Zuminating the shit we’re in

dejapoo

While addressing a gathering of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Cape Town yesterday, President, Jacob Zuma regaled the gathering with how effective South Africa was at fighting corruption.

Zuma told this apparently unenlightened team of world leaders that his government had put in place institutions of graft-busting that were unbelievably non-existent during the apartheid era. Shocked members of the WEF were then led into a further secret:

There is a feeling that taxpayers’ money cannot be taken by other people. No matter if you are big or small, if there is a problem we have a structure to look at it.

Then in a moment of amazing candour the miscreant President revealed how he had valiantly hand-picked a team of ruthless investigators from his own cabinet and party to investigate the allegations of corruption against him. Unsurprisingly he was cleared.

Citizens of the country listening to Zuma’s address and reading about it later, were horrified, not because he was vindicated by this thorough team of investigators, but because the President had the audacity to take a gathering of international leaders for the fools he takes his own flock. Once again Zuma had shown not only his own countrymen the middle finger, but the rest of the world as well.

Eh eh eh eh eh…

Update: Found a recording of the WEF address by Jacob Zuma. Don’t you think Schwab, to the right of Zuma, is trying very hard to keep a straight face? The rest of us couldn’t.

The journey to unbelief, revisited

I spent some time last night going through a manuscript on atheism and unbelief, sent to me by a work colleague. Reading through it reminded me of my own personal journey from credulity to skepticism.

I could see the same mistakes in the manuscript that I had made when I first ventured out into the world of unbelief, trying to make sense of this bewildering, yet deliciously liberated frame of mind… no being. It was like deja vu.

I remember grabbing eagerly at any book I could find, any resource that would explain this new world to me. And most of the time I was led astray by utter nonsense. Believe me, there is a lot of it out there. From the cunningly sublime, to the outrageously ridiculous. There’s all kinds – from conspiracy theorists to pushers of woo of every hue.

It is amazingly easy to be lulled into accepting bullshit, because it is comforting. Yes, bullshit is comforting. Which is probably why the world is full of it. Generally people want to be comforted. Who can blame them? Being or feeling challenged is not a natural desire.

This is for my colleague. I hope you are reading this. DO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING YOU READ OR HEAR. EVEN YOUR EYES MAY DECEIVE YOU. DOUBT IS YOUR BEST FRIEND…