Why Christianity is Scary

I stumbled upon this quote on a site called Positive Atheism

"In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince men that they need salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy man living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, man is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation."

-- George H Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God

Very good isn't it

Here's another reason for to avoid all forms of religion, this one is scary

From the good old U.S. of A from "Wife Swap"
The woman is called Margrette, she came back from a family that didn't belive in god.

Now we know that the TV networks use damaged people like this because it boosts their ratings. but......
I think this poor woman is a fine example of where religion is dragging America. She is the human face of religion in the US. This clip and other footage show her to be the embodiment of self rightous intolerance, deep ignorance, wincing hypocracy, hubris, gluttony, and religious insanity.

Let this be a warning to sane people.

beware all God fearin' Christians they are the spawn of Satan

Religion is a disease

• While there is no complete cure, the good news is that the infection can be treated. It is worth remembering at all times that those suffering the disease are victims - as well as the main vector for the pathogen.

• They should be offered our pity and our care and helped, as far as is possible to a full recovery. They are ill - and should be treated sympathetically for as long as the symptoms persist and provided the disease does not become pandemic.

• Mild cases are not dangerous and most of the population carry the virus, which can lie dormant and unnoticed until exposed to preachers, missionaries, mullahs, evangelists, clerics and patriotic fervor.

• In most healthy individuals the virus is suppressed by the mind's own immune system and the viral agent remains inactive. It is possible for people to live long and productive lives without the disease coming to the surface or producing effects more adverse than the odd skyward glance and look of bewilderment.

• However when there is an uncontained outbreak and the disease spreads out of control, rampant stupidity and intolerance will inevitably ensue.

• There are many different strains of this disease - if left unchecked all are lethal to the culture and host they infest. Some of these strains are more virulent than others - they include; Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Muslim and Jainism. The latter being so benign as to barely qualify as a pathogen.

• The main vector for the disease is indoctrination and ignorance. There is no known complete cure and the best defense is education, an open mind and self reflection.

• Those unlucky enough to be contaminated by the disease (often passed willfully from parent to child) can be treated with regular doses of cynicism and common sense.

• In children, if the disease is caught swiftly enough there is some hope of an almost full recovery and in some cultures where there is enough of the naturally occurring antidote; a fair society; equality; a good education system; and a lack of fear; children rarely catch the disease in the first place.

• In some parts of the world this age old enemy of mankind has been almost totally eradicated. Most of these areas are in northern Europe and the antipodes. Unfortunately there are still deep infestations in parts of America, Asia and the Middle East.

• So what can you do to prevent infection?

• Be vigilant and do not underestimate the power of ridicule the disease thrives on fear ignorance and silent acceptance, it cannot tolerate open minded inquiry or the light of skepticism and reason.

• Finally one last word of warning some individuals not only carry the disease but are willfully attempting to spread this virulent and medieval cancer. They can be recognised by the sounds of hypocrisy coming from their mouths and their message of love and tolerance preached belligerently to the ignorant or innocent.

• Next week the Bible and the Koran why each book should carry a government health warning.

This is not a pipe

Still Life with Violin and pears

This is not a remarkable piece of Art. I think it's a vastly overrated still life elevated to a status it does not merit, by a self serving and exclusive art establishment, which having built a little club for the connoisseur on the sinking sands of artistic and intellectual snobbery, has fought a rearguard action to defend the indefensible.


While Picasso has some ability ( Now I know how stupid that sounds, because without a second thought everyone jumps in with the cliched response, "but picasso is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century") Says who? The Art Establishment of course who else?

I think Picasso produced some excellent paintings, and I know he is venerated to the point of sainthood by some critics. I think some of his work is mediocre and some of it is rubbish. The still life above is a work of art which has some historical interest but I think is as bereft of artistic merit as any other mediocre piece of art.

If this was in a first year art exhibition I would have no hesitation in saying "what a load of crap" are they still peddling this turgid dross. So why do I feel on shakier ground just because its by some bloke called Picasso.

Probably because other "more knowledgeable" art critics writ things like............


From "Picasso and Things," Cleveland Museum of Art:

This goes on and on and on by the way..........................and on and on


"After the spareness of Picasso's papiers colles with newsprint from December 1912, this "Still Life with Violin and Fruit"...delights us with its indulgence and provocation of our senses. It has the charming, and, at that time, rare combination of a violin with a compote of fruit on a table behind a ladder-back chair.............

"Picasso used a great deal of Le Journal again, of 6 and 9 December 1912, but he handled it with grace. He fashioned the bowl of the compote deftly out of newsprint, as he did a skirt for the table, .......... As Edward Fry points out in his remarkable analysis of this work, Picasso even used a different newsprint under the glass, at a slightly different angle, so that "the transparent, refractive quality of the empty glass is emphasized." Where headings do appear, they are legible and cleverly placed - "[app]arition" above the glass and URNAL below. "L'Apparition" is a story of a seance in a "sumptuous salon" by Frederic Boutet in the g December Le Journal. LA VIE SPORTIVE, with nevvs of skating, football, billiards, if not all the sports to which this term is applied is upside down at the bottom and dashing. CHRONIQUE FINAN[ciere], with some news of improvement in the stock market, also upside down, disappears, however, into shadow by and under the chair. Picasso also seems to have found decorative qualities in the columns of the newsprint, which he emphasized by shading..... "This arbitrary use of color paved the way for the bright and unexpected colors of Synthetic Cubism."

...he did introduce ambiguities into the work, for example, in giving the table two tops, one faux bois and angular, the other white and round, or the compote two bases, one the pillarlike pedestal, the other a combination of angles and the profile of the faux bois soundboard of the violin. But it is the violin that he made most paradoxical by tearing it apart turning one profile of its soundboard into imitation wood-graining, another into a heavily textured and contoured area of paint, pasting on paper for the light and dark side of the fingerboard and the beautiful blue paper for its sound holes and bridge, and then drawing strongly over the newsprint to transform the violin's scrolls into eyes and its pegs into sprouting double moustaches. The degree to which Picasso broke apart this violin letting us look at it from different directions in different, if contiguous, spaces,........ blah, blah, blah

"In the newspaper bowl for the fruit, from the financial page, page 8, of Le Journal of 6 December, there are three charming chromolithographed botanical prints of an apple, a pear, and a quince, with two others peering up behind them. Fry points out that, "paradoxically, the cutouts of fruit seem to overlap each other, yet physically they do not". And there are many other paradoxes in the work including the fact that Picasso was beginning to use coarsened, impregnated paint to give the kind of texture foreign to the concept of the original flat Cubist papiers colles. "Still Life with Violin and Fruit" possesses humor, wit, and above all an appetite for art and life that make it probably the most generous of all Picasso's still lifes with pasted papers."

Wow that was long winded!

Why use ten simple words when you can use a hundred big ones. That was someone trying to demonstrate how knowledgeable they are about art history but in the end perhaps have demonstrated how little they know about art.

Yes, sure and next we will be told that Jackson Pollock can paint!

If a picture tells a thousand words why are so many needed to justify a very unappetizing assemblages of faded newspaper and cut scraps.

This is a really boring still life, its past claim to fame depended on novelty value and iconoclastic potency. Both these properties having a shelf life shorter even than that of Picasso's women, its initial impact is now a vague half remembered curiosity. It is a faded relic of a bygone age and like a geriatric movie star it has long lost the ability to hold and engage the viewer. It is terminally limited even in its historical appeal.

Only an already knowledgeable art enthusiast could find the composition of this work engaging and even the most uncritical would soon exhausted its impoverished repertoire. On returning to study it on more than one occasions, its charm is even more difficult to discern. Below the nicotine yellow and the dull insipid browns of its scabby worn out and aged facade, faded and threadbare it is devoid of interest except as a historical footnote. Even when you understand the elements of composition, the balance of tone and shape, the contrast of texture and flat colour, the use of warm and cold areas to create tension and the philosophy behind synthetic cubism, even when you dig down below the hyperbole, this is still a poor piece of work.

The most interesting parts of the composition are "three charming chromolithographed botanical prints of an apple, a pear, and a quince, with two others peering up behind them "

In other words the bits done by another artist that Picasso cut out and stuck down. The entire work looks like something that has taken only an hour or so to throw together and scribble over. All the flowery words in the world fail to garb this sagging, liver spotted emperor in new clothes .