The ABC of apologetics

You have to hand it to those religious folks; they really know how to suck up to each other.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been up to his usual tactic of divide and conquer once again, one wonders why Muslims would publicise such an obvious mutual masturbation session but then I suppose that good news is scarce in some camps these days.

I'm referring to an article that appeared in the "Muslim News" last Friday that outlines an interview with the ABC in which there appears some cracking new one liners for us atheists to ponder, no really, we are seriously plumbing new depths of irony here, in fact I would go as far as to say this is Olympic standard. You can read the full article here, but for expediency let me relay a couple of my favourites,

"I think Islam has made a very significant contribution to getting a debate about religion into public life" - Well, yes you could say that, honour killings, 9/11, Iraq, Danish cartoons, tube bombing, book burnings, beheading, flag burning, indoctrination, state-sponsored terrorism and to top it all the thing with the teddy bear – yes sir, you can't deny that the "debate" is well and truly in all our faces now!

"We can't really be human unless we have a relationship with God" - Just peachy, I think I'll be a teapot now then, what an idiotic thing to say!

On the current economic crisis, "I would blame all of us for having repeatedly voted for governments since the 1980's that have pushed for growth that doesn't always deal with poverty" - So this is some kind of punishment then? Silly me I thought it was caused by a bunch of greedy Americans who borrowed to much money to buy material possessions that they couldn't really afford (80% Christian) and a bunch of Europeans who lapped up without question the collateralised debt that the canny Americans conned them into buying (60% Christian)

Roll on separation of church and state in this country, we need it now more than ever.

Should Turkey be allowed into the EU?

Read of this and then think about it again, is this the kind of culture that will be compatible with ours - what could possibly go wrong.

Santino is my hero

Imagine being restrained in a small prison yard all day with nothing to do except pace until being locked up in a tiny cell at night, imagine living like this for years on end; to compound your misery, imagine having endless streams of uncomprehending jailers passing by every day shouting, gawking and taunting you, imagine suffering all this and having done absolutely nothing wrong, what would you do?

You may be asking yourself where this injustice is going on, is it Burma perhaps or Tibet , maybe Saudi-Arabia, no, must be a woeful tale from "Camp Justice" then; but you would be wrong on all counts, this is happening in one of the richest and most socially advanced societies in the world, Sweden, where the social care system for its inhabitants is second to none.

Santino (our hero) did not take his captivity lying down however, showing true grit and determination he carefully planned coordinated attacks on his captors, pelting them with stones and rocks from little stock-piles that he had accumulated in advance, he memorised their patrols and was ready for them delivering a hail of spite and defiance at every opportunity. He even devised a system for sonically testing the concrete walls of his cell to determine areas of frost damage and therefore future supplies of ammunition.

Santino is tough, Santino is a survivor and Santino is a chimpanzee.

Separated from us by just a tiny fraction of the molecules in his DNA, he shows us that our much vaunted (supposedly unique) human intellectual abilities of forward planning and rational thinking are nothing more than speculative arrogance on our part.

In a somewhat draconian, but I guess predictable, turn of events Santino's human keepers decided to cut his balls off to "calm him down", apparently he's much "better" now.

[Cue Scooby doo wavy screen effect] I imagine that our ancestors wondering the Pleistocene
grass lands would have understood Santino, driven by fear and anger they too found innovative solutions to their problems, lucky for us that they did it first.

For the full story see here