Prometheus and the Vatican

Ridley Scott's mediocre return to sci-fi, this year's long-awated definitely not an Alien prequel but actually an Alien prequel Prometheus was not a particularly good film.

While Alien mixed brilliant sci-fi themes and ideas with pure horror, and Aliens blended the genre with first rate action, Prometheus was happy to settle for some second-rate pseudo philosophical navel gazing set in space. Its skepticism of science and support of "faith" through its religious protagonist should be the perfect message for the religious right, but it turns out even the Catholic Church weren't happy with it.

The Vatican's newspaper, "L'Osservatore Romano", declared that the film "'mishandles the delicate questions raised by… the battle eternal between good and evil in yet another attempt to steak the secret of immortality'. Finally I've found something on which I agree with the Vatican. Of course, they then add a paganesque warning that it's a "bad idea to defy the gods" at which point we're reminded how backward and crazy they are.

Unfortunately for Scott even the people he was trying to appease with his film aren't impressed. Maybe by the inevitable Prometheus 2 he will realize that vilifying scientists and making a sci-fi film with a knee-jerk conservative ethos isn't the way into nerds' hearts.

The First Baptist Church is a reflection of the future of homophobia.

Another day, another church doing something jawdroppingly backward and bigoted. Today we travel to Mississippi and the First Baptist Church in Crytal Springs. The First Baptist Church has taken the unusual step of refusing to marry a couple because they are black.

This is, rightly, anger inducing, and the fact that a Church like this exists in 21st Century America, even in Mississippi, is alarming. What we should remember, however, is that the vast majority of Christian churches in the world are as bad as this one, as they refuse to marry gay couples, fight against gay marriage and systematically work to undermine homosexuality across the globe and yet are subject to less outrage than someone swearing on TV at 8.55. The Church of England's view is that gay marriage would redefine marriage in an unacceptable way and marriage should be between a man and a woman with the possibility for procreation.

The Church of England; one of the nicest, most wishy washy moderate branches of Christianity that exists; is morally equivalent, on the issue of marriage exclusion, to a racist red-neck church in Mississippi (although I hate to think what the First Baptist's views on gay marriage are). Yet it's not generally seen this way. The outrage of which the First Baptist Church will justifiably become victim has no equivalent for the rampant homophobia of the Church of England, the Catholic Church or any other major Christian church that would not only refuse to marry gays, but campaign against their right to get married anywhere.


There has yet to be a plausible case put forward for why it's better to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation than their race, but the reason why organisations like the Church of England don't receive the outrage they so clearly deserve can be put down to homophobia being one of the final acceptable grounds for discrimination amongst large portions of society, again, thanks to organisations like the Church of England and the indecision of thick-skulled weaklings like the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It may take a while, but in a few decades, maybe longer, I believe we will be in a situation where churches that discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation are as uncommon and newsworthy as the First Baptists are today, and religious organisations that discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation are shunned by society as if they were discriminating by race.

10 Worst Popes

It's fair to say that Popes having...issues while in office is not a new thing. In fact current Pope Ratzinger doesn't come close to being the most controversial Pope, despite protecting paedophiles, clear anti-Semitism and continuing the Catholic Church's modern conquest to spread not religion, but AIDs. Even with these things he is still a progressive visionary compared to many of his predecessors. But that's only like saying someone's the least-obnoxious contestant on The Apprentice. It's not really a compliment.

For the list of '10 Worst Popes' follow this link: http://www.oddee.com/item_96537.aspx

Reading that list it's really hard to believe what went on. And impossible to judge who is the worst. The website decides Stephen IV is worst, but really, exhuming a body is a victimless crime. Benedict IX's behaviours are certainly surprising, but again, selling the Papacy is not that immoral compared to the others on the list. It's like lumping Bernie Madeoff and Stalin in the same category. Madeoff is bad, but ultimately his crimes were only financial. John XII is probably the worst in the list on religious grounds, due to the amount of sex he had, and I think worshipping pagan Gods and toasting the Devil are frowned upon in the Church. But don't quote me on that. However, Popes rejecting their own moral rules and having lots of sex while in power is actually quite common (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes, several have actually died during sex). In the list, I think Alexander VI's sexual morality was the worst. Fathering a child with his daughter is...well...needs no comment, nor does the whole orgy, naked boys in cakes thing. Urban IV and Innocent VI were also quite bad, with the amount of murder and torture they were responsible.

Thank God our morality doesn't come from religion, eh?