by Pat Condell
Of course in reality we all know that there will be beer in heaven, and lots of it, otherwise it wouldn’t be heaven, would it? It’s almost not even worth pointing that out, but I thought I would anyway just in case somebody wants to take the opportunity to be offended.
People say to me: “You just don’t understand the joy that a believer feels when they give their heart to God. You just don’t get it.”
Well, maybe that’s true. But I do understand the desire for such a joyful heart, and I’ve got no problem with anyone who seeks it. I wish them well.
I can even understand how this joyful feeling could easily lead to a perfectly natural urge to share it with, and even, dare I say, impose it on others for their own spiritual good. And that I do have a problem with, as you probably know.
However, it occurred to me that I’ve been alive on this planet now for over half a century, and I still haven’t got a clue what I’m supposed to be doing here. And frankly, yes, I am beginning to find that a little embarrassing. So I’m open to offers, broadly speaking, on the meaning of life. But a word of warning, it’s going to have to be something that I can reasonably talk myself into without too much embarrassment, which means it’s going to have to be fairly plausible, unfortunately, because that pretty much eliminates all religion, especially our three old friends the desert dogmas. I couldn’t possibly have anything to do with them. Partly because I don’t want to belong to a death cult, obviously. But also, I’d just like to find something with more of a spiritual dimension, like, I don’t know, morris dancing perhaps, cheese rolling; I’m sure something will turn up.
It might actually help if I could narrow it down in advance and decide what kind of believer I would like to be – maybe that would help. You know, in broad terms. Would I like to be, say, open-minded, compassionate, joyful, optimistic, flexible, tolerant and wise? Or would I prefer to be closed-minded, bigoted, intolerant, dogmatic, gloomy, judgmental and censorious?
That’s quite a difficult one. I can actually see both points of view there. Obviously if I go with the first option I’d be very popular, have a lot of friends, and everything would be great.
But if I go with the second one, people would quite rightly despise me, but I’d then be able to claim persecution and maybe even get a couple of laws changed in my favour. Hmm. I think I’ll give that one a little more thought.
In the meantime I’ll keep looking, of course. I’ll try to keep an open mind, because I think it’s important to keep an open mind, and you won’t convince me otherwise no matter what you say, so don’t even try.
I’m not too fussy about what I end up believing in, as long as it’s the truth. Or, if not, at least something that doesn’t make me want to laugh out loud with derision whenever I think about it. In fact, the way things are going I’ll probably settle for that. Peace, and a happy springtime to one and all.
42.
A Secular World Is a Sane World
June 27, 2008
You know, a lot of people say to me: “I agree with you about Islam, but not about religion.”
Well, thanks, but if that’s the case you don’t agree with me, because Islam is not the problem. Religion is the problem.
The allowances that we make for faith, and the respect that we give to belief without evidence, has encouraged Islam to push its way into a society where it really doesn’t belong and threaten all our freedom.
But that’s not Islam’s fault. Its stated goal is to take over the world. It’s just being true to itself. It’s our fault for indulging religion in the first place, and for giving religious opinion a status in our society that it hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve. Why? You tell me.
Animals don’t seem to need gods in their lives, do they? Perhaps because they haven’t got quite such a low opinion of themselves as we’ve been taught to have. Insignificant, unclean, in need of salvation. Recognise yourself?
If you’re wretched enough to buy into that life-sucking drivel the only thing you need to be saved from is your own gullibility.
Your soul doesn’t need cleansing, because it isn’t dirty. And anyone who tells you different is telling you for their benefit, and not for yours, because the purpose of religion is the employment and the empowerment of clergy. That’s its only purpose. You don’t matter. You’ve never mattered. You don’t seriously think any of those old frauds in the Vatican really believe in God, do you? Come on. God is for the little people. People like you and me. It’s all about the clergy, who do very well out of it. How well? Let’s ask the Archbishop of Canterbury, if we can find out which one of his two palaces he’s currently staying in, and of course if he isn’t too busy praying towards Mecca.
His recent disgraceful attempt to crowbar sharia law into British life is a good example of how some Christian clergy are so unprincipled they’ll happily hitch their wagon to the crescent moon, to a religion they despise as heretical, in order to help push unwanted religious values into society at large, because for them any religious values are better than none.
The real enemy for both these dogmas is secularism, and that’s what they’re most afraid of, because they know it could threaten the generous tax breaks and the countless millions in public subsidy they’re currently rolling around in. And that’s why whenever you hear a speech from a religious leader nowadays it usually contains a warning against the danger of secularism.
When the Pope went to America recently it was the first thing he said when he got off the plane. Obviously he also apologised for all the child abuse, but what else was he supposed to say? Get over it you pussies? Of course not. Not even if he was thinking it, which he probably was. Oh come, you know he was.
But secularism is not atheism, as many of these god-peddling faith jockeys will often try to pretend in order to frighten people who think they’re going to be possessed by demons if society isn’t run by God, or rather by men who think they’re God.
There are plenty of religious people who are secularists. They believe in God, but they’ve got too much class to try and force their views on anyone else. And that’s all secularism means. It means religious freedom for everybody, not just for religious people. It means respecting everyone’s right to worship freely, but removing the power of the middleman, the clergyman, the self-appointed intermediary, to interfere and meddle uninvited in people’s lives.
No wonder these pious parasites are more afraid of it than they are of hellfire itself. Seculophobia. Is that even a word? Well, I guess it is now.
I realise this all sounds very negative, but let me assure you that I’m actually very optimistic about the future of humanity, at least in the long term, because I just don’t think it’s possible for us to stay this stupid forever. We’ll try, of course, and some of us will really dig our heels in too, no doubt, but I think despite ourselves we will eventually evolve into something a bit more intelligent, a bit more compassionate and a bit less afraid of our own shadow, and when that happens religion will simply die a natural death of acute embarrassment, if there’s any justice.
The thing is, though, I don’t want it to take thousands of years. I want it to happen now, partly because I’m a modern kind of guy and I want everything now, but also because it pretty much needs to happen now if we want to keep our freedom. If we don’t shake off religion we are not going to shake off Islam. It’s that simple, because Islam is here to stay. Any population projection will confirm that.
In a couple of generations some parts of Europe will have no choice but to democratically allow sharia law, which, as we know, discriminates against and victimises women, Jews, homosexuals, and pretty much anybody who isn’t a heterosexual Muslim male, preferably with a beard.
So Islam needs to be neutralised in Europe, now before it’s too late. Not by engaging it in respectful dialogue and throwing money at it as usual, but by doing what we should have done years ago and legislating religion out of public life and back into the private domain where it belongs.
Right now Islam is laughing at us.
It’s watching us lead ourselves by the nose into submission. What can we do? Well, all any of us can do is speak out, while we’re still allowed to. Because some Muslims are now demanding that criticising their religion be made a criminal offence. I suppose we should have seen that one coming really, shouldn’t we?
It actually is a criminal offence in the Netherlands, it seems, where anyone satirising Islam is liable to be arrested in the middle of the night and have their apartment ransacked by the police.* The Dutch people must be scratching their heads wondering what ever happened to the free country they used to live in before Islam came along.
Last week in the football tournament, when the Dutch team lined up for their national anthem, I was half expecting to hear the Muslim call to prayer ringing out around the stadium. Is that offensive? I do hope so, because it’s time to stop being polite. It’s time to stop showing fake respect and to start insisting that this divisive dangerous insulting poisonous bullshit is taken out of our public life, where it violates our human rights. Out of the government, out of the law, and especially out of education.
And all the vast army of self-interested money-grubbing clergy and lobby groups, and other assorted faith-based so-called community leaders who currently feed on our freedom like maggots should be told exactly what they can do with themselves in the bluntest possible terms. I’ll even volunteer for that job myself.
Peace, but not at any price.
* As happened to cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot in May 2008.
43.
Islam Is Not a Victim
July 20, 2008
First of all I need to apologise to anyone from the religion of peace who has sent me a death threat recently. I’m afraid I haven’t been able to respond, unfortunately, because I get so many messages and e-mails from sane people that it takes up all my time in replying to as many of them as I can, so if you haven’t heard from me please don’t think I’m being rude, because I would hate to cause offence.
I suppose I should have realised that some people would fly off the handle at being told that they can’t take criticism. I can take criticism, which is just as well, because I get called a racist and an Islamophobe almost every single day; not to mention a Jew, a homosexual, and various other names that some Muslims seem to think are insults, when in fact they’re not.
And I don’t mind. You won’t find me running to a tribunal or a human rights commission to whine and whinge about it for financial gain, unlike some delicate souls we could mention.
But one thing that does bother me is the fact that some people seem to think I’ve got something against all Muslims, which simply isn’t true.
Anyone who has seen my videos knows very well that I’ve got no problem with anyone, no matter what they believe, who doesn’t want to interfere with my freedom. (And that includes freedom from religion, of course – that’s all religion, all the time.)
And I know there are plenty of Muslims who agree with me about that because some of them actually write to me and tell me so, and I’m very grateful for their support. But just because those people are enlightened it doesn’t mean Islam itself is benign, or should be trusted, because unfortunately right now the cutting edge of Islam is in other hands, and those hands are a lot less enlightened and a lot more dangerous.
The royal family of Saudi Arabia, a small coterie of people unelected by anybody, have hijacked that country’s vast oil wealth, and are using it to force the very worst of Islam into the free world.
So far they’ve spent one hundred billion dollars building mosques and funding pressure groups of fanatics who install themselves in western society under grand official sounding titles full of wordske congress and council, and then claim to speak for all Muslims, while in reality doing all they can to stop Muslims from integrating, because their existence and their income depend on keeping Muslims separate and in conflict with everybody else.
So, when it’s claimed, as it was last week on British television, that Muslims in Britain are victims of British intolerance (yeah, right – sixteen hundred mosques worth of intolerance so far, and still building), I think the truth is, if they are victims of anything, it’s Muslim intolerance, because if you are an ordinary Muslim surely the last thing you need is a bunch of Islamists speaking for you. Everything they do and say reflects back on you. When they try to force unwanted Islamic values into our education system, for example, or when one of their representatives crudely insults this country by comparing it with Nazi Germany, that reflects on all Muslims, because these people speak for all Muslims, don’t they? No? Well, maybe somebody should tell them that.
To be fair, one thing that really doesn’t help is when some patronising multicultural fascist decides to ban something innocuous because they think Muslims would be offended by it. These are the same people, no doubt, who decided that kitchen staff in hospitals and schools have to serve the cruelty of halal meat to everyone, because it’s uneconomical to do it separately, and Muslims must never be offended. Or the people who offered Muslim-only days in public swimming pools, excluding everybody else, because it seems that some Muslims actually are offended at having to bathe among kuffars and infidels.
Technically it’s not racist of them, because Islam is not a race. So that’s OK, then. But anyone who criticises it is a racist, because language means whatever we want it to mean in the topsy-turvy world of multicultural hypocrisy, where everyone in the West is automatically guilty of crimes committed by their ancestors, should be deeply ashamed of their identity, and spend their whole lives apologising for it
There was one particularly silly incident in Dundee recently. You probably saw this story, it was all over the news, where a Muslim councillor took it upon himself to decide that a police poster with a puppy dog on it was offensive to Muslims.
Well, in the event it was wishful thinking on his part because nobody actually gave a damn, but the police went ahead and apologised anyway like a bunch of dhimmis.
Recently the West Midlands police had to fork out substantial damages to the makers of a television film, Undercover Mosque, whom they had falsely accused of misrepresenting the intolerant Muslim bigots they exposed.
Now you can’t blame the individual police officers for this kind of behaviour, because they’re in an impossible situation, under orders from above that political correctness trumps common sense, so they’re forced to treat the word Islamophobia as if it’s a real word, and as if there’s actually something wrong with people who dislike Islam for the sexism, racism and homophobia that run through it like a watermark.
But let’s not be too negative here. Occasionally, just occasionally, a small oasis of sanity does emerge from this desert of bollock-brained Islamic appeasement. You may remember those stupid Muslim law students who allowed themselves to be used as sock puppets by the Canadian Islamic Congress in order to exploit that country’sane human rights legislation and stamp out free speech.
Well, the case has been thrown out by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which is good news, but the British Columbia commission might yet embarrass itself by ruling in their favour. But either way, in bringing this case in the first place, and with the public reaction it’s received, these idiots have clearly managed to expose themselves to the hatred and contempt that they had falsely accused Maclean’s magazine of fostering, and who can say that they haven’t earned it with full honours?
They surely deserve all the scorn and derision, and suspicion, that’s now bound to follow them around like a vapour trail, because everyone knows their underhand motive in bringing this case had nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with stamping out legitimate criticism of Islam.
They tried to hijack the law to piss on our freedom and the wind blew it back in their faces. You could almost call it a legal suicide bomb, if you wanted to be offensive.
Peace. Now that is a much better idea, don’t you think?
44.
The Tyranny of Scripture
August 7, 20
08
I sometimes think that if Satan existed he couldn’t devise a better way of keeping humanity in chains than by encouraging the blind uncritical veneration of scripture, and the fossilisation of human thought.
So, without wishing to be too rude about it, I want to say something now to the handful of people who insist on sending me sometimes quite lengthy passages of scripture. You probably know who you are. Well maybe you don’t, and maybe that’s part of the problem here, but I don’t understand why you do this. You must realise, surely, that I never read a single word of it. I recognise it immediately as scripture, and therefore as worthless. So effectively you are wasting your time. The time it takes you to copy and paste that fantasy fiction and send it to me is time that you could be spending far more profitably doing something that you enjoy, like, oh I dunno, flagellating yourself perhaps, rending your garments, gnashing your teeth, prostrating yourself before a crucifix and crying your eyes out for hours on end. Whatever it is you normally do to relax and unwind.
On the other hand, if it’s a genuine neurotic problem that you’ve got, some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder, well obviously that’s different. Then I do sympathise. Please carry on sending as much scripture as you like. But consulting a trained mental health professional might also be quite a good idea, because scripture is not reality. I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news. It’s just scripture, I’m afraid. What’s been divinely revealed hasn’t been revealed at all. It’s been imagined. And if it’s all you’ve got to support your particular version of reality and the god who supposedly created it, then I would suggest that your god is in fact a false god, and every time you proclaim him you merely proclaim yourself deceived, like the village idiot who walks around blowing a whistle at people because he thinks it makes him important, when all it does is single him out as the village idiot.