Blasphemy And “Emotional Harm”

The non-crime of blasphemy has been back in the news this week after the racist MP Naz Shah demanded legal protection for her personal delusions…

Today the Government proposed a bill to protect the emotional harm connected with the damaging of statues.

If people can understand the emotional connections to statues, then they can understand the connection Muslims have with the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ #NotJustACartoon. pic.twitter.com/WIKbQNkGhG

— Naz Shah MP 💙 (@NazShahBfd) July 5, 2021

This happened in 2021. In Britain. On the floor of the House of Commons.

Easter Is Cultural Appropriation (Long Read)

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone insane. I’m being sar-car-stick…

This is a companion piece to my December 2018 post The Disneyfication of Christianity which was about the ‘Christian’ festival of Christmas.

Any racist ‘anti-racist’ reading this should know that the reason I am opposed to Islam is because I am opposed to Christianity.

Happy Christmas 2020

The glorious leaders of the UK, advised by super-technocrats, have decided that Christmas tress and booze are essential but clothes are not -see here.

I wrote this seasonal post in 2018 but I stand by it – The Disneyfication of Christianity.

Enjoy the Winter Festival of our ancient pagan ancestors in any way you choose.

Happenstance Not Conspiracy Part Two

In the first part of this post – Happenstance Not Conspiracy Part One – I set out my belief that the causes of many historical events are not very profound. I suggested that things as mundane as personal insults, the weather or a wrong turn by a driver have been behind some major events. I also suggested that some people, in their understandable desire to know what ‘really’ happened, can be prone to conspiracy theories.

Powerful But Insecure

There is an episode of The Simpsons where, due to a series of unlikely events, Homer ends up as a missionary in the South Pacific. One of the locals asks him why God cares whether humans worship him or not. Homer replies that God is “powerful but insecure.”

A perfect description of religious people rather than their imaginary friend.

My Hatred Is Better Than Yours

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”

So wrote 17th century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal – Quote of the Day #34 and Update.

Amongst the main annoying characteristics of religious people is their belief that they know. Not only that they know but that they know everything – the thoughts of the ‘creator’ of the universe, the meaning of life, what happens when you dies, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Whilst religious belief in the West has declined – at least so far as Christianity is concerned – the religious impulse is alive and well in politics.

This Is What I Believe Update

Original post – This Is What I Believe

In the original post, I suggested that ordinary working people of whatever colour have more in common with each other than with any wealthy people. The current obsession with race fulfils the same role as religion for much of recorded history. Seneca, tutor and chief minister to the Roman Emperor Nero, summed this up best…

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” [My emphasis]

Accusations of racism are useful to our rulers in that they divide working-class people to the benefit of the former. And I have previously stated my firm belief that it is fair to describe the current pseudo-left obsession with ‘racism’ and ‘phobias’ of all kinds as a religion – ‘Woke’: Religion or Fascism?

‘Woke’: Religion Or Fascism?

Rik Mayall was a comic genius. But his portrayal of Rick in The Young Ones, who thought everything was ‘fascist,’ was meant to be a joke at the expense of the fake radical (usually privately educated) familiar to anyone who has attended a British university in the past 50+ years, not a guide for how to behave.

Disturbing (and disturbed), barely readable German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that…

“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”

The upper-class ‘Woke’ imbeciles who have colonised left-wing parties all over the West have become the fascists and racists they affect to despise.

Picture Of The Day #45

I wrote a post called Don’t Go On Twitter in February and I stand by that advice. The current lockdown has confirmed my opinion that this platform consists entirely of time-rich pseudo-leftists desperate for approval and insane alt-rightists trolling them.

Here is well-known philosopher ‘Dirty’ Harry Callaghan on opinions…

Luxury Beliefs And Class Hatred Part Two

This is a long one so I have split it into two parts – the first part can be viewed here.

Luxury Beliefs And Class Hatred Part One

This is a long one, so I will post it in two parts.

Alexander II, Tsar of Russia between 1855 and 1881, was a great man. He extricated Russia from the ludicrous Crimean War, freed the Russian peasantry from serfdom and introduced elected local government and trial by jury. Despite all this, the Great Emancipator was murdered by radicals from the People’s Will (Narodnaya Volya) who only achieved the replacement of a reforming emperor with his brutal and autocratic son.

Alexander II is a textbook example of the failure of the monarchical principle since despite all his achievements, his father, his son and his grandson (Nicholas I, Alexander III and Nicholas II were all unequal to the task of ruling Russia in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. But that is not the reason I have shared this biographical sketch. Alexander’s murderers remind me of a certain type of pseudo-radical and narcissistic purist who is so prevalent in our own times.

Quote Of The Day #76

“Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it.”

I Am 36% Muslim

Readers of this blog may be surprised to realise that I have had a moment as astonishing as Saul/Paul did on the road to Damascus. I have realised that I am 36% Muslim.

No, I haven’t gone insane. Please stay with me.

Quote Of The Day #73

“Islamophobia is an otiose* word which doesn’t deserve definition. Hatred of Muslims is unequivocally reprehensible, as is hatred of any group of people such as gay people or members of a race. Hatred of Islam, on the other hand is easily justified, as is hatred of any other religion or obnoxious ideology. Muslims themselves are the main victims of Islam.”

* serving no practical purpose or result

I Don’t Respect Your Religion

Respect (noun):

1/  a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements;

2/ due regard for the feelings, wishes or rights of others.

In this post, I am referring to the second definition, in particular the idea that one should show respect for the rights of others. But whilst I will always try to respect other people’s right to follow their religion, I will never respect religion.

I was watching the Sky UK News before work this morning and there were two items about medicine that indicated the continuing negative impact of religion on society. The two items were about the possible use of pig’s hearts for human beings and the UK’s loss of its measles-free status.

How To Be An Expert

Expert (noun): a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.

Becoming an expert in anything is hard. You don’t pick up a tennis racquet, knock a couple of balls against a wall and then head off to Wimbledon. Searching for your symptoms on the internet doesn’t make you a doctor.

Fortunately, here are a couple of easy shortcuts to becoming an expert on, well, everything.

Quote Of The Day #71 (Warning: Contains Offensive Material)

“I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.”

The Bigotry Of The ‘Anti-Racists’

I would urge readers to watch the Panorama documentary Is Labour Anti-Semitic?

I’ve come to a similar conclusion about Jeremy Corbyn as I did about Sepp Blatter and FIFA. I originally thought Blatter was merely useless at his job but changed my mind and came to believe that he was personally corrupt. Similarly with Corbyn. I thought he was an overpromoted nonentity surrounded by anti-Semites. However, I have change my mind and I now, reluctantly, think that he is personally anti-Semitic.

Before I continue, I would like to point out that as far as the Israel/Palestine quagmire goes I simply don’t care. I hold no brief for the Israeli government, certainly not under its current leader. Still less do I support the genocidal religious fascists of Hamas nor the geriatric kleptocrats of the Palestinian Authority. I am as interested in this issue as the average Toytown ‘anti-Zionist’ is interested in Transnistria, Abkhazia or the Sahrawi Republic.

What this row demonstrates is that the fanaticism, bigotry and good/evil binary of monotheistic religion has transferred itself into politics, particularly amongst those who I like to call the pseudo-left.

Joke Of the Day #7

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

They Know!

They know! At some level. I’m convinced of it. Religious people – whether followers of the more traditional religions like Judaism or Christianity or newer versions like identity politics, transgenderism or Islamophilia – know at some level that their beliefs are simply wrong. It’s why they get so angry when challenged.

Childish And Embarrassing Update

A few days ago I wrote a post called Childish and Embarrassing after I was triggered (snigger) by a pathetic ‘prayer’ when flying with Malaysia Air. In that post I wrote about my unhappiness at the fact that there are people who, at the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, still put more faith in the interventions of imaginary deities than the technical skills of the designers and engineers who really are responsible for the safety of aeroplanes. I also wrote that I was fed up with religionists demanding respect for their theistic nonsense, suggesting that if they want respect it might be a good idea to get some respectable beliefs. Little did I realise that I would be returning to this subject almost immediately when the Sunday Times (20/0102019) printed a story with the almost unbelievable headline Anglican priest exorcises ‘poltergeist’ for Muslim family

Childish And Embarrassing

I haven’t posted since New Year’s Eve as I have been on holiday visiting friends in Kuala Lumpur. The service on Malaysia Air was fine but before we took off (both ways) the prayer I have used as a header for this post appeared…

“In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. All praise be to Allah, the One who has placed this transportation at our service, that we ourselves would not have been capable of, and to Allah we shall return.

In the name of Allah, we begin to move (take off) and stop (land). With His protection, Allah, the Most merciful, the Most Compassionate.” [My emphasis]

Have you ever seen a more obvious statement of the childish, groveling and intellectually bankrupt nature of religion?

Quote Of The Day #62

“The difference between faith and insanity is that faith is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence, whilst insanity is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence.”

The Disneyfication Of Christianity

It’s that time of year again. The Christmas holidays are actually in the Summer in Australia which, even after living here for many years, I still find rather odd. One thing that doesn’t change is that the same songs are played in shopping centres over and over again. Every year my wife gets fed up when I announce that I’m going to fly back to the UK and punch Noddy Holder in the face.

 

Another thing that doesn’t change is the saccharine version of the Nativity myth that gets inflicted on everyone at this time of year. This story is extremely popular with preschoolers and early primary age children – for the obvious reason that you have to be about five years old to take it seriously. This is what I mean by the ‘Disneyfication’ of Christianity. Disney loves to make everything ‘cute’ and ‘nice’ – look at what they have done to the Grimm Brothers’ stories. At its heart, Christianity is a confronting and difficult ideology. It makes the claim that your actions – your ‘sins’ – make you directly responsible for the hideous torture and death of Jesus Christ and that you must atone for your behaviour or risk an eternity in Hell. This is certainly not the message one gets from the endless and banal focus on the Nativity story at Christmas.

Return Of A Victimless Crime Update #2

Article 14.1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights…

 

“Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

 

From the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defines a refugee as…

 

“someone who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality.”

 

May I suggest that if Asia Bibi doesn’t fit these requirements, then no-one does.

Picture Of The Day #23

Return Of A Victimless Crime Update

Proof positive that the ‘crime’ of blasphemy has nothing to do with ‘god,’ Allah, Zeus, Thor or any other imaginary friend that has never existed. The ‘crime’ of blasphemy is all about the demands of religious fascists that their ideology not be subject to criticism of any kind.

 

In my previous post, I expressed concern that a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights has apparently raised the rights of religious people not to have their feelings hurt above freedom of speech. The particular case involved an Austrian woman who had referred to Muhammad of Mecca’s ‘marriage’ to six year old Aisha as “akin to paedophilia.”  Whilst I took issue with the deliberately provocative use of the emotive word “paedophilia,” I suggested that the freedom to criticise any ideology trumps the feelings of believers. I went further and, quoting only Islamic sources, showed that Muhammad was 51 when he married Aisha when she was six and that the Koran contains instructions for marrying and divorcing prepubescent girls. I drew no conclusions but left readers to make up their own minds.

 

Which brings me to the case of Asia Bibi.

Return Of A Victimless Crime

From the Guardian…

 

“Campaigners in Ireland celebrated the end of a ‘medieval’ ban on blasphemy on Saturday, after voters overwhelmingly backed removing the offence from the constitution in a referendum. . . . It has been over 150 years since anyone was prosecuted for blasphemy in Ireland.”

 

Nothing to disagree with there. However, search the Guardian in vain for another ‘blasphemy’ story…

 

“The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has set a dangerous precedent in a new judgment about Austria declaring that free speech can be legitimately restricted if it causes ‘offence’ to ‘at least one’ religious adherent.”

 

Double standards? Perish the thought.

Reblog: Maryam Namazie

Haven’t posted much recently as I’ve been obsessing over the World Cup. Last time England were in the semi-finals I was still at university. I do feel for those people who don’t like football – the over-the-top media coverage can be extremely grating. An excellent, if foul-mouthed, rant by fellow WordPress blogger Dioclese here.

 

This post is actually a reblog of a post by Maryam Namazie. I have mentioned Namazie before – she was the lady abused and intimidated by Islamist fascists at Goldsmiths University back in 2015. In any sane world she would be a liberal icon – a softly-spoken, feminist ‘person of colour’ (how I hate that racist expression) who stands up against violent misogynists and their far right ideology. Such is the confusion engendered by identity politics that Namazie is abused as an ‘Islamophobe’ – an entirely meaningless insult – and as a ‘native informant’ – another racist term.

 

The post is rather long and contains a large number of links. The original post can be seen here but I have highlighted what I consider the key points below.

Picture Of The Day #9

It is my belief that all three of the Abrahamic monotheisms are, broadly speaking, the same religion. All three feature an aggressively male deity who will send you to Hell for an eternity of punishment for breaking one of his petty rules. All three of these belief systems – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – are belligerent, violent and anti-human. At the present moment in history it is Islam, especially in its fascist political form, Islamism, that is the main threat to humanity. However, it is not difficult to point to a time when Christianity was the main threat to civilised values, as the Islamophiles at Guardian Towers and Jimmy Savile House love to point out. However, one of the most mystifying trends of our times is the number of women who are prepared to defend and excuse the violent misogyny of so many Muslim clerics and jihadists.

The Future Of Turkey

Since I started this blog in January 2017, I have repeatedly made two points about politics in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The first point is that, broadly speaking, all religions are the same and, like the late, great Christopher Hitchens, I believe that religion “poisons everything” it touches. This is especially true of the three Abrahamic monotheisms which have far more in common that their most demented sectarians would acknowledge. They all worship an aggressively male deity who watches and judges your behaviour and who will sentence you to an eternity of pain and suffering if you dare to break one of his petty rules.

 

The second point I have made is my distaste for the racist and divisive cult of identity politics that has been embraced by people across the West who loudly proclaim themselves to be ‘progressives.’ Politicians, journalists and campaigners who are vociferous in their condemnation of racism, homophobia and sexism have often found themselves supporting people who are deeply racist, disgustingly anti-gay and disturbingly misogynistic. Practices and attitudes that would be roundly condemned if they took place in the UK, the United States or elsewhere in the West are excused as ‘cultural’ and opposition to them as ‘colonialism’ or ‘imperialism.’ If female genital mutilation, forced marriage or ‘honour’ killings were being carried out by Westerners I’m pretty sure the usual ‘progressives’ would be up in arms. But as both perpetrators and victims tend to be non-white and non-Western, there is little outcry. One might be tempted to label this as ‘the racism of low expectations,’ if one were of the Everything Is Racist type that rules at Jimmy Saville House. Whatever it is, and I am reluctant to use accusations of racism with the scattergun abandon some commentators do, it betrays an extraordinarily patronising attitude towards non-white non-Westerners.

 

And then there is Turkey.

Picture Of The Day #3

The earliest known literate society was Ancient Sumeria (modern Iraq). Their form of writing was known as cuneiform and its earliest forms date back further than 3000BC. Most of the earliest surviving documents are tax receipts and prayers.

 

Remember, God loves you. But he needs money.

Sura 9 Al-Tawbah (Repentance)

Before I begin, this post is about Islam, an ideology. It is not about Muslims, human beings. If anyone wishes to accuse me of ‘hate crime’ or ‘Islamophobia’ or (hilariously) of ‘racism,’ then you must also find me guilty of ‘Judeophobia‘ and ‘Christianophobia‘ (neither of these words are recognised by my spellchecker) as I make little to no distinction between the three versions of the Abrahamic delusion.

 

The Koran is a strange book. It purports to be the ‘revelations’ received by Muhammad of Mecca during his 22 year career as a ‘prophet.’ It is an article of the Islamic faith that the Koran as it stands today is exactly the same as when it was ‘revealed’ to Muhammad. The Koran is considered to be both eternal and uncreated – it existed before the universe was ‘created’ by Allah, one of many gods worshipped by the inhabitants of pre-Islamic Arabia but who was promoted by Muhammad to be the one god in his version of Abrahamic monotheism.

 

Unlike the Bible – a set of 66 documents written by various authors over a period of more than a millennium – the Koran is entirely the work of Muhammad. Because of this, the ideas expressed change, sometimes radically. At the start of his ‘prophetic’ career, Muhammad was an obscure merchant railing against polytheism in Mecca; 22 years later, he was the absolute dictator of the Arabian peninsula. No wonder his ideas changed. Who can say they have exactly the same views as they had in 1996? Remember, in 1996 Tony Blair was the youthful, smiling face of the future against the exhausted and corrupt Major government rather than the tetchy, haggard friend of billionaires and Central Asian despots of 2018.

 

The Silence Of The Liberals

As I have said repeatedly on this blog and elsewhere, I am no fan of the so-called BBC. I see no other group of people that has done more to poison political debate over the past twenty years than the corrupt denizens of Jimmy Savile House. Whilst loudly proclaiming their progressivism, the so-called BBC continue to be funded by what is effectively a poll tax and are in bed with some of the most unpleasant and far right misogynists, homophobes and anti-Semites in Britain today.

 

Nick Cohen, a columnist for the Observer newspaper I have praised before, is to be commended for a programme he presented on Radio 4 which he provocatively called ‘The Silence of the Liberals.’ I have made a few comments below but I would urge everyone to listen to Cohen’s excoriation of the “deepest silence” he finds amongst Western ‘liberals’ who for reasons best known to themselves have allied with the Islamist hard right to defend the inequality suffered by women in Islamic ‘communities’ in the UK, “inequalities that would never be accepted if white women had to endure them.”

Quote Of The Day #40

“It is narrated on the authority of ‘Abdullah b. Umar that the Messenger of Allah observed: O womenfolk, you should give charity and ask much forgiveness for I saw you in bulk amongst the dwellers of Hell. A wise lady among them said: Why is it, Messenger of Allah, that our folk is in bulk in Hell? Upon this the Holy Prophet observed: You curse too much and are ungrateful to your spouses. I have seen none lacking in common sense and failing in religion but (at the same time) robbing the wisdom of the wise, besides you. Upon this the woman remarked: What is wrong with our common sense and with religion? He (the Holy Prophet) observed: Your lack of common sense (can be well judged from the fact) that the evidence of two women is equal to one man, that is a proof of the lack of common sense, and you spend some nights (and days) in which you do not offer prayer and in the month of Ramadan (during the days) you do not observe fast, that is a failing in religion. This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Abu Tahir with this chain of transmitters.”

A Strange Tale Of Our Times Update

I wrote about the strange goings-on at St Stephen’s in Newham here.

As I wrote at time, it mystifies me that in the days of #MeToo and Time’sUp why, when a successful female headteacher like Neena Lall is targeted by conservative ‘religious leaders,’ the self-proclaimed ‘progressives’ at the Guardian and the so-called BBC are not up in arms. And Lall is clearly of BAME background, so these arch-‘progressives’ should be doubly offended.

Any reader familiar with this blog will know that the previous paragraph was deeply ironic and that had the aforementioned denizens of Guardian Towers and Jimmy Savile House come to Lall’s support, I would have been genuinely astonished. The insane doctrine of ‘intersectionality’ means that no member of an allegedly victimised group can be held guilty of misogyny, let alone racism, simply because they are a member of ‘victim’ group. The foul ideology of intersectionality is deeply, horribly racist. What did not surprise me is the follow up story in yesterday’s (04/02/2018) Sunday Times – Ofsted Chief Amanda Spielman targeted by anti-semites in hijab row.

A Strange Tale Of Our Times

Religion is odd. Some religious people are very odd indeed. Such is our familiarity with the myths of the Abrahamic faith(s) that we sometimes fail to see just how odd they are. There are people (some as highly-educated as Pope Emeritus Benedict) who believe that a being who has existed forever suddenly and for no discernible reason decided to create the universe; according to some of this being’s more cretinous followers this ‘creation’ happened 6,000 years ago, after the domestication of the dog! Not only did this being ‘create’ the universe, he takes a detailed interest in its denizens and will quite happily condemn them to an eternity of torture for breaking one of his myriad of petty rules,  rules that make little sense unless one has knowledge of the violent and brutally misogynistic societies of ancient Israel and early medieval Arabia.

As I say, odd.

Odder yet is that in 2018 we are still bowing down before the demands of this mythical being’s most demented followers.

In Defence Of Disagreement Part Two

Continued from previous post.

In Defence Of Disagreement Part One

I started this blog in January 2017 and have written over a hundred posts since then. In my first ever post I gave three reasons for adding yet another voice to the cacophony that is the internet…

1/ the general coarsening of debate in the second decade of the twenty-first century;

2/ the seeming triumph of emotion over fact;

3/ the return and apparently unstoppable advance of aggressive, authoritarian religion and the scarily right-wing religionists who demand RESPECT for their beliefs.

This post is my way of summarisng what I believe after nearly a year of writing this blog before I take a break over the Christmas and New Year period. I am sure my impending visit to the UK will give me lots of things to write about in 2018. The unfortunate truth is that the things I objected to in January are still the prevailing problems in politics in the Western world.

Is Religion Original Sin?

We have so much to ‘thank’ religion for – holy wars and jihads, rampant misogyny and child rape spring to mind. Each of three Abrahamic delusions – three religions that are actually one, like the Trinity – has made its own special contribution to the sum of human misery. Judaism gave us an aggressively male deity with mad rules about food and menstruation, whilst Islam has given the world a fatalistic terror of those rules and suicide bombings. But Christianity has bequeathed us the revolting doctrine of ‘Original Sin,’ often associated with St Augustine, the Osama Bin Laden of the later Roman Empire (bored, rich playboy turned religious maniac). Original Sin is the insane belief that we are all responsible for the ‘sin’ of a mythical rib-woman eating a piece of fruit, egged on by a talking snake and need to be ‘saved’ by the brutal execution of a carpenter who is his own father. Yes, I am being facetious but isn’t this the essence of Christianity? However, I would contend that religion itself – especially in its various Abrahamic forms – is an original sin, not just in the disgusting behaviour of its adherents but in its fundamental doctrines.

Quote of the Day #31

“Modern humans have existed approximately 100,000 years. Our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth. Most other people having a life expectancy of 25 years. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, misery. All of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches with complete indifference and thinks ‘that’s enough of that, it’s time to intervene.’ And the best way to do this would be by condemning someone (Jesus Christ, the son of god) to human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate part of the Middle East. Let’s not appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and write and study evidence and have a civilisation. Let’s go to the desert and have a revelation there. THIS IS NONSENSE!”

I Like Stories Too

One of my favourite childhood memories of my late grandmother happened when I was about eight years old. My grandmother had been on holiday and when she returned she brought back presents for myself and my siblings. My present was a Ladybird book of Greek myths containing the stories of Theseus and the Minotaur and Perseus and the Gorgons. I read the book over and over again. I’m pretty sure it was one of the reasons I got into History – wanting to know more about the society that created such fantastic tales. What I never did however, even as a child, was get my ideas about morality from the legends of Classical Greece. The gods of Olympics and the heroes of these legends seem to behave in a pretty immoral, or rather amoral, fashion. All societies have produced stories about superhuman beings – those of the Norse are particularly good and the Viking view of heaven as an endless drinking party is definitely one I can relate to. The great misfortune of History is that a large number of people have been forced to live according to the primitive morality contained in the myths and legends of the Ancient Hebrews.

Leap Of Faith

If the Sun was scaled down to the size of a white blood cell, the Milky Way would be the size of the continental United States. There are between 100,000,000,000 and 400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way and it is estimated that there are between 100,000,000,000 and 200,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe. Even if you take the lowest estimates there are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 sextillion) stars in the universe. Then there are the spaces between galaxies which are even larger than the galaxies. The Milky Way is between 100,000 and 160,000 light years across but the closest galaxy to our own, Andromeda, is around 2,500,000 light years away. The sheer scale of the universe is incomprehensible to poorly-evolved east African primates who only learned to speak properly less than 200,000 years ago. But the most important things to the ‘creator’ of all this are the genitals of one species on one planet that orbits one of these stars and whether one half of said species shows its hair to the other half.

In Defence Of Classical History

I recently attended a three day history conference. Now I know that sounds like torture to a lot of people but I loved it. One of the highlights was a professor of ancient history giving a lecture comparing democracy in ancient Greece and modern Europe. In particular he drew parallels between the Brexit Referendum in 2016 and the Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War (431-404BC). Whatever your views of the referendum, it was an exercise in democracy on an very large scale. Over 33,000,000 people voted – 72% of registered voters and 65% of the voting age population. In Athens, the people’s assembly (demos) voted on all government business; it was a direct rather than a representative democracy. In 415BC, the demos voted enthusiastically in favour of a plan to conquer Sicily. The expedition was a disaster and the Athenians lost 200 ships and thousands of soldiers. Whether the Brexit vote turns into a disaster on the scale of Sicily is anyone’s guess (personally, I doubt it). The point I am trying to make is that studying Classical History helps us to understand the workings of democracy. People are people, demagogues are demagogues – although I would hesitate to compare Boris Johnson to Alcibiades because he would like it too much. Upper-class playboy with a penchant for rabble-rousing and swapping sides? Sounds familiar?

The New Puritans

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastics 1:9)

In about 385AD, a group of black clad religious fanatics appeared from the Syrian desert to attack the temple of Athena in the city of Palmyra. Palmyra stood at the eastern edge of the Roman Empire and the larger-than-life statue of the goddess had been created in a workshop hundreds of miles away and transported with considerable difficulty and expense to create an oasis of Greco-Roman culture in the Syrian desert. The religious fanatics decapitated the statue, pushed it from its pedestal, cut off its arms and left it in the dirt before melting back into the desert.

In 2015, a group of black clad religious fanatics appeared from the Syrian desert to attack Palmyra. The statue of Athena, that had been carefully repaired by archaeologists, was again attacked. Once more she was decapitated, once more her arm was cut off.

These religious fanatics, separated by more than 1700 years of time, are united by their hatred of ‘idolatry,’ their ignorance and their worship of the Abrahamic god. Christianity is Islam and Islam is Christianity.

Quote of the Day #28

“What can be more arrogant than believing that the same god who didn’t stop the Holocaust will help you pass your driving test.”

Mere Atheism

I took the title of this piece from C. S. Lewis’ famous defence of belief – Mere Christianity. Lewis is most famous for his Narnia stories – a thinly-veiled retelling of Christian myths, with Aslan the Lion standing in for the Jesus of Nazareth character. Karl Marx famously described religion as the “opium of the people” although modern day radical Islam is more like crack cocaine. Lewis’ Anglican Christianity is like a nice cup of tea. All religions fail the basic test of reasonableness – there is not a scrap of evidence for the claims they make. I would contend that the most reasonable position any reasonable person can take is not to believe in any religion.

Quote of the Day #24

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.”

Religious People Are Obsessed With Sex

It is my belief that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the same religion with slightly different emphases. It is also my belief that followers of the Abrahamic religion(s) have a disturbing and unhealthy obsession with sex. Jewish folks mutilate the penises of newborn baby boys and Christians appear determined to stop same sex couples marrying one another. In the first case I would ask why Jews think they know better than the omnipotent being who went to so much trouble to create the foreskin; in the second I would suggest to Christians opposed to same sex marriage that they don’t marry someone of the same sex. But in 2017, one of the most dangerous and unpleasant obsessions is that of some Muslims with female virginity. Whether this is due to Islam or what the Egyptian-American journalist  Mona Eltahawy calls “toxic mix of culture and religion” I don’t know. However, the German journalist Guner Yasemin Balci, who is of Turkish descent, certainly thinks there are some people in her “community” have quite old-fashioned views about sex and the role of women in society.

Please watch Balci’s film “Obsessed With Virginity – Female Sexuality Among Western Muslims.” It is 42 minutes long but well worth watching. The people in the film are exactly the type of folks “liberals” and “progressives” should be supporting rather than the bearded barbarians who have nothing to offer except hate speech and spurious accusations of “racism” and “Islamophobia.”

I have always felt that Billy Connelly has expressed the most succinct view about the mad obsession with 72 virgins in a mythical afterlife. Here is his foul-mouthed rant about suicide bombers, virgins and forced marriages. Enjoy.

Challenging The Fascist Word “Islamophobia”

I’m sorry to return to this topic again (it’s like an itch I can’t stop scratching) but it seems one cannot go more than a couple of days without someone or something being accused of “Islamophobia.” Often attributed to the late, great Christopher Hitchens but in actual fact said by Andrew Cummins, the best way to define this absurd word is…

“Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.”

The fascists in question are the Islamist hard right whilst the cowards are the pseudo-leftists who inhabit the BBC and the opinion section of the UK Guardian newspaper. I will leave it you to decide who the morons are. For the love of all the gods that have never existed, why do people who loudly proclaim their anti-sexism, anti-homophobia and anti-racism support people who are violent misogynists, murderous homophobes and bigoted racists and anti-Semites?

Quote of the Day #22

“One of the things that is a classic trope of the religious bigot, is while they’re denying people their rights, they claim that their rights are being denied. While they are persecuting people, they claim to be persecuted. While they are behaving colossally offensively, they claim to be the offended party.”

God Is Dying

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been out of fashion for a long time because he is (unfairly in my opinion) associated with the poisonous ideology of National Socialism. Nietzsche’s philosophy can be quite confronting and unpleasant to modern sensibilities but at its heart lies a rejection of the childish morality of Christianity that has dominated European thinking for more than a millennium. As an atheist, when Nietzsche declared “God is dead” he did not mean that God had literally died; he was talking about a certain conception of God that was out of date.

In his book Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (translated as “The Gay Science” or “The Joyful Pursuit of Knowledge and Understanding”) Nietzsche wrote…

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

The last sentence makes it clear that we must accept the responsibility for our own actions and behaviour rather than loading our “sins” onto a mythical scapegoat in the manner of the primitive shepherds of Ancient Israel.

Quote of the Day #21

“As Einstein said, ‘If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.’ Michael Shermer, in The Science of Good and Evil, calls it a debate stopper. If you agree that, in the absence of God, you would ‘commit robbery, rape, and murder’, you reveal yourself as an immoral person, ‘and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you’. If, on the other hand, you admit that you would continue to be a good person even when not under divine surveillance, you have fatally undermined your claim that God is necessary for us to be good. I suspect that quite a lot of religious people do think religion is what motivates them to be good especially if they belong to one of those faiths that systematically exploits personal guilt.

It seems to me to require quite a low self-regard to think that, should belief in God suddenly vanish from the world, we would all become callous and selfish hedonists, with no kindness, no charity, no generosity, nothing that would deserve the name of goodness.”

Quote of the Day #20

“If this is your God, he’s not very impressive. He’s got so many psychological problems; he’s so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He’s a pretty poor excuse for a supreme being.”

Is “Asian” A Euphemism? Update

Interesting video here about a Sikh television channel in Birmingham that has aired a film that some have claimed encourages vigilante action against those accusing of sexually grooming Sikh girls. Doesn’t fit into the narrative of the old racists – the BNP/skinhead types – or the new racists – identity-obsessed so-called “liberals.” The old racists wouldn’t know a Muslim from a Sikh because they hate all “Pakis” (apologies for this offensive term) and the new racists would struggle to find how Sikhs complaining about folks from the same ethnic background is “racist”; bet they could though!

Original post here.

Freedom Of Speech Is Not Blasphemy Update #2

The splendid Richard Dawkins appeared on Bill Maher’s show on Friday (11/08/2017) and took aim at the intellectual pygmies who disinvited him from making a speech because he had made “hurtful” comments about Islam. In the interview, Dawkins stated…

“I think that this radio station and these universities, they are on our side. We’re on their side. Now, I was de-platformed specifically because of what I was alleged to have said about Islam. I think that the reason they did it was probably a laudable motive, they are on the side of oppressed minorities. They think that Muslims are an oppressed minority, oppressed by people like us. Actually, of course, Muslims are oppressed by Islam.”

He later argued that Muslims who don’t oppress women or gay people are being persecuted by those who do and “That’s where the persecution comes from.”

Is “Asian” A Euphemism?

Asia is a vast continent. At more than 17,000,000 square miles, containing 48 countries (and six not recognised by the UN) and inhabited by over 4,000,000,000 people, it is the largest continent on Earth. Asia stretches from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Sri Lanka in the south and from Istanbul and Tel Aviv in the west to Shanghai and Tokyo in the east. It is the cradle of civilisations from Mesopotamia to the Indus Valley and the Yellow River. It contains numerous cultures and religions and people from different parts of the continent have very different “racial” appearances. But if you believe the BBC and the Guardian, the UK is suffering from an epidemic of “Asians” exploiting young girls in cities across the country – Rochdale, Rotherham and, most recently, Newcastle. Not only is this not true and insulting to the large numbers of Britons with “Asian” heritage, it contradicts the evidence in these cases. One might almost be tempted to say that this word – “Asian” – has been deliberately chosen as a euphemism.

Freedom Of Speech Is Not Blasphemy Update

Richard Dawkins doesn’t need me to protect him, as I tried to do in this post. He has many supporters and is more than capable of protecting himself. Here is a link to his own website where he responds to the libelous criticisms that have been leveled at him by the radio station KPFA.  The key point Dawkins raises in his open letter to KPFA…

“I am known as a frequent critic of Christianity and have never been de-platformed for that. Why do you give Islam a free pass? Why is it fine to criticise Christianity but not Islam?”

…cuts to the heart of the mad alliance between people who loudly proclaim their liberalism, progressivism and left-wing credentials with the far right fascists, misogynists, homophobes and anti-Semites of the Islamist movement.

Freedom Of Speech Is Not Blasphemy

I believe in human rights. I believe in equality. I believe that mistreating people because of their sex, race or sexuality is not only wrong and despicable but is also illogical – the whole point is that people do not have control over their gender, the colour of their skin or to whom they feel sexual attraction. The mad Christian groups who claim to be able to “cure” homosexuality are simply deluded if science and Lady Gaga are correct and we are all “Born This Way.” And aren’t those fundamentalists going against their omnipotent god by challenging what he/she/it has made? Having said all this, I would also like to state that I am against identity politics because it is against human rights as it treats people as members of a group rather than as individuals.

Quote of the Day #15

“God only gives three answers to prayers: 1. Yes! 2. Not yet. 3. I have something better in mind.”

This keeps coming up all over the internet at the moment but it’s a god botherer’s version of “Heads I win, Tails you lose.”

Hatred In The UK

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Throughout history we see the oppressor and oppressed in constant opposition to each other. This fight is sometimes hidden and sometimes open. However, each time the fight ends in either a revolutionary reconstruction of society or in the classes’ common ruin.” Karl Marx wrote these words in 1848 but they apply equally to 2017. The British Establishment only care about money and they hate people who don’t have money.  They don’t hate you because of your race. They don’t hate you because of your religion. They don’t hate you because of your sex. They don’t hate you because of your sexuality. They hate you because you don’t have any money.

An Odd Contrast

Another week, another atrocity. Sadiq Khan’s “new normal”? What has surprised me (no, not really) has been the different reaction to the actions of Darren Osbourne when compared to the reaction to the Westminster, Manchester Arena and London Bridge attacks. The Islamophiles at Jimmy Saville House have been gleefully chucking petrol on the anger the attack on the mosque has caused, just as last week they were happily fuelling the resentment caused by the fire at Grenfell House. To paraphrase the great George Orwell, as far as the BBC are concerned, all victims are equal but some are more equal than others.

Quote of the Day #10 Update

This post is for the lady who wrote a massive comment on my previous quote from Islamic “scholar” Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Firstly, I have had a troll from another blog I contribute to visit this site so all comments are now held for moderation; I am not censoring you. Secondly, the site you used to post your (endless) series of quotes from the Koran contained some kind of virus that caused the WordPress app to crash. Thirdly, I understood the quote from al-Qaradawi perfectly well; words mean what they mean, not what you say they mean. Feel free to come back for a debate, without quoting endlessly from a book of fairy stories that I promise I have read from cover to cover (and read Koran, Sura 66 if you want a good laugh).

A Shocking Outbreak of Racism

An absolutely shocking week of racism in the UK. Ever since the inconclusive election on 8th June, Theresa May has been looking to Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party to prop up her wounded government. This has led to attacks on the Paisleyite DUP’s religious fundamentalism, anti-abortion stance and all-round bigotry and homophobia by the protectors of public morality at the Guardian, the Independent and (of course) the BBC. Don’t these people realise that attacking someone’s religion is the worst form of racism? And if that wasn’t enough, that political giant Tiny Tim Farron has been forced out of his job as leader as the Illiberal Undemocrats – despite increasing their representation in parliament from a puny 8 in 2015 to a muscular 12 in 2017 – because his Evangelical Christian beliefs led him to be less than enthusiastic about gay sex when interviewed on television. Horrible, horrible racism.

Sara Khan Not Anjem Choudhary

In my first ever post I outlined my reasons for starting this blog. I said that I disliked the coarsening of political debate and the intolerance of differing opinions that has disfigured political discourse in the West over the past couple of decades. I also decried the triumph of emotion over reason and some people’s apparent inability to separate their opinions from their identity, as if disagreeing with the former was an attack on the latter. But most of all I wrote about how I was concerned about the ongoing march of aggressive, authoritarian, intolerant, far-right religion.

Quote of the Day #10

“If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment Islam wouldn’t exist today.”

Quote of the Day #9

“Now to the root of the matter. The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the omnipotent father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god’s purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family home.”

At Last! The Truth!

So many column inches. So many talking heads on 24 hour news channels. None of these reporters and commentators know the real reason behind the wave of Islamist atrocities sweeping the UK and the rest of Europe. Fortunately, this blog can reveal the Truth. Capital T. The Islamophiles at Jimmy Savile House are right – Islamists are not inspired by Allah or Muhammad or by the book of gibberish known as the Koran. No, the real inspiration for Islamism comes from the late Terry Nation.

Damn Those Radical Methodists!

At the end of a previous post about the Manchester Arena attack, I wrote that nothing would be done about the problem just as nothing would be done about “the next attack in July/August/September in Glasgow/Birmingham/Newcastle (delete as applicable).” I was assuming that the new normal (thanks for that, Sadiq) meant that I wouldn’t have to write about this issue again for a couple of months. But these attacks are now occurring every two weeks instead of every two months. So, let’s go round again! This time though, I am offering what I believe are real and concrete proposals to deal with the criminals who carry out these attacks in the name of their psychopathic imaginary friend.

The Manchester Attack Update #2

In the days since the attack on Manchester Arena, the Establishment has continued to display its ignorance, its racism and its cowardice, both moral and physical. It is all very well to order the plebs to “Keep Calm and Carry On” when you are protected by legions of taxpayer-funded armed guards. Notice too how the soldiers that have been deployed on our streets have been used to guard the very centre of the Establishment – Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Gibbering in fear over a few medievalist religious fanatics is not a good look for our glorious leaders. And, by the way, the “Keep Calm” campaign was scrapped during the Second World War because it was considered patronising when the UK was facing a real threat from a heavily armed industrial nation rather than a bunch of friendless losers who have watched too many beheading videos on YouTube.

The Manchester Attack Update

I was right. Yesterday I wrote about how the British Establishment – by which I mean the entire media and political class – is racist against people of South Asian, Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Their racism is most obvious in their insistence on calling people “Muslims” because of their ethnicity; claiming to know what people think because of their genetic makeup is the very definition of racism. The reason that the long-predicted anti-Muslim backlash never happens is because the ordinary people of Britain are far less racist than their rulers. Proof of the ignorance and racism of the UK media was provided by, of all possibilities, Cosmopolitan magazine.

The BBC and Islam(ism)

I dislike the BBC, as I have shown here, here and here. I dislike their arrogance, I dislike their cheerleading for the Establishment, I dislike their protection of predatory paedophiles and refusal to apologise for protecting said paedophiles for decades and I dislike the poll tax that funds this incompetent and corrupt bureaucracy. But most of all I dislike the way they have pushed identity politics for the past three decades and their ongoing refusal to hold insanely right-wing Islamists to the same standards as everyone else when they spout vile misogyny, homophobia and anti-Semitism. You can imagine my astonishment to read an article on the BBC’s website entitled “Copenhagen imam accused of calling for killing of Jews.”

The Abrahamic Religions Part Four

My modest and not original contribution to a 2,500+ year old debate about religion is my contention that the three Abrahamic religions are essentially the same. I have written about Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Despite their superficial differences, all three religions feature an all-powerful deity who actively intervenes in the universe and metes out punishments and rewards in the afterlife based on a person’s behaviour in this life. And the punishment side of the afterlife is always emphasised; just read the gleeful descriptions of the Fire (capital F) in the Koran if you don’t believe me.

Quote of the Day #5

“Having thus given a cursory view of the Koran, I lay it before the sensible person with the purpose that they should know what kind of a book the Koran is. I have no hesitation to say that it cannot be the work of either God or of a learned man, nor can it be a book of knowledge. Here its very vital defect has been exposed with the object that people may not waste their life failing into its imposition. The Koran is the result of ignorance, the source of animalisation of human beings, a fruitful cause of destroying peace, an incentive to war, and a propagator of hostility among men and a promoter of suffering in society. As to defect of repetition, the Koran is its store.”

The Abrahamic Religions Part Three

This is my third post on the Abrahamic religions – three religions that are actually one, just like the Trinity. My previous posts were on Judaism, a Bronze Age nightmare and Christianity, Santa Claus for grown ups. Now I’d like to discuss the youngest and, at the time of writing, the most controversial of the three. Indeed, so controversial has Islam become in recent years that negative comments about this bizarre and intolerant belief system are considered racist. There’s even a special word that’s been invented to demonise those who would dare to subject Islam to the same level of criticism as Judaism and Christianity – “Islamophobia.” This is “a word created by fascists, used by cowards, to manipulate morons.” (A quote often attributed to the late, great Christopher Hitchens but which was actually coined by Andrew Cummins).

Equal Rights For All, Special Privileges For None

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that a ban on the hijab in the workplace “can be legal” if it is done in the context of rules against religious or political clothing of all types. Some readers may think that I would support this ruling as I have railed against aggressive, authoritarian religion (and its deeply unpleasant political handmaiden, Islamism) on more than one occasion. Indeed, one of my main reasons for starting this blog was my disquiet about how conservative religionists are hijacking debate. But if I was to support this ruling, I would be no better than those pseudo-feminists who have jumped into bed with violent misogynists to oppose Donald Trump’s sexism.

The Abrahamic Religions Part Two

I have previously written about Judaism, a Bronze Age nightmare on this blog. As I said in that post, Judaism, Christianity and Islam claim to be three but are in fact one (a bit like the Trinity). Now I’d like to consider the problematic middle child of Abraham, the most popular form (at the time of writing) of these three-in-one religions.

Feminists for Islam Update

Apparently, Marine Le Pen refused to wear a headscarf in a meeting with the Grand Mufti of Lebanon. And the usual suspects can’t dismiss this at “fake news” because it comes from the BBC-approved CNN.

Feminists for Islam

As the 45th President of the United States continues to demonstrate his unfitness for the high office to which he has been elected, some of his opponents continue to demonstrate that “race” will always trump (snigger) gender in the gospel of victimhood and identity politics.

The Abrahamic Religions Part One

No-one has summed up the first half of the Bible better than Richard Dawkins in his superb book The God Delusion.

Why Do I Dislike Religion? Part Two

Continued from previous post.

I could go on at book length (like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins) about the childish and pernicious beliefs and practices of religion. But I’m going to concentrate on what I think are two of the most egregious failures of religion – Hell and sex.

Why Do I Dislike Religion?

Before anything, I’d just like to point out the difference between disliking an idea and disliking people. I think hating someone for what they ARE is despicable and wrong.

First Blog Post – Hello Internet

Hello Internet. Is there anyone out there?