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WHAT'S AMISS? NO, POLYPHEMUS.

 Well, the previous post went down well - generally.

It elicited a rather muted comment of praise from Robert which morphed into a bit of nonsensical ramble about god, morality and freedom of choice. See here.

Sorry about the rather strongly worded comment from Richard. I think he's stressed out from having to drive to Rotorua.

Anyway - Robert's comment. It began with a confusing metaphor about being one-eyed which is a bit rich coming from a catholic whose view of the world is definitely cyclopian. It then spiralled off into some sort of suggestion that his god could have created us as robots programmed to love it yet then said that it created us with a choice to love it or not being between a rock and a hard place. Sheesh! I'd hate to be having morning tea at his place and having to choose between a picture of a cream bun or a rock to eat.

SAVE US FROM RELIGIOUS CHARLATANS.

 The Tamakis have been up to their usual odious tricks again, this time organising an anti-lockdown rally in Auckland.

Brian Tamaki and his dim wife organised yesterday's anti-lockdown protest in the Auckland Domain, an irresponsible act that  Te Pūnaha Matatini Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank said : 

"It does create the risk that the virus is able to spread. It undermines our collective response," 

Up to 2,000 protesters gathered in front of the Auckland War Memorial Museum to listen to this idiot rant and rave against the government.

"We've had a gutsful".

He said, meaning of course that this greedyguts is pissed off that he can't hold services and gatherings to collect money from his duped followers.

"We are taking back our country."

he said, although didn't go into detail about who had taken it and to where.

"So today we are facing a Government we thought we could trust. Instead they are stripping away the freedoms and rights of everyday Kiwis."

he said meaning again that he can't gather in the extra money from attendees at church services and he and his missus have to get by on the 10% automatic tithing that the fools followers pay them out of their incomes each month - the money that goes to finance the Tamakis lavish lifestyle.

After a bit of a rave about freedom and rights he, rather bewilderingly went on to say - 

"We are here today because, one, we can be. Even though it is level 3, we are still exercising our right to freedom."

OK, which is it? A government that totally restricts the freedom of its citizens like China, North Korea and Belarus or, our government which allowed this free speech gathering?

Tamaki drew parallels to the sacrifices of soldiers memorialised in the monument behind him - "who died for freedom" - with those of the protesters. This annoys the hell out of me as there is no such parallel. In that memorial there are two names printed on the walls in the gallery of my great uncles who died in World War One and my father's details are in the record books for his service in Word War Two. If those three jokers were here today they'd boot Tamaki up the arse for saying that.

The irony in this anti-lockdown gathering is that if (and it looks likely) that this contributes to the spread of the Delta virus then the 50 days Auckland lockdown will be extended and, if there is a trace back from the current Waikato outbreak to Auckland and this gathering, then Waikato will also go to Level 3.

Fucking idiots!

BAPTISM

 Richard wrote a post about Baptism on his blog: HERE

I like it when he says:

Catholics talk quite a lot about the rights of the unborn child and then, after they are born, Bang! You can do whatever you like to them! Catholics also seem to believe that whatever baptism does, you're stuck with it for life - you can never get rid of it. Wouldn't it be better to wait until adulthood and then give the person a choice? No, because Catholics KNOW they are right and they KNOW that baptism is essential.

 He wrote this as a response to some old horseshit that Robert was banging on about to do with sin, salvation and how by being baptised believers get to go to heaven instead of hell.

The whole notion is just too silly and naive for words but ..... has been around for hundreds of years - at least back to the 3rd century AD. Christian believers have embraced this blindly, never seeming to think about it in depth. Why would anyone be born with 'sin' on their soul that requires having it washed away in an arcane and dangerous ceremony. What is 'sin' anyway? Why can't parents wait until their child is old enough to form their own opinion on whether they want to be baptised or not?

I rejected the Catholic mumbo jumbo way too late - when I was about 11. My mother, a staunch Catholic used to call me a 'heathen'. I used to laugh at that.

I wish that I'd been able to reject the baptism thing when I was a baby.

CUTTING OUT THE MIDDLEMAN

Let's talk about religion.

Robert, in his latest and likely soon to be removed post published this:

"Called to Search for God (27-28)

God has placed a desire for himself in every person. He draws man to himself and facilitates man's search. Man is called to speak with God and be in communion with him (Second Vatican Council)." From the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
As I am the designated shopper I set off to Pak n Save Lower Hutt. If God wants me to face a terrorist then so be it. I knew as a Catholic that I need not worry. God protects his own! Then I went to the tip and bought KFC."

OK, probably the only thing that made sense in that was the fact that he went to the tip (New Zealand term for rubbish dump) to buy KFC for his dinner.

As you know, a lot of what Christianity and other religions say is confusing and basically makes no sense.

I bet if you were to pick any religion at all, and their subsets, you will quickly come across tautologies, fabrications, inconsistencies, misrepresentations and dubious concepts.

I recently read Sam Harris discussing some of the silliest things that are part of the major religions.

**********

"What does Sam Harris think of religion?

— Sam Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favouring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology."

***********

Here are some of the silly things paraphrased:

Religious groups are like gangs. They invent and use gang-type symbols to demonstrate their superiority over other gangs  religious groups. Think of gang patches, clothing, hairstyles, language and paraphernalia including weapons and vehicles and then think of the arcane trappings of religion with gang patches,  religious motifs, clothing, hairstyles, language and paraphernalia including weapons and vehicles  religious icons, trinkets, medals and, I guess, the popemobile.

 Most religious groups have a kind of glorified suffering incorporated into their strange practices. 

Monks flagellate themselves. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during  festivals.

Asceticism and fasting and other forms of deprivation are used in both eastern and Western religions because religious people believe that through suffering can they be closer to their god(s). 

Most religions have a built in process for handling heretics, infidels or unbelievers - read atheists here.

Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt and, depending on the time in history or political state should be outed, ousted, banished or killed.

Holy Wars have been waged forever. The medieval Roman Catholic Church exterminated heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries, most recently in conflicts in Iraq. All sanctioned by the god of choice of the dominant faction. Divine sanction lets them kill the elderly and children and take virgin females as sexual slaves—all while retaining a sense of moral superiority. This is happening now in Afghanistan by ISIS and The Taliban.

Blasphemy is a catch-all 'sin' that has the precept that some ideas are inviolable and cannot be criticised.

They are not allowed to be satirised or questioned. Think about Robert's silly notions of faith and that ridiculous concepts don't have to be scientifically explained or proved as long as you have faith that 'god will provide'. It's just as well that he doesn't own a Kalashnikov (he doesn't does he?). The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers.  The Quran is not as explicit but radical Islamists have misinterpreted it and advocated similar sanctions as Christianity: death to unbelievers became part of Shariah during medieval times and as practised by Iranians and other Muslims - see the attacks on French satirists in recent times. The idea that blasphemy must be wiped out has resulted in millions of murders over the centuries. 

Blood sacrifice was the norm in all forms of religion from ancient Aztecs to modern Christians (e.g. Spain)  Hindus and  Muslims continue to ritually slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale even though Hindu sacred texts forbid it. Christians mock Satanism and Black Masses but blindly attend Mass each week and 'eat' the body of Christ and 'drink' his blood. How weird is that?

Our ancestors lived in times when people had no way to control or, in many cases, prevent pain. Pain killers that we take for granted would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to accept it and make meaning of it. The problem, of course is that glorifying suffering—turning it into a spiritual good—has made people more willing to inflict it on not only themselves and their enemies but also those who are helpless, including children, slaves and the ill or dying. 

Hell, whether the  Christian,  Islamic or Buddhist original versions consisted of an afterlife of eternal  torment variously filled with demons and monsters.  Torture was the worst suffering that Medieval religious people could come up with to control the behaviour of the masses and became a means of coercing behaviour and belief.
Most Buddhists see hell as a metaphor, a journey into the evil inside the self but many Muslims and Christians believe that it is a real place, full of pain and suffering for sinners and non-believers.

Male Ownership of Female Fertility – The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing “she was made to do it,” most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured. Hence Catholicism’s maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs. -  Sam Harris

All of this (and a whole lot of other stuff) makes me think that if there was a god, or gods, then they've stuffed up. Instead of creating a perfect world they created a faulty one that is full of violence, hunger, poverty, sickness and .... sin. Just about all of the gods, via their respective religions, over time have had to try and fix things along the way - sort of like putting on a band aid. If gods are so perfect, as religions tell us, why didn't they get it sorted straight away and, if there was a stuff up then fix it properly kind of like doing a computer reset.

This 'God protects his own!' crap that Robert, and the other religious nutters espouse is just plain silly. Why can't they face the fact that they're backing losers. Maybe we just need to cut out these 'middlemen'.

Take Christianity as a case in point. According to christianity's own writings and teachings god stuffed up. He created an imperfect world in which mankind is flawed. Sinners in other words. Instead of just doing a reset - wiping everything out and starting again he sent his son (via a very silly and convoluted way) to fix things - by dying for mankind's sins. 

OK, that wasn't the cleverest idea. It was like sending the trainee computer guy to fix a really big computer but, accepting that it was a done deal, why didn't this fix all of the sin thing including poverty, famine, pain and suffering, violence and wars, crime, etc.? Why, even after that grandstanding event do new people, born every day, start out with sins? Someone didn't do a very good job of wiping and cleaning them up. I use 'Clean My Mac' as a computer cleaner, uninstaller and speed booster. It does a better job that Jesus did, let me tell you.

A PRAYER TO SAINT BETTY

 

You of course know that Saint Betty (formerly known as saint Anne which I guess makes her an Annex) was The Virgin Mary's mother. Thanks to Richard of Richard's Bass Bag* for bringing that to our attention. It probably deserves a prayer in Saint Betty's favour.

Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)

Black Betty had a child (Bam-ba-Lam)

The damn thing gone wild (Bam-ba-Lam)

She said, "I'm worryin' outta mind" (Bam-ba-Lam)

The damn thing gone blind (Bam-ba-Lam)

I said "Oh, Black Betty" (Bam-ba-Lam)

Whoa, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam)

Oh, Black Betty (Bam-ba-Lam) ..........

 ........ Sorry about that-wrong prayer.

Let's try again:

Oh dear little Flo

I love you so

Especially in your nightie

When the moonlight flits

Across your tits

Oh ..... Jesus Christ almighty!

Oops, wrong again but thanks to Dudley Moore for that. See: THE REVEREND IKE

It's a nice little prayer though and is a hell of a lot better than others that I've just researched.

Most of them are wimpy, English 18th and 19th century sycophantic entreaties to a powerful god who they thought might crush them if they didn't toe the line. They were, of course, a means of keeping the uneducated and potentially dangerous rabble in place lest they get thoughts above their station. We all know what Karl Marx thought about that.

 Here's a kind of word collage of them. I've taken some of the often repeated lines of claptrap and combined into a sort of prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, the lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women, and to the Holy Spirit who has a thing for thee

Hail, Holy Queen, mother of mercy,

Defend me from the evil enemy

And call me at the hour of my death to the fellowship of your saints

We fly unto thee, O virgin of virgins my mother;

To thee do we come, before thee we stand, sinful and sorrowful;

Give us this day our daily bread and the blessed  fruit of thy womb, Jesus. This will balance our diet.

Blood of Christ, let me drink your wine which will go well with that meat

Water flowing from the side of Christ, wash me clean afterwards.

 etc.

And that was just the catholic stuff.

The Anglican crap is much worse:

ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies,

We your unworthy servants give you most humble and hearty thanks not only with our lips, But in our lives; by giving up ourselves to your service,

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father,

We have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep,

That you would be pleased to make thy ways known unto them

Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

They have a thing for lips in the Anglican church.

The American prayers are, as as expected, worse than the English based catholic and anglican ones. They seem to make up prayers for anything: Being successful in business; passing exams; driving safely to work; keeping the lawn tidy etc.

I won't offend you with some of them that I discovered - I am The Religious Curmudgeon after all.

What I will do is give you a prayer to Saint Betty so that you can use it when waiting to be served in a restaurant. Saint Betty is the patron saint of speedy restaurant service.

O Saint Betty whose surname wasn't Crocker

She was another foodie but I wouldn't mock her

Like thou she gave us instant gratification

For our worldly needs and some sugar satisfaction

That pregnant barmaid is there again I note

I hope it's not Mary as that Holy Ghost is sniffing about (Canadian pronunciation there)

One grandson's enough for you I'd have thought

Another with a made up story would be a bit of a rort.

If it is Mary I hope she's not taking an order of mine

Last time she poured me a beer instead of wine

O Saint Betty, we're in a bit of a hurry

I pray to thee that we won't have to worry

Get us in and out within half an hour for our dinner

'Cos it will gob smack Robert The Apathetic Sinner

 

* An old and sometimes read blog.

"BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MINDS" - BOB THE CLEANER *

 Robert of Moera, a catholic cleaner in the Hutt Valley, swore to wipe out sinners and those who eschewed the teachings of his church and his beloved priests. He particularly hated homosexuals, adulterers, unmarried couples and those who supported abortion.

Robert was "breathing out murderous threats against gays, atheists, protestants and the city's mayor when he was directed, by a cleaner with a bad knee, to empty the bins near the desks where PhD students work at computer screens. As usual Robert was listening to a podcast through his earphones and was a bit distracted. The topic of the podcast was 'Woke'. It was about Donald Trump's attack on the USA women's soccer team - "bunch of dykes"- he called them. Robert agreed  and his head was filled with a cosy image of his hero embracing the American flag.

Trump has been embroiled in a feud with the US team’s star player Megan Rapinoe after she claimed before the side’s World Cup win in 2019 that “I’m not going to the fucking White House’’ for a presidential audience while Trump was in power.

As Robert bent down to grab a rubbish bin he heard a voice in his head. It said "Do you really want to hurt me?" 

"Whaaa? said Robert. He was still listening to the podcast and had the image of Megan Rapinoe in his mind.

"Do you really want to make me cry?" asked Rapinoe.

Robert dropped the bin, sending debris over the carpet with some dust going into his eyes, temporally blinding him. He shook head and something like scales fell from his eyes. He looked up and was confronted by a beautiful rainbow flag. 

"It's a miracle" he thought and, like his hero he embraced the flag saying "Sorry, sorry.." over and over.

He left the bins and raced out of the office waving his beautiful rainbow flag.

"I think I'll be known as Bob now" thought Robert. I've seen the error of my ways.

"I can't wait to tell Richard, but first I'd better stock up the condom machine at the church store and rub off that graffiti I painted on the Family Planning Centre."

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

Meanwhile, in a desk in the office a cellphone that a student left behind continued to play a Culture Club song on the Spotify app.

"....... In my heart the fire is burning

Choose my colour find a star

Precious people always tell me

That's a step a step too far....."

* With apologies to St Paul The Apostle.