World Spending Your Tax Dollars To Advertise Our Religion Day
19 Jun 08
Kindly sent to me via the Reverend.
Catholics and Aliens
14 May 08
Catholics think some aliens may be innocent of the original sin Of course, the Church would still be happy to give ’em war, disease and cultural genocide.
Nothing’s changed I suspect
07 May 08
A friend and I were discussing the rings that creatives have to jump through when quoting to corporate clients, when he came up with this analogy I just had to repeat here:
I’m visualising Pope Julius II saying to Michelangelo:
“We want you to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for us, but we want a fixed-price quote showing your estimate of the level of complexity, scope of work and an allowance for us screwing with your design at any time. Oh, and by the way, if your price doesn’t match our idea of what it’s worth we’ll refuse to pay at all and if you make any trouble we’ll denounce you to the Inquisition and have you burnt at the stake as a heretic. Now go and get your paints, wonderboy.”
Crazy Junk Mail
15 Nov 07
Here’s an edifying little piece of paper someone placed in my mailbox today. I can only assume this poor misguided loony had some kind of unfortunate run-in with the legal system, and has responded in the only effective means they know—wandering the streets slipping bits of paper into people’s mailboxes calling down the wrath of God on corrupt public servants. I suppose this beats walking into the department waving a shotgun, but let’s hope he’s not holding that option in reserve. After all, God’s on his side, right?
Personally I wouldn’t get too excited about the Lord above punishing all those naughty folk who rob the helpless and pronounce the guilty innocent. A quick flip through any history book shows the whole divine justice theory isn’t panning out too well.
It’s a federal election here in Australia in a week. I wonder if the People Putting Politicians in Prison Group (PPPPG? 4Ps Group?) is running? They might just get my vote!
Saving the World, One Wanker at a Time
12 Nov 07
In the course of my working day, I innocently type the word ‘certainty’ into Thesaurus.com. But lest I get too excited by the results, Christians are always working hard to save my soul from eternal damnation …
Massive Hypocrisy 101
25 Oct 07
I just had to share this quote from today’s Sydney Morning Herald from the Cathoic Archbishop and all-round orthodox conservative busybody George Pell, ‘prominent religious sceptic of climate change’, also recently quoted as saying “Jesus had nothing to say on global warming”.
“My task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people’s minds, and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or no clothes.
“Radical environmentalists are more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don’t need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness. Church leaders in particular should be allergic to nonsense.”
Engage with reality. Open people’s minds. Allergic to nonsense. Yep. Uh-huh. Riiiight.
The Virus of Faith
06 Feb 07
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” Steven Weinberg
I strongly urge you to watch this documentary by Richard Dawkins, which takes a good, long, hard, rational look at the damage that religion is doing to the world, and the bigotry and fundamentalism it is perpetuating. There are some truly frightening people out there, fully convinced that their version of truth is divine truth, and determined to drag us back into a dark age of ignorance. And what is even worse, they are indoctrinating the adults of tomorrow with their own twisted version of reality.
How many times has the cry echoed throughout history while the most horrific atrocities were committed: “God is on our side.”
I hope, without much hope, that one day the human race will wake up to itself and abandon primitive superstition. Only then can we hope to embrace tolerance for our fellow humans, ethical behaviour untainted by the expectation of reward or punishment, and fully enjoy all the wonderful diversity of which we are capable. Now that would be heaven on earth.
The Code to the Kingdom of Stupid
31 Jan 07
I received this little beauty in my mailbox today. I immediately rang the Reverend over at Tetherd Cow to share the good news, and in the brief pauses between my indignant splutterings he suggested I blog it. Or if you don’t want to, he went on, send it to me and I’ll blog it. Hold on, he said triumphantly, let’s both blog it!
Calm in the knowledge that his finally honed sense of the ridiculous would be the perfect foil to my impotent outpouring of rage at the stupidity of mankind, I agreed to a world first: a simultaneous posting by Headless Hollow and Tetherd Cow on the same subject!
Let’s have a good look at this gem, shall we. From a design point of view, we have here a classic example of jumping on the bandwagon long after the bandwagon has left town. Note the pseudo-Da Vinci Code stylings. Let’s sit in on the design meeting …
Client: “I was thinking we should make it look like that Da Vinci code movie, because those sinners out there are all obsessed by that stuff, and if we do it in the same style, we might actually trick them into believing that it has something to do with the Da Vinci code and get them to read it before they realise that it’s actually a Christian flyer, ’cause then we’ll actually be fooling them because we’ve subverted the style and are using it for our own worthy cause and we’re therefore not only being culturally relevant but cleverly twisting around the whole sinful Da Vinci concept into a pure and Christian one!”
Designer: “OK. I’ve got this clip art picture of a Chinese dragon I can use.”
But wait, no sub-Christian spin-off church flyer is complete without those two classics—the clean WASP mother with her clean WASP baby, pointing off to the wonderful new horizon just ahead (“we’ve got the Code—and money—and you don’t!”), and the troubled WASP teenager, her face partly in shadow, wondering “what’s it all about? Should I let Bobby feel me up, or will I burn in hellfire for all eternity if he touches me there?”
Now, about this Code … sorry the Amazing Code to Real Hope, Spiritual Peace & Happiness®. Shit! I’m not safe! I don’t Know the Code! Quick, tell me! All I can say is, lucky for me it’s all Free!
Look, if you’re Christian, and you feel you really must bother other people with unsolicited mailings, at least be upfront about it goddammit! Don’t treat me like a complete frackin’ idiot! The truly horrifying thing is, there are no doubt people out there who will be fooled by this transparent marketing junk into actually giving away their contact details. Receiving the postcard in their mailbox, their thought patterns go like this …
Hmm, something to do with the Da Vinci Code, great … everyone’s into that … though I only got three chapters in when I was on the beach last Christmas, but the movie’s got Tom Hanks in it, so it must be ‘serious’ … wait— True Happiness? I could do with some of that! The kids are screaming and my husband is having an affair and my life is meaningless and empty and Dr Phil just doesn’t seem to be giving me all the answers anymore … and it sounds easy, I don’t actually have to question anything or put any effort in, I just need to be told The Code and I’ll finally find the answer to all the confusing non-black-and-white situations that life keeps throwing at me every day … wow, I’m sending this in! This is really it this time!
Two weeks later in the newsagent … Shame that Code thing didn’t work … hmmm, what’s this paperback? ‘Six Easy Steps to Real Hope, Spiritual Peace & Happiness’—wow! I’m buying this! This is it! This is really it this time!
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