Ironic chancellor

I woke up with all this rattling around in my headache, so it’s as much a satirical rant as political commentary.

Why this man is a fool -->

Shark-boy

Campaigners for the separation of church and state often miss the point. It’s not just the encumbrance of traditional religions, and lobbying by modern cults, that hinder social progress; it’s also the many and varied, but all misguided, attempts to manage economies on national or global scales. Economics is simply another belief system, not a practical science. Consequently, there is no good news on political fronts, and I doubt there will be, unless the people demand/ enforce some radical social changes.    

Ministers in government can trace their jobs back to positions in the imperial system.The current Chancellor of the Exchequer probably thinks his job can be traced back to a royal treasurer for kings and queens, but he’s actually a modern version of the court jester. In popular mythology, King Canute became his own ‘fool’ when he seemed to believe that his royal blood granted him some kind of magical authority over the waves. Since tides are prompted by the Moon, what ‘delusional’ Canute really needed was anti-gravity technology.

That famous misquote: ‘the business of America is business’ no longer holds true, in any sense, because America itself seems no longer to be a nation, it’s just a business. Now, it's just too late to be an optimist.

Meanwhile, some notes for a hopeless manifesto:

For the 21st century, government needs inspired leaders not jobsworth managers. Of the currently elected officials, none are capable to solving the problems of a corrupted economic system. The political tools might well already exist, but the will to use them is not there. We need a new political system, and a social contract with a global reach. Something based on secular principles of a ‘united world’, not just a United Nations. Is it any wonder the dream of utopia (as process not destination) is lost?

The 'A' word

Austerity seems to be a current buzzword from the Con-Dem coalition, inflicting cuts to public services. I’d really like to see austerity measures applied to churches, too… Why not abolish the ‘charitable’ status for church institutions in the UK, and make them all pay taxes at premium business rates?

There’s no reason why the organised religions should remain a special case. A lot of church properties, on prime sites in town centres, could be redeveloped for proper commercial enterprises to make better use of the locations and land, which might even provide more useful services to local communities.

Pat Condell

Talking, and making, lots of good sense about religion and politics, writer-comedian Pat Condell has a great bunch of videos online now. His website at www.patcondell.net is also worth a look.

Quote for Sunday

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg

All religion is bad

I often wonder how many people were ‘weaned’ off their parents’ religion(s), just by reading some genre literature while at a suitably impressionable age? As a teenager, my steady diet of ‘pulp’ and hard science fiction, and later reading about quantum theory, somehow managed to dispel any childish faith I once had in the existence of god.

“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.” - Richard Dawkins

I was christened C of E, and went - or, more accurately, was sent - to Sunday school (Methodists), but I have become an - increasingly militant - atheist, and nowadays (at 45+) find that I’m rapidly losing even vague respect for anyone with religious beliefs, whether they go to ‘high church’ (prayer-sayers are all nutters, to me!), or just persist in celebrating Xmas… because they’re diehard consumers, or simply cannot shake off those bad habits (indoor-tree decorating, paper-wasting card swapping, pointless gift exchanges, turkey dinner, etc) still fondly recalled from childhood in the family home. The commercial side of Xmas clearly supports and tacitly maintains the various social events and public rituals, from building snowmen and traditional carol singing, to the televised ceremony of ‘midnight mass’.

When atheists suggest the world might be better without religion, I've noticed the response from believers is usually something like: "if religion is gone, what are you going to put in its place?" It's a mistake to assume that a godless world creates a void in society that must be filled (with 'worship' of science say religious folks!)... It makes me laugh because it seems they've missed the point of what science is and what it does. To me, getting rid of religions is not like emptying a room in your house so that you can fill it up again, it's like cleaning all the windows so that everyone can see outside better than before.

A poignant example of how religious leaders deceive the faithful is found in Muslim teachings. The infamous ‘afterlife’ compensation said to await the jihad’s martyrs is “eternal paradise with 72 virgins” … but, since 2001, scholarly reports (cited by Guardian / Ezra Klein) claim this was a misinterpretation of the Koran. Perpetrators of attacks on the 11th September who were expecting to be rewarded with six-dozen attentive wives might have been rather disappointed to learn the ‘virgins’ in question are probably not a bevy of angelic girls, but the rare delicacy of white raisins.

Of course, warmongering Islamic extremists tasked with brainwashing young men into happy suicide bombers need to promise them something more enticing than a handful of dried fruit!

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins