Archive for the ‘Shit Happens’ Category
The Comparative Religion Of “Shit Happens”
Circulating on the Internet, and also available in postcard form, is an extended riff on the theme of “Shit Happens” and the treatment of this fundamental truth in the various religions. It ranges from the theologically fairly serious (Lutheranism’s “Shit happens, but have faith anyway” and Calvinism’s “Shit happens to those who don’t work hard […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
Shit Happened Because Of The TV Show You Watched
Religion is, among other things, a side-effect of the way that parents exploit the great truth that Shit Happens for the purpose of controlling their children. That is, whenever Shit Happens to the child, the parents may attribute it to some act or wish on the child’s part that was inconvenient to them, however tenuous […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
The Wheel of Fortune And The Cosmic Gears
One of the many things that people fondly imagine that they “know” is that the Middle Ages were static, a thousand years in which everyone knew their place and nothing much happened. Such a perception is actually a variant on the eternal “things ain’t what they used to be” topos; just as we think that […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
Will Smith As Witness To Our Narcissism
The actor Will Smith once said of a girlfriend he had in his teens: “That she cheated on me destroyed my concept of cause and effect, my belief that good things happen to good people.” Two questions ought to present themselves: firstly, who inculcated that strange concept of cause and effect in the young Smith; […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
The Lion, The Lamb And The Mission Child
There is a little children’s table grace in a certain European language that goes, in literal translation, “Thou that feedeth the little bird, bless thou our food O God.” This provokes a couple of questions: whether the children of Christians notice the contradiction when singing this ditty over a chicken dinner; and whether they would […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
Payback Time
C.S. Lewis once asked what we would feel if we were told that we had to share Heaven with an entirely unrepentant Adolf Hitler. He thought it would offend people’s sense of justice. The same would probably apply even if Hitler had repented. Hitler’s sins and ours may be equally heinous and equally forgivable in […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
Insh’allah And The Deus Vulture
Some ways in which the Abrahamic religions talk make it clear that “God” is actually a word for “the stuff that happens”. The Apostle James warns us not to say that that tomorrow we shall do this or that, because God might have other ideas, that is, we might be prevented by unforeseen circumstances. The […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
I Am Winning, Ergo God Exists
How people actually reason about the big questions can be seen from the throwaway details of popular entertainment. When Ben, the leader of The Others in the TV show LOST, finds he has a tumour in his back and then immediately a plane breaks up over his little archipelago and drops a spinal surgeon into […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
The Task
“Man in general… is already in the wrong in so far as he exists and is man,” wrote Schopenhauer, “Consequently it is wholly in keeping with this that each individual human being…. also finds himself generally in the wrong when he surveys his life. His task is to see it not in general but in […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
Four Options Au St. Paul
Number One, do not know the Law, be a happy pagan. This is a lot harder than people used to think in the days when they talked about “shrugging off” this or that belief-system. It takes more than a Gallic gesture to uninstall two thousand years of deep programming, which in turn involves a lot […]
In: THE LONGEST CON, Shit Happens
