shreds

Not literally. It’s a British exclamation of surprise.

Thanks to Joe McKeever, who really believes this stuff (see item 6), for helping with this week’s script.

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Discussion (48)¬

  1. Eric Martin says:

    That stuff by McKeever is weird

  2. DNAsre says:

    This is a compelling argument…and I am tilted a little bit more to that side of he fence ….

  3. Trevor H says:

    Jeez, so much BS – I couldn’t wade thru it

    This is the fog of belief that clouds the mind

  4. Oozoid says:

    Author, you deserve every penny of Patreon patronage for merely abiding the ramblings of Joe McKeever. That you manage to joke about it is worthy of a Peace Prize – but not the Nobel Peace Prize: we all know how worthless be that contrived nonsense.

  5. Tomas says:

    This is awesome:”the miracles–the existence of Holy Scriptures (their uniformity, the prophecies, the clarity”. And: “the existence of the Man of Galilee (His birth, life, death, and resurrection;”
    As I understand it, there is very little proof of the existence of this guy, other than in the “holy Scriptures” themselves…

  6. tfkreference says:

    The flaws do say much about the nature of the divine.

    As for McKeever, what a list! The sophistry is exquisite.

  7. John says:

    The pigeon!

  8. Three-tigers says:

    Good grief! as Charlie Brown would say.

    Joe McKeever really needs his imaginary friend. On the other hand, I worked out at the age of 7 (at Sunday School) that all this miracle stuff was literally unbelievable, so why should I believe anything else the adults around me were saying? Atheism had me converted…..

  9. Peter Nason says:

    The best things about McKeever’s page are the google ads.
    The existence of the church is simple economics. When you can get money for nothing and monks for free, Now that ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it.

  10. Mockingbird says:

    Perfection! – Even the pigeons can recognize how unsupportable the Catholic Church (and all the rest) really are. Good to see “natures little irony-meter” get into all four frames, well done Author. I wouldn’t trust my pigeon alone with a priest.

  11. Max T. Furr says:

    A true and beautiful analysis of self-delusion. It is the bedrock of religious fundamentalism around the world.

  12. raymondm says:

    Taking sexual advantage of people is contemptible. It’s particularly reprehensible when the abusers are acting from a position of supposed moral authority.

    At the risk of being accused of “what-aboutism”… Every sort of human organization suffers from this: Churches, schools, scouting groups, sports teams, Hollywood, families. And if people are *proud* of their group, they want to protect its good name. They will be quiet.

    This is not to excuse either the abuse or the cover-up. It’s just a comment on what humans do.

  13. Yeesh! That McKeever guy – right at the beginning of the post –

    ““In the beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1)

    Nowhere does the Bible try to prove the existence of God. He is. Period. Deal with it, earthlings.”

    Powerful reasoning.

  14. M27Holts says:

    That McKeever…what a thinker. His intellect is similar to our own pet religionist…..and with such giants of contemplation marking our atheist cards…what chance do we have?

  15. Chiefy says:

    “…and the existence of honest inquiry among believers (a sure sign, if you ask me, that God’s people are into Truth and nothing else).”
    I don’t know if the pigeon will recover. I know that honest inquiry is what lead me to reject that kind of pretense of Truth.

  16. Jim Baerg says:

    I have a copy of the abridgement by D.C. Somervell of Arnold Toynbee’s “A Study of History”. Somervell put in a foot note to a section on the Papacy, which I found funny, but Joe McKeever appears to have read & taken seriously:

    A well known Roman Catholic man of letters once remarked in private conversation (and his name can therefore not be given): ‘I believe that the Catholic Church is divine and the proof of its divinity I take to be this: that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.’

  17. PBH says:

    Not a new way of arguing. This from De Rosa, Vicars of Christ, writing about Richard Madden (1798-1886):

    He saw the torture-chamber [in the Papal Palace, Avignon] with its acoustical device of irregular walls for absorbing the screams
    of the victims. He stood in the judgement hall where the prisoners had stood and noted above his head
    ‘several circular apertures in the ceiling, about five or six inches in diameter, communicating with an
    upper chamber, where the prosecutors, it is said, and those who took down in writing the proceedings and
    answers of the prisoners, were stationed, unseen by him; and yet by whom every word he uttered was
    recorded’. […]

    As they came out into bright sunlight, Madden’s friend, David Wire, a Baptist, asked: ‘Well,
    Madden, what do you think of your religion now?’

    Madden thought hard before replying, ‘I feel persuaded, Wire, that it must be a true religion, for if
    it had not a divine and vital principle in it, it never could have survived the crimes that have been
    committed in its name.’

  18. Son of Glenner says:

    I notice Mr McKeever quotes our old friend, Pascal’s Wager (item 4), which to me is a sign of desperation, amounting to a tacit admission that other apologetics are on shaky ground.

  19. Isaac A Jones says:

    I’m afraid that Mr McKeever lost me at, “By and large, atheists are a miserable lot.”

  20. JoJo says:

    …..and we all know that God is an Englishman.

  21. paradoctor says:

    If that’s what he calls logic, then how about this for logic:

    If it does good, then it is holy;
    If it does evil, then it is holy;
    Therefore it is not holy.

  22. M27Holts says:

    McKeever cannot possibly be applying logic. Since he does not understand it. The witterings of madmen are a sad indictment of a large proportion of homo sapiens. The golga-fricham solution is perhaps the only way out?

  23. David ashton says:

    time to revisit this little ditty.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjJ_b8isMzc

  24. IanB says:

    Wow McKeever atheists tend to be a pretty miserable lot, while the best Christians I know are also the most put-together, positive, and effective people I’d have to say IMLE the converse is mostly true

  25. Colin McLachlan says:

    Peter Nason – nice Dire Straits reference, but “Money for nothing and the kids for free” would have been closer.

  26. Mockingbird says:

    So – Heaven will be full of bullshit, just like Mckeever?

  27. Laripu says:

    David Ashton, I like the Tim Minchin song. There’s something to be said for relentless repetition.

    It seems like J&M today can be summed with this bit if illogic: “it’s so bad that therefore it must be good”.

    The pigeon is the only one of the three with any sense.

  28. jb says:

    For those who are offended by Tim Minchin’s disrespectful language, I notice that there is also a clean version of the song, suitable for all delicate ears.

  29. Chiefy says:

    Wow, jb! That “clean version” hurt my delicate ears much more than the uncensored version. But, hey, thanks anyway.

  30. M27Holts says:

    The pigeon cleverly depicts the “birds of a feather, stick together” maxim. The real reason that mind-bogglingly stupid people group together and mindlessly give in to their clan tendencies…The emperors clothes applies to nearly everthing stupid people attach themselves to…

  31. jb says:

    It’s not just stupid people. Even smart people are subject to groupthink, because even smart people aren’t nearly smart enough to fully understand many of the issues they are trying to deal with, and are often too full of themselves to realize this. As a horrible example, consider all the smart intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century who were absolutely, totally, 100% convinced that Communism was The Way™.

  32. samhuff says:

    Fe: Jim Baerg

    How about the American Republican party? Perhaps more absurd.

  33. Archbullshit of Cunterbury says:

    You will see that I am off on a three month paid jolly. I intend to return with an even bigger hat. Post here to tell Boris J that you feel there should be lots more highly-paid unelected bishops in the House of Lords. https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/archbishop-justin-welby-take-sabbatical-and-study-leave-2021

  34. Mockingbird says:

    Archbullshit of Cunterbury. – You will see that I am off on a three month paid jolly. I intend to return with an even bigger hat. Post here to tell Boris J that you feel there should be more highly-paid unelected bishops in the House of Lords.

    https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/archbishop-justin-welby-take-sabbatical-and-study-leave-2021

  35. misanthropope says:

    jb

    stupid is something completely different from the absence of smart.

  36. M27Holts says:

    Mockingbird…where is cunterbury? Should have been rhe next town from Trumpton….

  37. Mockingbird says:

    M27 – Ho ho. Pew, Hugh, Barny McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb. Plus, of course, The Archbullshit of Cunterbury. Have you seen the regalia this dickhead wears? The hat is something special, most humans would die of shame, but not him.

  38. Jim Baerg says:

    samhuff:
    I note that the ‘knavish imbecility’ of the Republican party greatly increased as it became dominated by the *Religious* Right.

  39. Laripu says:

    Perhaps the biggest religious nonsense, inextricably tied to the American Republican party, is prosperity theology: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology

    On the one hand it convinces people that wealth is a sign of god’s grace, so super rich people must be good people (case in point: Donald Trump), except when they support liberal causes… in which case they’re slurred as being servants of the devil, evil globalist Jews. (Case in point: George Soros.)

    On the other hand, since part of that belief is that donating to the church will increase your prosperity, it’s a great tool for liberating the dollars of the deluded. These accumulated funds can then be used for more ostentatious displays of wealth, again indicative of the virtue of the sanctimonious con artist.

    Furthermore, race is involved, since the gullible are easily convinced that dark skin is another sign of lack of grace.

    The immorality is beyond my command of language. I yield to Chaucer, from the Pardoner’s Tale:

    Thou woldest make me kisse thyn olde breech,
    And swere it were a relyk of a seint,
    Though it were with thy fundement depeint!
    But, by the croys which that Seint Eleyne fond,
    I wolde I hadde thy coillons in myn hond
    In stide of relikes or of seintuarie.
    Lat kutte hem of, I wol thee helpe hem carie;
    They shul be shryned in an hogges toord!

    Yes, I love Chaucer. What a recommendation: preachers should have their testicles cut off and enshrined in pig shit. 🙂

  40. M27Holts says:

    Anyway. The Septics went up in my estimation by voting out Trump.. and on the subject of big hats….I have always marvelled (at weddings , christenings and funerals) that the geezer in the dress and big hat is afforded such respect as he spouts shite from a book of fiction from a time when most people knew less than your average six year old in 2020….he should be ridiculed….and yet he isn’t…

  41. postdoggerel says:

    You guys have seen how we dumped trump and fooked with his sycophants. I hope yer religion infested govt, with all its faults and such, could be unbuggered from them. Thanks for the Chaucer.

  42. samhuff says:

    Ah, Our exPresident unelect is the perfect candidate for the next Pope. That he is no Roman Catholic (If Roman Catholic why not New Youk Catholic Church?) many previous Popes weren’t Catholic either.

  43. Mockingbird says:

    You’ve got to read this to believe it: Here is a pastor who is prepared to risk YOUR life to support HIS guesswork.

    Yeah, that sounds like the church.

    Bonus: Note the pigeon.

    https://www.newsletter.co.uk/health/ni-pastor-vows-keep-church-open-despite-covid-lockdown-3043858
    Government survey.

  44. Mockingbird says:

    You’ve got to read this to believe it: Here is a pastor who is prepared to risk YOUR life to support HIS guesswork. Yeah, that sounds like the church.

    Bonus: Note the pigeon.

    https://www.newsletter.co.uk/health/ni-pastor-vows-keep-church-open-despite-covid-lockdown-3043858
    Government survey.

  45. Laripu says:

    Hey M27Holts, I understand why you refer to Americans as Septics, since septic tanks rhymes with Yanks. Since that’s mildly insulting, I propose that Brits ought to be called Flabbies, since flabby tits rhymes with Brits. You wouldn’t mind, would you?

    I’m very glad that Trump will no longer be president, but I’m terrified about what ruin he might bring now that he has nothing to lose. An attack on Iran? A _nuclear_ attack on Iran?

    He’s just recently allowed the government to start selling the rights to drill for oil in a national wildlife refuge in Alaska. I wonder how he’ll manage to get the kickbacks. Probably very well laundered through foreign banks.

    https://www.npr.org/2020/11/16/935527352/trump-administration-rushes-to-sell-oil-rights-in-arctic-national-wildlife-refug

  46. M27Holts says:

    Laripu Lar….you can call brits what you like. I identify as Mancunian anyway…us Mancs don’t care for being lumped with those flabby-tits from that there London…We really want to be the independant republic of mancunia…peace brother…

  47. Laripu says:

    M27Holts, ahh you make it to easy. You can be one of the Publics… Public wanks. Rhymes with Mancs.
    Or … Wound. Because wound that festers … Manchester.

    Love and kisses,
    the septic

  48. Dr John the Wipper says:

    Laripu,M27:
    Although I fully agree that Mr Orangeman is “a little” wacko, accusing him of warmonguering is doing him injustice.
    As a matter fact, he IS the FIRST American president in history, that has started NOT A SINGLE war. And the locking-up of immigrants? He “only” inherited the practice and the facilities. But, he was not really into ending the practice….

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