Weird: This week marked the first "Blasphemy Day"

What sad, God-haunted, people:

In his youth, Ronald Lindsey planned to enter the priesthood, so fervent was his devotion to God. But these days, Lindsay is devoted to protecting a person's right to ridicule, criticize -- even lambaste God.

You might say he is a blasphemer's savior.

The devout Catholic turned non-believer leads a movement that is all about protecting people's rights to speak irreverently about religion.

Criticizing God is an act punishable by death in several nations. In America, blasphemy laws remain on the books in six states, though they are largely arcane and not enforced.

But everywhere, it seems to Lindsay, scoffing at God is not socially acceptable. (CNN)

Yeah, we're *such* a Godly society.

Way to be daring, Ronald, in least in an oh-so-tired-and-predictable-way.

Friday off-beat Video: Cosmic Conflict

I can't believe this is real:



Well - it's real.

Twitter user provides followers "direct line to God"

"It's a fax from God, John!"

AmP kudos to anyone who knows the reference.

Anywhere, here's the story:

"Want to tweet God?

An Israeli university student has opened a Twitter site, twitter.com/thekotel, where prayers can be sent for placement in the crevices of Jerusalem's Western Wall, a Jewish holy site that faithful believe provides a direct line to the Almighty.

"I take their prayers, print them out and drive to Jerusalem to put them in the Western Wall," said Alon Nir, a resident of Tel Aviv.

He said he hoped his initiative on the popular Internet social networking service, where users post brief messages known as tweets, would be "beneficial to people all over the world."

Nir promises to deliver the prayers -- each no longer than a tweet's maximum 140 characters -- on a regular basis.He's placed over 1,000 rolled-up papers so far."

What's next? Twittering in your local Mass intentions? I hope not. I mean, it's pretty obvious to me that God monitors Twitter closely. And your Facebook statuses too - so be prudent.

Indian health minister says that TV is the best contraception

Friday is offbeat news day at AmP, and the stories don't come much more offbeat than this [my comments in brackets] (ph/t Deacon Greg Kandra):

Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Health and Family Welfare Minister, has called for the country to redouble its efforts to bring electricity to all of its huge rural population.

The introduction of the electric light and television sets to those vast areas that still did not have them would discourage procreation, he argued.

“If there is electricity in every village, then people will watch TV till late at night and then fall asleep. They won’t get a chance to produce children,” Mr Azad said. “When there is no electricity there is nothing else to do but produce babies.” [Yeah, what a horrible existence.]

He added: “Don’t think that I am saying this in a lighter vein. I am serious. TV will have a great impact. It’s a great medium to tackle the problem . . . 80 per cent of population growth can be reduced through TV.” [And here we think a sex-saturated culture will only result in more intercourse. Whouda thunk it?]

Maybe that would be the way to promote a culture of life in America - cancel Monday Night Football.

It completely true that more children are conceived during black-outs. What funny people we humans are. 

Friday offbeat: Church of England offers 2-for-1 sacraments

Specifically, "A wedding for the couples, and baptisms for their kids":

The Church of England is offering couples a two-for-one service - marriage for them and baptisms for their children.

The church says it is recognizing the changing reality of British families. Statistics show that 44 per cent of children in Britain are born to unmarried women.

New guidelines sent to the Church of England's 16,000 parish churches encourage services that combine a wedding with a christening or a service of thanksgiving for the birth of a child.

Some clergy welcomed the move Thursday, but others said it undermined church teaching about the sanctity of marriage.

The church said it was responding to demand, but still believed the best place for sex was within marriage. (AP)

Did you catch that? Marriage is not the "only" place for sex, just the "best" place.

Offbeat: "Group Asks for Divine Intervention to Ease Oil Prices"

It rather defies rational comment:

As the price of oil continues to rise, some are turning to God and prayer for an answer to their financial troubles.

The Pray at the Pump Movement, founded by Rocky Twyman, has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country. On Monday, Twyman decided to take his movement from Exxon and Shell stations straight to the steps of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., hoping to encourage the oil-rich country to raise the amount of barrels they release each day from 200,000 to 1.2 million.

Twyman, who is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, spent the afternoon outside of the embassy praying and asking passersby to sign his petition for the release of more oil, which he hopes to deliver to the Saudi oil minister.

"Our people are really suffering through this crisis," Twyman told Cybercast News Service. "We need the Saudis to release at least 1.2 [million] barrels of oil per day for about the next six months until we can get everything settled in America ... (I)f they can just do that for us, than this will help us get through this crisis." (CNSNews)

Twyman has hosted pray-ins before (here's a photo). At least he has specific demands?

Video: Call to Action's Closing Liturgy

Amy gives us the video (windows media player) from West Coast Call to Action's closing liturgy.

There's a good discussion at Amy's attempting to get deeper than the knee-jerk reactions to such fare.

If it wasn't a liturgical abuse of the Mass, I'd have found it a diversion from tonight's studying marathon.

Beliefnet poll: Should women be priest(esses) or deaconesses in the Church?

Beliefnet has a survey running as part of their coverage of the pope's visit.

I decided to take the survey to see what kind of questions they were asking.

I didn't get past this point:

5. What role should women play in the Church? (Select all that apply)

• Priests
• Deaconesses

When I tried to select neither option, I was greeted with this message: "*This question requires an answer."

That ended the survey for me.

U2's Tower of Babel?

U2 is trying to build the tallest building in Ireland, and the environmentalists aren't happy:

Who would have guessed that U2 would be the target of environmental protesters? In an attempt to spend some of their immense fortune, the rock band gone real estate investment firm is drawing up plans to build the tallest building in Ireland. The 'U2 tower' has quickly become a major bone of contention between the globally-conscious rockers and environmentalists in their hometown. - GreenDaily

More from Wikipedia. The design isn't finalized, but here are some search results.

Hopefully they won't get vertigo in the city of blinding lights (I couldn't resist).

"Cops: Man's wedding ring saved his life" (AP)

Just a friendly reminder to never take off that ring:

Donnie Register has a new reason to be thankful he's married — police say his wedding band deflected a bullet and probably saved his life.

Two men walked into Register's shop at The Antique Market on Saturday and asked to see a coin collection, police Sgt. Jeffery Scott said.

When Register retrieved the collection, one of the men pulled a gun and demanded money. A shot was fired as Register threw up his left hand, and his wedding ring deflected the bullet, police said.

"The bullet managed to go through two of his fingers without severing the bone," said his wife, Darlene Register. "A part of the bullet broke off and is in his middle finger. The other part is in his neck, lodged in the muscle tissue. But it's not life-threatening."

She said she gives God all the credit.

Police were searching for the robbers, who Scott said "stole a substantial amount of cash."

Video here.

What happens when you try to offend no one? You offend everyone.

Consider:

Row over women cancels Muslim-Christian clergy soccer match

An argument over the participation of women in a football match between Muslim and Christian clergy in Norway has led to the cancellation of the "friendly" encounter.

The BBC reports that Muslim Imams had refused to play against women because it went against their beliefs about close physical contact with the opposite sex.

But when the church decided to drop its women players, the priests' team captain walked out in protest.

The game was meant to be an enjoyable end to a day-long conference in Oslo.

[More craziness.]

Soccer, women clergy and Imams. Oh my. Only in Oslo, I guess.