It's not the sabbath - well not without some theological debate and a certain Jewishness entering the discussion - but all the same, the pond likes it when great minds discuss religion.
The pond even enjoys it when feeble-minded dunderheads of the dog bothering kind turn their teeth to gnawing on the bone of of Islam ...
If there was an award for preening condescension and ostentatious self-regard, surely the dog botherer's opening pars would win in a canter ... it's as if the White Australia policy had never existed ...
What's also remarkable in this is the way that the dog botherer heaps all the current Oz woes on the Islamics.
Nary a mention of the way that the Exclusive Brethren cult treat women, or sundry Creationists, or even a nod and a wave of the hand to the angry Sydney Anglican, parading around town with their complimentary women ...
Nary a mention of the way that the Exclusive Brethren cult treat women, or sundry Creationists, or even a nod and a wave of the hand to the angry Sydney Anglican, parading around town with their complimentary women ...
Here's one reptile report on the cult that little Johnny sucked up to, because he left no stone unturned in his bid to stay in power ...
Allowed to carry the chalice of wine during Sunday services! Now there's knock-down equality for you, eh Humpty Dumpty?
(The rest of the text can be googled, and for anyone wanting to experience the trauma of growing up a woman inside that cult, head off to the Terror here, currently outside the paywall).
(The rest of the text can be googled, and for anyone wanting to experience the trauma of growing up a woman inside that cult, head off to the Terror here, currently outside the paywall).
What makes it particularly interesting this day is that a Catholic fundamentalist has taken to the pages of the lizard Oz to explain how fundamentalist Islamics and Christians share certain similarities and tendencies ...
There's an irony here for the dog botherer, the only tragedy being that he's too dumb to understand or enjoy the irony ...
All this makes it especially piquant to return to the dog botherer, spluttering away, harping on about the Islamics, because he wants lefties and the Islamics to be the problem, rather than religion (where would that leave the Catholic Boys' Daily?) ...
There are some astonishing "get out of jail" cards in this pile of pandering tripe - Orthodox Jews can refuse contact with the opposite sex, but that's not a problem?
It's only a problem when Islamics do it?
It's only a problem when Islamics do it?
More at the Jewish Chronicle here.
The pond could go on with endless other examples, and has, endlessly and tediously, done so in the past.
What irritates the pond is the way the dog botherer cherry picks to suit his purpose, which is to make it all about the green-Left and the Islamics, while the weirdo fundamentalists in other religions can carry on as if they're in a Carry On movie ...
Well, in this context, the pond has to hand it to the angelic Shanahan.
At least she knows which fundamentalist side she's on ... all of them, and the wackier the better ...
At least she knows which fundamentalist side she's on ... all of them, and the wackier the better ...
Fundamentalist birds of different feather have more in common than they do with atheistic secularists ...
And there we go again, with idle chatter about secularism being a "faith", because that's all the sheep chanting in the temple can understand.
And there we go again, with idle chatter about secularism being a "faith", because that's all the sheep chanting in the temple can understand.
It's got nothing to do with faith, it's got to do with principles of government ...
Secularism is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries (the attainment of such is termed secularity). One manifestation of secularism is asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, or, in a state declared to be neutral on matters of belief, from the imposition by government of religion or religious practices upon its people. Another manifestation of secularism is the view that public activities and decisions, especially political ones, should be uninfluenced by religious beliefs and/or practices.
Not that hard to understand. That's how we end up avoiding mad clerics in charge of proceedings (oh wait, how did Mike Pence get to be VP?)
Since when did a principle become a faith? Only in the fuckwitted world of the reptiles rabbiting on in the Catholic Boys' (and occasionally Girls') Daily ...
As for that other doozie, "Perhaps the only truly feminist religion is Christianity", perhaps that explains why so many women over the years have become Pope ...
What's that? It's been slim pickings since Pope Joan and maybe she was just a mirage too?
Heck, even the Poms have managed the odd Queen over the centuries ... but the pond will take the point in the fatuous, truly stupid spirit in which it was intended, and hie off to the bible for a few readings in feminism ...
Since when did a principle become a faith? Only in the fuckwitted world of the reptiles rabbiting on in the Catholic Boys' (and occasionally Girls') Daily ...
As for that other doozie, "Perhaps the only truly feminist religion is Christianity", perhaps that explains why so many women over the years have become Pope ...
What's that? It's been slim pickings since Pope Joan and maybe she was just a mirage too?
Heck, even the Poms have managed the odd Queen over the centuries ... but the pond will take the point in the fatuous, truly stupid spirit in which it was intended, and hie off to the bible for a few readings in feminism ...
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?
Is it time for the bouffant one to speak sternly to his partner?
But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness
with sobriety ...
And so on and endlessly on ...
Cue your angry Sydney Anglican complimentary women right there ... and cue the last gobbet of the totally clueless dog botherer ...
And so on and endlessly on ...
Cue your angry Sydney Anglican complimentary women right there ... and cue the last gobbet of the totally clueless dog botherer ...
Join hands with the discriminatory dog botherer? The pond would rather hold hands with a cane toad ...
The dog botherer is part of a tolerant nation? If that's tolerance, it's pretty much intolerable ...
If the pond had been Islamic it might have been inclined to bop the fatuous dog botherer on the noggin.
But being a secularist - worse of the atheistic kind who inspire such fear in the angelic Shanahan - the pond would much rather that the lizard Oz simply went out of tree-killing business.
That would at least remove one way of promulgating deadly ideology by way of ancient communications methods ...
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the lizard Oz, the pond couldn't help but notice other prattlers and fatuous fops at work ...
No doubt these prattlers were busy explaining why the fundamentalist theocratic state of Israel is a jolly good thing while the fundamentalist theocratic state of Iran is a jolly bad thing ...
Which if nothing else, helps explain why fundamentalists of a certain feather flock together, so they can deplore fundamentalists of a different feather ... unless they happen to be feminist fundamentalists of a deluded feather, and then it seems, if angelic Angela is any guide, they they can flock together ...
Happily, it's too late in the day for the pond to do anything about the featherhead Polonius and the bromancer, and instead it will settle for a Pope instead.
This Pope seems to be offering a secularist papal insight, this time in a 1.78:1 framing rather than the old Academy format ...
Well we can add a Wilcox to that ... and both can be found at Fairfax here ...
Oh and as the pond has been discussing fundamentalist radicalisation, how about this old Pope for a closing thought ... because once radicalised, it's very hard to restrain these jihadists in their fundamentalist fanaticism ...
Sayeth the Dogbotherer: "...teenage Muslim boys being permitted to refuse a handshake at a public school presentation on the grounds that the hand is attached to a woman ?"
ReplyDeleteThis handshaking thing is becoming like 18C isn't it - a total, no holds barred crusade ! But all I want to know is when 'handshaking' became compulsory so that you somehow need to be "permitted" not to do it. I don't remember handshaking between men and women being a compulsory thing - or even a thing at all - when I was at school (though that was around 50+ years ago). So when did it become compulsory ?
When, indeed, did handshakes between unconnected men and women start to happen at all ? It hasn't been that way even for my lifetime.
Besides, whatever happened to "Thank you for not arousing my uncontrollable lust ?" What would happen if the women started to kiss the Muslim lads on the cheek as is still a very common custom ?
Then there's: "And how should we respond to a Muslim leader who downplays Koranic advice on enforcing spousal discipline by saying striking a wife is only a "last resort" ?"
Well I dunno, but quoting the original Rule of Thumb might be a start. You know, this one:
"During the 1800s wife beating was extremely common and only caused outrage if it was exceptionally brutal or endangered life. There was a widespread belief among ordinary people, male and female, that it was every man's 'right' to beat his wife so long as it was to 'correct her' if she did anything to annoy or upset him or refused to obey his orders. The editor of the Hull Packet (7 Oct 1853) remarked that wife-beating was 'being accepted as the habit of the nation'. The phrase 'a stick not thicker than his thumb' was often bandied about."
[ http://www.historyofwomen.org/wifebeating.html ]]
So true GB, "This handshaking thing is becoming like 18C isn't it - a total, no holds barred crusade"
DeleteThat the hand shake thing could become a crusade like the ridiculous 18C is an indication of how small-minded and petty the right wing nut jobs are and how important symbolic 'issues' are as the only basis they have for collective action, for being a group rather than a bunch of selfish greedy individuals who aspire to create wealth for themselves, with God's blessing for the religious.
Neither the religious nor the glibertarians wings of the right have a coherent ideology that would or could create a society that works so that all members of the human race could have some measure of freedom and would be enabled to made meaningful choices about how to live and what to value.
So behaviour that violates their irrational, prejudiced, uninformed and ahistoric ideas of western civilization irritates them and raises their hackles and triggers a need to find an easy and simplistic explanation and response.
Blaming and shaming of the other is the only thing that they have in common.
And in return, so true by you, too Anony.
DeleteIn particular: "...how important symbolic 'issues' are as the only basis they have for collective action..."
Quite so, it's all just mindless "virtue signalling" into "identity politics" - of which the wingnuts, even the otherwise feckless reptiles, are masters (and mistresses).
I have on this earth for a very long time. I have never had a muslim knocking on the door to flog his religion. Many times the JW's, you know, the ones who would rather a child die than get a life saving blood transfusion have called, even after in total frustration in front of their cute little kiddies you tell them to f%$&k off. Then we have the mormans, some of whom still like to have several wives, preferably married to some randy old goat while in their early teens.
ReplyDeleteI can't be sure but I don't think many (none???) muslim institutions were dragged before the Child Abuse Royal Commission.
Um, Angela, a if a woman claims to be a feminist who supports abortion on demand, it doesn't mean she has to demand one to be one.
ReplyDeleteErm, I don't think you're going to get much sense about "feminism" from a female who can say "I am not a fan of modern feminism, which is an arm of the ideological Left."
DeleteI liked this from Susan Carland in The Saturday Paper: "And for all the non-Muslims merrily weighing in about sharia being imposed in Australia, there isn’t much evidence for their expertise or even rudimentary knowledge. If someone cannot name the five pillars of Islam without Googling it, how much insight can they really offer on what sharia is and isn’t?"
ReplyDeleteAnd then I wondered: how many of the defenders of our Judaeo-Christian heritage could list The Ten Commandments without Googling. (I know I can't do it - 4/5 for the pillars of Islam, but that's less to remember isn't it?)