This is Your Brain on Paganism

With World Youth Day in full force in Germany, a small bunch of yahoos called the Committee for Pagan Fun turns out to protest the "invasion." I was going to provide some commentary to the following excerpts, but the stupidity contained therein is pretty self evident.

The Committee, made up of artists, psychologists, philosophers, pacifists, atheists and people who do not identify with any religion, has organised marches against World Youth Day, whose events stretch through Sunday.

The Committee also complains that one denomination has temporarily taken over this city on the banks of the Rhine, and to a lesser extent the nearby Düsseldorf and Bonn.

"Cologne has been invaded by an army of sanctimonious people," said theologian Michael Schmidt Salomón, spokesman for the Committee.

"With our religion-free zones, we want to offer asylum to all of those who feel persecuted by this state-sponsored 'holiness'," he told IPS.

(...)

"The Church is an old, wrinkled, obsolete dinosaur," said sculptor Jacques Tilly, who created a float of a dinosaur wearing a crown and watching over a flock of sheep.

"I don't want to insult any Christians, but I want to show that we are also still here," he added.

(...)

"I already did the paperwork for dropping out of the Church. I'm not going to continue backing causes that I don't believe in," Sven, a young history teacher, told IPS.