Posted in General, tagged music on Sunday, March 31, 2013| 1 Comment »
No, Gentle Reader, I don't know what prompted this. Seemed like a fun idea, though…
—Daz
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Posted in General, tagged atheism, bible, morals, religion on Friday, March 29, 2013| 11 Comments »
You are in a court room, watching the trial of a man who, a year ago, mugged you, forced you to empty your bank-account at a cash-machine, and, for good measure, beat you up so badly that you are now permanently wheelchair bound as well as destitute and homeless.
The man has pleaded guilty to all charges, but claims to have turned over a new leaf.
Posted in General, tagged atheism, bible, history, religion on Friday, March 29, 2013| 3 Comments »
Found this rather interesting video, earlier. (I forget where I found the link, so apologies for not giving credit for that.)
I must admit, up front, that I don't really have a dog in this fight—whether an actual Jesus existed and so on being a rather different question than that of whether there's a god for him to have been a son of. I'm not much of a Biblical (and related material) scholar, either, so I can't really judge his hypothesis one way or the other. (And he doesn't, to give him credit, claim it's anything but a hypothesis.) That said, he does appear to raise some interesting questions and ideas about the history of the religion itself.
Anyway, here it is. Any thoughts, anyone?
—Daz
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Posted in General, tagged ann widdecombe, atheism, politics, religion, secularism, television on Thursday, March 28, 2013| 7 Comments »
Well, after posting the previous, I went and got me dinner, had a natter to Dear Old Mater for a while and suchlike mundanities. Then I came back upstairs to watch the rest of the programme on iPlayer, and got as far as the opening credits after the little intro bit, only to be presented with a message that the "content is not working." So now I'm waiting for the Windows Media Player version to download.
Still an' all, if The Widdey Whinger keeps going at the rate she's started at, she'll be keeping me in easy blog-fodder for bloomin' weeks!
Posted in General, tagged ann widdecombe, atheism, politics, religion, secularism, television on Thursday, March 28, 2013| 7 Comments »
I've just started watching Ann Widdecombe's little licence-payer-funded exploration of "Why Christians are so picked on these days, with their official status as our state religion, their twenty-six bishops in the House of Lords etc etc." (On iPlayer, here and her accompanying piece in (where else?) the Telegraph, here.) No doubt it'll be providing me with more fodder later, but already, less than a minute into the programme, I felt a need to stop to address this little gem.
Apparently (quoting from the TV programme), "We do seem to have a rather peculiar attitude towards Christianity in this country. On the one hand, it's perfectly acceptable as the stuff of comedy and the stuff of drama. But when it comes to reality—for example, politics—it's taboo!"
Posted in General, tagged history, personal on Wednesday, March 27, 2013| 10 Comments »
I'm tempted to add "piped water" to my previous post, given that our supply has disappeared. Apparently it's due to a clean-up-and-replacement programme being carried out by Wessex Water. Given that we were given no notice that the supply would be interrupted, I'm guessing that there's been some sort of cock up. It's also left us with about half a kettle-full of water, and no idea when the mains supply will be back on. Ho hum.
Anyway, my reason for telling you this is that, while I was trying to find some additional information online (there is none), I came across this little snippet of news from a couple of weeks back.
Posted in General, tagged history, musings, science, technology on Wednesday, March 27, 2013| 6 Comments »
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
—Alfred North Whitehead
After reading a comment by Fojap, I've come up with what I hope might be a fun idea.
We've all (I should imagine) read and watched many histories of science and technology, so we could all quite easily list major developments like the plough, the lateen sail, the steam engine, the internet/world wide web and so forth.
But what about all the less obvious inventions? How many of us, for instance, would be able to afford good, long-lasting houses, if it weren't for the humble brick? So what would you list as your top three not-so-obvious technologies or inventions? They can be as simple or complex as you like, whimsical or serious.
After all of, ooh at least a minute's thought (You can tell I'm taking this very seriously, right?), I've come up with:
Posted in General, tagged atheism, catholics, fundies, gay rights, humour, law, politics, religion on Tuesday, March 26, 2013| 4 Comments »
Regarding every priest, pastor, imam, vicar, rabbi or other clergy who has made the statement or makes it in the future, "Marriage is for the purpose of creating children, and therefore should only be between a man and a woman," or variants thereof.
I propose a new law.
Any marriage officiated over by one of these clergy shall be deemed null and void, if the couple have not produced children within a space of two years† from the date of their wedding.
† Time span open to negotiation, ± six months.
Because, obviously, the couple in question aren't using their state of Holy Union for the purpose which God intended it for.
—Daz
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Posted in General, tagged humour, musings on Tuesday, March 26, 2013| 3 Comments »
Where there's a will, there's a lawyer.
Where there's muck, there's brass.
(And where there's brass, a lawyer will soon be along.)
Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves; and, making allowance for inflation, will be worth just what the penny was, by the time you've saved a pound.
Posted in General, tagged atheism, faith-schools, law, loons, politics, religion, secularism on Monday, March 25, 2013| 7 Comments »
Could someone tell me what this "aggressive secularisation" is, please?
I ask because David Cameron recently pledged to oppose it, so it must be real, right?
To me, "aggressive secularisation" sounds like it should begin with a cry of "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" and end with three armoured thugs murdering an archbishop in front of his altar. And that doesn't appear to be on the cards. Nor would I, as an aggressive secularist™ want it to happen.
The Dixie Flatline 