shuggy's blog
Madam, – I’m a little confused that the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, is discouraging people from gathering at Knock to witness apparitions which he believes “risk misleading God’s people and undermining faith”.
This is the the same “faith” that believes that a cosmic Jew who was his own father by a virgin can enable you to live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from something invisible called your soul that is present because a woman made from a rib was convinced by a talking snake to eat an apple from a magical tree. – Yours, etc,
LIAM MEEHAN,
La Vista Avenue,
Killester, Dublin 5.
http://www.irishtimes.com/
newspa...4257552159.html
Philosophy, as long as a drop of blood shall pulse in its world-subduing and absolutely free heart, will never grow tired of answering its adversaries with the cry of Epicurus:
Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them, is truly impious.
Philosophy makes no secret of it. The confession of Prometheus:
In simple words, I hate the pack of gods
[Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound]
is its own confession, its own aphorism against all heavenly and earthly gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the highest divinity. It will have none other beside.
But to those poor March hares who rejoice over the apparently worsened civil position of philosophy, it responds again, as Prometheus replied to the servant of the gods, Hermes:
Be sure of this, I would not change my state
Of evil fortune for your servitude.
Better to be the servant of this rock
Than to be faithful boy to Father Zeus.
(Ibid.)
Prometheus is the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar.
SOURCE: Marx, Karl. The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature (1841), Draft of a New Preface (Berlin, March 1841).
http://www.marxists.org/archive/...es/
foreword.htm
The Sceptics reduced the theoretical relation of people to things to appearance, and in practice they left everything as of old, being guided by this appearance just as much as others are guided by actuality; they merely gave it another name. Epicurus, on the other hand, was the true radical Enlightener of antiquity; he openly attacked the ancient religion, and it was from him, too, that the atheism of the Romans, insofar as it existed, was derived. For this reason, too, Lucretius praised Epicurus as the hero who was the first to overthrow the gods and trample religion underfoot; for this reason among all church fathers, from Plutarch to Luther, Epicurus has always had the reputation of being the atheist philosopher par excellence, and was called a swine; for which reason, too, Clement of Alexandria says that when Paul takes up arms against philosophy he has in mind Epicurean philosophy alone. (Stromatum, Book I [chap. XI], p. 295, Cologne edition, 1688.) Hence we see how “cunning, perfidious” and “clever” was the attitude of this open atheist to the world in directly attacking its religion, while the Stoics adapted the ancient religion in their own speculative fashion, and the Sceptics used their concept of “appearance” as the excuse for being able to accompany all their judgments with a reservatio mentalis.
SOURCE: Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich. The German Ideology (1845-6), Vol. I, Chapter III: Saint Max, section 1.3: The Ancients. See also my compilation, Marx & Engels on Skepticism & Praxis.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/
...ch03a.htm#c.1.3
[Superfluous stuff]
"Clearly, Scientologists should be forced to justify their doctrinal lunacies"
It is anything but 'clear'. Why should they, or anyone else, be forced to justify anything to busybody bullies like Ms. Hyde - and who the hell is she, anyway? If that sort of thing is the order of the day then I shall start insisting that Will explains and justifies his religion of Marxism - and where should we be then? Here 'til Christmas, I suppose!
I know very little concerning Mr. Bashir but I hope that he would be able to formulate a more sensible question that Ms. Hyde puts in his mouth:
""So, [...] you're saying that by some magic the communion wafer actually becomes the flesh of a man who died 2,000 years ago, a man who – and I don't want to put words into your mouth here – we might categorise as an imaginary friend who can hear the things you're thinking in your head?""
I mean, how old is Ms. Hyde? That is the sort of juvenile question over which we used to argue when I was a teenager. I'm surprised you bother with it, Shuggy (no inverted commas at owner's request). Mind you, I suppose you are forced to spend too much time with teen-agers so you're used to it.
Edited By Siteowner
Can you not delete duff on sight like?
Fucking nora.
Can't speak for anybody else, but I generally stay off religion for the same reason usually I stay off Israel/Palestine - the whole subject is an arse magnet.
Even the friendly, happy-clappy types have a horrible habit of showing up, announcing that the universe must've been created by an invisible superhero because otherwise, what would be the point of it all? and then inviting you to engage with that argument as if it weren't bollocks. If that's the jumping off point, what else is there left to say beyond "Ooops, is that the time? Got to go, important sinning to do". Turning on the full-force atheist stuff with some of the happy-clappies I've met just feels a bit like beckoning a puppy by pretending you're going to give it a biscuit, then booting it in the face. With hobnail boots on.
It's even worse with the various mentalists who think God granted them permanent tenancy and usufruct on some piece of holy sand, or that the Lord smiles on certain types of machine gun massacre. Pointing and laughing seems apt, but who's got the energy to debate people whose response to everything is Because God said so?
Basically, discussing religion is like slamming your head in a car door, only less fun. I'd pay folding money to avoid that kind of crap in real life, so I'm not especially keen to invite a load God-happy mentalists to regurgitate it online, during my free time.
Why should they, or anyone else, be forced to justify anything to busybody bullies like Ms. Hyde - and who the hell is she, anyway?
She's a journalist, David. She's taking issue with the way in which religions and cults attempt to put their beliefs beyond scrutiny. If they preach - which they do - why should this be allowed to pass?
There is one word in Ms. Hyde's sentence which should ring alarm bells - "forced"! Scientologists 'preach', in much the same way that Will 'preaches, or I do, or even you, Shuggy, and people can dispute our words if they wish, but should we be "forced" to justify ourselves to the likes of Ms. Hyde; or should we just tell her to stick her dictatorial attitudes where the sun don't shine?
Agree with duFf
You shood still delete the fucking eedjiot
Forra laff llike.
And I agree with Will, oops, 'shome mishtake, surely ... [deleted]!
Call for scientific advisers to be free from political interference
and to be our new masters and slave drivers cos they is clever and that. Plato wins.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/scienc...ence-
guidelines
fuckking Adorno and Horkhiemer is twirling in their fukking graves and shit.
Fuckk it -- let us just have david toube and brendan oneil in charge of shit -- we fuckking deserve it.
We are quite past the time when internet and enlightened media could deal with all the religious (and ideological - for Will) shit. Not that they ever could.
It's 2x4 time, I'm afraid, Shuggy.
Well, surely the point of the Last Supper was, here was Christ about to be put to death, saying to the disciples, "my actions might be divine, but my body is a human one, like yours, made out of peasant food, bread, wine, the food you are all eating. I don't eat nectar and ambrosia. We're made of the same earthly stuff. But, through grace acting in us, that earthly stuff turns into acts by which we move the very course of the universe - love, compassion, forgiveness. These things don't reside in the bread and wine. We do them. But we eat the bread and wine in order that we can. Always bear this in mind when you eat."
If a group of first century working men could understand this simple reassurance, surely Ms Hyde can ... oh no, I see she's writing for the Guardian.
We'll, this sort of debate will likely get people thrown into prison after when the UN anti-blasphemy rubbish starts getting enforced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y...h?
v=Yrvi_uGSnuU
Commenting by HaloScan
