Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Today (20^th May), is Everybody DrawMohammed Day – so here are my pathetic attempts:

Now then, now then

Moses, Christ and Mohammed on a bike

If you fear your faith, and the faith you wish to impose on others, may not necessarily stand up to unpalatable criticism, then a popular option is to censor any ideas that you suspect might challenge that faith. Of course this doesn’t just apply to Islam.

When it could, and where it still can in some parts of the world, faith happily propagated itself with unquestionable brutality. Where the religious grip has loosened, it seeks alternative methods.

This may take on many forms. Religious parents may stop their children reading certain books, or listening to certain music. They may send notes to their children’s teachers to excuse them from eye-opening multicultural school visits to places of worship alien to their own particular faith. In short, religious fundamentalist desire to blind others to ideas, thoughts and opinions that look at their faith from a different perspective.

Such censorship can be easily applied within the family unit, but where it cannot be applied directly, faiths will resort to either claiming offence and oppression or in extreme cases, use threats and violence to try and impose their illegitimate censorships on the wide community.

Unreasonable faith survives under the protection of ignorance and censorship. We should not kowtow to the whining false claims of oppression or the heinous threats of violence.

Help breakdown the acceptance of this illiberal censorship by refusing to comply with nonsensical religious dogmas. Blaspheme, lie in on a Sunday morning, eat a bacon sandwich and draw a picture of Mohammed and stick it on your Facebook wall..

NB. If you would like a weekly fix of only slightly better drawn, but far more profound, Mohammed cartoons, I highly recommend a visit to Jesus & Mo. (on which I have shamelessly based my attempts).


Here's the other Mohammed's I have been sent so far today...

@BadgerB

My attempt via.me/-c9gru3k #everybodydrawmohammed QT @Crispian_Jago: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2013/05/everyb…

@Calalaera

Am I doing #EverybodyDrawMohammed right? (cc @Crispian_Jago) pic.twitter.com/Hc2RDFJyaP

@rossbalham

@Crispian_Jago I really cannot draw so this is the best I can do. Sorry! pic.twitter.com/QuWCuDy9jC

@DutchyMDHC

@Crispian_Jago yfrog.com/obtjcftj

@sean_t_ellis

.@Crispian_Jago Here we go - moteprime.org/images/mohamme… - I have made him all smiley and nice so that no-one could possibly take offence.

@WondieBee

@Crispian_Jago DMD day! pic.twitter.com/qo7YoviQDB

@adam_ashford

@Crispian_Jago As I can only draw one thing, here's my attempt. pic.twitter.com/gtBE2ZxTWM

@neonbubble

I've decided to join in with Everybody Draw Mohammed Day as @Crispian_Jago has mentioned it once or twice. pic.twitter.com/AqUBJgmQqm

The Very Randy Priest

Other children's books in this series include:

   

Where's Bigfoot: A Beginners Guide to Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology is a tricky old skill to master. Formal training in taxonomy, biology, natural history and even zoology is of no use whatsoever to the budding young cryptozoologist. Indeed, even watching a complete box set of David Attenborough DVD's will not help hone the more peculiar talents needed for this fascinating discipline.

In order to discover creatures hitherto rejected by pedantic conventional science, a whole new skill-set is required. Key aptitudes include the amateur misidentification of dead animals in an unfamiliar state of decay and the uncanny ability to be easily be hoaxed by enterprising moron baiters.

Therefore for any younger readers wishing to embark on a credulous career in cryptid spotting I would highly recommend scanning the the following images I have prepared to help you get your eye in.

Where's Bigfoot?

Where's Nessie?

Where's Chupacabra?

Where's Montauk Monster?

Well done if you managed to spot them all, you're well on your way to becoming a leading cryptozoologist.


And of course, remember the cryptozoologist primary maxim: "If it looks like a man in a monkey suit, and walks like a man in a monkey suit, it probably is a new species of hominid previously unknown to science."

Heaven & Hell: The Board Game

Heaven and Hell is a fun board game for all the family.

To play Heaven & Hell, you will need:

• The Heaven & Hell Game Board (Supplied)
• Game counters or tiddlywinks (one for each player)
• Dice (There might be some in your monopoly set you can borrow)
• An ability to follow ridiculous rules without questioning
• Nothing better to do

Each player places his counter on the first square. The youngest player roles the die first and moves his counter along the resulting number of squares. Blindly follow the instructions on the squares you land on and and move heavenward or hellhound accordingly along the red or yellow lines.

In fact, come to think of it, not entirely unlike snakes and ladders.

The Conspiracy Theory Flowchart "THEY" Don't Want You To See

Had enough government rhetoric? Tired of following the sheeple? Fed up with believing what THEY want you to believe? Maybe it's time to branch out and discover THE TRUTH.

If you're new to the exciting world of conspiracy theories and just can't decide which paranoid delusion best suits you, then why not use this handy flowchart to find your ideal conspiracy theory. Then you too can go and stick it to THE MAN.

"You know, this explains a lot. Because all my life, I've had this unaccountable feeling in my bones that something sinister was happening in the universe and that no one would tell me what it was." Arthur Dent


NB This is not intended to be a complete list, but please don't let that stop you commenting to let me know what I've missed off :)

The Church of England General Synod Cool Wall

The Church of England's General Synod may be regarded by many as a traditional, slow, bureaucratic and outdated vehicle that  habitually fails to move the Church of England forward into the modern era and reflect current thinking, morals and values.

To this end I propose they take some lessons learnt from Jeremy Clarkson and install a Cool Wall in the General Synod.

Could be worse, at least I can agree with them about The Da Vinci Code & home made jam.

God's Plan

When things are going a bit shit, the religious minded can always gain a little solace in the firm belief that it's all just part of God's Plan.

This of course raises the question. "Is God really programme managing an intricate series of tasks, activities and dependencies allocated to over 7 billion resources?" If so, I'll wager it's far too complex to just wing it. Furthermore, God has always struck me as the sort of guy who would use a PC rather than a Mac, so he's bound to have it all planned out somewhere on a nice neat resource levelled Microsoft Project Plan. (Assuming of course that the heavenly finance department have authorised a license for him, they're not cheap you know)

So, by utilising a previously discovered breach in the Vatican firewall, I was able to hack into God's PC and search through the unbelievable amount of filth he's been downloading and eventually locate the .mpp file he's been using to manage this curious project. The good news is that believe it or not, God does actually have a plan, the bad news is that it's a little high-level. Having read it, I would certainly recommend a more proactive approach to life rather than putting too much faith in this sordid little plan.

BTW, he has a rather lengthy Risk Register Spreadsheet too but the mitigation column just has the same entry for each risk: "Move in mysterious ways".

No sign of any SLA's.

The Universal English Language Translator

The problem with a nice trip to Bongo Bongo land, in addition to not being able to get hold of a copy of today's Daily Mail, is that invariably Johnny Foreigner is just to damn bone idle to learn the Queen's English. 

There are of course numerous web translation services that will translate English into the various dialects of gobbledegook spoken by foreigners. However, these translators are a little clumsy as one must select the name of the particular gibberish spoken by the foreigner and secondly the translation produced is frequently unpronounceable.

This problem has been cleverly solved by the Universal English Translator. Simply enter the phrase you wish to communicate to the little foreign bugger and press the "Translate to Universal English" button to produce a universal phrase that is understandable by any form of dirty foreigner.

Enter The Queen's English:

The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense Ver 3.0

Following the success of the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense a few years back, I produced an all new updated version of the table which was exclusively available as a 4 page pull-out poster inside Vol. 24 No. 1 of the Skeptic Magazine. You can still get a copy of the poster by ordering a back issue of the Skeptic Magazine, but here, for the first time, is the updated table. (now with pan and zoom)

The Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense

The curiously revered world of irrational nonsense has seeped into almost every aspect of modern society and is both complex and multifarious. Therefore rather than attempt a comprehensive taxonomy, I have opted instead for a gross oversimplification and a rather pretty Venn Diagram.

In my gross over simplification the vast majority of the multitude of evidenced-free beliefs at large in the world can be crudely classified into four basic sets or bollocks. Namely, Religion, Quackery, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal.

However as such nonsensical beliefs continue to evolve they become more and more fanciful and eventually creep across the bollock borders. Although all the items depicted on the diagram are completely bereft of any form of scientific credibility, those that successfully intersect the sets achieve new heights of implausibility and ridiculousness. And there is one belief so completely ludicrous it successfully flirts with all forms of bollocks.

Religious Bollocks ∩ Quackery Bollocks ∩ Pseudoscientific Bollocks ∩ Paranormal Bollocks = Scientology

T-Shirts NOW AVAILABLE

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UPDATE 24th March 2013

Many thanks for the retweets and shares.

I have also received the first translated copy of the Venn Diagram produced by Pavle Močilac of the Croatian Society for Promotion of Science and Critical Thinking.

Italian translation courtesy of Andrea Mirra

Spanish translation via @Cienciaaldía

If I receive any other translations I shall post them here with the original.




BTW, Its been awfully nice to have seen the Diagram popping up all over the interwebs in the last few days, but if you could so kind as to link back to here you'll be sure to have the latest version in case I make any updates.




FURTHER UPDATE 27th March


I conceived the Venn Diargram of Irrational Nonsense in the car on my way home from work last Wednesday, and quickly knocked it up when I got home. However, I didn't publish it immediatley as I was pondering the feasability of adding a fifth set.

I spent a few hours the following night attempting to add a fifth set, but the diagram was getting cluttered and the fonts too small, so eventually I reluctantly abondened the five set version and posted the original four set version from the previous night.

I have however, seen a fair few comments suggesting that the diagram might benefit from a conspiracy theorist dimension, however, before I've had a chance to have another crack at it, I noticed dehydrationstation has beaten me to it. I think it came out OK.(although I would have used the word "bollocks" a bit more myself.