It being Sunday, time for a tour of abusive cults that worship fictional deities ...

(Above: found here).

Lurking at the check-out in a rare visit to the supermarket, the pond was sorely tempted to splash the moola on the New Idea's big scoop.

The other man in Katie's marriage? WTF?

But money's tight, so the pond did the next best thing, and read the story at the check-out, as sensible people do.

It was of course a dud, a complete cheat, like the cons the carnies use to lure in the suckers:

But at least scientology got a fair old going over. When even the women's mags are doing fierce investigative reporting, it must be hard times for the cult.

Speaking of cults, it being Sunday, the natural instinct is to drop in on the Sydney Anglicans. The Pellists are still missing in action, presumably in Rome, but so too is the long-awaited completion of Michael Jensen's treatise on the sins of Sydney.

He's still around, and broke his silence at his site The Blogging Parson quite recently on June 27th with Proclamation: An Anglican View. He really is a shameless tease, knowing his fans are waiting breathlessly for the next instalment.

Instead, sob, the pond is reduced to reading Russell Powell dumping the bucket on the Episcopal Church for supporting same sex unions, despite the "courageous stand of the few orthodox left in the organisation" wanting to continue a campaign of fear, loathing and old testament homophobia. (here)

What would Powell make of Peter Hartcher proposing that Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, and by extension the Sydney Anglicans are on the wrong side of history, their attitude to homosexuality down there with slavery, wife beating and child labour? (On same-sex marriage, the leaders of Australia's biggest political parties are defying the tide of history).

Powell also takes a swipe at eccentric British Anglicans for saying rioting could be a spiritual experience.

It seems to have escaped Powell's attention that, in his day, Jesus was something of a rioter himself, as recorded by Matthew:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves ...

Oh sweet Jesus, not the dove sellers! What would happen to the cake stalls and the candle selling and the BBC's Antiques Roadshow?

Crucify that rioter this instant!

Around the same section of the bible, Jesus delivered up another cogent insight:

Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots and the homosexuals go into the kingdom of God before you the Sydney Anglicans ...

Or some such thing.

Powell also got extremely agitated at a report in The Australian about inner city elites. Yep, the rag's rhetoric is like pheromones for Sydney Anglicans on heat, surrounded as they are by godless pagans.

Powell seems to think that the story's hidden behind the paywall, but as the pond's readers know, all you have to do is google a quote to get to the truth of Australia's inner-city dwellers among most godless:

Green-tinged, "latte-sipping" inner-city suburbs are among the most godless in Australia, while remote indigenous communities are among the most religiously observant, according to 2011 census data.

When you look at the data however, top of the charts is rural Nimbin - hippies rulez - while also high on the godless charts is the Victorian hamlet of St Andrews, out past Hurstbridge, and about as latte-sipping as the rest of Australia. If these locales are in the inner city, the pond needs to get out more.

Perhaps the real reason the story caught Powell's eye is the way Enmore and Newtown are up there near the top of the godless charts.

It seems Moore College, perched at 1 King street, Newtown is just a gob of spit in the hellfires surrounding it ...

It's a wonder the students hardly dare to show themselves in the nearby streets, for fear of meeting an actual green-tinged coffee drinker. There seems to be only one solution - shift Sydney Anglicans and the cathedral to East Arnhem in the NT so they can feel safe.

But it's not only the Sydney Anglicans who can be relied on for eccentric fundamentalism. The Islamics made the news this week with advice offered to a woman that polygamy is better than divorce:

If a man is saying to his wife I will marry another woman this is far better than saying you are divorced, every time he is upset. So if your husband is telling you that he wants to take another wife and you are not doing the right thing by him then know that he is thinking straight and using a weapon that doesn't have severe consequences. (here)

Sound advice, if a tad confused, because not long before that Sheik Yahya Safi had gone into print warming against polygamy, because of the dangers for men:

“It’s not recommended in Islam to have more than one wife,” he said. “Because when you have more than one wife you will have more obligations and you will face more problems.”

Two harridans means twice the problems! Three, well it hardly bears thinking about.

Thank the absent lord you can rely on the Islamics for a good dose of Sydney Anglican misogyny.

Naturally after warning men about women (who might even want to be priests) Safi also joined with the Sydney Anglicans in bashing the notion of gay marriage:

Sheikh Safi, who presides at Lakemba mosque in Sydney’s west, said it would be rare to find a gay Muslim ...

Yes, in much the same way that you can't find a gay in Bob Katter's North Queensland or in rugby league or the AFL,or even in Bob Katter's lunchtime (sssh, don't mention the brother).

... the gay marriage issue wasn’t discussed in the community.
“In the Islamic community we don’t discuss this because it’s obvious and we have full agreement between all people about it,” he said.

Islamics and Sydney Anglicans standing tall together.

Coincidentally this opinion was going down at the same time that the Salvation Army was busy trying to avoid a cutback in its donations because a spokemsan had mis-spoke:

Speaking to gay radio station Joy FM, Salvos’ Victorian spokesman Major Andrew Craibe endorsed a Biblical passage that said being gay was evil and punishable by death.
"Well, that's part of our belief system," he said when asked if he agreed with the passage, which is included in a Salvation Army handbook that is given to new members.
He also said homosexuality was a choice - like drinking alcohol - that needed to be resisted.
Yesterday, the Salvos "sincerely" apologised. (here, paywall affected).

Shame, Savlos, shame. Stand tall and proud like Islamics and Sydney Anglicans. If you're going to be viciously prejudiced, be honest about it. It's the Christian, ethical thing to do ...

Okay, let's tick off the list. Islamics, Salvos, Sydney Anglicans, scientologists ... oh gosh golly, we almost left out the Catholics:

Abuse victims have derided prayers for them offered at a Mass in Sydney's Catholic cathedral yesterday as hypocritical and an empty gesture designed to keep donations coming.
"This is the ultimate hypocrisy," said Nicky Davis, a victim and spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, about the prayers offered by Sydney Bishop Julian Porteous at St Mary's Cathedral.
"Victims do not see this as a genuine attempt to help us, nor that its intended audience is victims at all. We are being used to make those Catholics still attending Mass feel like something is being done to help victims so that they don't stop funding the church in protest," Ms Davis said. (We don't want your prayers, victims tell church, thanks to Barney).

So what's the sticking point?

Ms Davis said: "Senior Catholic figures are still lying to the media and anyone who'll believe them about their widespread and systematic cover-up of serious criminal offences against defenceless children."

Uh huh. And so it goes on. The stench of the cover-up:

The current Bishop of Armidale, Michael Kennedy, yesterday confirmed the church had been aware of the allegations since at least 1987, when a priest, known as Father F for legal reasons, was arrested for Damien's alleged abuse. The case was later dismissed.
This account appears to contradict that of three of the state's most senior clerics, who interviewed Father F in 1992 when he admitted to abusing five altar boys over a period of up to four years...
...Laws in place at the time of the 1992 meeting ...made it a crime punishable by two years in prison for a "person who knows or believes that (a serious) offence has been committed" not to report that to police. (Catholic Church 'knew ID of abuse victim')

Outside and above the law.

What's the bet if Jesus were kicking around today, there'd be a riot or two in the Sydney Anglican temple? And more than a few others? And there'd be more than a few pseudo-dove sellers given a right bollocking ...

Surely suffer the little children to come unto me resonated a little differently for Christ.

As for the pond, when you look at it all, what's left to do but give a tree a hug, and sip a cafe latte, and wonder if out of the ruins of religion something better might be built ... involving love, compassion, charity, and a willingness to embrace minorities and those who are different and those who have suffered. Like the children trapped in the suffocating embrace of the Catholic church.

Who knows, it might involve some Christians, who actually listen to the socialist Jesus, and who are able to overlook their theological, ideological conditioning.

Blind Christian prejudice and bigotry is after all a choice - a bit like drinking alcohol - and it should be resisted ...

(Below: take it away Katie, whack us with some irony).