The end of the wicked old Mormons, By Mark Morford

This is the good news: many of the world's most powerful, hurtful, wretched old men will soon be dead.

Does that sound cruel? Unkind? I might be OK with that. In fact, I might very much be in the mood to not really mind at all if a whole slew of these nefarious creatures of sociospiritual corrosion were to, say, spontaneously combust, or be struck by lightning, or perhaps accidentally fall into a giant, roiling vat of Astroglide and turpentine and a million duplicitous prayers. Whoops! Sorry, Monsignor!

It was one of those calm revelations, a heartwarming insight that came to me on wings of ironic angels lo these past number of weeks, as a foul parade of rich, pale monsters of modern culture passed through the particle beams of my Villain Detector, nearly setting it ablaze.

There was Pope "Sometimes I condone child rape" Benedict, trailed by his pallid cadre of attendant bishops -- apologists and deniers, liars and prevaricators, each and every one. ...

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and that is the crop of Dispensationalist televangelists who arose to con Reagan and take advantage of Millennial Fever. They're old, their kids are interested in their empires mainly as cash cows, and few of them will be mourned. The men who want to take their places are but pallid imitations.

One thing that kept me an atheist was that none of them was ever turned into a smoking pair of Bruno Maglis by a well aimed bolt of lightning. Any god worthy of the name would have had that first on his list, along with a few well placed tornadoes.

I wonder if he's ever given thought to writing a book. That would be one I'd have to read. Visions of fear and loathing comes to mind.

"Translation: To the old, powerful men of the various churches and archaic institutions, to those that hold us back and demean the spirit in a thousands different ways, the message is clear enough: You will be gone very soon, right along with much of the enormous black cloud of fear and joylessness you carry. "