You can call me Rev.

Title kinda gives it away but... guess what? No go on, guess.

Give up? OK, I've just become an ordained minister! That's right folks the UK chapter of the First Church of Atheism is now officially open! hip hop hooray!

I will, of course, be available for weddings, funerals, confirmation ceremonies and the like. All will have an atheist tone (being the point).

And just how has a layabout, druggie, wastrel such as myself become a fully ordained minister? I hear you ask. Well apparently the story goes that a couple, sick of the way the 'non-denominational preacher assigned to them for their wedding (they were atheist) still expected them to want various references to the big guy upstairs in their ceremony (non-denominational generally means unaffiliated christian). So they started their very own church, of atheism (and yes, apparently, you can have an atheist church).

Now (this being the 21st century) anyone can become ordained into the church, start their own congregation (if they so wish), preach away merrily and (and this is the clincher) perform marriages, funerals, visit people about to be executed etc. The best bit is, it's free! (not sure I should be telling you that bit, ain't gonna help my monopoly, but hey-ho).

So, there you have it, I'm sure you'll all agree this is a big step forward for us free-thinking logic-based scientifically-minded double-barrelled types. and the best bit? I'm now to be properly addressed as Reverend!!!

Tiro Fijo Presente!

Just a quick link today...

...but a good 'un!

Race Relations

Overheard in the Library today:

"You see, it's the white man, he wants to control you, he wants to keep you down."

and couldn't help wondering to myself, "I do?" as a W.M. myself I couldn't quite remember the specifics of me wanting to 'control' anyone (quite what I'd do with them is also beyond me). I didn't quite have the heart to tell these latter day conspiracy-theorists the truth.

That's the truth, by the way not just any ol' truth but THE TRUTH. But I feel it would have shocked them above and beyond the shock of me causing a scene. The truth of course is that there is no such thing as the white man, or blacks for that matter. "Whaaaaat?" I hear you ask in an overly done New York-Jewish accent. 

"No black or white people?My good man you are clearly mistaken, why for mine own eyes doth protest too much!" 

But it's true, arks a scientist! (RC Lewontin'll do) They'll tell ya there ain't no such think as a black man, just a human being with more melatonin in his skin than someone with less (the people formerly known as "white").

The only difference between people worth recognising (celebrating surely?) is the differences in their respective incomes. Yet, interestingly, this now seems to be the only difference that is oh-so-politely ignored. Ain't no celebrating diversity when it comes to the ol' cash-in-hand, funny that, innit? As Walter Benn Michaels says in his book The Trouble with Diversity diversity itself is a trick, a fascist one no less (blast those sneaky fascists!), that attempts to have us conflate inequality with prejudice rather than it being the result of our social system (as it really is, stupid). This leads us down the rabbit-hole of trying to create an egalitarian society by using respect instead of redistribution.

And, as I for one can attest, respect don't pay no bills.

My Very First Advertisement!

An advert? I hear you cry. 'Have you completely sold out one of the very last bastions of anti-capitalist self-autonomous double-barrelled free-spaces on the web?'

Of course not! Don't be so silly. I would, of course, never accept cash payments to mention name. No billboard whore me. No the organisation we will be focusing on today are the LCAP or the London Coalition Against Poverty, quite a mouthful, granted. But yet more direct socialist action is quite clearly sorely needed in this benighted land of ours.

What with poo-labour forgetting where they came from as quick as you can say 10p tax band, it is about time we saw more people (and I quote) "helping each other out - solidarity and action, not just advice." Directions for getting involved are detailed on the website and I, for one, will be signing up straight away. I suggest you do likewise

Diagnosis: Churcher

Found this on summink called the O Project "People don't need to fear eternal torture in hell in order to be moral" by one Reverend Chris Schriner of the Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation (try saying that with a few insida ya) in said Humanist site's "we lurve each other really" quotes page, a long list of quotes from vicars all saying "we don't hate atheists" to which the rather obvious answer is "why are you so keen to see us in the aforementioned fiery pit?". A rather obvious retort to Rev Chris' little gem would have to be "what the hell is hell for then?". Here's another: "It is not to say there are no ethical standards outside faith" that little beaut is from Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester no less.



Dear oh dear, I think you are witnessing with you very own eyes why Christendom is such a sorry shadow of its former self, People don't need to fear eternal torture in hell? they do if you want them to be Christians mate! It's kinda the point! Without the threat of eternal damnation you've got what? not much sex and no lie in on Sunday. why? coz God 'loves' you. Your having summink of a laugh if you think your gonna pull that one of in this day and age.



You see, this is rather obviously where the church is going wrong. The Imam's have got the right idea, no backpedalling for them, oh no, no thin end of the modernist wedge for they. You put a foot wrong and not only do you spend the next forever getting roasted (oo-er) but they'll even stone you into a head-start to get there!

Talking G*d

I is a atheist. Not agnostic, not "I'm not really religious but I believe that there must be some sort of higher power", not I've seen a ghost, no really", atheist, a-the-ist. Don't even believe in believing in things or nuttin. Trouble I have though, is trying to get my head around the idea of why anyone, in this day and age, does. I mean come on. Have you read their so-called holy books? I mean come on. are you having a laugh? Like the old Torah/Old Testament. There are so many ridiculous, and I mean ridiculous, holes in the story of Noah that it feels impolite just to mention it.

With the coming of the 'new' testament things start getting ridiculous, where our so-called immortal, timeless God suddenly has a complete change of heart going from "an eye for an eye" to "turn the other cheek" eh? I mean you would think God would know what it is that he wants. It is as if God was created by the men writing about him rather than the other way around. Why, also, so (very) much focus on Jesus' parentage? The book if St. Matthew starts, straight off, into a mini-genealogy of the man Jesus, son of David (who was the) son of Abraham. In fact he goes to all of the trouble of listing every single descendant of Abraham until Jesus, just to prove that he is one of his progeny. Funny thing is he then tells us, in practically the next breath, that "before they came together, she was found with child of the holy ghost" (yeah riiiight) so he's not Joseph's son then? eh? And who marries someone without, you know, fulfilling their obligations? As an extra twist, without consummation, a marriage isn't, technically, valid anyway, so JESUS WAS A BASTARD!

The Qur'an, for inkstands, has at the start of the different books (I think that's is where they are) certain words that are, and get this, "one of the miracles of the Qur'an and none but Allah (Alone) knows their meanings" I mean, please, that hokey shit might have worked in the seventh century (and what kinda miracle is this anyway?). But today? He's making it up! for crying out loud. It is positively daft. Not to mention all the hokum about angels not entering your house if there's a dog in it and things called "jinns" losing your socks.

I can easily understand why people believed in this in the past. Life was hard, or so I've heard, and people didn't have the technological delights we live with today so consequently knew much less about the world around them. The information contained within your average children's library would have blown their minds, the night sky looked pretty bloody amazing before the advent of street lighting and it was always fairly easy to believe the Earth was flat until the advent of Google Earth.

These factors, when taken together, leave us to have sympathy for the religious sensitives of our forebears. But what is those of today's excuse? How can you really combine the knowledge of we all have of Evolution and Australia with the stories of Genesis and Noah and still end up with a coherent belief structure? How can they honestly believe this nonsense?

But, just so you don't all (2 of ya) think I'm some kinda pedantic atheist I would like to take this opportunity to put forward a rather more solidly-based critique of the religious impulse (the monotheistic abrahametic one anyway). See, I reckon that these religions are immoral in (and of) themselves. They basically ask credence for a somewhat tenuous notion of reality and then threaten eternal torture if you so much as raise a doubt . Just what kind of a loving god does that? and, more importantly, just how can said gods followers presume to have so much as a whiff of any moral high ground?

However, lest we should turn the sort of rabid, condemnatory death-lover some of feel that religion turns us into we would do wll to remember that religion is, like halitosis or genital warts, a disease. Religion can quite (i think quite fairly) be discribed as a "self replicating mind virus" (special thanks to rational responders for that one) and so it is only fair that instead of hatred or anger we look upon thise afflicted with something more approaching pity...

...at least until they find a cure that is.