Pagan is as pagan does . . .

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion--Proverbs 18:2

• Ian McKellen said recently, in response to criticism of some of the historical claims of the DaVinci Code, that he thinks the Bible itself should have a disclaimer at the beginning declaring that it is fiction because "walking on water, I mean, takes an act of faith." Ian, I loved you as Gandalf and all, but just shut up and act! You can see or hear the clip here or here.
• The Student Insurgent, a student-operated newspaper at the University of Oregon, ran some cartoons lampooning Christianity in general, and Jesus in particular, in its March 2005 issue. The "paper" issued a statement saying that Christianity "needs to be lampooned." The cartoons and commentary were especially viscious. Here's a sample: "I believe that Christianity is a destructive institution in America, and the world for that matter. It functions as a stagnant force that prevents growth and development in society. It perpetuates inequality and serves as a means of control. . . . It is [a] way of thinking that leads some people to feel morally superior. It forces people to define morals in a way that may not be up to date with the times and more importantly may happen to really f*** over certain groups of people, like women. In addition, heaven and hell is like the lure, it freaks people out because they don't want to fry in hell for eternity. Heaven is the bribe for worshiping god. The term god-fearing anyone? Fear is not what should drive a belief system. The belief system is flawed because in my opinion, god is an a**hole. . . . It is funny that extremely evil things are always disguised as good. Christianity uses concepts like virtue, purity, and piety to promote the idea that is is morally superior to other belief systems. But again they define morality as if it is something to be defined in a blanketing sort of way. Even to say murder is always immoral is difficult to do. So how can one say that it is immoral to be a lesbian? Why does that apply to everyone? Who decides this? It doesn't make any sense to me. In my opinion this 'purity' is a disguise as something good, but really it is an ideology that serves to repress people from doing what they want.”. . . . Good stuff, huh? I refer again to the verse at the top of this post. As if that weren't enough, here are two of the cartoons with the sensitive portions blocked out: