Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category

The idea that Jesus died on a cross is probably a wrong interpretation of Biblical texts. That’s what a Swedish scientist concludes after studying historic texts. Theologian Gunnar Samuelsson of the Göteborg University claims that Jesus never got crucified but instead was hanged unto a pole.

The scientist claims there is no literature that explicitly mentions the crucifiction. In the Bible they write only about the ‘staurus’ Jesus had to carry up the Golgotha mountain, a word which a lot of historians have translated as ‘cross’ but which should be much accurately translated as ‘pole’, the Swedish scientist suggests.

Roman, Greek and Hebrewe literature suggests that executions where people were nailed unto a cross have not been existant in the ancient days of the roman empire at all, says Samuelsson. Hanging prisoners unto a pole, however, was quite common in those days.

Samuelsson thinks the image of Jesus on a cross exists because of the imagination of ancient artists that were made long, long after his death.

‘There are simply no description of Jesus or anyone else in that time being crucified’ Samuelsson says, ‘the whole thing is based upon imagination and myth’.

Samuelsson vermoedt dat het beeld van Jezus aan het kruis is ontstaan door artistieke afbeeldingen die veel later zijn gemaakt.

Will Mel Gibsson remake his rather kitschy torture episode ‘Passion of the Christ’ now? Maybe a bit less dramatic, with a pole instead of a cross? Beyong doubt lack of nails and blood wouldnt fare well with hollywood audiences. And what about all these people wearing crosses around their necks, will they now be replaced with poles? Are we going to hear ‘He poled for your sins’ now when we get lectured?

These are exciting times!

A poll of 1,000 pregnant women for the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists found that many pregnant women often wear high heels or stilleto type shoes nowadays. And since 7 out of 10 pregnant women complain about swollen ankles, swollen feet and arch and heel pain there seems a significant link between both.

The same survey also suggests half of those polled actually feel pressure to keep looking like the celebrities while pregnant.

It’s hard to think of a more silly line of logic. Here we have women who are potentially ruining their entire feet by putting heavy weight on its muscle and bone structure in the vain hope they still look like some celebrity while being pregnant.

What kind of person wants to look like a celebrity anyway? Especially when one is pregnant. This should be called the ‘silly ego syndrome’. In my opinion all current psychological and psychiatrical diseases should be scrapped out of the shrinks handbooks, all pills destroyed, because all these people suffer from one disease only: the silly ego syndrome.

The silly ego syndrome

What is the silly ego syndrome, you ask Dr Benders? Well wanting to risk your childs health (because you could fall and injure yourself and the baby) just because you think someone else might be tricked into thinking you are a celebrity (don’t these people get it – being cool is not about being worried what others think!) certainly classifies as having a very silly ego.

Everyone who has a silly ego has the silly ego syndrome.

Ok, so how do i know if I have the silly ego syndrome?

You probably do, I know very few sane people.

Right so how can we actually cure the silly ego syndrome?

I have seen no one that got cured of this horrible disease yet. In fact it has just been discovered, today, by me through sheer mental observation. I just might compose a special CD people can listen to with music specially devoted to cure the silly ego syndrome, but I’m afraid Phil Collins and Bono already did so abundantly.

So what advice do you have to offer Dr Benders?

Get real.

Interactive is interactive

I dreamt
that I could get a nice new car
or no a weird new car
or no a new unknown car
for free, or better said
500 bucks a month
and just a half year
said the salesman
in my dream.

And what happens
after that half year
with the new unknown car
I asked him. ‘After a half
year you pay normally’
he said and I asked
what happens if you can’t
‘you can sell it and
we simply call it even’
the salesman who had
just a narrative function
in my dream said.

In my dream
I saw advertisements of others
that sold the same new unknown car
for a quite normal price.

And I thought: yes. That’s a good action.
That’s a very good new unknown action.

In the future we will
live our daily life in a world
that is completely free
of advertisements.

Martijn Benders, 20-06-2010

Last monday I tried to tune into a television channel – something I dont do a lot nowadays but I wanted to catch the dutch world championship soccer game. I was totally flabbergasted when it turned out I had to watch a game of soccer with my head in a locust cloud. A locust cloud? Yes, that’s exactly what a few thousand ‘Vuvuzela’s', the african horn that got popular at soccer games, sounds like. If its this bad in front of my TV, what the hell will the soccer players have to hear on the field? No wonder about every game so far ends in 0-0.

I think noise pollution is one of the most awkward types of pollution. That’s because you cant really escape from noise. With visuals you cna just not pay attention to part of your screen, but with noise you can just completely turn the thing off to get rid of it.

Now, what sort of idiots would enjoy ruining a sports game with one of the most unmusical instruments ever invented? What evil african shaman has thought up this plan to sabotage the world cup and terrorize soccer enthusiasts world-wide with a stinging nest of sheer noise?

Well, this guy is one:

And this guy:

And here’s another bounty hunting construction worker, this time with a vuvuzela instead of a sword:

Isn’t it about time we introduce or rather mandate use of the Vuvuzela in parlements? Seems an instrument much more useful in politics than sports. I wouldnt mind sticking my head in a locust swarm when I’m watching something called a ‘political debate’. Either that, or force politicians to wear soundproof burka’s.
That’s another one of my ideas that unfortunately didnt get implemented worldwide yet. It really WOULD solve most of our problems!

Research recently conducted by the United Kingdom’s Heath Protection Agency suggests that the drug Tamiflu can be the cause of nightmares in young children. Tamiflu is distributed worldwide as a remedy against swine-flu or H1N1 in its medical name.

Published in the journal Eurosurveillance, the study claims that about 20% of children who are treated with Tamifly have nightmares as a side effect. The study says it has examined 85 schoolkids from London who had been vaccinated after one of their classmates was diagnosed with swineflu.

Twenty-nine percent of children experienced nausea, 20 percent experienced stomach cramps or pain, and 12 percent had trouble sleeping. Almost 20 percent experienced at least one neuropsychiatric side effect, such as nightmares, strange behavior or an inability to think clearly.

Think about it. This drug has been distributed worldwide without extensive testing. Most rapports even show it has little to no effect on the swine flu virus, which is pretty much just a normal flu and would just become dangerous if it mutates. But if it mutates, Tamiflu would be totally useless!

In that whole swineflu scare that dominated our media for months it has always been my opinion that the best thing one could do is build up resistance to the virus. That’s the only thing that would possibly protect you against a mutated version. But you can do that just as well by just catching the flu itself and sicken it out. That is just as effective as injecting yourself with Tamiflu. I am not a medical expert, mind you, but that seems logical to me.

The Question this all evokes: isnt it time we get a biopolice? A sort of a scotland yard that actually traces the origins of these diseases? I have the same opinion about computer virusses: they should be traced back to their origin. In that way you prevent that such things can be used as a commercial tool. An antivirus program company now has an active interests in lots of virus problems going around. Without such virus problems his company has no business. Ergo: we should absolutely establish a hightech agency to trace these things, to make sure they are not used as tools by people who profit from their effects.

To my english friends who somehow haven’t heard yet: I was banned from facebook. I dont have any idea why, one day i tried to log in and i was simply banned. I mailed facebook and they said ‘I violated the facebook rules’ and ‘they couldnt be specific about it’ and ‘it wasnt possible to appeal’. Oh really. Well, bye-the-bye then. I’m obviously not gonna waste my time with an institution that cares so less about my work they’d delete it without blinking their eyes. Moreover, I’d be very careful with organisations that think they can ban known writers ‘without giving reasons’ and ‘without chance of appeal’. It sounds like China or Iran, or even worse – I’m sre in those countries one still has some sort of possibility to appeal.

Anyway it was a good boost to get rid of that stupid addiction where you constantly wonder what others are doing and constantly have to spread information about yourself, thus weaving a network of consent that actually imprisons the soul. I have decided that I wont use social networks anymore unless I build one myself and control it – which is exactly what I am currently doing.

Today I wanted to watch the dutch soccer team play against denmark in the worldcup. I was zapping through turkish channels to see where it was on air, and to my surpise there was a game going on Holland-Danmark with already 3-0 for Holland on the scoreboard. I blinked my eyes and saw that it was actually some turkish channel letting a guy play his playstation game full screen and putting soccer commentators next to it, like it was the real thing. They probably couldnt get the broadcasting rights and thought this is a good way of getting some viewers anyway.

Elia was the star of the game, of course, and the wobbly ball some jerkoff thought would perform better. In Europa there’s 10 advisors and spindoctors for every journalist asking questions. There;s probably a whole crew of geniusses employed to design special balls for the world soccer championship. Knowing europe these will be people who know zilch about football but got that position because they have a wonderful resume filled with other wonderful positions they got in the same way: by having wonderful references. And in the end these are the guys that come with the wobbly ball, climate change, biodiesel and other unintelligable nonsense.