I recall reading the description of CUWoCS in the Freshers' Handbook a decade or so ago. Like many religions, they said, we believe that our god will return and condemn people to horrible torture; unlike other religions, however, we don't claim that this somehow means our god is good.

I mention this partly because there's a bit more discussion on C.S. Lewis and Timothy Keller's view on Hell in a thread on my last posting.

However, I mention Great Cthulhu because of a vision that has been given to, no, vouchsafed unto, me, of the time when the Stars are Right and He returns. You can see the full horror over on Facebook. This is a stark reminder of the choice we all face: who will be eaten first?

Thanks to scribb1e, the D&Ders, and the Cthulhu Crochet blog.

One of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism, Sam Harris, appears to have undergone some sort of conversion. This is serious stuff.

The people over at Edge have been talking about Jerry Coyne's book reviews and thoughts on the incompatibility of science and religion (mentioned here previously). The authors of the books, Karl Giberson and Ken Miller, have both responded to the reviews.

Yet it is Harris, a former militant atheist himself, who responds most resoundingly to Coyne (and his supporter, Dennett), in a sweeping, magisterial essay whose sophistication, not to say length, rivals the work of William Lane Craig. I commend it to you.

( Just one more thing you should know before you comment )

This journal has been a bit high-brow lately, you know? Time for some light relief.

• Yellow, university chaplain and all-round good egg, was going through some back issues of Christianity magazine when he happened across the problem page. Maggie, the Christian agony aunt, deals with her readers' sexual problems, while strangely neglecting to deal with the most glaring problem suffered by her correspondents. Yellow found a letter from, and reply to, a lady who "can't leave the little man in the boat alone", who has been petting the pussycat, strumming the banjo and flicking the bean, if you take my meaning (I'm saying she's been wanking a lot). Maggie knows that God doesn't approve of that sort of thing, and suggests a number of interesting remedies.
  
  
• Those of you who were watching the apotheosis of President Obama might have heard about the controversy surrounding Obama's decision to ask Rick Warren to pray at his inauguration. Warren's views are fairly typical among evangelicals. With regard to women, he's a complementarian. He's against gay marriage, abortion and so on. His views are quite different from those espoused by Obama. So what was he doing at the inauguration, and behaving himself too? bites_the_sun has the answer.
  
  
• Dan Savage also runs a sexual problem page, although his answers tend to differ from Maggie's. Savage reacts in a fairly direct way to the anti-gay mob. For example, he's responsible for the new meaning of former Sentator Rick Santorum's surname. "Warren" is already a place where rabbits live, of course, so Savage has instead turned his attention to Saddleback, Warren's mega-church. Savage is pleased to announce a new term, saddlebacking, which I'm sure will come in useful, especially to the people who write in to Christianity's problem page.

Reading my archive of Usenet posts from my misspent youth, I came across reference to Myers-Briggs tests for Christian ministers (this was presumably at the point where the bits of the church in the UK had decided that personality tests would help work out what gifts people had, or something).

But what if you're a vicar and find yourself with the wrong sort of personality for your role or congregation? Luckily, Myers-Briggs corrective pills have the answer. Possibly only funny if you can work out who George C. of South London and Sandy M. of London are (or were in the early years of this century).

Some of the archive might be fun too: I liked Were you the Dalai Lama?, Clerical Vacancies, The Decayed of Evangelism and the outcome of the same.

One useful thing one can take from a Christian past is the ability to get the in-jokes.

Beards are important. As any evangelical will know, the words of C.S. Lewis are god-breathed and useful for teaching and training in righteousness. Hear what St Jack says:

“It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual ‘taste’. This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. The aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy, and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females — and there is more in that than you might suppose….”
—C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

This chap elaborates.

More importantly (from my point of view), scribb1e likes them too.

Links courtesy of andrewducker and robhu.

People who post D&D campaign reports to their blogs: death's too good for 'em, I say. I think I'll make an exception for this one of scribb1e's, though.

THE WASTE LAND

'Antea, in stipendia Roberti, dicerem: ἀποθανεῑν δεν θέλω; respondebat dominus ludorum: alea iacta est.'

( The burial of the undead )

scribb1e writes:

The Waste Land seems remarkably easy to do this to. Either because great art is characterised by its ability to sustain more than one interpretation, or because it's a bunch of easily-imitated, pretentious twaddle.

Apart from scribb1e's, the greatest parodies of the poem are Wendy Cope's and ladysisyphus's Harry Potter version.

Things that caught my eye on the web recently:

• marnanel supplies the ultimate version of all those "which local dialect do you speak?" questionnaires that people have been doing lately.
  
  
• Zarf, otherwise known as Andrew Plotkin, gives us LOLGRUES. Makes a change from cats, I suppose.
  
  
• scribb1e thought I'd like The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus. Some of them are good, some of them are typical "the church is the people, not the building" Christian greeting-card verse (but as cartoons!) The artist shows some signs of creationism, but as I'm no longer a Christian, I don't have to do my "please get off my side, you're making it look stupid" bit.
  
  Inevitably, the cartoon with the most comments is the one about gay marriage. Inamongst the usual godhatesfags stuff (or rather, God hates the faggotry but loves the fags, naturally) there were a couple of links to interesting interviews with N.T. Wright (no relation), the Bishop of Durham. There was also an interesting comment from Tyler on just what Paul did mean by arsenokoites (the word translated by the NIV as homosexual offenders, about which there's considerable debate as it's a novel coinage as far as we know). Tyler points out that the Septuagint puts the two words that Paul has used in his portmanteau word right next to each other in everyone's favourite bit of Leviticus (scroll down a bit for the Greek). So it looks like you practising gays (or even those of you who aren't practising because you've got very good at it) are pretty much out as far as Christianity goes. Have you considered atheism?
  
  
• If your internet connection comes from BT, Virgin Media or Carphone Warehouse's Talktalk service, you should be aware of the evil that is Phorm, a cunning plan to intercept all your web browsing and use the knowledge of what you're interested in (from your web searches) to display targetted advertising on collaborating websites. Richard Clayton has spoken to Phorm and has technical details of how the system works. It's a horrible hack, in all senses of the word.
  
  Talktalk aren't all bad though: they just told the British recording industry to get stuffed in a highly entertaining way. The BPI are now threatening to sue.
  

The Pain is a web-comic which I keep losing and finding again, so I'm mentioning it here so I'll know where to find it, and also because I like it.

The Top Ten on the archives page links to many of my own favourites, like Jesus vs. Jeezus and Scientists Riot!.

The later comics themselves seem less funny than the earlier ones, but the written "Artist's Statement" beneath them is often good stuff. There are reflections on certainty and doubt in What Else They're Calling "Mohammed", lost love and breakups in How to Win Her Back, Christianity and Islam in Contributions of the World's Religions, Part I, and the similarities between the political clout of liberals and evangelicals in Part V.

While I'm here, if you like Roy Zimmerman, you might enjoy the Agnostic Gospel Song.

The BBC's Have Your Say site is a reminder that democracy is only the least bad method of government. Like the callers to Graham Torrington's Late Night Love and Any Answers, not to mention the phone voters on Strictly Come Dancing, the commenters on Have Your Say are a tempting argument for some sort of Platonic philosopher king who would send them off to work in the salt mines.

spEak You’re bRanes is a collection of the very worst of the Have Your Say contributions, interspersed with mockery from the owner of the site (note the categorisation of postings, over on the right hand side). Inevitably, I like the religion ones the best:

On the Madrid bombing verdicts.

This is only mans judgement, just wait until the real God judges them.
Daz, Basingstoke

Yeah man. God’s a really fierce judger. I remember when he judged Hitler. Santa was holding the little shit down by his ears and Jesus and Mary had a leg each. Then God just went like TOTALLY apeshit, screaming “socialism my fat holy ass” and kicking him in the knackers with his HOLY NUT-CRUSHING POWER BOOTS again and again and again for ALL ETERNITY. Proper vicious bastard. I swear, Tony Blair’s going to get his anus ripped off.

Indeed.

These days, it seems the youth in the UK and in America are increasingly sceptical about the Lord's word. A new Bible translation promises to remedy this by speaking to the young people in a language they can understand. I must thank drdoug for bringing it to my attention. A few sample passages will illustrate its freshness and relevance:

Matthew 5: Ceiling Cat liek kittehz wiv no cash. Tehy can has Ceiling Catz pad.
Ceiling Cat liek sad kittehz. Tehy can has petting.
Ceiling Cat liek kittehz taht no pwn otehr kittehz. Tehy can has earth wen otehr kittehz is ded.
Ceiling Cat liek kittehz taht is liek "can i has good?". Tehy can has cheezburger.
Ceiling Cat liek kittehz taht no pwn otehr kittehz even if tehy can. Ceiling Cat no pwn tehm.
Ceiling Cat liek kittehz taht has bath inside. Tehy can see Ceiling Cat.
Ceiling Cat liek cheezmakers. Ceiling Cat is liek "u mi kittenz"

John 1:5 - Teh lite iz pwns teh darks, but teh darks iz liek "Wtf."

Ecclesiastes 3:3-6 - sup. there has is a sison 4 everthing, and a tiems 4every purpos under teh ceiling, lol. a tiemz 2 get kittehs, an a tiems 2 get ded. tiemz 2 mades cookies, an also tiems 2 cheezburgers. teimz 2 hugs, and loltims 4 buttsecks.

John 20:26-28 - Ltr, teh dscpls iz in teh hous wif Thomas. Teh doorz iz lockded, but Jesus waz liek "Oh hai!" And Jesus sayed "My wounz--let me show u them. Srsly, stfu." And Thomas sayed "OMG, OMG!"

Revelation 22:6 - Then ayngel sayz "this all true. Srsly."

This translation will turn the tide.

The site of the book of the sites, The Internet, now in handy book form, is good fun. Crackbook and Poormatch are particularly well observed. It reminded me of TV Go Home, but a little less bitter and scatological (only a little, mind you).

Quotable quotes of the week:

"... any time anyone's said anything comprehensible about the Trinity the Church has declared it a heresy." - gjm11 on a Rilstone post created specifically for him.

"The universe tends toward maximum irony. Don't push it." - jwz on taking reliable backups (which is much harder on a Mac than it ought to be).

"All those fine words about the rule of law safeguarding our liberties, the arbitrary exercise of power and Bunker Hill, Lexington and Normandy went right out the window on 9/11. That was when Henry and the rest of his stalwart defenders of the rule of law promptly wet their pants and then let their president use the constitution to clean up the puddle." - Digby, via a friend of a friend.

There's an option that I might have considered instead of apostasy. Unfortunately, in those conservative days, you couldn't really do that sort of thing. These days, if LiveJournal is anything to go by, it's all the rage. A woman tells us how she's in an open relationship with Jesus.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My midweek sandwich and my Sunday lunch,
My stir-fry, my fillet, my stock, my chop;
I thought that leftovers would last for ever: I was wrong.

Jewcy on the Shambo case, via the Drink Soaked Trots.

Roy Zimmerman, the Tom Lehrer for the Noughties, has some new videos out. Squeee!, as I believe the saying goes.

Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual covers the rise and fall of the American evangelical preacher.

For guitarists out there, there are also videos on how to play Jerry Falwell's God and Creation Science 101. For the non-guitarists, Zimmerman intersperses his guitar lesson with some choice words on Falwell (though not quite as choice as those of Hitchens, who you might think was promoting a book at the moment, or something).

You may turn over your papers and start now.

You are a product tester and frequently bring your work home. Yesterday, while dressed in a flame resistant suit (up to 3,000 degrees) and carrying the latest model fire extinguisher, you discover your neighbor's house is on fire. As the flames quickly spread, you stand and watch your neighbor's new baby burn to death. Which of the following best describes your behavior?

1. All-powerful
   
2. All-knowing
   
3. All-loving
   
4. Mysterious

One of the better questions from Religion 101: Final Exam.

I guess most people on LiveJournal saw their proposal to turn LJ into MySpace (lj_dirtycache is particularly good fun for anyone who's ever looked at bands' sites on MySpace). What's funny about LJ's effort is that LJ clearly understand what is going to provoke their users to apoplectic rage until they realise they've been had. By comparison, Facebook was a bit lame, merely offering to send someone round to physically poke the people you "poked" on Facebook. They should have announced some variant on the Facebook feed to get all the "OMG UR HELPING STALKERS" people up in arms again.

Google announced TISP, their IP-round-the-U-bend service, as well as Gmail Paper, for those who prefer their email on paper. Slashdot had a collection of unconvincing stories. Poor show.

Disappointingly, the IETF don't seem to have done anything very exciting lately, at least nothing to match the seminal Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on Avian Carriers.

Finally, robhu announced he'd reconverted to Christianity. It initially seemed he'd converted to a fluffy sort of Christianity in which God is a metaphor for the good which, in a very real sense, is in us all. However, in the discussion thread which followed, it soon became clear he'd reverted to his old evangelical habits, informing me that I was blinded by the devil and was "just as much of a fundamentalist as Richard Hawkings". His later post contains the de-brief, in which it is revealed that I was in on it from shortly after he'd posted the entry. robhu used some excellent observational humour to convincingly impersonate evangelical responses to my ultra-atheist straight man.

In summary, burr86 and robhu jointly win the Internet. Tonight, we dine in Hell.

In the pub, it turned out that some LiveJournalists and Facebookers hadn't seen these. So here are some links to some fun things on YouTube:

The Facebook Skit, a reworking of that well-known rumba Hero to explain what sammagain does on Facebook.

Baby Got Back - Gilbert and Sullivan Style. So wrong, yet so right.

The Mr Deity videos. George Lucas is God, apparently. The earlier ones are good, there's a dip in the middle, but the Ten Commandments one is a return to form.

Roy Zimmerman has some funny songs, my favourites being Defenders of Marriage and Jerry Falwell's God.

The Magistrate is in a lyrical mood today, publishing the full text of the sentencing in a tragic case (not one of his own), from which I learned the meaning of the word "condign". The comments on that entry reflect my own contradictory reactions to the case. The judge's words sound majestic, but the offender will probably be out in 3.5 years.

After that, we need a little light relief. The Magistrate goes on to quote his favourite sonnets, on philandering and post-coital guilt. Harry of Chase Me Ladies has his own amusing take on the latter sonnet, but Harry's commenters come up trumps, with Wendy Cope's adaption of it. I also liked her Wasteland limericks, though not quite as much as the ladysisyphus's previously-posted Harry Potter version.

Via despotliz comes ( a big cat image )

mangojellytoast talks about the new feeds feature on Facebook:

Everyone's complaining about it, but I love seeing a list of entries like "Cindy's relationship status went from 'single' to 'in a relationship'" and "Cindy left the group 'True Love Waits'"

It amuses the hell out of me.

Tee hee!

Boingboing linked to From the Ball-room to Hell, a polemic against ballroom dancing written in 1892 by a dancing teacher who has turned from the evil of ballroom to the Lord. It's always fun to see the holy being somewhat excitable in their descriptions of depravity. Quotes from his work ought to form the basis of next term's CDC advertising posters.

She is now in the vile embrace of the Apollo of the evening. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his, her bare arm is almost around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, his lips almost touch her forehead, yet she does not shrink; his eyes, gleaming with a fierce, intolerable lust, gloat over her, yet she does not quail. She is filled with the rapture of sin in its intensity; her spirit is inflamed with passion and lust is gratified in thought. With a last low wail the music ceases, and the dance for the night is ended, but not the evil work of the night.

The girl whose blood is hot from the exertion and whose every carnal sense is aroused and aflame by the repetition of such scenes as we have witnessed, is led to the ever-waiting carriage, where she sinks exhausted on the cushioned seat. Oh, if I could picture to you the fiendish look that comes into his eyes as he sees his helpless victim before him. Now is his golden opportunity. He must not miss it, and he does not, and that beautiful girl who entered the dancing school as pure and innocent as an angel three months ago returns to her home that night robbed of that most precious jewel of womanhood--virtue!

I'm not sure whether hardcore Christians still frown on ballroom. Nobody seemed to mind it when I was a Christian, but a more recent graduate told me that The Square Church regarded it as suspect. There are a lot of Christian dancers, so I assume that these days it's the lesser of two evils when compared to going clubbing and pulling strangers.

I must report that the only time I have taken a lady from a dance to my waiting carriage, it was all her idea and I ended up refusing her very kind offer because at that time I was in thrall to CICCU. This, my friends, is why we must erase them from the face of the earth.