How odd: Leslie Nielsen has died, and everyone is talking about the silly comedies he made late in life. Doesn’t anyone remember Forbidden Planet? What’s the matter with you people?
Once again, some hick town has a few redneck ignoramuses thinking civic law is defined by a few Old Testament commandments. It isn’t.
Should a Southern Illinois town put the Ten Commandments in its town square?
Yes. It’s good to remind people of God’s laws governing our behavior.
72%
No. It violates separation of church and state, and is offensive to non-Christians.
23%
Who knows?
5%
God’s laws say I can’t mow my lawn on Sunday, can’t have a statue of Buddha in my house (we do, actually), and can’t appreciate an attractive starlet on TV. Why should a town praise a bunch of bad laws they won’t ever enforce?
We’re about to leave lovely Vancouver to return to Kent, Washington, so must leave you with something awful to chew on for a while. This is is a beautiful example of why creationists can be so stupid: spelling and grammar errors throughout, misrepresentations of the actual science, and non-stop idiocy. For instance, it is not true that squid, octopus, and cuttlefish have all been found in the Cambrian; the coleoids diverged from a common ancestor in the late Cambrian or early Ordovician. This does not mean that modern coleoids were present in the Cambrian. We’ve got a pretty good idea of what the cephalopod ancestor would have looked like.
It’s Saturday morning. That can’t possibly damage your brain any more than my late night of wild partying with Vancouver skeptics could have possibly done, it’s merely put us on an equal footing now.
The town of Lockland, Ohio is another of those places that worships a graven idol, an ugly stone block with the ridiculous 10 commandments on it . They never read it, though, or they’d notice that Commandment #2 says they shouldn’t worship graven idols…and actually, if they read them at all, they’d know that the only two that even come close to real laws in our nation are the ones that say don’t kill and don’t steal. The rest? Dross and superstition.
The town is being sued to have the nonsense removed, and of course the newspaper has to run a poll. Do you think that if we run this up to a good strong majority for removal that the city will send out a crew to dynamite the monstrosity?
Should Lockland be forced to remove the 10 Commandments from its town hall?
Yes 25.48%
No 74.52%
Let us stir up a little tempest in Tennessee. An internet poll asks, SHOULD A DISPLAY OF THE 10 COMMANDMENTS BE ALLOWED IN OUR COUNTY COURTHOUSE?. The currently leading answer, with 82% of the vote, is “Absolutely. The laws of our land are based on the 10 Commandments and anybody who doesn’t want to look at them (or read them) certainly doesn’t have to do so.”
This poll also has something sneaky. There are 5 possible answers, but they’ve just worded the same thing differently to split our votes. The intelligent options are “Such a display is inappropriate in any public building,” “No way. There needs to be a distinct separation between church and state,” and “No! Our government is prohibited by law from endorsing religion and this is clearly an endorsement.” To make this a bit more challenging, let’s elevate the percentages on all three to crush the two that basically say “Favor Christians in the law”.
The Carnival of the Godless is full of new commandments I’m supposed to follow, but that seem to be getting broken at a frenetic pace. We don’t need any more; I have a suggestion for the Christians. Pick one of the good ones in the original 10. Not an easy one, like “Thou shalt loaf about on Sunday,” but one that might actually make a difference in the world. I suggest “Don’t kill.”
You’d think they would have gotten the message by now that they’re doing something wrong.
Can I just say that a remake of this movie with Samuel L. Jackson as the voice in the burning bush would be awesome?
By way of today’s Oglaf:
I thought, no way, that isn’t in the Bible. But it is! It’s all wrapped in prudish anti-sex nonsense, but if you just read Proverbs 7:10-20, it’s kind of a hot porn story. Unfortunately, it turns into a kind of horror story after Proverbs 7:21. The narrator is a sour old killjoy.
7 My son, keep my words
and store up my commands within you.
2 Keep my commands and you will live;
guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.
3 Bind them on your fingers;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and to insight, “You are my relative.”
5 They will keep you from the adulterous woman,
from the wayward woman with her seductive words.6 At the window of my house
I looked down through the lattice.
7 I saw among the simple,
I noticed among the young men,
a youth who had no sense.
8 He was going down the street near her corner,
walking along in the direction of her house
9 at twilight, as the day was fading,
as the dark of night set in.10 Then out came a woman to meet him,
dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent.
11 (She is unruly and defiant,
her feet never stay at home;
12 now in the street, now in the squares,
at every corner she lurks.)
13 She took hold of him and kissed him
and with a brazen face she said:14 “Today I fulfilled my vows,
and I have food from my fellowship offering at home.
15 So I came out to meet you;
I looked for you and have found you!
16 I have covered my bed
with colored linens from Egypt.
17 I have perfumed my bed
with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.
18 Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning;
let’s enjoy ourselves with love!
19 My husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.
20 He took his purse filled with money
and will not be home till full moon.”21 With persuasive words she led him astray;
she seduced him with her smooth talk.
22 All at once he followed her
like an ox going to the slaughter,
like a deer[a] stepping into a noose[b]
23 till an arrow pierces his liver,
like a bird darting into a snare,
little knowing it will cost him his life.24 Now then, my sons, listen to me;
pay attention to what I say.
25 Do not let your heart turn to her ways
or stray into her paths.
26 Many are the victims she has brought down;
her slain are a mighty throng.
27 Her house is a highway to the grave,
leading down to the chambers of death.
Other than the grim ending, that sounds like a very good outline for a porn video. Thanks, Bible!
Now I’m wondering if perfuming the sheets with a hint of cinnamon wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Oooh, pretty.
That’s something called the Athena Bowl, a treasure recovered from a buried hoard in Germany.
In 1868, soldiers from an Imperial Prussian Army regiment discovered a hoard of dozens of ancient silver artifacts while constructing a new shooting range near the city of Hildesheim in central Germany. The Hildesheim treasure included elaborate and expensive tableware, including the Athena bowl, that may have belonged to Publius Quinctilius Varus or another Roman military commander who fought against Germanic tribes in the first century.
Fortunately, it ended up in a museum. If I found it, I’d be proudly serving soup in it. In my neighborhood, though, all we ever dig up is the occasional fossil and worthless old rocks.
