In Memory Of George Carlin

[vbnautilus 48]

"In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told.Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!But He loves you.He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!But I want you to know something, this is sincere, I want you to know, when it comes to believing in God, I really tried. I really, really tried. I tried to believe that there is a God, who created each of us in His own image and likeness, loves us very much, and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is ****ed up. Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man. No woman could or would ever **** things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit. Doesn't give a shit, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results."-George Carlin

[brvheart 1,752]

Can someone please start another George Carlin thread? This one is good, but it needs some tweaking.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Can someone please start another George Carlin thread? This one is good, but it needs some tweaking.

How's this then? A pro-life bit, an atheist bit -- something for everyone! Found it on MSN...Back in January 2002, George Carlin revealed his intimate thoughts on censorship, racism, and how the IRS saved his comedy career. With his recent passing, we represent his words here.I was in my mother's belly as she sat in the waiting room of the abortionist's office. Dr. Sunshine was his code name. I was fifty feet from the drainpipe, and she saw a painting on the wall that reminded her of her mother, who had recently died. She took that as a sign to have the baby. That's what I call luck. My father drank and was a bully. For the first five years of my brother's life, my father beat him with a leather-heeled slipper. Had I been subjected to that kind of treatment, all bets are off. His absence saved my life. My mother had great executive-secretarial jobs in the advertising business and raised two boys during the Second World War. She used to say, "I make a man's salary." That's heroism.I'm sure Hitler was great with his family. I don't like authority and regulation, and I do my best to disrespect it, but I do that for myself. It's self-expression only.Sex without love has its place, and it's pretty cool, but when you have it hand in hand with deep commitment and respect and caring, it's nine thousand times better.If it's morally wrong to kill anyone, then it's morally wrong to kill anyone. Period. It's amazing to me that literacy isn't considered a right.I was arrested for possession and cultivation of marijuana in the early '70s, and it was thrown out. The judge asked me how I felt about it, and I said, "I understand the law, and I want you to know I'll pay the fine, but I cannot guarantee I will not break this law again." He really chewed me out for that.Censorship that comes from the outside assumes about people an inability to make reasoned choices.The first thing they teach kids is that there's a God -- an invisible man in the sky who is watching what they do and who is displeased with some of it. There's no mystery why they start that with kids, because if you can get someone to believe that, you can add on anything you want.I would die for the safety of the people I love.I wish that we could measure how much the potential of the mind to expand has been stunted by television. Because of my abuse of drugs, I neglected my business affairs and had large arrears with the IRS, and that took me eighteen to twenty years to dig out of. I did it honorably, and I don't begrudge them. I don't hate paying taxes, and I'm not angry at anyone, because I was complicit in it. But I'll tell you what it did for me: It made me a way better comedian. Because I had to stay out on the road and I couldn't pursue that movie career, which would have gone nowhere, and I became a really good comic and a really good writer.I stopped voting when I stopped taking drugs. I believe both of those acts are closely related to delusional behavior.There's no morality in business. It doesn't have a conscience. It has only the cash register. They'll sell you crappy things that you don't need, that don't work, that they won't stand behind. It's a glorified legal form of criminal behavior.If everybody knew the truth about everybody else's thoughts, there would be way more murders.There's nothing wrong with high taxes on high income.Lenny Bruce opened all the doors, and people like Richard Pryor and I were able to walk through them.Given the right reasons and the right two people, marriage is a wonderful way of experiencing your life.I think that the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King showed that all of the wishing and hoping and holding hands and humming and signing petitions and licking envelopes is a bit futile. Blacks are deliberately kept down. Poor communities are deliberately underfunded. I don't think people should get credit for being honest and brave. I think there's a lot of genetic sh** going on there.Someday they'll find a gene for putting on your overcoat.There's a pulse in New York, even on the quietest street, on the quietest day. It's full of potential. If there's ever a golden age of mankind, it will not include men over two hundred pounds beating children who are less than one hundred pounds, and it will not include the deliberate killing of people in a formal setting. I did something in a previous life that must have been spectacularly good, because I'm getting paid in this life just magnificently, more than one would dare imagine or hope for.