Janey Q Doe. Heathen.

It's All Been Marked Return To Sender...

Forgot to mention that I moved on over to wordpress because I just found it easier to personalise. So, toddle on over to janeyqdoe.com  to see what I've been writing for, oh, months,   now.

I think my argument is so powerful that it’s not necessary to talk about it

Oh me, oh my.

 

The Wonderfulness of The Watchtower . Ep 1.

Welcome to our new semi-regular segment in which I tear Jehovah's Witness propaganda to shreds. I am in regular receipt of both The Watchtower and Awake!, which, apparently, must have an exclamation mark (!). My husband, lovely though he is, may also be a tad soft in the head as, some time ago, he made the beginners mistake of telling the JWs his name. They now regularly pop up on our doorstep of a Sunday morning, asking for Mr Doe by name and foisting bin fodder upon me. I could simply refuse it, but I am not at my best on a Sunday morning and really can't be arsed starting an argument when I have a crossword and coffee waiting for me.

Solution? Laugh at it on the interwebs*.

And so to begin. I have before me the July 2011 edition of The Watchtower, which I am assured is 'semimonthly'. I am not entirely sure what this means.  The cover depicts a series of males of increasing age which I assume are intended to be the same man as getting older. He appears to have lived every stereotype of his generation. This 'semimonth's' edition is entitled "Give Your Life Real Meaning. HOW?" How, indeed. My first answer to this question would not be to join the JWs but, hey, to each their own.

As promised, the main feature of this issue is a series of articles about the 'meaning of life'. After an overly long introduction filled with cliched platitudes and quasi-philosophical observations such as- "humans, who are gifted with such great potential, live such short lives"- we get into the first article:

Why Does Life Seem Meaningless?

To this, my first instinct would be to shoot back with a childish retort of "Your life might be meaningless, but mine is totally rocking it!" This, of course, would be wrong. Fun, but wrong.

The first question asked by this article is "What Is God's Purpose for the Earth?". Its answers is this:

Jehovah God made the earth to be a perfect paradise for mankind.

Really? It sure doesn't seem like the positioning of that tree was too perfect. But maybe I'm being too harsh, after all, many evangelicals tell us that the tree was there to test us. In fact a good chunk of Christian doctrine is built around this idea of Earth as being a 'test' for heaven. If that is the case it is certainly the longest and dreariest test I have ever done and I want to withdraw from this course, please.

Ah, but I am wrong for this is:

the commonly accepted but Scripturally baseless idea that God made the earth to be   of testing ground for humans, to see if they deserved to live in a spirit world.

I snorted a little when I read this, for whilst I agree that the whole test idea is slightly deranged, I'm not entirely sure that my planet is quite the Utopia a higher power might have had in mind. However, based on the rest of this section, I could imagine Jehovah doing this.

God made man and woman in His image, giving them the capacity to reflect His wonderful qualities.  (Genesis 1:26, 27) He made them perfect. They had everything the needed to enjoy a productive, meaningful life forever.

God must be pretty crap then. If we are created in his image, then why did we disobey him? Weren't we just like him? I'm dizzy from running around in so many circles. Apparently, this also included:

filling the earth and subduing it...

How can we have everything we need if we must first beat the earth into submission?

In what I think is an attempt to fill the gaping logic holes left by the previous sections, the article now moves onto asking "What Went Wrong?". I would again answer with a snide remark along the lines of 'pretty much everything'. The JWs, do admit this:

The earth is certainly no paradise. What happened?

Fair call, they acknowledge the problem. That is the first step to getting help. But then...

Our original parents, Adam and Eve, abused their free will. They wanted to "be like God,"...

Now I am really confused. If we were created in God's image, how can we want to be 'be like God'? Aren't we already like him? And if we are and we still do dickish things, doesn't that just mean that God is a bit of a dick, too?

Avoiding the Obvious

I was thinking of calling this post 'Quacking the Shits', but decided that might be purposefully robbing myself of that last remaining shred of dignity.

So, edging slowly away from the pun, I shall move onto the point of the post. I had a bad week. That, of course, is slight understatement but I've never been good with the whole 'talking' about 'feelings' thing. My father is sick, he has terminal cancer. We've all made a fantastic effort at ignoring the inevtiable reality for as long as possible but, sadly, his health has started to reach the stage where that simply isn't possible.

Dad is what you might call a stubborn man, there is a very good reason, after all, that he became a lawyer. He has spent the last couple of years taking a grand tour of that lovely river in Egypt. This is to be expected and maybe even praised. What I cannot praise, is the quacks with their juices and their woo.

Early last year, Dad obtained a book that was allegedly written by a 'doctor'. Now, I generally abhor the rampant overuse of the word allegedly, especially by the twits on prime time news, but I feel that it is wholly appropriate for people like this. The man is touting juice as a cure for cancer. My father spent the best part of a year drinking foul concoctions in the hope it would be able to do what modern medicine could not. Of course, it couldn't either.

Leaving Dad's house this week, having taken four attempts to get him standing so he could go to the bathroom, I saw that insult to the good name of books out of the corner of my eye. It was all I could do not to take it with me so I could throw it out of the car at 110 on the freeway. But I didn't. I squished the rage back into its little corner, kissed my stepmum goodbye and left.

I am still angry, though. I am angry that this man made money out of my father. I am angry that my father spent months drinking godawful juices instead of nice juicy steaks and now there are days at a stretch where he can't eat anything. I do not think denial is necessarily a bad thing. I'm not sure that Dad would have had any real enjoyment out of life over these last couple of years if he had faced the truth head on. I am still angry, though. I am angry that people like this allow people like my Dad to miss out on some of life's pleasures chasing after a puff of smoke. Most of all, I am just pissed that he led my lovely father on for some book sales. That is unforgivable.

A Little Thought

The Pope and his ilk, being pro-life yet anti-birth control, seem to have some issues with logic:

Don't have sex, you won't get pregnant! Simple.

If this were all it took, I can see the road safety campaigns  now:

Don't use cars, no more road deaths! Simple.

 

 

 

 

Wherein My Father is Wildly Disappointed

I have a dirty little secret. In fact, it is so very scandalous that I cannot admit it at work. I even hide it from my dear father. Big, deep breath... I. Support. The. Carbon. Tax.

Yes, I know, I'm one of those.

I hold a dear wish that my darling Julia would remember that she has a fairly strong spine and stop letting the beast that is Tony Abbott dictate this debate. It really is appaling to let that man dictate anything, let alone the future of our planet.

I awoke this morning to the news that the conservative British PM has written my darling Julia a letter congratulating her on the carbon price. Yes, it would seem that conservatives can care about the climate too. He tells her:

Your announcement sends a strong and clear signal that Australia is determined  to make its contribution to addressing this challenge. It will add momentum tothose, in both the devleoped and devleoping world, who are serious about dealing with this urgent threat.

We can and should care about the economy, but a strong economy will not be a strong economy for long if our environment is on a steep downward spiral. Making bold moves should be viewed as a show of honour for a politician, not an excuse to lambast them and posture about calling an election on a single issue (not to Tony: this is not how democracy works, it would be a tediously slow way to run a country).

Please, Australia, see through this puerile attempt at political pointscoring- our planet is not an election stunt.

 

For the Love of FSM, Mark 'No Religion'.

I am currently struggling desperately to contain my joy over the upcoming census. Boxes to tick! Page after page  of questions to complete! It's a list obsessive's dream. There was actually census in the late nineties that my brother and I fought over filling in. We were both at Uni. This time round, I have more reason for giddiness than usual.

My first chance to mark 'NoReligion'. I shall be ticking that electronic-eCensus box with much glee.

Please, follow the urgings of the nice peoples from the Atheist Foundation  of Australia. I know that many of you are nominally of one religion of another, but most likely wouldn't know where your nearest god club is. If, like most people I know, you are religious in concept rather than practice, then please, please, tick 'No Religion'. Otherwise you are giving Fred Nile and the Family First whackos the mistaken belief and the false ammunition that a sizeable portion of the Australian people support their crazed right-wing agenda.

An Offering to Ceiling Cat

I have two cats. They are generally bonkers, which is a fairly standard matter of affairs. I also have a dog. A dog with strong jaws and a taste for kitty meat. You can imagine the joy this brings me. To prevent a massacre, I have opted for the time-honoured tradition of locking my feline balls of joy in an assortment of rooms when the dog comes in to visit.

One of the places is the garage. They seem to like it in there. I'm fairly sure they view it as a jungle gym. Unfortunately, there is only so much fun to be had climbing all over my car and leaving very cute, if slightly dangerous, paw prints all over my windscreen. When they get tired of playtime, they respond as any cat does- claw rabidly at the door in an attempt to tear it down or force the nearest human to open it. Whichever happens first. It is this annoyance to both us and our landlords that forms the basis of my post.

Cats scratch at doors to be let out, humans pray to figments of their imagintio- oops, I mean, gods- to fix their car, help them win lotto, get rid of the nasty rash down there, etc. Only one of these has a decent success rate. From this, one could easily conclude that cats catch on way quicker than humans. BUT... The cats also scratch at the door leading from the garage to the laundry. A door that has never opened for them , owing primarily to the large cupboard we placed directly in front of it. Listening to them scratch themselves stupid on a door that will never be opened, it occurred to me that this is an easy parallel to prayer.  The door and the prayers both bear close resemblance to something that actually works, except that neither do. It looks like it is only the appearance of effectiveness that matters to the faithful, not any form of efficacy.

In conclusion. Prayer is dumb and cats are either as smart as or as dumb as humans. Beware when they evolve opposable thumbs...

 

Welcome To My Webode

I shall post some interesting thoughts at some point in the future. For now, welcome. Enjoy the views and hospitality.