Is Marijuana Kosher for Passover?
There’s a movement to Reestablish the Sanhedrin, and renew animal sacrifice in Israel. (It’s important to note these are extreme fringe Rabbis, but it’s nice to see they aren’t talking about blowing up the Dome of the Rock, and are only interested in building The Temple next to it. Not that the Muslims are OK with that. And while generally accepted Jewish tradition states the Temple won’t be rebuilt until the Messiah comes, I’d say the moment Islam accepts the reconstruction of The Temple is a good sign of the Messiah. As long as these extremists are willing to wait before they start hammering, they can sacrifice as many animals as they want. Sure, I feel a little for the animals, but I’m not a vegetarian.)
A student has been suspended for dressing up like a pirate. However, the student complains he was practicing his religion – Pastafarianism. Pastafarianism began in Kansas as a parody argument against Intelligent Design — the creator arguing that his religion had to be taught alongside Intelligent Design. But it’s taken on a life of it’s own. Possibly like Discordianism, though no one is certain about the intent of the creators of Discordianism.
Previously I blogged about the relationship between Pirates and Global Warming without realizing the graph was part of Pastafarianism.
hairy POTter COVER story… cults of all kinds…
like, if it weren’t illegal, dude, why wouldn’t it be kosher? and, don’t we just NEED a sanhedrin for that end?
slaughtering animals is routinely done for (other) commerical reasons — so, do you think you can draw a crowd doing it in the name of the big business we call religions? if you gave a sacrfice and none came, would you do it?
pastafarianism and discordianism: proof that anyone can make up a true religion, even Moses. What’s true about any of them? Only that they allow the primal soul to scream out, in protest, “This life is worth living. Thence, my religon must be true in whatever it promises me, as of the result of the way that it teaches me to live, which is what I am trying to do. It is true because of what I do.”
In ordinary(?) language, we would call this a self-reinforcing delusional pattern: your religion is true as long as you are true to it.
The central problem is that there would be no external, non-egoistic standard for truth as to what is true or false, in particular statements. Religion is like that — idiosyncratic (or idiosyncretic) — all the way.
Now, the parenthesized term appears to be merely a misspelling of the term preceding it. See, for example, http://satyapics.blogspot.com/ for a possible example of this error.
See, more critically, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism.
The authoritarian point would be this one: without a ruling power, to decree what may be believed, then the latent chaos of the universe of social (aka moral) values, if not of the physical one, is threatened, if not fatally underminded.
Ergo, authoritarians desire Popes and Sanhedrins.
(They also desire police and prison camps and military and martial law of all kinds.)
((((Things like pot threatens order, in the view of aurthoritarian-minded obedience cults.))))
Speaking of links, these two don’t —
Sick Puppy
Deep in the Heart of Texas
Sigh…this means I believe that copies of these two issues of Scared Naked Magazine are no longer available. Which isn’t surprising since the last issue of this unique magazine was published in 2004. I had a poem in both the first and the last issues. The alpha and the omega. And they comprise 2/3 of my publications that have qualified for listing in Locus Magazine’s annual listings of SF/Fantasy/Horror publications. SNM was such a lovely magazine for all demented, twisted, warped values of lovely. But I enjoyed writing for them.
I’ve changed the links to the Locus Magazine entries, which really only proves they existed.
The text to Sick Puppy is online. I have linked to it three times on this blog. Using the ‘search box’ in the upper right it should be possible to find. It’s title is appropriate. Consider that fair warning.
The text to “Deep in the Heart of Texas” isn’t online. It’s probably best left that way. (And after reading Sick Puppy, that statement should worry you.)
Well, searching left me empty handed, though I found traces (references) to it.
Now, I know how all the scholars whose works were lost at Alexandria felt.
while looking at word-of-the-day —
X-Bonus
A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill. -Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (1907-1988)
GUEST COLUMNIST
Religion Without Truth
By STANLEY FISH
The truth claims of a religion are not incidental to its identity; they are its identity.
In NYTimes Select Today… I haven’t read the piecem though I love to (read) Fish… I don’t but extra to read some guy’s “impressive” opersonal opinion… so, you get me “cheap” compared to Fish… and I think I make the same point, supra, at no cost to you!
I forgot to add: “Nan-ya’nya-nan’ya — I published before you did, Stanley!”