknamed Toumaï, found in Djurab Desert in Chad, Africa and announced in 2002, may well be the oldest known ancestor of Homo sapiens. The species the skull was from had been given the name Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Sahel ape from Chad) after the Sahel area of Africa, a fertile area immediately south of the Sahara and, in more recent human history, believed to be an important migration route for human groups moving between the Nile and West Africa.

The discoverers, a team lead by Michel Brunet, a paleontologist at the University of Poitiers, France, had always claimed that the skull was from a species close to the point of departure of Homo and Pan (Chimpanzees) but the question was on which branch of the diverging tree it should be placed - in other words was it the skull of a hominin or an ape.

Now Thibaut Bienvenu of the Collège de France and his colleagues have manages to reconstruct the endocast of the inside of the brain case and so infer the shape of the brain which once occupied it. They did this by imaging it with 3D X-ray synchrotron microtomography, which is a technique based on high-energy x-rays produced by electrons accelerated in a sychrocyclotron, which have enough power to smash through hard materials such as the mineral matrix which filled the interior of the skull.

This technique produces a computer image which when processed to remove the matrix and allow for deformity of the skull, showed unmistakeable signs of a hominin brain the size of that of a chimpanzee:

The resulting virtual reconstruction of the endocast reveals that Toumaï had a cranial capacity of 378 cubic centimeters—consistent with earlier estimates. This puts it within the range of chimp cranial capacity. In comparison, modern humans have brains around three times larger than that. But though Toumaï’s brain was apelike in its small size, it was apparently homininlike in other ways. In a presentation given on April 2 at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society, Bienvenu reported that the endocast shows strongly posteriorly projecting occipital lobes, a tilted brainstem, and a laterally expanded prefrontal cortex, among other hominin brain characteristics.

The tilted brainstem, together with the position of the foramen magnum (the hole in the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes) show signs of evolution towards a bipedal gait. This also tells us that bipedalism and brain reorganisation preceded human intelligence and had begun at least 6 million years ago.

It will be interesting to see how Creationists, if they don't studiously ignore it altogether or dismiss it as a forgery, cope with this find which, if ever there was an example of a 'transitional fossil' between chimpanzee and humans, this is it. Will they point to the disagreement between paleoanthroplogists about whether this is an ape or a hominin as an example of how science is never certain about anything (as though that somehow discredits science) or will they point out that Sahelanthropus tchadensis still had a long way to go before it was unmistakeably Homo sapiens?

This difficulty in telling one from the other is precisely what we would expect of an early human ancestor close to the divergence of humans from chimpanzees. We would expect it to have characteristics of both and characteristics such as the heavy brow ridges which have been retained in chimps, are present in many other early hominids but which are absent in most humans today. As we move back in time towards when the distinction between any two diverging species was blurred, so we expect the difficulty in distinguishing between them to increase and revolve around finer points of detail, and with that, the arguments to be less easy to resolve. This is science.

The 'argument' about whether this species was an ape or a human is entirely semantic of course, because, biologically, it's an argument about whether this species was a chimpanzee ape of a hominin ape.

See also, An Ancestor to Call Our Own [Preview]

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God's Inerrant Omniscience Revisited

I wonder if Christians can do any better now.

Almost three years ago I wrote a blog pointing out the logical impossibility of an omniscient, inerrant god coexisting with free will - see On The Logical Fallacy Of God's Inerrant Omniscience. Despite several comments varying in absurdity, and many comments demonstrating a lack of logical thinking, no one has yet managed to refute the logic of my argument.

It might be worth recapping the salient point again, to see if any believers can explain how these two central tenets of Christian dogma, which appear to be mutually contradictory, are logically consistent. Failing that, perhaps an explanation of how holding two mutually contradictory beliefs simultaneously is not indicative of intellectual dishonesty and of the self-deceiving nature of the mental process involved in religious faith.

To recap:

• An omniscient (all-knowing) god would know every detail of your future, including the outcome of all decisions you will ever make. It will have known this for eternity. If not, then it isn't omniscient.
• An inerrant god would never be wrong so it cannot 'know' something which turns out to be untrue.
• Given these two conditions, it is not possible for you to make a decision which this god has not always known you will make.
• Given these two conditions, such a god can not 'know' a decision which you do not in fact make.

To apply this to a trivial, everyday example: suppose this god has always known that you will have eggs for breakfast tomorrow. Can you chose not to have eggs and have cereal, or toast or waffles, or anything else instead, or even decide to skip breakfast altogether? If you do, this god cannot be omniscient. If you can't, you do not have free will.

Remember, this god can't, as some have argued, 'know' all your possible decisions so whichever you chose will be right. This would mean that whatever decision you make, the god would be wrong about all the others. In fact, given that there are masses of possible 'right' answers for every real right one, it would be far more often wrong than right - which is never good for the reputation of an 'omniscient' god.

But, if you believe in a god like this and also believe you have free will, how can you do something your god hasn't always known you will do? If you can't, in what sense of the word 'free' do you have free will?

Here then is a simple challenge for Christians (Muslims and Jews who believe in the same god might like to try it too):

Give a single example of someone exercising free will by not doing something an omniscient, inerrant, eternal god would always have known they would do.

Or give a single example of someone exercising free will by doing something an omniscient, inerrant, eternal god would not always have known they would do.

Simple, eh? All you have to do is to give a single example of something happening that is central to your faith, and which you have probably taken for granted.

Why is this important?

Because, if the Christian god isn't omniscient it doesn't know what's going on and is not in control of the Universe. Such a god is not worth praying to because, to change events it would have to be aware of them and in full control of them. This god would be a mere observer, having no more power than the spectators at a ball game have.

If you don't have free will, then everything about the Universe is pre-determined. It makes not one iota of difference what you do or say and you cannot be held responsible for anything you do, let alone be accountable for the 'original sin'. There is no 'sin', no need for you to seek 'redemption', no need for forgiveness of sin, and so no reason for Jesus. Whatever you do or say was merely what you were predestined to do or say.

Curiously, this is actually pretty much what the Bible says too:

So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them.

All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good, so with the sinful; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Anyone who is among the living has hope — even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-5:

In other words, unless you can meet this simple challenge and resolve the fatal contradiction between free will and an omniscient, inerrant god, you have no basis for your faith because your faith has no basis and the Bible has lied about one or the other, or both.

The other little problem for Christians (and Muslims and Jews for that matter) is that if the presence of an omniscient god means there is no free will, then that also holds true for gods. An omniscient god must also exist in a predestined Universe and so would have no free will either.

A god with no free will is no god at all. A god with no free will cannot have decided to create anything.

Another little problem for Christians of course, is that if they can't answer these questions they are showing the world, even if they can't admit it to themselves, that they know their 'faith' is phoney.

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The Fake Turin Shroud

'Shroud' in normal light

'Shroud' as a photgraphic negative

How to tell the 'Shroud of Turin' is a hoax.

For those who have not heard of the Turin Shroud:

The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud (Italian: Sindone di Torino, Sacra Sindone) is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is commonly associated with Jesus, his crucifixion and burial. It is much clearer in black-and-white negative than in its natural sepia color. The negative image was first observed in 1898, on the reverse photographic plate of amateur photographer Secondo Pia, who was allowed to photograph it while it was being exhibited in the Turin Cathedral.

Wikipedia - Shroud of Turin

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The historical records for the Shroud of Turin can be separated into two time periods: before 1390 and from 1390 to the present. The period until 1390 is subject to debate and controversy among historians. Prior to the 14th century there are some allegedly congruent but controversial references such as the Pray Codex. It is often mentioned that the first certain historical record dates from 1353 or 1357. However the presence of the Turin Shroud in Lirey, France, is only undoubtedly attested in 1390 when Bishop Pierre d'Arcis wrote a memorandum where he charged that the Shroud was a forgery. The history from the 15th century to the present is well documented. In 1453 Margaret de Charny deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy. As of the 17th century the shroud has been displayed (e.g. in the chapel built for that purpose by Guarino Guarini) and in the 19th century it was first photographed during a public exhibition.

There are little definite historical records concerning the shroud prior to the 14th century. Although there are numerous reports of Jesus' burial shroud, or an image of his head, of unknown origin, being venerated in various locations before the 14th century, there is little reliable historical evidence that these refer to the shroud currently at Turin Cathedral. A burial cloth, which some historians maintain was the Shroud, was owned by the Byzantine emperors but disappeared during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204...

The history of the shroud from the 15th century is well recorded. In 1532, the shroud suffered damage from a fire in the chapel where it was stored. A drop of molten silver from the reliquary produced a symmetrically placed mark through the layers of the folded cloth. Poor Clare Nuns attempted to repair this damage with patches. In 1578 the House of Savoy took the shroud to Turin and it has remained at Turin Cathedral ever since.

Repairs were made to the shroud in 1694 by Sebastian Valfrè to improve the repairs of the Poor Clare nuns. Further repairs were made in 1868 by Clotilde of Savoy. The shroud remained the property of the House of Savoy until 1983, when it was given to the Holy See, the rule of the House of Savoy having ended in 1946.

A fire, possibly caused by arson, threatened the shroud on 11 April 1997. In 2002, the Holy See had the shroud restored. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed, making it possible to photograph and scan the reverse side of the cloth, which had been hidden from view. A ghostly part-image of the body was found on the back of the shroud in 2004. The most recent public exhibition of the Shroud was in 2010.

Wikipedia - History of the Shroud of Turin.

Lord Carey Is Whinging Again

BBC News - Lord Carey attacks PM over Christian 'support':

Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury and pastoral head of the world-wide Anglican Communion, seems to have found a new role for himself since retiring - that of Winger in Chief for Christianity and Defender of Christian Privilege.

In an attack on Prime Minister David Cameron's government today he accused them of "aiding and abetting" aggressive secularisation - which is a euphemism of course for allowing other groups, particularly non-believers, to have a say and to be listened to when they complain about being dictated to by Christians. For "aggressive secularisation" read "successfully getting a non-Christian point of view heard", something which Carey feels infringes the Christian right to hold a monopoly of opinion on all matters social and moral.

Carey quoted a ComRes poll which showed that "more than two-thirds of Christians feel that they are part of a 'persecuted minority'", which is not the same thing as actually being a persecuted minority but never-the-less contains the interesting admission that Christians actually are now a minority in the UK, and yet they still demand their traditional privileges and complain of persecution when they lose them.

Since retiring from the post of Archbishop of Canterbury, Carey has, amongst other things:

• Opposed same sex marriage, though he supported same sex civil partnerships.
• Complained about English and European courts deciding that Christians are expected to comply with laws even when they disagree with them.
• Complained that Christians do not have the right to use their faith as an excuse for persecuting others by denial of supply of goods and services.
• Defended the arms trade.
• Defended a company active in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

As Archbishop of Canterbury, and now as a life peer, Lord Carey, along with a number of Anglican bishops, has the right to speak and vote in the UK government upper chamber and thus to influence legislation from an unelected and unaccountable position simply because he is or was a senior Christian cleric.

The Archbishop of Canterbury traditionally crowns the British Head of State in a Christian coronation ceremony which confirms the Head of State as head of the Anglican Church, hence establishing the Anglican Church as the official state church and Christianity as the official religion of the UK.

The UK parliament opens with Christian prayers each day it is in session.

The default oaths given by jurors and witnesses in English courts is a Christian one unless specifically requested otherwise.

The Secretary of State for Local Government recently used his executive power to amend the Local Government Act to make it legal for Local Councils to include prayers on their agenda, after this was ruled illegal by the courts. This means that non-believers who fail to attend prayers can be declared not to have attended the full meeting, giving their constituents the impression that they have not attended as many council meetings as they should have.

Religious apologists complain bitterly that atheists and secularists are aggressive and hostile in their criticism of them. I always say: look, when you guys were in charge, you didn’t argue with us, you just burnt us at the stake. Now what we’re doing is, we’re presenting you with some arguments and some challenging questions, and you complain.

A.C. Grayling

The Anglican and Catholic Churches run many of our Schools, although they are financed by the state, hence tax-payers are financing what is, in effect, a privileged recruiting opportunity, providing the church with access to vulnerable and impressionable minds in a captive setting not afforded to groups presenting alternative views, and associating Christian belief with authority figures and official sanction.

Churches and religious institutions are regarded as charities in the UK and so pay no tax on their income and can claim exemption from VAT on their purchases. Promotion of their faith and using it to recruit members is considered a legitimate use of charitable funds, which thus receives a hidden tax-payers' subsidy.

The National Health Service, funded by taxation, bears the cost of providing chaplaincy services and thus represents a hidden tax-payers' subsidy from funds ostensibly raised for health care, for religion, mainly Christian.

Strangely, one never hears Carey, nor any other religious cleric, complain about this arrogant imposition of their superstition and superstition-based laws on those of us who have neither requested nor want it.

Ironically, Lord Carey's whinge comes in the middle of a four-day celebration of a plagiarised Christian festival during which banks, schools, Government and Local Authority services will be closed, essential services will be reduced to a minimal safe level and publically-owned radio and television services will broadcast programmes will be devoted to Christian themes, usually presenting the Christian myth of Jesus as real history, the disgusting idea of human blood sacrifice as a good thing and the repugnant superstition that all humans are innately evil and need 'cleansing' of sin by shedding the blood of an innocent person, by magic spells cast by clerics, by chanting ritual words and by making special hand movement.

In other words, that we need clerics like Lord Carey to save us from the god they invented in order to give them something to save us from.

For those Christians who feel aggrieved and want to be on guard against these aggressive secularists, see How To Recognise A Militant Secularist - A 12-Point Guide.

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Famous Christians - Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps is currently America's Christian hate-monger in chief and head of what has been dubbed The Most Hated Family In America and of the Westboro Baptist Church which he founded to propagate his messages of Christian hate.

Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr. (born November 13, 1929) is an American pastor heading the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), an independent Baptist church based in Topeka, Kansas. Phelps is a disbarred lawyer, founder of the Phelps Chartered law firm, and a former civil rights activist...

Phelps's followers frequently picket various events, such as military funerals, gay pride gatherings, high-profile political gatherings, university commencement ceremonies, performances of The Laramie Project, mainstream Christian gatherings and concerts with which he had no affiliation, arguing it is their sacred duty to warn others of God's anger.

In response to Phelps' protests at military funerals, President George W. Bush signed the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act into law in May 2006, and, in April 2007, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius signed into law a bill establishing a 150-foot no-picketing buffer zone around funerals. As of April 2006, 8 other states have enacted similar laws and 10 more were considering it. On August 6, 2012, President Obama signed Pub.L. 112–154, the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 which, among other things, requires a 300-foot and 2-hour buffer zone around military funerals.

Source: Wikipedia - Fred Phelps

It has been said that Phelp's fundamentalist Christianity, untempered as it is by any humanism or humanitarian notions of respect for the dignity of others, shows us the difference between pure, unadulterated Christianity, and Christianity as it is today having been moderated and tamed by humanism and basic human decency.

Enjoy the following Phelpian philosophy and be grateful to those who have managed to get Christianity under some sort of control.

God hates America, and those calamities last Tuesday [September 11, 2001] are none other than the wrath of God, smiting fag America... That wasn't any accident. That wasn't any coincidence. There's only America to blame for those tragedies.

Sermon_20010914.mp3. Last fm. Westboro Baptist Church. September 14, 2001.

God hates America, and God demonstrated that hatred to some modest degree only last Tuesday -- sent in those bombers, those hellacious 767 Boeing bombers, and it was a glorious sight. What you need to do is see in those flames -- those sickening, twisting, burning, life-destroying flames, brightly shining from every television set around the world! You need to see in those flames a little preview of the flames of Hell that are going to soon engulf you, my friend. Burn your soul forever!

Sermon_20010914.mp3. Last fm. Westboro Baptist Church. September 14, 2001.

I never understood why, when [the media asked him], "Why are you so against the homosexuals? Did you have a homosexual experience? Do you have homosexual tendencies?" And he would get so mad, he would shut down. And he'd be like, "I can't talk to this person anymore, they're stupid." His reaction to that was stronger than any other question you can ask him. So I always wondered that - why does he get so mad? If I'm not gay, I'll just say I'm not gay. And I'm not going to freak out, like, "Why are you calling me gay?" I always thought that was super strange. … I don't know what happened there, so [speculation] is all that I can leave it at. But something happened, and something made him change his mind about the military, and in turn have kind of a crusade against sexual immorality and homosexuals.

Lauren Drain, daughter of WBC spokesman Steve Drain

Thank God for 9/11. Thank God that, five years ago, the wrath of God was poured out upon this evil nation. America, land of the sodomite damned. We thank thee, Lord God Almighty, for answering the prayers of those that are under the altar.

9/11: God's Wrath Revealed. Live Leaks. Westboro Baptist Church. September 8, 2006

We told you, right after it happened five years ago, that the deadly events of 9/11 were direct outpourings of divine retribution, the immediate visitation of God's wrath and vengeance and punishment for America's horrendous sodomite sins, that worse and more of it was on the way. We further told you that any politician, any political official, any preacher telling you differently as to the cause and interpretation of 9/11 is a dastardly lying false prophet, cowardly and mean, and headed for hell. And taking you with him! God is no longer with America, but is now America's enemy. God himself is now America's terrorist.

9/11: God's Wrath Revealed. Live Leaks. Westboro Baptist Church. September 8, 2006

For ten long weary years prior to 9/11, WBC warned you daily on the mean streets of this nation that your sodomite sins will be avenged by an angry God except you repent. You persecuted us for our trouble, thereby aggravating your great transgression. On 9/11/01, God Almighty dealt backsliding America a staggering blow.

9/11: God's Wrath Revealed. Live Leaks. Westboro Baptist Church. September 8, 2006

Same-sex marriage, by any name, civil union or otherwise, is the ultimate smashed-mouth in-your-face insult to God Almighty, and you think He's going to let England and America and the rest of this evil world get by with it? God Almighty has not joined fags in holy wedlock. God no longer keeps America safe. America is doomed. We're getting the pants beat off of us, in Iraq, in Afghanistan.

O'Connor, Geoffrey (Director) and Theroux, Louis (Writer). The Most Hated Family in America April 1, 2007.

God is now America's terrorist, that's who Bush is fighting, that's the terrorist that he best be afraid of. You tweaked His nose, you jackass, you tweaked His nose! God put it in your wicked heart to start that war. That's the message we've got at the funerals of these dead soldiers.

O'Connor, Geoffrey (Director) and Theroux, Louis (Writer). The Most Hated Family in America April 1, 2007.

God duped you into starting a war, so He could punish you. And any preacher preaching it any other way is a lying hell-bound false prophet. So almost eighteen months now and the siege has got people eating their babies, and their small children, and each other! You're gonna eat your babies! God Himself duped Bush into a no-win war, and He did that by the technique of putting a lying spirit in the mouth of all his trusted advisers, to punish America.

O'Connor, Geoffrey (Director) and Theroux, Louis (Writer). The Most Hated Family in America April 1, 2007.

Thank God for the [2004 Asian] tsunami, and thank God that two thousand dead Swedes are fertilizing the ground over there [in Asia]. How many of these two thousand, do you suppose, were fags and dykes? This is how the Lord deals with His enemies. And the Lord has got some enemies. And Sweden heads the list. You filthy Swedes. You filthy Swedes! [Apparently God told Fred that Sweden in is Asia]

Sermon on the Asian tsunami, audio excerpt played in The Chaser's War on Everything

The Lord sent a world-class whopper of a massacre to Virginia Tech, killing thirty-three, drawing headlines like 'Shocked!', 'Horrified!', 'The worst massacre in US history!'. Well, we wish you were thirty-three thousand killed, but we are thankful to our Father for thirty-three.

Virginia Tech Massacre: God's Wrath. Live Leaks Westboro Baptist Church. April 23, 2007.

God hates Australia, land of the sodomite damned! The fag-infested land of Australia is burning. The fire of God's wrath is sending hundreds of those filthy Australian beasts straight to hell! We at Westboro Baptist Church are rejoicing, and we are praying that the dear Lord would burn many more Australians alive!

God Hates Australia. YouTube God Hates Australia. Westboro Baptist Church. February 12, 2009.

Canada is a filthy country run by fags, which has Draconian laws making it a crime to preach the Gospel there. All of these cowardly kissy-poo preachers who telecast their milquetoast sermons into Canada have to edit out every single word critical of fags -- snip, snip, snip -- or the fag officials of Canada will arrest and criminally prosecute the Canadian affiliates, and shut down their stations! There's no freedom of speech in Canada. There's no freedom of religion in Canada. It is against the law to read the Bible in Canada.[Fred's god seems remarkably ignorant and ill-informed about a lot of countries. It's almost as though it knows little about the world outside Topeka, Kansas]

God Hates Canada. YouTube God Hates Canada. Westboro Baptist Church. July 31, 2008.

Our church has had a lot of bad dealings with those demon-possessed Canadians! A big Canadian flag flies at our church upside-down, the international symbol of distress. We fly it day and night, to educate and warn people about the fagi-nazi regime just to the north of us. Canadians are afraid of their tyrannical fag-run government. You can determine for yourself about Canada, and keep as far away from them as you can.

God Hates Canada. YouTube God Hates Canada. Westboro Baptist Church. July 31, 2008.

We warned that WBC has had lots of experience with Ireland's militant sodomite citizenry, steeped for many decades in ignorant, blind idolatrous Catholicism, belching out their vile fagspeak, slander and blasphemy against God and His word.

Sermon about Ireland, July 29, 2007
Letter from UK Border Agency banning WBC from UK

Homosexuals now pervade and control American government at every level and branch. Thus, only those churches that support and promote the militant homosexual agenda enjoy religious freedom. Any church in America that dares to preach what the Bible says about soul-damning, nation-destroying moral filth of the vile homosexual beasts among us, loses all Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and speech rights.

Fred Phelps, in a letter to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, July 5, 1997

We understand that Iraq is the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets without fear of arrest and prosecution. Alas, the United States no longer allows the Gospel to be freely and openly preached on the streets, because militant sodomites now control our government, and they violently object to the Bible message.

Fred Phelps, in a letter to Saddam Hussein, November 30, 1997

Thank God for the violent shooter... 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire outside a Tucson, Arizona grocery store, shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John M. Roll, and sixteen others. At least six are dead and counting. Congress passed three laws against Westboro Baptist Church. Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby-killing, was shot for that mischief. A federal judge in Baltimore, part of the massive military community in Maryland and in the District of Columbia, put Westboro Baptist Church on trial for faithful words from God. Federal Judge Roll paid for those sins with his life.

Fred Phelps, on the 2011 Tucson shooting.

Today, mouthy witch Sarah Palin had Representative Giffords in her crosshairs on her website. She quick took it down, however, because she is a cowardly brute like the rest of you. The crosshairs to worry about are God's and he's put you in his and your destruction is upon you. You should have obeyed. This nation of violent murderers is in full rebellion against God. God avenged himself on you today by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you in your affliction. Westboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise God for his righteous judgments in this Earth. Amen.

Fred Phelps, on the 2011 Tucson shooting.

As they say, feel that Christian love!

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Conviction Christians

Zupljanin (left) and Stanisic were found guilty of crimes committed across Bosnia in 1992

BBC News - War crimes court jails Bosnian Serbs:

The civilised world struck another blow for peace and freedom today when the war crimes Tribunal in The Hague upheld the principle that Christians are also bound by the requirement to behave in a civilised manner no matter that their 'faith' gives them an excuse to behave otherwise, when two more genocidal Christian terrorists were convicted and sentenced.

Mico Stanisic was the interior minister of the Bosnian Serb republic ('Republica Srbska') and Stojan Zupljanin was a senior security official. Both men were convicted of crimes against humanity including acts of murder, torture, unlawful detention, deportation and plunder in various parts of Bosnia in 1992 as the took part in a "joint criminal enterprise with the objective to permanently remove non-Serbs from the territory of a planned Serbian state" and were sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Two more Christian terrorist, Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic are still on trial at the ICTY over atrocities committed during the conflict, including the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. Their leader, former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosovic died whilst in custody before completing his trial for genocide.

Golden Dawn Flag

During the faith-based Bosnian conflict, in which Orthodox Serbian Christian gangs of killers sought to eradicate Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats, an estimated 100,000 people were murdered. The murder gangs were supplemented and supported by a large contingent of Orthodox Christian volunteers from Greece, many of whom now form the nucleus of the violently right-wing Greek neo-Nazi 'Golden Dawn' political party which enjoys wide support from within the Greek Orthodox Church.

The defence offered was the traditional one of genocidists that they were merely obeying orders and carrying out the lawful instructions of their government. What is not clear is whether the new Pope as head of the Catholic Church, who, when a Cardinal in Argentina was accused of standing by as his government 'disappeared' it's opponents including his own priests, and whether the new pastoral head of the Anglican Communion, aristocratic multi-millionaire Justin Welby, leaders of the two largest Christian denominations, have distanced themselves and their churches from the teaching of St. Paul in this respect.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.

Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

Romans 13:1-7

St. Paul was perfectly clear on the point: it is the duty of all Christians to obey the instructions of their government because all actions by all governments are always God's will and are always against evil, hence the Bosnian murderers were in fact acting in accordance with a basic Christian principle established by the Church's founder. It remains to be seen whether the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury distance themselves from this traditional genocidists' excuse and side with the forces of civilisation and progress in their attempt to establish the principle that all people are entitled to be treated with respect and dignity even when they disagree with Christians.

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