Beautiful.

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Beautiful.

The Stealy Dan.

The economic crises and its impact on the fast food nations.

On the downside, the once in disfavoured Mc Donald’s bard, famous for cheap food, is having a revival.

On the upside, Starbucks is struggling.


Starbucks sees profits evaporate, via BBC.

Rescind the Catholic exemption NOW!

quote:

Rescind the Catholic exemption NOW!

Should have been done long time ago. Not only Catholic but all religions.

Not only in USA but all over the "Western World" (whichever does it mean).

Agreed.

let him talk. it is kind of what we do here.

I always thought of the exemption as a way that both the church (meaning organized religion) and the state lessen their effect on each other. You still have abberant things like this happen but it pales in comparison to the corosive influence of a religious state.

It's another in a series of steps down that road. Honestly, there is no seperation of church and state if one allows the other to reside within it's very body. At best it's a cancer.

More like a goddam tapeworm.

Or maybe we should try a reverse approach. Maybe we should decree them something like a PAC. Are PACs allowed to own corporate investments?

Make them own their politics, and then let their politics own them.

We've seen how well that worked out for the Mormons.

To get real enforcement of state/church separation, we'd need something like a Secular Humanists Only party of major proportions.

But SecHum doesn't have a core principle anywhere as easy to latch on to as God, supreme arbiter of good and evil and happy ever aftering.

So it is too often very easy to divide and conquer.

Religion is inherently schismatic too. Left to their own devices, they bicker among themselves. But they're great at getting together in unity *against* SecHum.

But give them free political license and perhaps they'll quickly turn on each other?

For example they unite on abortion and then tolerate deregulation/free market nonsense because the Republicans have embraced their voting bloc. But let them be their own party and the many among them who enjoy the benefits of socialism will have less reason to cohere.

And when push comes to shove, economics trumps everything.

(If yez haven't noticed yet, I'm thinking intuitively more than rationally here. These conjectures are offered specifically to be shredded to the edification of us all.)

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:

In a way this illustrates my thinking. Tiddley is the god mask. Tape worm is politics. Let Tiddley play politics and that smile starts smiling at itsel(ves).

I'm sure I'm all wrong on this line of thinking, mistakes can be fun.

My underlying intuition here is that directly opposing fanatical delusion reinforces its true fanatics.

Meanwhile, despite Mormon and Catholic covert-to-overt political opposition to abortion and Bush's preemptive war doctrine, abortion is still legal and Iraq got raped, and the religious right is huddled in a corner with moose-woman.

Ours is a secular culture. Open society and all that. Politics and economics rule over religion in kitchen table reality. It didn't hurt MLK that he was a reverend: it helped. But that's only because he allied with a cause that reality supported (hell, we were fighting a huge war in its favor 100 years before the 1963 March on Washington).

Phyllis Schlafly and her kitchenette Xtians did bupkus against the feminist tide.

Mormon support of Prop * may have helped pass it but fomented more opposition nationwide against what Prop 8 stands for than it may have helped Prop 8.

I say: let religion get its democracy on. Politics, being reality-based, able to further pleasure and inflict pain NOW, and not in some hypothetical afterlife, influences Heaven more than Heaven influences politics.

For Boog: an accurate flowchart of Mormon voodoo cosmic teleology:

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints: We baptised Hitler!

quote:

Originally posted by lithos:
The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints: We baptised Hitler!

Ha! Well, after he all he combined the Chosen People with the Master Race.

quote:

Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:
For Boog: an accurate flowchart of Mormon voodoo cosmic teleology:

I see Spirit World, but where is Spice World?

No cosmology is complete with out room for Posh and Scary.

Spice World? You mean, like, Dune?

Brother Bravus! So good to see you back in church! Ah, the lovely Sisters Bravus!