DOCTOR DOCTOR ......

'' I FEEL SO BAD ..." 

Doctor, doctor, I feel so bad
This is the worst day, I ever had
Have you this misery a very long time?
Well if you if, I'll lay it on the line
You've got to put on your sailin' shoes
Put on your sailing shoes
Everyone will start to cheer
When you put on your sailin' shoes

And we know that Lowell George died of a heart attack after a heroin overdose.

 

Richard wrote a post recently: IS THERE A REASON THERE IS SUFFERING IN THIS WORLD? which, although he was giving a bit of stick to a Hutt Valley church, asks a very big question - one that religions have not to date satisfactorily answered.

The existence of pain, suffering and unhappiness is grist to the mill for charlatans and fraudsters who prey on the weak and the inflicted for their own means - usually money. Yes I am talking of churches here in their many forms but also I'm talking of the pharmaceutical industry and the bogus and fringe medical industries. We are all familiar with the internet and TV advertisements for quick cures, diet regimes and health boosts. The Health supplements industry is really just a modern form of the 19th century snake oil sellers.

I'm in the middle of watching a Netflix series - Painkillers about the development of oxycontin, one of the worst and most addictive opioid medications that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the USA, destroyed families and communities all while making an evil and conniving 'drug baron' family rich beyond measure. These soulless bastards knowingly peddled their poison to the vulnerable and had the gall to appear as philanthropists and indeed saints, helping society. Bastards! Thank Robert's god that they got their comeuppance but at what cost?

SACKLER FAMILY WEASEL OUT

 

Six billion dollars is a lot of money for sure but this family squirrelled away a lot more and now it seems they are again evading responsibility for the mess that they created and are trying to appear like the good guys. Bastards! 

The Sacklers - sack of shits that they are might have been exposed and reinvented themselves but the money grabbing hasn't gone away. The medical profession has a lot to answer for in unnecessarily prescribing high dosed and potentially addictive medications in order to give patients quick fixes (pun intended). Years ago a useless and incompetent GP prescribed Di-Gesic for my mother who was having hip pain. Di-Gesic was banned in USA and in Australia and New Zealand before being subsequently relisted after lobbying from the manufacturers.

When my sister, who is a doctor, discovered what mum was prescribed she asked her to dump the lot and then remonstrated with the GP, an elderly chap she had no confidence in. She arranged for mum to be transferred to another doctor's clinic nearby but to date wishes that she had reported the first GP to the medical council for this and for other mistakes.

A few years ago I underwent the worst pain in my life with a bout of shingles. A doctor at a walk-in clinic in Auckland prescribed some very strong pain killers which knocked me about a bit. When I returned to Whangarei I told my regular GP about this and the side effects and after discussion the strongest form of analgesic I take is paracetamol.

The Old Girl, when she had a hip replacement operation a few years ago, again in Auckland was prescribed some very strong medication that had high doses of codeine in it. I hope it wasn't oxycontin. She used it briefly but discontinued as soon as possible because it was making her woozy. 

I believe that in these cases prescribing such strong medication was an easy way out and should not have hapenned but it seems to be the way now that GP practices and medical centres are owned and run by commercial businesses. Patient well-being is secondary to profit and quick turnaround.

Oxycontin might at long last be under control but new, more powerful and more dangerous opioids are wreaking havoc anew, the worst being fentanyl.

It's the downside of human nature I guess. People going for pleasure regardless of consequences and unscrupulous bastards - snake oil salesmen and priests - taking advantage of them and meeting their needs.

Lady in a turban, cocaine tree
Does a dance so rhythmically
She's cryin', and a singin' and having a time
and gee that cocaine tree look fine
You've got to put on your sailin' shoes
Put on your sailing shoes

STRANGER THAN FICTION

 There's a school of thought that aliens - beings from other planets with more advanced civilisations - visited Earth over many millennia and influenced technological and social advancements.

I don't subscribe to this but, on the other hand don't entirely discount it either because there are still many unexplained events, structures and reports of just that. Most of these are mixed up in religious beliefs, lore, practices and artefacts and could very likely explain the more bizarre aspects of the various religions particularly those relating to beings from the 'heavens'.

What prompted this short, almost filler post is that Robert posted a pic of His Lady on his most recent post (I use the term 'post' generously).

I don't know why Robert posted this along with this little incantation -

'Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee

Blessed are thou among women.'

- there was no explanation. Maybe it's some sort of Catholic religious feast day today to do with the old bint being 'assumed' into heaven.

Anyway, the image is bizarre and reminded me of something. I did an internet search and found these images:

 These suggest that Mary might have been jet or hydro-propelled upwards into 'heaven'.

More likely than that (but still incredibly unlikely) the stories, lore if you will, that became religious belief and subsequently depicted in paintings was initiated by some spaceman flying about.

Well, it's more credible than Robert's view anyway.

MORE WEIRD SHIT THAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN

.

There's so much weird shit that this will have to be the first in a new series.

I've forgotten most of the rubbish that the nuns taught me from the Catholic Catechism when I was a child. For those who don't know, the Catechism is not unlike Grimm's Fairy Tales except that the big bad wolf and Rapunzel are more believable  in those.

Actually I just discovered that the Grimm brothers wrote some Christian stuff as well like The Twelve Apostles and Our Lady's Child.

*******************

The Twelve Apostles

The story begins 300 years before the birth of Christ. The Brothers Grimm imagine that Peter is born to a poor woman, the eldest in a family of 12 children. One day Peter walks deep into a forest, where he becomes disoriented. He is visited by a small boy (an angel? The Christ Child?) who shines with brightness, and who leads Peter by the hand to a beautiful place (heaven?) where the child rocks him to sleep. One by one, 12 children are lulled to sleep by the shining young boy; and as the Brothers Grimm tell the story:
“They slept … three hundred years, until the night when the Saviour of the world was born. Then they awoke, and were with him on earth, and were called the Twelve Apostles.”

Our Lady’s Child

In this story, a woodcutter and his wife have a child, a little 3-year-old girl. So poor that they had nothing to feed her, the woodcutter was distressed; but the Virgin Mary appeared to him in the forest and told him that she would take and care for their little girl. The child lived happily with the Virgin Mary, playing with angels and thriving on the heavenly food; but one day, Mary told her that she was going on a long trip. The child could look through 12 doors to see the beauty and the joy behind them; but the 13th door, which was locked, must not be opened.
The child disobeyed, taking the key and peering inside to see the Holy Trinity; but upon Mary’s return, she lied and said that she had never opened that door. For her disobedience and her deceit, she was punished — returned to the earth, where she lived in the forest and survived on roots and berries. Several times, Mary comes to her and asks if she looked through the door; but each time the girl, now a grown woman, lies and is returned to her misery. After great struggles, finally she admits her sin, saying, “Yes, Mary, I did it.” She is saved from a fire and granted a happy life. The Virgin Mary spoke kindly to her, saying, “He who repents his sin and acknowledges it, is forgiven.”

*********************

But I digress. Today in Robert's latest post he reminded me of some Christian nonsense I was taught and, surprisingly forgot.




Now that's truly bizarre and it's a wonder that the Brothers Grimm didn't have a go at it. The concept is wacky enough and there are endless possibilities for God to get it wrong (like he /she/it did in the first place).

I looked up the internet to see what the various nutters have to say on the subject and, unsurprisingly, there is lots there. Here's are some outtakes:


"Down here, our bodies have been weakened by sin -- but in heaven, all that will be behind us, because by His death and resurrection Christ conquered all sin and sickness and death. The Bible says that in heaven Christ “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21)."


"Do you get a new body when you go to heaven?
Our old, physical body will be left behind; our new, spiritual body will be “raised up.” The Scripture reveals that our resurrection body will be a spiritual body perfectly suited to be with the Lord forever in Heaven. The apostle Paul agreed with Jesus' words and timing according to 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 (ESV)."



"What does Scripture say about heaven and the new body?2 Corinthians 5:1-10 NLT
We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.What is the doctrine of bodily resurrection?"

There were hundreds of these and ranged from literal interpretations like the one Robert adopted through to metaphorical scenarios with many shades in-between. All of course are nonsense.

Robert's belief that "God will give me a new body on the last day and it will last forever" is quite fanciful but, with the rise of AI and what the Chinese are doing with robotics nowadays who knows?

UNUSUAL CHRISTIAN PRACTICES #3

 This series is really taking off with 50% of our readers embracing it.

Looking at activity from the other 50% of readers I've been inspired by Robert The Cacographic Christian's denunciation of loose women in his most recent post.

The most famous and likely most maligned 'loose woman' in Christian lore is Mary Magdalene.

In some reports in the Bible it was said that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.

In others however she has variously been described as being financier, a friend of Jesus and witness to his death, burial and resurrection. It seems that only Western Christianity suggests she was a prostitute. Other Christians, such as those from the East, do not. So why the confusion?

Apparently it's all down to Luke and his misogynistic views in his silly book that he named 'Luke'. In the Book of Luke Mary Magdalene is referred to being “released from the power of the seven devils.”  Also, she was referred to as a “sinful woman,”  and she was “taken in adultery.” 

So why is she described as a prostitute? It could come down to the misogynistic group of men who compiled the Bible during the Medieval era. In these days, they would not look kindly upon a woman holding a place of power among the apostles, which Mary Magdalene often is portrayed as having.  They liked Luke's ideas and to further degrade her they referred to her as a prostitute.  Their interpretation of "being released from the power of the seven devils", from their prurient perspective was sexual and not from its possible original meaning of recovering from depression. They also liked the "sinful woman" line and the "taken in adultery" reference which they no doubt got off on. Luke was good at throwing rocks but wasn't good at coming up with proof though since he failed to identify any sin that Mary Magdalene actually committed. My take is that Luke played for the other side and was jealous of Jesus's attraction to Mary since he fancied JC himself.

"My dear Jesus - I enclose this dick pic for you ..."

UNUSUAL CHRISTIAN PRACTICES #2

The first in this new series has already proven to be a success with one reader saying: "Yes" (I had to edit his comment down as the effusiveness was embarrassing). This has encouraged me into continuing.

It used to bug me when I was a kid when told by the nuns about the Assumption of Mary.

They told some cockamamy story about the old dame being hauled up to heaven by Jesus or something.  I always assumed (see what I did there?) that I'd misheard like I did with that 'Our Lady of the Petrol Sucker' thing.

No, I, and I think correctly, interpreted the Assumption of Mary as being her take on some historical, well, Christian-made-up event.

It came as a surprise to Mary, Jesus's mother when she was told of his affair with Mary Magdalene and them running off together, see: HERE

"Shh  Mags... don't tel Mum."

Mary had always thought that her son was homosexual. She had closeted and fussed over him as her little boy and encouraged him to wear those long dresses. WAS JESUS GAY?

She had just assumed this.

UNUSUAL CHRISTIAN PRACTICES #1

 Robert said something unusual in a comment on the Curmudgeon's latest post:

Look, I know that it's not unusual for Robert to say something unusual but it did get me thinking about the unusual things that Christians say or do or have in their little notebook of beliefs.

I thought that you'd like a new post series on this.

First up is one that has intrigued me for many years - Martin Luther's Diet of Worms.

From images I've seen on the web, old Martin was a bit porky so his wife, his mistress or some random nun might have suggested he shape up a bit.

I don't know why he chose worms to eat though so checked up on this.

It seems that the jury is still out on this so I can't see it becoming a fad any day soon. Back in Martin Luther's day though there probably wasn't a lot of information on dieting given that most people didn't have enough food to eat anyway.

It'd be nice to think that his diet of worms worked out well for him but this Cranach portrait of Luther on his deathbed shows him to be still a bit on the 'Rubenesque' side.

Then again, it might have been the worms that did him in.

I hope that this has been informative. Let me know so that more in this series can be planned.

BLESS ME (GOD)FATHER EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T SIN ...

 

That's how I feel after trying to get away from this religious business. All was going OK until Robert went off the rails again and fantasised about angels and I had to write about it. See: HERE

Now he's banging on about Purgatory, another ridiculous construct from the Catholic Church.

Have a read of this but hold on to your hat!

"When asleep Fr Nathan says he has dreams where souls from purgatory visit him. He says he tries to help the souls on their journey. In his descriptions they are wandering around kind of lost in an in between state.

Fr Schouppe in 'Purgatory; Explained by the Lives and Legends of the Saints' has a different account of what purgatory is like.

Souls in a state of grace with no conscious mortal sin at death still need to do reparation for sins on earth. Hence the dogma of purgatory. The guardian angels and Mary are still doing their best for them. What helps them most are our prayers and entreaties to God for mercy.

Evidently ghosts most likely are souls from purgatory asking for help."

He embellished this nonsense with, appropriately, some nonsensical 'holy' pictures: 

These bizarre paintings, in the classical style show people (assumed to be sinners) burning in some pit or other reaching out for help to, variously, angels, nuns and some strange bint riding a cloud. 

Bugger me! 

You probably remember that I've written about this Purgatory fairy tale before and suggested that it was a money bilking scam of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. See: CATHOLIC CATACLYSM 

I thought that this might have laid it to rest with Robert and, for a while he dropped the subject but now in his latest post he's dredged it all up again. I blame this guy:

A new frock-wearing joker named Father Awaythebetter .... sorry, Father Nathan.

I'm not sure where Robert digs these people up from but I wish he wouldn't.

Look, I'm a long-time reader of fables and fantasy novels like Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, Frank Herbert's Dune and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series so a little bit of fantasy in one's life is OK as long as you don't let it distort reality.

To this end I've got some cousins (who I have kept away from for years) who were 'Trekkies' who dressed up in Star Trek costumes and attended Star Trek symposiums around the world!

I worry about this that Robert wrote though:

"Souls in a state of grace with no conscious mortal sin at death still need to do reparation for sins on earth. Hence the dogma of purgatory. The guardian angels and Mary are still doing their best for them. What helps them most are our prayers and entreaties to God for mercy."

He's not just paraphrasing his favourite fantasy nor paying homage to it as entertainment. He seems to believe in this.

Okay, okay, I can hear you saying "what's wrong with that - leave him alone - it's harmless" but re-read that extract. It's basically saying that innocent people who have lived their lives blamelessly "in a state of grace" still don't get a leave pass to that mythical heaven. Somehow they're still guilty of something that their god (the Church) dreamed up and pinned on them. How unfair is that? Those floating angels and the bint in the blue outfit can apparently help, or try to if the friends and family of the poor tormented buggers 'pray and entreat' for them.

It's this 'entreating' thing that I mentioned in the Catholic Cataclysm post. You will note that I said:

"The Catholic hierarchy somewhere along the way in the Middle Ages were being pressured by their congregations to explain how long they might have to stay in Purgatory before going to Heaven   The church hierarchy saw that they had a ready market and being wonderful snake oil salesmen decided to create the concept of Indulgences.
Indulgences are special actions that a person can perform in order to reduce or remove the temporal punishment they are owed due to having died in a state of Venial Sin. The idea behind it is that certain acts of holiness can take the place of punishment. Indulgences must be declared by the Pope (the chief snake oil salesman).
During the Middle Ages the Church told people that they could pay for indulgences. This abuse helped in starting the Protestant Reformation where Martin Luther nailed his faeces theses to the door of a church in which he complained about the practice of selling indulgences for money (I guess he preferred the trade of prayers to get some time off for good behaviour in Purgatory)."

So the Catholic Church, like Trump-type grifters the world over found another way to screw money out of their 'faithful'. I just don't understand how they fell for this crap and still do. Robert in another recent post said this:

"Christina asked me if I would mind doing the collection after the prayers of the faithful. As I had worn a suit and tie, I felt presentable enough to walk around in front of a couple of hundred parishioners.  Most people give by bank transfer and not a lot of cash is collected. I'm on shop duty next week so will have to do the collection again next Sunday as well."

People have automatic payments set up to pay the Church! This is like the tithing that goes on in those other even more bogus 'churches' like Samoan Assembly of God Church, NZ Mega Church and the Destiny Church which prey upon those who can least afford to give.

I'm flabbergasted.

"BEGONE IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT"

I've made mention of this in the past ...

ASK THE ANGELS

THERE MUST BE AN ANGEL

(Links inserted for your education and enjoyment - no need to thank me.)

... and, believe me I'd be happy to leave it in the past but Robert keeps bringing up this nonsense about angels.

Here's the latest from 2 days ago:

Now, reading that you might think it a funny bit of fiction - someone conversing with an angel and having a bit of to and fro banter as friends do. Read closer though and you'll see that Robert is serious - he really believes that he has an angel traipsing around with him. It does concern me and isn't an isolated admission - but is getting worse.

Here are some other related things he has said in his posts:

We might have to have some kind of intervention sometime in the near future. I wonder if that exorcist joker that Robert's had dealings with can eradicate angels as well as devils?

"I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every Satanic power of the enemy, every spectre from hell, and all your fell companions; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Begone and stay far from this creature of God. For it is He who commands you, He who flung you headlong from the heights of heaven into the depths of hell. It is He who commands you, He who once stilled the sea and the wind and the storm. Hearken, therefore, and tremble in fear, Satan, you enemy of the faith, you foe of the human race, you begetter of death, you robber of life, you corrupter of justice, you root of all evil and vice; seducer of men, betrayer of the nations, instigator of envy, font of avarice, fomentor of discord, author of pain and sorrow. Why, then, do you stand and resist, knowing as you must that Christ the Lord brings your plans to nothing? Fear Him, who in Isaac was offered in sacrifice, in Joseph sold into bondage, slain as the paschal lamb, crucified as man, yet triumphed over the powers of hell. (The three signs of the cross which follow are traced on the brow of the possessed person). Begone, then, in the name of the Father,  and of the Son,  and of the Holy  Spirit. Give place to the Holy Spirit by this sign of the holy  cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Oh, and take that silly guardian angel with you."