Pat Condell: The arrogance of clergy

Back from the summer vacation season and on fire!

Taber-Chuckles: 2009-05-19

So many posts, so little time.

I can appreciate the attempt to give an encouraging message to the sheep but the short space makes for some damn funny clauses. This is one of them. I could be wrong, and this is the pure message as intended. Yikes. Let's start, as I always like to do, by analyzing the language. It is always a source of amusement.

Actually, the clause itself is fine but for two single words, pay and sacrifice. They give it a rather explicit meaning that is disturbing. All the speaker had to do is move who up to the first line and replace pay with make to make the clause acceptable. As it is, it reveals much about the psychology of the writer.

A person can make a sacrifice or pay a sacrifice. Paying for something implies that the object is something that the person wants but must perform a transaction to acquire it. Something tells me this is an impulse buy. Maybe they person wants the item but do they really need it? My main problem with the use of pay here is that the transaction involves the individual's life itself, as opposed to some form of legal tender or bartering with something of equal value. One's life is not. Apparently, the boogieman for this cult only accepts payment in death.

Next is the word sacrifice. Sure sacrifice fits the usage, if you change the verb, but one could just as easily-and effectively-use the word price. It definitely works with the verb pay. Pay the ultimate price has a shred of dignity to it. Make the ultimate sacrifice has a bit of dignity but also implies that the person knew that this would happen, thus performed the act willingly. That would be okay, but we are dealing with cultists, so there is an understanding of deception and/or coercion. What is the reward? Death. What is the cost of this reward? Death. Sounds like a death cult to me.

Then there is the other aspect of sacrifice. Of the two possibilities, this is usage is definitely literal: the person is literally sacrificing themselves, just like in the "good ol' days." People nowadays still make sacrifices but they are most often figurative. Wearing one's Sunday finest to the cult facility is a figurative sacrifice that pagan cults used to do. The Athenians would offer bolts of fine cloth to Athena as a sacrifice. What they do today is the same thing, just figurative—and very pagan. With this statement, however, it is implied that it is literal. It has to be-it is a death cult.

Towards the end of the writing, the word willing leapt out at me. There is not much to say about it other than it reinforces the supposition of dumb sheep being tricked into marching to the slaughter. All I can do is shake my head at the potential lost if these people were not fettered, neutered, and shamed into submission. They have no true respect for themselves.

On the other hand, taking the message as it reads, it is asking the reader to extol the virtue of someone so delusional as to believe that one person having holes shot in to their carcass makes a substantial difference. How many does it take? When have enough sheep been sacrificed to make one say: "maybe we cannot win this one?" Such arrogance. Such stupid sheep. Sounds like a match made in....ah, crap.

Pat Condell: Children of a stupid god

Back from a little time off, Pat flies out of the gate with both barrels blazing!

Defend your Faith?!!?

I was driving in to work one morning when I saw this little ditty stuck on the back of a SUV. Worse still, it was one of those magnetic ribbons that I see, usually ordering me to support the military. Even more recently, I saw one that ordered me to pray for the troops. Heh. There also is a ribbon ordering me to save the boobies...Major General Mictlantecuhtli reporting, sir!

This message takes the cake and it is not the first time my dessert has been snatched away because, if anything, these cultists are definitely inventive in ways that set to boil my anger and disgust with a side of classic you-poor-bastard head-smacking.

There is no reason to tell people to do this. Does it make a difference? No. The sad part is that they cannot see it. If faith is publicly banished, you, the cultist, still have it. The cultists would not have a label to stick on their group for fear of reprisals but you, the cultist, have faith. That, realistically, is faith - the singular interaction of a couple of neurons in that mass of grey jello in your skull. It is not a group-think. The only thing that the group has is a label for the faith, which has the same depth as calling a mixed group of bovines "cows."

Why? Because, while they definitely are all cows, they are not the same sub-species. This one is brown, this one has eight horns...you see the pattern here. Cultists within a single cult are the same way. They have the same basic tenets but they interpret and express them in different ways. Next time you are in your cult center, look at the zombie-bozo next to you. Do they feel exactly the same way about certain aspects of the tenets of the cult as you do? Are they as vehement about the same things as you? Probably not.

They may lean that direction, but is it the same amount? Maybe they lean the other way. All of those differences make up that person's faith, just as those same opinions make up yours. That is your faith. They are not the same. Maybe the zombie-bozo next to you would like nothing more than for some tenet that you hold dear to be kicked to the curb by the cult. You are both still members of your cult with a fundamental disagreement.

Think it's bullshit? I'll make it simple: abortion. Do you think you disagree with some of your fellow cultists over abortion? Are those reasons mundane or theological, not that it really matters for the sake of the argument - of course, it would be best if the assessment was that it was theological. It is a difference and that makes one person's faith different from another.

It is up to an individual cultist to defend their own faith because they define their faith.

So by defending your faith, which, arguably, will contain tenets and ideas that are antithetical to advancement and human progress, what this imperative is really saying is: "Defend your ignorance."

That is much clearer to me.

Taber-Chuckles: Jan 28, 2009

I definitely need to drive by this place more often. I just happened to go by one morning because I was running late and here was this beauty. I think I gritted my teeth when it click in my head what it said.

In one sentence is the command and the excuse. I can understand the clergy expressing this thought. They better...it's their job. If they don't think this then they need to quit.

To individuals, this surely must rub some of them the wrong way. Don't think. Yield to gawd. It will reward your submission with...an uninspiring life. I suppose if you approach it from a point of thinking that you as an individual is nothing, worthless and empty without a continuous serving of mystical spaghetti, it makes a little sense. You are nothing. You have nothing. Subjugate your remaining flecks of will to some The Pasta and as a reward, you will enjoy the same semi-random events that affect everyone around you. It's magic!

Is His Noodleness really giving his best? I suppose those parents who willfully let their teenage daughter die from easily treated diabetes or another set of parents also mentioned in the same article who let their fifteen-month-old die from a blood disease think that gawd's will was done. They prayed and I am sure they prayed their asses off so that their children would die and the lord provided.

Is gawd's will gawd's best? I suspect that you can find millions of people throughout this perpetual dark ages who would agree with that but their faith prevents them from making such a statement. Instead, they justify their disappointment with pathetic expressions like "It was gawd's will."

I think what bugs me so much about it is its similarity to the Nanny State. No one wants a Nanny State, except for freeloaders. Yet this is what the "Non-thought of the Day" is expressing. Leave it to me. I'll take care of you. Do these people not have a sense of pride in themselves? Do they not think themselves capable of doing anything significant? I guess not. It's the crux of the most contemptible phrase these people mutter: The Lord will provide. No. Your lord will provide you with only one thing: death. Everything else is up to you.


Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. - Albert Einstein

I will agree that the sad individuals who yield their will to a cloud will not do so for every question in their lives. However, that is not the point. It is egregious that they do so at all in the first place. They threw away the greatest and most powerful part of their humanity: the ability to grow beyond what they are. The church does not like that because you are with the boogieman made of you; that should be good enough. It makes me weep to think of the wasted potential of mankind on a singular, selfish desire.

I leave you with a few more thoughts from Albert Einstein, which I feel apply nicely:

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Amusing musings: Prayer in school

One of many items that seems to be of great concern to theo-slaves and their theo-fascist masters is prayer in school. Today, while I was partaking in my morning ablutions, this popped into my head and I asked myself, for all the noise this generates, what is the actual purpose of prayer in school?

The correct answer is nothing any good. I will permit it in parochial schools because that is part of the overall process of branding the cattle, but what about real people in real schools?

Having a quick prayer before beginning the school day has but one purpose, to remind the kids of the invisible hand that will spank them later if they are egregious in their behavior. It is about control and keeping the herd in line. Let us take as an example one kid who really offers up some words to his personal IT. Why does this have to be done in school and not at home? Did the kid oversleep? Did he forget? Perhaps she forgot something during her normal morning domestic devotional and this is a postscript...or would that be a postdict? What is the subject of his words? Peace on earth? Help with her test? Making some great plays at the game tonight so that he can score with Jenny later? Does any of this really help them during the day? If they don't do this, will they go insane and ritualistically drink blood and eat human flesh (Tee-hee).

When I was subjected to this as a lad, I ignored it. First they had a quick scripture reading followed by a moment of silence. Later it was simple silence. Ah, sweet silence. Something greatly lacking with today's xians. A number of kids did assume the fealty position, without genuflecting, because the disembodied voice told them to do it. I'm taking a nap. My nap, all two minutes of it since I included the general announcements as well, did more for me than chatting with the boogieman. I would think about my test rather than cheating by asking skydaddy to help me. I would have a zen moment to calm my anxiety with greater results instead of waiting for an invisible molester to cop a feel.

Prayer in school: it is not needed as it does nothing any good. If you want to pray, do it at home or in your temple. Kids are learning next to nothing as is so let us make sure that they have all the time that is available to make themselves useful to a civilized society.

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Pat Condell: The Curse of Faith

Spirituality, faith, religion, children, and Jesus hates you.





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