Our Romanian correspondent, ZOMGitsCriss, has posted a timely review of The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas, a collection of short stories, articles and festive tips from a suspiciously meaningful number* of atheists, edited by Ariane Sherine (creator of the Atheist Bus Campaign). Of course, I have something of a soft spot for this video, because our lovely host says some words. Nice words. Nice words about me. Have you bought your copy yet?
* Forty-two, innit!
I know it’s Christmas, but I’m going to have to bring you down. Maybe you can cheer yourself with the knowledge that something like this will almost certainly never happen to you or anyone you know.
In summary: the host of a TV show has been sentenced to death for sorcery, because he would occasionally predict the future for his callers. And where was he sentenced? Funland, of course, colloquially known as Saudi Arabia.
You’ve probably seen this story else where by now but it is simply too amusing to let pass without comment. In the UK Church of England priest Tim Jones has been instructing his congregation to shop lift.
Speaking to his congregation on Sunday, Father Jones said: “My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift.”
Well most Christians already ignore the 4th commandment so why not just throw out the 8th as well. Now before you worry that following such advice isn’t exactly going to benefit your local community Father Jones is quick to place restrictions on his criminal instruction.
“I would ask that they do not steal from small, family businesses, but from national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.”
Ah, well as long as you are only stealing from places that can afford it then I guess it is all alright then. But of course Father Jones is quick to point out that his advice is not for everyone.
“When people are released from prison, or find themselves suddenly without work or family support, then to leave them for weeks and weeks with inadequate or clumsy social support is monumental, catastrophic folly.
“We create a situation which leaves some people little option but crime.”
Well ok, I have to give him that one. If you’ve just gotten out of prison and are having problems making end meets, can’t afford food and lodgings then, yes, shop lifting is the way to go. In no time flat you will find yourself back in a warm room with three square meals a day completely free of charge, and probably access to a pool table and a flat screen television as well. Just don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon.
I have to say I am not really that surprised by all this. I mean look at the guy, he just looks dodgy. Are we even sure this guy is a real priest? Seriously how do you think this idea came to him? Going by where most of the crazy ideas in the Bible came from I’m guessing it came to him in a dream. He probably dreamt that he and God were walking round Tesco when God nudges him and in a whisper says “See the toaster, stick it under your jumper.”
The only thing that would make this story better would be if he had been a Catholic priest, sitting on a golden thrown throne in his palace, informing this congregation that they only way the Church can help them in their plight is to offer advice on shop lifting. Best priest/shop lifting related comment wins a prize…well, ok no it won’t but we can pretend.
Now I know that every skeptic and freethinker on the blogosphere, and I am ashamed that I had to look up how to spell that, has mentioned this already and I am pretty sure that I have done so myself in the past. However this is an issue that I feel strongly about and which, to be honest, anyone who cares about free speech should feel strongly about as well.
As you no doubt know the libel laws in the UK are a joke. Not only are they around 150 times more expensive than else where in Europe but, unlike most laws, they also seem to operate on a guilty until proven innocent basis. Combine this with the fact that the UK libel laws can be brought to bare against anyone anywhere in the world if the thing they are commenting on has so much as looked in the general direction of the UK and you have a pretty effective tool for people of questionable scruples to use for silencing those who, often quiet legitimately, speak out against them. No where are these issues clearer than with regards to skeptical hero Simon Singh and his on going battle against the forces of evil the British Chiropractic Association.
13 years ago, on this day, Carl Sagan lost a long struggle against myelodysplasia and passed away at only 62. His tragic death left the global community of astronomers and scientists of all fields with an immense feeling of loss. Never has one person brought to so many, with so much enthusiasm the grand story of our origins, and of course, the origin of the Universe. Thankfully, he left us an incredible legacy and continues to inspire with every passing day through the multitude of outstanding books he authored, and perhaps most important of all, the Cosmos television series.
First broadcast in 1980, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage remains the pinnacle of the documentary genre, encompassing the history of science, life, the Earth, the stars and the Universe, as well as our place therein and our future. Central to this 13-hour masterpiece, Sagan approached these subjects with the wonder and excitement of a child, exploring through imagination, but with the depth and understanding of a brilliant scientist. To his fans, his stirring and at times even romantic elocution would trump that of the greatest poets. And as one of them (a fan, not a great poet), I am left unable to express how much I want the world to see this series. I believe it should be shown in every school, in every country, and broadcast at least once a year for the world to see again. If I had the money and power to achieve this, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Fortunately, we are part way there, as many people discover Sagan’s work circulated on the internet every day. Even in our humble corner, we’ve seen users of this forum meet and embrace Sagan’s philosophy having never previously heard of him. It seems appropriate that on the anniversary of his death, we should celebrate the birth of his legacy, a candle in the dark burning brighter than ever.
The day I’ve had.
Cold, so very bitterly cold. Anyone who’s been any closer to outside than their own bedroom knows it’s been cold enough to freeze the smile of a Catholic priest in an orphanage. Cold enough to make people who should know better wear beanies. You get what I’m saying; coldness.
Walking down Kilburn high road (note to foreign types; Kilburn high road is a shopping street in London that contains a pub called The Cock, and this is all you need to know) I noticed a couple of trestle tables with brightly coloured pamphlets. A few people stood behind these tables, picking up a sheet from the ground. Initially I thought they’d been breakdancing, poppin’ some sweet moves in the grindstreet dustcore scene, yo.
Nope. Muslims! Continue reading The Qur’an . . ? Really?
When I was at university, a friend of mine was taking a course which I had taken the semester before – the Bible as Literature or Ancient Judaism, I can’t exactly remember – and, because he tended to be lazy, he one day told me that he hadn’t started writing a paper that was due the next day and, consequently, would almost certainly fail the class. He showed me the assignment, a page long description of some obscure theory of interpretation which he was supposed to apply to some obscure primary text and the technical requirements for the paper itself, and I realized that the assignment was unchanged from the previous semester and that, somewhere in my files, I had a paper that would meet his assignment’s exact demands. I cannot recall if initially it was his idea or mine – nor do I suppose that it matters since ultimately my decisions and their consequences are my own – but, before long, I had committed to rewriting the paper (and perhaps getting a better grade) and allowing my friend to submit it as his own – I had decided to cheat.
The episode remains among the few knowingly wrong actions I have taken, wrong in my eyes then and now, distinguishing itself from those actions I later realized to be wrong or those actions that are only wrong in the eyes of others. And so, I return, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” into that moment, in which, despite being able to recall with unreal vividness the scents in the dormitory air, the temperature of the room, the texture of my desk, and the sounds of my keyboard, I can only say that I do not know why. Our wrong and unequalizable commerce concluded karmically; the paper received an A and was submitted by the professor for a departmental award and won and my friend was appointed a student fellow and I was left to adjust to a life lived with a humble measure of unsoftenable contrition.
I have to say that this one made me smile. A billboard with the aim of “challenging stereotypes” with regards to the Biblical story of Jesus’ divine conception was put up in Auckland, New Zealand and was promptly defaced with brown paint. Ok so that’s not exactly unexpected news. However the fun part of this story is that the billboard was put up by St Matthew-in-the-City church rather than a group of unwashed, hairy, furious, heathen atheists scum. And on top of that it is actually funny.
But, surprise surprise, it appears that the Catholic Church can’t see the funny side and have condemned the billboard as “inappropriate” and “disrespectful“. Ok, so I kinda get that but I have to say that the main complaint they are making really doesn’t make any sense to me. Lyndsay Freer, spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, made this rather confusing comment:
“Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph,”
I…well I don’t really know what to say to that other than that Ms Freer obviously doesn’t get it. The billboard is clearly implying that Joseph is getting himself some immaculate ass after God had already been there and as such in no way suggests that Joseph was the father of Jesus and not the big guy. Also this idea that “Mary remains a virgin” confuses me. The Bible clearly states that Jesus had siblings and yet the Catholic Church seem to have this weird idea that Mary somehow remained a virgin for these pregnancies as well, or am I missing something here?
Either way this is yet another example of good Christians and their aversion to free speech. Nothing too shocking or original there, it just made me smile.
Ed Balls, who just has a funny goddamn name, could be striking sparks of new hope from the tarnished steel of faith schools.
Balls.
BALLS.
His name is BALLS.
Anyway.
Take a minute to read this recent article. Essentially, the gist is this: A Jewish faith school in the London borough of Brent – which, for any potential murderers, is where I live – got owned in the Torahbox. It was ruled by the Supreme Court that JFS, which selects Orthodox Jews, broke the race relations act by refusing to admit a 12 year old boy – deeming him not properly Jewish, or at least not properly Orthodox Jewish, in the eyes of the Chief Rabbi.
Believers.
Why can’t I just leave them alone, eh? Why can’t I keep my mouth shut?
Ok . . . because some of them think I’m going to hell, think I have no morals, and think my life is meaningless until I open my heart/wallet to Jesus/Allah. I find that fundamentally impolite. It’s hard to say who casts the first stone in these cases, but since I tend not to take issue with the fuzzy sort of believers – y’know, the nice ones who believe in love and redemption rather than bigotry and scientific wank – I only ever attack someone as a result of something they’ve said.
Then the issue was raised of “who’s to say who is right? Creationists take things on faith, atheists take things on scientific proof. Who’s right?”
It’s generally about this point that my brains start to drop out of my ears. Science is right. It has even been suggested to me that, since I haven’t analysed the data myself, scientists are feeding everyone bullshit.
Two words. Peer review.
Continue reading If Science Is A Conspiracy, Why Does This Computer Work? And Other Stories