I am touched by His Noodly Appendage

Sorry I’m late for work today, but I didn’t get much sleep last night following a little set-to with Nurse Ratchett who lives in the room above me in the Nurses Accomodation tower, here at Asylum Earth. We’ve never really got on with each other since the Inmates Ritalin Riot of ‘03, but I thought thing’s had died down.

Obviously not.

She’s now taken to maliciously emptying her saucepans out of her window!

I woke up on Sunday morning, opened my curtains and threw open the window, only to greeted by half a pound of congealing Pasta Tricolore, draped all over my ‘Victoria Beckham Ornamental Bird Feeder’.

Well… I was FURIOUS, dears. I stormed upstairs, ready to confront Nurse Ratchett. I hammered for fully ten minutes on her door to no avail. She was playing Indians In Moscow at full volume and couldn’t hear my furious knocking; I opened the letter-box to shout through, and was greeted by an overpowering smell of Gin and cat litter, so I left well alone and went back downstairs. She can be a bit dodgy when she’s Loved-up.

Anyhow, later on I was flicking through this week’s edition of New Scientist, when something caught my eye:

The Flying Spaghetti Monster

THE board for Beebe School District in Arkansas voted on 12 July to remove from textbooks stickers promoting an "intelligent designer" over evolution. Feedback wonders if they were influenced by an open letter to the State Board of Education in neighbouring Kansas circulated by Bobby Henderson, a "concerned citizen".

"Let us remember that there are multiple theories of intelligent design," is its crux. "I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster," Henderson affirms. "It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him."

He writes "to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories [creationism and evolution]." The full text is at www.venganza.org and includes the argument that global warming correlates with the diminishing number of pirates. There is also a discussion forum and two friendly letters of response from members of the Kansas state board.

…original article here

I went immediately to the website, as one would, to find out more…

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTERISM

• They promote Flimsy moral standards.
• Every Friday is a religious holiday.
• Their heaven is WAY better. They've got a Stripper Factory AND a Beer Volcano.

“What a deliciously witty way to tackle these delusional Creationists, not only by ridiculing THEIR Imaginary Friend by comparing it to MY Imaginary Friend, but also to remind them all exactly WHY the authors of the American Constitution were so clear about building a solid wall between Church and State, especially since these Backdoor Creationist are currently screaming their tits off about the Founding Fathers being Christians, and this is what they intended to happen”, I thought. (Really!)

My appetite was whetted. I obviously needed to find out more…

I began by looking at the claim that America always was a God-Fearin’ Christian country until these filthy Liberal, Communist, Homosexual, Hippy, Treasonous, Nigga-loving Girlie-men (and the US Supreme Court) spoiled everything since the 60’s with their obviously-evil sedition:

The United States was not founded as, nor was it ever intended to be, a Christian nation

Certainly many of the early immigrants to the New World came for religious reasons - often to escape persecution. However, they were not interested in religious freedom for anyone other than themselves, and often turned around and persecuted others who had slightly different viewpoints.
As Pastor Richard T. Zuelch pointed out in his letter to the Los Angeles Times on August 14, 1995:

Gordon S. Wood, in his 1992 book, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," states that, by the 1790's only about 10% of the American population regularly attended religious services - to quote just one statistic. Not exactly an indication of a wholehearted national commitment to Christianity!
It is a matter of simple historical fact that the United States was not founded as, nor was it ever intended to be, a Christian nation. That there were strong, long-lasting Christian influences involved in the nation's earliest history, due to the Puritan settlements and those of other religious persons escaping European persecution, cannot be denied. But that is a long way from saying that colonial leaders, by the time of the outbreak of the Revolution, were intending to form a nation founded on specifically Christian principles and doctrine.

…Rather than continue to cling to a "Moral Majority"-style fantasy that says America is a Christian nation that needs to be "taken back" from secular unbelief (we can't "take back" what we never had), it would be much healthier for us Christians to face reality, holding to what Jesus himself said in the Gospels: that Christians should never be surprised at the hostility with which the gospel would be greeted by the world, because most people would fail to believe in him, thereby strongly implying that, in every age and country, Christianity would always be a minority faith. (Rev. Richard T. Zuelch, Letter to the Editor, Los Angeles Times, August 1995)

The United States is not, by any stretch of the imagination a Christian nation today, nor has it ever been, nor was it ever intended to be. The Religious right (or left) would do well to stop looking for the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.

…rest of article here

OK. So it seems that the ‘romantic’ picture the Religious Right are portraying of the USA being founded on absolute Christian Fundamentalism is as spurious as it is totally dishonest. Surprise, surprise.

Next, I wanted to find out first-hand exactly HOW the US Bill of Rights defines the clear Separation of Church and State – the very Separation that is being demolished at an astonishing speed by the Commander-in-Thief and his cohort of truly seditious puppet-masters:

Article [I] of the US Bill of Rights states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Article [VI], Clause 3 of the US Bill of Rights states:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

…read the full Constitution here

Happy that I now knew the exact wording, I wanted to find out WHY this Article was included. What Big Ideas influenced the authors so convincingly? There’s a substantial amount of source material to choose from. Here are some extracts:

From the Encyclopedic Index of A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, published in 1917:

Religious Freedom. - The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (q.v.) requires that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Religious freedom doubtless had its greatest inspiration from James Madison while he was in the Virginia Legislature. An attempt was made to levy a tax upon the people of that state "for the support of teachers of the Christian religion." Madison wrote what he called a "Memorial and Remonstrance," in which he appealed to the people against the evil tendency of such a precedent, and which convinced people that Madison was right. A bill was passed providing "that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever * * * nor shall suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and, by argument, maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." The religious test to which many of the states put their office-holders were gradually abandoned, and the final separation of church and state in America came in 1833, when Massachusetts discontinued the custom of paying preachers.

(A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. XX. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1917).


Ulysses S. Grant said in his seventh annual State of the Union address to the Congress, December 7, 1875:

As this will be the last annual message which I shall have the honor of transmitting to Congress before my successor is chosen, I will repeat or recapitulate the questions which I deem of vital importance which may be legislated upon and settled at this session:
First. That the States shall be required to afford the opportunity of a good common-school education to every child within their limits.
Second. No sectarian tenets shall ever be taught in any school supported in whole or in part by the State, nation, or by the proceeds of any tax levied upon any community. Make education compulsory so far as to deprive all persons who can not read and write from becoming voters after the year 1890, disfranchising none, however, on grounds of illiteracy who may be voters at the time this amendment takes effect.
Third. Declare church and state forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres; and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation (emphasis added). (A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Vol. X. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1897, p. 4310)

John Adams, the second U.S. President

John Adams, the second U.S. President rejected the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and became a Unitarian. It was during Adams' presidency that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli, which states in Article XI that:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

(Charles I. Bevans, ed. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949. Vol. 11: Philippines-United Arab Republic. Washington D.C.: Department of State Publications, 1974, p. 1072).

Thomas Paine - Pamphleteer

Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestoes encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the War of Independence. He was a Deist:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

(Richard Emery Roberts, ed. "Excerpts from The Age of Reason". Selected Writings of Thomas Paine. New York: Everbody's Vacation Publishing Co., 1945, p. 362)

…and so it goes on and on. I think it’s crystal clear what was intended by the Founders. Enough said. But – What happened in the 1960’s to so upset the Crazies? It turns out that: in 1962 the US Supreme Court ruled for School Administrators to write prayers and read them over the intercoms to the students was in contravention of the Bill of Rights.

They did this because the US is supposed to be a Secular nation. No religion should have any undue prominence in the State School System, because the Constitution considers Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Flying Spaghetti Monsterists et cetera to be equal, and it is wrong for, say, a rabid Southern Baptist school official to force his or her personal Religious Cult’s opinion on people of other faiths. Apart from that, the American State is forbidden from promoting any religion.

THAT’s why there is such anger and upset growing in the US about the whole disgraceful “Intelligent Design” farce. The battle has commenced.

Tomorrow I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned about George Bush and Theocracy, and what they have in mind…