For all of you tired of the 2012 hysteria, try pointing the next panicked individual in the direction of this National Geographic article, which addresses several of the common claims involved in this mad rumor.

The article doesn't address the issue of Nostradamus predicting 2012, nor does it touch upon claims of Biblical prophecy. For these, I challenge people to actually find a quote from either source that actually mentions 2012. (You can also read more on the ludicrousness of Nostradamus theories over at Paranormal Phenomena.)

Last week, a French court found this Church of Scientology guilty of organized fraud, CNN reports.

The Church responded by comparing the French court to the Inquisition, even though the French court ruled that the Church could continue to operate in France so long as it did so legally. The historic Inquisition was specifically to identify heretics, spiritual deviants who would be expected to conform to religious norms or face punishments up to and including death.

In the 1920s, author H.P. Lovecraft created what is commonly known as the Cthulhu mythos through a series of occult stories dealing with fictional dark elder gods and the horrible things that happen when mortals attempt to access them.

These stories have significantly influenced pulp fiction perception of occult horror, and their content has fueled multiple hoaxes. The most famous is the Necronomicon, a book Lovecraft invented but which was subsequently written and published by multiple other authors ans sometimes referenced by anti-occultists. (the most recent Necronomicon foray can be found here, published by a 27-year-old who boasts having studied the occult for 15 years. Yes, do the math on that one.)

On the lighter side of things, I now bring you Adventures of Lil' Cthulhu, just to prove that anything can have a cute and humorous side on the Internet.

What, did you expect me to always be serious?

It's interesting how different writers can portray the same incident. The San Antonio Express reports on a man "accused of creating a 'secret society' to lure teenage girls into having sex with him".

Meanwhile, KENS5 reports that sex was being used to bait students into the occult order. That is to say, the implication is the students were being pressured into occultism, rather than being pressured into sex with a mature adult.

The San Antonio Express's version rings much more true. Unfortunately, this isn't a unique incident. While most occult organizations are entirely consensual and limited to adults, periodically some sicko comes along promising magical powers or mystical insight into the universe to anyone willing to mystically unite with him, aka have sex. Targeting teenage girls is fairly common in these scenarios. They're naive, vulnerable, and relatively easy to control.

These people aren't occultists. They're scam artists. They promise what they can't provide in order to have sex, and sometimes to collect a fawning fan base. This isn't a plot to ensnare people into a shadow organization. It's a plot to obtain sexual gratification.

Apparently, the body of a 2-year-old washed up in Connecticut. The really notable detail of the story, however, is that as far as anyone knew, the girl had already been buried in a cemetery after dying of natural causes, Fox News reports.

What's up with that? No one seems to know. But that didn't stop local police from labeling it "as a ritualistic sort of thing," and naming religions like Palo Mayombe and Santeria.

Unfortunately, the police don't seem to be releasing any details that would actually suggest why those religions would be suspected. I understand that police investigations often need to keep secrets, but if that was the case they really shouldn't be naming names either.

As the story reads, the accusations don't make a lot of sense. Religions like Santeria have absolutely no use for the body of a dead child.

Do the police just feel a need to fill in question marks with random information? That doesn't help their case, and it's likely to bring unwarranted scrutiny upon followers of the named religions.

Paul Haggis, an Oscar-winning movie writer, has publicly left the Church of Scientology and made his resignation letter public, which can be read here.

I highlight this letter because of its focus and rationality. Haggis can admit to the positive aspects Scientology brought to his life while still denouncing the organization. Moreover, his denouncement is specific. He cites two specific issues rather than hurling random insults.

Also, both issues are fairly verifiable. Often, complaints against the Church of Scientology involve matters completely within the Church, and the evidence is hearsay. That doesn't mean the issues don't exist, but it does mean the public has little to work with beyond a storm of opinions and he-said/she-said battles.

Travel the New York subways, and you may come across advertisements encouraging atheism. When I traveled to Washington DC earlier this year, buses sported ads for whyIslam.org. The Church of Latter Day Saints have been running TV advertisements for years and the Church of Scientology kicked off an aggressive ad campaign several months ago.

Are we really so sure we want to peddle our spiritual beliefs like any other commodity?

Religion is an issue many of us feel strongly about. For many people, it is an issue of knowing the truth and feeling a moral obligation to share it with less enlightened neighbors. But is this really the way to do it?

Partly, this is a reaction to the centuries-old evangelizing campaigns of Christians, who are quick to quote Bible verses encouraging them to preach the good word. But Jesus also instructed believers not to throw pearls before swine in a sermon that included many references to keeping religion personal and not advertising its practice.

Religious knowledge is sacred, something to be discussed between believers and seekers. Plastering beliefs across billboards encourages the world to ridicule them and demotes sacred ideas to the status of common commodities.

In a fast food world, we have come to expect that everything can be accomplished quickly and effortlessly, and spirituality has not escaped this mindset.

People flock to New Age shops and gurus looking for ways to fix their lives, often willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get someone else to address the clients' own personal problems.

The result can become a cultlike situation, with believers blindly following the "expert" without any critical thinking, whether in expert be a book author or an event host.

Earlier this month, three people died in Arizona during a sweat lodge held by "wealth expert" James Arthur Ray. The very nature of the event offended Native Americans, who put sweat lodges to spiritual pursuits. But now an interview with a survivor paints an even darker picture in which participants were clearly suffering within the lodge yet did nothing because Ray instructed them not to and chided them that it was just an issue of mind over matter.

Unfortunately, it was actually an issue of dehydration and suffocation over survival. People were vomiting and passing out. And yet nearly all of the participants remained within the lodge, and it appears they did it part because of the urging of their leader, even though every ounce of common sense should have been telling them to escape.

Last week, two people died in a sweat lodge ceremony associated with self-help guru James Ray, whose works are largely about becoming more financially successful. Besides, the obvious tragedy of the event itself, the incident helps to underscore the continued cultural appropriation western culture commits against Native American traditions.

Traditionally, sweat lodges have a highly spiritual purpose and provide ritual purification and connection with the spirit world. They aren't about money, yet the approximately 60 participants in this sweat lodge had paid $9000 or $10,000 be part of the five day retreat of which the lodge was a part. Lodges are also traditionally smaller affairs involving only a handful of people.

For Native Americans, the entire event is highly offensive even without deaths being involved. The very significance of the ritual has been stripped away by these commercial endeavors. As Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle, explains, it is an honor among his people to even be able to perform the ritual, and it is something that requires years of training. One doesn't just build a tent, stuff people inside, and heat it up like a sauna.

Image courtesy VisionsofAmerica/Joe Sohm/Getty Images

The US Supreme Court Case Salazar vs. Buono involves a cross erected in 1934 on federal land as a memorial to war dead. Until recently, few people even knew the cross existed, but now someone is challenging that it doesn't belong on federal land.

Justice Scalia's opinion on the matter, reported here by David Lancaster, includes the following: "I don't think you can leap from that (the assertion that the cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians) to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion."

My issue isn't even about whether or not he's correct. My issue is it ultimately has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

I highly doubt the erectors of that cross were even thinking of the religions of the dead they wished to honor. After all, the vast majority of Americans were Christians, and we weren't yet very good at acknowledging diversity. They didn't erect the cross because of the religion of the dead. The erected it because of their own religion. Their primary purpose may certainly have been to memorialize the dead, but they nevertheless did it with a symbol that assuredly had religious ramifications for them personally.

I find it even more concerning that Scalia quipped, "What would you have them erect? A cross -- some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?"

Um, no. That's not solving the problem in the least. If anything, it's just complicating the problem. Does Scalia even comprehend what is concerning people here?