Brother Richard gets a gold star for being on the show yet again.
This week we begin with a correction from last week’s show and then jump into the news: The UK conciders punting the clergy out of parliment, meanwhile France conciders punting some Muslims. When did France get so hard-core? We talk about “prayer booths.” Well, rather, we clown on them mercilessly. Then, to wrap it up, we talk about the second best father’s day gift money can buy, the dangers of drinking tea, and we make fun of the Sabbath.
Another week, another blasphemy. Oh, here’s the picture I promised during the show: me after my father’s day strawberry shortcake binge.
Mmmm!
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‘Conciders?’ I think you mean ‘considers’.
Love the podcast, BTW!!!!
Just a point or two on the issue of the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, wanting to have the wearing of the burqa in France legally forbidden.
I take great exception to the naive stance you took in the podcast whereby you said that they should only be banned from wearing it if they are being forced to wear it. How do you propose that a woman\girl who lives under threat of violence or death from her family for not wearing it actually\practically “decide” to not wear it when that decision may be the last she ever makes.
Sarkozy is right, the burqa is dehumanizing to the wearer, and belittling, and damaging to any non muslim female who sees her fellow women demeaned so in public. The burqa wearing woman is in effect stripped of her identity in public as opposed to muslim women who merely wear the hijab which only covers the womans hair as a sign of modesty.
Some claim that no one forces Muslim women in France to wear the burqa but that they wear it of their own free will but that is an oversimplified view of the matter. Coercion, or slave conditioning of these females begins from birth. They have the mentality of slaves who are pleased to please their masters, and I would have thought you guys would have looked a little deeper than to merely in effect turn your backs on them.
Religion makes slaves of it’s adherents and the burqa is a real world filthy manifestation of that dogmatic Islamic mindset which I decry as inhumane!
I would like to pass comment on the church using beer as bait to lure men into the pews. Unlike yourself who sang the praises of this practice like simpleminded booze craving teenagers I find this desperate underhanded practice revolting. The churches have heretofore decried the demon “drink” and it’s often corrosive negative effects on the family structure, often citing that it leads to Wife Beating, Child Beating, Infidelity and sin in general, yet now they are in such dire straits regarding attendance that they will in effect prostitute themselves by having “Children no less” handing out bottles of beer to men who come to church can Strippers on the alter, live donkey sex shows in the aisles , and thong wearing altar boys distributing spliffs and condoms to parishioners be far behind!
Instead of getting all giddy over how fantastic an idea this is for the church you guys should have ripped that church a new Rectory over this. In fact I am often very dismayed by the general admiration you seem to have for the theory and practices of the faithers on many issues. I can’t help but wonder, given many of your weak as water stands on certain issues if you have not yet fully detached yourselves from religiosity, or perhaps you were once more detached and now find yourselves being sucked back in? If you find yoursevles unable to resist the call to prayer, please do us all the kindness of sparing us from having to suffer your descent into darkness by ending these pod-casts now before your mind disease spreads to your listeners with the effect of devolving some of them back to theistic life forms as well.
I commented on the point you are making on the episode in question and I have spoken about this topic on several occasions on the Chariots of Iron podcast. It’s a touchy thing. I agree that most women wear the burqa due to social pressure, then again; I wear pants due to social pressure. Why don’t you want to see my schlong? Are you oppressing me?
But I digress. If we want to talk about nativity: it is naive to think that there is not a single woman who does not truly choose this way of life for herself, and if there is, it is not the place of the state to tell her what she can and cannot wear as long as it does not interfere with the lives of others (such as obscuring the face for the purposes of identification.) Not every woman is born into Islam, it didn’t get as big as it is without gaining converts. It’s a human rights issue on both sides of the veil, ignoring that and using strong words does not make you right, it just makes you loud.
If I yelled at them for this I would be a hypocrite.
Would I praise a humanist meeting or other similar gathering for having free beers? Yes. As that is the case, it would be hypocritical of me to criticize the Church of England for doing so. Of course they are using it as a gimmick to get people into the church, which is no different than a mattress store using one of those annoying sign wavers to get people to come in and test drive a Posturepedic. If I accept their right to exist then I must accept that they are going to function; to do things. I simply don’t have the energy to be angered every time they sneeze.
While the church may frown on drinking in excess, most churches serve wine at mass, so the historicity of the church versus alcohol is questionable at best.
Obviously you love it, otherwise you wouldn’t keep listening. Even bored internet trolls like awesome podcasts. In fact, you seem so invested in what we say I am about to declare you our #1 fan.
This is a touching moment for me.
I do listen to the podcast, and many similar, but if I am your #1 fan you are indeed worse off than I had first realized, so you have my sympathies. As for likening the Church practice of having child barmaids dispensing booze to parishioners in the pews during church service, to a mattress store employing a sign waver to lure customers in, all I can say is that once again you have missed the mark.
Mattress stores are openly engaged in a commercial enterprise and have never had a moral stance against the social evils of sign waving whereas the mainstream churches as a matter of course have based their existence upon the notion of a higher morality which precludes the evils of alcoholism.
You seem to wave away this critique by saying that wine is used in the Church Service but as you may know the faithers believe that the wine is trans-substantiated into the Blood Of Christ (and the wafer into the Body of same) during the mass therefore it is not meant as nor can it be construed as an offering of alcohol to the parishioners similar to passing around margaritas, highballs and pabst blue ribbon to guys who belly up to the altar.
Now I am not averse to drinking beer or viewing porn or watching strippers but for Churches to suddenly start employing any of those tactics to lure victims in is contemptible hypocrisy. Now if the church were to offer free pizza, free oil changes, manicures, back massages, shoeshines or most other goods or services during the mass they would not be crossing the line or moral boundary I am describing, but they are not offering any of those and therein lies the distinction which you apparently fail to grasp.
Instead of recognizing the church hypocrisy and calling them on it you choose to dismiss all of my legitimate criticism by simply declaring me a Troll, but this only reinforces my stand that you are lacking in understanding of this issue as you are on the other issue I have commented on above.
I feel that my criticism is legitimate so your offhand attempt to dismiss it, and discredit me by labeling me a Troll is merely a FAILED attempt at saving yourself.
Wearing the burqa is a choice for many Islamic women in the same way as being a slave was a choice for American Blacks before Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Travel to some Islamic states and see if you can find one living woman walking the street who is not wearing the Pillbox Burqa. The husbands beat them, the fathers beat them, the brothers beat them, the mothers teach them, the religious police enforce the rules. Women have been, and are being killed for not observing this dogma.
Women are conditioned from an early age to know that they are lower in value then their male owners, and must obey these rules. As long as they are in these Islamic households they live with the expectation of adhering to the rules or face the dire consequences of not doing so.
Sure they can choose to run the risk of being killed for it, or just wear it. Black slaves had the choice as well to either fetch the Masters boots, and work his owners fields or run away and be linched if caught.
The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy is attempting to have a law written in his country which will in essence free those women from their portable prisons which they are forced or coerced into wearing whenever they go outside just like Lincoln did with the Emancipation Proclamation to free Negro Slaves, and I support him in his efforts.
I happen to believe that there is no good and sound reason for a woman to be required by religious dogma to wear the Pillbox Burqa whenever she goes outdoors. The men are not required to become invisible by wearing the same identity concealing body encasing garment so why should girls and women have to. This is bad religiosity which relegates women, and girls to the position of second class underlings to their male owners, and it robs them of the right to the promise of gender equality which is a hallmark of western culture.
I would like to see other countries take the progressive stance and do as President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy is attempting to do, but I fear that the the mainstream faithers and pitiable weak atheists will kick up too much of a stink & demand that Islamic religious dogma which binds women under their eyehole equipped sheets must at all costs be respected.
Multiculturalism, and innocuous old rituals are fine to a certain extent but there are some things and religious dogma which just do not deserve to be incorporated into modern societies, and requiring women to live in a mobile prison cell is one such a barbarity. I wonder if the conversation on the Podcast would have been any different if some political leader was trying to introduce legislation to stop the religiocultural practice of Priests offering up the beating heart of a human sacrifice to their gods after slicing it out of the chest of the martyr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture
In response to your first response:
While it is true that religions basically exist so that they can tell people what is and is not morally acceptable–beyond a brief period in the mid 1800’s in which there was an Anglican temperance movement–the Church of England hasn’t had much to say on the “evils of alcohol” and the Church of England hasn’t ever had any official temperance doctrine that I can find. As they have never expressly forbid their congregants to consume alcohol on moral grounds, your argument falls flat. Ergo, mattress sign wavers.
You are painting this as if some hard-line mosque was advertising a free bacon give-away and it simply isn’t so.
As to calling you a troll and dismissing you, I did so because you are behaving like a troll. You came here and insulted me in a rather extravagant fashion, ostensibly because I don’t agree with you. “Troll” is a compliment–with it I am insinuating that you have some measure of control over your histrionic dialogue. If you aren’t just some bored guy looking to start a fight with a total stranger (which is odd enough as it is,) and your unpleasant tirade is a product of some real, visceral reaction to me disagreeing with you, then the only other adjective that seems to apply is “unbalanced,” which is much less kind. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
As to your second post:
I get it. I understand that women are forced by their families to wear the niqab, I understand that women who are born into Islamic families often have no choice in the matter. That doesn’t change the fact that there are women who convert to Islam of their own accord and elect to wear the niqab as a sign of their faith and modesty.
As misguided and repugnant as we might find this, I am personally not prepared to take away a woman’s freedom to wear whatever the hell she wants.
And recent converts aside, a sizable portion of Muslim females prefer to wear a niqab. In the west, I would venture that almost all of them that wear it, wear it by choice. I read the news all day and I have countless stories to back it up. I read a story about a woman who divorced her husband of forty years; he tried to peek under her veil while she was sleeping because he had never seen her face.
For many of them, showing their face is no different than showing their tits. With a little reflection it doesn’t take a genius to come to the conclusion that there is no reason for anyone living in a temperate climate to wear any clothing at all. We do so for some practical reasons but mostly out of a socially constructed sense of modesty. Because the niqab has become such an intrinsic part of their culture, they do it for the same reasons. You seem to imply that only men are Muslims and all women are simply their slaves, and that simply is not the case.
http://www.lovelyish.com/705648746/dont-tell-me-what-my-niqab-does-for-me/
http://islamedia.shawuniversitymosque.org/videos/500/hijab-and-niqaab-why-we-love-covering-by-a-salafi.html
That doesn’t mean I am in any way obligated to believe that it isn’t totally retarded, but because I believe in personal freedom, I think a unilateral banning of the niqab is not only unethical, it’s going to make things worse.
I say make it legal to wear one unless it interferes with identifying people. Women should not be allowed to wear any sort of face or head covering when they have their driver’s license pictures taken and must remove it for a police officer attempting to confirm identification. It should also not be illegal for private businesses to ban wearing them at work, just like they are free to ban any other type of clothing. I also have no problem with people rejecting women socially for wearing weird clothes. They remove themselves from society by wearing that ridiculous get-up and so they will have to deal with the consequences.
If they are being forced to wear it under the threat of violence, it should be treated like kidnapping or some other similar secular crime.
Legislating against the niqab is attacking a symptom, not the disease.
There is not much sense in whipping an already deceased horse.
Thank you for playing.
Please enjoy your copy of the home game.
Hey Joe, is it you, and Brother Richard this “Troll” is referring to when he refers to the Multicultural Appeasement Lobby, with regard to your support of the Burqa on your podcast?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4FpTvp0tgs&feature=channel_page
My critique of your, and Richards stand in support of the Burqa was an honest criticism, yet you dismissed it as Trolletry, and Meanness. If you make commentary you should expect that someone might critique that commentary if they take issue with it. I know you have not been used to that because from what I have read from your commenters it appears that they are merely apple polishing sycophants with little to say other than good job.
If any of them do grow the balls to critique the position taken on any given podcast if they take issue with it, then will you admonish them for it as well, and whine that they “Hate You”, and are saying “Mean” things to you? I swear this whole experience has been like trying to reason with an 8 year old crybaby.
I had problems with seeing your site layout via the latest release of Opera. Looks fine in Explorer 7 and Firefox though.Hope you have a wonderful day.