Another funny religion story, not American. When Bertrand Russell was imprisoned (and fired from Trinity College, Cambridge) for opposing WWI, the turnkey asked Russell, as part of taking down his info, what religion he was. "Agonistic," Russell replied. (So as not to offend or shock the poor fellow, Russell was an atheist.) "Ah well, I suppose we all believe in the same God," the turnkey replied.
This joke is even better for the very small circle of aficianados of, or persons once subject to training in, analytical philosophy of language, who will recognize that in his classic paper of about decade earlirt, On Denoting, Russell had proposed that all statements about nonexistent entities (such as "the present King of France") should be treated, for technical logical reasons, as false.
jks
--- Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael Rotkin loved telling this story.
> Canvassing for his first
> Santa Cruz city council election back in the early
> 80's or late 70's,
> an elderly woman whose door had been knocked on
> previously by the
> conservative (self described as, "moderate")
> candidate related this
> exchange to Mike. "But, Ma'am he's a socialist!" "I
> don't care what
> religion he is, I'm voting for him!"
> A later election, I worked on, to re-elect Mike
> and the rest of the
> socialist (self-described as, "progressives")
> majority on the city
> council, the , "All Santa Cruz Coalition, " (the out
> of state mainly,
> funded conservatives, same folks fought the Tom
> Hayden Campaign for
> Economic Democracy/Santa Monicans for Renters
> Rights, left Democrats
> statewide) had this hilarious leaflet. "Ten Steps To
> Socialism." Step
> four was bicycle paths, so we were half way there.
> Think it was that electoral cycle that Gary
> Arnold, a raving John
> Birch Society member, won the Republican primary
> (unopposed) to be
> able to run against Rep. Leon Panetta. Arnold was
> invited to the
> Reagan White House with the other Republican
> congressional candidates.
> Arnold created some ruckus when meeting Reagan, and
> Reagan told him
> to, "Shut Up!"
> Arnold had this extensively annotated spider web
> chart of the CFR,
> Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers and Illuminati
> Conspiracy.
>
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