Ah, c’mon, John. How’s he gonna convince people Heaven is a much better place if he was to approach people in them paradises? Huh? How’s he gonna punish people by makin’ ’em wander through the gorgeous forest for 40 years? Doesn’t make sense does it? How’s he gonna make folks dehydrated, sunstroked, and delerious enough to believe a bunch of bullshit unless it is hot and dry and awful?
Thank you for straightening me out, Steve… I was clearly beginning to stray into the wicked world of rationalism. I feel dirty now, unclean, molested by Beelzebub. Shower time, and scrub, scrub, scrub with my favourite steel wool.
Oh John, you’re having us on. These are all pictures straight from an Oz tourist brochure. Yawheh never went there because it was already taken by a bunch of dream-timers 100’000 years before Yawheh was even thought off.
….Except for the fact that irrigation techniques go back to 6,000 BCE, although are probably as old as 12,000 BCE when wheat was first cultivated near Göbekli Tepe 😉
It’s interesting to think about how different mythologies related to different environments. Of course people from the first three settings would be animists/polytheists, look at how beautiful everything is, must be divine. But for people in the desert…. where there’s nothing but sand… there’s just one God….. and he’s an asshole…… cuz the desert fucking sucks.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think you have a really interesting point here that can poke PeW in the eye. One of his reason’s to think that belief in Christianity can be logical is that the Jewish fountain didn’t worship nature … poor things, no wonder they had to make their superstition anthropomorphic. Oh look, there’s a deity in the colourless dust over there! Not quite the same as an oak tree or a jaguar …
Yeah, I sort of skim read your horribly long discussion with him about the gods. I expect he didn’t give any ground and still uses his same bad argument. 🙂
Spot on. Over on Arks blog he’s trying to argue that Rabbis coming out and saying neither Abraham or Moses ever existed DOESN’T affect Christianity. Baffling…
No, but my brain is on sabbatical. That is a religious holiday. Or it was.
My muse seems to be gone too, so I just have to wait till she gets back. Probably blowing bubbles somewhere with sprites and Velles.
Yeah you could say. I had to lie my way out three times to three different officials. There had been a terrorist attack in Jerusalem days before and they were questioning everybody leaving the country if they had been there at the time. Of course I said no.
Actually the promised land had and has green and miles and miles of forest, the Jordan river, the Sea of Galilee, verdant mountains, the Mediterranean, palm groves, streams “as it does to this day” but as with all good pilgrimages, one must often transverse desert to arrive ; ) As for desert tho–Georgia O’Keefe loved painting in the desert, she’d go under her car to get out of the sun while she painted her cow skeletons.
I’ve been to the Dead Sea and let me tell ya that area is incredibly gorgeous and wild. It’s big, crazy, and really, really old feeling. Oases dot the way, and it’s also amazing to see Bedouin camps in barren areas…with the occasional TV antenna. Obviously, the spiritual idea of desert is to learn to live in the moment, focused on water survival, and ultimately YHWH. The desert is full of life; it’s just a different color. Take it from me–I’ve been stung by a scorpion! ; ) And seen snakes, tarantulas, lizards, (all these in the southwest U.S.) When I was traveling to the Dead Sea (probably near the same route Alexander the Great used back when) a torrential rain hit, like Noah’s flood they said…rain in the desert is unreal! So for me and many others, the desert is full of life and promise.
thesuperstitiousnakedape.wordpress.com 
I’ll take Option No.2: The Tropical Paradise (capitalized because its awesome!)
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Seafood platter, anyone? I’ll be back in three minutes 😉
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Ah, c’mon, John. How’s he gonna convince people Heaven is a much better place if he was to approach people in them paradises? Huh? How’s he gonna punish people by makin’ ’em wander through the gorgeous forest for 40 years? Doesn’t make sense does it? How’s he gonna make folks dehydrated, sunstroked, and delerious enough to believe a bunch of bullshit unless it is hot and dry and awful?
You gotta have faith, boy!
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Thank you for straightening me out, Steve… I was clearly beginning to stray into the wicked world of rationalism. I feel dirty now, unclean, molested by Beelzebub. Shower time, and scrub, scrub, scrub with my favourite steel wool.
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Good point!
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I guess he was hoping the Chosen People would have more of a green thumb along the lines of the Brits. Another OOPS! for the big guy in the sky.
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Well, just having some water and something other than lifeless dirt would have been rather helpful 😉
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Oh John, you’re having us on. These are all pictures straight from an Oz tourist brochure. Yawheh never went there because it was already taken by a bunch of dream-timers 100’000 years before Yawheh was even thought off.
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I wish Australia looked like that! Just reading your post and see you’ve been there… you know the dirty truth 😉
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No, I skipped 99% of it, the desert part 🙂
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Oh, you mean the billiard table flat red part 😉
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Maybe he had plans to teach them irrigation 😀
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Totally. I think it is possible he planned to teach them something 🙂 Irrigation could be one of the reasons 🙂
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….Except for the fact that irrigation techniques go back to 6,000 BCE, although are probably as old as 12,000 BCE when wheat was first cultivated near Göbekli Tepe 😉
Good to see you Prayson.
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Well, it was another kind of irrigation. One that you do not use water but sand 🙂
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Ahhhhh 🙂
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Or he just didn’t see those sites you see now!
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Hehehe… you’d kinda’ think a good god God (to use Violets term) would try and set his “chosen people” up in a place with some soil, at least 🙂
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It’s interesting to think about how different mythologies related to different environments. Of course people from the first three settings would be animists/polytheists, look at how beautiful everything is, must be divine. But for people in the desert…. where there’s nothing but sand… there’s just one God….. and he’s an asshole…… cuz the desert fucking sucks.
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There’s the academic anthropologist coming out in you, Logan!
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GET HIM OUT OF ME!!!!
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Never! How else would i get my entertainment?
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maybe he’ll start his own blog once he’s out… the academic anthropologist that crawled out of the agnostic apologetic’s chest
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Will he have a different name? Doctor….
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Acula
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I like! Damn you Acuuuuuula!
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Dr. Acula….. give it a sec…. get it yet?
Mitch Hedburg? anyone?
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Is it foolish of me to admit i missed that?
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haha no I think you have to see it spelled out like that to really get it, or hear it done by mitch hedburg
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Oh man, he really missed the boat i.e., location, location, location. So much for omniscience.
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Ha! That was going to be the title of the post!
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Omniscience does have it’s rewards!
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I’m with Fourat. But knowing Yahweh..the bastard, he’d probably send a Tsunami just to piss us all off.
“I SAID…meet me in the desert.”
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But there’s earthquakes there!
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Another example of believing utter tosh. Nice one squirrel !
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Thanks Strangefruit!
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Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think you have a really interesting point here that can poke PeW in the eye. One of his reason’s to think that belief in Christianity can be logical is that the Jewish fountain didn’t worship nature … poor things, no wonder they had to make their superstition anthropomorphic. Oh look, there’s a deity in the colourless dust over there! Not quite the same as an oak tree or a jaguar …
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I can smell a new Violet post coming.
YHWH was, though, a polytheistic deity for 800 years before being rolled into one.
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Yeah, I sort of skim read your horribly long discussion with him about the gods. I expect he didn’t give any ground and still uses his same bad argument. 🙂
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He doesn’t like contemplating the reality of his god God. Whenever it comes up he falls back on his AIG Fundamentalist methodology of deflection.
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I don’t think he’s anywhere near the stage of actual doubt, he’s just finding an interpretation he can live with.
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Spot on. Over on Arks blog he’s trying to argue that Rabbis coming out and saying neither Abraham or Moses ever existed DOESN’T affect Christianity. Baffling…
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post links! I want to see this discussion!
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This is the current circus
http://attaleuntold.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/bet-your-soul-on-moses/
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(although saying all that, Israel’s beautiful)
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I guess if you hate yardwork…
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… and love pottery…
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HAHA that made me snort
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It’s happens a lot in the drier, more ghastly biblical climates. I think that’s why they hate pigs so much 😉
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omg you are on a roll today lol
ooh, rolls go nice with pork chops…
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After the walloping you delivered last night i knew i had to step up my game 😉
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haha, that’ll be great taken out of context
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There’s a context? 😉
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Yeah, $3 entry fee. Did I win?
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I’ll have to review the tape first…. I suspect something’s a tad rotten…
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HAHA, yer a bitch
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I have nothing to add to this discussion but I sure had a lot of laughs! thanks you all.
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Freeloader!
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I am entitled. I am taking a religious holiday. So there.
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You mean you’ve left the Med alone!?! Oh dear lord…
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No, but my brain is on sabbatical. That is a religious holiday. Or it was.
My muse seems to be gone too, so I just have to wait till she gets back. Probably blowing bubbles somewhere with sprites and Velles.
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Ahaha! So that’s were Velles has gone, is it? He’s always been a sucker for good olive oil and sea breezes…
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“Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!” (she taunts kicking legs in the air). Sorry I couldn’t resist. You see? Not so curt! 🙂
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Is that from Life of Brian?
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Nya ha
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🙂
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I went to Israel once, had a heck of a time trying to get back out though with no visa, no money, and no excuse!
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That i could imagine. A tad finicky about the comings and goings of people, those Israeli’s.
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Yeah you could say. I had to lie my way out three times to three different officials. There had been a terrorist attack in Jerusalem days before and they were questioning everybody leaving the country if they had been there at the time. Of course I said no.
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I think the difference is that people who go without water for more than a couple of days tend to hallucinate…
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True that. I got hypothermia once camping/fishing (it was snowing) and i tripped out like there was no tomorrow.
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He probably chose the latter because of the low-maintenance landscaping and drought tolerant plants.
Hansi
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A frustrated Gardner, you mean? You might just be onto something there… plus, no mold or mildew to worry about!
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He wanted to be a big fish in a little, dried up pond.
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At face value it kinda’ looks like this god actually really hated his “chosen people.” If i were a god i’d give my people Polynesia!
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This is hilarious!
(Though with all the bad weather in Northern Europe I could use some desert right now 🙂 )
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Desert holidays are one thing…. being told a desert is your god-given, god-blessed Promised Land is another 😉
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I said SOME desert…
…but when this weather sticks why not raise some camels and scorpios in the desert 🙂
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Actually the promised land had and has green and miles and miles of forest, the Jordan river, the Sea of Galilee, verdant mountains, the Mediterranean, palm groves, streams “as it does to this day” but as with all good pilgrimages, one must often transverse desert to arrive ; ) As for desert tho–Georgia O’Keefe loved painting in the desert, she’d go under her car to get out of the sun while she painted her cow skeletons.
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Without having read the other comments yet … perhaps at the time, that actually was a nice place?
All the blasted Climate Change, I tell ya—ya just can’t trust anyone!
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… but surely as an omniscient He knew about the coming changes? Yet still He chose … brrr, I don’t like the direction this is taking.
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Precisely my point…. Good dog!
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Nah, it was lifeless desert then just as it is lifeless desert now.
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I’ve been to the Dead Sea and let me tell ya that area is incredibly gorgeous and wild. It’s big, crazy, and really, really old feeling. Oases dot the way, and it’s also amazing to see Bedouin camps in barren areas…with the occasional TV antenna. Obviously, the spiritual idea of desert is to learn to live in the moment, focused on water survival, and ultimately YHWH. The desert is full of life; it’s just a different color. Take it from me–I’ve been stung by a scorpion! ; ) And seen snakes, tarantulas, lizards, (all these in the southwest U.S.) When I was traveling to the Dead Sea (probably near the same route Alexander the Great used back when) a torrential rain hit, like Noah’s flood they said…rain in the desert is unreal! So for me and many others, the desert is full of life and promise.
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Bah, i’m Australian…. No one knows deserts like us, and no one on earth has deserts with more of a “really, really old feeling”
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I knew that ; )
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I would choose the beach the second picture ❤
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You’d be pretty happy with your god if he gave you that!
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Honestly, i dont believe in God but i d be happy if my boyfriend takes me there..
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Absolutely! Boyfriends are, at least, real 🙂
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