Heaven and Hell

It was night again, another lonely day had passed… He found himself standing alone in his conservatory, not knowing how long he had been there.

"Christ, what's the point?" he muttered, alone in his empty house, alone in his empty life, with the lights off, looking out through a glass door into a darkness so complete that although he knew there were fields stretching away to the horizon outside, all he could see was a faint reflection of a face, lined and older than it ought to be, and blurred both by tears and foggy condensation on the glass.

He put a finger to the condensation, and slowly traced out her initials inside a crude heart-shape. He said her name softly, trying to believe that nobody was truly dead as long as their name was spoken, but knowing that was bullshit. She was dead and gone. Angrily he wiped it away, and demanded of a God he didn't believe in at all, other than as a convenient focus for his hatred, a hook on which to hang his rage, "What is the fucking point? Eh? Because I can't see one… I just can't… I'm sick of it, just make it stop. I've had enough now, you've taken her away, you take away everything I've ever loved and you - you don't even have the goddam decency to exist! There's just a pointless, empty fucking universe, no gods, no purpose, no hope..." he trailed off, wanting something to blame, but knowing he was talking to himself. Whatever existence was, whatever self-awareness was, whatever the whole damned universe was, it didn't have a complaints department. It wasn't listening. There were no gods and no purpose to any of it, and he was ashamed to find himself begging for something so absurd to exist, but unable to stop… what alternative was there? "Ah, Christ… supposed to be a god of love? You monumental cunt! Omnipotent being? That's a fucking laugh! If you were omnipotent you could damned well show yourself! Explain, answer, not skulk -"

He stopped suddenly, aware of some change in the room behind him.

"She does, you know" Said a voice. He froze. "Exist, that is… and answer questions… as you say, it's easy when you're omnipotent"

He turned so fast he banged an elbow painfully against the door-frame. Behind him, across the room a stranger was sitting in one of his chairs. Hard to see in the gloom, but definitely there. Dressed in some loose flowing material that shimmered vaguely, and probably male.

"You should sit down." It added.

Speechlessly, he did, feeling for a chair and falling into it. "Wha..." he tried, but stopped.

"You don't know this, but we've been through this before." said the stranger, and something that might have been the faintest shadow of a look of distaste crossed its face fleetingly. "Quite a few times, actually… you see, or you will, being omnipotent means She can indeed do anything. Including this… in point of fact every single question any human has ever asked of God, She has answered. Every last one… Oh, not personally, you understand, after this long there's quite a lot of help - huge staff, actually, no problem there - and well, some of us have nothing better to do with eternity than answer questions - and I can see you have another one?"

"But… I've asked before… others have… everyone has! Nobody's ever had a single damned answer!"

"Ah, well, there you're wrong. They always get answered. Every demand, every prayer, every question, gets answered. Always have, always will. That's the advantage of working outside time… question pops up, and shazam! Entire universe halted, an angel - that's me, by the way, or one of the others - gets dispatched, question gets answered, happy customer, and off it all goes again... But there's a bit of a catch, I'm afraid... if, after having your questions answered, you decide to continue the test, then you won't remember any of this… that'd be cheating, you see."

"Test?" he muttered, "what test?"

"Oh, come on, you can work that out… life, my friend. You wanted to know what the point is? It's a test. You have free will, She wants to see what you do with it. Bloody great waste of time, I'd have said, but She just makes it up as She goes along."

"But… but… all the suffering! She tortures people! Children!"

"Simulated. At least the worst cases. Amazing what you can do when you're omnipotent, and some of them enjoy it, apparently. Not really my department, though."

There was a period of silence while he tried to absorb this… "I have so many questions..." he finally said.

"You usually do" It replied. "But I know them all by heart, so let me just presume to answer them..." and it went on for some time, or maybe no time at all, until every question he had was answered, and in considerable detail.

"I understand" he said, with some understatement… "I see… So, what now?"

"Your choice. You can go back and carry on being tested, or you can elect to be judged right now, as you are, on past performance..."

He considered. It was glorious, knowing there was a point, a goal, a reason for existence. "I'll go on, I think… but - hang on, there's a test? What happens if I fail? There isn't, um..." he laughed "There can't be a hell, surely?"

"No hell?" It shuddered. "Of course there's a hell… and it's worse than you can imagine. An eternity of horror" It looked into the distance… "You see, I failed. That's why I'm here… having to spend eternity answering the same questions, over and over again, from someone who had them answered seconds before and forgot…"

The figure shuddered, then vanished.

He found himself standing alone in his conservatory, not knowing how long he had been there. "Christ, what's the point?" he muttered.

Various grumbles of mine, old and new...

Just wandered through facebook and collected a few of my brief grumbles (some date from much earlier, back to the early 80's and were references there to even older grumbles from cix (mainly) or other publications of mine) that I don't think have made it to the blog... these were ones I've used as status postings. I wish facebook would let me download comments easily, there's lots of other funny stuff there too and I might collect some of that one day...

I hate defending myself from accusations that are unfair - I have defences prepared for the accusations that are fair...

I always said I wanted to be the world's best lover. Some people say I'm aiming too high, but that's just the first kiss.

Fear the demands of reasonable people; others can be disregarded, but these have to be prioritised.

Fear the dreams of the powerful.

Conment (n): a comment intended to confuse a situation, usually for the author's amusement.

Love of money is the root of all evil; indoctrination is the route of all evil...

I want to have a quiet word with whoever wrote the script for today...

"Once things start going wrong, they usually develop quite some momentum"

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but irritation is the father...

Being kind isn't a weakness, but it can certainly feel like it is at times.

By their assumptions shall ye know them

"I wonder why they call them altars - they never alter anything"

Religions are just different flavours of insanity.

"publish and be dumbed"

"Will mankind end its reliance on technology before technology ends its reliance on mankind?"

"It's the man who fell to earth and landed head first" Guess who is being forced to watch "The Voice"...

Whenever people go on about staring into the abyss I always think it's too deep for me...

I'm not sure that having your car make panicy bleating noises then draw a mushroom cloud as a dashboard warning sign is an entirely good thing...

"it's easy to tell when a programmer is writing garbage: their fingers move"

This is what happens when you build gormenghast on a budget.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a TV must be in want of period drama...

You are responsible for your actions; not the interpretations others place on them.

I spend my life trying to be funny, to cheer others up, and what happens? People just laugh at me... Bastards.

Quantum physics implies we are living in an immature universe; like teenagers, things only behave sensibly while they are being observed...

If you share the credit you can also share the blame

"A lesson many people never learn is that it's hard work trying to hide your true nature, and doing so alters it anyway - rarely for the better"

It is impossible to remain depressed while watching someone attempting to ride a unicycle for the first time...

The rule "if something sounds too good to be true, there's something wrong with it" always sounds too good to be true...

"It may not be coincidence I stopped writing games after I discovered sex"

It's paradoxical how often people use the process of asking questions as a way to avoid having to understand the answers to previous questions...

"I have no fear of heights at all. As long as they remain above me"

Hell is not seeing any connection between what you can offer and what you need.

How innocent a fresh new board looks before any software is written. After that they lurk.

For a social website there are a great many antisocial people on Facebook.

Would having a lover with multiple personalities count as an orgy?

The universe is full of things that get harder to understand the more you try to simplify them.

I'm dimly wondering about making an "I'm giving up moderation for lent" t-shirt...

I sometimes think that my drinking coffee is the equivalent of Clarke Kent visiting a phone booth.

"Sophistication is not my métier"

I think I need a magic ring that makes the wearer visible when worn.

I laugh at anyone who doesn't have a sense of humour, unless they're a comedian...

Sometimes I feel my insults are wasted... "You must be a terrible embarrassment to your subconscious" "You wot?"

[muses] What if all the conspiracy theorists are part of a larger covert organisation?

"Why do computers use Silicon for their logic?" "Because thirteen and a half billion years of trying to make Carbon work logically has failed..."

I often wondered - is "ferrarri" Italian for "sleazy"?

Confused someone greatly yesterday by pointing out that iron is really star-poo.

"Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make parent"

#twitter: a small for people who can't handle a proper medium.

"The art of philosophizing is saying with two words what any damn fool can say with too many"

I really can't make my mind up if I understand quantum superposition or not.

Is it ironic to not understand a paper on learning algorithms?

I was thinking about reading a book on procrastination... Actually, how would a book on procrastination ever get written?

There are times when I don't feel like screaming.

Understanding other people is usually easier than understanding yourself. Unless you're schizophrenic, of course.

I've just been accused of hiding beneath women's skirts - things are definitely looking up.

I rarely give advice, but if I did it would be "never give advice to anyone who might actually take it" - they're only after someone to blame when it all goes horribly wrong...

The paradox of keeping secrets - if you are really good at it, nobody ever finds out.

[muses] Are they called mermaids because they lack the necessary parts to get laid and become merwenches?

[muses] Was there ever a more repulsive concept than "sexual conquests"? Love isn't a battle, get it right and you can have winners without losers.

[muses] It's ironic how often people discuss science unscientifically...

[muses] If sex was ever incorporated into the Olympics I reckon I'd have a shot at an individual gold.

[muses] If you are what you eat... why don't nuts come with a health warning?

[muses] Relationships have two ends and women get to decide both, in my experience...

[muses] Why do judgemental people usually show such poor judgement? You'd have thought practice would improve it.

[muses] How do you learn to hypnotise people? Every time I try it in front of a mirror I put myself to sleep.

[muses] "Intelligent Design" is a remarkably ironic name for a concept that no intelligent designer takes seriously.

[muses] Pay attention to what people say when they're criticising others, it's often very revealing of their own character; people usually focus on and draw attention to the traits they see - and despise - in themselves.

[muses] Men insult their friends, women compliment their enemies... It must be bloody confusing to be bisexual.

[muses] Blogging is thinking locally and acting-out globally. Needs more pith. It's not pithy enough... Think loco, act-out global? Gah.

[muses] It's rarely a good move to tell someone that you understand them, but if you do make sure you do it in such a way as to leave some doubt in their mind - people usually need to believe that they're more complicated than everyone else. It's rare to find someone who appreciates being understood half as much as they'd appreciate you to have made a valiant effort at understanding them and failed... Of course - I could be wrong.

[muses] It strikes me as paradoxical that the world is so complex that the finest minds have been flummoxed by it, yet many of the most dramatic changes to it were made by those holding doggedly fast to ridiculously simplistic ideas.

[muses] was there ever a more passive-aggressive act than that of inventing the term passive-aggressive in the first place?

[muses] In my life I've met one or two people who took themselves very seriously, didn't have much of a sense of humour and who weren't also complete and utter arseholes - and maybe thousands who were; the odds aren't good people... If you want a pretty reliable guide to who to avoid in life I don't think you can do much better than look at how often someone laughs. Unless they're putting kittens in the blender at the time or something of that nature, in which case run like hell...

[musing] If one god started the universe off with a big bang, shouldn't it be called the Big Wank Theory?

At some point during the invention of language someone had to come up with a word for "think" and explain what it meant to everyone else... I bet that was frustrating.

Who was it who said "nothing that can't be proved is worth believing"? [rummage]... Hmmm... [more rummaging]... Oh, apparently it was me.

General advice... don't absent mindedly wipe your nose on the same tissue you've just used to wipe away some surplus superglue...

Being prepared and willing to understand the other parties viewpoint is a hell of a disadvantage when dealing with someone who isn't prepared or willing to understand yours...

I have nothing at all against people who can't write software, but why do so many of them become programmers?

Are "fundamentalists" named after "fundaments", ie "bottoms"? No wonder they're all arseholes.

While thinking up alternative terms for arseholes tonight I came up with "excrementally-advantaged" and "rectomentalists", neither generates any hits on Google. So, at least they're original, though I guess that means they're crap.

Intelligent design? We live in a universe where the slow drivers are always in front of us holding us up, and the fast ones behind, being a pain in the arse, and yet people still believe in intelligent design?

How come there isn't a single creation myth where Gawd starts out wanting coffee? I mean, I have to go to enormous lengths to get a mug. I have to get out of bed, dressed, toiletted, drive a vehicle - negotiate an industrial estate full of foreign lorry drivers - a door with the combination lock from hell, that hates me... Frankly, in comparison, for a supreme being I'm sure knocking up a universe must have been a doddle.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, cackle and the buggers stare at you... It's quite disturbing, actually... Muha! Muhahaha-aha!... See? See?

Am I the only one who finds the process of "reductio ad absurdum" slightly absurd?

Was there a spell in Harry Potter called "Stupidify!"?

I sometimes wonder what it is that is so fucking *wrong* with programmers... The more someone else knows about software engineering, the less respect they have for them.

Never mind contact lenses - I've just invented "contract" lenses - makes everyone appear slimmer...

One of the rarest graces is the ability to admit to your mistakes.

It might surprise people but hoodies share several percent of their DNA with humans. They share the rest with paper tissues.

There is nothing so stupid that some religious nutter or other hasn't advocated it.

"The finest trick of religion is to persuade you that it is not nonsense"

It perplexes me that the belief that a god exists which created man in his own image can infect any halfway rational mind in the first place, but how such a belief can survive the process of going to the loo and having to scrape shit off your arse with bits of paper is utterly beyond me... I can't really imagine a supreme being doing that, nor would I even consider worshiping one that can't come up with a better way to power its creations... especially as it is also supposed to have created electricity at some point earlier in the week.

For some reason I just had the mental image of a ninja retirement home. A place for people who used to ninje but who are now reduced to shuffling around terrorising the staff with poison-coated zimmer-frames.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a sleeping woman in possession of a good grip on the quilt, must be in want of a cold foot in the small of the back. Okay, it's not universally acknowledged... maybe it's not even true... but it works. For small and rather exciting moments of 'work'.

I have been chatting with someone (who shall remain nameless) who tells me I need to brush up on soaps in order to understand women and have some common ground. I do not watch soaps. They are boring. Even the ones with enzymes.

Whatever enlightenment there is to be found in this world, it isn't to be found wandering around an empty beach at night. Not alone, anyway.

There is an entirely different kind of boredom on offer at the seaside. Nowhere else on Earth could I find myself watching Olympic showjumping with what could be described as relief...

I have had an epiphany. But it's ok, I cleaned up afterwards.

"Don't give the universe ideas? People exist to give the universe ideas"

"I've read several holy books. If you ask me God needs fewer prophets and more editors"

[muses] As 69 is a well recognised sexual position for couples, why aren't 6 and/or 9 recognised positions for singles?

Blue... Blue... Was there ever a less onamatopoeic word?

We are rainclouds in search of a sky.

I have long wondered why Sinbad wasn't called Singood or Sinfun...

Gave up and went to see the quack yesterday, told her I was suicidal and demanded drugs... She recommended hanging - bastard NHS cost cutting...

"Bible belt" isn't a location, it's an appropriate response... "Thwap!"

"Statisticians warn that living longer increases the risk of death"

You know that moment when someone you think of as a tiresome and pretentious fool unexpectedly comes out with something profound and interesting for a change? Well, you do now - what's it like?

Speaking about memory erasing, a few years ago Morag and I were discussing Rohypnol and how foul the whole idea of date rape was when she surprised me by saying she was prepared to try it to see what the effects were like. It's funny, but I can't remember what happened after that.

It's important to try to understand other people's motivations, as long as you're never foolish enough to believe you've entirely succeeded; if nothing else the exercise will provide useful insights into your own motivations - unless you're foolish enough to believe you already understand them...

Alien abductions... I've worked it out... The aliens must need ballast for their ufos. I bet there's a statistically significant correlation between an abductees weight and the likelihood of abduction. That's why they go for Americans...

Sometimes, less is

During conversation tonight... "Well, I thought, I've already lost an ear, I may as well try my hand at painting"

I sometimes - hell, most of the time - think that life must be far easier for those lucky enough not to understand people. Especially themselves...

"Happy people are responsible for nearly all cases of depression"

Sometimes the gods eat a *lot* of roughage before taking a dump on people...

"Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first give hope"

"I loved the sound of the phrase 'deferred gratification' so much I always put off checking what it actually meant in case that turned out to be a disappointment." [Statement made by a character in a dream last night. Macci's getting subtle in his old age]

There is no situation so bad that it can't be recovered by a few kind words or a hug from a lover... and no situation so good that it can ease the loneliness of not having one.

There are times when hearing about situations I despair at the sheer injustice of the world; life isn't often fair and that may be beyond our control, but how we choose to act about it isn't...

Why can you only get return tickets to paradise?

We've all heard of the "To Do" list... I'm thinking of inventing the "To Don't" list, but the first entry on my prototype is "Don't invent this list", which makes the project somewhat problematic...

I hate the internet; it's hard to compete with all the weirdness out there...

Gods!!! could there be *anything* more ironically annoying in the entire panoply of human experience than having someone dissect and explain a pithy phrase to you that you invented in the first place? As if you were so profoundly stupid you couldn't possibly get it? And irony of ironies, the phrase was "publish and be dumbed" - I did; I was...

"Anyone who regards sanity as desirable must be crazy" - I'm surprised but Google regards that line of mine as original... In fact no hits for "Anyone who regards sanity", which is very surprising. Has nobody ever regarded sanity before in the entire history of literature? I feel a poem coming on...

"Anyone who regards sanity as desirable must be crazy" "Yeah, but just because they're crazy that don't make them interesting... There are loads of crazy people you wouldn't want to meet in an asylum, that's all I'm saying" There is only one catch, and that's Catch Twenty-Flurble.

I was woken out of a dream this morning, and for that reason alone I can remember the last part of it, which was an argument where someone was referred to as "so shallow a piece of paper couldn't sink in them"... I wonder how many gems like that are created and lost forever every time a dream is forgotten?

"99% of religious beliefs wouldn't survive 1% of common sense"

[muses] Sometimes it depresses me how vividly our world is chronicled by failures; perhaps for no better reason than that only those who have nothing else to offer have the time to write about their lives.

There is a style of walking - I don't think it has a name - and it's a dead give away that the person using it is a parent - it involves the moving foot leaving the floor but not by very much; moving slowly forward while remaining close to the ground; being put back down slowly. I suspect it's acquired as the result of having trodden on one too many carelessly placed and surprisingly sharp toys.

"That comparison is rather like waking up in hell to find the devil asking which ball you'd prefer to have crushed first."

"Why not give evolution a hand? It gave you two..."

People are forever being said to have been "driven mad", but what about those who are so close to mad already it would be enviromentally irresponsible to drive them such a short distance? Can you walk someone mad?

There is no design cockup, no matter how extreme, that doesn't directly result from a design concept that seemed perfectly reasonable to the designer at the time...

It should be a crime to expose anyone under the age of consent to religion.

While pontificating today: "Let's face it, any particle that can change into three different forms is going to spend most of its time arguing with itself. It'll be far too busy to go faster than light"

'Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' Who cares; what comes last is all I'm interested in - the chicken omelette...

Is there a programmer's semicolon to go with the baker's apostrophe?
"You've got to have semi-colons. Programmers can't be trusted with full-colons." [Settling into stride] "I mean, give them a full-on man-sized colon and they'd shit themselves."

"I realised some time ago I'm a trope, but I was hoping a spot of metonymy might upgrade me to a synecdoche"

I have a theory that most of the world's religions are the result of somebody missing the point of a joke.

An engineering principle that goes largely unsaid - the more certain you are of something, the less useful that knowledge is... We can only be certain of trivialities. So don't go through life seeking certainty - you can only have it about things that don't matter, and those who peddle it are selling their own ignorance.

"Good design is impressive; great design is invisible"

Contrary to popular opinion Wales is in a different time-zone to the rest of the UK -the middle ages.

"The greatest lie ever is romance. It's something men often want but can't have, and women often have but don't want. It's a lie so powerful people will die for it in the full knowledge it's a lie... We strive to make fools of ourselves by worshiping at the altar of romance, where the luckiest are sacrificed by those doomed to outlive them"

I'm beginning to suspect my sense of humour needs calibrating again. Who's got the reference mother-in-law?

"Plants are solar powered. They are not wind-powered. They evolved chlorophyll pretty damned smartish because solar energy is worth exploiting. They've now had billions of years to evolve in ways that would exploit wind power but haven't. Think on this oh ye advocates of windmills, and despair..."

Are they called "remote" controls because you can never find them?

"I am a great believer in the empowerment of women in general, despite my experience of the empowerment of women in particular..."

It needs at least two to love but only one to hate.

I have a theory - condoms have learned how to breed with humans. This is why there are so many empty brainless morons out there...

The entire history of the universe would be different if god had remembered to trim the sprue off Adam after he came out of the mould...

Isaac Asimov's short story "Nightfall" asked the question what would happen if the stars were only visible once every thousand years or so... Well, I'll tell you - it'd be cloudy.

"Don't knock it until you're tried it" said the guy installing the door-bell...

"I see myself as basically a gag writer" I said. "Well, you've made me gag often enough" he replied.

"I'm in touch with my feminine side" I said. "Go and wash your hands" she replied...

Many lives have been lost to the soviet union's AK47, the American M16 has caused its fair share of death and destruction, but when it comes to creating misery and despair nothing even comes close to the English M6

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you sleep alone.

Is 'cuddly chemical' an oxytocin?

The moving finger flips; and, having given you the bird, Moves on.

I was being fondled intimately by a lover recently. "Oooo, that's huge!" she said. "Are you pulling my leg?" I replied.

Cats are natures way of justifying extreme cruelty.

Sanity is fragile.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is religion.

Sit by a river long enough and eventually you'll get pushed in...

A symphony of overcomplication...

I suppose a (c) Simon Brattel isn't out of place. I've seen quite a few of my one-liners repeated and generally it amuses me, but I try to attribute sources and I'd quite like it if others did too... it took me seconds to think some of those up. Seconds... 

"Indoctrination is the route of all evil"

One of my better ones. And from a brain full of snot, too...

Suicide bombers

The other day a friend and I were discussing the way the press call suicide bombers cowards. Call 'em idiots, if you like, that's generally appropriate, but cowards? I wouldn't have the guts to do it...

Then that led to us pondering [gross simplification alert] the whole Muslim paradise concept that these idiots are sold - die with the name "Allah!" on your lips and you are guaranteed an eternity of virgins, endlessly renewed... Well, think about it - what sort of pathetic inadequates would want to spend eternity in the company of virgins? The whole idea stinks of primitive misogynistic stupidity - give me an experienced lover over a virgin (or under, I don't care... sorry...) every time.

It's all a bit worrying, really - "Allah" sounds enough like "Aaargh!" that it could happen by accident. One wrong syllable and I could find myself educating virgins for eternity; remind me - is this supposed to be heaven or hell?

Maybe that's why black-box flight recorders show that the last word of people who know they're about to die is almost invariably "shit!"... Far less ambiguous than "Aaargh!"...

Hmmm. After due consideration I've decided to opt for re-incarnation and come back as a lesbian, who in their right mind wouldn't? Though knowing my luck it'll be as a lesbian sheep with all the frustration that implies. Gah...

Oh, shit - thought of something worse than being a lesbian sheep - might come back as a lesbian in one of those backward countries where the women have to go round wearing tents lest the sight of naked female flesh (we're talking about arms, legs, faces, etc here, nothing risque) drives the so-called 'men' wild with lust - ever stopped to think about their revolting logic? The men make the women cover themselves up because the men say they can't trust themselves not to rape women who are uncovered? What does that say about them? Learn to control yourselves and leave women alone...

Those wondering what I've got against sheep might not know that a female sheep that wants sex basically signals this by standing still. That's fine if you're a heterosexual because eventually the ram will notice and spring into action, but if you're a gay female sheep it's a bit of a non-starter... You stand still. If you're lucky another female likes you and... stands still... Then you both stand about being embarrassed and fending off unwanted males. It's a bit like a student disco, now I come to think of it.

I'm going off this whole lesbian thing, it seems fraught with difficulty.

Religious education

"The thing you have to remember about religions is that they can't all be right... They could, however, very easily all be wrong"

Several bible mysteries solved.

I had an epiphany today, a profound religious insight - God, being perfect, must work in binary - after all one could hardly imagine a supreme being going round using messy decimal.

From this insight several mysteries of the bible are at once explained. Remember Moses receiving the two tablets containing the ten commandments, and how he broke them before anyone else saw them? That always struck me as suspicious behaviour.

What I now suspect really happened is that god called him up the mountain to collect the "10" commandments, but when working in binary "10" means two, not ten. Two tablets for two commandments makes perfect sense.

However, Moses (who's expecting ten commandments because he's not accustomed to binary) is a bit overawed during the meeting and doesn't notice he's only come away with two commandments until it's too late to go back. Thinking he's misplaced the rest, and not wanting to look like a complete idiot in front of the entire tribe of Israel, he makes eight commandments up on the way back down and then breaks the two tablets to cover this up.

God was understandably put out by this and sulked his way through the rest of the old testament, cheering up only after his son moved out (most parents do). Speaking of the son, Jesus is reported to have said "all of the law hangs on these two commandments"... What more proof could be required there were only two?

So, all we have to do now is work out which of the ten commandments are the real ones; then, with a bit of luck, we can safely covet our neighbour's asses and maybe even join them in a spot of adultery. This should swell the congregations, after a few months anyway, and give the choirboys a well deserved rest...


It should be noted that under this theory the eleventh commandment "Thou shalt not get caught" would be the third. But as "11" in binary is three, that works out. This cannot just be coincidence! Praise de lord!!

["Lines are open now. Dial 010-10011010 to make a donation"]

Dumb xians

Turn the news on - first mistake. Second mistake was watching; the god-botherers were out in force.

Started with a report on the 'miraculous' survival of an 11-month old baby caught in a tornado. "It was a miracle. God sure was looking after him" says some red-neck moron completely overlooking the fact that the very same god had just brutally murdered his mother and torn him from her arms... Ineffable? Very fucking effable if you ask me.

This was then followed by a report of the head of the Church of England advocating the adoption of sharia law in the UK. Well, not all of it, perhaps - we'll pick and choose and leave the stoning and beheading part out for now. Maybe keep the killing of princesses bits, I suppose, that seems to resonate with the national character.

Gah. I wondered dimly what the head of the C of E is doing advocating Islam, but I suppose it makes sense, after all they're really all on the same side - sky fairy worshipping nutters all.

Hmmm. So we should be allowed to choose which laws apply to us now, should we? Fine. I do that anyway, to be honest; it'd be nice to have it formalised... Programmers could choose a legal system that expresses everything in hexadecimal:

"Can't nick me for speeding, ossifer, I was only doing 5F and it's a 70 limit..."

Mind you, I think I'd rather be nicked than declare myself a programmer. No, it'll never work.

Turned the news off before I could get even more depressed...

Sexy xians

I've just half-convinced someone that "the sermon on the mount" is so-called not because it took place on high ground, but because the original (unexpurgated) text makes reference to the delights of the female form.

And that "doggy position" is nothing to do with dogs, but a corruption of "dodgy position" (I won't go into why)...

Bad Crem. Naughty...

Wrong end of the shtick?

The loonies otherwise known as Scientologists appear to have a strange idea of promotion, given that Tom Cruise's promotional video is not supposed to be seen by anyone outside the church... Hmmm.

You can understand why they'd want their ridiculous ideas suppressed though.

Absurdity here

Fundie-Flit(tm)

> Just invest in a flag factory. The Muslim world can't burn enough of
> 'em, apparently.

I've just had an idea - what someone ought to do is encode the text of the holy books of every god-bothering set of lunatics into binary, then transcribe that to a DNA sequence (fairly easily done these days) and then it could be cheaply replicated and sold in spray cans. Then all you'd have to do is spray your flags, embassies, etc, etc with it and they'd be inviolate: "You can't burn that - it has billions of copies of the Qur'an on it"

We could call it "Fundie-Flit" or some such.

We could also insert the appropriate sequence into a retro-virus, making it possible for the daft buggers to write the word of de lord into every cell in their bodies, where hopefully it'd do the most good (for the rest of us, that is)...