*"I would rather be descended from a humble ape than from a great gentleman who uses considerable intellectual gifts in the service of falsehood. " * – Thomas Huxley
Even better is to image google search it. Quite a little cottage industry of Jesus Horse are out there. The one linked to earlier with Jebus cuddling the baby dino is best though.
As much as I hate attributing false quotes to people I disagree with, I can’t really get upset at the phrase ‘Jesus Horses’.
My name is F (not really), and I laughed wholeheartedly at Sarah Silverman’s DVD entitled ‘Jesus Is Magic’, which was named for the line (quoted from memory) from her monologue:
“My husband is Catholic. But it’s not an issue-- wee tell our daughter that mommy is one of God’s chosen people, and daddy believes Jesus is magic.”
If any Christians are offended at this quote, I sincerely hope you someday grow a pair.
I hadn’t really thought about it in that light. You know, I was brought up in a small town where everyone believed the same thing. Some left the church later or changed their beliefs in other ways. But I guess to someone who has never had any religious beliefs or experiences with something that is mystical, I guess all of it is equally bizarre. In for a penny, in for a pound! It must be very, very confusing to the non-believer.
Kalhoun, you can laugh all you want if it’s good-natured and you don’t point and you use your indoor voice. But tell me, what is this magic underwear of which you speak? Can I get it at the same store where I usually purchase my wadded panties?
Damn. The Urban Dictionary done shot me down. How can I argue with that thing which defines that which is made up. Aaaarrrrgh!
See my comment to Kalhoun so that you will know that I am at least reading your content without offense and trying to see it with new eyes. And although you are right that I don’t refer to a “magic sky pixie,” I do sometimes think of God as “The Great Cosmic Glue,” so I may not be thinking exactly in the terms that you assume either.
You think that our beliefs are “genuinely absurd.” I can understand that. I think some of the revelations of science that just blow me away are also “genuinely absurd,” yet they appear to be true. I’m talking about things like the universe being on a curve, the existence of black holes, the existence of dark matter and so forth.
A sky pixie would be much too small. Where’s your imagination? If you are not going to believe in my God, then you are going to have to not believe in something that is much, much bigger than you have come up with so far.
Actually, I’ve always wanted to respond to you just to write your cool user name.
Ravenman, I applaud the entirety of your post. But I have a couple of comments to make in response to this:
There are those who think that almost everyone living within seven hundred miles of those public squares believe in what those “Jesus horses” represent.
It is important, then, that everyone know that it is “biting, socially relevant mockery” and not a true characteristic of the thing being mocked.
It is even more important to keep those public squares free of religious materials.
First, please capitalize Southerners just as you did North Easterners.
Then, delete however and insert are concerned.
Finally, add an apostrophe after the s in Easterners.
Yes, you will find many, many mistakes in my posts. Neither you nor I are very elitist. Look at the quote from Cecil:
What kind of spin should you put on a person who lives in a Red State but in a Blue City? That’s the problem with broadbrush painting. You miss out on the details of individuals. Globs of people are generally boring.
Besides, those states aren’t really red or blue. This map is closer to the truth. (Scroll down to the second map.) Most states are closer to shades of purple. But if you are driving across country, you are in big trouble if you make assumptions. And there won’t be much red or blue to guide you.
Wendell, you must be a kindred spirit. You say it so much better.
And that’s a good example of what to do when the other side unloads a zinger: if you can’t ignore it, you go with it and try to top it or turn it around. Huxley hadn’t been slandered, he’d been insulted, his views made fun of, and he was smart enough to know it and honest enough to respond in kind (the “falsehood” he refers to isn’t the joke, it’s creationism).
Notice the dearth of claims that he had been falsely accused of anything, the absence of appeals to authority to make Wilberforce modify his rhetoric, the lack of smarmy hints that of course he’d be amenable to persuasion if only the other side weren’t so mean and nasty, the dire shortage of hints that their joke justified any lies he might care to tell.
How long would Huxley’s quote have been remembered had it gone like this? “As I had been told to do, I contacted TubaDiva about Bishop Wilberforce’s misleading rhetoric. My plea fell on deaf ears.”
It is confusing, because there are so many different beliefs under one umbrella of christianity. Personally, that fact alone makes it more difficult for me to take it seriously. There just isn’t much in the way of continuity.
Oh, noooooo…the magic underwear is doled out by stores who have special permission from the mormon church.
http://www.mormon-underwear.com/. You aren’t supposed to be able to buy them unless you’re a card-carrying mormon. (Will Mitt the Shitt cop to it? I have my doubts.)
Attention: The following link is a humor piece based on the real beliefs behind the mormon underwear. The star of this piece, while providing accurate information regarding the magic underwear (as provided by current and ex-mormons), IS laughing at them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsXzHLiHTOU
I’ll let the mormons among us determine if this is good-natured. The inside voice is obviously not being used, as in addition to this Youtube piece, this was also broadcast on IFC. I’m guessing they’ll be offended.
“I’d rather be the ape” - A Monkey With a Gun
I give you the LOLvurzhun.
You’re welcome.
In his debate with Wilberforce, Huxley said that he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth. (See above.) In this, I’m afraid that you differ from Huxley.
My contact with Tuba Diva was not an appeal to authority. It was an appeal to capability. I asked only that she amend the title so that it reflect the truth rather than obscure it.
And I also posted the truth within that particular thread as well.
And returned to the subject here.
As for the Wilberforce : Huxley debate itself, I think that Wilburforce left with his evidence of the remnants of a tail between his legs. I am no Creationist. But I do take issue with Huxley on this statement:
‘The principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God’ – Thomas Huxley
That’s true only if one takes everything in the Bible literally. Worldwide, most Christians don’t. Of course, in some measure we can probably thank Huxley for that.
It was a Pit thread, and the expectation for absolute veracity in titles is much lower here. If I titled a thread, **“Zoe is a God-Rotten Sweaty Lump of Dogmeat Whore Bitch Strumpet” **, would you also entreat the mods to remove the whore part, in the interests of accuracy?
Neither description fits my argument. I wasn’t was talking about the South in general, not just the Deep South. I don’t know if most New Yorkers make them out to be ignorant or not. Jimmy Fallon did a few years ago, but he did it as a joke and not necessarily as a reflection of his real views.
All human beings are ignorant of many things. But there are people who seem to take pleasure in painting other groups of people as being inferior in intellect according to where they live.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/legend.html
for an interesting look at how the popular account of the Huxley-Wilberforce debate may have been a tale that grew in the telling.
You’re mistaking willful ignorance for a point of view. The idea that the earth is 10000 years old, that dinosaurs never existed, or that man and dinosaurs coexisted in spite of all of the scientific evidence is not a point of view. It’s pure stupidity and as such deserves to be mocked.
I may have to rethink the “humorless” diagnosis. Anyone who could unload this howler
with a straight face has most comics I know beat a mile. Little did I know: I thought TubaDiva’s ability to change thread titles to suit individual posters was predicated on her position as administrator, not on her ability to type. But that barely beats the subtlety with which Zoe, having been twice shown the exact words Huxley used, still manages to get his meaning just a little bit wrong.
Other misleading assertions are less funny. It may be true that most Christians worldwide are not Biblical literalists (especially if you count Catholics), but it is true that creationism is the product and the pet of that brood, and that’s what we’re talking about. I think it’s likely that Wilberforce and Ussher wouldn’t need a second glance to disavow any association with creationists today, but neither would a lot of poll respondants if they knew more about those with whom they were aligning themselves.
And I’ll need better proof that someone owns the truth (or at least can find it with both hands, a map, a team of Sherpas and a nose ring tethered to it by a very short leash) before I’ll bother with their attempts to define my relationship to it.
OK, fair enough.
On what basis do you object to Huxley’s statement? Absent the Bible, what do we look to for the Word of God? Can you speak for God on this issue?