Funniest movie clip ever

Every time I watch the Life of Brian, and I see this scene, I laugh so hard I cry:



It wasn't until many years later, that I realized the part where Brian's mom reveals that his biological father was a centurion ("Promised me the known world, he did!"), that I realized it resembled Celsus' claim that Jesus was the bastard son of one Pandira.

Anyone else ever notice this?

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PLUG AND PLAY: OF PETROLEUM, PANDERING, AND PURE PROPAGANDA

Yeah, I’m terribly pissed off again. I’d forgotten about this.

I recall reading an article about this subject, about 3-4 years ago, in a free weekly (S.F Weekly? The Guardian?). It was so long ago, chances are strong I won’t be able to find a reproduction online, so you’ll just have to take my word (and my increasingly spotty memory) on it.

There was a general assembly in Sacramento, of major car manufacturers, about the electric car. The general consensus among them, was that the electric car was

1. Far too slow


2. Too cumbersome to maintain,


3. Ran out of oomph after X amount of miles

And more similar ‘facts’.

A woman (whose name escapes me for the nonce, sorry) had driven all the way from San Francisco to Sacramento, to defend the electric automobile.

The catch? You guessed it: she drove up there in an electric car.

And, if memory serves (and again paraphrasing here), she was flabbergasted at how much drivel these clowns were spouting. All of which was false.

And I can give you a couple of pointers, as to why we believe this horse manure.

The Simpsons: yep, I’m dinging one of my all time favorite shows here (what’s my motto? Oh yeah: NOBODY GETS A FREE PASS).

Electric Car: "Hello, I'm an electric car. I don't drive very fast or go very far. And if you drive me, people will think you're GAAAY."*** Gay Robots at Efcot Center: "One of US! One of US!"

(Author’s note: while this may have been a tongue-in-cheek shot, one needs but remember how rumors get started.)

Has anyone seen this episode of ‘Grounded for Life?’

‘The electric car that Eddie drives in "Pay You Back with Interest" is a CVI CommutaCar. The CommutaCar was the most successful electric car ever put in production.’

Brief synopsis here: Eddie (the irresponsible brother, who I usually found the most entertaining) buys an electric car. Much was made of this. A woman he hit on was immediately repulsed by his transport, and he would have to recharge using an extension cord (no, none too convenient, ey?).

I’m sure there are others, but these are the two that spring to mind immediately.

So why aren’t we seeing these bad boys on the street? Simple. The oil companies. Those magnates of mass production, who lie to us to keep their money in their pockets.

There may be something to the notion that there’d be a lot of auto mechanics and/or auto part stores that would be put out of business, but let’s stick to the big boys for now.

This would solve so many problems in this world. We could change our economy, reduce pollution, stop wrecking the environment, and we could leave those nutjobs in the Middle East to their own devices.

And, as a ‘pre-emptive strike’, to those who would argue the technology isn’t evolved enough:

Does anyone recall the first ‘portable’ computer? I had one. It was anything but portable, weighing somewhere in the vicinity of twenty pounds, and was a pain to lug about.

Now we have laptops, notebooks, and PDA’s. I trust the point is not lost here.

How about the first cordless telephone? It was big enough, and bulky enough, to crack walnuts or someone’s skull. Now? We have phones that fit in the palm of our hands (and getting smaller every day).

Please read the supplied link for some interesting facts.

Here’s the main problem: technology improves with use. Between this culture of instant gratification, and the inherent laziness that the collective herd practices, well, once the novely wears off, it either gets shelved (due to lack of foresight, and/or a compilation of media echo chambering), or someone picks up the ball and runs with it.

So it’s about time that we bid farewell to this insane, high-maintenance love affair with the combustion engine – no matter how attached you may be to it, it’s still just a machine, and y’all are just going to have to choose between today’s convenience and your grandchildren wearing Hazmat suits and/or packing their own oxygen as they go out to play.

And, as always – the rational should prevail. So by no means am I advocating to my readers that they should dump their current mode of transport in the lake, and rush right out to purchase an electric car – rather that you and I should take specific steps and put in place mechanisms that won’t wreak havoc on our environment – just ‘cause I’m a tree-hugger, doesn’t mean I have sap-for-brains.

How’s that old ditty go? Oh yeah – “My momma told me – ya gotta shop around!”

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I GOT YOUR RADICAL GAY AGENDA RIGHT HERE!

We constantly hear this nonsense: "It's all part of the Radical Gay Agenda!"
As my post implies, I'm grabbing a portion of my anatomy. You guess what it is.
It's old. It's tired. It smells of the same sort of Nazi propaganda of the late 30's, when they were fishing around for excuses for their agenda.
I think this explanation is just as likely as the 'Radical' one:



In short, discrimination is wrong, whether it's sexually-based, race-based, age-based, or creed-based.
Consenting adults, nobody gets hurt?
Mind your own damn business, then.

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STEPPING THROUGH THE GATES OF ATHEISM: MY PERSONAL JOURNEY PART THE DEUS – HOLDING AND PAINE.

I left off last week’s installment with having read Voltaire (whose works can be found here) – who questioned the validity of specific points of scripture, which I had heretoforward never wondered about. The exclusivity of the author of Matthew’s strange and singular pronouncement of saints arising on the day (morning or afternoon?) of Jesus’ crucifixion. Who questioned the ‘darkness that covered the land’. Who satirized Christianity, and smote it with a tongue of fire – "Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror." Who held that ‘I do not know why they call it common sense, as it is not so common.”

I began to cast my net across the Internet, seeking answers, seeking honesty, and seeking the Truth, no matter how inconvenient it may be.

How I came across Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason escapes me now, but I read it, and yes, I admit it freely, I loved it. Paine was a firebrand: an honest man: one who spoke his piece, and be damned to the consequences! Mind you, I agreed with perhaps eighty percent of it: I, for instance, disagree with Paine’s dictum of studying dead languages. He made some errors, true, but due to the circumstances (the first part was penned in a French prison, where he was under death sentence for objecting to the execution of the King during the infamous French Revolution, the second, when he was terribly ill), I was more than ready to forgive some of the mistakes made.

So I had a new hero.

To my horror, I stumbled across this ‘dissection’ of Paine. It had been originally titled: “Paine: an inept picking his nose.”

I read this horrible treatise, wherein the author of this tripe took huge liberties of attacking Paine’s character, calling him all sorts of names, from ‘bigot’ to ‘anti-semite’ to…well, it was so wrong on so many levels, it beggars the imagination. I embarked on a vigorous cross sectioning of fisking said document (which I’ve never finished, or published), showing the ridiculousness of the criticisms.

Then Holding put forth on the concept of agape (just a snippet here: read it for yourself) –

“In such a scenario, not only is it right and proper, for the sake of agape, to confront and confront boldly; it may be the only responsible thing to do to keep the "disease" or error from spreading and afflicting more souls! (In the ancient world, and even today, insults and polemics were a way to shame and discredit an opponent; see here.)
So agape does include verbally attacking and discrediting one's opponents, or confronting other believers, when they are in the wrong. Jesus speaks to these men not as his enemies, but as enemies of the truth. There is no indication that he speaks to them as personal enemies, for all of his comments reflect their deception of others; the personal relationship between the parties does not even come into the picture. They were enemies for the sake of the Kingdom of God.”

And pardon me for taking this out of context (if indeed I am), but I read this, as giving Christians a free pass to ridicule, denounce, and otherwise slander at will, anyone who disagrees with them. These people aren’t Jesus – they’re representatives, and poor ones at that. It fairly turned my stomach, it did: it reeked of hypocrisy. The reader is invited to look up the definition of agape – I see nothing indicative of what Holding says, save that this is cherry-picking at its worst. And to this day, this ugly meme raises its lopsided head and spews venom.

And I, trying to be fair, looked elsewhere. And all I saw was: dishonesty, slander, and pathetic excuses. I mean, everywhere. I was trying my utmost to keep an open mind, but I can’t abide dishonesty, in myself as well as others. Seeking some sort of symmetry, I started researching the history of Christianity, with this romantic ideal that I’d held in my mind for so long, that somehow Christians (or any religious folks) were the standard bearers of a higher ideal.

Pallbearers would be a better word. I’d already known of the Inquisition (from having read the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, which is actually a compendium of the Inquisition’s history and the torture of ‘witches’): but I was aghast when I realized that indeed, Christianity was in many cases, the sole provocateur in so many scenarios, that it had cost so many lives, that so much bloodshed bathed the feet of this metaphorical monolith, that it was by no means the group of people I wanted to be associated with.

I recall reading (this actually belongs in installment one: sorry) McDowell’s justification for the genocide of the Canaanites – they were very amorous, they had sex with anyone they encountered. At first, I shrugged: then I realized – that’s a lousy excuse for wholesale slaughter.

In the meantime, my born-again buddy and I started getting into it – I told him bluntly, “You’ve joined up with the wrong crowd.” Our phone conversations trailed off…when I was on the verge of conversion, he called twice a week: now? I hear from him once a month, maybe longer. One of the last conversations we had, I brought up the fact there was no evidence that the Exodus had occurred: he was fairly shocked that I would even say such a thing, and there was much semantic shuffling so as not to hear what I could offer to support my position. (Note: this could be that he’s a lot busier these days – not just the atheism.)

And, hey, he is a good Christian. He’s a kind, loving person. I’ve never heard him say a bad word about anyone. He’s good-natured; we talk about the show the Family Guy (one of his favorites, despite the blasphemy), or the Simpsons. He’s very humble: he actually walks the talk – and I can say this with candor. Sure, he’s a Rapture believer (we haven’t quite gone over that one yet), a historicist (all loose ends will be tied up in the end), and an inerrantist, but he by no means tries to force his belief on me. We’re still friends – and he has an old friend, a lady, who’s a puppeteer and a New Age psychic type. The three of us get together – we have a great time. Why? Mutual respect.

Back on topic: sorry.
So, like any critically thinking adult, I began to measure the arguments for as opposed to the arguments against. I started reading critical commentaries of prominent critics on both sides of the fence.

And, I’m sorry, but the pro-religion advocates, well, to put it succinctly: they sucked. They would take the slightest clue towards slander: they would skirt the fringe of being sued: character attacks seemed to be the main thrust of their apologia. And the logic? It was just plain awful.

You see, I’d chosen the wrong method for conversion: instead of believing first, I decided to do research. The research part is supposed to come afterwards.

This concludes part two. Next week’s third and final installment: STEPPING THROUGH THE GATES OF ATHEISM: MY PERSONAL JOURNEY PART THE TRES – INGERSOLL AND BARTON.

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CRY RACIST!

This particular maimed meme is being trotted out lately, and to be blunt, not only is it stupid, it’s infuriating.

Courtesy of God4suckers.net via Pharyngula, from the Raw Story:”New Christian broadcasting TV special featuring Ann Coulter blames Darwin for Hitler”
(SNIP)"Author and Christian broadcaster Dr. D. James Kennedy connects the dots between Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler in Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, a groundbreaking inquiry into Darwin’s chilling social impact," announces a press release issued by Florida's Coral Ridge Ministries. "The new television documentary airs nationwide on August 26 and 27 on The Coral Ridge Hour."(SNIP END)

Now both these worthies have covered this, but prior to this, I got into it with a bozo at the NGB, here prior to reading these posts (the clown was posing by the monicker of ‘question’: talk about hubris! People posturing as a philosophical concept? Puh-LEASE!), and truth be told, I laid into him pretty hard. He brought up the Scopes trial (GROAN – not that old chestnut!), claiming several experts had been called to the stand (I buggered him on that one). I also pulled a reversal on him with this – of course, being a theist, he was NEVER wrong.

But it prompted me to pick up a copy of the ‘atheist bible’ (that’s actually what this idiot called it). A very old, second-hand copy of DARWIN SELECTED AND EDITED by NORTON CRITICAL EDITIONS (circa 1970).
Honestly, it’s a hard read: there are a few humorous commentaries on drunken monkeys in the Descent of Man. I scanned the index: a few references to Negroes (four in all), a lot of supplementary commentary surrounding the main works. I haven’t quite finished it.

Not content with my lot (am I ever?), I started googling around. Came across this:

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

Note the emphais: apparently this John West only reads selectively. First off, everything I’ve read to date from the two theses gives me the distinct impression that these are observations only. Second off, the sharp-eyed reader may note the passage at the end, where it is qualified as ‘excepting in the case of man himself’.
Third off, from the article:” [See Darwin, Descent (1871), vol. I, pp.109-110, 160, 201, 216.] In the same book, Darwin disparaged blacks and observed that the break in evolutionary history between apes and humans fell "between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla," indicating that he considered blacks the humans that were the most ape-like.”

Here is the passage in its entirety:
“The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

So as you can see, Darwin was in no way equivocating black people with apes. True, he was a 19th CE Englishman, and he did indeed have a Eurocentric viewpoint, but past that, he hardly qualified for membership in the KKK. He wrote quite eloquently upon the mistreatment of slaves: he was against slavery: and was an abolitionist. Would he have married a woman of another color? Chances are pretty strong he wouldn’t have. Hardly pegs the man as a white-hood wearing white trash wackinoid riding on the hood of a car in Memphis. He was nowhere near being as enlightened as we are in this modern age in regards to race. I might turn the creationists’ view to this little footnote:
“Some men of that time (such as Louis Agassiz, a staunch creationist) went so far as to say they were a different species.”

And this website, that touts itself as ‘Evolution News’ is sponsored by…three guesses. Yep, got it in one: the Discovery Institute! (Note: you have to poke around to discover this).

So, in a nutshell:Was Darwin a racist? Most probably. Was he a White Power Supremacist? Obviously not. He was a product of his time and age: were you or I raised in the 19th CE, we’d probably have the same backward idiosyncrasies. Am I an apologist for this? No. I am pointing out the facts of the matter. Was he correct in this? NO. Did Hitler ever mention Darwin’s alleged ‘influence’ on him? NEVER. Does this impact the multiple fields that have evolutionary at their core?

Don’t make me laugh.

This is one (of many) problems I have with creationism. Never mind they’ve contributed absolutely nothing to the scientific community. Never mind that if you were to strip these folks of the evolutionary theory attack, they’d topple over at the first light breeze. Let’s skip the fact that they use sophistry and semantic gymnastics to cobble together a vicious meme:

They’re dishonest.

And I can’t stand liars. “Half a truth mixed with half a lie is oftentimes the blackest lie of all.”

/Autorant off

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THE OTHER RELUCTANT ATHEIST

Yes, there’s another one. No, it’s not me, nor is it my evil twin. (The sighs of relief are audible, even from here).

There’s this Catholic lady named Jen, at http://et-tu.blogspot.com/, who apparently has the same monicker. We’re both white people: that’s about where the similarity ends. She claims she’s been an atheist, until recently (approximately the same month I started my website, wouldn’t ya know?), where she had an epiphany while at the doctor’s. She started at the http://thereluctantatheist.blogspot.com, but has moved to the former link.

Nice enough, but mostly, the blogs aren’t much more than mutual admiration meeting places; they do a vanilla bit of criticizing atheists, no real hot topics. Kinda ho-hum, no spirited discussions.

I dropped in, said a hello of sorts, shot off my mouth a bit, and was studiously ignored. Man, am I heart-broken! Hehehehe. I played the troll, I suppose, but I think I was polite.

For my regular readers, a monicker change is in the offing: I will announce it in a post, and list my rationale for doing so.

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MEMES CAN ONLY BE DILUTED, NOT PURGED

“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.” - V is for Vendetta.

I have given this some serious thought: can we simply expunge this virulent meme, a wart on Humanity’s face?

Obviously not. The moral ramifications of doing so should be readily apparent, even to the most militant atheist. We cannot change the human heart at gunpoint. We cannot force obeisance from the foolhardy, nor can they force it from us. Centuries of tradition and humanity’s inherent dislike of change (that paradox that has haunted us from the time when Man first formed identity to this day) makes for a Sisyphean task.

While I agree in principle with the lyrics from Lennon’s Imagine:

”Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... “

I believe that this utopia is still resting far out of our reach.

I will illustrate my point, with three examples, two from the real world, one from the blogosphere.

From here:
[Recently, in central Burma, riots broke out between Muslims and Buddhists because of the rumours that a group of Muslim men raped a Buddhist woman. The military junta deliberately allowed the riots to blow out of control - their aim is to divert people’s attention from the economic problems and worsening conditions of health care and education.

And here:
“The religious passion and political potential of Iraq's long- suppressed Shiite majority erupted Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims chanted, prayed, whipped their backs and even drew their own blood in an ancient ritual that held profound implications for modern-day Iraq.”

I will not link to the third – mostly because

1. This is analogy only, not a criticism, and


2. The fellow in question is someone I do NOT wish to have visiting.

“In 11th grade I "progressed." That was the year I was kicked of the football team for calling some kids "niggers." I had been introduced to "white pride" and loved the power. No one could tell me what to do. The Mexican and black kids wore Malcolm X shirts and brown pride shirts, so I made a shirt that read: "white pride." The school officials couldn't make me take it off since I said I would sue and make the other kids take theirs off. The officials couldn't really do anything. I hated people of color. I remember once, during Desert Storm, that I put an exacto knife blade to an Iraqi girl at our school. She told her mom and the state department came to talk to me. They tried to scare me. But when I had emerged from the office, unpunished, I had gained even more respect from the students. I loved to hate.I can remember making fun of the kids in special Ed. Oh; I would get a laugh from all the popular kids. They thought I was so cool and funny! I would make one autistic kid so mad that he would scream and hit himself in the middle of the halls. He wanted to be liked so I would use him. I would act nice and tell him to ask our P.E. coach what a sphincter was. All of us would laugh when we would hide and listen to him ask Coach C. "what's a sphincter?" Then we would bust a gut when Coach rolled his eyes and said in his gruff voice, "It's a muscle, Chris." But I didn't only pick on the special Ed kids. I would punch anyone for a buck. My friends knew it and so if they didn't like someone they would give me a dollar and I'd just walk up and hit them. There was another girl, who was very awkward. A friend and I would follow her down the halls, pointing our fingers at her, and scream at her like in the movie "The Invasion of The Body Snatchers." Wasn't I cool?”

The first two examples make me wonder: where would these people be, if they had no higher power to answer to? More often than not (myself included), most atheists tend to have this unrealistic utopian POV, where once everyone is released from the constraints of an invisible sky jockey, they’ll simply figure out that the shackles of fear, the manacles of monolithic authority, were all illusion, and simply settle down. Alas, I fear not. Bear with me, gentle reader, and let me explain:

For the most part, the majority (as I see it) are just regular folks. Most people are basically good. But due to our innate ferity, we are all vulnerable to moments of ferocity that shake us, and those around us, to the core. For instance, in the second example – we see hundreds of thousands flagellating themselves and striking their heads with daggers, in an orgy of religious fervor – can you or I imagine what these people would be doing if they weren’t religious? If they slipped the shackles of authority, imaginary or otherwise?

For the third example – those of you who are active in the blogosphere, you perhaps recognize the snippet provided. For those of you who don’t – here is an individual who by his own account was a violent, unrestrained individual. Who would, for the slight beep of a horn, jump out of his car and thrash the honker. Who started street fights in Tijuana just for the fun of it, brutalized other people in what can only be categorized as sociopathic glee, who by anyone’s yardstick, was so disconnected from his fellow human beings, that by all rights he should be on an episode of Cops, or perhaps waiting on Death Row.

He is the sort of person that makes me glad he found religion. Otherwise, he’d still be reaching out to share his pain with the rest of us. Instead, he found a shift in focus, a more constructive channel for his energies.

Mind you, his debate style is a kata of cognitive dissonance to make the eyes blink and the knees wobbly (when I peruse his blog, I oscillate between hilarity and headache), which makes his conversion narrative all the more believable. But I’m perversely glad that he’s not out wrecking other people.

But I digress. Take this fellow, or even example number two: multiply him in accordance with the latest prison stats, or the unsolved brutalities of the world, or a combination of both, and you have a virtual tidal wave of feral ferocity that, without religion, would sweep unchecked across our literal landscape, a subtraction of empathy and a multiplication of madness that would, as the Bard worded it, ‘blow the horrid deed in every eye, that tears might drown the wind.’
So there you have it: religion is still a necessity, in our world, until every man, woman and child can estabish that connectivity we call empathy with one another, these chains will persist until our collective consciousness evolves past this primitive immature need of invisible, unprovable authority.

It is well said, that “Neurotics build castles in the sky: psychotics go live in them.”

And we are all lunatics, to the core of us: but some of us are gentle, yet others gripped by fierce berserkgang.

I leave you with this salient song:

”The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
got to keep the loonies on the path

The lunatic is in the hall
the lunatics are in the hall

the paper holds their folded faces to the floor
and every day the paper boy brings more
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
and if there is no room upon the hill
and if your head explodes with dark forebodings too I
'll see you on the dark side of the moon

The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head

you raise the blade, you make the change
you rearrange me ' till I'm sane
you lock the door and throw away the key
there's someone in my head but it's not me
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
you shout and no one seems to hear
and if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon”
– Pink Floyd, Brain Damage

Till the next post, then.

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