I’ve been given a vision, it’s been sanctified and verified by god himself, I claimed his gift of faith, and i have faith that it is so.
If the New Testament of the bible is ‘on the money’ then people really need to know about it, and quickly. You might say that there are plenty of people out there trying but the fact is that they aren’t very good at it. They’ve had 2000 years to do it, and there are still a large majority not realising what happened in Judea. If it’s true that there actually is an afterlife… and unless we tell Jesus we accept his sacrifice we’re doomed to hell… then, well the race to save peoples souls should be on the news on a daily basis - we need a daily updated on the souls saved - maybe involved some sort of tracking technology. So why isn’t it?
I think, in my not so humble opinion that it’s the way go about telling others… it’s almost like we want to keep it to themselves. We’re happy to leave it to the shouty street preachers… who just come across as deranged and deluded. Or to manipulative and cheesy Alpha Course types.
So how do we do it? We need to find a Unique Selling Point, we need to focus on the things that are common to all of the other non-true religions and leave them to one side. There are millions of decent moral, right thinking, loving people who conscientiously adhere to their factually inaccurate faith. Everyone who has a faith is really convinced that they commune with their respective god, and that he answers them and guides them and has a plan for them (to some degree). Amount and depth of faith isn’t impressive at all… lest we’d all be turning to militant Islam. But they are all of course being deluded by Satan, except for Christians. Simply using manipulative phrases like ‘Jesus loves you, why don’t you accept the free gift’ gets seen for what it is…the religious equivalent of ‘when did you stop beating your wife’.
We must remember that if the NT is a reliable message from god then we know that he loves and wants us all to know about the Jesus salvation narrative. The most wonderful gift he gave us, something no other faith has, is the historical events that happened in Israel 2000 years ago. Let’s not get caught up in the mumbo jumbo and benign brain washing of the worlds churches - lets stop all this obsession with ‘faith’ - we don’t need to rely on faith, we have facts, that’s what Jesus gave us. He didn’t need to, the resurrection could have been a meta-physical spiritual battle or could all have happened in the middle of the desert so we’d never know.
We need to be confident in that, we need to put it all on the table. We need to accept that a loving god wouldn’t make it difficult for us, if we approach the evidence with an open mind and with our logical and rational heads fully screwed on then he will bless that. Logic and rationality are gifts which he gave us, and he insists we use it lest we fall for the devils seductions. In order to prove the truth to the world we have to be open to the idea that the Jesus stories aren’t in fact real, and that the Jewish messiah could still return and ask why we fell for the devils trickery re: the Jesus church.
Let’s not peddle this self-defeating nonsense that Jesus doesn’t want to make it too obvious too us so we can have free will. This belittles our lord, and threatens to be a barrier to salvation as it makes people rightly suspicious. Jesus could have been a lot more subtle if he’d wanted to - maybe appearing for a moment in each of our dreams and giving us the salvation choice. Instead, if we’re to believe the NT he appeared to lots of people doing magical signs to convince them - sometimes 5000 in one go. Are we saying he respected these peoples free will less than ours?
God won’t punish you for applying your reason and rationality and assuming Jesus wasn’t who it’s reported he was… until you’ve assessed the evidence and decided he was (or wasn’t).
It’s like when you were a kid and your dad said… don’t get into a car with any strangers even if they say they that I sent them to pick you up… make sure you are 100% convinced they are who they say they are. I’d rather you rejected someone I might genuinely have sent for you, than get into the car with the wrong person, that’s the actions of a loving parent.
I’m not talking about getting a bishop with a doctorate in theology and an obvious agenda to write a book packed full of ultimately true, but logically very dodgy assumptions. This is the definition of preaching to the choir - this will be accepted with the same open minds that we read Dawkins! Maybe we should sponsor a panel of the worlds smartest and most qualified people, a cross section of the intelligentsia (perhaps those who are currently non-aligned to any religion but who have proven themselves open minded) and get them to carry out a thorough investigation and publish the results at the UN for all to see, where they can be challenged and assessed.
How could anyone object to that? Let’s make sure they report back before the rapture.
…seriously, i really think i could have been in with a shout of the Turner Prize, if only i had my video camera set up correctly, and in time.
Let me set the scene. In the foyer downstairs at my office, there are three lifts, on this particular morning one of the lifts wasn’t working correctly, the interesting thing was in the WAY it wasn’t working correctly.
All seemed well, I walked into it and joined a few other people, the doors closed, then opened again as if someone had just pressed the button in time, it was 8.45 so inevitably someone else got in until the lift was full. This door opening thing usually only happens 3 times before you get a long beeeep and the door closes for good. On this occasion the door was closing for 5 seconds then opening for 10 seconds at infinitum.
It created a peculiar effect. People would realise after the third or forth closure what was happening, then leave and get another lift but people arriving in the foyer would witness the lift emptying and think , ok good timing, get in the lift and the cycle would continue.
If i’d known it was going to happen i would have set up a video camera, recorded the phenomenon and submitted it as a performance art piece for the Turner Prize.
In fact, i might set it up atificailly and see what happens!
I’m no fan of musical theatre. Well, fan is a big word… I have been to see a few musicals, and yes, like them… but that doesn’t make me a fan… The last one I went to see was Spamalot, which was in fact brilliant. My mate GE was with me and she was a big fan, so I allowed myself to be swept along, which is always the best way I feel. Before that I went to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - it had all the great names… WILMOT-BLAIR-BIGGINS!!! A great show.
Understand that I’m not gay or ought, but I love musicals.
Last night on the south bank show (embarrasingly for the best part of a decade I thought Melvin Bragg was Billy Bragg’s dad - I was shockingly fished in by someone!) Anyway the show was about the making of Viva la Diva which ‘stars’ opera singer Katherine Jenkins and Ballerina Darcey Bussell. (It’s notable that Bussell looks really like the thin one offa trinny and Susannah, and Jenkins is fairly hot!)
Truly truly awful: Jenkins can sing but is a rubbish dancer, Bussell can dance but can’t sing. But they both had to sing and dance songs from Broadway. My word, an absolute car crash. The opening night in Manchester was a peer ‘through your fingers’ experience as they sang out of tune and bumped into each other a lot.
Whoever told them it was a good idea, was less than inspired.
The series is almost over, so it seems a bit late for a recommendation…. but Flight of the Conchords on BBC3, is very very funny.
From a shabby apartment on the Lower East Side, the friends spend their days seeking gigs for their digi-folk act, Flight of the Conchords (New Zealand’s “fourth most popular folk act”) in a bid to break onto the world stage.
Who’s the Question Monkey’s favourite comedienne?… is an oft asked question. I can reveal that without doubt is would be the lovely and very funny Sharon Horgan.
It’s been a slow burner. She’s been one of those people who’s always in programs I like such as Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive and Broken News. She’s written and starred in the irreverent and very funny series on BBC3 Pulling, and last week saw the first episode of her self-written six parter Angelo’s.
I think i heard someone call it, the comedy of the uncomfortable… if not, then i said it first! She’s in the tradition of Steve Coogan and Ricky Gervais but it’s most definitely from a female angle.
Unless someone on wikipedia is winding me up - she’s the brother of Ireland Rugby international Shane Horgan.
(point to note… the third series of the Mighty Boosh was on last week… the mrs and i were a bit underwhelmed. A lot to live up to after last series)
All I’ve got so far is a title… I’m awaiting inspiration
Premise: Most times it seems people are more comfortable being in a majority, group experiments have shown (as in, I saw it on a documentary once!) that people will say they the most ridiculous things which they know to be untrue, just because everyone else in the group says it. Other times though people seem to strive to be considered ‘different’. I think its rare that people strive to be in a minority of one, but as far as music, culture and society go the smaller the subculture the better, and when a music group or cultural totam becomes too popular and ‘mainstream’ people abandon it for this very reason (although they rarely admit it). Why?
Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.
The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.
So, THATS why im fat - it’s because i care about the environment!
I’ve been given a wake up call on the merits of my comic performance recently… the more ‘gold’ I dish out to my 3 month old the less he seems to appreciate it.
Neither my lampooning of Mr Doggys wiggly eyes or my skit about the identity of his giraffe/cow mutant cuddly toy raises much of a smile. It’s like he’s saying to me… hey, HEY! Enough with that… make with the funny faces and the song about the moo moo cow.
A mate of mine, SW from Clevedon, was recently chosen to be on a Channel 4 game show! The show itself is a complete car crash - how it’s managed to get beyond 5 or 6 episodes is beyond me, but SW made a great fist of it. He had a 1 in 3 choice at the end to win about £40k, by deciding who of the three random punters in front of him earned the highest wage … and as the Crusader Knight said to Indiana Jones, he choose poorly.
Still if you’re gonna be on tellie, its good to at least get out of there with out looking like a tit! With his tongue in cheek jibes about ‘odd’ contestants and dramatic ooooo’s and aaaaaah’s to build the tension - he could join the pro game show circuit (if such a thing doesnt exist, it should!). I think it was for the best that they edited out the rant about his right-wing political views, all things being equal.
He does have an idea though , for the next series. Instead of wining the the monetary value of the person’s wage… the person should have to swap wages for you for a 5 year period. Now, that would be high stakes, and give the viewing figures a boost.
A few weeks ago, The Jon Stewart Show did a comedy piece on the use of questions on 24 Hour news channels. Specifically Fox News (surprise, surprise).
So, being the Question Monkey I felt duty bound to analyse.
I’m rarely shocked by American news coverage but this was a new high. When discussing a topic they decided that they could throw in the most one sided ludicrous accusations on their Headline Ticker.
You want some examples don’t you?
Showing on their Headline bar at the bottom of the screen…
George Bush, greatest president ever? Are Muslims suffering from insanity? Iran is planning to attack us? Imigration should be ended, and illegals sent home?
Should say, it wasn’t just Fox, it was CNN as well.
Stewart of course had his own comedy headline bar.
Bush guilty of voter fraud? You’re mama is a wh*re? Cheney is satan?
I think, in my not so humble opinion that it’s the way go about telling others… it’s almost like we want to keep it to themselves. We’re happy to leave it to the shouty street preachers… who just come across as deranged and deluded. Or to manipulative and cheesy Alpha Course types.
rather you rejected someone I might genuinely have sent for you, than get into the car with the wrong person, that’s the actions of a loving parent.
as if someone had just pressed the button in time, it was 8.45 so inevitably someone else got in until the lift was full. This door opening thing usually only happens 3 times before you get a long beeeep and the door closes for good. On this occasion the door was closing for 5 seconds then opening for 10 seconds at infinitum.
Last night on the south bank show (embarrasingly for the best part of a decade I thought 
The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.
I’ve been given a wake up call on the merits of my comic performance recently… the more ‘gold’ I dish out to my 3 month old the less he seems to appreciate it.
A mate of mine, SW from Clevedon, was recently chosen to be on a Channel 4 game 
build the tension - he could join the pro game show circuit (if such a thing doesnt exist, it should!). I think it was for the best that they edited out the rant about his right-wing political views, all things being equal.
I’m rarely shocked by American news coverage but this was a new high. When discussing a topic they decided that they could throw in the most one sided ludicrous accusations on their Headline Ticker.
