Teenage Girl Exorcist Squad in the News
Vor einer Weile hatte ich ‘ne Meldung über drei Mädchen gebloggt, die tatsächlich Teenage Exorcists sind. Damals hielt ich die Story wegen der Quelle für Bullshit, aber anscheinend ist das kein Scherz, sondern ernst gemeint: ABC hat die Gören zuhause besucht. Frohe Ostern!
[update] Dangerous Minds hat ein paar Hintergründe: “TV and radio “exorcist” Bob Larson’s daughter, Brynne, is now a second-generation demon rebuker herself, along with two of her girlfriends and now Pastor Larson—who has never, ever, been accused of being a fraud or of taking advantage of mentally ill people for financial gain, uh uh, no, not this guy—is trying to sell a TV reality show about them. They’re just “normal girls who do something extraordinary for God.” Well, God and $$$.”
30 Writers about God
Youtube Direktgod, via Open Culture
Jonathan Pararajasingham hat ein neues Video voller Zitate zusammengeschnitten, diesmal 30 berühmte Autoren und ihre Meinung zum nicht existierenden Gott, unter anderem dabei: Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Terry Pratchett, Michel Houellebecq, Salman Rushdie und natürlich Christopher Hitchens. Hier die ganze Liste:
1. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Writer
2. Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Laureate in Literature
3. Professor Isaac Asimov, Author and Biochemist
4. Arthur Miller, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright
5. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature
6. Gore Vidal, Award-Winning Novelist and Political Activist
7. Douglas Adams, Best-Selling Science Fiction Writer
8. Professor Germaine Greer, Writer and Feminist
9. Iain Banks, Best-Selling Fiction Writer
10. José Saramago, Nobel Laureate in Literature
11. Sir Terry Pratchett, NYT Best-Selling Novelist
12. Ken Follett, NYT Best-Selling Author
13. Ian McEwan, Man Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
14. Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate (1999-2009)
15. Professor Martin Amis, Award-Winning Novelist
16. Michel Houellebecq, Goncourt Prize-Winning French Novelist
17. Philip Roth, Man Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
18. Margaret Atwood, Booker Prize-Winning Author and Poet
19. Sir Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
20. Norman MacCaig, Renowned Scottish Poet
21. Phillip Pullman, Best-Selling British Author
22. Dr Matt Ridley, Award-Winning Science Writer
23. Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate in Literature
24. Howard Brenton, Award-Winning English Playwright
25. Tariq Ali, Award-Winning Writer and Filmmaker
26. Theodore Dalrymple, English Writer and Psychiatrist
27. Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
28. Redmond O’Hanlon FRSL, British Writer and Scholar
29. Diana Athill, Award-Winning Author and Literary Editor
30. Christopher Hitchens, Best-Selling Author, Award-Winning Columnist
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
50 Scientists about God
50 more Scientists about God
Christians vs Ninja Turtles
Youtube Direktturtles, via Neatorama
„Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.“ Albert Einstein.
New Yorker Profile on the Filesharing-Religion
Schöner Artikel im New Yorker über die Kopimism-Religion:
The Missionary Church of Kopimism picks up where Piratbyrån left off: it has taken the values of Swedish Pirate movement and codified them into a religion. They call their central sacrament “kopyacting,” wherein believers copy information in communion with each other, most always online, and especially via file-sharing. Ibi Botani’s kopimi mark—a stylized “k” inside a pyramid—is their religious symbol, as are CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Where Christian clergy might sign a letter “yours in Christ,” Kopimists write, “Copy and seed.” They have no god.
“We see the world as built on copies,” Gerson told me. “We often talk about originality; we don’t believe there’s any such thing. It’s certainly that way with life—most parts of the world, from DNA to manufacturing, are built by copying.” The highest form of worship, he said, is the remix: “You use other people’s works to make something better.”
THE FIRST CHURCH OF PIRATE BAY (via Boing Boing)
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
New Religion based on Filesharing
Filesharing is no Religion, Jesus!
File-Sharing is an official Religion now, Jesus!
Peter Sunde: Filesharing-Religion Kopimism inspired by Copyright-Lawyer
Peter Sunde: Filesharing-Religion Kopimism inspired by Copyright-Lawyer
Am Mittwoch wurde die schwedische Filesharing-Religion Kopimism offiziell anerkannt, jetzt erzählt Peter Sunde (Mitbegründer und ehemaliges Aushängeschild von The Pirate Bay) in seinem Blog ein bisschen was zu den Wurzeln der Religion: Eine Anwältin der Filmindustrie (und Scientology).
The idea behind this church comes from a quite unexpected source, you will probably not be able to guess whom. It’s funny.
In an interview in 2007 or 2008 (I believe, not sure about the date) the swedish lawyer for the MPAA, Monique Wasted, got a question about her views on the people advocating file sharing. Her answer was that “It’s just a few people, very loud. They’re a cult. They call themselves Kopimists.”
She called file sharers “a cult”. But she should know, because besides working for Hollywood she’s also been working as a swedish legal counsil for the church of Scientology. She has for instance helped them sue the swedish government over copyright infringement for putting their bible up as publicly viewable evidence in a court case.
Kopimi as a religion, mehr bei Torrent-Freak: MPAA Lawyer Inspired File-Sharing Religion, Catholic Bishop Unhappy
Praying with Snakes
Time hat eine tolle Bilderstrecke mit Gläubigen im Süden Amerikas, die mit Schlangen beten. Darüber hab’ ich mal ‘ne Doku gesehen, das wird heute (soweit ich weiß) nur noch in Kingston, Georgia praktiziert, hier ein etwas zu reißerischer Clip dazu. Vom Time Mag:
“They shall take up serpents,” reads the Bible’s Gospel according to Mark, “and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” Inspired by passages like this one, people the world over have long demonstrated the strength of their beliefs by handling poisonous snakes during emotionally charged religious services, gatherings of faith healers, and revival meetings. Here, LIFE.com offers a look at this unique form of worship in pictures from the American South taken in the 1940s by photographers Tony Linck, Francis Miller, and Thomas McAvoy.
Snake Handlers, Faith Healers of the 1940s (via Boing Boing, Vorsicht falls Ihr das bloggen wollt: Die Bilder stammen sämtlichst von Getty Images. Verkleinerte Bildausschnitte gehen allerdings klar, denke ich.)
File-Sharing is an official Religion now, Jesus!
Letztes Jahr hatte ich ein paar mal über die Versuche eines schwedischen Philosophie-Studenten gebloggt, der eine offizielle Filesharing-Religion – den Kopimism – in Schweden gründen wollte. Und die haben sie nun offiziell anerkannt, meinen Mitgliedsantrag (Name, Mail) habe ich grade eben abgeschickt. HELL YEAH!
After two failed attempts, where the Church was asked to formalize its way of praying or meditation, the authorities finally recognized the organization as an official religion. The Church’s founder is ecstatic about this news, and hopes that it will motivate more people to come forward as ‘Kopimists’.
“I think that more people will have the courage to step out as Kopimists. Maybe not in the public, but at least to their close ones,” Isak tells TorrentFreak. “There’s still a legal stigma around copying for many. A lot of people still worry about going to jail when copying and remixing. I hope in the name of Kopimi that this will change.”
Although the formal status of the Church doesn’t mean that copyright infringement is now permitted, the Church’s founder hopes that their beliefs will be considered in future lawmaking.
During the last half year the Missionary Church of Kopimism tripled its members from 1,000 to 3,000 and it’s expected that the recent news will cause another surge in followers. Official member or not, Gerson encourages everyone with an Internet connection to keep on sharing.
“We confessional Kopimists have not only depended on each other in this struggle, but on everyone who is copying information. To everyone with an internet connection: Keep copying. Maintain hardline Kopimi,” Gerson concludes.
File-Sharing Recognized as Official Religion in Sweden
[update] Die P2P-Seligpreisungen von Redditor PSTroll:
Blessed are the poor in bandwidth,
for theirs is the kingdom of FiOS.Blessed are they who share porn,
for they shall be comforted by RealDoll™.Blessed are the MegaUpload users,
for they shall inherit premium accounts.Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for torrents,
for they shall be seeded.Blessed are the PPV streamers,
for they shall obtain live MMA fights.Blessed are the YouTube users,
for they shall see copyrighted content.Blessed are the USENET faithful,
for they shall be called children of l33t.Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of file sharing,
for theirs is an entry into wikipedia.
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
New Religion based on Filesharing
Filesharing is no Religion, Jesus!
Rehabilitation of the Witches
Hartmut Hegeler arbeitet an der Rehabilitation von Frauen, die der Hexerei angeklagt und verbrannt wurden. spOnline International hat dazu einen schönen Artikel, seltsamerweise finde ich in der deutschen spOn-Ausgabe nichts davon: „Tortured and burned at the stake by the tens of thousands, Germany’s alleged witches have been largely forgotten. But thanks to efforts by a small group of activists, a number of German cities have begun absolving women, men and children who were wrongly accused of causing plagues, storms and bad harvests.“
Das History Blog hat ein paar historische Hintergründe zu Hegelers Arbeit und führt sie direkt auf Tirol zurück, wo man zwei der prominentesten Hexenjäger rausgeschmissen hatte, woraufhin die den berüchtigten Hexenhammer schrieben.
Pope Innocent VIII’s Summis desiderantes affectibus bull of 1484 specifically singles out Germany as a nest of Satanic witchcraft, rife with impotence, sores, and both human and livestock abortions.
Innocent further laments that the Inquisitors he has dispatched to address the dire state of German souls, two Dominican theology professors named Henry Kramer and James Sprenger, are being prevented from doing their holy duty by local clergy and power brokers who insist against all evidence that their towns are free of the stain of witchcraft and thus the Inquisitors have no legal right to ply their trade.
In fact, Kramer and Sprenger had been kicked out of the Tyrol earlier that year where the local bishop called Kramer a senile old man. The bull insists that Kramer and Sprenger be given every power their black hearts desire and that every knee shall bend or else face excommunication/the interdict.
Two years later in 1486, Kramer and Sprenger wrote the Malleus Malificarum (the Hammer of Witches), a book detailing how to identify witches, counter their magic and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. The text of the Innocent’s bull was published as the preface.
Now retired Protestant minister and witch trial expert Hartmut Hegeler is reclaiming that early tradition of running witch hunters out of town.
Priest-Fight with Broomsticks in Bethlehem
Youtube Direktpriests, via TDW
Religion in full effect: In der Geburtskirche in Bethlehem, der angeblichen Geburtsstätte Jesus’, haben sich 50 Priester mit Besen verkloppt. Irre, alles Irre.
Clergy from two Christian sects came to blows in the Church of the Nativity on Wednesday morning, prompting police to storm the Bethlehem holy site.
Several dozen Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests were cleaning the interior of the church Wednesday morning when, according to witnesses, two of them began fighting.
The fight quickly escalated, and soon, 50 to 60 priests were exchanging blows with broomsticks.
Police storm Church of the Nativity to break up brawling priests
Banksys Cardinal Sin
Seit einer Woche gehen jede Menge Banksy-Artworks durchs Netz, aber so richtig aufregendes war da nicht dabei. Ansehen kann man die alle auf seiner neu gemachten Website mit einem Klick auf Outside. Am spannendsten war noch sein DIY CCTV Mobile in seinem Fake-Shop und passend zum Tod von Christopher Hitchens die gestern enthüllte Skulptur „Cardinal Sin“, für die er einer Statue eines Kirchendings das Gesicht abgesägt und Badezimmerkacheln draufgeklebt hat, anscheinend ein Kommentar zur Verschleierung des Kindesmissbrauchsskandals durch die katholische Kirche. Bilder davon gibt’s bei My Modern Metropolis, BBC hat die Story dazu:
Cardinal Sin is a bust with its face sawn off and replaced by blank tiles, designed as a response to the child abuse scandal in the Catholic church. In a statement, Banksy said: “I’m never sure who deserves to be put on a pedestal or crushed under one.” The sculpture was unveiled at the Walker Art Gallery, where it is sitting alongside 17th Century religious art. The bathroom tiles have been put in place of the priest’s face to create a pixelated effect.
“I love everything about the Walker Gallery – the Old Masters, the contemporary art, the rude girl in the cafe. And when I found out Mr Walker built it with beer money it became my favourite gallery,” said Banksy. “The statue? I guess you could call it a Christmas present. At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse.”
R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens ist gestern im Alter von nur 62 Jahren an den Folgen seines Speiseröhrenkrebses gestorben. Fuck.
Hitchens war neben Richard Dawkins der berühmteste Vertreter des Atheismus und sein radikaler Anti-Theismus entspricht meinem in seiner soziokulturellen Argumentation sogar noch mehr als der evolutionär und neurowissenschaftlich argumentierte von Dawkins. Ich hatte mir seine Bücher „God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything“ und „The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer“ vor ein paar Jahren gekauft, als wir hier die ersten male ausführliche Diskussionen um Religion hatten und mir der Mann empfohlen wurde. Ich teile seine Argumentation (Religion basiert komplett auf Wunschdenken, Ängsten und Indoktrination) praktisch komplett, ziehe allerdings andere Konsequenzen als er (Hitchens war für den Irak-Krieg und kritisierte Bush bereits vor dem 11. September für seine „non-interventionist“ Außenpolitik).
Der Mann bezeichnete Mutter Theresa als „Ghul“, war für die Legalisierung von Marijuana, ein „bisschen“ zu kriegsverliebt, bekennender Polemiker, Säufer und Kettenraucher. Ich bezeichne ihn als den Bukowski des Atheismus. Aus dem Nachruf seines Kumpels Christopher Buckley: „’It’s the fags that’ll get me in the end, I know it,’ he said once, at one of our lunches, tossing his pack of Rothmans onto the table with an air of contempt. This was back when you could smoke at a restaurant.“
I always knew there was a risk in the bohemian lifestyle… I decided to take it because it helped my concentration, it stopped me being bored — it stopped other people being boring. It would make me want to prolong the conversation and enhance the moment. If you ask: would I do it again? I would probably say yes. But I would have quit earlier hoping to get away with the whole thing. I decided all of life is a wager and I’m going to wager on this bit… In a strange way I don’t regret it. It’s just impossible for me to picture life without wine, and other things, fueling the company, keeping me reading, energising me. It worked for me. It really did.
Aus einem kurz vor seinem Tod veröffentlichten Auszug eines Interviews mit ihm von Richard Dawkins:
I have one consistency, which is [being] against the totalitarian – on the left and on the right. The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes. And the origins of that are theocratic, obviously. The beginning of that is the idea that there is a supreme leader, or infallible pope, or a chief rabbi, or whatever, who can ventriloquise the divine and tell us what to do.
Vanity Fair: In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011, sein letzter Artikel dort für die Januar 2012-Ausgabe: Trial of the Will
Reuters: Polemical journalist and atheist Christopher Hitchens dead at 62
Nach dem Klick ein dreistündiges Interview mit Book TV und der IQ2-Talk „Stephen Fry & friends on the life, loves and hates of Christopher Hitchens“.
Wang Zi Wons Cyborg-Bodhisattva-Sculptures
Wang Zi Won aus Süd-Korea macht Cyborg-Skulpturen buddhistischer Bodhisattva. Ganz tolle Arbeiten, ich mag ja auch sehr die Bilder aus seiner Werkstatt, da muss man sich zwar wirklich lange durchklicken – asiatische Blogs können da echt lästig sein in dieser Beziehung, dazu später nochmal mehr, wenn ich was zu dem japanischen Blog mit 5000 Bildern mache, durch das ich mich neulich komplett durchgeklickt habe –, aber das lohnt sich. Jedenfalls: Wang Zi Won. Seine 2008er Skulptur mechanischer Augen hatte ich hier glaube ich auch schon, bin jetzt aber zu faul da rumzusuchen. Der Mann ist nach dem Infotext hier ein ziemlicher Spinner, aber ein Spinner nach meinem Geschmack:
“Can an ‘I’ cloned from my genes be considered a human being?” “Is another man with the same appearance as me, me?” “Can a cyborg have human spirituality?” “If so, how do we see the human body?” The artist Wang Zi Won’s work stems from these questions. Raising these questions, Wang sees the existence and meaning of future humans from a perspective different from the anxiety and fears of dystopian films and art.
The artist predicts that in the future humans will evolve and adapt themselves to enhanced science and technology just as men and animals in the past evolved to adapt themselves to their natural circumstances. He sees this future as our destiny, not as a negative, gloomy dystopia. His work is thus based on neither utopia not dystopia. Wang represents the relations between man, technology and science through the bodies of cyborgs.
Wang’s work begins from the birth of Z, a mechanical man. He refers to this man as a post human species, appropriating his own appearance and naming the mechanic man Z after his own name’s English initial. In his work, Z has proliferated and evolved in diverse modes. In his early work Z reflects the artist himself in human society, and appears as a protagonist or a baby. It is without doubt the artist himself, facing and playing with us, at the point where his most fundamental questioning begins. The question is whether Z can exist as a human being, and a machine with my spirit breaking away from the human body can be admitted as ‘I’ by others. Of course, the artist conceiving a utopian future can embrace this machine naturally, but it must be accepted by others.
Christian Nuts: Star Wars-Figures can be demonic!
Youtube Direktdemons, via Cyn-C
Dieser Gentleman erzählt uns, dass Star Wars-Figuren von satanischen Dämonen besessen sein können. Das erklärt einiges. Von Youtube:
Yes, I have a sick obsession with watching low budget Christian television. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I know I’m not alone!
Episode 6: Star Wars, Smurfs, Pokemon, Harry Potter
Advocating book burning, homophobia, Ouija boards cause birth defects – this episode presents a true potpourri of superstitious fundamentalism. I’ve tried to tone down my picard-palming as requested (it’s a challenge), and am experimenting with some new techniques… on-going process.
In response to some comments: This isn’t parody or trolling, these people are completely serious.
