The appropriate word here is “Bleeaagh.” In 897, Pope Stephen VI dug up the decomposing body of his predecessor and put it on trial for violating church law. Formosus, who had been dead for nine months, was found guilty and buried again. Rome turned against Stephen, who was eventually strangled in prison. It’s known as the cadaver synod or, in Latin, the “synodus horrenda.”
Famous atheists:
“One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it,” wrote Mark Twain. “They have also believed the world was flat.”
A classification of demons, from occultist Francis Barrett’s 1801 book The Magus:
More than 70,000 Australians declared themselves members of the Jedi in the 2001 census, thanks to a fad fueled by e-mail. So did 53,000 New Zealanders and 20,000 Canadians. In England and Wales, 390,000 people gave their religion as Jedi, making it the country’s fourth largest reported religion, behind Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.
Ironically, the stunt led many otherwise apathetic people to take the census, so it may actually have improved its quality.
“If Christ were here now, there is one thing he would not be — a Christian.” — Mark Twain
In 1211, Emperor Frederick II of Germany raised dozens of children in silence, trying to discover the natural “language of God.” He never got an answer: The children never spoke, and all of them ultimately died in childhood.
A Buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.”
On this date in A.D. 600, Pope Gregory the Great decreed that saying “God bless you” is the correct response to a sneeze.
How does that work, exactly? When you become pope, do they give you a special hotline phone? If so, I think there are more important questions he could have asked.
You can spare others the whole “gesundheit” question by tickling the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue — it stops the sneeze impulse.
Who says atheists don’t have a sense of humor? The Invisible Pink Unicorn (“blessed be her holy hooves”) was “revealed to” the Usenet newsgroup alt.atheism in 1990.
Since then, she’s acquired all the trappings of a real deity: gospels (“according to St. Sascha”), revelations (to “St. Bryce the Long-Winded”), relics (the Holy Sock of Bob), scripture, and historic artworks.
Because she’s invisible, it’s impossible to prove she does not exist. “The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a being of great spiritual power,” say the faithful. “We know this because she is capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that she is pink; we logically know that she is invisible because we can’t see her.”
Followers debate her attributes, but it’s generally agreed that she prefers pineapple and ham pizza to pepperoni and mushroom, which is said to be eaten only by followers of the Purple Oyster of Doom. The IPU also “raptures” socks from laundry as a sign of favor.
Is this harmless fun or awful blasphemy? It’s getting hard to care. As the French writer Edmond de Goncourt wrote, “If there is a God, atheism must seem to him as less of an insult than religion.”
St. Ambrose is the patron saint of beekeepers.