Hasbro is marketing a special PINK version of their Ouija board.   They’ve been around over a hundred years, and a popular pastime for slumber parties and other such things.

But critics are making outlandish, ignorant, and downright stupid claims about it:

some say the mysterious product is a “dangerous spiritual game” that opens up anyone, particularly Christians, to attacks on their soul.

“Particularly Christians”?   Why is that?  Do you think it might be because Christians are particularly steeped in woo-woo supernatural stuff and might fall prey to someone else’s woo instead of your own brand of woo?

“There’s a spiritual reality to it and Hasbro is treating it as if it’s just a game,” said Stephen Phelan, communications director for Human Life International, which bills itself as the largest international pro-life organization and missionary worldwide. “It’s not Monopoly. It really is a dangerous spiritual game and for [Hasbro] to treat it as just another game is quite dishonest.”

Phelan, who has never played the game, said the Bible explicitly states “not to mess with spirits” and that using a Ouija board will leave a person’s soul vulnerable to attack.

“All Christians should know, well everyone should, that it’s opening up a person to attack, spiritually,” he said. “Christians shouldn’t use it.”

“Spiritual reality”?    Really?   Hasbro is treating it like a game BECAUSE IT IS JUST A GAME!  And this Phelan person admit he’s never played with a ouija board, yet he is some sort of expert and professional spokesperson for what might or might not be acceptable for others?  Fuck him.  He’s a liar, just like all the other Christians.

Unlike what was shown on last night’s episode of Ghost Whisperer, the planchette does NOT move by itself.   And it doesn’t much move with just one person, either.   Two (or more) people put their fingertips on the planchette, ask a question, and try to ‘encourage’ the planchette to move about the board, spelling out a response. There are no spirits (evil or otherwise) manipulating the planchette.   The planchette is moved by the people touching it.   Whether consciously (as is usually the case) or subconsciously, the operators are already thinking of the desired response and are causing the planchette to move.   Largely it depends on who is more able to direct its motion without signifying to the other(s) who exactly is causing the planchette to move.

My life was seriously fucked up at age 13, but NOT by the Ouija board.  It was fucked up directly because of the alcoholic, drug-addicted, superstitious person on the other side of the board, who was also into pendulums, ‘automatic writing’, and other forms of spiritualistic woo. I lost my childhood and youth in one fell swoop, and never got to pass through the normal teenage rites of passage that my peers did.  It was a scary time for me, but not because of the Ouija board.

The more easily manipulated a person is, the more likely they’ll actually believe the bullshit coming from a Ouija board.   Religious people are already susceptible to that sort of thing, so it’s understandable that leaders of one kind of woo don’t want their gullible followers to be lured into some other thing.   But it is all the same bullshit, whether it is spiritualism, Christianity, or some other silliness.

These idiots who wail about “spiritual attack” and warn against the woo are the very same ones who tell their followers to “pray and trust God”.   WTF?   It is the EXACT SAME THING!  It is nonsense telling people not to fall prey to superstition while at the same time insisting they practice superstition.

There is absolutely no danger in a Ouija board.  It is an inanimate object, neither good or bad by itself.  Any fun (or danger) encountered is the responsibility and invention of the people using it.  That’s all.  Once you know what you’re doing, the fun is NOT from trying to guess “the message of the spirits”, but trying to feel the planchette to determine which of your companions is moving it.

Please, Christians … wake up and get a fucking clue already.

I would love to be able to sit and observe the entire trial, and hear what is being said.  But, then, I would probably be escorted out of the courtroom.  I don’t easily sit still when liars are making up shit about me, or about an identifiable group to which I belong.

What really gets me is that some people actually and sincerely believe they have the power to determine the lives of others.   White men in power sought to control the lives of black Americans, for example.    Straight religious people still try to control the lives of gay folks.

There are certain things that cannot be left to majority rule.  Religious bigots can have their opinions, but those opinions cannot determine the lives of other people.

I am hoping the Prop 8 Trial shows that Proposition 8 was, and is, unconstitutional (a foregone conclusion, of course).   The reality, however, is that whichever way this judge rules, it will be appealed back and forth until it lands in the Supreme Court.  Ultimately, civil marriage will be extended to all people equally because that’s the only possible outcome that makes sense under our Constitution.  DOMA will be repealed.   Religious fools will be upset, but so what?

Those who don’t get it, won’t be swayed by my words.   Those who appreciate his contributions to advancing social equality don’t need me to remind them.

I AM rather disappointed that Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday were combined into Presidents Day, but I’m not against honoring King as well.  People of nearly every race have contributed to making the United States as good as it is.

Is America as good as it could be?  Certainly not.   But because the work is unfinished is no excuse to fail to acknowledge what has been achieved so far.

In the last week or so, much attention has been given to Haiti and the overwhelming need for aid to recover from the earthquake.  It has overshadowed almost everything else.

But we continue to deal with buffoons.    Not all Christians are idiots, but most of the visible idiots are Christian.  And most Christians are liars.   Pity.

Based on all the available evidence, we can say with a safe degree of assurance that:

• There is no god; and therefore,
• No god created the universe

Lovely to see this principle illustrated so neatly.

Religions have tried for ages to claim this or that god created it all.   Unfortunately, there has been no evidence offered to support these silly claims.  None.  So, do you really believe that there is a god, and that your god is somehow responsible for this universe?   Why?

Indeed.

If fully understanding the message of God depends on doctoral level classes explaining language and culture, doesn’t that kind of diminish the message?

And if only those with theological training can really understand God, it means all these other people don’t really have a relationship with God, but have a second-hand experience filtered through preachers.  A real friendship, like any other relationship, requires active participation of both parties.   This is impossible with Christians and their ‘best friend’, because their best friend is a figment of their imagination, fed and stoked by reading about God, but not really having any contact or interaction with God directly.

What?  You say you have a relationship with God?   You’re a liar, straight up. The God you claim to know is not the same as the God other people know.   Not the other people in your church.  Not the other people in your religion.   And definitely not the people in other religions.   You’re all just making it up inside your own heads.  You read your sacred texts and invent your own Gods in your own ways.   That’s how it has always been, and you cannot prove otherwise because it cannot be otherwise.

If there were a God, then everyone who actually experienced God would have similar testimonies.  This is not the case, clearly.

So, when you tell me about your friend Jesus, you are telling me about your imaginary make-believe “friend”, not someone real.

I don’t have to read about my friends.  I don’t have to study about them in some book in order to build a relationship with them.  I go meet them directly.  We go out together.  We actually talk.   And if someone is standing nearby, they can verify the conversation — both sides of it.   That’s real.   Your talks with Jesus are not real; when you talk to Jesus or pray to God, you are merely talking to yourself.  You need to get over it, and wake up to the fact that the God you believe in simply does not exist, and never did.

Scientists around the world, of many cultures and many religious affiliations, agree on the basics of what constitutes science, and what does not.   Science is an evidence-based pursuit.  The fields of geology, biology, cosmology, astronomy, paleontology, and all the other natural sciences agree with each other.  Their findings often overlap and support each other where their fields meet and overlap.  It’s amazing.   And because science knows it doesn’t have all the answers, they are busy seeking answers.   The knowledge science provides to the world is tangible, testable, and repeatable by any one, any where, at any time.   It is consistent.

Christianity, on the other hand, is not evidence-based.  Christian theologians and Bible scholars cannot even agree within their own ranks on some very important core doctrines.   Christianity (and religion in general) is pretty much the opposite of science.

Off to church this morning ready to hear what God wants me to know.

Truly a wasted effort.

Christianity is supposedly “not a religion, but a personal relationship with God”.   Rather pitiful “personal relationship” if you have to go somewhere and listen to someone else pass a message to you “from God”.  You aren’t hearing what God wants you to know — you’re hearing what the preacher wants you to know.   That’s all.

I am spending the day working because I don’t observe Christmas.  It has a history of unfortunate and unhappy personal memories, along with mounds of religious connotations that no longer make sense.  If the religious world could keep their silly myths to themselves and just let the rest of the world enjoy the winter holiday as it used to be (a nature-based seasonal celebration) that would be great.

When I was a kid, summer was spent at the YMCA.   And on swimming days, we could almost always count on Charles and Charlene pooping in the pool (they were problem children and didn’t get that you couldn’t poop in the pool).    And when their surprises were found, the counselors had to take everyone out of the pool, fish out the offending turd, and wait for the chemical dude to restore safe swimming conditions.

Before the offending turd was found, it was already busy contaminating the waters of the pool, but nobody noticed it right away.    If everyone decided to poop in the pool, it would be known as the place to poop, not the place to swim and have fun.   Rational people know you don’t swim in the toilet.  But once the poop was found, everyone had sense enough to get the kids out of the pool, for the same reason that you don’t swim downstream from a manufacturing plant or sewer outlet. Doesn’t matter if it is one little turd, or a whole septic tank of ’stuff’ — even a little contaminant will ruin the whole.

Some people might be offended by the analogy, but knowing what the earlier winter celebrations were about, I think the Jesus in a Manger story superimposed onto the celebration is like the poop in the pool.   Not knowing the pool is contaminated, people continue to swim in it and don’t understand other people’s refusal to jump in.

Those who claim that “Jesus is the reason for the Season”, and want to “Keep Christ in Christmas” are the ones not knowing the true nature of the winter holidays and only see their own version of it.   If they want to celebrate that way, it’s their own business.   I have no reason to go near the pool at all until it is sterilized and made safe from the contamination created by religious people pooping in the pool.