We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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God kills! According to Dutch health investigators, going to church can cause lung cancer and other respiratory problems, because of the carcinogenic effects of candles and incense. Dr Theo de Kok, says that it is “very worrying”. With Christmas approaching, levels of pollutants would be expected to rise.
The solution is obvious. The European Union must immediately ban church-going for all children, impose a tax on adult church-goers, put health warning signs on the outside of all churches and copies of the Bible.
Oh, and ban Christmas.
Obviously, the EU must also impose diplomatic and economic sanctions on any country that does not comply with this (the USA).
In dreaming up appropriate health warnings for church-going, I like the following:
God kills!
Do not worship God in the presence of children
and cutest of all:
God can seriously damage your unborn child
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The only thing that keeps me from laughing at this post is the high rate at which such parodys have suddenly become reality lately. Esp. where mindless statist EUrocrats are concerned.
If a person spends enough time in Church to be affected by the levels of smoke its more likely that the thought of death won’t strike fear into their hearts.
And please don’t give Brussels any ideas for next year’s agenda. They haven’t finished messing up everything on this year’s list quite yet.
you just can’t make this stuff up. hilarious….
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”
All a convenient onestop WorshipMart
They don’t burn candles or incense in mosques, so the next generation of the Dutch should be ok.
Will Labour ban going to church by 2008?
Will California have to introduce smoke-free candles and incense burners, or will churches be offered the choice to be able to introduce catalytic candelabra?
I can handle the incense alright. It’s the peppermint which gets to me…
Oh the irony. Not only can going to church harm your unborn child but not going to church can also lead to views hostile to the (aleged?) humanity of the unborn.
Are we not fortunate that this impasse will be solved when future generations are “Decanted” by the state?
As a regular church attending Episcopalean here in the U.S. I can vouch to the fact that burning incense and candles…………
What was the question?
Sunday morning is everyday for all I care…
And I’m not scared
Light my candles in a daze…
Cause I’ve found god yeah ah ah
Likelihood is that churches would switch to something less toxic over time. Besides which, if the law can move to “protect” people in other “public” places, what makes anyone think they’ll stop at chapels? Think there’s something particularly “sacred” about a Church that it deserves exemptions?
It’s the fact that Governments intrude in these situations to begin with is the problem, not the fact that it just so happens to be the Church. They’re fair game as far as Govts. go.
The way I see it, people choose to go there. Let them choke or work out an alternative for themselves.
I think I scared the dog laughing so hard. It should be notworthy among historians that the biggest carcinogenic problems are caused by countries run by godless socialism. For non-historians, your assignment is a study of environmental health risks in the former Soviet Union when it was still such, modern China, North Korea, East Germany (anyone remember the two-stroke Trabi?). In fact, the more you centralize things and control human freedom, the more you end up with this. Note that I avoided just going for the cheap-shot and comparing smoke in Dutch churches to say, beheadings in Islamofascist mosques, which of course was a very kind thing of me to do.
There has been quite a campaign against the Roman Catholic church in several European nations recently. As well as by the E.U. – for example the demand that the Italian professor admit that he regarded homsexual acts as a sin, and then deciding that anyone who holds such a view is unfit to be an E.U. Commissioner.
I would have thought that this means that no traditional Muslim or Jew (as well as Christian) can be a E.U. Commissioner. But, no doubt, they will all have to continue to pay E.U. taxes and obey E.U. regulations.
At one time the secular elite in Europe understood that there was a difference between a sin and a crime. And they also understood that not forbidding an act did not mean you approved of it. That actions did not have to be either forbidden or compulsory.
But now when a Italian Professor tries to explain these things (having been forced on to the subject by members of the E.U. “Parliament”) he is treated as beyond the Pale.
Well he was silly to try and become an E.U. official in the first place. And the Roman Catholic Church has clearly made a misjudgement (at least from Vatican II onwards) in trying to make friends with forces that wish to destroy it.
Statists will not expect any organization between the individual citizen and the state. They may denounce “atomized individuals”, but that is exactly what they want.
There has been quite a campaign against the Roman Catholic church in several European nations recently. As well as by the E.U. – for example the demand that the Italian professor admit that he regarded homsexual acts as a sin, and then deciding that anyone who holds such a view is unfit to be an E.U. Commissioner.
I would have thought that this means that no traditional Muslim or Jew (as well as Christian) can be a E.U. Commissioner. But, no doubt, they will all have to continue to pay E.U. taxes and obey E.U. regulations.
At one time the secular elite in Europe understood that there was a difference between a sin and a crime. And they also understood that not forbidding an act did not mean you approved of it. That actions did not have to be either forbidden or compulsory.
But now when a Italian Professor tries to explain these things (having been forced on to the subject by members of the E.U. “Parliament”) he is treated as beyond the Pale.
Well he was silly to try and become an E.U. official in the first place. And the Roman Catholic Church has clearly made a misjudgement (at least from Vatican II onwards) in trying to make friends with forces that wish to destroy it.
Statists will not expect any organization between the individual citizen and the state. They may denounce “atomized individuals”, but that is exactly what they want.
I see the Telegraph reports that Cardinal Ratzinger is concerned at the apparent hostility of contemporary secular multiculturalism towards Christianity.
I find it somewhat odd that the supposedly humanist western elite loathes Christianity yet will happily grovel in front of Islam. To say “I am a Moslem” evokes sympathy and even largesse, but to say “I am a Christian” results in contempt and derision. It’s hard to see this latest news of the health hazards of churches as anything but another example of this.
I do believe, as I have said before, that people need moral rules and guidance (even if they don’t follow it all the time). Although not a deeply religious man, I do think that by any standards our liberal, secular humanist morality has failed utterly, since (predictably) it offers no moral guidance other than to say that all lifestyles are equally valid. Probably the phrase would be “life affirming.” More disconcerting is the sustained assault on Christianity. It is perhaps a symptom of the total loss of confidence in western tradition and culture, and the willingness to embrace anything else. Make no mistake, some energetic philosophy WILL be embraced, for this seems to be the way of humanity. And what is being embraced? Islam. The next argument will doubtless be that if we cannot beat them we should join them.
Where all philosophies are equally valid (or life affirming), no philosophy reigns and thus there is no driving idea in society, no generally comprehensible moral basis for law. This may be great from a libertarian point of view, but as with several other things in the libertarian world-view, it doesn’t actually work very well in practice. It also weakens society, and leaves it open to domination by another philosophy which most emphatically does have a firm moral view.
EG
I’m sure the God element in church services is much, much more dangerous than the candles, but if people choose to pollute their minds and bodies with either, I’m not about to stand in their way.
(Quite apart from my own scruples, churches have a tradition of using people who do that as candles.)
Personally I think someone should post health warnings. Telling kids there is a god is tantamount to child abuse anyway.
Do I detect some old anti-Popery in this latest piece of lunacy? Is this a conspiracy by Protestants at the expense of Catholics?
As Brit journalist Richard Littlejohn says, you can’t make this stuff up.
Now if Churches really wanted to get the punters in, they could allow smoking in church. Consider the collection plate an “entrance fee” and presto more bums in seats. I think even I could sit through some pompous ole’ poof prattling on about things religious, if I could sit and have a nice cigar at the same time. (Preferably with a pint or a glass of wine.)
Today is the feast of Christ the King, instituted by Pius XI in 1925 to combat secularism. Hence the timing of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger’s remarks. The Church that wishes to ban abortion must logically seek to outlaw everything else that is contrary to God’s will for man, right through to masturbation.
Think there’s something particularly “sacred” about a Church that it deserves exemptions?
Yes. The law of sanctuary and the seal of the confessional. If I tell some bloke in the street that I intend to commit a racially-motivated crime or plant a bomb, he has a duty to tell the police. If I confess my intentions to a priest, he is under a solemn and absolute duty not to tell the police or the potential victims or in any way act on the information.
So it’s one law for them, another for us. And people complain about “secularism?” Thankfully, courts seem to be buying that con less and less.
Agreed, James. I understand that if confessed to a priest my desire to kill him this evening on his regular walk back to his house at 6pm, he could not change his course!
The Church (I’m thinking primarily of the Roman Catholic Church here) will justify her stand on these things, but the refusal to prevent the taking of innocent life in these examples contrasts oddly with her stance against abortion and the death penalty.
There have been cases of asylum-seekers the Home Office wanted to deport claiming sanctuary in RC and Anglican churches in this country with the support of the parish priests and their bishops, and the police not being allowed to make an arrest. A bit like the pussyfooting around going into the Finsbury Park mosque to arrest Abu Hamza.
The Church, in my opinion, has a right to attack secularism in the same way that any lobby group has a right to campaign. But it should not confuse the state with the Kingdom of God.
–cessair
As a future Lutheran pastor I can say nothing except, agreed.
Peace,
Chris
Smoke on the altar…
(Any Deep Purple fans out there?)
Alan, yes another gag that I thought of too. BTW if you are a fan of Deep Purple there is a really good biography of the band that has just been released.
“If a person spends enough time in Church to be affected by the levels of smoke its more likely that the thought of death won’t strike fear into their hearts. ”
True, it shouldn’t affect the customers unless they go overboard. But the employees (priests) obviously must wear respirators!
An anti-papist plot? No, Episcopalians (and I assume Lutherans) also have too many candles burning. It must be a plot by the less showy forms of Protestantism (Unitarians, Baptists or whatever they’re called over there, and all versions of Calvinism) against the candle and incense burning competition.
Careful, Antoine; you’re tempting the gods of reductio creep.
Half of Holland smokes marijuana and they are worried about incense? Thats ridiculous. More pollutants are found on the streets of Holland than in the church due to automobiles. It would take many years for a risk of cancer. <3 Lori