Along with the rest of the world’s woes. That is what this spokeswoman for Occupy Copenhagen reckons. Clearly, she is one of Bishop Dennis Drainville’s “educated and motivated young people”.
Capitalism causes diarrhoea
4
Holy Torrents
Sweden has recognised the Church of Kopimism as a legitimate religion, making its rituals protected by Swedish law. The only problem is, “kopyacting”, peer to peer files sharing, often of pirated material, is one of the “rituals”. The church also holds Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V as sacred symbols.
I can’t quite decide which is sillier: the Swedish Church of Kopimism or the Anglican Church of Canada.
From here:
It was founded by 19-year-old philosophy student and leader Isak Gerson. He hopes that file-sharing will now be given religious protection.
“For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore copying is central for the organisation and its members,” he said in a statement.
“Being recognised by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of Kopimi. Hopefully this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution,” he added.
My kind of Rev
Reverend Gary Davis playing “Slow Drag / Cincinnati Flow Rag”
Atheists have a piece missing
I’ve discovered why atheists are the way they are.
The clue was in one of my favourite twentieth century English novels, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, where Julia is explaining to Charles the inadequacies of her husband, a crass American called Rex Mottram:
‘Rex has never been unkind to me intentionally,’ she said. ‘It’s just that he isn’t a real person at all; he’s just a few faculties of a man highly developed; the rest simply isn’t there.’
Rex had something missing that prevented him being a complete person. So do atheists.
Most people who believe in God don’t do so because they have been convinced by the cosmological – or any other – argument for his existence. They simply believe, using the same faculty of belief that allows them to believe in such things as the reality of the material world around them, the reality of the past, and the fact that minds exist other than their own. It is an a priori knowledge founded on evidence that is internal to the believer.
Descartes in his ‘Discourse on the Method’ knew that the second most certain thing to exist after himself was God and, although he used an ontological proof to verify this, it is clear that he simply knew that God exists.
That is the bit that is missing or deliberately suppressed in atheists: the ability to know God exists. It’s a shame, really.
Our Father in Heaven
A song I wrote a short while ago:
Christopher Hitchens forgotten but not gone
Christopher Hitchens donated his body to medical research as part, one presumes, of a striving after a materialist’s immortality:
In accordance with his wishes, Christopher Hitchens’ body was donated to medical research following his death less than two weeks ago; many of his followers have applauded his decision.
If Christians are right, of course, in addition to his pickled body, the real essence of Hitchens is not gone either because it is immortal and endures post mortem.
I can’t help noticing that the number of articles about Hitchens is on the wane and obviously we will hear nothing more from him. His star burned brightly when it was among us, but it is rapidly fading and I suspect he will be remembered, if at all, as a cantankerous gossip columnist for the effete anti-theist as much as anything else.
As the preacher said, “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
Diocese of New Westminster: Christians have much to learn from the Koran
Lest anyone should start with the wrong idea: it’s not that we have much to learn about Mohammed’s paedophilia or the finer points of exactly which part of the anatomy must be amputated for various and sundry crimes. No, apparently, we Christians are simply too loving and the Koran can teach us how to balance our love with “justice”. No, no, not the stoning adulteresses type of justice, the “tolerating economic systems which keep whole nations in poverty” justice, about which the Koran has much to enlighten us, apparently. When it isn’t waxing eloquent on the joys of removing the heads of infidels.
From here (page 11):
My impression (from, admittedly, a reading of this book alone) is that the Qur’an has much of value to say about justice and how we should build, and live in, what the author calls a community of the middle way. It has less to say about the Christian virtue of love.
This discrepancy may permit us to correct our own faith. It often seems that many Christians will go the extra mile and more in loving response to an individual in distress while at the same time tolerating economic systems which keep whole nations in poverty. The message of the Qur’an might help us attain a better balance between love and justice. In all events, we have much to learn and even perhaps much to make use of.
Turkish imam thinks Santa is dishonest because he comes down chimneys
From here:
The imam of the Turkish town of Kuzan has issued a warning to Muslims about Santa Claus, who he called a dishonest person, Italy’s Corriere della Sera wrote.
Imam Suleiman Eniceri said it was suspicious that Santa Claus brings presents into a house by climbing down a chimney or through windows. “If he was an honest person he would come through the door as we do,” the imam said. The imam cited a passage in the Koran that calls on the faithful to enter houses through doors.
At least the imam still believes in Santa, although he obviously didn’t receive what he was hoping for this Christmas. Maybe the rocket launcher got stuck in the chimney.
If the Church of England hates Capitalism so much, where does it get its money?
While some of the Church of England’s income comes from donations, 15 percent (£160 million) comes from Church assets of £4.4 billion. Yes, that’s right, the anti-capitalist supporter of the 99%, the marginalised, the homeless, the occupiers and those who use St. Paul’s as a toilet are sitting on £4.4 billion. Well, not sitting exactly: the money is invested in the stock market and property markets where much maligned mavens of finance wheel and deal to earn the church 5.7%.
Naturally, the church has a policy on ethical investing, so it avoids such things as arms, pornography, gambling, alcohol and tobacco. That didn’t stop it investing in one of the UK’s more tawdry rags, the News of the World, though, or persuade it to withdraw its funds when the hacking scandal became public.
The church did withdraw funds from Caterpillar because Israel uses the bulldozers to “demolish Palestinian homes” and the Church always enjoys finding a new way to bash Israel.
The one thing the Church is not doing with its £4.4 billion is giving it away to those for whom it has such affection: the poor, marginalised, homeless and occupiers. It hasn’t even used any of the money to build a toilet for the occupiers.
It all makes what Rowan Williams has to say about capitalism sound even more hypocritically silly than his usual divagations.
Here is his most recent effort:
Rowan on rioting
From here:
A minister hit out at the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday for comparing City bankers to the rioters who tore apart Britain’s cities over the summer.
[….]
Dr Rowan Williams raised eyebrows on Sunday by saying the rioters were no worse than the bankers and that ‘bonds of trust’ had broken throughout society.
In his Christmas sermon, he said: ‘Whether it is an urban rioter mindlessly burning down a small shop that serves his community, or a speculator turning his back on the question of who bears the ultimate cost for his acquisitive adventures in the virtual reality of today’s financial world, the picture is of atoms spinning apart in the dark.’
There is one very minor difference that seems to have escaped Rowan Williams’ attention: for the moment, banking is legal whereas burning down someone else’s shop isn’t. This must be a concept too mundane to impinge on the atoms in Rowans’ brain ‘spinning apart in the dark.’