The Hazards of Belief

pauldla · 24-08-2017 06:11AM

Peregrinus wrote: »

I have to say that to me it's more suggestive of the young Charles Manson.

Or Conor McGregor after the fight...

recedite · 24-08-2017 12:50PM

robindch wrote: »

No news on what Jesus was doing in with the baby or whether he plans on setting up his tent in there permanently.

They seem to be playing ping pong, batting the ball with their noses.
Jesus will probably keep playing until he loses, then beam-rise Himself out of there.

Hotblack Desiato · 24-08-2017 01:25PM

It's definitely yer man Jeff Lynne off ELO.

recedite · 24-08-2017 03:09PM

The chef from South Park?
It could explain all those balls swirling around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCCESEptHiw

silverharp · 25-08-2017 11:23PM

its like a plot of Borat going to India

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41049705

India guru rape case: 23 die in unrest as Ram Rahim Singh convicted

At least 23 people have been killed in violent protests over the rape conviction of a popular religious leader in north India.
The victims are believed to be Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's followers. Angry supporters rampaged through Panchkula town, near Chandigarh.
About 2,500 of Singh's followers have been arrested, police said.
Earlier, his devotees smashed cars and set media vans alight, saying he was innocent.
More than 200,000 of his followers had flocked to the Chandigarh area ahead of Friday's verdict.

recedite · 26-08-2017 09:29AM

If he's truly a messenger from god, then its not rape, its attempted immaculate conception.

Hotblack Desiato · 29-08-2017 11:31PM

The Indian army has 25,000 cows it wants rid of, but isn't allowed to slaughter.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/what-next-for-the-25-000-cows-discharged-from-the-indian-army-1.3194857

The Indian army faces the difficult proposition of disposing of about 25,000 of its cows and bulls following the imminent closure of all 39 of its military farms across the country, farms that were founded 130 years ago by the colonial administration.

The dilemma for the army lies in the fact that the slaughter of cattle is banned in most states where these farms are located, as the animal is sacred to India’s majority Hindu community.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has enforced the law protecting cows since assuming office in May 2014, with 18 of India’s 29 provinces handing down extended jail terms, fines or both for the killing of cows.

This has been further enforced by predominantly Hindu lynch mobs that scour the countryside looking for people they suspect of either abandoning cattle or selling them for beef.

Over the past three years such mobs have killed at least 23 people, mostly Muslims, across India.

Cow protection has become a major social and political issue in India, with opposition parties and activists protesting fiercely against it.

A judge in New Delhi who recently sentenced a man for killing a motorcyclist in Delhi with his car in 2008 explained this phenomenon best.

"The sentence for killing a cow is five, seven or 14 years in different states; but the sentence for causing the death of a human being through rash or negligent driving is only two years," said additional sessions judge Sanjeev Kumar.

In May the federal BJP government delivered a blow to the cattle trade with a decree banning cattle owners from slaughtering their unproductive animals after they had gone dry and were too old to till the fields. They were also legally bound to keep them alive at great expense until they died naturally.

All cattle traders and buyers are also legally bound to declare that their animals are being traded and acquired exclusively for agricultural purposes. Any breach is criminally punishable.

This in turn has forced the closure of scores of abattoirs across India, jeopardising the annual export of beef and hide worth over €3.27 billion.

Samaris · 02-09-2017 01:20PM

Finding an appropriate place to put this is difficult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD6fvzGIBfQ "You Want It Darker" by Leonard Cohen, showing his struggles with religious purpose not long before his death and the difficulty of reconciling contradictions in it.

It took me a few verses to get into it, but I've gotten rather attached to it. It's a song where LC's poetry is not damaged by his complete lack of a singing voice.

I also get the impression that "I am ready, my Lord" is indicating that he will have some questions for his Lord.

robindch · 04-09-2017 12:25PM

China's new Silk Road project sees large numbers of Chinese entering islamic countries. Unfortunately, some of them migrant workers are there to build more than one kind of bridge - an activity that comes with a heavy price:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41116480

recedite · 04-09-2017 06:15PM

A sad result for those two young people. Probably full of life and hope and they went out there. But that's how it has always been for people who get "called" by their god. They will accept the risk and be martyred if necessary.

I was talking to an old lady recently who had been born in east africa to missionary parents. They had gone out just after the turn of the century to a village to replace another couple and their family. When she mentioned that the previous incumbents had all been hacked to death with machetes my jaw nearly hit the floor. But that's how it was back in the day, and they knew the score before they left.
The Chinese are new at this game, but they are on a fast learning curve

silverharp · 04-09-2017 07:18PM

^^

you would think in China being an evangelical would be edgy enough?

recedite · 04-09-2017 08:12PM

I think they just see the evangelicals as being a bit demented.
But for some reason the Chinese govt. really have it in for the Falun Gong.

smacl · 05-09-2017 06:33PM

Seems the Buddhists are now slaughtering the Muslims in Myanmar. It all seems to boil down to factionalism and nationalism in the end.

recedite · 05-09-2017 09:42PM

A brief history of the problem; before British rule the buddhist tribes lived in Burmah and the muslim tribes lived in what is now Bangladesh.
The British encouraged the muslims into Burma on the basis of the old "divide and conquer" strategy, which the Buddhists resented.
When the Japanese arrived, the Burmese supported them instead, thinking they would get rid of the British and the muslims. The British armed the muslim rohingas and left them to massacre the buddhists, which provided cover for the British retreat to India.
After Burmese independence, the Burmese thought it was time the muslims went back to Bangladesh, but instead of leaving, even more kept slipping across into Burma.
As a result Myanmar says the rohinga are bengalis, but Bangladesh says they are burmese.

Of course all that is academic if you are a rohinga who has never been to school, never been to Bangladesh, and some guy is trying to burn your house down.

Hotblack Desiato · 05-09-2017 10:43PM

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/vile-material-film-watchdog-reveals-public-complaints-1.3210234

'Vile material': Film watchdog reveals public complaints

Animated comedies Trolls and The Secret Life of Pets were among nine movies that were the subject of complaints from the public to the Irish Film Classification Office (IFCO) last year.

A total of 14 complaints were received, which varied in nature from objections to "Satanistic" symbolism in a superhero film to concerns about a "sub-context" of substance addiction and cannibalism in a children’s animation.

...

A separate complaint was received from a cinemagoer in Castlebar, Co Mayo in relation to Batman v Superman, a crossover-superhero movie starring Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill.

Both the complainant and their son were "very upset" by the film and had walked out of the cinema as a result. They asked IFCO if it would arrange for them to get their money back.

They complained that the content of Batman v Superman was "very Satanistic" and that there was "Illuminati symbology" used throughout.

The "V" in the title of the film was a reference to the "sign of Typhon" - a serpentine demon in Greek mythology, they claimed, while the "X" in LexCorp - a fictional company in the movie - referred to "the mark of the beast".

One would have to wonder why they went to see it in the first place.

Also - Mayo. Nuff said

robindch · 06-09-2017 02:34AM

Been a while since anybody's seen any moving statues. So, in memory of the death of the irreplaceable Don Cockburn yesterday, here's a youthful, cheerful Anne Doyle introducing a much more sombre Kevin O'Kelly discoursing about events down Ballinspittle way, thirty-two years and one month ago.

The story starts eighteen seconds in, and frankly, as with all the best stories, it's all in the timing.

Anne, take it away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcYsMlvr5zk

bnt · 06-09-2017 11:52AM

I don't know how to feel about headlines such as this: ‘May God protect us all’: Puerto Rico and tiny islands in Irma’s path fear for the worst. Do religious people, affected by natural disasters, ever stop to consider the possibility that their god is doing this to them?

MrPudding · 06-09-2017 02:04PM

bnt wrote: »

I don't know how to feel about headlines such as this: ‘May God protect us all’: Puerto Rico and tiny islands in Irma’s path fear for the worst. Do religious people, affected by natural disasters, ever stop to consider the possibility that their god is doing this to them?

Well yeah, but he has no choice. he has to do it because of, you know, the gheys and abortion. it's not like he has a choice or anything. His hands are tied, metaphorically, although obviously he isn't being forced to do it as that would clearly mean he is not a god, if you know what I mean.

MrP

robindch · 07-09-2017 12:44PM

Weddings in catholic churches in Scotland continue to decline - this time, to a 75-year low.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/number-of-catholic-weddings-in-scotland-falls-to-75-year-low-1-4552934/amp

Scotsman wrote:

A senior clergy leader in Scotland has called for urgent action after Catholic marriages in Scotland fell to their lowest level since 1941.
Monsignor Peter Magee, the head of the Scottish Catholic Interdiocesan Tribunal has suggested that one day in the calendar year be dedicated to the promotion of marriage, as a way of arresting the slide.

The National Registrar for Scotland's Annual Review of Demographic Trends revealed that last year just 1,346 marriages in Scotland were conducted by clergy from the Roman Catholic Church. This is down from a high of just over 7,000 in 1970, and is the lowest number for 75 years. Half of all marriages carried out in Scotland in 2016 were civil ceremonies, those carried out by a registrar, a trend that has also resulted in declines of marriages carried out by religious celebrants, with the number of religious marriages falling by 44 per cent since 1975.

Monsignor Magee said to the Scottish Catholic Observer of his planned day celebrating marriage: "It would be a day to issue a message on marriage to the nation in the exercise of our right of free speech and in our sense of duty to present the Christian vision courageously and positively to our sceptical and secularist culture." He also mooted a Catholic Marriage Association, which he said would "demythologise the lies which are thrown at us concerning love, sex, relationships, happiness and fulfilment and which proceed solely from the self centred needs of the hedonism which has infected and corrupted our culture and our laws."

Previously, the Catholic Church has blamed an overall fall in marriage rates (with 2009 the lowest rate since 1858) on what they characterised as "aggressive secularisation". While the overall number of marriages in Scotland was 1.6 per cent lower in 2016 than it was in the previous year, the rate has been given a boost over the past two years since the introduction of same-sex marriages, which the Church vociferously opposed. There were 998 same-sex marriages in Scotland in the last year, a fall from 2015 when many couples with civil partnerships opted to change to a marriage.

More Scots than ever are choosing to have a marriage conducted by the Humanist Society of Scotland, who carried out over 3,000 marriage ceremonies in the last year. Gordon MacRae, Chief Executive of Humanist Society Scotland said, "We are proud that more couples are choosing a Humanist marriage in Scotland so they can be married in a way that respects their own beliefs and outlook on life. It is no surprise that Humanist marriage is increasing in popularity, and the most popular form of belief marriage, given that Scotland still remains the only part of the UK where it is legally recognised. Of course one of the reasons there are more Humanist marriages is that we also conduct weddings for same-sex couples.

A spokesperson for the Catholic Church said. "The fall in the number of catholic couples opting to marry in church mirrors falls in church based weddings elsewhere. Catholic couples may be using the services of other celebrants while still deciding to marry. "It is to be hoped that future generations of Catholics will see the value of a wedding in church. "

Samaris · 07-09-2017 09:02PM

bnt wrote: »

I don't know how to feel about headlines such as this: ‘May God protect us all’: Puerto Rico and tiny islands in Irma’s path fear for the worst. Do religious people, affected by natural disasters, ever stop to consider the possibility that their god is doing this to them?

I did see someone rather smugly asserting that the (possible) destruction of Trump's Caribbean property was God's wrath via hurricane.

I'm going to assume out of general goodwill that they are just not thinking in suggesting that their loving God would kill eight people, leave over a thousand homeless so far, destroy two populated islands and generally cause havoc rather than just hitting Trump with a well-aimed bolt of lightning.

Admittedly, the other side of that argument is that God has done pretty much that already in the OT a few times.

looksee · 07-09-2017 09:32PM

Samaris wrote: »

I did see someone rather smugly asserting that the (possible) destruction of Trump's Caribbean property was God's wrath via hurricane.

I'm going to assume out of general goodwill that they are just not thinking in suggesting that their loving God would kill eight people, leave over a thousand homeless so far, destroy two populated islands and generally cause havoc rather than just hitting Trump with a well-aimed bolt of lightning.

Admittedly, the other side of that argument is that God has done pretty much that already in the OT a few times.

Still and all, I bet an awful lot of people have had this thought...

silverharp · 09-09-2017 01:51PM

dust off your broomsticks

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4412811/tens-of-thousands-of-witches-around-the-world-join-forces-every-month-to-cast-a-binding-spell-on-donald-trump-and-protect-the-world-from-his-actions/

HOCUS POTUSTens of thousands of witches around the world join forces every month to cast a ‘binding’ spell on Donald Trump and ‘protect’ us from his actions
Hollywood witch Vicky Adams says she has been inundated with people wanting to learn the spell and buy ingredients

ENS of thousands of witches around the world join forces every month to cast a “binding” spell on Donald Trump, Hollywood witch Vicky Adams has revealed.

Vicky, who runs a renowned occult store in tinseltown, says the spell aims to stop the US President from reaping “harm and destruction” across the globe

She says her shop has been inundated with people desperate to learn the spell and buy the ingredients - which include an orange candle to signify the President’s trademark fake tanned skin.

The 49-year-old says the spell, which started in February, has now become a global phenomenon.

As well as casting spells on the controversial President, Vicky said huge numbers of people are turning to witchcraft and black magic to help them deal with everything from boosting their love life - to cursing or exacting revenge on their enemies.

Even celebrities come in to her store, Panpipes Magickal Marketplace, looking for spells to help them land big movie roles.

robindch · 09-09-2017 02:04PM

^^ Wonder if she paid anything for the product placement.

Can't imagine though that the tangerine maniac is quaking much in his fake boots yet.

looksee · 09-09-2017 03:34PM

Seems to be working though. Either that or his new minder has him under house arrest, or he is so overwhelmed by the hurricanes - I have the biggest hurricanes - that he has been unnerved. Well, a bit anyway.

PopePalpatine · 09-09-2017 06:40PM

Now I have the mental image of Trump's phone getting Expelliarmus'd out of his hands mid-Tweet. :pac:

Samaris · 10-09-2017 07:23AM

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Now I have the mental image of Trump's phone getting Expelliarmus'd out of his hands mid-Tweet. :pac:

And a great service was done for the nation that day (just before all the witches were burned at the stake).

silverharp · 10-09-2017 01:52PM

robindch wrote: »

^^ Wonder if she paid anything for the product placement.

Can't imagine though that the tangerine maniac is quaking much in his fake boots yet.

i think id want my money back if i was getting the headline of "Hocus Pocus" :pac:

robindch · 11-09-2017 12:00AM

Put down your tea people and step out of your bunkers to hear the words of Kirk Cameron, sometime friend of Ray Comfort of "banana video" fame, delivering a little homily on the reasons for Hurricane Irma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2A4WsN9qgY

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh - who announced a couple of days back that the warnings to evacuate from Florida was a conspiracy, firstly on the part of the mainstream media in order to advance the "climate change agenda" and secondly, by retailers to sell lots of water and batteries - has decided to evacuate from Florida.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/media/rush-limbaugh-evacuates-hurricane-irma/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rush-limbaugh-says-hurricane-irma-is-conspiracy-evacuates-anyway_us_59b29c31e4b0354e44115aa8

robindch · 14-09-2017 12:46PM

Non-catholics should avoid eating communion at mass as it will imperil the sanctity of your eternal soul. And it might make you sick.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/09/08/why-non-catholics-cannot-receive-holy-communion/

Catholic Herald wrote:

Another reason that non-Catholics cannot receive Communion is for their own good. Scripture warns what happens when people who are not worthy to receive the Body and Blood of Christ try to do so.

“For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.” (1 Cor 11:29–30)

Therefore, a non-Catholic who receives Communion endangers their own spiritual (and potentially physical) health.

Hotblack Desiato · 15-09-2017 12:36AM

If this god fella was any use, his miracle bread would cure all that ails me and convince me of his existence at the same time.

Sadly I sampled it hundreds of times, enough to know that munching on an old pizza box is healthier, tastier, and more spiritually enlightening.

Edit: the ads :pac:

The Hazards of Belief

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