Shorthand Blasphemy and some updates.

I was going to write a diatribe about how religious faith requires a historicist perspective, and I still might, but not today. Kindly enough, the Catholic church bailed me out. It turns out one of the Catholic church's banking arms has been busted by the German news weekly, der Spiegel, for investing in British American Tobacco, European defence giant BAE Systems, and get this, Wyeth, a world leader in contraceptives. An English account is available on the Beeb. I'm wondering what their reaction would be to a lay believer investing in the same firms. They can be mighty harsh: a 9 year-old who was impregnated by her stepfather in Brazil was excommunicated, along with her whole family and doctors, after aborting. Is the church even capable of excommunicating itself? I mean, the 9 year-old in question was going to have twins, so let's call that 2 lives for argument's sake. Have a look at BAE Systems' product list, and ask yourself whether a "120 mm Armoured Mortar System II" or an "F-35 Lightning" might not do greater damage. It was calculated that smoking killed 5 000 000 people (i.e. they killed the equivalent of all Chicago, twice) in the year 2000 alone.

I don't want to argue that weapons are inherently bad, that smoking doesn't have a beauty of its own, or that contraception is a panacea. I do think this is a further indication that religion persists at least in part as an existential protection racket, among other things. This need not be a conspiracy, it could just be a case of dispersed greed and vested interests. Some guy once said something about it being harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Who was that again?

While I'm being all self-righteous, I'd also like to point out that I'm not the only one who a single-payer model would be at least worth consideration for American health care reform.

I also ranted a while ago about the near universal overreaction to swine flu. Well, if you're really looking for a reason to panic, providence provides. I'd rather my next door neighbours had swine flu (sorry guys) than for a single Chinese to have pneumonic plague. Not that anybody asked.