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1 February 2004
[philosophy] Course or Cult? — interesting article about what happens at a “Introductory Philosophy” course run by The School of Economic Science … ‘It’s the third week of a nationally advertised philosophy course. The tutor has been asked about the relationship between rationality and logic, and the students wait expectantly for his answer. “Listen,” he says, “this is logic. All trains are long. All coaches are long. Therefore, all trains are coaches. That is logic, and it is no good for anything at all. There is absolutely no relationship between rationality and logic.” Couldn’t happen? Well it did.’
[tags: Religion][ permalink][ Comments Off on Behind-the-Scenes at the Philosophy Courses run by the SES.]
10 January 2004
[religion] Things Creationists Hate — for example, The Power and Majesty of God Almighty: ‘..and His subtlety. They will only allow God the minuscule, infant universe described by the writers of Genesis (or Moses, if you prefer). They can’t stand it that God has been working on this version of the universe for something like 14 billion years, and His workshop is so inconceivably huge that it seems ridiculously presumptuous to imagine the Earth and its dominant species to be the center of God’s attention. They won’t allow Him to work His miracles of life patiently, subtly, using the gradual, majestic power of evolution.’ [via Oblomovka]
22 December 2003
[london] Sinners and Winners: A Confession — more info about the Oxford Circus Megaphone Man … ‘I suppose it’s about time I held my hands up and admitted that if it wasn’t for me the “Sinners and Winners man”, or Terry as he’s actually known, would be substantially less annoying. You see, it was actually me who bought him his megaphone…’
8 December 2003
[preaching] What is that Oxford Circus Megaphone Man all about? … ‘ARE YOU A SINNER OR ARE YOU A WINNER?’‘What most people don’t know is that the religious nut used to think he was a werewolf and would occasionally get on London news reports because he would beg the police to lock him up come every full moon. Then he found God, or more specifically a cassette tape of some preacher which he is constantly listening to and repeating out loud ‘
5 December 2003
[comics] The Golden Age: Uncensored — ‘Scientologists are fucking weird…’ [via Pete’s Link Farm] 
[link to image]
2 August 2003
[god] Over Three Hundred Proofs of God’s Existence … [via As Above] ‘305. ARGUMENT FROM MONTY PYTHON
(1) Graham Chapman appeared in a film that made fun of Jesus.
(2) Graham Chapman died of a horrible, incurable disease.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
(3a) And has no sense of humor.’
2 May 2003
[comics] Fear Factor — profile of Jack Chick … ‘This Was Your Life! created a template — sin, damnation, the possibility of redemption — for scores of future tracts. The artist’s formula and drawing style have changed little in five decades. When an archivist at the Pasadena Playhouse began rooting through old boxes in the late ’90s, she discovered drawings that he had done in 1948. The single-panel cartoons revealed the same perspiring characters, pop-eyed faces, and 1940s Sunday-comics sensibilities of his current tracts. “He’s not worried about impressing other cartoonists, which is kind of what motivates a lot of cartoonists to pick up their chops a little bit,” says Clowes. “There’s something really interesting about seeing a cartoonist not develop at all.” Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, is less kind. “It makes me despair about America,” says Spiegelman, “that there are so many people who read these things.”‘ [via Boing Boing | Related: This Was Your Life! | Metafilter]
20 February 2003
[science] You Ask The Questions — Richard Dawkins … ‘Q: If, when you die, you find yourself unexpectedly at the Pearly Gates, what would you say to St Peter? A: OK, I was wrong. But I was wrong for the right reasons. Those guys in there were right. But just look at their reasons.’
4 February 2003
[comics] The Muslim World — a great map/cartoon from Derf. [via Bugpowder]
6 January 2003
[comics] Who Cares? — Jack Chick on 9/11 … [via Metafilter]  ‘Bob, now I know that Allah doesn’t really love me or even care about any Muslim. But Jesus, the Son of God, does. That’s why I must chose Jesus.’
3 January 2003
[religion] Why Mother Teresa Should not be a Saint — Christopher Hitchens on the canonization of Mother Teresa … ‘I discovered that she had taken money from rich dictators like the Duvalier gang in Haiti, had been a friend of poverty rather than a friend of the poor, had never given any account of the huge sums of money donated to her, had railed against birth-control in the most overpopulated city on the planet and had been the spokeswoman for the most extreme dogmas of religious fundamentalism. Actually, it’s boasting to say that I “discovered” any of this. It was all there in plain sight for anyone to notice. But in the age of celebrity, nobody had troubled to ask if such a global reputation was truly earned or was simply the result of brilliant public relations.’
10 October 2002
[comics] Is There A God? — the Onion asks a bunch of celebs the Big Question … [thanks Matt.] Frank Miller: ‘I don’t think so.’
Stan Lee: ‘Well, let me put it this way… [Pauses.] No, I’m not going to try to be clever. I really don’t know. I just don’t know.’
Alan Moore: ‘[Laughs.] Well, I can’t move for them, quite frankly. I’m looking at about 12 of them from where I’m sitting at the moment. I’m kind of swamped for choice. Yeah, there’s probably tons of them. There’s probably a swarm of gods.’
14 September 2002
[funny] Says God … ‘I like to kick things off with a bang. A Big Bang.’
30 August 2002
[blogs] The Sri Chinmoy Project — Mo Morgan discovers a sinister cult abusing weblogs.com … ‘Odd, I thought. But it was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.’ [Related: Metafilter Thread]
15 August 2002
[books] Pullman Lays Down Moral Challenge for Writers — Philip Pullman discusses morality. ‘…his real bugbear was with the “propensity of human nature” to use politics or religion to set up one unquestionable truth – “it could be the Bible, it could be the Communist Manifesto” – and to then knock down all that went against it. “This is what I am against. Not Christianity, but every religion and fundamental organisation where there is one truth and they will kill you if you don’t believe it.”‘
30 July 2002
[books] Fundamentally Unsound — Salon takes a look at Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series … ‘Left Behind cloaks itself in the conventions of ordinary airport thrillers, but it does far more than just provide a Christian alternative to decadent mainstream entertainment. It creates a Christian theory of everything, one that slates current events into a master narrative in which the world is destroyed and then remade to evangelical specifications. It’s an alternate universe in which conservative Middle Americans are vindicated against everyone who doesn’t share their beliefs — especially liberals and Jews.’ [via Follow Me Here]
5 July 2002
[world] Like Dallas policed by the Taliban — inside Saudi Arabia … ‘[Saudi Arabia] is a country of astonishing contrasts. Riyadh is a hyper-modern city with ancient social customs. It is Dallas, Texas, policed by the Taliban. Women entirely shrouded in black abayas , with even their eyes covered, go shopping at a Harvey Nichols inside a Norman Foster building. Men pour into the mosque under an enormous neon sign advertising Sony, as if they were entering an electrical goods sale rather than a place of worship. McDonald’s is seemingly on every street corner, and yet it closes its doors five times a day for prayers – making Saudi Arabia unique as a country where the most powerful franchise on earth bends its knees in front of an even stronger brand: Allah.’
21 May 2002
[science] MC Hawkings Crib — Fuck the Creationists [ lyrics] … ‘Fuck the damn creationists, those bunch of dumb-ass bitches,
every time I think of them my trigger finger itches.
They want to have their bullshit, taught in public class,
Stephen J. Gould should put his foot right up their ass.’
19 May 2002
[books] Philip Pullman resources on the Web from Robot Wisdom … Pullman: ‘The rise of fundamentalist religion I think, is the most dangerous aspect of late twentieth-century life, whether it is intolerance among Christians or Muslims or Orthodox Jews. I think fundamentalist religion is one of the greatest dangers we have ever faced. And so if there is a source of wickedness in the book, you can place it there… What makes a religion fundamentalist is the insistence that because of some book of scriptures or some revelation given to the founder of the religion, that they alone possess the ‘truth’. And when anyone believes that, they’re wrong. I think my position would be that throughout human history, the greatest moral advances have been made by religious leaders such as Jesus and the Buddha. And the greatest moral wickedness has been perpetrated by their followers.’
8 October 2001
[comics] Chick Christian Comix … links and brief comments from Disinfo on Jack Chick. ‘Hell is a very real place to Mr. Chick. He sees Demons lurking around every corner, and this special brand of paranoia and literal-mindedness endows his work with its sick charm and has granted him status as a pop culture icon among some of the very people that he probably despises. This is the absolute zenith of contemporary religious kitsch!’
27 September 2001
[comics] Tragedy Hits America — Jack Chick on 9-11. ‘…here is a word of caution….politicians are trying to hold this whole mess together by creating some kind of all encompassing, universal “god”, composed of all kinds of “gods”, that doesn’t offend anybody including the Muslim god “Allah”. The Bible says there is only one true God, who did have a Son and that Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the answer for the needs of every human being. Our God is a jealous God and will share His glory with none other’ [via Fark]
18 September 2001
[books] Bare Faced Messiah — an excellent out-of-print biography of L. Ron Hubbard complete on-line… ‘The glorification of “Ron”, superman and saviour, required a cavalier disregard for facts: thus it is that every biography of Hubbard published by the church is interwoven with lies, half-truths and ludicrous embellishments. The wondrous irony of this deception is that the true story of L. Ron Hubbard is much more bizarre, much more improbable, than any of the lies.’
16 September 2001
[comment] Religion’s misguided missiles — Richard Dawkins view… ‘I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite – or too devout – to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don’t mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one’s own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.’
28 August 2001
[books] Author angers the Bible Belt — article on the reaction to Philip Pullman’s books in America … ‘At their core, Pullman’s books are profoundly humanistic. Joan Slatterly calls them stories ‘about love, seizing the day and being alive’. ‘For all the qualities they have,’ says Pullman, ‘mine are ordinary children who come to realise that the world is a wonderful place whose destiny is not their birthright. There are no hereditary traditions or magic wands like in Harry Potter. There is the occult but not in the sense I see in other books. I don’t give people magical powers.”
5 July 2001
[science] The Prophet of Reason — The Independent profiles Richard Dawkins…. ‘What about, “why are humans so credulous?” I ask. So happy to pay through the nose for an aura massage or crystal healing. Mustn’t gullibility have an evolutionary explanation too? “I would put it back to childhood and say that there’s a Darwinian survival value in children believing what their elders tell them, because the world is too dangerous a place and it takes too long to learn what you need to learn to survive,” Dawkins replies. “You’ve got to have a rule of thumb that’s built into the nervous system that says ‘Believe what you’re told’. And once you’ve got a rule of thumb like that, it’s like having a computer, which is vulnerable to viruses.’
24 May 2001
[big questions] Things I’ve wondered about…. What exactly does “kumbaya” mean? ‘According to ethnomusicologist Thomas Miller, the song we know began as a Gullah spiritual. Some recordings of it were made in the 1920s, but no doubt it goes back earlier. Published versions began appearing in the 1930s. It’s believed an American missionary couple taught the song to the locals in Angola, where its origins were forgotten. The song was then rediscovered in Angola and brought back here in time for the folksinging revival of the 50s and 60s. People might have thought the Gullahs talked funny, but we owe them a vote of thanks. Can you imagine sitting around the campfire singing, “Oh, Lord, come by here”? ‘
21 May 2001
[scary] Online Scientology critic seeks political asylum. ‘That’s right; a prosecutor — someone who managed to graduate from a university, then a law school, and then pass the California Bar Exam — actually brought charges of terrorism against someone joking on Usenet about firing a nuclear warhead at a group of people scattered all over the globe.’
[tags: Religion][ permalink][ Comments Off on Online Scientology Critic Seeks Political Asylum]
7 May 2001
[comics] Pope Fiction. The Vatican approves a comic about Pope John II… Joe Quesada (Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics): ‘”Like Spider-Man, the Pope has incredible compassion for the human spirit,” he said. “It’s no secret that this pope has been in frail health for the last few years, yet much like Spider-Man, he perseveres through great adversity. It is the calling and trademark of the great hero!”‘
31 March 2001
[comics] Superheroes are evil ‘Let’s start with Superman. The Bible never mentions life in other planets. But Superman is not from Earth; he is from Krypton. This fact alone goes contradicts the Bible. And the horror continues. Superman is raised on Earth and grows up to become a superhero. People all over the Earth start worshipping this mysterious character. And where is Jesus in this picture? Superman never mentions God or Jesus. He is probably an atheist. And people in Metropolis see him as their Lord and Savior.’ [thanks Pete]
29 March 2001
[comics] Jack Chick vs. Freemasonary. There can be only one winner…. JESUS!
28 March 2001
[comics] 90 Christian Comics Tracts by Jack T. Chick! on sale at Ebay…. ‘I remember … reading 70 tracts in one sitting and being completely convinced I had wasted my life and was going straight to hell. … It’s a truly powerful experience to have this guy yelling at you for 70 tracts.’ ? Dan Clowes, comic book artist. [ Related Links: This Was Your Life!, Chick Publications]
26 March 2001
[religion] Is this the face of Christ? ‘The BBC used a combination of 2,000-year-old Jewish skulls and ancient religious images to generate what it claims is the first “true-to-life” picture of Jesus Christ.’ [ Related Links: Large image of Real Life Christ, Metafilter Posting]
[tags: Religion][ permalink][ Comments Off on The BBC asks: Is this the face of Christ?]
6 March 2001
[comics] Chick Comic Theater does some amusing analysis of Jack Chick’s best work: Don’t Try Suicide, What Do You Expect In A Town called Sodom?, Rock Music…Inside Satan’s Boombox, Dungeons and Dragons…Geeky Pastime, or Gateway to Hell? ‘…if I’m not mistaken, that demon on the right side of the bed is whacking off! I feel sorry for Lance’s Mom. Not only does she have to discover her dead son swinging like a Pinata, but she’s got to clean up the unholy demon spew from his bed, too.’ [via Venusberg]
28 February 2001
[distractions] Apocamon – The Final Judgement. Play Pokémon with characters from the Bible’s Book of Revelations… ‘All contents copyright © 80 A.D. St. John the Divine. All rights reserved.’ [via clog]
14 December 2000
[god is everywhere] LinkMachineGo is proud to present the link of the year… It does not get more profane or blasphemous than this… religious sex toys… Who – *CHOKE!* wants a Baby Jesus butt-plug or a Jackhammer Jesus? ‘Jesus was a carpenter. Now he’s a powertool.’ [via the Warren Ellis forum on Delphi]
10 December 2000
[666] I’m wondering… Does the devil have the best web designers? Church of Satan vs. Church of England.
25 November 2000
[weblogs] Metafilter blogs the satellite image of Selhurst Park… and someone points out that the image of the football field is probably Jakob Nielsen… ‘But does Jesus support Crystal Palace or Wimbledon?’ — Holgate.
24 November 2000
[picture] Satellite image of Selhurst Park football ground reveals image of Christ!
21 October 2000
[religion] Wonderful feature by Jon Ronson reporting on attending a course designed to convert Agnostics into Christians with emphasis on the holy spirit and speaking in tongues…. ‘James rests his hand on my shoulder. “Oh Jesus, I pray that Jon will receive Your wonderful spirit. God. Please come and fill Jon with … ” It is not working. The spell has broken. I tell James again that I’m sorry, but I’m a journalist. (This is no excuse – the picture editor of a Sunday newspaper is speaking in tongues to my left, as is a producer of Channel 4 documentaries in front of me, for the first time in his life.) So James changes tack. “Oh thank you, Jesus, for Jon’s wonderfully enquiring journalistic mind … please help Jon’s career … no, not his career … his wonderful journalism … and may his journalism become even more wonderful now he is working in Your name, Jesus Christ …”‘ [ Related Links: Alpha]
5 September 2000
[my inner voices use URL’s] Must… keep… hands… away… from… keyboard! Must. Not. Buy. BUDDY CHRIST!! [via lukelog]
24 August 2000
[jesus wants me for a sunbeam] Which of your favourite celebrities is an atheist or agnostic? Find out at the The Celebrity Atheist List. Garth Ennis: ‘I’m an atheist, really. But everyone seems to think I’m some terrible lapsed Catholic who suffered the worst of a Catholic upbringing and had the crap kicked out of him by nuns and monks. In actual fact, I’m not Catholic, and I never had any kind of direct religious upbringing at all, although I was exposed to the inevitable religious influence that growing up in Ireland will give you.’
23 August 2000
[jesus loves you] Good Lord! Christian sandals with Jesus Loves You written on the soles! “As I was thinking of more ways to reinforce goodness, God instructed me to cut out an old inner tube and glue the letters SUSEJ SEVOL UOY backwards onto the bottoms of sandals. When I was finished, it was raining. I walked outside and up onto a dry wooden deck and left JESUS LOVES YOU all over the deck. It was awesome, and I knew this was a wonderful new way to spread the good news.” [via ChrisH]
26 July 2000
[comics] Jesus: The Dark Messiah Returns. Fantastic… ‘The water on my head feels like a baptism. Because it is. I’m born again. Again.’
9 June 2000
[books] newsUnlimited reports that christian apocalyptic fundamentalists set to knock Harry Potter off top of the book charts in the US. “In interviews, Mr LaHaye appears to be the more driven member of the successful duo, saying that the books’ message ‘is the greatest message of hope in the world’. Mr Jenkins, by contrast, seems more worldly. ‘There are some times when I think I was born for this project,’ he said recently. ‘Other times I think I was born to play golf.'”
7 June 2000
[church] newsUnlimited asks: Should you trust a Vicar?“In the case of Peter, a young and successful minister, church elders at first told him he must be mistaken when he came out as homosexual: “Don’t be silly, you’re much too hairy,” was one comment.”
9 April 2000
[tech] A UK Archbishop warns that the internet is evil [ Low Graphics]. Has he actually used it, I wonder?
7 April 2000
[tags: Life, Religion][ permalink][ Comments Off on Would you get baptised just to please your dying father?]
4 April 2000
[tags: Religion][ permalink][ Comments Off on Church of England to Reignite Fires of Hell]
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