Before:

After:

A giant statue of Jesus outside a church in Ohio in the US has been destroyed by lightning.

The glass fibre and plastic foam sculpture caught fire and burned to the ground in what insurance companies have described as an act of God.

Do you think the church learned the clear lesson that God hates statues of Jesus? That making statues are an abomination and should be made illegal?

I have my doubts. I bet they’ll just call it the Devil’s work and rebuild it bigger than ever.

I bet they’ll claim it on their insurance as an “act of god”, though…

Update: Yes, this is old news, but it’s still funny!

[via: cnn, bbc]

[smbc]

At least six people have died in Britain after being told they had been healed of HIV and could stop taking their medication, Sky News has discovered.

There is evidence evangelical churches in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are claiming to cure HIV through God.
Sky sent three undercover reporters to the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), which is based in Southwark, south London.
All of them told the pastors they were HIV positive – all were told they could be healed.

Read More

(via)

At least three people in London with HIV have died after they stopped taking life saving drugs on the advice of their Evangelical Christian pastors.

The women died after attending churches in London where they were encouraged to stop taking the antiretroviral drugs in the belief that God would heal them, their friends and a leading HIV doctor said.

This is particularly frightening in Britain. Depending on who you believe, between 29% and 42% of new diagnoses of HIV in Britain (in heterosexuals) are among African migrants, despite their being a population that accounts for less than 0.8% of British residents. And it’s an astronomically growing problem – The rate of new diagnoses among African migrants grew by a factor of 100 between 1995 and 2006.

The Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) is singled out by the BBC for special mention:

The church is headed by Pastor T B Joshua, Nigeria’s third richest clergyman, according to a recent Forbes richlist.

The church’s website, which was set up in Lagos, Nigeria, shows photos of people the church claims have been “cured” of HIV through prayer.

In one example, the church’s website claims: “Mrs Badmus proudly displays her two different medical records confirming she is 100% free from HIV-Aids following the prayer of Pastor T B Joshua.”

“HIV-Aids healing” is listed on the church’s website among “miracles” it says it can perform.

“Cancer healing” and “baby miracles” are also advertised.

The church’s UK website promotes a monthly “prayer line” for which it says: “If you are having a medical condition, it is important you bring a medical report for record and testimony purposes.”

If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering why? Why would any church kill off its own congregation with terrible, terrible advice and false promises? Well, we’re getting to that part.

[SCOAN] has posted videos on the internet showing its services in south London, in which participants who claim to have arthritis, asthma and schizophrenia say they have been healed after being sprayed with “anointing water” provided by the church.

Ding! There’s the money!

T B Joshua even has a blog, which proclaims the wondrous powers of his Anointing Water, with testimonies that make the medical professional part of me cringe.

The SCOAN website does say that “the Anointing Water is not for sale! Healing, salvation and all of God’s blessings are free gifts of God”, but I find the pretense that it’s not all about the Benjamins very hard to believe. The church itself features a big-screen that could put the Super Bowl to shame; it’s every bit the megachurch. Then there’s Emmanuel TV, which (if you can bear to watch it) contains no shortage of admonitions to hand over your money (because God can heal your cancer, but he can’t lend his own anointed prophet a bit of cash). This continues as far as the website, which contains the usual barely veiled inference that in order to receive God’s healing, you must first pay into God’s coffers, as well as advertising premium-rate telephone numbers, upon which you can reach “Prayer Warriors” who will presumably FedEx your prayer straight to God and smack him with a stick until he personally answers it.

The only conclusion that I’ve been able to reach is that T B Emmanuel knows very well that he’s not healing anybody, but he also knows that if people think he is, then those people will throw money at him in the hope that he’ll heal them too.

SCOAN’s own website describes T B Joshua as a “prophet”, though given that he is Nigeria’s third most wealthy evangelical pastor (estimates of his personal wealth range up to $15 million, not including the value of his church or its assets), I wonder if that might be a spelling error.

This ramble off into the shady aspects of the church’s and pastor’s finances should not detract from the most important part of this, however: People are dying because they believe what their church tells them. Whether it’s deliberate profiteering or self-deluding stupidity, the result is the same.

I must confess a morbid curiosity about something. This post will leave several track-backs to SCOAN affiliated websites – Will we get a comment or discussion from T B Emmanuel?

Mr Williams, from Henley-on-Thames, Oxon, said: “My wife Jane had asked for some carrots from the garden so I pulled a few out from the soil. “When I saw this strange vegetable the resemblance to Buzz Lightyear hit me straight away and I just thought ‘my gosh’.

(via)

Recently one of them sent her this clip to a Nightline story in which they tactfully – perhaps credulously – examine the phenomena:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The big take-away discovery is that glossolalia is associated with a different area of the brain than normal speech. Some of the folks in the video take that as a sign that the speakers are not in control over what comes out of their mouths.

I’d question that. It’s at least a long standing legend that singing and speech cause activity in different areas of the brain. Hence the apparent ability of people with stuttering problems to sing coherently – the late Scatman John being an example of someone who combined both the singing and the stutter. No one is going to suggest that singing is God speaking through the human mouth.

I’ve been told by ex-Pentecostals that glossolalia is something that most people can learn to do. You start by speaking random syllables rapidly, and after some practice the ability becomes self sustaining. Here’s an aside from ex-Pentacostal Ed Babinski:

My theory is far simpler, you let some air out of your mouth and start repeating the first nonsense syllable your tongue naturally forms, rolling it over and over again on your tongue, until another syllable is added, and keep repeating them as more syllables arise, as they will, naturally. Anyone can be taught how to do it without “auto-hypnosis.” I can still speak in tongues just as I did as a Christian.

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* I’m never sure how I should credit people who write in. I don’t want to use your whole name and risk your privacy, but I also don’t want to deny you credit for anything. Please let me know if you want me to use your full name, or leave you as an anonymous reader.

The set up is that the author of this letter is trying to decide whether his organization should honor Dr. Frederick Cook, who claims to be the first person to reach the North Pole. The author is asking Prof. Hiram Bledso, a master of “Comparative Science and Theology,” whether they should accept the claim.

“The answer, yes or no, depends entirely upon the answer to this question: Is it claimed that Dr. Cook’s achievement is a Fact, or is it a Miracle?”

“Why so?”

“Because if it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary…. A very pertinent remark has been quoted from the Westminster Gazette, which points out that ‘the golfer, when he puts in a record round, has to have his card signed, and that there is nobody to sign Dr. Cook’s card; there are two Eskimos to vouch for his feat, but they were his caddies, and at golf their evidence would not be accepted.’ There you have the whole case. If Dr. Cook’s feat is put forward as a Fact, the evidence of his two caddies is inadequate; if it is put forward as a Miracle, one caddy is plenty.”

“Is there really all that difference between Fact and Miracle?”

“Yes, there is history for it—ages of history. There has never been a Miracle that noticeably resembled a Fact. Take an illustration. Mr. Janvier quotes this item from Henry Hudson’s log—Hudson wrote it fourteen months before his discovery of the River:

‘This morning one of our companie looking overboard saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the companie to see her, one more came up and by that time shee was come close to the ships side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after a sea came and overturned her. From the navill upward her backe and breasts were like a woman, but her body as big as one of us. Her skin was very white, and long hair hanging downe behinde of colour blacke. In her going downe they saw her tayle, which was like the tayle of a porpoise, and speckled like a macrell. Their names that saw her were Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner.’

“Observe, to Hudson that was not a Fact, it was a Miracle. How do I know this? Because he believes, on the mere say-so of a couple of sailors. He knows they saw the mermaid, for he doesn’t say he thought they saw, he says with convinced positiveness, they saw. Very well. As a Miracle, the sailors’ say-so is quite sufficient—indeed, more than sufficient; there isn’t a better-grounded Miracle in history. But to Dr. Asher, a recent commentator, who considered that Hudson was registering the incident as a Fact, the evidence was but caddy evidence and quite inadequate. He remarks, ‘Probably a seal.’”

“Then the difference—”

“Quite so. The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal. It could no be better expressed.”