The White House has scheduled a dinner next week in honor of Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to the United States, but one guest will be conspicuously absent from the proceedings: the pope himself.

The Lord’s Prayer and it’s fate in the Ontario legislature set off a fresh round of debate Thursday after politicians quietly launched public consultation on whether the province should fall in line with other Canadian jurisdictions and strike the Christian tradition.

— that it almost always sees the light of day. Sometimes it takes a while, but you can usually depend on it happening regardless of how hard, or how often, it gets lied about.

Yesterday the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared - a Vancouver-based aboriginal group examining residential school issues - released a list of 28 mass graves across Canada, four of which are located in Alberta.

I think these religious nuts need to pay a visit to those religious nuts and see how it works out.

From around the blogosphere

Voodoo: Goats and zombies and such

Sharpe Markers: Oh the horror!!

The American police state: You’re not really surprised are you?

Happy Birthday peace sign: Yer look’en pretty darned good for 50

Genesis 19:24-28: (24) Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; (25) And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. (28) And he [Abraham] looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

Then you’re just a stupid believer

An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday.

Send a trackback or leave a comment and ask yourself why the Pope himself is performing this particular baptism?

In which - mirabile dictu - it turns out that a rather large number of Christian bloggers are lyin’ in the name of the Lord - again.

Back by popular demand it’s those wacky and lovable Christian fundamentalists, and this time they’ve got a brand new song!!

One religious nut bar found via Celestial Junk.

[h/t Gregarius]

The bunker is greatly amused by church ministers endorsing presidential candidates and how the ‘political faithful‘ are playing them. Even within this stupidity in America today there does not appear to be any middle ground, each side says that “the other” must repudiate his endorsement while claiming that while ‘their guy‘ may accept an endorsement does not necessarily endorse everything that person has ever said.

A caller to CFRA this morning just came out with “the Catholic Church, to its’ credit, has always encouraged dissent“… do these people not read history?

California Justice H. Walter Croskey recently said that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children” - now I’m not American but there’s one part of me that says he’s full of shite and parents should have the right to educate their own children if they so wish, then I think about the Jesus Camp freaks and other assorted wackos…….

– and then pray to it…. it’s freaking me out man!!

“Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.”