tears

Based on a real conversation. I don’t know where he got the 2.3 billion from.

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Discussion (58)¬

  1. Dave N says:

    Yeah, I really do prefer reading Viz, it has to be said. And that is underated.

  2. DCM says:

    This strip is so true sometimes it is very, very, very scary.

  3. Joe Fogey says:

    one reverer, two reverers, three reverers, ……………… …………………………………….. …………………………………… ………………………………..
    two billion two million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and niney nine reverers, two point three billion reverers!

  4. Tomas (the Doubter) says:

    Awesome!

  5. Again, a great punch line, Author. Bravo. The difference between the Koran and the Bible seems to be that Muslims actually read their book. Hamza Kashgari reportedly memorized the whole dang thing, before committing apostasy and now facing death. Speaking of whom, any news on Kashgari’s condition or fate anybody?

  6. fenchurch says:

    Wait, so Kashgari “believed a part of the book, but rejected a part”?
    Ooh-ee, you’d better believe that’s a paddlin’.

    Hopefully he’ll be spared to live his own life on his own terms with the rest of us heathens “waiting for God to appear in the balconies of clouds with a host of angels, and the matter to be settled”.

  7. Mary says:

    Good way to start the day….thank you

  8. Nassar Ben Houdja says:

    Some people judge a book by it’s cover
    Or by one way or another
    But in the head many are smitten
    When following violence that is written
    They avoid the part about being a brother.

  9. I wish I’d been able to overhear that conversation!

  10. Author says:

    @ OB – It has been embellished a bit 🙂

  11. Ken Clark says:

    Excellent and so apt! This site is one of my many anti-theist banners…

  12. Daz says:

    ‘The greatest book ever written’,
    Say those who are smitten.
    They shout of the love it contains.
    We of sceptical bent
    Are not so content.
    So they line up to stone out our brains.

  13. beechnut says:

    And it just goes to show how 2.3 billion people can be wrong. Seriously.

  14. David Amies says:

    You really are a caution! Keep it up; it makes my day.
    David Amies

  15. beechnut says:

    There once was an Arabic feller
    Who decided to write a best-seller.
    He wrote god and his lore,
    He wrote puddles of gore,
    Which did quite well, for such a bad speller.

  16. Jerry w says:

    It’s possible that Mo may have pulled that 2.3 billion number directly out of his ass, it’s easy to visualize if you look at the curvature of his arms.

  17. @beachnut and @ Daz
    Oh no, Nassar’s limerick meme’s spreading
    Soon that’ll be all we are reading
    Thoughts distorted to fit
    Some simulacrum of wit
    Please desist. I don’t like where we’re heading.

  18. xxxFred says:

    @DH et al:

    There are few things worse
    in the Literate universe
    than when a poet tries
    to untangle truth and lies
    with ramblings in badly-written verse.

    (See what I mean?)

  19. Jobrag says:

    “To be reveared and cherished more then life itself”
    If a suicide bomber at the moment of martydom destroys a Koran does he / she still go to paradise?

  20. Jobrag says:

    There really are few things worse.
    In all of the known universe
    Then a poet who tries
    To expose silly lies
    With annoyingly non-scanning verse

  21. Jobrag says:

    Damn no edit; with apologies to xxxFred

  22. Hobbes says:

    Love it!

  23. HaggisForBrains says:

    Jesus Christ the redeemer
    Is a bit of a dreamer
    Especially when he has a go
    At berating Mo.

    Who needs limericks?

    H/t E C Bentley

  24. HaggisForBrains you need a last line.
    Jesus Christ the redeemer
    Is a bit of a dreamer
    Especially when he has a go
    At berating Mo.
    Who can really be quite the screamer.

    I suppose this will just have to run its course and die a natural death. 🙂

  25. Sondra says:

    sublime

  26. Author says:

    Haggis for Brains
    Has taken the reins.
    He’s one of the very few
    To champion the clerihew.

  27. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    It isn’t a very cool pose
    To put down one’s thoughts in bad prose
    So please stop wasting time
    Finding just the right rhyme
    Or where it will stop heaven knows.

    Love the punchline Author. I have to admit that as I was reading Mo’s flowery description a line popped into my head, one that I once heard my mother say to one of my brothers many moons ago, and for some reason I half-expected Jesus to come out with. “For the millionth time, please stop exaggerating”!

  28. HaggisForBrains says:

    HaggisForBrains you need a last line.

    @ DH – I think not!

    DH was too quick
    To make a limerick
    He never knew
    Of the clerihew

  29. JohnM says:

    @DH

    If you want to rhyme reading with spreading and heading, then it needs R 🙂

  30. Brother Daniel says:

    @JohnM: But the really sophisticated literary types sometimes like to use “eye-rhymes” — words that look like they ought to rhyme, but don’t. I don’t get the appeal, myself.

  31. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Not seeing the latest comments again. Is this part of a conspiracy to stop the spread of relgious criticism? A problem with caching (whatever that means)? Or do I need to discard my valve set and invest in a new computer?

  32. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    A warning to all you bad poets
    You’re about to land right in the poo
    Mcgonagall’s just ‘phoned his lawyer
    I think he’s intending to sue.

  33. Unruly Simian says:

    Why is it the we are one this thread saying that a mere 2.3 billion are wrong when its more like 4.6 billion minus the rest of us (atheists’)?

  34. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Unruly Simian, the figures are correct. 2.3 billion are wrong, the other 2.3 billion are simply deluded.

    And thank you for not posing your question in verse
    The compulsion to rhyme was becoming a curse 🙂

  35. Beggars Belief says:

    This strip triggered memory of a passage from a book I read recently on ‘the seeding of Indian civilisation’. (I thought I ought to learn a bit more about Hinduism and Buddhism as I’ve always happily written them off as bollocks along with Christianity and Islam, and had a nagging feeling especially with Buddha that maybe this was unfair and perhaps he was just misunderstood. Turns out from what I can surmise, he was slightly deluded and a bit of a sexist, but in no way a war-mongering kiddy fiddler.)

    ANYWAY, it was a great book and the relevance is that I found the comments of the author (a focused historian and matter-of-fact atheist) on the ‘revealed’ texts of Hinduism to be very astute, and I was pleased/interested to find them more widely applicable to other religious texts. The book is ‘Gem in the Lotus’ by Abraham Eraly, and I will paste the passage here if the form lets me. (And apologies, I’m slightly pissed.)

  36. Beggars Belief says:

    “But to ignore the crudity of the Vedas, as has often been done, would be to falsify Vedic civilisation, and to remove the hymns from their true socio-cultural context. It is sometimes contended that the Vedas are too subtle to be understood by merely examining the meanings of their words, and that their essential spirituality lies hidden behind the veil of the obvious. Not really. The esoteric wisdom that scholiasts claim to find in the Vedas are mostly thoughts that they themselves insert into the hymns, not the thoughts of the Vedic sages. There is indeed much that is obscure in the Vedas, but this is not because of transcendental mysticism, but largely because of the archaic nature of the Vedic language. Besides, the Vedas are mostly poetry, often composed by sages in a state of ecstasy induced by drinking Soma, and, like all poetry, they make sudden allegorical twists and turns.

    All this makes the interpretation of several Vedic passages difficult. But where the meaning is explicit, as in many of the hymns, they are in such perfect harmony with the thoughts and aspirations of the primitive people who composed them, that there is no need to look in them for meanings other then what they evidently say, or to imagine that the obscure passages contain some cabalistic mystery. As for the few metaphysical hymns in the Vedas, they are as obviously metaphysical as the temporal hymns are obviously temporal. There really is no mystery.”

  37. @Beggars Belief Slightly pissed is entirely the correct condition in which to join this crowd. Welcome back.

  38. ShaunOTD says:

    *Head-desk*
    STOPITSTOPITSTOPITSTOPITSTOPIT!
    You’re all better poets than NbH, but there are limits… 😎
    @ AoS – I’m getting déjà vu about the ‘stop exaggerating’ line – hasn’t it been used here before?
    @Daz maybe swap ‘Best’ for ‘Greatest? It scans better.

  39. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Just catching up on missing comments (again).
    Now this is starting to be quite a pain.
    Computer problems, who’d have thought it?
    Internet gods, I pray, please sort it.

  40. Author says:

    @AoS – What browser are you using? Does a ‘hard refresh’ not sort out the missing comments problem for you?

    Is anyone else having this problem? I thought I’d sorted it out.

  41. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Darwin Harmless; love your comment to Beggars Belief, but as a virtual teetotaller I now almost feel like an outsider. Are’slightly stoned’ and ‘heavily medicated’ acceptable alternatives to the demon drink?

    ShaunOTD, not sure if it’s been used here, but I’ve heard it a lot in the past in a humourous context. The difference with my mother was that she didn’t say it in jest, and didn’t realise what she’d said to cause me to crease up with laughter.

    At last, not a rhyme in sight
    Beating the compuls……..only kidding 🙂

  42. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Author, I’m using google, the hard refresh (hold shift & click refresh) doesn’t work. I admit to complete computer illiteracy – I find quantum physics easier to understand than the workings of a pc – so maybe it’s down to my ancient laptop, an 8yrs old Dell D610 running Windows 7? Or could it have anything to do with using a dongle for internet access?

  43. Stonyground says:

    I am enjoying the limerics but some of them don’t scan very well. A limeric is supposed to be 8-8-5-5-8, like this:

    One two three four five six sev’n eight.
    One two three four five six sev’n eight.
    One two three four five.
    One two three four five.
    One two three four five six sev’n eight.

    Lines one, two and five should rhyme. Lines three and four should rhyme. Simples.

  44. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Oh, okay then, Stonyground. But you cheated, you can’t just use the word ‘eight’ three times. What’s so funny about counting up to eight and five anyway? That’s a terrible example of a limerick.
    Joking aside, I think a potwa is coming your way; you tell us that it should be 8-8-5-5-8 but then cram 9 into lines 1, 2 & 5. Apostrophising ‘seven’ to ‘sev’n’ still makes two syllables, so those lines, to use your vernacular, just don’t scan. Oh, and you compounded the error by mis-spelling ‘limeric(k)s’ too. Both minor errors I know, but unforgivable when taken in context. It’s probably best not to litter your criticism of others with the same mistakes you’re criticising them for.

    Now I’ve got that off my chest, here’s my stab at the 8-8-5-5-8 formation:-

    A caravan raider named Mo
    Said “Off to jihad you shall go
    “Put bombs in a pack
    “Strap tight to your back
    “And praise Allah loud ‘fore ye blow”

  45. James Rowland says:

    “… cherished more than life itself”

    Yeah, if only they were kidding about that it’d be a lot less dangerous.

  46. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/man-faces-five-years-for-8216god-does-not-exist-facebook-post/7796

    Yikes. One more country to scratch off my itinerary. My world is shrinking. This is unbefuckinglievable.

  47. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    DArwin Harmless, I’ve just read your link; this line had me in stitches;
    “Indonesia….recognises the right to practice six religions in total: Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhism and Confucianism. Atheism is, however, illegal.”
    So you can believe in one god or a whole pantheon of the buggers, you can even tell the members of five of the ‘official’ religions that their gods don’t exist as long as you believe in the sixth, but you just can’t go one god further? In effect they’re saying that they acknowledge the fact that religions are arbitrary and a matter of personal taste – and therefore equally implausible – but you’ve got to pick one to believe in or go to jail. Ouch! I don’t think I can manage the mental gymnastics neccesary to make sense of that law.
    It’s akin to an opposite version of the strict no-alchohol laws in the Middle-East. Can you imagine a country where you’re told “You have to alcoholic to live here. You can only drink spirits or beer or wine, you can only drink one of them and nothing else, but if you’re teetotal, or declare a preference for coffee or tea or orange juice, you go to jail.

    Anyway, got to go. It’s my grandson’s 2nd birthday and I’m just about to decorate the scrumptious chocolate cake (4-layers deep, sandwiched with strawberry jam ((U.S. jelly)) and vanilla butter-cream) that I’ve baked for him.
    Fancy a slice anyone? 🙂

  48. azoomer says:

    @AoS
    try Ctrl+F5 for google chrome
    worked for me

  49. xavier says:

    In regards to Indonesia, being an Atheist isn’t actually illegal. There’s actually an area in the country that is quite well known which is inhabited by Animist. Well known that it has become a kind of tourist spot for the locals.

    Also, the Ahmadiyya, that islamic brand that is viled by the rest of the muslim word, are actually tolerated (though not recognized) by the government. It’s the muslim civilians that are actually abusing towards the Ahmadiyyas.

    The thing is every Indonesians are required to have an Resident ID card much like every US citizen must have an SS number. It’s needed to apply for a driver license, open a bank account, get married and such. In that ID, your religion is printed on it. It will only print the six officially recognized religion. If you are a Shinto then they’ll round it to Buddhism (despite the major differences of the two).

    Should you convert to another and decide to change the religion printed on your ID, you will be required to a have a written statement from a priest/imam/pastor and signed affidavit from the local magistrate in your residential area.

    Also, the government doesn’t accept a person marrying another person from a different religion. But it doesn’t mean you go to jail for it either.

  50. xavier says:

    In regards to the 2 point something billion who reads the Quran. I can attest that every Indonesian muslims (the largest muslim population in the world) had read or memorized the Quran. But if you ask if they understood as in comprehend the text they are reading is another matter entirely.

    I can read Spanish text just fine, but I absolutely have no idea what it means. One can easily pick up any Indonesian muslim off the street, show him the Quran and ask him to translate one and just one sentence word per word. 99.99% he would not be able to. They can read but no comprehension whatsoever. Hence every time i hear the 2 billion magic number I just laugh.

    This is something that is prevalent among the majority of non Arab muslims. So imagine some 200 million people reading a book which they clearly have no clue what the text means and yet revered it completely. That pretty much describes Indonesian muslims. Which would also be a relevant description for Malaysia and Pakistan.

    Think of it as the Christian Bible before Martin Luther.

    In retrospect, it’s kind of smart. It limits the power to only the few, minimize any polemic and keep feeding the masses with whatever.

  51. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Azoomer, thanks for the tip, I’ll give it a go next time; it has to be better than restarting my computer every time, which so far has been the only way to see comments left after I’ve turned it on.

    Xavier, that’s a very salient point to compare modern Muslims to pre-Luther Christians. The church leaders have always been opposed to educating the masses, particularly in literacy and the sciences. Where they can no longer resist the flow of education they have instead insisted on controlling it, hence Catholic schools, CofE schools etc. It’s one of the reasons I strongly support non-religious charitable efforts to bring secular education to the developing nations; it reduces the ‘mushroom’ effect of keeping them in the dark and feeding them on shit.

    ps. The cake was delicious 🙂

  52. beechnut says:

    @ Darwin Harmless

    I’m so sorry, I couldn’t resist,
    Just this once, the muse had to insist.
    But of course, you are right,
    It’s a horrible plight,
    And I promise I’ll try to desist.

  53. @beechnut Good one. Maybe next time you’ll be stronger.

  54. spoing says:

    Overrated the Koran must be
    Yet 2 billion twats disagree.
    It’s said they’ve no sense of humour
    – To confirm this rumour,
    Consult Mr Salman Rushdie

  55. IanB says:

    The comment on Indonesian ID cards reminded me of the conversations I had in Lebanon with the locals when I was working there a couple of years ago. It seems derigueur to know everyone’s religion, with the place having I was told some 20+ officially recognised religions or sects. My non believing led to some puzzled conversations with my local colleagues and customer contact, not at all antagonistic, just puzzlement. Although another local colleague who hailed originally from Iran also admitted to being an atheist, at least to me.

    It was him who told me a tale (maybe apocryphal) that on a recent government form a contact of his had under religion put atheist only to have the paperwork returned with the query – “are you a muslim or a christian atheist?”

  56. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Just been looking through the archives. http://www.jesusandmo.net/2006/10/30/suit/ made me laugh so loud I woke my wife; not bad considering she’s gone to bed and I’m in the study.

    IanB, your last pragraph reminds me of a comment from the Irish comedian Dara O’Briain, an atheist who was raised Catholic. To paraphrase; “According to my mother, not believing in god doesn’t make me an atheist, it just makes me a bad Catholic”.

  57. ... says:

    Hey!!!im not going to do anything expect saying this comment
    dont insult islam because everyone have different believe,I believe in allah
    why did you insult islam?!!!
    Please dont insult islam anymore…
    I dont want likes or comment
    and im using fake account
    1 more im a spammer.

  58. Dr_John_the_Wipper says:

    Just trying to loose the + – signs in my name

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