The Meaning of Life? - It’s Right Here!

Welcome again, gentle reader! This post might take a little longer than I’d like, so please bear with me. Rest assured, this has nothing to do with my ability as a writer and everything to do with your ability as a reader. To this end, I’ll try not to use too many big words, as I appreciate this can be somewhat incommodious and cumbersome. If there’s any part of this article that you don’t agree with, feel free to email me evanescentisneverwrong@mac.com. Thanks.

There must be something worth living for.

There must be something worth trying for.

Even some things worth dying for.

So go the words of Beth from Jeff Wayne’s musical version of the War of the Worlds. Granted, some of our real life problems actually feel worse than being invaded by Martians, especially to those who live in Manchester. Big, ugly, slimy beasts with lipless slathering mouths and writhing tentacles, Mancunians do have hard lives – but that’s not the point.

I was in the pub the other night, drinking with friends. A pint of Guinness, thanks for asking. Yes, yes it was nice. Thick, dark, and with a rather large head, the bartender is known for serving a good pint. Towards the end of the evening one of my friends (after I’d paid them extra for staying a little longer) despondently mused “is this all there is to life?” His point was basically along the lines of: if I die, and I’ve contributed nothing, and left nothing, does it really make a difference whether I was alive or not? I should point out that although he might have held this opinion, I believe he was playing Devil’s Advocate somewhat, and saying that even if you or I are optimistic, some people would have every right to feel that way.

Is he right? Is life pointless since it is undoubtedly the end?

Before I answer that, let me give my reason for why many people can and do feel this way – as I was once one of them. I may be wrong, but I’m not. What I’m about to say will get a little philosophical, so if you’re under 12 / not very intelligent / a fan of reality TV, feel free to close this window and get back to watching Big Brother repeats or TabooSexStories.com (page 20 is a good one). Actually, that’s a bit harsh of me, since if you’re a fan of reality TV shows you’re automatically either one of the other two options anyway.

Morality. Morality is a branch of philosophy that attempts to deal with the questions: “how should I live my life? What is good for my life and what is harmful?” Unfortunately, philosophy in general today is in terrible hands, because the “intellectuals” who teach it are riddled with perverse anti-rational anti-human anti-moral contradictory notions. I’m not going to go further into this here, but as an example, how many times do you hear the experts tell us that we cannot know anything; that reality is subjective; that man can never achieve certainty?

Getting back to morality: society in general (as a result of famous philosophers and especially religion) holds one thing as its standard. What I mean is, the measure by which an action is considered virtuous and noble. That standard is: sacrifice. It is the belief that the more an action is directed towards others, and the less it is directly for personal selfish benefit, the more moral it is. The more you serve and live for others, the better a person you are – so says society in general. This is because the underlying philosophy on which this morality is based is the following: your life is NOT an end to itself. Your life has no purpose, and has no meaning, and cannot be given one by yourself. Therefore, the only reasonable worthwhile thing to do is live for others; give up what you have; sacrifice for the good of others; create a legacy, make the world a better place; disown yourself.

I’m not saying ignore others, and don’t better the world, and don’t help people, and don’t be kind and generous – the difference is this: one morality tells you to act with OTHERS as the primary beneficiaries of your life. The other tells you to act with YOURSELF as the primary beneficiary of your life, your actions, your choices.

Humans can die. We are mortal beings. In order to live, not just as animals do from one moment to the next, seizing whatever meal comes along and never planning ahead, you must realise that there are things that are of objective value to your life as a human being. It is precisely because you are mortal that things can make a difference in your life. It is your mortality that gives rise to values – and a value is that which one acts to keep or gain. It is only because the possibility of death is present, that you MUST constantly act in accordance with the antithesis – life. And whether you like it or not there is no alternative here. You are either moving toward life or moving toward death. Life is a constant process of self-generated action. Even if you stand still, you move toward death.

Inasmuch as you choose, implicitly or explicitly, to live – you must discover those values that your life as a human being, as a rational being, needs. But, this would require a morality that tells you to act in accordance with those values – to NOT sacrifice them. But whose values? YOURS!

Those who ask the question: “what does it matter what I do if I just die?” have already conceded the argument – they have already given up their morality. Those who say that your life is not an end to itself, that you have no right to live, that the best thing you can do is give your life to the service of others (like a man on a street returning a wallet that didn’t belong to him) – they have already won. They believe that life is pointless because their lives have no point. They believe life has no meaning because their lives have none. They teach that only having kids is the answer, only giving all your money to charity is the answer, only spending your life in the service of others is the answer, living like a priest and walking to work and never polluting the air is the answer, doing something that “makes a difference” is the answer. Notice the premise they have smuggled in? “Make a difference” – to whom? “What does it matter” – but to whom? “Mortal life is pointless” – to whom? The premise they have smuggled in below your radar is this: other people are the standard for right and wrong. Other people can judge your life as a success or not, even after you’re dead. And no matter how you live your life, you are forever striving after the ethereal recognition, the approval, of others.

This, is the “morality” that you need to reject. This is the subjective capricious code of “ethics” that takes other people as the standard – which also goes by the seemingly harmless and benevolent expression “altruism”. Which people? Doesn’t matter – just others, and the more the better. Until this backward evil premise is rejected, people who ask the questions we began with will never understand how life can have meaning, because they are looking for OTHER people to give it to them.

The moral person knows that their life is an end to itself. That the admiration and consent of other people does not equal morality. That giving away your values is not the key to happiness but the destruction of it. That your life is not the means to the end of others. That your life belongs to you and no one else. That we are not just the product of an evolutionary process that implies: be born, procreate, die. That the highest moral purpose you can pursue is not the happiness of others, but the happiness of yourself.

But it takes a break from convention and an objective rational philosophy to ground one’s morality on these foundations – the exact sort of “radical” unconventional thinking that society today denounces.

Rather than being the “me me me” attitude that this may appear, it is actually the only proper way to live your life. By acting with your life as the ultimate value, you will take care of all the other values that make it possible: your health, your money, your family, your friends, your lover, your music, your car, your holidays, your books, your hobbies, your pets. These values you must discover for yourself – and they are selfish. Selfish, and good. And don’t let anyone tell you differently.

That is why the question: “if we’re just going to die, what does it matter?” can be seen for how vacuous it is. For a start, “what does it matter?” – well, my life matters to me! And it matters to those people I value and those who value me. The rest, I’m not too bothered about!

There is only one way to live – to value your life and act accordingly, and that is how to achieve happiness. If you don’t choose to pursue happiness, you are not choosing to pursue your values. And since values have their ultimate goal in life – the rejection of values, of the pursuit of happiness, has only one other goal: death. If you can’t see the point in being happy, you might as well kill yourself now, otherwise you’re living a contradiction. If you live, pursue happiness. It’s your right. In fact, there is no other purpose in life.

My 40k

The hit count on my blog has just smashed through the 40,000 barrier in just under 12 months, and although I’ve not researched this properly, I’m pretty sure that makes it the best blog ever written, ever.

Here are some not so interesting facts about the number 40,000:

It comes after the number 39,999

There is a game called Warhammer 40,000

A man took 40000 ecstasy tabs in a nine year span

It comes before the number 40,001

40,000 is a round number

Asteroid 40000 has the provisional designation 1998 HZ87 and was discovered on April 21^st 1998 in Socorro

40,000 is the only number to end with four zeros and start with one four

A footprint of early humans found in Mexico was 40,000 years old

40,000+ is the visitor count of popular, intelligent, and witty writer Evanescent

 

I originally posted my blog on MySpace as a way to rant incoherently about football and everyday things that pissed me off in an attempt to look cleverer than I was. That’s not me anymore – I’ve stopped writing about football.

I’ve moved from just “atheist” to “humanist” to “anti-theist”, before discovering Ayn Rand, and I proudly identify myself as an Objectivist now. Not only has this been of great personal benefit to me, I think it gave my blog a whole new lease of life. I’ve also had the dubious pleasure of having many political and ethical debates as a result.

I haven’t posted much recently as nothing has moved me to write an in-depth article, and I’m also drafting a perennially-planned work of fiction. I’ll release more information about this in the coming months. Needless to say this will make me rich and famous, but I won’t forget you my readers, the little people, for putting me where I am.

The 25 Most Inappropriate Things An Objectivist Can Say During Sex

I was sent this recently and found it quite amusing so thought I’d present it here! I don’t know who the original author is, but if anyone knows feel free to comment. The last one is my favourite! (Edited to add: here is the source of the article: http://savethehumans.com/instantgrat/thelist/objectivist_sex/index.shtml )

1. “Before we continue, there’s something I have to ask you. Will you still accept the axiom that existence exists tomorrow?”

2. “I appreciate the thought, but I consider it an act of self sacrifice for you to swallow.”

3. “I believe in the complete separation of the left leg from the right.”

4. “Now that’s what I call standing up for what you believe in.”

5. “Emotions are the mind’s near-instantaneous evaluation of a perceived fact or idea as either good or bad for the individual. Hence, my wet panties.

6. “You sure smell better down here than the collectivists I’ve slept with.”

7. “To say ‘F*ck me harder’ one must first know how to say the ‘me’.”

8. “No, I don’t always object to you sticking your finger there. But that’s a borderline case.”

9. “So dear, shall it be the steel magnate position tonight, or the A is A? Oh, damn, we’re all out of Cool Whip. So much for the A is A.”

10. “I haven’t had this much fun since I rejected the concept of God.”

11. “There’s no such thing as a collective orgasm. But let’s try our best.”

12. “Would you like me to concretize that for you?”

13. “Contradictions do not exist. You can’t insert it there and there at the same time. Wait a second. Open up the top drawer of my nightstand.”

14. “Good for you, you finally found my G-spot. Score one for goal-directed action.”

15. “No, you’re not my first. But you are the first man whose penis has made me understand the role of measurement omission in the act of concept formation.”

16. “Don’t you have any Tchaikovsky? Rachmaninoff is fine for 69s, but nothing beats Tchaikovsky when it comes to anal.”

17. “What do you mean, it’s ‘possible’ that you had an orgasm? Are you saying that you have some evidence that you had an orgasm, but not sufficient evidence?”

18. “No, I don’t need Viagra. It’s this damn non-objective pornography.”

19. “You feel warm and fuzzy? Check your premises.”

20. “It’s time for me to teach you the difference between Platonic love and Aristotelian love.”

21. “You selfish bitch! You greedy, selfish bitch! What? You don’t like my pillow talk?”

22. “It doesn’t really matter whether I come or not. I believe that man’s tongue is an end in itself.”

23. “Don’t construe my liking that as an instance of the sanction of the victim. Now excuse me while I wipe off my face.”

24. “There’s nothing like grasping the objectivity of values. And what values they are.”

25. “John? Who is John?!”

 

The Evolution Meme Has Got Me!

Well, I’ve been tagged. And they say atheists never have any fun.

The evolution meme has got me, so the idea is I have to cite 5 posts of mine that demonstrate the evolution of my blog.

1.   My very first post: My Gloat. I originally started posting on MySpace and the blog was just going to consist of anything I felt like ranting about. It was intended to be mainly light-hearted. As you can see, it is purely about football (American readers, read: soccer. Don’t get me wrong America, I think you’ve got a great nation but your bastardisation of the English language is hideous. You’ve got as much respect for pronunciation as Scientology has got for a pauper .)

 

2.   My Job Offer to Creationists (I’m not counting that!) was a semi-humorous illustration of how absurd creationism is. I was still trying to keep a jocular nature to my blog but this was also something I felt strongly about and I felt I made my points very well without getting too serious. This trend of moving away from piss-taking and swearing, towards serious issues would continue: A post that I had intended to write for many years was my de-conversion story. I was invited to do so by Ebonmuse after I discovered his brilliant website soon after I de-converted. There are many sources I have to thank for my illumination and inspiration to write, Ebonmuse is one of them. This was an article that would have to be personal, intense, detailed, and ultimately incredibly optimistic, but also show the dark spell I went through where I was very much suicidal. This article was My Fall From Grace. It became easily my most-read article to date (it has since been overtaken by others.) This article was probably a turning point in my blog. My traffic boomed ever since and with so many regular readers I felt a responsibility to leave out the trivial and personal. What I mean is, talking about my day or personal hobbies was out of the question. If people were going to give serious time to read what I had to say, I knew I should provide good material and with an element of professionalism.

 

3.   My Evanescence was a lovely title for an article if I do so myself. For one, it continued the nomenclature I had adopted (from Scrubs) for starting nearly all my articles with the word “My”, and also tied in nicely with the title of my blog itself! Two, Evanescence is a beautiful poetic word and it described perfectly the idea I wanted to convey: the transient and ephemeral nature of human life. Rather than be a depressing thought, this can be powerfully incentivising. There is no time to waste! Our lives are so short, so fleeting, that no day should be wasted! Instead of just ranting or destroying religion, I know I needed to include more humanist themes in my blog, and this was a progression in that direction.

 

4.   Why Do I Bother? doesn’t start with “My”. This is a trend that continues; if it sounds right so be it, but I decided not to detract from an otherwise good title by forcing “My” for effect. This is a serious semi-angry diatribe about religion and the harm it causes. More importantly though, it’s directed to ignorant fence-sitters or the politically-correct who are afraid to put their money where their mouth is and speak up, or even worse those who think the topic is boring (prompted by a silly comment I received telling me to stop posting long boring articles about religion). It is impassioned and forceful, and something I couldn’t have written when I first started.

 

5.   Criticising religion and faith, and promoting critical thinking and rationalism will always be primary aims of my blog. But how to capture the other end of the scale, the joy of rational thinking; the liberation of atheism; the beauty of humanity? Inspired by the great man (who I’ve met) Richard Dawkins, I wanted to express mankind’s place in the scale and timeframe of the vast universe. I wanted to write something as fascinating and fun to read as some of Dawkins’ work, and doing the research for it myself was very enjoyable. I also wanted it to show a greater move towards humanism on my blog. It’s all well and good destroying faith and teaching people to think logically, but what about hope? What about meaning to life and purpose? Humanism does help here, and I hope For the One Life We Have illustrates how we should all see things; as they really are. But rather than be a cause for concern, we should be inspired to make the most of our lives, those of the people we love, and those of the human race itself.

The 5 posts I’ve listed hopefully show the evolution of my blog: from capricious irrelevant joking to semi-serious rants, to de-conversion stories and impassioned attacks on religion, to explaining what atheism and humanism really means, to the real meaning to life and hope we all have.

My blog is not monolithic and the topics will always vary, as will the tone. But I hope now my blog has evolved to a point where I can capture all the moods of what has gone before and where I’ve arrived at; something that comes with experience, well-received praise and criticism, and regular readers without whom of course, no blog would exist.

I tag:

Scientia Natura

Cogita Tute

A Veritable Plethora

Leitmotif

Pink Prozac

‘Can the rest of us have our planet back?’ by Marcus Brigstocke

I found this here:

‘Reposted from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/nowshow.shtml
and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/shows/rpms/radio4/nowshow.ram

Stand-up comedian Marcus Brigstocke delivered a seven-minute rant during this evening’s Now Show on BBC Radio 4, on the evils of religion (I think he’s been reading The God Delusion).’

Perhaps humour is the best way to expose this nonsense for what it is and win the average good-hearted religious person over!

This video is brilliant, but it has some real gems. Drop me a comment and let me know what your favourite part is.

My Big 5 Digits

Very recently, I achieved 10,000 hits on my blog.

I didn’t write anything to mark the occasion initially because I try to space out my posts to give as much time as possible for my followers to study and meditate on the last one. I’d rather take longer on posts and receive worship feedback and discuss each issue, than just be prolific.

I started this blog back on Myspace as a way to rant over things I felt seriously about. As it became more popular though, I was encouraged by a protégé of mine to use WordPress for my blog. I did, and although the uptake was slow, the blog has really taken off in the last few months, with particular incoming traffic arriving from online Carnivals, fellow bloggers, or search engines. It’s only a matter of time before the Church of Evanescence achieves tax-exempt status (the coming-of-age celebration for any religion), but when that happens, rest assured I will still post articles (just from the comfort of a laptop on my private jet).

As a result of the increase in traffic and feedback, I’ve felt a responsibility to reduce the rants and language, and increase my seriousness and ‘professionalism’, if that’s the right word.

It is a time-consuming endeavour to research and write new articles about three times a week, but it is gratifying to receive comments and feedback, and that makes it worthwhile. After all, if I was just going to churn out regurgitated bilge three times a week to bore everyone, I’d have just named my blog “The Watchtower”.

Not all the feedback has been positive, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve had people praising me, disagreeing with me, making me pull my hair out (you know who you are!), or even calling my blog boring and uninspiring.

It’s not about who agrees with me or not though. What matters is that everyone who’s ever criticised my blog will be tracked down and killed by the Elite Guard of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy. Yes, that means you! We know who you are. Or did you think you could challenge the great Atheist Lie without consequence?!

In an unabashed act of vanity, I’d like to mention some disciples of the Church of Evanescence (the greatest atheist religion in the whole of the EAC, and if you don’t agree you will be torn apart by she-bears). This is my way of giving something back to the little people who will be joining me in the Afterlife of Lesbos, after we drink of the magical elixir known as Dom Est Os:

Spanish Inquisitor ; Darren; Pink Prozac; Cragar; Joe; januarys; polishpress; Geno; D; Jon Featherstone

(I should add now that anyone who comments on my blog is an automatic member of the Church of Evanescence, and indeed the EAC.)

Also, a special thank you to my left-hand-man and Principle Kitten Executioner, Tobe. Proving once and for all that those who drink baby’s blood aren’t all big softies, Tobe’s pedantic proof-reading and grammar correction is a constant source of nightmares, and the most likely cause of a nervous twitch I’ve developed where I blurt out: “it’s ‘I’ve gotten sugar’, not fucking ‘got’!!”, at random intervals in the day. This can be most unfortunate when you’re making your boss a cup of coffee.

Finally, a special thank you to the person who makes all things possible: Satan. Without you, we’d still be living in a paradise, surrounded by beautiful naked women who never age and have no knowledge of right and wrong. You bastard!

My Cliché Diatribe

Believe it or not, there are some things that aggravate me in the entertainment world. Two of these are clichés and a lack of irony. Now, I’m not going to tar all cliché-users with the same brush, but I’m not going to pull any punches either, and when it comes to rubbing me up the wrong way and getting on my wick, cliché-exponents are in a league of their own, and I admit I do have an axe to grind.

Commentators and journalists are the worst of a bad bunch. Just when you want someone to step up the plate and give it 110%, this group end up with their intellectual tail between their legs. Those who write for a living are supposedly at the cutting edge of journalism, yet just reading what the average critic has to say is about as fun as playing hide-and-seek in a corridor. One wishes that they’d think outside the box every once in a while.

When I talk about clichés in almost every media form, I’m talking about the whole nine yards; movies, newspapers, sports, radio, and everyday speech. To be fair, a lot of people just wear their heart on their sleeve, and say it like-it-is, but that doesn’t mean it’s not lazy! Even the average blogger feels the need to launch into a tirade and talk in expired clichés until the cows come home. Movies these days too, are like a diamond in the rough if they don’t actually have an ending you’ve worked out by the middle of the film. Some might say that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, but personally when it comes to Hollywood, I’d rather stick with what I don’t know! Sadly, a leopard can’t change its spots and perhaps we shouldn’t expect better from a lazy overpaid community of plagiarists.

At the end of the day though, the cliché is a convenient way to speak so perhaps we can agree to disagree. Let’s face it, when the shit hits the fan and we’re groping in the dark, it’s often more efficient to just let the words do the talking, than be at sixes and sevens scratching our heads, lost for words, and incomprehensible ranting like we’ve got a bee in our bonnets.

I still feel like a fish out of water though whenever I’m forced to endure the latest “pop music” offering, “blockbuster” movie, or sporting rhetoric from commentators. Some might say I’m barking up the wrong tree, but with these “experts” who seem incapable of saying anything original, I feel it’s a case of the blind leading the blind in a vicious circle (but perhaps it’s just jobs for the boys). One hates to put the cart before the horse but let’s call a spade and spade and admit that all is not what it seems in the media world. The critics will say I’m cutting my nose off to spite my face, but I’m just playing devil’s advocate. Ok I admit my anti-clicheism is but a drop in the ocean and my harangue a mere flash in the pan, but I must fight the good fight and say what needs to be said, because the alternative is a fate worse than death. Every cloud has a silver lining however, and for all the formulaic contrived garbage that the mass media dreams up, they do put bums on seats, so perhaps I should forgive and forget.

But I see the modern languid engine of journalism and entertainment on its last legs and living on borrowed time. The writing is on the wall and soon it will give up the ghost, and how then the mighty will have fallen! Even then I’m not saying it’ll all be hunky-dory but a cliché-free life would be an entirely different kettle of fish. That may be a knee-jerk reaction, but I’m not going to pass the buck. Instead I’ll nail my colours to the mast even if I am preaching to the choir or even if it does throw a spanner in the works. I think it’s important to be original and we as consumers should demand nothing less once in a blue moon! But asking a newspaper, commentator, or movie, to avoid its staple of rote clichés is like trying to get blood from a stone.

Even if you don’t agree with everything I’ve said about clichés and irony, I hope you can read between the lines, even if I did seem to run out of steam near the end, this article might have seemed more like sour grapes than a shot in the dark – please take what I’ve said with a pinch of salt and don’t dwell too much on it! After all, tomorrow is another day.

My Random List of Annoying Things!

Here are some random things that bug me.

The phrase “An hour or two”

…or “a week or two”, or “10 minutes, maybe 20”. I hate it when people say this because what they’re really saying is “it’ll be about this long, or twice that!” What the fuck?! If I ask when the train comes and someone says “an hour, give or take 10 mins” I can live with that. But if they say “an hour or two” they’re really saying “60 minutes, or 120 minutes”. So which is it??

You see it on TV when the doctor says “he’s got a week left, maybe two.” Let me get this right: this guy is dying and he might hang on for 7 days…or maybe 14?! Way to narrow down the timeframe! Wankers.

“…as far as we know!”

Ah the favourite retort of the True Believer. You often hear people (especially theists) say this in answer to you saying something like “as far as we know life evolved”. And they’ll smile and very wittingly reply “ah, as far as we know!” Well, yes, what’s your point?? If you jump off a cliff you’ll fall, as far as we know! The earth goes around the sun, as far as we know. George Bush is human, as far as we know. (Ok bad example.)

It’s called “know” for a reason! Or do you have another word you’d like to use instead? (Perhaps believe?? It’s easy to get those two mixed up if you’re a Believer).

I think you should be allowed to punch anyone who says this, and when they say “that hurt” you should reply “as far as you know it does”.

Fahrenheit

I’m sorry what year do we live in? Does anyone seriously use Fahrenheit for anything anymore?? It pisses me off whenever a temperature is announced (like the Weather) and the presenter as an aside tells us what the equivalent is in degrees F. Why not give us it in Kelvin too whilst you’re at it, or say it in Welsh, just to fill the programme with as much useless information as possible?

It’s like when people say “oh it’s so hot out there, it’s over 100 degrees!” I just look at them with disgust and say “hmmm, shouldn’t we all be dead then??” After a few seconds of vacant retardation it’ll dawn on them what I mean and they’ll chuckle and say “ooh no ha, I meant Fahrenheit!” No shit Captain Caveman, why don’t you dance around a Totem pole to take the sun away then.

Ringtones and people who let them ring

Wow, you’ve got the James Bond theme song as your ring tone. Brilliant. I probably could have guessed that after the first 10 seconds you let it ring. The pseudo-rummaging around in your one-pocket jacket to find it was almost as embarrassing as the fact you think people really care!

I swear people really do this. They let the phone ring as long as absolutely possible so everyone can hear the tone, or hear that they’re so popular they’ve got different ringtones for different friends. I just think it’s embarrassing. (Not as embarrassing as that time I played hop-scotch with Heather Mills-McCartney though.)

People who show you pictures of their kids

I don’t have any kids (that I know of), so maybe I’m just missing something. But what is it with people who feel the need to show off their children in person or photographs to you?? I’m in the middle of eating or something, and all of a sudden this baby pic gets thrust in my face. ‘Thanks for ruining my lunch, let me put it down and pretend to say something complimentary.’

Fortunately, I’ve discovered a counter-measure: next time someone shows you a picture of their kids, just make a noise like “mmmm” and gently stroke the photograph. I promise you they’ll never do it again.

Hollywood

Overpaid parasites; overrated “actors”; shitty storylines; one tired lazy cliché after another; one plagiarised script or comic-book remake after another. It’s all crap. We should all stop going the cinema and buying DVDs until the Film Industry pulls it fat self-fellating finger out and makes something worth watching for a change.

Radio

Jingles; more commercials than actual music; the same songs repeated 6 times a day; the same songs played at the same time every day; every DJ trying to be “your pal on the airwaves” or the next Howard Stern. Take your pick!

When every song that’s only halfway through isn’t being interrupted or cut off, an advert is on; “Welcome to Advert FM! We’ll be right back with the commercials after the first minute of this U2 song!” Cutting off songs pisses me off almost as much as repeating them every hour: why pretend you’re there to play music at all?!

The only thing I’ve found more offensive than listening to radio is that time I had to write an essay on the Counts of Old France without using the letter “o”.

Americans who think America is a Christian nation

These people pride themselves on being patriotic to the core. So patriotic in fact, that they haven’t heard of a little thing called the Treaty of Tripoli:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen…”

The United States was founded as a secular government. The founding fathers would probably cringe if they saw what Christian zealots had done and try to do to the liberal free-thinking republic that they founded.

“In god we trust” was added to American currency. Why didn’t the founding fathers think of this themselves?? Could it be because they saw properly that in a secular government the state is independent of a particular religion’s beliefs?? Why was “under god” added to the Pledge of Allegiance, effectively forcing Americans to pledge loyalty to a god they might not even believe in at the same time they were pledging allegiance to their country?? Why didn’t the Fathers come up with this originally themselves??

Could it be because Christian fundamentalists have corrupted what should be the greatest nation and government on earth? American Christians aren’t patriots. They’re fundamentalists. They don’t care what country they’re in, as long as they get their way. When the US added “In God we Trust” to their currency, they might as well have broken out the original manuscript of the Constitution and wiped their arses with it.

Calling America a ‘Christian nation’ is a cowardly perverse despicable lie.

Politics and Religion, according to Pat Condell

I much prefer to post my own original, witty, and intelligent material on here, but for this article I’m going to leave the floor open to a brilliant comedian who I respect a lot. Many of you might have already heard of him, and I’ve plugged him several times. He wasn’t happy about this, so I just decided to publicise him instead. This is Pat Condell’s latest video. After viewing it, please visit his website and check out his other vids.

My Eight Random Facts

Son of a bitch!

I’ve been tagged, apparently, or whatever you crazy kids are calling it these days.

Here are the rules:

* We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

* People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

* At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

* Don’t forget to leave them each a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Fine! (Perhaps this will get rid of all the e-mails I get from nymphomaniac young ladies with a fetish for schoolgirl outfits, asking to know more about me); here are my 8 random facts:

1. I despise insects. If there was one compelling argument against the existence of god, it would be the existence of insects. I’d say all insects can take a run and jump, but that’s not much of a threat since most of the bastards can fly. I’d say all insects can buzz off, but it doesn’t sound so effective for nature’s miniature vibrators. The only insect I like is the hoverfly. The hoverfly doesn’t buzz, doesn’t come into your house, and is basically inoffensive and minds its own business. Compare the hoverfly to the twat of all insects: the wasp. If the Genesis account was truly accurate, Satan wouldn’t have chosen the form of a snake, he’d have chosen a wasp: ugly, poisonous, and scary.

 

Not harming anyone.

Twat.

2. I hate R&B and hip-hop music. It’s monotonous, boring, talentless drivel for people who can’t sing properly, write music, or play an instrument. It appeals to the pretentious “tough crowd”, gangster wannabes, or teenage kids who think it’s trendy and hip. Whenever I go to a club that plays this sort of garbage I just see lots of white kids wishing they were black and jerking their heads and hands around like a robot with attention-deficit disorder. I can’t imagine anyone enjoying constant two-tone repetition to the sound of what can only be described as a cross between a chicken being slowly gutted and a car alarm going off in the background. Get an electronic keyboard, press the Demo button and release that as a chart single; seriously, it actually sounds better! If I was given the choice between being forced to listen to “hip-hop/rap etc” or being hit by an articulated lorry on the motorway…

Plan A

Plan B

3. Despite being a fan of Liverpool FC, the very first football match I ever watched was actually Manchester United vs Crystal Palace in the 1990 FA Cup Final! Fortunately, no one will ever find out about this! The night Liverpool won the European Cup in May 2005 is arguable the single greatest night of my life: it was the perfect sporting final, and meant so much to Liverpool fans.

4. My favourite sitcoms of all time are SCRUBS, ‘Yes, Prime Minister’, FRIENDS, Spaced, and Family Guy. I’m a fan of some incarnations of Star Trek; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Angel; and Prison Break was fantastic. But in my opinion the best TV show of all time is 24.

5. Although I hated school and wouldn’t want to relive it, everything that has happened since, mostly for the better, all the positive experiences I’ve had; the amazing friends I’ve met; my de-conversion…can all be traced back to the pool table we had in our 6^th-form common room (seriously!), which quite literally changed my life! The realisation of how tiny events swing our future tangentially is very humbling.

6. My earliest memory is waking up in a cot in a hired cottage in the Lake District. My dad and older brother were either side of me. I remember waking up misty-eyed and looking forward through the house. I distinctly remember being self-aware for the first time!; I must have been 2 or 3 years old.

7. I own three computers! A gaming laptop, an iMac, and a Dell XPS desktop. I never planned to own 3 machines but it kinda worked out that way. Now I use the laptop for portability and travelling. I used the iMac exclusively for everything else until I realised I couldn’t play any games on it or run high-end software that isn’t Mac compatible. So now a corner of this room looks like a scene from Swordfish or 24! Certain people think this makes me geeky. Personally, I think it makes me look important!

8. My favourite band is U2; many of their songs are in my top 20 of all time (such as With or Without You, One, Angel of Harlem). Also in there would be Pink Floyd with Comfortably Numb; Joshua Radin with Winter; Oasis with Whatever, REM with Find the River, and Tsar with The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die. (Good luck finding that last song unless you buy the album, but if you do find it you won’t regret it.)

 

I tag:

Pink Prozac

A Veritable Plethora

Speaking Freely

Deep Thoughts – the atheist blogroll

Friendly Atheist

More Fire

Blue Linchpin

Daylight Atheism

My Creation Account - Episode III: Revenge of the Seth

Adam now gets laid.  Eve conceives the first of many male births in the bible.  For some reason, god doesn’t think the female births are that important to mention.

They also have another child.  (Another son, surprisingly enough).  The firstborn is called Cain and the second son is called Abel.

Cain brings an offering to god; fruit of the ground.  But Abel brings slaughtered animals and fat offerings to god.  Guess which one god preferred?  Yup, the latter.  Cain is pissed off with this, and I don’t blame him.  God simply says that Cain didn’t do well enough and must try harder.  He doesn’t go onto explain why he prefers dead animals so much, but there you go.

Angry with this state of affairs, Cain kills Abel, (as you do when your brother gives a better gift than you.  How many Christmases were ruined in this family?!)

God goes through one of his senile phases again and can’t seem to find what he’s looking for.  “Where is Abel?” god asks Cain.  Cain sarcastically replies “am I my brother’s keeper??”  Brilliant.

God realises that Abel has been murdered and curses Cain, saying that he is to get out of god’s sight and be a fugitive.  This is too much for Cain to bear and he’s afraid that if anyone finds him they will kill him.  Curious, since there are only two other people on the earth at the moment, Adam and Eve.

God says that he’ll mark Cain as a warning so that no one else is to harm him, again, even though there is no one else on the earth at the moment!  The warning goes along the lines of “if you kill Cain, you will be punished sevenfold.”  So if you kill Cain, god is going to kill you seven times.  Hmmm.

This also contradicts the law that god is going to invent later which says that the penalty for murder is death.

Cain goes into the land of Nod (presumably where GDI can’t find him) and has sex with his wife.  Hang on!  Where did his wife come from?!

Anyway, one of Cain’s descendants is a man called Lamech.  It’s worth pointing out that if you killed Cain you’d have been killed yourself (seven times that is, for good measure).  But if anyone killed Lamech, they would apparently be avenged seventy and sevenfold.  That is A LOT of being dead!

Around this time, Adam and Eve get their grove on again and out pops (another) son.  Eve names him Sith Seth, and says that he replaces Abel whom was murdered.  So, there is no mention of any daughters being born (how did people procreate back then?), which means that women like Cain’s wife popped out of thin air; or there were daughters born but being female of course god doesn’t deem them worthy of a mention in his book.  Either way it seems incest is ok to god as long as it’s for procreation.

Seth also has a son (thanks to an unnamed female who comes from nowhere) and calls his name Enos.  (Gesundheit!)

Eventually a man called Enoch arrives on the scene.  He and god are pals it seems, until one day god takes him.  Where?  To Heaven.  Which is either the vault of water in the sky, or a gay club.  You decide.

A few years down the line a man called Noah comes along.

In this time mankind has begun to fill the known earth and woman were looking pretty good too.  The sons of God noticed how hot women were and wanted them for themselves.  Unfortunately, god doesn’t explain what he means by his “sons”.  Does he mean other humans, in which case, so what?  Or does he mean angels?  In which case why would angels want to have sex with women, and why now after all this time?  Did god create angels with a sexual desire?  That’s pretty cruel when you consider they had no natural way to possibly satisfy that desire.  (To them, the earth is one giant lap-dancing club, and god makes them sit on their hands the whole time.)

As a result the earth had giants in it.  The earth back then was very much like Middle-earth it seems.

Whatever the case, god’s pissed off.  He says that man will now only live 120 years.  (Even though after this point humans still go on to have much longer life spans).

He notices that man is wicked, and all man’s thoughts are evil all the time (even though he made man in the first place).  God felt regret at making man and wished he wouldn’t have done it.  It’s surprising that he didn’t actually see this coming though.  After all, isn’t he supposed to know everything??

God likes Noah though because he’s just and perfect, even though the wise King Solomon in years to come will declare that no man has ever been perfect.

Fed up with how evil mankind is, god decides to destroy every living thing on the planet.  Slight overkill, if you ask me.  What had the animals and insects done wrong??  It’s rather fascinating to note that god’s solution to evil and violence is mass genocide.

God tells Noah to make a huge boat.  That’s right: Noah and his extended family are to make a huge sea-worthy vessel from the materials around their habitat.  Now, the largest wooden ships ever built were over 300 feet long, and required metal strapping for support, and even then they were dodgy at best.  However, Noah builds a boat that’s 450 feet long, out of wood.

Not quite happy with giving Noah a starring role in the first ever Mission: Impossible, he also tells him that the boat must be filled with at least two of every living creature on the earth.  So Noah and his family trekked all over the earth to collect over a million types of animal, and millions and millions of insects.  They also had to collect enough food for every creature as well.  How Noah managed to get to the poles and bring back polar bears and penguins isn’t mentioned.  It’s not clear how Noah assembled rare species like the Komodo dragon either, or how he kept all the animals apart so they didn’t fight, kill, or eat each other.  Also, forty days and nights is a long time for any creature to go without defecating itself.  Millions of animals and millions of tons of food in a boat for 40 days equals a lot of shit to clean up.

I feel sorry for Noah at this point.  Not only did god set him the most ridiculous task, but god messes him about but giving contradictory instructions.  Perhaps god got bored waiting for Noah to hurry up and finish!  At one point god tells Noah to take in all the animals 2 by 2.  But he also tells him to take the clean ones in 7 by 7.  No wonder Noah took so long!  I’m sure at some point he must have thought “can you not just do this yourself, please?!”

At some point after the ark was built and all the animals were in it, god causes a huge flood to come.  God was either pretty distracted at this point, or like the above he feels like playing a prank on Noah through sheer boredom, because he gives two times of when Noah was supposed to enter the ark.  At one point he says the flood came 7 days after Noah entered the ark, but later on he says that Noah entered the ark on the same day that the flood began.

God says that all the animals boarded the ark in the same day.  Since there were millions of animals at least to go on the ark, this work out at 100 species boarding every second.  Impressive huh?

Anyway, the flood comes.  It rains and rains for 40 days and nights.  It’s not clear where all the water comes from.  God says the water reaches up to the highest mountains.  He doesn’t say where all this rain water came from, and more importantly he doesn’t say where it went afterwards.  Maybe it just disappeared.

Every living thing that was left on the earth was wiped out.  Apparently, as far as god’s concerned, justice is punishing everything for the actions of a few.  God doesn’t mention sending any warning to people before killing them all.  It’s not clear why he didn’t just click his fingers and wipe out all the evil people.  No, god decided that was far too low-key for him.  What was needed was a grand gesture of ultimate power and destruction: the death of every animal and creature on the planet, and the genocide of every human not on the ark.  Men, women, children, and babies would drown to death.  It’s hard to imagine a more horrible way to die.

Finally, god decides to close up the windows in the sky where the water comes from when it rains (didn’t you know?) and drain off the excess water.  God knows where!  (Literally).

The arc finally came to rest after seven months on the top of a mountain.  Maybe Noah actually built a submarine, since apparently the tops of the mountains weren’t visible until the tenth month.  Perhaps it came to rest underwater?!  (And stayed there for three months).

Well, Noah lets a dove go to find somewhere to land.  He figures this will tell him whether the entire earth is covered with water, or whether it’s not.  Now, I’m not going to criticise Noah since I admittedly couldn’t build a boat out of wood to carry every animal on the planet, but I sort of think that the earth being entirely covered with water or not should be a pretty obvious thing to see!  Take a quick look out the window, scan around…hmmm, aaaaaaand yes!!  The earth is actually still totally submerged by water.  Perhaps the dove needed the exercise though, who knows.

Noah, apparently unable to discern between dry land and an ocean with his own eyes, keeps sending the dove out.  Eventually after 7 days it returns with an olive leaf in its mouth.  That must have been one magic olive tree!  Where was it?  Did it survive 150 days covered by water?  Or did an olive tree manage to germinate, grow, and produce leaves in a seven day period?

Finally the waters were gone from the earth.  It was dry.  When did this happen?  A good question.  God gives us the answer.  Well, actually, being the great wise-cracker that he is, god gives us TWO answers!  How about that?!  In the first month, on the first day of the month is one answer.  In the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, is the second answer.  So, urm, take your pick!

After the flood is over, Noah wants to thank god for his mass genocide so he decides on an appropriate thank you.  The key to gift-gifting is: know what the other person likes!  ‘What does god really like more than anything else?’ Noah thought to himself… dead animals!  So, in possibly the greatest single act of stupidity by a human being, (after preserving two of every clean animal alive in the arc), Noah goes and sacrifices at least one of each animal on an altar.  Brilliant.  So after all that, Noah single-handedly wipes out the entire “clean” animal kingdom.

It’s ok though, because god likes the smell of burning animals.  Mmmmm.  Bisto….

Where did all the animals alive today come from if they were virtually wiped out by the flood, and certainly by Noah’s sacrifice (which can only be described as shooting yourself in the foot with a harpoon)?  Who knows?  Maybe god created more animals (so what was the point of preserving any?) or maybe animals evolved from scratch to what we see today, in just a couple of thousand years?  It’s a tough one.

Finally, after enjoying the sacrifice and seeing a desolated and wrecked planet, god promises that he will never destroy the earth again because of man.  Well that’s good news.  Couldn’t he have decided that before the flood?!  Why the change of heart?  Well, god says that man’s thoughts are evil, all the time.

So, just to clarify: man is evil, so god destroys the entire earth.  Then he promises that he will never destroy the earth again, because man is evil.  Riiiiight.

Finally, just to piss off scientists in the future once and for all, god creates something called a “rainbow” in the sky which symbolises his promise never to destroy the earth with a flood again.  I guess that means he’ll use something else next time, say, fire?  He says the “rainbow” will remind him of his promise.  Well, I suppose we all use memory aids.  Apparently, before the flood, the action of light passing through water droplets didn’t split white light into its constituent colours.

Noah lives 930 years and dies.

After this, Noah’s descendants grow and become evil once again, and the entire human race of 6 billion people today, dates back to this small family a few thousand years ago.  I guess “like bunnies” would be appropriate to describe Noah’s offspring back then.

In one last act of mischief, god hides all the evidence for this flood, hides anything that might prove man is only a few thousand years old and that EVERY creature on the planet spread out from Mt. Ararat in Turkey in a few thousand years.  How did the polar bears cross the deserts and get back to the arctic?  How did the penguins make it to the south pole?  How did all the creatures specifically designed to survive in particular climates get back to those climates without dying?  God doesn’t explain this one.

And here ends our creation trilogy.  I hope you found it as enjoyable as I did!  I know some parts of it seem a tiny bit unrealistic and perhaps require a slight stretching of the imagination, but hey, I didn’t write this, god did!  If you have any doubts, don’t worry, just take it on faith.

 

THE END

My Pet Hate - Fri 23rd Mar 07

I recently had the elation of receiving the following Bulletin message in my Myspace Inbox; fool that I am for even checking it in the first place:

>>
“I’m deleting my myspace
Body: I’m deleting my myspace
Body: Since u opened this, ur site will be deleted within 15 min or less .
Sucks cause its not a joke-

-friends
-layout
-pictures
-codes
(everything)

The only way u get to keep your myspace is to repost this within 2 minutes with this title! -I’m deleting my myspace-

Tom

Sorry guys, I know you hate these things but it is just to see who uses their myspace and who doesnt

(Sorry for this one but not sure whether it would really happen so here it is)”
<<

It seems that no matter where I go on the internet I am plagued by e-mails from attention-seeking losers who invent piss-poor “scary” chain mails just so that one day it gets sent back to them and they can say (to themselves of course since they have no real friends): “wowee! I made that years ago! I created that fake chain letter and here it is sent back to me! I’m famous! Even though nobody knows I wrote it and I can’t take any credit for it at all, but at least it gives my hopeless life some meaning for a few minutes”…… or words to that effect.

Note: when I say attention-seeking losers I don’t necessarily mean the people who forward them, but the embarrassingly simple folk who come up with them in the first place.

Seriously, it just takes a bit of common sense: Myspace competes with hundreds of internet social-groups for customers. What would be the worst thing Myspace could do from a business sense? That’s right: send out shitty poorly-written Bulletin messages threatening to wipe your profile for no good reason on earth. Even if somebody from Myspace really went to town on the glue and alcopops, you think a global announcement to ALL users at the same time would be the professional thing?? As oppose to a forward-mail spread slowly from friend to friend?!

Here’s the real deal kids: Microsoft, AOL, Myspace, Apple, Google, etc etc blah blah can’t track your e-mails, and aren’t going to wipe your account within X number of days unless you forward on an e-mail that was written by someone who couldn’t use capitals, punctuation, or spell correctly. You won’t receive $20 for every person you forward it onto - EVER. You won’t get a mystery prize, oh and guess that?! No one is going to be copied in every 100 e-mails and then send money to some poor baby in a chamber somewhere, born with a tragic loss of common sense.

Here’s the solution: every time someone sends you a chain letter of ANY kind (you can tell by the juvenile subject), don’t read it; just reply immediately: YOU ARE A FUCKWIT.

They’ll (probably) get the message.

My small collection of quotes - Sun 18th Mar 07

I don’t usually like to do this as I prefer to produce my own material (apart from the odd plagiarised Spaced joke), but I’ve came across a few great quotes today on Myspace from people’s profiles and thought I’d show a few.

This is great one to answer a lot of people with. I’ve often been asked “why bother?” or why do I feel passionate about atheism and why am I so opposed to religion, as if atheists are going out of their way to cause trouble and upset people!…

“Perhaps atheists will spend a lot less time talking about god when we have our own meeting places on every other corner, when our organizations are tax-exempt, when our slogans are printed on your money, when we elect a president (or any other leader) who understands science, when those idiotic little fish disappear, when organ donor cards no longer have a blank space for religion, when holidays commemorate great ideas instead of mythological beings, when newspapers devote a weekly section to atheism, when people stop saying “God bless you” every time we sneeze, when people stop saying “It’s a Miracle” every time someone survives something life threatening, when we open a motel room drawer and find a copy of Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History Of Time”, or Richard Dawkins “The GOD Delusion” when pimple-faced kids stop coming to our houses on Saturday mornings to ’save’ us, when….” — Myspace user: Friendlyrealist__Mark

This next one is very funny. I found it as a jpeg so can’t credit the author unfortunately:

Taoism: Shit happens

Hindusin: This shit happened before

Confuciansim: Confucius says: Shit happens

Buddhism: It is only the illusion of shit happening

Zen: What is the sound of shit happening?

Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah

Jehovah’s Witnesses: Knock, knock: ‘Shit happens’

Agnosticism: Maybe shit happens, and maybe it doesn’t

Protestantism: Shit won’t happen if I work harder

Catholicism: Why does shit always happen to me?

Televangelism: Send money or shit will happen to you

Rastafarian: Smoke that shit

Atheism: There is no such thing as shit

I’m quoting the below because so many times I hear from theists “even Einstein believed in God!”

“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called relig