A few days ago, I celebrated September 9th, 2009 by recording a second bonus podcast (since the original one was lost forever), and spent most of the day reading for new material to talk about for future shows. The date had no real significance to the vast majority of the planet, but for Jose Marc Flores Pereira, it was a special day. He had received a revelation from God that Mexico would suffer from a terrible earthquake, so he did the only thing he could think of: he made a fake bomb with a bunch of juice cans and hijacked an Boeing 737.

Father Pereira was convinced the date, 09/09/09 would signify the presence of the devil (since upside down the numbers would read 666), and he wanted to hijack the plane in order to get an audience with the Mexican president to urge him to preach the gospel from Mexico City’s central square.

Pereira’s wife admits the dude has “psychological problems”, which at least explains why this former singer and drug addict is allowed to go around preaching insane stories of virgin births, resurrections, and worldwide floods.

His family doesn’t sound like they are very helpful. His mother was aware of his plans, and because he claimed to be divinely ordained by God to do this, she let him go with her blessing. So an insane lunatic was allowed to carry out his plan with the full compliance of his family because his religion masked his deep psychological issues. The amount of times mental illness goes unreported because of religion is too numerous to count, and until we admit such beliefs are indicative of psychological disorders, these kinds of stories will keep happening. This guy needs help, not religion.

Religious devotees are so much more righteous than us lowly atheists, don’t you agree? How else can you explain the fact they are less likely to commit a crime, have a divorce, or abuse drugs. Oh wait, that’s actually the opposite, but hey, who’s counting?

The latest story of delicious impropriety on the part of the faithful comes from Compton, where Rev. E. Joshua Sims has been arrested after he was suspected of embezzling almost a million dollars from the Double Rock Baptist Church. He also threatened some of the church members who had begun to question his finances, during his sermons (for some suicidal reason).

Hey, don’t be so surprised when your beloved pastor ends up being a con man, people. Has there ever been a sweeter con than religion? Guys like Peter Popoff and Jim Bakker know full well the financial gains one can achieve from tricking the faithful. They would practically sell their kidneys on the black market if they thought they could be closer to God as a result.

Human beings are mostly confused, superstitious idiots who are easily shepherded by individuals that have only their own self interest at heart. I think it’s time people stop blindly trusting those who claim to hold a special place with God; they tend to either scam you out of your money, molest your kids, or both!