Happy Eostre!

With (a) many, many mass shootings happening in the US for some reason (the most recent, in New York State, the worst “since 16 April, 2007”), and (b) it being Easter, I thought it was high time to revisit President Obama’s comment about some American people clinging to their guns and religion.
Actually, these very two things – guns and religion – hilariously came together in a wacky incident at a shooting range in Florida, when a mother shot her SON in the back of the head and then killed herself, because she thought she was the Anti-Christ. Her suicide notes stated "I had to send my son to heaven and myself to hell" and that she had to do it in a public way so the world could also be saved: "Hopefully when I die, there will 1,000 years of peace."
Nutcase.
Religious nutcase.
But anyway, have a happy Easter and eat lots of chocolate eggs left by the Easter bunny in memory of the crucifixion and supposed resurrection of one Yeshua Mashiah (you might know him as "Jesus" the Messiah or "Christ". Or perhaps "Jeebus"). If you do believe in the resurrection of Yeshua, just one question. Who found that his body had been removed from the tomb: was it just Mary Magdelene, or a group of five women? You see, the answer depends on which Gospel you read - Mark: two Marys and Salome, Matthew: two Marys (note to self: good name for a cocktail), Luke: five women including the two Marys and Salome, John: Mary Magdelene alone. Not very helpful considering it's probably the most important event in Christianity (e.g., Pauls' words in his first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verses 14 to 17), particularly for those who believe the Bible is the literal word of God.
For an omnipotent being, he sure struggles to keep his facts straight.
And we can keep playing this game, too. For example, had the stone in front of the tomb been rolled away before the women/woman got there ("Yes" for Matthew, "No" for Mark)? Was there an angel (or angels) there? Did Jesus ascend into heaven and, if so, did he get on with it the same day as the resurrection (Luke), or 40 days later (actually, Luke again, but writing the Acts of the Apostles).
Ahhh, such fun.
Still - Happy Eostre, everyone!

Ye of little to no faith

Went to an Atheist Society meeting last night.
I'd never been to one before, but it sounds fun, right? As the guest speaker, Catherine Deveny of The Age, said (and I paraphrase), since atheists have, like, no morals, an Atheist Society meeting should be Debauchery Central.
Alas, it was a sedate affair, and I actually went on my lonesome because I am a lonely heathen. Catherine was speaking about her "Conversion to Atheism" though she remarked that it wasn't so much of a conversion as a very gradual process - an evolution, if you will - with an eventual realisation that she was simply an atheist. She's a very good speaker by the by, and though I disagree with some of her columns, I can't fault her convictions.
One of the questions asked of her, in response to her stated reliance on rational thought, was "What about faith, then?", which prompted the query "Can someone please explain to me what "faith" is?" to much laughter.
Having thought about it, though, here's my definition: "Faith" is the stubborn willingness to believe in nonsense despite all evidence (especially new and emerging evidence) to the contrary.
Whaddaya think? Dictionary material?
Also, speaking of complete lunacy, some more religious nuts have come out of the woodwork lately, claiming they don't have to obey Australia's laws: Defiant cult 'above the law'. I don't know what they base this on, but to throw a bit of scripture* their way, they should check out Luke 20:25:

"21 And they asked him, saying, Master, we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly: 22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no? 23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? 24 Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's. 25 And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's."

That's right, Jesus says "Pay your bloody taxes!"

* For those who don't know, "scripture" is a reference to the collected writings of other, and older, unsophisticated religious nuts, generally of Middle Eastern extraction, mostly written to justify their beliefs and their place in society, often for political purposes. The Onion did it best: Mistranslated Myths Of Nomadic Desert Shepherd Tribe Taken At Face Value

The inalienable right to be annoying

The law has recently come down on the side of the angels in holding that a NSW law enacted for the purposes of the recent World Youth Day event (more correctly, it should have been renamed as ‘Catholic Youth-And-Creepy-Old-Men Week’) in Sydney was invalid. By angels, I’m obviously referring to the people on the side of justice and liberty, not magic fairies with wings (or even the literal, biblical, men-shaped ‘messengers’ – yes, I know my biblical interpretation).

This abhorrent law prohibited anyone from causing ‘annoyance’ to World Yoof Day participants (with fines of up to $5,500).

Apart from the fact that we don’t live in a theocracy (yet), what does that even mean?

And the court agreed with my rhetorical question, saying that there was "no intelligible boundary" on what "causes annoyance", and that, in relation to the defendants (two women who wanted to hand out condoms) the regulation "could be expected to have a chilling effect upon the exercise of their freedom of speech because of the very uncertainty about the degree of its infringement upon that freedom": Court Dumps 'Annoy' Law (it was even reported on the other side of the world: Sydney Overturns Pope Protest Law).

One of the the judges was also reported to have said: “Yippee!! Free condoms!!”

There was so much wrong with that law, and Day/Week, that I might just focus on one of the specific problems with the law, being that people weren’t sure if they could wear T-shirts with anti-Pope slogans (pretty harmless stuff like "Pope Go Homo" and "The Pope Is Wrong - Put a Condom On" – sweet pick-up lines, too, if you want them).

And then I will use that focus to segue into another Religion vs. T-shirt drama that broke just before the Pope arrived. Seems some kid was wearing a T-shirt on the Gold Coast that said ‘Jesus is a Cunt’. Charming, I know, and I hope my daughter brings a boy like that home one day (wearing the T-shirt, of course), but apparently the kid was then arrested and charged with causing offence. Lawrence Money from The Age then took up the case for the prosecution on his blog, no doubt expecting much support for his views.

Support was mixed, I must say.

Someone called the rilestar posted the following comment – it’s pretty switched on:

I agree that it's offensive, because it's clearly grammatically incorrect - this kid's got his tenses all wrong*!! It should be Jesus WAS a C-nt!!

As we all know, Jesus was a Jewish rabble-rouser who was executed for seditious activities by the Romans 2000 years ago. 2000 years ago!! He's an ex-rabble-rouser. In fact, the T-shirt sounds like something the Roman authorities would have authorised, because the said rabble-rouser vexed them so.

Conclusion: Button A for offences against grammar. The T-shirt should obviously be in past tense.

And possibly Latin.

* Obviously, a lot of the posts on this blog are offensive for the same reason. Next discussion: Why are atheists so much better at spelling?

The various posts make a good read – I can recommend wasting some time on them.

Finally, just to get this all back to what it’s really all about, apparently this photo was taken during the ‘celebrations’ (although the parking sign in the background doesn’t appear to be in English…)

Nonetheless, wherever it was taken, it’s Gold: