…is all I can call it. Aside from intellectually rage-inducing and just plain annoying.
By which I am referring to the following piece of “snail spam”, i.e. unwanted post in the letterbox generally sent en-masse in a carpet-bombing-like affair:
This thing is a rather laughable attempt to try and convince the reader that the Virgin Mary made specific promises to the entire planet, and not only will she keep those promises, but she is honorable enough to demand strict obedience and daily prayer of the rosary before she will “solve the problems of the world, and our own problems too.” – Actual quote!
Actually, I’ll just give you the entire text of this piece of nonsense, and I shall highlight the outrageously silly/redundant pieces. (To be honest, it would be easier to highlight the pieces that are NOT outrageously silly, but anyway…)
Like most people nowadays you may have problems…
Are you worried and uncertain at times? Do you wonder what the future holds for you and your family? Do you feel threatened by so many dangers and problems that surround you? (so Mary only helps the severely depressed or disadvantaged…?)
Worry and anguish are written on countless faces. People are no longer able to hide their troubles. Even when someone is smiling, it is often to try to forget the things that make him weep inside. (hmm…they make the entire world out to be emotionally stunted and unable to adequately deal with their emotions…ah, appealing to their target audience…now I understand…)
Isn’t it true that people are giving in more and more to anguish, worry and affliction? Do you know why this is happening? It is because the world has forgotten God! (……AHAHAHA!!! No, nothing of the kind, my dear friend. It seems you have begun with the assumption of God, followed it with a shot of bald-faced assertions about the “horrors afflicting our world” and then you downed a pint of widespread Godless-ness and now you are understandably drunk from your severe lack of logical thinking.)
It was for these troubled souls – for you (yes, you!) – that the Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima, bringing the real solution from Heaven! (okay, so first you expect us to believe COMPLETELY unverified claims of the Fatima farce, then you expect us to believe that these apparitions were an attempt from someone up above to bring us a solution to problems that only exist in your head?!?)
Here is the great solution you need…
In 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima, Portugal, to three children on six occasions. After showing the children a frightening vision of Hell, She warned of terrible chastisements that would fall on the world if we did not amend our lives. (No, she didn’t. If there was even a remote possibility of this having happened, okay, fine, but there isn’t. Epic fail, my friend...hey, wait a second…I’m sorry, WHAT? She showed CHILDREN a frightening vision of HELL??!? …..WHY??!?! And WE are the ones to receive chastisement?! I think in any fair situation the “Blessed” Virgin Mary would be chastised in the form of legal proceedings for REPEATEDLY exposing children to horrific imagery in an attempt to scare the love of Jesus into them, or have I simply been perverted by the “Godless” legal system of most nearly ALL the 1st world countries…?) During each of the apparitions, Our Lady insisted that we should recite the Rosary every day. She promised that, if we heeded her requests, the problems of the world would be solved, and our own problems too. (Ah yes, now I understand. The reason double-blind, triple-checked, peer-reviewed extensive experiments with the “power” of prayer showed absolutely NO evidence in favour of positive effects resulting from prayer, was because they were praying the WRONG prayers for the WRONG reasons to the WRONG arbitrarily appointed Blessed Problem-Solver…it’s all become so clear to me now)
The benefits of praying the Rosary
Why not heed her request? You will see: praying the Rosary to Our Lady only brings advantages. (in the form of heightened expectations and a propensity to mental delusion, sure) And not to pray it is to neglect a great remedy for our own problems and those of the world. You can be sure that the Rosary is something which will profoundly change your life and the lives of your loved ones.
This is because the Rosary greatly favours union within the family, especially these days in immoral education, laws and fashions, threaten to break this union. (….it seems my “Godless” law system is to blame again. Would you like to provide some evidence of this immoral education and law you speak of?) The Rosary, recited in the family, constitutes a specific antidote to these evils. Hence the well known motto: “The family that prays together, stay together.” (…I give up…)
The Church teaches that the Rosary purifies our souls, enriches us with graces and with virtue, gives us an ardent love for Jesus Christ (clearly EVER-SO important) and is a treasure that enables us to pay our debts to God and to our fellow man. (I’m sorry but how do I owe a god who does not exist, and who I do not believe in, A SINGLE THING?)
To sum up, you will obtain all this if, out of your 24 hour day, you will take a mere 15 minutes to pray the Rosary. Why not to decide to begin right now? (probably because prayer is SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN to be simply a way to do absolutely nothing, and still think you’re making a difference i.e. it’s bloody useless! And besides, a vindictive b***h like the “Blessed” Virgin Mary who only has the grace to save the world, which is apparently within her power somehow, once she has received enough prostrations and fawning adulation does not DESERVE 15 MILLISECONDS out of my day let alone 15 minutes!)
Start today…
Even if you haven’t prayed for years, don’t worry. Now is a good time to start. And if you want something to help you to pray and meditate on the Rosary, then order your Rosary book today, and put it to use as soon as it arrives.
We will enclose a free rosary with every book ordered. Just fill out the coupon opposite, detach it and put it in the nearest post box. You don’t even need a postage stamp.
It goes on to describe how you will receive a free wooden rosary and the wonderful book containing the “15 promises” the Blessed Virgin Mary was SO kind to bestow upon us.
And as if they hadn’t had enough of the bald-faced assertions, on the reverse of one of the folded sections they have the following to present as “evidence” for the power of the Rosary….yeah, right…
Eloquent Testimonies:
Do you know that the(sic) praying the Rosary is a most efficacious means to obtain from the Blessed Virgin Mary the solution of all sorts of problems? Look at some examples:
- Family breaking up restored to harmony (NOTHING to do with prayer.)
- Woman in despair avoids suicide (NOTHING to do with prayer, and the suicidal tendencies probably had root in feelings FOSTERED by prayer and religion.)
- A young alcoholic recovers from his condition (NOTHING to do with prayer except for a placebo/crutch effect, but there MUCH are better methods than prayer for assisting in difficult situations like that.)
- The father of a family succeeds in avoiding default of mortgage (Yeah, because the Virgin Larry appeared to the bank manager, showed him a frightening vision of Hell and warned of severe chastisements if he didn’t lay off the poor pious father of five…give me a break!)
These are only a few examples among so many that could be cited. (hahaha….oh really? And how many of them exactly constitute ACTUAL evidence for the efficacy of praying the Rosary?? Sorry, what was that?)
I welcome your comments on both this piece of trash, and my evaluation of it and it’s message. Oh, and if you want a good laugh, or to induce a fit of intellectual rage upon yourself, check out the website of the people responsible for this charming little flyer, the “Irish Society for a Christian Civilisation”, http://www.isfcc.org/
Now I’m off to annoy those silly Catholics with some awkward questions and some demands looking for evidence for their ridiculous claims!
p.s. excuse the odd colour changes in the quote boxes, I had a tousle with the text editor, and no matter how I smacked it with that hammer it didn’t quite come out right. I think it will remain obvious which pieces of text are in fact my pithy derision of the Catholic faith…
Filed under: atheism, humanism, skepticism | Tagged: child abuse, roman catholic, rosary, virgin mary |
colmobri
cru5ad3r
Jason
larry1506
JohnM
peterohara
robertbennett69
stilldoubting
Sully
Mid-west Humanists - An Irish Atheist Community 
I too received this mailing, I found the reference to going to Hell for all Eternity appalling, this was directed at children, I object as strongly as other contributors. I believe this sort of material should be treated like pornography and banned on account of the harm it could do to young children.
I speak from bitter experience having suffered a Plymouth Brethren type religious indoctrination when a child and thus experiencing the damage such concepts as a “loving god” sending people to burn in hell for eternity can do when directed at young people and children.
I oppose censorship in principle but there are limits, children should be taught to think but indoctrination should wait till they are old enough to evaluate information. As a teenager I went through a phase of trying out all sorts of strange ideas, probably very healthy as by 15 or so one is able to sort out the charlatans and snake oil salesmen from the intelligent and those ideas which are worth studying.
The literature in question contained a tear off slip that was a freepost card, I tore this off with a comment to the effect I was an atheist and put my name and address on it. This way the organisation selling these books and Rosaries would have to pay the postage, I advocate doing this when ever one received unsolicited mail of this sort with tear off pre paid reply slips, (this can also be used to keep junk mail down).
Rachael Webb
Emma Goldman@eircom.net
hahaha hilarious 😀
All right, i have just wasted 10 minutes of my life that i will never get back. Having read that last will and testament of the deluded i am staggered that anyone falls for such ridiculous platitudes and manifestly-obvious false-promises. Just how could anybody be taken in by this kind of rubbish? ‘
‘The Church teaches that the Rosary purifies our souls, enriches us with graces and with virtue, gives us an ardent love for Jesus Christ’ – and their point is? We are well aware of church dogma – i fail to see the relevance even in a document as crass as this one is. How can people not see though this, really?
Nice post DJ, i enjoyed reading it earlier at work, it pretty much summed up my thoughts.
On another note – has everyone jumped aboard the Atheist Bus?
I’ve allways maintained that God et al are akin to Charles Haughey and Liam Lawlor. You know, the worst kind of corrupt politicians.
You lobby them enough and they will help you out if its in their interest to do so. If its not, then you probably deserve the cancer thats ravaging you and even if you dont deserve it if there is nothing in it for them they are happy to ignore you. Come to think of it, maybe thats why you didn’t see churches being built in all the timber frame ‘housing’ estates that popped up during the boom. How does one apply the brown envelope to God, I wonder?
All this does for me is confirm that urban dwellers have all the fun. Out in the sticks we never get comics delivered free. Nor do we get nice American young men in white shirts calling to us to engage in debate and argument.
I admire your conviction in reading through that crap. We got one as well, but it never made it beyond the bin. It will capture the target-audience though. Poor, vulnerable, generally older people who don’t know any better. It’s both disgusting and sad.
Fantastic! This is exactly the kind of lunacy I find hilarious. Hilarious until you think about the paper wasted to print this tripe. And the minds polluted enough to produce it… Maybe it isn’t so hilarious…