I appear to have alienated a significant portion of my reader audience—essentially all of it, so far as I’m aware—and the only comment I can think of from my last post that might have done this was my statement that my sole platform as presidential candidate on the American Nihilist Absurdist Loafers ticket was to kill everybody who isn’t nice. I would have thought the total absurdity of such a statement, particularly coming from a self-declared nihilist absurdist, would have been obvious enough so that nobody could take it seriously enough to be offended by it. Dave Barry was perhaps more prudent in not publicizing any platform at all.
However, I was led to wonder whether anybody else had been so imprudent as to declare any such thing even in jest, so I Googled on “kill everybody who isn’t nice” (in quotes) and got precisely one hit—my own blog. So I tried it without quotes, which gets all sites which mention any of those words in any context, and got 2.16 million hits. As we all know, the vast majority of these are totally irrelevant to the idea stated in its entirety and consist of two or three of those words used in completely different contexts. But one site on the first page caught my attention, and when I opened it, it was a real whopper.
“The Sect of Homokaasu – The Kill Everyone Project – Bowling for Columbine Since 2001.” Catchy name, huh? So far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Michael Moore movie “Bowling for Columbine” except as a reference to insane violence; but “The Kill Everyone Project” really is a page devoted to killing the entire world population by mouse-clicking: every time the user clicks in a given box, someone is virtually killed. The Info page states: “The world is overpopulated. The people that overpopulate it are stupid. They should be killed.” Not just the ones who aren’t nice, not just enough to reduce the population to manageable proportions—all of them. Since 2001, they claim, more than 76,000 users have killed more than 6.411 billion people, or 98.46% of the world population; every country in the world has been extinguished except China, of which only about 92.62% of the population has been killed. If you register, you can play it as a game, competing with other killers for the greatest number of people killed—great fun! It will come as no surprise that Homokaasu, the host of this eminently sick, depraved page, has a number of other delightful goodies, such as a Global Stupidity page with a Global Stupidity Advisory System (yet another parody of the infamously silly Terrorist Threat Advisory System), and an “XXX Grandma’s Birthday Party – Obscene action! – Non-stop Pastry Fornication!” (available to members only).
So, to whom are we indebted for the fun-filled game of global genocide? Who or what is Homokaasu? The FAQ page calls it a “site for sillies containing creative and weird stuff,” the authors of which are anonymous. And it comes from Finland. And homokaasu is Finnish for “gay gas.” The story of where the name comes from is one of the most bizarre aspects of the site, and involves a long, breathtakingly paranoid rant by some guy who claims the Roman Catholic church was pumping poison gas into his room to make him a homosexual. (I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say.) Finland sounds like a very interesting place.
Oh, you ask how many of the remaining Chinese I killed? Only two. I told you I dislike violence, even virtual violence, and 76,000 other people are doing the job far more efficiently.
Maybe I’ll have to think of a better platform for the ANAL Party.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
You know he’s NOT INSANE!
Yes, fervent patriots, it’s that time of the quadrennium when our beloved Land of the Freak and Home of the Depraved goes from being almost universally despised to being more nearly universally ridiculed, when every deluded moron, every scumbag egomaniac, every pompous twit, every cretinous sociopath, every incompetent, lying, contemptible scoundrel who can still manage to crawl out from under his rock or wade out of his swamp, “throws his hat in the ring” and declares himself (or herself or itself) a candidate for the coveted and deeply respected office of President of the United States. Let us bow our heads in shame.
Those of you who are old enough may remember the title above as the campaign slogan of George Papoon, the invention of Firesign Theatre who, with his running mate George Tirebiter, ran for President on the Natural Surrealist ticket against Richard Nixon in 1972. Now, even more than then, this country needs a president who is NOT INSANE! So it is encouraging to find that Papoon still has an active web page (on which he shows the Florida ballot on which he appeared in 2000), and is evidently still trying to save our beloved country from those who are insane. How many humanoid organisms can you name who have that kind of tenacity? Who will not give up in spite of years of mounting evidence that they’re insane. Okay, unfortunately we do know of one notorious example of that, so forget I asked.
A recent post from my guru concerns a recent column in the Denver Post by Dave Barry in which, in the course of a discussion of the unique charms of Miami as a host for the then upcoming Super Bowl, he skewers Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who had previously and very stupidly insulted Miami by calling it a third-world country. In a Denver Post article about Barry’s column, passing reference is made to Tancredo “recently open[ing] a presidential exploratory committee,” and Barry is quoted as saying that “thanks to Rep. Tancredo, my candidacy looks less like a joke than it used to.” In my fair and balanced opinion, the idea of anyone running for President is a joke, and the only question is one of relative ridiculousness. I suspect I’m not the only person who would far rather have Barry as president than Tancredo, and I’ve always taken Barry’s candidacy far more seriously than those of most of the lame-brained fuck-tards who think they should be taken seriously. Over the years, I have fantasized all sorts of presidential tickets I’d like to see, like Dave Barry and Garrison Keillor, or Molly Ivins and Whoopi Goldberg (tragically mooted by Molly’s recent untimely death). I’ve even thought of running for president myself. I have my own party: the American Nihilist Absurdist Loafers Party. Slogan: Better ANAL than Banal. Very simple platform: kill everybody who isn’t nice. It’d solve a lot of problems: it would get rid of almost all crime (there are, however, many alleged criminals who are actually nice people but are guilty of violating stupid laws), and would considerably alleviate most of the problems associated with overpopulation, like pollution, by eliminating about 40% of the people. Naturally it would be up to me to decide who is or is not nice, although I’d rather not be the one who has to kill them; I detest bloodshed. The idea of getting rid of all stupid people, although appealing, is, of course, out of the question, as that would eliminate about 80% of the population. One has to be reasonable.
Well, my hat is in the ring—and if you’ve ever seen my hat, you’ll want to stay far away from the ring. I think I can fairly claim that I’m not insane, although there may be some disagreement about that in some circles, ellipses, oblate spheroids, or truncated polyhedrons. Please leave campaign contributions in a brown paper bag inside my screen door. And disregard the sign in the window that says “FORGET THE DOG — BEWARE OF THE HUMAN.”
Those of you who are old enough may remember the title above as the campaign slogan of George Papoon, the invention of Firesign Theatre who, with his running mate George Tirebiter, ran for President on the Natural Surrealist ticket against Richard Nixon in 1972. Now, even more than then, this country needs a president who is NOT INSANE! So it is encouraging to find that Papoon still has an active web page (on which he shows the Florida ballot on which he appeared in 2000), and is evidently still trying to save our beloved country from those who are insane. How many humanoid organisms can you name who have that kind of tenacity? Who will not give up in spite of years of mounting evidence that they’re insane. Okay, unfortunately we do know of one notorious example of that, so forget I asked.
A recent post from my guru concerns a recent column in the Denver Post by Dave Barry in which, in the course of a discussion of the unique charms of Miami as a host for the then upcoming Super Bowl, he skewers Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who had previously and very stupidly insulted Miami by calling it a third-world country. In a Denver Post article about Barry’s column, passing reference is made to Tancredo “recently open[ing] a presidential exploratory committee,” and Barry is quoted as saying that “thanks to Rep. Tancredo, my candidacy looks less like a joke than it used to.” In my fair and balanced opinion, the idea of anyone running for President is a joke, and the only question is one of relative ridiculousness. I suspect I’m not the only person who would far rather have Barry as president than Tancredo, and I’ve always taken Barry’s candidacy far more seriously than those of most of the lame-brained fuck-tards who think they should be taken seriously. Over the years, I have fantasized all sorts of presidential tickets I’d like to see, like Dave Barry and Garrison Keillor, or Molly Ivins and Whoopi Goldberg (tragically mooted by Molly’s recent untimely death). I’ve even thought of running for president myself. I have my own party: the American Nihilist Absurdist Loafers Party. Slogan: Better ANAL than Banal. Very simple platform: kill everybody who isn’t nice. It’d solve a lot of problems: it would get rid of almost all crime (there are, however, many alleged criminals who are actually nice people but are guilty of violating stupid laws), and would considerably alleviate most of the problems associated with overpopulation, like pollution, by eliminating about 40% of the people. Naturally it would be up to me to decide who is or is not nice, although I’d rather not be the one who has to kill them; I detest bloodshed. The idea of getting rid of all stupid people, although appealing, is, of course, out of the question, as that would eliminate about 80% of the population. One has to be reasonable.
Well, my hat is in the ring—and if you’ve ever seen my hat, you’ll want to stay far away from the ring. I think I can fairly claim that I’m not insane, although there may be some disagreement about that in some circles, ellipses, oblate spheroids, or truncated polyhedrons. Please leave campaign contributions in a brown paper bag inside my screen door. And disregard the sign in the window that says “FORGET THE DOG — BEWARE OF THE HUMAN.”
Thursday, February 1, 2007
A word from the opposition
If I were that sort of believer, I might suspect that “God is testing my faith” (notice that I put that in quotes) after all that quasi-religious ranting a few days ago. A path of several links (which is how I learn most things these days) started with my guru (not on his blog but through an e-mail) linking me to “Only in America: Secular Scribblings of a Grumpy Old Man”. This particular page was a quiz on how many of the targets of the Rude Pundit’s rude insults the reader could recognize, but earlier posts of the “Grumpy Old Man” (actually a grumpy old British atheist) in turn linked me to two YouTube clips.
I cannot now find the path that linked me from Grumpy to the first YouTube clip, a 2-part post done by another atheistic Brit (the Church of England is not very alive and well), Nick Gisburne. I thought (wrongly) it was linked from “Driving lessons, child abuse, etc.”, because Jesus Camp is certainly related to that subject. (Many bloggers simply give you a link with no further comment and expect you to open it and reach your own conclusions. I use links as an excuse for my own ranting commentary, hoping you will find it dull and boring.) Gisburne has evidently taken clips (interspersed with his own commentary) from a larger documentary, which seems to be what’s available, without Gisburne’s commentary, at FluNIGGS A nation down the drain. The second is a fuller depiction of one of the most vile, psychotic atrocities of lunatic evangelicalism I’ve ever seen: a camp (in rural North Dakota, of all places!) where demonic adults basically brainwash and terrorize a bunch of helpless, vulnerable kids with a crash course of their sick, vicious garbage, reducing many of them (9 or 10 years old!) to tears for their “sinfulness” during the “Spirit-filled” orgies that pass for worship. It’s really quite sickening for anyone who loves and respects children to watch.
The second one (which was linked from “Driving lessons, child abuse, etc.”) was Part 3 of The virus of faith, a 5-part documentary (actually a 50-minute program chopped up into five 10-minute segments) which was probably run on BBC, done by Richard Dawkins. The name should be recognizable to most atheists, as Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist (called “Darwin’s Rottweiler” by someone), is probably the most well-known, articulate, and (I hate to admit) convincing of all contemporary apologists for atheism—or, viewed from the other side, critics of Christianity. Since Grumpy linked me directly to Part 3, I didn’t see the first two parts, but this one was devoted to more examples of moronic, insane, vicious heresy among the evangelicals—and of course it wasn’t at all difficult for Dawkins to find lots of them, like sadistic maniacs further scaring the shit out of kids with “Hell Houses” during Halloween, and an interview with an apologist for a guy who murdered an abortion doctor (actually, that’s in Part 4). Well, I’d heard and seen it all before, though never done as skillfully as Dawkins did it—tarring all Christians with a brush dipped in the most hideously evil perversions the critics can find—which strikes me as less than entirely fair to what is considered the mainstream faith. It’s like vilifying all Americans on the basis of the criminal thugs and psychotic halfwits in the government. Later in the same part, Dawkins discusses what a nasty asshole Yahweh is (“the most unpleasant character in all fiction—jealous, petty, vindictive, racist”) and the appallingly barbaric, “poisonous” tribal morality of the ancient Hebrews who called themselves “his people.” Okay, again I’ve heard all that dozens of times and agree with most of it, as I suggested in my last post. But things get better in the New Testament, don’t they?
In Part 4, Dawkins says, No, not much. He calls Paul’s “tortuously nasty, sadomasochistic doctrine” of Atonement, which is a fundamental Christian belief, “barking mad” (nice Briticism there); and indeed, quite a few people have claimed that the message of the gospels, for whatever worth you want to grant it, was totally fucked up by St Paul, who was, by the massive evidence of his writings and his own admission in his letters, a thoroughly loathsome creature. (In fact, he bragged about what a nasty shit he used to be because it showed how loving Jesus was in forgiving him, but it didn’t stop him from still being a nasty shit after being forgiven.) In an attempt to give the moderates a voice, Dawkins interviews the liberal Anglican Bishop of Oxford, who, typically for a liberal, says that modern believers are quite entitled to reinterpret Scripture to meet our “evolved” understanding of the nature of, specifically, homosexuality, according to which is not sinful, and to emphasize biblical passages which reinforce this interpretation. But, says Dawkins, if you can just “cherry-pick” which parts of the Bible to believe and decide on the basis of secular input how to interpret them (which he calls “fence-sitting”), then why bother with the Bible or Christianity at all? As a sanction for a code of morality? But, he says (and, as I think I alluded in an earlier post, John Stuart Mill says), a good moral code doesn’t need religion to sanction it; it finds sufficient support in common sense and human decency.
And, Dawkins goes on to say in Part 5, in evolution. Morality is based on “altruistic genes” which we share with (we DO NOT “inherit from”!!!) chimpanzees. Well, that’s as may be, Richard, after all the evidence you present to show how sweetly altruistic chimps are, but Bonzo has a darker side, which we also share with him. The altruistic genes only work in their own small kinship group; outside that, in relations with other groups, the chimps show an eerily human propensity for conflict and murder, and I can remember when Jane Goodall was traumatized by witnessing cannibalism among them; there are, in fact, what could be called sociopathic chimpanzees. Even their motives for such behavior are uncannily similar to those of humans, when the veneer of “civilization” is stripped away: sex and territory. Even religious wars are fundamentally about ideological territory, and about power over others, which is a form of lust related to sex. So the argument that “altruistic genes” are a sufficient basis for a moral code is, in my opinion, his weakest point.
But aside from that I found Dawkins, as I said earlier, convincing, and I must admit that, after the dual attack of his persuasive arguments for atheism on the one hand, and on the other hand the humiliating spectacle of all the evil insanity perpetrated by some of the sick assholes who call themselves Christians, my faith has been slightly shaken. But only slightly. Faith is beyond reason, although not necessarily against it. Whether reason is used to support faith in philosophical theology or to attack it in atheistic controversy, neither one has any effect on faith when the chips are in. To quote Pascal’s famous line, the heart has its reasons which reason cannot know. I know that sounds pitifully lame, and it’s probably a piss-poor answer to Dawkins, but it’s the best I can do—and the best I feel I need to do. Remember, I’m a lousy apologist.
I cannot now find the path that linked me from Grumpy to the first YouTube clip, a 2-part post done by another atheistic Brit (the Church of England is not very alive and well), Nick Gisburne. I thought (wrongly) it was linked from “Driving lessons, child abuse, etc.”, because Jesus Camp is certainly related to that subject. (Many bloggers simply give you a link with no further comment and expect you to open it and reach your own conclusions. I use links as an excuse for my own ranting commentary, hoping you will find it dull and boring.) Gisburne has evidently taken clips (interspersed with his own commentary) from a larger documentary, which seems to be what’s available, without Gisburne’s commentary, at FluNIGGS A nation down the drain. The second is a fuller depiction of one of the most vile, psychotic atrocities of lunatic evangelicalism I’ve ever seen: a camp (in rural North Dakota, of all places!) where demonic adults basically brainwash and terrorize a bunch of helpless, vulnerable kids with a crash course of their sick, vicious garbage, reducing many of them (9 or 10 years old!) to tears for their “sinfulness” during the “Spirit-filled” orgies that pass for worship. It’s really quite sickening for anyone who loves and respects children to watch.
The second one (which was linked from “Driving lessons, child abuse, etc.”) was Part 3 of The virus of faith, a 5-part documentary (actually a 50-minute program chopped up into five 10-minute segments) which was probably run on BBC, done by Richard Dawkins. The name should be recognizable to most atheists, as Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist (called “Darwin’s Rottweiler” by someone), is probably the most well-known, articulate, and (I hate to admit) convincing of all contemporary apologists for atheism—or, viewed from the other side, critics of Christianity. Since Grumpy linked me directly to Part 3, I didn’t see the first two parts, but this one was devoted to more examples of moronic, insane, vicious heresy among the evangelicals—and of course it wasn’t at all difficult for Dawkins to find lots of them, like sadistic maniacs further scaring the shit out of kids with “Hell Houses” during Halloween, and an interview with an apologist for a guy who murdered an abortion doctor (actually, that’s in Part 4). Well, I’d heard and seen it all before, though never done as skillfully as Dawkins did it—tarring all Christians with a brush dipped in the most hideously evil perversions the critics can find—which strikes me as less than entirely fair to what is considered the mainstream faith. It’s like vilifying all Americans on the basis of the criminal thugs and psychotic halfwits in the government. Later in the same part, Dawkins discusses what a nasty asshole Yahweh is (“the most unpleasant character in all fiction—jealous, petty, vindictive, racist”) and the appallingly barbaric, “poisonous” tribal morality of the ancient Hebrews who called themselves “his people.” Okay, again I’ve heard all that dozens of times and agree with most of it, as I suggested in my last post. But things get better in the New Testament, don’t they?
In Part 4, Dawkins says, No, not much. He calls Paul’s “tortuously nasty, sadomasochistic doctrine” of Atonement, which is a fundamental Christian belief, “barking mad” (nice Briticism there); and indeed, quite a few people have claimed that the message of the gospels, for whatever worth you want to grant it, was totally fucked up by St Paul, who was, by the massive evidence of his writings and his own admission in his letters, a thoroughly loathsome creature. (In fact, he bragged about what a nasty shit he used to be because it showed how loving Jesus was in forgiving him, but it didn’t stop him from still being a nasty shit after being forgiven.) In an attempt to give the moderates a voice, Dawkins interviews the liberal Anglican Bishop of Oxford, who, typically for a liberal, says that modern believers are quite entitled to reinterpret Scripture to meet our “evolved” understanding of the nature of, specifically, homosexuality, according to which is not sinful, and to emphasize biblical passages which reinforce this interpretation. But, says Dawkins, if you can just “cherry-pick” which parts of the Bible to believe and decide on the basis of secular input how to interpret them (which he calls “fence-sitting”), then why bother with the Bible or Christianity at all? As a sanction for a code of morality? But, he says (and, as I think I alluded in an earlier post, John Stuart Mill says), a good moral code doesn’t need religion to sanction it; it finds sufficient support in common sense and human decency.
And, Dawkins goes on to say in Part 5, in evolution. Morality is based on “altruistic genes” which we share with (we DO NOT “inherit from”!!!) chimpanzees. Well, that’s as may be, Richard, after all the evidence you present to show how sweetly altruistic chimps are, but Bonzo has a darker side, which we also share with him. The altruistic genes only work in their own small kinship group; outside that, in relations with other groups, the chimps show an eerily human propensity for conflict and murder, and I can remember when Jane Goodall was traumatized by witnessing cannibalism among them; there are, in fact, what could be called sociopathic chimpanzees. Even their motives for such behavior are uncannily similar to those of humans, when the veneer of “civilization” is stripped away: sex and territory. Even religious wars are fundamentally about ideological territory, and about power over others, which is a form of lust related to sex. So the argument that “altruistic genes” are a sufficient basis for a moral code is, in my opinion, his weakest point.
But aside from that I found Dawkins, as I said earlier, convincing, and I must admit that, after the dual attack of his persuasive arguments for atheism on the one hand, and on the other hand the humiliating spectacle of all the evil insanity perpetrated by some of the sick assholes who call themselves Christians, my faith has been slightly shaken. But only slightly. Faith is beyond reason, although not necessarily against it. Whether reason is used to support faith in philosophical theology or to attack it in atheistic controversy, neither one has any effect on faith when the chips are in. To quote Pascal’s famous line, the heart has its reasons which reason cannot know. I know that sounds pitifully lame, and it’s probably a piss-poor answer to Dawkins, but it’s the best I can do—and the best I feel I need to do. Remember, I’m a lousy apologist.
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