Even though Hitch made a pretty solid case against the sadistic nun in his role as Devil’s Advocate, she got canonicized anyway.
Theological science at its best.
Aye. Hitch took to her with his metaphorical “steelies”. But as always happens all logical and empirically proven arguments are immediately deemed to be from the mouth of the arch-deceiver satan…thus virtually ensuring her sainthood…
M27 – Yeah, damned if you do, damned if not.
At least the Hitch did try, boldly.
As they say, against the gods you just can’t win. Even when you do. Especially if you appear to have an agenda not aligned with the … planets?
âWhen the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as âMotherâ Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of âDevilâs Advocate,â in order to fastâtrack still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono.â
As I said. The more proofs you can provide in the ear of a spunk womble , the more they confirm their faith through the insidious in-built protection argument that has to be used as a failsafe against clearly obvious proofs of their delusions…
10 days of mourning. Probably postpone all the football. I like my football. If the weather holds I will re-point my bar/gym roof this weekend. The ridge tiles are loose in places…
At old Philâs demise all channels were jam packed with it. Might not even bother turning on for the near future.
She wasnât a bad old stick and made a decent fist of a job that shouldnât exist but I tremor at the thought of being the âsubjectâ of Charles III. Iâve only just got used to singing âqueenâ in the national anthem and now Iâve got to go back again.
Come to think of it I never sing it so probably not a problem.
M27Holts: Your bar and gym share a roof? So they must be next to each other. Does that not mean that the benefits of one cancel out the harmful effects of the other? IE the joyful pints and drams of one are wiped out by the muscle strains, bruises and palpitations of the other!
^ Aye, I had a double garage. I had patio doors fitted in one side to replace the broken overhead doors…voila. Gym. In the other side I had a window and door cut into the brickwork that leads into my back garden, then replaced the overhead door with a new wall.and window and got the bar fitters in…voila…garden bar…
I had a partition wall fitted so you cant access bar from Gym. The bar area has about 16 layers of old carpet and fibre glass insulation above it. So even in winter a couple of warm bodies heat the bar area quite nicely. I also have a state of the art music system pushed through my old HiFi amp and Tannoy speakers…so I can listen to prog whilst getting pissed….
Betty Windsor was born 2 days after my Mom & died 6 years after my Mom. I can’t really mourn BW any more than any other fairly decent human who lived a long & full life.
The tele is on. Some geezer who should look like charlie caroli was quite sincerely droning on about how the british monarch is being protected by god…why are such balloons given air time to spout such preposterous drivel. Honestly the spunk wombles have taken over the asylum…
We are a nation of snobs and forelock-tuggers. The Royals soap opera is supported either by those with vested interests to preserve privilege or plebs who follow it like Coronation Street or Eastenders and mindlessly think itâs âniceâ.
There has just been a bloke on the radio who was a guard at Buck House in full bearskin kit on a sweltering day, about to pass, out when Her Mag appeared with a glass of water. What a remarkable and unusual thing for one human being to do for another they saw suffering! Surely that qualifies for a beatification alongside Ma Theresa.
Old Phil also used to be nice to people occasionally apparently. Itâs a miracle, isnât it?
We have to admire them because they are so special and different that to be within yards of them is some sort of spiritual experience while also admiring them for being, âdown to earthâ. No wonder theyâre all marginally certifiable.
My sister was also born the same year as âBWâ and died six years before her, and her life, along with JBâ mumâs, was more deserving of mass celebration than someone whose greatest exertion when not breeding expensive racehorses was to snip a ribbon in a world smelling of fresh paint.
Roll on when we are citizens, not subjects but I ainât holding my breath.
someone who wanted their royal yacht scrapped rather then sold because she “did not want commoners walking where she had” is a long way from being a saint – she would not even be in ‘heaven’ because (according to bible) the rich can’t get in…
The Bible reference is interesting. The quotation as I recall is that it is as easy for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
When I actually was a choirboy I recall a sermon by the vicar based upon the text.
The âeye of a needleâ, he claimed was a common reference to a small gate in the wall of a city through which it was possible for a camel to pass through but only on its knees. The parable therefore did not mean that heaven was firmly closed to a rich man but perfectly accessible if he showed humility – on his knees.
I remember thinking it was a bit of dodgy special pleading, probably to swell the offertory from those in the congregation who had a few bob.
I recall he also told us that parting of the Red Sea was actually the reed sea, a shallow estuary quite easy to cross at low tide – quite some miracle.
The stuff people will swallow.
The “eye of a needle” thing is disputed. I’ve seen it plausibly argued that the “small city gate” interpretation is wrong, and that the passage actually means what it says.
In fact I’ve seen many seesawing claims like this in many fields over the years, and it’s made me a lot more aware of the fact that even widely accepted ideas often turn out to be wrong. Understanding the world is harder than it first appears!
I’ve heard that the Jesus of the bible actually existed as well. With no shred of corroborating historical evidence backed up with archeological proof I think he eas just a myth like Dionysus or Apollo….
After five years one can be pretty sure of a cadaver’s decomposition. Then you can make it a saint without fear for undue resurrection. Wouldn’t do much good to have living saints around, would it?
And…fairly compelling proof that the Romans crucified people across a x shaped support. Thus, If any one of the Jews that were crucified for being trouble makers, it is likely the symbol of death that xtians wear is likely to be the wrong shape…
There is another Christian myth that I think is misinterpreted: the one about “‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto god what is god’s”.
From the viewpoint of the story, everything belongs to god and nothing to Caesar. So rather than meaning “be a good citizen, pay your taxes, but go to church” that passage should mean “don’t think at all about secular power, only about god”.
Certainly, the story’s logic at the end bears that out. Jesus defied the secular power to the end. And if that analysis is correct, the camel metaphor really does mean that the rich won’t go to heaven.
Who would be the rich today, from Jesus’s worldview? Given how the wealth of the world has increased, from Jesus’s worldview, almost everyone today is rich except the homeless.
So if you want to be a good Christian and go to heaven, you should sell everything, including your house, give it all to the poor, and become a homeless preacher of Christianity.
I’m sticking to the addage “My Home is my castle”. Since it’s bought and paid for I’m dragging up the drawbridge buying a ton more loft insulation. And shouting…”Let them eat cake”…
I am still getting my head round terrestial tv channels showing the movement of Betty Windsors cadaver round britain…who the fuck would watch that? Same people would probably have watched Betty Windsors lawn progess webcam….
Presumably the same people who are apparently going to âfill Londonâ to look at a box. Porterloos being installed for the twenty five hour queue.
A lovely woman rang âVineâ this morning to urge that the police should drag away and incarcerate a young lady daring to display a ânot my kingâ sign. It was perfectly acceptable, though for the nice people around her to manhandle her for her âoffenceâ.
Bring on the black shirts.
I can remember a remake of Quatermass where an alien intelligence lured vast numbers of people to congregate (I think stone henge was one locus) where they then “harvested” the protein via a matter transference beam. A sort of terminal rapture event….mankind would be better off if that transpired in london next monday…
M27, like the irresistible Scarlet Johansson luring unwitting blokes off the street in “under the skin”. Rapture at first, then the demise of the deluded, protein rich fools.
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July 7, 2009
Even though Hitch made a pretty solid case against the sadistic nun in his role as Devil’s Advocate, she got canonicized anyway.
Theological science at its best.
Aye. Hitch took to her with his metaphorical “steelies”. But as always happens all logical and empirically proven arguments are immediately deemed to be from the mouth of the arch-deceiver satan…thus virtually ensuring her sainthood…
Mostly Vatican bullshit with a little guesswork thrown in…
Even Mohamed Jones could become a saint.
M27 – Yeah, damned if you do, damned if not.
At least the Hitch did try, boldly.
As they say, against the gods you just can’t win. Even when you do. Especially if you appear to have an agenda not aligned with the … planets?
I assume this is at least partly about the beatification of John Paul I. Next stop, sainthood.
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/04/1121039937/john-paul-i-beatified-pope-francis-sainthood
He only served as Pope for 33 days, so there are conspiracy theories that he was killed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_I_conspiracy_theories
Maybe. Maybe not. Let’s be objective. đ
âWhen the late Pope John Paul II decided to place the woman so strangely known as âMotherâ Teresa on the fast track for beatification, and thus to qualify her for eventual sainthood, the Vatican felt obliged to solicit my testimony and I thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsignor, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic. In the course of this, I discovered that the pope during his tenure had surreptitiously abolished the famous office of âDevilâs Advocate,â in order to fastâtrack still more of his many candidates for canonization. I can thus claim to be the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono.â
â Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir
As I said. The more proofs you can provide in the ear of a spunk womble , the more they confirm their faith through the insidious in-built protection argument that has to be used as a failsafe against clearly obvious proofs of their delusions…
so the pope makes saints – doesn’t the made up ‘god’ get a say in who they pretend is made up?
ps people like mother Theresa are eligible for sainthood…
The wife is fuming…they have taken all her soaps off the telly….
Even more upset that the Utd v Sociadad tie is still being shown live….
wonderful
Christopher Hitchens a truly great and intelligent man
M27: Don’t you have any raku or other potted channels to watch in the royal interim to interment?
Or, I dunno, read a book again perhaps? đ
10 days of mourning. Probably postpone all the football. I like my football. If the weather holds I will re-point my bar/gym roof this weekend. The ridge tiles are loose in places…
At old Philâs demise all channels were jam packed with it. Might not even bother turning on for the near future.
She wasnât a bad old stick and made a decent fist of a job that shouldnât exist but I tremor at the thought of being the âsubjectâ of Charles III. Iâve only just got used to singing âqueenâ in the national anthem and now Iâve got to go back again.
Come to think of it I never sing it so probably not a problem.
Donât know why above said anonymous. âTwas I.
M27Holts: Your bar and gym share a roof? So they must be next to each other. Does that not mean that the benefits of one cancel out the harmful effects of the other? IE the joyful pints and drams of one are wiped out by the muscle strains, bruises and palpitations of the other!
^ Aye, I had a double garage. I had patio doors fitted in one side to replace the broken overhead doors…voila. Gym. In the other side I had a window and door cut into the brickwork that leads into my back garden, then replaced the overhead door with a new wall.and window and got the bar fitters in…voila…garden bar…
Choirboy: “She … made a decent fist of a job that shouldnât exist …”
Nicely summed up!
I had a partition wall fitted so you cant access bar from Gym. The bar area has about 16 layers of old carpet and fibre glass insulation above it. So even in winter a couple of warm bodies heat the bar area quite nicely. I also have a state of the art music system pushed through my old HiFi amp and Tannoy speakers…so I can listen to prog whilst getting pissed….
Betty Windsor was born 2 days after my Mom & died 6 years after my Mom. I can’t really mourn BW any more than any other fairly decent human who lived a long & full life.
Aye. She reads about her will to power in papers full of lies, she reads that every time she breathes some foreign kiddy dies…
The tele is on. Some geezer who should look like charlie caroli was quite sincerely droning on about how the british monarch is being protected by god…why are such balloons given air time to spout such preposterous drivel. Honestly the spunk wombles have taken over the asylum…
We are a nation of snobs and forelock-tuggers. The Royals soap opera is supported either by those with vested interests to preserve privilege or plebs who follow it like Coronation Street or Eastenders and mindlessly think itâs âniceâ.
There has just been a bloke on the radio who was a guard at Buck House in full bearskin kit on a sweltering day, about to pass, out when Her Mag appeared with a glass of water. What a remarkable and unusual thing for one human being to do for another they saw suffering! Surely that qualifies for a beatification alongside Ma Theresa.
Old Phil also used to be nice to people occasionally apparently. Itâs a miracle, isnât it?
We have to admire them because they are so special and different that to be within yards of them is some sort of spiritual experience while also admiring them for being, âdown to earthâ. No wonder theyâre all marginally certifiable.
My sister was also born the same year as âBWâ and died six years before her, and her life, along with JBâ mumâs, was more deserving of mass celebration than someone whose greatest exertion when not breeding expensive racehorses was to snip a ribbon in a world smelling of fresh paint.
Roll on when we are citizens, not subjects but I ainât holding my breath.
someone who wanted their royal yacht scrapped rather then sold because she “did not want commoners walking where she had” is a long way from being a saint – she would not even be in ‘heaven’ because (according to bible) the rich can’t get in…
The Bible reference is interesting. The quotation as I recall is that it is as easy for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
When I actually was a choirboy I recall a sermon by the vicar based upon the text.
The âeye of a needleâ, he claimed was a common reference to a small gate in the wall of a city through which it was possible for a camel to pass through but only on its knees. The parable therefore did not mean that heaven was firmly closed to a rich man but perfectly accessible if he showed humility – on his knees.
I remember thinking it was a bit of dodgy special pleading, probably to swell the offertory from those in the congregation who had a few bob.
I recall he also told us that parting of the Red Sea was actually the reed sea, a shallow estuary quite easy to cross at low tide – quite some miracle.
The stuff people will swallow.
The shallow people will swallow.
But one swallow does not make it, Summer.
The “eye of a needle” thing is disputed. I’ve seen it plausibly argued that the “small city gate” interpretation is wrong, and that the passage actually means what it says.
In fact I’ve seen many seesawing claims like this in many fields over the years, and it’s made me a lot more aware of the fact that even widely accepted ideas often turn out to be wrong. Understanding the world is harder than it first appears!
I’ve heard that the Jesus of the bible actually existed as well. With no shred of corroborating historical evidence backed up with archeological proof I think he eas just a myth like Dionysus or Apollo….
M27Holts – there is archaeological proof of an empty tomb – because there are loads of them
After five years one can be pretty sure of a cadaver’s decomposition. Then you can make it a saint without fear for undue resurrection. Wouldn’t do much good to have living saints around, would it?
And…fairly compelling proof that the Romans crucified people across a x shaped support. Thus, If any one of the Jews that were crucified for being trouble makers, it is likely the symbol of death that xtians wear is likely to be the wrong shape…
And since the Romans were fairly pragmatic. Didn’t they also utilise current structures and natural structures (trees) to nail some sense into them?
There is another Christian myth that I think is misinterpreted: the one about “‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto god what is god’s”.
From the viewpoint of the story, everything belongs to god and nothing to Caesar. So rather than meaning “be a good citizen, pay your taxes, but go to church” that passage should mean “don’t think at all about secular power, only about god”.
Certainly, the story’s logic at the end bears that out. Jesus defied the secular power to the end. And if that analysis is correct, the camel metaphor really does mean that the rich won’t go to heaven.
Who would be the rich today, from Jesus’s worldview? Given how the wealth of the world has increased, from Jesus’s worldview, almost everyone today is rich except the homeless.
So if you want to be a good Christian and go to heaven, you should sell everything, including your house, give it all to the poor, and become a homeless preacher of Christianity.
Now go and sin no more. đ
I’m sticking to the addage “My Home is my castle”. Since it’s bought and paid for I’m dragging up the drawbridge buying a ton more loft insulation. And shouting…”Let them eat cake”…
I am still getting my head round terrestial tv channels showing the movement of Betty Windsors cadaver round britain…who the fuck would watch that? Same people would probably have watched Betty Windsors lawn progess webcam….
Presumably the same people who are apparently going to âfill Londonâ to look at a box. Porterloos being installed for the twenty five hour queue.
A lovely woman rang âVineâ this morning to urge that the police should drag away and incarcerate a young lady daring to display a ânot my kingâ sign. It was perfectly acceptable, though for the nice people around her to manhandle her for her âoffenceâ.
Bring on the black shirts.
I can remember a remake of Quatermass where an alien intelligence lured vast numbers of people to congregate (I think stone henge was one locus) where they then “harvested” the protein via a matter transference beam. A sort of terminal rapture event….mankind would be better off if that transpired in london next monday…
M27, like the irresistible Scarlet Johansson luring unwitting blokes off the street in “under the skin”. Rapture at first, then the demise of the deluded, protein rich fools.
Hmmm Scarlet Johansson….what a great way to go…
M27 – apparently one woman went to the effort of viewing the coffin 5 times – also – lead lined – so ‘coffin liqueur’ eventually- joy