Maybe I’ve lived here too long, but that’s the first J&M strip of which I don’t get the punchline. Could somebody explain it to me please? Like, halp? >_>
Freefox, you surprise me. The punchline for this one seems so obvious. Those who reject organized religion characterize it as rule bound and repressive, but they still want to be seen as somehow sweet and loving and sensitive with a soul and an appreciation of the mysteries of theology. So they say “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual.” Mo is expressing the opposite. What he values about his religion is the rules and the simplicity. He’s not concerned about the feeling of being blessed, or the wonder at the mystery of it all.
Explaining a joke usually kills it. But it’s an interesting exercise. This joke survives the explanation, at least for me.
It’s overhearing conversations like this that make being an atheist so easy, no drawn out explanations are needed until the afterlife, which will be never.
FreeFox, on top of the explanation of Darwin Harmless, the comic is even funnier when you realize that even when Mo claims to be “religious”, i.e. follow the simple rules, he’s not even doing that, by drinking beer and swearing ! So if the definition of “religious” is being an asshole with a conviction, Mo doesn’t even care for the last bit !
Maybe some “religious not spiritual” folks are candidates for polytheism. Meaning, attracted to world views with supernatural and mystical forces or appeals to higher powers; but repelled by procrustean monotheistic rule books. It seems to me that polytheism requires some choices about living your life, while monotheism predetermines those choices for you.
Panel 3 -all the sex and fruit you want,
I thought that according to the mythology – the ‘souls’ are supposedly beyond such basic bodily needs and sensations’
If there is one thing we can be fairly sure about concerning the ‘afterlife’ – is that if such a thing exists then it would be nothing like anyone has or could imagine.
There seems to be some sort of glitch. The following appears 10 or more times at the bottom of the page:
Warning: file_get_contents(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: hostname nor servname provided, or not known in /home/public/wp-content/plugins/most-shared-posts/msp-fetch.php on line 179
Presumably “all the fruit you want” is a reference to the 72 cherries with which the faithful will be rewarded, except that Mo wasn’t familiar with cherries, so he substituted raisins.
The Islamic paradise sounds like the daydreams of a 15 year old male virgin. Whereas the Christian paradise sounds boring with endlessly singing hymns of praise to a narcissistic megalomaniac.
Nassar, if your second post was asking what I think it was asking, you need to follow the instructions in the ‘Get an avatar’ link next to the ‘Name’ box just above the box where you type your masterpieces.
My own thoughts on ‘spiritual’ people are, I think, well enough known here for me to have to bother repeating them.
Religion can kiss my asshole. Spirituality is just as meaningless.
Neither shall impede me in my quest to enjoy fruit, beer and anything else I desire whilst I am still alive to appreciate such finite sensations.
Godsdammit, this comic explains perfectly why I’m not a Muslim anymore, if I ever really was. There’s nothing profound in Islam*. It’s all about getting the sex (if you’re a heterosexual male) and the fruit. There are no ideas. There’s nothing to strive for. You follow the straight path and you get your reward of mindless, fleshly pleasures for the rest of eternity BECAUSE WHY WOULD YOU WANT ANYTHING ELSE.
(N.B. paradise is described in the Qu’ran as a lush garden, not just full of hott chicks but also replete with all the dates, pomegranates etc. you can scoff down.)
*Maybe I should qualify this as the mainstream, Sunni, complacent middle-class brand of Islam I was brought up in. I guess Sufism isn’t so bad, or any other ‘mystic’ tradition à la Buddhism which encourages reflection, self-awareness and empathy.
I’m not into mysticism or hippy new-age pseudoscience woo, but I believe you can be spiritual without giving in to the ‘supernatural’. I think it is spiritual, in a way, to think that nature is amazing and to love how the facts and mysteries of existence will always continue to amaze and perplex us.
Sorry to double-post, but I just remembered a very apropos passage from Antoine de St-Exupéry’s book Wind, Sand and Stars. In it he writes about the time he spent in northern Africa dodging bullets that warring Arab tribes were firing at each other. Paraphrased, he said something like:
“… and all these men who believe that a shot to the heart from an enemy rifle will send them straight to a magical land of flowing fountains, lush gardens and all the beautiful women they desire. This is what their God gave to them as truth; well, their God lied. There are plenty of flowing fountains, lush gardens and beautiful women in France, all there to be enjoyed without having to die a violent death first.”
I always think that “I’m spiritual not religious” translates as I want an afterlife but can’t be bothered to go to Church on Sunday, (other places and days of worship are available).
Surely ‘spiritual’ relates to non theological things and experiences of ‘beauty’
which tend to [but not necessarily] produce in the recipient an emotion or reaction which is generally considered as a positive or up lifting experience
[Depending on what a specific individual considers to be a positive emotion]
Thus spiritual and religious are only tenuously connected.
Spiritual can therefore perhaps be defined as that which produces a positive feeling or emotion
so religion CAN be a spiritual experience , BUT so can music, poetry, literature, food, sex , or just about anything
in contrast all of these things can also produce a negative response or behaviour in specific individuals
therefore spirituality is innate to the persons nature/outlook on life and has nothing to do with religion
thus for example Richard dawkins is a spiritual atheist because he delights in the wonder of life/nature/the universe
in contrast Da’esh and the State governor of North Carolina while clearly religious are completely lacking any spiritual aspect to their personality
If you are quoting from a dictionary, pink squirrel, it is considered the proper etiquette to reference your source, otherwise it is plagiarism. Your second sentence/paragraph is clearly direct from a dictionary. And speaking of paragraphs and sentences, what the fuck is the deal with your line breaks? The only way to make sense of your formatting is to assume that you speak the words as you type them, and hit ‘return’ every time you inhale.
Now to my point; you say spirituality and religion are only tenuously connected, I say have you never heard of the Spiritualist Church? Not so tenuous after all.
AoS – none of what I wrote was from a dictionary – it was all ‘ad lib ‘ thought I was creating on the spot
so no none of it was from any dictionary- I was just being careful to get the definition right
spiritualist is a completely different item – as spiritualists tend to be involved in ‘spiritualism’
ie contacting the ‘spirits of the dead’
Pink Squirrel (or Unicorn…)
I like your “mise en page”.
Prévert for one, likes to design his poems.
because breathing can be present in a written text, too.
Hey AoS, one can write thought sentences, they do not have to come from a book. Before being on paper these words were formed in neurons. No ?
OK, english and spanish are not my mother’s language, pero le gusto mucho los dos.
And I like to insufflate oxygen in my writings, too.
Alex.
DH:
I’m with AoS on this, except for the bad dictionary call. For relative newcomers, I was a regular here for a long time. For at least a year now I have been avoiding the comments on J&M until ‘pink squirrel’ dies, gets banned, or finds a fresh victim site.
This used to be one of the best pages on the net for intelligent, witty comments, with people who took the trouble to write decent, readable, English, and waited until they had something interesting or amusing to say before commenting.
Now I just can’t bear to read it any more. Every issue of a page I used to look forawrd to has become a personal spitoon for PS’s drivelling verbal and typographic slops. Apparently unable to construct a coherent sentence either mentally or on the page, but posts up to 20 times on one thread. Never has anything remotely original or amusing to say. Called out on persistent textual littering, vulgarly insults an long-time C&B regular.
The icon says it all; an eye-watering shocking pink pony with slatherings of mascara and a smug, saccharine grin, copied wholesale from a $2 infant’s game in the iTunes store, Amazing Pink Unicorn & The Magic Letters, by Miriam de Franca Moreira.
You know what, pink squirrel? Fuck you too, and the unicorn you rode in on.
The Quran promises wine in Paradise too. (I shall have to look up the reference because I cannot remember everything these days.) Is that irony, paradox or sarcasm?
For Nassar, how about Edward Lear in a turban. I just used a self-portrait.
I did add the C – but it got lost in the posting -as did the more artistic arrangement of my text which was reverted to left hand side – why the C did not appear I have no idea
and clearly hotrats lacks a sense of humour or tolerance
Back to Nassar’s possible avatar, there are some decent pics of HaggisForBrains’ favourite (sic) poet, William McGonagall, that pop up on the Google search page, including a particularly fine sepia print in which the poor fellow looks remarkably like a less lumpy Joseph Merrick.
Just to clarify, my mention of the great McGonagall in relation to Nassar is for his poetic prowess, and not for his looks. I’m not that mean spirited.
Hotrats, I haven’t been an attentive enough reader to pick up on the bad feelings that seem to have invaded our convivial virtual watering hole. Thanks for filling me in.
Acolyte, I do indeed remember UPOTWA, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it stands for. Oh yes, Universal Pedants of the World Association. Right? Those were the days, eh. We had some classic moments. I fear that my wits have deserted me of late.
I did have a thought recently that I’d like to run by the crowd here. I’m not happy with saying RIP when somebody dies. They are not resting. They are not at peace. They are dead. Gone. How did this get to be a universally recognized acronym?
Any suggestions for an alternative? GBNF? (Gone But Not Forgotten) SNM? (Sadly No More) A visitor to my site suggested TOEA (Task On Earth Accomplished) which seems appropriate but I’ve met people who obviously have no task on earth, other than to fill a bag of skin with questionable meat. Anyone?
Salutations all,
Pink Squirrel, I have no issues with you typing random thoughts. I have no issue with incomplete sentences. I have no fucking issue with fucking swearing like a fucking trooper. I, as is soon to be made obvious, have no issues with starting a sentence with a conjunction. BUT, if you will insist on random line breaks, instead of insulting those who point them out to you, it may be useful to learn that punctuation exists for a reason: to make your thoughts able to be understood by others. It doesn’t matter if you are Shakespeare, if you write in a way that other people cannot understand, they will a) fail to understand you and, b) think you are either poorly educated or an idiot. You may not mind this but, as the purpose leaving a comment is generally to get a point across to others, please bear in mind that no one bothers to read a comment twice to attempt to decode it.
Darwin, I know I’ve been away for a while but United Pedants, please! Can we still issue POTWAs?
Re dead people: I hate the term ‘passing’ which seems to have become a popular way of saying ‘dying’. When someone is dead, they are dead: sad but true. What on Earth is with ‘passing’? Just passing through?
DH, M2:
on RIP.
In Dutch it has become not uncommon among the non-religuous to use in liefhebbende herinnering, which litterally translates as in loving memory. In English that would have the added advantage of a pronounceable acronym.
M2,
forgot to answer you.
I too hate Passing or Passed Away.
I just say: Gone, or various forms of different kind of slang expressions which all have a definite lack of solemness (which btw is not always received well).
For instance: Turned the small corner. Stopped smoking for ever. Through the pipe.
Oh dear, anybody spot the typo ?
” Every issue of a page I used to look forawrd to has become a personal spitoon for PS’s drivelling verbal and typographic slops”
Someone once asked Akong Rinpoche (a Tibetan lama) the meaning of spirituality and he said that if a person is honest and reliable then that person is spiritual. That struck me as a good answer because why would one be honest and reliable unless one aspired to a set of high moral values? That was his definition, regardless of what you believe.
Incidentally, Art.25, please don’t use the term “asshole”; it’s too scatological for my taste.The proper term is “a case of recto-cranial inversion”.
Okay, PS, I still have my suspicions over that suddenly formally written line (…in the recipient an emotion or reaction…..etc.) but if you insist ’twas your own then I apologise for the accusation of plagiarism. The formatting beef still stands, though.
Okies AOS
the formatting is mainly due to also using u tube to comment – because there the set up displays as a single stream of words -unless you page break – so I have made a habit of ‘returning’
pink squirrel says: and clearly hotrats lacks a sense of humour or tolerance
It is precisely my sense of humour that tells me that not one of your hundreds of meandering, boring posts has ever been even remotely funny. It is my sense of tolerance that keeps me away from J&M’s comments, rather than replying to every inanity you post with half a page of obscene insults, in capital letters to represent angry shouting, which is my conditioned reflex every time I see your grinning, infantile icon.
who set up Hotrats as the J & M arbitrator on
‘what is banned’
‘what is permitted’
and ‘what is compulsory’
I do not make any claim to arbitrate what should appear in J&M. Everything is permitted, nothing is compulsory, and Author is notoriously tolerant, even indulgent. I just expressed my personal opinion, writing more in sorrow than in anger. Your petulant mockery is no more than I expected.
Grumpy – how kind of you to comment, twice, over my two trivial typos. As you yourself said, Oh dear. Here’s anothre one you can comment on. Let’s by all means keep the pot boiling.
pink squirrel and hotrats : both of you need to get laid (probably with each other). Now stop this ranting and think happy thoughts (no squirrels, unicorns or hot rats allowed though !)
Acolyte, I went back to read your latest menu addition. Usually I have a very strong stomach, but I’l make an exception in this case.
Reminds me of the time I boarded a flight in Toronto heading to Vancouver. The woman beside me had been on the plane since London, with Toronto merely a stop over. She’s been feeling air sick, and shortly after we took off, as they served our breakfasts, she grabbed the barf bag and proceeded to toss her previous meal. So there I was, hungry, sitting close beside a woman barfing and exuding the odour of puke. And I said to myself, okay, she’s sick. I’m hungry. I’m eating breakfast. And I did. Rather stoically, I might add.
hotrats: my pleasure although I am not sure if you appreciated the irony. We all make mistakes, some more than others.
Art.25:succinctly put, I was dismayed by this page as it appeared to be in a race to the bottom and, like some comments sections I have read, reduced to keyboard warriors insulting each other with the usual profanities chucked in for good measure.
Grumpy, every pub has the occasional argument. The C&B is exceptional only in the rarity of rancour among the regulars (say that after 9 pints!).
Darwin, that reminds me of once crossing the English Channel from Dover to Zeebrugge on a ferry in the middle of the night in very stormy seas. The ferry was up and down and side to side quite energetically and virtually everybody on board, the crew included, were either vomiting, were just about to vomit, or had just finished vomiting and dreading the next lurch.
I wasn’t helping matters by wandering around munching on bacon and egg sandwiches.. Everybody I offered one to as a ‘stomach-liner’ turned a shade greener and rushed away. Ungrateful sods!
Author, I am also seeing the same warning messages as Hotrats. It looks like somebody is trying to get info on you as they all contain ‘getaddinfo failed: hostname nor servname provided’. They all finish ‘line 179’.
re RIP: Rigid in Putrefaction?
from a taphonomic viewpoint ‘rigid’ would not be totally accurate, as once putrefaction commences rigidity tends to be lost.
Some early period graves in fact display a total mixing/jumble of the skeletal elements indicating the body was fully liquescent when the coffin was buried.
Thus I offer ‘Relaxed’ ‘Rotting ‘ or Redolent’ instead of rigid
But i have to say In Loving Memory is my favourite of those above.
I too detest ‘passed’. I expect it is trying to be delicate but really is just naff.
AoS I was once on a crossing from Rotterdam which started off rough such that everyone on the dance floor moved like a flock of swallows from one end to the other – eventually dropping out entirely in search of anything that had any chance of staying horizontal. I might have been the last one upright, if not standing, but I considered that achievement enough – or perhaps I lacked your creative temerity.
Question for anyone who knows:
Was “fruit” a prized delicacy, an expensive rarity generally unavailable to the hoi polloi on a daily basis, in 7th-century (CE) Arabia?
(Trying to make sense out of Mo’s apparent fixation — not to mention that confusion one occasionally runs into between the 72 virgins and the 72 raisins that martyrs may apparently look forward to as their paradisaical reward.)
Walter, the only sea-crossing I didn’t enjoy was a Calais-Dover hovercraft crossing. It took less than 20 minutes and the water was barely even choppy, but the ride was bloody uncomfortable. It was like being on a giant pneumatic drill; I thought it was going to vibrate my teeth out of my head!
On rough sea crossings:
In my younger days a school friend and I crossed from Zeebrugge to Dover in 8 Beaufort. We had our boyish fun by having a beer in one hand and some snack in the other and offering the green-faced fellow travelers a bite or a gulp. Instant success!
Years later my wife and I crossed fron Fredrikshavn to Göteborg on the HSS, 6 Beaufort growing to 8 during the crossing. At 7 it was still “flaring”, at 8 security demanded slowing, literally down, to sea-level travel. Dinner was served in the lounge, but many meals ended against the ceiling if someone did not compensate for the next bump. Near the end I tried to go to the toilet, but after seeing over half a foot of (mostly) water sloshing to and fro in there with some cabin personnel trying to sweep as much as possible out, I decided I’d better wait till after debarking. Remarkably few people sick on that ride!
I take it ‘raisin’ is a euphemism for little girls vaginas. Nothing to do with actual fruit. This obsessive preference and value for virginity is not uncommon; it is shared with xtianity. The reason is obvious: effing a virgin makes pretty sure you don’t poke into another mans venereal diseases.
Someone says: Ha ha very good. As for sea crossings, the aptly named “Vomit Comet” aka the Seacat service from Portsmouth to Cherbourg wins my vote. Even on a calm day the vessel not only pitches and rolls similar to conventional ships but as an added bonus the sheer power of the engines can make it yaw like an aircraft. Happy days, just stay away from the toilets.
The reason is obvious: effing a virgin makes pretty sure you don’t poke into another mans venereal diseases.
Maybe
That would be a rational reason, except the people who invented the rule did not work to a rational mindset. [A Reading of Frazer illustrates this]
Shaughn, PS: poke into another mans venereal diseases
… which would suggest they KNEW anything about the transmissabilty of those.
That WOULD be amazing at that time!
So the promise of 72 virgins in Heaven presupposes that Earthly diseases are carried over to the afterlife,, because if not,, to paraphrase Frankie Boyle, they’d have far more fun with five slags.
No need for ratio or knowledge about transmittability, just learning from experience will do to establish a ‘tradition’. Traditional herbal medicine cures work the same way established by experience. Eventus stultorum magister experience is the teacher of the dumb, isn’t it? Another fact of life: effing a virgin now makes pretty sure the offspring 9 months later is yours. For that too, experience will do; no need for rational knowledge about genes, conception, etcetera. Just a little post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is enough for the dumb.
Which dumbs will hardly have contemplated earthly diseases carried to the afterlife or other inconsistencies in religion. Would they ever have, there wouldn’t have been islam.
“…favourite (sic)…” This is a British website, written in English, not some bowdlerised, transatlantic version of that beautiful language. And don’t you forget it :-))
if the bible /qu’ran are the basis for medical knowledge Probably just the other way round: the medical state of the art served as basis for the holy textbook. Just to add credibility.
Tell them something they know is true add the lie and the lie will be swallowed as truth.
JohnM, the ‘sic’ wasn’t for the spelling, it was for the suggestion that the poet in question was HaggisForBrains’ favourite.
Hmph! As if a founder member of UPOTWA would apologise to those language-mangling Yanks, let alone concede to their word-butchery!
Damn your breeches, Sir! 🙂
On diseases, traditions, religions … and rites.
Precisely why eating dead pigs was forbidden by the desert dwelling Abrahamic religions: not as I heard recently because pigs eat anything but because anyone eating a pig that is anything but very well cooked will likely be made dead by it.
The bibles were in part codified health manuals.
Shaughan might be very close to a truth there.
Precisely why eating dead pigs was forbidden by the desert dwelling Abrahamic religions: not as I heard recently because pigs eat anything but because anyone eating a pig that is anything but very well cooked will likely be made dead by it.
all very well- but does not explain why the non Abrahamic tribal neighbours had no prohibition on pig consumption
In judaism is a preoccupation with kosherity (if that’s a word, if not I just coined it). Since pigs are omnivorous and will eat anything treife including human cadavers I’m not surprised they are forbidden food. Mo just borrowed the taboo from judaism
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Christianity is pretty much the same, except that it doesn’t offer the sex and fruit. Poor marketing.
I thought it was sex with fruit….
Maybe I’ve lived here too long, but that’s the first J&M strip of which I don’t get the punchline. Could somebody explain it to me please? Like, halp? >_>
Freefox, you surprise me. The punchline for this one seems so obvious. Those who reject organized religion characterize it as rule bound and repressive, but they still want to be seen as somehow sweet and loving and sensitive with a soul and an appreciation of the mysteries of theology. So they say “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual.” Mo is expressing the opposite. What he values about his religion is the rules and the simplicity. He’s not concerned about the feeling of being blessed, or the wonder at the mystery of it all.
Explaining a joke usually kills it. But it’s an interesting exercise. This joke survives the explanation, at least for me.
It’s overhearing conversations like this that make being an atheist so easy, no drawn out explanations are needed until the afterlife, which will be never.
FreeFox, on top of the explanation of Darwin Harmless, the comic is even funnier when you realize that even when Mo claims to be “religious”, i.e. follow the simple rules, he’s not even doing that, by drinking beer and swearing ! So if the definition of “religious” is being an asshole with a conviction, Mo doesn’t even care for the last bit !
Maybe some “religious not spiritual” folks are candidates for polytheism. Meaning, attracted to world views with supernatural and mystical forces or appeals to higher powers; but repelled by procrustean monotheistic rule books. It seems to me that polytheism requires some choices about living your life, while monotheism predetermines those choices for you.
Panel 3 -all the sex and fruit you want,
I thought that according to the mythology – the ‘souls’ are supposedly beyond such basic bodily needs and sensations’
If there is one thing we can be fairly sure about concerning the ‘afterlife’ – is that if such a thing exists then it would be nothing like anyone has or could imagine.
is this J&M saying that sex and fruit and sensual pleasures have high spiritual worth?
that explains thelema
There seems to be some sort of glitch. The following appears 10 or more times at the bottom of the page:
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hotrats thanks for the heads-up. I can’t replicate this glitch, but I don’t like it. Might have to look for a replacement for that old plugin
Presumably “all the fruit you want” is a reference to the 72 cherries with which the faithful will be rewarded, except that Mo wasn’t familiar with cherries, so he substituted raisins.
All the sex and fruit you want.
The Islamic paradise sounds like the daydreams of a 15 year old male virgin. Whereas the Christian paradise sounds boring with endlessly singing hymns of praise to a narcissistic megalomaniac.
islam marks the path quite well
For those wanting to go to hell
The qur’an is fictitious
Mean nasty and vicious
Having nothing but lies to tell.
About now I am starting to think
It would be nice to appear in the pink
Where does one go to
To insert a photo
Can’t find the missing link.
I thought it was sex with fruit….
maybe it is – there are many types of fruit after all
or maybe its fruit of a very different sort =
https://jackchick.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/chick-parody-who-will-be-eaten-first/
Nassar, if your second post was asking what I think it was asking, you need to follow the instructions in the ‘Get an avatar’ link next to the ‘Name’ box just above the box where you type your masterpieces.
My own thoughts on ‘spiritual’ people are, I think, well enough known here for me to have to bother repeating them.
Religion can kiss my asshole. Spirituality is just as meaningless.
Neither shall impede me in my quest to enjoy fruit, beer and anything else I desire whilst I am still alive to appreciate such finite sensations.
Godsdammit, this comic explains perfectly why I’m not a Muslim anymore, if I ever really was. There’s nothing profound in Islam*. It’s all about getting the sex (if you’re a heterosexual male) and the fruit. There are no ideas. There’s nothing to strive for. You follow the straight path and you get your reward of mindless, fleshly pleasures for the rest of eternity BECAUSE WHY WOULD YOU WANT ANYTHING ELSE.
(N.B. paradise is described in the Qu’ran as a lush garden, not just full of hott chicks but also replete with all the dates, pomegranates etc. you can scoff down.)
*Maybe I should qualify this as the mainstream, Sunni, complacent middle-class brand of Islam I was brought up in. I guess Sufism isn’t so bad, or any other ‘mystic’ tradition à la Buddhism which encourages reflection, self-awareness and empathy.
I’m not into mysticism or hippy new-age pseudoscience woo, but I believe you can be spiritual without giving in to the ‘supernatural’. I think it is spiritual, in a way, to think that nature is amazing and to love how the facts and mysteries of existence will always continue to amaze and perplex us.
Sorry to double-post, but I just remembered a very apropos passage from Antoine de St-Exupéry’s book Wind, Sand and Stars. In it he writes about the time he spent in northern Africa dodging bullets that warring Arab tribes were firing at each other. Paraphrased, he said something like:
“… and all these men who believe that a shot to the heart from an enemy rifle will send them straight to a magical land of flowing fountains, lush gardens and all the beautiful women they desire. This is what their God gave to them as truth; well, their God lied. There are plenty of flowing fountains, lush gardens and beautiful women in France, all there to be enjoyed without having to die a violent death first.”
I always think that “I’m spiritual not religious” translates as I want an afterlife but can’t be bothered to go to Church on Sunday, (other places and days of worship are available).
Surely ‘spiritual’ relates to non theological things and experiences of ‘beauty’
which tend to [but not necessarily] produce in the recipient an emotion or reaction which is generally considered as a positive or up lifting experience
[Depending on what a specific individual considers to be a positive emotion]
Thus spiritual and religious are only tenuously connected.
Spiritual can therefore perhaps be defined as that which produces a positive feeling or emotion
so religion CAN be a spiritual experience , BUT so can music, poetry, literature, food, sex , or just about anything
in contrast all of these things can also produce a negative response or behaviour in specific individuals
therefore spirituality is innate to the persons nature/outlook on life and has nothing to do with religion
thus for example Richard dawkins is a spiritual atheist because he delights in the wonder of life/nature/the universe
in contrast Da’esh and the State governor of North Carolina while clearly religious are completely lacking any spiritual aspect to their personality
If you are quoting from a dictionary, pink squirrel, it is considered the proper etiquette to reference your source, otherwise it is plagiarism. Your second sentence/paragraph is clearly direct from a dictionary. And speaking of paragraphs and sentences, what the fuck is the deal with your line breaks? The only way to make sense of your formatting is to assume that you speak the words as you type them, and hit ‘return’ every time you inhale.
Now to my point; you say spirituality and religion are only tenuously connected, I say have you never heard of the Spiritualist Church? Not so tenuous after all.
AoS – none of what I wrote was from a dictionary – it was all ‘ad lib ‘ thought I was creating on the spot
so no none of it was from any dictionary- I was just being careful to get the definition right
spiritualist is a completely different item – as spiritualists tend to be involved in ‘spiritualism’
ie contacting the ‘spirits of the dead’
what the fuck is the deal with your line breaks?
H O W
I
Lay
out My
T
E
X
T
is entirely mine to decide
F
U
K
Y
O
U
Acolyte, old dear, did somebody stick a cactus up your ass? Have a pint on me and explain yourself please. I’m the curmudgeon in this crowd.
I, for one, am looking forward to Nassar’s avatar.
What will it be?
If sex and fruit mean a lot of virgin, I will pass my turn. In the place of 72 virgins I would prefer one experienced woman. OK, perhaps 2 🙂
Pink Squirrel (or Unicorn…)
I like your “mise en page”.
Prévert for one, likes to design his poems.
because breathing can be present in a written text, too.
Hey AoS, one can write thought sentences, they do not have to come from a book. Before being on paper these words were formed in neurons. No ?
OK, english and spanish are not my mother’s language, pero le gusto mucho los dos.
And I like to insufflate oxygen in my writings, too.
Alex.
DH:
I’m with AoS on this, except for the bad dictionary call. For relative newcomers, I was a regular here for a long time. For at least a year now I have been avoiding the comments on J&M until ‘pink squirrel’ dies, gets banned, or finds a fresh victim site.
This used to be one of the best pages on the net for intelligent, witty comments, with people who took the trouble to write decent, readable, English, and waited until they had something interesting or amusing to say before commenting.
Now I just can’t bear to read it any more. Every issue of a page I used to look forawrd to has become a personal spitoon for PS’s drivelling verbal and typographic slops. Apparently unable to construct a coherent sentence either mentally or on the page, but posts up to 20 times on one thread. Never has anything remotely original or amusing to say. Called out on persistent textual littering, vulgarly insults an long-time C&B regular.
The icon says it all; an eye-watering shocking pink pony with slatherings of mascara and a smug, saccharine grin, copied wholesale from a $2 infant’s game in the iTunes store, Amazing Pink Unicorn & The Magic Letters, by Miriam de Franca Moreira.
You know what, pink squirrel? Fuck you too, and the unicorn you rode in on.
Thanks, Hotrats.
Darwin, are you forgetting UPOTWA?
pink squirrel, there is a ‘c’ in ‘fuck’. If you’re going to curse me, at least spell it correctly.
machigai, if he has a sense of irony, my money’s on a picture of Byron.
The Quran promises wine in Paradise too. (I shall have to look up the reference because I cannot remember everything these days.) Is that irony, paradox or sarcasm?
For Nassar, how about Edward Lear in a turban. I just used a self-portrait.
I did add the C – but it got lost in the posting -as did the more artistic arrangement of my text which was reverted to left hand side – why the C did not appear I have no idea
and clearly hotrats lacks a sense of humour or tolerance
who set up Hotrats as the J & M arbitrator on
‘what is banned’
‘what is permitted’ and
‘what is compulsory’
2- Vanity Unfair – from what I understand the ‘wine in paradise’ is ‘non alcoholic’ or at least if alcoholic does not cause inebriation
Maybe I’m just a tad mean spirited today.
Back to Nassar’s possible avatar, there are some decent pics of HaggisForBrains’ favourite (sic) poet, William McGonagall, that pop up on the Google search page, including a particularly fine sepia print in which the poor fellow looks remarkably like a less lumpy Joseph Merrick.
Just to clarify, my mention of the great McGonagall in relation to Nassar is for his poetic prowess, and not for his looks. I’m not that mean spirited.
Hotrats, I haven’t been an attentive enough reader to pick up on the bad feelings that seem to have invaded our convivial virtual watering hole. Thanks for filling me in.
Acolyte, I do indeed remember UPOTWA, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it stands for. Oh yes, Universal Pedants of the World Association. Right? Those were the days, eh. We had some classic moments. I fear that my wits have deserted me of late.
I did have a thought recently that I’d like to run by the crowd here. I’m not happy with saying RIP when somebody dies. They are not resting. They are not at peace. They are dead. Gone. How did this get to be a universally recognized acronym?
Any suggestions for an alternative? GBNF? (Gone But Not Forgotten) SNM? (Sadly No More) A visitor to my site suggested TOEA (Task On Earth Accomplished) which seems appropriate but I’ve met people who obviously have no task on earth, other than to fill a bag of skin with questionable meat. Anyone?
Salutations all,
Pink Squirrel, I have no issues with you typing random thoughts. I have no issue with incomplete sentences. I have no fucking issue with fucking swearing like a fucking trooper. I, as is soon to be made obvious, have no issues with starting a sentence with a conjunction. BUT, if you will insist on random line breaks, instead of insulting those who point them out to you, it may be useful to learn that punctuation exists for a reason: to make your thoughts able to be understood by others. It doesn’t matter if you are Shakespeare, if you write in a way that other people cannot understand, they will a) fail to understand you and, b) think you are either poorly educated or an idiot. You may not mind this but, as the purpose leaving a comment is generally to get a point across to others, please bear in mind that no one bothers to read a comment twice to attempt to decode it.
Darwin, I know I’ve been away for a while but United Pedants, please! Can we still issue POTWAs?
Re dead people: I hate the term ‘passing’ which seems to have become a popular way of saying ‘dying’. When someone is dead, they are dead: sad but true. What on Earth is with ‘passing’? Just passing through?
DH, M2:
on RIP.
In Dutch it has become not uncommon among the non-religuous to use in liefhebbende herinnering, which litterally translates as in loving memory. In English that would have the added advantage of a pronounceable acronym.
M2,
forgot to answer you.
I too hate Passing or Passed Away.
I just say: Gone, or various forms of different kind of slang expressions which all have a definite lack of solemness (which btw is not always received well).
For instance: Turned the small corner. Stopped smoking for ever. Through the pipe.
Oh dear, anybody spot the typo ?
” Every issue of a page I used to look forawrd to has become a personal spitoon for PS’s drivelling verbal and typographic slops”
And again
” vulgarly insults an long-time …”
@Darwin Harmless – How about RIP: Rigid in Putrefaction?
Assuming they were buried whole, of course.
I’ll just see myself out.
Someone once asked Akong Rinpoche (a Tibetan lama) the meaning of spirituality and he said that if a person is honest and reliable then that person is spiritual. That struck me as a good answer because why would one be honest and reliable unless one aspired to a set of high moral values? That was his definition, regardless of what you believe.
Incidentally, Art.25, please don’t use the term “asshole”; it’s too scatological for my taste.The proper term is “a case of recto-cranial inversion”.
Mary 2 – I will keep your politely stated points in mind, when I write something that I want you to understand.
but also note when I did write something carefully I got falsely accused of plagiarism.
Okay, PS, I still have my suspicions over that suddenly formally written line (…in the recipient an emotion or reaction…..etc.) but if you insist ’twas your own then I apologise for the accusation of plagiarism. The formatting beef still stands, though.
Okies AOS
the formatting is mainly due to also using u tube to comment – because there the set up displays as a single stream of words -unless you page break – so I have made a habit of ‘returning’
pink squirrel says:
and clearly hotrats lacks a sense of humour or tolerance
It is precisely my sense of humour that tells me that not one of your hundreds of meandering, boring posts has ever been even remotely funny. It is my sense of tolerance that keeps me away from J&M’s comments, rather than replying to every inanity you post with half a page of obscene insults, in capital letters to represent angry shouting, which is my conditioned reflex every time I see your grinning, infantile icon.
who set up Hotrats as the J & M arbitrator on
‘what is banned’
‘what is permitted’
and ‘what is compulsory’
I do not make any claim to arbitrate what should appear in J&M. Everything is permitted, nothing is compulsory, and Author is notoriously tolerant, even indulgent. I just expressed my personal opinion, writing more in sorrow than in anger. Your petulant mockery is no more than I expected.
Grumpy – how kind of you to comment, twice, over my two trivial typos. As you yourself said, Oh dear. Here’s anothre one you can comment on. Let’s by all means keep the pot boiling.
pink squirrel and hotrats : both of you need to get laid (probably with each other). Now stop this ranting and think happy thoughts (no squirrels, unicorns or hot rats allowed though !)
Darwin, just in case you haven’t seen it, I have completed the appetising menu two strips back. Yummy!
Acolyte, I went back to read your latest menu addition. Usually I have a very strong stomach, but I’l make an exception in this case.
Reminds me of the time I boarded a flight in Toronto heading to Vancouver. The woman beside me had been on the plane since London, with Toronto merely a stop over. She’s been feeling air sick, and shortly after we took off, as they served our breakfasts, she grabbed the barf bag and proceeded to toss her previous meal. So there I was, hungry, sitting close beside a woman barfing and exuding the odour of puke. And I said to myself, okay, she’s sick. I’m hungry. I’m eating breakfast. And I did. Rather stoically, I might add.
hotrats: my pleasure although I am not sure if you appreciated the irony. We all make mistakes, some more than others.
Art.25:succinctly put, I was dismayed by this page as it appeared to be in a race to the bottom and, like some comments sections I have read, reduced to keyboard warriors insulting each other with the usual profanities chucked in for good measure.
Grumpy, every pub has the occasional argument. The C&B is exceptional only in the rarity of rancour among the regulars (say that after 9 pints!).
Darwin, that reminds me of once crossing the English Channel from Dover to Zeebrugge on a ferry in the middle of the night in very stormy seas. The ferry was up and down and side to side quite energetically and virtually everybody on board, the crew included, were either vomiting, were just about to vomit, or had just finished vomiting and dreading the next lurch.
I wasn’t helping matters by wandering around munching on bacon and egg sandwiches.. Everybody I offered one to as a ‘stomach-liner’ turned a shade greener and rushed away. Ungrateful sods!
Author, I am also seeing the same warning messages as Hotrats. It looks like somebody is trying to get info on you as they all contain ‘getaddinfo failed: hostname nor servname provided’. They all finish ‘line 179’.
re RIP: Rigid in Putrefaction?
from a taphonomic viewpoint ‘rigid’ would not be totally accurate, as once putrefaction commences rigidity tends to be lost.
Some early period graves in fact display a total mixing/jumble of the skeletal elements indicating the body was fully liquescent when the coffin was buried.
Thus I offer ‘Relaxed’ ‘Rotting ‘ or Redolent’ instead of rigid
Redolent in Putrefaction – why didn’t I think of that?
Rotting also fits but sounds a bit redundant; perfect for a death metal song, though.
For death metal the shock value is what matters primarily
For the inferior quality death metal bands the title is more important than the music
Redundant, In Putrefaction
But i have to say In Loving Memory is my favourite of those above.
I too detest ‘passed’. I expect it is trying to be delicate but really is just naff.
AoS I was once on a crossing from Rotterdam which started off rough such that everyone on the dance floor moved like a flock of swallows from one end to the other – eventually dropping out entirely in search of anything that had any chance of staying horizontal. I might have been the last one upright, if not standing, but I considered that achievement enough – or perhaps I lacked your creative temerity.
Question for anyone who knows:
Was “fruit” a prized delicacy, an expensive rarity generally unavailable to the hoi polloi on a daily basis, in 7th-century (CE) Arabia?
(Trying to make sense out of Mo’s apparent fixation — not to mention that confusion one occasionally runs into between the 72 virgins and the 72 raisins that martyrs may apparently look forward to as their paradisaical reward.)
Walter, the only sea-crossing I didn’t enjoy was a Calais-Dover hovercraft crossing. It took less than 20 minutes and the water was barely even choppy, but the ride was bloody uncomfortable. It was like being on a giant pneumatic drill; I thought it was going to vibrate my teeth out of my head!
On rough sea crossings:
In my younger days a school friend and I crossed from Zeebrugge to Dover in 8 Beaufort. We had our boyish fun by having a beer in one hand and some snack in the other and offering the green-faced fellow travelers a bite or a gulp. Instant success!
Years later my wife and I crossed fron Fredrikshavn to Göteborg on the HSS, 6 Beaufort growing to 8 during the crossing. At 7 it was still “flaring”, at 8 security demanded slowing, literally down, to sea-level travel. Dinner was served in the lounge, but many meals ended against the ceiling if someone did not compensate for the next bump. Near the end I tried to go to the toilet, but after seeing over half a foot of (mostly) water sloshing to and fro in there with some cabin personnel trying to sweep as much as possible out, I decided I’d better wait till after debarking. Remarkably few people sick on that ride!
“Trying to make sense out of Mo’s apparent fixation”
I guess Mo will do anything to get a date.
Smartalek,
I take it ‘raisin’ is a euphemism for little girls vaginas. Nothing to do with actual fruit. This obsessive preference and value for virginity is not uncommon; it is shared with xtianity. The reason is obvious: effing a virgin makes pretty sure you don’t poke into another mans venereal diseases.
Someone says: Ha ha very good. As for sea crossings, the aptly named “Vomit Comet” aka the Seacat service from Portsmouth to Cherbourg wins my vote. Even on a calm day the vessel not only pitches and rolls similar to conventional ships but as an added bonus the sheer power of the engines can make it yaw like an aircraft. Happy days, just stay away from the toilets.
The reason is obvious: effing a virgin makes pretty sure you don’t poke into another mans venereal diseases.
Maybe
That would be a rational reason, except the people who invented the rule did not work to a rational mindset. [A Reading of Frazer illustrates this]
Shaughn, PS:
poke into another mans venereal diseases
… which would suggest they KNEW anything about the transmissabilty of those.
That WOULD be amazing at that time!
So the promise of 72 virgins in Heaven presupposes that Earthly diseases are carried over to the afterlife,, because if not,, to paraphrase Frankie Boyle, they’d have far more fun with five slags.
PS, Dr & AoS,
No need for ratio or knowledge about transmittability, just learning from experience will do to establish a ‘tradition’. Traditional herbal medicine cures work the same way established by experience. Eventus stultorum magister experience is the teacher of the dumb, isn’t it? Another fact of life: effing a virgin now makes pretty sure the offspring 9 months later is yours. For that too, experience will do; no need for rational knowledge about genes, conception, etcetera. Just a little post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is enough for the dumb.
Which dumbs will hardly have contemplated earthly diseases carried to the afterlife or other inconsistencies in religion. Would they ever have, there wouldn’t have been islam.
AoS
Oh, deary me!
“…favourite (sic)…” This is a British website, written in English, not some bowdlerised, transatlantic version of that beautiful language. And don’t you forget it :-))
why should ‘heaven’ just be for humans ?
Maybe VD microbes get to go to ‘heaven’ too
HPV is for life, it stands to reason it should be for afterlife as well.
effing a virgin now makes pretty sure the offspring 9 months later is yours.
if the bible /qu’ran are the basis for medical knowledge – even that is doubtful
given how free ‘jhwh’ was in doing his Zeus impersonations
also this is the same bible that gives us Gen 30 :39
if the bible /qu’ran are the basis for medical knowledge Probably just the other way round: the medical state of the art served as basis for the holy textbook. Just to add credibility.
Tell them something they know is true add the lie and the lie will be swallowed as truth.
JohnM, the ‘sic’ wasn’t for the spelling, it was for the suggestion that the poet in question was HaggisForBrains’ favourite.
Hmph! As if a founder member of UPOTWA would apologise to those language-mangling Yanks, let alone concede to their word-butchery!
Damn your breeches, Sir! 🙂
Someone, that was a cracker.
On diseases, traditions, religions … and rites.
Precisely why eating dead pigs was forbidden by the desert dwelling Abrahamic religions: not as I heard recently because pigs eat anything but because anyone eating a pig that is anything but very well cooked will likely be made dead by it.
The bibles were in part codified health manuals.
Shaughan might be very close to a truth there.
Precisely why eating dead pigs was forbidden by the desert dwelling Abrahamic religions: not as I heard recently because pigs eat anything but because anyone eating a pig that is anything but very well cooked will likely be made dead by it.
all very well- but does not explain why the non Abrahamic tribal neighbours had no prohibition on pig consumption
In judaism is a preoccupation with kosherity (if that’s a word, if not I just coined it). Since pigs are omnivorous and will eat anything treife including human cadavers I’m not surprised they are forbidden food. Mo just borrowed the taboo from judaism
Author, been away, catching up – just want to say that imho this is a classic, with even more layers than expounded by Darwin in comment 4.