May 2012
1 post
Jesus the Rebel
Any serious study of Roman history explains clearly why Jesus would have been executed. He was proclaimed by his followers as the “Messiah”, i.e. the anointed king of the Jews, and therefore he represented a rebel movement trying to unify the 4 tetrarchies into which Rome had divided Israel. This is backed up by the genealogy in the New Testament which claims his descent from King...
March 2012
1 post
Political Correct Fascism
Must we tolerate the offensive manifestations of religious fascism in a liberal society? Uber-PC values advocate that we must respect all other cultures and religions or be labeled racist.
The arguments for and against the wearing of face-coverings in public all hinge on this, and they come down basically to pedantic discussion of whether the niqab/burqa is religious, cultural or political. It...
December 2011
2 posts
Bias at the Beeb
The BBC always claim that they strive to keep an unbiased stance on the news, however their understanding of ‘unbiased’ is very limited, based on legislation, and it means simply ‘politically non-partisan’. On many other issues they have no qualms about being blatantly biased, only covering favourably what they think the majority of their audience want to know, and totally...
Clarkson
That idiot Jeremy Clarkson
Talks shit on each subject he starts on:
His comments so crass
All come out of his ass,
So his underwear has dirty marks on.
November 2011
1 post
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving celebrates the date back in the 17th century when Britain rid itself of a bunch of narrow-minded bigots, who sailed off to America and founded a colony of ugly puritanism. Good riddance!
However, other narrow-minded bigots are nowadays trying to impose their perverted ideas here, since there’s nowhere else for them to go and colonize - we must not allow it!
We struggled for...
August 2011
2 posts
Who owes what and to who exactly?
When we hear Britain and other countries are in debt, who are the actual creditors? Who is so rich they can bail out every country in Europe as well as the USA, and then demand stringent repayment conditions?
The answer is the same financial institutions who created the credit crunch in the first place, the same crooks who created toxic debt in the property markets, the same corrupt people who...
Thatcher to blame for riots?
I know it’s fuddy-duddy to say this, but I think the roots of all this trouble go back to the 1960s when teaching self-discipline and respect for others became unfashionable, and now it’s instilled through 2 or 3 generations who, like Thatcher, have no concept of society nor social responsibility. Heavy manners needed!!
June 2011
2 posts
February 2011
1 post
Linguistic mixup
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2951&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
January 2011
2 posts
November 2010
2 posts
October 2010
1 post
September 2010
1 post
June 2010
1 post
April 2010
2 posts
Bullingdon Bullies
If slimy Cameron and his Bullingdon Bullies get control of Britain - say goodbye to the NHS, to public transport, to state pensions, to reasonable housing, to Human Rights, and watch for unemployment going up to 5 million, and millions more below the poverty line -while they, their banker friends and big business get richer and smugger.
The Crucifixion Myth
Under Augustus, the Romans had established a system of government in the middle east, carving up the Jewish lands into four tetrarchies: divide and conquer. Then a band of rebels appeared with a leader whom they claimed to be descended from King David, and therefore rightful king of all the Jews - this was a serious threat to Roman rule, a threat to unite the Jewish people again. There was no...
March 2010
2 posts
Dubious Bedfellows
I have always detested the racism of the far-right, and will go on fighting them, but as a committed socialist, I abhor the fact that some left-wing people are mistakenly allying themselves with Islamic groups. It is right to protect minorities from abuse, but at the same time it is hypocrisy to become bedfellows with any religious organization. All religion is to some degree fascistic, and having...
December 2009
1 post
Von Neumann Machine
(revised from an earlier blog on Facebook)
Earlier this year I went to a Humanist meeting, only the second time I’d been to one. These days I feel horribly uncomfortable at gatherings where I don’t know anyone, and this being at an unfamiliar pub added to my nervousness. Still, it would to be a meeting of people with a similar outlook on life, hopefully I’d feel at ease in such surroundings. Once...
October 2009
1 post
Intelligent design? Definitely not!
I’ve recently had fairly shattering eye problem : after seeing spots and mistiness, I had laser treatment for a torn retina, then a few days later, without any further warning, the eye suddenly went blind: a retinal haemorrhage. It happened in a matter of seconds .
I have since learnt a lot about ocular anatomy, and the causes of my condition: as one gets older, the vitreous humour...
September 2009
6 posts
Why creationism is not a science
Science essentially means doubt, it is a process of continual questioning, of testing new ideas to further knowledge on any given subject, then coming to a provisional conclusion. Proper science always leaves its ideas open to further research, and takes nothing as an ultimate Truth - all laws of nature are open to revision, all physics is constantly being re-thought, nothing is taken as gospel.
...
My Eye
Last week I noticed a foggy patch in the sight of my left eye, and I went to the nearest high-street opticians to get it checked out. They booked me in for a check the next day, Sunday. They were very thorough, and didn’t charge me a penny for the consultation, I simply had to sign an NHS form. They gave me a letter of referral with diagnosis, and I took this straight to Moorfields Eye...
The Ugly Skeleton of Ayn Rand
The ugly skeleton of Ayn Rand’s ‘philosophy’ is, in fact, Eugenics. The basic thread of her fantasy novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is how a small, self-designated elite get together to decide who is fit to survive, then with the aid of magical inventions they eliminate the rest of humanity. Thus, the ugly masses are swept away leaving the world to a ‘higher’ breed of human – i.e. Nietsche’s Superman,...
The Power of Nightmares →
Evolution of the Universe →
A Reasoned, Scientific Examination of Faith... →
August 2009
10 posts
Converting Christians to Atheism
A few years ago I visited the Caribbean with a friend, and one evening met up with his very christian sister and her family. They knew he had become an unbeliever, but avoided the topic for most of the evening. I was relieved, I didn’t really want to ruin a relaxed holiday with serious, pointless discussions about their superstitious obsessions.
We had a pleasant meal, and I was about to...
I blame the 1960s!
Looking back to my time as a student, although we had no internet, no cellphones, and man had not yet set foot on the moon, the world seems to have been much more sophisticated then. Evolutionary theory was universally accepted, and science was universally respected. Religious belief was extremely rare amongst my fellow students. Apart from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, there was no one who...
A Childish Game
The essential basis of Christianity, to test the worthiness of God’s own imperfect creations to enter his kingdom of ‘heaven’, is completely meaningless.
This all-powerful creator could have made us all perfect, but didn’t - instead like the capricious Greek deities, he decides to make us sinners and goes through the ridiculous rigmarole of faking Jesus’s birth,...
Cultures
Cultures evolve like everything else, even the most conservative traditions adapt to the modern world, those that don’t are eventually superseded, or simply get forgotten. We have been told by the ‘politically correct’ lobby that we must respect other people’s cultures, and that’s all very well, but how far must we take that? If the Conquistadors had respected the...
The Story of the Tasmanians
The pitiful and horrific fate of the people of Tasmania was due as much to well meaning anthropologists as it was to primitive racism. Their situation was made worse by the whim of Nature which had set them up as ripe targets for careless and ill informed science, and as defenceless victims for any colonialists with a greedy eye on their land.
The real story begins around 10,000 BC, when...
Hitchens →
Fallibility of the Qur'aan
The Qur’aan
Any true scholar of Arabic knows that the language of the Qur’aan reveals much about the book’s origins, showing clearly how it has been altered over the centuries. Islamic pundits like to claim that the Christian Bible has been corrupted from its original, but they ignore the glaring facts of the corruption of the Koranic texts.
It is necessary to know something of the classical...
African Romans and their British Legacy
There were many non-Europeans in the Roman army. The Levis Armatura the skirmishers, were mostly foreign mercenaries with particular national weapons skills, including Cretan archers and African spearmen. Almost all the cavalry were foreigners, and were considered as separate from the legions proper. The general term for foreign soldiers was auxilia.
The four legions which were sent under...
Dumb American Religion →
July 2009
6 posts
Beware the Spinal Trap Simon Singh’s article
Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.
Simon Singh’s Guardian article on chiropractic from April 2008, with the part the BCA sued him for removed.The public should have access to the evidence and the arguments in it that were lost...
Fraudulent Values
What is the greatest danger facing the world today? Is it global terrorism? Is it global warming? Is it globalization? Is it galloping materialism?
The answer can be seen clearly only when one realizes that all civilizations have continuously distorted basic human values in order to perpetuate their power. If we step back to deconstruct the tenuous fabric of our nations, religions, traditions...
Bits of Leviticus ignored by Christians
019:013 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the
wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night
until the morning.
019:019 Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle
gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with
mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and
woollen come upon thee.
019:026 Ye shall not eat any thing...
Offence
The old-fashioned PC values just don’t work, if you try to respect everyone’s culture and religion, you’ll end up offending everyone.
If religious bigots are allowed to express their ugly views they are automatically offending the adherents of other religions. You can’t have it all ways. Atheism and Agnosticism are also deeply held beliefs, going back in a venerable...
Quranic forgery
Scholars prove the Quran to be corrupted text
Until now, only three ancient copies of the Qu’ran are found. The one preserved in the British Library in London, dates from the late seventh century and was thought to be the oldest one. Ancient manuscripts discovered in Yemen in 1972 have now been dated even earlier to the time of the Prophet, which makes them not only the oldest to have survived,...
Scientific 'Spirituality'
The desire for knowledge is what differentiates humans from beasts. Without that desire, intelligence could never have developed, and cannot be maintained. When we see in animals some small spark of curiosity, we see it as a sign of incipient intelligence. When we see in other humans a total lack of interest in the world around them, we interpret this as a sign of psychological problems.
A wise...