A felicitous circumstance for religious people

There's an odd "psychology" article in the Times. It's about jinxes, and knocking on wood to escape the jinx. Here's how it opens:

SUPERSTITIOUS people do all sorts of puzzling things. But it’s not just the superstitious who knock on wood. From time to time, we all rap our knuckles on a nearby table if we happen to let fate-tempting words slip out. “The cancer is in remission, knock on wood,” we might say. 

Uh, no. Doesn't come up. Nor do I know anyone who would do this. Maybe I remember some old people doing it back in the 1950s, but not today. Must be the kind of people I know, huh?

I found myself groaning as I read the article but it left a cheerful thought behind -- the notion that religious people can avoid jinxes with ease. All they have to do is reach up and rap their knuckles on their skulls. This must give them tremendous comfort.

We need five new planets

Now that the human race has bifurcated into opposing factions, and there seems no hope of mending the rift, we need a new idea. Wouldn't it be great if we could divide the population into groups and send each group to a separate world?

Can't you just see Jesus World now? Every house would be constructed like a cross, sex would be outlawed, there would be priests galore and new saints would be minted every year. Heaven!

Allah World would be a sunny world of dusty streets, where no one accomplished much of anything. Science and its child, medicine, would not be allowed on Allah World. Given the lack of medicine, people would die early and rush off happily to meet their 70 willing virgins. (What happens when the women die, by the way? Please tell me their bodies are not refurbished so they can play the role of after-life virgin.)

Wingnut World would house the GOP, along with all the rich people in the US. They would have no government at all, having drowned it in a bathtub, and every house would have a "Get off my lawn!" sign in red, white and blue. Huzzah!

Old-People World (okay, there's some overlap here) would be a nice, safe shuffleboard paradise where the TV reports only on yesterday's news and never today's, to avoid surprising or frightening sensitive viewers.

And finally, Science World would house all the intelligent people, atheists, people of color, and kind people. All the new inventions would come from Science World and any that didn't give people the ability to kill, would be sent to the other worlds (except Allah World, of course).

So that's the deal. We need five more planets. This one's already a goner so we'll just abandon it. No more global warming for us. And by migrating, we'll leave all our unspent nuclear fuel behind. This is a win-win thing. But we must find these planets within our current lifetime.

Then again, we may need six planets. From a post yesterday by digby:

Non-college white men are the only constituency that opposes a ban [on assault weapons]. 

Looks like this group will need a planet, too. We'll call it Gun World.

Why are religious people so mean?

It's the question no one ever asks -- why do religious people enjoy seing others suffer?

It's not a secret. We can see the relish in their eyes as they tell people they'll be damned to hell for eternity. Judging by their facial expressions, the idea nearly gives them an orgasm. They like the idea that everyone but them will suffer eternal torment. In fact, they love it. Why is that? Why are these people so mean?

Why is it so damn easy for priests to rape kids? And why is it equally easy for their fellow priests to ignore their deeds and even protect them? Why don't these people grasp the suffering of the children and the wrongness of the deed? Is it because they're mean? It must be, right? What else can you say about this sort of behavior? The people that indulge in it are mean and immoral.

Why do these people lack a moral center? Oh, that's right. Because they think their religion provides them with a sense of morality when it does nothing of the sort. Rules are not morals, and religion provides no instruction in morality.

Today, what I want to know is why these people enjoy hurting others. Why are religious people so mean?