Last year's festival was great fun if a little pricey (you pay extra for being in a town of posh people), so this year we're just going for the first four days. Ms. Plants has upped the ante this year by matching me film for film, so her poor eyes will be falling out as much as mine will. And we've got to get back to our B+B about 2am after one particularly long film session, which should be fun. A couple of diet cokes should get her suffciently buzzing enough to make it through :)
Plenty of films on, as always, and I'll be reporting back on our days over there as normal. If you have some time to spare between 17 and 27 September, there will be plenty to amuse and entertain. I recommend heartily Mary and Max, my current favourite 2009 film, which unfortunately is on long after we've left for chillier climes, along with the sumptuous, if a little long Seraphine about the unlikely French painter, and Humpday which though undeniably rude does look like a big laugh. There's also a fresh set of reprints of classic films, such as From Russia With Love (the best of the Bond films), The Red Shoes (often cited as the most beautiful film made), The Third Man and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
There's also an event called Science on Screen, organised by the New Humanist magazine, which will show a number of films connected with various controversies in the science-religion-ethics area of things. Creation is a timely Darwin biography, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is an infamous film regarding the criticisms of those who want ID taught in schools as an alternative to Evolutionary theory, House of Numbers, regarding the source of AIDS epidemic, and The Nature of Existence, a documentary exploring the wide diversity of belief in the world. We'll be trying to catch as much of it as possible, and up on here it will go.
Oh, and a not-unrelated upcoming post will explain where I've been all this time. Stay tuned.
Showing posts with label Humanism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humanism. Show all posts
Graph Theory
Predictably, there has been another visitation from the local Jehovas' Witnesses last Sunday, and while I do enjoy the opportunity to debate the merits of atheism vs. theism, there once again came up a misconception about atheistic life that I find hugely annoying. and more than a little offensive. It has varying forms which I have seen in many a down-talking article, blog post, or being debated on radio and television. In general, it goes something like:
'It must be horrible to be an atheist, I mean, I couldn't bear to live in a world where my life was meaningless..'
The implication clearly being that life with a God, (that is, believing that a god exists rather than there necessarily being one) is filled with purpose, since it provides a person with a reason to be and do good, for the promise of heaven and the prospect of reuniting with loved ones at the end of a life dedicated to it. Another way of looking at it is that we are God's special creation, above and separate from the animals, capable of huge feats of civilisation, high-order thought processes, compassion, dreams, and everything else we hold dear. It is clear that God has a plan for us, and the lucky few who are special enough are chosen to spread the word in their local communities.
An atheist by comparison has no source of morals, no connection to their community, no reason to do good, and thus no reason to actually be on the planet. They are a slab of meat that is born, grows up and old, then dies. With their lack of moral fibre, they think nothing of robbery, murder and the selfish pursuit of pleasure. Because they identify themselves as just another form of animal, they have made their beds to lie in, sitting around with no impetus to learn, care, or take part in their community. They have separated themselves from the theistic majority and they can bloody well stay there, so long as they don't start making too much noise.
This seemingly throwaway slight when analysed has a meaning more involved than a cursory glance would suggest, and is deployed quite deliberately as a preservation mechanism by the religious, for the religious, to put potential wayward souls off pursuing any doubting thoughts they may have regarding the existence of their god, (assuming they got past the hurdle of daring to have a doubting thought when that alone is enough to send them to hell).
It is a very persuasive argument as well, except for one thing: it's complete bollocks. I hope to be able to suggest an alternative view, that you can choose to accept whether you are theistic or not.
We begin with a piece of paper. On that paper we draw the axes of a graph. Time runs along the x axis; the origin of the graph is the origin of existence.
We do not know our origins. We can guess, we can theorise based on what we do know, or we can believe unswervingly in some higher power despite the absence of any evidence of him, but we don't know. Not really. Leaving God and his seven days of creation alone just this once, we are at the theological and technological state now where the major thinkers of this age have established that roughly 13.7 billion years ago, nothing became something, and something of infinite mass exploded into space and matter and gradually it clattered into itself and fused and reacted and eventually became everything we know now.
We don't know what created that bang; it may have been some form of being that loosely fits our description of a god, or it may have been a purely nuclear/chemical reaction. Since we have no idea what exists beyond the universe, we'll just have to stick a big question mark on it for now, until our technological know-how is able to bring that information within reach.
Now a line is drawn on the graph, almost horizontal and stretching away from the origin.
One thing that was formed from the chaos of the creation of the universe was our Sun. Something caused it to combust, and fortunately for us, various large pieces of rock caught in its gravitational pull all squished together over time just far enough away to be nicely warm but not scorchingly hot, a perfect breeding ground for life to begin.
The line begins to bend upwards a little as it increases in length.
We do not know where those first sparks of life came from. Did it begin on earth, or was it brought from another planet by meteorite as some theories suggest? We don't know, and it's not really relevant: At some point, somwhere, a single entity that could be considered the simplest form of life stopped being a collection of chemicals and became alive. Was that god? Again, we don't know. As an atheist, my default view is that it isn't, and won't change until proved otherwise. As a theist, the default view would be that it was. But that doesn't matter because the situation remains the same.
At this point, the y axis gains a label - it reads, simply: progress.
We know that the sun is not infinite. It burns because it has a huge but not inexhaustible supply of hydrogen to fuel it. When that hydrogen runs out - mercifully in a billion years or so - it will expand massively, engulfing the earth. It may for a few million years more remain large enough to make life possible on a more outlying planet such as Mars, but it will eventually be extinguished and become a fizzled out speck, and the source of all life in our solar system will die out completely.
We have risen to be the custodians of this earth, and all the forms of life upon it. We are the one species of animal who, through good fortune have large enough brains to attain huge technological, theological and compassionate feats, paired with bodies that can act and build and engineer and forge from the base elements provided in the world around us. With each generation, the sum total of progress and knowledge is pushed forwards a little bit by every person who engages themselves in the pursuit of the next thing on the list to learn.
Progress has a much wider interpretation of course; before our technological spearhead shot us forward, there was the evolutionary path taken by the cells, bacteria, plants and animals that got us to the point where we have the brains and bodies to do the things we can do, and thus we should also not lose sight of the fact that we are stood on the shoulders of our distant ancestors. Before that, we have the primitive forces of space that formed a place where such life could grow. In short, every atom in the universe has been employed over billions of years to get us to the point we are at now. The massive sum total of progressive steps this adds up to is unfathomable.
The curved line on the graph is at its steepest when it stops, or at least it appears to. Taking a microscope to the surface of the paper at the line's endpoint, we can see it moving with glacial pace. The end of the line represents the universe, right now.
Humanity is making discoveries on top of the ones we already know, creating new theories and refining the ones of those gone by, at a rate as yet unseen that will mean we will soon be able to begin to populate other planets. First the International Space Station, then the moon, then Mars, and who knows what after that. Technological brick walls we consider difficult, impractical, prohibitively expensive or just impossible to overcome now will no doubt be scalable by the end of the century, replaced by the next set of problems that is even greater.
We have our origin, our rate of progress, and our current point on the graph. Everything looks positive and good. Then, without sound, at the right side of the page far away from the end of the curve, a thick red line draws itself, vertically downwards, bisecting the x axis.
This line represents the stage at which our sun runs out of energy and engulfs us all and we become extinct. Note that this is the default form of universal extinction, the one that does the job if nothing else (such as a pesky stray meteorite) jumps the queue and gets there first.
A large, red question mark appears next to the line on the axis, and the line itself shimmers so as to blur its exact position, to signify this uncertainty.
A second line begins to run horizontally across the top of the graph. It is dashed and coloured black, and draws itself high above our current point. This line represents the level of technological and evolutionary progress required for us to escape our current location and move to another rock which has both the resources to sustain our life needs, and the location to avoid being wiped out by some other threat for a few more million years.
Our purpose and meaning in life is clear. Do all that we can in our short lives to edge us further up that graph, even by the tiniest amount, so our line of progression passes the horizontal line before the vertical one. Because if we don't, the whole 15 billion years or so it took to get to that point will have been for nothing, and God's little petri dish experiment will have failed, and he'll have to start again. Of course, whether a god being started the experiment or not, the purpose remains the same. Continue adapting, evolving, learning and growing, or suffer a fate worse than death: Obliteration on such a massive scale that nothing will remain for others to see we were even here aeons from now.
Personally, I find this notion, that of our roles as being minuscule but potentially critical movements on the graph of life, with the ultimate goal of preserving our existence, started so long ago as the most basic of forms and now so much more, to be far more beautiful and awe-inspiring than the limited, stunted stories told by people thousands of years ago with a much smaller world view and using peoples' own selfish desires for heavenly reward to get them on board. It also has the flexibility of fitting into the world view of those either side of the theism debate. If you were to choose to take the theistic interpretation, god started life in a huge experiment to see if that life could get to a point where it can escape its confines and we can help prove him right. An atheist's interpretation just omits the idea of a god - we have an amount of time to escape our situation or it's curtains. The purpose is the same.
Not only are we encouraged to climb up that graph by this way of looking at life, but it also installs in us a more responsible world view; it encourages compassion for our fellow man since we are all together striving towards the same goal. Compassion also towards the world as a whole, since we have the responsibility as the most able beings on the planet to take care of it, and we now have the brains and knowledge to realise that it is all connected together and interdependent. From this comes a set of morals and principles that are similar from those sold to us as particular to a theistic life but are actually not attributable solely to them, and from adoption of these come community and society, themselves tools that have been developed to aid us on the push up that curve.
Compare that to the biblical interpretation on life's purpose. Be good not because of some desire to make the world better for the next generation, but because doing so gets you a golden ticket through the pearly gates. The world and its plants and animals were made by God for humans to use as they will, and these resources won't run dry because God wouldn't do that to his favourite beings-in-his-own-image now would he? We can rape the earth for all it's got because it's our playground to use as we want.
The paper is screwed up and thrown in the bin.
Life is extremely short; a mere fleeting atom of dust on the graph paper, and its potential to be snuffed out in an instant without being used to its potential is all too easy, be that through being puree'd by a bus one morning on the way to work, or by a young life brainwashed into suicide bombing under the promise of eternal glory. It's sobering that for every life that pushes progress forward, another can hold us back.
DISCLAIMER: This train of thought is not intended as the basis of a religion in itself. I am not a moonie-style leader of people, I couldn't lead a set of drunks to the nearest pub and have no want or desire to do so.
'It must be horrible to be an atheist, I mean, I couldn't bear to live in a world where my life was meaningless..'
The implication clearly being that life with a God, (that is, believing that a god exists rather than there necessarily being one) is filled with purpose, since it provides a person with a reason to be and do good, for the promise of heaven and the prospect of reuniting with loved ones at the end of a life dedicated to it. Another way of looking at it is that we are God's special creation, above and separate from the animals, capable of huge feats of civilisation, high-order thought processes, compassion, dreams, and everything else we hold dear. It is clear that God has a plan for us, and the lucky few who are special enough are chosen to spread the word in their local communities.
An atheist by comparison has no source of morals, no connection to their community, no reason to do good, and thus no reason to actually be on the planet. They are a slab of meat that is born, grows up and old, then dies. With their lack of moral fibre, they think nothing of robbery, murder and the selfish pursuit of pleasure. Because they identify themselves as just another form of animal, they have made their beds to lie in, sitting around with no impetus to learn, care, or take part in their community. They have separated themselves from the theistic majority and they can bloody well stay there, so long as they don't start making too much noise.
This seemingly throwaway slight when analysed has a meaning more involved than a cursory glance would suggest, and is deployed quite deliberately as a preservation mechanism by the religious, for the religious, to put potential wayward souls off pursuing any doubting thoughts they may have regarding the existence of their god, (assuming they got past the hurdle of daring to have a doubting thought when that alone is enough to send them to hell).
It is a very persuasive argument as well, except for one thing: it's complete bollocks. I hope to be able to suggest an alternative view, that you can choose to accept whether you are theistic or not.
We begin with a piece of paper. On that paper we draw the axes of a graph. Time runs along the x axis; the origin of the graph is the origin of existence.
We do not know our origins. We can guess, we can theorise based on what we do know, or we can believe unswervingly in some higher power despite the absence of any evidence of him, but we don't know. Not really. Leaving God and his seven days of creation alone just this once, we are at the theological and technological state now where the major thinkers of this age have established that roughly 13.7 billion years ago, nothing became something, and something of infinite mass exploded into space and matter and gradually it clattered into itself and fused and reacted and eventually became everything we know now.
We don't know what created that bang; it may have been some form of being that loosely fits our description of a god, or it may have been a purely nuclear/chemical reaction. Since we have no idea what exists beyond the universe, we'll just have to stick a big question mark on it for now, until our technological know-how is able to bring that information within reach.
Now a line is drawn on the graph, almost horizontal and stretching away from the origin.
One thing that was formed from the chaos of the creation of the universe was our Sun. Something caused it to combust, and fortunately for us, various large pieces of rock caught in its gravitational pull all squished together over time just far enough away to be nicely warm but not scorchingly hot, a perfect breeding ground for life to begin.
The line begins to bend upwards a little as it increases in length.
We do not know where those first sparks of life came from. Did it begin on earth, or was it brought from another planet by meteorite as some theories suggest? We don't know, and it's not really relevant: At some point, somwhere, a single entity that could be considered the simplest form of life stopped being a collection of chemicals and became alive. Was that god? Again, we don't know. As an atheist, my default view is that it isn't, and won't change until proved otherwise. As a theist, the default view would be that it was. But that doesn't matter because the situation remains the same.
At this point, the y axis gains a label - it reads, simply: progress.
We know that the sun is not infinite. It burns because it has a huge but not inexhaustible supply of hydrogen to fuel it. When that hydrogen runs out - mercifully in a billion years or so - it will expand massively, engulfing the earth. It may for a few million years more remain large enough to make life possible on a more outlying planet such as Mars, but it will eventually be extinguished and become a fizzled out speck, and the source of all life in our solar system will die out completely.
We have risen to be the custodians of this earth, and all the forms of life upon it. We are the one species of animal who, through good fortune have large enough brains to attain huge technological, theological and compassionate feats, paired with bodies that can act and build and engineer and forge from the base elements provided in the world around us. With each generation, the sum total of progress and knowledge is pushed forwards a little bit by every person who engages themselves in the pursuit of the next thing on the list to learn.
Progress has a much wider interpretation of course; before our technological spearhead shot us forward, there was the evolutionary path taken by the cells, bacteria, plants and animals that got us to the point where we have the brains and bodies to do the things we can do, and thus we should also not lose sight of the fact that we are stood on the shoulders of our distant ancestors. Before that, we have the primitive forces of space that formed a place where such life could grow. In short, every atom in the universe has been employed over billions of years to get us to the point we are at now. The massive sum total of progressive steps this adds up to is unfathomable.
The curved line on the graph is at its steepest when it stops, or at least it appears to. Taking a microscope to the surface of the paper at the line's endpoint, we can see it moving with glacial pace. The end of the line represents the universe, right now.
Humanity is making discoveries on top of the ones we already know, creating new theories and refining the ones of those gone by, at a rate as yet unseen that will mean we will soon be able to begin to populate other planets. First the International Space Station, then the moon, then Mars, and who knows what after that. Technological brick walls we consider difficult, impractical, prohibitively expensive or just impossible to overcome now will no doubt be scalable by the end of the century, replaced by the next set of problems that is even greater.
We have our origin, our rate of progress, and our current point on the graph. Everything looks positive and good. Then, without sound, at the right side of the page far away from the end of the curve, a thick red line draws itself, vertically downwards, bisecting the x axis.
This line represents the stage at which our sun runs out of energy and engulfs us all and we become extinct. Note that this is the default form of universal extinction, the one that does the job if nothing else (such as a pesky stray meteorite) jumps the queue and gets there first.
A large, red question mark appears next to the line on the axis, and the line itself shimmers so as to blur its exact position, to signify this uncertainty.
A second line begins to run horizontally across the top of the graph. It is dashed and coloured black, and draws itself high above our current point. This line represents the level of technological and evolutionary progress required for us to escape our current location and move to another rock which has both the resources to sustain our life needs, and the location to avoid being wiped out by some other threat for a few more million years.
Our purpose and meaning in life is clear. Do all that we can in our short lives to edge us further up that graph, even by the tiniest amount, so our line of progression passes the horizontal line before the vertical one. Because if we don't, the whole 15 billion years or so it took to get to that point will have been for nothing, and God's little petri dish experiment will have failed, and he'll have to start again. Of course, whether a god being started the experiment or not, the purpose remains the same. Continue adapting, evolving, learning and growing, or suffer a fate worse than death: Obliteration on such a massive scale that nothing will remain for others to see we were even here aeons from now.
Personally, I find this notion, that of our roles as being minuscule but potentially critical movements on the graph of life, with the ultimate goal of preserving our existence, started so long ago as the most basic of forms and now so much more, to be far more beautiful and awe-inspiring than the limited, stunted stories told by people thousands of years ago with a much smaller world view and using peoples' own selfish desires for heavenly reward to get them on board. It also has the flexibility of fitting into the world view of those either side of the theism debate. If you were to choose to take the theistic interpretation, god started life in a huge experiment to see if that life could get to a point where it can escape its confines and we can help prove him right. An atheist's interpretation just omits the idea of a god - we have an amount of time to escape our situation or it's curtains. The purpose is the same.
Not only are we encouraged to climb up that graph by this way of looking at life, but it also installs in us a more responsible world view; it encourages compassion for our fellow man since we are all together striving towards the same goal. Compassion also towards the world as a whole, since we have the responsibility as the most able beings on the planet to take care of it, and we now have the brains and knowledge to realise that it is all connected together and interdependent. From this comes a set of morals and principles that are similar from those sold to us as particular to a theistic life but are actually not attributable solely to them, and from adoption of these come community and society, themselves tools that have been developed to aid us on the push up that curve.
Compare that to the biblical interpretation on life's purpose. Be good not because of some desire to make the world better for the next generation, but because doing so gets you a golden ticket through the pearly gates. The world and its plants and animals were made by God for humans to use as they will, and these resources won't run dry because God wouldn't do that to his favourite beings-in-his-own-image now would he? We can rape the earth for all it's got because it's our playground to use as we want.
The paper is screwed up and thrown in the bin.
Life is extremely short; a mere fleeting atom of dust on the graph paper, and its potential to be snuffed out in an instant without being used to its potential is all too easy, be that through being puree'd by a bus one morning on the way to work, or by a young life brainwashed into suicide bombing under the promise of eternal glory. It's sobering that for every life that pushes progress forward, another can hold us back.
DISCLAIMER: This train of thought is not intended as the basis of a religion in itself. I am not a moonie-style leader of people, I couldn't lead a set of drunks to the nearest pub and have no want or desire to do so.
On Deconversion
Over on the Daylight Atheism boards, (which I thoroughly recommend as a place for anyone regardless of faith to give their opinions on religion a healthy dose of scrutiny) Ebon has put up an open post asking for peoples' stories about their 'deconversion' - i.e. how they came to not believe. Though my particular path did not include some of the struggles with society, family or friends exhibited by some of the other posters, I added my voice to the crowd, and have reproduced it here.
My story is pretty tame, although this topic is one that has encouraged me to look back on an aspect of my past life that I had forgotten about.
I grew up in England, which was/is much more secular than the US, and so I was fortunate to be raised by parents/grandparents who were mostly non-believers themselves, though didn't label themselves as such, (they had some religious artefacts remaining - my mother would say 'don't take the Lord's name in vain' whenever I would say 'oh god' or something, almost as a knee-jerk reaction). By and large, faith played little part in my early formative years.
What little I did have, was found at school and Friday/weekend cub-scouts and reached a peak just before my teens. Prayers and hymns in morning assembly, going to church most Sundays around the age of 10-12 as part of a community gathering, and so on. One cold winters' day, as I was stood outside church waiting to go in, I looked around. I saw the cars on the nearby road driving past without their passengers giving so much as a glance towards the church in respect, and at the rows of terraced houses flanking the perimeter of the church grounds, many with their lights on and snapshot views of their owners keeping warm inside, watching telly instead of coming out to worship.
I initially thought that they were in the wrong, choosing their selfish comfort over what was becoming a weekly pilgrimage of sorts for me; something that was just done. In the days after, my thoughts focused a little more on the subject. I hadn't really separated out the religious aspects of my life from the other things going on, and realised that I was just going to church, and praying and singing hymns at my school without really taking the time to think about what it was people were telling me and getting me to accept without question.
So in private moments I would try to make sense of the situation, and one day just stood in that same place outside church, and asked God to give me a sign that he existed. If a sign of unmistakable clarity showed itself, I would continue with my faith and attempt to strengthen it. If one didn't, I would assume for the moment that God did not exist and I would remain of that mind until I saw evidence for myself to the contrary. Five minutes passed, and I dared myself a little further: I said in a quiet but determined voice to the sky: 'God, I don't think you exist. Prove me wrong and show me that you do.'
And that was the basis for my non-belief. No answer or revelation (or lightening bolt) came, and that gave me the clarity to start dealing with life in a less complicated manner. I began miming to the hymns instead of singing them, I went to church but looked at the people there as receiving emotional comfort from within, not spiritual guidance from without. As I got older and more aware that different religions and faiths and cults existed, I found that looking at them from a psychological viewpoint was far more enlightening - mixtures of traditional habits not easily shaken, a human desire to align oneself with a group for comfort, a need to feel 'in the right' and all the peer pressure that glued it together was more believable for me than any notion of a 'Loving God', especially when you bring into the equation all the ugliness in the world that he supposedly produced, together with all that smiting he likes so much to do.
For several years, this was how it was: generally not believing but not thinking about it too much, until about four years ago when I moved to a neighbouring town that were a little more serious when it came to conviction. As I spent my non-working days getting my new house together (it needed a lot of work) I would have my front door approached by Creationists, Jehovas' Witnesses and Alpha people. Each would start with some general question about the evils in the world to get you onside, followed by various unsubstantiated claims about how a life of faith would sort it all out. I wanted to say 'you're wrong, because...' but I didn't have any argumentative knowledge to back it up.
So I started to look deeper. I wanted to make sure that I was objective in my search; after all, I had based my non-belief so far on a snotty question fired into the air on a cold winter day many years previous. I found sites online, both faith-based and atheist/humanist, and slowly got myself a more proper understanding of what it meant to be a Christian, Muslim, Creationist, Atheist, Humanist, etc. Wherever I looked, the religious side of things seemed to be propped up on assumptions and half-truths, and while I can't say I understood the minutiae of the the opposite arguments, being often waist deep in scientific understanding, they definitely made a lot more sense and helped solidify my view. They certainly struck me as more plausible than the religious sorts, who would often turn back to the bible or some other holy book whenever they were posed a question they had no answer for.
And this is how it is now for me. There was no evangelical bullying or peer-pressure (for which I consider myself extremely fortunate), no coercion to rebel against, just a slow realisation, often from a spectators point of view on other countries and cultures, that faith is a human invention. The term 'Man made God in his own image' rang truest of all the things I have seen and heard.
I consider myself an atheist-agnostic - I am comfortable with my disbelief, but there are still things that have a big question mark for them - such as what triggered the big bang, what caused the first spark of life, and what exists outside the boundaries of the universe, but in the absence of an answer, I just stick a large question mark in its place (it could be the work of some being that may fill the description of 'God' but I will assume the default option that it isn't for now). I hope that some day in my lifetime, we can learn enough to perhaps replace some of those question marks with answers.
Related Posts:
My story is pretty tame, although this topic is one that has encouraged me to look back on an aspect of my past life that I had forgotten about.
I grew up in England, which was/is much more secular than the US, and so I was fortunate to be raised by parents/grandparents who were mostly non-believers themselves, though didn't label themselves as such, (they had some religious artefacts remaining - my mother would say 'don't take the Lord's name in vain' whenever I would say 'oh god' or something, almost as a knee-jerk reaction). By and large, faith played little part in my early formative years.
What little I did have, was found at school and Friday/weekend cub-scouts and reached a peak just before my teens. Prayers and hymns in morning assembly, going to church most Sundays around the age of 10-12 as part of a community gathering, and so on. One cold winters' day, as I was stood outside church waiting to go in, I looked around. I saw the cars on the nearby road driving past without their passengers giving so much as a glance towards the church in respect, and at the rows of terraced houses flanking the perimeter of the church grounds, many with their lights on and snapshot views of their owners keeping warm inside, watching telly instead of coming out to worship.
I initially thought that they were in the wrong, choosing their selfish comfort over what was becoming a weekly pilgrimage of sorts for me; something that was just done. In the days after, my thoughts focused a little more on the subject. I hadn't really separated out the religious aspects of my life from the other things going on, and realised that I was just going to church, and praying and singing hymns at my school without really taking the time to think about what it was people were telling me and getting me to accept without question.
So in private moments I would try to make sense of the situation, and one day just stood in that same place outside church, and asked God to give me a sign that he existed. If a sign of unmistakable clarity showed itself, I would continue with my faith and attempt to strengthen it. If one didn't, I would assume for the moment that God did not exist and I would remain of that mind until I saw evidence for myself to the contrary. Five minutes passed, and I dared myself a little further: I said in a quiet but determined voice to the sky: 'God, I don't think you exist. Prove me wrong and show me that you do.'
And that was the basis for my non-belief. No answer or revelation (or lightening bolt) came, and that gave me the clarity to start dealing with life in a less complicated manner. I began miming to the hymns instead of singing them, I went to church but looked at the people there as receiving emotional comfort from within, not spiritual guidance from without. As I got older and more aware that different religions and faiths and cults existed, I found that looking at them from a psychological viewpoint was far more enlightening - mixtures of traditional habits not easily shaken, a human desire to align oneself with a group for comfort, a need to feel 'in the right' and all the peer pressure that glued it together was more believable for me than any notion of a 'Loving God', especially when you bring into the equation all the ugliness in the world that he supposedly produced, together with all that smiting he likes so much to do.
For several years, this was how it was: generally not believing but not thinking about it too much, until about four years ago when I moved to a neighbouring town that were a little more serious when it came to conviction. As I spent my non-working days getting my new house together (it needed a lot of work) I would have my front door approached by Creationists, Jehovas' Witnesses and Alpha people. Each would start with some general question about the evils in the world to get you onside, followed by various unsubstantiated claims about how a life of faith would sort it all out. I wanted to say 'you're wrong, because...' but I didn't have any argumentative knowledge to back it up.
So I started to look deeper. I wanted to make sure that I was objective in my search; after all, I had based my non-belief so far on a snotty question fired into the air on a cold winter day many years previous. I found sites online, both faith-based and atheist/humanist, and slowly got myself a more proper understanding of what it meant to be a Christian, Muslim, Creationist, Atheist, Humanist, etc. Wherever I looked, the religious side of things seemed to be propped up on assumptions and half-truths, and while I can't say I understood the minutiae of the the opposite arguments, being often waist deep in scientific understanding, they definitely made a lot more sense and helped solidify my view. They certainly struck me as more plausible than the religious sorts, who would often turn back to the bible or some other holy book whenever they were posed a question they had no answer for.
And this is how it is now for me. There was no evangelical bullying or peer-pressure (for which I consider myself extremely fortunate), no coercion to rebel against, just a slow realisation, often from a spectators point of view on other countries and cultures, that faith is a human invention. The term 'Man made God in his own image' rang truest of all the things I have seen and heard.
I consider myself an atheist-agnostic - I am comfortable with my disbelief, but there are still things that have a big question mark for them - such as what triggered the big bang, what caused the first spark of life, and what exists outside the boundaries of the universe, but in the absence of an answer, I just stick a large question mark in its place (it could be the work of some being that may fill the description of 'God' but I will assume the default option that it isn't for now). I hope that some day in my lifetime, we can learn enough to perhaps replace some of those question marks with answers.
Related Posts:
Mad Christian Ads (Part 3)
Here are the final set of classic Evangelical Christian adverts. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.
The PAX Network (now Ion Television) shows special programmes made just for Christians, as if they have special needs that normal programmes do not provide. Miracle Pets has the dubious claim of EVEN MORE 'cross species friendship' stories (as if to answer the calls of thousands of people who complained there weren't enough), Doc solves medical problems by saying 'ahh well he died, it must have been Gods will' to cover up his surgical incompetences, and Mysterious Ways attempts to outdo the X-Files by having some paranormal event occur every episode, but then spoiling the mystery for everyone by saying '..that strange flying saucer you saw? That was just Jesus doing some recon'.
Quite what a fire bible is, they don't say (their website has its own rather incendiary interpretation), but the rather ominous claim that it's a lesson they will never forget is enough to make me wary of sending my kids there. Do they set the classroom on fire and then the children that survive are told they did so because of Gods will? This banner also advertises lessons where inquisitive kids can pick up a human brain and what appears to be a child's shoe made from a turd. Finally, their use of 'objects' as teaching aids is sold to us as a reason not to go with a rival company, as if all other forms of teaching conjure things out of thin air. You would have thought that these people would employ that sort of tactic, given the tendency for religious types to do just that.
Only if you click on the banner would you ever know whether you are allowed to believe in both. Until then, risk eternal damnation if you even consider the wealth of evidence available to support their existence. The banner doesn't tell me much about which book it's going on about, but there's a crapload of them out there preaching both sides of the fence. Of course, if you do choose to believe, you will have to compromise with reality because due to the earth being only 4000 years old, man and dinosaur must have co-existed in a Flintstones stylee.
Saint A. Tujay is apparently the guy in charge of reviewing computer games for the Christian community. In order to remain down with the kids, he had picked up the street speak even back as far as 2002 and lets it all hang out for Saints of Virtue. #1 Christian Computer Game of All Time? To be fair, there's not going to be that many contenders for such a spot, except for Noah's Adventures and The Zoo Race, of course.
As for Tujays' glowing recommendation? Shine didn't have to look too far for it - its on their site's hall of fame - not an actual review.
On the last post, there was Clowning4Christ, well, it appears that no form of child-bothering physical showmanship is left un-christed. Mime4Him similarly allows your children to experience the wonder of annoying whited-up grossly thin men pretending they are trapped inside a box, but with a dusting of religious magic pixie-dust on top. It doesn't say whether the mime act includes the religious execution of hethens.
That's all, I'm afraid. I've enjoyed going back through these, and also enjoyed going back through the websites they refer to, I'm glad they are still going; if nothing else, they celebrate the wierd and wonderful world of religious people and their attempts to bend and stretch themselves around peculiar subject matters.
The PAX Network (now Ion Television) shows special programmes made just for Christians, as if they have special needs that normal programmes do not provide. Miracle Pets has the dubious claim of EVEN MORE 'cross species friendship' stories (as if to answer the calls of thousands of people who complained there weren't enough), Doc solves medical problems by saying 'ahh well he died, it must have been Gods will' to cover up his surgical incompetences, and Mysterious Ways attempts to outdo the X-Files by having some paranormal event occur every episode, but then spoiling the mystery for everyone by saying '..that strange flying saucer you saw? That was just Jesus doing some recon'.Quite what a fire bible is, they don't say (their website has its own rather incendiary interpretation), but the rather ominous claim that it's a lesson they will never forget is enough to make me wary of sending my kids there. Do they set the classroom on fire and then the children that survive are told they did so because of Gods will? This banner also advertises lessons where inquisitive kids can pick up a human brain and what appears to be a child's shoe made from a turd. Finally, their use of 'objects' as teaching aids is sold to us as a reason not to go with a rival company, as if all other forms of teaching conjure things out of thin air. You would have thought that these people would employ that sort of tactic, given the tendency for religious types to do just that.Only if you click on the banner would you ever know whether you are allowed to believe in both. Until then, risk eternal damnation if you even consider the wealth of evidence available to support their existence. The banner doesn't tell me much about which book it's going on about, but there's a crapload of them out there preaching both sides of the fence. Of course, if you do choose to believe, you will have to compromise with reality because due to the earth being only 4000 years old, man and dinosaur must have co-existed in a Flintstones stylee.Saint A. Tujay is apparently the guy in charge of reviewing computer games for the Christian community. In order to remain down with the kids, he had picked up the street speak even back as far as 2002 and lets it all hang out for Saints of Virtue. #1 Christian Computer Game of All Time? To be fair, there's not going to be that many contenders for such a spot, except for Noah's Adventures and The Zoo Race, of course.As for Tujays' glowing recommendation? Shine didn't have to look too far for it - its on their site's hall of fame - not an actual review.
On the last post, there was Clowning4Christ, well, it appears that no form of child-bothering physical showmanship is left un-christed. Mime4Him similarly allows your children to experience the wonder of annoying whited-up grossly thin men pretending they are trapped inside a box, but with a dusting of religious magic pixie-dust on top. It doesn't say whether the mime act includes the religious execution of hethens.That's all, I'm afraid. I've enjoyed going back through these, and also enjoyed going back through the websites they refer to, I'm glad they are still going; if nothing else, they celebrate the wierd and wonderful world of religious people and their attempts to bend and stretch themselves around peculiar subject matters.
Mad Christian Ads (Part 2)
This here is part 2 of a little series based on some old Christian adverts I pulled off some Evangelical website many years back. Part 1 is here.
One thing you have to hand to those kerayzee evangelicals - they know how to focus on the positives when advertising their religion product.
Bible Man, with his wee-coloured light sabre and a forehead designed to keep the rain off his feet, must save the world from the nasty heathens who happen to have a load of Anger Dust to spread all over the place. Not only is it implied that his arch nemesis is a Mexican, (an association of which might irk America's southern neighbours), but also a damned god-denier. (I assume this is how atheists are seen by these people, spreading hate and suffering in their silly cloak and helmet getups when not doing their day-to-day jobs).
'Ordered to worship monkeys' is clearly a slant against the Evolutionists, but otherwise you might think this is referring to the Bible. It's not until the final frame that you realise its actually a film. The Jesus Film - which despite having been seen by 1.5 Billion people I had not heard of before this - dates from 1979, post-dating the far more capable 'Jesus of Nazareth' by 2 years and thus coming off as a bit of a cash-in.
The ad gets extra points by implying people who showed it were committed as nutters, and also by talking down to the tribal bushmen of the world. At least the film eventually came along, otherwise who knows how many more generations of bushmen would have had to burn in hell (after the 1800 years or so where God decided not to reveal himself to them) if it hadn't.
Gotta wonder just what made them use a pair of nubile ladies kissing as the focus point for concerned parents. After all, they do seem to be enjoying themselves. Now obviously homosexuality is an unforgivable hell-burning sin for these people, but I reckon that was an interesting evening beside the computer searching for a source image..
Evangelical 1: 'Just type in 'Lesbians' and see what comes up.',
Evangelical 2: '..pfft.. 'comes up'..',
*nervous shifting in seats*
Evangelical 1: 'Holy Mary, there's a lot of results. Click on that one there..',
Evangelical 2: 'That page has some.. good.. images on it..',
*both heads turn to one side in unison at a particular image*
Evangelical 1: 'Yeah..',
Evangelical 2: 'Yeah, but...',
*more uncomfortable shifting*
Evangelical 2: 'Maybe there is some better examples if I click on this link..',
Evangelical 1: '..... Do it'.
And for the 'unsaved youth' who turn their nose up at the thought of that dusty, wordy old Bible, there's a hip, rad version containing 'just the facts' for them! America's public schools are after all under attack from scientists, Islamic people and everybody else who has found something out that goes against the words of the Bible. They must be stopped!
Yes, you read that correctly. Clowning 4 Christ! Available for weddings, parties, but not Bar Mitzvas. A 'clown conference' may be heading to a town near you this year, and if so you too can witness first hand their drive and commitment in 'bring[ing] the best possible instructors that will raise the level of professionalism in all areas of clowning, Christian as well as secular.', and who wouldn't want that at their 5-year olds' birthday?
Just enough for one more part, which I'll post later. If anyone has any other mad ads they have found, please share them - add or link through the comments!
One thing you have to hand to those kerayzee evangelicals - they know how to focus on the positives when advertising their religion product.
Bible Man, with his wee-coloured light sabre and a forehead designed to keep the rain off his feet, must save the world from the nasty heathens who happen to have a load of Anger Dust to spread all over the place. Not only is it implied that his arch nemesis is a Mexican, (an association of which might irk America's southern neighbours), but also a damned god-denier. (I assume this is how atheists are seen by these people, spreading hate and suffering in their silly cloak and helmet getups when not doing their day-to-day jobs).'Ordered to worship monkeys' is clearly a slant against the Evolutionists, but otherwise you might think this is referring to the Bible. It's not until the final frame that you realise its actually a film. The Jesus Film - which despite having been seen by 1.5 Billion people I had not heard of before this - dates from 1979, post-dating the far more capable 'Jesus of Nazareth' by 2 years and thus coming off as a bit of a cash-in.The ad gets extra points by implying people who showed it were committed as nutters, and also by talking down to the tribal bushmen of the world. At least the film eventually came along, otherwise who knows how many more generations of bushmen would have had to burn in hell (after the 1800 years or so where God decided not to reveal himself to them) if it hadn't.
Gotta wonder just what made them use a pair of nubile ladies kissing as the focus point for concerned parents. After all, they do seem to be enjoying themselves. Now obviously homosexuality is an unforgivable hell-burning sin for these people, but I reckon that was an interesting evening beside the computer searching for a source image..Evangelical 1: 'Just type in 'Lesbians' and see what comes up.',
Evangelical 2: '..pfft.. 'comes up'..',
*nervous shifting in seats*
Evangelical 1: 'Holy Mary, there's a lot of results. Click on that one there..',
Evangelical 2: 'That page has some.. good.. images on it..',
*both heads turn to one side in unison at a particular image*
Evangelical 1: 'Yeah..',
Evangelical 2: 'Yeah, but...',
*more uncomfortable shifting*
Evangelical 2: 'Maybe there is some better examples if I click on this link..',
Evangelical 1: '..... Do it'.
And for the 'unsaved youth' who turn their nose up at the thought of that dusty, wordy old Bible, there's a hip, rad version containing 'just the facts' for them! America's public schools are after all under attack from scientists, Islamic people and everybody else who has found something out that goes against the words of the Bible. They must be stopped!Yes, you read that correctly. Clowning 4 Christ! Available for weddings, parties, but not Bar Mitzvas. A 'clown conference' may be heading to a town near you this year, and if so you too can witness first hand their drive and commitment in 'bring[ing] the best possible instructors that will raise the level of professionalism in all areas of clowning, Christian as well as secular.', and who wouldn't want that at their 5-year olds' birthday?Just enough for one more part, which I'll post later. If anyone has any other mad ads they have found, please share them - add or link through the comments!
Mad Christian Ads (Part 1)
Whilst clearing out my old folders recently I happened upon a selection of old banner adverts. Ads are things that interest and irk me in equal measure, being invasive objects that increasingly intrude on our lives without our permission but have the power to consciously and subconsciously change the habits of millions of people around the planet to buy the product or use the service in question, often without actually saying so. Adverts are a neutered form of mind control that offer a glimpse into the general human mindset.
The ads in particular I happened to save onto my hard-drive around 2002 after finding some American evangelical Christian website (the address of which I have long forgot), and I did so because I couldn't quite believe the forwardness of what I was seeing. I promise, these are genuine banner ads from that period.
Nothing like a big red warning sign to get you all pleased you chose that page to go for your daily bit of Jesus Juice. Not too sure what the barcode is all about, perhaps you were meant to take your laptop down to the local Tesco and ask them to scan it in for further instructions.
Al, the anti-lies bear is here to tell you exactly what you can and cannot believe. It doesn't say just what voice the bear roars these biblical extracts at your three year old child in, though, but I doubt it would sound much like Barney.
Amusingly, the people who made the bear have had to change the colour of it to 'heavenly white' from its original purple, because they discovered that '..the color purple has been appropriated by the homosexual community..'. Nice to see just how scared these people are of unbiblical minorities that they can't even be associated with a primary colour if it has some 'negative' connotation. I propose that the agnostics, atheists and humanists divide up the remaining primary colours between them and adopt them as their own, leaving only beige.
'Don't let Evolutionists make a monkey out of you', says Ken Ham, who has managed to look quite a lot like a monkey. So against Evolution is our Ken that he has applied the same tactic that one Mary Kenny has done not so long ago: blame it for all the social ills in the world.
Baby Jesus! I don't talk, I don't walk, I don't do anything, so basically just a job lot of cheap sweatshop-made dolls repackaged and stuck in a crucifix t-shirt, despite Jesus not experiencing much crucifix action until much later on in his life.
The website is still active, and those of you annoyed that you can't get your Jesus doll in the right race can rest easy, there is now not one, but four Jesuses (Jesii?), each of a different skin colour and dress style, crying out for some child-deprived evangelist to love to death like a biblical episode of the Power Rangers.
And you too can buy foods from the bible. These granola bars contain exclusive ingredients not found anywhere else outside of 'shops'. It took the bible to bring them together in a healthy medley, and at only a few dollars a pack, how can you not praise Him as you run for that bus?
I have a few more which I'll post soon. In the meantime, if you have seen some equally weird and wonderful advertisements targeted at the easily flocked, please nominate them. Extra points if the ad implies damnation if you do not buy.
The ads in particular I happened to save onto my hard-drive around 2002 after finding some American evangelical Christian website (the address of which I have long forgot), and I did so because I couldn't quite believe the forwardness of what I was seeing. I promise, these are genuine banner ads from that period.
Nothing like a big red warning sign to get you all pleased you chose that page to go for your daily bit of Jesus Juice. Not too sure what the barcode is all about, perhaps you were meant to take your laptop down to the local Tesco and ask them to scan it in for further instructions.Al, the anti-lies bear is here to tell you exactly what you can and cannot believe. It doesn't say just what voice the bear roars these biblical extracts at your three year old child in, though, but I doubt it would sound much like Barney.Amusingly, the people who made the bear have had to change the colour of it to 'heavenly white' from its original purple, because they discovered that '..the color purple has been appropriated by the homosexual community..'. Nice to see just how scared these people are of unbiblical minorities that they can't even be associated with a primary colour if it has some 'negative' connotation. I propose that the agnostics, atheists and humanists divide up the remaining primary colours between them and adopt them as their own, leaving only beige.
'Don't let Evolutionists make a monkey out of you', says Ken Ham, who has managed to look quite a lot like a monkey. So against Evolution is our Ken that he has applied the same tactic that one Mary Kenny has done not so long ago: blame it for all the social ills in the world.Baby Jesus! I don't talk, I don't walk, I don't do anything, so basically just a job lot of cheap sweatshop-made dolls repackaged and stuck in a crucifix t-shirt, despite Jesus not experiencing much crucifix action until much later on in his life.The website is still active, and those of you annoyed that you can't get your Jesus doll in the right race can rest easy, there is now not one, but four Jesuses (Jesii?), each of a different skin colour and dress style, crying out for some child-deprived evangelist to love to death like a biblical episode of the Power Rangers.
And you too can buy foods from the bible. These granola bars contain exclusive ingredients not found anywhere else outside of 'shops'. It took the bible to bring them together in a healthy medley, and at only a few dollars a pack, how can you not praise Him as you run for that bus?I have a few more which I'll post soon. In the meantime, if you have seen some equally weird and wonderful advertisements targeted at the easily flocked, please nominate them. Extra points if the ad implies damnation if you do not buy.
Happy C*******s!
I'd like to wish everyone who stumbles by my pot a happy and prosperous 'period between November and January where all the shops go mental'.
Being not a religious person, I intend to spend this period sat in a specially dug hole in the back garden, where myself and the lovely Ms Plants will gather together for warmth around a single candle (that was bought from a shop in April to avoid it being a special 'Christmas' Candle). We will sit there with an umbrella over our heads for the entire festive period whilst jamming clods of earth in our ears to drown out the carols and gaiety, and instead chant ancient pagan songs about how winter is just like any other time of year except colder, until it is all over. We will chew moss for sustenance. We will do all this for it is the atheist way.
Of course not! Anyone reading the above paragraph and taking any of it seriously needs to have a good look at what their idea of atheism is. Though I was not born into a particularly religious family, Christmas was always the best time of year when lovely things happened; my parents who had probably worked silly shift hours over the period laboured through Christmas Eve night to wrap daft amounts of presents and festoon the front room so that when I returned the following morning it would be like magic. Presents and food and cards and lights and tinsel and a tree that I could curl up under - not to mention some great telly and lots of ripped up wrapping to hide in.
[I've just thought: In many ways, Santa is a kind of 'Jesus for kids' - in that he's a magical being of folklore who would be great to have real, but after learning enough about the world you come to the conclusion he's just something that was invented to make you feel better and stop you from being naughty.]
Christmas for many people doesn't include much Christ these days, other than some imagery on a glittery Christmas card, and though some may lament the passing of the significance of he who may or may not have existed, it's a natural consequence of a few things coming together: People have busier lives these days, and religion tends to be one of the first things to go out the window, especially on a Sunday morning when its cold outside and you're too knackered from the working week to trudge to the church. We are all generally more educated these days, and so are less easily swayed by talk of naked people eating naughty apples, virgin births and zombie Jesuses, and when you get someone at your door asking you if you want some religion today (as if it's a commodity) many of us enjoy the sport of attempting to flatten their nose with the door. The consumer culture, for all its faults is another, rather large nail in the coffin - it has managed more than most other things to make Christmas a secular occasion, with nativity scenes increasingly sidelined by tinsel and crackers in the decorations aisle of your local Tesco. The religious origins of some of the Christmas symbols - stars on the Christmas tree, mistletoe etc. have long since been relegated to record.
For those people who are left who wish to celebrate the festive season with the religious parts intact - that's fine too, but it did bother me listening to the radio this morning that there are some people who seem to think that atheists just wander around their undecorated houses tutting at the seasonal idents on the telly and generally feeling a little intimidated by it all.
It's not so. We have a good time with our friends and families, eat stupid amounts of food we bought in folly, and we might even watch the Carols from Kings if it happens to be on between the traditional Indiana Jones/Toy Story/Snowman showings. We trim up our houses in anticipation for the big day, get in contact and meet people we may not have seen since the year before, and generally connect with the community in a greater way than at any other time, not because it's religious, not because we feel we need to, but because even though it was created in the name of religion, in a place of religion, it is still beautiful.
Christmas has very little Christian-ness these days and though I curse the idiots who think it should be called 'holidays' or 'winterval' or some such toss, just in case there is some idiot out there with a pen and paper and nothing to do, I can see why the debate between the secular and religious sides about how the period is celebrated will carry on for a while yet. Me? I hope that at some point the day will become a fully secular occasion where people of all religions (and none at all) can happily celebrate a bit of time off together with their loved ones without all the baggage of whether its origins have credence or not.
Happy Christmas and have a great New Year!
Mr and Mrs Plants.
xxx
Being not a religious person, I intend to spend this period sat in a specially dug hole in the back garden, where myself and the lovely Ms Plants will gather together for warmth around a single candle (that was bought from a shop in April to avoid it being a special 'Christmas' Candle). We will sit there with an umbrella over our heads for the entire festive period whilst jamming clods of earth in our ears to drown out the carols and gaiety, and instead chant ancient pagan songs about how winter is just like any other time of year except colder, until it is all over. We will chew moss for sustenance. We will do all this for it is the atheist way.
Of course not! Anyone reading the above paragraph and taking any of it seriously needs to have a good look at what their idea of atheism is. Though I was not born into a particularly religious family, Christmas was always the best time of year when lovely things happened; my parents who had probably worked silly shift hours over the period laboured through Christmas Eve night to wrap daft amounts of presents and festoon the front room so that when I returned the following morning it would be like magic. Presents and food and cards and lights and tinsel and a tree that I could curl up under - not to mention some great telly and lots of ripped up wrapping to hide in.
[I've just thought: In many ways, Santa is a kind of 'Jesus for kids' - in that he's a magical being of folklore who would be great to have real, but after learning enough about the world you come to the conclusion he's just something that was invented to make you feel better and stop you from being naughty.]
Christmas for many people doesn't include much Christ these days, other than some imagery on a glittery Christmas card, and though some may lament the passing of the significance of he who may or may not have existed, it's a natural consequence of a few things coming together: People have busier lives these days, and religion tends to be one of the first things to go out the window, especially on a Sunday morning when its cold outside and you're too knackered from the working week to trudge to the church. We are all generally more educated these days, and so are less easily swayed by talk of naked people eating naughty apples, virgin births and zombie Jesuses, and when you get someone at your door asking you if you want some religion today (as if it's a commodity) many of us enjoy the sport of attempting to flatten their nose with the door. The consumer culture, for all its faults is another, rather large nail in the coffin - it has managed more than most other things to make Christmas a secular occasion, with nativity scenes increasingly sidelined by tinsel and crackers in the decorations aisle of your local Tesco. The religious origins of some of the Christmas symbols - stars on the Christmas tree, mistletoe etc. have long since been relegated to record.
For those people who are left who wish to celebrate the festive season with the religious parts intact - that's fine too, but it did bother me listening to the radio this morning that there are some people who seem to think that atheists just wander around their undecorated houses tutting at the seasonal idents on the telly and generally feeling a little intimidated by it all.
It's not so. We have a good time with our friends and families, eat stupid amounts of food we bought in folly, and we might even watch the Carols from Kings if it happens to be on between the traditional Indiana Jones/Toy Story/Snowman showings. We trim up our houses in anticipation for the big day, get in contact and meet people we may not have seen since the year before, and generally connect with the community in a greater way than at any other time, not because it's religious, not because we feel we need to, but because even though it was created in the name of religion, in a place of religion, it is still beautiful.
Christmas has very little Christian-ness these days and though I curse the idiots who think it should be called 'holidays' or 'winterval' or some such toss, just in case there is some idiot out there with a pen and paper and nothing to do, I can see why the debate between the secular and religious sides about how the period is celebrated will carry on for a while yet. Me? I hope that at some point the day will become a fully secular occasion where people of all religions (and none at all) can happily celebrate a bit of time off together with their loved ones without all the baggage of whether its origins have credence or not.
Happy Christmas and have a great New Year!
Mr and Mrs Plants.
xxx
The Stupid Cow
I swore that I wouldn't go back to this subject, but it's religion time again!
My bile levels have been heightened slightly by this anonymous piece in the Irish Independent, starting with the atheist bus campaign and going onto far darker things. The author has clearly written through their rage rather than checking any facts. For a start, the piece is written by one Mary Kenny, clearly fearful for her life what with all the 'militant atheists' hanging round her area has decided to omit her details for the piece. It's clear that she fears and loathes such people by the writing style employed, a mix of barely controlled anger and clumsy mocking of the subject. I guess that the Daily Mail rejected her rantings because even they could see that she was letting her emotions get the better of her.
Where to start? There are the small things, such as:
The "atheist bus" is already established in London...
Nope. For starters, there is no atheist bus - there is a slogan to put on the bus about atheism, but the bus is a plain old bendy one. The article suggests some sort of open-topped tour containing well-known atheists spreading their heathen word down her precious streets. Also, the ad slogans won't be running until early 2009, so another red pen mark.
The advertising campaign has cost around stg £100,000.
The advertising campaign was due to cost £5,500, which was the original justgiving target.
It was all started up by -- predictably -- Professor Richard Dawkins...
Nope. It was started by Ariane Sherine of the Guardian.
He put down a deposit of some £8,000...
Err, no. He pledged to match up to £5,500 if the justgiving page managed to get that far (which it did, in just over an hour).
...and the rest came from public contributions -- mostly from readers of The Guardian newspaper...
I contributed twice having never given the Guardian more than a cursory glance. The story of the atheist bus was also mentioned in several other newspapers, radio and TV. Hearing the blatherings of the arrogant, po-faced Stephen Green trying to hold his position by exclaiming that he had absolute proof for the existence of God (despite amazingly not carrying such proof around with him at all times - you'd think it'd be useful for a God carer) and scoffing loudly at anyone who debated with him was a potent catalyst for a larger audience than Guardian readers to stand up and have their voices counted.
Then there is a passage that seems to meander around the whole 'probably' word.
Not that the project has been without controversy, within its own ranks. Hardline atheists wished the message to be: "There is definitely no God." But it seems that those atheists who shade somewhat towards agnosticism prevailed, with their slightly more moderate "There is probably no God ... "
I dunno, what's an honest atheist to do? They put the word in to appease and avoid offence (and in my opinion, to be more factually accurate) and the religious lot mock and jeer.
And then it started to get personal:
They could put whatever they liked on a bus. Except that I found the atheists' coda "so relax and enjoy life" ludicrously implausible. I've never yet met an atheist with a sense of joie-de-vivre (unless, in the case of one well-known public atheist, a certain drunken cordiality) most of them seem to be miserable blighters.
That's strange. I have numerous friends, colleagues and contacts, and most of them are varying degrees of atheist, the only religious contact they tend to have is the blackmail rituals they need to go through when they want to get a church marriage, or are badgered into some religious act or other by their families to keep a tradition going.
I find them to be generally happy, outgoing, carefree individuals, insofar as is possible with the world worries going on at the moment. I know a few people who have religious leanings, and they tend to be generally happy also; no more, no less, so I wonder just which circles Mary has been spinning in to find such contrasting personalities where the only dividing line is their (lack of) faith.
I've got a theory: perhaps they're miserable around her because she's always warbling on about God in their presence and insinuating they will go to hell for their lifestyle choice.
For your information, Mary, I find the notion of religious people 'relaxing and enjoying life' to be a little askew with logic. Not in the same way you do, by looking at a very small section of society and making conclusions based upon them, but by following the well-trodden path of logic that made me decide that God is not for me. If you'll indulge me for a moment:
A central tenet of religion, bashed into us from infant schools:
God is all-powerful and all-seeing and all-forgiving.
But, in life, bad things happen:
A plane full of people crashes into a mountain.
An innocent child a few days old is mown down by a runaway car.
Other children are born into the world with horrible, painful disfigurements.
Dictatorships rise and fall and in the process millions of people are massacred.
God must be aware of these occurrences, and yet he does nothing, thus:
Either he is too weak to do anything about them (bang goes the first bit) or he was looking the other way at the time (there goes the second bit) or he thought what the hell and let it happen anyway (and the third bit falls).
God is willing to let all these things happen without intervening, and thus if he does exist, I doubt he'll give a flying angel if millions of insignificant specks on one of his billions of planets don't kneel by their bedside every night and pray for a good day tomorrow. Thus following a religion is pointless.
And now, the point: If I were a religious sort, I would look upon the events happening every day on the earth, (and the news can only show a fraction of everything that happens) and start asking questions - what is God up to? Does he hate us? Are we an experiment? Are we just playthings? Is the devil as powerful as God? I went to church and then was mugged on my way home, so what have I done wrong?
If I was of the opinion there was a higher power controlling everything, these inconsistencies and questions would build up and up and up, and you can't tell me that's a recipe for a happy-go-lucky outlook on life. I'd be a pretty miserable blighter, as you put it, Mary. The only way of retaining my religious views and also keeping a sane mind would be to stick my head in the sand.
Don't think about it. It's ok not to; it's all handled by some higher power. Just concentrate on reciting your prayers every night, go to church on a Sunday - don't forget some pennies in the collection bowl - and if you remain blissfully detached from the niggling inconsistencies that bubble into your conscious from time to time and keep doing what your bible tells you to, you might lead a modest life with possibly something to look forward to at the end of it.
I can't do that. I like to think and question and challenge the world around me. If something doesn't make sense, then I will question it's validity and reject it if it cannot stand up to scrutiny. That's how things change; progress. The atheist bus campaign reassured me that there are other people - many people - out there who share a similar view. Some of them may have gone along with their bestowed faiths because it was just the thing to do because it was all around, but have now found a group, a voice, that answers their concerns.
I have faith; sure. I have faith in my friends and my family; I have faith that I will be able to do the things I want to do in life before I'm too old to do them. Faith is a good thing. Blind faith is a bad thing, and that is what religion requires to work.
So that is how I manage to be an atheist whilst still able to be a happy soul. I am free from these questions because of these rules: God probably doesn't exist, and even if he does, he couldn't give two fingers about whether I worship him or not.
It's also I suspect why religious people aren't quite as happy as Mary insinuates.
So I relax and enjoy my life. Because life is short and precious.
Anyway, back to the piece.
Well-meaning folk might suppose that atheists are simply searchingly honest persons who, doubting the tenets of faith and committed to reason and logic, conclude that they just cannot commit to faith.
No, the reason is not a question of commitment, it's a question of it not making sense to the person. They have perhaps tried to believe (usually because it's been a part of their education growing up), but too many facets of religion just don't work for them, and so they can't. Your wording also implies a sense of laziness, 'an atheist is someone who can't be bothered to put the work in'.
Maybe you could provide us with some real counter examples Mary, instead of labelling everyone who sends you an email reflecting their anger at your words as 'militant'.
There's just one more bit that I'd like to touch on, but it's the most insulting of all:
...I am convinced that this injection of atheism into the culture is directly responsible for the increase in drug-abuse, in crime and, most specifically, in the five-fold increase in suicide that we have seen in these islands over the last 25 years.
I, like most people, atheist or otherwise, have a moral compass and code. Like many others, I have taken part in charity events, I have picked up litter in the street, said hello to strangers, held doors open and given up seats on the train, I have supported my community and sometimes flipped a few coins into a beggars lap. But mine is based on a general respect for living things and a person's property rather than a set of rules laid down and backed up by threats of damnation.
You get these from good parenting, good relationships with the people in your community, and a safe environment where people can grow up not feeling the need to be in a group for fear of being outcast. No religion is required.
So, I'll take my moral compass over yours any day, Mary.
And then she drops the mother lode:
Troubled and immature young persons, given a nihilistic message that there is no meaning to life -- that we are just reasonably clever animals who evolved from a set of molluscs, quite by chance -- are easily driven down the road to despair.
Britain has been hugely shaken, over the last month, by the public tragedy of 'Baby P', and the tormented infant's young life has been taken as an all-too-accurate indictment of an aspect of British life today.
Mary Kenny has such a vivid idea of the mind and actions of the average atheist, it's hard not to be tempted to wonder what sort of person she is. I see her as an old woman (in the style of Mrs Slocombe out of Are You Being Served) with a sash permanently round her neck and a blue-grey rinse, sat at her desk at home, amongst Jackie Collins novels, cigarette butts and copies of the Daily Mail, tapping in these inane, hearsay-based opinion pieces with only her index fingers and occasionally stopping her toy dog from yapping the house down by feeding it yet another vol au vent.
I salute you, Mary Kenny. You have managed to both offend and amuse with your ignorant, bigoted and factually inaccurate remarks. The title of 'stupid cow' is rightly deserved for you because you have demonstrated both your stupidity and your bovine intellect.
May you continue to rouse atheists to stand up and be counted for years to come.
My bile levels have been heightened slightly by this anonymous piece in the Irish Independent, starting with the atheist bus campaign and going onto far darker things. The author has clearly written through their rage rather than checking any facts. For a start, the piece is written by one Mary Kenny, clearly fearful for her life what with all the 'militant atheists' hanging round her area has decided to omit her details for the piece. It's clear that she fears and loathes such people by the writing style employed, a mix of barely controlled anger and clumsy mocking of the subject. I guess that the Daily Mail rejected her rantings because even they could see that she was letting her emotions get the better of her.
Where to start? There are the small things, such as:
The "atheist bus" is already established in London...
Nope. For starters, there is no atheist bus - there is a slogan to put on the bus about atheism, but the bus is a plain old bendy one. The article suggests some sort of open-topped tour containing well-known atheists spreading their heathen word down her precious streets. Also, the ad slogans won't be running until early 2009, so another red pen mark.
The advertising campaign has cost around stg £100,000.
The advertising campaign was due to cost £5,500, which was the original justgiving target.
It was all started up by -- predictably -- Professor Richard Dawkins...
Nope. It was started by Ariane Sherine of the Guardian.
He put down a deposit of some £8,000...
Err, no. He pledged to match up to £5,500 if the justgiving page managed to get that far (which it did, in just over an hour).
...and the rest came from public contributions -- mostly from readers of The Guardian newspaper...
I contributed twice having never given the Guardian more than a cursory glance. The story of the atheist bus was also mentioned in several other newspapers, radio and TV. Hearing the blatherings of the arrogant, po-faced Stephen Green trying to hold his position by exclaiming that he had absolute proof for the existence of God (despite amazingly not carrying such proof around with him at all times - you'd think it'd be useful for a God carer) and scoffing loudly at anyone who debated with him was a potent catalyst for a larger audience than Guardian readers to stand up and have their voices counted.
Then there is a passage that seems to meander around the whole 'probably' word.
Not that the project has been without controversy, within its own ranks. Hardline atheists wished the message to be: "There is definitely no God." But it seems that those atheists who shade somewhat towards agnosticism prevailed, with their slightly more moderate "There is probably no God ... "
I dunno, what's an honest atheist to do? They put the word in to appease and avoid offence (and in my opinion, to be more factually accurate) and the religious lot mock and jeer.
And then it started to get personal:
They could put whatever they liked on a bus. Except that I found the atheists' coda "so relax and enjoy life" ludicrously implausible. I've never yet met an atheist with a sense of joie-de-vivre (unless, in the case of one well-known public atheist, a certain drunken cordiality) most of them seem to be miserable blighters.
That's strange. I have numerous friends, colleagues and contacts, and most of them are varying degrees of atheist, the only religious contact they tend to have is the blackmail rituals they need to go through when they want to get a church marriage, or are badgered into some religious act or other by their families to keep a tradition going.
I find them to be generally happy, outgoing, carefree individuals, insofar as is possible with the world worries going on at the moment. I know a few people who have religious leanings, and they tend to be generally happy also; no more, no less, so I wonder just which circles Mary has been spinning in to find such contrasting personalities where the only dividing line is their (lack of) faith.
I've got a theory: perhaps they're miserable around her because she's always warbling on about God in their presence and insinuating they will go to hell for their lifestyle choice.
For your information, Mary, I find the notion of religious people 'relaxing and enjoying life' to be a little askew with logic. Not in the same way you do, by looking at a very small section of society and making conclusions based upon them, but by following the well-trodden path of logic that made me decide that God is not for me. If you'll indulge me for a moment:
A central tenet of religion, bashed into us from infant schools:
God is all-powerful and all-seeing and all-forgiving.
But, in life, bad things happen:
A plane full of people crashes into a mountain.
An innocent child a few days old is mown down by a runaway car.
Other children are born into the world with horrible, painful disfigurements.
Dictatorships rise and fall and in the process millions of people are massacred.
God must be aware of these occurrences, and yet he does nothing, thus:
Either he is too weak to do anything about them (bang goes the first bit) or he was looking the other way at the time (there goes the second bit) or he thought what the hell and let it happen anyway (and the third bit falls).
God is willing to let all these things happen without intervening, and thus if he does exist, I doubt he'll give a flying angel if millions of insignificant specks on one of his billions of planets don't kneel by their bedside every night and pray for a good day tomorrow. Thus following a religion is pointless.
And now, the point: If I were a religious sort, I would look upon the events happening every day on the earth, (and the news can only show a fraction of everything that happens) and start asking questions - what is God up to? Does he hate us? Are we an experiment? Are we just playthings? Is the devil as powerful as God? I went to church and then was mugged on my way home, so what have I done wrong?
If I was of the opinion there was a higher power controlling everything, these inconsistencies and questions would build up and up and up, and you can't tell me that's a recipe for a happy-go-lucky outlook on life. I'd be a pretty miserable blighter, as you put it, Mary. The only way of retaining my religious views and also keeping a sane mind would be to stick my head in the sand.
Don't think about it. It's ok not to; it's all handled by some higher power. Just concentrate on reciting your prayers every night, go to church on a Sunday - don't forget some pennies in the collection bowl - and if you remain blissfully detached from the niggling inconsistencies that bubble into your conscious from time to time and keep doing what your bible tells you to, you might lead a modest life with possibly something to look forward to at the end of it.
I can't do that. I like to think and question and challenge the world around me. If something doesn't make sense, then I will question it's validity and reject it if it cannot stand up to scrutiny. That's how things change; progress. The atheist bus campaign reassured me that there are other people - many people - out there who share a similar view. Some of them may have gone along with their bestowed faiths because it was just the thing to do because it was all around, but have now found a group, a voice, that answers their concerns.
I have faith; sure. I have faith in my friends and my family; I have faith that I will be able to do the things I want to do in life before I'm too old to do them. Faith is a good thing. Blind faith is a bad thing, and that is what religion requires to work.
So that is how I manage to be an atheist whilst still able to be a happy soul. I am free from these questions because of these rules: God probably doesn't exist, and even if he does, he couldn't give two fingers about whether I worship him or not.
It's also I suspect why religious people aren't quite as happy as Mary insinuates.
So I relax and enjoy my life. Because life is short and precious.
Anyway, back to the piece.
Well-meaning folk might suppose that atheists are simply searchingly honest persons who, doubting the tenets of faith and committed to reason and logic, conclude that they just cannot commit to faith.
No, the reason is not a question of commitment, it's a question of it not making sense to the person. They have perhaps tried to believe (usually because it's been a part of their education growing up), but too many facets of religion just don't work for them, and so they can't. Your wording also implies a sense of laziness, 'an atheist is someone who can't be bothered to put the work in'.
There may be some of this ilk, but militant atheists, in particular, are deeply unpleasant and caustically intolerant. Any time I have written about this subject, I have received offensive e-mails from militant atheists. While professing themselves to be campaigners for "freedom of thought", "reason", and "logic", their main tool of argument is often personal abuse; they quickly start shrieking that believers are simply "stupid", or, in the case of a female believer, "a stupid cow".
Militant atheists? Who they? I know of militant and fundamentalist religious types. You know, the ones who burn people at the stake, or kill black people with pitchforks and flaming crosses, or murder members of their own family for daring to divorce, or fly planes into buildings, or bomb shopping centres and buses, or invade entire countries and destroy all traces of native beliefs or religions in favour of their own. I know not of any atheist who uses anything but words to get their message across.Maybe you could provide us with some real counter examples Mary, instead of labelling everyone who sends you an email reflecting their anger at your words as 'militant'.
There's just one more bit that I'd like to touch on, but it's the most insulting of all:
...I am convinced that this injection of atheism into the culture is directly responsible for the increase in drug-abuse, in crime and, most specifically, in the five-fold increase in suicide that we have seen in these islands over the last 25 years.
A life without a spiritual sense of purpose, or the moral parameters set by the Ten Commandments -- is a living hell.
I can sort of see the glimmer of some logical reason here, but it's highly skewed. One of the few advantages I can see to an organised religion is its instillation of a moral compass on its flock. This unfortunately hinges greatly on a 'fear of God' more than anything else - do good or you will burn in hell - which isn't really healthy to have bullied into you from an early age. Mary's central assumption - that atheists are a group cast adrift without the guiding moral compass of a vengeful God and thus must be to blame for all corruption in society (like asylum seekers, asian people, black people, women voters.. the latest in a long line leading back centuries) is thus flawed.I, like most people, atheist or otherwise, have a moral compass and code. Like many others, I have taken part in charity events, I have picked up litter in the street, said hello to strangers, held doors open and given up seats on the train, I have supported my community and sometimes flipped a few coins into a beggars lap. But mine is based on a general respect for living things and a person's property rather than a set of rules laid down and backed up by threats of damnation.
You get these from good parenting, good relationships with the people in your community, and a safe environment where people can grow up not feeling the need to be in a group for fear of being outcast. No religion is required.
So, I'll take my moral compass over yours any day, Mary.
And then she drops the mother lode:
Troubled and immature young persons, given a nihilistic message that there is no meaning to life -- that we are just reasonably clever animals who evolved from a set of molluscs, quite by chance -- are easily driven down the road to despair.
Britain has been hugely shaken, over the last month, by the public tragedy of 'Baby P', and the tormented infant's young life has been taken as an all-too-accurate indictment of an aspect of British life today.
That is a life without moral parameters; in which fathers walk away from their children because the state provides all welfare; in which relationships are casual, and a variety boyfriends and serial stepfathers move in; in which mothers spend the day smoking dope, drinking vodka and cruising for sex on the internet, while their children die with broken backs -- among filth and excrement, dead mice and pet snakes.
A Hogarthian picture of an underclass without any sense of a higher moral and spiritual aspiration has emerged, to whom the atheist bus campaign is scant help, or indeed comfort...
And that's where it gets truly insulting. One minute she talks of atheists and their miserableness, and then she talks about social decay. She hasn't directly associated one with the other, but the insinuation is clear. The prevalence of a secular, atheist society is responsible for things such as a child being battered to death, drunken teenagers, squalid living conditions and urban decay. This 'implication by proximity' is an old trick, and it's sad to see it being used so blatantly here. My recently refreshed faith in the people of Britain gives me hope that most people will read this and see it for what it is. Inaccurate ranting and borderline propaganda.Mary Kenny has such a vivid idea of the mind and actions of the average atheist, it's hard not to be tempted to wonder what sort of person she is. I see her as an old woman (in the style of Mrs Slocombe out of Are You Being Served) with a sash permanently round her neck and a blue-grey rinse, sat at her desk at home, amongst Jackie Collins novels, cigarette butts and copies of the Daily Mail, tapping in these inane, hearsay-based opinion pieces with only her index fingers and occasionally stopping her toy dog from yapping the house down by feeding it yet another vol au vent.
I salute you, Mary Kenny. You have managed to both offend and amuse with your ignorant, bigoted and factually inaccurate remarks. The title of 'stupid cow' is rightly deserved for you because you have demonstrated both your stupidity and your bovine intellect.
May you continue to rouse atheists to stand up and be counted for years to come.
Off the Bus and Into the School
Following on from the Atheist Bendy Bus comes news of a sister donation site. This comes as a relief to me, as mentioned in my earlier post, there is only so much money you can spend on posters and billboards before some opponents begin to ask, 'well, why didn't you use it for something more needy?'. As was raised in some of the comments to that post, it wouldn't be fair or right to redirect that cash when the donating parties did so in good faith that it would be spent on spreading the word and being a voice for change.
The original fund-raiser has slowed down now but still gets the odd couple of quid added to it. It's a very healthy £110,000 as I write, and like many comments on the page have said, further donations should start to be channelled elsewhere for this momentum to keep going.
Don't let the URL put you off, the British Humanist Association is behind it once again, this time raising money to support a campaign representative to lobby and fight for the right for our children to go to secular schools which, although teaching about the various faiths (and Atheism and Agnosticism as well) would leave it for the children themselves to decide whether to follow them or not. They will act as a voice against the divisive notion of faith schools and instead try to promote an educational environment where kids can grow up with one less reason to find differences with each other. A more informed generation that is not under the 'guiding hand' of funded religious influence is surely a good thing and should be encouraged as much as possible. If you enjoyed what has become affectionately known as the 'most expensive pay-as-you-go forum' on the internet, please do your bit and pledge.
Also: if you might be wondering about where all the basic ingredients for the major Abrahamic faiths come from, you might want to take a look at this site, and particularly this page, which was posted on the bus fund-raiser page several times. It goes through a theory of how and where the various story elements of Christianity may have come from. The site doesn't quite qualify for a Web 2.0 award, but the content is sound, (the experiments the author has used to come to his/her conclusions can be recreated by anyone) and I found it compelling reading.
The original fund-raiser has slowed down now but still gets the odd couple of quid added to it. It's a very healthy £110,000 as I write, and like many comments on the page have said, further donations should start to be channelled elsewhere for this momentum to keep going.
Don't let the URL put you off, the British Humanist Association is behind it once again, this time raising money to support a campaign representative to lobby and fight for the right for our children to go to secular schools which, although teaching about the various faiths (and Atheism and Agnosticism as well) would leave it for the children themselves to decide whether to follow them or not. They will act as a voice against the divisive notion of faith schools and instead try to promote an educational environment where kids can grow up with one less reason to find differences with each other. A more informed generation that is not under the 'guiding hand' of funded religious influence is surely a good thing and should be encouraged as much as possible. If you enjoyed what has become affectionately known as the 'most expensive pay-as-you-go forum' on the internet, please do your bit and pledge.
Also: if you might be wondering about where all the basic ingredients for the major Abrahamic faiths come from, you might want to take a look at this site, and particularly this page, which was posted on the bus fund-raiser page several times. It goes through a theory of how and where the various story elements of Christianity may have come from. The site doesn't quite qualify for a Web 2.0 award, but the content is sound, (the experiments the author has used to come to his/her conclusions can be recreated by anyone) and I found it compelling reading.
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