This doesn't appear to be a church for those that worship Tom Jones. Instead, it's just a church for those who enjoy listening to Tom Jones music (I think the former would have been slightly more interesting). Also, I don't think it's a joke. Or maybe it is, and I don't get it. Pastor Jack, the guy who runs the church, seems to have been spooking around for quite a while. He boasts that in 1997 he was voted Strangest Person in America. That would be something to put on a resume. (via Holy Weblog)

The auction of a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary has been pulled from eBay. The sandwich was put up for sale by Diana Duyser who claims that in the ten years since she made the sandwich and took one bite out of it (before noticing the face of the Virgin), it has miraculously never grown any mold. eBay pulled the auction because it claims that it doesn't allow joke listings (that's news to me). Looking at the sandwich, I can definitely see a face, but it doesn't look like the Virgin Mary. To me it looks more like a movie star from the 30s or 40s. Myrna Loy, perhaps. She should have said it was haunted. Would have been no problems then, because eBay definitely allows haunted stuff.
Update: Here's another virgin mary sandwich on eBay.
Update 2: And here's the original Virgin Mary Sandwich, back up for sale. Most of the bidding must still be a hoax, because who's really going to pay $69,000 for an old cheese sandwich?

Sometimes I wonder how much the Ananova news service can be trusted, especially when I come across stories like this. Apparently a new church has opened in a shopping mall in Chile and has forged some unusual ties with local businesses. For instance, confessing your sins at the church will score you a coupon that you can use at the nearby McDonald's (hopefully your sins don't include gluttony). And the person who prays the loudest wins a discount at the Dockers store. It's so weird it has to be true.

The British government's decision to ban hunting is encountering stiff opposition from pro-hunting groups. While I was over there this issue was constantly on the news (especially when a group of hunting advocates managed to disrupt a session of the House of Commons). But now British hunting enthusiasts have adopted a novel defense of their pasttime. They've formed the Free Church of Country Sports, which is an ecumenical group that views hunting as a form of worship. Therefore, they claim, a ban on hunting would violate their religious rights. They're also arguing that a hunting ban would be racially discriminatory since, as this article puts it, "those who take part in country sports are sufficiently culturally different to be considered a social group with an ethnic identity." So far, the British government doesn't seem to be buying these arguments. But then, it was also slow to recognize Jedi-ism as a religion, wasn't it?

Since I fall into the demographic group of cynical, urban, over-educated, non-church-goers, when I saw this site urging people to 'Fast for George W' I chuckled and assumed it had to be some kind of joke. But no. It doesn't seem to be a joke. The aim of the site is to organize people "to fast and pray for the holiness of President George W. Bush." Okey Dokey. It even urges people to "please take this seriously" (they must get a lot of people like me snickering at them). As weird as the idea seems to be, I suppose it can't hurt. Maybe it could even be expanded to include 'Wear a Hairshirt for George W' or 'Self-Flagellation for Bipartisanship'. (via J-Walk)

Despite what you may have heard, South Africa hasn't cancelled Christmas. The South Africa Sunday Times ran a headline warning that the government was thinking of cancelling Christmas, since there were too many public holidays already and Christmas couldn't be considered off-limits considering the country's numerous religions. But the Home Affairs Minister has reassured the public that such reports are a hoax.

Once upon a time it required years of study to become a minister. Then it got a bit easier when all you had to do was respond to an ad in the back of a magazine. But now, thanks to the internet, becoming a minister is dead easy. Just go to the website of the Universal Life Church and in five minutes you'll have the right to be referred to as Reverend. I think I actually became a ULC minister years ago (back when you had to send away for the form) because a friend signed me up as a joke. According to the Contra Costa Times, the ULC has ordained 18 million ministers since 1959. But the article warns that becoming a minister doesn't make your income nontaxable, though it does give you the right to marry people or exorcise demons. Interestingly, 90-95% of the people who sign up as ULC ministers identify themselves as Christians.

Most people have probably heard that old urban legend about a guy who shares a drink with a stranger at a bar and then wakes up in a bathtub full of ice the next morning without a kidney... the victim of kidney harvesters. But the following case is almost the exact opposite. Members of the 'Jesus Christians' cult are lying and scheming in order to get rid of their kidneys, even though the medical authorities don't want them. The leader of the cult, Dave McKay, encourages his followers to donate their kidneys. He considers the donation to be a kind of sacrifice to Christ. The problem is that Australia, where the cult is based, doesn't allow kidney donations from strangers because they don't want to encourage a black market in organs. Therefore the Jesus Christians are resorting to deception in order to fob off their kidneys. So what would happen if you shared a drink with a stranger in a bar... who turned out to be a Jesus Christian? I don't even want to think about it.

I suppose this is no different than thinking that the Virgin Mary has appeared in a stain on a hospital window or flocking to see a weeping statue of Mary, but somehow it seems even more bizarre. For the past two weeks hundreds of Muslims have been making a pilgrimage to a West German University Clinic to see the Messiah being breastfed by his dead mother. They've been drawn there by a rumor spread via Turkish websites. According to the rumor, a Muslim woman died while giving birth to Allah's chosen son. She was buried, but later dug up (why?) and found to still be alive, although her entire body was burned except for her breasts. Allah ordered her to breast-feed the Messiah, and then die again forty days later (wasn't there a James Bond movie with a title like that?). A clinic spokesman told the media that people have been coming from as far away as the Netherlands, and that the clinic eventually had to call in security guards to turn away some of the people who refused to believe that the Messiah wasn't there. No one can find the original internet posting that sparked this whole crazy thing, but the rumor has been discussed on turkdunya.de where one person reportedly claimed to have seen the Messiah's mother. (thanks to Big Gary for sending me a link about this... Gary, this story does appear to be true, so I guess people will believe anything)

Back in October 2001 the prestigious Journal of Reproductive Medicine published an article titled "Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization–Embryo Transfer?" (the journal appears to have removed this article from its server). The apparent answer to the question posed in the title was 'Yes!' In other words, empirical research appeared to demonstrate that praying could help infertile women conceive. So tough luck if you were an infertile atheist. But a recent article in The Observer reveals that this prayer study was nothing more than a sham. The author of the article, Daniel Wirth, is a serial con-artist, now living under house arrest in California, who possesses no scientific credentials whatsoever. It boggles the mind why the JRM ever published something like this. As Bob Carroll of the Skeptic's Dictionary points out, never mind that the research was fraudulent. The entire premise of it was self-contradictory. He notes:
If prayer works by influencing God to influence the outcome of an experiment, then God can interfere with the laws of nature at any time. If God can interfere with the laws of nature at any time, then no controlled, double-blind study can be sure of the meaning of whatever outcome results. Any result could be the result of direct influence by God. In other words, the assumption the study is based on is self-defeating. No science at all would be possible if God could be interfering with the laws of nature at will. Science requires a backdrop of lawfulness in Nature in order to discover any causal connection between anything and anything else.

Just last night I added a new feature to the site: a discussion forum (I'm calling it the Hoax Forum) where people can post questions or info about new hoaxes they've found. I figure this will be better than having everyone email me stuff like this directly, since the email just sits unanswered in my inbox for ages. And already, on the first day of the forum's existence, someone has posted something good. Rachel Hurley found Fluids for Christ, which claims to be a blood bank for Christian fluid donations. After all, what good Christian would want to receive heathen blood? The site is almost believable (there are Christian Credit Agencies and Christian Pharmacies, so why not Christian Blood Banks?), until you start looking through it and it begins to become obviously silly, such as when they start describing their "Christpherization methods" of separating out the Christian components of blood.

Karl Marx did say that religion is the opium of the masses. Well, now it's also a direct supplier of Prozac, Wellbutrin, and Zoloft. Yes, you can get all this and more over at JesusChristRx.com. You can even order up a whole bunch of cheap Viagra from the Son of God himself, if that's your thing. I really don't know what to make of the site. It appears to be a genuine online pharmacy. The Presurfer (whose site I found the link at) notes that it's some kind of knock-off of ChicagoRx.biz. If you click on the About Us link, it even describes itself as Chicago Rx. I suspect JesusChristRx is simply yet another attempt to doll up a business for the Fundamentalist crowd by slapping a Christian label on it... even if the business has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Kind of like the Christian Debt Removers site I stumbled upon last week.