Tag Archives: insanity

Morally depraved West

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Many Islamist denounce the West because they think it is decadent and morally depraved. They may have a point:

Reports show that western Djihadists who join up with murderous bands like ISIS, Al Shabab, Taliban or Boko Haram do so not because of religious zeal – but out of boredom. They torture, shoot and behead others as pastime.

Take the hipster Jihadi (another middle-class boy gone wrong). The photo of Islam Yaken that went viral doesn’t suggest a man who has submitted to the will of Allah but a boy who likes posing with kick-ass swords – with an effeminate little satchel which probably cost most people’s annual salary to buy. It’s quite obvious, isn’t it, that he thinks he’s cool? He’s the Islamist James Dean – the rebel with a cause.

Can you be any more decadent or morally depraved than that?

Duck Brain

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On the subject of ISIS’ barbaric murders, the bearded studio guest raises his hand, the index finger extended:

God said: “All who hate me, love death”

and

Either convert them or kill them, one or the other.

When you think that wacko was a fundamental islamist, you wouldn’t be too far off. It was Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson, interviewed by FOX’s Sean Hannity, and he was talking about ISIS. That it’s difficult to discern a lunatic Islamist from a crazy Christian is no surprise; after all, the difference in their beliefs is semantic at best, their god is the same one. And both are blood-soaked, barbaric ideologies.

Ducky Brain then went on to say that he’d much prefer to convert the murderous thugs to christianity than to kill them. Oh, great. Then we’ll have lunatic, wide-eyed, heavily armed murderers for Jesus instead of Allah. What could possibly go wrong?

Now, as I remarked before, from the outside the loony bin is just a big building. I find it remarkable that the inmates are at each other’s throat while reciting exactly the same hate-filled stupidities.

And very, very, frightening.

Achmed the dead killer question

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Achmed the Dead Terrorist is an incredibly funny routine by world-famous ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. Achmed’s catchline is ‘I Kiiiiiiiiill you!’

That sketch reminds me of another funny routine, which – out of kindness – we should abstain from pulling on religious people (unless they seriously annoy us).

Ask a devout believer ‘would you kill me if your god commands it?’

Then either enjoy the uncomfortable silence while the poor believer tries to find a suitably equivocal answer – or run like hell (ha, ha) if the answer is an unflinching ‘Yes’: you just met a sociopath, or a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, which is pretty much the same.

Asking this isn’t nice because it poses a dilemma for the believer – who is usually a good person: a morally sound person would answer straight: ‘No. Killing is evil.’ Morally good, but devout believers try to wiggle out of this because it opens them up for questions of morality: if you refuse a command from your god you place your own moral compass above that of your deity. Plus, it acknowledges that you have your own moral – a moral that now significantly diverges from your god. That ripping sound? That’s either the pages from the bible or the fabric of the faithful’s worldview.

The equivocal answer is usually ‘if god commands it, it must be good. Therefore you must be evil, and I would be justified in killing you’ or ‘God would not command what is evil, so he would not command me to kill you’.

But these answers are also not helpful: the Bible tells the story where Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son. Isaac wasn’t evil, yet God told Abraham to kill him – God was testing Abraham’s faith. We therefore have a precent. So, would you kill me if He commanded it?

A ‘Yes’ opens the hapless believer up for the meanest question:
How do you know it is God who is commanding you to kill, not some voice in your head or, perhaps, Satan? How do you differentiate between a voice you want to hear (God’s) and one you hope not to hear (Insanity, Satan’s)? How do you tell the difference between Insanity and God?

And again, would you obey?

Indistinct distinctions

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When Think Progress slammed Bishop Thomas Paprocki for his moronic ‘exorcism’ of same-sex marriage, a Lutheran believer voiced his dismay over the fact that the article wrote ‘the bishop’ without adding the distinction that Paprocki was ‘Catholic’:

I absolutely hate how the media uses words like “bishop” and “diocese” without specifying Catholic. The Episcopal bishop of Springfield – ie the same location – has been similarly right-wing and uninformed, yes, but most Episcopal and Lutheran bishops are not.[…] By not saying “Catholic bishop” – just “bishop” – Think Progress ignores those critical distinctions

Sorry, but that distinction may be relevant to believers, but it is completely lost on anyone rational. From the outside, the loony bin is just a big house; we really don’t bother with the inmates’ specific delusions. We don’t differentiate between those who think they are Napoleon and those who call themselves Cleopatra. It really makes no difference.

They are all simply nuts.

The definition of insanity

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Albert Einstein once quipped

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

With the possible exception of software testing, Einstein hit the nail on the head. It is, after all the foundation of science: the fact that you can repeat your experiment anywhere, and get the same results.

Praying does not work. I know. I’ve tried. Still broke.

Why do so many people keep praying?

One thing is sure: they’re not Einstein.