Faith schools, huh, what are they good for... absolutely nothing

It is common in Europe to look at America and Islamic countries and see them as two sides of the same fundamentalist coin. It is all too easy to laugh at the general ignorance regularly on display and the stupid things commonly said and done in the name of "faith" in these cultures.

For example

- The homosexual, drug taking, money obsessed preachers that seem to litter the mid-west
- The paedophile Catholic priests and the countless cover ups around them
- The stoning of rape victims in backward and primitive Islamic societies
- The life threatening misnaming of teddy bears
- Banning of books and WEB sites
- The denial of realities as shown by modern science
- The indoctrination and teaching of lies to children (see below)

However a recent story on the BBC reminded me rather sharply that the cancerous meme of "faith" is also well established and strong here in the UK, ever creeping outwards, promoting hate and trying to undo the enlightenment, dragging us back to the dark ages.

Take a look at this video; it really made me angry.



Thank goodness for Jeremy Paxman, people may feel uncomfortable with his forthright style but at least he stands up to racist morons like this. Most of all, shame, utter shame on our Government for the slimy, money grabbing double standards that allow obscenities like this school to exist.

Close the lot of them IMO, outlaw the indoctrination of children and consign this idiocy to where it belongs, in the past.

Ding, Ding, all aboard the Atheist bus!

I am so pleased this project has come to fruition; after several false starts we will finally see Atheist inspired advertising on London buses. The BHA put out an appeal through their WEB site to raise £5,500 to place an ad on the side of 30 London buses for 4 weeks, generously Richard Dawkins has offered to match what is raised up to £5,500 with an equal donation, however they reached their goal within an hour and have since blasted through to a staggering total in excess (at time of writing) of £100,000 which is simply fantastic.

For those who can't read the small text in the picture the message reads "There's probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life."; The word "probably" was only put there to avoid "offending" religious types, personally I would have put something stronger there, but hey we have to start somewhere, and the response to this first effort has been quite superb!

You can read the full story here and you can donate to the project here.

Hopefully there is someone over at the BHA who now has significantly bigger plans to spread the good news to Londoners and visiting American tourists (especially the fundies); In following Atheist blogs based in the US it is somewhat satisfying to note a rather rare tone of envy amongst the US “brothers”, some witty soul noted that if this ever happened in the USA the government wouldn’t be able to afford the bill for all the burnt-out buses, never a truer word etc.

I now have a new personal objective, ride an “atheist” bus, has to be done!

New Metallica

I had a birthday recently, one of the gifts I received was the new Metallica album (Death Magnetic)
Metallica isn't a band I've really followed over the years, but I must say I really like this new release, heavy metal for grown ups would be a fair summary IMO. Great riffs, intelligent lyrics, powerful presentation and production.

I've been playing it to death recently, it's my favourite "coding sound track" for the time being. Best tracks are "all nightmare long", "The end of the line" and "The Judas kiss" although there really isn't a turkey amongst them.

Recommended!

Quentin Letts, does anyone take you seriously?

I spotted this rather infantile article recently here ;

It looks to me like the Daily Mail are plumbing the depths yet again, looking for a reaction, adding no value, contributing to the very thing they are supposedly exposing. They should run a poll, "would the UK be better off without the Daily Mail?", but I doubt they would have the guts. The subject of this piece was "The 50 people who wrecked Britain" which alarmingly represented an extract from a book of a similar title (I can't imagine how boring that must be!) the irony and arrogance on display were Jeremy Clarkson'esc enough for me to think that this must be parody, but depressingly it was not.

At number 25 we have Kenneth Clark, for apparently outlawing dangerous dog breeds, apparently Mr Letts thinks that this is a "bad" thing, ironically in the side bar of the very same page of the WEB site is a story about an 18 month old baby being bitten and dragged along the street by an escaped bull terrier named "asbo" by his moronic owner.

In the lead in to the article itself we have the following statement, "We all have our own little list of them - the fools, knaves and vulgarians who have helped dumb down Britain and promote the trite and the tawdry in national life." then at number 30 we have the Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins. Now in what way is the holder of the chair for the public understanding of science at Oxford, best selling science author and acknowledged leader in his field responsible for "dumbing down" anything? On further inspection it would seem that Mr Letts objects to Dawkins Atheism, apparently Mr Letts is arguing that people are better off living in a world of superstition, lies or false promises rather than in what the rest of us like to call "reality". Of course I doubt is Mr Letts actually believes the fairy tales himself, probably far to "sophisticated", but perish the thought that anyone should steal the fantasy from the huddled masses that he stands astride.

At number 28 there is even a weather announcer; wrecking Britain?, what on earth is this numpty prattling on about, I think Mr Letts needs to get his head out of his rear end and look a little closer to home to find the answer to his question.