Cool Atheist Music 8 - Bad Religion - God Song

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks. Turns out this PhD thing takes up a lot of your time! We now return you to your normal blogging service, with a slightly delayed cool atheist music.



This week's cool atheist music is again from Bad Religion - it's a great acoustic version of one of their classics. If you want to hear the original, complete with raging guitar, it's here.

If anyone has any ideas for cool atheist music feel free to contribute, and hopefully this series can become a little more regular! For previous posts in this series, see here.

Cockatoos are awesome

Enough said.

Cool Atheist Music 7 - John Lennon - Imagine

The classic.

If anyone has any ideas for cool atheist music feel free to contribute, and hopefully this series can become a little more regular! For previous posts in this series, see here.

A Great Quote

Whilst reading Philip K. Dick's somewhat odd, yet fascinating essay How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days, I came across this great quote:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

He says it's the best definition he can come up with, and I have to say I can't think of any better. It explains nicely how religion has (in general) moved away from trying to assert its authority by making grand claims about the physical state of the world, and has instead focused on ethical issues such as homosexuality - the world isn't going to go away, it's going to come and bite you in the ass if you believe stupid things about it. However, ethics are simply a human construct, and as such there is no absolute 'reality' that can turn up and show statements to be obviously wrong (You can show the claimed foundations of the ethical structure are wrong, but that's a different story).

New Carnivals Up

The Humanist Symposium #9 and Boneyard #7 are both now up, and feature some of my posts along with a load of other great reading material. Go check them out!

I thought this type of thing only happened in America?

I'm actually quite shocked by this report from last week's Conservative conference by The Lancashire Secular Humanists:

As John Gummer [Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal] came upon the British Humanist Association’s campaign stand in the exhibitors gallery at the Winter Gardens this afternoon he was clearly heard to say to his companion “Do you know there is nothing I hate more than these Humanists”.

He then launched into a loud abusive rant in which he complained that The British Humanists Association “had no right to be here” and; with spittle-filled passion he pointed his finger at startled BHA members and declared “The Conservative Party is and always has been a Christian Party” (big emphasis on ‘Christian’) before turning on his heels and storming off without giving those volunteers (me included) an opportunity to respond.

So, there you go - John Gummer: complete raving bigot. That's the way to challenge Tory stereotypes alright :| I'm just hoping he's in a minority of one, and that the Conservatives get rid of him quickly - he's an embarrassment.

There's a discussion of this over at the Suffolk Humanists - apparently he denies everything. What a surprise.

Via Feeding the Fish.

More Hypocrisy from Religious Figures: Who'd've thought it?

I notice one of the most strident voices opposing the new offence against incitement to homophobic hatred in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill is Colin Hart, Director of the conservative evangelical Christian Institute. Here's what he said:

“In a democratic society people must be free to express their beliefs without fear of censure. A homophobic hatred law would be used by those with an axe to grind against Christians to silence them. There has already been high profile cases of the police interfering with free speech and religious liberty regarding sexual ethics. People shouldn’t face prison for expressing their sincerely-held religious beliefs.”

He's really giving the old free speech defence some welly isn't he? Apropos of nothing much, here's Colin Hart back in 2005 on Jerry Springer: The Opera:

"The BBC has a duty to respect the religious beliefs of its viewers... Genuine religious debate and criticism is one thing, but this show is an offensive, spiteful, systematic mockery and wilful denigration of Christian belief."

He then promptly called for a judicial review of its screening. What - use the law to silence something he disagrees with? But he's so keen on free speech! I'll remind you of that quote again: "In a democratic society people must be free to express their beliefs without fear of censure."

That's what makes me so angry about so many religious public figures. They're not actually interested in free speech, or any consistent set of moral principles. What they're interested in is using the law to bully people into not saying anything they don't like, whilst hiding behind the law as soon as anyone says anything nasty about them. "Don't hate us, but it's fine for us to hate you." They're disingenuous, self-interested hypocrites. It's pathetic.