PZ Myers. 2006 Jan 07. State-approved insanity. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/state_approved_insanity/>. Accessed 2006 Feb 13.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Saturday, January 07, 2006

State-approved insanity

The Wall Street Journal has just reported that three Christian ministers claim to have snuck into a Senate hearing room in order to anoint the chairs that will be used for Samuel Alito's confirmation hearing next week.

"We did adequately apply oil to all the seats," the Rev. Rob Schenck tells the Journal. Schenck and his colleagues insisted that they aren't taking sides in the confirmation fight. But Schenck said that God is "interested" in "what goes on" in Alito's confirmation process.

The title "Reverend" is carried by a lot of lunatics, isn't it?

I have a hard time imagining a Lord of the Universe who whispers into the ears of the Three Stooges that they ought to go grease up a couple of chairs to lubricate the approval process for his chosen wingnut. It's almost as hard to imagine that these kooks have congregations that respect and follow them…

(via Mike the Mad Biologist)

Posted by PZ Myers on 01/07 at 11:43 AM
Godlessness • Politics • Rethuglicans • 2 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. "We did adequately apply oil to all the seats."

    That's the bit that gets me. Would it have been possible to put an insufficient amount of oil on these seats? Enough oil to make it a bit slippery, but not enough to allow the power of the Almightly Lord to manifest properly?

    What's the whole point of this action? (Other than flaunting one's self-rightousness, of course.) Do these priests think that God is standing up on a cloud looking down at the room and shouting, "I can't hear what's going on! You'll have to cover everything in oil first."
    #: Posted by Narc  on  01/07  at  11:07 AM
  2. Or that the All-Powerful, Omnipotent Master of the Cosmos really, really wants Sam Alito on the Supreme Court, but he's not going to allow it unless there's a dab of grease in the right spot.

    It's useful information to have. God is powerless against soap.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  01/07  at  11:16 AM
  3. One is reminded of Ambrose Bierce's definition of "anoint": to grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
    #: Posted by Jonathan Badger  on  01/07  at  11:16 AM
  4. I'm watching a show which has to do with fascinating old european art. It's really a shame that so much talent and beauty is linked to such a stupid and irrational mythology.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  11:21 AM
  5. Maybe it's sabotage? You can't confirm the guy if he keeps sliding out of the chair!
    #: Posted by Jeremy Henty  on  01/07  at  11:30 AM
  6. This is a terrifying peek into the human brain's power to compartmentalize reality, suspend rationality, and resist reason.

    If these clowns really believe this, why don't we prosecute them for interfering with official Senate business? Is this any different than (say) spraying Anthrax on the microphones of senators opposed to Alioto?

    Suppose I now feel that they have deprived me of my constitutional right to have my senator give unbiased advice and consent, and so I organize a gang of godless thugs to go spray oil on their churches?
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  11:34 AM
  7. "and so I organize a gang of godless thugs to go spray oil on their churches?"

    Not oil! Soap! That would prevent their prayers from being heard! Muhahahaha!
    As PZ deduced, soap is the Divine Kryptonite!
    #: Posted by Jonathan Badger  on  01/07  at  11:38 AM
  8. Funny thing is, if Alito is not confirmed, these same idiots will just explain that it was not God's will. Blessed if you do, blessed if you don't, I guess.
    #: Posted by Don  on  01/07  at  11:47 AM
  9. Oh, and by the way:

    "SNUCK INTO a Senate hearing room"??!?

    Great to see that Homeland Security is alive and well.
    WTF?!
    #: Posted by Don  on  01/07  at  11:49 AM
  10. if Alito is not confirmed, these same idiots will just explain that it was not God's will.

    Having access to the Almighty I am well positioned to tell the three reverends that, no, this conclusion would be colossally, tragically wrong. If Alito isn't confirmed, it's because they used the wrong oil. And nothing provokes the Almighty's wrath like the wrong oil. The reverends can look forward to a warm eternity...

    As for the rest of you, if you need to anoint any senate seats, I'd recommend you go with either raspberry-walnut oil or else Pennzoil 10W-30. Both are usually a safe bet.
    #: Posted by Mrs Tilton  on  01/07  at  12:08 PM
  11. Although if it is a senator from one of our colder northern states, an oil with a lower viscosity, like 0W-30 or 5W-30, is recommended.
    #: Posted by PZ Myers  on  01/07  at  12:20 PM
  12. What about PAM? Would that work? Far fewer calories than oil.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  12:29 PM
  13. I snuck in and wiped a bunch of boogers under Alito's chair. Snotacula, the Booger Deity, is also interested in Alito's nomination.

    Snotacula hates Alito because Alito picks his nose after he wipes his ass without washing his hands first.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  12:55 PM
  14. I notice it doesn't say what kind of oil they applied to those seats. Olive oil? Mineral oil? Preparation H?
    #: Posted by Mark Nutter  on  01/07  at  01:13 PM
  15. This posting has been linked on http://www.fark.com so I hope your server is up to the task.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  01:17 PM
  16. a lower viscosity, like 0W-30 or 5W-30, is recommended

    See, this is why I so appreciate having A Scientist in my (virtual) acquaintance. I'd had no idea there was an official motor-oil taxonomy, nor that it could matter how cold the weather was! I saw 'Pennzoil 10W-40' on a website, and thought it was a brand name.

    Up till now, I've just poured the occasional bottle of oil into the motor. It's worked pretty well so far, but maybe faith-based auto maintenance isn't, in the long run, such a good idea. In future I shall have to pay the extra money and go to the full-service line. 'Top it up, my man, and put in some oil as well... whatever's appropriate to the season'. (I can't just say 10W-40 or 0W-30, though, as oil over here is probably called something different. Metric system and all, you know. What can I say -- my ride is French!
    #: Posted by Mrs Tilton  on  01/07  at  01:30 PM
  17. Maybe they are hoping that if an atheist sits in one of the oily chairs, he or she will burst into flames?
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  01:51 PM
  18. I wonder if they used Crisco? It worked for Ashcroft!
    #: Posted by No More Mr. Nice Guy!  on  01/07  at  02:07 PM
  19. Imagine the frustration experienced by god, the almighty supreme being who created the universe, if these puds had failed in their covert op and the chairs had been left with insufficient oil for him to exert his will over the confirmation hearings. He would have had to sit at home, as helpless as any other omnipotent being who didn't have sufficiently applied oil to control a hearing, trying to pop another blood vessel in Ariel Shron's brain. Poor god.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:21 PM
  20. Hmm. Do we know if this guy is a dove or a hawk? I mean, it would be really inappropriate to use oil from an olive branch, instead of gun oil, if he is a hawk right?

    This thread is cracking me up. lol
    #: Posted by Kagehi  on  01/07  at  02:32 PM
  21. Ahh, the next step in Christian World Domination : Geurilla Conversion.

    <Darwinist>: So In conclusion, I think we should...
    <SoldierForTheBigGuy>: Gotcha! That chair was blessed with Chrism - You're a Christian now, Brother! Step over to our side of the debate!
    <Darwinist>: Oh. You got me. Well, lets get ID on the curriculum and tattoo all the queers, then.
    <SFTBG>: Really?
    <DWNST>: No, you idiot, not really. By the way, you owe me drycleaning for these pants.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:35 PM
  22. I used to anoint the lecture table in the Pharmacy auditorium at my university.

    If by "anoint" you mean sneak in after hours, lie on it, and jerk off.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:44 PM
  23. Maybe with the threat of hellfire you need a nice nonflammable oil. It can't possibly be more toxic than the ideology.
    #: Posted by decrepitoldfool  on  01/07  at  02:45 PM
  24. “The title "Reverend" is carried by a lot of lunatics, isn't it?”

    Blasphemous lunatics at that. In the entire Bible, the word “reverend” in any form appears exactly once, in Psalms, as a name of God. It’s a form of blasphemy for any human to take that title for him/herself (let alone to try to “improve on it” with such adjectives as “Right Reverend” or “Most Reverend” or “Most Right Reverend” — if God’s Name is merely ”reverend and holy” [and we are specifically forbidden to call any human “holy”], how dare any mortal who presumes to be on the side of God aggrandize unto himself a loftier title!?), or to permit anyone to call him that, or to call any one else by that title.

    Any Christian sect that calls its ministers by that title is automatically wrong and evil, for that reason alone.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:56 PM
  25. I'm sure it was olive oil, and I think we should leave out a nice focaccia. The FSM may stop by too, and I think it would be cute to run with the Itallian theme
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  03:09 PM
  26. Is this any different than (say) spraying Anthrax on the microphones of senators opposed to Alioto?

    Yes, putting oil on a chair is different from putting anthrax on a microphone to acheive an outcome. I don't think I have to list the reasons why.

    If these clowns really believe this, why don't we prosecute them for interfering with official Senate business?

    Might have to have some proof that God is going to intervene because of it. That's gonna' be tough. Unless more directly the oil causes somebody to slip and fall ... but then they shouldn't be standing on the chair now should they? ;)
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  03:09 PM
  27. Anybody know whether they lubed all the seats, or just those of the Senators bringing their Baby Jesus Buttplugs?
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  03:39 PM
  28. My thoughts went exactly as did SKR's--how is this admission less threatening than if someone had admitted spreading anthrax or aerosolized smallpox? Are these three nutbars going to be locked up for the duration of the Alito hearings?

    Un-freaking believable.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  04:20 PM
  29. Olive oil would indicate that the reverends (reverendi?) were Pastafarians and the diety in question was the Flying Spaghetti Monster. More likely it was an oil like palm or peanut or possibly wingnut oil.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  05:40 PM
  30. While this stuff with the oil might sound like a "fringe" activity, this practice has been quietly spreading among churches and church-associated groups and was promoted by National Association of Evangelicals head Ted Haggard in his ten year old book, "Primary Purpose," about his experiences driving all the sane people out of Colorado Springs:

    "Two weeks later Bob and a group of young men were in our sanctuary on a Friday night praying over a five-gallon metal bucket of cooking oil. 'We asked God what to do, and He told us to anoint the city with oil,' Bob explained. 'We've seen people go forward and get a drop of oil on their foreheads, so for the city we got a pump-up garden sprayer to take out with us when we pray."

    So now at least one student evangelical group at a large state university is quite proud of how they're running around campus spraying oil all over the place with squirt guns.
    #: Posted by Mike Doughney  on  01/07  at  05:47 PM
  31. Hey leave them alone! Anointing with oil is a way the bible condons for reciving God's blessing. We want Men of honor and principle in positions of power and we need God's blessing to got them there.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  07:53 PM
  32. Alvin,

    Yes we want men of honor and principal in positions of power, but a thorough confirmation process is how to get them there. Putting oil on seats only gets you oily seats.

    All I ask is that you use the brain you have in your head and think.

    ...darth
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  08:16 PM
  33. I think this post explains how the holy oil works:

    http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/?p=39
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  08:33 PM
  34. Isn't God supposed to be all powerful?

    Why would he need these nincompoops preparing the scene?
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  09:05 PM
  35. Why would he need these nincompoops preparing the scene?

    Maybe God's pussy is dry.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  09:14 PM
  36. I am waiting for them to start marching around the building seven times praying and playing horns. It worked for Joshua!

    Why is it that people who do these kinds of things aren't locked up for their own good in some sort of home where they can make pictures of god with Zooroni and not bother anyone?
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  09:21 PM
  37. I am waiting for them to start marching around the building seven times praying and playing horns. It worked for Joshua!

    Having watched a bunch of shofar-blowing kids from Operation Rescue do exactly that in a Barnes and Noble parking lot (not kidding), I can assure you that they'd have already done this around government buildings, except for the fact that their aim is not to destroy the government but to take it over for their own ends. So you don't quite see them doing the Joshua thing, it shakes out more in the direction of 24/7 obsession through prayer like the JHOP group situated a block away from the Capitol.
    #: Posted by Mike Doughney  on  01/07  at  09:35 PM
  38. Q: How many queers does it take to change a light bulb?

    A: Two. And a bottle of Mazola® oil . . .

    The clergy's proclivities having been so thoroughly outed in recent days and years, I've no doubt at all which oil it was they used. And on the seats no less . . .
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  11:44 PM
  39. I doubt anyone can "sneak" into the Senate.

    What I want to know is who let these freaks in there and why aren't they being prosecuted?
    #: Posted by Mike Richard  on  01/08  at  02:42 AM
  40. If the seats were leather, then they should have been getting "oiled" regularly anyway to keep them supple. Similarly the lecture bench if it was wood - except the usual term is "polish".

    One chemistry teacher remarked to my parents on how odd it was to have had three successive children from the same family who had each been the ones in the class who comprehended the need for, and were competent at, the scrubbing down and re-polishing of the lab benches. The missing information with which he was then enlightened was that our house had extensive polished wooden flooring. So all of us had repeatedly experienced the clean-up process.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  04:24 AM
  41. Guidance
    Divination
    Level: Cleric 0, Druid 0
    Components: V, S,M (holy anointment oil)
    Casting Time: 1 standard action
    Range: Touch
    Target: Creature touched by anointment oil
    Duration: 1 minute or until discharged
    Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
    Spell Resistance: Yes

    This spell imbues the subject with a touch of divine guidance. The creature gets a +1 competence bonus on a single attack roll, saving throw, or skill check. It must choose to use the bonus before making the roll to which it applies.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  07:07 AM
  42. You guys break my heart. Doesn't anybody believe in God anymore?
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  09:11 AM
  43. The god fundie loons like this believe in is a disgusting piss-ant sadist who in the real world would wind up in prison for torturing and murdering his children.

    Such a being is unworthy of notice, let alone worship.

    No, I do not believe in such a "god", and I mock the antics of the deluded fan club that created it just as I mock the less-murderous antics of the Manson Family.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  09:41 AM
  44. How do we know it wasn't to the great god of Big Oil? This god has much power over the current administration. Maybe it was a light grade domestic crude that was used.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  10:44 AM
  45. KY Jelly would have been much better lube than even Pennzoil for the Divine Shaft of Approval! What were they thinkin'?

    That is truly hilarious.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  11:35 AM
  46. They'd better hope they got the right oil or maybe they'll see their supporters needing to use their hands to avoid slipping off their chairs and unable to vote.

    Humor aside... what if next time someone says they're anointing the seats, they're actually planting a bomb? Somebody on the security staff obviously supports these wackos, and that's scary.
    #: Posted by jay denari  on  01/08  at  11:38 AM
  47. The association the godders did between oiling seats and lubricating the approval process is (ugh!) - associal.

    Mrs,
    "I can't just say 10W-40 or 0W-30, though, as oil over here is probably called something different. Metric system and all, you know."

    I am not a car expert, but there seems to be at least two tribologic systems for car engine oil, SAE and ISO classing. The numbers you mention are SAE classes. They are still used in at least some metric countries instead of ISO, though ISO would supposedly connect better to the SI system.

    Alas, you must still have faith, in your automechanic, if you don't learn enough to supervise the refill...
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  11:43 AM
  48. The title "Reverend" is carried by a lot of lunatics, isn't it?

    Hey! I didn't spend five minutes to fill in all the fields necessary for this ordination to be lumped in with crackpots and loons.

    I did it so that I could marry cats to each other, thank you very much.

    -The Rev. Schmitt.
    #: Posted by The Rev. Schmitt.  on  01/08  at  12:21 PM
  49. You guys break my heart. Doesn't anybody believe in God anymore?

    Which god?

    I did it so that I could marry cats to each other, thank you very much.

    You've become ordained and you don't even want to form a cult or anything? Yeesh, seems like a waste to me....
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  12:32 PM
  50. This post might be of interest - scroll down for Ye Olde Holy Oil Original Recipe from Chapter 30 of Exodus. Other comments explain the significance of "anointing with oil."
    Why are so few concerned that the three "reverends" had easy access to the Senate chamber?

    http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/1/6/103519/9115
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  12:47 PM
  51. You've become ordained and you don't even want to form a cult or anything? Yeesh, seems like a waste to me....

    I take my vocation too seriously and have too much responsibility. The sanctity of Mr and Mrs Coco Pop's marriage would be forever tarnished if I started a heathen religion.

    -The Rev. Schmitt.
    #: Posted by The Rev. Schmitt.  on  01/08  at  01:08 PM
  52. I just love the idea of them entering the room to find a plate of noodles had miraculously appeared on each chair...
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  01:20 PM
  53. Gene Scott had harsh words for lots of people. It was one of his many endearing traits.

    Back to the main topic, I second or third the request for an investigation into this security breach.
    #: Posted by just john  on  01/08  at  01:45 PM
  54. You (US) have "State-approved insanity" and we (UK) have state-approved paedophilia:
    http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-storypage.jsp?id=1589958
    NB Ruth Kelly is another of the religious fundamentalists, specifically a member of Opus Dei, in the current Blair government - which has been selling off schools (and thus children's education) to creationists, at knock-down prices.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  07:54 PM
  55. Somehow, I find it semi-relevant to note that the news that I can see only says that they CLAIMED to have snuck into the hearing room. Though frankly, I can't quite figure out which would be crazier, actually doing it, or stating to the press, with a straight face, that you did it. Perhaps one of us should release a press release saying that we snuck in afterwards and unanointed them. Then the war or words would *really* start. "Well then we came back and anointed them twice!" "Oh yeah, then we un-anointed them twice!" "We anointed them infinity times!" "INFINITY PLUS ONE!"

    Either way, they should be investigated, of course. And, ideally, sent to counseling.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  07:59 PM
  56. This story takes a new twist when one takes into account that the "fragrant cane" mentioned in the Old Testament recipe for anointing oil in Exodus 30:23, keneh bosem in Hebrew, was quite likely cannabis, and not calamus.
    #: Posted by  on  01/09  at  02:37 AM
  57. Prof. Myers wrote,
    "It's useful information to have. God is powerless against soap."

    It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "The Great Unwashed."

    Sorry, I couldn't resist.

    Cheers,
    #: Posted by  on  01/09  at  07:26 AM
  58. It's all creepily reminiscent of other ways of influencing outcomes--specifically, if a woman is having a hard time giving birth in some places in Africa, helpful souls pack her vulva with cow dung to let the infant know that its father is rich and it's safe to emerge.
    #: Posted by  on  01/11  at  11:09 AM