Fascinating stuff. Apparently Episcopalians are partial to sex crimes, Catholics to burglary, and Hindus to fraud. Thank God those Muslims are maintaining their traditional law-abiding low profile and not getting into any mischief.
No word on the Jews and their supposed over-representation among those convicted for starting all the wars in history. But you know those Red Sea Pedestrians. They probably just used their total control of the world’s media to hush it up.
Meanwhile, the atheists’ crime of choice is anything involving violence, from mugging through common assault all the way to GBH and murder. I tried to ask the world’s Number 1 Atheist, Richard Dawkins, how he squared that with his assertion that religion was corrupting whereas atheism brought ennobling freedom, but he just came after me with a Stanley knife.
Professor Dawkins, yesterday, getting to grips with the opposition, atheist-style. Good thing his wife was there. “Leave it aht, Dick – he’s not worf it… That’s enuff, ennit? He’s ‘ad enuff. Leave him, Dick. Leave it aht, I say…”
UPDATE! Britain's prison population tops 80,000 for the first time! Maybe the Plods have been rounding up the Scientologists to balance things out. After all, if stupidity were a crime, they'd all have been locked away long since...
31 comments:
"No word on the Jews..."
Insufficient evidence, I guess.
teh link is to somtihgin about tomy bluar apologi^W expresign deep sorrow for slavary.
Ivan is confusing religion with ethnicity. Judaism isn't mentioned because being Jewish is an ethnically determined state, as opposed to being a Christian, which is a decision you make. You are born Jewish, Ivan, you dont choose to be.
Two points.
Firstly, where on earth did you learn that the Jews started all of history's wars? It isn't true, you know.
Secondly, it is absurd to claim that the Jews have "total control" over the media. The latest surveys conducted report that only between 60-70% of media is Jewish owned.
So get your facts straight.
Scroll down and you'll see it, 3H.
Whew. Thanks God patronizing gay male hookers who deal crank is not a crime any more; if it were, a lot of Evangelicals would be in trouble.
And of course Jews wouldn't be found in jails; they're lawyers, fer chrissake!
Oy, enough with the Jews, already! You're supposed to be having some fun with the atheists. God Almighty...
"And of course Jews wouldn't be found in jails; they're lawyers, fer chrissake!"
And judges, I might add.
T'would appear some of your commentors missed the class on "Irony." And after their parents paid all that money, too.
As for athiests, not suprising. They make up their morality as they go along.
Cheers.
The argument goes that the only logical position is to be an agnostic. Both theism and atheism are arguments based in part on faith: "I do believe even though I can't prove God exists"; "I absolutley refute the idea of any God even though I can't prove God doesn't exist.
Having said that, it seems to me that life is about a good deal more than logic, a fact which theists and agnostics recognize to their different degrees but atheism does not recognize. For this reason I can't see what the atheist point is. Theism is at least a positive faith with much to recommend it - despite all the things that don't.
Disbelieving in the logically unknowable is every bit as much a faith act as believing. Atheists are like snakes swallowing their own tails when they try to rely on logic alone to defend their faith position. It can't work.
Theism is my bag, tempered slightly with agnosticism. That is to say I can't subscribe to things like a literal virgin birth because it runs against the common sense I believe God meant us to use; but I do believe Christ is the son of God. I do believe in the power, ultimate truth, and beauty of allegory and story, and I believe truths can speak through them without a literal translation being needed. We all know Shakespeare wrote fictional drama but we all recognize the dazzling truths and beauty we read there without having to deny the fact that it's fiction.
I guess we all have our own criteria for the positions we take and I know mine are evolving the older I get.
Shoot me down, anybody? I haven't got it all straight in my mind by any means, but haven't heard anyone who can convince me they have either: Agnosticism seems to me to be "the default state" and the most easy to subscribe to, although that doesn't make it true and smacks of too much laziness than I think mankind's collective mind can tolerate; I have devoured most of C.S. Lewis' books on faith several times since I was a child, and books by Karen Armstrong, Herman Woulk and a few others are also well-thumbed on my shelf; I haven't read any books arguing for atheism though.
"Theism is my bag, tempered slightly with agnosticism..." That sounds a bit like a diluted self-contradiction, innit? Something along the lines of "socialism is my preferred ideology, gently mixed with laissez-faire capitalism."
For atheism, you may commence at the beginning, with Xenophanes' attack on anthropomorphic religions; move on to the libertins who gave Pascal his nightmares and the impulse to write the unfinished Pensées; continue with the 18th century materialists (La Mettrie, d'Holbach, etc.) of whom Marx is a distant offshoot; skip to Kant and his arguments against the possibility of any knowledge about God; browse a bit of Herbert Spencer, the 19th century Dawkins; sample Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian" (another mad-dog British atheist -- what is the deal with these non-believing Brits, anyway?) and finish with Dawkins' "The God Delusion," the book that's making a splash these days.
To see a Marxist refute Dawkins for ignorance of theology, see here.
In Sunday school, Sister Mary asked the class: "What part of the body goes to heaven first?"
In the back of the class, nasty Billy waved his hand frantically, but Sister Mary, suspecting a wrong answer, turned to another child. "Yes, Susan?"
"The heart goes to heaven first because that's where God's love lives."
"Excellent," said Sister Mary, "and you, Charlotte?"
"The soul, Sister Mary, because that's the part that lives beyond death."
"Very good, Charlotte," said the Sister, as she noticed Billy's hand still waving in desperation."
"OK, Billy, what do you think?"
"It's the feet that go first, Sister, the feet."
"That's a strange answer Billy. Why the feet?"
Billy answered, "Because I saw my mom with her feet up in the air, shouting, 'God, I'm coming, I'm coming!'"
A young lady came home from a date, rather sad. She told her mother, "Anthony proposed to me an hour ago." "Then why are you so sad?" her mother asked. "Because he also told me he is an atheist. Mom, he doesn't even believe there's a Hell." Her mother replied, "Marry him anyway. Between the two of us, well show him how wrong he is."
Sam,
You are absolutely correct that atheism is as much a religion as theism. And the atheists I've known tend to be as "evangelical" in their beliefs as Christians, a point which puzzles me.
If, as atheists posit, life is nothing but the sum total of the vicissitudes of fate, who cares what someone else believes? See, e.g. the atheist doctor in CA who wanted to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. If there is no God, the words are meaningless.
Methinks the atheists just want everyone else to be as miserable as they are.
Cheers.
Militant atheists are not that big of a headache -- since they're engaged in a battle already, it's possible to get them to switch sides, much like yesterday's Trotskyites are today's neocons (are your ears red already, Christopher Hitchens?)
It's those indifferent to religion who are the real challenge for a Christian. The quietists. Some people call them agnostics.
But Zeev - Liz Taylor chose to be. N'est ce pas?
"But Zeev - Liz Taylor chose to be. N'est ce pas?"
Pi, Liz Taylor's conversion wouldn't be recognized by the Israeli Rabbinate, who only this week passed a new edict saying that converted Jews are not to be considered 'halachicly' Jewish. This has pissed off thousands of converted Jews worldwide but it is, in my opinion, a correct decision, as we do need to prevent the gradual pollution of the Jewish lineage by these well meaning but misguided Gentiles.
Whatever hoops she may have jumped through, Liz Taylor will always be considered a 'shiksa' by ethnically pure Jews.
Well then, I guess that's bad news for Madonna... um... I mean, Esther.
Des, you're right of course, my position is too conveniently fluid to be described as a position. Yet I take it just the same. One can earnestly believe in the middle ground with all the passion and fervour of confirmed theists and atheists. One doesn't have to describe wholly to something to appreciate its virtues. Socialism has its virtues so does laissez-faire economics. The trick it seems to me is not to let the one run away from the sense of the other. Tough trick, but who said it was going to be easy?
I disagree that all agnostics are indifferent to religion. Many battle the thing out in their heads every day of the week yet remain agnostics because, well, they just don't know.
Had a good larf at the jokes. My own mother will be arriving for a 5 week stay soon. I think the MIL one will offer my husband some subversive comfort.
The middle way between socialism and capitalism is Tony Blair's 'Third Way'; how's that been working out for ya in Britain?
In religion, the middle way is either agnostic indifferentism -- admittedly an unpalatable position -- or New Age Let's-all-get-alongism. Take your pick. But people of all faiths will be throwing stones at you. Or cast stones, as they say in the New Testament.
At least with Christians the stones are purely metaphorical...
That's right Desargues, Madonna is doing good work for Peace though, by supporting Israel afainst its neo-nazi enemies. So we can give her an exemption.
'so we can give her an exemption.'
Gee you must have a lot of influence! But why one law for Liz and anothr for Madge. Liz has done much work for Aids. Does that not count?
Pi, Taylor's work with AIDS, while commendable, has little, if any bearing or affect upon our Jewish community. Jews are pretty much immune from AIDS due to our wise tradition of circumcision.
Madonna however, has given Judaism a very good service by promoting Kabbalah and related products such as spiritual jewellry, health tonics and awareness courses. Did you know she even opened a Kabbalah Hotel in London? So her exemption is justified, no?
And Cantemir, you are right, I'm more left wing than Jabotinsky even if I admire some of his ideas. We see already his 'Iron Wall' philosophy being used by Western nations, as gradually you all learn from us how the World really is and why we must defend against these Monsters.
it wasn't until I read the bit about circumcision that I saw right through you. Silly silly me!
Do you have lsesons from David Gest?
I'm not sure who David Gest is, Pi, but from the tone of your response I bet he is someone unpleasant.
In fact your reaction is typical of gentiles. When you outsmart them, they just start insulting you.
You silly boy! I am never rude to strangers. I was accusing you of nothing worse than telling tall stories. David Gest - the ex husband of Liza Minelli went onto a TV programme 'I'm a Celebrity - get me out of here' as a most disliked person and won over thousands of people by his stupendous ability as a kidder. He told the tallest stories with the utmost conviction and was hilarious. Now do you understand? And now I've lowered the whole tone of Ivan's blog. Sorry Ivan.
"I was accusing you of nothing worse than telling tall stories"
...and that's not insulting? If I have made a factual mistake, please educate us all, Pi. I am eager to learn.
Or do you think being accused of lying is just fine for someone like me, a Jew? Do you think it's like saying, "That's a nice haircut, Zeev!"?
Honestly, I sometimes feel like you people are living in the days of the Russian pogroms and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Nice try, Ze'ev, but chill down.
Also, those protocols are obsolete; these days, the Protocols of the Elders of Mecca are being written -- something for us to fret over for the next few decades or so. You gotta come up with something more relevant to the modern world, then.
Still waiting for either an apology or Pi's justification for calling me a liar.....
And so we come full circle to 3H's original comment re insincere apologies, at the top of the page. As Tony would say, "It's time to move on..."
Zeev, fuck off.
You stupid troll.
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