Passed along in email, this really is likely to offend (don't say you weren't warned) a wide range of people, but its bouncy, assertive, Australian wit is too good to go unremarked. Anyway, it brought a new luster to that part of my mind that is labeled LMAO.
Can we start a write in campaign to promote him for pope?
ReplyDeleteI think it behoves to be just a little discriminatory about our bed fellows Adam.
ReplyDeleteHe is even more scathing about ANY form of meditation..which he sees as a way of keeping the masses subdued.All of it..from Dogen to yoga at the community hall...and he has studied the subject yet.
I dont think he has written a song about it yet..but we see him British TV a lot..he lives here.
Soon it becomes as predictable in its own way as a broadcast by a TV evangelist.
Peter -- As an aging and uninformed colonist, I was unfmiliar with this fellow who swings the wide brush you depict. But what made me laugh/cry was the straightforward expression of anger that strikes me as underlying all the heart-felt analyses surrounding a wildly-hurtful situation called clergy sexual abuse. As a steady diet, I can imagine his wit and vitriol could become tiresome. But as a one-off invitation to step back and fess up and laugh at a tear-stained world ... well, I can't deny enjoying an enjoyable bedfellow.
ReplyDeleteSometimes outraged teenagers have got it right.
I can imagine that if you have not encountered him before it must be a blast of fresh air...unfortunately he is as obsessed with spiritual endevour as any Mormon on a doorstep...but with a minus sign.
ReplyDeleteHe is one of a generation of comedians who talk about little else..Perhaps its a necessary catharsis.
But it does get tedious.
Considering the clout different religions have in the world, and their variety of abuses and failures. I'm thinking stripping spiritual endeavor of all it's might and majesty, expectation of reward and exclusive superiority... might be a good thing. Isn't it enough to teach our children that this is the world, this is your brain, and this is how to live. No exceptions, drop the bull.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Charlie that if I lived in the USA with the vast swathes of the Bible Belt and a large percentage of the population professing Creationism I might see Minchin as a refreshing bringer of liberty.
DeleteThe fact is though that Britain is a post -Christian country, fewer than one million of the population of sixty four million attend church.
There are more practising Muslims in the UK than Christians, and has been pointed out wryly Minchin does not make songs about Islam..
He is shooting instead at a moribund stag which lost its antlers sometime between 1945 and 1970.
Meanwhile the young of Britain are not in any numbers finding new values or using their brains, or discovering or being shown how to live. Instead they are burning cities, and they are taking their own lives in increasing numbers..and even when they do not exhibit such an extreme reaction to their spritually impoverished lives there is a rootless, anxious, unhappiness palpable on the faces of so many of them.
Meanwhile Mr Minchin reapplies the eye shadow and knocks out another ditty.
Let it be said as well, Charlie, that it's the bull that makes a lot of flowers grow. :)
ReplyDeleteDearest olcharlie, Can I ask your opinion as to what you think 'how to live' might constitute?
ReplyDelete:)
_/\_
Dear Peter B, i don't doubt this fellow is making a living from humor with shock value. My suggestion of running him for pope was a similar expression of humor, as well as a wish for someone who didn't protect pedophiles in such a position of power. And i doubt he'd be much worse than the pope the world will likely get next.
ReplyDeleteAncient rome and greece also struggled with religion suppressing reason, and philosophy's inability to promote the moral behavior needed to maintain the peace. They ultimately promoted the return of religion to keep the masses in check. I see it as a failure of our species to find a motivation stronger than our animal instincts other than fear.
Dear floating_abu, i'd tell the children that the world they see is the world they get. I'd urge them to sit and tame their monkey minds and blunt the impact of their animal instincts with reason. After that, the eightfold path seems more practical than the ten commandments.
What a beautiful message, thankyou for the remembrance, olcharlie, old friend.
DeleteNamaste and well wishes :)
Dear Adam, i can't imagine us ever running out of fertilizer, even without religion.
ReplyDelete