Oh Look, it’s the Pontiff
Actually of course it’s quite funny in a way. I keep laughing about it. I find myself having written a book (a whole book, mind you, not just an article or a wee pamphlet) about why truth matters with someone who isn’t quite sure Afrocentric history shouldn’t be taught in universities. There is something very funny about that, in a banana peel kind of way. Especially since there is a whole thick section of Why Truth Matters that talks about Afrocentric history, in some detail. And it doesn’t talk about it from the point of view that it’s kind of a good thing, or that it has its virtues; rather the contrary. So apparently the whole thing was an elaborate practical joke. It’s kind of like having written a book about the faults and errors of the Catholic church with someone who turns out on closer inspection to be the pope. Oh, oops! My mistake!
Yup. Pretty funny.
So, you’ve only found out about Jeremy’s views from this interview? I thought you guys knew each other rather well.
What’s going on?
Ophelia: The news item posted on B&W about Brixton prison raises some interesting questions that our multicultural society has yet to face up to:
“Facilities in a prison are being built so Muslim inmates do not have to face Mecca while sitting on the toilet.”
How many devout Muslims have for decades had to live in houses where the WCs do not meet with this requirement? And how have these unfortunate people managed all this time (no need to go into intimate details)?
“What’s going on?”
I just don’t know either. I think we had all just better go out and buy lots and lots of copies of Why Truth Matters for ourselves and all our friends and relatives so that we can find out what this is all about.
(Where do I send my invoice?)
So it’s better if their asses face Mecca?
Is it ok if their sides face Mecca? Or is it a problem that any part of their body will always have some directional relationship with Mecca? Maybe one could build special gyroscopes for them to go to the bathroom in, so it will never be clear what’s going on.
As for JS, do you think his co-authoring the book was then just an attempt on his own part to take part in an act of subversion against himself? Makes as much sense as religion.
“Facilities in a prison are being built so Muslim inmates do not have to face Mecca while sitting on the toilet.”
I don’t find that unreasonable.
‘So it’s better if their asses face Mecca?’
Actually, Nix, that isn’t the level of debate I come here for. Tosser.
“I think we had all just better go out and buy lots and lots of copies of Why Truth Matters”
Yes! That is indeed the correct answer to all questions!
“Is it ok if their sides face Mecca?”
Well this is exactly what I’ve been wondering ever since Allen sent me the link to that item. Why is it worse to face Mecca while making use of the convenient porcelain appliance? Why isn’t facing Mecca in fact the preferred posture, as being that which puts the most space between Mecca and the product of the interchange between self and porcelain appliance? Clearly this is why I’ll never be a theologian, or even a second-rate mystic – I just don’t get it. I don’t understand Mecca’s thinking here.
“just an attempt on his own part to take part in an act of subversion against himself?”
Ah – I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe so. Artful – very artful.
Muddled marking
“I just don’t get it. I don’t understand Mecca’s thinking here.”
I suppose it’s because Muslims pray towards Mecca. As for the theology of it all: for some reason it brings to mind that in some cultures it’s OK to be named after the venerated and in others not. Have you noticed that when an entertainer dies, it’s usual to broadcast an episode from one of their old series; die during a current series and that week’s episode is dropped.
_
“I suppose it’s because Muslims pray towards Mecca.”
Okay. But you pray with your face, sort of, but you don’t defecate with your face – so the facing away still doesn’t seem…quite…logical…
You go sideways, apparently.
http://www.restrooms.org/page03ar.html
Pity the poor souls who, after carefully checking their compasses while on an aircraft, sit down and just as everyting starts to happen, the captain changes direction and , horror of horrors, the wrong end faces mecca.
Mind you, those muslims are not daft you know, they are onto a solution:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/27/wspace27.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/27/ixworld.html
Muddled expressions of respect
I don’t know, but I would guess:
neither face nor arse.
_
“Pity the poor souls who, after carefully checking their compasses while on an aircraft, sit down and just as everyting starts to happen, the captain changes direction and , horror of horrors, the wrong end faces mecca.”
Oh, oh, oh – that could happen on a train, too. Or a bus (coach) or in an RV. You just go around a curve or turn a corner. Man, life is perilous.
Ah. It’s not Mecca, it’s ‘the Qiblah’ – which is a building inside Mecca, so smaller than Mecca, so all the more difficult to know exactly which way not to face or unface. Anyway sure enough, it’s one side or the other. (But see that’s difficult too, because the side is thin, the side is like a slice, or an edge, while front and back are wide – so how the hell can you be sure that it’s really your side that is ‘facing’ the Qibah and that none of your back or face is turned that way too? I mean really – how can you possibly tell?)
Well, y’know, seein’ as the Earth is round, if your ass is facing Mecca, I guess, so is your face… the long way ’round.
The sideways thing is good, from this point of view, at least… tho’ I find myself wondering how careful you have to be when reaching for the toilet paper. Or is there an exemption for that?
But then, really getting… erm… anal about this, let’s keep in mind that the the universe is expanding, and at something like 12-15 GYa ago it was compressed in such a fashion that all of the space we currently see occupied a single, infinitesimal point… so that the signature of the energy released in the early expansion can in fact be seen in any direction you look, at any distance you care to look, spread through the entire volume of the universe–because the singularity contained all those places, and thus, once, all those places were in one place…
Which leads me to the conclusion that, whenever you go to the bathroom, you’re shitting on Mecca (and upon the Temple Mount, and the Vatican, and upon the Ram Temple, and upon countless national flags). Quite regardless of where in the universe you choose to build your privy.
There is thus no option: the deeply devout and the profoundly patriotic must swear never go to the bathroom again, if they truly wish to avoid giving offence.
Dude, that’s cosmic.
Thanks. I try to think outside the tesseract.
You say that you are amused by the fact that the book you wrote with JS criticises Afrocentric history and other kinds of pseudoscience and yet JS doesn’t think all such disciplines should be removed from universities. I don’t really understand what the fuss is about. Your analogy about writing a book about the faults and errors of the Catholic church with someone who turns out to be the pope isn’t really analogous at all. Perhaps it is more like writing about the problems inherent in the Catholic church with someone who doesn’t think that Church services should be banned?
Students who are not exposed to a range of theories with stronger or weaker truth claims, do not develop the ability to critically judge the validity of what they are taught – they become lazy thinkers. Also, while I agree that it would be undesirable for those academic positions that are not well grounded in truth to become dominant in academic departments, there is something about eliminating them altogether that is uncomfortably reminiscent of totalitarian societies such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin.
“Perhaps it is more like writing about the problems inherent in the Catholic church with someone who doesn’t think that Church services should be banned?”
Hmm. Well, no. Granted, mine was not an exact analogy, as analogies so often aren’t; it was more of a joke than a real analogy. But there is a significant difference between church services and teaching lies as factually true in universities.
“Students who are not exposed to a range of theories with stronger or weaker truth claims, do not develop the ability to critically judge the validity of what they are taught – they become lazy thinkers.”
So therefore ID should be taught in biology class.
“there is something about eliminating them altogether that is uncomfortably reminiscent of totalitarian societies such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin.”
Is there? So – any old nonsense should be taught in universities then? Astrology, witchcraft, phrenology, alchemy, Gerson therapy, Holocaust denial, Lysenkoism, creationism, Scientology?
OB: I insist that Flying Spaghetti Monster Cosomology be included! In the Name of His Noodly Appendages!
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