Gheziez uliedi, u wliedi ta’ qalbi! Ghid dan lil Fr Hayden biex jghaddih
lin-nies.

Ftit granet ilu, fuq dil-gzira Ghawdxija, ghal xi whud inholoq dezert. Xi
whud ghamew. Ghamlu ghogol kif ghamlu missirijietkom fl-antik. Mhux
tad-deheb, imma tal-maskri u tal-kostumi. Waqqghu r-religjon ghac-cajt.
Qalbi u qalb Ibni Gesù kienu mweggghin hafna dak in-nhar. Ma kienx
baqaghlhom aktar biex jizzuffjettaw dak in-nhar. Riedu jwaqqghu l-Knisja
u r-religjon ghac-cajt.

F’kelma wahda, Satana hadem fin fin fihom. Xi whud, ghall-ewwel bdew
icapcpulhom u jidhqulhom u jkomplu maghhom. Wara indunaw. Però mbaghad
kien tard wisq, ghax-xorta Satana hakimhom. Thallux dawn l-affarijiet
jergghu jsiru. Ghidulhom lin-nies li jiena u Ibni Gesù weggghajna,
weggghajna bis-serjetà. Ghidulhom. Wassluh dan il-messagg. Il-qlub taghna
mugugha.

Ezatt! Hekk kien sar, kif ghamlu fl-antik. Uliedi z-zghar tieghi kunu
mohhkom hemm! Thallux lil Satana jqarraq bikom. Thalluhx jahkimkom jew
juzakom.

Grazzi wliedi talli smajtu s-sejha tieghi.

[Daphne – This is an extract from the Borg In-Nadur apparitions blog (yes, there is such a thing).]

http://www.elfworship.150m.com/

…the Undo button

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7941817.stm

http://www.secularism.org.uk/debaptism.html

Breaking News: Where’s the credit crunch?
There’s more money to be made in setting up a Malta based certificate issuing franchise than importing “Joseph’s Sinkijiet”.

“Patients who rely heavily on their religious faith to cope with terminal cancer are more likely to receive intensive life-prolonging measures in their last week of life, Boston researchers reported yesterday.”

Fishermen? We can’t have fishermen as the founders of a religion. You can’t build churches on rocks that are slippery due to the time spent by the sea. I was born and bred a Pharisee and a Roman citizen, educated and have a way with words, I will be the founder. We can use the word ‘Nazarene’ and use the shape of a fish to identify ourselves. After all, ‘Nazarene’ is fisherman in the old language and that should keep the others happy.

Yes I know it is a problem being born and bred a Pharisee. We believe in an afterlife. The Sadducees don’t, and they constitute a very strong political party mainly in the aristocracy. I can’t remember how many times I argued with some Sadducee or other on this point. We as Pharisees put all our faith and trust in a god. The Sadducees are more practical and they believe only in what they can see and touch. But we can always use the afterlife as a marketing tool. One way or the other the masses will be happy even if they are living in misery. And if they do not accept this religion we can always find converts in other countries. The miserable lot we have in this country are not as open-minded as those living nearer the centre of power.

We should also create some kind of history for this religion. We know all the important dates. All one has to do is create a character and place him in the context of what happened in the past. It would make a good novel to read. Take care to entrust this project to more than one person. At least if one copy is lost there will always another.

This is what is so remarkable. So many of the faithful preach to let nature take its course as it’s all to the plan of the almighty, yet when there is a medical problem they don’t hesitate to run to the nearest polyclinic. Shows that the corollary of what he claimed before is true: when we face despair even the most faithful scream for science, not God.

By using evolution as a machine it took him some time to come to the final appeasing result, but wanting to give his creation an eternal soul this created a dilemma. From which rung of the evolutionary ladder should he grant the creature a soul? Should it be Homo Australis? Cro-Magnon man? Neanderthal man? Homo Erectus? Or just dump all into the rubbish bin and grant this eternal spirit only to Homo Sapiens Sapiens? Hopefully the ancestors wouldn’t notice and so would not demand the same privilege. This creature he created ignored his biddings and so he was cast out and made to toil the soil for a living and eventually die. What a sensitive way to correct one’s creation.

On being cast out they decided to create a new god in their own image and endow it with all the possible power imaginable. This god must be eternal; was, is, and will ever be; knowing the past, the present and the future in the same instant; omnipotent, vindictive and destructive if the need arises and all the rest of the un/imaginable requisites. But this god will be satisfied with burnt offerings. Throughout many generations thousands of its own creatures will be burnt to satisfy this ego.

Wanting to be free, the creators of this god endowed upon themselves the privilege of being born with a free will. But how can one reconcile a god created and endowed with being omnipresent and omniscient, therefore knowing the end result even before it happens, and a being created with a free will? There can be no free will if the end result is already known. They had to go back one step and decided that this god must send someone as a saviour.

There lies a problem. This saviour must have been thought of already even before creation or else the creator is not omniscient. Apart from that, the whole setup of human beings must be adapted so as to take in the possibility of a god born of man. How do you do that? Well, create prophets. They should know what is to come in the future and to hell with free will. It will be known as the mystery of salvation. Salvation from what? From the same original creator?

Back to the drawing board. This god has too much power. Let us trim him down to size. We will create saints and dump them on this god. He must accept them. Then we will oblige this god to take heed when they intercede on behalf of man. In this manner at least we wouldn’t have to bargain with him directly. He is omni-short-tempered and he might drown the whole world with a deluge or send some big rock smashing into our planet. [Daphne – Saints: “The people have spoken”.]

You may have a thirst for the afterlife, but I’d rather enjoy my 80-odd years on this earth, than an afterlife with the likes of you. Becoming worm food doesn’t quite frighten me, although I’d rather turn into a nice Sunday roast.

“Recorrection: only a sapient species can be immoral. A textbook is an inanimate object. The immoralities are done by humans as a result of misinterpretation. Please, do not put everyone in the same fold. There are Christians and “christians”.”

I wasn’t referring to the followers, I was referring to the actual teachings of the bible, which I find immoral to a large extent (does not mean they all are).

“Today, some scientists are a bunch of depressed people with a god-complex whose research produces basically nothing of value. Do they really think they can recreate Nature?”

They are already reproducing nature in so many ways. Their ability to do so has saved countless human lives through anything from medicine to the ability to predict and prepare for natural disasters.

“He’ll be crying for God when he is in dire need. Everyone does. Even the staunchest of self-proclaimed atheists.”

Nice assumption. What do you base it on? You have actual proof that atheists cry to God when in distress? I know I certainly don’t. Again you are in error.

Looking forward to further stupidities uttered.

“Ah, you’re one of the saved. And so you’ll survive the apocalypse. Something tells me you’re in for a big disappointment”

Why would I want to survive the apocalypse Daphne? To live with bunch of half-dead corpses? No sir.

“The very essence of evolution is mutation. And there have been some very horrible mutations indeed that were not created in a laboratory. The first that spring to mind are all the bacteria and viruses that cause disease, cancer cells….In your way of thinking, God made them all, and I assume you don’t believe in evolution, either”

I believe in evolution, but I do not believe that Nature should be tampered with. Nature is as perfect as it can be. Yes, with disease and everything. Diseases are God’s population control mechanism, as is our penchant for violence. [Daphne – Well, then – next time there’s something wrong with you or your family, don’t go cluttering up the hospital, please.]

“Even if there is a God, that’s pretty much it. To be frank, the prospect of an afterlife in a space stuffed full of people like you is quite horrendous. The prospect of any sort of afterlife is horrendous. One needs to turn out the lights and disappear at some point. The prospect of eternity is hellish rather than heavenly – think about it”

I think the opposite is horrendous. To live your life…for nothing. [Daphne – And to live your life so as to flit about forever is living your life for something? That’s an eternity of pointlessness, as opposed to just 80 years, if you see life as pointless.]

@Jane

The Pope is a puppet. God is not. [Daphne – There’s something disturbing about your conviction. You’d have been a prime candidate for some nut-job cult if you had been raised in one of the remoter parts of the USA in the 1970s. You actually need to believe.]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Condoms-Worsen-Aids-Epidemic-Pope-Benedict-XVI-Says-On-First-Papal-Trip-To-Africa/Article/200903315243291?lpos=World_News_News_Your_Way_Region_7&lid=NewsYourWay_ARTICLE_15243291_Condoms_Worsen_Aids_Epidemic%2C_Pope_Benedict_XVI_Says_On_First_Papal_Trip_To_Africa