Happy Appropriate Winter Festival!

This is the exact sort of image I thought of when I thought how best to mock the real intention and meaning of the “War on Christmas” malarky. Sadly, Poe’s Law means this image is real. A real bit of photoshop by a real wingnut expressing their real emotions. On that note, happy winter festival everybody!

Michael Bresciani, Ravage America:
Atheists’ advertise bah-humbug in Times Square

Happy Appropriate Winter Festival everybody!

Whether you are celebrating with a big glass of eggnog and your annual Winter Orgy or are out on the frontlines stealing the guns from patriots for the coming of Obama’s second term as Fascist King, most of us try and take time from our busy schedules to celebrate some form of winter celebration. Whether that is some bastardized form of Solstice celebration imbued with a religion specific mythology or its secularized derivatives or some lesser holiday quickly promoted to a big deal so one doesn’t feel left out in the December rush, the holiday season is becoming something nearly every American can experience without feeling left out (sorry Chinese-Americans you still get to feel disconnected and wrong… also those with crappy families or who have increased anxiety and depression around the holidays, not to mention the-… well, you know what I was trying to say).

But of course, the fact that this winter festival season, where we celebrate the cold weather being half over, has become such a big inclusive thing is exactly the sort of thing to bother the type of nutjob who wants to imagine that Heaven is a great big gated community in the sky. And today’s fruitcake a la mode certainly doesn’t disappoint on that score.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • Knowing that atheists exist ruins Christmas.

We begin with some eye-blistering myopia.

The controversial and perhaps blasphemous exclamation made by actor, Jamie Foxx, has hardly dropped off the news cycle

Yes… Jamie Foxx is all anyone who is anyone can talk about right now.

(Shake head sadly)

If there is one tiny bright spot in all the aftermath to the bitter tragedy of Sandy Hook, it’s got to be how it shines a fucking death laser on the usual dirty tactics of the right wing. All the attempts to sell some trickle-down garbage from the paymasters or smear the enemy of the week become painfully obvious due to wingnuts having never learned the strategy of editing a shtick for context.

And yeah, apparently they’ve decided that Jamie Foxx is Satan for cracking a few jokes at their expense about how conservatives think all black liberals literally worship Obama. The best part is that for their attacks they’re trying to claim that he was literally trying to worship Obama… Gotta love wingnut own goals like that.

and along comes the ‘American Atheists’ spooks with a glaring Times Square billboard advertisement

Oh dear. From History’s Greatest Monsters, the vanguard of the War on Christmas movement, this billboard must be the stuff of legends. Something like a religion-specific version of the Arc of the Covenant melting the faces of poor religious people just trying to properly worship the Lord Mammon like everyone else.

with a picture of Santa on the top and a picture of Christ being crucified on the bottom.

Uh… You worship the crucifixion. That’s kinda why the crucifix is your religious symbol and the center of nearly every Church is either a crucifix or Jesus on the crucifix.

This would be like a muslim group deciding to get upset because some detractors dared refer to Islam with a crescent shape.

Just because you think your creepy porn-like fetishism of your primary deity’s death looks bad to the outside world, you don’t actually get to call offense on that.

The caption reads, “Keep the merry — Drop the myth.”

How… dastardly.

Yes, as seen here, the “infamous billboard” is surprisingly tame. And it’s only the fact that religion has such unearned privilege in our society, that we find the signage even remotely remarkable.

Oh, and it’s also worth noting that the billboard like nearly all billboards the American Atheists try and put up has a Christian freakout response billboard next to it demanding that everyone celebrate Jesus this season.

And that’s really the issue for them when it comes right down to it. The fact that there happen to be people who are not them. Who have different ways of being and may even worship different gods or no god at all and they may do that without being constantly reminded that they are less than and alone.

Because if people can be other than they are told, then perhaps they themselves may have to question what they truly are deep down.

But all this is the usual annual bluster. Surely, someone in this clown carousel can bring something fresher, newer-

Perhaps the atheists are afraid that godless educators may have missed some students in their initial college years.

Still not new, but promising. I mean, after all, if there is anything that is trying to brainwash youths into denying what they know as true, it must be the handful of years only a fraction of them spend in godless institutions years once they are already legal adults and not the 18 or so years they spend in their most formative years having their social lives carefully governed and structured so none encounter those outside the tribe.

Obviously, this counterintuitive and not at all IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION statement holds its truth in the dastardly reality-bending powers to ensorcelate men’s minds that all atheists have due to their evil natures.

But ha ha, if that were true there would be some sign of their perfi-

Those who got out from under the peer pressure of the secularized generations manta

O! M! G! Atheists have fucking manta rays. They’re the best Bond villains ever!

Sorry to have doubted you, random nutjob. Please go on about the Giant Death Laser atheists are constructing under the sea in order to murder Aquaman and rule Atlantis in his stead!

that assures by sheer preponderance, repetition and a refusal to compare their arguments against the findings of creation science and strictly secular philosophical viewpoints

Dastardly how mean old atheist scientists fail to let creation “science” debate purely philosophical constructs that said “science” could stand half of a sliver of a chance against and instead make it debate nasty old regular science simply because it wants to be taught in biology textbooks as legitimate research. Unfair!

that it is perfectly OK to be — “myth-taken, myth-tified and myth-erable,” as the late Evangelist Vance Havner often proclaimed.

MY WORD! They have powers over terrible forced puns as well?!? They must be eliminated so none are again harmed by these weapons of wa-

What? That’s actually from your side? Oh, random nutjob, is it true? Are you the real villains after all?

The atheists, who spend their time largely fighting against an enemy, they insist is not there, don’t seem to be able to curb the will of the merchants who rake in up to one third of their yearly receipts during the Christmas season.

Apparently atheists are now personally responsible for rampant consumerism and advertising as well.

It makes sense. If such things were not the violent tools of atheists to destroy Christmas then good Christians might have to acknowledge that sometimes capitalism does bad things and maybe it doesn’t make sense to worship it as if it were their God.

And really what is a little bit of blame moving to prevent that?

Don’t worry, the merry will go on if they have anything to say about it, and the day the Christians give up the Christmas observance, the merchants will be the first to try to — ‘save Christmas.’

Two things.

1) Just want to confirm something. You are saying that Christians’ claim to this all-important holiday, this thing so important that you call yourselves to war every year to defend that which is “yours” is so fragile and tenuous that a mere display in an advertising hellhole could utterly obliterate it. Could drive you away and make you abandon the object of your affection…

Cause, regardless of your response, that’s what you’re saying here.

2) Oh, poor deluded random nutjob. You really think that portent hasn’t already come to pass… Yeah, bit late to start worrying about that, padre.

This writer is not naïve; I am fully aware that Christmas is a religious holiday created by the Catholic Church and is not a scriptural mandate. We are never instructed to celebrate any birthday. It is also known today, that if anything, Christ was probably born sometime in early April, not December 25.

We acknowledge that our claim to the holiday is fictional at best and a gross theft of various pagan celebrations at worst, and that because of this, all claims to be mortally offended at Christmas being “taken away from us” should be treated the same way as a used wad of lavatory paper, but…

Uh…

Atheists suck?

What disturbs the atheists has nothing to do with the day or the veracity of the appointed holiday, it is the attention that is directed to what is, and will always be, the most significant birth and subsequent history changing event in our world. The significance of that event was first proclaimed by the angelic creatures who announced Christ’s birth to the locals.

It’s such an important birth that we don’t even bother celebrating it remotely near its supposed actual event, will immediately abandon celebrating it if an atheist looks at us crossly, and only care about it as a means of perpetuating a culture war for dominance over how other people practice their faith.

Anyone who celebrates the birth of Christ is never in need of a boost from a truly mythological person called Santa

… Good for you?

merchandising barrages, office parties or tinsel draped conifers.

Again. God for you? And…?

The words, good tidings, great joy, peace on earth and good will toward men are the phrases that we feel in our hearts because of his birth and we can never accept the fleshly substitute of making ‘merry’ and the practice of overspending, overindulgence, drunkenness and general partying on an unspecified holiday as a reasonable substitute.

Okay, so you prefer to be miserable on Christmas, angrily staring at all the various households with their reuniting of families, their shared celebrations of created family, their celebration of love and giving, and even the warmth they bring together.

I guess if that works for you, whatever, but you’re kinda hard out of luck if you think that’s going to catch on half as much as people taking the notion of “good tidings, great joy, peace on earth and good will towards men” as actual things to strive for and celebrate rather than mere words to enshrine and flagellate before out of misplaced envy.

Our joy is 24/7, 365 days a year and follows us into eternity.

And I’m sure if you repeat that in front of the mirror every morning, maybe one day you’ll actually believe yourself.

The atheists have missed the point by a million miles.

Yes, those foolish atheists, trapped and envious at a time of great celebration, sneering at those others who enjoy this time of the year and the generic good feelings it ideally should bring. It must be tragic to be them. If it wasn’t for the War on Christmas, they’d have nothing at all to carry them through.

If Christmas or Christianity was meant to produce only good feelings then we may as well dump both.

Yes, why bother following a religion based in actually doing good and bringing joy into the world? Really, what’s the point if it can’t bring condemnation and misery to everyone who encounters it, filling their lives with such unnecessary judgment and bigotry that even the children raised in the culture view it as harmful and vile?

On a completely unrelated note, why do atheists keep on brainwashing our kids the instant they leave the house? Nothing else could explain why they so regularly turn on us.

Feelings may be part of the Christian experience along with celebrations that warm the heart, but it would be the saddest of all religions if it were based only on emotional responses. At the start and at the heart, real Christianity is based on a historical figure and on an actual historical event.

Well… then you might well be completely fucked.

Seriously, no one is more dangerous to the continued survival of Christianity than this particular subset of Christians. Not atheists, not muslims, not Obama, not anyone.

The thousands of surviving manuscripts are ample proof for most honest people. Then we see the Apostle Paul who after being summoned before King Agrippa to explain the gospel and the resurrection exclaimed that since the entire world was aware of the birth, life and ministry of Christ he risked Agrippa’s wrath when he reminded him that “this thing was not done in a corner.” (Ac 26: 26b)

Truly, what better proof could there be of God’s divine existence than the ability of some sexist asshole delivering a retort via anecdote… in a letter… that was randomly included in your holiest of texts as equivalently powerful to the words of your God…

The historicity and reliability of the New Testament records has been shown to the world in perfect clarity by dozens of this world’s brightest minds.

You have a link to one of these “brightest minds” whose ironclad proof consists of…

I’m going to need a shorter for this one.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • There are less copies of the texts of Pagan philosophers in existence than copies of the Bible (largely because we burned all those Pagan texts we could find and devoted centuries worth of scribes to doing nothing other than copying out the Bible). Therefore, the Bible must be 100% true non-fiction, because something being popular automatically removes all internal inconsistencies.

Yeah. But hey, now that I know that everything popular automagically becomes non-fiction I’m suddenly very concerned that a bunch of sparkly vampires are going to come and steal our extremely white women and I don’t even want to get into He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Needed.

In fact, if the New Testament is un-reliable then more than 15 of the most trusted histories will also have to be thrown out because they have less proof than the NT records.

<Citation Needed>

Fuck, people do not even need to know even the most rudimentary historical facts to view the Bible (even just the NT part) as horribly unreliable as a historical record. They can just point out the various parts where it contradicts itself and in fact many have done just that.

It’s the huge elephant in the room that ensures one will have to turn to conspiracy theories and denials of reality if one wants to believe in an inerrant holy book which is literally fact rather than a series of moral lessons intended to make people act like the best version of themselves.

The historical record is not merely a cogitation to be thrown out or overshadowed by the fossil record, atheists, agnostics or those who can’t be bothered with actually examining the historical evidence.

Yeah, no fair noting all the reams of fossil, geological, and historical evidence that the Earth is older than 6000 years or eviscerating all our desperate apologetic to try and rationalize believing something in a way where it couldn’t possibly hope to be true.

Especially if you do it in response to us using our made-up fantasy history as arguments for policy.

New Testament Christianity and the Christmas story are not based on a preponderance of pure unmitigated belief;

Um… yes, that is why they are called faith. And honestly, it is good for your particular cult that they are treated that way because we have a lot more social forgiveness for people believing inaccurate and dangerous things in the name of “faith” than anything else.

it is based on the historical record. Our faith in that record and the interaction of God’s Holy Spirit with us (Which he promised) is an objective matter and does not rest on feelings, anecdotal experiences, or fellowship with others of like mind.

… That is true.

No, no, hear me out. I really believe that for this subset of Christian Dominionists that their faith does not rely on kinship and good feelings.

As they have demonstrated time and time again, what draws them, what sustains them is hatred, control, and fear. Hatred of the dreaded others who show other ways of existing, who manage to find a way to try and be happy even when everything is shit. Control over one’s life so that there is a “right way” and a “wrong way” and they can look down on anyone on the “wrong way” and control over others so they can force punishments for being on the arbitrary “wrong way”. And of course fear. Fear that things might not be simple. That we may be an infinite spectrum of potential human experience, free to claim any one of a hundred million trillion possible modes of being and living and that for the first time in their lives they might just have to accept that and really figure out who they are and what they want to be.

And that is why ranting about all those others makes up the vast majority of their Church services and intragroup communication.

The atheists might want to save the unimaginable cost of buying billboard advertising on Times Square and use the money to send a contingent of their followers to Mecca or some other Muslim center of worship with the same message about myths.

They keep on saying things like this, seemingly unaware that atheists are people who actually exist rather than Spirits of Vengeance trying to destroy them personally by making them acknowledge other people exist. Yeah, turns out atheists have criticized muslims acting poorly and hurting others in the name of their religion. Same with Eastern mystics, New Age gurus, and African tribal religious leaders.

Because it turns out those aren’t all the same face of the Global Squadron for Eliminating Christianity.

It is likely they would not come back alive, if at all, but we would have a little less bah-humbug for one Christmas season. Who coined the phrase, less is more? More so, just how seriously do they take their message, if it’s good for the goose is it good for the 1.5 billion Muslims who haven’t heard it as yet?

Ha ha, it’s funny because every single Muslim is a murderous backwoods hick with a shotgun who drives out any person who doesn’t believe their version of a holy book… er… starting to draw unfortunate parallels, might have to admit that an atheist living in the Western world has more to fear from Christian extremists than Muslim extremists… um… ooh, it’s funny because he wishes death on people simply for stating that they don’t believe in his particular religion and think people can enjoy the holiday without that baggage, which directly reveals us to be the murderous eliminationists who… uh…

It’s funny because it rather neatly demonstrates why American Atheists end up talking more about bad behavior from Christians than anyone else. Because resistance to them doesn’t have anything to do with the religion’s relative evilness, but rather that all religions react in similar ways when they become the dominant belief in society and none of them like people who enjoy pointing out a con.

Almost as hard to bear as the atheist’s Times Square Scroogy intrusion is the endless meaning of Christmas offerings of TV and Hollywood. Let’s go to the bottom line here. Nothing about the birth of Christ is about making merry, endless gifts or parties. It has always been about the love of God to man. He sent his Lamb to die for the sins of the world; God was incarnate in Christ and reconciling the world to himself. (2 Co 5: 19)

Yeah, turns out the religious garbage you tried to tack onto a Winter Feast about drinking and presents and making merry didn’t turn out to be as enduring or as popular as the Feast stuff. Boo hoo to you.

But here’s the great thing about a free and open society. You can enjoy your misery festival where you all sit in a gray windowless room and brood angrily about how Christ died for you and only you. And we can all enjoy our Winter festival about good will towards our fellow humanity, the pleasure of giving joy to our friends and family members, and good food and drink. And we can even both call it Christmas!

Isn’t that great?

Hey, wait a minute, you agree with the Billboard that started this rant.

You want there to be a separation between your “pure” Christmas celebration and our secular Feast day. For all the people who associate Christmas with lighted trees and gifts in front of a fire to drop the trappings of mythology and go full secular.

And yet you’re so angry… Is it because an atheist came up with the idea first and now you don’t feel you can support it now that they’ve gotten their cooties on it?

It was the love of God that made him endure a lowly birth, the hardness of men’s hearts and the final scourge of his death on the cross.

Yes, he so “loved” us, he raped a woman, forced her to bear his offspring, then demanded absolute control over his life, forcing the child into his line of business, before arranging for his brutal murder while blaming it all on all of humanity and demanding absolute worldwide fealty because this act of murder was apparently atonement for all of “our” sins.

If we were to take this story as fact rather than myth and were to separate it from all the unearned social respect religion is given and were instead to make this a tale of Jon and Phyllis, human couple, no one on the planet would call that “love”. They’d call it abuse.

Luckily for us, these are stories borrowing on the tropes of older myths about the birth of demigods and sacrificial heroes in order to impart messages about what people at the time thought would be good ways for people to act. Stories that still have value for many today, especially those who don’t get so hung up on the “everything in the Bible was literally true” thing that would make so many of those stories into nightmares.

Christmas is the announcement of the open revelation of that love. Having said that, there can be only one thing left to say;

Merry Christmas

Amazing, you successfully made a supposed declaration of love sound like a curse word and a threat.

You’re closer to your god than ever before.

Well, enjoy that. The rest of us will celebrate in our merry jolly Satanist ways.

Merry War on Christmas, everybody. Merry War on Christmas.


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Peace and Lovin’ like a motherfucker. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


 

Comments: 136

 
 
 

Merry Christmas, ya bastids!

 
 

The atheists might want to save the unimaginable cost of buying billboard advertising on Times Square and use the money to send a contingent of their followers to Mecca or some other Muslim center of worship with the same message about myths.

They’re so cute when they get that Fatwah envy.

 
 

I’m not voting for this Jesus guy until I see his long form birth certificate. That so-called “historical record”? That’s just ancient mainstream media coverage. I want official facts, not anecdotes. Why hasn’t Jesus released his birth certificate? There has to be a reason.

 
 

I’m not voting for this Jesus guy until I see his long form birth certificate

Jesus has my vote- he wants to get rid of fiat currency, and base the dollar on the myrrh standard.

 
Enraged Bull Limpet
 

Complete scrolldown holiday greetings, sans cynicism! d

 
Enraged Bull Limpet
 

oops, I got a “d” on that last post, duh.

 
 

base the dollar on the myrrh standard.

Also, rename ‘frankincense’ as ‘freedomincense’.

 
 

Oh, good heavens. They’re joyful 24/7, except when they’re angry and scared because billboards with Santa Claus make them doubt their faith. Must suck to be them.

Merry Christmas!

 
 

Cerberus – I don’t see the “Jewish” dimension to this issue. The author of the article is an evangelical Christian (who might be a Christian Zionist as many American evangelical Christians are but that does not signify) complaining about Atheists.
On the other hand, I do see some Jews trying to suppress Christmas in parts of Israel. Imagine the outcry among certain elements in the American establishment if a European country tried to suppress Hannukah decorations. Congress would be on it immediately!

 
 

Also, rename ‘frankincense’ as ‘freedomincense’.

The Magi would surely end up in Gitmo- Persians carrying balms bombs don’t go over too well in these parts.

 
 

Okay, so you prefer to be miserable on Christmas, angrily staring at all the various households with their reuniting of families

Reuniting of my family is what usually makes me miserable on Christmas.

 
 

Okay, so you prefer to be miserable on Christmas, angrily staring at all the various households with their reuniting of families

Of course, he makes the stupid assumption that atheists don’t enjoy family reunions. I’m sure that the deep-down realization that atheists enjoy Christmas even more because they don’t have any religious obligations to cut into the boozing and socializing is what really chaps his ass.

 
 

The best bit of it all is that he calls the atheists “scroogy” for trying to ruin Christmas. Scrooge, of course, is a character from a beloved story about all the family togetherness, generosity, and merry making stuff he thinks Christmas shouldn’t be about, and from which Jesus is almost entirely absent. Turns out Dickens was fighting the War on Christmas before it was cool.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, fellow Warriors!

 
 

I know Mormon’s aren’t allowed to drink, but can they buttchug?

 
 

Scrooge, of course, is a character from a beloved story about all the family togetherness, generosity, and merry making stuff he thinks Christmas shouldn’t be about, and from which Jesus is almost entirely absent. Turns out Dickens was fighting the War on Christmas before it was cool.

Even worse, the Dickens story is about dealings with ghosts, aka necromancy, which is forbidden by the Bible.

 
 

There are more Xmas ads for 24 Hour Energy drinks on my teevee than for other beverages, therefore 24 Hr Energy drinks are manna and the most consumed liquid substance in world history!

References to blood turning to “wine” in the Gospels are Apocryphal as the Aramaic language lacked a suitable word for THEDs.

I celebrate Christmas like every holiday w/ lots of THEDs and energetic arguments with the family.

 
 

Okay, the ads call them Six-Hour Energy Drinks (SHEDs) but shoot four in a row (they’re small) and you can go a day and a night.

If Mike Crapo had violated his church’s tenets w/ a few of these, he might have still run some red lights, but he never would have suffered a DUI arrest or disgrace. And, they have Viagra like F/X too!

 
 

Through some strategic blunder back at HQ I’ve been left isolated deep behind enemy lines. Will attempt to meet up with Colonel Chinstrap and we’ll drink our way out.

Cheers.

 
 

I’m pretty sure most atheists believe in Christmas, actually. Unlike Jehovah, the evidence that Christmas exists is pretty damn overwhelming.

 
 

Merry Christmas all ye atheist bastards!

 
 

Merry, Merry youse guys,…er sumpin like that.

“I’ll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!”

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Crrrrap.
Nymfail agin.

 
 

Best “War on Christmas” post ever. Here’s a excerpt:

I was serving with General Dawkins’ V Corps during the 2005 offensive, back when the fighting was thickest. ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and I was a green 2LT in the 3rd Agnostic Cavalry Regiment (The Fighting Huxleys). We were resupplying outside of the New Harbour Mall in Fall River, MA when the order came down: we were going to clear Santa’s Village. Resistance was purportedly light: two companies of North Pole irregulars reinforced with a few 88mm candy canes.

Here’s the rest of it. It’s hilarious:

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/12/happy-holidays/comment-page-1#comment-416431

 
 

This is my favorite War on Christmas image:

http://i.imgur.com/snU6U.jpg

Happy Festivus! May your Airing of Grievances be brief!

 
 

Aw, poopy, I didn’t see the new thread.

Anyway, Mary Kiss Moose, fellow moonbats.

Although I don’t see what the big tsimmis is about what Mary does on her own free time

 
 

Yes, there’s a billboard in XSQ and someone might see it. The horror…the horror…

 
 

BTW, to get serious (or maybe even serous*) for a moment, while I am the farthest thing from a Renoozit America knuckle-dragger, I have no love for American Atheists either. I used to read their magazine every time I could get ahold of it… (religiously one might say) until I realized that they are the Fundies of atheism. The entertaining dissection of Jack Chick pamphlets wasn’t worth the bile they felt needed be directed at ANY religious thought whatsoever.

I have no idea what I believe as far as the spiritual. Being the cynical bastard I am, I’m probably more Lovecraftian these days than anything. But I don’t feel the need to piss all over a huge part of the human experience just to be pissing. AA are no better than Pat Robertson. A pox on both their houses.

*’cause see, I work in a plasma donation center, and “serous” and… IT’S FUNNY, OKAY?

 
 

ROFL

 
 

Ugh. Fallout from merry-making.
.

 
 

a most happy day to y’all…

 
Pupienus, Doctor of Anathematics
 

Get your War on Xmas on! Thanks, Ho!

 
 

The fact that there happen to be people who are not them. Who have different ways of being and may even worship different gods or no god at all and they may do that without being constantly reminded that they are less than and alone.

at last night’s service at the shiite lutheran church we attended, the ban on gloom and doom has been lifted a tish since they have an interim pastor who is more of a ham than the one i am currently braising in coca cola…he is a regular bon-vivant (the minister, not the ham) who is quite famous in these parts: he grew up in the parsonage here (still remembers the services being conducted in german) and has written a couple of books about his life) who is about 83, so said service was full of ‘whoa, that guy’s/gal’s really old!’ and plenty of humorous asides.

anyhoo, they still cannot let go ouf their ‘we are THE chosen’ and it was very clearly brought up after singing ‘the first noel’ he made the remark, ‘now i know why that song is not in our hymnal. it refers to a star…that is not in OUR scriptures and is not historically accurate. i have never seen any other reference to that.’

also, he quoted billy graham, c.s. lewis and a nice ‘fellow from africa’ of whom he was a mentor to…

so, even though the gloomy guilt isn’t quite as overwhelming with this dude, the singular smugness continues unabated…

 
 

Blowback: perhaps because I’m a Hebe I see it a bit differently even if I don’t agree with the mayor’s actions. In the US, for instance, even if there is always a token Hanukiah (sometime fought tooth and nail by the very people whom the GOoPers in my shul insist are our best friends because they tow the Likud line), this time of year it’s Christmas 24/7. No matter what the fundies say about feeling oppressed because someone dare intrude on their Merry F’in Christmas … the fact is that this time of year constitutes a month+ long reminder to us Jews that this is NOT our home, and that our Christ killing presence is merely tolerated.

Israel is the Jewish homeland and has been for over 2000 years: long before there were any Palestinians or even Christians. It should be the place where we Jews don’t have our second class status rubbed in our face. So I am not surprised.that a Christmas tree would be a bit of a touchy subject there.

Remember if to atheists and agnostics, Christmas is an adapted winter celebration bound up in one particular religion’s mythos, to Jews, Christmas is a celebration of the birth of someone in whose name we have been slaughtered.

 
 

Merry Christmas friends.

Re: Kong’s Best “War on Xmas” post. The one that made me nearly crap my pants was a comment of Tena’s at the eschaton. She bounced into the room announcing that she had just finished the placement of her “War on Christmas” machine gun nests.

Laughter that scared the cats followed.

Finally at a place not cock-blocked by the spam filter, so thought I’d say howdy do

xoxox

 
 

“I’ll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!”

“I told ya I’d shoot! But ya didn’t believe me! Why didn’t ya believe me!”

 
 

Doesn’t EGGnog discriminate against vegan americans? 😉

 
 

That was an awesome comment, Kong! Thanks for sharing.

 
 

This is my favorite War on Christmas image:

And now it sits on my desktop. Thanks.

 
 

I loved the thoroughly Christ-like bit where the author sincerely hoped that some atheists would get killed. Nothing like a few religiously-motivated homicides to really bring home the Xmas Spirit, ya know?

 
 

Actually, one of the most notable bits in the new testament is that god DOESN’T rape Mary; he ASKS her if she wants to bear his son, and only impregnates her AFTER she gives consent. I remember noticing that because it was so out of character with how he acts in the rest of the bible.

 
Pupienus, Doctor of Anathematics
 

Israel is the Jewish homeland and has been for over 2000 years: long before there were any Palestinians or even Christians.

Yeah, about that…. Not brandishing a pointy stick here but since we’re talking about myths and all, that statement has more than a bit of mythical basis. I get annoyed whenever I hear that “but this is OUR promised land!” line. The Palestinians are actually blood descendants of the original Jewish residents. Some of them converted to Xianity but most converted to Islam much later. We should also not forget that there are quite a few Xians in Israel who are also much closer to the residents there of a few thousand years ago than are many of the Jews who have “returned.” So telling them they can’t celebrate Xmas because they are not “Jewish” and therefore less worthy or something is just bullshit.

Cf.: http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel

 
 

Faux outrage Part Duh: The War on Non-Denominational Gift Day.

 
Bozo the Cocksucker
 

WHY ARE WE ALL HERE ON CHRISTMAS FUCKING DAY

 
 

WHY ARE WE ALL HERE ON CHRISTMAS FUCKING DAY

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Bozo the Cocksucker
 

That’s your answer to everything. Also, don’t be dead, you stupid bastard.

 
 

Nobody got me any fucking. Where’s my fucking?
.

 
 

WHY ARE WE ALL HERE

This is not a holiday for my people but I’m willing to take the day off.

 
Pupienus, anathematician
 
 

To be clearer: Fox News keeps using false outrages to build up a sense of “the others are taking over” in their group. A key component of the “hatred of others” method of political control is that interfering with the group’s leaders’ right to dictate what is (or is not) allowed to be spoken of in public must be cast as an attack upon the group and its members – from which the group must defend itself.

The War on Christmas, like the War on Gun Owners (or the Iranian version: The War on Islam) is another example of artificially-generated fear of the other. Everyone knows there’s no war on Christmas – not when people are hanging up fake snowflakes in Singapore. It’s just another fake outrage designed to control the public discourse, shifting it from Christ’s vision of tolerance to the Inquisition’s vision of control through elimination of perceived dissent.

I’m not sure how to defeat this tactic, as it reaches past the cognitive functions into the emotions. Perhaps publicizing a “War on Pasta”, with news releases showing how the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s worshipers are being persecuted. (A War on Solstice might be taken seriously, as the Catholic Church shifted the day on which the birth of Christ is celebrated to the Winter Solstice.)

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

“I told ya I’d shoot! But ya didn’t believe me! Why didn’t ya believe me!”

BTW,…did any Oregonians catch the little visual shout out?

(Hint,…same as the one in “Bandits”)

 
 

WHY ARE WE ALL HERE ON CHRISTMAS FUCKING DAY

Good question but you’ll have to supply your own answer.

 
It's pronounced "Pupienus"
 

(Hint,…same as the one in “Bandits”)

First I’ll have to watch that, which I haven’t done yet. Second, what is “Bandits”?

 
Eustace P. McGargle
 

Happy Holidays, especially to Bill-O

http://tinyurl.com/88n9ggo

 
 

WHY ARE WE ALL HERE ON CHRISTMAS FUCKING DAY

The same reason we’re here everyday, Pinky.

Merry December 25th. May every day be loving and kind to ya’.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Second, what is “Bandits”?

Twas a dumb movie with Billy Bob.
Watchable in the sense that if you got up to pee you didn’t get an answer when you asked “What did I miss?”

 
 

I was wrong about Christmas. It turned out nice.
DAS Christ barely features in most people’s celebration of Christmas if that’s any help.

 
It's pronounced "Pupienus"
 

Ooh, I haven’t pulled out my terribly shopworn holiday joke! Happy Halloween everybody!

OCT 31 = DEC 25

Get it? Huh? Get it?

 
 

Get it? Huh? Get it?

you know i suck at math…

 
 

Duh, base 8.

 
Bozo the Cocksucker
 

Fuck you.

 
Bozo the Cocksucker
 

Fucking mathematics. We have ten fingers. Base eight is just an extravagance created to show off.

 
 

@DataSnake said,

Actually, one of the most notable bits in the new testament is that god DOESN’T rape Mary; he ASKS her if she wants to bear his son, and only impregnates her AFTER she gives consent.

That’s not the way I read it. It looks like the pregnancy is announced to her as a fait accompli to which she acquiesces. It’s not like she’s given a choice in the matter:

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
(Luke 1:26-38)

 
 

Fucking mathematics. We have ten fingers. Base eight is just an extravagance created to show off.

You Bozo, base twenty-one is for showing off. You’re a cocksucker, you should know that.

 
It's pronounced "Pupienus"
 

That’s not the way I read it. It looks like the pregnancy is announced to her as a fait accompli to which she acquiesces. It’s not like she’s given a choice in the matter:


Izzat King James? The exact reading might be different When using different versions. The definitive version:

26 Ceiling Cat sended Gabriowl, a hovr d00d, to Nazareth (dat is a citi in Galilee)27 to a virgn naemd Mary. She wuz engajded to a d00d naemd Joseph.28 Gabriowl wuz liek “O hai Mary, u iz realli nice. Ceiling Cat iz wif u.”29 Mary wuz kiend of worrid about dat.30 But teh hovr d00d wuz all “Doant be afraid. Ceiling Cat iz happi wif u.31 U iz gonna hav a kittn. Naem him Jeebus, coz tht naem meenz salvaishun, an also coz we has no naemz liek Billy Bob yet.32 He wil be graet. He wil be teh kittn of Ceiling Cat an his daddi will give him David’s chaer.33 He wil r00l Jacob’s house forevr.”
34 Mary wuz liek “O rly, i iz a virgn remembr?”35 Gabriowl wuz all “Ya rly, Ceiling Cat wil take caer of it. Srsly.”36 Elizabeth iz goin to hav a kittn n evribodi seded it wuz imposubl.”37 Nothin iz imposubl for Ceiling Cat.”
38 Mary sed “I is happi to do Ceiling Cat’s work. Liek u sai.” N Gabriowl lefted.

That supports your view.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

Poopy Ness iz graet.

 
The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin
 

I’m off to dinner with my very large family of cousins.
I miss my kids and grandbabbies greatly. Phone calls just ain’t gettin’ it, but this should substitute somewhat.
Eat hearty Youse Guys.

 
 

26 Ceiling Cat sended Gabriowl, a hovr d00d
Everything sounds better in Polari.

 
 

Base eight is just an extravagance created to show off.

I’ve won a couple bar bets that I could count to 31 on one hand. Best to make sure #4 doesn’t look like you’re flipping them off.

 
Bozo the Cocksucker
 

Almost all mathematics is for showing off. You know what the square root of minus one is? IT’S MINUS FUCKING ONE. All this imaginary numbers bullshit is just poncing about for its own sake. Fuck all Penrose tiles.

 
 

The “War on Christmas” is purly a defensive war.

 
 

Almost all mathematics is for showing off.

So? It works. Galois got the best groupies.

 
 

imaginary numbers bullshit

The Electoral College grants degrees in Imaginary Numbers.

 
 

tagfail. I blame bbkf

 
 

Galois got the best groupies.

True, but the guy had connections, man.

 
Bozo the Cocksucker
 

Exactly. Why do you think I’m so bitter?

Fermat was a cunt, I piss on integrals, all geometry is shit and seriously FUCK logarithms.

 
 

Rev. Michael Bresciani is a Christian author and a columnist for several online sites and magazines. His articles are now read in every country in the world.

The tiny republic of Togo is grateful.

 
 

You know WHO ELSE didn’t like integration?

 
It's pronounced "Pupienus"
 

I’ve won a couple bar bets that I could count to 31 on one hand.

Yep. My version is to count to 1000 on my fingers.

 
 

IT’S MINUS FUCKING ONE. All this imaginary numbers bullshit is just poncing about for its own sake

Negative numbers are fictitious.

 
 

Negative numbers are fictitious.

That’s what I keep telling the bill collectors!
.

 
 

Only halfway done this bad boy.

Big jolly LOL at “a truly mythological person called Santa” – because Santa ISREAL … that is, unless those cunning Russkis were just having us on about Saint Nikolai.

Those “thousands of surviving manuscripts” smell more like fishes than loaves from here: isn’t it kind of an archeological truism that, beyond his alleged Biblical exploits, poor Yeshua bin Joseph is a total cypher? You’ve got one vague passing reference in Josephus & a suspicious deficit of much else. The version of his biography where he’s a well-to-do merchant – just like his dad was – who later marries, has kids & croaks as a rich old patriarch is more plausible to me. Note that such a biography doesn’t mean he couldn’t have done some proselytizing too: merchants went very far afield for high-end exotic merch, & places like India & China had more than enough Golden Rule/everyone=God/world=illusion spiritual insights to go around at the time.

Oral history turns into science fiction amazingly fast, just like a game of Telephone & for exactly the same reasons … with one interesting exception. Even epic tales seem to remain very content-solid for very long periods of time when they’re in the form of songs or poems. Rhyming is itself a mnemonic booster, but it also amounts to a brute-force filter against anyone with a good supply of hashish or bad hearing fucking about with the plot, unless they’re also very creative … & in many bardic cultures creativity was/is the ultimate sin, given that to be a reliable resource the ideal Bard must be essentially a tapedeck made of meat, not a Picasso of words. None of that in any way prevents the ORIGINAL story from being hokum, thank goodness … because viva hilarious weirdness.

PS: Warm wishes for a Merry Holiday – & Cthulhu bless us, every one.

 
 

You’ve got one vague passing reference in Josephus

“Vague” is the understatement of the eon. The one authentic mention of the name can be read as a reference to the alleged Jesus only by the most desperate delusional. There was another reference, an obvious forgery, inserted long after Josephus had turned to dust by some delusionals desperate for something to point to as evidence that Jesus was not an urban legend. Urban legend is, of course, the most compelling explanation for the Jesus myth.

 
 

I am deep in my Christmas Bunker today, with the blast doors closed. I’ll be eating easy-to-prepare store-bought stuff that I like. BBQ sammichs, four-cheese calzones. Between-meals munching: ripe olives and pepperoncini. Drinks? Coffee, of course. I also have two beers available (Heinekin…go ahead and laugh, beer snobs), and two bottles of ‘designer’ cream soda. The egg-nog, my only ‘seasonal’ thing, is because I lurves egg-nog; I swill it from when it appears at T-giving until it disappears after New Year’s. I’m down to half-a-quart now.

Perhaps I may write a brief Sadliytown movie review about Bandits. By coincidence, I happened to watched the film on Netflix disc yesterday. I don’t think the film was as bad as the Mayor suggested.

Now I’m going to lie down and read some more Patrick O’Brien. I’m going through the Aubery-Maturin series (20 linked novels) for the third time. He was a thoroughly excellent writer, and the best historical novelist imo. O’Brien greatly admired Jane Austen…and it shows in his work.

 
 

Yeah, I fukded up.

 
 

Don’t have time to do much more than stop by to say: may you all drink as much and as well as I will today! Cheers!

 
 

You too were well-supplied with Pepsi Max? HIGH FIVE!

 
 

I get the egg part but I’ve always wondered what exactly “nog” is.

 
 

I get the egg part but I’ve always wondered what exactly “nog” is.
It’s an acronym for Nitrocellulose Oxidised Gelatine. It is used to demolish buildings in China.

 
 

Merry Whatsit, all!
Tahnks for many larfs in 2012 – and more in 2013!

It is used to demolish buildings in China.
No, that’s my Tom and Jerry’s –
a.) 1 spoonful T&J mix to 1 Jigger rum, 1 jigger brandy, a bit o’ hot water.
b.) Add to larger mug.
3.) Repeat 27 times.
iiii.) Drink.
E.) Repeat 27 times.

 
 

In what is otherwise a low key, not much going on, just me and the kat kind of day getting an eff u from B the C seems like a happening.

Base eight is just an extravagance created to show off.

That you use a device operating in base 2 to say that erodes your intent.

 
 

Mmmmmmmmmmm………………………meat tapedecks……………………………….

 
 

I haz forgoted thet Bible wuz translimated to LOLCat. I haz a sad.

And I had a fun day salvaging stuff off my hard drive to USB sticks and rewriting my main boot record. Fucking WinXP. If I could run the stuff I want to run under Linux (and Linux was a little more user-friendly) I’d leave a Pere-shaped hole in Microsoft’s wall.

 
 

Let’s see … The PDP-8, which is why I can still do octal arithmetic rapidly in my head, was made by Digital Equipment Corporation. They later made a machine called the VAX which ran on the VMS operating system. When Mickeysoft was developing their “next Gen” OS* to replace Windows (3 / 98 / 2000), Windows NT. Now some of the head guys on the program were the old VMS guys from DEC.** As it is likely that C. Bozo is using Windows of some flavor his despicable*** comment regarding octal is despicable.

* They were actually doing two parallel programs, the other in “partnership” with IBM, the OS/2 system which they eventually dumped. Which was a mistake on technical merit as OS/2 was a much better platform than their next several Windows pieces of shit. It’s not well known that the Microsoft engineers did their Windows NT development primarily with machines running OS/2 as Mickeysoft kept that information well guarded after having divorced themselves from IBM and saying unpleasant things about OS/2 in the process.

** That lead to many nerds noting that WinNT, ‘WNT’ if you will, is to ‘VMS’ as ‘IBM’ is to ‘HAL.’

*** Unrelated to the laws in Arizona and Georgia to deal with their “immigration problem.”

 
 

“is despicable and hypocritical.” That is.

 
 

He may be touchy and hot-headed but, the thing is, he’s always right. It can’t be easy.

 
 

AA are no better than Pat Robertson. A pox on both their houses.

I wrote a profile on the local American Atheists chapter a long time ago for a newspaper. I didn’t like them—thought they took themselves way too seriously—and after the article came out the feeling was mutual.

 
 

You’ve got one vague passing reference in Josephus & a suspicious deficit of much else.

The Straight Dope actually considered this question and came up with a citation in Tacitus and one in the Talmud, in addition to Josephus. Its conclusion: “Whether or not JC was truly the SOn of God, he was probably the son of somebody.”

 
 

VAX which ran on the VMS operating system. My first job was as a sys admin on an VAX 11/780 although I also had to fake my way through supporting simple basic code on a PDP-11 running RSX. Those were the days when 256Kb removable disks fit in something the size of a washing machine.

 
 

That you use a device operating in base 2 to say that erodes your intent.

Nah. Base 2 is useful. Base 8, like base 16, is just there to help meat sacks work in base 2.

 
 

is just there to help meat sacks

Here’s where your metaphor breaks down because every sack of meat I’ve had to deal with has been a good thing.

 
 

Mmmmmmm……..meat.

 
 

“I’ll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!”

I happen to be the proud owner of not one but TWO cels from this here episode…….

 
 

feeeeeeeeeecccccccckkkkkkk…when will i learn that christmas =/= eat and drink yourself silly…

 
 

Not feeling well bbkf?

 
 

Via NYMag (?!?): a malenky feast of scrumptious leftover schadenfreude pie to pull out from under yer Tannenbaum.

I excerpted part of that earlier at Eschaton, where the one lady talks about how she saw nothing but drunken aborigines while Down Under, while if that same conference had been held in the U.S., they’d be serving her drinks, instead.

Your GOP of the dwindling future, folx. En-effin’-joy it.
.

 
 

So help me, the one thing I’m thinking of after reading his screed was this:

He misused the semi-colon at the end.

 
 

@The Mayor of Upper Astroboffin–
‘Watchable in the sense that if you got up to pee you didn’t get an answer when you asked “What did I miss?”’

Hope you weren’t in such a hurry that you missed the urinal. The advantage of a dull movie.

 
 

Happy fuckin’ hangover ye atheist bastards.

 
 

So help me, the one thing I’m thinking of after reading his screed was this:

He misused the semi-colon at the end.

Thank you! I thought I was the only one weird/obsessive enough to notice that.

 
 

Misuse of semicolons can led to demisepsis.

 
 

Can’t let that one go. That Straight Dope article was shit. The same shit that has suckered in just about every historian and biblical scholar since EVAH. Until some folks, starting in the 18th century said “Gee! We have all been doing what we do by assuming the scriptures are more historically accurate than not and looking for reasons and arguments to support that assumption. Let’s not do that stupid shit anymore, let’s question everything using only original sources.”

There is no contemporaneous documentation. Not one bit. That’s precisely why those early Xians, desperate to believe the story and equally desperate to sell it to others, inserted forgeries into Josephus and Tacitus. The supposed reference by Tacitus in Annals is widely acknowledged to have been inserted by some scribe long after Tacitus was dead.

That Talmud bit? That was written, probably in the third of fourth century, as a political polemic, by Jews, of course.

The Straight Dope writer did what all the pre-18th century scholars did and assumed that there was a historical Jesus and found a couple things to support the assumption. Interesting that historians of every color universally place the greatest weight on those sources closest to the events they are looking at. When there is no contemporaneous documentation they admit that the best they can do is little better than speculation. Except biblical scholars (and even there the movement has been away from the old assume and search approach).

But wait! There’s more! Even if those references had been valid the conclusion that “he was somebody’s son” doesn’t follow. The logical conclusion, stipulating those citations, is that Jesus is a composite character. They allege different people and events. “He was somebody’s son” assumes there was a “He” in the first place. logic FAIL.

Yeah, we’re so full of ourselves, insisting on good logic and being unwilling to accept all the (stated or tacit) assumptions and rudely pointing out the bullshit every time someone dredges up a bullshit argument like the one above. I can understand, but only intellectually, how it offends people’s sense of propriety or something. But given that religious belief and even more so religious practice is the greatest evil the world has ever known, neither I nor my fellow anti-theists care about your feefees.

 
 

I’m touchy and hot tempered as soon as I’m awake, apparently.

 
 

I don’t have a problem with Jesus being a real person; he had a family and there is lore in which officials dissed a representative of that family when they showed up in Rome: don’t fuck with the One True Church. I accept plenty of other folks on less than the bible, but like Jesus none of them were magic. Religions have been started on kookier premises than the sayings and doings of one guy, and the latter route is pretty common anyway.

It’s pretty hard to demand modern standards of proof for anything that happened 2000 years ago anyway.

 
 

don’t fuck with the One True Church

this is what always, always sticks in my craw…much of christmas eve’s service at the shiite lutheran church was, ‘jesus is king of kings, god is the ONLY god, the best god, the ONLY god, we are the only true church, etc. etc. etc. and did i mention that jesus’ dad is the ONLY god?’

even if there is a god, and there is only one god, i tend to believe in the one god for all people type of god…and of course, this still raises the question: where did god come from?

 
 

Modern standards of proof means using original sources, not making assumptions, properly framing the question, objective analysis of all sources to account for probable bias, and so on. There are zero contemporaneous accounts, nothing written for at least 40 years after the alleged thing happened. Those secomd accounts that we do have are riddled with internal contradictions and tell of things that we _know_ did not actually happen. They portray some stuff that is just silly – the very bloody and dictatorial Pilate asking the crowd to choose a victim, for example.

Add it all up and urban legend makes the best explanation. Messiahs were all over the place (as is well documented in Life of Brian), people tell stories, everyone knows someone who knows someone who was there at this or that alleged event, the telephone game effect kicks in, yada yada. I don’t and won’t claim that there is proof that the Jesus of the bible did not exist, that would be a fool’s errand – absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and so on.. It is however abundantly clear to anyone who abandons the centuries of bullshit masquerading as fact and exa,ines the actual, debunked, evidence that there is absolutely no reason to think there was one. The Jesus of the bible couldn’t have been an actual historical character (for reasons given above), there were fraudulent attempts on the part of the believers to say that there was one, there is no evidence for the case, so the only logical conclusion is that Jesus is a composite character at best, more likely just an urban legend.

 
 

Add it all up and urban legend makes the best explanation.

Not really. That messiahs were all over the place is a point in favour of the existence of a guy such as Jesus, not the opposite. “Absolutely no evidence” rather ignores a religious empire raised in his name. That there are zero contemporaneous accounts is true of a lot of characters in histories written by Greeks and Romans at the time; where I accept that there was this or that king it’s just as reasonable to accept that Jesus himself existed, and that later embellishments became layered with silliness, as such things do.

To my mind calling him an “urban legend” is just as much an imposition of the thinking of the time on the story as suckers believing it. It relies on all religious authorities being delusional or liars in all their doings. I’m an anti-theist for sure, but people in general are more boring than the characters in a conspiracy theory.

 
 

It must be one of those Xmas miracles: a timely peer-reviewed research article in the Journal of Early Christian Studies concludes that one of the few extant written passages used to support the “historical Jeebus” theory has now been determined to be a deliberate fabrication by later scribes.

Truly, the Lawd works in mysterious ways. Perhaps he was feeling just a bit too effable these days…

 
Reichwing researchers, historians, denialists, edumacationalists, editorialists, radio commentators, off-the-cliff fundies, AEI, Chamber of Commerce, Heritage Foundation, Fox News, astroturfers, and wingnut-welfare bloggers
 

the movement has been away from the old assume-and-search approach

Rubbish. Being true conservatives, we believe in the old, traditional ways. When we bother to do any research at all, we ALWAYS use the Assume-and-Search Approach.

The easiest approach, of course, is to simply make up shit.

 
 

Philip of Ockham’s ghost is whispering in my ear, saying he haz a sad.

There are frequently _some_ actual, real bases at the root of urban legends. Those bases may not be in actual, real _events_ but in prevailing attitudes and perceptions. Urban legends are things that sorta make sense, that really could have happened. They arise without necessarily having actual, real events to spark them.

Are you saying that it is more rational to posit that one of those many messiahs was actually the messiah, the one messiah at the root of all those tales? If such was the case, that one messiah in particular would had to have ben remarkable, outstanding in some pretty important ways. Like being the guy who kicked the rabbis’ butts in the temple. That no one at the time mentioned what would have been huge news gives us reason to doubt whether it actually ever happened. Some messiah or other getting into a small altercation with the rabbis, on the other hand, is easy to credit. Hell, it’s _likely_ at least a few confrontations occurred. Phil’s ghost wants me to point out that positing a single Jesus complicates matters.

relies on all religious authorities being delusional

They are. Or frauds. I lean toward delusional frauds. Not to rule out liars at times as well. If you have any interest in the topic you must read Elaine Pagels’ The Origin of Satan which was subtitled “how the early church leaders demonized pagans and Jews” or something like that. Faskinatin reading.

 
 

islmfaoscist said,
December 26, 2012 at 20:58

HAH! I read Richard Carrier’s blog frequently. Hadn’t been there or a week or so, so thanks for linking that!

 
 

Philip of Ockham’s ghost is whispering in my ear, saying he haz a sad.

I’m betting William is with me as opposed to his stupid brother Phil in imagining that an actual root for something is more likely than no root. The cargo cults had real planes and so on.

I agree that Pagels is awesome, and I’ve argued against the Josephus entry in the past on this very blog.

Are you saying that it is more rational to posit that one of those many messiahs was actually the messiah, the one messiah at the root of all those tales?

No, just that one of those claimants somehow met the right conditions to make people loopy about him.

 
 

Fuck. I had Philip on the brain for some reason. Philip of Ockham’s razor is the one one uses to slit one’s throat.

 
 

Encountered this at FDL. Trouble in Canuckistan…

? Idle No More, a First Nations movement, “has spread like wildfire over the past week in response to bills passed by the conservative Canadian government”. Those bills make it easier to wrest land from native peoples and remove “thousands of lakes and streams from the list of federally protected bodies of water”, a boon to tar sands industries. Atiwapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence continues her hunger strike, begun December 11th, in an attempt to have Prime Minister Cameron meet with her to discuss treaty rights.

 
 

New Thread

 
MC Simon Milligan
 

Who coined the phrase, less is more?

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. But I fail to see what the fuck minimalism has to do with this.

 
 

I hadn’t the time or energy to check the long, long, looooong trail of posts for this, but (keeping fingers crossed) here’s hoping that everyone had, or is having, a nice, white Kwanzaa! Merry War on Christmas, too, and a Happy and Joyous New Fecking Year. Glad that’s over with, now where’s my cheap-shit Scotch at?

 
 

A few days ago an article in my AssBook feed told me that the municipality of Jerusalem was giving away free Christmas trees to those that wanted them. A couple people were griping that they don’t give away free hanukiyot, but shit, what does three trees cost them? 😀

A particular Jewish triumphalist asshole (they do exist, and IME, they’re all expat Americans) of my near acquaintance posted a terrible article on “the origins of Christmas” which was so factually incorrect it might as well have come from Faux Noise, and wasn’t too happy when I said so, and got insistent about the idea that while he was entitled to think the Romans were the jerkiest jerks who ever lurched across the face of the earth, he wasn’t entitled to his own facts. Harrumph.

I do get what DAS is saying about Christmas being alienating; I grew up culturally Christian, although I’ve been an atheist since I started thinking about it, and Christianity makes no sense to me, and it has never really felt like “my” holiday. Then again, if you’re of the opinion we should be cancelling half of western civilisation because it’s tainted with residual antisemitism, I really don’t have much to say to you…and get back to me when atheists are accepted enough to make such a thing an option. (Personally, given the shitty treatment I’ve gotten over the years from Christians — and never from Jews — if it comes down to it, I’m on the Jews’ side.)

 
 

Fear that things might not be simple. That we may be an infinite spectrum of potential human experience, free to claim any one of a hundred million trillion possible modes of being and living and that for the first time in their lives they might just have to accept that and really figure out who they are and what they want to be.

Beautifully said.

 
 

Even worse, the Dickens story is about dealings with ghosts, aka necromancy, which is forbidden by the Bible.

Oh yeah? If necromancy is forbidden, why did they have that woman contact Samuel’s ghost so he could scold everybody some more?

sorry this is not the kjv but one of those dodgy translations – but you get the picture

 
 

Israel is the Jewish homeland and has been for over 2000 years: long before there were any Palestinians or even Christians.

That’s like saying that Ireland was the Irish homeland before there were any Protestants or such a thing as Northern Ireland.

Think about it.

And for those following at home: what we call “Arab” Palestinians, whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or some other religion, are genetically indistinguishable from Sephardic Jews. Sure, so the Jews “kept the faith”, like the Irish Catholic diaspora, but the notion that the diaspora should return and everyone else should just “get out” is deeply problematic. Oh, and Picts invaded from one island to the other over a thousand years ago. They’re all a little bit Pictish.

 
 

A key component of the “hatred of others” method of political control is that interfering with the group’s leaders’ right to dictate what is (or is not) allowed to be spoken of in public must be cast as an attack upon the group and its members – from which the group must defend itself.

But if some OTHER (minority) group in society says “please stop saying that–it’s woefully inaccurate and hurts our feelings besides”, they start screaming about free speech and freedumbs and got-damned political correctness.

 
 

OCT 31 = DEC 25

Get it? Huh? Get it?

Yes, you unbelievable bastard. Yes, I do!

 
 

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