Saw this all over the place:

Well, another Pasco County substitute teacher’s job is on the line, but this time it’s because of a magic trick.

The charge from the school district — Wizardry!

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers.  He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue.  You can’t take any more assignments.  You need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’  ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Yep.  Wizardry. You read that right.

Yesterday, Rachel wrote a post describing how, after reading ‘Mere Christianity’ by C.S. Lewis, she finally understood how it was possible for an intelligent, rational person to also be a practicing Christian.  Naturally, this led to a troll showing up in her comment section, who decided that it was time to bash Christianity, labeling all Christians as “stupid”.  Since I know a fair number of honest, intelligent, rational Christians, I want to be perfectly clear about something - I know that Christianity isn’t stupid.  It’s not my milieu, it’s not what forms the basis of my morals or my approach to life, but I respect those that choose to practice it.  Even so, it’s stories like this, or when a small sub-sect of Christianity decides to rewrite school curriculum to inject theology into science classes, that make a lot of normally intelligent, rational people flip their lids about Christianity and religious people in general.  Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of atheist asshole wackos out there, too; that guy who was using his daughter to sue the school district because they “made” her say the Pledge of Allegiance (it has ‘God’ in it!) a few years back would be my first example.  However, if you’re finding that atheists are a little testy and defensive about religion and Christianity, if not openly hostile, well… it’s because of stories like this.  It’s because, somewhere in the United States - not Iran, not Iraq, not Pakistan, not Kyrgyzuzbekiturkmenichechenyastan, but the actual bona-fide land of freedom and opportunity, the one country on the entire Earth that was founded with modern Enlightenment principles in mind, it is still possible to get fired for wizardry.  C’mon… really?  Didn’t we get past this in the late 17th century after some teenagers figured out they could convince all of the adults to kill each other if they pretended they were bewitched?  How did they figure out he was a wizard in the first place?  Because he could put a toothpick through his nose?  You mean to tell me they didn’t check his weight against a duck?  Y’know, to see if he could float?  Can I riddle this paragraph with more questions?  Yes?  Of course I can?  Are you sure?  How about now?

Ignorant asshats piss me off.

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