I STARTED A JOKE ... *

 Someone started a thread in this blogging community and it is unravelling at a fast pace, spurred on from some theological nonsense courtesy of Robert. I'd provide a link but he seems to have deleted the posts or I can't access them on his blog for some reason - probably because it's Sunday and atheists are forbidden entry.

The thread is about the ridiculous constructs of the Catholic Church with particular reference to the concept of Transubstantiation where Robert promised to explain what this means but instead copied the almost entire 'proof' from the Vatican which ran to far more words than I cared to read.

It reminds me of this Bee Gees song:

Well it confuses the bejesus out of me (which I guess is the pun origin of the band's name).

If my mother was alive today she'd call me a heathen and I have an aunt who, like Robert, believes all of the Catholic Church's mumbo jumbo and would cut me off if she read the 'blasphemous' things I go on about.

I'll wait - "..... waiting, waiting ..." for Robert to resurface and write what he truly believes (not from that silly Catholic 'faith' thing) concerning the Eucharist and Transubstantiation means in layman's terms.

I'm not going anywhere ..... well, maybe to Hell.

* Actually the 'joke' started back in the 4th century when the Catholic Church made up all this nonsense and pretended that it stemmed from Jesus during his life more than 3 centuries earlier.

BATHE YOUR PIGS

 

I wrote a silly post about Catholic saints and their bogus exploits see: HERE

This is part of a sort of a series where I, usually after Robert has banged on about some histrionic cloistered virgin in a nunnery who saw Jesus, knocked off a post of either some 'real' according to the Catholic Church saint or one that I just invented. It's hard to tell the difference.

In the latest post I made this comment myself:

It is time that the Catholic Church and indeed any Christian organisations - any religions really - started treating people like intelligent humans and stopped pushing hogwash to them.

I cannot understand why mature, educated and reasonably intelligent people can buy into concepts of a god or gods creating them and ruling their lives. If that wasn't preposterous enough the religions - and the Catholic Church seems to be the best or worse at this, fabricate all sorts of bizarre and mystical nonsense to obfuscate the shallowness of the concept. Resurrected beings who miraculously go up to a heaven feature quite a bit along with the notion of said heaven and its counterpart hell for the non-believers and miscreants. As if that wasn't enough - WAIT THERE'S MORE - Christianity propagates (it borrows most of the nonsense from older religions) the idea of virgin birth, ascension and assumption into heaven, being cast down into hell, consuming the real flesh and blood of a living Jesus, being born with original sin and only baptism into the relevant religion will wash it away, sinning all the time requiring confession, absolution and penance usually accompanied with gifting and tithing. I could go on but you know the rest.

All this shit is packaged up like a gift-wrapped turd and presented to a surprisingly willing populace. We can't blame social media for this which itself dupes a surprisingly willing populace because religion has been hog-washing people since day dot and is both directly and indirectly responsible for wars, genocide, social unrest, murders, family disruption and just about everything bad in the world - all while hiding behind some presumption of goodness and love. Give me a break.

I'd like Robert to comment on this and seeing that he subscribes to Catholic websites and publications and follows podcasters like Trent Horn and other Christian and Catholic apologists maybe he could solicit comment from them. Failing that he could just stick his hand up at Mass - during the sermon so he doesn't disrupt the mumbo-jumbo - and ask the priest why Middle Ages and earlier thinking and writings with its associated ill-informed and superstitious beliefs still dominate Christian thinking and worship today in the twenty-first century.

THE MORE OBSCURE CATHOLIC SAINTS - PART SIX

 No, not Father Fri, a Presbyterian saint that Richard invented - see: FRIDAY which is parallel universing (a politer way of saying plagiarism).

I thought that, given the scepticism shown by some readers as to the veracity of my reporting, I would give you two stories of saints today - one true and the other that I've made up. It's up to you readers to decide which one is true.

There will be a prize awarded to the first person to correctly identify which ... or will there?

A MORE OBSCURE CATHOLIC SAINT #1

St. Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380): The woman Christ married with his foreskin.

In her letters, at age twenty-one when cloistered as a nun, Catherine  recounted how she had experienced  a “Mystical Marriage” with Jesus, entailing “a fusion with Christ’s physicality.” where Jesus placed his foreskin on her finger. 

 Jesus then told her to leave the convent and to go out and help the ill and the poor. Catherine did this, travelling about becoming involved in all sorts of religious, political and social affairs. While doing this she fasted to such an extreme that she died at the age of thirty three, unable to eat or drink water. Nowadays we would call that anorexia nervosa. Chalk another one up to the saints with identifiable (now) nervous or psychological disorders.

A MORE OBSCURE CATHOLIC SAINT #2

Saint Anthony of Cologne (3rd century AD — c. 250): Carried one of his own heads after being decapitated.

In the third century Anthony Clearatticus was Bishop of Cologne. When the Decian persecution of Christians took place Anthony was martyred shortly after 250 AD. It was reported that Anthony picked his head up after being decapitated, walked ten kilometres and preached a sermon the entire way before, on noticing the loss of his head he dropped down dead. Of the many accounts of this martyrdom, this is noted in detail in Butler’s Lives Of The Saints. The site where he stopped preaching and actually died was marked by a small shrine that developed into the Saint Anthony Basilica. 

Anthony, as we now know, having been reliably reported in Butler’s Lives Of The Saints had two heads and should have been alright but fate conspired against him as his other head was an atheist and as such wasn't protected by a guardian angel or the Holy Spirit and also died. There was no mention of why the guardian angel or the Holy Spirit didn't intervene to stop Anthony's faithful head being decapitated. Such is the will of God.

THE MORE OBSCURE CATHOLIC SAINTS - PART FIVE

I know that some readers think that I make these saints up but, believe me, sometimes fact is much stranger than fiction.

Take St. Joseph of Cupertino for example. He's (hardly) known as the levitating saint.

St.Joseph used to levitate in rapturous ecstasy any time someone mentioned Jesus. I guess that he wouldn't have wanted to hang around builders and carpenters who were at risk of hitting their thumbs with a hammer or to be near people in barefoot stubbing their toes.

St. Joseph of Cupertino lived in the 17th century and was - no surprises here - a priest and monk with mental disabilities. That's par for the course really when it comes to Robert's saints. Old St. Joe had such a simple yet deep love for Jesus (and other saints apparently) that he would go into ecstasy and levitate upon hearing their names - especially as you'd expect, in church. It's just as well the churches of his day had very high vaulted ceilings. I wonder if any enterprising church cleaners contracted him to do a bit of dusting up there and remove spiderwebs, birds nest and rodent droppings?

This ability turned out to be both a blessing and a curse for St. Joseph of Cupertino.  He levitated in front of huge crowds during public processions and became a massive sensation amongst those that followed him - probably placing bets on when he'd fall on his ahead (again). The crowds became a problem for the Church who moved him from monastery to monastery (an exercise that they had and still do have experience in while moving paedophiles), keeping his location a secret, but his location was usually discovered fairly quickly, and the crowds would return. Joseph once had an audience with the pope and took off probably after being introduced to the guy. I hope he let go of his hand during the handshake before he flew off to the ceiling.

In 1962 a film was made about him titled The Reluctant Saint.

That's St. Joseph disappearing off in the upper left corner.

Here's a guy in a dress who will tell you about the film 'based on a true story'.

Riveting. This guy should drop the priesthood and make a career in film reviewing.

St. Joseph of Cupertino is the patron saint of air travellers, aviators, astronauts, and people with a mental handicap. I guess that they all go flying in their own ways.