54 thoughts on “Chapter 5: Lit, page 52.”

  1. I’d pay for a shirt like that.

    Well, sans the whole ‘stretched out to hell and back’ part.

    Welcome back to the world of not Con-hopping insanity!

  2. Thank God ( I don’t care which one)!

    and yes, Tuesday, Terrorists are quite close to religious fanatics :). Why so surprised?

  3. I dig Moze’s shirt. I also like the schedule of religious appearances there… although I don’t recognize a few of the faiths listed there.

      1. Yeah, I’m with you… I recognize two and the rest are mysteries to me. Though I think number 8 (second from the bottom) is probably Rastafari, which would make three. Several of the others are probably also cut off but I can’t think of what any might be off the top of my head. Maybe 15 is an alternate spelling of atheism?

        1. the wrath of spike is mighty and fierce. seriously though, you want more templar stuff go contribute to the wiki, write in the forums, or throw some cash at the bonus comic fund.

          bitching here does no good for anybody.

          1. Bitching is good for the SOUL.

            Also, it makes the web page longer, thus increasing royalties for whomever owns the copyright for beige.

            [going to look at the forum now]

  4. Only one? The three I recognize are pretty mainstream.
    For the record, those are Vodun, Shinto, Jainism and Baha’i.

    By the by, aside from the displacement of certain peoples, the Aswan Dam impacts the salinity of Mediterranean Sea, which could change the temperature of the gulf stream. The current models aren’t that scary, but it is clear that there is/will be some global impact.

  5. Well, no, a terrorist is someone who uses violence against a population in order to influence their government to change policy. Shep is simply a religious fanatic.

    I like that shirt, too.

    BTW, are there no Discordians in this alternate universe? Hail Eris!

    1. The Erisians just fill in on days when the other religions’ clergy can’t show. Preaching someone else’s gospel sounds about right for ’em.

    2. Well, blowing up a dam that has human settlements on the downstream end of it seems like it would be pretty violent for that population!

  6. I’m also digging the shirt and would buy one.

    I am so envious of Moze. I really wish I could be that beatific about things and never get stressed out.

  7. So, we’re left with ‘…abanda’ and ‘…vonite’ (the others being Baha’i, Shinto, Kwinti, Athaeism, Rastafari, Jain and Vodun. ‘…abanda’ is probably Persian, as ‘khudabanda’ is Persian for ‘man of god’. ‘Yevonite’ is a religion from the Final Fantasy computer game world.

      1. And turns out the ‘…abanda’ is supposed to be ‘…mbanda’, for Umbanda, which is Afro-Brazilian. So that’s all of them.

  8. No Santeria? Bah :p

    ………seriously tho he tried to blow up a dam? That kept the Nile from flooding? Ah…isn’t the Phocas kept at bay by a couple of dams somewhere? Doesn’t this damn river run THROUGH Templar? Huh. Can’t wait to see how this bit of info plays out c:

    1. Ah, but the Phocas runs through a town of yapping dogs in a mayfly nation. The Holy Nile flows through the Gods’ Holy Land. The Chosen People must go through the cycle of planting, harvest, flood, but yapping dogs can do whatever, since they’re all doomed anyway.

      Any environmentalists or civil engineers here? Anyone know what the feasability of letting rivers flood naturally is? I believe there are some huge benefits: fertilization by silt, marshes for wildlife, no New Orleans style sunken land, and so forth. However, what of hydroelectric power, reliable clean water supplies, and real estate security? Can we have our cake and eat it too? I really hope someone is working on this.

      1. They pretty much get built solely for the water thing, building a big reservoir is the only reasonable way to supply enough water to sustain a city out in the desert unless you’ve got the mad oil money it takes to make a desalinization plant seem like a good idea.

        Creating lakeside real estate and places for rich people to ride jetskis sorta factors in there, too, but that’s about it. We’ve had functional water-driven turbines without the serious environmental downsides of dams since before we had electricity, it’s called a water wheel. There’s nothing to work on.

  9. Blowing up the Aswan Dam? Would destroy Egypt. Within a matter of hours, or so our tour guide explained.

    Uncle Shep is hardcore.

    1. I’m sure uncle Shep is convinced that only the “Abrahamite dogs” would be wiped. Osiris watches over his people.

  10. Pet peeve. Atheism (or athaeism) is NOT a religion, just like disbelief in anything else (unicorns, spaghetti monsters, leprechauns) is not a religion. How many of you wake up in the morning and say “My disbelief in unicorns gives my life purpose and meaning! Lack of unicorns is what my notions of right and wrong are based on! Everything’s all about disbelief in unicorns!” I happen to be an atheist, but when asked what my beliefs are, I say “secular humanism”. Humanism is a philosophy. Nihilism is a philosophy. Secular Buddhism is a philosophy. An atheist could follow any of those, or others. Philosophies and religions answer questions about life’s meaning, about ethics, and so forth. Atheism does not. All atheism says is there are no deities, that’s it. Not all atheists believe the same things. Not all atheists are secular humanists. (For that matter, not all humanists are secular, it started out as a religious movement.) Atheists don’t have atheist meetings, we don’t have the Big Book of Atheism, we don’t go around trying to spread the good news about there not being any gods, okay? I appeal to the general public. Please, PLEASE quit lumping all non-religious people together. Please, pretty please, with sugar on top, quit thinking atheism is what secular people base their life on.

      1. They work best when actually read. TL;DR? I’ll sum it up for you.

        Philosophies and religions answer questions about life’s meaning, about ethics, and so forth. Atheism does not. All atheism says is there are no deities, that’s it.

        It would be much more accurate and polite to characterize someone by what they DO believe, such as the tenets of secular humanism, than by what they don’t believe in.

      1. Did you read the page you link to? The meeting is about civil-liberties for the non-religious and separation of church and state. It’s about not getting discriminated against and about living our lives without interference from those who should have no say over them. It is not about holding hands in a circle and proclaiming “hey everybody, there are no gods!”. Did you read the list of participants? Freethinkers, humanists, skeptics, etc. That’s a diverse lot and they don’t all have the same beliefs. The meeting is not about espousing a particular doctrine. How anyone could even compare a meeting such as this to organized weekly religious worship is beyond me.

        1. The religion of the Dawkinsite atheists I know seems to be trying to tell anyone and everyone religious that their religion is stupid, they’re stupid for believing in it, science is irreconcilable with any form of faith, and it’s time for organized atheism to destroy religion once and for all. They’re very dogmatic about it, too.

          Dunno about weekly meetings, though.

  11. Heh. I remember once in the parliament buildings here in canada, it was proposed that they devise a system of prayer that recognized different religions, like doing different ones on different days.
    Of course, it was shot down on grounds of common sense. I mean, come on. “Okay, we’ve got the Jews on Tuesday… Islam on Friday… Buddhists on Monday…” Glad to see politicians aren’t completely insane.

Leave a Reply to George Harris Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *