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Friday 9 January 2015

Never had a bad day? Try this!


For those among us who seem to live in a parallel universe ie. cult members, we thoroughly recommend you read Candide, a highly enlightening little tome written by a chap called François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire). Here he satirises Leibniz's unduly optimistic view of the human condition (“the best of all possible worlds”) with what might be described as savage enthusiasm. From this position it is possible to infer that actually having a bad day might well be the norm rather than the contrary. Character building, if it is to take place at all, usually involves acquiring the capacity to encounter and survive adversity honestly (and without masquerade or self-deception), qualities certainly lacking in the average cult adherent. It is not developed as a consequence of bouncing round AA meeting rooms declaring oneself to be in a constant state of euphoria with the chant of “happy, joyous and free” set as a background refrain.

Incidentally, and certainly most pertinently given his homeland's present troubles, Monsieur Arouet was a vociferous critic of both Mohammed and Islam (but not exclusively) describing in his work Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet, the former as an: "impostor", a " false prophet", a "fanatic" and a "hypocrite" arguing that he (Voltaire) had endeavoured to demonstrate “what horrible excesses fanaticism, led by an impostor, can plunge weak minds". For these reasons we're quite sure that Voltaire would have heartedly approved (as do we) of the work of his compatriots (albeit working in a different media) Charlie Hebdo in their not so subtle satirisation in cartoon (see below) of that religion and its sometimes brutal excesses



Reads: “100 lashes if you don't die of laughter”

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

PS If anyone out there finds Monsieur Arouet's observations or the cartoon offensive that's unfortunate but as we've already said character building always requires some kind of irritating stimulus

PPS It's no accident that one of the nicknames applied to cult members is the "Taliban" (as well as the "Step Nazis"!)

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