Swankers Aweigh!

It’s been a few months since we checked in with Pastor Swank. That means we’re about 80,000 * 10^100 Swank columns behind, give or take weekends (which tend to be slow for him).


Above: ‘Prolific’ is more than
just ‘pro-life’ with an ‘ick.’

MUSLIM DOCTORS: HOW MANY PATIENTS MURDERED?
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.

There was an essay in The New Yorker not long ago about Dan Everett, a missionary-turned-linguist who seems to have discovered that the language of a remote Amazonian tribe called the Pirahã shows no evidence of recursion. Recursion is when several phrases (such as ‘the dog has a red collar’ and ‘the dog is eating my sandwich’) are ordered into a single statement (such as, ‘the dog that is eating my sandwich has a red collar’). The Pirahã language is potentially troublesome, the essay explains, because the latest version of Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar identifies recursion as “the cornerstone of all languages,” the hallmark of “a uniquely human cognitive ability.”

Did the Brit doctors planning blowing up the innocents heretofore murder innocent patients under their care in the hospital?

On the other hand, we’ve discovered a small tribe in remote Maine, the Swankstã, that uses massive recursion without any evidence of cognitive ability.

That very well could be.

So to backtrack a bit here: He just asked whether the doctors accused of the failed bomb plot in London also, theretofore, murdered hospital patients. That very well could be. Another question is whether teh international Muslim doKKKtor conspiratorzz drive to work in Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles. …That very well could be.

After all, when a mind is so convinced of a cultic tenet as to murder, that murder may take place once or repeatedly.

Indeed. “Take that, you bastard!” shouted Parmenides. “And if you step in that same river twice, I’ll kill you again!”

The doctors planning the carnage missed may have had rehearsals in the hospital in which they succeeded in putting to death those who otherwise might be alive right now.

Hello, field of linguistics? The solution is to send Pastor Swank to be the Pirahã’s new missionary. Soon enough, necessity will force them to be like, “Oh my God, the man in the black collar who is crazy is wandering around the restless village talking silly nonsense in a loud voice in everybody’s ears which are hurting!” — and woop, theory of universal grammar deproblematized.

After all, this is an imperfect world and those overseeing the work of those doctors just may have missed something crucial in daily proceedings. Anything is possible.

Also, the Pastor might, you know, army ants or piranhas or something. You can just never be too careful in the jungle: ‘Anything is possible’ is what we’ve always heard. One day you miss something crucial in daily proceedings, and the next day…

Consider the demented thought patterns that can appear civil while all the while thirsting for blood.

Luckily though, although they may thirst for blood, the only thing thought patterns can do is, like, when the tech does your MRI, it comes out with a blotchy ‘redrum’ on it, and a scary face going ‘raaa.’

We have those incidents all around us in murders carried out by husbands against wives, parents against children, employees against employers.

And when the media interviews neighbors of those who committed crimes, how many times do the neighbors say, “She was such a pleasant person. I would never have suspected”?

That’s what we say all the time, to throw off suspicion. Then again, prison can’t be such a bad place with all those pleasant people in it. Not that they’ll take Brad alive, mind you; I’m just musing here.

Right now family members of the doctors jailed are telling the media that they would have never thought their kin would plot such devilment. But in fact those kin did plot such devilment.

Ye felle gomes did plotte, and thus hath there ire oure kynrede al fordo!

That’s the craftiness of the human brain given to pulling off a con job.

See, that’s what I was just saying, too.

Back to the hospitals: how many under those doctors’ care were regarded by the doctors as outright infidels—rebels to Allah, deserving of death? After all, those doctors studied the murder and maiming verses replete throughout the Koran.

And Pastor Swank has studied the smiting and slewing and raping and human-sacrifice verses replete throughout the Bible. Then again, those are different.

Why don’t more non-Muslims study the Koran? It is available on the Internet.

Dude, because if you pirate your copy, Mohammed doesn’t get any royalties. And where will all the new religions come from?

Non-Muslims should become familiar with the Koran in detail. That detail is available in such sites as Faithfreedom.org. I encourage all to become familiar with what brainwashes these Muslims into devoting their earthly existences to outrageous macabre.

I cannot help but think that those doctors believing infidels had to be wiped out worldwide did not do some horrific things undercover before recent days. They were clever. They were smart. They could have performed killings that appeared as natural deaths.

That would be some outrageous macabre, no doubt. Kill the Jews before they kill again! …Oops, I mean the Jews sorry, the Muslims. The ones with the global conspiracy and the big noses.

Only God knows the count.

Au contraire, mein Herr.

 

Comments: 96

 
 
 

crossed out

 
 

The man at work but not working has come to your Webs to fix your problems strikethough and marvel at Swank’s adjectives European.

 
 

Ack, the tags!

The goggles do nothing!

 
 

Eeek! The strike-through! It’s everywhere!

 
 
 
 

motherfuck

 
 

No, not so much…

 
 

I’m as good at HTML as Swank is at the King his English.

 
 

Totally Krossed Out??!?

Daddy Swank’ll make ya
Jump Jump
K Gro, will… make, ya
Jump Jump
Ace o’ Spades’ll make ya
Jump Jump
Uh huh, uh huh

God, I need more cough syrup!

 
 

Damn! My lame early 90’s hip-hop reference foiled before I could post it.

Damn you, Gaaaaviiiinnn!!!

 
 

Uh, I fixed the strikethrough tag. [Damn!]

 
 

Not enough cough syrup in the world, my friend…

I picked a bad week to quit heroin

 
 

Shorter Pastor Swank:
It’s quite possible that any insane shit I choose to believe really happened. Evidence is for losers.

Oh, and English is my second language or else you should avoid whatever school system I emerged from heretofore.

 
 

Outrageous Macabre would be a good name for a band that plays rock with loud electric instruments.

 
 

Swank is right! The doctor is killing Sagittarons and only healing Capricans!

 
 

I think I’ve figured out the mystery many behind Gerard V. Bear

 
 

Muslim Doctors Blowing up global jihad koran coulda killed patients infidels england america BLARRRGGHHHH!!!

Um, I’m sorry, Pastor Swank is no available right now. Thanks for coming by, give us a call next week, won’t you?

 
 

Improved:

when a mind
is so convinced
of a cultic tenet
as to murder,

…that’s amore.

 
 

devoting their earthly existences to outrageous macabre.

Muslims are goth? So, is there a Koran available illustrated by Edward Gorey?

 
 

1) True fact: There are tribes living in the Amazon which have never had direct contact with civilization. How do we know they are there? They have been spotted during helicopter flyovers. The Brazilian government now forbids trying to contact these tribes.

2) True Fact: The Amazon is not the lungs of the earth.

3) True Fact: The Amazon itself does NOTHING to lessen greenhouse gases.

4) Al Gore and Prince Charles are jokers who have no relationship with reality, excepting weight gain and bad teeth.

5) Would-be murderous doctors in the UK or elsewhere in the Muslim world are not violating their Hippocratic oath because non-believers are less than human, so in killing them you are not killing whole humans. (Very Nazi like, isn’t it?)

6) Obviously the standards are so low on this blog that you can comment using only half or even one-third of your brain. I guess you’re eating with the other hand, or talking on your cell phone.

7) Cornell West is not a “brilliant” scholar. He is bad rapper.

8) Katie Couric would be perfect to host the Price is Right.

9) The mayor of Los Angeles is a scumbag and former gangbanger.

10) John from Cincinnati is the best show on TV.

 
Innocent Bystander
 

Pay attention to that Maine link…truly a bizzare story.

“Also, I have been served your happy ending sundaes before in which there was hardly any ice cream inside the thick-glassed container. This has happened over and over again until now when I order that dessert I tell the waitress that I want to find the dish filled with ice cream.”

My, my seems the poor bastard is getting shortchanged on happy ending sundaes…..I know it’s Friendly’s, but they might not have the ingredients nor the inclination to make the Swankster the kind of Sundae with a truly happy ending that he’s looking for….

 
 

That’s Kanye West, Ass face.

 
 

Why do the wingnuts fear Spanish becoming the main language of America when they can barely grasp English?

Oh, I see, they don’t want to barely comprehend another language because English is already too damn hard for their puny brains.

 
 

This man is full of wonderful observations

Amish & Mennonites: Intermarriage = Disease

In a Mennonite community near our Canadian home, there is much that is strange.

As I drive through those rural scenes, taking in God’s lush beauty and the large farms spread over acres and acres, I note humans in fields. Some of those humans stop, look up at my passing van, and stare. Some of those humans look imbecilic. I’m not being mean. I’m just relating what I see.

When I get up close to some of those humans, I note that they look at me oddly. I am looked upon as an alien. To me they appear odd. Their facial expressions don’t seem to be normal. Their demeanor is off-center. They peer at me as if they had just come upon the man in the moon. I look back as if I am studying an out of the ordinary creature.

I know they go to the church in the middle of their Mennonite community.

I also know that most of these humans don’t use deodorant.

Now I have other Mennonite friends in New York State. They are in another league than the ones in the Canadian community. They don’t appear strange, they use deodorant

Yes, the women wear their prayer caps. And they don’t wear make-up.

Therefore, I know that there are Mennonites and then there are Mennonites.

It’s the same “we all know that there are negroes and then there are negroes.” thing all over again.

excuse me I have to go shower now. This guy’s stench is all over the place.

 
 

Oh crap! teh blockquote got me!!

Can we have a preview button please?

 
 

Cornell West did actually try rapping once, and it was widely considered dreadful. Notwithstanding the foregoing, it’s a pie infestation.

 
 

4) Al Gore and Prince Charles are jokers who have no relationship with reality, excepting weight gain and bad teeth.

5) Would-be murderous doctors in the UK or elsewhere in the Muslim world are not violating their Hippocratic oath because non-believers are less than human, so in killing them you are not killing whole humans. (Very Nazi like, isn’t it?)

6) Obviously the standards are so low on this blog that you can comment using only half or even one-third of your brain. I guess you’re eating with the other hand, or talking on your cell phone.

7) Cornell West is not a “brilliant” scholar. He is bad rapper.

8) Katie Couric would be perfect to host the Price is Right.

9) The mayor of Los Angeles is a scumbag and former gangbanger.

10) John from Cincinnati is the best show on TV.

You didn’t say “True Fact, so therefore I can’t believe any of this.

Also, it’s “He is [i]a[/i] bad rapper.” Unless you is bad writer.

 
 

THE WORLD IS NUTS: MORE PROOF VIA PORNO TO SEX INMATES
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.

“Those who are sane, attempting to make it safely through this present-tense, are further convinced of the nuthouse we inhabit when reading that the Supreme Court of Sweden ruled that pornography is okay for sex offender inmates.

There you have it.

The rights of sex offenders! What about the rights of those who seek to live in peace and safety? Evidently the inmates come first in Sweden.”

O holy shit. Isn’t it against the law to abuse language like this?

 
 

“The rights of sex offenders! What about the rights of those who seek to live in peace and safety? Evidently the inmates come first in Sweden.”

Every line is a setup…

 
 

Meanwhile, back in reality

One doctor who declined to be named said Dr Abdulla had worked on a general ward, but was known for taking time off sick and had been regarded as a “bit of a slacker”.

So, could it be that at least one of the doctors was no better at murdering his patients than he was at plotting to blow up London?

That very well could be.

 
 

It’s true. I went into humor fugue-state trying to grapple with it.

 
 

True facts just in:

British Hostage Shocker! Hostage videos, torture logs; right wing silent on threat to Britain from non-Islamic white men!11!!!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/6284184.stm

Manly Fred Thompson lobbied for abortion clinics!!1!!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19675554/

Bush Administration found to be unserious about national security!!!1!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19666375/

Eat it, Chung boy. And Ruppert too. I know you’re out there.

 
 

Jose Chung said,

July 9, 2007 at 21:23

1) True fact: There are tribes living in the Amazon which have never had direct contact with civilization. How do we know they are there? They have been spotted during helicopter flyovers. The Brazilian government now forbids trying to contact these tribes.

Actually, we know the Pirahã are there because they have been visited by, you know, people actually on foot. There are even photos. Something you would know if you had read the article. Their existence is not in question.

2) True Fact: The Amazon is not the lungs of the earth.

Most of our oxygen comes from plankton in the oceans. Guess what happens if the average water temp raises a degree or two? They die off. Might be a good idea to prevent that.

6) Obviously the standards are so low on this blog that you can comment using only half or even one-third of your brain. I guess you’re eating with the other hand, or talking on your cell phone.

Yes, that is true. So when did you plan on bringing your contribution up to our standards?

 
 

Gavin,

You are a master to have located that ‘dialogue’ with the assistant manager.

I loved this part:

“I used to work at a Friendly’s in Massachusetts. That was years ago. We were never told to shortchange any customer in that we were never instructed in how to cheat the customer. This must be a new tack. And I don’t like it.

“I’m not some kind of jerk just complaining because I enjoy making a person miserable. I have my earned degrees and am a cordial individual. But when I got what I got—or didn’t get!—last night I decided enough was enough.

“Last evening I did leave my booth to locate the waitress to ask her to bring me a receptacle with hot fudge in it and another one with strawberry topping in it because those two items were not anywhere on my banana split. She obliged with smiles.

And I did assume there was no spit nor urine nor any foreign subtance in the receptacle the smiling waitress brought me although she was indeed a local and I was just another asshole summer person…

 
 

It is a perfectly logical conclusion. A group of highly educated Muslims were willing to sacrifice their own lives to cause terror in a Western country. Those same motivations would naturally make one assume that they wold also murder individuals, secretly, so that no one would even know they were murdered. This leap of logic is all the more natural when you consider that many homicidal maniacs are able to hide their thoughts from strangers. If you still can’t believe that, read the Koran.

 
 

Tigrismus, man! That would be sooo sweet.

“The Gashlycrumb Imams”

 
 

That’s the craftiness of the human brain given to pulling off a con job.

Which is nothing compared to the loftiness of the human mouth given to pulling off a blow job!

 
 

Another blow to the Avuncular One:

Fred Thompson aided Nixon on Watergate;
Former president called potential candidate ‘dumb as hell’
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19675541/

WASHINGTON – Fred Thompson gained an image as a tough-minded investigative counsel for the Senate Watergate committee. Yet President Nixon and his top aides viewed the fellow Republican as a willing, if not too bright, ally, according to White House tapes.

Thompson, now preparing a bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, won fame in 1973 for asking a committee witness the bombshell question that revealed Nixon had installed hidden listening devices and taping equipment in the Oval Office.

Those tapes show Thompson played a behind-the-scenes role that was very different from his public image three decades ago. He comes across as a partisan willing to cooperate with the Nixon White House’s effort to discredit the committee’s star witness. …

 
 

Jesus. Y’know, I’m sure he’s not getting rich off this or anything. But the Swankster actually gets PAID to write this stuff. And there are probably people out there who think he’s brilliant. There’s no justice in the world.

 
 

Fortunately the evilmooslimgeniuskillerdoctors hate capitalism even more than our freedoms, and can only work in national health systems, so we’re safe. Faux news said so. Whew.

 
 

Ya know what we need? We need a Pastor Swank Writing Contest. We can call it a Swank-Off.

One, two, three, four, I declare a Swank war!

 
 

The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a “gaping hole” in the nation’s preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today.

Well, it’s getting tougher and tougher to find people who have the right level of mindless devotion to Dear Leader.

 
 

If Pastor Swank doesn’t like the banana splits at Friendly’s, why does he keep going in there and ordering them?

Also, if you insist upon mocking such perfectly sensible observations as

“After all, when a mind is so convinced of a cultic tenet as to murder, that murder may take place once or repeatedly

with smarty-pants comments like

Indeed. “Take that, you bastard!” shouted Parmenides. “And if you step in that same river twice, I’ll kill you again!”

I’ll be forced to wear Depends® during my hours-long rides on the InterTubes.

 
 

I wasn’t so disgusted by this column. It is worthless and nudges in a detrimental, silly direction but it isn’t completely fucking lunar even though it has as much substance as a “nuke-Iran” argument.

 
 

Xel, where the Swankster is concerned, it’s all about Teh Funny, especially in regard to his exceedingly peculiar syntax. It’s not that he’s disgusting in an Ace of Spades/Debbie Snack Cakes kind of way, but that he’s so bizarre, in both his reasoning and writing technique.

 
 

And, he evidently loves pie!

 
 

“Ya know what we need? We need a Pastor Swank Writing Contest. We can call it a Swank-Off.”

This could mean the end of civilzed discourse as we know it, Wally Whatley.

Ah, man, I’m gonna be late for class again. I blame S,N! and the time warp created by the Right Rev. Pastor Swank. Cheerio.

 
 

I encourage all of you to become familiar with what brainwashed me into devoting my earthly existence to outrageous macabre.

I think it may have been Dario Argento movies. Enjoy!

 
 

Credit where credit is due. Katie would be terrific on “The Price is Right!” So would Cornel West.

 
 

So who the heck is this Cornelius West guy?

mikey

 
 

RE: Red Shark said at 22:04

Actually, the proposed secret killing of this kind is utterly antithetical to the modern IsLMAO terrorist cause… it’s why they choose high profile targets, it’s why they video IED’s and beheadings and put em on the t00bz, it’s why it’s called frickin’ terrorism fer chrisakes. It’s supposed to induce a terror that ripples far beyond any particular killing or act.

How else would we know when to riase the terror alert from yellow to red? Jeez.

 
Humbert Dinglepencker
 

Who would’ve thought it, I said, as they hauled off my neighbor who works at the bird-stripping factory, He was such a pheasant plucker…

 
 

So who the heck is this Cornelius West guy? -mikey

Dude, you remember that scene in Planet of the Apes? When Cornelius attempts to win over Charlton Heston with that endearing rap number?

Yea it sucked. And the Chungster is apparently the only one here with the balls to call him on it.

 
 

BDIII, you are one dude who DOES have a brain. Why you are wasting it with this bunch is beyond me; you’re better than this.

 
 

I note that they look at me oddly. I am looked upon as an alien.

I would probably look at him like that too.

8) Katie Couric would be perfect to host the Price is Right.

I actually have to agree with that.

 
 

Clearly youv’e mistaken me for someone else.

 
 

Oh, Hi there, Jose Chung! What kind of pie?

mikey

 
 

I’ve gotta go. Cheetios, fellows!

 
 

When are the Swanks of this world finally going to connect this London/Glasgow bombing story to the (completely baseless) one about that Jewish patient in Chicago who died in the hospital, possibly because a Muslim doctor purposefully failed to treat him correctly?? I’ve waited and waited for that totally obvious connection to be made, but no-one did! Is it a conspiracy? Or has somebody poisoned the wingnuts bodily fluids? Will we ever find out?

 
 

BDIII,

You have my deepest sympathies. To be complimented by Jose Dung(It’s brown and sounds like a bell.) even in a sideways sort of fashion must be mortifying.

And I want my Gorey illustrated Koran!

A is for Ali
who fell down the stairs

B is for Barak
assaulted by bears

C is for Caleemulla
who wasted away

D is for Dhimmi
thown out of a sleigh

E is for Eshan
who choked on a peach

F is for Fadilla
sucked dry by a leech

G is for Ghazi
smothered under a rug

H is for Hamid
done in by a thug

etc.

(With profound apologies to Mr. Edward Gorey and his classic work: The Gashlycrumb Tinies.)

 
 

Heraclitus is actually the “In the same river, we both step and do not step, we are and we are not” guy. Parmenides is the “Reality is one and unchanging, who ya gonna believe, your reason or your lying eyes?” guy.

 
a different brad
 

One small point- It was Heraclitus who spoke of the impossibility of stepping in the same river twice. Parmenides was the one who wrote a mythic poem which has a profound influence on Plato’s narrative structure

 
a different brad
 

Whoa. Who are all these bags of hate filled gas?

 
a different brad
 

Oy. I know that was pooring englisherish. It’s 90 something out, I’m sweaty.

 
 

Non-Muslims should become familiar with the Koran in detail. That detail is available in such sites as Faithfreedom.org.

Why do I get the feeling that the “Koran” displayed at “faithfreedom.org” would consist entirely of the sentence “Kill all the infidels! BLARRRGH!!!” copied 126,232,000,000,000 times?

You know, as opposed to a web-based version of the actual thing.

 
Smiling Mortician
 

Dammit! BDill beat me to the Charlton Heston thing and Marco beat me to the Goreython. I got nothin’.

Different Brad, you say sweaty like it’s a bad thing.

 
 

Why do I get the feeling that the “Koran” displayed at “faithfreedom.org” would consist entirely of the sentence “Kill all the infidels! BLARRRGH!!!” copied 126,232,000,000,000 times?

It actually doesn’t, although it’s pretty cranky and the rhetorical technique there is not well refined, marred as it is by ESL writing and expected wingnut cheerleading. I encourage anyone to read it: the stories from apostate Muslims are pretty interesting, given that in certain places you can die for openly admitting you are no longer a Muslim, not to mention the personal transformation undergone in societies in which atheism is simply never presented as an option.

Let me say that the Koran is a shitty and ugly book as a moral text, definitely shittier than the Christian Bible as far as bringing the hellfire and retribution goes. It’s really awful and big on torment. The arguments for killing folks in interesting ways are often teased out of passages that seem to be a justification for Mohammad’s situational banditry – for the most part it’s God bragging that he’ll be boiling people’s innards in the afterlife – but even with that kind of stuff it’s miserable and dour. I think in practice a lot of what we think of as barbarism in x country is a result of texts and traditions assembled outside the book itself, but I haven’t read that stuff.

That said, theologically speaking it’s got a convincing tone directed at the credulous in a far more artful way than the Bible is, and there are passages that make you go “yeah, why would an omnipotent god need a son” and so forth. It was written – and the writing is often argument rather than chronicle – by one guy directed at religious types, so of course it’s more convincing than the laughably contradictory mish-mash that is the bible…but I think the Bible has more interesting stories in it once you leave out all the rules and begats and stuff. In a Koran vs. Bible smackdown the former is more convincing and the latter is more interesting.

You can say “But Moses slaughtered the Midianites!” and you’d be right that there’s some bloodthirsty crap in the Bible as well, but just as we know that there are degrees of falsehood to various religions – Joseph Smith was full of shit or cargo cults are obviously just wrong – I’m okay with describing some religious texts or religions as more barbaric than others. I’m an atheist after all.

 
 

That was a long and useless wank. What do you have when a tiny four-legged mammal says allahu akhbar?

A mouslim.

 
 

You can say “But Moses slaughtered the Midianites!” and you’d be right that there’s some bloodthirsty crap in the Bible as well, but just as we know that there are degrees of falsehood to various religions – Joseph Smith was full of shit or cargo cults are obviously just wrong – I’m okay with describing some religious texts or religions as more barbaric than others. I’m an atheist after all.

True that. But at the same time, it doesn’t excuse the bloodthirsty wankery that takes place in throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, where G-d acts like a tinpot dictator smiting anyone who so much as looks at Him funny. Comparing the levels of violence encouraged by religion X as opposed to religion Y is a lot like comparing penis-length in that regard – mostly subjective and self-serving, and accomplishing about as much as introducing said penises to “Rosie Palm” and her five sisters.

Which is the main reason why I am an atheist.

 
 

Once again, right there with ya, Bubba.

Heard the phrase “there are no atheists in the foxholes”?

Sure. Setting aside for a moment I dug fighting positions, not foxholes, here’s the problem.

Yeah, we were praying. Praying hard under heavy sustained attack, under swaying sputtering illum rounds in the fucking drizzling rain with screams in our ear and burning flesh in our nose.

But c’mon now. Ask yourself who we were praying TO, and what we were praying FOR.

I’ll answer that. We were praying to the all powerful god of artillery, and his AP and HE and Willie Pete rounds. And we were praying FOR body count. Get some, arty, and then get some more. Lay down a wall of steel and fire between us and them. Break them up, and burn them down. Please, god of arty, keep those rounds falling close and fast, and keep them screaming as they look for their legs and arms, as they die in slow terror without eyes or ears. That was the prayer from the “foxhole”.

Where did the olde testament come from? Hah. It came from men in extremes, men in combat. Begging their angry, violent god to once, oh god just this one time kill those fuckers instead of us and we’ll exalt your greatness forever.

And my friends, if you think that’s not an atheist but rather a devout worshiper, you’re gonna need a hard reset…

mikey

 
 

RighteousB,

Have you read the translations of the Koran done by moderate and/or disinterested scholars? It is violent and angry(sometimes)–but no more than the Old Testament. Have you read the OT? It’s not just the kidnapping(so that’s where Cheney got the idea!), rape, and introduction to sexual servitude of the Midianite Woman–with the subsequent slaughter of all male Midianites(from babies to the elderly). There are too many examples of wholesale slaughter to recount.

On the other hand, there is Ecclesiastes…but on the other hand there are also mystical and philosophical(influenced by the Greeks and the Indians) texts to be found in the Islamic tradition.

Religion is, in the realm of the REAL, pure rubbish. But, seriously, you’re showing a little bias.

 
a different brad
 

Dammit. Out of respect for mikey I can’t use my standard comeback to the “no atheists in foxholes” line.
N SM- sweaty is only good in the right context, which a 90+ day in nyc ain’t.

 
 

Comparing the levels of violence encouraged by religion X as opposed to religion Y is a lot like comparing penis-length in that regard – mostly subjective and self-serving, and accomplishing about as much as introducing said penises to “Rosie Palm” and her five sisters.

Sure it’s subjective, and I’m being subjective. I don’t think I’ve got an oddball interpretation of the books though: read ’em and I think an honest atheist will be able to point to one of ’em and say “this book is more x than that one”, something we do all the time with bunches of other books we’ve read and don’t condemn as wanking. Mostly. In the case of religion I think those exercises are more useful than wanking because this is real stuff to billions of people: these things deserve examination and mockery.

To get even more subjective, I think there’s a degree of belief you’re forced into in credulously approaching the Koran that the Bible can’t touch: all the way through the Koran says very explicitly “this is the word of me, god”. It isn’t some kooky mish-mash of third-party narrators and is a long harangue mostly out of the mouth of the man upstairs. If you believe in god then these are his words and it’s very difficult to get metaphorical about things that he says flat-out as opposed to trying to figure out the meaning in the anonymously-told stories of the misadventures of, oh, you name it.

An interesting alternate future would be one in which the gospels were one long and consistent first-person narrative from Jesus, also assuming he was cool with gentiles. Would the world be better, worse, or the same?

 
 

Mikey’s got it staightup. As usual.

There are no atheists in a warzone. But, the reality that the Zog-botherers never mention is that the Zog being prayed to in the fire-fight is Mars/Ares/Kali/Alator/Caturix/and that red faced Chinese god whose name I forget.

On the other hand, as PZ rightly points out, there’s no theist stroke patients–they all go begging modern science to save their sorry asses.

 
 

Religion is, in the realm of the REAL, pure rubbish. But, seriously, you’re showing a little bias.

I’ll buy that with no offense taken. But yes, I have read versions of the bible cover-to-cover and a couple of translations of the Koran as well, one a Penguin and the other a Saudi-approved botch, and I think the Koran is the uglier of the two, so I came by my bias regarding the books honestly. The religions as practiced may not, as should be obvious, have a whole hell of a lot to do with the books. I suppose I should add for the benefit of the trolls that all are created equal blah blah blah.

 
 

on the other hand there are also mystical and philosophical(influenced by the Greeks and the Indians) texts to be found in the Islamic tradition.

I guess it might be smart to reiterate that I am talking about the Koran only, and not Islamic tradition, which I’m unqualified to comment on. I do, however, have a large ass from which I can pull many things, so look out: it’s an ass of plenty, a coloncopia.

 
 

Fair enough RighteousB. Most of the translations of the Koran I’ve perused have been as you describe: single-mindedly religious(whatever the fuck that means). But, stuff like God killing all of the first born of Egypt? Not to mention killing everybody in the flood.

Let’s face it…even the Buddhists are mass murderers. Have you ever considered what the Thai-Buddhists did to the Khmer-Buddhists or the Burmese-Buddhists did to the Thai-Buddhists–or for that matter, what the Chinese Taoists and Confucianists and Buddhists did to each other?

Fuck religion!

Fuck it right in the ear!

 
 

“Colocopia”!!!!????

Dogsdammit, you officially owe me one mouthful of cheapass beer.

 
 

But, stuff like God killing all of the first born of Egypt? Not to mention killing everybody in the flood.

Those stories, however, are not describing justice or things that men should do, they’re describing things that God did. There’s tacit endorsement in that he watches over the phenomenally ungrateful Jews who drop him for idols any chance they get, but it’s not suggested that men should do as God has done. There are other rules for men – also awful but such were the times – and they’d better fucking obey them.

Let’s face it…even the Buddhists are mass murderers. Have you ever considered what the Thai-Buddhists did to the Khmer-Buddhists or the Burmese-Buddhists did to the Thai-Buddhists–or for that matter, what the Chinese Taoists and Confucianists and Buddhists did to each other?

I’m not sure about the doctrine involved, but if you take Michael Parenti seriously Tibet really sucked when it was a Buddhist fiefdom. Link to Google because of course a lotta people take issue with it, so read the dissents.

 
 

Dogsdammit, you officially owe me one mouthful of cheapass beer.

One beer, straight from my ass:

)) BEER

 
 

Christian h said:

When are the Swanks of this world finally going to connect this London/Glasgow bombing story to the (completely baseless) one about that Jewish patient in Chicago who died in the hospital, possibly because a Muslim doctor purposefully failed to treat him correctly?

I have been wondering that too, you would have thought that was an obvious like for them. But no mention to date on LGF, Shuchel (!) or Gates of Vienna. Either they are slipping, or even they realize the Chicago story is bogus.

 
 

“Did the Brit doctors planning blowing up the innocents heretofore murder innocent patients under their care in the hospital?”
Fighting the Grammar-Nazis is just as heroic as actually serving in WWII, right?

“The doctors planning the carnage missed may have had rehearsals in the hospital in which they succeeded in putting to death those who otherwise might be alive right now.”
Hey, I get it, now! He’s trying to create his own little subset of the English language, like Shakespeare!

“That’s the craftiness of the human brain given to pulling off a con job.”
It’s like Swank thinks he’s the first person to figure out that people can act differently depending on who they’re with.

“Non-Muslims should become familiar with the Koran in detail. That detail is available in such sites as Faithfreedom.org. I encourage all to become familiar with what brainwashes these Muslims into devoting their earthly existences to outrageous macabre.”
http://www.thebricktestament.com/ And he’s supposed to be a PASTOR?!

 
 

RighteousB,

It’s not about what GOD(or Zog or Allah or Shiva or Buddha or Kuan Yu or my left testicle) does. It’s always about what humanity does. Agreed? Buddha preached an even more pacifistic worldview than Jesus(the guy who said: “resist not evil, but turn the other cheek), but it’s the folks we live with who create the conditions which allow for such things as Abu Graib and Gitmo and secret prisons and etc.

Parenti is mostly right about the essential evil all humans are capable of(been a fan of Parenti since my crackhead days in Buffalo some years ago)

But that’s my point. Humans are evil irregardless of the essential/superficial manifestation of the religious impulse. And we’re at our best bereft of metaphysics.

By the way, your ass is much cuter than a pair of parantheses.

Reason is not a virtue! It is a method–which works.

 
 

To be or not to be,

whether tis’ nobler in the mind

to suffer the slings and arrows

of outrageous macabre.

 
 

Have you ever considered what the Thai-Buddhists did to the Khmer-Buddhists or the Burmese-Buddhists did to the Thai-Buddhists

while not defending what happened, that was more your territorial, land, screw your neighbours kind of wars, the religion had little to do with it…

 
 

It’s always about what humanity does. Agreed?

Sure.

But that’s my point. Humans are evil irregardless of the essential/superficial manifestation of the religious impulse.

I wouldn’t go that far. I think we’re all capable of awful things, but for the most part we’re happy with just going about our business, and most folks approached individually are pretty helpful. None of the religions we’re talking about have been really effective as a programming system for humans: we still do what we do regardless of the blather foisted upon us.

By the way, your ass is much cuter than a pair of parantheses.

I was thinking of using this, uh, moon… ?

 
 

Fucking moon-stealing hamsters. They’ll get theirs.

 
 

Though, you know, given that Mohammed was persecuted around the time that he came up with the religion, I can’t help but think of the Qu’ran as the 7th century equivalent of the Myspace revenge fantasies of a middle school kid who’s been on the receiving end of one too many swirlies…

 
 

“I cannot help but think that those doctors believing infidels had to be wiped out worldwide did not do some horrific things undercover before recent days.”

Properly parsed (and I wish I could trust the strikeout function):

“I (cannot help but) think that those doctors (believing, etc.) did not do some horrific things undercover…”

Perhaps somewhere in the depths of Pastor Swank’s teeming brain is a tiny spark of sanity screaming for escape.

Or maybe he’s even less coherent than his blanket incoherence would lead the casual observer to believe.

 
 

lobbey,

Sorry, but you’re catagorically wrong. The religious expression of all cultures has always been used as an excuse for the excesses of the powerful. The actual teachings of any particular saint/prophet/enlightened-one have always been ignored when inconvenienced by political reality. Perhaps the Irish war against the English was non-religious?

War is always an expression of religion.

 
 

Myspace revenge fantasies of a middle school kid who’s been on the receiving end of one too many swirlies…

But it worked. He got his revenge, and got the girl, got some other girls, more girls, and so on.

 
 

RighteousB.

Yes.

I’ve spent most of my adult life overseas…and my anecdotal experience is that most folks just want to get on with life.

On the other hand, there’s some creepy ass shit out there. And when an Ayatollah or a Robertson enflames the shituation…

Excuse me Ma’am, where’s the line for off this planet?

 
 

“Excuse me Ma’am, where’s the line for off this planet?”

A question I ask every day of my life…stupid, crazy primates.

 
 

OK, so the ranting shit is good ol’ Swank, pure through and through.

But seriously: devoting their earthly existences to outrageous macabre is just wrong. “Macabre is an adjective, not a noun!

Now you’re fucking pissing me off.

 
 

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