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November 1st, 2017
An oldie.
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Discussion (35)¬
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Latest book…
Random oldie…
April 1, 2015-
- NICE T-SHIRT (Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust). Currently unavailable.
When you hear a man say, ‘I am inspired,’ and then talk irrationally, reject it. Why? Because these three states—instinct, reason, and superconsciousness, or the unconscious, conscious, and superconscious states—belong to the same mind. There are not three minds in one man, but one state of it develops into the others. Instinct develops into reason, and reason into the transcendental consciousness; therefore, not one of the states contradicts the others. Real inspiration never contradicts reason, but fulfils it. Just as you find the great prophets saying, ‘I come not to destroy but to fulfil,’ so inspiration always comes to fulfil reason, and is in harmony with it.
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati Memorial Edition, 14th Edition, vol.I, 1972, pp 183–5
Nice. Best one for a while Author. Well done.
Bravo Author!
I’ll leave a quote from Mark Twain for you folks; “I know your religion isn’t true, the same way you know other peoples’ isn’t”.
I o
It always amuses me when Muslims insist that the Koran can can only be truly understood in the original Arabic, with intense scholarship; as if its fundamental repression, intolerance and brutality could be mistaken for anything else, in any language.
To say the koran is inspired
In fact all islam is mired
In fiction, so unrelated
It has to be abrogated
In every way the koran is absurd.
A PhD in Theology is no different then a PhD in Mother Goose.
RE:hotrats
But you miss the fabulous poetry which is the point. It produces altered (pun intended) states of consciousness.
Of course, fanatics will insist on proof texting as in, for example, Christianity.
A few years ago, during a discussion with a Christian, I was scolded because I didn’t know some piece of religious minutiae specific to her particular sect. Being unaware of some trifling detail of her dogma meant that I couldn’t reject her cult because I hadn’t investigated it thoroughly. I then asked: “Do you accept Huitzilopotchli as a god?”
“No.”
“How often did human hearts have to be offered to Ol’ Huitz so the Sun would continue to rise in the morning?”
“I don’t know…daily?”
“Four times a year, at the solstices and equinoxes. You reject Huitzilopotchli as a god without knowing the basics of Huitzilopotchilism yet I can’t reject your god unless I know if angels dancing on the heads of pins are waltzing or doing the macarena. Don’t you think that’s a little hypocritical?”
She admitted I had a point.
Every time I read one of these resurrections, I’m tempted to go back and start at the beginning of the archives. How could I have completely forgotten this gem?
Somebody once complained to a critic that they hadn’t read the whole book. His response was: One doesn’t have to eat the whole meal to know that it’s bad. That’s exactly how I feel about studying religion. The sales pitch is all I need to hear. Once you hear about the talking serpent, or the seer stones in the hat, or the reason Ganesh has the head of an elephant, or riding through the air on a magical horse, surely you don’t need more information.
Oh dear. Did I misspell my email address and throw my last comment into moderation? I hope not. It seemed like a good comment to me.
Sorry for the bother, Author.
A good laugh to start the morning. Thank you.
Just did the same thing as you, Darwin.
I’ll just repeat myself, if that’s ok:
A good way to start the morning. Thank you.
@happtheathen
“A PhD in Theology is no different then a PhD in Mother Goose”
It only has value if you treat is as a study in axiomatic logic. Given these unassailable assertions what can you deduce?
“One cannot reasonably dismiss…”
Always argue from the other guy’s point of view.
You’re welcome.
Re: Nakul Nitin Gote: Do we have a cuckoo in the nest?
Darwin, just read your comment on the previous strip about your lament for the future of your land, and the bit about the parking lot brought to mind the first verse of The Kinks Come Dancing, one of their later songs(1982) but still evocative for some of us of a certain age.
They put a parking lot on a piece of land
Where the supermarket used to stand
Before that they put up a bowling alley
On the site that used to be the local Palais.
That’s where the big bands used to come and play
My sister went there on a Saturday.
Come dancing
All her boyfriends used to come and call.
Why not come dancing?
It’s only natural.
Ah, they don’t write ’em like that anymore, and if anybody wishes to disagree, GET OFF MY LAWN!
SoG – naw, just a bullshit merchant.
Acolyte, yes indeed, that is a truly evocative bit of verse. Sadly, I never turned on to The Kinks. Obviously I missed something.
I don’t lament the fate of my property after I’m gone. I’m not, actually, Ozymandias, glorying in my power and the envy that my achievements cause. I’m loving our newly landscaped yard, and few things give me more joy than sitting by the koi pond and admiring the park like quality of the property. I will admit that I get a kick out of people being amazed at what has been achieved in just three years with a jack hammer, a shovel, a wheel barrow, and a very strong female partner. But I don’t expect anything to last. I’m not admired or famous enough to have my dwelling place preserved as a museum, like the home of Rembrandt or Elvis. So I shall let it go.
I’m sure you are aware that aging involves a lot of letting go. I’ve already given up my sex life, due to the prostate cancer treatment, and just this past week I surrendered a third molar after a hard and expensive fight. I’m hopefully a long way from giving up driving, or cooking in my own kitchen, or reading a book, or hearing frequencies above 6,000hz, but I can see all those things coming and more and worse. I’m comforted by the thought that, as a true non-believer, there is no afterlife and when I’m dead I won’t give a flying frog what happens to my property.
I’ll see your Kinks and raise you a Phil Ochs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB-BBVQLnxI Enjoy.
Nasser – your rhyme falls at the final hurdle.. perhaps end on “It’s time the damned book was retired..”?
Author, this reminds me of a strip in which you had a guest appearance by Ganesh. You have also had many guest appearances by Moses and once or twice by Joseph Smith, inventor of Mormonism (and not forgetting the Flying Spaghetti Monster!). It would be interesting to see occasional visits by others; how about Buddha, Odin, Jupiter/Zeus, Ra.
If you don’t do requests, my apologies!
Author,
in case it helps: I rather like the idea of SoG.
Michael, I would like to accept Huitzilopotchli as my saviour. How do I subscribe to your newsletter please?
When religious people want you to learn all their religion’s details….
If someone tells you that they’re a fish, and have a fish tail instead of legs, and that because you’re just like them, you are also a fish … you don’t take your pants off to prove them wrong. You realize that they’re a nutcase, and humor them with kindness.
So it goes with the truly religiously convinced. If you approach them with logic, they won’t get it, or will torture the logic with contrafactual assumptions until it produces the results they believe. If you approach them with anger, you’ll make an enemy: then watch your back, because their assertions of love, peace, and goodwill are only in effect when their beliefs are dominant. If you approach them with humor, they’ll fight back with a false morality born of mere scriptural restriction.
Approach them then with kindness, tolerance, and firm rejection of their religion. Then they’ll think something like “he’s ok for an atheist … I’ll pray for him”.
It’s better to be prayed for than to be preyed upon.
Theology is arguing over what colour Faries are!
Hinduism is nonsense, guys.
The story of a guy who is his own father, was born of a virgin and was dead for about 30 hours in compensation for all the sins that were ever -or will ever be- committed by somebody else, makes perfect sense. Not to mention the story of a little fellow who received direct messages from the creator of the universe, who rushed to fulfill all of his lustful desires and can only speak one language, apparently.
In response to someone in another venus who referred to non Christians as MFs, I pointed out that (according to the story) Jesus was his own father which makes him a supreme MF. Oedipus was a piker in *that* game.
I’ve just read this old one:
http://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/rock/
Thanks to the internet, it’s easy to see that the rock is actually outside, mounted on the corner of the building, in the middle of the shape made of metal, and the shape looks very familiar…
video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_VHWqZ2UnE
Wikipedia has a picture too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stone
Fascinating, isn’t it?
” and the shape looks very familiar…”
So they’re praying to a rock in a box mounted to the outside of a box.
Abhijeet, can that oval open form be called “a box”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stone : “Some writers remark on the apparent similarity of the Black Stone and its frame to the” … (I won’t quote it here, read there)
ac, “some writers” have clearly never seen a naked woman, or if they have she was of an unusual anatomy.
What is it with those men who cannot see a hole in anything without wanting to whap their willy into it?
Acolyte of Sagan, if you research it further, you’ll see that the Kaaba (in some former form) existed before Mo invented “Islam” and that Mo took the part in the rituals around it: his tribe, and therefore he himself too, were in the rituals running naked around the building with the black stone. There’s a recorded report of him having his garment raised up to shoulders when running around. There’s also a recorded report of him using “his stick” to touch the stone and then kissing the stick: Wikipedia: “After his Conquest of Mecca in 630, Muhammad is said to have ridden round the Kaaba seven times on his camel, touching the Black Stone with his stick in a gesture of reverence.[35]”
Before Mo used his military to ban that, Mo’s tribe venerated some goddesses in Kaaba and there were the fertility rituals performed, there was even the tradition that the “black” stone was initially white but got to be black from the menstrual blood of the women who ritually applied it to it.
So the stated similarity is less accidental than you’re personally ready to accept.
The narration from my previous post was illustrated by Charb, the artist publishing in Charlie Hebdo, one of 12 people killed by the two Islamists in January 2015:
https://lensdump.com/i/6JGz3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30708237
“The men opened fire and killed the editor’s police bodyguard” “before asking for editor” “Charb, and other four cartoonists by name and killing them”
“Witnesses said they had heard the gunmen shouting “We have avenged [Mo]” and [the famous “peaceful phrase” in Arabic] while calling out the names of the journalists.”
Now you know a little better why. The goddesses were also the subject of the famous “satanic verses”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_Verses
apparently uttered by Mo, the name of which were used as the book title by the writer who managed to both make a bestseller and stay alive, as he did it in some older times, in 1988.
Hinduism and its oppressive caste system will make you a strong believer of Christianity or Islam if you had born in a lower-caste Indian family.