Neanderpundit

I’m watching “Planet earth” narrated by David Attenborough (I think it may be Sir David, by now) and he briefly shows a musk deer. They look like this.

They grow the fangs for ornament, not defense, or bloodsucking. And they look more like roos than like deer, and are not true cervids. But the first time I saw one I thought, that’s a jackelope. But no, it’s a real damned animal. I’d love to hunt one but they’re killed for their musk glands, from which perfume is made. Me, I can’t imagine wanting to smell like a deer, especially one with fangs, but that’s just me.

The eighth circle is the one devoted to fraud.

This is the circle where the popes who sold indulgences are jammed facedown in baptismal fonts while their feet are burned, along with all the other simoniacs. This is where the flatterers are, the panderers, seducers, false prophets. Each group has it’s own ditch or bolgia, and my favorite has always been the ninth. This is the home of the sowers of discord. This is where you can find mohammed, Martin Luther, Calvin, Wesley, etc. These are the people who conned others into schisms and splits and convinced the weakminded to follow them.

Granted, Dante’s vision of Hell is fanciful. Hell will never be what we expect.

But it’s not too hard to imagine seeing Fr Michael Pfleger with his head jammed in one of those fonts.

See, a spiritual leader is supposed to be that. A spiritual leader. Not a politician. The pulpit is no place for politics, and pastors who use the pulpit to spread their personal political beliefs are the worst things about organized religion. Anyone who does that should get used to breathing underwater, if dante’s vision holds any truth.

JB, one of the commenters from Venlet’s site, is one such. You can apply the litmus test immediately and easily; he has to lie to make his points. he claims I’ve said ‘Voting will fix everything” and “You claim to be a theologian”.

Of course you can’t find that here, and I’ve never said either of those things anywhere else. So JB can only make his claims by telling lies about what I said.

Man of God? No. The precise opposite. if this is what you disdain about organized religion, you are completely accurate in your disdain.

Monday I get to go through the grope-o-tron. I’m planning on wearing the loosest drawers I got.