Oil and Religion Reduction -- A Pledge

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28620-2001Sep14.html

And people said bin Laden was an extremist...

(Need to = go to party)

XYZ: I'm amazed by the lack of personal respect and restriction of personal liberty this crisis is already triggering. (In the UK they're already talking about issuing ID cards.) It's like the illiberal who were previously ashamed of their intolerance are now wearing it like a purple heart and blaring it with bugles through bullhorns.

I very rarely get hostile messages in the Momus website Guest Book, but some bronzed xenophobic adonis just wrote this:

'Hi, my name is momus. I am a pretentious limey. I have never had a job in my life. I love art. My little, 5 lb. body is attractive to small japanese school girls. I couldn't even get it up for the plaster casters. My little weiner wouldn't stand up. But Japanese girls think I am it.'

So is it the fact that I love art that has got this goon's goat, or the fact that I'm a 'limey', or the fact that I sleep with people from the nation that unleashed Pearl Harbour, or the fact that I lack biceps, or that my latest essay doesn't contribute to the war effort?

My parents have never had a car, I never want to, and I've evolved into pretty much an agnostic, so all I can do is contribute and hope.

Blaise Pascal 'Pensées'

Abandoned religion + don't drive.

http://www.ilxor.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006Mms

I hate religion. I hate the crusades, the Spanish inquisition, abortion doctors shot, terrorism, the Northern Ireland troubles, China s repression of faung gong (sp?) etc etc etc. Religion causes war. "But Penny, doesnt it also cause love and redemption? " As long as the people in holy power want it to, but when ever they want it can also turn into hate and destrucion. SPIRITUALISM, PHILOSOPHY ... you can't deny someon e these . But RELIGION is by nature human being s claiming to have supernaturl wisdom that casts reason aside; obey the Pope, don't think, obey.

Me too. And since I was already there well beforehand, I guess that means I was already showing my vigilance for the current situation in my own special way, and that my government can be proud of me. Or not.

Not exactly to cast aspersions, but does it seem coincidental to just me that Momus's guestbook derider shares with Ethan a similar difficulty forming capital letters and tendency to reduce complex ideas to ridiculous oversimplifications? Interestingly enough, religious fundamentalists tend to do the latter, as well.

As one of Momus's "little followers," I must point out that as blithely irreligious as I am, I do recognize a difference between religion and religious fundamentalism. People like Jerry Falwell and bin Laden, sadly enough, think pretty much alike, and if there is a hell, I hope they share a room there together some day.

I'm sorry to have offended you, Ethan, but I'm sorrier still that the "speed at which [I] jumped to wear [my] religious stance" wasn't faster. I truly hope that some day it can be proved to me that these attacks really were "mainly political acts." When we have a world where politics can be so easily separated from religion, please consider me one of the first recruits to your side.

One mustn't forget that the name of this forum is "I LOVE Everything." You won't get any more derision from me, just silent love sweet love.

zedd: you did not address anything i said in your post except falwell being just like bin laden, right. yeah we all remember we he slit the throats of the teletubbies and crashed a jet into that wiccan convention, right? anyway i'm so fucking tired of everyone saying i'm childish because i hold unpopular opinions and say 'fuck' a lot. please actually respond to what i say from now on. really i'm just waiting for momus to come back and agree with me on this.

As a pragmatic bourgeois American, I'm suspicious of a guarantee of heaven for a murderous act, much as I'm suspcious of the deathbed confessional or the prodigal son. It's a way to get all the riches of heaven without the big initial spiritual investment.

Also, there is the possibility that one of the religions in the world is an accurate description of how the universe works, in which case telling its followers to avoid religion would be depriving them of great benefits; as none of us can judge and let everyone else know which one is right, it's best to play safe.

If people are seeing the attacks as essentially political, I would urge them to contribute to Dave Q's adjacent thread on heroin, because on the political level heroin, money-laundering, oil pipelines, the Bush family's links to the oil industry, and the politicization of Islam all meet up in one horribly flammable place. I seem to be the only person to have contributed any facts to this heroin thread, which has gone totally cold. I've done my Tintin the Boy Reporter bit trying to fit this all together. It would be helpful if someone else could now do a bit of internet research on, for instance, exactly what are the Bush family's links with the Unoco oil company, which helped bankroll the taliban, launders heroin money in Burma, and would undoubtedly use an Afghan war to achieve its ultimate ambition, the construction of an oil pipeline through Afgha

Unoco's parent company is Thorn, an arms manufacturer. So the more trouble Unoco stirs up in places like Burma and Afghanistan, the more profit Thorn reaps in arms sales. The US has got Pakistan on board now with promises to unblock US arms sales to the country. It seems the very conditions which gave birth to Bin Laden are playing themselves out all over again. Do we never learn?

my girlfriend before (and probably still) hates football. it seems to her to be the root of so much hatred/violence/problems in england, but i love it. should we rid england of football? at the heart of it, football is a game played by 22 men and two nets. does that really deserve to be destroyed?

the football/religion analogy is a little over worn, but for british people for one, at least still valid and understandable.

the difference between football as a game and football as a spectator sport, is the same to my mind as religion as a theory/set of beliefs and the actions of people who cite religion as their cause.

anyway i am meant to be writing an essay about the freedom of press in russia so nuff chatter.

btw what happned to josh? he was into russia..

AS for the Taliban Oil Ripoff, I really doubt personally that war in Afghanistan will do much good , if anything its cleary what Bin Laden wants. You don't slap the bulls ass unless you want it to chase you .

Those nets are selfish, tho - they never pass to their teammates.

I am not religious, quite strongly not religious, and while not 'against' religion I'm opposed to the appeal to religion to back up public statements of policy, which all US politicians routinely make and which is increasingly catching on in the UK. I'm also against forced religious observance but there's so so little of that left now in this country that it's become a theoretical objection rather than a big one.

High gas prices send some to higher being

Twyman said true faith does not demand instant gratification, and he plans to keep his pump-side prayers going "until God tells us to stop."

"This whole thing is a wake-up call from God to Americans, because we idolize men so much," said Twyman, 59, a public relations consultant and Seventh-day Adventist who believes that high gas prices are a sign of the apocalypse drawing nigh. "I think through this crisis, God is trying to call us back to depend on him more."

For the past several weeks, Twyman has assembled a group at a soup kitchen in the neighborhood where he volunteers. They have driven to a gas station, locked hands, said a prayer, purchased gas and sung the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome," with an added verse: "We'll have lower gas prices."

lol over-consumption of religion

I wonder what Mosmus thought of 'They Might Be Blood.'

If I decrease my dependence on religion can I get vouchers for extra oil?

This thread makes me miss anthony.

For the past several weeks, Twyman has assembled a group at a soup kitchen in the neighborhood where he volunteers. They have driven to a gas station, locked hands, said a prayer, purchased gas and sung the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome," with an added verse: "We'll have lower gas prices."

total idiots

Seventh Day Adventists are an interesting bunch.

religulous

'They Might Be Blood.'

Pls tell me this was deliberate and not typo :D

Deliberate!

I BRAKE YOUR MILKBOOTH

omg