Pete : Fuck no! Saturnalia is the nearest thing we know of to a great culture’s official version of Ophelia’s mixed-gender dancing and boozing it up royally. We need to restart Saturnalia’s war on the Christ part of Christmas.
But keep the name.
The name’s useful as a reminder of what we’ve lost and how bloody grateful we would be to have got rid of it.
Ophelia : yerp : it’s happening to many. I think it’s one of those well-known and documented added featurettes that the Internet delivers unto us to keep us amused and people like me in gainful employment, a glitch.
Merry Saturnalia. And {{{hugs}}}.
So I didn’t get first comment after all – couldn’t see them for the first 20-30 mins.
A good one again, Author. I started reading these around 2-3 months ago and worked my way through the archives to present day. Love everyone’s comments and debates, sometimes I feel things get a little one-sided but then remember that it’s because those arguments often win out when reason and rational thought are applied – hence the existence of this comic.
We atheists really are far too cruel on Christmas, lots of us joining in with the celebrations and enjoying the season and all… disgraceful, it really is.
Author: if we annihilate the scroddy scunners whom would we have to poke fun at on a Wednesday. I mean, have you seenWednesdays. They are more comprehensible than Thursdays but only marginally and they have this funny way of sneaking up on us.
What we need to do is annihilate the bad bits and keep the funny bits.
Anyone think that’s possible?
Thanks for your help on the previous thread guys. I could read the source code but I admit defeat, that fancy html isn’t for me. I’ll stick to gardening.
Can I have an invite to your party please Ophelia. I’ll bring a bottle or 3 🙂
OH! OH! OH! Come all ye faithful, true to the spirit of the season of the solstice and rejoice! for lo, the Light doth indeed be not disappearing but in fact is returning, rising back up, up, up to it’s highest of heights in our skies! Rather we make merry than bake Mary as our long forgotten ancestors once did to coax our Sun away from the abyss (“Son: don’t go! We DO Love you!”). Praise be to the one (likely a woman) who so long ago said “Hang on: this year, let’s try NOT killing a virgin – Mary, you’re off the hook; go home – and see what happens.” And LO! Here Comes The Sun! And let it be said that on that day, ignorance began to wane and true wonder at the nature of this universe was born! And then a lot of interesting and weird shit happened and … oh bugger it: Happy Solstice, everyone! 10:13 a.m. MST Dec.21! Enjoy!
It will truly be a war only when the drones bring it on from above, otherwise much like Korea in the 1950’s, it’s just a police action.
Nothing to see here, move along
At the risk of boring the regulars, I would reiterate that there are are two ‘Wars on Islam’, one real and the other mythical. Whatever the mullahs might claim, there has been no kind of war made by the satanic West on Islam per sesince the Crusades. So much for the myth.
There is a real war, in the sense of persecution for muslim beliefs, in which thousands of people are fighting every day, about which the loudest ‘war on Islam’ bleaters are strangely silent. It is the endless war between Shia and Sunni, originally a trivial theological quibble, but now a battle to the death between implacable robber barons, competing for territory and political influence.
It is this struggle which is driving the conflict in Syria, and preventing it from being a simple civil war in which the West could help the victims of oppression, as it did in Libya. However grotesque Bashir al-Asad’s government is, the so-called ‘anti-government’ fighters are only interested in establishing Iranian/Saudi -style theocracy; so no Western government dare support them against him.
I think a war on Islam would be an excellent idea, followed by a war on Judaism, and any other religion prepared to deny anyone else’s rights. A few strategically placed nukes could do a world of good, and as Christopher Hitchens observed, the clock is ticking. If we do nothing, it is only a matter of time before the Islamists get their own WMD, and have the world over a barrel. Then we will be able to justify a real war on Islam, but of course, it will be too late.
i always feel guilty celebrating xmas cos im atheist but then i remember presents. I guess the world wd be fine without it but hey! enjoy your presents if u get them and merry heartfelt solstice to you all x
p.s my comment about “them” needing forgiveness was talking about gays not priests and priests certainly do need forgiveness-although really? Maybe not…
Hotrats is right: There is no Western “war on Islam”. Even the Crusades were not wars against Islam — they were wars over control of territory. When the Europeans took the “Holy Land”, they stopped. There was no serious attempt to conquer the remaining Islamic empires, and there was no attempt to destroy Islam.
The comment about “a few strategically placed nukes” reminds me of the Middle-East Peace Plan that I thought up back in the 1970s. The US and the USSR had enacted various arms control agreements that left them both with a tremendous surplus of nuclear weapons. There were enough that the entire disputed area could be made uninhabitable, and therefore there would be nothing to fight over.
At the time, I considered it a joke, but now I worry that somebody may actually try to implement that plan. If I remember correctly, it was Netanyahu who was asked “How far would you go to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon?” and he answered “2000 km.” In a way, it is hard to blame him. The US and USSR had Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD. We almost had nuclear war on several occasions, but the prospect made both sides more willing to find a way to avoid it. But if you are Israel facing Iran, you have a different consideration: Can you use deterrence against an enemy who thinks getting killed is a *good* thing?
But even this is not a war against Islam. It is a war against political actors who happen to use the Islam-under-attack story to stay in power. They need an enemy so badly that they start to believe their own rhetoric.
Think about it: If Iran and Iraq spent the next 50 years saying “I’m ok, you’re ok; I’m just going to keep an eye on you”, they could have peace.
And for the record, the Christians started the War on Christmas with a pre-emptive attack. I’m perfectly happy to let them go have a party, but they aren’t happy to leave me out of it, and they seem to want the government involved. They started crying about not putting their religious symbols in our government, and how awful it is to say “Happy Holidays”, and all that crap. All they had to do was leave me alone…
To drift o/t for a moment and return to the issue of strange happenings in the comments section, I’d eventually noticed that my login section contained the wrong name, with “John M” being replaced with “John+M”. This has happened to Old Johnson and AoS, too. The result seems to be that the comment under John+M would be a first comment for that name and so the posting was withheld for a time.
Meanwhile for “botanist” and others wondering about tags for HTML tags, here’s a useful link
The war on Christmas is is frightful
Islam’s war on everything, spiteful
Jihadists exploding in the snow
Let them blow, let them blow, let them blow
When their done it will be a quiet night.
I don’t have much to say about the war on Islam except that I hope there’ll be (much) more of it – especially by those “moderate” muslims (is there really such a thing?).
Two links to amusing atheist sites, which I shall split into two postings (being forewarned by previous threads). Apologies if they have appeared in this site before. Here is the first (with an appropriate seasonal cartoon): http://farleftside.com/2013/12-18-13-white-christmas.html
John M : that’s why some of our posts, see Ophelia and OJ (damn that name seems so familiar) for samples, are repeated.
And thanks for the HTML link.
Mark S. and hotrats et alii : It is entirely possible that there are three wars on “the evil Santanic [sic] West” by the Islamists.
There is an undeclared war of assimilation and attrition effected by means of immigration from the hell-holes they make of their countries to the far nicer places we have built. They then strive to turn our homes into copies of their lost hell-hole homes by forcing mosques, black bin-bagged women and sharia laws upon us whether we like it or not. This is war by stealth. Not much stealth and even some of our politicians have noticed and become alarmed but they won’t resist it because of fear.
There are minor clerics and sometimes major clerics fighting the “freedoms” we enjoy on a piecemeal basis. A cartoon here, a nudist beach a mile from a mosque here, a butchers that has hung pigs heads (not the same ones) (not usually) in the window since 1600 within walking distance of another mosque over there. They stir up riots and jerks jerking up and down screaming at us in fake rage just so they can encroach another millimetre, another subservience to their savage, dark, unending graveyard worldview at a time.
And there is the declared war, the war none of our leaders mention but that is right there in every page of the Koran, in all their laws. The war that says : Only Islam has a right to exist.
It does not matter how peaceable each individual adherent is, how nice of a person, how loveable and cuddly and friendly. Islam wants the entire world to be Islam forever. That is the entire drive behind the religion. It is the entire purpose of the religion. It is the only thing that matters. Islam is “submission” and only total submission by everything that lives and breathes suffices, anything less is an abomination.
You don’t believe that? Read the book. Listen to their clerics. They believe in Catholicism the way the Roman Catholics only dream they could have.
Islam is at war with *everything* including, as said above, other schisms of Islam.
And they will win.
For we are no longer crusaders. We don’t have the heart to level a crescent of the world and exterminate entire races and countries. Islam does. Islam *must* to submit fully. We don’t, not any more. While that is a good and joyous thing and makes us better men (yes, even our women are better, far, far better, Real Men than their men) (and could I mock and make sport of them any worse in their eyes?) it is suicide in the long run.
We fight them with ladies like Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali but we’ll lose. They can kill her. They will eventually if they decide she’s enough of a nuisance. There is no such thing as “secure” if your opponent does not care about living. Send fifty suicide bombers, five at a time, and at least one will get past her security team and close enough to her.
The only question is whether the bad guys care enough to put the effort into it. So far, not. We’re lucky. Not good, not brilliant at security, just lucky they don’t see us as important enough.
Yet.
The reality is that the TSA, the FBI, Interpol and the entire Homeland ensemble are vastly outnumbered by fanatics who are absolutely certain they are doing the right thing and that they will be rewarded gloriously. We can’t win.
I’m not giving the bad guys any new ideas here. The Vietnamese and the Russians and the Afghans have won wars by body-count over skill and technology.
Two hundred souls gone to heaven and you can do massive damage to a country of Santa-loving, satanic imperialist infidels.
By stealth, by inches and by declared war they are going to win.
It is inevitable.
Islamophobe? Too right I’m scared, not of the people, the individuals but of the fringes and the idea. We all should be. We’re going to get minced by a mincing machine larger than worlds!
So we may as well have a truly world-resounding piss-up while we can.
Happy Saturnalia, Merry Ragnarök and have a really great New Armageddon.
Some Christmas-related (vaguely) quotes:
“And, again, let’s not forget that we are talking about a violent, sexist, homophobic, penis-obsessed, rape-condoning, self-contradictory Jewish deity who is apparently incapable of counting the number of legs on an insect. ” Caleb,
He forgot “self-congratulatory”. The guy does so like to stroke his own ego.
And, talking about the appearance of Easter eggs in shops:
“I think at this time of year it is only fair to say if Jesus died for our sins then it is only fair for us to do some sinning so he did not die in vain.”
Transnistria, Usenet
“Thou shalt take five sicles for every bead, according to the weight of the sanctuary. A sicle hath twenty obols.” Numbers, 3:47
And that is telling you.
“What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic
simulations involving a sledgehammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.” – Dave Barry
Okay, so that one has bugger all to do with Christmas, per se, but it’s funny. And you never know, the Great Christmas Asteroid could be on its way, if not next week then perhaps next Solstice Day.
Oh, and the world ended exactly a week ago this Saturday. So maybe we don’t have to worry about any of this? Happy Last Day Anniversary, everyone.
I know WikiPee isn’t an authority, but, from the WikiPee article on Sharia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia and only for the purpose of provoking discussion we have this delightful piece:
According to scholars (footnote indices removed, BtD) of traditional Islamic law, the applicable rules for religious conversion under Sharia are as follows:
If a person converts to Islam, or is born and raised as a Muslim, then he or she will have full rights of citizenship in an Islamic state.
Leaving Islam is a sin and a religious crime. Once any man or woman is officially classified as Muslim, because of birth or religious conversion, he or she will be subject to the death penalty if he or she becomes an apostate, that is, abandons his or her faith in Islam in order to become an atheist, agnostic or to convert to another religion. Before executing the death penalty, Sharia demands that the individual be offered one chance to return to Islam.
If a person has never been a Muslim, and is not a kafir (infidel, unbeliever), he or she can live in an Islamic state by accepting to be a dhimmi, or under a special permission called aman. As a dhimmi or under aman, he or she will suffer certain limitations of rights as a subject of an Islamic state, and will not enjoy complete legal equality with Muslims.
If a person has never been a Muslim, and is a kafir (infidel, unbeliever), Sharia demands that he or she should be offered the choice to convert to Islam and become a Muslim; if they reject the offer, he or she may either be killed, enslaved, or ransomed if captured.
Live as we do or die. At least it’s a kind of a choice.
Remember to celebrate Jimmy’s Day on May the thirteenth, and Joseph Smith Day on the twenty-third of this month, that’s this coming Monday, and, of course, the day of the most important of the prophets, the one true prophet, the very, very last prophet Sun Myung Moon’s Birthday on the twenty-fifth of February, next.
(I know Jimmy Jones was born later but he also died earlier which makes it a “last man on the Moon” sort of debatable point as to who, exactly is the Last Ever True Prophet. It’s absolutely certain it isn’t that pretender in Arabia.)
And if we’re doing that lot, Solstice Day, The End Of The World Anniversary Day and Jesus’s Birthday, too, we might as well raise a glass of brandy and have a bacon sandwich to celebrate Mo’sDay, Mawlid. That’s a shifty one and it moves so we may as well celebrate it every day with a pork pie and a beer.
The next Mawlid is supposed to be both the 17th and the 21st of January, 2014 in our calendar, or 12/3/1435 and 17/3/1435 in theirs. But we may as well celebrate it early, and often.
Hey, any damned excuse for a party, yes? Anyway, beer is good and bacon butties are lovely.
Remember to hoist one for Joe on Monday. He is definitely, certainly, absolutely not the last prophet. But he was generally not too bad a guy, for a pope-thing.
Ophelia : According to BtD we have a plethora a cornucopia, a veritable horde of celebrations to pick from. Merry All-of-them.
BtD : what did you do, swallow Wikipedia? You worry me, lad. It isn’t your warnings about the war of annihilation to come, it’s your blithe acceptance of our doom.
Are you a fatalist or something. young man?
BtD and Ophelia: “OJ”? Has that been used here already or something?
Old Johnson, just on the off-chance your last question wasn’t rhetorical, I think the ‘OJ’ in question might be the one who, in a modern twist on the Cinderella story, couldn’t get the glove to fit and so didn’t live unhappily ever after in a U.S. State Penitentiary.
Or, to put it another way, the ‘Simpson’ who isn’t a member of the yellow-skinned cartoon family.
Barr, we can fight back, you know. In fact, I’m making a start on protecting us from the evil Islamists by turning their magic back on them. You know how wearing a silver cross keeps vampires away? Well I’m about to market a plethora of pig-meat based charms and amulets. Bacon brooches and pork belly pendants, anyone?
@BtD
A great man is purported to have said that the secret of success is in 7 short words,”Never give up – never, ever give up” but I suspect this is a redaction of Churchill’s famous,”Never,never,never … ” speech at Harrow school.
Whatever else, we should not, must not, accept that Islam will ultimately cow the entire human race, for the simple reason that it is palpably false. And whilst I am rather pacifist by nature, in this case one might be justified in promoting in secular nations a pre-emptive, all-out war on those who would kill us for simply refusing to believe in their nonsense. A difficulty would be ordinary men and women who are, to a greater ot lesser extent, Muslimish – finding themselves as human shields and fall-guys for the baddies, who may even be members of their own family. But ultimately we need to see the mad dogs of this crazy belief system separated out from the saner elements in society and, if deprogramming is not an option, then locked away securely for their lifetimes.
@AoS
There is a story ‘out there’ about a Spanish community who buried whole pigs in a plot of land purchased for construction of a mosque. I also recall the story had a happy ending, but I need to backtrack and see if I can re-raise this info.
Barr, I couldn’t read all of your rant but I think I got the gist.
I would caution against taking this stuff too seriously, it’s not so long ago that people were predicting that the communists were bound to take over the world, shortly before the whole rotten edifice fell down. I suspect we are dealing with a similar scenario.
If I had to guess, I would say that no more than 5% of Muslims hold daft fundamentalist views, and only a small percentage of those would actually want to blow themselves up for the cause. That may well equate to a lot of people but they would still be a tiny minority even in the “hell-holes they make of their countries”.
I’m not really comfortable equating the religious bigots who commit these atrocities with all the pretty normal people I have met who just happen to be muslim. Being a muslims or a jew is often more of a cultural than a religious thing, even in the west people call themselves christian to denote their ethnic origin rather than actually believing we are living in end times.
It’s a shame we can’t do more to help the majority of muslims who want pretty much the same as us, an invite to Ophelia’s party.
Barr-the-Door: I mostly agree with your analysis. I have often observed people who left some middle eastern country because it sucks to be there, and then wanted to change thier nice refuge into the same hellhole (I used a different hole-based word) that they left.
A key problem is that it is hard to oppose that sort of cultural change.
One reason is that you can’t be against Muslims without looking like a nazi skinhead. People will associate you with things like the British National Party in the UK, Front National in France, or Sweden Democrats in Sweden. Not great for your credibility — you look like just another racist.
(We have similar political positions in the US, but because of our particularly unpleasant history with race issues, most politicians with racist views tend to speak in code rather than flat out say any racist positions.)
A bigger problem is how to oppose Islam in a way that you are not also opposing yourself. I am an atheist. How might I describe rules that would prevent or reduce Islamic influences without the same rule working against (or setting a precedent against) atheists? Any such rules would clearly be incompatible with the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution, or Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. How exactly do you argue for restricting the freedom of religion and freedom of expression in a way that does not leave an opening for restricting *your* freedom of religion and expression. I can’t think of a way.
@Micky
The results of polling across Muslim communities world-wide showed some rather unnerving stats about how many Muslims were in favour of certain extremist behaviours. So you don’t have to guess
Try multiplying the percentages given by 1.5 billion to get an idea of the actual numbers involved
“John M” with or without the “+”, that series of statistics does not frighten me. Even were 102% (some voting twice to make sure they count) of Muslims in England to support the idea of Sharia becoming the law of the land it would not worry me overly much.
Hitler and his friends got into power in Germany with less than 1% of the population supporting him in most elections. Nobody sane voted for Mao, Sar or Stalin.
The Muslim Council of Britain has great power and is in the House of Lords not because they are a force or popular or even sane but because of backroom deals made between fat old men of no particular faith.
The politicians see an advantage in using them so they have power that far outweighs their relevance.
It’s possible BtD sees something like that escalating unstoppably in “The West” and the black hats winning because we hand them the victory.
That is what *I* worry about when I worry about it. The demented shitheads in aeroplanes and vests we can cope with, they can kill only a few of us. In the long term they don’t matter. It’s the brandy-swilling, corrupt evil bastards in Parliament that will do us in.
And they *will* win. BtD is right in that. The oil will run out and whether we have an alternative or not those Stone Age lands will revert back to poverty and barbarity and they will all want to be here.
Bringing their sharia comforter blanket with them.
Mark S. : the one thing we could do is make *all* religion illegal. Teach no religion to any child until they are fifteen or so and then teach it along with all the other Norse, Greek and Amerindian myths, as fairytales for children and as part of our long-dead history. Utterly ban religion at home and all churches.
It could be done. We would have to shut or absorb every parochial school that exists and possibly send in the troops to kill a few die-hard fundies but it could be done. In one generation we could remove the filthy scourge of religion from our species.
Anyone care to bet on any politician trying to get that Bill voted in?
Anyone got an estimate of his probable life expectancy?
Or mine if I voted for it?
They *will* win. It is utterly and certainly inevitable. They already have in most ways and the rest is just mopping up. (Perfect example right here: what’s the Good Author’s life expectancy should his home address be published in “The Times”? How many more issues would then be published? How long would the website be online? The Author should be able to publish his name, face and home addy anywhere he damned well likes. So should I. Does anyone really think that’s safe in a country with an MCB giving back-handed support to the loonies?)
BtD is right, we’re doomed.
Fuck it, fuck them all … (Looks at broken Statue of Liberty and yells: “damn you all to Heeeeelllllllll!”)
Party, anyone?
Old Johnson:
” … (Looks at broken Statue of Liberty and yells: “damn you all to Heeeeelllllllll!”)
Party, anyone?”
I recommend “Hunters’ Gold”, “Crack Shot” and “Devon Dreamer” from Hunter’s Brewery in Devon in England. So far as I know they deliver to all civilised countries – where “civilised” equals “allows the peasantry to buy beers”. And a lovely little thing called “Todka” from Newquay in Cornwall across the border. If those don’t make you appreciate Man’s ingenuity and the universe’s love for us there might be no hope for you.
Hunter’s “DD” is beautiful stuff.
Hey, are we allowed to advertise on here? I don’t work for a beer maker, nor do I have shares but I thought I might want to spread the love. Can never have enough love.
And I think they deliver.
Drink irresponsibly but do it at home or hire taxis. Remember, if you’re alive you can party again tomorrow.
Old Johnson: “And I think they deliver” http://www.thehuntersbrewery.co.uk/shop
Indeed they do. Think on it as ammunition in the War on Christmas. Or an early Mawlid toast. Or my attempt to boost the balance of payments of UKland/England and Cornwall a little.
Or the last gasp of Civilisation before the Armies of Darkness close in.
Botanist: I’m going to rain, no *monsoon*, on your parade. That is neither a victory for reason nor an apology. It is just the ruling old farts in a back room weighing up the potential loses of future income and potential loses of invitations to huge multi-course meals and deciding which side costs them less personally. It’s not a matter of principle, not to them, it’s “face”, pomp, privilege, prestige, profit and large dinners in opulent surroundings.
This time, belatedly, they backed the students, probably because someone pointed out the logic that if the cops come down hard on anti-christ stuff they should theoretically come down hard on pro-christ stuff and that would piss off the churches. Next time it could be they’ll back the cops. And next time they’ll do it harder, faster and above all *quieter*.
Black-bag the evil, mouthy student bastards. Then disappear them.
Quietly.
Or does anyone really think those people (to use the term loosely) actually do have principles?
Am I still in the Cock and Bull? If so, do we have George W. Bush and Pat Condell in the house?
I only ask because I’m seeing talk of using tactical nuclear strikes and pre-emptive all-out war if ‘they’ continue to reject Western secular values, along with apparent regret that we no longer have Crusades and ‘lack the heart to level a crescent of the world and exterminate entire races and countries’. And we are to bomb and shoot and annihilate to show them that Live as we do or die is simply unacceptable in polite society?
That’s some pretty fucked-up thinking from where I’m looking.
And this: One reason is that you can’t be against Muslims without looking like a nazi skinhead.
Do I really need to point out what’s so wrong with that line?
Come on, you lot, let’s leave the killing and the hate to the experts, eh? We need to lead by example, not by stooping to the tactics perfected by religion.
However there is good news in this sorry world. And the good news is we have a good candidate for the Darwin Awards, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-25447936
or is that callous and in poor taste?
Would it have been even funnier had they charged the dead guy?
Or is that in very poor taste?
AoS: I did say I thought it was *good* that we were no longer crusaders, didn’t I? It’s a bad thing that we are doooooomed but that we can’t fight back is *essential* to us being the Good Guys.
Unfortunately, and in contrast to “Superman” movies, the “good-guy” can never be an alien, super-powered bully. We can’t flick bullets away, we have to worry about where they will land after we flick them away from our eyes. We have to worry about consequences and live with them. The nut-jobs who walk into crowds with bombs strapped to their chests don’t. They are immune to consequences. And the fat, old, male, gun-running, drug-peddling paedophiliacs who send them out to die and to kill are equally protected from harm.
We aren’t. We worry about the pain and suffering we’d cause if we lit up the Muslim Crescent and turned most of it into trinitite glass and the remains into a burning hellfire of smoking flesh.
We, the secular governments that remain, could do it. Between us, there are sufficient nukes to eliminate Islam as a viable religion and culture. It would take only a few minutes.
The small residual populations in self-imposed ghettos in major cities outside the Crescent could be dealt with using tacticals. Sure, that would hurt many of us, of our people, but so what? If you are going to commit a crime, an atrocity that vast do you really imagine a few collateral damage casualties will matter?
But we’re the Good Guys. We could never do that. Not even if it was fire them all or die. We could never live with doing such a thing. It would taint us forever. It would be a stain we could not accept.
The religious fundamentalist lunatics would do it without hesitation.
We can never do it. They would do it even if it meant their own assured annihilation. MAD isn’t a restraint when the bad guys gleefully want to die.
That is why we should have a party to celebrate End-Of-The-World-Day Anniversary this Saturday. With some of OJ’s beer. (Does he really not know of the “Simpson’s” prodigal son and the black sheep of the family?)
Because we’re the nice guys and the nice guys always get smooshed.
And never get the girl.
As a very non-wise man once said many times: party on, Dudes.
Barr-the-Door was seen to rant a little: “AoS: I did say I thought it was *good* that we were no longer crusaders, didn’t I? ”
Yes, lad, you most assuredly did. Twice. At length.
And, like you, young man, I truly hope we can never do it, though it does make for an interesting sub-plot in John Birmingham novels. I hope we are better people than that.
On the twentieth of December, 2007, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth became the oldest reigning monarch of Great Britain. Some six years later, we can toast (with an ale from that most excellent of breweries someone mentioned) that she is still the oldest reigning monarch. By this date in 2015 she will also be the longest reigning monarch in British history.
Of course, by then, we’ll all be Muslims.
LSE’s apology headlined this morning on BBC 4 Today programme news, with more detail in a feature that ran at around 7.35am. This should be available to listen to on BBC iPlayer later today. LSE spokesman was mealy mouthed about “complex issues” surrounding the issue of free speech – he suffers from the usual problem of being unable to distinguish between race and religion, I think.
HaggisForBrains: I suspect he suffers far, far more from the inability to decide which rich, powerful, lunch-buying benefactors to piss-off.
Which set he can afford to piss-off most without losing the promised new wing of the new gymnasium or new facilities for the Staff Common Rooms.
He, or his bosses, or both.
But I’m old and cynical and have seen far too many principles sacrificed on the alters of personal privilege and expediency.
Not that I would ever do such a thing myself, of course.
Old Johnson,
Some people are not very social, have you noticed that no body showed up to collect they price at the Darwing Awards?
I tell you, today, people have no respect for the honor we give them.
@ Old Johnson
I was saddened to see that you intend to capitulate to the coming Islamification of GB, thereby allowing them to hack bits off your todger . Because the fine ales you mention, as well as those wonderful single malts in my cupboard, will no longer be produced – and existing stocks all destroyed – I will opt for the easier way out and have them kill me as an infidel.
Unlike BtD, I will fight back, hopefully by acquiring a suicide vest I can explode when they come for me. It’s not the solution I would wish, as I explained previously in this thread, but if AoS is giving the thumbs down to pre-emptive moves to round up the nutters and humanely isolate them, I suppose I have no option. I draw the line at surrender, just as my parents did 73 years ago when political, rather than religious, fascism was the enemy.
Incidentally, old son, where did you get the idea that the national socialist support was typically around 1%. Even in the very first national election they contested, they polled over 6%, and in 1932 it was over 30% in both elections held that year. It is never a good idea to pull facts from thin air, as subsequently your opinions will receive rather less adulation, which is not what regulars at the C&B are good at. We prefer to ‘stroke’ one another, as befits such an august body.
OJ started the German government sub-thread, so blame him.
This is from one of Undeluded’s cited sites seen upstream : http://www.bornagainpagan.com/photos/061-catholic-nazis.html
I think it really says all that needs to be said about them having principles. I mean, if those evil sons of bitches can ally themselves with filth like that just to get a photo-op and to generate some spurious respectability, how could anyone ever trust them again? It’s no wonder that party’s extinct.
Imagine, cosying up to priests of all things.
Truly, politicians will kiss anyone for votes.
John M: where did I get the 1%? Averages from “nobody voted for them” and research, weighted towards the “nobody ever voted for them” through decades of repetition. We gots to believe that, don’t we? 🙂
It’s a subject that has intrigued me for quite a while. Fascinated dread.
If it helps, I don’t equate “6% of votes” with “6% of the population”. “First past the post” has never struck me as particularly fair.
BtD: it could have been worse. They could have had priests of more than one religion in their councils, making their laws and calling out the jiggly hordes waving burning flags each time a vote went against them.
There’s something to be said for strong government …
Most of it unprintable in a family comments section.
@OJ
Thanks for the coded admission of sub-standard (by C&B measure) research 🙂
The voting system in Germany was not FPTP, even at the the time of Nat Soc. They used a complicated form of proportional representation even back then. But that can be just as bad as FPTP, IMO, as it let’s tails wag dogs, resulting in all sorts of nastiness. We need to scrap plurality voting (unless Condorcet is used) and switch to approval voting for political elections. People easily understand it (it’s often used nowadays in consumer surveys) and returns the least disliked candidate to office.
omg: I tried to turn up at my Darwin Award ceremony but they didn’t award me one. Seems they don’t give them to the breathing.
I tried turning up at my Nobel Prize award ceremony, too, but that committee was very reluctant to award me one until I produced something.
I never win anything.
Which is not quite true. I’ve won the Dawkins Lottery. I’m one of the few that got born.
Compared to that, the National Lottery is small beer.
John M: yes, I did know FPTP is hardly universal. It was another off-hand, throwaway remark intended as self-deprecating semi-humour, while pointing out that even Enlgand’s magnificent system has flaws. Didn’t work, did it?
I really must improve my delivery.
Maybe I’d be better with this stuff if I weren’t watching a movie and eating a sandwich at the same time.
I know I’m a bit late to this party and the conversation has moved on but wow, I go away for a week and we turn from reasoned discussion and high-brow (alright, often low-brow) mockery into ‘all Muslims deserve to die so we can save ourselves’. And then we have the gall to call ‘them’ the bad guys. And while our attention is all turned to the evil Muslims trying to get our countries to adopt Sharia law and death to apostates (how many are actually trying to do this again? About 3 murderous extremists per year in the UK, one occasional Imam with a bad attitude towards women in my country) it is the rising Christian Right (a la the USA) which is actually having a successful impact in imposing religion on our secular societies.
And, please, stop quoting the Quran to ‘prove’ that somehow Islam is innately aggressive and all those Muslims who are just as religious as the majority of Christians (i.e. not) are a figment of our collective imaginations, or I will have to quote the bible back at you to ‘prove’ that modern, secular majority-Christian countries are a logical impossibility.
I’m with Micky who said that it was expected that Communists would take over the world – just before communism collapsed. One only has to read the news to see that the high-point of Islamist attacks (please note the differentiation between ‘Islamists’ and ‘Muslims’) against the West was in 2001. Most of the Muslim violence is now against other brands of Islam and more closely aligned to politics and power than to any real religious belief.
By all means fight, fight, fight against the idiotic placatory rulings which will see our liberties eroded in a pre-emptive surrender before any actual aggression has begun, but beware of invading countries to protect ourselves against planned attacks from Weapons of Mass Destruction which only exist in our imagination.
Freefox, Mary2: apologies for any upset. You are both correct and I think I started it and encouraged old OJ. I will not do it again. If I promise to be good, Freefox, can I buy you a virtual brew? We can discuss nice things like where to get the best Christmas mince pies and beers that are sold outside OJ’s Devon.
{{Hugs}}
I have a feeling that the nuke ’em back to the Stone Age mindset is not really in evidence to any great extent here. And I’m sure those among us who believe our society needs to be a tad more aggressive in our dealings with Islamists, don’t really think international warfare is any kind of a solution. But that said, the “Pew” findings do indicate there may be an undercurrent of support among an appreciable percentage of ordinary Muslims for some of the extremist behaviour. It could, like the undercurrent of support for fascism in pre-Nazi Germany, blossom into something more disturbing – akin to the success of the National Socialists in the ’32 elections.
The Koranic prescription for infidels is quite clearly stated – and many more Muslims accept the Koran as the absolute word than those who may be inclined to modernise its teachings somewhat. This should worry all non-theists, as well as pagans, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Religious fascism will quickly revert to political fascism should loonies get power. Witness the horrific situation in Iran, where hundreds of LGBT people, apostates, infidels – some of them children – have been hanged since the Ayatollahs seized control. And the not too dissimilar situation now emerging in Uganda, driven one suspects some form of Evangelical Xtianity
BtD, John M, FreeFox, mary2: I agree completely and apologise wholeheartedly. This is the season to get warm and cosy with loved ones, or, if you don’t have any of those like what I don’t, with a nice curry.
I am sorry, I really should be gentler and more careful.
Until I can be, I’m away with the non-existent fairies.
Have happy multi-cultural, non-denominational, inclusivist holiday unless you’re working.
@OJ
I can’t actually see anything you’ve said that requires any kind of apology, though you did fail to include Ringwood, Gales, and Adnams in your list of classy brews. I suspect the chiding words from M2 and FF were more directed towards hotrats, who did seem a little OTT and slightly gung-ho for my taste with his “strategically placed nukes”. But I suspect he wanted to use them for emphasis rather than for real.
John M: nukes can only be used for emphasis. They emphasise the point that the thrower is slightly miffed at the target.
But FreeFox and mary2 are right. I get wrapped up in the war-games and the lame attempts at humour and forget not everyone is as callous and weird as me.
Still pals? Bye, and some of OJ’s {{{hugs}}} (I wonder where he gets them from?)
@ Chiefy
If only there were a few calmer heads on the other side of the divide, then together with ours they might just prevail. Alas, this is not a perfect world, and it is not one in which one-sided calm heads can prevail. Try drawing a picture of Muhamed with a calm head, and see where that gets you – or rather the rest of us will see (with shock and horror) where that gets you.
JohnM:
Given the ineradicable, implacable and unchangeable nature of jihad, which condemns us all to death in the long run, ‘a few strategically placed nukes’ seems to me a modest and even proportional reponse; ‘strategically placed’ does not mean for maximized body counts. Eliminating muslins en mass is neither morally justifiable, nor, given many mixed communities, workable in practice.
Eliminating the ‘holy’ sites of Mecca and Medina, and making all the ‘promised lands’ permanently uninhabitable irradiated wastelands would be a promising start to reintroducing believers to the concept of reality, and given fair warning, need not involve too many casualties.
Do you have any better answer to the threat of the Caliphate to your descendants? Do we just slap their fingers and say ‘naughty naughty’ when we find them playing fast and loose with nuclear materials, or bombing the shit out of bus queues? Do you really think these guys are going to get less zealous, determined and batshit crazy as time goes on?
One can fight a war on many levels, including levels that need not involve any fighting and killing whatsoever. The war of ideologies can be fought in the minds of our descendants if we take care to educate them properly, and to make sure they are not exposed to any poisonous desert dogmas in their formative years. The big mistake in the asinine war on drugs was to use heavy handed tactics. It made a lot of people rich by driving up the price, when that money could have been sidetracked instead to fund rehabilitation and education. Both these tabs are currently picked up by the taxpayer, as well as the cost of policing, property insurance and other spin-off costs.
Thanks in part to secular education, Xtianity is now waning in many places in Europe. Parents who try to prevent their offspring from get clued up, by sending them to private madrassas, etc. can be countered by insisting that they receive standard classes in social topics such as comparative religion (that should include equal time for humanism). Above all they must be given almost unfettered access to the internet – once they reach an age of discernment and can be taught how to avoid the nasty places.
Hopefully the C&B will not run out of ale when this enlightened generation arrive on the doorstep.
Eliminating the ‘holy’ sites of Mecca and Medina, and making all the ‘promised lands’ permanently uninhabitable irradiated wastelands would be a promising start to reintroducing believers to the concept of reality,
No it wouldn’t. It would it serve to massively increase the hatred towards the West, and what’s more, it would justify it; not only to the existing extremists but to the moderates too. And where would you have the refugees go? Build a great East-West dividing wall to keep them all where they belong, maybe? And then there’s the question of the millions of Muslims already in the West. Do you really think they’ll just shrug their shoulders and thank us, or do we ship them all back behind the wall before the nuking begins?
Of course, you’ll have also figured out how to control the weather so the fallout isn’t carried on the air to poison anywhere other than your target areas, I suppose? And once the Islamic ‘threat’ is neutralised – or at least confined behind the wall – would you then turn your aim to Christianity? Because I’m pretty certain there’s a lot of them would love to have Biblical laws imposed on the rest of us.
Sorry mate, but for a usually rational chap, you’re talking utter bollocks.
I’m inclined to agree, but also reckon it’s hyperbole from hotrats, just to keep us on our toes 🙂 Do you agree, though, that rolling over and playing dead is not an option in the face of militant Islam?
By-the-bye, thus far I’ve found the only way to eliminate the + signs in nyms and/or names is to correct them by hand before posting.
Am I the first to remark that a new Jesus & Mo will appear on the purported birthday of the former. Only happens once every 7.0007 years on average, If my intuitive reasoning about the perturbation caused by leap years is correct
John M:
you have me bang to rights about hyperbole, I’m not really advocating nuclear war, or a massacre of muslims. I just can’t think of anything else that could stop the juggernaut of fanatical belief. And it need not be us starting it; if you were to start a book on which country would be the second to use nuclear weapons (after the USA in Japan), after N.Korea I would expect Iran and Israel to get the shortest odds. With that (or the escalation of the Sunni-Shia conflict), maybe all that is necessary to defeat the mullahs is to sit back and wait.
AoS:
you’re right, it is a fantasy, nothing can stop the belief (just to restate the problem), and of course there would be millennia of toxicity and a humanitarian tragedy. But we seem to be heading for that anyway, if things worsen at the current pace.
Of course it’s bollocks, you can’t have a rational solution to what is essentially an irrational argument. I exaggerate the cynicism of my view, but I’m trying to raise a serious point; as the Hitch observed, the clock is ticking. Do you have any suggestions, short or long term, on how to resist the headlong slide into a world where the fanatics have the upper hand?
John M, re ‘Do you agree, though, that rolling over and playing dead is not an option in the face of militant Islam?‘
Absolutely. Rolling over and playing dead isn’t in my nature anyway, but unless my hand is forced I’d rather explore more peaceable options whilst keeping a careful watch for a sucker punch.
hotrats, I thought you might have been playing Devil’s Advocaat (a little seasonal ‘egg-nog’ related pun there – well, it is Christmas after all), but I couldn’t run the risk of a passing reader seeing comments like that go unchallenged, not on this site of all places; we do have a reputation to maintain, for Go Author’s sake.
As for suggestions, it would be a lot harder for the hate preachers to radicalise otherwise moderate Muslims if we stopped giving them quite so many reasons to hate us. Call me naive, but I suspect that drone attacks on wedding parties and public apartment blocks and such-like with no apparent concern for civilian casualties so long as they get the bad guy aren’t going to win too many ‘hearts and minds’.
Then there’s the nasty habit of locking up anybody – usually a brown-skinned anybody – with the most tenuous of links to terrorism. “You admit that you sold a computer to a man who gave it to his second cousin, who in turn sent it to his nephew in Helmand Province who sold it to a man who stripped it to use some of its components to make an IED. Your admission proves you are clearly part of the terrorists’ supply-chain. Send him down!“.
It would be nice if we had strong political leaders rather than the corporate pimps that pass themselves off as Prime Ministers and Presidents; we need our leaders to make it very clear to believers of all flavours that our countries’ laws trump their beliefs when the two differ.
We would also benefit from a press that didn’t pussy-foot around religious issues, and one that didn’t toe the governmental line by playing up the atrocities caused by Islamisists whilst virtually ignoring those of the ‘whiter’ religions or passing them off as ‘sectarian’ troubles.
If the governments and their tightly controlled media really want to create a new ‘enemy’ (because nothing unites a nation more than a common enemy – ask any Iraqi) at least make it Religion as a whole rather than demonising one lot for (occasionally) doing what the others are itching to do themselves.
Then there’s John M’s suggestions of better education, improved access to the internet, etc..
We need to show them that the West isn’t the Great Satan after all, but we won’t do that with more bullets and bombs and the deliberate creation of false fear the ‘other’. We cannot afford to play the extremists at their own game because that way will lead inexorably to war. Instead, we have to focus our efforts on the moderates and we must lead by example. Admittedly, since the beginning of the second Gulf War up to the present day we haven’t been setting the best example so it’s a hard and up-hill task we’re facing – and it’s mostly our own fault; we should have persuaded the more trigger-happy nations to stay at home, leaving the rest to do the job with a tad more professionalism and diplomacy, but instead we have created an almighty cluster-fuck of a situation that will, if not checked soon, spiral into madness.
Right, now we’ve put the world to rights:
May Santa’s sack be bulging when he enters your house – and empty when he leaves. 🙂 Merry Christmas everybody, and my best wishes for the New Year to you all.
Old Johnson says: “the one thing we could do is make *all* religion illegal.”
Actually, you can’t. To make religion illegal, you need to have an enforcement mechanism. Enforcement means somebody has monitor your behaviour to ensure that you aren’t doing it, and somebody has to decide *if* you are doing it.
So, for example, you may be arrested for promoting the “religious” view that living species evolve into new species over time, rather than the “scientific” view that the world was created in 144 hours about 6000 years ago.
That doesn’t even get into the practical aspects of trying to ban religion in a world where almost everybody has one.
Acolyte of Sagan says “We need to show them that the West isn’t the Great Satan after all”
You miss one point: We *are* the Great Satan. We let our women go uncovered in public. We drink alcohol. We do not worship Allah. We allow homosexuals to exist. We even allow people to deny that Allah is the one true God. I’m not sure that showing them who we are is going to make them like us.
Mark S. “I’m not sure that showing them who we are is going to make them like us.”
Spot on, mate. I’m always amazed to discover that people who live in a world that is hideously ugly, for my taste, with repression and fear and stupid rituals and restrictive clothing, and rules about eating and sex and circumcision and what one is permitted to think or believe, a world which I would find so very uncomfortable and joyless, actually prefer it that way.
Why do the couple on the right want to remain in their world when they have the example of the couple on the left right before their eyes. You’d think there would be a mass exodus to our side, but that’s not what is happening.
Because religion is a culturally-induced mental health problem, there are only social options available. Even Islam says it is wrong to execute nutters just for being insane, although Islamists seldom listen to their own teaching. So attacks on their person is a no-no and legislating against it can’t and won’t deter them. We are left with locking away those most seriously afflicted and treating all of them with the best and most up-to-date psychiatry we can muster.
Meanwhile, it is essential to ensure the poison doesn’t spread to their offspring.
Education, exposure to the world of ideas. These are the only possible weapons. The nutters will fight to stop us using them, of course, but a steadfast resolve I believe will get us there.
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
July 18, 2012
Is the cartoon missing?
It was missing. Sorry about that.
First comment? Really?!
Now I have to figure out some way to combine the war on Islam with a really enthusiastic Solstice celebration.
I guess that would be a party awash in rum and brandy and featuring mixed-gender dancing.
It’s so on!
Merry solstice to you, Author, and to your readers.
Now I have to figure out some way to combine the war on Islam with a really enthusiastic Solstice celebration.
I guess that would be a party awash in rum and brandy and featuring mixed-gender dancing.
Oops. Sorry for duplicate. This thing is misbehaving; I can see from comments on the previous chapter that it’s not just me.
Lets rekindle the Xtian war on Saturnalia.
Pete : Fuck no! Saturnalia is the nearest thing we know of to a great culture’s official version of Ophelia’s mixed-gender dancing and boozing it up royally. We need to restart Saturnalia’s war on the Christ part of Christmas.
But keep the name.
The name’s useful as a reminder of what we’ve lost and how bloody grateful we would be to have got rid of it.
Ophelia : yerp : it’s happening to many. I think it’s one of those well-known and documented added featurettes that the Internet delivers unto us to keep us amused and people like me in gainful employment, a glitch.
Merry Saturnalia. And {{{hugs}}}.
It’s funny how when militant atheists go to war, no one gets hurt.
So I didn’t get first comment after all – couldn’t see them for the first 20-30 mins.
A good one again, Author. I started reading these around 2-3 months ago and worked my way through the archives to present day. Love everyone’s comments and debates, sometimes I feel things get a little one-sided but then remember that it’s because those arguments often win out when reason and rational thought are applied – hence the existence of this comic.
We atheists really are far too cruel on Christmas, lots of us joining in with the celebrations and enjoying the season and all… disgraceful, it really is.
Author: if we annihilate the scroddy scunners whom would we have to poke fun at on a Wednesday. I mean, have you seen Wednesdays. They are more comprehensible than Thursdays but only marginally and they have this funny way of sneaking up on us.
What we need to do is annihilate the bad bits and keep the funny bits.
Anyone think that’s possible?
Perfect!
Looks at Rosbif’s avatar:
“Ooowww, a monkey! How cute!”
Chimp, a Great Ape, pouts.
“Rosbif”? Cute, too. Joyeux noele, mon ami. (Criticise the spelling, if you care to.)
Looks at Rosbif’s avatar:
“Ooowww, a monkey! How cute!”
Chimp, a Great Ape, pouts.
“Rosbif”? Cute, too. Joyeux noele, mon ami. (Criticise the spelling, if you care to.)
Le plus et delete(acute).
It’s funny how when militant atheists go to war, no one gets hurt. – Rosbif.
On the contrary – religious people are DEEPLY hurt by our refusal to see the light, and our mockery of their deeply held beliefs.
Such a shame.
Merry Christmas/Saturnalia/Hannukah/Solstice/Holidays/anything else you can think of to you all.
Thanks for your help on the previous thread guys. I could read the source code but I admit defeat, that fancy html isn’t for me. I’ll stick to gardening.
Can I have an invite to your party please Ophelia. I’ll bring a bottle or 3 🙂
I’m with Botanist, except, I’ll bring the bacon sandwiches.
But “monkey” is a much funnier word (“why are there still apes” doesn’t have the same ring).
OH! OH! OH! Come all ye faithful, true to the spirit of the season of the solstice and rejoice! for lo, the Light doth indeed be not disappearing but in fact is returning, rising back up, up, up to it’s highest of heights in our skies! Rather we make merry than bake Mary as our long forgotten ancestors once did to coax our Sun away from the abyss (“Son: don’t go! We DO Love you!”). Praise be to the one (likely a woman) who so long ago said “Hang on: this year, let’s try NOT killing a virgin – Mary, you’re off the hook; go home – and see what happens.” And LO! Here Comes The Sun! And let it be said that on that day, ignorance began to wane and true wonder at the nature of this universe was born! And then a lot of interesting and weird shit happened and … oh bugger it: Happy Solstice, everyone! 10:13 a.m. MST Dec.21! Enjoy!
It will truly be a war only when the drones bring it on from above, otherwise much like Korea in the 1950’s, it’s just a police action.
Nothing to see here, move along
At the risk of boring the regulars, I would reiterate that there are are two ‘Wars on Islam’, one real and the other mythical. Whatever the mullahs might claim, there has been no kind of war made by the satanic West on Islam per sesince the Crusades. So much for the myth.
There is a real war, in the sense of persecution for muslim beliefs, in which thousands of people are fighting every day, about which the loudest ‘war on Islam’ bleaters are strangely silent. It is the endless war between Shia and Sunni, originally a trivial theological quibble, but now a battle to the death between implacable robber barons, competing for territory and political influence.
It is this struggle which is driving the conflict in Syria, and preventing it from being a simple civil war in which the West could help the victims of oppression, as it did in Libya. However grotesque Bashir al-Asad’s government is, the so-called ‘anti-government’ fighters are only interested in establishing Iranian/Saudi -style theocracy; so no Western government dare support them against him.
I think a war on Islam would be an excellent idea, followed by a war on Judaism, and any other religion prepared to deny anyone else’s rights. A few strategically placed nukes could do a world of good, and as Christopher Hitchens observed, the clock is ticking. If we do nothing, it is only a matter of time before the Islamists get their own WMD, and have the world over a barrel. Then we will be able to justify a real war on Islam, but of course, it will be too late.
i always feel guilty celebrating xmas cos im atheist but then i remember presents. I guess the world wd be fine without it but hey! enjoy your presents if u get them and merry heartfelt solstice to you all x
jks about prezzies! its all a bit strange so i try to celebrate it for the familial and happy and worldwide factors
p.s my comment about “them” needing forgiveness was talking about gays not priests and priests certainly do need forgiveness-although really? Maybe not…
Hotrats is right: There is no Western “war on Islam”. Even the Crusades were not wars against Islam — they were wars over control of territory. When the Europeans took the “Holy Land”, they stopped. There was no serious attempt to conquer the remaining Islamic empires, and there was no attempt to destroy Islam.
The comment about “a few strategically placed nukes” reminds me of the Middle-East Peace Plan that I thought up back in the 1970s. The US and the USSR had enacted various arms control agreements that left them both with a tremendous surplus of nuclear weapons. There were enough that the entire disputed area could be made uninhabitable, and therefore there would be nothing to fight over.
At the time, I considered it a joke, but now I worry that somebody may actually try to implement that plan. If I remember correctly, it was Netanyahu who was asked “How far would you go to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon?” and he answered “2000 km.” In a way, it is hard to blame him. The US and USSR had Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD. We almost had nuclear war on several occasions, but the prospect made both sides more willing to find a way to avoid it. But if you are Israel facing Iran, you have a different consideration: Can you use deterrence against an enemy who thinks getting killed is a *good* thing?
But even this is not a war against Islam. It is a war against political actors who happen to use the Islam-under-attack story to stay in power. They need an enemy so badly that they start to believe their own rhetoric.
Think about it: If Iran and Iraq spent the next 50 years saying “I’m ok, you’re ok; I’m just going to keep an eye on you”, they could have peace.
And for the record, the Christians started the War on Christmas with a pre-emptive attack. I’m perfectly happy to let them go have a party, but they aren’t happy to leave me out of it, and they seem to want the government involved. They started crying about not putting their religious symbols in our government, and how awful it is to say “Happy Holidays”, and all that crap. All they had to do was leave me alone…
To drift o/t for a moment and return to the issue of strange happenings in the comments section, I’d eventually noticed that my login section contained the wrong name, with “John M” being replaced with “John+M”. This has happened to Old Johnson and AoS, too. The result seems to be that the comment under John+M would be a first comment for that name and so the posting was withheld for a time.
Meanwhile for “botanist” and others wondering about tags for HTML tags, here’s a useful link
The war on Christmas is is frightful
Islam’s war on everything, spiteful
Jihadists exploding in the snow
Let them blow, let them blow, let them blow
When their done it will be a quiet night.
Thanks John 🙂 If there was a ‘preview’ option I might be brave enough to try some.
Author, any idea what’s adding the ‘+’ to names of two or more words?
In other news, the War on Christmas just got physical.
I don’t have much to say about the war on Islam except that I hope there’ll be (much) more of it – especially by those “moderate” muslims (is there really such a thing?).
Two links to amusing atheist sites, which I shall split into two postings (being forewarned by previous threads). Apologies if they have appeared in this site before. Here is the first (with an appropriate seasonal cartoon):
http://farleftside.com/2013/12-18-13-white-christmas.html
…
… and here is the second:
http://www.bornagainpagan.com/
John M : that’s why some of our posts, see Ophelia and OJ (damn that name seems so familiar) for samples, are repeated.
And thanks for the HTML link.
Mark S. and hotrats et alii : It is entirely possible that there are three wars on “the evil Santanic [sic] West” by the Islamists.
There is an undeclared war of assimilation and attrition effected by means of immigration from the hell-holes they make of their countries to the far nicer places we have built. They then strive to turn our homes into copies of their lost hell-hole homes by forcing mosques, black bin-bagged women and sharia laws upon us whether we like it or not. This is war by stealth. Not much stealth and even some of our politicians have noticed and become alarmed but they won’t resist it because of fear.
There are minor clerics and sometimes major clerics fighting the “freedoms” we enjoy on a piecemeal basis. A cartoon here, a nudist beach a mile from a mosque here, a butchers that has hung pigs heads (not the same ones) (not usually) in the window since 1600 within walking distance of another mosque over there. They stir up riots and jerks jerking up and down screaming at us in fake rage just so they can encroach another millimetre, another subservience to their savage, dark, unending graveyard worldview at a time.
And there is the declared war, the war none of our leaders mention but that is right there in every page of the Koran, in all their laws. The war that says : Only Islam has a right to exist.
It does not matter how peaceable each individual adherent is, how nice of a person, how loveable and cuddly and friendly. Islam wants the entire world to be Islam forever. That is the entire drive behind the religion. It is the entire purpose of the religion. It is the only thing that matters. Islam is “submission” and only total submission by everything that lives and breathes suffices, anything less is an abomination.
You don’t believe that? Read the book. Listen to their clerics. They believe in Catholicism the way the Roman Catholics only dream they could have.
Islam is at war with *everything* including, as said above, other schisms of Islam.
And they will win.
For we are no longer crusaders. We don’t have the heart to level a crescent of the world and exterminate entire races and countries. Islam does. Islam *must* to submit fully. We don’t, not any more. While that is a good and joyous thing and makes us better men (yes, even our women are better, far, far better, Real Men than their men) (and could I mock and make sport of them any worse in their eyes?) it is suicide in the long run.
We fight them with ladies like Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali but we’ll lose. They can kill her. They will eventually if they decide she’s enough of a nuisance. There is no such thing as “secure” if your opponent does not care about living. Send fifty suicide bombers, five at a time, and at least one will get past her security team and close enough to her.
The only question is whether the bad guys care enough to put the effort into it. So far, not. We’re lucky. Not good, not brilliant at security, just lucky they don’t see us as important enough.
Yet.
The reality is that the TSA, the FBI, Interpol and the entire Homeland ensemble are vastly outnumbered by fanatics who are absolutely certain they are doing the right thing and that they will be rewarded gloriously. We can’t win.
I’m not giving the bad guys any new ideas here. The Vietnamese and the Russians and the Afghans have won wars by body-count over skill and technology.
Two hundred souls gone to heaven and you can do massive damage to a country of Santa-loving, satanic imperialist infidels.
By stealth, by inches and by declared war they are going to win.
It is inevitable.
Islamophobe? Too right I’m scared, not of the people, the individuals but of the fringes and the idea. We all should be. We’re going to get minced by a mincing machine larger than worlds!
So we may as well have a truly world-resounding piss-up while we can.
Happy Saturnalia, Merry Ragnarök and have a really great New Armageddon.
Some Christmas-related (vaguely) quotes:
“And, again, let’s not forget that we are talking about a violent, sexist, homophobic, penis-obsessed, rape-condoning, self-contradictory Jewish deity who is apparently incapable of counting the number of legs on an insect. ” Caleb,
He forgot “self-congratulatory”. The guy does so like to stroke his own ego.
And, talking about the appearance of Easter eggs in shops:
“I think at this time of year it is only fair to say if Jesus died for our sins then it is only fair for us to do some sinning so he did not die in vain.”
Transnistria, Usenet
“Thou shalt take five sicles for every bead, according to the weight of the sanctuary. A sicle hath twenty obols.” Numbers, 3:47
And that is telling you.
“What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic
simulations involving a sledgehammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.” – Dave Barry
Okay, so that one has bugger all to do with Christmas, per se, but it’s funny. And you never know, the Great Christmas Asteroid could be on its way, if not next week then perhaps next Solstice Day.
Oh, and the world ended exactly a week ago this Saturday. So maybe we don’t have to worry about any of this? Happy Last Day Anniversary, everyone.
I know WikiPee isn’t an authority, but, from the WikiPee article on Sharia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia and only for the purpose of provoking discussion we have this delightful piece:
According to scholars (footnote indices removed, BtD) of traditional Islamic law, the applicable rules for religious conversion under Sharia are as follows:
If a person converts to Islam, or is born and raised as a Muslim, then he or she will have full rights of citizenship in an Islamic state.
Leaving Islam is a sin and a religious crime. Once any man or woman is officially classified as Muslim, because of birth or religious conversion, he or she will be subject to the death penalty if he or she becomes an apostate, that is, abandons his or her faith in Islam in order to become an atheist, agnostic or to convert to another religion. Before executing the death penalty, Sharia demands that the individual be offered one chance to return to Islam.
If a person has never been a Muslim, and is not a kafir (infidel, unbeliever), he or she can live in an Islamic state by accepting to be a dhimmi, or under a special permission called aman. As a dhimmi or under aman, he or she will suffer certain limitations of rights as a subject of an Islamic state, and will not enjoy complete legal equality with Muslims.
If a person has never been a Muslim, and is a kafir (infidel, unbeliever), Sharia demands that he or she should be offered the choice to convert to Islam and become a Muslim; if they reject the offer, he or she may either be killed, enslaved, or ransomed if captured.
Live as we do or die. At least it’s a kind of a choice.
Remember to celebrate Jimmy’s Day on May the thirteenth, and Joseph Smith Day on the twenty-third of this month, that’s this coming Monday, and, of course, the day of the most important of the prophets, the one true prophet, the very, very last prophet Sun Myung Moon’s Birthday on the twenty-fifth of February, next.
(I know Jimmy Jones was born later but he also died earlier which makes it a “last man on the Moon” sort of debatable point as to who, exactly is the Last Ever True Prophet. It’s absolutely certain it isn’t that pretender in Arabia.)
And if we’re doing that lot, Solstice Day, The End Of The World Anniversary Day and Jesus’s Birthday, too, we might as well raise a glass of brandy and have a bacon sandwich to celebrate Mo’sDay, Mawlid. That’s a shifty one and it moves so we may as well celebrate it every day with a pork pie and a beer.
The next Mawlid is supposed to be both the 17th and the 21st of January, 2014 in our calendar, or 12/3/1435 and 17/3/1435 in theirs. But we may as well celebrate it early, and often.
Hey, any damned excuse for a party, yes? Anyway, beer is good and bacon butties are lovely.
Remember to hoist one for Joe on Monday. He is definitely, certainly, absolutely not the last prophet. But he was generally not too bad a guy, for a pope-thing.
Back atcha OJ!
Ophelia : According to BtD we have a plethora a cornucopia, a veritable horde of celebrations to pick from. Merry All-of-them.
BtD : what did you do, swallow Wikipedia? You worry me, lad. It isn’t your warnings about the war of annihilation to come, it’s your blithe acceptance of our doom.
Are you a fatalist or something. young man?
BtD and Ophelia: “OJ”? Has that been used here already or something?
Old Johnson, just on the off-chance your last question wasn’t rhetorical, I think the ‘OJ’ in question might be the one who, in a modern twist on the Cinderella story, couldn’t get the glove to fit and so didn’t live unhappily ever after in a U.S. State Penitentiary.
Or, to put it another way, the ‘Simpson’ who isn’t a member of the yellow-skinned cartoon family.
Barr, we can fight back, you know. In fact, I’m making a start on protecting us from the evil Islamists by turning their magic back on them. You know how wearing a silver cross keeps vampires away? Well I’m about to market a plethora of pig-meat based charms and amulets. Bacon brooches and pork belly pendants, anyone?
Well, this conversation took a turn for the cheery…
@BtD
A great man is purported to have said that the secret of success is in 7 short words,”Never give up – never, ever give up” but I suspect this is a redaction of Churchill’s famous,”Never,never,never … ” speech at Harrow school.
Whatever else, we should not, must not, accept that Islam will ultimately cow the entire human race, for the simple reason that it is palpably false. And whilst I am rather pacifist by nature, in this case one might be justified in promoting in secular nations a pre-emptive, all-out war on those who would kill us for simply refusing to believe in their nonsense. A difficulty would be ordinary men and women who are, to a greater ot lesser extent, Muslimish – finding themselves as human shields and fall-guys for the baddies, who may even be members of their own family. But ultimately we need to see the mad dogs of this crazy belief system separated out from the saner elements in society and, if deprogramming is not an option, then locked away securely for their lifetimes.
@AoS
There is a story ‘out there’ about a Spanish community who buried whole pigs in a plot of land purchased for construction of a mosque. I also recall the story had a happy ending, but I need to backtrack and see if I can re-raise this info.
Barr, I couldn’t read all of your rant but I think I got the gist.
I would caution against taking this stuff too seriously, it’s not so long ago that people were predicting that the communists were bound to take over the world, shortly before the whole rotten edifice fell down. I suspect we are dealing with a similar scenario.
If I had to guess, I would say that no more than 5% of Muslims hold daft fundamentalist views, and only a small percentage of those would actually want to blow themselves up for the cause. That may well equate to a lot of people but they would still be a tiny minority even in the “hell-holes they make of their countries”.
I’m not really comfortable equating the religious bigots who commit these atrocities with all the pretty normal people I have met who just happen to be muslim. Being a muslims or a jew is often more of a cultural than a religious thing, even in the west people call themselves christian to denote their ethnic origin rather than actually believing we are living in end times.
It’s a shame we can’t do more to help the majority of muslims who want pretty much the same as us, an invite to Ophelia’s party.
Barr-the-Door: I mostly agree with your analysis. I have often observed people who left some middle eastern country because it sucks to be there, and then wanted to change thier nice refuge into the same hellhole (I used a different hole-based word) that they left.
A key problem is that it is hard to oppose that sort of cultural change.
One reason is that you can’t be against Muslims without looking like a nazi skinhead. People will associate you with things like the British National Party in the UK, Front National in France, or Sweden Democrats in Sweden. Not great for your credibility — you look like just another racist.
(We have similar political positions in the US, but because of our particularly unpleasant history with race issues, most politicians with racist views tend to speak in code rather than flat out say any racist positions.)
A bigger problem is how to oppose Islam in a way that you are not also opposing yourself. I am an atheist. How might I describe rules that would prevent or reduce Islamic influences without the same rule working against (or setting a precedent against) atheists? Any such rules would clearly be incompatible with the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution, or Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. How exactly do you argue for restricting the freedom of religion and freedom of expression in a way that does not leave an opening for restricting *your* freedom of religion and expression. I can’t think of a way.
Yea – result for the J&M t-shirt students 🙂
https://humanism.org.uk/2013/12/19/triumph-reason-welcome-lses-apology-jesus-mo-controversy/
Yes, botanist, excellent result. Thanks for reporting it.
botanist,
I’m very happy with this apology. Thank for posting the link.
But for now, I’m out for a few sins:
http://imgur.com/gallery/niEBEbM
enjoy yourself omg 🙂
Forgive me, my friends, for another link. I like this venn diagram 🙂
http://networkedblogs.com/S9Afj
@Micky
The results of polling across Muslim communities world-wide showed some rather unnerving stats about how many Muslims were in favour of certain extremist behaviours. So you don’t have to guess
Try multiplying the percentages given by 1.5 billion to get an idea of the actual numbers involved
Found a reference to the pig story in Spain
“John M” with or without the “+”, that series of statistics does not frighten me. Even were 102% (some voting twice to make sure they count) of Muslims in England to support the idea of Sharia becoming the law of the land it would not worry me overly much.
Hitler and his friends got into power in Germany with less than 1% of the population supporting him in most elections. Nobody sane voted for Mao, Sar or Stalin.
The Muslim Council of Britain has great power and is in the House of Lords not because they are a force or popular or even sane but because of backroom deals made between fat old men of no particular faith.
The politicians see an advantage in using them so they have power that far outweighs their relevance.
It’s possible BtD sees something like that escalating unstoppably in “The West” and the black hats winning because we hand them the victory.
That is what *I* worry about when I worry about it. The demented shitheads in aeroplanes and vests we can cope with, they can kill only a few of us. In the long term they don’t matter. It’s the brandy-swilling, corrupt evil bastards in Parliament that will do us in.
And they *will* win. BtD is right in that. The oil will run out and whether we have an alternative or not those Stone Age lands will revert back to poverty and barbarity and they will all want to be here.
Bringing their sharia comforter blanket with them.
Mark S. : the one thing we could do is make *all* religion illegal. Teach no religion to any child until they are fifteen or so and then teach it along with all the other Norse, Greek and Amerindian myths, as fairytales for children and as part of our long-dead history. Utterly ban religion at home and all churches.
It could be done. We would have to shut or absorb every parochial school that exists and possibly send in the troops to kill a few die-hard fundies but it could be done. In one generation we could remove the filthy scourge of religion from our species.
Anyone care to bet on any politician trying to get that Bill voted in?
Anyone got an estimate of his probable life expectancy?
Or mine if I voted for it?
They *will* win. It is utterly and certainly inevitable. They already have in most ways and the rest is just mopping up. (Perfect example right here: what’s the Good Author’s life expectancy should his home address be published in “The Times”? How many more issues would then be published? How long would the website be online? The Author should be able to publish his name, face and home addy anywhere he damned well likes. So should I. Does anyone really think that’s safe in a country with an MCB giving back-handed support to the loonies?)
BtD is right, we’re doomed.
Fuck it, fuck them all … (Looks at broken Statue of Liberty and yells: “damn you all to Heeeeelllllllll!”)
Party, anyone?
Old Johnson:
” … (Looks at broken Statue of Liberty and yells: “damn you all to Heeeeelllllllll!”)
Party, anyone?”
I recommend “Hunters’ Gold”, “Crack Shot” and “Devon Dreamer” from Hunter’s Brewery in Devon in England. So far as I know they deliver to all civilised countries – where “civilised” equals “allows the peasantry to buy beers”. And a lovely little thing called “Todka” from Newquay in Cornwall across the border. If those don’t make you appreciate Man’s ingenuity and the universe’s love for us there might be no hope for you.
Hunter’s “DD” is beautiful stuff.
Hey, are we allowed to advertise on here? I don’t work for a beer maker, nor do I have shares but I thought I might want to spread the love. Can never have enough love.
And I think they deliver.
Drink irresponsibly but do it at home or hire taxis. Remember, if you’re alive you can party again tomorrow.
Old Johnson: “And I think they deliver”
http://www.thehuntersbrewery.co.uk/shop
Indeed they do. Think on it as ammunition in the War on Christmas. Or an early Mawlid toast. Or my attempt to boost the balance of payments of UKland/England and Cornwall a little.
Or the last gasp of Civilisation before the Armies of Darkness close in.
Botanist: I’m going to rain, no *monsoon*, on your parade. That is neither a victory for reason nor an apology. It is just the ruling old farts in a back room weighing up the potential loses of future income and potential loses of invitations to huge multi-course meals and deciding which side costs them less personally. It’s not a matter of principle, not to them, it’s “face”, pomp, privilege, prestige, profit and large dinners in opulent surroundings.
This time, belatedly, they backed the students, probably because someone pointed out the logic that if the cops come down hard on anti-christ stuff they should theoretically come down hard on pro-christ stuff and that would piss off the churches. Next time it could be they’ll back the cops. And next time they’ll do it harder, faster and above all *quieter*.
Black-bag the evil, mouthy student bastards. Then disappear them.
Quietly.
Or does anyone really think those people (to use the term loosely) actually do have principles?
Am I still in the Cock and Bull? If so, do we have George W. Bush and Pat Condell in the house?
I only ask because I’m seeing talk of using tactical nuclear strikes and pre-emptive all-out war if ‘they’ continue to reject Western secular values, along with apparent regret that we no longer have Crusades and ‘lack the heart to level a crescent of the world and exterminate entire races and countries’. And we are to bomb and shoot and annihilate to show them that Live as we do or die is simply unacceptable in polite society?
That’s some pretty fucked-up thinking from where I’m looking.
And this: One reason is that you can’t be against Muslims without looking like a nazi skinhead.
Do I really need to point out what’s so wrong with that line?
Come on, you lot, let’s leave the killing and the hate to the experts, eh? We need to lead by example, not by stooping to the tactics perfected by religion.
However there is good news in this sorry world. And the good news is we have a good candidate for the Darwin Awards, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-25447936
or is that callous and in poor taste?
Would it have been even funnier had they charged the dead guy?
Or is that in very poor taste?
AoS: I did say I thought it was *good* that we were no longer crusaders, didn’t I? It’s a bad thing that we are doooooomed but that we can’t fight back is *essential* to us being the Good Guys.
Unfortunately, and in contrast to “Superman” movies, the “good-guy” can never be an alien, super-powered bully. We can’t flick bullets away, we have to worry about where they will land after we flick them away from our eyes. We have to worry about consequences and live with them. The nut-jobs who walk into crowds with bombs strapped to their chests don’t. They are immune to consequences. And the fat, old, male, gun-running, drug-peddling paedophiliacs who send them out to die and to kill are equally protected from harm.
We aren’t. We worry about the pain and suffering we’d cause if we lit up the Muslim Crescent and turned most of it into trinitite glass and the remains into a burning hellfire of smoking flesh.
We, the secular governments that remain, could do it. Between us, there are sufficient nukes to eliminate Islam as a viable religion and culture. It would take only a few minutes.
The small residual populations in self-imposed ghettos in major cities outside the Crescent could be dealt with using tacticals. Sure, that would hurt many of us, of our people, but so what? If you are going to commit a crime, an atrocity that vast do you really imagine a few collateral damage casualties will matter?
But we’re the Good Guys. We could never do that. Not even if it was fire them all or die. We could never live with doing such a thing. It would taint us forever. It would be a stain we could not accept.
The religious fundamentalist lunatics would do it without hesitation.
We can never do it. They would do it even if it meant their own assured annihilation.
MAD isn’t a restraint when the bad guys gleefully want to die.
That is why we should have a party to celebrate End-Of-The-World-Day Anniversary this Saturday. With some of OJ’s beer. (Does he really not know of the “Simpson’s” prodigal son and the black sheep of the family?)
Because we’re the nice guys and the nice guys always get smooshed.
And never get the girl.
As a very non-wise man once said many times: party on, Dudes.
Barr-the-Door was seen to rant a little: “AoS: I did say I thought it was *good* that we were no longer crusaders, didn’t I? ”
Yes, lad, you most assuredly did. Twice. At length.
And, like you, young man, I truly hope we can never do it, though it does make for an interesting sub-plot in John Birmingham novels. I hope we are better people than that.
On the twentieth of December, 2007, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth became the oldest reigning monarch of Great Britain. Some six years later, we can toast (with an ale from that most excellent of breweries someone mentioned) that she is still the oldest reigning monarch. By this date in 2015 she will also be the longest reigning monarch in British history.
Of course, by then, we’ll all be Muslims.
LSE’s apology headlined this morning on BBC 4 Today programme news, with more detail in a feature that ran at around 7.35am. This should be available to listen to on BBC iPlayer later today. LSE spokesman was mealy mouthed about “complex issues” surrounding the issue of free speech – he suffers from the usual problem of being unable to distinguish between race and religion, I think.
HaggisForBrains: I suspect he suffers far, far more from the inability to decide which rich, powerful, lunch-buying benefactors to piss-off.
Which set he can afford to piss-off most without losing the promised new wing of the new gymnasium or new facilities for the Staff Common Rooms.
He, or his bosses, or both.
But I’m old and cynical and have seen far too many principles sacrificed on the alters of personal privilege and expediency.
Not that I would ever do such a thing myself, of course.
Old Johnson,
Some people are not very social, have you noticed that no body showed up to collect they price at the Darwing Awards?
I tell you, today, people have no respect for the honor we give them.
@ Old Johnson
I was saddened to see that you intend to capitulate to the coming Islamification of GB, thereby allowing them to hack bits off your todger . Because the fine ales you mention, as well as those wonderful single malts in my cupboard, will no longer be produced – and existing stocks all destroyed – I will opt for the easier way out and have them kill me as an infidel.
Unlike BtD, I will fight back, hopefully by acquiring a suicide vest I can explode when they come for me. It’s not the solution I would wish, as I explained previously in this thread, but if AoS is giving the thumbs down to pre-emptive moves to round up the nutters and humanely isolate them, I suppose I have no option. I draw the line at surrender, just as my parents did 73 years ago when political, rather than religious, fascism was the enemy.
Incidentally, old son, where did you get the idea that the national socialist support was typically around 1%. Even in the very first national election they contested, they polled over 6%, and in 1932 it was over 30% in both elections held that year. It is never a good idea to pull facts from thin air, as subsequently your opinions will receive rather less adulation, which is not what regulars at the C&B are good at. We prefer to ‘stroke’ one another, as befits such an august body.
I got hooked on one of Undeluded’s cited sites seen upstream and found this little gem:
http://farleftside.com/2013/11-25-13-supermyths.html
I rather think it’s seasonal.
OJ started the German government sub-thread, so blame him.
This is from one of Undeluded’s cited sites seen upstream : http://www.bornagainpagan.com/photos/061-catholic-nazis.html
I think it really says all that needs to be said about them having principles. I mean, if those evil sons of bitches can ally themselves with filth like that just to get a photo-op and to generate some spurious respectability, how could anyone ever trust them again? It’s no wonder that party’s extinct.
Imagine, cosying up to priests of all things.
Truly, politicians will kiss anyone for votes.
John M: where did I get the 1%? Averages from “nobody voted for them” and research, weighted towards the “nobody ever voted for them” through decades of repetition. We gots to believe that, don’t we? 🙂
It’s a subject that has intrigued me for quite a while. Fascinated dread.
If it helps, I don’t equate “6% of votes” with “6% of the population”. “First past the post” has never struck me as particularly fair.
BtD: it could have been worse. They could have had priests of more than one religion in their councils, making their laws and calling out the jiggly hordes waving burning flags each time a vote went against them.
There’s something to be said for strong government …
Most of it unprintable in a family comments section.
@OJ
Thanks for the coded admission of sub-standard (by C&B measure) research 🙂
The voting system in Germany was not FPTP, even at the the time of Nat Soc. They used a complicated form of proportional representation even back then. But that can be just as bad as FPTP, IMO, as it let’s tails wag dogs, resulting in all sorts of nastiness. We need to scrap plurality voting (unless Condorcet is used) and switch to approval voting for political elections. People easily understand it (it’s often used nowadays in consumer surveys) and returns the least disliked candidate to office.
omg: I tried to turn up at my Darwin Award ceremony but they didn’t award me one. Seems they don’t give them to the breathing.
I tried turning up at my Nobel Prize award ceremony, too, but that committee was very reluctant to award me one until I produced something.
I never win anything.
Which is not quite true. I’ve won the Dawkins Lottery. I’m one of the few that got born.
Compared to that, the National Lottery is small beer.
John M: yes, I did know FPTP is hardly universal. It was another off-hand, throwaway remark intended as self-deprecating semi-humour, while pointing out that even Enlgand’s magnificent system has flaws. Didn’t work, did it?
I really must improve my delivery.
Maybe I’d be better with this stuff if I weren’t watching a movie and eating a sandwich at the same time.
I know I’m a bit late to this party and the conversation has moved on but wow, I go away for a week and we turn from reasoned discussion and high-brow (alright, often low-brow) mockery into ‘all Muslims deserve to die so we can save ourselves’. And then we have the gall to call ‘them’ the bad guys. And while our attention is all turned to the evil Muslims trying to get our countries to adopt Sharia law and death to apostates (how many are actually trying to do this again? About 3 murderous extremists per year in the UK, one occasional Imam with a bad attitude towards women in my country) it is the rising Christian Right (a la the USA) which is actually having a successful impact in imposing religion on our secular societies.
And, please, stop quoting the Quran to ‘prove’ that somehow Islam is innately aggressive and all those Muslims who are just as religious as the majority of Christians (i.e. not) are a figment of our collective imaginations, or I will have to quote the bible back at you to ‘prove’ that modern, secular majority-Christian countries are a logical impossibility.
I’m with Micky who said that it was expected that Communists would take over the world – just before communism collapsed. One only has to read the news to see that the high-point of Islamist attacks (please note the differentiation between ‘Islamists’ and ‘Muslims’) against the West was in 2001. Most of the Muslim violence is now against other brands of Islam and more closely aligned to politics and power than to any real religious belief.
By all means fight, fight, fight against the idiotic placatory rulings which will see our liberties eroded in a pre-emptive surrender before any actual aggression has begun, but beware of invading countries to protect ourselves against planned attacks from Weapons of Mass Destruction which only exist in our imagination.
So much for the less barbaric Christian influence:
http://ugandaupdates.weebly.com/blog.html
I have to say, with gentlemen like Barr-the-door and Old Johnson in the pub, I think I’ll be having me pints somewhere else. Cheerio everyone else.
Freefox, Mary2: apologies for any upset. You are both correct and I think I started it and encouraged old OJ. I will not do it again. If I promise to be good, Freefox, can I buy you a virtual brew? We can discuss nice things like where to get the best Christmas mince pies and beers that are sold outside OJ’s Devon.
{{Hugs}}
@Mary2
I have a feeling that the nuke ’em back to the Stone Age mindset is not really in evidence to any great extent here. And I’m sure those among us who believe our society needs to be a tad more aggressive in our dealings with Islamists, don’t really think international warfare is any kind of a solution. But that said, the “Pew” findings do indicate there may be an undercurrent of support among an appreciable percentage of ordinary Muslims for some of the extremist behaviour. It could, like the undercurrent of support for fascism in pre-Nazi Germany, blossom into something more disturbing – akin to the success of the National Socialists in the ’32 elections.
The Koranic prescription for infidels is quite clearly stated – and many more Muslims accept the Koran as the absolute word than those who may be inclined to modernise its teachings somewhat. This should worry all non-theists, as well as pagans, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Religious fascism will quickly revert to political fascism should loonies get power. Witness the horrific situation in Iran, where hundreds of LGBT people, apostates, infidels – some of them children – have been hanged since the Ayatollahs seized control. And the not too dissimilar situation now emerging in Uganda, driven one suspects some form of Evangelical Xtianity
Off topic, but fun :
http://www.farleftside.com/2009/7-22-09.html
http://www.farleftside.com/2009/5-29-09.html
http://www.farleftside.com/2009/6-29-09.html
BtD, John M, FreeFox, mary2: I agree completely and apologise wholeheartedly. This is the season to get warm and cosy with loved ones, or, if you don’t have any of those like what I don’t, with a nice curry.
I am sorry, I really should be gentler and more careful.
Until I can be, I’m away with the non-existent fairies.
Have happy multi-cultural, non-denominational, inclusivist holiday unless you’re working.
@OJ
I can’t actually see anything you’ve said that requires any kind of apology, though you did fail to include Ringwood, Gales, and Adnams in your list of classy brews. I suspect the chiding words from M2 and FF were more directed towards hotrats, who did seem a little OTT and slightly gung-ho for my taste with his “strategically placed nukes”. But I suspect he wanted to use them for emphasis rather than for real.
John M: nukes can only be used for emphasis. They emphasise the point that the thrower is slightly miffed at the target.
But FreeFox and mary2 are right. I get wrapped up in the war-games and the lame attempts at humour and forget not everyone is as callous and weird as me.
Still pals? Bye, and some of OJ’s {{{hugs}}} (I wonder where he gets them from?)
Thanks for your words of wisdom, Mary2. I, too, am not ready either to roll over nor to start a new crusade. Let calmer heads prevail.
@ Chiefy
If only there were a few calmer heads on the other side of the divide, then together with ours they might just prevail. Alas, this is not a perfect world, and it is not one in which one-sided calm heads can prevail. Try drawing a picture of Muhamed with a calm head, and see where that gets you – or rather the rest of us will see (with shock and horror) where that gets you.
JohnM:
Given the ineradicable, implacable and unchangeable nature of jihad, which condemns us all to death in the long run, ‘a few strategically placed nukes’ seems to me a modest and even proportional reponse; ‘strategically placed’ does not mean for maximized body counts. Eliminating muslins en mass is neither morally justifiable, nor, given many mixed communities, workable in practice.
Eliminating the ‘holy’ sites of Mecca and Medina, and making all the ‘promised lands’ permanently uninhabitable irradiated wastelands would be a promising start to reintroducing believers to the concept of reality, and given fair warning, need not involve too many casualties.
Do you have any better answer to the threat of the Caliphate to your descendants? Do we just slap their fingers and say ‘naughty naughty’ when we find them playing fast and loose with nuclear materials, or bombing the shit out of bus queues? Do you really think these guys are going to get less zealous, determined and batshit crazy as time goes on?
@ hotrats
One can fight a war on many levels, including levels that need not involve any fighting and killing whatsoever. The war of ideologies can be fought in the minds of our descendants if we take care to educate them properly, and to make sure they are not exposed to any poisonous desert dogmas in their formative years. The big mistake in the asinine war on drugs was to use heavy handed tactics. It made a lot of people rich by driving up the price, when that money could have been sidetracked instead to fund rehabilitation and education. Both these tabs are currently picked up by the taxpayer, as well as the cost of policing, property insurance and other spin-off costs.
Thanks in part to secular education, Xtianity is now waning in many places in Europe. Parents who try to prevent their offspring from get clued up, by sending them to private madrassas, etc. can be countered by insisting that they receive standard classes in social topics such as comparative religion (that should include equal time for humanism). Above all they must be given almost unfettered access to the internet – once they reach an age of discernment and can be taught how to avoid the nasty places.
Hopefully the C&B will not run out of ale when this enlightened generation arrive on the doorstep.
No it wouldn’t. It would it serve to massively increase the hatred towards the West, and what’s more, it would justify it; not only to the existing extremists but to the moderates too. And where would you have the refugees go? Build a great East-West dividing wall to keep them all where they belong, maybe? And then there’s the question of the millions of Muslims already in the West. Do you really think they’ll just shrug their shoulders and thank us, or do we ship them all back behind the wall before the nuking begins?
Of course, you’ll have also figured out how to control the weather so the fallout isn’t carried on the air to poison anywhere other than your target areas, I suppose? And once the Islamic ‘threat’ is neutralised – or at least confined behind the wall – would you then turn your aim to Christianity? Because I’m pretty certain there’s a lot of them would love to have Biblical laws imposed on the rest of us.
Sorry mate, but for a usually rational chap, you’re talking utter bollocks.
@AoS “…you’re talking utter bollocks”
I’m inclined to agree, but also reckon it’s hyperbole from hotrats, just to keep us on our toes 🙂 Do you agree, though, that rolling over and playing dead is not an option in the face of militant Islam?
By-the-bye, thus far I’ve found the only way to eliminate the + signs in nyms and/or names is to correct them by hand before posting.
Am I the first to remark that a new Jesus & Mo will appear on the purported birthday of the former. Only happens once every 7.0007 years on average, If my intuitive reasoning about the perturbation caused by leap years is correct
John M:
you have me bang to rights about hyperbole, I’m not really advocating nuclear war, or a massacre of muslims. I just can’t think of anything else that could stop the juggernaut of fanatical belief. And it need not be us starting it; if you were to start a book on which country would be the second to use nuclear weapons (after the USA in Japan), after N.Korea I would expect Iran and Israel to get the shortest odds. With that (or the escalation of the Sunni-Shia conflict), maybe all that is necessary to defeat the mullahs is to sit back and wait.
AoS:
you’re right, it is a fantasy, nothing can stop the belief (just to restate the problem), and of course there would be millennia of toxicity and a humanitarian tragedy. But we seem to be heading for that anyway, if things worsen at the current pace.
Of course it’s bollocks, you can’t have a rational solution to what is essentially an irrational argument. I exaggerate the cynicism of my view, but I’m trying to raise a serious point; as the Hitch observed, the clock is ticking. Do you have any suggestions, short or long term, on how to resist the headlong slide into a world where the fanatics have the upper hand?
Is it OK to wear the t shirt yet?
John M, re ‘Do you agree, though, that rolling over and playing dead is not an option in the face of militant Islam?‘
Absolutely. Rolling over and playing dead isn’t in my nature anyway, but unless my hand is forced I’d rather explore more peaceable options whilst keeping a careful watch for a sucker punch.
hotrats, I thought you might have been playing Devil’s Advocaat (a little seasonal ‘egg-nog’ related pun there – well, it is Christmas after all), but I couldn’t run the risk of a passing reader seeing comments like that go unchallenged, not on this site of all places; we do have a reputation to maintain, for
GoAuthor’s sake.As for suggestions, it would be a lot harder for the hate preachers to radicalise otherwise moderate Muslims if we stopped giving them quite so many reasons to hate us. Call me naive, but I suspect that drone attacks on wedding parties and public apartment blocks and such-like with no apparent concern for civilian casualties so long as they get the bad guy aren’t going to win too many ‘hearts and minds’.
Then there’s the nasty habit of locking up anybody – usually a brown-skinned anybody – with the most tenuous of links to terrorism. “You admit that you sold a computer to a man who gave it to his second cousin, who in turn sent it to his nephew in Helmand Province who sold it to a man who stripped it to use some of its components to make an IED. Your admission proves you are clearly part of the terrorists’ supply-chain. Send him down!“.
It would be nice if we had strong political leaders rather than the corporate pimps that pass themselves off as Prime Ministers and Presidents; we need our leaders to make it very clear to believers of all flavours that our countries’ laws trump their beliefs when the two differ.
We would also benefit from a press that didn’t pussy-foot around religious issues, and one that didn’t toe the governmental line by playing up the atrocities caused by Islamisists whilst virtually ignoring those of the ‘whiter’ religions or passing them off as ‘sectarian’ troubles.
If the governments and their tightly controlled media really want to create a new ‘enemy’ (because nothing unites a nation more than a common enemy – ask any Iraqi) at least make it Religion as a whole rather than demonising one lot for (occasionally) doing what the others are itching to do themselves.
Then there’s John M’s suggestions of better education, improved access to the internet, etc..
We need to show them that the West isn’t the Great Satan after all, but we won’t do that with more bullets and bombs and the deliberate creation of false fear the ‘other’. We cannot afford to play the extremists at their own game because that way will lead inexorably to war. Instead, we have to focus our efforts on the moderates and we must lead by example. Admittedly, since the beginning of the second Gulf War up to the present day we haven’t been setting the best example so it’s a hard and up-hill task we’re facing – and it’s mostly our own fault; we should have persuaded the more trigger-happy nations to stay at home, leaving the rest to do the job with a tad more professionalism and diplomacy, but instead we have created an almighty cluster-fuck of a situation that will, if not checked soon, spiral into madness.
Right, now we’ve put the world to rights:
May Santa’s sack be bulging when he enters your house – and empty when he leaves. 🙂
Merry Christmas everybody, and my best wishes for the New Year to you all.
Acolyte, I wish there was some way I could put you in charge of the world.
Merry Christmas everybody. May the new year bring you all joy and serenity.
FreeFox, come back. You can’t switch locals just because somebody got pissed and talked bollocks. Without you here the local is completely unbalanced.
Very well put, AoS! “Political correctness will be the downfall of Western civilization!”
@ Undeluded
So very sad and so easily avoided. Freedom to take offence should not entail the freedom to shut down ‘Freedom of speech’.
Ricky Gervais, Stephen Fry and others are saying it all the time. In its most polite form:”If what I say offends you, don’t listen.”
@ AoS
Lucky you wrote Santa’s “sack” and not ‘bag’ 🙂
Old Johnson says: “the one thing we could do is make *all* religion illegal.”
Actually, you can’t. To make religion illegal, you need to have an enforcement mechanism. Enforcement means somebody has monitor your behaviour to ensure that you aren’t doing it, and somebody has to decide *if* you are doing it.
So, for example, you may be arrested for promoting the “religious” view that living species evolve into new species over time, rather than the “scientific” view that the world was created in 144 hours about 6000 years ago.
That doesn’t even get into the practical aspects of trying to ban religion in a world where almost everybody has one.
Acolyte of Sagan says “We need to show them that the West isn’t the Great Satan after all”
You miss one point: We *are* the Great Satan. We let our women go uncovered in public. We drink alcohol. We do not worship Allah. We allow homosexuals to exist. We even allow people to deny that Allah is the one true God. I’m not sure that showing them who we are is going to make them like us.
Mark S. “I’m not sure that showing them who we are is going to make them like us.”
Spot on, mate. I’m always amazed to discover that people who live in a world that is hideously ugly, for my taste, with repression and fear and stupid rituals and restrictive clothing, and rules about eating and sex and circumcision and what one is permitted to think or believe, a world which I would find so very uncomfortable and joyless, actually prefer it that way.
If Author will forgive some shameless self promotion, here’s a photograph that captures this mystery.
http://www.darwinharmless.com/thoughts_and_comments/?p=794
Why do the couple on the right want to remain in their world when they have the example of the couple on the left right before their eyes. You’d think there would be a mass exodus to our side, but that’s not what is happening.
Because religion is a culturally-induced mental health problem, there are only social options available. Even Islam says it is wrong to execute nutters just for being insane, although Islamists seldom listen to their own teaching. So attacks on their person is a no-no and legislating against it can’t and won’t deter them. We are left with locking away those most seriously afflicted and treating all of them with the best and most up-to-date psychiatry we can muster.
Meanwhile, it is essential to ensure the poison doesn’t spread to their offspring.
Education, exposure to the world of ideas. These are the only possible weapons. The nutters will fight to stop us using them, of course, but a steadfast resolve I believe will get us there.