Secular News Daily had one of those hard-to-believe stories last week that caught my attention. Evidently, the Vatican published a letter from Cardinal Tauran addressed to his "Dear Muslim friends" during Ramadan in which he called on Muslims to unite with the Catholic Church to oppose...well...us. You can read the short letter at TwoCircles.net.

In the letter, Cardinal Tauran describes Christians and Muslims as facing "the challenges of materialism and secularisation" and notes that they are both "too often witnesses to the violation of the sacred." He also makes reference to a shared duty to indoctrinate the young in superstition.

As bizarre at it sounds, Tauran seems to view Christians and Muslims as persecuted by the evil secular hordes to which you and I proudly belong. I didn't realize we had the kind of power. Did you?

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I trust you've heard about the Florida pastor who called for atheists to be placed on a national registry and compared us to "convicted sex offenders, ex-convicts, terrorist cells, hate groups like the KKK, skinheads, radical Islamists, etc." I don't have anything to say about this Christian extremist bigot that hasn't already been said. Instead, I'd just like to join Friendly Atheist in highlighting this excellent response from the Thinking Atheist:

We are atheists, we are everywhere. And you know what? Our numbers are on the rise. The time when Christian extremists and bigots could count on our silence is over.

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As much as I've tried to avoid simply rotating idiot "honors" between Bachmann and Perry, I lack the willpower to keep them off limits. And when Bachmann said that her god sent Hurricane Irene to "get the attention of politicians" and then tried to walk it back by claiming she was joking, I realized I had no choice but to designate her as this week's idiot-in-chief.

Bachmann's original claim about her god sending storms was not particularly surprising. She's known to be a Christian extremist, and other Christians extremists frequently make such claims. Bachmann is no moron, and she was deliberately targeting her base with that comment. She knows full well that what sounds idiocy to the reality-based community is music to the ears of her deluded base.

If her comment about her god sending a hurricane was all there was to it, I think I could have ignored her. But what really got me was the absurd claim that she was only joking. With Bachmann's history, record, and previous statements, we know that her original claim was perfectly consistent with her belief system. She can't really expect anyone to believe that she was joking, can she?

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It seems to me that, if the Holy Spirit’s protection needs to be supplemented by firearms, then faith in him is not 100%, as claimed.

- The Chaplain, An Apostate's Chapel

It seems to me that statements like this should be repeated regularly because they cast doubt on the idea that some sort of god is personally involved in human affairs. I've made a similar argument about the absurdity of Christians having health insurance and suggested that we could a great deal of money on health care by placing Christians on what I called the Prayer Care Plan.

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