Ricky Gervais on CNN defends his ‘offensive’ remarks at the recent Golden Globe Awards ceremony in Hollywood (warning – this video contains unhealthy amounts of Piers Morgan):
Apparently the video ends as it does because Moron cuts our hero off at that point and goes to a non-controversial break, returning with a different topic; the YouTuber who uploaded it didn’t think it was relevant to include all that.
Had to visit my doctor’s surgery yesterday. The person I had to see was located on the first floor of the building . A sign on the wall next to the stairwell informs visitors as to which office is on each floor, then ends with the instruction to “Please use lift or stairs.”
Thus ended my plan to scale the outside of the building and force open a window.
As an atheist, I am occasionally asked (usually in a snide, derisory way) what would change my mind. The implication is that atheists reject any and all evidence of the supernatural, regardless of whether or not it’s rational to do so. Whatever is being discussed, we will always take the contrary position out of pride (or sheer bloody-mindedness). A common rider is that secretly we know the reality of god/s but outwardly reject it because we enjoy sinning too much. Which is a half-truth.
After giving it much thought, I’ve come up with an idea. For the purposes of experiment, I am going to be in the market for a god. Doesn’t matter which flavour, or how vengeful/spiteful/whatever it is. I am asking anyone who is a True Believer™ to exercise your salesman skills and sell your god to me.
What have you got to lose? Here I am, to all intents and purposes a lost sheep, actively wanting to be converted. How good are you at harvesting new souls for the faith? All you need to do is convince me. Bring your best arguments, paint your god in glowing colours, really push it for all you think it’s worth. Make me want to buy.
You can either email me or post comments below. If your comment doesn’t show up right away, don’t assume I’m censoring you. You’re just stuck in the moderation queue and I can’t guarantee my online presence every day (I have a life too, you know). Calm down and be assured I will get round to you.
Everyone else, I would ask you to spread the word. Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon – whatever it takes, let’s take this show on the road. Any resemblance to shameless blog-whoring is partially coincidental.
Assuming my little experiment attracts any responses, I shall post them at a later date.
What you could win!
Everlasting paradise, sitting at the right hand of your pet god of choice (or on it, if that’s what floats yer boat). Sorry, there are no cash alternatives.
What this is not
This is not an invitation for evangelical spam. If all you have is a collection of non-context bible or qur’an quotes, you have nothing. Certainly not a customer.
Neither is this an open invitation for preachy sermonising. I don’t need someone crowing about being better than I am because they believe, nor how I am doomed to eternal torment and torture unless I repent and sign up. It’s hard to imagine hundreds of thousands of new cars being sold in the UK each year with such a fire ‘n’ brimstone attitude.
Please, no Poes. It’s hard enough as it is without the waters being unnecessarily muddied.
Finally: before posting anything, please refer to this list of clichés. If any part of your sales pitch is on there, it shall be declared to be spam by definition.
These ground rules should not be considered exhaustive; I retain the right to judge each submission on its own merits (or lack thereof) and decide accordingly how best to handle it.
What are you waiting for? Don’t you want to start racking up those heavenly brownie points? Do you have the courage of your priest’s convictions? Bring it on!
Astrology, like all pseudosciences, has been the bane of civilisation for centuries. While the case is often made that without astrology we would not have astronomy, this is overstating the case more than somewhat. It’s rather like saying “if it wasn’t for a child building a sandcastle on the beach, we wouldn’t have the Great Pyramid”.
In the case of the “ology/onomy” divide, it was only when we stopped talking to the stars and began wanting to learn about their nature and their movements that we as a race took a huge leap forward from the world of superstition.
Now we seem to be sliding back, at an accelerating rate. Minneapolis astronomy professor Parke Kunkle has announced the stunning new discovery of precession. This is something so radical that it literally rocks the world. In fact, its repercussions are so revolutionary that they appear to have travelled back in time in order for ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus to know about it in at least 120 BC.
Professor Kunkle has also rediscovered the constellation of Ophiucus, the ‘mysterious’ thirteenth sign of the Zodiac. This is something that pops up every few years, each time emerging as a “new” discovery threatening to overturn astrology.
Let’s get a few things straight. Ophiucus is hardly a new discovery, as I said it gets discovered almost on a regular basis. And it’s far from being a brand new constellation: a forgotten one, maybe (except to astronomers).
Predictably, we now have (apparently) mass panic of people who have never heard of Google, terrified as to what this all means to their star-signs. And for once, the stellar snake oil merchants are correct when they say there’s nothing to worry about.
What’s most amusing to me is that astrologers didn’t see this coming (or if they did, they kept quiet about it).
The question has to be addressed though: why are horoscopes unaffected by these changes? If you were trying to find your way around London using a map of New York, discarding it in favour of a London one is definitely going to make a difference. If you are a chemist trying to get two substances to react, making sure to select the correct bottle from the shelf certainly makes a difference. However, just as with typical-fundy Blair rationalising his ‘wobble’, the -ologers reveal the non-scientific nature of their racket: it’s all been worked out and set in stone; any contradictory evidence will be buried or spirited away.
Real science works by falsification; that’s how (and why) experiments work. It’s like testing cars by smashing them into brick walls until there’s nothing left but interestingly shaped paperweights. It also leads to technology that works. Pseudoscience… doesn’t.
(In a shameless attempt at self-promotion, I present astronomer and rising TV star Phil Plait’s views on this teacup storm.)
It’s all coming out now. According to Alistair Campbell’s diary revelations in the Grauniad, our erstwhile not-god-doing leader made a habit of doing god:
Wednesday 16 December [first day of bombing] TB was clearly having a bit of a wobble. He said he had been reading the Bible last night, as he often did when the really big decisions were on, and he had read something about John the Baptist and Herod which had caused him to rethink, albeit not change his mind.
[Campbell noteJohn the Baptist denounced the marriage of Herod Antipas, Herod ordered him to be imprisoned and later beheaded.]
These are really scary revelations. The most obvious is the phrase “reading the Bible … as he often did when the really big decisions were on”. This is a man with the power to take the country – against overwhelming opposition, not to mention common sense – into a full-scale invasion of a sovereign nation, costing the lives of thousands of Coalition soldiers and over a hundred thousand civilians. And he consulted the bible to make that decision?
This man has blood on his hands right up to his armpits. This man believed his god wanted him to launch another Holy Crusade. Why is he still at liberty?
Here’s a little experiment: swap the words “reading the bible” with “talking to the Great Pumpkin” in that diary entry and tell me your blood didn’t suddenly run cold.
Then we have Blair’s “wobble”. After putting his own interpretation into a lesser-known biblical vignette and deciding it was about him – psychologists, please get in touch – he paused but went ahead anyway. Of course he did – by now he was committed (or at least, he ought to be).
So he rationalised his wobble. This is typical fundy behaviour. Not for them the uncertainties of contradictory revelation (of which the bible is crammed) – no, for them it’s all true and can be explained away perfectly if only you tilt your head just right and read the words through half-closed eyes.
No wonder these people didn’t want to go on record as “doing god”. The amount of spin that would have taken would almost certainly have thrown the Earth out of orbit.
This is why…
As long as there are ‘parents’ (for want of a better term) in the world who think it’s acceptable to infect their impressionable offspring with this poison, as long as they get their righteous jollies by putting vulnerable little children into such frontline public positions that not only attract but aggressively invite criticism – and then become the very image of injured innocence when thus countered – there must be others willing and able to fight against them.
This is child abuse, pure and simple. It has to end now.
Noted psychologist – and startlingly accurate Phil Plait lookalike – Professor Richard Wiseman is running a contest over on his blog to find the world’s rudest optical illusion, at least out of the ten he presents. Although I rather suspect he’s more interested in people’s responses to what are, essentially, completely innocent yet unfortunately (or deliberately) posed pictures.
In fact, I further suspect that simply by expressing my suspicions as I just did, Prof Wiseman now has greater insight into my psyche than I intended to reveal…
I think I’m getting a headache.
Anyway, please do go and play his little mind-game if you dare:
If nothing else, you can admire a nicer-looking and more popular blog.
I mean really look like?
Beliefs dictate behaviour. For instance, a person who truly believes his home is haunted is probably going to have a lot of sleepless nights imagining every knock and bump to be a supernatural visitation. A person who truly believes the police are after her might act in an extremely paranoid manner, imagining telephone taps, undercover detectives and the like.
So how can we be reasonably confident that most people who say they believe in Heaven or the equivalent aren’t actually as secure in their belief as they claim?
I’d like to use this platform to wish my reader a very Merry Xmas.
That’s to say, I’d like to – but with the year I’ve had I couldn’t feel less in the xmas spirit if I was boiling in oil.
However, I will present this video which goes some little way to summing up what I want to express. Enjoy, and take from it what you will:
Ratzinger, the popenfuehrer, took the opportunity at yesterday’s Mass to announce his use of the Vatican’s wealth to fund a massive multi-million dollar campaign aimed at stamping out violence and war, and to bring about world peace for good and always.
Kepler's Dream 
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