Spot-on, LEGO & kactuz,

One of the pillars of Islam is that one must believe in an after-life. As an atheist, I've always found this incredibly self-serving, selfish and despicable amongst Christians - ergo amongst Muslims also: that one believes BECAUSE one believes he/she will go to Heaven and live forever.

Give me Schopenhauer any day: he says somewhere that if you could persuade a believer that there wasn't a Heaven, they would become atheist within twenty minutes. After all, what would be in it for them, in that case, to be believers ? What's the fecking point of all that bowing and praying and kissing the Divine @rse if you don't get to live forever ?

Ah, that's it ! Without dangling that carrot, how do authorities get anybody to believe in any sort of God at all, the backbone of so many backward societies ? So the bribe of eternal life has to be touted, to suck people into conformity and quiescence. To hell with the moral principles.

Quite brilliant, actually. Well, it's worked pretty well up until now :)

Joe

ARJAY: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.
FOXY: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
ARJAY: Yeah.
FOXY: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
ARJAY: Yeah. All right, FOXY. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
HALDUAL: The aqueduct?
ARJAY: What?
HALDUAL: The aqueduct.
ARJAY: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
DAVID G: And the sanitation.
FOXY: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, ARJAY. Remember what the city used to be like?
ARJAY: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Americans have done.
PLANTAGENET: And the roads.
ARJAY: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--
YUYUTSU: Irrigation.
DAFFY DUCK: Medicine.
ARJAY: Huh? Heh? Huh...
SUSIEONLINE: Education.
EMPORER JULIAN: Ohh...
ARJAY: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
HALDUAL: And the wine.
FOXY: Oh, yes. Yeah...
DAVID G: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, ARJAY, if the Americans left. Huh.
POIROT: Public baths.
CONSTANCE: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
FOXY: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
EMPORER JULIAN: Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
ARJAY: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Americans ever done for us?
DAVID G: Brought peace.
ARJAY: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

Yeah, LEGO, who said that us reactionaries and Islamophobes don't have a sense of humour ?

To counter it, perhaps some of the apologists could do one about Islam:

'What have the Muslims ever done for us ?'

Architecture (authoritarians LOVE architecture), copying out of ancient Greek manuscripts, transfer from India of a number system, transfer from Aramaic and Syriac etc. of an alphabet.

Ummm, ...... mixing of populations by the progressive mechanism of slavery over a thousand years ?

Ummm, ........ the oudh ?

Ummm, ........ give me time ! give me time !

No, that's it, I'm done.

Joe

Congratulations, Lego. Your comment above was very clever and it came as a surprise. I didn't think you had it in you!

Just one small point. Having me say near the end that the Yanks brought peace to the world is rather foolish. Anyone who knows me or anything at all about World History knows that Americans have brought nothing to the world except endless war and killing and misery.

And, eventually, the hideous scenario they created in Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be repeated all over the world including in the United States!

Live by the sword; die by the sword!

Lego, that skit and the "death comes to visit" are perhaps the two best moments of humour in human history....

What have the Romans ever done for us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

Death comes for a visit - the salmon mousse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzejK4-qZ2E

soon be time for all you white feminist to die your hair.
http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/10/17/religion-of-peace-says-they-will-make-it-legal-to-rape-white-women-when-they-take-over-europe/