Slashdot Mirror
Food Activist's Life Becomes The Life of Brian
krou writes "After food activist and author Raj Patel appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his latest book, things seemed to be going well, until he began to get inundated with emails asking if he was 'the world teacher.' In events ripped straight from The Life of Brian, it would seem that Raj Patel's life story ticks all the boxes necessary to fulfill prophecies made by Benjamin Creme, founder of religious sect Share International. After the volume of emails and inquiries got worse, Patel eventually wrote a message on his website stating categorically that he was not the Messiah. Sure enough, 'his denial merely fanned the flames for some believers. In a twist ripped straight from the script of the comedy classic, they said that this disavowal, too, had been prophesied.'"
He's NOT the messaiah, he is a very naughty boy!
I predict a long series of Python quotes incoming. Allow me to post one of my all-time favorites:
Followers: "Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!"
Brian "What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right, I AM the Messiah!"
Followers: "He is! He is the Messiah!"
Brian: "Now, Fuck off!"
*awkward pause*
Followers: "How shall we fuck off, oh Lord?"
One of the better parts of an overall extremely funny movie.
Also, I predict that this article on Slashdot will make all of his email problems so much better!
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
To be fair, his book did say "Blessed are the cheese makers", so he does bear some of the culpability.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Shame you started using photos in stories. Never has the foot icon been more appropriate.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
is he with the People's Front of Judea or the Judean People's Front?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
He should abuse the shit out of these retards.
I bet these prophecies don't say anything about him putting his followers into poverty for his own personal vices.
Tell them he's not their messiah but he wants all of their money so he can spend it on hookers and blow.
Although that still might not work, after all scientology has a way more suckers than these share international fools.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'm not.
"People are very ready to abdicate responsibility and have it shovelled on to someone else's shoulders," he said. "You saw that with Obama most spectacularly, but whenever there's going to be someone who's just going to fix it for you, it's a very attractive story. It's in every mythological structure."
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
All ye who call yourself Gourdenes...
Ezekiel 23:20
Splitter!
[All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
..as a figure who combines messianism for Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims alike ...
In Buddhism, I know of no concept of a "messiah". None. Maybe those of you who have perhaps studied more of the Sutras than I could offer another point of view.
There's a saying in Buddhism, "If you see the Buddha on the side of the road; kill him!"
I don't see how the concept of messiah would fit into the teachings.
Listen closely. I'd like to help you but I can't. I'd like to tell you to take a copy of your policy to Norma Wilcox on... Norma Wilcox, W-I-L-C-O-X... on the third floor, but I can't. I also do not advise you to fill out and file a WS2475 form with our legal department on the second floor. I would not expect someone to get back to you quickly to resolve the matter. I'd like to help, but there's nothing I can do.
Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
That does not prevent the idolizing of politicians, individually or as a party.
President or party Messiah anyone?
It does not prevent the abuse of the state, just warranties that state has a monopoly on certain kids of abuse.
School teachers accused of pederasty with immunity of prosecution anyone?
Not that I don't support "the separation between church and state. Is like separating good and evil." (That comes form a cartoon of wizard of Id, and cannot help but quote it here).
He is promoting rules of how you should eat, a dietary law if you will. If he tells us how to run our sex lives and wears a funny hat, case closed.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I say you are Lord, and I should know. I've followed a few.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
I was thinking more like Pope Leo X, who famously said: "Since God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it."
He was a fun loving guy, gave tons of money away to the sick and to the poor, loved the arts and people of learning. He restored universities, gave more money to teachers, and on and on.
There's a lot of negative things that could be said about him, but for some reason I have a difficult time calling them to mind.
Raj Patel might want to consult the wisdom of Winston, after having consulted the wisdom of Brian.
You are reading the wrong history. Most of those men were at best Diests, and if I end up being wrong and there is such a thing as a Christian hell, I have no doubt many of the founding fathers are roasting over the flame reserved for Franklin. If there was ever an un-Christian man, it was him.
"There have been similar cases in the past, including Steve Cooper, an unemployed man from Tooting, south London, who was identified by a Hindu sect as the reincarnation of a goddess and now lives in a temple in Gujurat with scores of followers."
you out of work, out of money, at your lowest and then a bunch of people claim you are a Goddess and takes you to their temple and pampers you.
Man, what a day. or maybe not:
http://www.southasianpost.com/portal2/ff80808111f169c20111fc7c4cdc0047_Steve_Cooper__Hindu_god.do.html
OTOH I wonder if anyone checked up on him? He might need help. I mean, we are talking about cultist. Better pack up the Tommy and dynamite.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all." -- Thomas Paine
"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated." -- George Washington
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." -- James Madison
The Treaty of Tripoli -- "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." Written during the Washington administration, it was sent to the Senate during the Adams administration. This was the 339th time that a recorded vote was required by the Senate, but only the third time a vote was unanimous.
Those are all nice quotes, but unfortunately about as likely to affect current opinion as:
"Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!" -- George Washington in a note to his gardener
My unit had our own little Monty Python story in Iraq.
We were watching Holy Grail in the shop late when a core switch caught fire shortly followed by it's neighbor so now it goes...
"What do we burn?"
"SWITCHES!"
"What else do we burn?"
"MORE SWITCHES"
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
... and I think you would find all of those very sensible gentlemen were all highly religious...
Or not.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
And yet most US politicians seem to need to at least pretend to believe in god to be elected.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You're about 150 years out of date.
Originally, the First Amendment only prohibited Congress from getting involved in religion. State legislatures were free to do so, and many did. For instance, Massachusetts had a state church well into the 1800s.
After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted. Through the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment was applied throughout the entirety of the United States government and all state and municipal governments.
So yes, the First (plus the Fourteenth) unquestionably does separate church and state. If you want to claim they don't, you're going to need to present some pretty compelling proof.
In many cases I'd agree with you about evangelical Atheists, as you call them, but in this case the parent to your post was only correcting the incorrect (but widely held) notion that the US founding fathers were all devout Christians in the conventional sense, so it wasn't really evangelism, nor is that poster necessarily even an atheist.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Being the Messiah, he's not the sort of fellow who would do that sort of thing! That's why he's the Messiah and you're not!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What makes your religion so much more real than the flying spaghetti monster, anyway?
Ah, you don't mind atheists, as long as we shut up and let you get on with implementing your superstitious agenda for society, eh? Personally, I rather like a culture where, for instance, I can draw whatever cartoons I like, regardless of what your sacred traditions might say to the contrary. I like living in a culture where I can readily obtain contraceptives, regardless of how terribly sinful the Pope might think they are - and then proceed to use them with the consenting adult partner of my choice, whether or not I have gone through any kind of ritual or ceremony beforehand. In general I'm perfectly happy as long as Catholics and Muslims and the rest of them unobtrusively go about their business, but I am terribly offended whenever they try to impose their own peculiar rules on the rest of us. Offended, yes, and insulted.
So I'll happily go about my own business and never mention anything about whether there's a god or not, as long as you all do the same. Keep your superstitions to yourselves and you'll hear no quarrel from me.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.