Flying Spaghetti Monster as Official Religion in Austria?

Remember Mr. Alm of Austria who won the right to wear a colander on his head (as an authentic religious hat) for his driver's license in Austria?

He was subjected to a medical exam, but eventually he got his photo with the colander on his head on his driver's license, but he's not done yet.

Hullabaloo reports that Alm now wants to apply for "Pastafarianism to become an officially recognised faith in Austria."

Religious Bullying on the Increase

An article by Walter Rodgers in The Christian Science Monitor reveals the extent of bullying by religious zealots around the world. Aggressive and even violent actions against nonbelievers are taking place wherever there exists a minority of people who don't conform to the religious proscriptions of the majority.

In northwest Pakistan, the killing of journalists is sanctioned if those journalists don't follow strict theocratic codes.

In Jerusalem, nonobservant Jews and gentiles risk being cursed at, pelted with stones or spit upon if they pass through the orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim.

In Palestinian territories, Christian women are taunted and threatened for wearing crosses.

In the US, high school students in the Bible Belt report being verbally assaulted by "God Squads" who demand that their fellow students agree with their beliefs.

In one Florida school district, a group of students is suing school officials for creating "a coercive environment in promoting their personal religious beliefs."

In other news, we learn that Christians are no longer welcome in Iraq.

"I hope to leave for any other place in the world," said Sheeran Surkon, a 27-year-old Iraqi woman who fled to Syria in 2004 after she received death threats, her father disappeared and her beauty salon was blown up. She now awaits resettlement to another country, saying she can't tolerate the violence and new Muslim conservatism in Iraq.

Hypocrisy Report

ABC News reports:

Those states that ... consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption....

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.

Religion in Polls

A Gallup poll reports that two-thirds of Americans think that religion is losing influence on the lives of residents of the United States - an increase from three years ago when Americans were evenly split on the same question.

67% now think that religious influence is decreasing and 27% think it is still increasing.

Idiot Knocked Down by a Spirit

A Tennessee man sued his church for $2.5 million, claiming someone should have been there to catch him when he collapsed in religious ecstasy.

Matthew Lincoln, 58, says that after his minister, Robert Lavala of Lakewind Church, annointed his forehead, Lincoln "received the spirit and fell backward," hitting his head on the "carpet-covered cement floor."

The fall allegedly exacerbated a pre-existing spinal condition.

Timely Quote

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -Blaise Pascal quoted in the London Daily Telegraph. (Corrected attribution, thanks to Bean."