If God is a DJ...
...he is playing some really shit tunes.
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 12:41, 4 replies)

Burn in hell..
I just remembered, on a press xmas shopping trip to brum, walking along the street above the (old) bullring - just opposite the KFC there was a 6 foot something, 50+ black guy with a big bushing bear, stood on an upturned milk crate, sign/bible in had... espousing his religious view.... that would be all ok, but it wasn't particularly cheerful, something along the lines of.

"for you are all sinners
and he is a vengefull god
and you have offended him
and you will burn in the fires of hell for eternity".

No way out... just that, over and over again.

Recently I saw a street preacher informing everyone that Jesus came from (or was of) Jerusalum... then go all David Brent on us by trying to convince everyone over his karaoke kit, that Christ must exist, because Jerusalem exists, it's real, on a map, you can check...

Yep, so that's Santa existing 'cos the North Pole is indicated on some maps. And weird genetic anomolie people in the Sewers 'cos of an episode of x-files then?
(Universon, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 12:41, Reply)

my friend's a Moderate Evangelical.
They're the ones that believe in dinosaurs, but still hate the gay ones.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 12:38, 2 replies)

God Eh?
Thought I would regale any readers with the time that I found God and then lost it. I promise you it wont be longwinded and will keep it as close to the point as I can.

Before I start I will let you know that I am not some nutcase follower of Christ who will bang on about how everyone will be judged when they die, I’m just a normal bloke who will look into all options before believing it was the work of God. Not even when I thought I had lost my best mate did God come into my head.

Now the backstory is done back to the topic at hand. I was out with a few mates and one annoying little prick when we all had a vision, not one of those bearded white guy in robes that you see on TV but a full on vision of nature and the landscape changing before us. Although me and my mates were scared we did pluck up the courage to attempt to speak to God.

Despite being God (and therefore All knowing), we were asked a few strange questions, such as how we got there. I answered the question truthfully and was shocked to hear that ‘God’ wanted to come with us. At this moment I thought it was either a test of faith (To get me and my mates going places to pass the word of God) or that somewhere in the background Jean Michelle Jarre was hid and hoping for a lift home. I plucked up the courage to ask God why he needed transportation and he kicked my ass.

Thankfully my mates realised that my question didn’t need to be resolved with violence and we buggered off pretty quick, killing God with a disruptor blast from the Bird of Prey that was parked nearby.

I then went back home to continue my camping holiday with my mates.

Love James T Kirk
(mon bison powered by magnets, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 12:33, 1 reply)

Me, God and Ras kass.
So, a first post from me, lurker for years - but to be honest, I have kept forgetting that it takes a week or so for an account to become active, and by that time is up i've missed the change to post... not so this time!

Religion to me? I describe myself as self-theistic (that annoys the god-botherers) and I always respond "Maybe one day you'll stop being blinded by it" when my wife and her family talk to me about "i pray one day you will see the light and allow lord jesus to..."... yes, my wife seems to say "father abraham" a lot... not sure why, his recordings with the Smurfs weren't that good surely? and

I totally object to the term a-theism, i'm not lacking in belief, I believe you are all lacking... i'm not the reaction, the world existed, people made some stuff up and now i'm meant to be the lacker? Asexual came before Sexual... you hear me?

But my reason for posting today? Just this one link, to a song called THE NATURE OF THE THREAT by a hiphop artist called Ras Kass... take a break from your day and listen to this in it's entirety, then tell me that (Despite a few flaws) "rap music" is just ignorant...

ok, so here's the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrKqReuYNuA
(Universon, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 12:31, 2 replies)

Since I mentioned Brigstocke in a reply below;
and since I don't think anyone else has posted it;
and since it's very funny...
Have some of this.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 12:10, 3 replies)

Quick query
I was reading The Dalkey Archive last night. Towards the end, one of the characters makes the claim that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in the Bible - that it only got shoehorned in much later.

I can't be arsed checking. Does anyone know if this is true?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 11:49, 8 replies)

Father O'Rouke
was a gentle giant of a man. When I was a child he took me under his wing. I remember he put one of his big tree trunk-sized arms round me, squeezing my shoulder with his big, soft hands.

He knelt down to my level and said: "Son, you're not going to amount to much in life. You've been slapped about a fair bit with the stupid stick... but I can teach you something that will stay with you 'til the day you die. If we go into the church now we can share the glory of that special, holy place, and I can show you how all that you really need to succeed in life comes from in here -" and he pointed at my chest, "from your heart."

So, Father O'Rouke took me by the hand and led me into the church. I knelt down before the statue of Chirst and felt a surge rush through me like an electric charge. It was an incredible few moments in the church that day.

And Father O'Rouke was right.

I have taken that special skill, that special talent Father O'Rouke showed me right through to the present. And its always good to know that when things start to go wrong, when the pressures on and my life seems shallow and empty, that I can always drop to my knees and suck cock like a fucking crack-addict whore on Sunset Boulevard.

Got me a fair few promotions, that has.

You've just got to put your heart and soul into it.
( SpankyHanky, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 11:42, 3 replies)

Christian Union
Calamarain's post reminded me of the CU at my uni.

Now, I spent a huge amount of my university time in the college chapel - I was a choral scholar, and therefore services, rehearsals, concerts and recordings meant we were in the chapel for an average of at least 10 hours a week.

The Christian Union, for all their "yay God! Join us, join us and be SAVED!", weren't seen in chapel that much. In fact, I saw them in chapel amount as many times as there are hairs on the late Jade Goody's head. A big, bald bugger all.

I had a friend who was quite involved with the CU at one point, and when I asked him about this, he looked slightly panicky, and then slightly ashamed, and said that "chapel wasn't really their thing". WTF?
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 11:40, 10 replies)

I was expelled from sunday school
My family refuse to enter any discussion regarding why this may have happened.
(teebie jeebie, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 11:37, 1 reply)

The Bible
I'll keep this short because I suspect I'm in a tiny minority that finds this utterly fascinating....

I'm of the wishy-washy liberal opinion when it comes to faith - I don't have much of one but having been drenched in it as a child and still surrounded by plenty of Roman Catholic God-botherers, a few pagans, protestants, jews and plenty of Atheists, I honestly don't mind what people believe.

BUT

and this is a big BUT....

I believe that ALL children (and adults if they don't already know) regardless of faith, should be taught the Bible - King James version.


Why?

Well, if you don't know then you ought to find out!

This 'book'* has affected human society across the entire world more than any other man-made event.

Wars have been fought over it and its stories. Genocide, literature, history, cultural mores, lives and societies have been based upon this book.

Cicero said that "He who does not know history is destined to remain a child." Know nothing of the Bible and you're missing out on a huge part of your cultural heritage.

The Bible is a fundamental part of Western culture and history and in turn has affected worldwide history.

That's the bigger picture, but without a good working knowledge of the King James version anyone intending to study the humanities will be lacking basic knowledge. I could wax lyrical for hours about the pieces of art that have biblical references, the books that rely upon it, don't get me started on how poetry uses direct quotes, themes and forms taken from the Bible...but to be fair none of it is really humorous and while I find it stimulating and fascinating as an intellectual pursuit many others don't.








*I say 'book' in the singular simply because we tend to regard it in that way but it is of course a collection of books.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 11:18, 29 replies)

I'm generally anti-religious
and as such cop a lot of flak from Godders and the occasional atheist who feel that I'm too strident in my criticisms of religion, so I want to try something else - I'm going to praise one, because out of all the various faiths, cults and creeds I've encountered only one seems to me to be particularly praiseworthy. That is the Religious Society of Friends, or the Quakers.

The reason that I'm doing this is that as far as I can tell, the entire organisation has a public profile of just above zero - indeed, the only times I've head of them doing anything at all have been word-of-mouth reports of the (basically anonymous) donations they have made to deprived and disabled children on the council estate where my mother teaches. I've never seen them advertise, proletise or evangelise. I've known a few of them and they don't boast or brag about their religion, they don't attempt to spread it, in fact most of them aren't that keen to talk about it at all. A quick Wikipedia check tells me that there are even Quaker atheists and agnostics.

So, that's pretty much the benchmark by which I'm judging other religions. If all religions except the Religious Society of Friends disappeared tomorrow, I'd be a happy man, because we'd get on just fine. A religion that does a lot of charity work but doesn't like to talk about it, or indeed anything else, is the ideal, surely?
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 10:51, 5 replies)

People who tell me things
I had two people come to my house and tell me that god was going to destroy everything and everybody in the 'end of days' thingy.....
I felt quite distressed and asked 'whats going to happen to everyone?'
They replied, 'If you have been good then god will accept you in heaven!'
I replied, 'If everything is going to be destroyed then isn't heaven part of everything? and if it is then isn't that going to be destroyed? and if its destroyed then there will be no room for anyone to go? and so i may as well be an arse and carry on until the 'End of days' happens...
They went quiet had aperplexed look on their faces and left thanking me...
Ho-Hum.....
(whuppingboy, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 10:35, Reply)

If there is a God....
...I'm on the edge of declaring bankruptcy. I'm currently trying to raise the ridiculous £500 required to do this (and before anyone slags me off, I've been on an IVA for a few years trying to sort this, I'm not a money dodging cunt).

I'm in a relationship held together by my daughter at the mo. I've managed to avoid being made homeless and me missus was made redundant 2 months after my wife gave birth an she believes in parenting and not childcare.

I'm currently sitting in pain at the computer after a recent op. I'm bleeding from the op and need the wound re-dressed by a doctor on a daily basis. The wound is beside my brown ring. It hurts ALOT.

So quite frankly if there is a God then I'm going to stitch the cunt one when I die and meet him/her. The wanker.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 10:06, 4 replies)

Comparisons
Perhaps the image I've cultivated here is one of cold rationalism, tinged at times with hot fury. That's not wholly correct.

I have found something that gives my life structure.
It provides the prism through which I view the world.
It soothes me in times of pain and distress.

God? Religion?

Nope. Radio 4.


Except for You and Yours, Money Box Live and The Moral Maze, of course.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 9:41, 13 replies)

Beendun?
I swear to drunk I'm not god!
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 9:26, Reply)

I suspect
that I, like most people, just want to be left alone and this is where organised/traditional religion trips up a bit.

Par exemple: if, ferinstance, I were a Hindu and my neighbour was a Jew. We would, in our own minds, both be set up for whatever we considered to be "Heaven" (or whatever).

Why would one neighbour's outcome be of any interest to the other? Why are some faiths insistent that everybody else should follow the same path that they have chosen?

MILLIONS of people have died because of this rather silly point: I may have bet on the wrong horse but it doesn't stop you from betting on the other...
(Audioduck So, can I haz fucking Cheezburgers or not?, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 9:07, Reply)

My Ex Mother-in-law
Back in the olden days when I was just Herr Lemminge I got married to a young lady who came from a family of Born Again Christians. I myself am a non-believer, never have been never will, At the time I often wore, and still do, heavy metal band t-shirts, big dirty leather jackets, torn jeans and the like.

Now her mother took offence to this, and the fact that I would put forward very coherent (Stop laughing) arguments against her god.

Things came to a head when she banned me from entering the house because I was an evil influence on her young innocent daughter (like hell she was)! On more than one occasion I was called “Spawn of Satan” and other such names.

I always though that Christians where supposed to be forgiving and tolerant, my arse they are!
(Herr Doktor Lemminge Is bored, so cheer me up!, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 8:54, Reply)

That's not going to save you
The SENIOR Vice President of sales had come to my town to help (read check up) with sales progress. Because he was curious as to how time was spent in territory 2, he kindly set aside a full day to spend with me.

After a morning of visiting customers separated by big travel time I took him to the dodgiest kebab shop in the greater Sydney region.

After being served the limp, fat packed, wilted lettuce stuffed, tomato lacking, garlic sauce dripping lunch time special, he made the sign of the cross and bowed his head.

I burst out laughing "That's not going to save you" I said,

"what" he said looking up

Then I remembered,

"oh crap, he is mad, right wing, white bread family, southern states of America bible belt, gun toting, muslim hating, evangelical Christian".

I have brought him to a Halal Lebanese cafe and made fun of his religion.

It was ok though, on his return to the US he was fired for embezzling company funds and rooting his assistant in his office.

Told me there really is a God.
(bad_advice QOTW survivor from the first trollocost!, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 8:22, Reply)

God might regret inventing the internet
The Guardian reports:
"[A] web site named Information Age Prayer offers to have your prayers said for you by the voice synthesis on their computers for the low low price of $6.00 a month. Paypal is accepted."

Check it out here:
www.informationageprayer.com

I especially liked this in the FAQ:

"If your children don't pray anymore sign them up for one of the many daily prayers available for each religion (click categories at the left). You may also want to have a prayer said for them directly. The prayer for children is the cheapest Information Age Prayer service at only $1.99 a Month. Pray for a child here."



By fuck I wish I had thought of this first.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 8:03, 3 replies)

The quiet harm
The worse error in thinking on religion in my opinion is underestimating the harm caused by the "everyday Christian quietly living their life".

Allowing these people to go about their lives insipidly recruiting represents "grass-roots" support for the warhawk fanatics at the top of the pyramid of each religion's fanaticism, be they firebrand Muslim clerics, or Neocon US Republican Senators pushing for war with Iran.

Tolerate all but intolerance.
(Garnett, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 7:53, Reply)

Not all Christians are time-wasting twunts
Here's a few I know:

Keith and Kathy are white Zimbabweans (they used to live here in the UK). Despite the growing dangers, they're still running their orphanage on a farm near Harare. They get regularly harassed by the army but continue giving out free food to those in the area who can't feed themselves.

Pastor Sam would be called a wide-boy if he was British. He's constantly doing whatever he can to blag more stuff for the dozens of orphans and abandoned children he cares for in India. Unable to ignore the suffering around him, he's always taking on more.

Christians Against Poverty is a debt counselling charity that helps people who find themselves struggling with debt. They offer practical help - from helping to make a budget to standing by you in court - as well as emotional support. They do such a good job that local councils routinely refer people to them.

Basics Bank is a local (to me) charity that hands out free food and clothes to those who have slipped through the net and have ended up unable to provide for themselves.

Click I Like This if you prefer it when we do this sort of thing to when we bang on about homosexuality and dinosaurs.
( teedyay, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 7:19, 16 replies)

I'm a complete atheist
My Junior School was a C of E School, (Thanks Mom)
As an Impressionable young kid I tended to believe what older people told me about this new world I found myself in. A child of that age seeks learning and guidance.

So why he fuck was I fed bullshit for the formative years of my life?
All those hours wasted learning about a Jesus could of been put to better use.

Rant over, hope to be able to answer a better question next week.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 3:50, Reply)

i can haz apple?

(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 3:27, Reply)

Sunday school had an adverse reaction...
When wee me and my siblins attended sunday school. I remember there being oodles of toys. I remember the sheets of white paper and crayons eagerly waiting for their master to create with them. I remember the musical instruments!

It started off innocent enough. We played about, then went into church to sing and listen to the vicar before going home. They put on a christmas show and, YES!, I was picked to play the ace looking big drum! Woohoo! They said it was too big for me and gave me a small, crap one. I was not happy.

They gave us drawing materials and let us create masterpieces, our minds flowing with wild childish abandon! They timed it so mid-drawing we were carted off to the main church and our drawings forever remained unfinished. I was severly unhappy.

By this point I wasn't much enamoured with church and pointed out to my mum that one lady in the congregation didn't shut her eyes to pray. "That's just how she does it," said my non-christian-but-still-there-for-some-reason mum. So I decided that's what I'd do too. Then I decided that I'd sing hyms seated. Then decided I just wouldn't sing either...

Sunday school consisted of me being unhappy with unfinished drawings just sitting in a church.

We stopped going soon after, I do believe.
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 2:15, Reply)

Catholicism, and then the Age of Reason
Once, I was at an intellectual impasse. At one point, I was trying to decide whether it was Pope Paul III having incestual sex with his daughter, Pope John XII using his palace as a brothel, Pius XII ordering German Catholics to like Hitler, Anacletus raping nuns and fucking his sister, or that any Pope who came after them and condemned that behavior was a heretic for questioning Papal infallibility. No, it wasn't any of those that drove me to ask why I was baptized into this. Not even the fact that a horse a declared Pope.

What clinched it was, if you haven't heard, a 9-year-old girl in Brazil was raped by her stepfather, and as a result, was suffering from a life-threatening pregnancy. The mother of the girl, of course, takes the child to have a abortion, and the child's life is saved.

Result?

The Pope excommunicates the mother and the surgeons who performed the abortion. They exclude the girl, 'because she is too young to understand'.

The Pope doesn't have a fucking thing to say or do about the monster who raped a child repeatedly. But why should he? Most of the Popes were pedophiles, rapists, or both.

And I think to myself, "How could my parents--two very intelligent people--raise me to be likewise intelligent and educated, and yet expect me to live my life under this stupid and fake monarchy? For appearances? Because they feel obligated because they're Irish-American? Because everyone else is Italian in our neighborhood? What justifies this wickedness and cruelty and injustice?"


The horse was the only good Pope.
(I gave my ice cream to a shark, so I milked a cat mew mew moo, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 1:58, 5 replies)

Captain Jesus to the rescue!
When I were a wee tot of about 4 years old, I ran dangerously into a busy road to get to the other side. My mother, aghast with fear and anger, quizzed me, 'Why did you just do that?'
'Because Jesus saves little children', I said with the dumb confidence of a small unknowing child.
Sunday school stopped from then on.
(Evilsquirrelboy, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 1:55, 1 reply)

Unwell believers...
...somebody phones for an ambulance and when you get there and try to treat the patients' pain and suffering they reply something along the lines of "No drugs or treatment thank you, the Lord will provide me with all the help I need".

I have visions of God meeting them at the Pearly Gates and saying unto them "What the fucks wrong with you? I sent an ambulance and two paramedics".
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 1:25, 5 replies)

Well here's one I can send up...
Honestly, I really despise people who take their faiths too seriously – and then somehow manage to not take them seriously enough. It’s as if they read all the wrong parts. I’ve read the Bible straight through many times, and it’s really painful to have to listen to idiots mangle the words or twist them to justify whatever inhuman or depraved act is on their mind. I’ve had a great deal of fun repeating parables to them that explain that they are no better than the Pharisees, and proving to them that Pilate would have rather not have killed Jesus, and that their religion is based on older information (Gilgamesh and the stories of Ishtar).
And it all started with Mormonism… When I was a boy, my mother got divorced from a very abusive and dangerous individual who happened to be Mormon. Imagine any aspect of abuse not murder, it happened; to my mom, me, and my brother. She divorced him, returned to her parents, and got married to another Mormon (she was alternatively Mormon and not-Mormon – and really quite stupid). This guy was all right, big fire-fighter type, into Black Sabbath and marijuana, and a big fan of Joseph Smith, too ( I didn’t say it wasn’t weird).
Well the new guy’s mother (also a long-time Mormon and in high social standing in the Church) didn’t think that it was right for her baby boy to be running around with a shameless divorcee, after all, Mormons don’t get divorced. So she cooked up a scam with her Mormon friends in the school district, the local Child Protective Services (CPS), and the heads of the local church. Allegations of abuse were fabricated by her, brought to the attention of her Mormon friends in the CPS, by the Mormon school principal and I was whisked away from my new family at the age of seven and incarcerated in a series of foster homes that had several previous complaints of abuse and then forced to wait out the rest of the illegal (2x as long as usual) waiting period in an adolescent juvenile hall. It could have been worse – I could have been killed.
My parents were told that the Church would see what strings it could pull to get me out – on the condition that if they were to obtain an annulment, they would both be reinstated as members of the Church in good standing and that I would be returned to my mother. They refused and were both ultimately excommunicated.
Or so I thought.
They couldn’t prove the religious connections, (that’s how Mormons work), so the dust from the litigation they pursued and ultimately won had settled for years before I found out the full story from my uncle, a nice drifty old dingbat who generally hates his family but was his mother’s confidant throughout this period of time. I had come to suspect as much. Turns out the Church lied about the excommunications, too – they were supposed to burn all records and expunge my parents from the rolls, never to return. But my dear old Dad started feeling his age and fearing the end – at fifty, the old coot! – checked up on it, and they were sealed in the Atlanta temple two years ago, some twenty years after the last court appearance in the lawsuit against the state we were living in at the time.
After years of therapy and institutionalization, I had normalized to the point where I wanted to find out why God had abandoned me. I read the Bible, made notes, and started reading the mythologies of other faiths as well. I decided to worship Zeus and Lucifer. That led me to worshipping Pan, and establishing a nodding acquaintance with Artemis, Urania, Hermes, and Poseidon. They actually seem to answer prayers with more regularity – I don’t know, maybe they try harder because they’re not #1?
I believe the Universe was created. I don’t believe in Creationism, no, it’s up to us to figure out how he/she/it/they did it. I believe science is the sincerest form of worship, and working to reverse-engineer the Universe is the greatest honor to our Creators. I believe that our faith and our deities can only do little things, like give us that little push over the top. The story of Hercules helping the one merchant who was trying to pull his stuck cart out and ignoring the one who stood on the side crying to him for aid stuck with me when I was twelve. I think that we can take these stories to heart and work to make this planet and this Universe the best it can be. Despite the shortcomings that we see, I have seen too much beauty and had too much pleasure to believe that there could be anything better than this. A world with beer, whiskey, snowy mountains, and humans in it is paradise enough. Oh, and steak. I forgot about the steak.
I don’t have anything against anyone else’s faith – I don’t want you following me, either. It’s mine, I made it, and I think it’s right, for me, and it doesn’t specifically exclude you from my Paradise, whether you’re a Muslim or a Pastafarian or an atheist.
(aeon chicken Like the Millenium Falcon, only slower and noisier, Sun 22 Mar 2009, 22:30, 1 reply)