PZ Myers. 2005 Apr 10. Unitarian Jihad. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/unitarian_jihad/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Sunday, April 10, 2005
Unitarian Jihad
I'm late to the party (hey, I spent most of yesterday in a museum, I had better things to do!), but I couldn't let Jon Carroll's Unitarian Jihad article go by without acknowledgment.
It's genius.
I'd be tempted to be the aggressive committee member on the God subcommittee who pushes for a motion declaring there is a high probability, approaching certainty, that there is no god at all, but in the spirit of community in the article, I'd be content with a dissenting memorandum appended to the committee reports.
Further amendments:
People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.
Note that there should also be an urn of decaf, and a veggie platter.
I have a new and appropriate identity, too.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Claymore of Reasoned Discussion.
I will refer all argument about whether this refers to the directional explosive device or the heavy double-edged sword to the Nomenclature Committee.
-
I read that at breakfast the other day, giggled madly, and then went off birding instead of posting the URL to all and sundry. I'm glad somebody has a more alert memory. Then again, I'm also glad I saw that vagrant Harris' sparrow and the first orioles of spring.
Now I'm off to burn a question mark on somebody's lawn.
Sincerely,
Sister Broadsword of Courteous Debate#: Posted by Ron Sullivan on 04/10 at 08:55 AM -
i'll have to do a lot of spreading this around, i see. lovely, just lovely.
- Brother Gatling Gun of Compassion#: Posted by on 04/10 at 09:15 AM -
What would a UU exquisition look like?
Brother Cattle Prod of Patience#: Posted by on 04/10 at 09:23 AM -
A UU exquisition?
"Fetch hither.... the Comfy Chair... with the Hand-Embroidered Cushions!"
Sister Broad' of CD#: Posted by Ron Sullivan on 04/10 at 09:37 AM -
as a long time fan of brother carroll i am delighted to see you touting his work. i start my weekdays with his column (online daily). he does great cat pieces from time to time (no pictures). also, possibly separated at birth, jon carroll and philip k dick. check the pictures.
#: Posted by dread pirate roberts on 04/10 at 10:08 AM
-
Oh, dear. Ethan and I appear to belong the same sect within the Unitarian Jihad. I wonder. Brother Ethan, didst thou also grow up on a dairy farm?
Brother Cattle Prod of Mild Reason#: Posted by on 04/10 at 10:47 AM -
It seems the name assignment committee isn't quite liberal enough to come up with a suitable nom de guerre for a guy like me. Darn it, "Katana of Warm Humanitarianism" just ain't ME! In my heart, I know that I'm actually "Main Gauche of Enlightenment".
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 11:14 AM
-
I'm now Brother Atom Bomb of Loving Kindness, setting off my irony meter at a 5-alarm scale.
Kudos for the lovely image of Thunnus albacares on the blog today, its one of my favortie organisms, ever.#: Posted by on 04/10 at 11:19 AM -
Hello everybody from Brother Neutron Bomb of Patience (I must say the name fits me to a T.)
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 12:41 PM
-
What's a religious movement without a schism? There's also the First Reformed Unitarian Jihad Name Generator -- reformed because it's server-side, not JavaScript, and because it came out a few hours after the first one.
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 12:47 PM
-
Splitter!
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 02:03 PM
-
I am Brother Spikey Mace of Courteous Debate. I like it because it implies I'm capable of delivering crushing blows to bad arguments in a courteous debate format. It's so me.
#: Posted by Nullifidian on 04/10 at 03:36 PM -
Oh, dear. Ethan and I appear to belong the same sect within the Unitarian Jihad. I wonder. Brother Ethan, didst thou also grow up on a dairy farm?
Brother Cattle Prod of Mild Reason
Brother CP of MR,
I grew up within a few miles of dairy farm. That's as close to a cattle
prod that I've ever been. I've fantasized about it a few times, while teaching astronomy to Texans.
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 03:49 PM -
I am now Brother Hand Grenade of Mild Reason.
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 03:58 PM
-
I would encourage the Post-Revolutionary Reception Planning Commissariat to include tea in the available refreshments. Though I'll be happy to have a cup of coffee if tea proves impracticable.
All power to the Unitarian Jihad Revolutionary Action Committees (except in such instances where the Subcommittee for Distribution of Social Capital has legitimately found a certain power to be the province of another entity),
Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate#: Posted by on 04/10 at 04:17 PM -
Thanks for that, it made my day!
Sibling Honourable Orbital Laser of Tranquility
-
This is a perfectly times article. I was just telling my girlfriend that the secularists needed to be more militant in confrontation with the "fundies."
I'm Sibling Malatov Cocktail of Liberal Inquiry.
Ok, I made that up.#: Posted by on 04/10 at 05:38 PM -
The Broadsword of Desirable Mindfulness
How great is that?
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 05:39 PM -
I rather llike this, though a naval motif would have been more appropriate.
Brother Howitzer of Courteous Debate#: Posted by on 04/10 at 07:32 PM -
Scary! They named me
"Brother Nail Gun of Looking at All Sides of the Question"
Where's that surveillance camera set up again?#: Posted by John Wilkins on 04/10 at 08:42 PM -
Sister Rail Gun of Mild Mercy
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 09:57 PM
-
I've fantasized about it a
few times, while teaching
astronomy to Texans.
I teach (try to teach) mathematics to Californians. The cattle prod fantasy is ever with us.
Brother Cattle Prod of Mild Reason#: Posted by on 04/10 at 11:06 PM -
Someday I'll know what it all means.
Until then, call me...
Sibling Dagger of Compassion#: Posted by on 04/10 at 11:21 PM -
Brother Cutlass of Compassion says hello. Though I have no idea why the naming comittee decided that I was an Oldsmobile.
And the tea must be chamomile herbal tea, not that gauche black stuff. I hereby call that we re-convene the refreshments committee in order to provide a set of refreshments that will meet the needs of all of our members, not just the coffee drinkers or vegans.
-- Brother Cutlass of Compassion -
Brother Shotgun of Reasoned Discussion reporting for duty SIR! Now, where are those zombies? Muahahahaha! <klik-KLAK!>
#: Posted by on 04/10 at 11:44 PM
-
The Hand Grenade of Reasoned Discussion. One must be certain to be a jihadist.
#: Posted by on 04/11 at 01:55 AM
-
Oh man... which way to the front!
Brother Just Intonation Damn That Pythagorus#: Posted by on 04/11 at 03:28 AM -
I wonder if my name, Brother Atom Bomb of Looking at All Sides of the Question, means that I'll have to have a "fair and balanced" approach???
#: Posted by on 04/11 at 03:28 AM
-
Brother Howitzer of Enlightenment here.
I want to start a motion to change all mentions of "Atom Bomb" in Jihad names to "Nuclear Bomb." The devices that destroyed Hiroshima are nuclear, not atomic. -
*laughing*
Ya know, though... we're now Unitarian Universalists. So is the jihad only limited to the older anti-Trinitarian side? (You know, of "We believe in one God -- at most" fame?)
Yours,
Sister Sword of Courteous Debate -
Sister Sword,
I believe if you pull the God Committee minutes, there were 4-5 votes for more than one God. And, I am pretty sure there was a Universalist Covenant Cell that met in the library, and their straw poll result was slightly different than what the God Committee came up with. It's my understanding that they don't issue a formal report until they come to a consensus.
Hope this helps,
Sister Atom Bomb of Looking at All Sides of the Question#: Posted by on 04/12 at 10:22 PM -
There is another radical splinter group of the Unitarian Jihad, which wishes to specifically pay homage our Universalist heritage, while also noting the truly Discordian nature of the UJ
The Discordian Universalists demand you convert or face and entreaty for polite discourse!
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Discordian Universalism
-Brother Rail Gun of The Short Path
--Mathias Timidi Cono Klast
---Discordian Universalist
----Hwictkwitshabcalta#: Posted by MathiasTCK on 04/18 at 03:19 AM -
I selected Sibling Trebuchet of Reasoned Discourse.
#: Posted by on 04/21 at 03:31 PM
-
An Historical Antecedent of the Unitarian Jihad
Back in 1965 at the YMCA of ND State University, a late friend, Tim Canning, and I were discussing the weirdness going on with the rise of the Student Movement. There were parts of it we rather liked, and parts we did not. Even then, 40 years back, it was clear that the ideological separation of political extremes was itself the proximate cause of too much ranting about almost anything.
On closer inspection, it was clear that the forces of Moderation needed to exert themselves. But how? To further that goal, we closely examined the forces of the Right and Left to discern the fundamentals that drove them, and thereby to discern what the Moderates had to do in opposition.
It was more than clear that the R&L depended on the strength of rather Specific Ideological Concepts, which to them were more than merely Clear but indeed were reified into something approaching Reality. We could see The Enemy almost immediately -- Conceptual Specifism. Just the very sound of it on the tongue rang true.
But an Enemy must not only exist -- it must be getting worse, preferably in an insidious fashion. No problem. It was Creeping Conceptual Specifism, clearly. Thus was The Enemy discovered.
Now to fashion the opposition.
We needed a movement with global reach. Obviously Moderate Extremists (and by extension Moderate Extremism -- though if one is Hispanic it came out as Extreme Moderatism, which is a mere linguistic quibble, though a good subject for endless discussion) required an internationalist flavor. Even without the Net at the time, we knew this was a required characteristic. So -- Moderate Extremists of the World it was. And along with that came the happy acronymn -- MEOW. It just seemed correct, somehow.
We needed an identifying gesture. Clearly other extremist movements were fond of the raised clenched fist at the time, so that was important. But along with it was a need to conjoin it with with something to differentiate it from all the other raised clenched fists. This was no easy task. In a flash of insight, Tim suggested the Adamant Shrug. One raised the fist, but not Too high, shrugged with the other shoulder and adopted a facial expression indicating mild resignation and a What The Hell Anyway attitude.
Instant acceptance! The Adamant Shrug was adopted.
Things stalled at that point for a while. It was not enough simply to Be MEOW; we had actually to Do something. But what? The other extreme groups of the R&L had things pretty well sewn up in that regard with the entire Viet Nam War discussion. The environmental movement was only nascent, and hadn't really caught on as it would later. And there was the problem of what signs to carry. What would they say that would not violate the prescription against Creeping Conceptual Specifism in the first place? One had to beware of Becoming The Enemy, as Pogo so cogently warned against.
We determined that the thing to do would be to assemble at the Federal Building in Fargo, ND, for a Moderate Extremist Protest. We did up some smallish signs in Dark Grey on Light Gray backgrounds, consisting only of an Exclamation Point. That allowed for the maximum diffusion of any Creeping Conceptual Specifism that might be out there, while still demonstrating our adamance in the process. It was likewise important Not to tell the media what we were doing, because that would serve only to make the present problem even worse!
Of a pleasant May morning, about 10-12 of us showed up at 10 am, and hung out for maybe 15 minutes. Passers-by looked at us strangely as they came and went, and several asked if we were protesting the Viet Nam War. No -- we were protesting Specifistic Protesting, we replied. They still looked at us strangely.
As a final gesture, we burned a blank postcard. Draft cards were Far too specifistic for our purposes. We had the best of all possible outcomes -- no one hardly noticed. The local news media did not show up. It was Perfect!
One more thing: We had to be Card Carrying Moderate Extremists. Not to be carrying a card would be to avoid the central most sinister thing that Movements of the time could say about each other. That wouldn't do. So, Tim and I drafted a membership card for MEOW. 40 years later, I don't recall all of it, but I do recall the central gist and can provide some of it essentially verbatim. It read:
"This is to suggest that the undersigned, who may be going by his/her real name, may or may not hold some transitory philosophical precepts (assuredly Not concepts as such), which could -- if one were so inclined, though there is no requirement for such a thing -- be temporarily construed as being in general, though Not specific, agreement with a set of ad hoc constructs that might be concatenized under the general title of Moderate Extremism...."
There was more, but the years have dimmed the memory. Indeed, it was not until finding the Unitarian Jihad that much of this came to the forefront of memory at all.
The cause is right and the means of spreading the word is appropriate. That latent idea sees a regeneration and renewal in a world that more sorely needs it now more than ever.
I congratulate all who follow the path.
Don Homuth
Brother Flaming Golden Scimitar of Vengeful Reflection#: Posted by on 05/09 at 11:08 AM