The Atheist Blogger

Woah! A whole two days of nothingness on the blog. It feels empty to me so I guess it probably feels empty for my readers! I have an excuse though:

Refurbishing an entire house is hell.

Not literally hell of course, for obviously no such place exists. However if I were to believe in a hell, it would probably have me cleaning and tidying a student house for all eternity. All my housemates have arrived now, and in addition to all the house-keeping, we’ve been setting up phonelines, internet connections, and routers. We now have cable running through the entire house which on two occasions has nearly caused me to break my neck (it gets caught around my feet easily).

A couple of days ago I got a visit from a representative of the UK Brights who came to talk to me about our plans to hold a “Brights Awareness Week” at the university (part of my student group Atheist & Agnostic Alliance). Our hope is to hold an event that beats the crap out of the Christian Unions “Jesus Awareness Week”, which is why we have started planning so many months in advance.

Finally, I totally missed the book club result for September, which is:

Biblical Nonsense by Dr. Jason Long

Luckily it is a book I suggested in the forums, and therefore I already have it in my bookcase. Its available on Amazon though. Preliminary date for discussion is Saturday 28th September.

Many people will recognise the above title as a line from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian“. Well, that is most people except those in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth where the film has been banned from viewing since its release, 29 years ago. The current Mayor, Sue Jones-Davies, starred in the movie as Brians girlfriend and now wants the ban lifed.

However, she might have to fight through some angry Christians to do it. Local reverend Stuart Bell says that attitudes amongst Christians have not changed (well when have they ever).

The film at its root is poking fun at Christ and we don’t want that to happen. I don’t think that the film should be shown. Why should the ban be removed?

Why? I’ll tell you why. It’s hilarious, has a great plot, and appeals to all ages. 30 years ago it was a breakthrough for freedom of speech and expression, making an obvious challenge to the countries blasphemy laws. It also outlined the irrational sheep-like followers of religion:

Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes! We’re all individuals!
Brian: You’re all different!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes, we are all different!
Man in Crowd: I’m not…
The Crowd: Shhh!

Of course Mr Bell has good reason to oppose the film, having only seen “a small clip, that’s all“. I doubt very much he saw the sermon on the mount part, or that he knows that Brian repeatedly tries to shake off the attention. No, Mr Bell just assumes the entire movie is about mocking Jesus.

Un-ban the movie, and make a whole new generation laugh.

It seems that a lot of talk has been going on about Patrick Greene, especially since Ray Comfort mocked him on his blog, and he started emailing (and phoned into) The Atheist Experience. In case any of you have not been following the story, Patrick is attempting to sue Ray’s evangelical company “Living Waters” for selling an offensive bumper sticker.

The sticker in question says “National Atheist’s Day” in large red letters, then “April 1″, and the quotes the Bible “The FOOL has said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). Here is a small thumbnail to help you visualize it:

Now, there are many reasons I believe people can get offended by certain beliefs. I’ve written how I am offended when people tell me I’m going to Hell, not because to them it is “fact” (as Patrick Greene argues), but because they believe that such a punishment is justified, and they are willing to compare me as equal to murderers and rapists. I am offended by the threat of Hell for the same reasons I am offended when someone calls me a bastard. It is a personal attack, aimed and directed quite thoroughly.

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The Friendly Atheist reports on the story of a girl saved by a watermelon. A gunfight broke out in Indianapolis and stray bullets were fired through a car containing an elderly lady and her two great-granddaughters.

One bullet went through the door and hit a 10 year old girl in the stomach before going clean through a Bible and finally coming to rest in a watermelon, held in the lap of the 13 year old sister. The great-grandmother reckons

The word of God and the Lord’s power saved. He sent the bullet into the watermelon.

Yup, that’s totally what happened. Obviously if you fire a bullet through a Bible it gets soaked in the word of God and can be divinely diverted. With this kind of logic it makes you wonder how a “God” wasn’t able to control the bullet in the first place. Do we really need to start shoving things through Bibles to get them blessed? Perhaps if I bore a hole through Genesis and kept a lottery ticket there it might win, perhaps not.

Even if this “God” she so adamantly believes in were able to control the bullet, you would think that such a powerful being would be able to either (a) stop the bullet in mid-air, or (b) “guide” the bullet around the entire car. No, it seems to me that something other than the Judeo Christian God was at work here, and here’s how I think things went:

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I watched a clip of the new BBC Drama series “Bonekickers” on Friday Night with Jonathon Ross last week, and the first thing that crossed my mind was how unscientific it was for an archaeology show. They had a scene where the team was gathered around a piece of wood, the analysis said it was from 32AD and it had human blood seeped in it. One of the lead characters said “I’m just giving you the facts. 2000 years ago, someone was lacerated to this piece of wood”. They all gather round a picture of Jesus on the cross.

I was sat there thinking “What? You got that from a piece of blood soaked wood?”. It was a massive assumption, but I decided to watch the episode anyway. The scene in question was put in a slightly better context when it mentioned the finding of Templar Knight skeletons, and went around the basis that they were being hunted and wanted to preserve Christian artifacts. Of course it’s still a big leap of faith for an archaeologist.

The story went on, introduced a Christian Evangelist who was getting in trouble for hate crimes against Muslims, and two characters who turned out to be modern Templar Knights (swords and all). The characters were under the command of the Evangelist, who bought the dig site and ordered the Knights to go about killing Muslims. Only one is executed in the episode, and it was a pretty useless scene that was probably included to be politically correct.

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