51. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220930 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 7:38 am

Monkiers to monikers; there's a freudian slip if ever I saw one! Robertson does rather monkey-about on this site. I didn't realise wooter was Robertson, but I do struggle (and generally fail) to keep up with all the threads on this site. He has been a busy monkey hasn't he?

Edit: Thanks for the Zappa recommendation Laurie; it's brilliant. With 59 or so albums it's a scary thought to think that I'm going to be listening to more of his output but that clip has persuaded of the man's unique and remarkable talent.

Not in Zappa's league but have a look for 'Dear God' by XTC. It's got some great lyrics.

Anyway, time for me to call it a day.

Cheerio all.

52. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220922 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 7:30 am

Whether or not these hounds of hell believe what they profess to believe is an interesting question. If they are being deliberately dishonest (as I suspect but could never prove) then how do they rationalise it to themselves? If they really believe it then they're no better than the fools who slavishly accept their every utterance as gospel (also ooops!)

Hitchens is pretty good on this topic. He uses Joseph Smith as his exemplar. He also, amusingly, has a good point about the term "flock". He notes that some missionaries peddling their lies in parts of the world where sheep-herding is unfamiliar often translate the phrase and recalls a missionary who, in the native tongue, spoke of his "swine"!

53. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220915 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 7:19 am

I object to the scandalous way you have equated attorneys with priests. That's pretty low. ;)

54. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220912 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 7:13 am

Wasn't that the guy (the televangelist) who blamed it all on Ellen (can't remember her surname) the American comedian who came out in her comedy programme? Or am I talking out of my cardinal?

Edit: We had some bad flooding here in the UK last summer (you know what's coming next don't you?) The catholic archbishop of Liverpool blamed it on our tolerance of civil partnerships. Naturally God is sitting up there thinking "so those bastards have decided to be civil about civil partnerships eh? I know, I'll make it rain a bit more than usual in a country where it already rains a lot. That'll get the message through clearly and unambiguously."

55. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220905 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 7:09 am

Picture two sign-writers adorning a fish and chip shop with a new sign. As one is adding the finishing touches his colleague stops and says:

"The spacing isn't quite right; you need bigger gaps between "fish" and "and" and "and" and chips."

(With apologies to TWP)

56. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220898 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 7:01 am

God on Honda that's a whole lot of had!

Anyone know the one with "and" five times consecutively?

57. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220876 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 6:35 am

Laurie: As an English teacher you avoid ending sentences with prepositions (fair enough, although I think that's more stylistic than grammatical), but have you heard the sentence that ends with five successive prepositions?

You need to imagine a child waiting for her mother to come back upstairs to read her a bedtime story. When she returns she has with her a book about Australia. Her daughter asks:

"Mother, what on earth have you brought a book to read out about down under up for?"

edit: or six prepositions:

"...to read out from about down under up for?"

58. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220871 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 6:27 am

Hungarian Elephant: Christ on bike! I was (half) joking about the cardinal with the tampon up his arse, but tampons as a "grave source of temptation"! I agree; some things do indeed only need to be underlined. Of course a mere Canon cannot speak ex cathedra, but this doesn't stop him from speaking out of his arse.

59. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220836 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 5:40 am

If anyone's interested in mere speculation at this point I'd say the church's stance on this issue is as much (if not more) to do with "keeping women in their place", coupled with a general fear and loathing of sexuality in all its myriad aspects, than it is to do with becoming the dominant religion by winning the numbers game. The example of the prohibition against tampons I referred to earlier makes sense (no it doesn't , but you know what I mean!) when seen as part of a genereal fear and loathing of sexuality. Perhaps some Cardinal or other, who possibly enjoyed sticking tampons up his own arse, suddenly had the idea that women might actually get a similar thrill . Please understand, I don't believe that any woman would get such a kick, but I find it easy to believe that the warped mind of a catholic clergyman could believe such a thing. Of course they'll come out with some other BS justification like "it's not natural", but I can't help thinking a lot of this sort of thing comes back to a fear and mistrust of sexuality; their own and other people's (which is obviously none of their business).

60. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220778 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 3:51 am

Adrian B: The catholic chaplain at my old school said that the rhythm method was "natural" (afterall, what could be more natural than introducing a thermometer to one's vagina and keeping a wall-chart of daily temperatures?), unlike other methods apparently. Again, I've not checked up on this, but I seem to recall that the church was advocating the rhythm method whilst (prudishly) objecting to the use of tampons! A female friend at school told me that during the girls' sex education classes (for this fraught subject it was thought wise to separate the girls and boys), the older teachers and nuns banged on endlessly about the wickedness of any sanitary method that involved insertion; only towels were to be permitted. And this was in the 1980s!

edit: I seem to be replying to a deleted post. Oh well...

61. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220763 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 2:33 am

I haven't checked this but I seem to recall that the doctrine of papal infallibility was the catholic retort to the protestant belief in the inerrancy of scripture.

62. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220736 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 1:36 am

Brian, maybe RE was like that in your day but RS toady is a different kettle of fish entirely. Students who ask questions and think critically now do much better than rote learners, at least they do in my class!

I'd love to hang around and talk about the mis-match between what Catholics are supposed to believe and what they actually believe but I've just had a large pile of assignments dumped on my desk.

Bye for now.

63. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220726 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 1:26 am

60. Unless the patron saint of lost causes is still active in which case I imagine they end-up on his desk...which is probably where this petition will also be filed.

64. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220722 by mixmastergaz on July 29, 2008 at 1:22 am

60. Return to sender: Saint Unknown?

65. Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of 'spiritual Alzheimer's'

Comment #217342 by mixmastergaz on July 24, 2008 at 8:31 am

It's a silly example, but I was disturbed to see Borat leading a group of apparently normal people in a rousing chorus of "Throw the Jew down the well" in the recent film. Very funny, but also not funny at all. Perhaps it is the fact that relative peace and prosperity (for some) leads to complacency on these issues.

Intresting discussion. But it's home time for me now.

Cheerio.

66. Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of 'spiritual Alzheimer's'

Comment #217336 by mixmastergaz on July 24, 2008 at 8:19 am

I may be being paranoid but I thought I detected a hint of an anti-Semitic revival in the Pope's recent restoration of prayers for the conversion of the Jews during the Catholic Good Friday liturgy. Afterall, why pray for the Jews' conversion on that particular day if they didn't want to revive the old deicide charge?

Edit: I agree it's strange. Bullshit to shore up bullshit and of course it's everyone else's fault (Anglicans, Secularists, Jews; even non-existent conspirators) but no Catholic soul-searching going on. Coupled with the recent, so-called, apologies for abusive clergy this is adding up to what I hope is a series of spectacular PR own-goals by th Catholic Church. I find it strange that I can find no discussion of the cardinal's paranoia outside this website. Talk of "well-known secret sects" by a politician would be heavily criticised by commentators of most political persuasions, but coming from the clergy it elicits only silence.

67. Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of 'spiritual Alzheimer's'

Comment #217319 by mixmastergaz on July 24, 2008 at 7:38 am

Doc(Re.103): I assumed he was referring to the Illuminati nonsense. It's not something I'm very well-informed about. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this related to Hitler's beliefs in a Jewish conspiracy?

68. Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of 'spiritual Alzheimer's'

Comment #217186 by mixmastergaz on July 24, 2008 at 2:40 am

Szymanowski: I guess it's true that for some it's not hyperbole. But for many, particularly moderate Anglicans, talk of hell and spiritual warfare is anachronistic and an embarrassment. There are degrees of derangement. The cardinal appears to be at the more extreme end of the spectrum.

69. Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of 'spiritual Alzheimer's'

Comment #217178 by mixmastergaz on July 24, 2008 at 2:34 am

From the good Dr's choices my guess is they'll go for a or c. B seems unlikely; it was 1992 before the church retracted its condemnation of Galileo! Frightening to think that the Pope will appear more moderate than his underlings. There does seem to be a clear attempt by the Catholic hierarchy to turn back the clock on the 2nd Vatican Council of the mid 1960s; you know, when the church dragged itself kicking and screaming into the eighteenth century. Repealing its acceptance of evolution (or obfuscating to pretend that nothing has changed) seems to me to be commensurate with the Church's general direction of late.

70. Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of 'spiritual Alzheimer's'

Comment #217155 by mixmastergaz on July 24, 2008 at 2:04 am

I agree with Raiko; the comparison is insensitive to those who actually suffer from these very real and distressing conditions, as opposed to the cardinal's imaginary garbage. Doc suggests that this is also an inadvertently revealing outburst confirming "what we have known all along" and I'd concur.

Several others have also seized upon the 'spiritual warfare' madness. I must admit that this was what struck me as the most barkingly crazy part of this bullshit. But a thought occurs. If this war with the devil began with the talking snake incident, how does the church square this with its acceptance of evolution and the re-casting of the snake as a metaphor? It's not at all clear from this article that the cardinal is using an extended metaphor (if that's what he's doing). Leaving aside the oxymoronic reference to "well-known secret" sects (I wonder if he means 'Spectre' from the James Bond movies; surely he doesn't have Opus Dei in mind. What is it with Catholics and conspiracy theories? If it's not the Jews it's the Secularists!), I would add that it's not just the obviously delusional and irrational who argue along these lines. Alister McGrath likes to imagine himself to be a soldier in the armies of God, battling Satan's great persuaders (Dawkins et al). There's a footnote to this effect in his (awful) flea book. When they're resorting to this sort of deluded hyperbole and bullshit I like to think it's because they're getting desperate. I too hope somewhere in his garbled mind the cardinal does realise that equal rights for women and gay people aren't just temporary historical aberrations. He does seem to be harbouring fantasies of a return to Christian fascism. There's a dishonourable history of this in the Catholic Church of course.

71. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216474 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 8:28 am

Hungarian Elephant: LOL!

Bye for now.

72. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216470 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 8:23 am

txpiper needs to convey this information to his co-religionists! They don't commemorate 'Good Thursday' afterall.

edit: It's been fun looking into the intertextuality of the various Gospels, Macbeth and Reservoir Gods, but it's hometime for me. Cheerio!

73. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216468 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 8:19 am

The Gospels are indeed riddled with inconsistencies. Robertson contrived a spectacular argument from these inconsistencies. He claimed that this meant it was more likely that they were all, more or less, true!

edit: I know Mitchell, but it's also the spelling of a popular brand of dog-food here in the UK. I didn't mean to be pedantic; I'm just kidding. ;)

74. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216466 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 8:16 am

Mitchell (with apologies, but I can't resist...)

The Gospels claim a dog-food was in power at the time?

75. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216460 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 8:08 am

In the RSC's most recent production Macbeth regenerated into a Scot with a London accent, having spoken with a northern acccent for the entirety of the play before this controversial scene.

76. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216455 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 8:05 am

John's Gospel is from an entirely different source and is the most inconsistent. It's also, by far, the latest Gospel to be written and contains some (inconclusive) evidence of gnostic influences. There are some pretty major differences between John and the synoptics. All of the "I am..." sayings are unique to John, and even those events that occur in all four Gospels (e.g. the last supper, the crucifixion and resurrection) are markedly different. Did Christ's ministry last three years or one? Did the crucifixion occur on a Thursday or Friday? It depends on which Gospel you read (and decide, arbitrarily, to believe).

77. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216448 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 7:55 am

Macbeth killed Banquo? I thought it was nice guy Eddie!

78. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216446 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 7:54 am

I agree entirely that the faithful don't seem to know the content of their faith. Wasn't there an article on here recently which found that a majority of Christians believed Moses to be one of the twelve?

79. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216441 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 7:47 am

My favourite bit of Macbeth's conclusion is the 'it was all a dream' shower scene, either that or the Mexican stand-off. BTW does anyone know who killed Banquo? In the stand-off none of the characters are actually pointing their swords at him.

80. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216438 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 7:40 am

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

I'm not sure if the earliest manuscripts are incomplete or if it is a case of poor grammar. When I put the 'bad grammar' argument to Robertson he just mocked it and claimed never to have heard it before (although it's fairly well known; I think Richard makes passing reference to it in TGD).

I take your point about the subsequent Gospels. As I recall, the most popular theory amongst biblical scholars is that Mark, Matthew and Luke all based their Gospels on a lost source, referred to as 'Q', which accounts for the similarities between these three. Again, this is uncontroversial even amongst avowedly Christian scholars. I believe even the Pope accepts the 'Q' theory.

81. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #216417 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 7:05 am

Careful Epeeist! I tried that one on David Robertson and got absolutely nowhere with it. The bulk of the final chapter of Mark's Gospel (which of course contains the resurrection account that is apparently so "credible") was added later by another hand. The earliest surviving copies of this text do indeed end with the empty tomb. The subsequent (and rather brief) resurrection events are routinely accepted by even the most ardently religious biblical scholars as being the work of a later author.

I wonder why Robert thinks Matthew (in particular) "coloured" the facts. Interestingly, Matthew's Gospel is the only one that explicitly contradicts the theory that Jesus' disciples stole his body. For me, this is a revealing verse since it implies that the idea of a stolen corpse had occurred to some even then.

82. Islam subway ads cause stir in New York

Comment #216367 by mixmastergaz on July 23, 2008 at 3:24 am

It does seem a little provocative to be putting up ads like these during the anniversary of 9/11. This puts me in mind of a scene in Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine' (not really a film I'd recommend but anyway...). Moore was discussing Charlton Heston and the NRA's proposed visit to a town where a tragic accident involving a child and a handgun had recently occurred, with one of the writer/animators responsible for 'South Park'. The South Park guy said something like:

"Of course they have the right (or are free) to visit the town but why fly in the face of all those people who've asked them not to come? It's just upsetting people for no good reason."

Well, of course they're free to place these ads; they have that right. Maybe the timing of the ads, and their location could be a coincidence (although I seriously doubt that). Perhaps this is a wrong-footed attempt to win some gains in the PR battle. But they don't have any control over how this will be interpreted by New Yorkers. My guess is that it will offend plenty and, in terms of PR, will back-fire badly. Maybe the people who came up with this idea are really so out of step with public sensibilities and so self-deluded that they think this is an effective way of getting their message across. If that's the case then we can expect more own-goals of this sort. Give them enough rope indeed.

83. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #215503 by mixmastergaz on July 22, 2008 at 3:03 am

"Cosmology for Fucktards": There's a book I should read! I found "...for beginners" and "The Idiot's Guide to..." to be a bit too challenging.

You should get scientists with attitude to blurb it:

"This masterful and polemical work by a highly regarded expert in the field blows those fucking ID'ers out of the bastard water and dances on their graves!"

"If you're a scientifically-illiterate fucktard creationist then you ought to read this fucking book you arsehole, not that it'll do you any good you closed-minded, wishful-thinking moron."

We could ask Styrer to write an introduction.

84. Nine face stoning death in Iran

Comment #215067 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 8:34 am

Hungarian Elephant: Thanks for the post. Very informative. The additional facts and figures you include do make a little (a little) more sense of the UK situation.

Anyway, it's home-time. I'm outa here.

Toodle pip.

85. Nine face stoning death in Iran

Comment #215064 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 8:30 am

Mitchell: I have imagination enough to realise that a man might be violated in other ways. That was why I specified the scenario Al described and didn't generalise.

86. Nine face stoning death in Iran

Comment #215056 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 8:21 am

Al is it really possible for a man to be raped by a woman in the way you describe? I mean physically possible? Sure, someone could pin me down and try to mount me, but if I was under duress or threatened and not consenting then I think I'd find it hard to get 'hard'. I think that this is where 'equal application of the law' falls down.

87. Nine face stoning death in Iran

Comment #215038 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 8:07 am

Wel, the obvious answer as to why more is better is that there are less rapists about! I'm claiming no special knowledge on this topic, just suggesting that if conviction rates are much higher in other, similar states (and reasonably consistent from state to state over a given time period) then it seems reasonable to me to suppose that here in the UK the ratio of convictions to acquittals is unrepresentative of the true situation.

88. Nine face stoning death in Iran

Comment #215025 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 7:51 am

Hungarian Elephant: I guess it is an example of an argument from personal incredulity. On the 'unreported' thing I mispoke. I meant that the majority of cases never reach court in the first place.

Like Al, I'm also arguing from personal experience (again not on firm ground I admit). A friend of mine told me she was raped by a friend of her father when she was 15. Even though she was a virgin before the assault (she said there was forensic evidence in support of this) and despite losing several finger nails trying to fight off her attacker she was still subjected to questions like 'How many times did you say no?', 'Exactly how wet were you?' etc. My friend was/is a bit punky. The fact that she was wearing a short(ish) kilt was also cited as a contributory factor. This was in the late 1980s. I think it's legitimate to reconsider our legal approach in light of the low rate of convictions when compared with other European countries, even if I'm not the best person to articulate the argument.

89. Nine face stoning death in Iran

Comment #215005 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 7:26 am

Al and Border Collie: I can't comment on the situation in the US but here in the UK the prosecution rates for rape are appallingly low and still and falling. The most recent figure I heard was a mere 5 percent. I can't bring myself to believe that 95 percent of the cases to reach court (and remember it is estimated that the vast majority of rapes go unreported) are the result of lying women. There was a report concerning this on the BBC recently. Apparently our legal experts have been consulting with their US counterparts in order to remedy this situation, so I'm assuming you guys have a better approach to this than we do here in the UK.

90. Nine face stoning death in Iran

Comment #214909 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 3:30 am

On the question of why monogamy is so highly valued in overtly patriarchal societies I have a possible partial explanation. I remember hearing on one of Prof. Robert Winston's documentaries the surprising (to me) statistic that 1 in 10 fathers is unknowingly raising someone else's child due to their partner's infidelity.

Of course I don't say that this excuses any of the appallingly reprehensible punishments handed out for this so called 'crime', I'm just suggesting a possible answer to Cartomancer's queries above.

Edit: Who here is still arguing with Dr Doctor about the cracker? Let it go Doc. There was an argument, you won it, those of us who initially took a contrary position have conceded your points and retracted our arguments (at least as far as I can see). I don't really accept that there's any equivalence between this desperate situation and the cracker thing, and I doubt that you really do, except in a very loose and rhetorical sense. But who are you still trying to convince?

91. Antony Flew reviews the Index of The God Delusion

Comment #214898 by mixmastergaz on July 21, 2008 at 2:54 am

Dr Doctor: I think you did a fine job of explaining your point. Glad to see the sarcasm-lock on your keyboard isn't still stuck. ;)

92. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #213843 by mixmastergaz on July 19, 2008 at 3:27 am

Haymoon: I'm not surprised at all. Richard's always been plain spoken about things he doesn't like. The phrase maybe doesn't have quite the same impact in the UK perhaps. We don't really have trailer parks in any great number here. On a related point in the UK broadsheets there's recently been a rather childish argument about how it isn't 'pc' (can you believe anyone still wants to use the term pc? It has such a poor currency these days) to use the phrase 'chav'. Absurd that this is the sort of crap people get wound-up about whilst the Bush administration is treating the words 'contraception' and 'abortion' as synonymous.

I'm looking forward to this documentary. Richard's a natural teacher. He has a real talent for making detailed and complicated information accessible and engaging for a science-ignoramus like me.

93. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213838 by mixmastergaz on July 19, 2008 at 3:03 am

Radesq: Ha ha! I don't that one. Hmmm Robert Palmer; the guy with the bored-looking models for a backing band, not really any cooler than the Thompson twins though! (No offence Dr)

94. The Return of Religion

Comment #213555 by mixmastergaz on July 18, 2008 at 2:51 pm

fizhburn: That's the one! To be honest I prefer that to the Portishead albums.

Irate: I think the Clintons (Bill and Hilary) both have a soft-spot for 'right here right now'.

Sciros and Apathy: Difficult to choose one, but my top five would also include Pink Floyd and the Beatles.

Wonder who'd make Scruton's top five? (I don't really; I couldn't care less)

Night all.

95. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213545 by mixmastergaz on July 18, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Dr Doctor: I think you've misunderstood me. I was just referring to the fact that every time I read your pseudonym here, I hear the words of a Thompson Twins' song that goes:

"Doctor Doctor, can't you see I'm burnin' burnin'."

I wasn't alluding to the cracker thing. But on that subject I freely admit you were right and I was wrong. My whole argument was based on the presupposition that it had been a deliberate act of sacrilege, which 'crosses the line', when it was nothing of the sort, as I've gathered from other posts here. So pretty much everything I was saying didn't really apply to the situation. Doh! But what the hell. Anyway, as I say, I concede you had the measure of that one and I was way off course.

96. The Return of Religion

Comment #213447 by mixmastergaz on July 18, 2008 at 1:07 pm

I'd concur on the Trevor Horn front. "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" was an amazing production job, as were most of the 'Art of Noise' releases.

97. The Return of Religion

Comment #213131 by mixmastergaz on July 18, 2008 at 7:48 am

utelme: Glad you liked it!

Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict. No, it's not a surprise you're a Floyd fan. Have you heard future sound of London's psychedelic alter-ego, the amorphous androgynous? They're brilliant! Their albums surpass anything released under the FSOL moniker, particularly 'the isness' and 'Alice in Ultraland'.

Black wolf: Death metal eh? You don't know anything about the burning of ancient churches in the Netherlands do you? ;)

98. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213058 by mixmastergaz on July 18, 2008 at 5:26 am

Dr Doctor: Can't you see I'm burnin' burnin'?

99. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213021 by mixmastergaz on July 18, 2008 at 2:56 am

This is almost Orwellian; in other news the Bush administration has declared that 2 plus 2 equals 5.

100. The Return of Religion

Comment #213019 by mixmastergaz on July 18, 2008 at 2:44 am

The last time I encountered one of Richard Morgan's posts on this site he was a self-declared atheist. Later, I recall that he was so upset by the reactions of some commentators (including myself) to a crazed cult leader's failed suicide attempt (the poor, deluded soul apparently struck himself about the head with a hammer when the end of the world failed to materialise, or something like that), that he decided to 'leave the site', deleting quite a few of his posts. He turned instead David Robertson and the FCOS thread. I must admit it's slightly creepy to hear from him again, now proclaiming 'Jesus is lord', or words to that effect. I can't help but think that if he'd turned to an Islamic website instead of Robertson's lot if he'd be back here declaring 'God is great'. I see it's not just Robertson's religious convictions that RM has picked up, but also his habit of quote-mining. Sad.