In which the pond indulges in a Sunday meditation with the bromancer and Dame Slap … and what a long and tedious meditation it is ...

Of course the pond would like to be elsewhere for a Sunday meditation … like Sam Knight's summary of The Empty Promise of Boris Johnson in The New Yorker.

It's short, it's currently outside the paywall, and while Boris has inexorably moved on since it was written, the welter of lies and delusions is enchanting, and promises that Britain will continue matching the United States for weird entertainment …

But let us not be modest. As foreshadowed by that splash, for weird entertainment, the lizards of Oz are up there with the best, and amongst the best and brightest of the best, the bromancer is truly unique.

Now the pond is totally over the Folau matter, since the greedy Xian seems mainly determined to get his paws on a $10 million payout - so much for Matthew 6:24:

No rugby union tosser can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

But let us not deplore the yearning for moola and for cash in the paw, and let us not judge, for fear of being judged.

Let us not wonder at the bromancer defending Folau, because as a servant to the whore of Babylon residing in Rome, the ecumenicals will see him cast into hell for all eternity, along with all the other sinners …instead, let us just meditate on the entertainment …and it being the bromancer, it's a meditation that almost approaches the length of Andy Warhol's study of the Empire State Building …

He's lost his ability to earn a living for the rest of his life?

How many people play top grade rugby union above the age of 35? Can't he manage to fleece his flock and make a decent living? How stupid is the bromancer to trot out that sort of insane hysteria?

As for theology, it's about time the bromancer tore off the shrink wrapper and got real …

 

Yes, they knew how to make a decent living fleecing punters, while warning them of being led astray by those devotees of the modern Babylon ...

So it's just the same old horseshit dressed up in a new guise … because if you're gay and have sex, by definition, you're indulging in immoral behaviour  and it's off to hell with you … unless, by some theological mishap, hell doesn't actually exist, or pose quite the threat it once did …

Benedict XVI: There is no doubt that on this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma. While the fathers and theologians of the Middle Ages could still be of the opinion that, essentially, the whole human race had become Catholic and that paganism existed now only on the margins, the discovery of the New World at the beginning of the modern era radically changed perspectives. In the second half of the last century it has been fully affirmed the understanding that God cannot let go to perdition all the unbaptized and that even a purely natural happiness for them does not represent a real answer to the question of human existence. If it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced that those who are not baptized are forever lost – and this explains their missionary commitment – in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council that conviction was finally abandoned. From this came a deep double crisis. On the one hand this seems to remove any motivation for a future missionary commitment. Why should one try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it? But also for Christians an issue emerged: the obligatory nature of the faith and its way of life began to seem uncertain and problematic. If there are those who can save themselves in other ways, it is not clear, in the final analysis, why the Christian himself is bound by the requirements of the Christian faith and its morals. If faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, faith itself becomes unmotivated. (here).

Hmm, tricky stuff.

By the 20th century, liberal Christians, Protestant and Catholic, were finding it difficult to square away belief in a God of love with the doctrine of eternal torments in the fires of hell. For them, “hell” has been rethought as a state (but no longer a place) of life after death in which we freely choose to stay alienated from God and from which we can eventually be saved if we so wish. (here).

What, no fire and brimstone? No Catholics simmering for their sinful theological follies?

Oh dear, it's surely about time for a cartoon before the pond faints from the tedium of it all.

Since when did the lizard Oz turn into Sunday school, or even worse, the half hour session the fat Irish priest childminding us at the state school dished out, before racing off to a round of golf, followed by a hearty round of Tamworth beers? (Got to keep that conditioning in peak shape).

Okay, that'll do but the pond had the sickening feeling it was only half way through the theological weirdness...

In short, no one has the foggiest clue what's on the other side, and somehow for some reason, every message from the imaginary friend ends up in theological confusion … with only a couple of blessings to hand.

Blame it all on women, and when they're not around, blame it on the gays ...

Brian Houston? What a stench is there … what with child abuse, and talk of the cult … but as the bromancer is a participant in several cults, the cult of Catholicism and the cult of the Murdochian reptile, it's to be expected that he'd be happy in the company of other cultists ...

Or the mainstreaming of delusion …

In a way, the pond accepts that evil exists, but in a secular way, in the sense that people have a remarkable capacity to inflict damage and hate on other people for being different or other …

Pretending that it's all clap happy fun times and there's no fear and loathing roaming the churches is a form of secular evil … almost as absurd as suggesting that the likes of Hillsong's music represents some kind of creative achievement ...

Perhaps it would be better not to talk of evil, but to talk of lies. An unapologetic, practical, welcoming approach which they extend to everyone?

Following backlash after the firing of Josh Canfield, a gay man who served as Hillsong’s NYC choir director, over his sexuality, Houston wrote, “Hillsong Church welcomes ALL people but does not affirm all lifestyles. Put clearly, we do not affirm a gay lifestyle and because of this we do not knowingly have actively gay people in positions of leadership, either paid or unpaid.” (Daily Beast)

If that's the bromancer's idea of a friendly welcoming approach, he can just fuck off to hell, or wherever it is that Pentecostal cultists send Catholic cultists in the grip of grievous theological error … but don't blame it on the pond, that's the fault of the judgmental Pentecostals …

And now, because the pond only dips its toes in the reptile waters every so often, an additional treat for the battle-hardened …

Dame Slap was also out and about yesterday in the lizard Oz - you know, that famous MAGA-cap-wearing, worshipper of the pussy-groper - and she was even more peculiar than usual …

Indeed, indeed, but the pond has heard it all before, this suffering of the white male, so rather than do a commentary, why not a few cartoons celebrating the latest deeds of the pussy-groper in chief?

And so to the in-house cat fight ...

Indeed, indeed, rational people will instead think of climate science as a global conspiracy designed to establish world government by Christmas, or perhaps think in a post-ironic way that Donald Trump offers a vision for the United States and the world ...

Well at least running a cartoon helped the pond avoid any sense it was in any way standing up for Nikki Gemmell, who is as silly as Dame Slap when the wind is blowing north by north west, or any other well known point on the compass ...

Did Dame Slap just do a coloured lesbian trans crippled whale joke?  How did ugly anorexic geek whore get left out in the telling?

Hmm, perhaps a little more work is needed, but fair dibs, she really is an awesome bigot, right out of the 1950s … shouting away at the different and the other, while being madly supportive of a pussy-groper …

Oh well, if she's going to go there, at least the pond can revisit one of its favourite movies …

And so to the final gobbet, and what a relief the pond won't have to think about any of this, or the reptiles, for another week ...

The great liberal mission?

What, dumping shit on the different and the other is now the great liberal mission?

No wonder she fell in love with the Donald … he knows how to enact the great liberal mission …