Irony III

July 10th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

RTE News

Hundreds of people have been gathering to pay their respects to what they believe is an image of the Virgin Mary in a tree stump in Co Limerick

It happens all the time. Jesus in potates and stuff so why not in a tree stump, eh?

How the hell can a man of the cloth say this with a straight face is beyond me…

…we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition,’ said Fr Paul Finnerty.

It wouldn’t do to believe in silly stuff like that would it? Fer Christs sake, if you’re gonna believe that a man can rise from the dead, and that’s gotta be quite a hard thing to do, surely a picture of his mum in a tree is piss easy. Infact it probably explains why the preists are so nonchalant about it.

Picture the scene…

Rathkeale Community Council Graveyard Committee chairman Noel White said workmen sprucing up the church land saw the image when they cut the tree.

The sound of a chainsaw, the tree falls over and then…

‘One of the lads said look, our Blessed Lady in the tree,’ Mr White said. ‘One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock.’

Cue heraldic fanfare and shafts of devine light. The work men slack jawed in awe and reverence.
Enter stage right, Father Willie Russell with the words to bring everyone back to thier senses…

It’s only a tree.

Via

Jesus & Mo: Gloss

June 14th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink

jesus_mo_gloss1

Click the pic for more Jesus and Mo.

The Christian Republic of Britain

May 29th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink

I was driving home southbound on the M40 this afternoon when, as I approached J15 at Warwick, I just cought a glimpse of an advert. The sort that you see on the side of a lorry in a field. It should’ve taken only a few minutes to pull off the motorway and get to the appropriate field but due to lack of knowledge of the area and some hefty roadworks, I eventually get to it after covering 25 miles. On top of that, I could’ve just googled it and then clicked here.

Oh, and I got chased by some bullocks too.

Anyway, this is the ad…
christian_party

On their site (which has currently exceeded it’s bandwith so the cache is here) the Christians demand…

A Christian Europe
Recognition that Christianity brought Europe freedom, law, culture and public morality. It’s time to return to those Christian values.

Well, where to start? I’m no historian so what, exactly, did Christianity get Europe freedom from? What was oppressing Europe that no other force or thinking or organisation couldn’t have done? What was before Christianity? Paganism, that’s what. Well, paganism isn’t exactly renowned for it’s authoritarianism, is it? So that bit is a load of rubbish.

Society was organised before the introduction of Christianity and for a society to be organised there needs to be rules. Right? And culture? Any way of doing things, consisting of rules and traditions and attitudes and other intangible things make up a culture. You don’t need to work at culture it just happens and cannot be stopped. Another bit of tat, then.

Public morality? Do you really need another paragraph like the previous ones? No, I didn’t think so.

Those ‘Christian values’, eh? What are those values? It changes with every brand of Christianity. They’ all supposed to be tolerant of the individual, but some types don’t allow women or gays to be ordained, or married even, because of what it says in the Bible. Yet other sects of Christianity do allow for it. How does that work? There are other examples but you get the idea.

Britain is a Christian country, vote to keep it that way

It’s a bit, BNP-Lite isn’t it? Or more fairly, Zionistic. What about all those people that aren’t followers of Jesus? These people are horrified whenever an Islamic state is mentioned. Islamic countries are looked down upon, but what they are proposing is no different.

The state should not have a religion. People should, if they want.

Death by Duncan

April 27th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink

Alan Duncan went on the offensive on Have I Got News For You on Friday (apparently. I haven’t seen it yet).

Miss California had made a remarked somewhere that marraige should be between a man and a woman and on HIGNFY…

Mr Duncan, 51, described blonde Miss Prejean as a “silly bitch”, then added: “I don’t agree with her at all.”

After a pause, he went on: “If you read that Miss California has been murdered, you will know it was me won’t you?”

This comment has given rise to some complaints. One of which…

Metropolitan Police received a complaint from George Hargreaves, the leader of evangelical political party The Christian Party whose members believe that homosexuality is a sin.

“Mr Duncan has crossed the line,” Mr Hargreaves said. “A senior politician suggesting, even as a joke, that it is OK that Miss Prejean should be murdered for her evangelical Christian views is totally unacceptable.

“How can we stop gun and knife crime when the man thinks he will be the next Home Secretary makes death threats?”

Nice to see you standing up for law and order, but where’s the crime?
Did he say the fragrant beauty queen should be murdered to death? Was there a call to restrict her rights and discriminate against her because of who or what she is? No. Alan Duncan joked about himself killing her, because I presume, her beliefs would impede on how he lives his life, which has no effect on how she lives hers.

Is the joking about killing her any different than preaching that homosexuals are going TO HELL!! FOREVER!!?

Hell is a pretty scary place, so I’m told. And a little less easily avoided than an irate Alan Duncan, too (if you believe those stories).

Via

Bullshit vs Bullshit

March 31st, 2009 § 3 comments § permalink

The Guardian

Reiki, an alternative Japanese therapy with a growing band of followers in the west, is “unscientific” and “inappropriate” for use in Catholic institutions, according to America’s bishops.

Guidelines issued by the committee on doctrine at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops warn healthcare workers and chaplains that the therapy “lacks scientific credibility” and could expose people to “malevolent forces”.

The document also claims that for a Catholic to believe in reiki presents “insurmountable problems”.

Bwahahahahaha! An organisation that is built on the myth and legend with no scientific evidence, is scared that some of its’ members might fall for a different set myths and legends that have no scientific evidence.

Ooh, molevolent forces…

…a notion which is of course hugely credible and strongly supported by scientists, particularly those working in Malevolent Forces and Evil Spirits research departments around the world.

And, again from the New Humanist, in the interest of balance…

New Humanist was unable to find a reiki practitioner to comment on the scientific credibility of the Vatican stance on condoms and the spread of HIV…

Via D-Notice

Shock News: The Vatican endorses homophobia!

February 2nd, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink

Can we start fucking over the Vatican, like we have done Iraq and Afganistan?

It’s obvious that Vatican City has been lead by a serious of religious extremists that dictate almost every aspect of it’s citizens life.

From making them eat fish on Fridays to controlling womens bodies with regard to birth control and more besides.

How can those barmy bishops deny being homophobes, for a start, when they do stuff like this

An Austrian cleric who said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the homosexual sins of New Orleans has been made a bishop by the Vatican.

The people of Vatican City need our help!

2-0 to the atheists’

January 28th, 2009 § 2 comments § permalink

politic.co.uk:

A pro-Christian advert that claims a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in young women increases teenage infertility has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

Paid for by fundamentalist group Christian Voice, the advert in the New Statesman entitled, ‘Violent crime – sowing and reaping’, condemned government health policies, including giving a key cancer vaccine on the NHS, for focusing on curbing teenage pregnancy at the expense, the advert claimed, of teenage fertility.

“Every government initiative, including the HPV [Human papillomavirus] vaccine, will increase [teenage infertility], but as all the targets revolve around pregnancy, no-one in power knows how many young people they are making sterile and nobody cares”, it read.

But after receiving complaints that claims linking the HPV vaccine to teenage infertility could not be substantiated, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled the advert broke advertising rules and could not be republished

Try making ads that have a modicom of truth in it, instead of reasoning like…

Mr Green, national director of Christian Voice, said the availability of the vaccine “encourages people to just keep on fornicating, increasing promiscuity”, which he claims will then lead to an increase in teenage infertility.

Erm. It’s a vaccine against cervical cancer. It is not a contraceptive. It doesn’t protect against the clap or crabs, or stop a baby from being made.
In light of this new information, what is your problem with this vaccine? Or is your problem with two people doing what comes natural?

Mr Green said the ruling against Christian Voice represented “double standards.”

“On matters of faith and morality the ASA seems to make up the rules as it goes along,” he said.

Oh, boo hoo! It’s so unfair!

Warning: Contents may offend

January 21st, 2009 § 4 comments § permalink

The Advertising Standards Agency has decided on whether the ‘Athiest Bus’ has broken any rules.

And I would like to paraphrase here…

Fuck off you witless god-bothering cocks.

Oh, alright. Here’s what they really said

But the body concluded the adverts were unlikely to mislead or cause widespread offence and closed the case.

But

[ASA] said it assessed 326 complaints. Some claimed the wording was offensive to people who followed a religion.

326 people are offended by someone asking them if they’ve ever thought that there might not be a god. That’s what that line is saying

While some of the complaints claimed the adverts were offensive and denigrated people of faith, others challenged whether they were misleading because the advertiser would not be able to substantiate its claim that God “probably” did not exist.

What about all the ads and posters about god and church and stuff? According to their logic, they would have to substantiate the claim that there is probably a god. Which is just as hard.

And if one person can satisfactorily prove to me that there is a god beyond doubt, I will eat my blog.

Via

British Sharia Law

February 11th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink

Sharia Law
Now, I don’t profess to know a lot about Sharia, or in fact anything, but I d believe that it is not going to cause a problem for the British legal system or British society at large.

I confess I didn’t read or listen to what the Archbishop said or didn’t say, but then I don’t need to.
Why?

Well, Sharia is described as archaic, prejudices against women, brutal as well as having all sorts of other crimes levelled against it by people who know as much as I do about it.
These accusations may well be true in certain countries that use it as a form of control or because it is misinterpreted. Or it may well be brutal and prejudiced against women. I don’t know. And to be honest when it comes to Sharia in Britian, I don’t give a shit.

I don’t give a shit because it’s not going to happen. Not like the scaremongers reckon, anyway.

To pick a couple of points that are brought up so readily, because being lazy, I’m not going to do a long post (do I ever?) and go through everything piece by piece.

With that in mind, one of the obvious protests is the two tier legal system.
There, apparently already is, for example Jewish Beth Din Courts. Although these can only be used in civil dispute and not only must both sides be Jewish, both sides must accept the authority of the court. Even then as the example in the link says about divorce

And in the case of divorce, the parties must still obtain a civil divorce alongside the religious one

So the Beth Din is in addition to, not in stead of the legal system. It is no different to any other type of arbitration, religious or not (although making sure that each party is there under their own free will is another matter that, again, is not exclusive to Muslims).
There is nothing, in principle, to Muslims doing this now, and I suspect they already do.
As far as the other scary stories about oppression of women and chopping off hands,I cannot see any law being enacted in this day and age that would exempt certain groups of people from receiving various human rights and handing control of those rights to various non-government controlled bodies (Government controlled bodies, yes, I can see that happening, and not to certain groups, unless you count the UK population asa whole) that would enable the male population to dictate what the women wear and when they can go out etc.

And brutal punishments like stoneings and chopping off hands? C’mon get real.

Don’t worry, it ain’t gonna happen, not in a scary ‘Muslims want to impose Islam on us all’ Daily Mail type of way.

Update:
Bugger. I forgot to include related posts:
Chicken Yoghurt
Mike Power
Sticks & Carrots
Lenin
Septicle Isle has done several posts

Another update:
Via PDF: mmm. very interesting.

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