Quotulatiousness

October 2, 2011

Penn Jillette on “bugnutty Christians” in politics

Filed under: Media, Politics, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 16:52

As one of the best known non-Christians in public life, Penn Jillette is often asked about politicians who exploit their religious beliefs to score political points:

Christian used to be a throwaway word. People didn’t used to use it much. People didn’t start self-labeling or getting labeled Christian until the last part of the 20th century. Before that, you might identify as a Baptist, or a Southern Baptist or a Methodist. But there wasn’t one identifier that put you in a fold with all the other believers.

[. . .]

When I was a kid, politicians wanted to avoid talking about religion if they could. John F. Kennedy couldn’t duck the issue, being Catholic and all. So how did he address it? By reminding Americans that religion shouldn’t be an issue, that he was concentrating on big things like poverty and hunger and leading the space race.

When he finally got around to talking about religion, here’s what he said: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” Can you imagine a presidential candidate talking that way today?

September 25, 2011

Mecca is becoming a “playground for the rich”

Filed under: History, Middle East, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:30

Jerome Taylor looks at the vast changes being wrought in Mecca and Medina:

Over the past 10 years the holiest site in Islam has undergone a huge transformation, one that has divided opinion among Muslims all over the world.

Once a dusty desert town struggling to cope with the ever-increasing number of pilgrims arriving for the annual Hajj, the city now soars above its surroundings with a glittering array of skyscrapers, shopping malls and luxury hotels.

To the al-Saud monarchy, Mecca is their vision of the future — a steel and concrete metropolis built on the proceeds of enormous oil wealth that showcases their national pride.

Yet growing numbers of citizens, particularly those living in the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have looked on aghast as the nation’s archaeological heritage is trampled under a construction mania backed by hardline clerics who preach against the preservation of their own heritage. Mecca, once a place where the Prophet Mohamed insisted all Muslims would be equal, has become a playground for the rich, critics say, where naked capitalism has usurped spirituality as the city’s raison d’être.

Few are willing to discuss their fears openly because of the risks associated with criticising official policy in the authoritarian kingdom. And, with the exceptions of Turkey and Iran, fellow Muslim nations have largely held their tongues for fear of of a diplomatic fallout and restrictions on their citizens’ pilgrimage visas. Western archaeologists are silent out of fear that the few sites they are allowed access to will be closed to them.

But a number of prominent Saudi archaeologists and historians are speaking up in the belief that the opportunity to save Saudi Arabia’s remaining historical sites is closing fast.

September 14, 2011

Palestinians seek “separation” from Jews

Filed under: History, Middle East, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:08

The PLO has a rather draconian solution to the Israel issue:

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that any future Palestinian state it seeks with help from the United Nations and the United States should be free of Jews.

“After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated,” Maen Areikat, the PLO ambassador, said during a meeting with reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. He was responding to a question about the rights of minorities in a Palestine of the future.

Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council official.

Israel has 1.3 million Muslims who are Israeli citizens. Jews have lived in “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name for the West Bank, for thousands of years. Areikat said the PLO seeks a secular state, but that Palestinians need separation to work on their own national identity.

August 31, 2011

Why aren’t atheists registered like sex offenders?

Filed under: Religion, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:05

Apparently because “they’re just too busy eating babies and having blood-soaked sex orgies“:

Meet Michael Stahl, otherwise known as “Pastor Mike.” Stahl lives in Miramar, Florida, and leads an online church called Living Water Church, which we think is a fancy way of saying he hangs out a lot in a Christian-themed chat room. Stahl has proposed the creation of a national registry for atheists, much like the ones in existence for sex offenders. It’s almost self-evident why this is a good idea, but let’s have Stahl explain it himself:

     Now, many (especially the atheists), may ask “Why do this, what’s the purpose?” Duhhh, Mr. Atheist for the same purpose many States put the names and photos of convicted sex offenders and other ex-felons on the I-Net — to INFORM the public! I mean, in the City of Miramar, Florida, where I live, the population is approx. 109,000. My family and I would sure like to know how many of those 109,000 are ADMITTED atheists! Perhaps we may actually know some. In which case we could begin to witness to them and warn them of the dangers of atheism. Or perhaps they are radical atheists, whose hearts are as hard as Pharaoh’s, in that case, if they are business owners, we would encourage all our Christian friends, as well as the various churches and their congregations NOT to patronize them as we would only be “feeding” Satan.

August 17, 2011

Penn Jillette: The word “God” is just another way of saying “I don’t know”

Filed under: Books, Liberty, Media, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:55

Penn is promoting his new book, God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales, which includes appearances on various TV shows. I suspect this is rather typical:

Last week I was interviewed for Piers Morgan’s show (which used to be Larry King’s show). Piers beat me up a bit for being an atheist (that’s his job) and then beat me up a bit for being a libertarian (also his job). He did this by asking me impossible questions, questions that none of us, Harold, Richard, me, (or Piers), could ever answer.

He started with “How did you get here?” and I started talking about my road to showbiz and atheism and he interrupted and said he meant how the universe was created. I said, “I don’t know.”

He said, “God,” an answer that meant Piers didn’t know either, but he had a word for it that was supposed to make me feel left out of his enlightened club.

Then he asked me what we could do to help poor people. I said I donated money, food, medical care, and services and he said, “No,” he meant, what could society do to solve the problem of poor people. Again, I was stumped.

He said the government had to do it, which I interpreted as another way of saying he didn’t know, but he thought that made me look mean … even though I do care and do try to help.

What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist — I don’t know. If I don’t know, I don’t believe. I don’t know exactly how we got here, and I don’t think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we’ll get more, but I’m not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I’m not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof. I’ll wait for real evidence and then I’ll believe.

July 30, 2011

Penn Jillette on his new book, and other experiences

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:53

Video Games – E3 2012 – AOTS Exclusive

July 3, 2011

Separation of church, state, and common sense

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Religion, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:11

The notion of separating church and state has been a good one: religion backed by the power of the government is a dire situation for non-believers and believers in other faiths. This, however, is just stupidity:

Veteran groups are taking legal action after they say they were banned from saying the words ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ during funeral services at the Houston National Cemetery.

Three veterans organisations are to take the Department of Veteran Affairs to court over claims that they have censored prayers and demanded that words be submitted in advance for government approval.

Cemetery officials ordered volunteers to stop telling families ‘God bless you’ at funeral and said that the words ‘God bless’ had to be removed from condolence cards, according to court documents filed this week in federal court.

H/T to Iowahawk, who commented “Apparently, the only person now allowed to say ‘God’ at a military funeral is Fred Phelps”.

June 5, 2011

Surely this “cure” is worse than the “disease”?

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Middle East, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:25

John Perry Barlow retweeted a link to this Kuwait Times post:

A female political activist and former parliamentary candidate has recommended the introduction of legislation to legalize the provision of enslaved female concubines for Muslim men in Kuwait in a bid, she says, to protect those men from committing adultery or corruption.

The activist, Salwa Al-Mutairi, suggested apparently seriously in a video broadcast online that she had been informed by some clerics that affluent Muslim men who fear being seduced or tempted into immoral behavior by the beauty of their female servants, or even of those servants ‘casting spells’ on them, would be better to purchase women from an ‘enslaved maid’ agency for sexual purposes.

She suggested that special offices could be set up to provide concubines in the same way as domestic staff recruitment agencies currently provide housemaids.

May 24, 2011

Forget May 21st: world now ending October 21st says Camping

Filed under: Humour, Media, Religion — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:42

If you were terribly let down not to ascend on Saturday, don’t worry: Harold Camping has recalculated the correct day of the Rapture!

California preacher Harold Camping is unrepentant following his second unsuccessful attempt to predict Judgment Day, and now says true believers should pack their bags for ascension to heaven on 21 October.

Camping’s first stab at nailing the Rapture advised Christians to get their earthly affairs in order before 6 September 1994. When the world failed to end, due to a “mathematical error”, he reset the clock for last Saturday at 6pm EST.

Christians expecting a rapturous elevation to glory were once again left twiddling their thumbs and their Bibles, but Camping now says he simply misinterpreted the word of God and 21 May “was not really the end of the world but the spiritual beginning of the physical end”, as the San Francisco Chronicle explains.

So the good news is that the world didn’t experience the Rapture on Saturday, and that we don’t get five months of Satan striding among us waving his evil appendages in the faces of the doomed, while those taken up in the Rapture watch us from Heaven, exulting in our pain and suffering while gobbling down popcorn-flavoured Manna bits. The bad news is it all comes to an end on October 21st anyway.

May 22, 2011

Taiwan’s CGI animators do “The Rapture”

Filed under: Humour, Media, Religion — Tags: — Nicholas @ 13:08

Apocalypse not-now: “I don’t understand it. Obviously I haven’t understood it correctly because we are still here”

Filed under: Media, Religion — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:01

The disappointed followers of Harold Camping are (as far as the media have been able to determine) still around, and there are no explanations yet from the prophet of doom:

The California radio evangelist attracted the worldwide following proclaiming that the apocalypse would come Saturday.

Some of Camping’s followers gave away all their worldly possessions in anticipation of the biblical rapture.

In Oakland, California a group of onlookers poking fun at the predictions gathered outside Camping’s radio station to countdown to the deadline.

Camping predicted an apocalypse once before in 1994 and said it was a “miscalculation.”

In New York City, 60-year-old retiree Robert Fitzpatrick was also a believer of Camping’s prediction.

Fitzpatrick said he was expecting a natural disaster. “We’ll I expected the earth quake to begin, right around 6:00.”

“I don’t understand it. Obviously I haven’t understood it correctly because we are still here,” Fitzpatrick said to the Associated Press.

Fitzpatrick is the author of, “The Doomsday Code,” and spent more than $140,000 of his retirement savings on ads about the end of the world.

Still, you have to feel a bit sorry for them: who among us hasn’t had the disappointment of a cancelled Camping trip on the May Two-Four weekend?

May 21, 2011

End of the world playlist suggestions

Filed under: Humour, Media, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:31

Because whether you ascend in the Rapture or are one of the ones left behind, you’ll want to have an appropriate playlist on your iPod:

  • You’d have to have “The End” by the Doors, of course. And “Welcome to the End” by Bif Naked. Oh, and of course “Rapture” by Blondie.
  • @Crystal11: I’m going with “Until the End of the World” & “Last Night On Earth” (both U2)
  • @Metz77: “The End” (The Beatles)
  • @grahamlavery: “At least (It’s not the end of the world)” Super Furry Animals
  • @nightfallcub: Morrissey “There Is A Place In Hell (For Me And My Friends)”
  • @neilhimself: (Oh that’s clever) @Gem_Clair: “Easy Like Sunday Morning” – Lionel Richie
  • @TrumanAragorn: “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab For Cutie
  • @Valya: “The Sky’s Gone Out” (Bauhaus)
  • @hmmarcus: “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire” – The Inkspots
  • @MitchBenn: The Byrds: “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”
  • @alandhisguitar: got to include “We will all go together when we go” by Tom Lehrer.
  • There are just too many appropriate songs by Yngwie Malmsteen to list . . . “My Resurrection”, “Alone in Paradise”, “Like an Angel”, “Seventh Sign”, “Arpeggios from Hell”, “Heaven Tonight”, and so on.

Idea stolen from Neil Gaiman’s @neilhimself Twitter feed.

May 17, 2011

Who’s going to feed Fluffy if you get taken up in the Rapture?

Filed under: Media, Randomness, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:43

Sorry, of course I mean when you leave for your seat at the right hand of God. For a small advance fee, you can be (relatively) certain that Fluffy or Rover will be seen to by After The Rapture Pet Care:

In case you hadn’t heard, Judgment Day is pencilled in for 21 May and any Christians among you who hadn’t made provision for your pets’ wellbeing after the Rapture had better pull your fingers out before you take your place at God’s right hand and your poor moggy is left stuck here on Earth staring at an empty bowl.

Make no mistake, this is serious. Harold Camping, the 89-year-old founder of Family Radio, has spent years scouring the Bible for evidence of just when it’s time for believers to pack their celestial suitcases. True, they had to unpack again back in September 2004 following Camping’s first shot at naming the big day, but he assures that this time it is “absolutely going to happen without any question”.

So, you’re ascending to eternal glory and your cat’s litter needs changing. It’s an upsetting thought for any true follower of Christ, but help is at hand in the form of another creature absolutely guaranteed to be left behind by the heavenly mass exodus: the atheist.

May 16, 2011

Christian holidays? Down the EU memory hole!

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:34

It could hardly be an oversight that the EU “forgot” to include any traditional Christian holidays in their run of 3 million school diaries produced for students:

A year ago the European Commission (EC) printed more than three million school diaries for distribution to students. They are lovely diaries which, true to the EU’s multicultural ethos, helpfully note all the Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Chinese festivals. The diary also highlights Europe Day, which falls on 9 May. But the diary is not without some very big gaps. For example, it makes no reference to Christmas — or Easter or indeed to any Christian holidays.

However, the importance of 25 December is not entirely ignored. At the bottom of the page for that day, schoolchildren are enlightened with the platitude: ‘A true friend is someone who shares your concern and doubles your joy.’

Not surprisingly, many Europeans are not exactly delighted by the conspicuous absence of Christian festivals from a diary produced for children. In January, an Irish priest complained to the ombudsman of the EC and demanded an apology for the omission of Christian holidays and the recall of the diaries. A month later, the commission apologised for its ‘regrettable’ blunder. However, the ombudsman dismissed the demand to recall the diaries, arguing that a one-page correction sent to schools had rectified the error.

I suspect, had the complaint been from a religious leader in a non-Christian faith, they’d not have let a month elapse before springing to address the error in that faith’s holy days . . .

May 8, 2011

Can you tell the difference between Apple fans and cult members?

Filed under: Humour, Religion, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:02

An amusing comparison from PC World:

Some tech fanboys and fangirls become so lost in the technology of their choice that it becomes a big part of their identity. Cult members do something similar, only with a spiritual belief system or philisophical concept.

Covering tech for as long as we have (and reading our message boards), we can’t help but notice that tech fanboys and girls sometimes talk like those people who wear purple capes and Nike tennis shoes, or who drink the grape Kool-Aid and then go to sleep.

To make the point, we’ve assembled here a group of quotes, some of which are from tech fan boys and fan girls while others are from real cult members. Can you tell the difference? We’ll give you the answers at the bottom of the page. Good luck (you’ll need it)!

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