Religion poisons everything, including eagles

August 31, 2013 • 6:26 am

For crying out loud, what kind of morons would release a bald eagle in a chapel? The morons at Oral Roberts University, that’s who. ORU is a Pentecostal Christian University in Tulsa, Oklahoma founded by one of America’s most annoying and fraudulent preachers.

According to BuzzFeed, the eagle (named Louis) was released into the university chapel as part of a “spirit rally” to mark the beginning of the school year. As the bird flew around, the students chanted “USA! USA!”.  And then the eagle flew into a window.  The school reports that the bird wasn’t hurt, but what a stupid stunt!

Here’s the worst of America on display! NOTE: The video shows the eagle hitting the window, so don’t watch if that will disturb you.

Charge this man with animal cruelty!:

Picture 1

Why couldn’t God have directed its flight away from the window?  If he sees every sparrow fall, surely he sees every eagle fly.

h/t: Amy

74 thoughts on “Religion poisons everything, including eagles”

  1. What a stupid thing to do. I’ve been to shows with hawks, etc that are either outside or in a huge enclosed area with no windows.

  2. What an astonishing display of stupidity, ORU. Wouldn’t this fall under the Eagle Protection Act as a federal crime?

    1. I’d think the owner could at least lose his permit to possess. No permit? Could be a lot worse.

    1. I’m surprised they didn’t interpret the poor eagle’s accident as bad omen given that a bald eagle, flying while a crowd is chanting “USA, USA” then hitting a window just can’t be good with the augurs!

  7. God let the eagle fly into the window to preserve its free will, teach it compassion, or for His hidden reasons. Take your pick.

        2. That clip is facepalmingly stupid… god truly works in mysterious ways, eh?

        3. How predictable. I guess he doesn’t know that bald eagles are scavengers while turkeys are omnivores. Stupid metaphors!

          1. Bald Eagles are opportunistic. They can and do easily kill prey, but they steal stuff from other predators or scavenge when that is easier.

        4. What a slimy, greasy bas…jackass. Talk about low. And they lick it up, the credulous fools.

  10. If I wanted to make a video showing the vanity of blind Nationalism, I couldn’t have scripted and staged it more powerfully.

    1. Except for the crash, for which someone’s head would have surely rolled, it has the feel of some earlier patriotic-jingoistic rallies I have seen on grainy black and white film. That’s scary.

  11. Of course they’re ‘morons,’ each and all. Yet they–the religionists of all stripes–have far greater political and socio-cultural power than advocates of science and, more generally, critical thinking. Too often our dismissive judgment of ‘that’s moronic’ is our first and only reaction to such stupid acts as this one. Of Russia’s deep-rooted problems with serfdom and its attendant ignorance and poverty, Tolstoy famously asked, ‘What is to be done?’ In trying to answer, Russia got Soviet totalitarianism and now is little better off as an oligarchy. Our vaunted democracy in the U.S.? If not an outright auction, with everything for sale, we are a benighted polity where the ignorant vote for the ignorant, much of this being shamefully a full failure of education. It is so demoralizing to know that right thinking has no authority in our society.

      1. As I once read (this may be from someone famous):

        “Democracy is the worst possible system of government there is. Except when you compare it to the others.”

        😉

        1. Sounds a bit like this one from Churchill:

          “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

    2. Presumably, you’re thinking of the famous novel by that name by Chernyshevsky? It was the embodiment of the utopian ideals of the revolutionary/utilitarian/materialist movement that was coalescing in the 60’s. As writers go Chernyshevsky was a bit of a hack, but the fame of the novel lives on because of the role it played in Russian history.

  14. That is cruel, unnecessary and disgusting. That should be a sign from god to shut the whole stupid operation down.

  15. Here’s an odd thing. According to Wikipedia’s article on possession of eagle feathers:

    “Under the current language of the eagle feather law, individuals of certifiable Native American ancestry enrolled in a federally recognized tribe are legally authorized to obtain eagle feathers. Unauthorized persons found with an eagle or its parts in their possession can be fined up to $25,000. The eagle feather law allows for individuals who are adopted members of federally recognized tribes to obtain eagle feathers and eagle feather permits.”

    Apparently, one can be fined more money than a fast-food worker makes in a year for having a feather or a body part, but there’s nothing wrong with having a living bird. If these people had as much actual reverence for national symbols as their rhetoric claims, they’d only let eagles and flags fly free instead of using them to score cheap political points.

    A wise sage once said: “Kinky is using a feather; using the whole bird is perverted.”

    1. The trainer explains that the bird was rescued as a baby with a broken hip and foot (or something similar) and could not have survived on his own. Apparently he lives at a bird sanctuary where they rehabilitate wild animals and attempt to propagate endangered species of birds.

      Now, granted, I making some assumptions here, but if the bird, being raised in captivity, isn’t fit for re-introduction into the wild, I don’t see anything wrong with using him to raise money (at things like football games, as mentioned in the second video) for the sanctuary.

      However, releasing him inside such a comparatively small space with windows and a large, noisy crowd was indeed stupid.

      1. I’ve heard, but never confirmed, that raptors tend to integrate back to the wild much more easily than most mammals do. However, that might have just been for adults that were rehabilitated following an injury rather than individuals that were raised in captivity.

  17. Why couldn’t God have directed its flight away from the window!

    Eagle had free will afterall.

  18. Wow… That could be a scene from the simpsons as a satire of mindless patriotism+religiosity. I wish it was, Poor bird!

  20. It’s Golden Eagle day and they brought in a bald eagle. Clearly the eagle knew he was in the wrong place!

  21. Why couldn’t God have directed its flight away from the window?

    Um, because she doesn’t exist? (Did I get that right? These pop quizzes always fluster me).

  22. Someone on YouTube posted the comment “The symbol of American freedom trapped inside a f—ing church”.

    They’ve obviously gotten a lot of flack over this. The eagle’s owner released a video a few days later to assure everyone the eagle was OK.

  23. ” When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

    – Attributed (falsely) to Sinclair Lewis

  26. what’s funny is that there’s a strip of land right on the Arkansas river that is not 2 miles away from where this happened that is a bald eagle preserve of some sorts. I can only vaguely recall what the signs say exactly as it’s been a while since I walked down this way.
    ORU and the culture surrounding it make Tulsa a very difficult (read as:embarrassing, infuriating, obnoxious) place to live.

  28. Having worked for nearly 20 years I have met a number of ORU graduates and I can say without hesitation they have all been morons. A lot of them were sales reps and I could always count on hearing, “Let me get back to you on that” to any question that was beyond asking for a price.

    Notable ORU grads include

    Michelle Bachmann
    Ted Haggard
    David Barton
    Cathie Lee Gifford

    I didn’t chase down the story, but one of the Roberts family I think was President of ORU and was kicked out for misuse of funds. Funny, I thought that’s what they taught there.

  29. It is indeed illegal to possess bald eagles and eagle feathers, and that has resulted in this ridiculous conflict over artist R. Rauschenberg’s “Canyon” assemblage:

    (See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/arts/design/a-catch-22-of-art-and-taxes-starring-a-stuffed-eagle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

    You would think there’d be more concern over live eagles, but life (and the law) ain’t fair.

    What most surprises me is that no one on this thread has mentioned eagle droppings yet.

    1. That’s what instantly occurred to me. I would just wish that the bird had been extremely well fed a short time before…

      1. In Glasgow, being “besplatterd from above” is considered a sign of good luck. Though that is most often concerning seagulls, not eagles, and probably says more about Glaswegians than it does about reality.
        The firs time I was “blessed”, I’d just spent part of my first wages on a nice new jacket and was re-charging my wallet at the cash machine ; all over jacket, wallet, cards, and the cash I’d just withdrawn.
        The best thing I can say about seagulls is that cats like them. Raw.

        1. I most heartily agree with your view of seagulls. I park my car under a tree and it regularly gets carpet-bombed by something huge and obnoxious. It could be a NZ ‘wood pigeon’ (a thing about the size of a domestic chicken) but I doubt it, not least because I haven’t heard one around here – they sound like a helicopter taking off (startles the hell out of me if one does it at close range in the bush). So, most likely, a flying septic tank aka black-backed gull. According to google, they can weigh over a kilogram, and according to my car a large percentage of that is payload…

    1. FWIW, per the video @7, above, the eagle’s custodian is apparently a rescue center – IIRC in St Louis where it’s been for a decade or so.

      1. Well I hope the rescue center is questioned about their poor judgment in allowing this to happen.

        Thanks for letting me know.

  34. Reblogged this on hitchens67 Atheism WOW!! Campaign and commented:
    Of course it poisons everything! When mythology is held up as truth over science, your gonna run into problems! Religious belief is a bastion of the weak-minded and always will be. 90% of people are pablum-fed lemmings and prefer the Kartrashians and Honey Screw You.

  35. Breathtaking stupidy, in the service of God; who, as I’ve always suspected, is a bloody fool.

  36. Can my two names – Stafford and Gordon – in the Log in setting, please be be seperated.

    I’ve experimented myself in an attempt to seperate them but without success.

    Thank you.

    S G

    1. You can change your username in your account settings. Just press on your name in the right hand corner and it’ll take you there.

      It worked for me. 🙂

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