Guessing What Was (And Will Never Be Again)

 

 WHEN DOES THE 'HEALING' PART START? 

Faith-healing couple with Followers of Christ church face charges over death of baby

THEY FORGOT: 

The longest, strangest trip: Some psychedelic drug users are stuck with unwelcome highs

SHOULDA SAID O.J.: 

AI priest defrocked after taking confession and saying babies could be baptised in Gatorade

SATAN'S CURRENCY: 

'Bitcoin Jesus' arrested in Spain on US tax evasion charges

SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? 

Little girl's imaginary closet monster turns out to be 55,000-65,000 bees

AND HE WANTS TO FIGHT: 

MAGA 'Prophet' Declares God is Far Right

ALWAYS TRUST THE INTERNET: 

Misinformation about acupuncture via YouTube

STOPPING DAD DROM DRINKING: 

Man, 22, who drowned his alcoholic father, 57, in baptism-style exorcism three years ago at Massachusetts pond is found guilty of manslaughter

ETHICS ARE A CURSE: 

Televangelist Jesse Duplantis Says His Wealth Is Because He's 'Blessed,' Calls Poverty a 'Curse'

Another Mirage Of Estrangement

SMART - America doesn’t need an election; it needs an exorcism.

NEEDS - Why women need to feel fear

EVIDENCE - Topher Grace, the only cast member from That 70s Show not to endorse two-time rapist, Danny Masterson, because - it was said - he was "too pretentious" to be cool. 

"Too ethical" would be more like it. 

   

FACT - America doesn’t trust itself: Faith in US institutions and each other takes dangerous drop

EVIDENCE - School District Hires Drag Queen Principal

OBVIOUSLY: “There’s a group of about nine men,...Some look Trumpish.”

 

The Friday Fuzz

Traditional Chinese Medicine Experts Baffled by Man Born Without Meridians

Emma Stone stars in sex-mad Frankenstein-like tale

Man Left Quadriplegic After Diving Into Foam Pit

Ex-Ms. Fitness USA dead at 50

Cat Caught 'Speaking English' While Home Alone

Matt Schlapp Hired Priest to Perform Exorcism at CPAC HQ

Public freakouts, burnout, and bullying: Bad behavior is here to stay

As Always: The Real "Capital Offense" Is The Democrat Party's Daily Hypocrisy

 

Can there be any more convincing evidence, the core of the left's enterprise was hollow all along, than seeing the same freaks who tried to "exorcise the Pentagon" in the '60s,...

...now pretending they're disgusted, outraged, and offended, that they birthed a horned animal skin shaman to the U.S. Capital in 2021?

 

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (Out Of Control)

"They arranged to meet up with her at a Walmart in north Stockton on Saturday under the pretense of making the marriage work, according to Lt. Mike Jones, of the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Department.

She willingly got in the car."

UPDATE:

“She said she was able to text her boyfriend,,…”

Heaven's Door ("Goo-Goo-Gah-Choob, Mrs. Robinson")

 

Is it pretty bad that - at the exact same moment the black guy in this clip says, "Bitches be trip-pin'!" - I was thinking about how, historically in art, demons almost always seem to infest women's minds? It's like we've been told from the birth of mankind, if there ARE supernatural manifestations of evil, they know - if they want to get a foothold in this world - talk to a woman, and she'll make it possible. Either by being of help, being manipulated, or being seduced - female gullibility will always preclude critical thought or ethics. 

That's what women think makes them "mysterious" in real life, too - can they be trusted?

They blew it by making me wonder,...

 

Macy's Song For Black Men At The Libraries & Museums

I was just returning from the library - and heard my local NPR affiliate discussing exorcisms like they are for realz - so this was a welcome iTunes pick-me-up when I got safely back home:

AKA Before the lows could set in,...

 

"He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)" Is So Played Out,...

 

 Rarely have I seen a simpler breakdown of what's going on out there, on a mass scale - and it's consequences - than this right here:

It was all the same talking, God, God, how he's talking to demons, how he's an exorcist, how he's healing people. Tamerlan was absolutely in his possession. All around people considered him just another prick. 

‘Then my brother comes in from work, very late and Anzor is talking to his wife saying what is this person doing here so late? 

‘Tell him to get the hell out. And she says: 'You'd better shut up, this person is teaching wise things to your son'. This is the mother. After that Tamerlan went over his place, he changed his views. It started from people like that.’

 

When crazy people listen to crazy people, talking crazy talk, call me "crazy" but I say, more than likely, some crazy shit is eventually going to go down. Obama came with Oprah - surprise. When Mitt Romney was running for First Mormon President, everybody asked me what terrible thing I expected to happen, and I told them I didn't know - I'm not crazy - but no good was coming of it. 

And none did. The Right has gone crazy. Madness is nothing to fuck with.

Underneath all the politics, that's what's so crazy-making, running rampant, and still going unspoken in all this talk of "spirituality", "life coaches," "preachers" and "gurus", along with all these "followers" on a "never-ending search":

How do the rest of us deal with the insecure (mostly women) insisting on allowing others into, and to take control of, their lives - to the detriment of their spouses and families? How Family Law backs fanaticism. How, if this country was serious about marriage, we wouldn't be bringing gays into a dysfunctional system, but discovered how many lives are destroyed by it.

   

 "'You'd better shut up, this person is teaching wise things to your son'."

   

 Ha! Yeah, like you're a stupid woman, so you better shut up or I'll belt ya. 

Welcome to Islam 101, Oprah:

Boom.

   

Now get these con men out of our house - before somebody loses life and limb,...

 

Bitches Being Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh Bad To The Bone

 "The Devil made me do it"? Puh-leaze - let's hear it for history's actors:

By focusing on the performative aspect of possession Levack, in his methodical, scholarly way, cuts against the two most common modern explanations of possession: illness and fakery. Scholars a hundred years ago retrospectively diagnosed demoniacs with epilepsy, melancholy and hysteria. Today scholars seeking a medical explanation point to Tourette’s syndrome, dissociative identity disorder and religious anxiety. But Levack is at pains to show that any one medical explanation cannot fully account for the range of demoniac behaviour. Nor is intentional William Perry-style fakery a sufficient explanation for the full range and extent of the phenomena described in the early modern period. 

Levack’s way of looking at possession allows one to view demoniacs in a new way. His argument hands agency back to those involved in cases of possession—they didn’t just suffer an illness, or deceive a community, says Levack; they actively played a part in a social ritual. Demonic possession was “a theatrical performance that reflected the religious cultures of the demoniac, the community, and the exorcist.” 

Levack’s argument adds a much-needed historical lens through which to view possession, but he goes too far when he rejects any attempt by contemporary medicine to understand the demoniacs. The specificity of social context for all human behaviour is important, but that doesn’t preclude illness or self-interest interacting with performance.

Pathetic attention-seeking assholes, that's what they are. Here, if it'll make 'em happy:

My Take: We're Being Driven To The Point Of Madness

It's funny, all the effort the West makes to "nudge" us away from things that are normal - smoking, for instance - while they make none what-so-ever towards eliminating superstition, so that stories like this aren't common:

'Evil' Nigerian people smuggler used witchcraft to terrify girls into sex slavery."

Alright, it's not funny - it's weird. (No belief in witchcraft, no problem, right? Seems simple enough.) But even weirder is how the only portion of society anyone seems even a *little* concerned about protecting from such nonsense is gays. Why? What about the rest of us? What makes it O.K. to bombard us with bullshit? Are we not deviant enough? Or - speaking as a black American who, I hear, everyone's been so concerned about - has the United Negro College Fund's slogan "A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste" now been put out to pasture, in favor of hysteria over someone's new kid on the block?

And is my country, America, the engine of The Enlightenment, really "The New World" (as the rest of the planet thinks it is) when - in the year 2012 - we have grown men asking "Should we thank Satan for being here?" while others bring up God in political debates, and preachers act as overseers to our elections? Why are there horoscopes in our newspapers? People getting away with claiming to talk to the dead on our television screens? Hit movies about reincarnation? Why do I have to read "Young exorcists conquer demons" when I know there are no demons? And why isn't anyone else saying to, finally, cut it out?

I'm almost sorry to say it - because I know it's not all of them - but I think I know,…

 

TIP: How To Behave During An Islamic Massacre

"People tend to act according to their beliefs,..." Yeah, if we could only do something about that, like stop indulging ourselves with stupid beliefs - you know, like saying, "Wow, that's a stupid belief and not actual knowledge, so I don't have to pay any attention to it!" Things might improve greatly.

But no, that's too straight forward, too intelligent, and too darned easy for anyone to go for. Better to keep going with killing in the name of God, murdering while performing exorcisms against the Devil, having your child die because your church doesn't allow you to use medicines, or allowing your mother to croak because your water-based healing cure is better than the entire history of Western medicine and the evils of BIG PHARMA. Yes indeed, let's carry on with that stuff instead:

That way, by mentally blocking out their actions, believers of all stripes can continue to feel superior to everybody else.

It's been a winning formula so far.

Serious Business, Guys: Is This 2010 Or 1021?

Jesus, what a fucking farce:

American bishops are teaching clerics how to determine who really is possessed and who really needs medical care.

Shit, they all need their heads examined, if you ask us.

And, BTW, that photo was taken from a vegetarian festival. Food for thought, no?

Black, Gay, Religious: A Whole World Of Stupid

Religion, Politics, Spirituality And Medicine: In The NewAge Everybody's On The Same Page!!!

"Pope Bendict XVI is launching new guidelines for those who claim the Virgin Mary has appeared to them, in an attempt to end bogus sightings around the globe, the U.K.'s Daily Mail newspaper reported Tuesday.

In his own 'holy war,' the pontiff will publish criteria to help bishops determine which 'visions' are true and which are false. In some cases, the Mail reported, exorcists will be used to determine the validity of a statement."

-- FOX News

"Protecting the country from non-existent threats while exposing it to real ones is likely to define the incoming administration."

-- George Neumayr, on Secretary of State-elect Hillary Clinton's Senate testimony - that she will fight the "unambiguous security threat" of global warming - in The American Spectator.

"This is noble-sounding stuff, but there’s nothing behind it."

-- Derek Lowe, describing NewAge medicine and belief, that's In The Pipeline.