What does bother me is that he actually managed to convince some people that his delusions were true.  Sadly, there are always people willing to believe this stuff.  These people gave him money.  These people sold their possessions.  I feel badly for them.   For Harold Camping, however, I feel nothing but contempt.

So what were you doing when the Rapture was suppose to happen?  I was in a car on my way to a friends graduation party; something worthy of celebration, I think.

I don’t know whether to be horrified that 76 men voted to fire Hartwig or hopeful that 74 voted to not fire him.

But hey – of course they didn’t leave women out entirely:

Women who wanted to ask questions were told to write them on a piece of paper and have a man read them aloud. But some, including Hartwig’s own daughter, said their questions were never read.

Not that it did any good.

“I actually passed three or four questions to a church council member and none of them were read,” said Emily Rae Hartwig. “I guess the way I felt about it, and the way many others felt, was that they were afraid of us (women). A lot of my dad’s supporters are women.”

What I don’t get is why there are even women that are members of that church.  How low does your self esteem have to be to think it’s ok to be thought of as inferior and having no rights?  Seriously.

Here’s Pat Robertson, of the 700 Club talking about the earthquake in Haiti:

The Haitians “were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever,” Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. “And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ “

Seriously?  He believes that?  Aside from the complete and utter heartlessness of his “explanation”, it doesn’t really sound like his god is all that loving or big on forgiveness.  Mr Robertson seems to be light on the compassion as well.  Not that this really surprises me, mind you,  since he and Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on”the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists…” rather than squarely where the blame really was, which was religion and politics.

Shoppers are out in full swing, of course, making my usual weekend errands take twice as long. It’s a good thing I prefer parking at the far end of the parking lot. Between the aggressive drivers, the rude shoppers and the insincerity of the whole holiday, I’m happy to sit it out.

I’ve got to say, though, that when someone asks me if I’ve finished my Christmas shopping, I do love the look on their face when I say “Yep. Finished it about 15 years ago.” That really is priceless, and almost worth having to put up with the rest of it.

That said, if I had kids I would probably participate along with everyone else (although I would likely do most/all of the gift shopping online — avoid the traffic!). I wouldn’t, of course, inject religion into it, but I would probably put up a tree and do the presents thing. Maybe even tell them about the myths that bought about the whole tradition. I’d certainly want them to enjoy the holiday more I did when I was a kid.

edited — It’s “Daylight Saving Time”, not “Savings”.  For some reason, it always comes out with the extra ‘s’.  *sigh*