Clerics! STFU!

stfu

It has occurred to me that if I had an American dollar for every time a cleric from one of the world’s major religions said something profoundly dumb, I would be pretty darned rich. If you threw in the insane things holy men of all the minor religions and cults say, I could possibly pay Mark Zuckerberg to like this post.

Why should what clerics say be of concern to us?

(a) Because credulous people tend to believe without questioning and then do stupid things, which may (and usually does) cause harm to others.

(b) Or, crazier people go further and act on these irrational utterances, which results in murder and mayhem.

In recent years, there’s been some real pearls of (un)wisdom emanating from the Middle East. These two recent incidences may on the surface seem harmless enough, but they do much long-term damage in my opinion:

Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi of Iran has issued a fatwa basically decreeing that high-speed internet is against Sharia and moral and human standards. What utter rubbish!

It’s quite obvious that this grand idiot has pulled this decree from out his arse, because no sacred religious text I ever heard off, even knows what high-speed broadband or the internet is. Furthermore, the Grand Arsehole of Iran has pretty fucked-up moral and human standards.

Then there’s ISIS. Yes, The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, so much in the news recently, whose utterly barbaric behaviour which would be the envy of the Mongols, have decreed that Philosophy and Chemistry are against the laws of God and are thus banned in schools in the Syrian city of Raqqa.

For the love of Thor, show me any religious text that states that Philosophy and Chemistry both, are against the laws of some obtuse God, and I will stomp and shit on that text.

Now hear me clerics and religious fundamentalists of the world. Shut The Fuck Up!

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

invisiblemonstersInvisible Monsters is quite possibly the most bizarre book I’ve ever read, if you exclude certain religious texts. I plodded through the first two-thirds, and then breezed through the rest as things started coming together and finally making sense.

This was my first Palahniuk novel, having only ever experienced his work through the film Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt. And I can’t say if I’ll attempt another any time soon, because writing trippy novels seems to be what he’s about.

Now comes the difficult part: saying more about the book without actually giving the whole game up (incidentally you could look it up in Wikipedia, but that would spoil the mind-fuck awaiting you).

The book is narrated by a model whose name you don’t get to find out until the very end, and starts at the end and ends at a sort of beginning. If that does not make any sense now, you’ll have to read the book to get what I mean. The narrative revolves around the dysfunctional relationships among a small group of people and jumps from the present to the past at disconcertingly frequent intervals. In fact, you’ll have to get used to the term “Jump to”, as it is used quite frequently to shift the scene from the present to the past and back to the present. So paying attention is pretty important.

The Invisible Monster is actually the narrator who’s just had half her face blown away by a gunshot wound. The plot essentially revolves around her travels through various parts of America bingeing on prescription drugs with her companions Brandy Alexander and Manus, who really aren’t who you think they are. Along the way, you’ll learn about her supposedly closest friend Evie, who also turns out to not be what you’re told either.

Right from the beginning I was expecting the plot to be about the search for the shooter, but this person is also a real surprise. I’m not giving away anything more, so you’ll just have to read the damn thing yourself.

Cool Quotes From the Book

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.

 

All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.

 

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character…Would you slow down? Or speed up?

 

Your birth is a mistake you’ll spend your whole life trying to correct.