As opposed to Katy Perry’s breasts, Guitar Praise sucks. I can’t believe this shit hasn’t had a copyright infringement lawsuit yet.

Guitar Praise is a Guitar Hero knock off that features TOTALLY AWESOME Christian rock. Yea, that’s what every 10 year old boy want for Christmas, the spin off video game featuring “Our God is an AWESOME God”. From their website:

Grab the guitar and play along with top Christian bands! Shred those riffs or blast the bass…you add a unique sound to the solid Christian rock. But watch out: if you can’t keep up, the artists will take a break and stop the music. Crank it up and try again ? you?ll soon be rockin’ with the best while praising the Lord! Order the second guitar and jam with a friend!

Apparently in the final encore level, you get to play as an alter boy in an exclusive 1 on 1 acoustic set with the priest in his apartment.

In other news, please watch the documentary Jesus Camp. It’s an extremely well edited film exploring the Evangelical Christian movement in America, why it’s a threat to the rest of us, and how sick and crazy they really are. Stream it RIGHT HERE for free, then pass the link off to a friend.

Nice guys Tom Hanks and Ron “Opie” Howard couldn’t use their squeaky clean images to their advantage when dealing with Rome’s Catholic diocese. Rome church officials are offended by their new film, Angels & Demons. The officials have banned Hanks and his crew from filming in two of the city churches.

Angles & Demons is the prequel to the box office hit, The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code book angered many Catholics and the film put the religious over the edge. A diocese spokesperson explained the reason Hanks, Howard and crew were banned from filming is because the movie does not conform to the views of the Catholic church.

Didn’t you hear? Last week an Illinois Christian priest was derided and reprimanded by a state representative in front of the House State Government Administration Committee for spreading a philosophy that’s dangerous to children.

Oh wait, I’m sorry. It wasn’t a priest. It was an atheist who objected the government dishing out 1 million dollars to a Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, and he was met with the following response from Rep. Monique Davis (D).

Davis: I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if t his matter does go to court—

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

Chicago Tribune.

You can hear audio of the debate here: Audio

(more…)

The Church of Scientology has caused many a media stir over the past few years. This is in full due to certain high profile members making public their beliefs. The “Church” itself has in fact existed since the early 1950’s, pushed along by founding kook L. Ron Hubbard. This small minority of religious belief made but a peep (with exception to the failure of Hubbard’s “E-meter” which was found to have no medical value in 1971) till the likes of Tom Cruise began boasting their faith. In wake of the storm kicked up by Cruises’ recent YouTube testimonial, an internet based group referring to themselves simply as “Anonymous” has declared war on Scientology. In the past week Anonymous has even managed to crash the Church’s website, and vows to take further action.

My question is this: who gives a damn about Scientology? A quick perusing of the Church’s official website makes one simple truth very clear; Scientology is a cult. In reality, the words “religion” and “cult” have eerily similar definitions, but “cult” is typically applied to groups smaller in number and further from mainstream religious thought. Double standard as that may be, I will happily make light of the fact that Scientology is nothing more than a simplistic oddity. Their values read like an Idiot’s Guide To Self-Help and harp upon ambiguous universalities. The maxims and aphorismatic nonsense spouted by Scientologists is worth little heed, especially in the case of Tom Cruise. This is not a dangerous sect; it is a fringe set of beliefs with little to no place in today’s world. Scientology will never amount to anything more than an Entertainment Tonight bulletin, and perhaps therein lies the problem. Because these beliefs are so unimportant and harmless, and because “religious” zealots like Tom Cruise are deep within the public eye, Scientology makes for good clean headline bashing. No real harm or danger will result from their repeated trouncing.

So hey, Anonymous, while your efforts are duly noted, maybe just leave this group be. Maybe find a real enemy to attack. Scientology means little in the scope of society’s problems. It’s just another media fad.

UPDATE: For more information on Anonymous LURK MOAR

UPDATE: As I should have stated earlier: although I may strongly disagree with a Scientologist’s take on life and death, they still have a right to express their beliefs like anyone else.