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.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Go tell the Iranians, passerby… Movies have consequences:
“Iranian commentators are mainly angry, defending Iran’s action,” the e-mail said. “The reason for that is a) UK does not have a good/positive history in Iran b) Persians have been treated badly by Westerners e.g. in the movie 300 or referring to Persian Gulf as simply Gulf or Arabian Gulf, so now having the poor young sailors captivated by Iran, many Iranians feel proud!!!!!!”
Now what are the chances of Ahmedinejad changing his name to Xerxes?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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So capturing two inflatable boats counts as a great military victory?
Xerxes: I ruled most of the then known world!
Amanidinjad: That’s nothing! I captured two dinghys from the accursed Little Satan.
[overheard in hell]
But then Mr Asmadasahatta doesn’t exactly look like Xerxes does he?
More like a strategically shaved monkey dressed by C&A c.1983.
I loved 300 (saw it in the IMAX – cool!) and it’s a movie based on a comic book – it’s not foreign policy or a Zionist conspiracy despite what Iran claims. Yes, they really do blame the film on a Zionist conspiracy. When will these fuckwits ever grow up? They’re now objecting to a movie. Previously it was cartoons, and before that a novel. Well, they’re at least multi-media in their hatreds.
Before anybody jumps on me and accuses me of racism over the monkey jibe I called Mr Armanidinnerjacket that because his critics in Iran call him “the monkey”.
He’s certainly a brazen, cheeky, cocky little bastard.
If I could have ten minutes with him, with my toolbox, in a sound-proof room our troubles in that part of the world would rapidly resolve.
Actually, forget the tool-box. I’d just need a bottle of ginger beer.
Either that or Dr Beckett could invite him on a weekend caravan trip to the Peak District and pack her shortie-nightie. Now that would be cruel and unusual.
That should’ve been “Nick M” not “n”. Ooops!!
I guess they couldn’t take the 300. So they took 15!
I see that one of the ‘marines’ on telly is is a Captain. They were captured by 4 Iranians in a rickety boat. Way to go !
I’d just need a bottle of ginger beer
Yeah, I enjoyed “Night Watch” as well.
Nice dark read.
Thanks Chris!
I worried that nobody would get the reference.
I wonder what would be in Mr Amanukingjihad’s Room 101?
Put him in the comfy chair Cardinal Fang!
Serious point now – why are they so precious? I’ve watched Monty Python do the “Spanish Inquisition” with Catholics who were at least as amused as I was.
So the Iranians go mental over stuff that nobody else blinks about. They actually issued a statement to the effect that 300 wouldn’t shake Iranian culture! Are they really scared or something? I mean my Englishness didn’t feel threatened by schlock like Braveheart or The Patriot. I don’t feel personally slighted when Hollywood casts yet another of our Shakespearian luvvies as a villian. What is up with these people?
(And Ian McKellan, Jeremy Irons and Alan Rickman gotta eat like the rest of us.)
If you have a shufty over at MEMRI then you can see ME TV (If you are Jewish I advise you to keep your arms firmly under control because punching a monitor is both expensive and painful). The shit they heap on Brits, Americans, Jooooooooos etc is stunning yet they’re not prepared to take it.
So… are they deliberately, knowingly, guilty of obscene double-standards or are they just demented?
I’m begining to think a very large number of people in the ME have mastered the art of double-think. How else could they simultaneously believe that 9/11 was an inside job and that “imperialist” America deserved it. Well how?
Possibly like this. The Koran is the final word of God himself dictated by the angel Gabriel to Mohammed and is perfect in every way. But it contains contradictions. This minor problem is circumvented by the idea that the latter passages abrogate the earlier ones. The entire centre of Islamic culture requires double-think in order to believe it. Shouldn’t a book that is the final message from God to his creation be logically consistent? Shouldn’t it read like a rather more literary version of a proof by Euclid rather than rely on the rather contingent concept of abrogation?
Koran early on (Muhammed was in Mecca and a bit-part street-preacher) – “There is no compulsion in religion”
Koran later on (Muhammed was in Medina and in charge of an army) – “Smite the necks of the unbelievers and cut off their finger tips”.
God changes his mind? Or being muslim requires one to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day.
Thanks Chris!
I worried that nobody would get the reference.
On a site as full of anal obsessives as this? You got to be kidding.
I don’t believe there is a single area of human endeavour that is not covered by someone here.
Wot about that ignoramuses guide to Islam I mentioned some days ago. You expressed an interest, still interested?
Yup, I am Chris. People gotta know and I gotta tell!
Alas, my beloved Thalia is on the blocks right now and I’m stuck with Echo, my Thinkpad. Gimme an email address and I’ll be in touch.
I think it’s a really good idea. I think this because of the extent of ignorance that exists wrt Islam just as it existed about Nazism and Communism. People think: zakkat – charity, isn’t that nice? They don’t think of homosexuals being hung from telescopic cranes in town squares…
Oddly enough the company who are going to fix my computer was founded by a bloke who high-tailed it out of Iran following the revolution…
NickM: So… are they deliberately, knowingly, guilty of obscene double-standards or are they just demented?
I suspect both.
The Koran and the whole ecosystem is a litany of double-think. The inventor began by being totally unhinged and insecure about any kind of comments and using projection to justify bloody revenge. IIRC he murdered an entire Jewish town when the koran was only 60 words long because the Jews did not accept him as a prophet (and who would with only 60 words to your ‘name’?).
As for abrogation, the Koran is not even in temporal/”revealed” order, but AFAICT, chapter size order so the idea of “abrogation” is bonkers.
Anything but demanding it is total perfection from God, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
Iran’s continued objections to 300 struck me as strange, because as an Islamic Republic, why should they take pride in what a bunch of Pagans did?
These suspicions were given voice in this Spengler article at the Asia Times here.
Basically, the Koran itself rejoices when the Sassanid Empire was defeated by the Byzantines in 628 AD, because it was a victory for monotheistic believers. Granted, in the event in question the Spartans were no more monotheistic than the Persians, but that would make me think that Muslims had no dog in that fight at all. I think the mullahs would have some explaining to do, you know, if they cared a whit about consistency or logic.
Come, let’s not keep it to one ‘holy book’ after all Thomas Paine wrote about the contradictions of the Bible in his ‘Age of Reason.’
This one isn’t an April Fool’s joke, is it?
Pity.
Zeno,
But the point is Christians and Jews don’t regard the Bible as the literal and infallibile word of God and His last message to His Creation. This is a fundamental article of faith with muslims.
And what’s worse is that many muslim states only accept the Koran in the original C7th Arabic which is a very dead language. An overwhelming majority of muslims can’t even read their Holy Book. Couple that with the pitiful literacy rates in the Islamic World and… Well, ya see.
Yes, I did think along similar lines Alfred. I think the Iranian Government is just being it’s usual obnoxious self which it reverts to at the very slightest provocation or assumed slight. Rather like the infamous MoToons of Doom they seem unable or unwilling to seperate the actions of free Western media from Western governments.
I’ll go one step further even…
IIRC, one of the complaints with the student revolution was that the Sha was reveling in the glory days of Persia, *before* Islam. To see them now up in arms over a movie fantasy of something that happened like 1100 years before Mohammed seems…ummm….ironic?
Nate,
Yeah, right. A book called “The Islamic Tradition of Irony” would be a short book.
Anybody who has read Borge’s “Averroe’s Search” or Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” must appreciate that Islam just doesn’t do comedy, irony or anything even vaguely related.
Comedy relies upon subtext and subversion. These are not things encouraged in a religion which is as literalist as Islam but has such a low level of literacy. This is just not something we’re used to in the West. Even the most fundamentalist Christian would be happy to acknowledge that parts of the Bible are not literally true. Example: I very much doubt any Christian would raise Cain over the literal existence or otherwise of a “good” Samaritan.
Much though I was amused by the spoof ad Viz did a few years back: “The Pharisees – walking on by 24/7”.
Nick M,
I can be contacted at countingcats at gmail dot com.
Nick M
Even the most fundamentalist Christian would be happy to acknowledge that parts of the Bible are not literally true.
You think? I have met plenty of them. Even when you point out the most obvious errors, such as the many differences between John’s Gospel and the earlier three, they come up with truly ingenious ways to prove that the bible is in fact the unadulterated and innerant word of work of god.
Incidentally, this would make the Christian god out to be a right cunt if it were true.
Eamonn,
No! There is a reason they’re called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They were written by these people. Surely, that’s a basic Christian tenet of faith? Surely, it’s also a basic Islamic tenet of faith that the Koran was given to Muhammed verbatim from the Archangel Gabriel in C7th century Arabic (it just so happening to be the language Allah used to boss the angels about in).
There is a huge difference between fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam. I recall fundamentalist Christians offering to pray for “my sins” (which was perhaps a little patronising) but I do not recall them ever threatening to behead me (which would have been much worse).
This is not just down to the core beliefs of the religions. It is also a matter of the interpretation of scripture. The Koran is a monolith yet the Bible consists of an awful lot of “Books of…”.
You know
Maybe I should start spelling my name with 2 n’s. It might just be easier.
Anyway NNick,
Spare me the patronising tone because you obviously haven’t got a lot of experience of fundies. According to some christians, the gospels (like the rest of the bible) were written under divine inspiration and therefore are the “actual” words of God. So the non-literal aspect of the bible not a basic tenet of Christian faith at all. It is, in fact, one of the most hotly disputed items in the Christian faith.
And you get plenty of threats from your die-hard fundies. Beheading ain’t their thing, but I have been informed of the bullet that awaits my cranium for daring to suggest that the bible might be contradictory in parts. I don’t really mind the threats. Athiests who go trolling around Christian messageboards should expect a bit of abuse (by the way, in my experience the Catholics are the nastiest).
There are, obviously, a great many differences betwen fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, but an ability to distinguish between a book written by men and a fax straight from god is not one of them.
Nick,
You’re getting rather good at this ranting thing. I like it.
Question: When you get Mr. Armanidinnerjacket into the soundproof room, will you, perchance, have one of those “rectal pear” thingies in your tool box?
And Eamon. Dude. Chill.
Eamon,
Sure some Christians believe as you specify, however, belief in the literal accuracy of every aspect of the Bible is not a basic requirement for being a Christian. A belief of this sort in the Koran IS a requirement for a Muslim. Every Muslim, everywhere, at all times.
Every Muslim, to be a Muslim, must be what we would call a fundamentalist.
Many don’t behave in this way, but that is choice outside of and contrary to doctrine.
Hello Chris
Sure some Christians believe as you specify, however, belief in the literal accuracy of every aspect of the Bible is not a basic requirement for being a Christian.
You try telling the fundies that.
CFM
Chill? I wasn’t aware things were getting heated?
My most recent reply on this thread appears to have been smited.
I’m curious. What, in the porridge-like blandness of it’s contents, was deemed worthy of censure?
Eamon
Our filters are designed to keep spammers out and we do not discuss how they work ‘in the clear’.
Never mind Perry, I was jumping the gun. Its seems to have been delayed for a couple of hours rather than being obliterated.
Many apologies.
Eamon,
Sigh, this is one of those Christians are as bad as Muslims discussions.
I am sorry, but the vast majority of Christians are not fundamentalists, and not only is this is within doctrinal limits, it has been for a thousand years. There is no School of Islamic teaching which can accept this position.
CFM,
No I would not be using the “Pear of Anguish”. I fix computers so it isn’t a standard item in my toolkit. (Although considering some of the late payments I get, that policy might change).
In anycase, I greatly prefer the Ginger Beer Trick.
Eamonn,
OK, so you wind up Christians on the net and they threaten to kill you. You don’t appear ro be regarding this as a particularly credible threat do you? Now imagine, you’re in Basra chained to a radiator and someone is chanting “Allah Ackbar” while sharpening* a machete. Now would you be scared?
I’ve known and liked a fair few Christian fundamentalists. Some though, I must admit were annoying and pestering and some clearly were nuts but frankly not one of them said anything about beheading infidels.
Of course a very small number of Christians resort to violence such as attacking abortionists but this is a vanishingly small minority and their actions are almost invariably condemned out of hand by their churchs. This is not the case with even moderate muslim organisations like the MCB. I seem to recall that pretty much their first reaction to the 7/7 bombings was to “hope they wouldn’t lead to a rise in Islamophobia”.
So, Christians are vastly less given to violence in the name of religion than muslims. I suspect that the example of Christ and all the martyrs would make them distinctly queasy about the idea even if they were well up for fighting for other causes. This is not the case with Islam which was born fighting. And fighting dirty.
On a more theological level Chris said pretty much all that needs to be said. There is a massive difference between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic. And there is a huge difference between claiming that the authors of the Gospels were inspired by God and claiming that they were actually taking down dictation literally word-for-word from the Archangel Gabriel which is a core concept of Islam. This is reinforced by the truly odd stuff that goes on in madrassas. How many Christians have you ever met who can recite the entire New Testament in a C7th language they don’t understand?
Check out this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a4_UGGIcCI
My wife went to a Sunday School as a kid and it absolutely wasn’t like that. My mother taught at a Fundamentalist Christian school and it wasn’t like that.
Now, you might be thinking, “Oh well that’s Pakistan – they’ll be different over here”. Wrong. 80% of British imams are not British born. D’ya think they moderate their doctrines between immigration and the taxi-rank?
Chris and Nick (Who still can’t seem to spell)
Why don’t you both take a deep breath and actually read what I have written.
I am making a minor point that there is a strain of Fundamentalist christian thought (and not a small one I might add) which believes in both the literal truth and innerrancy of the bible. This is all I have stated. I have made no comment on the relative merits of both religions. I have made no comment on the muslim threat to the west.
So rather than putting words in my mouth and thoughts in my head, why don’t you actually deal with the posts as they were written.
Eamon
Eamon,
Yep, you are correct. That is what I was doing. Nick can speak for himself I guess.
I am used to dealing with the christians = muslims mindset, so that is what I was mapping onto what you said.
Too often I have had to point out that while christian fundies believe in the garden of eden, and wave placards outside abortion clinics, muslim fundies fly planes into buildings. There is a difference.
Eamon,
Whaddya mean I can’t spell?
Why make a minor point? Why bother? Until a Christian funamentalist makes a credible threat of destroying your entire way of life and killing, converting or enslaving you then what’s the problem?
I may be being “Islamophopic” but I seem to recall that the worst I ever got from a Christian fundamentalist was being mildly patronised. For my (very minor) role in producing Motoons I got threatened, charmingly with, “I fuck your sister up the ass” amongst other things that would make a make The Aristocrats sound like a Uc rated joke. I don’t even have a sister. I was also threatened with the buggery of my “kid brother”, again another assumption. He’s 30, quite handy, and I would love to see ’em try.
Why were the threats I received (almost) entirely about muslims performing haram sexual acts upon my family members?
If I ever produced Jesustoons then I expect I’d get some flak from Christians. I suspect it would be along the lines of you’re a sad, sick person and we pray for you. It would not contain a graphic description of… Actually I just can’t type it. Sorry, I can’t even paraphrase it. And regular commentators here know I’m not squeamish.
I reiterate. If you weren’t attempting to demonstrate a moral equivalence, what were you wasting time and electricity on?
Eamon,
Sorry about the double “n” thang. I’ve just reviewed the thread and I entirely get it now. I can be such a klutz. No offense was meant.
NNick
Hello Nick
None taken. The N-thing happens all the time. My own father does it.
As to your penultimate post, no I wasn’t trying to demonstrate moral equivalence. As far as I am concerned everyone is morally equivalent, insomuch as morality applies to all and therefore everyone has to be held to the same standards of behaviour. To that end I don’t care what religion anyone espouses as their actions are all that they will eventually be judged upon. A good Muslim is still a good human being irrespective of his faith and a bad Christian doesn’t get off the hook just because of his religion.
As to why I made a minor point. It’s because I felt like it. Sorry if it didn’t have the requisite gravitas. I’ll try harder to make major contributions to threads in the future.
Eamo(n)