For the last few days the pope’s visit at the Weltjugendtag in Cologne is dominating German speaking media. If you look at how the participants celebrate “the vicar of Peter”, you’d almost believe that The Beatles are on tour again… I even did see a laola wave on TV! What were this guys chanting while doing this? I suppose something along the lines of “Give me an I! I! Give me a N! N! … So what’s the word? INQUISITION! Horray!” would have done the trick. When I saw all this religious hysteria, I nearly got afraid that in some years time secularism will only be a fond memory and creationists will try to take over the European school system…. Finally I found a link to this platform in teemow’s blog, which tells me that I’m not the only one who thinks that the enlightenment was one of the better episodes in recent human history… Or maybe I just haven’t seen the light, and the pope is here to reinstall Edmund Stoiber as emperor by God’s grace, after which millions of Germans will do laola waves, singing “habemus papam” and “Wir sind Papst!”. And in the digital age, Canossa is only an election pledge away…

Note: I really respect religion and people’s religious believes, as long as those people in return respect my agnostic and critical approach to religion. Believe in anything you want, be it God, Buddha, Krishna or some stones in the desert. I really couldn’t care less, but don’t try to force your believes on me and try to stay in touch with recent (e.g. no older than say, 200 years) scientific developments.