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Thanksgivings are more like Childish Pleadings

Posted on November 24th, 2009 by dj357

I recently saw a section in the Limerick Post’s Classified section called “Thanksgivings” which contains entries such as this one:

Thanksgivings
Dear Heart of Jesus in the past, I have asked for many favours. This time I ask for this special one (mention request). Take Dear Heart of Jesus and place it within your own broken Heart, where your Father sees it, then in his merciful eyes, it will become your favour not mine. Amen. Say for 3 days and promise publication. Never known to fail. M.R.

Viewable through the Digital edition of the Limerick Post on Page 90 – here – these “Thanksgivings” are first-off completely ridiculous, the religious form of those ridiculous chainletter emails telling you “the love of your life” will contact you if you just pass on this email to 50 other people, generally including a warning for those who don’t heed it’s advice. Secondly, Private Religious Entreaties between one person and his/her God do not belong in a public newspaper! Now, I’m not going to be completely insensitive and say the whole prayer-filled world of the Obituaries and In Memoriams should be purged too, people are free to grive however they wish, although I would personally like to see the religious aspects of these sections toned down, that’s not a battle I’m willing to fight. Removing this kind of Religious Spam, however, IS a battle I’m willing to fight. As such, I sent a letter of complaint to the Limerick Post and it reads as follows:

I would like to raise an issue that I have with the “Thanksgivings” section currently printed within the Classifieds section of the Limerick Post. I think it’s completely out of place and I think it should either be removed completely or moved to be contained within the In Memoriam/Obituaries section.

These “Thanksgivings” are nothing but private entreaties between specific religious people and their God and I do not believe they have any place in a public newspaper, nevermind in the Classifieds section of such a newspaper. These notices are not offering or requesting any kind of service in this paper that cannot be done in private. I understand that we live in a pluralistic world, but as a reader of this paper, I personally do not want to come across them. If there is a place for God in a public newspaper it is in the In Memoriams/Obituaries section.

Not only that, but the comments themselves are of such a nature that, if one replaced the religious entreaties with calls for sending X amount of emails or saying a given phrase X amount of times, at which point the person’s greatest wish will come true, they would simply resemble crank chainmail messages, which most people label as SPAM. Also add to this fact, that the same “Thanksgiving” comment is printed 4 times, one after the other, in this section, and has been for at least 3 weeks running, that I have personally observed. Besides these issues, “Thanksgivings” are comments that express the thanks of one individual towards another individual or group. Hail Marys and Prayers are not thanks, and proferring them in the vain hope of having a “Greatest Wish” come true is not giving thanks for anything, it is being a child in a Tesco, throwing a tantrum because their mother won’t buy them a pack of smarties.

One last comment: Prayers and Hail Mary’s HAVE been known to fail, despite the comments made in these “Thanksgiving”. They are failing all over the world. Please, remove this Religious Spam from the Limerick Post.

Kind Regards,
Darragh Jennings.

If you would like to support the removal of this rubbish from the Limerick Post, please email them at classifieds@limerickpost.ie and mention the “Thanksgivings” section.

peace,
dj357

Filed under: atheism, ireland, Press, religion | 4 Comments »

A Little Bit of Blasphemy…

Posted on August 7th, 2009 by dj357

Since the new Blasphemy won’t be put into effect until October, here’s a little something from my new webcomic series that could probably be considered blasphemous to a “substantial number” of Christians:

Morose & Enlightened Webcomic #2

Morose & Enlightened Webcomic #2

peace,
dj357

Filed under: blasphemy, humour, religion | Leave a comment »

Personal Relationships…?

Posted on July 23rd, 2009 by dj357

Before the blog gets inundated with outraged pieces on the brand-spanking new Crime of Blasphemy in Ireland, I thought I’d add something I’ve been working on for a few days.

This is reposted from my personal atheism-based blog

I have always reacted in a very offended way to people who claim to have a ‘personal relationship’ with Jesus, or some such, and I finally calmed myself down enough to actually analyse such specious claims.

–

How is it possible to have a personal relationship with someone you cannot talk to, someone you cannot see, and someone whose thoughts, intentions and desires (if they could have any) you could not possibly imagine? Even if you could fathom such things, you would have little or no hope of getting it right, that’s for sure.

Let’s take a hypothetical situation of a mother having a thought experiment in her head of how one of her children would look and act and how they would think, now, 20 years after the miscarriage that prevented them from ever being born. Her idea of how the child would look would be totally arbitrary, maybe loosely based on some common familial characteristics, such as strong noses, thin eyebrows etc… If she had chosen not to reveal the sex before birth, as some parents do, she may not even be imagining the correct gender of the child. Her ideas of how they would act and think would also be completely subjective and arbitrary and subject entirely to the whims of the mother. They would be in college studying medicine, she would imagine. But how could she possibly know?

I think we would all agree that it would be pretty much impossible for this woman to predict any of those things with any level of accuracy, correct? It would also be ridiculous for this person to say that they have a ‘personal relationship’ with their child who died 20 years previously, where a ‘personal relationship’ would be defined as one where the two people involved would be able to share emotions, thoughts and discussions. This would be ridiculous, correct?

Well, okay, for argument’s sake, let’s take the hypothetical situation of a 50-year old woman who claims to have a ‘personal relationship’ with her husband of 20 years, who has been dead for the past 5 years (they married 25 years ago, so there’s no confusion). Since this woman has had at least 20 years of an actual personal relationship with her now deceased husband and has become accustomed to his thought patterns, his behaviours and his overall emotional processes, it would be far more reasonable for her to accurately predict the kind of thoughts that she could share with him. It would be more reasonable for her to have a fairly accurate representation of this man in her head and simulate conversations with him, correct?

In this situation, however, and likewise with our long-bereaved mother, all interactions that occur between the woman and her dead husband are really only just thought processes in the woman’s head. Since the man no longer exists in the physical sense, and there is no reliable, corroborated, substantive evidence for the existence of an afterlife, ghosts, spirits or the ability of mediums to converse with such entities (if humans somehow morph into one of these fictional entities after death, that is), it must be such that the woman is, in actual fact, having a conversation with herself, one part of herself admittedly simulating her idea of her husband’s role in such an interaction.

From this, we can gather that most (based on the margin for error with these hypotheticals I will refrain from saying ‘all’ though I believe that that would be the best grouping to use) people who proclaim to have a ‘personal relationship’ with someone who does not actually exist in the physical sense, are, in actual fact, having a ‘personal relationship’ with themselves. Or at least, with one part of themselves that is simulating their ideal of the entity they are proclaiming to have said relationship with.

So, with all of this in mind, why is it generally much more acceptable for people to proclaim to have a ‘personal relationship’ with Jesus, or with the Judeo-Christian God, or with any other fictional entity for that matter, than to say that they regularly talk with their dead relatives (Who talk back). Many strong Christians will proclaim such things:

“Oh, I have a very strong personal relationship with Jesus. He helped me through many tough times in my life”
OR
“I have a personal relationship with God. He is my guide, and he loves me very much. I would be lost without him.”
OR
“I have always had a personal relationship with God. Even when I forsook him and acted wildly in my youth, God always looked out for me, and now that I regularly go to church and worship him, I feel like my life is in much safer hands than it used to be in my younger days.”

Since we have demonstrated that people who profess personal relationships with entities that do not exist (here I must point out that Jesus may have existed in the past, but no longer exists in the physical sense, and there is no reliable, corroborated or substantive evidence for the existence of any God(s), in particular the Judeo-Christian entity we are currently discussing) are merely having ‘personal relationships’ with themselves, would it be accurate to describe this kind of reliance upon a simulated ideal to get through life as some kind of co-dependent multiple personality disorder?

In the first hypothetical, we outlined that it was ridiculous to proclaim a ‘personal relationship’ due to the sheer practical impossibility of accurately imagining the entity involved, since there had been no prolonged exposure to the entity’s thought processes or behaviours.

In the second hypothetical, we demonstrated that even given a prolonged history of interactions, thought processes and behaviours from which to extrapolate the entity’s possible thoughts processes and behaviours given certain discussions or situations, since the entity no longer exists in a physical sense and there is no detectable or proven way to interact with the entity, the ‘personal relationship’ is, in fact, a prolonged thought experiment that occurs entirely in the imagination of the given person.

Combining both of these aspects of the issue, we can see that since no-one living today has any reasonable possibility of correctly representing the entity of Jesus Christ or God to any degree of accuracy. Since neither of these entities exist in a physical sense, and there is no reliable evidence around upon which to base any kind of hypothesis about other forms of communication with these entities, we can also say that anyone who proclaims to have a ‘personal relationship’ with one of these entities, or any other non-existent entity, for that matter, is actually proclaiming that they have a ‘personal relationship’ with themselves. Or at least with the part of themselves that is simulating an entity that thinks homosexuals should be stoned and that they can walk on water.

Based on this analysis, I hope I have made it clear that ‘Personal Relationships’ with God or Jesus are just as reasonable, just as sane and just as real as having a ‘Personal Relationship’ with Herbert, your bottom left bedpost, who is actually the re-incarnated form of Sherlock Holmes and helps you with your science homework.

Peace,

dj357

Filed under: atheism, religion | 1 Comment »

A Sign Of The (Old) Times

Posted on April 4th, 2009 by dj357

Hi all,

Apologies to my fellow bloggers and meeting goers for being so absent as of late! Anywho, I was wandering around Limerick with a German friend a week or two ago, and I came across this:

As you can see from the photo above, the plaque/memorial etc… I found speaks about the loss of a loved one. Now, to be fair, this is from the middle of the 19th Century (hence the title of this post) and it was found on the grounds of St. Mary’s Cathedral (you know the big noisy protestant one?) so this kind of religious rubbish is to be expected.

What I find interesting are two things. First of all, the phrasing of this memorial is ridiculously fawning. All of the attributes of the woman being mourned, virtue and amiability etc…, are viewed from the point of view of how well she fits into (their) God’s idea of good, upstanding traits. Her “departed worth” clearly wouldn’t be worth much if she had been one of Limerick’s poor at the time of her death, regardless of how good a parent she was, or how beloved and affectionate she was.
The other thing I find highly interesting, is that, despite the fact that this memorial plaque is clearly over 150 years old, it could quite easily have been written this year by any single devout religious believer who has a talent with flowery words. Am I the only one who is bothered by that…?

Interesting to think that most religious people in Limerick are still living in the world that existed at least 7 years before our beloved, amiable Charles Darwin published his ground-breaking work and turned the international scientific community away from the hokum of the ages. Also very pathetic…

Peace, my friends, and remember, don’t fall asleep in Jesus! You might never wake up again! 😉

Filed under: atheism, religion, science | Leave a comment »

Friday Music, just barely

Posted on April 3rd, 2009 by dj357

A song that’s been plaguing me for the past few days, from a very good band by the name of Stratovarius. If you like this song, check out the French Version of it 😉

Enjoy!

Filed under: humanism | Leave a comment »

I Had A Dream…

Posted on February 2nd, 2009 by dj357

Last night, I had a dream.

It was a beautiful summer morning. The birds were chirping, the sun was just finished rising, and I was standing in a pristine field of green. I looked up at the sky and saw fluffy clouds lazily drifting by.

All of a sudden, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, something red in the sky, and I slowly spun to gaze at it. It seemed to evade my eyes every time I tried to focus on it, and see what it was. It was like a blob of red paint, hanging in the sky, and it was getting bigger. The sky began to get darker, the clouds spun away at frightening speeds as if chased from the sky. The sun reversed it’s course in the sky and began to set, defying all logic. As the red blob slowly got bigger, I could see a sickly patch of black emerge from within it.

I was terrified, rooted to the spot, jaw gaping, barely able to breathe, watching this horrific thing unfold from the sky itself. The form emerging from the sky began to take shape. A ball? A fist? Some fingers? A hand!? An arm was emerging from the sky, as if someone was trying to reach out from some other world into ours. My mind shook with the realisation that this was exactly what was happening. Some…Thing was pulling itself through a hole in the sky! It was impossible! I could not believe what I was seeing, but seeing it I was, and it felt so surreal and yet so wholly real at the same time that I could do nothing but watch in horror as this thing slid another arm through the sky, and forced it open wider, making an awful tearing sound that bore deep inside of you and made you feel like a tin can being ripped apart inside a car as it crashes head-first into a wall.

The ground shook. My heart pounded.  The Thing pulled what could only be described as it’s head through the rent in the sky. It looked like a disgusting mass of tentacles where it’s face should be, but as it shrugged them back they resolved into strands of hair, and it’s face emerged from behind the mass of hair. It looked human, dark-skinned and surprisingly normal, for a being ripping it’s way through the sky. The being laughed, or made a sound that could reasonably be approximated to a laugh, and the ground shook with a vicious tremble, forcing me to the ground.

I gazed up at the sky, and saw it turn blood red in the matter of seconds. Things were beginning to fall from the sky and all of the animals around me in the fields began falling over stone dead. The things resolved into flaming fireballs, and rocketed into the ground, shaking me to the core as I gripped the grass trying to steady myself. The Thing laughed it horrible laugh once more, and as I looked up, I could a vicious evil grin on it’s face.

It then reached it’s enormous hand towards me, and before I knew what was happening, I was enclosed in an enormous fist which was pulling me at an impossible speed towards the sky. I screamed and struggled, trying everything to break free of this being’s grip, but all to no avail. Flames rushed past my head as the fireballs streaked towards the earth. The being lifted me close to it’s face, and I struggled to push all of it’s features into focus, but it was simply too massive for that to work. The being eyed me with it’s evil grin, and spoke in a voice that felt like it could rip the skin from my bones. It seemed to scream past me towards the ground as it said “Here’s Jesus!”. I looked up at one humongous eye in pure terror. It blinked at me. I screamed.

I woke up bolt-upright in my bed, screaming at the ceiling as I slowly realised that the dream was over, and I was alone again. My heart pounded inside my chest, threatening to break free. My breath came in whispery gasps, and I struggled to regain my sanity as the door exploded open in a shower of splinters. A burly, indescribably hairy man burst through the now empty doorway wearing a burnished bronze chest-plate and a horned helmet. He towered over me as I quaked with fear and said, rather casually in an Australian accent, further accented by a severe lisp, “G’day mate. My name if Fhor!”. He blinked at me. I screamed.

I woke up bolt-upright in my bed, screaming at the ceiling as I slowly realised that the dream was over, and I was alone again. My heart pounded inside my chest, threatening to break free. My breath came in whispery gasps, and I struggled to regain my sanity. I stared at the door, willing it to stay complete and splinter-free. Thankfully it complied.

I threw myself against the bed.

Never again will I read the Bible before going to sleep while eating cheese covered chocolate biscuits.

NEVER!!!

Filed under: atheism, humanism, humour, religion, skepticism | 2 Comments »

An Atheist’s Guide To Women

Posted on January 23rd, 2009 by dj357

This guide is provided as assistance to those of us (believer and heathen alike) who have trouble understanding the fairer sex. Neither I nor this blog take any responsibility for injury or loss resulting from misuse of this guide.

  • If a woman, either on-line or in the real world, tells you they will be right back and inform you that the reason for leaving is an urgent need to urinate, it is a fairly safe bet that this woman either likes you or is at least comfortable around you.
  • If a woman asks you the standard “how does this look on me” question, it is always best to advise her to rely on her own sense of taste, possibly with a remark like: “Look at me. Do you really want fashion advice from this guy?” If this fails, running away is then recommended. If this also fails, remain as non-committal as possible, forcing her hand, and she will most likely be too annoyed with you to buy the item in question and will want to leave. This will however sour relations for the rest of the day, so this is to be avoided at all costs.
  • If a woman begins to tell you something and then suddenly stops, and further probing only results in an irritated “It was nothing”, don’t fall for this simple ruse, it was SOMETHING.
  • If a woman you are getting to know seems more interested in your mother than your discussions on Particle Physics or Star Trek, then it is a clear sign that you should steer the conversation into more open waters as her interest in you is slowly running aground among the rocks of overzealous intellectualism.
  • If a woman shares your interest in Particle Physics and Star Trek, it is STILL a good idea to avoid spending 3-4 hours discussing the latest Laser Optimetric method for examining exotic particles.
  • She does not want to see your collection of Action Figures.
  • If you have to be the one to suggest the possibility of a threesome with your attractive female college friend, it is a good sign that making said suggestion will only result in strained tensions. And no, I did not say “strained tendons”.
  • It is quite okay for a woman to comment favourably upon the physical attributes of others, but it is NOT okay for you to do so. In their presence, at least.

This guide is brought to you by the wonderful folks at Midwest Humanists. Please exercise caution when using this guide.

Enjoy!

Filed under: humour | 6 Comments »

Social Revolution, anyone?

Posted on January 20th, 2009 by dj357

Hey all,

I recently watched Zeitgeist II (a.k.a. Addendum) and I thought I would share my thoughts with all.

Aside from the rage-inducing piece on the Monetary system (money is created out of thin air!?!? WTF?!?!) the invention of which I’ve always held to be our second mistake after being stupid enough to come down out of the trees, the section on a Resource-Based economy really held my attention, and I’m convinced it may be the way forward for our wayward social structure.

One of the comments that really spoke to me was the fact that the monetary system is based on scarcity, e.g. diamonds are kept scarce to keep their price up, and yet if something is abundant no-one in their right mind would ever accept having to pay for it, something like air or water (yeah, i know about water charges).

The other things that had my jaw dropping in awe (and a twinge of anger) was the 4,000mph mag-train technology (making a trip from L.A. to Beijing a matter of an hour or two) and the fact that there is enough clean, free and, most importantly, self-renewing energy in the earth’s core that we could easily begin to harvest within the next 10years that would power the ENTIRE GLOBE’s energy needs for 4,000 years, eliminating the need to have to pay for an electricity bill ever again.

If you haven’t seen it, or its predecessor, I highly recommend it!! I also recommend checking out The Venus Project, which is a plan for a viable, sustainable resource-based economy. It is featured in the documentary and the people behind give interviews about the current state of society and their hopes for the project.

Now, I know I sound like one of those crazy 9/11 theorist wackos talking about a “New World Order” etc… but I’m not. While I realise the makers of the documentary do believe some of this crap, I don’t. I don’t buy that all our problems are caused by the “elite 1% of the population”. They, and the problems they cause, such as blocking global-scale Electric Car development, are merely a symptom of the Monetary system and I do believe that this Monetary-based system we’ve applied to our societies is crippling ourselves, our planet and our growth.

If you haven’t realised, we now have (and have had for quite some time) the technology, the resources and the manpower to house every single family on the planet. And yet we sit around watching people die of AIDS in Africa while the U.S. wastes tens of billions of dollars on “defense”, pharmaceutical companies charge 1500% the actual cost of their medicines and idiots like Edward Current‘s satirical Christian blame Satan for plane crashes.

So, anyone else believe that a social revolution is in order before we destroy ourselves and our planet?

Filed under: ethics, skepticism | 8 Comments »

Congratulating Dubious Morality?

Posted on January 5th, 2009 by dj357

Having read a few blogs about this news post on Grandparents.com, something has struck me as extremely odd.

Society generally frowns upon those of its number who are generally ne’er-do-wells, dropping out of Secondary Education, remaining unemployed, mooching from the Welfare system and/or their parents etc… and getting pregnant at an irresponsible age (by Society’s reckoning), so, if that is indeed the case, why in the Seven Hells (and the one we don’t know about) are people from all over the world applauding Bristol Palin sending her and her child mountains of gifts when, if her mother was not a Governor or a previous runner for Vice President most of society would be decrying her as just another waste of space 17-year old wasting her waste of a life…?

Why do the religious (because Palin and McCain’s supporter were decidely so) spend all their time decrying the overwhelming immorality of our modern society, marking widespread irresponsible teen pregnancy as one of the hallmarks of our imminent donwfall (Rapture, anyone?) and yet as soon as one of their cute little number irresponsibly gets a bun in the oven, “oh yes, lets send them loads and loads of gifts, for they are the pinnacle of our society!” (Obviously I’m heavily paraphrasing there 😉 )

I’d ask for a show of hands on whether or not this hypocritical bulls**t is typical of these people, but I really don’t think that’s necessary.

I will however applaud the Palins and the Heaths in their unwavering support of the teens and their new son.

Peace.

Filed under: religion | 1 Comment »

Shameless Plug Sunday

Posted on January 4th, 2009 by dj357

Proving that my “regular” feature, “Shameless Plug Saturday”, is, in fact, variable and decidely un-regular, I now present you with today’s Shameless Plug Sunday feature!

Having recently watched Joyeux Noel and having heard “The Call” by Regina Spektor in the ending credits for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian I recently wrote a song from the point of view of a spouse, decidely androgynous, watching their loved one head off to battle, vowing to wait for them understanding the reality that they may never come back and attempting to rationalise their experience against that of their loved one.

It’s called “Spectre”, as it’s inspired by the words and melody of Regina Spektor’s heart-string-tugging song “The Call”. Since the medium of Youtube is not just auditory, but visual also, I’ve included some related imagery I scavenged from Google in the video, and though I’m not visual maestro, I hope it adds to the atmosphere and emotion of the song.

Enjoy!

Filed under: humanism, Video | Leave a comment »

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