from the edge of the deep green sea

Every year on August 2nd, Costa Rica celebrates “The Virgin of the Angels” or “The Negrita”. I have touched base with this tradition a few times in the past, so please read it if you are not familiar with the subject.

What struck me this year, was the following story:

That woman right there is Costa Rican’s actual president, Laura Chinchilla. A faithful devotee to the Catholic religion even though she had the “guts” to remarry, something that upon her god’s eyes is judged as adultery (gotta love a god that is so eager to judge on someone loving someone).

What I find funny…in a “clown serial killer who eats your brains for shits and giggles” kind of funny way, is the fact that the president of this country reaches out to an imaginary friend to “give her strength to keep away violence from our schools and homes”. That is just grand, BEST IDEA EVER. How about we place some kind of religious symbol in our homes and schools to keep all evil away? Wait, what? We already have some kind of religious symbol in 90% of our homes and schools? And it hasn’t stopped evil? We’ll slap me in the ass and call me Sally, how on Earth did that happen?!?

You might think faith is good, that it harnesses no power whatsoever to do evil deeds amongst others, but I beg to differ. I think that faith should be strictly kept away from professions where decisions can have an incredible impact on others. Otherwise you *could* have leaders in the free world saying that god talked to them or something…what? You mean it’s happened before? Oh come fucking on!

See what faith does? How many people have died in Iraq to this day because “god” called G.W. on his private bat-phone and issued orders to seek and destroy? Far too many. And if god talked to this ass, what type of person does that make god? Doesn’t this dude have some kind of standard when it comes to reaching out? Come on!

Anyhow, my point is that if you have a Dr. performing surgery on you, you’d want this medic to be 100% of what the fuck he is doing with the scalpel. You don’t want this guy to say “shit, dunno what I’m doing, but the lord is with me”. Likewise, you don’t want someone being responsible for ruling a country, and delegating responsibility on a FUCKING STATUE to fix things.

I beg you, Laura Chinchilla, do not rely on statues, temples, books, or any kind of hocus-pocus to fix the shithole that this country has become. Might as well pray to your childhood blanket or teddy bear to fix this mess. I’d go with the blanket…no wait, the teddy bear…ah, fuck it.

This post, like many others, was inspired by a post at the Fusil De Chispas, a Costa Rican blog worth reading.

The whole insanity can be explained this way:

1. Costa Rica was having presidential elections
2. National polemic arises when church and state separation idea is introduced sometime before the elections.
3. Some priests advice their sheeple to “remember” who are ones behind this plan and to never vote for them for anything in the future (dirty, dirty move).
4. The whole idea of separation of church an state goes to hell as most of the people behind it that were initially in favor, back off.
5. Catholic leaders who sent their threatening message to sheeple go unpunished.
6. Costa Rica has a new president, Laura Chinchilla, first woman president in CR, by massive victory.
7. Laura is named “favorite child” of the virgin mary by some dumbass who has religious power in Costa Rica.
8. (BTW, does this religious leader talks to the virgin personally in order make such announcements? Once more, we have a pathetic little man playing god).
9. The Catholic Church is aiming to receive MORE money from tax payers.
10. Are your fucking kidding me?

So here is where we stand. One would think that with the plethora of recent sexual abuses hidden by the Catholic Church, this institution would grow weaker and weaker. But no, not here.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to the bone of watching the catholic church acting as if they were the shit and should get something the taxpayer’s money. Why you, catholics? Why not the protestants, the evangelics, the mormons? What makes your made up fucked up religion so much important than the rest? Aren’t you being unfair? Isn’t this….umm…what do you call this…discriminatory?

All I know, catholic church, is that if your savior did indeed existed, he would barf and puke in disgust to see the fucking marketplace you have turned into by using his name. I really do not expected that much from an institution that on one hand advices their followers to steer clear from alcohol, drugs, and rock ‘n roll and on the other hand owns a large share of stock from the Costa Rican beer company – oh the sweet, fermented irony.

A little background story on this one. Every 4 years we have presidential elections here in Costa Rica, and yesterday we voted to select the new president. On the day of the elections, all presidential candidates head out to the Church and they pray/communicate with God/whatever.

One of the candidates is divorced and has a very hot girlfriend, just put the damn thing on mute:

The Catholic Church has this rule that if you are divorced, then you are not worthy of the body of Christ. Therefore when they are handing out all the cookies and they are chanting the sheepy songs, all divorced people have to sit in shame. Isn’t Catholic Church swell? I don’t know who is more stupid, the Church for ostracizing their own flock or the divorced people who continue being Catholic when the Church thinks less of them.

Well, since the presidential candidate, Otto Guevara, could not eat the stupid cookie, his mega sweet girlfriend did the communion but wait…wait…she did not eat it. She actually went back to where he was sitting and split the cookie in half and placed it on his pocket:

Not the smartest thing to do, I agree; but does this really deserve an article in a newspaper saying that the Catholic Church disapproves of this act. Or the attention the T.V. stations have smacked on this woman? It’s not like she did it on purpose, and even though, like I said before, was not the smartest thing to do, this was NOT an ill-fated action. She wanted her boyfriend to be in touch with Christ, and that was the best thing she could think of. Instead of watching this as an action of getting closer to Christ, the Catholic Church frowns upon the act and gives a public statement on how incorrect her actions were.

What really amazes me is how people have reacted to this – it’s like she has damned us all to hell for sharing the body of Christ – oh noes! Isn’t that what the fucking clergymen do everyday? They share the body of Christ? What makes THEM so special that a regular human can’t do? I guess liking little boys is a pre-requisite in the “handing out cookies” class in the school of priests.

And can someone explain to me for the love of all that is not sacred, why is this motherfucking cookie so special? What? It’s the body of Christ? I see. So you are treating something man-made as sacred? You are sanctifying a symbol no? Now where did I read something about this…where was it…

“Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above…”
Second Commandment according to Wikipedia.

I can has irony?

Take a look at this cover page from “Catholic Echo”, a magazine that probably makes more money than your average porn Costa Rican magazine:

What was your first impression? If you are like me, then chances are you thought: “JUST WHAT IN GODS NAME IS THAT THING!?!??!”:

My last post dealt with a story published by La Nación, on how much money the catholic church gets from the government. Well, a lot has happened ever since. The first event occurred when shit for brains Cartago archbishop urged all of his sheeple followers to not give any kind of support to all those that “denied god”, referring to any anyone running for office who was in favor of the separation of church and state. Yes, that is right ladies and gentlemen, these fuckheads are now telling all their stupid followers who to vote for. If that doesn’t make you angry, take a look at this picture (stolen from La Nación):

Am the only one who feels an uncontrollable urge to walk up to this clown and bitch-slap him? One of these days…POW… straight in the kisser…

Anyhow, it so happens that this dumbass ignored a detail in our constitution that mandates that no clergymen can incur in any type of political propaganda, which is exactly what this moron did. As expected, the church backs up the mistake this moron committed (what, the catholic church trying to cover something up, really?).

Not only did the priest violate an article of our Carta Magna, but he also violated one of the primordial teachings of Jesus Christ himself:

DON’T BE A FUCKING DOUCHE!

A link in Ameliarueda.com has an interview with Max Esquivel, magistrate of the TSE (The Supreme Electoral Tribune – my apologies if my translation sucks donkey balls). Basically, what the archbishop did was indeed deemed as illegal – BUT, there is no sanction against the crime. Isn’t that something? What’s the point of having something illegal if there are no repercussions against the offender?

All in all, every time I read these stories and even the sermon given by the stupid priest, I look like this:

First off, I am delighted to see the press giving attention to these details. I think the catholic church in Costa Rica perceived itself as untouchable giant due to its “sacredness”. Nonetheless, the vast array of depraved acts committed by its members has brought the giant’s credibility to the ground. The behemoth has lost support, has lost money and if you play close attention to the lies they are telling, the dirty acts upon which they are trying to stay alive, it only wreaks of two things:

Fear and Desperation.

They know that they will lose more followers if they are not the official religion in Costa Rica. Less followers = less money. Without the government sponsorship, they will also have to take care of all their expenditures, which I’m pretty sure they can handle but it will hurt them where it hurts the most: their wallets

Reading Twitter comments on this situation is mind-blowing. Lots and lots of people are happy and looking forwards to this change, and everyone frowns upon the dirty deeds the church recurs to while it tries to stay alive.

All I have to say to the church is: enjoy our money while you can, because very soon, your temples of lies, mistrust, fear, arrogance, and impertinence will crumble to the ground – just like the faith of your exploited followers – good riddance!

I am really trying to avoid anything religious, but unfortunately, it seems I have a better chance of winning the lotto. If I go outside my house, I’ll find stashes of paper in my front gate revealing how it’s going to be the end of the world and I should repent. Or just yesterday, I am reading through Twitter and Will posted this beauty:

Government aid to the Church increases by 450%

HA, touché Grumpytico, the church had a card up their sleeve and was going to spend some of that money for charity!

See? It’s impossible to steer clear from these things, the church is always there to bust my balls 24/7. You don’t have to be an atheist to despise what’s going on. Anyone with half a brain will be able to understand that this money is not being spent as it should. And of all institutions, the church should be the one with a fucking conscience and should stop being a greedy little bitch.

No, we don’t have a Church where all of us Atheist brothers and sisters go to and chant. Nonetheless, this does not mean we don’t have some songs out there that express our most sincere disbelief and discontent against the poison that religion is. Here I’ll try to reference some of my favorites.

Hey God
Sarah McLachlan

I believe this song was written by someone else but I am too lazy to look for it right now. This was one of the first atheist songs I heard, I clearly remember being scared that lightning might strike my college apartment for desecrating the almighty.

The beauty of this song lies in the soothing voice of Sarah McLachlan, which almost sounds as if she he is about to praise the good lord. The song, of course, then turns into an ‘angry white female’ personal journey and she starts going after god. If the dude was in the same room as this chick, he would have probably shriveled into fetal position and rocked back and forth in the corner of the room.

Favorite part:

Dear God, Don’t know if you’ve noticed but
Your name is on a lot of quotes in this Book.
Us crazy humans wrote it; you should take a look.
And all the people that you made in your image
Still believin’ that junk is true.
Well, I know it ain’t and so do you.

Sarah: 1 God: 0

Cristo te Odia
El Cuarteto de Nos

The happy tune in this song makes you think it’s anything but an open criticism to the church. It revolves around the idea on how many people follow religious beliefs mandated by their religion only to find that those that preach them don’t.

In case you have never heard of them, the ‘Cuarteto de Nos’, it’s an Uruguayan band with amazing musicians distinguished by their edgy and funny lyrics. Today I found out they were atheists, and that only makes them cooler in my book.

Favorite part:

Y nació tu décimo hijo
que no vas a poder criar
porque no era de buen cristiano
anticonceptivos usar

Y no quisiste ir al doctor
y tu hernia el milagro no curó
y lo ves al doctor abrazado al pastor
que con tu plata su hernia operó

——-

And your tenth child is born
whom you will not be able to raise
because it was not of good faith
to use contraceptive methods

And you would not go to the doctor
and your hernia the miracle did not cure
and then your see the priest hugging the doctor
who with your money cured the priest’s hernia

The Maccabees
Wall of Arms

The Maccabees are amazing in every aspect. They have a nice musician lineup, and it shows in the quality of music they make. I guess they fall into the Indie category, but trust me, they really stand out from anything indie you’ve heard before.

The song stands behind the idea that the ‘wall of arms’ are those who will be with you all your life, usually known as ‘your family’, which I could not agree more. My favorite part below brought chills to my spine the first time I heard it.

Favorite part:

and through these eyes
there is no god got above me
no devil below me
no purgatory , no pearly gates
the worms are what await me
its only me that can forgive me

and i have faith, oh i have faith
and i have faith, oh i have faith
In those who put up with me

The The
The Violence of Truth

The The is a band that you have to hear to believe. Matt Johnson leads this band and he is a freakin genius with the lyrics he writes and the music he composes. Almost no one has ever heard of The The, which is a true shame considering how good they are. Random Fact: During some of their albums back in the day, Johnny Marr (ex-Smiths guitarist) played in The The.

This album is filled with religious references, with lyrics such as “If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today He’d be gunned down cold by the C.I.A.”. The song I like the most is the Violence of Truth, which seeks out find out why the hell are our spirits so empty. Why do we need to incur in this religion thing – why!?

Favorite Part:

Why is it that anything on this Earth
We do not understand
We are pushed down on our knees
To worship or to damn?

Those are the rules of religion
Those are the laws of the land
That’s how the forces of darkness
Have suppressed the spirit of man

A Perfect Circle
Judith

Maynard, this band’s (and Tool’s) lead singer is a madman when it comes to writing lyrics. Judith is a very powerful song, both in the message delivered and in the way the message is delivered. The drummer is ripping the drumset to pieces with a slow tempo that strikes perfect harmony with the guitars, which spew out a constant lament.

Of all the songs listed here, this one takes it up a notch in terms of a direct attack against those that simply believe without questioning for one second “Why”?

Favorite Part:

You’re such an inspiration for the ways that I will never ever choose to be
Oh, so many ways for me to show you how your Savior has abandoned you

Fuck your God
Your Lord, your Christ
He did this
Took all you had and
Left you this way
Still you pray, never stray, never
Taste all the fruit
Never thought to question “Why?”

This was originally intented to be one post, but I thought of many other great songs along that way. So I’ll save some NIN, Tool, and Tori Amos goodness for a second part. You will come back, right? I know you crave more!

I just read an article about the Romería in another blog. After reading it, I was green with envy. Why didn’t I write t first, WHY!?!?!? Here it is:

http://conejos-suicidas.ticoblogger.com/2009/08/romeria-cartago-el-negocio-catolico-sin.html

Enjoy!

+=

A little background info…I really don’t know the story that well, but from what I recall from my religion classes in school, once in Cartago this girl found a small figurine of the Virgin Mary. She took it to the priest and it was put on a church or something. The next day, the statuette was missing and people were like “WTF?”.
Short short version: later on, the kid found the statuette in the same place where she originally had found it and regardless on how many times they took it back, it magically disappeared from the church and appeared where it was originally found [insert twilight zone theme here].

Alas, instead of trying to find the asshole who was playing the joke of moving the statuette back and stoning him to death, the people did what they usually do when they cannot explain something: they worshipped it. They decided the virgin statuette, dubbed “La Negrita” (the little black woman, due to it’s dark appearance) was sacred and they should build a church where it was originally found. If you really would like to know the details on the story, I recommend looking elsewhere, this is what I vaguely remember and odds are that I messed up somewhere along the lines…anyhow…

Costa Rican tradition for 200 years has been to walk from wherever the hell you may be to the Church in Cartago on August 2nd, to show respect for the “Negrita” and as a side-effect to request some favor or thank god for something. This really is a strange phenomenon, but quite popular nonetheless. People from far away walk and gather at the Church. Some even go to the extent of doing the whole trajectory on their knees. The belief and what I think about it is well beyond the scope of this post (I think it’s bullshit that they adore a symbol, isn’t that against one of their commandments?), but a headline caught my attention today:

“The Romería has been cancelled because of the AH1N1 virus” (http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2009/julio/22/pais2034641.html)

I think this is silly, they should not cancel it al all. I mean, can you imagine a god that would allow people to get infected with a deadly virus on their way to worship his sacred mother? That would never happen, at least, not in the good book.

So to the sheeple that have followed this tradition generation after generation, I can only say: “go for it”. Show us that you truly have faith in your saviour and show us that you are not afraid of dying in order to thank or praise the Almighty’s mother.

I leave you with Bill Maher on something quite similar:

Sorry Zapone, I don’t mean to keep spinning on the religion topic but these things come at me w/o me looking for them – for shizzle.
Some fellow from Twitter posted the following today:
“the most influential atheist of the world admits god exists”
To which I was like “oh shit, we lost Dawkins“.
Fortunately, it was not Dawkins, but someone called Antony Flew, which as we all know, is a fucking nobody.
What made me laugh, was the page where this originated from (I know I am contradicting myself in the commandments of not linking to what you don’t like, but this is priceless):
http://idyanunciad.com/?p=1146
First off, I think the religious group in charge of the web page should pray to their god in order to find a web designer who does not lack a sense of aesthetics (or is blind, I still can’t tell). I mean, come on, what the hell is this? An angel giving us the middle finger?

Secondly, if you read all over the article, it claims that Flew has found empirical scientific evidence stating that DNA is so complex that there had to be a supreme being who made this all possible. I applaud this observation…as a matter of fact, I have created a chart that explains the complex scientific process by which Flew managed to reach this observation:

As my good friend Matt Johnson puts it in The Violence of Truth:
Why is it that anything on this Earth

We do not understand

We are pushed down on our knees

To worship or to damn?
Those are the rules of religion

Those are the laws of the land

That’s how the forces of darkness

Have suppressed the spirit of man
And then it hit me…this idiot is now part of the bullshit religion that thinks that they are based on facts: intelligent design. Don’t even get me started with this, if you think they have grounds for anything they say, then maybe you should be praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster instead. And, if you are looking for intelligent design, then look no further than your freakin’ desk:

Whenever I want an opinion that is outside my area of expertise, I contact someone who knows what he/she is talking about.  This only makes sense – you will not want to get a house appraisal from your friend who practices scuba diving, you would not want to get computer purchasing advice from someone who mastered in geography.  So…that being said, can someone please explain to me why the fuck are catholic priests writing sex education guides?

Of all the people in the world, the ones who are not having sex (or so they claim), who most likely had some kind of messed up sexual encounter that lead them to choose a path of celibacy, are now teaching kids about sex.  NO NO NO and FUCK NO.

These guides should be written by field experts, not by people whose meaning of “sex” is boinking the altar boys.  As a matter of fact, the priest that was recently found to have a girlfriend (big scandal) should co-author the stupid guide – he ‘might’ know a thing or two that his celibate colleagues are completely ignorant on.

I would not be as pissed about this whole ordeal if at least what they were writing made some kind of freakin sense.   The article where I grabbed the information that follows is from La Nacion, sent to me by Pablo.

Here are some of the brilliant ideas that these assholes are trying to send to our kids:

the use of birth-control mechanisms such as the condom and the pill are FORBIDDEN

Did everyone get that?  STOP having protected sex, start boinking everyone without condoms and let’s all help spread HIV and the shitload of venereal diseases – yes let’s do that.  Oh, but these shit-for-brains have it all covered, this will never happen because (get ready):

sexual relations should only happen during marriage, everyone should be celibate until then

What time are these people living in?  If they think their stupid writings has more power than a stampede of horny adolescent hormones, then they are in for a treat.  And just when you thought they could not pull a anything stupider, they show this full-house of ignorance over insanity:

the guides recommend not talking about sex with your kids until adolescence.

Yeah, let’s just avoid that shall we?  I mean, if we don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist right?  What’s the worst that could happen?

You know what the problem is with this people?  They are so pissed that their stupid religion imposes chastity rules that they want everyone else to be miserable as well.  This is NOT them caring for the well being of everyone.  This is a greedy, self-centered tantrum so that no one else can be happy.

Think of the catholic church as the chubby kid in 3rd grade that told on everyone when there was mischief – the little bitch wanted to be part of it, but since she couldn’t, she spoiled it for everyone.

I really don’t know what other tales of stupidity are hidden behind the pages of this despicable book of dipshits, but I am looking forwards in reading it.