Dude, where's my virgins?

[Kettch]

Wow, I'm going to post twice, not just in the same year, but the same week!

I thought this group would get a kid out of this.

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
by Sam Haris

Pg 253, foot note 20

"Christopher Luxenberg (this is a pseudonym), a scholar of ancient Semitic languages, has recently argued that a mistranslation is responsible for furnishing the Muslim paradise with “virgins” (Arabic hur, transliterated as “houris” – literally “white ones”). It seems that the passages describing paradise in the Koran were drawn from earlier Christian texts that make frequent use of the Aramaic word hur, meaning “white raisins.” White raisins, it seems, were a great delicacy in the ancient world. Imagine the look on a young martyr’s face when, finding himself in a paradise teeming with his fellow thugs, his seventy houris arrive as a fistful of raisins. See A. Stille “Scholars Are Quietly Offering New Theories of the Koran,” New York Times, March 2, 2002."

I laughed very loud & very hard when I read that.

His site also has a dig at creationists

[Icehawk]

I saw that book back when I worked at Chapters. Was thinking of picking it up sometime. It surprised me cause we usually never got stock for any of the books that were atheistic or critiqued religion.

[Xenophobe3691]

That flash movie was horribly prescient...

[General Brock]

What, got a problem with raisins? What's wrong with receiving raisins for being a good little martyr? Huh? Huh?

[Archaic`]

I remembered hearing about this once in a Robin Williams standup show. Rather amusing at the time, and still is now.

[Molyneux]

I remembered hearing about this once in a Robin Williams standup show. Rather amusing at the time, and still is now.

Seventy-one Virginians, you asshole! *grin*

[White Haven]

That joke was the best thing to ever come out of this state.