Suing Satan in Federal Court
In 1971, Gerald Mayo sued Satan in U.S. District Court, alleging that the Dark One had interfered in his life, causing him harm. Judge Weber dismissed the case, arguing that Mayo had failed to serve process of the suit to Satan, and that the court lacked jurisdiction over the defendant. Kevin Underhill’s legal humor blog has a copy of the decision:
Civil rights action against Satan and his servants who allegedly placed deliberate obstacles in plaintiff’s path and caused his downfall, wherein plaintiff prayed for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The District Court, Weber, J., held that plaintiff would not be granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis who in view of questions of personal jurisdiction over defendant, propriety of class action, and plaintiff’s failure to include instructions for directions as to service of process.
Prayer denied.
The case was later used as a precedent during a case against God.
Link via Grow A Brain | Photo: flickr user Forever Wiser
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Can a Godless Society be a "Good" Society?
Is
the belief in (or fear of, depending on your point of view) God necessary
to have a "good" society? What would a nation of atheists look
like? Would a godless country lead to lawlessness and immorality?
We actually don't have to wonder - there is a place where the great majority of people are not only not religious - they're can't even be bothered about the questions of faith, God, and life's meaning.
Sociologist Phil Zuckerman spent a year in Denmark and Sweden, the least
religious countries in the world and perhaps even in history, and interviewed
people about their religious beliefs (technically, the absence of such
beliefs). He published his findings last year (Oct 2008) in his book Society
without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment
TYWKIWDBI has some thought-provoking excerpts from the book:
Here's the premise of [Zuckerman's] book:
“First of all, I argue that society without God is not only possible, but can be quite civil and pleasant. This admittedly polemical aspect of my book is aimed primarily at countering the claims of certain outspoken, conservative Christians who regularly argue that a society without God would be hell on earth: rampant with immorality, full of evil, and teeming with depravity. Well, it isn’t. Denmark and Sweden are remarkably strong, safe, healthy, moral, and prosperous societies…”
He's careful not to extol the absence of religious belief as preferable for a society, while arguing strongly that when religious belief (or dogma) is absent, society can crank along just fine. Herewith some excerpts and some of my notes from the book -
p. 6 - “…their overall rates of violent crime – such as murder, aggravated assault, and rape – are among the lowest on earth. Yet the majority of Danes and Swedes do not believe that God is “up there,” keeping diligent tabs on their behavior… In fact, most Danes and Swedes don’t even believe in the very notion of “sin.” Almost nobody in Denmark and Sweden believes that the Bible is divine in origin. And the rate of weekly church attendance in these Nordic nations is the lowest on earth…” [...]
p. 10 – "When they say they are “Christian” they are just referring to a cultural heritage and history. When asked what it means to be Christian, they said 'being kind to others, taking care of the poor and sick, and being a good and moral person.' They almost never mentioned God, Jesus, or the Bible in their explanation of Christian identity. When I specifically asked these Nordic Christians if they believed that Jesus was the Son of God or the Messiah, they nearly always said no – usually without hesitation. Did they believe that Jesus was born of a virgin or that he rose from the grave? Such queries were usually met with genuine laughter – as through the mere asking was rather silly.”
I haven't read it, but will definitely put this fascinating book on the short list of must-reads this year: Link
Here's a fascinating interview with Phil Zuckerman about, amongs other things, the difference of being a religious Christian in America and a cultural Christian in Denmark and the rise of Islam because of the immigration from Africa:
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Breakthrough Means Artificial Life Could Be Here "Within Months"
Another step in the quest to create life has been made, as scientists successfully transformed one bacteria into another by replacing it’s DNA with a related species’. Now, scientists are setting their sights on creating entirely new microbes with unique genome sequences, from scratch.
Dr Venter likened it to “changing a Macintosh computer into a PC by inserting a new piece of software” and stressed it would be more difficult in other kinds of cells, which have enzymes to snip the DNA of invaders.
But he said to achieve the feat, without adding anything more than naked DNA, “is a huge enabling step.”
“It’s a necessary step toward creating artificial life,” added microbiologist Fred Blattner of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Dr Venter said that, in the light of this success, the culmination of a decade’s work, he will be attempting the first transplant of a lab-made genome to create the first artificial life “within months.”
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Rainbow Frog is Worshipped as God
In India, a newly discovered color-changing frog has been worshipped as a god. Reji Kumar, the person who found it, keeps the frog in a glass jar at his home where hundreds of people come to see it every day.
Apart from the obvious biological findings this hopping lava lamp can provide, it also gives an additional insight as to how religions and spiritual groups can emerge. I don’t blame them either. Who needs color-saturating hallucinogens for spiritual transcendence when you have a kaleidoscopic animal?
I say this new rainbow frog will become the new symbol for racial equality, just as long as it doesn’t croak (which is actually a concern).
The frog was a dazzling white colour when Reji, who is from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, in south India, first spotted it.
Then it changed to yellow and had gone grey by the time he got it home.
“By night the frog was dark yellow, and then it became transparent so you could see its internal organs,” Reji, a life worker, reportedly said.
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A Heavenly Message in Fried Salami
Nancy Simoes of Southwest Miami-Dade County, Florida, was in the kitchen cooking her family’s favorite dish of fried salami when she got a heavenly message:
"I had only three pieces in my skillet, and then as I was flipping it. The first letter was a G, a perfect G; and then I got the O, and I thought to myself, how cool will it be if the third letter was a D," said Simoes.
That third letter was a D, and everyone was in shock in her house.
Link – spotted by Neatoramanaut Gauldar over at the Forum
Previously on Neatorama: August: A Busy Month for Religious Sightings!
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