This quote from the other night is in reference to the nonsense going on right in my own backyard, the tossing-out of the Dover School Board.

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.”

Even once you straighten out the jumble of his poor, rambling old man sentence structure, it's still an embarrassing mass of half-threats. As usual, Pat demonstrates a keen eye into God's intent. Should a disaster happen unto Dover, God may or may not be around to pick up the assist to an event that Pat's not saying will actually happen. Man, he really does deserve his leadership role!

Plus, it's not even particularly relevant to what actually happened. No one voted God out of town, Pat. They voted out the School Board who wanted a statement read in science class that offered up intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. Outside of the classroom, the churches are all still standing. The God Bless America ribbons are still on every car. The voters' statement would seem to be: let's keep things as they have been for decades, and as they are in every other non-moron town in America. Do you have anyone prepping you before you hit the airwaves, or do you just fly in and wing it, you doddering, fascist, genocidal old windbag?

Pat's statement does make it obvious that he, at least, equates intelligent design with creationism! That's in spite of the ousted Dover Board's continuing fantasy that ID exists outside of any religious influence. Let's hope the prosecution picks up on that one; I'd love to see Pat brought into town on his private learjet, if indeed he ever leaves his perch high up on the mount.

Pat might be heartened to learn that the margin of votes was pretty slim, with the new Board only just coming out on top. (Although, at this point, Pat is completely incapable of learning anything.) It was a close race, and Dover - formerly a town with absolutely nothing of note except for the area's oldest themed mini-golf joint - has been bitterly divided. And all because of a few faux politicos with delusions of grandeur who thought they could assbang the Constitution and spit in the face of anybody who held different religious or non-religious beliefs. The debate outside of the court has come down to the misinformed versus the malcontent. The misinformed are the Christian sheeple, who have been fooled into thinking that Christianity is the State Religion and needs to be protected as such. The malcontents are the Angry Atheists (such as myself) who are sick and tired of History's Chief Oppressors finding yet another way to force their worldview onto others while simultaneously crying about being attacked and victimized.

I guess we're lucky Pat didn't call for anyone in Dover to be assassinated.

Speaking of crazies, we received a hilarious press release at work today. Some church in Virginia is holding an event where the pastor will pray over bottles of fuel additive, in the hopes that God will bless the additive and make the faithful's gas last three times as long.

I am not making this up. This guy plans to incant over gas additives so it will turn into gasoline. My boss said that he's thinking too small, that his church should send him to Texas or Iraq and have him pray over the drying oil fields directly. Let's take him to the source and get God to renew those fossil fuels!

The release said things like "Imagine the savings to your wallet!" and "It may work, or it may not work, but what do we lose by trying?" Our dignity.

So I called them. A woman answered the phone. I verified with her that this event was going to happen, then I asked if this was a joke. No. Okay, is this some kind of stunt? No. I inquired if she really expected this guy to effectively turn gas additive into more gas. "We just believe in God," she said.

I was hoping that I would be told that Pastor John was a bit of a prankster and that this was just a fun recruitment drive to pull in some new faces and talk about how a modern church faces issues in the year 2005. I was hoping that the world did not contain lunatics who think they can summon up divine alchemy. I was wrong.

There's a high probability that you - you - would consider yourself Christian, since you're reading this in English and you're affluent enough to afford a computer. Do you think this is anything but complete nuthouse looney time? How do you feel when you hear of small town churches trying to supernaturally alter chemicals? Or when a major Christian celebrity suggests that a School Board election equates to inviting God's wrath (or at the least, his divine apathy)? Do you dissociate yourself from that? Is that the domain of fringe elements that you normally wouldn't pal around with? What would have to happen before you question how the very fundamentals of your belief system can get so comically twisted and/or tragically perverted by so many different groups?

Because those groups are saying the same thing about your version. That you're not God Warrior enough, not hardcore enough, not hardline enough, not thinking hard enough about What Jesus Would Do. Maybe it's in respect to recruiting new parishioners, or in voting down pro-choice legislation. Maybe you're not running enough food banks for the needy, or maybe you just don't hate the gays as hard as you should. Maybe you're just not praying hard enough, because your coffee cup still holds plain old coffee, no creamer.

Stunts like what's going on in Virginia are harmless (but stupid) enough, but guys like Pat Robertson are out-and-out dangerous. His empire is part of a mighty machine that influences our government and, as Pat and his pals like to remind us, they are out to get anybody who doesn't follow their rules. If you're not a 700 Club-style Christian, you should be thanking the non-Christians out there standing up against this small-minded brute... because if we weren't around, he'd be coming after you.