Hello friends and welcome to Thursday, a day dedicated to Thor… the thunder God… not the Marvel character… probably.
It probably mostly exists because Jesusday is a really shit name for a day of the week. Sorry Mr. Christ, but your name just… well, it just doesn’t fit with our language or customs. Good luck with the whole martyrdom thing though, I hope it goes well for you, don’t eat too many fish when you come back from the dead or anything, I know old habits die hard but you should probably try to be a little bit subtle.
On the other hand Budday sounds pretty great, and even Yahwehday sounds awesome.
When are we going to get around to adding these days of the week? If nothing else they’re going to be less depressing than everyone apparently finds Mondays.
Perhaps we could split Mondays in two and just stick them there, and then you can get paid for two days work in one day, and will be allowed an awesome extra nap in between your sleeps. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it siestas!
Perhaps we should clear up the issue of weekends as well, because really, when does the week actually end? Some people think the new week starts on Saturday, some Monday, some people think the weekend starts on Friday, some Saturday.
Perhaps we should have a new day after Sunday just called End-day and it can be a celebration of all things morbid and apocalyptic.
Surely that would be a worthwhile lead-up to Yahwehday, sorry, Monday, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here.
In accordance with the discussion I was having yesterday with you all, a discussion which was obviously horrifically one-sided, it’s important to realise that a strict definition for anything is difficult to come by. The universe does not work in black and white, there is a scale between most things we know and probably most things we don’t, and in fact, the whole black and white metaphor is a false dichotomy in itself, failing to take into account the various levels of brightness and darkness we encounter on a daily basis.
Or maybe I’m just thinking about that phrase a little too hard, as fun to analyse as it is for the irony in using such a term to describe a dichotomy.
In this way we don’t even have the luxury of saying that people do or do not believe in God, and although many people apparently take issue with me disagreeing with this, there are people on the in between, and I have been one of them. The word agnostic is often described to mean several sets of beliefs that are not purely set on what they believe the truth about the existence of a deity is, but it follows that there are indeed people who genuinely have no swing one way or the other.
It’s not that they don’t care about the question, although there are many people who take that position, but when there are arguments for both that seem equally valid in your head it makes sense that no particular side gains more merit.
And even if we take non-believers as a group there is a scale therein. There are many superstitions that are held by people who are otherwise purely rational, and even (in the case of denialists) positions that they hold very passionately despite the lack of basis in fact.
Main point – next time you think a trait is absolutely one way or the other, try to think a little deeper and see if that makes the most sense.
Truth be told I’ve been kind of avoiding the computer all day due to its terrible breaking spree and the amount of time last night I spent trying to get a driver so that I could use my pc’s wifi.
Anyway, I just want to say a few words about the late great Christopher Hitchens.
Hitchens, as well as being a prolific writer and thinker has a certain special place in my heart as the vehicle I used to ease me into my doubts. Without the staunch honesty and criticism Hitchens dealt out so succinctly, it’s possible that I could still be in the process of weaning myself from my religion, and take that as you will.
Despite the fact that I knew I didn’t believe in the doctrines I had been clinging onto dishonestly for much of my life it was a very uncomfortable process for me to lose that invisible support structure I had in my head.
It was easy to feel safe and destined for greatness when I was telling myself there was something watching over me making sure that I would be exactly that.
But thanks in no small part to the words of Christopher Hitchens I realised that it’s okay to not believe, that I’m not some sort of traitor to the crown, that I’m not the enemy.
I’m still the same person I was before, but I’m much more honest.
Now I may not be in the best position to decide whether a website is a parody or not (and I’ve had to draw this line many a time despite my uncertainty), but from what I’ve seen so far, this matches up with someone who’s very opinionated and possibly deluded, and though as a left-wing non-believer who isn’t against abortion I’m probably the last person who can make judgement calls on someone who is essentially making an enemy out of my kind, this is pretty crazy.
Now I should initially state that placing the attributes I listed above as if they are complementary is not intentional. There are many who only have one of those traits, or only two, but for the interests of this blog in which
everything the blogger doesn’t understand is grouped under the same umbrella.
So apparently if you’re okay with gays then you hate God, you’re a communist and you’re pushing a leftist agenda.
So what does this mean?
Well it means this blogger, if they are to be taken seriously, is a bigot for one.
Out of all of the Christians I’ve spent time with in my life I can’t recall one that wasn’t okay with homosexuality (although my memory is fallible) and I wouldn’t call them against God at all.
But what it means in addition however, is that gays should apparently take homeopathic medicine.
Now I’ve spoken about homeopathy a few times on here, it’s a bit of what causes your symptom in water, in water, in water, in water, in water, in water ad infinitum.
Essentially there’s nothing left by the end.
But it is waterception, so I hope Christopher Nolan isn’t gay or his script will come to life soaked and smelling of bullshit.
But yes, apparently you can cure gayness using a homeopathic derivative of elm.
Do you know why?
Well, there was obviously some intense research done for years and years that concluded that despite its asexual method of reproduction…
Elm is the most homosexual tree.
Let me try that again.
Elm is the most.
Homosexual.
Tree.
Can you feel the undeniable logic underpinning that conclusion?
Can you sense how many rigorous double blinded studies were taking to come to this earth-shattering revelation?
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS PEOPLE?
Hallelujah! We can try and make people what they were never supposed to be by using methods that have been utterly disproven by hundreds of years of scientific development in the field of medicine by using derivatives of an organism that despite it essentially cloning itself to reproduce is apparently the most homosexual of all of the trees!
Ladies and gentlemen, as glad as I am not to live in a country where the politicians almost meet this level of crazy it would be nice once in a while for us to all be able to laugh at the ridiculous things people come out with when they’re pushing an agenda.
At least we now know where they hid the gay character on pokemon now though eh?
That’s the point I should have made yesterday, a point, I believe, that carries more than a little weight, a couple of tonnes at least I would say but don’t take my word for it, give it a think, simple, eloquent and yet contested by so many for a nature that many confuse as dismissive and even cynical rather than accepting the logic behind it.
Even the most simple minded of our kind can accept that ideas are not equal to facts.
And yet many fail to understand the ease at which one can create a fallacious argument based entirely on ideology, many mistake the subjective nature of the unknown as a cue for their speculation to be automatically validated.
However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, anything that assumes its providence in the absence of an alterior answer based on observation is a fallacious argument known as the god of the gaps.
Anyone who’s listened to creationists will no doubt immediately understand why.
So in follow up to last week’s angry rant at the creationist website I found that sees anything not involving the Christian God to be evil and pagan I thought I’d write a couple more things down here.
For the fundamentalists who set up the site if it’s real (I’m still not certain, I still can’t see how anyone could take it seriously but I’m willing to write a little just in case), pagans and atheists are far from the same thing, the latter presupposes non-belief, whereas the former is a belief system, I’m not going to go into the fine details but let’s just say I would still consider myself a Catholic if that were the case and there was no option to not have a belief, but this is not the point.
I love Catholics, I love pagans, I love anyone who’s nice on occasion and isn’t outwardly a dick.
But the idea that people on God Tube are putting across is that secular songs (songs without any religious affiliation) should be turned into religious songs when possible, a niche that surely hymns already fill.
Although I appreciate a good parody as much as the next guy I fail to see why the parody has to be overtly religious, surely anything that fits into the rhythm of the song and is humorous should be good enough.
But I suppose there’s a certain sect of people that would love for the charts to be the top 40 hymns, in which case I’d probably start with ‘shine Jesus shine’ and work my way down to ‘let us break bread together on our knees’, not because it’s not as good a hymn, but just because the title isn’t very catchy.
No doubt if it were written today it would be called ‘dirty bit’ and the black eyed peas would be ruining it for everyone who loved their music with a sense of depth to it.
Looking at the UK top 10 however, I don’t seem to get where they’re coming from, there isn’t a lot you can do with it.
For the sake of the religion I am bound to by sacrament however, I will attempt to magically transform these ‘secular hits’ into hymns of the most tenuous caliber.
I’m not kidding about this, these are just about the most awkward songs to parody I could have come up with.
1. Nun Direction – God Makes You Beautiful (Because What Makes Eucharist Cool was too sickening)
2. Maroon 12 – Moves Like Elijah (Getting painful yet?)
3. Archangel Lott – All About Israelites
4. Olly Myrrh – Worship A Beat (It’s not worshiping false Gods because God is a DJ)
5. The Sundays – All Fired Up (The heathen song)
6. Exodus – Stay Awake (or the pharoh’ll getcha) (clutching at straws now, this is what happens when I set myself an impossible task)
7. Calvin Harris – Feel So Close (To God)
8. Christ(ina) Perry – Offering Our Hearts
9. Will B. Done – Genesis [Will Young's Jealousy was removed for homosexual tendencies and one of the seven deadly sins]
10. Leona Jewish – Collide (With The Holy Spirit)
That… was a lot harder than it looked…
Let’s see if I can find someone who can demonstrate a counterpoint to this terrible idea, because you can have songs with the opposite message that are orders of magnitude funnier.
sometimes people just don’t plain want to listen and no matter what you’re saying if it seems to be teetering towards a subject that they’re touchy about they snap.
It doesn’t matter whether in previous times you would have said the same thing and nothing would have happened, suddenly the game changes and it feels like you’re being cast out as different, when in actuality you’re exactly the same as when you would have said those same things before.
Because people like to discriminate, there’s a tribal instinct embedded in us from our past that means it’s very easy for some of us to see the world as ‘us versus them’, no matter how long or well they know the person in question.
Suddenly you’re personal choices have created an issue, an issue that shouldn’t really exist, because it doesn’t matter, the only reason it’s called into existence in the first place is that there’s a split going on in their behind with what they know about the person and what they think they know about ‘them’.
Surely this discrimination is much more offensive than anything that could come close to you talking about a subject you might not necessarily agree with wholeheartedly in a satirical manner?
And in a way that you would have done and have done before?
And to other people who share the view that you disagree with on some level?
Maybe my sense of morality is twisted but this makes sense to me more than what some would consider discrimination, it certainly feels like it on the receiving end.
But then again I am notorious for being overly sensitive, especially in these kinds of social aspects so one can only wonder if this is indeed the defence mechanism I believe it to be.
Objective number one: protect personal beliefs from the heathens.
Objective number two: actually think about what’s being said.
I want to invite an open discussion if I may, hopefully a few of you reading this will take your time to record your opinion in the comments section of this blog because to be honest, I’m more than a little confused of why people can possibly think the ontological argument makes sense.
If you’re unfamiliar with the ontological argument (beware that this make me sound rather anti-God which I’m not) it’s an argument for the existence of God that I believe assumes a lot.
The unstated major premise is quite convoluted and I’m not even sure where the fallacy is in it, it just seems to be that it’s beyond fallacious to the point where it’s just plain silly.
In simple terms, for those of you too lazy to google the ontological argument, here’s a three step version of one of its forms.
1. Whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive to be contained in the idea of something is true of that thing.
2. I clearly and distinctly perceive that necessary existence is contained in the idea of God.
3. Therefore, God exists.
Is it just a fault of my own reasoning that I cannot see a way in which this argument could ever make one iota of sense, it’s almost post-modernist in its assumption at an obscure system connection imagination and reality, when indeed as a storyteller I should let you know that my imagination is far from close to reality at times.
And that’s when I’m sober.
So, a little help trying to explain why this argument would make sense if you believe it to please.
And if you don’t, let me know too, it’ll help me to feel less ignorant.
I got another leaflet from the Jehovah’s witnesses in the post today.
But I’m not going to write about it.
Why?
Well partially because any leaflet with happy black people hugging a moose around some pumpkins is a really bloody odd image and partially because I pretty much know what it’s going to say after the last few times going over these, hell for all I know that meeting at the Nottingham Ice Arena could have happened already and they think they actually know the date of the apocalypse now but somehow I doubt it.
No, because what I’m really interested in is why they feel the need to stick these leaflets through my door.
Good, the end times are coming?
Let me know when the precise date is and we’ll have a party, then we can all witness Jehovah together!
But no, this way it’s almost like a chain letter in their convert and transform into mailman system.
Hell, sometimes I wonder how they can get away with saying they’re not a cult sometimes because really it’s quite cultish behaviour.
But the thing is I sort of understand it.
I mean, if I thought that the only way to be saved from my inevitable demise was to be converted to some twisted sect of Christianity I’d probably try and help out as many people as I can, the only problem is that they’ve been saying the world’s ending for a bloody long time.
If they keep it up, in a few million years they might actually be right, and then we’d have big trouble on our hands, especially if Jesus didn’t come down.
But maybe if he does come down to say hello he could do Charles Darwin a favour and let his witnesses know that evolution is actually viable, because as far as I can see, God’s the only source they’ll accept, and even then they might be (very much ironically) a little sceptical.
