Dubstepforum.com

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/ ... 01,00.html

"The AH Trust, a charity set up last year by a group of businessmen alarmed by the direction in which they see society heading, has identified a number of potential sites in the north west of England to build the £3.5m Christian theme park."

Found it interesting that they didn't notice the irony in these two statements

"By producing its own films, the trust believes it will be able to provide an antidote to modern culture. It says on its website: 'On television today there is so much sex and violence"

and

"The 5,000-capacity park will be the first of its kind in Britain, but not in the world. In Orlando, Florida, hundreds of thousands of visitors make pilgrimages to the Holy Land Experience, where they can see a bloodied Jesus forced to carry his cross by snarling Roman soldiers."

Shonky wrote:http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/ ... 01,00.html

"The AH Trust, a charity set up last year by a group of businessmen alarmed by the direction in which they see society heading, has identified a number of potential sites in the north west of England to build the £3.5m Christian theme park."

Found it interesting that they didn't notice the irony in these two statements

"By producing its own films, the trust believes it will be able to provide an antidote to modern culture. It says on its website: 'On television today there is so much sex and violence"

and

"The 5,000-capacity park will be the first of its kind in Britain, but not in the world. In Orlando, Florida, hundreds of thousands of visitors make pilgrimages to the Holy Land Experience, where they can see a bloodied Jesus forced to carry his cross by snarling Roman soldiers."

Where's the irony in that? Jesus had to suffer for our sins. It was necissary. We have to be reminded of his deminse so we as a race dont go down the same same route of war and violence that the romans did.


Erm. Waite. hang on, I think there is some thing wrong here.

That's the Guardian for you. Its heart's in the right place but it uses the same subtle brainwashing and reactionary rhetoric and downright lies in its writing that the Daily Mail or any other Tory rag uses, and this whole article is pretty bad for it.

zeitgeist

I do find it funny though that we have all of these groups concerned about moral decay, violence and sex and then the biggest Christian movie of the last few years "Passion of the Christ" was probably one of the most gory, brutal and sadistic movies of its time (and as Christopher Hitchens pointed out, it unintentionally looks rather like a gay S&M movie).

Shonky wrote:I do find it funny though that we have all of these groups concerned about moral decay, violence and sex and then the biggest Christian movie of the last few years "Passion of the Christ" was probably one of the most gory, brutal and sadistic movies of its time (and as Christopher Hitchens pointed out, it unintentionally looks rather like a gay S&M movie).

It's 'The Smashin' of the Christ'.

If you get a chance, you should check out this movie. Not because it will open your eyes and see the truth about everything, it won't. This film along with Cuntface Dawkins' last book made me decide that although I'm not a Christian, I don't want to be lumped in with these arseholes either. It's ok to be atheist, but there is something very weird to me about the atheists who spend their lives debunked or foul-mouthing God and/or religion as a whole BUT ANYWAY I DIGRESS. This movie goes through Passion minute-by-minute, noting all the violent scenes and comes to the conclusion that it is literally the most violent movie ever made. It really tears the movie apart. It has plenty of other good moments if you're into that sort of thing. Plenty of teeth-gnashingly stupid moments too.

Auan, I think the most militant atheists are generally those that spent a great deal of their lives as christians and now have to go to these degrees to distance themselves from their pasts.

Personally I was brought up without religion and when it was taught at school I just found most of it fairly ridiculous. Plus the egyptian, greek and norse stories were way cooler when I was a kid. I'm not against religious people, but I am against the growing influence of these groups as I'm not keen on the justification of intolerance and ignorance via patchy old texts and thinking this leads to some moral highground.

Shonky wrote:Auan, I think the most militant atheists are generally those that spent a great deal of their lives as christians and now have to go to these degrees to distance themselves from their pasts.

Personally I was brought up without religion and when it was taught at school I just found most of it fairly ridiculous. Plus the egyptian, greek and norse stories were way cooler when I was a kid. I'm not against religious people, but I am against the growing influence of these groups as I'm not keen on the justification of intolerance and ignorance via patchy old texts and thinking this leads to some moral highground.

Yeah you're right. The movie finishes with the director visiting his old high school to grill his old headmaster (or whatever Americans call them) and the movie ends on a bit of a low as well.

It's all a bit teenage and pointless though, innit?

"Militant atheists", I like it

A very satisfying moment for me was at a party when some guy started spouting creationist bullshit and I noticed that he went to the same high school as me (thus was catholic) and I mentioned to him that the Vatican considers creationism "a kind of paganism" http://news.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.as ... id=2772734

He was just a touch lost for words

Militant atheism can be a bit annoying, I never bother bringing up my atheism in conversation with others because it's not really worth my while (you'll never convince anyone unless you're preaching to the converted so to speak). But at least it's quite less annoying than the impact different forms of religion have had on people's lives recently (Bush, Islamist terrorism etc. shops being shut on a Sunday etc.)

jim wrote:shops being shut on a Sunday

...except in the run-up to the biggest religious holiday of the year

Great article/interview btw.

jim wrote:Militant atheism can be a bit annoying, I never bother bringing up my atheism in conversation with others because it's not really worth my while (you'll never convince anyone unless you're preaching to the converted so to speak). But at least it's quite less annoying than the impact different forms of religion have had on people's lives recently (Bush, Islamist terrorism etc. shops being shut on a Sunday etc.)

Yeah totally agree, atheism is a default mode for me and I've never heard a single convincing argument to the contrary. Religion is pretty much an irrelevance to me apart from when I'm up against evangelist types, or I see religoids treating people unpleasantly because of their "big book of truth".

Another thing I find quite funny is when the moral brigade go on about sex and violence on TV. As if sex and violence are two things that are similar and can be lumped together and are both negative things when clearly sex > violence by a country mile and none of us would be here without it!

jim wrote:Another thing I find quite funny is when the moral brigade go on about sex and violence on TV. As if sex and violence are two things that are similar and can be lumped together and are both negative things when clearly sex > violence by a country mile and none of us would be here without it!

There a study done a while ago that concluded that the most violent nations were generally found to be the ones with the highest levels of religiously inspired sexual repression. I can imagine where any form of sexual release not used for the purpose of procreation is seen as sinful that people might be just a wee bit on edge.

A friend of my foks is a regular church-goer, but goes on at length about her distaste for gypsies, eastern european immigrants, blacks and pretty much anyone that isn't white and lives in a village. Does rather make me wonder whether her local church has been the victim of a gag where they've put Mein Kampf in a Bible cover and nobody's noticed yet.

In my church one of the "pillars of the community" was a millionaire lawyer who made his fortune from his clients who were Glasgow gangsters who he got off with murders and other unsavoury things. Seemed a bit off.

Yeah, knowing how borderline sociopathic a lot of business types are I reckon there's probably quite a lot of hypocrisy in most "christian millionaires".

religion is a tool. god is a mindstate.

Shonky wrote:Yeah, knowing how borderline sociopathic a lot of business types are I reckon there's probably quite a lot of hypocrisy in most "christian millionaires".

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)

the best documentary i've ever seen about jesus is this one:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doc ... &plindex=0

well worth the half hour or whatever it is

Testing god.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NQlZae4FIU

not directly related to analysing christianity flaws but very interesting (and rather bleak)