In which the pond has an early in the week theological meditation ...

Today the reptiles are deep in climate science and the greenie wars, but for a fragrant moment yesterday   they borrowed from The Times to keep the crusade against Islam going …

It never seems to occur to the reptiles that in this particular case, embracing their enemy's enemy doesn't turn up a friend.

Instead the enemy's enemy also happens to be an enemy of the Catholic Boys' Daily's bestest religion … thereby forcing the pond into an early in the week meditation.

Say what? This sort of invective has been unleashed on the poor hapless Islamics?

“Should the pope resign?” No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly – ideally – qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch. No, Pope Ratzinger should not resign. He should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice – the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution – while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears. (an intertubes meme here).

Never mind, on with dishing up Dawkins to the true believers …

Say what? How on earth did the history wars and statues about Cecil Rhodes and Edward Colston get into the conversation?

Never mind, speaking of the Pope, Tess was on the case …

Oh how they hate that Francis, with his devious capacity for house of cards treachery …

By golly, is Tess aiming for a job with Dawkins? Conspiracies behind closed doors, characters believing the pope is infallible, and acting the part ...

And though this isn't a Sunday, the pond has to note the final straw for the reptiles in recent religious days …

How insufferable. After the full might of the reptiles crusaders had been aimed at her, the young wretch was still cheeky and tweeting away … so naturally the reptiles felt the need to reproduce the tweets so the readership might catch the full horror, and lather up the rich, ripe, fruity indignation ...

It was too much … it was outrageously chirpy, as if the entire reptile crusade had been for naught ... so naturally a recitation of past sins had to be done and the IPA had to be called on to the job ...

Actually surviving a frenzied reptile crusade is surely doing something for freedom of speech, even if a belief in an Abrahamic god is as delusional as reading the lizard Oz for insights into climate science …

But why do the reptiles persist in their persecution and their constant outrage?

Well that humble story, at the time the pond noted it, had generated some 572 comments of rage, fear and loathing …

How the readership hates her, how they dislike the y'alling uppity young …and even worse she looks like an African American, and we all know what that means …

These were just the most recent of them, and what a cesspit of bigotry and phobias the remaining reptile readership is … no wonder they should all stay locked up behind the paywall ...

The pond is a dedicated atheist, but surely the point is that everyone is entitled to have their own version of an imaginary friend if they want, and if it does no harm to others …

But that requires a level of tolerance that the Catholic Boys' Daily can never imagine, what with their theological wars and their desire to hunt out the heretics and their chatter about conspiracies and their desire to stick it to the Islamics, such that even a Dawkins is welcomed as a crusader …

Meanwhile, Rowe is celebrating another faith this day. The pond went to bed in an agony of doubt and uncertainty regarding the result, and lo, the next day, a new record-breaking Stalin was born. Who could have imagined it, who could have guessed the outcome, so close was the race … and for those with a taste for wreaths, there's more Rowe here ...