Thank You, God!
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I have an apology to make. I’m afraid I’ve made a big mistake. I turned my face away from you, Lord.
I was too blind to see the light. I was too weak to feel Your might. I closed my eyes; I couldn’t see the truth, Lord.
But then like Saul on the Damascus road, you sent a messenger to me, and so…
I have had the truth revealed to me. Please forgive me all those things I said. I’ll no longer betray you, Lord. I will pray to you instead.
And I will say “Thank you, thank you, thank you God. Thank you, thank you, thank you God.”
Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum.
I had no idea but it’s suddenly so clear now. I feel such a cynic. How could I have been so dumb?
Thank you for displaying how praying works: a particular prayer in a particular church. Thank you Sam for the chance to acknowledge this omnipotent opthamologist.
Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum. I didn’t realize that it was so simple, but you’ve shown a great example of just how it can be done.
You only need to pray in a particular spot to a particular version of a particular god, and if you pull that off without a hitch, he will fix one eye of one middle-class white bitch.
I know in the past my outlook has been limited. I couldn’t see examples of where life had been definitive. But I can admit it when the evidence is clear, as clear as Sam’s mum’s new cornea.
That’s extremely clear! Extremely clear!
Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum. I have to admit that in the past I have been skeptical but Sam described this miracle and I am overcome!
How fitting that the sighting of a sight-based intervention should open my eyes to this exciting new dimension. It’s like someone put an eye chart on the wall in front of me and the top five letters say: I C G O D.
Thank you, Sam, for showing how my point of view has been so flawed. I assumed there was no God at all but now I see that’s cynical. It’s simply that his interests aren’t particularly broad.
He’s largely undiverted by the starving masses, or the inequality between the various classes. He gives out strictly limited passes, redeemable for surgery or two-for-one glasses.
I feel so shocking for historically mocking. Your interests are clearly confined to the ocular. I bet given the chance, you’d eschew the divine and start a little business selling contacts online.
Fuck me Sam, what are the odds that of history’s endless parade of gods that the God you just happened to be taught to believe in is the actual one and he digs on healing, but not the AIDS-ridden African nations, the victims of the plague or the flood-addled Asians, but healthy, privately-insured Australians with common and curable corneal degeneration?
This story of Sam’s has but a single explanation: a surgical God who digs on magic operations. It couldn’t be mistaken attribution of causation, born of a coincidental temporal correlation, exacerbated by a general lack of education vis-a-vis physics in Sam’s parish congregation. And it couldn’t be that all these pious people are liars. It couldn’t be an artifact of confirmation bias, a product of groupthink, a mass delusion, an Emperor’s New Clothes-style fear of exclusion.
No, it’s more likely to be an all-powerful magician than the misdiagnosis of the initial condition, or one of many cases of spontaneous remission, or a record-keeping glitch by the local physician.
No, the only explanation for Sam’s mum’s seeing: they prayed to an all-knowing superbeing, to the omnipresent master of the universe, and he liked the sound of their muttered verse.
So for a bit of a change from his usual stunt of being a sexist, racist, murderous cunt, he popped down to Dandenong and just like that, used his powers to heal the cataracts of Sam’s mum – of Sam’s mum!
Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum! I didn’t realize that it was such a simple thing. I feel such a dingaling, what ignorant scum!
Now I understand how prayer can work: a particular prayer in a particular church in a particular style with a particular stuff and for particular problems that aren’t particularly tough, and for particular people, preferably white, for particular senses, preferably sight – a particular prayer in a particular spot, to a particular version of a particular god.
And if you get that right, He just might take a break from giving babies malaria and pop down to your local area to fix the cataracts of your mum!
By Tim Minchin
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
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hehe, I like this very much. We should all pray that Sam's mum wins the lottery. Poor Sam's mum.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
No, no, no, noooooo.....
Pray for me to win the lottery.
And I will remember you -- in my prayers.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
lol. That's pretty good.
Very good.
In New Scientist last month Tim Minchin refers to his "...suspicion about belief systems..."
That "suspicion" can equate to fear and anxiety about belief systems - religion.
Humour is a good defense mechanism.
...along with repression, dissociation, sublimation, projecting, etc.
The atheistconvention.org.au reports that they have Ms Catherine Deveny ready to WOW the 2012 AFA Global Atheist Convention with her unique "horses mouth" ridicule of religion.
They have a comments section where ordinary punters can "gee" up the readers about Ms Deveny's witty humour that makes such a powerful tool against religion.
I posted a comment. I can't wait till it gets approved by the Moderators.
http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/2011/12/08/from-the-horses-mouth-catherine-deveny/#comment-537
"Ms Deveny doesnt limit her “ridicule” to religions.
Would that she did. Christians can handle folk like her. So can muslims. (Last time she “trolled” a catholic priest she forgot that there's quite a few atheists hiding in the clergy. Right Dan Barker?)
But grieving widowed husbands are also fair game for her. (Rove McManus)
Orphaned children get a glimpse of that “powerful tool”. What was that “ridicule” about Bindi Irwin having sexual intercourse? (Pedophile jokes not just about the church are they Ms Deveny?)
Lets see what she has to say about the religion of Australia’s indigenous population. Maybe a few jokes about the Dreamtime connection to country, sacred sites, kurdaitcha…
While you’re cracking your “atheist eye-candy” jokes Catherine, surely theres something you can "muster up" ...something from the whor….excuse me….horses mouth to “ridicule” about the asylum seekers religion. Perhaps a bit of atheist humour about whether they are fleeing to Australia seeking a country which allows gay marriage….
No wait….dont do that…that might offend someone important."
Lion (IRC)
Giddy Up.
So ?
Lets just sit here saying... "So?" @ each other.
Good idea. Less bs that way.
We could take the Jewish position and say that it is morally reprehensible that rich(er) white-skinned people tend to ignore and oppress poor(er) dark-skinned people and that we're all -- ALL -- created in G-d's image and that the oppression of the poor, the widow and the orphan is a sin. Or a lesson from our sages -- whoever saves a life, it is as though they saved the entire world; whoever takes a life, it is as though they destroyed the entire world.
But that would require, you know, that G-d exist and that "Evolution" not be the only basis for existence, Survival Of The Fittest, Natural Selection, F*ck The Poor, and all that. We could apply the only morality that is logically consistent within Atheism -- the big fish eat the little fish, the lion eats the gazelle, the rich eat the poor. That would certainly solve the problems of dark-skinned children dying from malaria -- use the ONLY morality which can be based on Nature, because if G-d doesn't exist, and genes is all we got, =that= is how Nature does it. My genes can beat up your genes, please kindly get around to dying so my descendants don't have to deal with your descendants. All Praise Evolution!
We could have a healthy round of "Theist Versus Atheist" debate, in which a couple of regulars come in and attack the others, solely based on their "taboos", or their lack of "taboos". Some regulars might even co-opt the suffering of those poor(er) dark-skinned people as a way to do that attacking -- as if rich(er) white-skinned people's belief in G-d somehow meant disease and suffering had to exist, because G-d is a big meanie or something. We could get some full-contact blasphemers in here, cracking jokes about how G-d (l'havdil) masturbates to the images of suffering children, with no jokes cracked about how Atheists fiddle while millions die.
(FWIW -- I provide free or discounted material to qualified charitable organizations which provided medical care to dark-skinned people around the world. Why? Because G-d said so.)
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
Humor is an excellent tool to diminish the numbers of a group. During the second incarnation of the KKK in the US for a while they had massive numbers of members numbering in the at least hundreds of thousands. Some reporters infiltrated the organization and then publicized all the secret and ridiculous rituals and whatnot that they participated in within their little club.
They became the laughing stock of America.
Almost overnight their numbers plummeted to a shadow of their previous membership.
With religion it's a little different. It's not a secret club and most people in the US are familiar with all the idiotic beliefs and rituals involved with Christianity. The problem is, is that since people have grown up with it, they don't notice how utterly ridiculous most of it is. They are too close to gain perspective.
When someone on the outside starts pointing these things out to such people it forces them to look at their religion in a new light.
Many people will have a "revelation" at how idiotic such things about their religion are after hearing someone ridicule it.
Or some people will just get defensive and shut down all higher brain functions. Denial is a good defense mechanism.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci