… and it was Blair who wanted to let Turkey into the EU, believing both parts would benefit from that?
What is it with this coal-mining, tea drinking country? Seems to me they are producing one appeaser after another, who sign contracts with devil-look-alikes for “peace in our time”. Something similar is happening today with Brown and his ban of Wilders.
“don’t disturb the monster eating our people, turn your eyes away and if we’re lucky, it will leave us alone”
I had tentative not-really-expecting-it high hopes for Brown, because he seemed like the sort of blinkered thug who would actually do something rather than pussyfooting around, but as soon as he was in place he dropped right into pussyfooting. I suspect it must be like the TV show “Yes, Prime Minister”.
Vaguely relatedly, I wonder how Obama feels when he reads about the crazy accusations of his being the antichrist – is he hurt by that, or does he laugh? Or does he hope WE DON’T ALL FIND OUT!
I’m of the mind that Mr. Obama giggles himself to sleep every night at the pitiful claims made by our right wing politicians, religious zealots, and racists.
I have a friend who was consulted over this faith initiative. There is a LOT of money for this, mostly from the house of Saud. This results in about as balanced an approach as you would expect!
On a related note- one of our regulars, Ophelia, appears to be getting some stick over her “Does God Hate Women?”. Private Eye 12/6 reported on some stirring up of trouble by a Times reviewer eager to incite the Islame-ist lunatic fringe. Is there something we should be doing (apart from buying the book, natch)?
I plan on purchasing Ophelia’s book as soon as possible.Looks interesting and,like Daoloth said,it will help support Ms./Mrs. Benson.Gotta’ look out for one another,am I right?
The way to peaceful coexistence of religions is not by hushing the critics of religions, but curing the lunatics who goes into a hyperventilating fit of rage everytime their personal beliefs are criticized.
Well I was going to say who says the whole world can believe in peace and love, war and hatred is more like it – but I see you’re there ahead of me. Much appreciated.
I was on Night Waves a couple of days ago, ‘debating’ with – don’t laugh – Madeleine Bunting. She considers Does God Hate Women? strident and shrill. She got a tad heated herself, actually.
Everyday meaning of faith: Strong and comforting belief in something unprovable. Nor necessarily a bad thing if the unprovable assertion is feasible and reasonable.
Religious faith: Strong and comforting belief in something impossible and absurd. A form of self-induced mental illness.
So both types of faith provide strength and comfort, but one also drives you insane.
Not just unprovable Gronk, but without evidence. Something can be unprovable and still probable.
I don’t make a distinction between faith and religious faith. Faith is a waste of time. Inserting into a religious context only makes it a religious waste of time. 🙂
The “strident and shrill” accusation gets thrown at Dawkins when he nails them too. It reminds me of those boneheads who, when you have shown them that their position is utterly untenable, go “ooh…must have touched a nerve”. I always want to touch, well vigorously punch, a nerve at that point- but I restrain myself.
Its as intellectually vapid as saying “Its not what you said- its the way you said it” (sob sob).
I have come to think that maybe we atheists need our “strident and shrill” brigade, just like the gay movement needs people like Tatchell?
Well, the thing about religion atheism is that they don’t exclude each other. I am neither nor, for if I was an atheist, this would mean that I thus had recognized religion (you have to recognize something before you can revolt against it). I do not recognize religion as a guiding line for human life and behaviour, since there were obviously people on this planet before there were gods, therefore I can not be an atheist.
It seems to me, that atheism isn’t really an opposition to religion, atheism is just another religion. To disagree with someone because you believe they are wrong is still a belief.
Believer: “I believe in god”
Atheist: “I believe that you’re wrong”
To me, to answer a question like “is there a guy with supernatural power that created the universe and all people etc. ” is rubbish, just asking the question. Double rubbish if you answer it, whatever answer you might choose.
…starting with Islam and Xtianity. Creating laughter is surely the best way to pop the bubbles of pomposity masquerading as a need for “respect”. A truly spiritual person will see beyond the religiosity that Jesus & Mo is jibing at and laugh along with the rest of us. but then a truly spiritual person is likely to be a Buddhist, which is an atheistic religion anyway.
“if I was an atheist, this would mean that I thus had recognized religion (you have to recognize something before you can revolt against it).”
Who’s in revolt against anything? Not considering the notion of a deity or deities to acceptable, I am atheist, or ‘godless’.
Where’s the revolution in that?
“Everybody should believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer”.
More or less the quote that’s often been attributed to W.C. Fields, and I believe he was right.
Please read my post again. To say “I don’t believe in Santa Claus” means that somebody must have told you that there lives a bearded, red-dressed goodfella on the North Pole, riding rendeers and giving presents. Your statement comes as an answer to this information.
What I am trying to say is, that if someone asked me “do you believe that such a guy exists, yes or no?”, the best answer I could give was “what?”
No wonder, that religions find their members mainly amongst children and retarded, those who know nothing will be believe in anything.
The ‘strident and shrill’ accusation also gets thrown at feminists, or just women, a lot too, which made it all the more ironic that Bunting resorted to it, especially when she was being quite shouty in the process. As in – ‘The tone of your book is quite strident and shrill,’ she yelled.
I think the boys have accused the barmaid of being strident a time or two, haven’t they? Well they would, wouldn’t they.
That’s basically my beef with the term “faith”. For most people it has a positive connotation which religion proceeds to exploit. If only people would say “trust” when they mean trust, and “faith” when they mean willful credulity.
J&Mers might remember some of my epic rants on this subject.
I can follow some of your argument about the label ‘atheism’, but I am not convinced of your conclusions.
A supernatural explanation for the existence of the world has been a part of almost every society we have records for. It appears to be the default condition for Homo sapiens (communism ignored for brevity). That theism is not logical and ideally should not exist may be so, but ‘should not’ isn’t ‘does not’. In practise, atheism does follow from theism and there may never be a day when theism ceases to exist.
I identify as an atheist. It is definitely a loaded word and comes with a lot of baggage. Some would like it to mean devil worshipper or hedonist or sociopath. Others claim that it can only be used by someone who knows no gods can exist, which is not logically possible to conclude. My position is pretty much as Richard Dawkins has put it.
I always have to wonder about non-believers who seek to avoid the atheist label for themselves. The religious have long tried to make it such a hateful term that no-one would want to accept it. Now, agnostic, there’s a word I would argue is redundant and really just a euphemism when analysed.
Finally, it has to be said, “Atheism is a religion in the same way as baldness is a hair colour.”
Hmm. I guess if someone asks me my position on some obscure element of string theory I am likely to go “huh? don’t know what that refers to”, because I likely dont. But I have some idea what people mean by God, even if I think that the idea is ultimately an incoherent or even logically inconsitent one.
At the very least I am interested, even if just anthropologically, in what people think they believe in. It would be easy if only the “retarded, deluded or demented” believed in God but in reality there are some very smart people who have some sort of super-natural belief.
I seem to remember hearing that over 90% of the planet identified as theistic so if I am a student of human psychology I would be remiss not to try to get to the root of that.
Yeh, I know what you mean. I use ‘confidence’ in place of ‘faith’ when espousing evidence-based support for something.
Confidence suggests I’m comfortable with my position and can support it as required. Faith simply says I’m going to support a point of view despite my own doubts about its feasibility.
Well, I lean towards giving those right, who say that that (first of all) Islam is women-hostile and women-subduing (you get this impression by reading the Quran). But on the other side you won’t escape the fact that most europeans, who convert to Islam are (guess!) women. Also, the left-wing parties of Europe, who support immigration from muslim countries and thereby doing harm to european women through rape and harasment from muslims, have mostly female electors.
So my questions to the feminists and perhaps your gender in general are; how would a woman explain, that those europeans (~women), who should really fight islam, are those most likely to support islam (women becomming the first victims, should islam take Europe)? Do women secretly like to be subdued by the man, in spite of what most of them say and the history of suffragation? What else could explain these facts, that those europeans, who fight the islamization and hereby the loss of womens rights are, almost without exception, men?
I’m not sure where you get your information about women electing left wing governments in Europe, either, and your argument about supporting immigration from Muslim countries and thereby doing harm to European women through rape and harassment from Muslims is fallacious: It is not immigration from Muslim countries specifically that is supported, just freedom to travel from any one country to another and settle (subject to quotas and other provisos). Muslims are no more likely to ‘rape and harass’ Europeans than anyone else is: you are (perhaps deliberately) confusing illegal immigration, with its links to marginalisation and crime, with mandated immigration, which bears no such evidence of anti-social behaviour.
The general tone of your posts is misogynistic and offensive. I suspect you bat for the Eurabian conspiracy theorists, or some other right-wing nut-jobs, yes?
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
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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
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Often hilarious, frequently wry, these cartoons do what all the best cartoons do: they tell the truth through humour. Terry Sanderson, NSS President
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...empowering, important and deeply progressive, not to mention hilarious... Council of Ex-Muslims
June 12, 2019
Yeh, well, who believes in Tony Blair either…
I already have exactly the same amount (volume? size?) of respect for all religion.
I’m Canadian. There are days I don’t believe in England, Especially Charles.
Like a t-shirt I saw”Bombing for world peace is like screwing for virginity”
the only way to respect all religions equally is to respect none of them at all.
… and it was Blair who wanted to let Turkey into the EU, believing both parts would benefit from that?
What is it with this coal-mining, tea drinking country? Seems to me they are producing one appeaser after another, who sign contracts with devil-look-alikes for “peace in our time”. Something similar is happening today with Brown and his ban of Wilders.
“don’t disturb the monster eating our people, turn your eyes away and if we’re lucky, it will leave us alone”
I had tentative not-really-expecting-it high hopes for Brown, because he seemed like the sort of blinkered thug who would actually do something rather than pussyfooting around, but as soon as he was in place he dropped right into pussyfooting. I suspect it must be like the TV show “Yes, Prime Minister”.
Vaguely relatedly, I wonder how Obama feels when he reads about the crazy accusations of his being the antichrist – is he hurt by that, or does he laugh? Or does he hope WE DON’T ALL FIND OUT!
I’m of the mind that Mr. Obama giggles himself to sleep every night at the pitiful claims made by our right wing politicians, religious zealots, and racists.
I have a friend who was consulted over this faith initiative. There is a LOT of money for this, mostly from the house of Saud. This results in about as balanced an approach as you would expect!
On a related note- one of our regulars, Ophelia, appears to be getting some stick over her “Does God Hate Women?”. Private Eye 12/6 reported on some stirring up of trouble by a Times reviewer eager to incite the Islame-ist lunatic fringe. Is there something we should be doing (apart from buying the book, natch)?
*sigh*
The TB Faith Foundation pretty much openly invites the saying “Religion is the problem, not the answer”.
On the subject of God hating women, this month’s column on the Happy Heretic website is on that topic.
Tea-drinking, perhaps – but we haven’t been doing much coal mining for a while now…
And no, I have no idea what it is with this country either, and I’ve been here all my life… 8-(
I plan on purchasing Ophelia’s book as soon as possible.Looks interesting and,like Daoloth said,it will help support Ms./Mrs. Benson.Gotta’ look out for one another,am I right?
FUCK tony blair!
Where’s mo?
Hiding under the skirts of the guy in the burka 😉
The way to peaceful coexistence of religions is not by hushing the critics of religions, but curing the lunatics who goes into a hyperventilating fit of rage everytime their personal beliefs are criticized.
http://moyameehaa.blogspot.com/2009/05/religious-tolerance-and-respecting.html
I have never deciphered which part of accepting claims without evidence is virtuous?
Well I was going to say who says the whole world can believe in peace and love, war and hatred is more like it – but I see you’re there ahead of me. Much appreciated.
I was on Night Waves a couple of days ago, ‘debating’ with – don’t laugh – Madeleine Bunting. She considers Does God Hate Women? strident and shrill. She got a tad heated herself, actually.
Everyday meaning of faith: Strong and comforting belief in something unprovable. Nor necessarily a bad thing if the unprovable assertion is feasible and reasonable.
Religious faith: Strong and comforting belief in something impossible and absurd. A form of self-induced mental illness.
So both types of faith provide strength and comfort, but one also drives you insane.
Not just unprovable Gronk, but without evidence. Something can be unprovable and still probable.
I don’t make a distinction between faith and religious faith. Faith is a waste of time. Inserting into a religious context only makes it a religious waste of time. 🙂
The “strident and shrill” accusation gets thrown at Dawkins when he nails them too. It reminds me of those boneheads who, when you have shown them that their position is utterly untenable, go “ooh…must have touched a nerve”. I always want to touch, well vigorously punch, a nerve at that point- but I restrain myself.
Its as intellectually vapid as saying “Its not what you said- its the way you said it” (sob sob).
I have come to think that maybe we atheists need our “strident and shrill” brigade, just like the gay movement needs people like Tatchell?
quote Daoloth: “we atheists”
Well, the thing about religion atheism is that they don’t exclude each other. I am neither nor, for if I was an atheist, this would mean that I thus had recognized religion (you have to recognize something before you can revolt against it). I do not recognize religion as a guiding line for human life and behaviour, since there were obviously people on this planet before there were gods, therefore I can not be an atheist.
It seems to me, that atheism isn’t really an opposition to religion, atheism is just another religion. To disagree with someone because you believe they are wrong is still a belief.
Believer: “I believe in god”
Atheist: “I believe that you’re wrong”
To me, to answer a question like “is there a guy with supernatural power that created the universe and all people etc. ” is rubbish, just asking the question. Double rubbish if you answer it, whatever answer you might choose.
…starting with Islam and Xtianity. Creating laughter is surely the best way to pop the bubbles of pomposity masquerading as a need for “respect”. A truly spiritual person will see beyond the religiosity that Jesus & Mo is jibing at and laugh along with the rest of us. but then a truly spiritual person is likely to be a Buddhist, which is an atheistic religion anyway.
“if I was an atheist, this would mean that I thus had recognized religion (you have to recognize something before you can revolt against it).”
Who’s in revolt against anything? Not considering the notion of a deity or deities to acceptable, I am atheist, or ‘godless’.
Where’s the revolution in that?
“Everybody should believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer”.
More or less the quote that’s often been attributed to W.C. Fields, and I believe he was right.
Please read my post again. To say “I don’t believe in Santa Claus” means that somebody must have told you that there lives a bearded, red-dressed goodfella on the North Pole, riding rendeers and giving presents. Your statement comes as an answer to this information.
What I am trying to say is, that if someone asked me “do you believe that such a guy exists, yes or no?”, the best answer I could give was “what?”
No wonder, that religions find their members mainly amongst children and retarded, those who know nothing will be believe in anything.
The ‘strident and shrill’ accusation also gets thrown at feminists, or just women, a lot too, which made it all the more ironic that Bunting resorted to it, especially when she was being quite shouty in the process. As in – ‘The tone of your book is quite strident and shrill,’ she yelled.
I think the boys have accused the barmaid of being strident a time or two, haven’t they? Well they would, wouldn’t they.
That’s basically my beef with the term “faith”. For most people it has a positive connotation which religion proceeds to exploit. If only people would say “trust” when they mean trust, and “faith” when they mean willful credulity.
J&Mers might remember some of my epic rants on this subject.
A squirming, unctuous, greasy, sanctimonious, pandering, toadying, shit-eating little weasel.
I don’t like him.
Well, the bible does say ” Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” So, get in the kitchen and make me pie!
*runs like hell
😛
I can follow some of your argument about the label ‘atheism’, but I am not convinced of your conclusions.
A supernatural explanation for the existence of the world has been a part of almost every society we have records for. It appears to be the default condition for Homo sapiens (communism ignored for brevity). That theism is not logical and ideally should not exist may be so, but ‘should not’ isn’t ‘does not’. In practise, atheism does follow from theism and there may never be a day when theism ceases to exist.
I identify as an atheist. It is definitely a loaded word and comes with a lot of baggage. Some would like it to mean devil worshipper or hedonist or sociopath. Others claim that it can only be used by someone who knows no gods can exist, which is not logically possible to conclude. My position is pretty much as Richard Dawkins has put it.
I always have to wonder about non-believers who seek to avoid the atheist label for themselves. The religious have long tried to make it such a hateful term that no-one would want to accept it. Now, agnostic, there’s a word I would argue is redundant and really just a euphemism when analysed.
Finally, it has to be said, “Atheism is a religion in the same way as baldness is a hair colour.”
Hmm. I guess if someone asks me my position on some obscure element of string theory I am likely to go “huh? don’t know what that refers to”, because I likely dont. But I have some idea what people mean by God, even if I think that the idea is ultimately an incoherent or even logically inconsitent one.
At the very least I am interested, even if just anthropologically, in what people think they believe in. It would be easy if only the “retarded, deluded or demented” believed in God but in reality there are some very smart people who have some sort of super-natural belief.
I seem to remember hearing that over 90% of the planet identified as theistic so if I am a student of human psychology I would be remiss not to try to get to the root of that.
Yeh, I know what you mean. I use ‘confidence’ in place of ‘faith’ when espousing evidence-based support for something.
Confidence suggests I’m comfortable with my position and can support it as required. Faith simply says I’m going to support a point of view despite my own doubts about its feasibility.
to which the only sensible reply is – I don’t think I have a pie dish big enough to fit all of you in. Which bits shall I use?
Indeed, I read that in the UK a couple of years ago a wanted terrorism suspect got out through an airport dressed in his sister’s niqab.
Is there any chance you could make a pie out of Tony Blair? Pretty indigestible I would have thought, but at least he would be useful.
hehe, the bible sure hates women…Paul hated pretty much everyone who wasn’t as perfect as he was…which is pretty funny if you consider this:
http://jesusandmo.net/2006/01/02/lobe/
Well, I lean towards giving those right, who say that that (first of all) Islam is women-hostile and women-subduing (you get this impression by reading the Quran). But on the other side you won’t escape the fact that most europeans, who convert to Islam are (guess!) women. Also, the left-wing parties of Europe, who support immigration from muslim countries and thereby doing harm to european women through rape and harasment from muslims, have mostly female electors.
So my questions to the feminists and perhaps your gender in general are; how would a woman explain, that those europeans (~women), who should really fight islam, are those most likely to support islam (women becomming the first victims, should islam take Europe)? Do women secretly like to be subdued by the man, in spite of what most of them say and the history of suffragation? What else could explain these facts, that those europeans, who fight the islamization and hereby the loss of womens rights are, almost without exception, men?
“You won’t escape the fact that most europeans, who convert to Islam are… women.”
This is not fact, yet. Even the Christian Science Monitor says the research that that conclusion is based on is ‘patchy’ and appears to have come from the French security forces (Renseignements Généraux), already criticised by the Monde Diplomatique and the Canard Enchaîné for their exaggerated assessment of French Islamicism, if Wikipedia is to be believed.
I’m not sure where you get your information about women electing left wing governments in Europe, either, and your argument about supporting immigration from Muslim countries and thereby doing harm to European women through rape and harassment from Muslims is fallacious: It is not immigration from Muslim countries specifically that is supported, just freedom to travel from any one country to another and settle (subject to quotas and other provisos). Muslims are no more likely to ‘rape and harass’ Europeans than anyone else is: you are (perhaps deliberately) confusing illegal immigration, with its links to marginalisation and crime, with mandated immigration, which bears no such evidence of anti-social behaviour.
The general tone of your posts is misogynistic and offensive. I suspect you bat for the Eurabian conspiracy theorists, or some other right-wing nut-jobs, yes?
An example of Yahweh’s love for all is the Book of Joshua (Godly ethic cleansing).