Tag: religion

Posted on

He Said What?

Over the weekend I went to a chapel communion service and I did this voluntarily. I was away at the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre and while there one of the members of staff was going to deliver the chapel service. I went to the chapel service to support her and be a part of her experience. There is also the very slight possibility that one of these services might persuade me a little to partake in religion. It’s not happened yet and perhaps I secretly want this. I am, very slightly, jealous of those who have such faith, such comforting thoughts about the world.

As it turned out my friend couldn’t deliver the service because there are rules about who can touch certain parts of church paraphernalia and I guess you have to be a certain rank within the church before you are allowed to commit certain acts. I find it all rather confusing and very amusing. I think that every church has these man-made rules to govern who can do what within their made up system of belief. Everyone seems to take this very seriously.

I was once at Amport House and someone mentioned that although gay priests are allowed your vicar licence has to be approved by the local bishop and if that bishop is homophobic then you lose your licence to priest if you come out to the church. That seems utterly ridiculous that your ability to church is dependent on what your human boss thinks. But then again, the idea that a committee of humans can overturn the common ideals of a religion within a committee and change a religion’s view on a particular issue amuses me greatly.

The sermon on Sunday was interesting. The padre [I honestly don’t understand the terms for vicar/priest etc] spoke about Valentine’s Day and the love that we receive from partners on that day. He then linked this into the love that Jesus gave to us and also the love that God gives us. There was general chatter about two holy men who gave their lives for strangers. One of them was at Auschwitz and he sacrificed his life for another man. The other man went on to live to an old age and had many children. The other priest was a man who got entangled in another soldiers parachute on D-Day. The priest cut himself free to fall to his death and the other soldier went on to do his job. These stories were interesting and not ones I had heard before. While they showed a love for the stranger I do think they missed the point that they occurred within a time when there was great evil on the Earth and millions were dying in concentration camps and in battle. But religious people gloss over the problem of evil.

Within the sermon the padre talked about a passage from John. He mentioned words that Jesus said:

[side point: Jesus didn’t say these things. This was written about thirty years after Jesus died. Go back and think about any conversation, important or not, from thirty years ago and try to be convinced about how accurate you are. It amuses me just how much study is made from the EXACT words in the bible when it’s all translations and copying errors]

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Hey, it’s only my way or no way. You must do as I say or you won’t get to heaven. Do as I say you muthafuckers because I will damn you if you don’t follow my exact words.

“But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”

This part was read out and the message was meant to be that if you love Jesus you will get to heaven. My problem is the bit IN THEIR OWN BOOK which clearly shows signs of an abusive relationship. This part wasn’t talked about in the sermon and it’s interesting the bits of their own book they are willing to gloss over. You see that little bit in there which is along the lines of:

Follow my rules or else. Follow my rules and I will love you. Don’t follow my rules and you are damned to everlasting hell.

Do as I say or you will be burnt and suffer in indescribable pain forever. This section of the reading was glossed over in the sermon but it screamed in my head and really bothered me. If christians take this book so seriously and believe it is the word of god then why don’t they see these parts. The parts that require complete submission or else. They don’t see them because they are either glossed over or they think it is a good thing. That passage has really bothered me for a few days now.

Follow my rules or get fucked.

It’s not like following the laws of the road or those at work. This is referring to eternal damnation and the only path to heaven is through following the rules of Jesus. Well, screw that. This book has been used to justify hatred and murder for the last two thousand years and probably will be used for another millennia. I do hope that one day we grow out of following a book written by men about two thousand years ago which is demonstrably wrong about so much.

You don’t need Jesus to understand that being nice to people is the best way to go. You don’t need Jesus to believe that treating people as you would wish to be treated is a good maxim for life. These things are self evident and don’t require a god or his naughty boy. It’s easy to use the principle of BE NICE to inform all your choices and decisions. If only more people realised you don’t need god [or the threat of hell] to be good.

Posted on

Alt Text

This communication considers one of my favourite pieces of fiction, religion. This is a place-holding communication as I struggle to write three other communications of a more serious note. I know what I want to say in those words but words are the problem. You might have noticed I am not a natural wordsmith.

MOAB
MOAB

Nothing reported about the Pope criticising the death of many people or the use of weapons of mass destruction. The Massive Ordnance Air Bomb’s NAME shamed the pope. Perhaps the next bomb could be called “Get to heaven quicker”. Fuck you pope.

“I was ashamed when I heard the name,” the pontiff told an audience of students at the Vatican.

Nothing in the news about the thousands of priests accused of raping kids which the Vatican is actively covering up. Nothing about the misery and enforced poverty caused by a no-contraception rule. Nothing about the AIDS genocide caused by the no-contraception rule. Nothing about the deaths of babies at convents in Ireland. This man is meant to represent god on Earth. He represents an organisation of men who act just like men do when they are in charge – cunts.

Words
Words

God needs the police to investigate this because he gets really upset when people are mean about him. Oh, poor little god. He hates it when people express true things. I watched this speech a few years ago and I think what shocked people the most is how angry someone can be at a god who allows all the shit mentioned earlier to carry on. Why are people still going to catholic church? Why do they still give money when they can see the harm it does? Selfish wankers, that’s why.

Posted on

Pontification

I’m in a reasonable amount of distress. It concerns comments by one of the leaders of a UK political party, Tim Farron.

This was a clip from a BBC News article.

Apparently before this particular interview Tim Farron had said that he firmly believes “we are all sinners”.

I’m a sinner, apparently. I have sinned against god. I was innocent before I was born but after that moment the gates of hell opened and are waiting for me to die. Well I don’t fucking care. I don’t know the theological definition of sin but as far as I’m concerned god can fuck the fuck off. I don’t believe in god. Therefore I can’t sin against him. The idea of original sin is a bullshit-illness that the church invented to make sure you buy the cure, the church.

As for gay sex being a sin. The argument is pretty similar. Fuck the fuck off. If two or more people want to do consensual private stuff then who cares what that is. It’s up to them as responsible adults to make their own choices about these things. There are some caveats, you can’t cause harm. The extreme case of harm is the German case of a man being killed and eaten, but he consented to those actions, this was not acceptable in the laws that society has consensually agreed. This is against the law.

Now, by mentioning law there’s the issue of countries where homosexuality is illegal. Well, they should fuck the fuck off too. If it’s consensual and non harming then it should be within the law. It’s quite easy to figure out what’s right and wrong by using the following principle:

Do no harm

Yes, these things get complicated. But, by and large, consensual activities are just that.

 

Apparently political leaders, according to Tim Farron, should not:

“pontificate on theological matters”

I’d go one step further and say that no-one should pontificate on theological matters. Theology is bullshit. The interesting bit is the sociology that comes from religion. Everything else sucks and should fuck the fuck off to the iron age stories and writings whence it came.

Don’t take moral advice from a shitty book written by misogynistic, un-scientific fuckwits from over 1000 years ago [I chose 1000 because I can lump the Koran into that as well].

My current distress stems from the fact that I am a member of the Liberal Democrat Party. I decided to part with money to fund a party that will work against the Brexit thing. I do not think the referendum was fair, well-argued or gave a majority result. There was too much misinformation before the vote. I have pretty much always voted Lib Dem and so it was logical to use some of my money to fight for the causes I believe in. The fact that their leader is a religious twonk shouldn’t sway me from membership because their policies are still the same. I have argued against personality politics for a long time.

My general distress stems from the idea that a LEADER, someone who wants the responsibility to lead the country, relies on knowledge of and the actions of a god who doesn’t exist. The idea of praying to the invisible sky fairy to solve a problem and then you believing it has helped you worries the hell out of me. Have the balls and accept your position, don’t rely on fairy tales.

Let’s look at the current Prime Minister. Completely religious and believes she is doing god’s work. Probably believes she will be judged by god for her actions. Not that she will be judged by the people or by history but by god. It’s an escape clause, it’s a way of removing responsibility for your actions if you think the sky fairy approves.

Let’s look at a previous Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He arguably took this country into an illegal war where hundreds of thousands died. But that’s OK in his head because he prayed and god will still accept him. Well fuck that shit.

I want a leader who is willing to take the responsibility them-self. Someone who will hold their hand up and be judged by their own actions and what the people and society as a whole thinks of them. I don’t want someone who invests so heavily in cognitive dissonance to justify what they do.

I will continue to be a member of the Lib Dems. I will continue to give them money. Someone has to support the only party that could achieve an amount of power and actually gives a fuck about this country.

Posted on

Listening

The internet and the companies on it are a good thing. I can know whatever I want within seconds. The world wide web is a force for great good. But, much like our social circles we tend to only look at things that confirm our own beliefs and reinforce everything we already think. It’s like newspapers and television channels. If you are liberal in your thoughts it’s reasonable to assume you would read The Guardian or Independent. If you are right wing then you might read The Times or Telegraph. If you are just plain crazy then you might read the Daily Fucking Mail.

Now, most of my friends share the same thoughts about society as I do. Some don’t and it’s always great fun to have conversations and discussions and arguments with them. It would be impossible in life to only spend your time with people who agree with you. You need to learn to accept what people think, even if they are clearly wrong.

I was almost going to turn this communication into a discussion about logical fallacies. You can Google that phrase and see what you find. It’s important to understand logical fallacies and how to spot them. I’m quite good at spotting some but I still don’t really understand the Straw Man argument and I keep reading about it and listening to people explain it.

So, this communication is about listening to opposing views. I have done this on twitter and follow some people who I would really rather not. I try to read what they say and do my best to understand them. I force myself to try and understand from their point of view. It’s a bit like reading the Daily Fucking Mail which I do occasionally to see what poisonous shit they are saying now.

So, one of the first people I started to follow to listen and see what they say was Deepak Chopra. He is often ridiculed on podcasts that I listen to. Here are a few of his tweets so you can see what sort of thing this knobhead says.

Now, I haven’t even read the article. It’s enough to annoy me that he claims consciousness isn’t in the body. Where the fuck else is it going to be?

What does this mean? They are words, but none that make sense.

When I see stuff like this and people retweeting this it pisses me off loads. How can people like this bullshit. I don’t understand. One of my issues is that I find it hard to see why people believe this bullshit. To me it is quite obvious how and why things work. We have explanations for all this stuff. We are finding out more and more as time goes on. We understand. We don’t need this waffle to help us cope with this one life we have. Now, I start to understand why people I listen to make fun of this man. Perhaps I’m jealous? Perhaps I think those who find peace in this shit must have contentment and happiness that I do not. this is a force for making people happy and calm. But then, it’s not really is it? People with faith and belief still hurt and have shit happen to them. They are still sad when people close to them die, they aren’t joyous because the soul lives on. Believers still feel pain but also have a veneer of lies to clutch on to, to comfort them.

I often think of this:

So, onto another tweeter I follow. Perhaps that should be twit. I am not sure. I try to be polite but sometimes I just give up and think these people are fucking arseholes. Ken Ham has spent millions creating an Ark in Kentucky. Let’s see what he has to say:

Sure, the biblical worldview values all human life, unless you are gay, transgender, divorce, have an abortion, don’t believe, are foreign, wear mixed fabrics, have sex before marriage, have an affair and so on. Fuck You Ken for saying this. I also don’t understand his first sentence. What the actual fuck? Evolution leads to euthanasia? How? This man just doesn’t understand evolution, which is rather sad. This man believes the bible is the literal truth. My problem with this is how can someone clearly intelligent [he has raised funds for his Ark and runs several organisations] believe that stuff?

Sure, God’s word is the best evidence. But we don’t have god’s word. We have words written by men, in a book, almost two thousand years ago. This book says it is true, therefore it is true. Awesome logic.

An ark! Noah’s ark. In Kentucky. Purporting to be the truth. Nothing to mock there.

I have to admit, I don’t understand “sin”. It seems to be breaking the rules from a book. It’s worse than breaking the law, I think. I’m not sure. Perhaps “sin” is what old celibate men decide it is. That sounds about right.

The number of times I have read this and tried to understand what it means! Arrrrrgh.

I’ll leave it there. Time to move on to another person I follow on twitter. Pastor Alex Rivas describes himself as “Son of God. Researcher. Leader. Prophet. A human being.” I don’t see much human being in the things he says:

I’m pretty sure bible says nothing about gay marriage, abortion or marijuana. If you can find the verse then please let me know. Obviously if you use the bible to support your ideas then you should surely follow all it’s principles. Leviticus 19:19 says:

You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.

Here’s another:

There’s NO evidence from the time of Jesus that he existed. NONE. Let alone that he was resurrected. NOT one thing. NADA. ZILCH. NOTHING. All we have are mistranslations of stories written about forty years after whatever happened. Yet we are to believe that these writings exactly reproduce the things that Yeshua said. I don’t understand how people who are so invested in the words of the bible haven’t taken the time and opportunity to look into the history of the bible. To understand from where the stories come. To read up about how this book they hold so dear came to be written.

Actually I do understand why these people haven’t looked into the history of their beloved book. It’s because they know it will destroy their faith. It will bring their world view crumbling down. It’s therefore best to ignore that. We don’t want to feel that the time and resources invested have been wasted.

Dana Ullman MPH CCH:

Homoeopathic meds have plenty of molecules, just none of the “active” ingredient that they claim.

That’s good. Homoeopathy is nothing. Seriously, it’s nothing. Anyway, Dana Ullman has MPH and CCH after his name. What does that mean? Right, MPH is Master of Public Health [not a medical degree] and CCH may be a homoeopathic post graduate degree thing. I’m not sure. Do you know how I introduce bullshit medicine in the school where I work? I explain what homoeopathy [and I spell it correctly] and I give pupils an understanding of the claims Homoeopaths make about how it works. I use official homoeopathy websites to describe the rules of homoeopathy. I don’t even get halfway through the rules before the pupils see it for what it is: bollocks.

If I want to create an air of authority then perhaps I should end everything I write with Ian Parish PGCE BEng (Hons) ACGI. Perhaps the world would like that and find my writings more impressive. I could, legitimately, sign off Plt Off Parish RAFVR(T). But I don’t.

I still follow these people. I still read their shit. I try to understand the world view they come from but I will admit that I struggle. I still find it incredibly weird that intelligent people believe these kids of things.

So, instead of wasting time on what these crazy people think. Here’s what science did today:

You see? Do you see what fantastic stuff we can do when we put our energies and minds to it. Science is fantastic.

As an aside, I love the fact that the Space-X barges are named after ships from Iain M Banks books.

Posted on

I Don’t Understand

BBC NewsI am fully aware that I am going to come across as an asshole in this piece but this sort of thing really annoys me. This is a special allowance given to a group of people who “sincerely believe” that they must fast during a particular time of the year. Now, it’s not just Islam that is catered for. Christianity gets Easter breaks for schools moved around every year just because they “sincerely believe” that something special happened two thousand years ago not on that date.

Here’s my thought process.

Clearly god does not exist. If god did exist then how come all the books written for him by messengers are different and contain different messages. This is not my only argument against god but it is clearly a human invention. Show me your proof and I promise I will believe, I’m happy to wait.

As god does not exist all religions are bullshit. They are just codified ways of treating each other (or hating women, foreigners, gays, the disabled etc if you have really read them).

Therefore all “sincerely held beliefs” are bullshit. No state should tolerate them being used as excuses for special treatment.

Now that seems extreme but in reality it means everyone gets treated the same. The same rules apply to one and all. I utterly fail to understand how you can tell what a “sincerely held belief” is. How do you know someone has that? If I want every Wednesday off work because the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster deems that necessary everyone would laugh at me.

That’s not a real religion.

They would say.

How the fuck can you tell?

Would be my response.

It’s a bit like Donald Trump claiming he’ll stop all muslims entering the USA. How the fuck can you tell who is a muslim? Do you ask them? How do you know they aren’t lying. What do you have to do to be a true muslim? How can you prove you are a true jew? How do you tell someone that you are a devoted christian? This is the “no true scotsman” fallacy. You can’t tell this stuff.

Let’s stop asking for changes for groups of people because of “special pleading” or “sincerely held beliefs”. I don’t like the idea that once one group gets special treatment then all the others should get it too. Let’s just treat everyone the same and call this treatment out for what it truly is: bullshit.

Posted on

Facemask

When I’m drafting communications I tend to write a title and then put a little bit of text in the body so I remember what it was I intended to say. I have no idea what this communication was going to be about and so this can only be labelled as random.

There’s a flag on the play.

I love that saying. It normally means that a great football play is about to come back because someone couldn’t keep their aggression in check in a game which is entirely about aggression.

With respect to previous communications I would have to say that I am still angry. Being completely without religion I don’t understand why people believe the things they do. I also don’t understand the people who back them up.

Let’s state quite clearly why so many media outlets and people do not show Mo cartoons or mention how crazy religion is. Because they are scared. No one wants to take responsibility for approving a cartoon and then having some crazed religious twats find their house and kill them. That seems fair to me. But then they don’t say that’s the reason. They waffle on about not causing “offense”. It’d be nice if publishers said what they really think. We are scared at being targeted and killed or maimed by the maniacs who believe they are doing god’s work.

Our religions are so contradictory that we suffer because of them. Islam is a religion of peace except for all the barbarity in the book. Christianity is a religion of love and peace except for women because they aren’t worthy and don’t forget all the barbarity in their book too. God is all loving except for all the people who sin and are going to BURN forever in hell. These ideas are fucking crazy. They make no sense.

Now, I don’t like the idea of a pope and I have little respect for anything he will say. Let’s remember that the Catholic church has SYSTEMATICALLY covered up child rape and refuses to pass information to the authorities. It has caused endless hardship and disease because of its stance on contraception. It has more money that it knows [recently discovered a ton of cash in a Swiss bank account]. But worst of all the Pope said something along the lines of “if you insult my mother expect a bash on the nose” while defending the Charlie Hebdo killings. FUCK YOU Pope. You’d expect a religion of peace and love to preach that all people should talk to each other. They should learn to forgive and spread love. Oh no, not the religion that hides abuses of children.

I’m not really sure that the apologists saying it’s not really Islam know what is going on either. Killing people just because they published some cartoons can only be motivated by the flawed thinking that religion promotes. Non-believers don’t go around killing in the name of non-belief. There are plenty of examples of Christians and Muslims killing in the name of their religion. Killing for their god. Killing because someone doesn’t believe the way they do. Killing because a book or someone sanctioned it. Can’t we all just be a little grown up about this?

Killing is bad.

Perhaps you should try discourse? Discuss why you feel so offended or upset about something. Oh yeah, you have sincerely held deeply religious beliefs and they can’t be scrutinised or questioned. Bollocks. All ideas can be questioned and scrutinised. They are ideas. Evidence needs to be presented and then a conclusion made.

You aren’t allowed to draw a picture of Mo. Why? Because a book says so. Except for all the previous pictures of Mo in your culture. Not being allowed to draw Mo is a recent thing. Remind why women have to be covered up? Oh, someone says so because otherwise men will be distracted and rape the women and that will be the woman’s fault. Grow the fuck up. Do something worthwhile, educate your people. Education will improve livelihoods and the economy. Education will help create a fairer society and improve living standards. But at the same time it will erode your power.

[still angry apparently and in need of a penguin on my shoulder telling me good things]

Posted on

Books

I have to admit that I am still angry. The events of the last week have really annoyed me.

hebdobokoRussiasaudi

There’s all this hate in the world. Wouldn’t it be easier if we just followed the basic rule of “do no harm”. It’s not hard. It’s just three little words.

Now, I’ve an idea where we can start. Let’s have a look at the books where religious people get their morals and guidance.

“I will … smite Egypt with all my wonders.”
“God wants to be remembered forever for the mass murder of little children.”
“Kill … before the Lord and … sprinkle blood round about.”
“Both parties in adultery shall be executed.”
“God sends evil spirits that cause humans to deal treacherously with each other.”
“Beating your children will make them wise.”
“Jesus sits on a white cloud with a sharp sickle in his hand. When the angel tells him to reap, he kills all the people with his sickle”

“Christians and Jews (who believe in only part of the Scripture), will suffer in this life and go to hell in the next.”
“Allah will punish the disbelieving Jews until the Day of Resurrection.”
“Those who oppose Allah and His messenger will burn in the fire of hell.”
“Allah curses people by making them deaf and blind.”
“Disbelievers will be given a painful doom.”

So, if your book of guidance includes passages like those above don’t you think it’s time to stop using that book for your religion. It’s no good saying we only look at the good bits that are relevant to us today, it doesn’t work like that. You lend credence to the whole book. It doesn’t take much to turn bored angry teenagers and men into violent arseholes and it happens everywhere but you using this book [just the good bits] mean that all of the book can be used to proselytise.

If your book says crap like the verses above then it is time to change the fucking book.

The Russian headline is there above to show that even non-religious countries can be fucking stupid. What a crock of shit. It feels like there’s a storm coming with all these governments cracking down on human rights.

Now, there’s a 0.001% of all people who are very very nasty [I made that statistic up]. But what atheists don’t do is go around doing things in the name of their religion or a shitty holy book.

How about we change all religious and governing rules into the following:

Be good, do no harm

There, that wasn’t so hard was it.

Posted on

Sincerely Held Beliefs

This is a follow up to my previous communication. I think there’s more to say and yet I don’t want to add to that published communication. I am still on a rant though so feel free to skip to the album reviews if that’s what you prefer.

To draw a cartoon of Mohammed or any picture of him would be claimed to insult a deeply held belief that it is wrong to draw the prophet because it says so in a book. I am sure that this belief is “sincerely held”. I am sure that people have lots of beliefs that they consider to be deeply held and very important. However, just because your belief is deeply held it doesn’t mean I have to respect it.

If you have the beliefs then I can have my own. Maybe I’m a pastafarian, I have a holy book and a community that agrees with me. I can even claim they are deeply held and sincere beliefs. Once that happens you have your view and I have mine. Then we have a problem. Who is right? Who’s view is more important? They are both sincerely held beliefs with no ultimate authority.

Oh, sorry. We do have an ultimate authority. The law of this land. The law decides what is ok to do. The argument is made in front of the judiciary and then a decision is made. Part of living in this country is that I must accept what the law says. I might not agree with it, but I have to accept it. If I want to change it then I must petition government and the lawmakers. If I don’t like it enough then perhaps I would move to a country where I agree with their laws more. You are not at liberty to impose your views and ideals on me in this country.

I don’t care if you have a sincerely held belief. That shouldn’t get have anything to do with your actions or behaviour towards me or my society. If you want change then you do it through the correct methods.

Posted on

48.8592°N, 2.3703°E

I am following the press and jumping to, quite sensible, conclusions about the motivations for the murder of 12 people in Paris. They were murdered because they did the job that is necessary in a free country.

It is currently believed that the 12 people were murdered in revenge for printing a cartoon depicting Mohammed a few years ago.

If you know me or read these communications you will understand that I don’t “get” religion. It is quite obviously a false representation of the universe. However, I do understand why people are religious. I get that. However, I am quite at liberty to think your beliefs are crazy. I am also at liberty to tell whomever I want that I think your beliefs are crazy. I don’t do this [too much] because for some reason it is considered bad to insult someone’s beliefs in a sky-fairy, zombie god child or burning bush. That, I also don’t understand. Why is it so taboo to say what I think about a virgin woman impregnated by god to have a son who he knows he will kill, oh, and then resurrect? Why can’t I even question religious holidays and ceremonies without feeling as though I am committing a massive faux pas? Isn’t it crazy that we have whole degree courses and careers dedicated to studying something demonstrably at odds with evidence? I digress.

As I have removed religious texts from my moral guidance I need to explain that there is no ultimate right or wrong, no ultimate moral authority. We, as a society, have decided over time what we consider to be acceptable behaviour and what is not. Originally these rules were derived from religion but they aren’t anymore. Laws change over time to reflect how society changes and what society [generally] accepts. Yes, there are always going to be people on the fringes of societal behaviour and beliefs and these people will make lots of noise but they can fuck off. Our judiciary makes the decisions and I am glad I live in a free country. I am NOT going to use the free speech argument because I honestly don’t think we have that in this country [UK], I am unsure that it is enshrined in law. It can’t be because an hate speech or aggressive tweets could land you in lots of trouble, we also have thought crime in the UK.

Whether you are religious or not you probably agree that killing someone is a BAD thing to do. It’s immoral. It’s against society. You may or may not extend that to the state killing by using the death penalty or going to war. I do think that war can be justified but I struggle with that very much. It is clear to me that we have a duty to give people freedom. My current thoughts are that “freedom” means a free and fair judiciary [thanks to JPW] and a liberal penal code, this may or may not occur within a democracy. For example: it is wrong to outlaw homosexuality, although legalisation was a recent thing in the UK. It is definitely very WRONG to have the death sentence for homosexuality. This paragraph could go further but I need to move on.

In what is generally called The West we are free to insult our politicians and other leaders. We can draw cartoons of them. We can write songs about them. We can make fun of them. For them it is considered part of the job [where is Spitting Image now?] This is freedom. It is our laws that allow us to do that. This should be a freedom everywhere. If you can’t do these things then I hope that one day you will be able to. You will have a long struggle ahead but we can all live in a world where we can rip into those in power.

We also make fun of religion. If my joke makes you question your religion then your religion isn’t up to much is it? If you can’t accept my joke, my valid point or the fact that your holy book was written many years after the events and from hearsay and is not really what happened then YOU have the problem. If the historical evidence doesn’t fit your religious narrative then the problem is yours. You are very welcome to insult me, my thoughts and beliefs and my ideals. I am still free to have those views.

Mo

If the image on the left is fine, but the image on the right offends you then I guess you have the right to be offended. However I have the right to produce this image. You need to get over it. Stop being outraged.

Killing 12 people because they belonged to an organisation that published some cartoons, some drawings proves that you are fucked up. You represent the worst of your religion. The worst of Islam and you do a disservice to all Muslims. While we must remember that 3 people killed 12 others today we should also remember that the vast majority of Muslims do not go around killing people because they hold different views and morals. They accept that, much like politicians, people will question them and what their holy book says.

It’s been quite a while since the major Christian faiths went around the world killing everyone and fucking things up quite a bit. But they did do it. And they did it in the name of religion. For a thousand years you could be killed or imprisoned for being the wrong religion in the “western” countries. But, we matured. We moved religion to the fringes and outside government. We now have religious and cultural freedom. Not yet in the USA though. There are MANY problems with the religious right and Christianity imposing crazy laws to oppress the rights we take for granted [and many Catholic countries too]. I am not claiming we are perfect. We aren’t, there’s still progress to be made. We spend more on dog food that we do on feeding the poor.

It appears these 12 murders were committed in the name of Islam. Islam needs to stand up to the fringes of its society and push-back, it should reform those fringes. Islam needs to shout as loud as possible that it is a reformed religion and extremism won’t be tolerated. It’s easy to take young men and radicalise them. It’s what young men are good at. In the West we have sport, PlayStation and music videos. We can distract many from the outliers of society, but we don’t always succeed. We still have people who do bad things. It’s what happens in any society. We try to minimise that though. We do this through freedom of the press, freedom of society, freedom of the judiciary.

I know this sounds all high and mighty. I can see that people would think I am shouting “aren’t I a good atheist and all the religions, especially Islam bad. Isn’t the West wonderful with its freedoms and Coca Cola”. Well, at the moment, most world wide terrorism is Islamic. It’s Islamic states that sponsor this terrorism. What country has the death penalty for atheism? Saudi Arabia (where women can’t drive too). I am not trying to hold the UK up as a beacon of excellence. We do plenty wrong, like invade a country illegally on dodgy evidence and then rationalise it post hoc. We have tortured. We have spied on our citizens. We have interned people with little evidence. We are not perfect. But we are at least trying to do the best we can. Also, if I want to question politicians I can. I can become a politician if I want. I can drink whenever I want I can eat what I want. I can believe in what I want. I don’t have to go to church. I am free to live my life how I want to.

We should not be surprised that murders like these things happen. What is abhorrent though is the reasoning behind these killings. Religion can be a good thing, I’m not sure it’s necessary, but it exists for now and so we should tolerate it when it is a force for good. Also people seem to take it so seriously. But we should NOT accept ANY reason or organisation that legitimises and encourages murder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to read more cartoons that uses Jesus, Mohammed, Moses and a barmaid as its main characters then you should read JesusandMo.

 

 

Here’s a cartoon:

Posted on

OUTRAGE

[The title needs to be shouted in an Ian Paisley type voice.]

Have a look at these:outrage5

outrage4outrage3outrageoutrage2

From my humble point of view it seems that we are outraged often these days. The media jump on the OUTRAGE bandwagon pretty quickly. The media believe they represent our views, what the population think. But they don’t, they just tell us what to think. The media is controlled by few, very rich people who want to keep us supressed and the politicians jumping from one thing to the next. The politicians have to be seen to be doing something. Using “outrage” allows the media to claim “public opinion” but I doubt they’ve really surveyed this. It’s what the string pullers want, not what the public want.

outrage defnI’m not happy with the definitions given by the Cambridge Dictionary. Outrage to me is more than anger. It’s almost violent. Nothing seems to make me this angry. Perhaps I am too old and have an aire of cynicism about me now, although I feel I’ve been like this all my life.

I would like the media to gain a sense of proportion [and for Christmas I want a unicorn]. Let’s use “outrage” when it means something like Blair taking us into an illegal way. Let’s use outrage when it’s something really worth fighting for. Let’s keep the public informed and tackle the politicians when they aren’t fighting for social justice and freedom for all.

[happy christmas]

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress