One of casuistry’s many tactics is to claim that one’s opponents hold a position that is easy to dismiss. Our ever sensible barmaid is not so easily fooled. Sometimes I could hug her!
And thank you too, HaggisforBrains for the link to the Pastafarianism news item. To be fair, it is just possible that these bureaucratic censors are closet sceptics who have found a very effective way of “spreading the word”. “Pastafarianism” – Splendid!
Theres nothing “new” about atheism at all. What is new is the fact that theists are just now understanding that they are in decline and being looked at by rational people as a stone around the neck of modern society.
This is why the more they speak the louder we laugh.
Brilliant once again, Author. Another very loud laugh out from me.
Giving ’em enough rope is one reason why censorship is to be avoided – by all who feel disinclined to agree with what is being said – and much as I detest manic street preachers I still dream of the opportunity to soapbox beside one and, well, laugh.
Haggis,
The Article you linked to said -” Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster refer to themselves as Pastafarians or Spagnostics, wear colanders on their heads and strongly oppose the teaching of creationism in the science classroom.”
This is not entirely correct. Spagnostics are those who are unsure of the existence of His Noodliness owing to their intolerance for garlic or else their inability to grasp the sacred mystery of how the beer gets into the volcano.
HaggisForBrains, thanks for the link – how dare those idiots decide that Yahweh-ists must be appeased while insulting the legions of Pastafarians that worship the One True Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodly appendages). Grrrr!
Jerryw : We have the right to speak?
Since when?
You have seen those cases where people have been jailed for idiotic comments on FaceTwit? Not slander, not libel, just rants and not very good ones.
The stick-wavers and burners want us to *DIE* if we speak. Their book says so
Channel 4 and the BBC support them. As do at least two goon squads in University Student Unions, apparently.
C4, the BBC and the Universities are worried about offending big money and not getting advertising money or rich sponsors so they side with the mental cases and the deranged.
I worry about offending hotrats, he’s a nice fella, much nicer than me so I’m out of here.
If at first you can’t get people to submit
Demand silence, have a hissy fit
A common sort of squeak
From any persuasion of control freak
Is to makes laws preventing opinions of it.
Nassar, if only your poetry was equal to the ideas it conveys, you’d be the next official Poet Laureate rather than ‘just’ the Cock & Bull’s resident laureate.
DevonDreaming, please see my last post on the previous thread.
Michael, contradiction and religion have always gone hand-in-hand; they’d be so lonely without each other. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that without the assistance of the faithful’s unquestioning acceptance of contradicton religion would find its existance impossible – and just as Barmaid suggests, we’d need something new to laugh at.
And by the way, your avatar – Pinwheel Galaxy?
DD That is indeed why I did not refer to the verbal polluters with capitals.
I don’t care what the other nine were but Design For Life was one of the top ten tunes of its era.
And precisely where and when have people been jailed for ‘facetwit’?
Walter, Design for Life being one of the top ten of its era suggests that it was released in a very musically-poor era. The lyrics were OK – although one does have to read the words rather than listen to understand what that horrible, monotonic noise that passed as a voice was trying to tell us, particularly in the verses – but as a song it was certainly nothing special.To damn it with faint praise, I think of it as the least smelly turd in the sewer.
Give me Stiff Little Fingers anytime. And No! that isn’t a euphamism. 😉
Yeah, fair do’s. Walter, it was a decent(ish) tune. I just found myself turning into my Grandad for a mo. I’ll never forget the first time he heard Bowie. “Emily”, he said to my Gran, “I think the bloody wireless is on the blink”!
My favourite album title of all time? The Dead Kennedy’s Time Flies….But Airplanes Crash. That’s the one with Holiday in Cambodia, which caused more than a few raised eyebrows at the time, if memory serves.
Heh, I was the oldest Punk in town – and still am.
Aye, a classic. I sort of preferred “Kill the Poor”. Certainly that was my young son’s favourite when his time came around.
How about Chumbawamba’s “Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records”?
Irony alert.. Sproing!
From Russia, the previous world leader in atheism, the pair skating olympic gold medal winners ice danced to the tune of “Jesus Christ, Superstar”. If you listened to the broadcast in stereo you could hear Stalin and Lenin rolling over in their tombs in each ear. Hmm, can ashes roll over?
Just to double up the stress on your irony meter, Jerry, Jesus Christ, Superstar is possibly the campest musical of them all..and ice dancing ain’t exactly butch to begin with.
I have never heard of a nonbeliever trying to silence a believer, but I have seen the oft-repeated “why don’t you just shut up and let us do this thing you don’t believe in, in peace” many a time online.
Nonbelievers have nothing to lose by hearing about other gods and beliefs– besides, there are churches on every corner, people around you wearing symbols of their faiths, and invocations of all sorts of supernatural are part of the very language.
Perhaps believers’ facile acceptance of their faith is indeed so fragile as to be undone by something equally facile, such as reading Harry Potter, doing yoga, or having a government/school acknowledge pluralism. Might explain the greater care needed to protect against outside [devil] influences?
re DD 12th at 1934 and WalterWallcarpit on 13th at 0209: http://www.thejournal.ie/arrested-facebook-twitter-troll-louise-mensch-defamation-abuse-internet-488501-Jun2012/ and linkies therein.
Okay, so not many have been jailed for FaceTwit cooments, and some that have have been arrested under the really bad offences Acts, but quite a few have been arrested and taken to court and slapped around a little.
The link above posted as that blog is quite interesting and far more temperate than me. I was going to do more research but that writer already did it, so there’s no point.
And it seems that UKland’s government wish to make it a really bad offence to say anything bad on any electronic medium. I hope they feel the same when the PM’s kid gets plastered and spews all over Twitbook.
Sorry for responding, I”l re-retire into the murk.
The mention of the Dead Kennedy’s album brought to mind working with Jello Biafra. A highlight of a former career. (Pardon my drift into nostalgia.) Now there is a bloke who knows how to tweak the lion’s tail.
@Fenchurch – you ever thought about how many 10s of thousands of people are full-time employed just in the UK to prop up these beliefs? Their job, their full-time paid employment, is to propagate these myths. How many people whose full time job is propagating atheism? I think the answer is approximately none.
OK the BHA employs a couple of people probably, but that’s about it.
Suffolk Blue: Their job, their full-time paid employment, is to propagate these myths.
It’s heartwarming to think that there really are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who spend all their work hours propagating religion, doing it for a living, trying as hard as they can, and yet the statistics demonstrate that the battle for hearts and minds is going to the amateur, part-time enthusiasts of atheism, like what we are.
That’s the problem with giving allegiance to an implausible deity and ancient scriptures; as time goes by it gets ever easier for others to demolish your arguments, demonstrate your self-interest, and mock your ignorance – to the point when any articulate child can do it. There’s no more need for professional atheists than a need for professionals to brush our teeth, or tie our shoes.
DevonDreaming: I worry about offending hotrats, he’s a nice fella, much nicer than me so I’m out of here.
Thanks for the compliment, but if you wanted to offend me, you would have your work cut out. Please don’t rush off on my account. Especially when it’s your round…
Brings to mind this gem from 1979 on the BBC where John Cleese and Michael Palin “debate” Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood (the then Bishop of Southwark) over whether the Life of Brian was blasphemous.
Jesus Christ, who gives a Muhammed whether something is blasphemous? I have never understood blasphemy. Your god is SO powerful s/he created, and can destroy, the entire world and anyone in it, but don’t call him/her names because it might hurt their feelings.
Mary, not only are their gods too sensitive to criticism, but have you noticed that they have always been happy to let their followers kick chunks out of each other and blow each other to smithereens in their games of ‘My God’s Bigger Than Your god’ without actually getting their own metaphysical hands dirty?
Cowardly gods or non-existant gods – is there a difference?
James, interestingly that particular clip (2/4) won’t load in Aus blocked for copyright reasons, but 3/4 did. What a mine of quotes it was. Enough preposterousness, outrage and insight to stimulate an Author for months.
And you are correct, quite pertinent.
Interesting to hear one of them declare they couldn’t get away with portraying the Life of Mo – especially because the implication that political correctness would forbid it. 1979 was the year of the Iranian revolution that accidentally enthroned a theocrat. Obviously the Pythons played to their own cultural comedic circumstances and it’s release after the revolution notwithstanding, I wonder how history might have travelled if it had been about Mo – and released a year earlier.
Mostly however I wonder in which part of that “debate” it was realised by everyone that the two god botherers had in fact missed the beginning of the film and actually had not realised that the film was not actually about Jesus but about some poor sod’s mistaken identity.
AOS, I am more interested in human motives than those of supernatural beings. Maybe I am incredibly naive but I can’t, for the life of me, work out how humans – even if they totally, truly-rooly believe in the existance of a god – feel that it is a moral and righteous thing to do to a) worship, or b) ‘defend’ with violence, a capricious, malevolent being. I guess I need to ask the kind of person who toadies up to a mafia-type criminal.
WalterW, the five minute countdown didn’t give the time-limit away?
Mary, although the ‘God’s/Allah’s Henchman’ mentality probably has many causes, I’d hazard a guess that the main reason would be the fear of reprisal in the next life if they fail to do something in this one to defend the ‘honour’ of their slighted deity, or the expectation of reward if they do, maybe with a goodly pinch of ‘Holier Than Thou’ thrown in for good measure.
One often hears people say things like ‘I’d walk across broken glass just for a kiss from her/him’ when talking about an attractive person, or ‘I’d walk through fire for him/her’ about a loved one; take that up a level and you find the lunatics who are so entrenched in religion that they are prepared to commit terrible acts of destruction – including self-destruction – for a god that they really, really, really love and fear and cherish.
omg, nice card, but it just gave me a ‘senior moment’. I was looking at the picture and couldn’t figure out the significance of the magnifying glass sticking out of Darwin’s head – until I moved the mouse. DOH!
Mary, yes it told me how long I had to get on with and, in retrospect clearly by implication, complete such editing, but not how well I was achieving it. Or not that I noticed. If the word ‘ ‘ is still here when you read this then there was indeed a live countdown to heed. If not there was not. Either way my grammar can’t have been too bad as no POTWA has been issued.
More seriously I agree wholeheartedly with your main point. How can people possibly believe there is any merit to worshipping, defending and even evangelising any of those wantonly horrible choices? Capricious and malevolent sums up the Abrahamic trio perfectly. Why would one make a free choice to do so?
WalterW, yeah. I just dont get it. I understand AOS’ fear motivator but not the ‘I’d walk through broken glass for the one I love’ one. I like to think that my love is strong enough that I would kill someone if the light-of-my-life asked me to – but the very fact that she would request such a thing would make her not the person I thought and, indeed, unworthy of such devotion. I would like to think that such a request would make any mentally healthy human run a mile from such a person.
Mary2:
Harsh? Perhaps, but not cruel. After all, it’s not a death sentence, just a spur to a bit of harmless banter. I am not a frequent POTWA issuer, and only to those few regulars who, from my experience, should know better. I think we can safely assume that Walter had tongue firmly in cheek when claiming that the absence of a POTWA could prove good grammar.
There’s no problem I can see with your punctuation, and I wouldn’t dream of indicting you – your occasional idiosyncratic spellings are often an improvement on the originals. And without getting all gushy, you’re so obviously a warm and caring person, it just wouldn’t feel right.
hotrats, Too kind, I’m sure. And a POTWA for logic failure? Did you just make that up on the spot or is that somehow included in the acronym? I’ve always secretly wanted one and quietly can be proud of getting on at the back door.
I dig the random nature of POTWA pronouncements but sometimes I wish they were more predictable if only for the learning we all get from them. And we all really enjoy a well targeted demolition.
Personally I kinda think I write well and certainly have fun crafting language in the C’n’B – but I’d be the first to admit that I could hardly explain a single rule of grammar in any language.
MaryToo, Really?
On re-reading I find all but your last sentence quite weird.
Initially I was minded of a brother’s response to my taking the Peace Pledge; challenging my declaration with “So what would you do if someone was about to kill your mother and the only way you could stop it is to shoot them?” thus completely ignoring the implausibility of a pacifist having a gun in the first place!
Then I was reminded of Mahatma Ghandi’s line: “There are many causes for which I would be prepared to die but none for which I would be prepared to kill.” I’d like to think I could live, rather than die, by that one.
But being able to kill another, even following someone who tends to encourage it pales when held up to the notion of worshipping a deity that expects it, even demands it – not even as a rite of passage but for every imagined sleight. Why would anyone able to think for hemself so much as contemplate signing up to something so obviously wrong?
OMG, thanks. I always feel I should do something special on Darwin’s birthday. Can’t ever think of what. I spend most days contemplating the beauty and wonder that his theory opened up for us.
WW – I’m tempted to issue a POTWA for “every imagined sleight“. But, it’s either a typo, or a deliberate attempt to gain another one, so I’ll let it go. Be careful, I’m watching you!
I do like wordsmithing, as photography, to reward a second look. It may be just a pity that the two are spelled slightly differently but that sleight (withane) has a slightly sly sence might also have been either a word game or a Freudian slip.
I’ll have to be extremely careful, or clever, to get one past your grille.
WalterWalcarpit, thanks for that. I needed to look at the cartoon again instead of just trying to keep up with the comments. This one is one of Author’s best, and that’s saying something.
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
September 12, 2012
Well worth a second reading, Author.
Talking of censorship, have you guys seen this latest attempt at censorship by a university of Pastafarianism.
Spot on. One of the best ever!
Isn’t there some story about motes and beams and eyes?
Superb. As the man said brevity is the soul of wit
One of casuistry’s many tactics is to claim that one’s opponents hold a position that is easy to dismiss. Our ever sensible barmaid is not so easily fooled. Sometimes I could hug her!
And thank you too, HaggisforBrains for the link to the Pastafarianism news item. To be fair, it is just possible that these bureaucratic censors are closet sceptics who have found a very effective way of “spreading the word”. “Pastafarianism” – Splendid!
Theres nothing “new” about atheism at all. What is new is the fact that theists are just now understanding that they are in decline and being looked at by rational people as a stone around the neck of modern society.
This is why the more they speak the louder we laugh.
Brilliant once again, Author. Another very loud laugh out from me.
Giving ’em enough rope is one reason why censorship is to be avoided – by all who feel disinclined to agree with what is being said – and much as I detest manic street preachers I still dream of the opportunity to soapbox beside one and, well, laugh.
Haggis,
The Article you linked to said -” Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster refer to themselves as Pastafarians or Spagnostics, wear colanders on their heads and strongly oppose the teaching of creationism in the science classroom.”
This is not entirely correct. Spagnostics are those who are unsure of the existence of His Noodliness owing to their intolerance for garlic or else their inability to grasp the sacred mystery of how the beer gets into the volcano.
Dear Mr. WalterWallcarpit, what do you find so dislikeable about this fine assembly of youths formed into a popular beat combo? While I admit much of their œuvre isn’t entirely my bucket of chai, they do seem to be a genuinely lovely bunch of lads.
Of course, other bands are available.
Being a second coming, it’s twice as funny.
HaggisForBrains, thanks for the link – how dare those idiots decide that Yahweh-ists must be appeased while insulting the legions of Pastafarians that worship the One True Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodly appendages). Grrrr!
Author, that last panel is pure genius…
“You have the right to speak, but anything you say my be held against you (in the court of common sense)”.
Welcome back to the 5 minutes to rethink option, now we await the blinking eyes!
Jerryw : We have the right to speak?
Since when?
You have seen those cases where people have been jailed for idiotic comments on FaceTwit? Not slander, not libel, just rants and not very good ones.
The stick-wavers and burners want us to *DIE* if we speak. Their book says so
Channel 4 and the BBC support them. As do at least two goon squads in University Student Unions, apparently.
C4, the BBC and the Universities are worried about offending big money and not getting advertising money or rich sponsors so they side with the mental cases and the deranged.
I worry about offending hotrats, he’s a nice fella, much nicer than me so I’m out of here.
If at first you can’t get people to submit
Demand silence, have a hissy fit
A common sort of squeak
From any persuasion of control freak
Is to makes laws preventing opinions of it.
Nassar, if only your poetry was equal to the ideas it conveys, you’d be the next official Poet Laureate rather than ‘just’ the Cock & Bull’s resident laureate.
DevonDreaming, please see my last post on the previous thread.
Southbank University have decided that to avoid insulting theists they will insult atheists. Somehow the contradiction escapes them.
Michael, contradiction and religion have always gone hand-in-hand; they’d be so lonely without each other. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that without the assistance of the faithful’s unquestioning acceptance of contradicton religion would find its existance impossible – and just as Barmaid suggests, we’d need something new to laugh at.
And by the way, your avatar – Pinwheel Galaxy?
A somewhat on-topic cartoon is on the Web at http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2014/02/11
DD That is indeed why I did not refer to the verbal polluters with capitals.
I don’t care what the other nine were but Design For Life was one of the top ten tunes of its era.
And precisely where and when have people been jailed for ‘facetwit’?
Walter, Design for Life being one of the top ten of its era suggests that it was released in a very musically-poor era. The lyrics were OK – although one does have to read the words rather than listen to understand what that horrible, monotonic noise that passed as a voice was trying to tell us, particularly in the verses – but as a song it was certainly nothing special.To damn it with faint praise, I think of it as the least smelly turd in the sewer.
Give me Stiff Little Fingers anytime. And No! that isn’t a euphamism. 😉
Ao’S Nah! Great song in a poor era, IMHO. SLF? Now there was a great band in a fantastic era. Go For It!
Yeah, fair do’s. Walter, it was a decent(ish) tune. I just found myself turning into my Grandad for a mo. I’ll never forget the first time he heard Bowie. “Emily”, he said to my Gran, “I think the bloody wireless is on the blink”!
My favourite album title of all time? The Dead Kennedy’s Time Flies….But Airplanes Crash. That’s the one with Holiday in Cambodia, which caused more than a few raised eyebrows at the time, if memory serves.
Heh, I was the oldest Punk in town – and still am.
Aye, a classic. I sort of preferred “Kill the Poor”. Certainly that was my young son’s favourite when his time came around.
How about Chumbawamba’s “Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records”?
Nassar Ben Houdja, say buddy could ya spend some time on your metre, and your rhyme would be sweeter.
And now, right-wing Hindus are at it. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/13/penguin-withdrawal-hindus-arundhati-roy-neil-gaiman. Time for J&M to debate polytheism with a different kind of true believer?
Irony alert.. Sproing!
From Russia, the previous world leader in atheism, the pair skating olympic gold medal winners ice danced to the tune of “Jesus Christ, Superstar”. If you listened to the broadcast in stereo you could hear Stalin and Lenin rolling over in their tombs in each ear. Hmm, can ashes roll over?
Just to double up the stress on your irony meter, Jerry, Jesus Christ, Superstar is possibly the campest musical of them all..and ice dancing ain’t exactly butch to begin with.
I have never heard of a nonbeliever trying to silence a believer, but I have seen the oft-repeated “why don’t you just shut up and let us do this thing you don’t believe in, in peace” many a time online.
Nonbelievers have nothing to lose by hearing about other gods and beliefs– besides, there are churches on every corner, people around you wearing symbols of their faiths, and invocations of all sorts of supernatural are part of the very language.
Perhaps believers’ facile acceptance of their faith is indeed so fragile as to be undone by something equally facile, such as reading Harry Potter, doing yoga, or having a government/school acknowledge pluralism. Might explain the greater care needed to protect against outside [devil] influences?
re DD 12th at 1934 and WalterWallcarpit on 13th at 0209:
http://www.thejournal.ie/arrested-facebook-twitter-troll-louise-mensch-defamation-abuse-internet-488501-Jun2012/ and linkies therein.
Okay, so not many have been jailed for FaceTwit cooments, and some that have have been arrested under the really bad offences Acts, but quite a few have been arrested and taken to court and slapped around a little.
The link above posted as that blog is quite interesting and far more temperate than me. I was going to do more research but that writer already did it, so there’s no point.
And it seems that UKland’s government wish to make it a really bad offence to say anything bad on any electronic medium. I hope they feel the same when the PM’s kid gets plastered and spews all over Twitbook.
Sorry for responding, I”l re-retire into the murk.
The mention of the Dead Kennedy’s album brought to mind working with Jello Biafra. A highlight of a former career. (Pardon my drift into nostalgia.) Now there is a bloke who knows how to tweak the lion’s tail.
Darwin, I am experiencing a new emotion right now. I believe it’s jealousy! You did take the opportunity to party, I presume? 😉
@Fenchurch – you ever thought about how many 10s of thousands of people are full-time employed just in the UK to prop up these beliefs? Their job, their full-time paid employment, is to propagate these myths. How many people whose full time job is propagating atheism? I think the answer is approximately none.
OK the BHA employs a couple of people probably, but that’s about it.
Amazing when you think about it.
Suffolk Blue:
Their job, their full-time paid employment, is to propagate these myths.
It’s heartwarming to think that there really are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who spend all their work hours propagating religion, doing it for a living, trying as hard as they can, and yet the statistics demonstrate that the battle for hearts and minds is going to the amateur, part-time enthusiasts of atheism, like what we are.
That’s the problem with giving allegiance to an implausible deity and ancient scriptures; as time goes by it gets ever easier for others to demolish your arguments, demonstrate your self-interest, and mock your ignorance – to the point when any articulate child can do it. There’s no more need for professional atheists than a need for professionals to brush our teeth, or tie our shoes.
DevonDreaming:
I worry about offending hotrats, he’s a nice fella, much nicer than me so I’m out of here.
Thanks for the compliment, but if you wanted to offend me, you would have your work cut out. Please don’t rush off on my account. Especially when it’s your round…
Brings to mind this gem from 1979 on the BBC where John Cleese and Michael Palin “debate” Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood (the then Bishop of Southwark) over whether the Life of Brian was blasphemous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku3GcPrW9xg
Jesus Christ, who gives a Muhammed whether something is blasphemous? I have never understood blasphemy. Your god is SO powerful s/he created, and can destroy, the entire world and anyone in it, but don’t call him/her names because it might hurt their feelings.
Mary, not only are their gods too sensitive to criticism, but have you noticed that they have always been happy to let their followers kick chunks out of each other and blow each other to smithereens in their games of ‘My God’s Bigger Than Your god’ without actually getting their own metaphysical hands dirty?
Cowardly gods or non-existant gods – is there a difference?
James, interestingly that particular clip (2/4) won’t load in Aus blocked for copyright reasons, but 3/4 did. What a mine of quotes it was. Enough preposterousness, outrage and insight to stimulate an Author for months.
And you are correct, quite pertinent.
Interesting to hear one of them declare they couldn’t get away with portraying the Life of Mo – especially because the implication that political correctness would forbid it. 1979 was the year of the Iranian revolution that accidentally enthroned a theocrat. Obviously the Pythons played to their own cultural comedic circumstances and it’s release after the revolution notwithstanding, I wonder how history might have travelled if it had been about Mo – and released a year earlier.
Mostly however I wonder in which part of that “debate” it was realised by everyone that the two god botherers had in fact missed the beginning of the film and actually had not realised that the film was not actually about Jesus but about some poor sod’s mistaken identity.
Oops. The editing has to be completed before 5 mins run out. I can’t have been far off but suffice to say that grammar aside, I tried to add
“Duh!”
AOS, I am more interested in human motives than those of supernatural beings. Maybe I am incredibly naive but I can’t, for the life of me, work out how humans – even if they totally, truly-rooly believe in the existance of a god – feel that it is a moral and righteous thing to do to a) worship, or b) ‘defend’ with violence, a capricious, malevolent being. I guess I need to ask the kind of person who toadies up to a mafia-type criminal.
WalterW, the five minute countdown didn’t give the time-limit away?
Darwin Harmless, special for you.
I’m a few days late, but enjoy:
http://imgur.com/r/atheism/4i3YFL8
Mary, although the ‘God’s/Allah’s Henchman’ mentality probably has many causes, I’d hazard a guess that the main reason would be the fear of reprisal in the next life if they fail to do something in this one to defend the ‘honour’ of their slighted deity, or the expectation of reward if they do, maybe with a goodly pinch of ‘Holier Than Thou’ thrown in for good measure.
One often hears people say things like ‘I’d walk across broken glass just for a kiss from her/him’ when talking about an attractive person, or ‘I’d walk through fire for him/her’ about a loved one; take that up a level and you find the lunatics who are so entrenched in religion that they are prepared to commit terrible acts of destruction – including self-destruction – for a god that they really, really, really love and fear and cherish.
omg, nice card, but it just gave me a ‘senior moment’. I was looking at the picture and couldn’t figure out the significance of the magnifying glass sticking out of Darwin’s head – until I moved the mouse. DOH!
Mary, yes it told me how long I had to get on with and, in retrospect clearly by implication, complete such editing, but not how well I was achieving it. Or not that I noticed. If the word ‘ ‘ is still here when you read this then there was indeed a live countdown to heed. If not there was not. Either way my grammar can’t have been too bad as no POTWA has been issued.
More seriously I agree wholeheartedly with your main point. How can people possibly believe there is any merit to worshipping, defending and even evangelising any of those wantonly horrible choices? Capricious and malevolent sums up the Abrahamic trio perfectly. Why would one make a free choice to do so?
WalterW, yeah. I just dont get it. I understand AOS’ fear motivator but not the ‘I’d walk through broken glass for the one I love’ one. I like to think that my love is strong enough that I would kill someone if the light-of-my-life asked me to – but the very fact that she would request such a thing would make her not the person I thought and, indeed, unworthy of such devotion. I would like to think that such a request would make any mentally healthy human run a mile from such a person.
Walter:
If not there was not. Either way my grammar can’t have been too bad as no POTWA has been issued.
Your grammar was fine – but POTWAs are neither automatic, nor instant, nor proof that grammar was bad.
So you do get a POTWA – for logical fallacy.
Ha ha ha ha! I loooove it!!!
hotrats, you are harsh! (Feel free to POTWA away for sloppy punctuation) 😉 …(and reliance on emoticons to convey meaning)…
Mary2:
Harsh? Perhaps, but not cruel. After all, it’s not a death sentence, just a spur to a bit of harmless banter. I am not a frequent POTWA issuer, and only to those few regulars who, from my experience, should know better. I think we can safely assume that Walter had tongue firmly in cheek when claiming that the absence of a POTWA could prove good grammar.
There’s no problem I can see with your punctuation, and I wouldn’t dream of indicting you – your occasional idiosyncratic spellings are often an improvement on the originals. And without getting all gushy, you’re so obviously a warm and caring person, it just wouldn’t feel right.
hotrats, nup, sorry – definitely gushy. BUT, flattery is the most valued form of currency on the planet.
hotrats, Too kind, I’m sure. And a POTWA for logic failure? Did you just make that up on the spot or is that somehow included in the acronym? I’ve always secretly wanted one and quietly can be proud of getting on at the back door.
I dig the random nature of POTWA pronouncements but sometimes I wish they were more predictable if only for the learning we all get from them. And we all really enjoy a well targeted demolition.
Personally I kinda think I write well and certainly have fun crafting language in the C’n’B – but I’d be the first to admit that I could hardly explain a single rule of grammar in any language.
MaryToo, Really?
On re-reading I find all but your last sentence quite weird.
Initially I was minded of a brother’s response to my taking the Peace Pledge; challenging my declaration with “So what would you do if someone was about to kill your mother and the only way you could stop it is to shoot them?” thus completely ignoring the implausibility of a pacifist having a gun in the first place!
Then I was reminded of Mahatma Ghandi’s line: “There are many causes for which I would be prepared to die but none for which I would be prepared to kill.” I’d like to think I could live, rather than die, by that one.
But being able to kill another, even following someone who tends to encourage it pales when held up to the notion of worshipping a deity that expects it, even demands it – not even as a rite of passage but for every imagined sleight. Why would anyone able to think for hemself so much as contemplate signing up to something so obviously wrong?
OMG, thanks. I always feel I should do something special on Darwin’s birthday. Can’t ever think of what. I spend most days contemplating the beauty and wonder that his theory opened up for us.
DH, how about arranging a trip to London and ticket for the Darwin Day lecture 🙂
botanist, great idea. All it would take is time and money. I have time. The money is an unfortunate inconvenience at the moment. This may change.
WW – I’m tempted to issue a POTWA for “every imagined sleight“. But, it’s either a typo, or a deliberate attempt to gain another one, so I’ll let it go. Be careful, I’m watching you!
HfB. Sublime. Truly gigglesome.
I do like wordsmithing, as photography, to reward a second look. It may be just a pity that the two are spelled slightly differently but that sleight (withane) has a slightly sly sence might also have been either a word game or a Freudian slip.
I’ll have to be extremely careful, or clever, to get one past your grille.
*8 minute follow up*
HfB, I just remembered noticing that you too enjoy a second look href=”http://www.jesusandmo.net/2014/02/12/shut2/#comment-184413”
WalterWalcarpit, thanks for that. I needed to look at the cartoon again instead of just trying to keep up with the comments. This one is one of Author’s best, and that’s saying something.