Thursday 4 February 2010

understanding comics and once an addict



I finished both of these books today, as I am still ploughing through the ones in the house that I have not read yet (and I am still buying more!). I got Understanding Comics for Christmas and it was really interesting, talking about what comics are and the history of the art form. It mentioned some stuff that I was not aware of, which means I have even more stuff to buy, check out, and store in the house (somewhere).
As for the Addict book, I picked it up in a second hand shop a couple of weeks ago, as I thought it may be interesting and it was cheap. It was OK for a while, interesting but not that great, until lo and behold, on page 105, he senses God for the first time. To cut a long story short, he eventually gives up the drugs and becomes a Minister with the Evangelical Church.
This is after a few false leads by God and more spells in prison, but he gets there in the end.
The thing I hate is God is never questioned, there is always an explanation for why things didn't work out when he was following God's signs etc. Also, the way the evangelical (or other religions as well), start to use crappy sayings " The Bible is an instruction book and stands for "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth". This sort of crap really annoys me. I am a thicko about a lot of stuff, but I do know the word 'Bible' comes from the Greek 'Biblia', which represents a collection of books, which the Bible is. Some gospels were put in, some left out. Some contradict each other. A lot of the Old Testament can be kicked into touch once the New Testament starts. A lot of it has been proven to be false. If you date the timeline from the beginning of the Bible (As Bishop Usher did), the Earth is only just over 6,000 years old. No one in their right mind thinks this now. It is a collection of stories, some based on historical events, some based on earlier epics, some just made up. If you want to believe in it, go ahead, but leave me alone. We would be so much better off without religion. The asylums are full of people who think they are God, Jesus, on a mission from a higher power or whatever.
When I die, I will happily take my chances. I don't think ants or termites have souls, I don't see why we should have them. We are no better off for Jesus supposedly dying for our sins, as we still have to embrace God or go to Hell.
Pah! Bring it on - let's find out!
Rant over - toodle pip

No comments: