Blah Blah Flowers

Oh Mr Deity I've missed you!

Labels: atheism, atheists, Christianity, Fundamentalists- Christian, humour, religion, YouTube

To complain to youtube follow this link;
YouTube complaints (needs a YouTube account)

Scroll to the very bottom and click on "new issue"

Select "suspended account" from the options and express your opinion.

The mediafire link to download the video is;
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4d77967b07dff9ac8c9e7c56ba37815f99433de67f37e9e4.

Labels: atheism, atheists, Fundamentalists- Christian, religion, skepticism

Those Muslims eh? They come over here, live perfectly quiet and respectable lives, get jobs, raise families, WHAT ARE THEY UP TO EH? The Daily Mail, in an exercise to allow people who have left this country to complain how bad things are (ie: "I saw a person with dark skin sit down on the bus! This is political correctness gone mad! I'm moving to Spain!!!") regularly prints fictional articles, and today it's about how libraries are supposedly going to be told to put the Koran on their top shelves to avoid offending Muslims. Only, if you note that this guidance is coming from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and do the literally seconds of work needed to find the report (PDF file) you'll find that Steve Doughty, the Daily Mail journalist, has lied. The MLA are not telling me, or any of my colleagues, to put the Koran above other things, they are reporting on Leicester City Libraries receiving a few complaints about the Koran not being on the top shelf. It wasn't even a campaign by a group of disgruntled Muslims, the Library Service went out and talked to such a group for their opinion. The report doesn't even mention whether Leicester followed the group's advice.

I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!

Labels: Conservatives, Daily Mail, Islam, Islamophobia, journalists, Koran, libraries, Museums Libraries and Archives Council, Muslims, religion

Christians plan response to Atheist bus adverts.

A trinity of Christian groups have created their own series of advertisements to run across London buses... The new campaign is organsied by the Christian Party, the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Russian Orthodox Church... In a somewhat cheeky move, the Rev George Hargreaves of the Christian Party has created a bus advert which proclaims: "There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life."

Now, I definitely have no problem with this. My one concern is that the Humanists had to put the 'probably' into 'there probably isn't a God' in order to cover themselves from complaints by any fundamentalist wackos that happened to be passing. Will there be any double standard if an atheist complains about the definitive nature of these pro-imaginary being statements? What if we have atheist bus drivers too 'shocked' and 'horrified' to drive buses with those advertisements on?

It's unclear whether the charmless bigots have a position on this yet as they are busy helping to advertise the University of Saint Andrews' amateur performance of Jerry Springer The Opera for them. Isn't that the very spirit of Christian charity?

Labels: adverts, atheism, atheists, Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, Jerry Springer The Opera, religion, Stephen Green

An atheist UK bus campaign which uses the slogan "There's probably no God" does not breach the advertising code, a watchdog has ruled.

Yes, the complaints that tedious bankrupt Stephen Green encouraged people to send from charmless bigots HQ, otherwise known as the Christian Voice website, have been turned down, on the grounds they were dumb. I wait to see whether Green will now try to sue the ASA or whether he'll go back to begging in the street for the money to pay the BBC's bill.

Labels: adverts, atheism, Christian Voice, Flickr, Fundamentalists- Christian, religion, Stephen Green

Labels: adverts, atheism, Flickr, religion

Labels: adverts, atheism, Flickr, religion

American capitalists pray to false idol for the recession to end. Um, guys? You may want to knock that shit off before Iehova notices. He takes a dim view of that kind of thing and he has got Charlton Heston and several infinite cans of kick-ass at his disposal. [via just about everywhere]

(Separate note to any Evangelical Christians reading: Look! Look! This proves Capitalism is ungodly! Back to a barter system of twigs and berries quickly, before the Lord let's forth His wrath! Go hide and pray in the middle of America and NEVER BOTHER ANYONE EVER AGAIN! Don't waste time arguing, I think I can hear Daddy's Footsteps! Run for the hills!)

Labels: capitalism, Christianity, humour, religion

I've just watched God on Trial and, if you haven't, you really, really, really should. Go to your Torrents oh my brothers and sisters! Set in Auschwitz as a cabin of condemned Jews wait for some of their number to be taken to the gas chamber they decide that all they have left is the power to put on trial the one they hold responsible for them being there, namely God. By allowing the Nazis to seek the destruction of the Jewish race, has God abandoned his Covenant with those he called his 'chosen people'?

While finding it a piece of piss to fly my flag in Atheism County when it comes to any organised religion, I find it difficult to do so absolutely outside of religion and personally. Sure, this is not a question of whom to bend the knee to or doff the cap, I can't understand why any Supreme Being would show any interest or need for my love, respect or fear and, if ze has any interest or concern for it then ze comes up far short of Infinite (although as it's only the religious types that try to curry favour with hir by describing hir in such terms). This is the entirely personal problem I have with Skepticism, Richard Dawkins, the Brights and that whole cabal. Sure I trust science to save my life and not crap like homoeopathy, but seeking to silence all the stories under the belief they have no value is wrongheaded. A plague o' both their houses.

I don't claim to know what God is. Us reflected back through our own history in the glare of the Eschaton? Sure, why not. An ancient robot servitor of some alien race designed to cultivate intelligence? If you like. A vengeful old Jew who really doesn't like it when the poofs and blacks forget their place? If we must. However, I find it easy to keep my ruminations private and not let it leak out into my professional or daily life, so can only conclude that those who are unable or unwilling to show the same restraint insist on expressing themselves on the grounds that they are deeply afraid that they are wrong and lack the faith to wait until they die to see who was right.

Anyway, back at God on Trial. The set is simple and the acting first rate, Stellan Skarsgård as the judge, Jack Shepherd as the elderly Jew who continually seeks to have the proceedings brought to a close out of fear of the blasphemy and Anthony 'National Treasure' Sher as the elderly rabbi that has the final word. The last scene, in which modern day visitors stand reading the memorial in the gas chamber, surrounded by the naked ghosts of the Jews waiting for their last shower, is extremely well-shot and upsetting. Many of the arguments in the 'prosecution' against God are those against his existence but in the end it remains balanced as it addresses that oldest imponderable, if there's a God, why do bad things happen?

Labels: atheism, God, religion, skepticism, Television

'Welsh tart' mayor wants to lift the ban on showing The Life of Brian in Aberystwyth.

"Given what's on TV now I think it's amazing a ban in Aberystwyth still exists," said [Sue] Jones-Davies, who played Brian's love interest, Judith Iscariot, in the film.

Labels: Christianity, Monty Python's Flying Circus, movies, religion

Labels: Christianity, Fundamentalists- Christian, Fundamentalists- Islamic, humour, Islam, religion, YouTube

Religious belief means you are stupid. To be fair to God-botherers I would humbly suggest that the kind of belief where you believe something is true because someone wrote it down in a very old book and there's no way to actually test this, AND YOU ACCEPT THIS AS A PERFECTLY VALID WAY TO BEHAVE IN YOUR DEALINGS WITH OTHERS, is the sign of room temperature IQs.

Labels: religion, science

Tony Blair demonstrates exactly why Alistair Campbell once told a reporter 'we don't do God'.

Now that we know that Tony Blair really is quite religious indeed I wonder whether this would have had much of an effect on the last five or six years if he'd been open about it? The rantings of deranged Islamists aside, would the public have been even more against a war that could be shown to be a new Crusade? Would Labour have done any worse in the last election?

Labels: Fundamentalists- Christian, religion, The War Against Terror, Tony Blair

Archbishop defends Sharia remarks. But can Rowan Williams survive The Sun's frothage?

Arch enemy: Bash the Bishop.

Nearly 15,000 Sun readers rang our You the Jury hotline urging him to go.

That phone number being 1111 1111111.

Meanwhile our phone lines and email queues were flooded by furious responses.

Brian Fuller, 46, of Luton, said: "This is the guy who leads our country’s religion and it sounds like he’s given up. He’ll soon be asking us all to face Mecca when we say our prayers."

That sounds like someone who has his finger on the pulse of current debate. Williams wants a discussion on letting Muslim courts decide things = Turning this country into an Islamic state.

Fiona Jones, 38, from Lincoln, said: "I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought we were a Christian country."

Wherever did you get that idea from? And if you'd like to believe it is, why are you reading The Sun, which surely breaks any number of the Christian God's laws?

The Sun bus visited the Archbishop’s Lambeth Palace residence in South London with Page 3 girls Mel and Peta — and blasted out Rule Britannia.

Again with the whole turning Britain into an Islamic state thing. And when will The Sun do a media stunt of which the main part of it doesn't involve their page three girls?

We got honks of support from drivers, but Dr Williams stayed firmly indoors.

I don't know, maybe he only wanted to talk to people who understood what he'd said the other day?

As it is, I think Williams is wrong, but I'm not standing with the mentally challenged halfwits whose idea of political debate begins with The Sun speak your brains phoneline and ends with the words of an ancient Australian put into the mouth of some girl who has taken her top off.

This is much the same as when Williams threw the Church of England behind the Catholic Church's attempts to get an opt-out for their homophobia from equality laws. Williams is playing the long game, he doesn't mind a religious plurality, he just wants more religion in the country. If we have Sharia courts dictating what Muslims do (and there are also Beth Din courts that work in a similar fashion in Jewish communities) then we can have the courts for the rest of us getting back to good old fashioned Christian values, abolishing gay marriage and gay rights, rolling back womens rights, abolishing divorce.

I'm not claiming that Rowan Williams wants society to go back five hundred years but I am rather dubious of the claims I've heard from some quarters that just because he looks like Great Uncle Bulgaria he's cuddly and friendly and would just love to let gays live openly in Anglicanism if only those horrid African bishops wouldn't cause a fuss.

I tend to think we could do with less religious jurisprudence rather than more, but then I'm the godless atheist so I would think that wouldn't I?

Labels: Christianity, courts, Islam, law, religion, Rowan Williams

Mr Deity. A gently satirical series of short videos about the life of God and some of his personal friends as they go about creating and maintaining the universe. Episode two where He has to persuade Jesus to do him a really REALLY big favour is my favourite so far.

Labels: Christianity, God, humour, religion

Rob Liddle: God’s role in politics is not to underwrite bad ideas.
Hell, you think to yourself, even Jesus Christ admitted to the occasional mistake. But not [Tony Blair].

Labels: Christianity, religion, The War Against Terror, Tony Blair

For an agnostic/atheist I seem to have had God on the mind a lot recently. Certainly I have a moment of religious weakness each year around this time, or a little later. If I happen to stumble across a Christmas carol concert on TV or radio (and, if I go to stay with my parents for the period then that probability becomes a near-certainty as my Dad, similarly irreligious, seems to enjoy them) then I tend to have the briefest, five-second flutter, in my stomach as the CofE gene that all English boys have tucked away in their genetic code tries to fire and persuade me that that is His voice. Fortunately, as you can prove the monster in the corner of the room is just a pile of clothes by turning the light on, the holy terror never lasts. There are no atheists in foxholes though, and seventy-two hours without sleep makes a desperate man say foolish things, as I found earlier this year.

Anyways, I've just finished Towing Jehovah by James Morrow. God's dead body has been found in the Atlantic, a disgraced former oil-tanker skipper has to command a crew and see the huge corpse safely transported to it's Arctic tomb before radical atheists, the Catholic Church or just the development of a post-Deus morality can destroy it. It's both a funny and thought-provoking book, though I'm a bit annoyed that, yet again, there is the suggestion that belief in a higher power is necessary for good behaviour, and this comes from a humanist author. When are we going to have the good guy who is explicitly a non-believer?

Towards the end of the book, there is a discussion about God's motives for suicide. One character suggests that, looking down on His creation, God sees Himself as a block on humanity's progress, the Stern Father stopping his children from becoming adults, His death acting to confirm that He existed then forcing humanity to stand up for itself. It's a point of view that I have some sympathy for, I've felt that all the nonsense I was taught as a child about how God would love to come down to Earth on a cloud and tell us to stop being beastly to one another but gave us free will so feels obliged to stay away and let us make our own mistakes is a big pile of guff, and that He qualifies as the biggest Deadbeat Dad in all of creation, unworthy of our praise. By chance I had an idea for a story last week, before I started reading this book, which is the opposite of that philosophical point, and ends with, effectively, God rerunning creation and staying alongside humanity, not in any metaphorical way, or the way that some Christians insist "God is always with me, inside " but in a real and direct way, corporeal and present. The difficulty I have is that I've no idea how to direct the story to this conclusion and, as I'm much more in favour of the parent standing aside rather than towering over his children watching what they do, it's beyond my meagre storytelling powers to think of how to argue the point convincingly.

Anyway, I'm off to read In God we Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist by grumpy morning microphone botherer John Humphrys.

Labels: God, philosophy, religion

I found this last week but didn't get round to linking to it until today: 'The Problem With Atheism', a transcript of a talk by Sam Harris to the Atheist Alliance conference. Sceptical before reading, he makes a strong argument, to me, in favour of atheists going back to their constituencies and, rather than identifying as atheists, just trying to act like sensible, rational human beings. Certainly it's always worth confronting disorder with reason although some might not like Harris advocating going stealth.

If you label something then, while it's easier to oppose it, like The West against Communism, it's also easier to organise (like the Gay Lib movement). So is it better for atheism if those who believe in it speak without wearing their identities on their sleeves, or is their strength in numbers? I'm dubious about whether the political behemoth of organised Christianity, primarily in places like North and South America, and Africa, can be challenged by just trying to assemble an opposing force, especially when you've got to put up with Christopher bloody Hitchens as one of your poster boys.

Labels: atheism, atheists, Christianity, religion, Richard Dawkins

Nope, you can't have a school without a religious character in the UK.

Labels: education, religion, United Kingdom

How a religious affairs newspaper reporter lost his faith. [via Pandagon]

Labels: newspapers, religion, United States