When God comes down to do miraculous things, people fall over. Or is it just that religion makes people weird? A little while back I wrote about my experience of NOT being “Slain in the Spirit”, as pentecostals like to call it. If you want to see an extreme version of this, here are two hilarious videos featuring Benny Hinn. Hinn is somewhat controversial as he preaches a “health and wealth” message which many Christians consider goes counter to the actual teaching of Jesus. “God wants you rich”, and needless to say, Hinn is fairly rich.
Anyway, these are funny.
Benny Hinn, Dark Lord of the Sith:
Great music, “Let the Bodies hit The Floor” by Drowning Pool:
One of the disadvantages of being born in a country with no large wildlife is the lack of good swear words. “You’re a Kakapo’s bum” doesn’t compare with the exotic combinations of “Elephant”, “Donkey” and “Mother” which pepper Urdu and Hindi.
Well, I suppose the early Maori may have cursed about the Moa or the Giant Haast Eagle? “Your father is a Moa’s toenail. Now cook the man some eggs.”
My knowledge of Hindi was vastly improved by a work colleague who taught us how to swear in his language. This was mainly to tease another co-worker, by threatening to phone her mother and use these words in the conversation. She was a good Indian girl as far as her distant family were concerned, “Don’t you dare tell my parents about my boyfriend”. I think we did try out one or two phrases on a cab driver when we were drunk.
Boy, those cultures can really swear! Think of a body part, multiply by a large animal, insult its intelligence, give it a foul disease and have sex with it. That’s what a real insult is, none of this mild Anglo-Saxon rubbish. Perhaps even in their blasphemies the English are too polite.
Except the guys in Four Lions are also English. My knowledge of Pakistani swearing, which seems just as gleefully vile as Hindi, expanded by watching this film. Some time ago I listed top ten spiritual movies. I’ve discovered a few more, and this one would definitely make it into the list. Not because it’s spiritual as such, but because the story takes place within the current political and social climate of westernised Islam and offers wicked social commentary. Better than that, it’s hilarious.
Four Lions is the story of four English men wanting to martyr themselves for their faith. Unfortunately most of them are incredibly inept. At first I was concerned their failure and stupidity could appear racist, but it’s clear that other characters are also mentally challenged, for example the dim white girl who flats next door and the bumbling English authorities who deal with the group. I wonder what different Muslim communities think of this film? There are some poignant human moments too, and the social commentary is deeper than it first appears.
I don’t want to spoil it for you, so all I’ll say is: It’s funny— see it!
Four Lions Trailer
Guess what? There’s another fantastic movie about suicide bombers, I posted that here.
Everyone else seems to think merely posting a video is a valid “blog”, so I will do likewise 😉 It’s kinda like slapping down a large smelly fish, and saying, “Eat that, I can’t be bothered writing anything”.
Does door-to-door religion bother you? May I present John Safran, an Australian. I think he’s funny.
[Translators note for Americans: When he says “beezniss”, that means “business”. When he says “feer dinkum”, that means “I’m from a small country town, and I really believe this”. I would like to point out that I’m from a different country, and I don’t talk like this at all. Well, not much.]
Some of you may know I’m a fan of webcomics. That’s why I have the link to Dr McNinja down there along with the more “serious” ones. Via Twitter, Iain introduced me to Scenes from a Multiverse:
If you’re wondering what a “multiverse” is, see my preview of The Grand Design.
And while we’re on the topic, I’ll quote one of “The Thirteen Missing Explanatory Links in the Atheist v. Theist Debate” by one of my favorite agnostic bloggers, Prometheus Unbound:
Universe/multiverse. If you are an atheist, the multiverse hypothesis is a godsend. As cosmologist Bernard Carr toldDiscover magazine, “If there is only one universe you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.” Like the God hypothesis (or Linus’s Great Pumpkin hypothesis), the multiverse hypothesis is a tidy catch-all for getting out of every thorny dilemma of probability: Life’s beginning? “With God the multiverse all things are possible.” Consciousness? ”Ditto.” If you adopt belief in The Great Pumpkin the multiverse, it makes every implausibility inevitable. But how the multiverse multiplies itself, or ever arrived at its spectacular powers of creation, who knows? If atheists have a god in the closet, it’s Fortuna, their Great Pumpkin.
I came across a very cool little book yesterday, of “fond farewells, deathbed diatribes and exclamations upon expiration”. Some are tragic, some are uplifting, some are plain ironic:
“I wish I had drunk more champagne”
John Maynard Keynes
The British Keynes was not your average economist. Keynes, whose eponymous theories influenced Roosevelt’s New Deal and the rise of the European welfare state, was also a member of the famously liberated Bloomsbury group. He was politically liberal and sexually liberated, sleeping with many of the bohemian men in his circle and, of course, drinking champagne. Of that, and government spending, Keynes thought there could never be enough.
“I’ve Never Felt Better”
Douglas Fairbanks
After suffering a heart attack in 1939 at the age of 57, “The King of Silent Hollywood” (Robin Hood, The Thief of Baghdad, The Mark of Zorro) reassured an attendant while resting at home, then went back to sleep and died that night. Fairbanks was an athletic movie star known for his charm, good looks, and— apparently— an inability to gauge his physical condition.
“The couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist— “
General John Sedgwick
General John Sedgwick was a corps commander of the Army of the Potomac who enjoyed a reputation among his men as a good-humored guy and relentless optimist. At the Battle of the Wilderness, while other men were diving for cover from Confederate sharpshooters, Sedgwick scoffed at the danger, stood up, and caught a bullet in his face.
Some “last words” in the book are official goodbyes, written before the author popped their clogs. Do you have any final words planned? I hope mine will be “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…”
I’ve been researching a popular New Age writer who, it seems to me, hasn’t been entirely honest about her past. More on that in the future. In the meantime, a New Age believer who’s ditched a lot of her former beliefs shared this on one of the forums I was reading.
Twelve Steps for the Recovering New Ager
Step One
“We admitted we were powerless over the New Age and that our Higher Selves had turned us into flakes.”
Step Two
“We came to believe that a powerful bullshit detector could restore us to sanity.”
Step Three
“We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our lower selves and a good psychiatrist.”
This is not a joke.
Step Four
“Made a searching and fearless disposal of our crystals, tarot decks, incense, angel cards, rising signs, wands, spells, medicine wheels, pendulums and lottery tickets.”
Step Five
“Admitted to God, our Guru and our seminar leader the exact nature of our delusion.”
Step Six
“Were entirely ready to take back our mind, body and spirit.”
Step Seven
“Humbly asked our Higher Power to f**k off.”
Step Eight
“Made a list of all the New Age assholes we’d been nice to and vowed to treat them all like sh#t.”
Step Nine
“Insulted the New Age wherever possible, especially when to do so made us look bad.”
Step Ten
“Continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly relished in it.”
Step Eleven
“Sought through television and newspapers to improve our conscious contact with humanity, concentrating only on our ability to understand what the hell was really happening in the world.”
Step Twelve
“Having avoided a paradigm shift as the result of these steps, we vowed to carry the NAA message to New Agers everywhere and to practice being ordinary in all our affairs.”
We’ve been speaking of Ganesh recently. Sugarpop suggested the word could be confused with Ganache.
A friend who should know says, “By the way, mythology says Ganesh had a sweet-tooth, that’s how he got fat :)” (This is not intended to insult anyone.)
Mmmm, chocolate. Is food a spiritual experience for you?
I’m hungry now.
If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it. ~ Epictetus
Great local pizza and a bottle of chianti last night. At dinner I picked up a newspaper:
“European Christians must have more children or face the Continent becoming Islamised, a Vatican official has said.” I note that with their view on contraception, the Vatican is particularly keen on making babies anyway.
“The falling fertility rates in large segments of the Islamic world have been matched by another significant shift: Across northern and western Europe, women have suddenly started having more babies … Immigrant mothers account for part of the fertility increase throughout Europe, but only part. And, significantly, many of the immigrants are arrivals from elsewhere in Europe, especially the eastern European countries admitted to the European Union in recent years.”
In short, the best demographers can do is make broad guesses about population trends based on current conditions and assumptions about how (and how much) those trends might be influenced by societal changes. Or, as summarized by [population expert] Walker:
“The human habit is simply to project current trends into the future. Demographic realities are seldom kind to the predictions that result. The decision to have a child depends on innumerable personal considerations and large, unaccountable societal factors that are in constant flux. Yet even knowing this, demographers themselves are often flummoxed. Projections of birthrates and population totals are often embarrassingly at odds with eventual reality.”
Frankly, the question of Islam and its relation to modernity is complex; I’ve read various commentators, both Muslim and not, both extreme and moderate. I particularly enjoyed Irshad Manji’s The Trouble With Islam Today. I’m not attracted to conservative Islam and I want to concentrate on other interests, perhaps I’ll write more fully in the futuretime.
This morning Romy sent me “Burn a Quran Day“, a tragical church parody ad:
I love it! For any Muslims watching, please remember this is a joke— a parody made by people who do not support burning of sacred books.
Also in the newspaper, thought reading machines are closer to reality. This is cool, and brings hope for severely disabled people, let alone the science fiction utopias of the future. Naturally there may be negative sides; if it becomes possible to read thoughts from a distance then Government spying on your brain may be possible one day. It may become impossible to have mental privacy— would any of us truly want our spouse to read our thoughts? All science brings with it the potential for both benefit and misuse, so concentrating on the positive, it’s a wonderful advance. Looking forward to the day when I can type at the speed of thought.
Even if a bigger Muslim population eventuates, if we encourage all peoples to live together in peace, there is hope. Please remember and publicise the 1st International Meal With A Muslim Day, next week. I’m not sure I can find someone in time, but at least if I can raise awareness, I’ve done my part.
Spritzophrenia 