The demonic flinging of chocolates! (Blog post by PZ Myers)

[Rob H.]

Full entry here.

The demonic flinging of chocolates!
by PZ Myers
May 12, 2014

This happy pope, as it turns out, is also an old school believer in Satan, and has encouraged more interest in exorcism. He recently sponsored a conference for exorcists, which brought a lot of goofy old cranks out of the closet.

During the conference, the Rev. Cesar Truqui, an exorcist based in Switzerland, recounted one experience he had aboard a Swissair flight. “Two lesbians,” he said, had sat behind him on the plane. Soon afterward, he said, he felt Satan’s presence. As he silently sought to repel the evil spirit through prayer, one of the women, he said, began growling demonically and threw chocolates at his head.

Asked how he knew the woman was possessed, he said that “once you hear a Satanic growl, you never forget it. It’s like smelling Margherita pizza for the first time. It’s something you never forget.”

Well, that made me hungry. Now my stomach is growling satanically.

So in addition to the ability to feel Satan's presence, the good reverend apparently has gaydar finely-tuned enough to sense lesbians sitting nearby. It's a miracle!

[intaglio]

1. H'mm do you think the "good" Rev. Truqui

might have issued some bigoted slurs about same sex couples before the demons threw chocolates.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. How exactly do I distinguish this from a psychotic delusion?

[nil desperandum]

3. Distinguish

he's a church guy, so it's never a delusion when it's a legitimate church guy...

Remember this simple formula, any atheist hearing voices or believing in things that can't be proven is delusional. Any religious person believing in things that can't be proven or hearing the voices of demons and gods is doing the lords work and is not to be questioned by heathens like you or me.

The only exception to the previous is if the religious person does something bad with the information they receive from their delusion, i mean their god, and then they aren't really religious.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. thanks, I forgot what the rulez are.

[nil desperandum]

6. No worries

I live to serve...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

21. Thanks, Nil desperandum.

I suffered thru 2 years of Latin in high school and I appreciate your wisdom and your handle.

[nil desperandum]

22. Latin Classes

Yes you were not alone my friend, I was in constant hot water with my Latin 3 teacher who loved to expound on the "civilization" that Rome brought to the world....he was not impressed with my comment regarding how the non-Romans might have viewed their forced slavery after being captured by the civilized Romans who would rape them and put them to work or kill them for amusement....when I suggested that he and I had very different views on what constituted "civlization" I had a long conversation with the principal who suggested that I not take Latin 4, and that perhaps Spanish would be a better choice. Oddly enough he was right, the spanish teacher was a vibrant humorous teacher who was a pleasure in every way.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

23. That's good! Arguing about civilization.

Latin class is one of the reasons I've fried my brain. I only took 2 years and didn't argue about civilization. They were great engineers and had indoor plumbing. But yes, slavery was very bad stuff. According to Neil deGrasse Tyson on COSMOS, the Romans knew that lead caused brain damage and death, but they used it anyway because it was easy to work.

My first year Latin teacher was a graduate of Rutgers, the second year one was a graduate of Vassar College, and said they actually sang "Gaudeamus Igitur" at school assemblies! Gaudeamus Igitur is in the Academic Festival Overture by Brahms, should you not be familiar with it. "Let us be happy therefore, while we are young."

I assume you are familiar with the scene from Life of Brian where Eric Idle is attempting to write Romans Go Home as graffiti and John Cleese, a Roman centurion, corrects his grammar how to write the imperative case and so forth! Hilarious!

"People called Romanes, they go to the house?" This version has the dialogue below the picture under "show more".

"If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off!!"

[nil desperandum]

25. Good stuff

Thank you for posting this, I haven't seen this in years and I laughed out loud at work.

[trotsky]

9. An excellent summary.

You only forgot one thing: if an atheist says anything about a religious belief being a delusion, what they REALLY MEAN is that all religious people are mentally ill and insane and must be destroyed!!! MUAH HA HA HA!

Oh, sorry, got carried away a little bit there.

[smartphone]

10. This post, and the responses to it, are the reason

that I love being subscribed to the A+A''s forum here.

You folks make me smile and feed my hunger for satire about all the irony in religious beliefs out there.

[mr blur]

5. Just as I suspected...

[AtheistCrusader]

7. But only if the pizza actually has garden-fresh basil.

Otherwise, it'll only trip a non-demonic stomach growl.

[MountainLaurel]

8. Where can I find lesbians to fling chocolates at me?

Growling is optional.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. craigslist

[onager]

11. He got off easy.

Chocolate-lobbing lesbians? HA!

Once in Saudi Arabia, I was forced to do something I had always managed to avoid - I had to fly Saudia Airlines. Jeddah to Rome.

Turned out there had just been a big Islamic conference in Jeddah. So I ended up on a plane full of Imams & assorted Muslim luminaries. Since they were going to Rome, maybe they were headed for a Kumbaya sing-along with the Pope or something.

What could be worse? Glad you asked. NO alcohol is served on Saudi Airlines. And just before takeoff, you are treated to the plane's sound system blasting, in Arabic, the "Prayer for Safe Travel."*

All the flight attendants were male. In fact, I didn't see any women at all on that airplane, which struck me as Twilight-Zone-level bizarre. Being a more or less normal human, I sort of get accustomed to seeing representatives of half the world's population wherever I go. Not seeing any was just...odd. I started having dark thoughts about a certain Margaret Atwood novel.

I eventually got to Rome, after what seemed like a flight of several weeks. And happily transferred to a completely sinful, wine-serving, woman-flight-attendant staffed Air France flight to Paris.

*Funny story from Egypt about that "Prayer for Safe Travel." A liberal Egyptian writer/film-maker got into the elevator one day at her apartment building. And quickly discovered that a devout maintenance man had rigged the elevator to play the "Prayer for Safe Travel" every frigging time the elevator was used. The woman complained and got that nonsense stopped. She wrote a newspaper article about it, saying that everybody in the building was griping but she was the only person who actually went and did something about it.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Also, if you guys see any cocolate-demons around, send them my way.

I could use some.

[uriel1972]

14. If all a demon is capable of is flinging chocolates...

It's not very impressive.

[Curmudgeoness]

16. Yeah, I think

that vomiting split pea soup was much more impressive.

[Curmudgeoness]

15. I get the picture.

This guy sees the lesbians (or maybe they were not lesbians, but we will take his word for it). He starts praying out loud about demons and homosexuality and exorcising and Satan. Well, if it were me, not a lesbian but many straight people think I am, I would start doing The Exorcist noises too....too bad I wouldn't be able to levitate, but I might throw something instead. I have a feeling he asked for the full Exorcist treatment.

Now, if I could only perfect that Satanic growl.

[deucemagnet]

17. Once during a Greyhound trip from Syracuse to Buffalo,

two roller-derby girls sat behind me. Soon afterward, I felt Loki's presence. As I sought to repel the evil spirit with psychic mind-bullets, one of the roller girls began yodeling demonically and threw a haggis at me. How did I know that she was possessed? Well, when you hear a demonic yodel, you never forget it. It's like the first time your friends in Buffalo take you out the the Chippewa strip and you hit all of the bars and have a total blast until 4:00 am and you think that there's no way that any restaurant can be open and then BAM, you see Louie's Hot Dogs! You get three loaded red-hots with that loganberry drink that you can only get in Buffalo, and it's so awesome that you know you'll never forget it. Well, unless you're black-out drunk, then you'll forget it, but if you're not, man, that's just something that you'll never forget. Kind of like a demonic yodel. Hey, did I ever tell you guys about the time I took a Greyhound...

[Warren Stupidity]

18. this is why the only proper long distance bus trip involves a shit-tonne of valium.

[sakabatou]

19. My BS and asshole detector went on high alert

I must know that Rev. Cesar Truqui is an asshole.

[AlbertCat]

20. “once you hear a Satanic growl, you never forget it. "

Yeah.... Mercedes McCambridge is that good!

[rexcat]

24. Did anyone expect more from...

an old superstitious dude who thinks he can transform a cracker into the body of a dead guy and wine into the blood of the dead guy.