January 05, 2006

Idiot of the Year

Well, we haven't even gotten a full week into 2006 and the Idiot of the Year has already reared his ugly head. There may be bigger idiots as the year goes on, but I certainly don't see how at this point.

This idiot makes the ACLU look almost tame by comparison as he attempts to fell the entire Catholic Church in one fatal blow. Luigi Cascioli of Italy has decided to try and force the Italian court system to prove that Jesus never existed.

"I started this lawsuit because I wanted to deal the final blow against the Church, the bearer of obscurantism and regression," Cascioli told Reuters.

"The Church constructed Christ upon the personality of John of Gamala," Cascioli claimed, referring to the 1st century Jew who fought against the Roman army.

Now, I'm no lawyer, but I seem to see a TON of loopholes here. First and foremost being that even a large number of athiests admit that Jesus was a real person. They don't necessarily attribute any diety to Him, but they do admit his existence. Heck, even Muslims go that far. It would seem to me that you're going to have an extraordinarily hard time convincing a judge of ANY stripe to conclusively rule that Jesus never existed.

Secondly, you're going to have just as hard a time trying to find a judge that will label the entire Catholic Church as a giant "pyramid scheme." That's just ludicrous to begin with. The public fallout of such a decision would be disasterous. Not to mention the political hornet's nest you'd open up.

Yes, I know there have been specific churches that have been called up on charges of fraud and other such activities. I have never denied that there are some corrupt pastors who use God to make money. But I'd think if you're going to target an entire religion, you might want to start with one that everyone (except Tom Cruise) recognizes as a scam. Even L. Ron Hubbard admitted that Scientology is nothing but a joke.

At least the Italian court is attempting to do the right thing. According to the story, the judge had tried several times to dismiss the case, but only ends up getting tangled up in appeals from the plaintiff. I'm fairly sure of the outcome of this idiot's case, but I'll have to follow the story closely anyway to make sure.