Oh yes, I do, folks! Sorry to disappoint you, but spirituality (i.e. having feelings) has nothing to do with boring, blubbering religions, and everything to do with us folks these days.
As any teenager and otherworldly thinker will tell you.
We all like to dream.
By the way, I used to headbang to this waaayyyy back in 1987 I think it was, when I went to a cool hippie / hard rock place during my decadent uni days in Bradford. Those were, indeed, the days. <sigh>
Thanks to The Freethinker for this one, and a great article to boot.
Seems that a Kentucky artist is leading a butched-up Jesus. According to the Guardian article, 'This time he's less "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" and more of a kick-ass action hero - a Chuck Norris in sandals'.
Just what we all need. The new beefed-up saviour movement includes books like 'No More Mr Christian Nice Guy' and 'The Church Impotent - the Feminisation of Christianity'.
Apparently the model for the picture above was a surfer dude who was 'built like a brick shithouse' according to the artist. Nice. Painting tatts on onself is generally frowned on by the Big Daddy, though, but hey, who gives a monkey's, right?
I reckon Jesus freaks must be a bit jealous about the excesses their mirror images over in Muslimland can go to in real life and which they can only see for fake in movies. Where there's frustration there's usually bad things to follow. Where will it all end? When we stop believing in fairy tales?
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British science fiction writer and inventor
"Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now."
"The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion ever recognises it as such."
And it's such a cool song too! Just a shame it promotes death, disease and general ignorance to a people who need that about as much as another drought.
A new article on The Quackometer brought this to my attention, and it's worth reading.
Seems that some witch doctor called Jeremy Sherr has duped British homeopaths (not a difficult thing to do) into promoting and even fund-raising for his sugar pill clinics which exploit some of the most needy (but not of homeopathy) folks in Africa.
Not that homeopathy is any different from plenty of other crap these people have been traditionally, orally and mentally swallowing, through understandable ignorance, for centuries. La plus ça change...
"Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those that I do understand."
Naponeon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French general and emperor
"How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is sick from overeating, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares, 'This is God's will.'... Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
Fascinating new article from Nature suggesting that the moon, that's The Moon to us, may not be all it seems.
According to a new 'big splat' theory, there may once have been two moons, which collided in an almighty splat, to form the ever-so lopsided satellite which we know and love today...
The diagram was provided by Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug from the University of California, Santa Cruz. The theory is still very much that, and has drawn reactions from other scientists who are circumspectly saying things like 'It may or may not be true'.
According to the report, it would have taken place about four and a half billion years ago, so don't bother asking your granny if she can remember it.
The event wouldn't have been as spectactular as a modern movie would make it either, taking several minutes to happen, with a smaller moon being around 600 miles wide.
The effect would probably have been more like a slow-motion waterballoon-in-the-face attack than an cataclysmic explosion, although no doubt film producers will brush that little fact under the carpet when the time comes. Bruce Willis and Co. only have a couple of hours to save the universe, as we all know.
Credence is given to the theory by the fact that the far side of the moon is much hillier than the face we are all familiar with. Pink Floyd - did you know about this? Why didn't you tell us? Or maybe they did...
"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."
Just caught this kinda read-cartoon on silly beliefs which is quite funny, especially the last two checklists:
Nappy vs. Religion Santa vs. God
I noticed that the last of these two was by a site called Unreasonable Faith (.com) so off I went to see what it was all about.
Turns out it's an ex-believer who's now on a crusade to deliver us from the evil of religion, which is a jolly good thing if you ask me. He seems to focus mainly on Christianity, as that's what he used to believe in, but has a fairly wide-ranging brief, including posting other people's videos which tickle his fancy, just like I do.
The tone is occasionally intellectual, which isn't a bad thing as there's always a cheeky comment or two in there and the things he posts are about as irreverent and irreligious as you could wish for.
For example, here's a video which takes a bit of getting into if you're not familiar with the style, which I'm not:
but which eventually drags you in as you see where he's going, and gets progressively funnier and more cutting by turns. A satisfying watch.
This one, again posted by unreasonablefaith.com , has been tagged by the latter, amongst other things, as "Oh the stupidity!", which is a pretty cool category to have if you ask me, and fits this piece extremely well.
Other interesting pieces include an intriguing article on Jesus and Mary who, it turns out, actually live in Australia at the moment and are attracting a large number of followers to them and inflating real estate prices into the bargain.
And you could check out his 'About' page where he explains why he doesn't believe any more.
I'd say the site is, to an extent, more for doubters than simple non-believers who don't need the non-existence of god hammered out for them, but if this sort of thing still amuses you then there's plenty there to enjoy, and as I said, the videos he links to are often quite delicious. Welcome to the club.
