A.Z Challenge 22: Virgin and extra virgin

Virgin is apparently an important word for those who are into olive oil or religion. In many cultures, virginity has been highly valued, and associated with purity and virtue and high sexual moral.

Islamic law and scriptures are quite funny in the sense that sexual activity is very restricted in the earthly life, but Paradise is quite erotic. Personally, I think it might be better to do it the other way around, but I didn’t write the Quran.

In Paradise the men who are admitted will meet 72 virgins who are ready to provide them with pleasure. The 72 virgins may get quite busy because, also according too Islamic scripture, the men in Paradise have eternal erection. In earthly life, this is a painful medical condition (priapism). But we all know that our world is not always a paradise.

Our most admired virgin is Mary, the mother of Jesus. There has been debate among scholars if she stayed virgin forever, or if Jesus had a bunch of brothers and sisters. This is basically a discussion about ambiguous translations of old Hebrew and Greek texts.

In our new 2011 translation of the Bible, Mary is not a virgin anymore. The word which has traditionally been translated to virgin can also mean young woman. And that’s what she has become in some of the verses (Isaiah 7:14).  That’s not too bad either, becoming a young woman after all these years.

Regarding women, I have no strong preference, but when it comes to olive oil, I usually go for extra virgin.  

A-Z Challenge 10: John 3:16

We learnt it by heart in elementary school. The teacher rehearsed  it over and over to make sure we didn’t forget, and I never did. John 3:16. We called it the “Little Bible”.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Ahead of time, it was the Bible made for Twitter, just 130 characters, including punctuation and spaces.

We were even supposed to believe in it because John 3:16 said so. The teacher didn't accept any doubt.  Amen. 

A-Z Challenge 04: David

David is all over the place. Messenger of God.  King of Israel.  Prophet of Islam. As far as I know, we can even draw David without getting a fatwa thrown at us. Well, I’m not quite sure. To be on the safe side, we should only draw Santa Claus.

In his early years, David had an androgynous look, and wrote songs about spiders from Mars … sorry, that was David Bowie.

Back to our David.

When the men of Israel faced the mighty giant Goliath, David said he wanted to fight him alone. David picked up some stones from the ground and threw them in Goliaths face with a sling (1. Samuel 17).

In the 1990s, he was king of the midfield, master of curved free kicks, and star of hair styling commercials … sorry, that was David Beckham.

Back to our David.

David was successful in many battles and became commander of the army. After circumcising 200 enemies, and bringing the cut-off foreskins back as a trophy, Saul offered David his daughter for marriage (1. Samuel 18; if this makes my blog AC, so is the Bible).

For many years, he worked for BBC, making programs about natural history … sorry, that was David Attenborough.

Think I need to stop this mess, before I get to David Hasselhoff  >: D

Charlie is back

Last week, we were shocked by the acts of terror in Paris. This week, Charlie Hebdo is back with a new issue. That’s great.  The artists and cartoonists are brave.  

I think duck liver is a hype, but I always liked the French cheese, and the French attitude to freedom of speech. Charlie Hebdo’s satire offends the Muslims. That’s fine. They just have to learn to live with it, like the Christians, Jews and Satanists have learnt.

What’s holy for you is not holy for me.  Mocking the gods and prophets can be fun, for sure. But blasphemy is more than entertainment. Blasphemy is an important part of the freedom of speech. Religion mixed with a political agenda is a bad combo, because it makes the agenda indisputable. Who are you to challenge God?

• Imagine Obama coming to The House proposing a new law received from God, and the Republicans could do nothing to stop it. 
• Imagine the Labor party coming to the Parliament with a political program given by God, and Cameron had to approve it right away. 

The French and the Americans (I think) were the first to develop a secular constitution. This is very important, splitting governing, legislative and religious power. Turkey is Muslim-secular, but develops in the wrong direction. Many Muslim countries are stuck in their political-religious swamp. The list of ridiculous laws and rules coming out of religion is endless:

• Women are not allowed to watch football games (Iran)
• Women are not allowed to drive cars (Saudi)
• Death penalty for blasphemy (Pakistan)
• Separate ski lifts for men and women (Iran)
• One-hour marriage with prostitutes (which makes prostitution compliant with the Quran; Bahrain).
• Men can’t sit next to women on airplanes (orthodox Jews)
• Women can’t become priests (Catholics)
• Priests must live in celibate (Catholics)
• Ban on condoms (Catholics)

None of these rules come from God. They were invented by powerful people as tools to control people. When rules can't be justified by rational arguments, the easiest solution is God. No wonder religious authorities  who make up such laws and rules (and their Prophets and Gods) become subject to satire and blasphemy.

The French author Michel Houellebecq once said that “among all ridiculous religions, Islam is the most stupid”. He was taken to court in Paris for this statement, but was acquitted based on freedom of speech. They are all about equally bad; I dislike religion in general. 

I have plenty of religous books in my shelf; the Bible, the Quran and the Book of Mormon, and I have read a fair part of them (but far from everything). Sharia is mostly useless as legislation for the modern world. But taking the worst of the Bible, it would make a pretty bizarre law too.

Some of the religious texts can be quite entertaining. Once we had fun drinking beer and reading load from the Quran in a pub up north. I think the pub was a safe place for our blasphemy. It's an unlikely place to meet jihadists and inquisition.

In Satan we trust >:)

(Cover page of this week's issue of Charlie Hebdo; link to WIkipedia. The text above Muhammsd's head says "Everything is forgiven".)

My bookshelf

There's nothing important I have to say. I just wanted to make å test, to see if I can write a post on my cell phone, including upload of a picture. I will need to check later how it appears on the computer. The picture is of my office bookshelf, a part of it. There are some science books, of course, and a couple of oddities. On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and the Quran. I bought the latter on sale for half the price. It's a pretty useless book. The two-volume green book is more useful. It's kind of my Bible >:)

Not a virgin anymore

Recently, we've got a new translation of The Bible. This happens every 20-30 year or so. The purpose is to bring the old book closer to contemporary language, and make it easier to read.

Most important, in this respect, was probably the German translation by Martin Luther, and subsequent translations to all other languages. In 1517, Martin Luther nailed up his 95 theses on the church-wall in Wittenberg. He argued that for most people, it would be more useful to read the Bible in their own language, rather than in Latin, which they didn't understand.

This sounds like a reasonable argument, but the Pope got pissed and didn't agree. That's hardly a surprise. The Pope is always against any kind of change.

Back to our new translation of The Bible: One of the most remarkable changes is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not a virgin anymore. In the new translation, "virgin" has been replaced by "young woman".

(I don't speak Hebrew, but I suspect that "virgin" and "young woman" translate to the same word in Hebrew, more or less.)

This is good news. I never believed in the virgin-story, and I've been arguing against it ever since elementary school.

When I was a kid, we had a Christian school system, and Christianity class had a preaching purpose. Most teachers were pragmatic about this, but in 3rd grade, we had a teacher who was very serious about the preaching. Our first conflict came up when I refused to believe in the Original Sin. I refused to believe my little baby brother was a sinner.

She got angry and yelled at me. Actually, she said that she wasn't angry, but God was:

"GOD IS ANGRY WITH YOU ... MWUUHAAHAAH ... YOU LITTLE HEATHEN."

This was kind of scary, of course, for a nine year old boy. After a couple of days, however, I realized that nothing happened, and nothing was going to happen. God was probably too busy to punish me, or maybe he just forgot. He's known to be a revengeful God.

Anyway, I never worried about God's anger ever since.

Later, when we learnt about the Virginborn, I immediately rejected it as a rediculous idea. The older kids in the street had explained to me how babies are made. They even showed examples, in some magazines they had hidden in a buried metal case.

I supposed that Jesus had been made in the same way.

Now it's nice to see that even the bible translators rewrite the virgin story. Maybe God is angry with them? At least the Pope is >:)

By the way, here's a great song: The Virginborn by Gorgoroth. If you like slow and doomy old-school black metal, you should click on the link. If not, don't do it; God may get angry with you >:D

(That's little-boy Jesus and his mother, the young woman Mary in the picture. I took it in Kotor, Montenegro last summer, when she was still assumed to be a virgin.)

Day off

My trip to Russia yesterday was cancelled.

I went to the travel agency in the morning, to get my visa. My flight to Moscow was at 12:30 am, and I had to get my visa before 11 to get to the airport in time.

I didn't.

Nothing to do about that. You can't push Russian authorities. I jumped on the plane back home. We're trying to reschedule the trip to Murmansk for next week, or the week after.

Today is a national holiday, the celebration of the Ascension of Christ (for those who still believe in fiction written 2000 years ago). Little boy and I went for a bike trip, though the town centre, and down to the harbor. on the way back home, we stopped by a small cafe in the old part of town and bought buns and coffee (for me) and Coke (for little boy).

So, I got a day off at home, rather than being at work in Russia.

That's perfectly fine with me >:)

(I took some pictures when we biked around on the harbor. The one above shows the Leif Erikson statue; you know, the guy who discovered America in the 10th (or 11th) century, almost 500 years before Christopher Columbus)

Fags eat poop

A few days ago, I saw a documentary, on 60 Minutes, about the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. They run this website GodHatesAmerica, because America is a doomed country of fags and sodomists. The sodomists include anyone who has anything but simple straight (missionary) sex for the sole purpose of breeding. God probably hates Europe too. I can tell you it’s the same misery over here; fags and sodomists all over the place.

The Westboro Baptist Church has a collection of very creative posters and slogans, like "God is your enemy" and "God hates fags". The highlight is this one: "Fags eat poop". I think God appreciates that one. They probably found it somewhere in The Bible. Jesus is more tolerant. He might hang out with both sinners, tax collectors and poop-eaters.

I know 3 fags, and they are all very nice people. None of them eat poop. I think I should send a mail to the church and ask them to modify their slogan a little bit. Maybe something like "Fags eat poop, except 3 of them, at least".

Do you know any fags that don't eat poop? If you tell me how many, I can eventually add up the numbers and increase the total count, before I mail the baptist church >:)