lol – but one deeply wrong, is the right deeply wrong.
And the other deeply wrong, is the wrong, deeply wrong, in fact they tell lies about us and are barbaric etc etc blah de blah, blah, blah.
Ours is the one true deeply wrong….
I second Oozoid; this one is worth revisiting. But then, aren’t they all?
James Christ, what the blazes are you blathering on about? Right deeply wrong; wrong deeply wrong; true deeply wrong……..Have you been taking lessons from Nassar in clarity?
Speaking of Nassar; I’ll try to pre-empt you today, old love, and compose one that I think will be a close reflection of what you’re thinking. I’ll let you know later if I was anywhere near.
I must be getting old, or need to start at the beginning of the archives one more time, because this one is fresh as a daisy to me. And brilliant as usual.
I always thought the other side of that coin is that being a “puppet” of $deity makes a life essentially worthless too (heard many times – “I’m nothing without ‘$deity’)
Remember, kids, it’s not enough to be in and of the world, part of a billions-year reaction of natural forces and the permutations of fewer than 118 different atoms, evolve from simpler life forms to combat gravity (’tis but a theory), and develop artificial versions of what makes us pretty smart animals (second only to dolphins)….
Scoff at all that “material”, worldly stuff, and gimmee some of that ol’ time fire and brimstone desert angry-god stuff with angelic choirs and top with an always-classic virgin born sacrificial lamb story.
Jesus and Mo are infuriating enough in their insistence on the benefits of believing in The Great Undemonstrable, but at least they tend to take atheists at their word. It takes a special kind of religious obduracy to view avowed atheism as actually an affirmation of belief in God. Take a look at the link below, wherein some spokesman for spiritual concerns in the scouting movement tries to explain how to accomodate an Atheist Rover.
Honestly, can you beat this for sheer raw bullshit? Rather than just agreeing to reword the Oath of Allegiance in the manner of secular Court Oaths, this organisation underwrites some tortuous nonsense suggesting that the atheist can pragmatically adopt a Buddhist perception of God for the duration of the ceremony, without understanding that this interpretation of this Buddhist perception is complete balloney, or that any self-respecting atheist would rather swear an oath without any mention of any God or any duty owed thereto. Annoying.
AoS, Nice job! You not only predicted Nassar’s theme but wrote a much better limerick! Also, love the irony of a Brit referring to another country’s cuisine as “bland”. Never eaten Belgium, it must be boring indeed if it trumps the country where mint sauce is the height of flavouring.
Great one, author. Must remember it for the next argument.
Just come back from part of the activities for Oz’s sacred day – Anzac day for the rest of you – like an ‘Armed Forces’ day in some countries, but the one event that Australians seem to be able to accept without attacking each other at this unfortunate time in our history.
As part of choir, had to sing hymns while wreaths to remember the country’s military casualties from the wars we seem to be unable to avoid joining in were being laid.
We had to censor some verses – e.g. the one with the line ‘lesser breeds without the law’ left over from the days of the Empire. But the really hard part was not to laugh hysterically during last verse of ‘Abide with me’ i.e. ‘shine through the gloom and point me to the skies’. Always reminds me of the firework instructions about ‘light blue touch paper and stand clear’, or the way we used to put the stick of a sky-rocket in a bottle before lighting. Still, almost got the baritone part of that one correct.
Must say that the clergyman who did the religious bit left an ‘out’ for those not wanting to recite the Lord’s Prayer, which was nicely inclusive.
Theocracy IS TREASON AS theocrats betray our godless US Constitution… I’ve found it generally true, Quakers & Catholic Workers a common exception, gawd belief TRUE BELIEVERS are all about forcing their stupid assumptions onto others, while people who claim the equation “god=love” prove it by their works and would not dream of forcing virgin birth alleged baby gods onto others, most pacific believers stand on their own without pushing Jews or Muslims or Hindi or Buddhists or Sikhs or Jains or Shinto people into a church or prayer or want the lie: IN god WE TRUST on our money 843-926-1750 @AtheistVet
bitter lemon, “He who walks with God is never lonely” – unless God wants him to be lonely: if you do feel lonely you should not do anything about it because loneliness could be part of God’s great plan for you. Wow, that must make life complicated. Does God want me to die from this cancer or does he want me to get treatment.
What I love is the presumption, that just is she condemned to a life of shallow materialism.
I long for the religious to say something more like:
Well if you are right, not only are you condemned to shallow materialism, but I am also condemned to shallow materialism, misguided and getting my moral guidance from a most inappropriate source.
Somehow they can never bring themselves to work through the consequences, as though their universe has a god, and yours doesn’t, through some sort of exercise of will power.
bitter lemon says:
April 25, 2013 at 12:26 pm
AoS: He who walks with God is never lonely.
But he must get bloody bored with the lack of conversation. As far as I can tell, the only people the big guy speaks directly to are either psychopaths or liars, and I’m neither of those (despite what my last psychiatrist said; but it’s OK, I stabbed him through the head before he could tell anybody else. Well, no gods = no repercussions, right?), and as I’m guessing that neither is Mary2, which is why I’m certain that, in the unlikely event of her asking the question, she won’t be waiting for an answer before proceeding with treatment.
By the way, Mary2, did you get my coconut tips two threads back? More importantly, if you did, have you tried them (esp. the rum one)?
Jerry W, that’s the problem with imported fireworks; the translations are neer quite as accurate as one would wish. I recall reading ‘if no go as wishing, return not quick’ on some rockets.
Bugger – I’ve been changing email addresses recently, and now my Gravatar has vanished again. Maybe I’ll get it back this time, since I’ve updated Gravatar.
AoS, just went back to look at the coconut tips – thanks. I used to use a machete but decided that I like my fingers where God put them (on the end of my hands). The preferred de-husking method for coconuts is to embed a pick head in the ground, bash coconut on pick point, peel husk and repeat – so the claw hammer works well. One switches to something bigger to break open the actual nut. I used to have a dog who was fond of peeling coconut husks; very handy.
As for the rum, unfortunately I am a bit of a wowser when it comes to alcohol but will suggest it to my drinking friends. Definitely needs the addition of a little paper umbrella.
Mary2 says:
April 26, 2013 at 9:46 pm
AoS, just went back to look at the coconut tips β thanks. I used to use a machete but decided that I like my fingers where God put them (on the end of my hands).
Did you really need to qualify that, Mary? Where else would they be? π
And if you’re going down the umbrella route, don’t forget the cherry impaled on a little plastic sword.
Thanks again, hotrats. I feel a t-shirt coming on.
If my dear old granny were still alive, I’d have got her to knit it into a jumper, though she’d be about 130, so it might have taken her a while.
That’s excellent, omg, thank you. I love the Ganesh-esque ‘Pale Blue Dot’ one.
Patience, DiamondStorm, they’ve been spouting their shit for millenia, so they won’t go be going away overnight. But, religion’s longevity notwithstanding, I think atheism has made such tremendous strides in such a short time that the current increased volume from religion might just be the start of its death throes. We can but keep on chipping away at ’em.
omg – Good link. Following a comment on that site(as you do), I Googled “auto-tuned Sagan”, and came up with This entertaining video of Carl Sagan, ft. Stephen Hawking. There are others to watch, and I’m not so keen on the “Pale Blue Dot” one, which as a monologue (without the auto-tuning) I find deeply moving.
Have a look, Acolyte, and let us know what you think. The one with Richard Feynman (appropriately on drums) is good.
OMG, good link. Although better than the ‘hail Sagan’ meme was the ‘Lucifer the good guy’ meme: “Sees willing sex slave in the garden of Eden: introduces critical thinking”; “Sees man starving in the desert: offers him food for forty days” . . .
HFB, one of the (personally) most moving things I’ve seen on TV was the press conference where Sagan showed the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ picture for the first time.
I’m paraphrasing here, but “This pale blue dot – less than a pixel on this photograph – is Earth….our home” certainly put things into perspective for a lot of people – even more so, I think, than the famous ‘Earth-rise’ shot taken from the Moon.
And how incredible it is that that tiny little lump of 1970’s* technology is still heading out into interstellar space,** and still returning signals to us, signals that are nowadays only around one-millionth of a watt of power by the time they arrive.
*Launched 6 days after Elvis died; was the science really a cover-up for taking him home (h/t Men in Black. “He ain’t dead, he’s just gone home”?
**Depending on how one defines the outer limits of our solar system, it’s either already interstellar – or not.
A message that can’t be repeated enough, omg.
In the same vein, I saw the following quote on Dana Hunter’s FTB blog recently (corrected for English-English spelling; I know, I know, but I just can’t help it π );
Some believers accuse sceptics of having nothing left but a dull, cold, scientific world. I am left only with art, music, literature, theatre, the magnificence of nature, mathematics, the human spirit, sex, the Cosmos, friendship, history, science, imagination, dreams, oceans, mountains, love, and the wonders of birth.
There’s probably more one could add to that list; any suggestions?
I’ll kick it off with ‘humour’ and ‘intellectual honesty’.
Good choices, VoteCoffee. As it happens, I made a spectacularly good – if I may say so myself – pork and peppers casserole with lashings of smoked bacon, chorizo, garlic, paprika, chilli, and tomatoes on Saturday. They don’t know what they’re missing, do they?
See, Mary2, we Brits can do flavour nowadays π
Going back to bacon for a minute, pigs really are remarkable beasts. Not only do they taste bloody nice (even the blood itself when made into black pudding. Mmmm), and the hides make excellent leather, but they’re also genetically close enough to humans for us to be able to use their heart valves as replacements for our own.
Do the Jews and Muslims never wonder why their god would create such a perfect animal – one that can feed us, clothe us, and help keep us alive – only to ban them from even touching one? Even more ironic is the fact that thickly-cut, lightly-smoked, salty bacon is the perfect accompanyment to scallops, and the poor buggers can never get to taste even half of that delicious combo.
Ah well, more for us, I suppose π
As a lapsed, nay, collapsed Jew who was driven to atheism early on, I’m always amazed at how few people notice the similarities between Jews and Muslims, from how Halal and Kosher laws are nearly identical, the mandatory covering of the head and the fear of shaving of the pious, the 2nd class citizenship of women who must keep arms and legs concealed.
As for me, to paraphrase the gun nuts that bought and paid for our politicians, they’ll take that crisp strip of bacon from me when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
AOS Scallops and black pudding go well together too. If you live in the middle east pre-refrigeration not eating pork or shellfish makes some sense as the tainted flesh of either of them can be pretty dangerous.
Mary2 Have you ever tried black pudding, it is the food of the gods, apart from the stuff they have in Manchester Airport which is not good at all.
Mary, the thing with black pudding is that it can be the most awful stuff on the plate – or the best. The mass-produced stuff really is muck, but if you can find a good pig farmer with their own butchery and farm shop – a rare thing nowadays, but I’m lucky in having one just a couple of miles away – who makes their own it can be delicious (as with bacon*, it’s a natural accompaniment for scallops). If you’ve only had the supermarket stuff it’s no surprise you don’t like it – unless you’re one of ‘those’ people who don’t like something without tasting it because they don’t like the thought of what’s in it; it’s a PR problem that black pudding shares with haggis, tripe and most offal.
*Bacon, like black pudding, is best avoided when it comes pre-packed; there’s nothing quite like a thick slice of bacon that’s been cured naturally – smoked or not – rather than the stuff that’s been pumped with water (which is why it shrinks to nothing when cooked) and all sorts of preservatives that don’t actually preserve the meat. A good side of bacon can be hung for months and still be perfectly good to eat; try that with the supermarket rubbish and you’ll be sitting on the toilet for a week.
Jobrag, thank you for your black pudding support (we cross-posted, hence our duplication of the scallop marriage).
Your point about pre-refigeration is a good one, and is probably the root of the desert-dwellers’ religious ban, particularly with shellfish. As long as pork is cooked properly there’s no real problem, but they weren’t to know that. As it happens, desert conditions are ideal for air-curing hams and bacon, as long as the flies can be kept at bay, that is. Contrary to popular opinion, a properly air-cured, smoked ham can be eaten raw, but don’t try this with the processed stuff that most everywhere sells nowadays – that way lies a fortune spent on loo paper π
@aos – could not agree more with your views regarding bacon and black pudding. Have you tried te welsh custom of adding laver bread? Particularly if you are also involving a very fine sausage. All this talk reminds me of what America’s most famous general Stormin’ Norman had to say about the difference between just being involved with something and being seriously committed. “Think of bacon and eggs.. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed.”
I love laver bread, JoJo. It’s delicious spread on a bacon and mushroom omelette made with duck eggs, sprinkled with a strong cheddar and popped under a hot grill for a couple of minutes.
OK. I’ll concede the point – as a vegetarian I am not the best judge of how you eat your corpses π I’ve never heard of laverbread before – looks interesting. I’ll have to find a Welsh friend…
Speaking of food bans in Leviticus: a favourite past-time of mine has always been to ask door-knocking prothletisers why God has banned them from eating rabbit (Lev 11:5 KJV = coneys). This always gets wonderful blank looks from people who use the pre-refrigeration line for shellfish and pork. I had an interesting conversation with a Jewish acquaintance recently who told me that the Hebrew scripture actually prevented the eating of the Hydrax and didn’t mention rabbits. How on Earth does that work? God prevents people from eating little fluffy rodents in the Middle East, the religion is transferred to a part of the world where these creatures don’t exist, so the translators just throw in a non-related little fluffy rodent and say ‘close enough, who needs precision or accuracy with God’s Word’?
OMG, have you seen the original footage of Ray Comfort? Hilarious. For those who don’t know, he is a televangelist of very little intelligence (if that isn’t tautological) who tried to use the banana as proof of God designing the world for human use – until it was pointed out to him that bananas in the wild look very little like their artificially selected cousins we buy in the shops.
Mary, I didn’t realise you were a vegetarian; had I known earlier I might have made the observation that you opining on black pudding is like the Pope pontificating on sex – or Hugh F. Grant on acting. π
By the way, did you know that the Catholic Church officially classified the European beaver (the animal, before anybody gets smutty) as’ a fish’? It was a Lent Friday / Ash Wednesday ‘out’ for those who didn’t want to actually eat fish.
I see the logic; it’s aquatic, it can swim, it probably has a fishy flavour owing to its diet, er, and that’s about it, really.
omg, thanks for the links, some of those are fantastic. My favourite so far has to be this one. “Islamic advantage: When you divorce your wife and remarry, you can still keep the same photo on the desk.” That’s almost Author-esque.
Now, to bring this yet again enjoyable thread full circle, I had a sudden revelation recently, and as it’s late and I’m having one of those insomnia nights I’m going to bore you with it.
If that’s OK by you, of course π
As my recent commment to VoteCoffee on the subject re-kindled my interest, I’ve been having another stab at getting my head around String- and Brane Theory (p-branes! Who says physicists don’t have a sense of humour?), and have to admit that it’s one of those subjects that increasingly hurts the old grey matter the more one tries to understand it. I do understand – in a very limited sense – what the basic idea is, but I’ve yet to even begin understanding the theorised mechanisms – the ‘how’s and ‘why’s’ – in any real sense.
Last night I was re-reading a chapter in Hawking’s History of the Universe in a Nutshell, -which is about as basic an explanation as it’s possible to get – for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time my brain was protesting at what I was trying to get it to compute, when right out of left-field, I suddenly understood the attraction of Creationism; there is absolutely no need to think about extremely difficult concepts concerning life, the Universe, and everything, when one can simply invoke the unknowable mind of God and consider the matter closed. How easy would that be?, to be able to explain anything that would otherwise require serious thinking by crediting God, then go on to evade the ‘so how did God do it?’ question with the ‘unknowable mind’ card.
Thankfully (?) I’m happy to struggle in understanding the output of the only slightly-less unknowable minds of Feynman, Hawking, et al, no matter how much it hurts, because to my own, far simpler mind, it’s better to be deeply confused but working hard to understand, than to be deeply wrong and proud of it.
AoS, I don’t think the beaver thing works as the Pope expected. I am sure (can’t be bothered checking) that Leviticus prohibits the eating of anything from the sea which lacks scales! Why don’t these people know their own religion!
Thank God (so to speak) for your insomnia otherwise I would have no one to reply to until people wake up in your hemisphere.
I like your theory on creationism. I have always thought there must be something very comforting in certainty. No more late nights wondering about where your life is going – just the knowledge that it’s all part of God’s plan and God loves you and will do the right thing by you (must be hard to convince yourself of as your children all die in a building collapse which cripples you and you live in a country without welfare provisions etc.).
KJV: Leviticus 11.9 “These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. 11.10. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you.”
So all of you who eat shark (commonly sold as fish ‘n’ chips in Aust) are unclean.
AOS- I think you forget the mental gymnastics required to believe in a religion in the face of science and the internet. The certainty is a requirement as much as it is a ‘blessing’. Christianity is a herd religion, and weakness in any regards will quickly push you down in the pecking order and mark you as a sacrificial member…
Mary2- Amazing how flexible God suddenly decided to be with regards to ‘uncleanliness’.
VoteCoffee, For God is a busy God, and if He cannot remember, from one week to the next, which of the creeping things that creepeth upon the Earth (best phrase in the bible) he has deemed abominable, then whosoever amongst you is fit to judge Him.
Yaay, I got some sleep at last. Three whole medicinally-induced hours.
omg, did you follow my recent Ray Comfort link? A commenter on his blog referred to him as a ‘bibliophile’ and Comfort took offence. He thought it was ‘just another atheist insult, a cross between paedophile and bible’.
To his credit, he apologised for his misunderstanding……….Honestly, the man is a parody of himself.
Mary, I see the loophole they exploited in Leviticus; ‘…all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters…’
It’s all about in the water, whereas beavers tend to be on it except when diving for food or to gain access to the lodge. It’s an important distinction, because otherwise any animal that steps foot in a river – or even a puddle – could be said to move in the water, making virtually every single animal on the face of the planet ‘unclean’. And that would mean that Catholics could only ever be piscatarian, and even that with a very bizarre definition that excludes sharks and rays, bi-valves, molluscs, and crustaceans, but includes beavers.
VoteCoffee, the catch-all ‘Goddidiit’ negates the need for the mental gymnastics. To them, science is our misguided attempt to work out how ‘Godditit’; discrepancies between scientific evidence and the Bible are ‘God testing their faith’ – the clearer the science, the more undeniable the evidence, and the bigger the discrepancy with their book, the more God is testing their faith; logical fallacies – ‘Goddidit’; contradictions within their own belief system – ‘Goddidit’.
One can be the smartest person in the room when one knows that the only answer that one ever needs to learn is ‘Goddidit, and it’s not for us to ask why’.
The real mental gymnastics is in trying to understand how we can even begin to work out that we could live in an eleven-dimensional Universe where seven of the dimensions are curled up so small as to be undetectable, and where that Universe could be just one of a infinite number of ‘brane bubbles’; where we might even be ‘shadows’ on one ‘brane’ of our real selves living on another; where vibrating strings of energy of infinite length but zero other dimensions can stretch undetected right across the Universe; where matter appears and disappears from nothing but a fluctuating vaccuum and back again………And I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that I’m no gymnast.
Jesus & Mo (the characters) are absurd, blinkered, and oddly very sweet. J&M (the cartoon) is brilliant: sharp, delicious, irresistible. Salman Rushdie
Jesus and Mo cartoons are wonderfully funny and true. Richard Dawkins
Jesus and Mo make the world a better place, bless their little hearts. Ophelia Benson
In a world defined by outrage and offence and liberal spinelessness, Jesus and Mo is a treasure, whose value we should never fail to recognize. Read them. Laugh. And think. Kenan Malik
The brilliant, celebrated, freaking hilarious atheist comic strip ... Greta Christina
...rays of sanity in a befuddled world. Keri Hulme
The liveliest depictions of Muhammad currently available... Malise Ruthven
J & Mo is the funniest and most consistently thought-provoking cartoon strip on the Net. In a saner world, it would run in a major newspaper. Nelson Jones, Heresy Corner
Consistently amusing, frequently thought-provoking and often heart-warming. New Humanist
Jesus & Mo is one of the most wonderful things on the internet.. JT Eberhard
Wittily captures much of the absurdity of religious apologetics. Mano Singham
I love jesusandmo.net cartoons - witty and sharp! Katha Pollitt
Often hilarious, frequently wry, these cartoons do what all the best cartoons do: they tell the truth through humour. Terry Sanderson, NSS President
...a wonderfully acid British cartoonist... Nick Cohen
I love the scrappy mockery of Jesus and Mo. Freedom of speech
includes the freedom to mock any person, any thing, any activity, and
any belief -- and J&M stands up for this unflinchingly Richard Stallman
...empowering, important and deeply progressive, not to mention hilarious... Council of Ex-Muslims
March 24, 2021
One worth repeating!
lol – but one deeply wrong, is the right deeply wrong.
And the other deeply wrong, is the wrong, deeply wrong, in fact they tell lies about us and are barbaric etc etc blah de blah, blah, blah.
Ours is the one true deeply wrong….
I may be a shallow materialist but the religious believe in what’s immaterial.
I second Oozoid; this one is worth revisiting. But then, aren’t they all?
James Christ, what the blazes are you blathering on about? Right deeply wrong; wrong deeply wrong; true deeply wrong……..Have you been taking lessons from Nassar in clarity?
Speaking of Nassar; I’ll try to pre-empt you today, old love, and compose one that I think will be a close reflection of what you’re thinking. I’ll let you know later if I was anywhere near.
Deeply wrong and also meaningfully wrong. (I know that from reading Mehdi Hasan’s tweets yesterday.)
One of my faves, that one.
I must be getting old, or need to start at the beginning of the archives one more time, because this one is fresh as a daisy to me. And brilliant as usual.
I always thought the other side of that coin is that being a “puppet” of $deity makes a life essentially worthless too (heard many times – “I’m nothing without ‘$deity’)
First time for me and love it…assume esteemed author too busy setting-up church fete?
I used to be an atheist too. But then I subscribed to http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/
That is enough to make anyone believe in hell
Hullo bitter lemon; it’s been a while. Did you miss us?
Remember, kids, it’s not enough to be in and of the world, part of a billions-year reaction of natural forces and the permutations of fewer than 118 different atoms, evolve from simpler life forms to combat gravity (’tis but a theory), and develop artificial versions of what makes us pretty smart animals (second only to dolphins)….
Scoff at all that “material”, worldly stuff, and gimmee some of that ol’ time fire and brimstone desert angry-god stuff with angelic choirs and top with an always-classic virgin born sacrificial lamb story.
Now THAT’S magic!
Jesus and Mo are infuriating enough in their insistence on the benefits of believing in The Great Undemonstrable, but at least they tend to take atheists at their word. It takes a special kind of religious obduracy to view avowed atheism as actually an affirmation of belief in God. Take a look at the link below, wherein some spokesman for spiritual concerns in the scouting movement tries to explain how to accomodate an Atheist Rover.
http://www.scout.org/en/information_events/resource_centre/the_leader_s_questions/spiritual_dimension
Honestly, can you beat this for sheer raw bullshit? Rather than just agreeing to reword the Oath of Allegiance in the manner of secular Court Oaths, this organisation underwrites some tortuous nonsense suggesting that the atheist can pragmatically adopt a Buddhist perception of God for the duration of the ceremony, without understanding that this interpretation of this Buddhist perception is complete balloney, or that any self-respecting atheist would rather swear an oath without any mention of any God or any duty owed thereto. Annoying.
Looking at what is called truth
Numerous variations of goof
Belief in totally nothing
Or some kind of something
Neither can offer an absolute proof.
Well done, AoS. That was pretty close!
Never mind “wrong” – the phrase “Not even wrong” comes to my mind… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
Thank you, Author. I had a sneaky suspicion he’d riff on the ‘neither side knows’ angle.
xxxFred, beware the argumentum ad wiki
Fenchurch, there are a couple of unanswered questions to you on the last thread in relation to your status as Major, ma’am.
AoS, Nice job! You not only predicted Nassar’s theme but wrote a much better limerick! Also, love the irony of a Brit referring to another country’s cuisine as “bland”. Never eaten Belgium, it must be boring indeed if it trumps the country where mint sauce is the height of flavouring.
Great one, author. Must remember it for the next argument.
Just come back from part of the activities for Oz’s sacred day – Anzac day for the rest of you – like an ‘Armed Forces’ day in some countries, but the one event that Australians seem to be able to accept without attacking each other at this unfortunate time in our history.
As part of choir, had to sing hymns while wreaths to remember the country’s military casualties from the wars we seem to be unable to avoid joining in were being laid.
We had to censor some verses – e.g. the one with the line ‘lesser breeds without the law’ left over from the days of the Empire. But the really hard part was not to laugh hysterically during last verse of ‘Abide with me’ i.e. ‘shine through the gloom and point me to the skies’. Always reminds me of the firework instructions about ‘light blue touch paper and stand clear’, or the way we used to put the stick of a sky-rocket in a bottle before lighting. Still, almost got the baritone part of that one correct.
Must say that the clergyman who did the religious bit left an ‘out’ for those not wanting to recite the Lord’s Prayer, which was nicely inclusive.
“At least, we’re deeply wrong.” ROTFLMAO!!!
Theocracy IS TREASON AS theocrats betray our godless US Constitution… I’ve found it generally true, Quakers & Catholic Workers a common exception, gawd belief TRUE BELIEVERS are all about forcing their stupid assumptions onto others, while people who claim the equation “god=love” prove it by their works and would not dream of forcing virgin birth alleged baby gods onto others, most pacific believers stand on their own without pushing Jews or Muslims or Hindi or Buddhists or Sikhs or Jains or Shinto people into a church or prayer or want the lie: IN god WE TRUST on our money 843-926-1750 @AtheistVet
“Your lack of belief in a higher spiritual power has condemned you to a life of shallow materialism”
Actually having had to think about it myself, instead of blindly following the words of men in frocks, I live a life of very deep materialism.
AoS: He who walks with God is never lonely. You should come join us sometime.
God has feet?
@machigai – Yes, and God gives piggyback rides– hence the whole “God the Father” relationship and those cheesy “Footprints” posters.
bitter lemon, “He who walks with God is never lonely” – unless God wants him to be lonely: if you do feel lonely you should not do anything about it because loneliness could be part of God’s great plan for you. Wow, that must make life complicated. Does God want me to die from this cancer or does he want me to get treatment.
What I love is the presumption, that just is she condemned to a life of shallow materialism.
I long for the religious to say something more like:
Well if you are right, not only are you condemned to shallow materialism, but I am also condemned to shallow materialism, misguided and getting my moral guidance from a most inappropriate source.
Somehow they can never bring themselves to work through the consequences, as though their universe has a god, and yours doesn’t, through some sort of exercise of will power.
But he must get bloody bored with the lack of conversation. As far as I can tell, the only people the big guy speaks directly to are either psychopaths or liars, and I’m neither of those (despite what my last psychiatrist said; but it’s OK, I stabbed him through the head before he could tell anybody else. Well, no gods = no repercussions, right?), and as I’m guessing that neither is Mary2, which is why I’m certain that, in the unlikely event of her asking the question, she won’t be waiting for an answer before proceeding with treatment.
By the way, Mary2, did you get my coconut tips two threads back? More importantly, if you did, have you tried them (esp. the rum one)?
I just found that everything thing bad that happened in the world is because the gay people:
http://imgur.com/r/atheism/fWl9nHJ
My life is empty because I have no barmaid in it.
@UncoBob,
My favorite fireworks (firecrackers) instructions were equally eloquent:
“Set on ground, light fuse, retire quickly”.
AoS:
You need to see this:
http://imgur.com/r/atheism/NCTb4ow
hotrats:
I had to look into the dictionary to understand this one.
Thanks, hotrats; I want that transfer.
Jerry W, that’s the problem with imported fireworks; the translations are neer quite as accurate as one would wish. I recall reading ‘if no go as wishing, return not quick’ on some rockets.
Oh, the irony!
” the translations are neer quite as accurate”
And that’s the problem with trying to type with a system full of meds.
Sagan’s Acolyte
Is not feeling too bright
Due to dedication
To medication
Hope you’re feeling better.
PS – Thanks for the compliment earlier.
Bugger – I’ve been changing email addresses recently, and now my Gravatar has vanished again. Maybe I’ll get it back this time, since I’ve updated Gravatar.
Bitter Lemon – Fancy a stroll across the lake?
Author – are we still on GMT?
Ah – Gravatar success!
<blockquote<HaggisForBrains says:
Bitter Lemon β Fancy a stroll across the lake?
π π
AoS:
<blockquote<
Like Bugs Bunny, you seem to be having caret trouble. Nyhahahaha.
AoS, just went back to look at the coconut tips – thanks. I used to use a machete but decided that I like my fingers where God put them (on the end of my hands). The preferred de-husking method for coconuts is to embed a pick head in the ground, bash coconut on pick point, peel husk and repeat – so the claw hammer works well. One switches to something bigger to break open the actual nut. I used to have a dog who was fond of peeling coconut husks; very handy.
As for the rum, unfortunately I am a bit of a wowser when it comes to alcohol but will suggest it to my drinking friends. Definitely needs the addition of a little paper umbrella.
24 caret (sic) trouble to be precise.
Mary2 says:
April 26, 2013 at 9:46 pm
AoS, just went back to look at the coconut tips β thanks. I used to use a machete but decided that I like my fingers where God put them (on the end of my hands).
Did you really need to qualify that, Mary? Where else would they be? π
And if you’re going down the umbrella route, don’t forget the cherry impaled on a little plastic sword.
AoS:
If you want that transfer, you may have to make it yourself. Couldn’t even find a ‘decal’! Here’s the source pic:
http://gunsgermsandblogs.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/hail-sagan/
good luck
Thanks again, hotrats. I feel a t-shirt coming on.
If my dear old granny were still alive, I’d have got her to knit it into a jumper, though she’d be about 130, so it might have taken her a while.
AoS,
You can look at this:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2012/07/the-8-best-hail-sagan-designs/
It’s amazing how even comics from 6 years ago are always relevant today. And it’s sort of sad, too.
That’s excellent, omg, thank you. I love the Ganesh-esque ‘Pale Blue Dot’ one.
Patience, DiamondStorm, they’ve been spouting their shit for millenia, so they won’t go be going away overnight. But, religion’s longevity notwithstanding, I think atheism has made such tremendous strides in such a short time that the current increased volume from religion might just be the start of its death throes. We can but keep on chipping away at ’em.
omg – Good link. Following a comment on that site(as you do), I Googled “auto-tuned Sagan”, and came up with This entertaining video of Carl Sagan, ft. Stephen Hawking. There are others to watch, and I’m not so keen on the “Pale Blue Dot” one, which as a monologue (without the auto-tuning) I find deeply moving.
Have a look, Acolyte, and let us know what you think. The one with Richard Feynman (appropriately on drums) is good.
OMG, good link. Although better than the ‘hail Sagan’ meme was the ‘Lucifer the good guy’ meme: “Sees willing sex slave in the garden of Eden: introduces critical thinking”; “Sees man starving in the desert: offers him food for forty days” . . .
HFB, one of the (personally) most moving things I’ve seen on TV was the press conference where Sagan showed the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ picture for the first time.
I’m paraphrasing here, but “This pale blue dot – less than a pixel on this photograph – is Earth….our home” certainly put things into perspective for a lot of people – even more so, I think, than the famous ‘Earth-rise’ shot taken from the Moon.
And how incredible it is that that tiny little lump of 1970’s* technology is still heading out into interstellar space,** and still returning signals to us, signals that are nowadays only around one-millionth of a watt of power by the time they arrive.
*Launched 6 days after Elvis died; was the science really a cover-up for taking him home (h/t Men in Black. “He ain’t dead, he’s just gone home”?
**Depending on how one defines the outer limits of our solar system, it’s either already interstellar – or not.
With all the marvels of science, who need religion…
A message that can’t be repeated enough, omg.
In the same vein, I saw the following quote on Dana Hunter’s FTB blog recently (corrected for English-English spelling; I know, I know, but I just can’t help it π );
There’s probably more one could add to that list; any suggestions?
I’ll kick it off with ‘humour’ and ‘intellectual honesty’.
How rude of me! The quote was by Lynne Kelly.
I’d be sure to add bacon and shellfish…
AoS,
Is is very sad to see that the list is missing Jesus ans Mo π
Good choices, VoteCoffee. As it happens, I made a spectacularly good – if I may say so myself – pork and peppers casserole with lashings of smoked bacon, chorizo, garlic, paprika, chilli, and tomatoes on Saturday. They don’t know what they’re missing, do they?
See, Mary2, we Brits can do flavour nowadays π
@OMG – J&M covered by humour and intellectual honesty in that list, surely…..?
Jojo,
I stand corrected…
Jojo,
I think you can add that J&M covered a lot of friendship as well.
A good call, omg.
Going back to bacon for a minute, pigs really are remarkable beasts. Not only do they taste bloody nice (even the blood itself when made into black pudding. Mmmm), and the hides make excellent leather, but they’re also genetically close enough to humans for us to be able to use their heart valves as replacements for our own.
Do the Jews and Muslims never wonder why their god would create such a perfect animal – one that can feed us, clothe us, and help keep us alive – only to ban them from even touching one? Even more ironic is the fact that thickly-cut, lightly-smoked, salty bacon is the perfect accompanyment to scallops, and the poor buggers can never get to taste even half of that delicious combo.
Ah well, more for us, I suppose π
As a lapsed, nay, collapsed Jew who was driven to atheism early on, I’m always amazed at how few people notice the similarities between Jews and Muslims, from how Halal and Kosher laws are nearly identical, the mandatory covering of the head and the fear of shaving of the pious, the 2nd class citizenship of women who must keep arms and legs concealed.
As for me, to paraphrase the gun nuts that bought and paid for our politicians, they’ll take that crisp strip of bacon from me when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
AoS, you were doing so well – garlic, paprika – and then you mentioned black pudding. Hoist on your own petard! π
AOS Scallops and black pudding go well together too. If you live in the middle east pre-refrigeration not eating pork or shellfish makes some sense as the tainted flesh of either of them can be pretty dangerous.
Mary2 Have you ever tried black pudding, it is the food of the gods, apart from the stuff they have in Manchester Airport which is not good at all.
Mary, the thing with black pudding is that it can be the most awful stuff on the plate – or the best. The mass-produced stuff really is muck, but if you can find a good pig farmer with their own butchery and farm shop – a rare thing nowadays, but I’m lucky in having one just a couple of miles away – who makes their own it can be delicious (as with bacon*, it’s a natural accompaniment for scallops). If you’ve only had the supermarket stuff it’s no surprise you don’t like it – unless you’re one of ‘those’ people who don’t like something without tasting it because they don’t like the thought of what’s in it; it’s a PR problem that black pudding shares with haggis, tripe and most offal.
*Bacon, like black pudding, is best avoided when it comes pre-packed; there’s nothing quite like a thick slice of bacon that’s been cured naturally – smoked or not – rather than the stuff that’s been pumped with water (which is why it shrinks to nothing when cooked) and all sorts of preservatives that don’t actually preserve the meat. A good side of bacon can be hung for months and still be perfectly good to eat; try that with the supermarket rubbish and you’ll be sitting on the toilet for a week.
Jobrag, thank you for your black pudding support (we cross-posted, hence our duplication of the scallop marriage).
Your point about pre-refigeration is a good one, and is probably the root of the desert-dwellers’ religious ban, particularly with shellfish. As long as pork is cooked properly there’s no real problem, but they weren’t to know that. As it happens, desert conditions are ideal for air-curing hams and bacon, as long as the flies can be kept at bay, that is. Contrary to popular opinion, a properly air-cured, smoked ham can be eaten raw, but don’t try this with the processed stuff that most everywhere sells nowadays – that way lies a fortune spent on loo paper π
@aos – could not agree more with your views regarding bacon and black pudding. Have you tried te welsh custom of adding laver bread? Particularly if you are also involving a very fine sausage. All this talk reminds me of what America’s most famous general Stormin’ Norman had to say about the difference between just being involved with something and being seriously committed. “Think of bacon and eggs.. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed.”
I love laver bread, JoJo. It’s delicious spread on a bacon and mushroom omelette made with duck eggs, sprinkled with a strong cheddar and popped under a hot grill for a couple of minutes.
This one is much too good: http://imgur.com/r/atheism/pPAyM
mary2,
Just for you π : http://imgur.com/r/atheism/ZbYna
Let call it the last one for today: http://imgur.com/r/atheism/pSSTK
OK. I’ll concede the point – as a vegetarian I am not the best judge of how you eat your corpses π I’ve never heard of laverbread before – looks interesting. I’ll have to find a Welsh friend…
Speaking of food bans in Leviticus: a favourite past-time of mine has always been to ask door-knocking prothletisers why God has banned them from eating rabbit (Lev 11:5 KJV = coneys). This always gets wonderful blank looks from people who use the pre-refrigeration line for shellfish and pork. I had an interesting conversation with a Jewish acquaintance recently who told me that the Hebrew scripture actually prevented the eating of the Hydrax and didn’t mention rabbits. How on Earth does that work? God prevents people from eating little fluffy rodents in the Middle East, the religion is transferred to a part of the world where these creatures don’t exist, so the translators just throw in a non-related little fluffy rodent and say ‘close enough, who needs precision or accuracy with God’s Word’?
OMG, have you seen the original footage of Ray Comfort? Hilarious. For those who don’t know, he is a televangelist of very little intelligence (if that isn’t tautological) who tried to use the banana as proof of God designing the world for human use – until it was pointed out to him that bananas in the wild look very little like their artificially selected cousins we buy in the shops.
Mary, I didn’t realise you were a vegetarian; had I known earlier I might have made the observation that you opining on black pudding is like the Pope pontificating on sex – or Hugh F. Grant on acting. π
By the way, did you know that the Catholic Church officially classified the European beaver (the animal, before anybody gets smutty) as’ a fish’? It was a Lent Friday / Ash Wednesday ‘out’ for those who didn’t want to actually eat fish.
I see the logic; it’s aquatic, it can swim, it probably has a fishy flavour owing to its diet, er, and that’s about it, really.
omg, thanks for the links, some of those are fantastic. My favourite so far has to be this one. “Islamic advantage: When you divorce your wife and remarry, you can still keep the same photo on the desk.” That’s almost Author-esque.
Now, to bring this yet again enjoyable thread full circle, I had a sudden revelation recently, and as it’s late and I’m having one of those insomnia nights I’m going to bore you with it.
If that’s OK by you, of course π
As my recent commment to VoteCoffee on the subject re-kindled my interest, I’ve been having another stab at getting my head around String- and Brane Theory (p-branes! Who says physicists don’t have a sense of humour?), and have to admit that it’s one of those subjects that increasingly hurts the old grey matter the more one tries to understand it. I do understand – in a very limited sense – what the basic idea is, but I’ve yet to even begin understanding the theorised mechanisms – the ‘how’s and ‘why’s’ – in any real sense.
Last night I was re-reading a chapter in Hawking’s History of the Universe in a Nutshell, -which is about as basic an explanation as it’s possible to get – for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time my brain was protesting at what I was trying to get it to compute, when right out of left-field, I suddenly understood the attraction of Creationism; there is absolutely no need to think about extremely difficult concepts concerning life, the Universe, and everything, when one can simply invoke the unknowable mind of God and consider the matter closed. How easy would that be?, to be able to explain anything that would otherwise require serious thinking by crediting God, then go on to evade the ‘so how did God do it?’ question with the ‘unknowable mind’ card.
Thankfully (?) I’m happy to struggle in understanding the output of the only slightly-less unknowable minds of Feynman, Hawking, et al, no matter how much it hurts, because to my own, far simpler mind, it’s better to be deeply confused but working hard to understand, than to be deeply wrong and proud of it.
AoS, I don’t think the beaver thing works as the Pope expected. I am sure (can’t be bothered checking) that Leviticus prohibits the eating of anything from the sea which lacks scales! Why don’t these people know their own religion!
Thank God (so to speak) for your insomnia otherwise I would have no one to reply to until people wake up in your hemisphere.
I like your theory on creationism. I have always thought there must be something very comforting in certainty. No more late nights wondering about where your life is going – just the knowledge that it’s all part of God’s plan and God loves you and will do the right thing by you (must be hard to convince yourself of as your children all die in a building collapse which cripples you and you live in a country without welfare provisions etc.).
Sorry, did look it up.
KJV: Leviticus 11.9 “These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. 11.10. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you.”
So all of you who eat shark (commonly sold as fish ‘n’ chips in Aust) are unclean.
AOS- I think you forget the mental gymnastics required to believe in a religion in the face of science and the internet. The certainty is a requirement as much as it is a ‘blessing’. Christianity is a herd religion, and weakness in any regards will quickly push you down in the pecking order and mark you as a sacrificial member…
Mary2- Amazing how flexible God suddenly decided to be with regards to ‘uncleanliness’.
VoteCoffee, For God is a busy God, and if He cannot remember, from one week to the next, which of the creeping things that creepeth upon the Earth (best phrase in the bible) he has deemed abominable, then whosoever amongst you is fit to judge Him.
mary2, of course, I have seen the Ray Comfort’s footage.
For those that have not see it, Ray Comfort (the Banana Man):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yBvvGi_2A&list=PL7F40E9E19C6050AD
Yaay, I got some sleep at last. Three whole medicinally-induced hours.
omg, did you follow my recent Ray Comfort link? A commenter on his blog referred to him as a ‘bibliophile’ and Comfort took offence. He thought it was ‘just another atheist insult, a cross between paedophile and bible’.
To his credit, he apologised for his misunderstanding……….Honestly, the man is a parody of himself.
Mary, I see the loophole they exploited in Leviticus; ‘…all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters…’
It’s all about in the water, whereas beavers tend to be on it except when diving for food or to gain access to the lodge. It’s an important distinction, because otherwise any animal that steps foot in a river – or even a puddle – could be said to move in the water, making virtually every single animal on the face of the planet ‘unclean’. And that would mean that Catholics could only ever be piscatarian, and even that with a very bizarre definition that excludes sharks and rays, bi-valves, molluscs, and crustaceans, but includes beavers.
VoteCoffee, the catch-all ‘Goddidiit’ negates the need for the mental gymnastics. To them, science is our misguided attempt to work out how ‘Godditit’; discrepancies between scientific evidence and the Bible are ‘God testing their faith’ – the clearer the science, the more undeniable the evidence, and the bigger the discrepancy with their book, the more God is testing their faith; logical fallacies – ‘Goddidit’; contradictions within their own belief system – ‘Goddidit’.
One can be the smartest person in the room when one knows that the only answer that one ever needs to learn is ‘Goddidit, and it’s not for us to ask why’.
The real mental gymnastics is in trying to understand how we can even begin to work out that we could live in an eleven-dimensional Universe where seven of the dimensions are curled up so small as to be undetectable, and where that Universe could be just one of a infinite number of ‘brane bubbles’; where we might even be ‘shadows’ on one ‘brane’ of our real selves living on another; where vibrating strings of energy of infinite length but zero other dimensions can stretch undetected right across the Universe; where matter appears and disappears from nothing but a fluctuating vaccuum and back again………And I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that I’m no gymnast.
AoS – no wonder you can’t sleep. give the brain/brane a rest.
Aos, no I had not followed your link. But now I do. This guy seem unable to read the bible or a dictionary.
“Amazing how flexible God suddenly decided to be with regards to βuncleanlinessβ.”
Well…
Except for teh gay people.
They’re still an abomanimation.
I know that cuz the pastor sed so.