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But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

In the first part, we saw how God placed temptation in the way of Adam and Eve, and then punished them when they fell for it.  I think that this was the first “dick move” God perpetrated on mankind.  Over the coming books we will see how he refines this.

When I was at school, as soon as we knew the meaning of the word “knew” in the Bible, much hilarity ensued.  Especially if someone used the word innocently.  Simpler times.  Anyway, Genesis 4:1 Adam knows Eve and she has a son and they call him Cain.  He then knows her again and they have Abel.  Abel is a shepherd and Cain is a farmer.  They both work hard and present the Lord with their offerings: Abel gives a sheep because he is a sheep herder and Cain hands over the fruits of his work.  Two men giving honestly and without malice.  And the Lord, who apparently knows everything (including your inner most thoughts) goes absolutely crazy over Cain’s offering and, though I wasn’t there at the time, probably insults him.  Dick move number 2 really, if we only count the whole of the Garden of Eden story as one big dick move.  As God says:

4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Continue reading ‘The Bible – What Adam Did Next’ »

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In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

Bit of a secondary mission statement for these posts: I’m going to do some parts in a little detail and will skim over others.  As anyone who has read the Bible knows, lots of it is just filler; lists of people, lists of begettings and shopping lists for building things.  I have no desire to read them in detail and I’m sure you have no desire to read me reading them!  There is also going to be little rhyme or reason as to why I stop at different parts.

Genesis 1:1 starts with God doing his thing and putting together, well, everything.  So, he starts off by creating night and day.  Oddly though, since there is no world and the sun shines regardless, how would anyone know when sunset and sunrise occur?  Anyway, He then creates Heaven and everything underneath it.  Heaven and everything else appear to be separated by water.  By the end of the third day, we have a planet and lots of greenery. And then the very next day he creates stars and the sun and the moon – the sun is already a star, but He creates it separately.  The moon seems to get a star-like status too.  By Genesis 1:31 and the end of the sixth day it’s all done – sun, moon, stars, heaven, earth, greenery, animals and a man. Continue reading ‘The Bible – Let’s Begin’ »

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It appears that it’s somewhat traditional to start a new year by reading the Bible. At least it is according to Reading and Critically Reviewing the Bible in 365 Days.  Now, I appreciate that I am somewhat behind (it being 15 January and all), but that will not stop me!  I plan to read through the King James Version as this is the Bible as used by me since I was a small child.  I am familiar with it and all the thees and thous made it incomprehensible at an early age.

Because I could only find a Good News Bible around the house, I shall be using an online version of the KJV.  Feel free to read along if you wish – I will post URLs for each bits.  My plan is not to read any commentaries, but to read and comment myself.  Feel free to chip in if you disagree.  I will not be trying to break this into evenly spaced chunks either – if I end up reading Exodus in one sitting, you’d just better keep up!  But it is fair to say that there are large parts of the Old Testament that are shopping lists of dead people who we don’t come across again.  I shall be following the example set by history and ignoring those people.

Now for the fun part!  I have read the Bible all the way through in the past and I can confidently say that it’s not designed for doing that, so hopefully this will make it easier for you to skip to the good bits (and yes, I am looking at Lot when I say that).  I have also read around some of the tales and have read some sites that come at it with mockery in mind.  Some bits do need to be mocked and some bits need to be read thoughtfully; but if you are shocked and offended by someone who doesn’t read this entirely reverently, please don’t follow along.  There will be other stuff on this site as well.

Tim Minchin is well-known in the skeptical world.  An Aussie musician/singer/comedian he applies his knowledge to his music and brings forth some wonderful songs.

In his 9 minute beat poem Storm, he is able to distil a million tiring conversations and can show us all why some people get that throbbing vein in their temple when someone starts to hold forth in a social gathering.  Watch and listen to the poem, please.

This poem is being turned into an animated film and will be available later this year.  Storm the movie looks to be a great short film.  If you’d rather, follow it on Twitter and Facebook.

Enjoy.

As this year comes to an end, the atheist blogosphere thing seems to be hotting up.  Lots of posts about why people became atheists, lots of

The Out Campaign

posts about what it means to be an atheist.  Probably something to do with the Rebirth of the Unconquered Sun, which comes but once a year and makes people reflective.

In the spirit of giving, I thought I would share some thoughts with you.  Because I am just that kind.  So, back to me.  I had given Christianity a fair few good goes up until my late teens.  My mum is a lapsed Catholic (though she unlapses for special occasions like funerals) and my dad was probably Protestant.  So I was baptised in my local church (St Peters) and then never set foot in the place again.  My sister was christened in a different local church and my brother in a different one again.  I have the feeling that it was the act of baptism that was important to my mum, rather than anything else.  We never discussed religion in the house and, to all intents and purposes, it didn’t really exist.  But I still had a faith of sorts – though it was a mish mash of things and tended to only get dusted off for Sunday School (which was weird – you had to attend the normal service and then get ushered out part way through.  I used to wonder what happened at the second part of the service that was adults only.  I decided they were taught magic spells and when I was older I’d be able to learn them too.)  Sunday School was all right – lots of rote learning and quizzes and running around the church yard.  And then I didn’t bother – except when the local vicar gave morning assemblies at school.  But, and here’s the thing, despite never going to church and despite not thinking about religion or God or the Bible, I was still a Christian.  D’ya see?

Later on I got taken to a Fellowship Church service by a friend and ended up getting “Baptised in the Spirit” (which is from Acts, I think).  My aim in this second baptism was to get the gift of Tongues.  This is known as Glossolalia and appears to be a nonsense language.  Regardless, I didn’t get it and felt very cheated.  So I didn’t bother with that again.  Truth be told, the whole thing made me very uncomfortable and they had me make up a prayer on the spot as I recall.  A gift for bullshit allowed me to freestyle a prayer which lasted for 5-10 minutes (or, in real terms, for flipping ages) and it seemed to convince them.  And yes, I am well aware that I was probably doing it wrong.

Later again, I returned to the Church of England.  As an aside, CofE is the best of all the various cults – you get to be a Christian but don’t have to prove it or anything like that, it’s very laid back and no one asks any difficult questions.  And I got confirmed there which means I can take communion whenever it’s offered.  It was not long after that that I began to question my half-hearted lame beliefs.  For a short time it was a bit scary – the idea of not believing felt a bit like free-fall.  But I got over it and have been much happier ever since.  I now know that luck/coincidence can happen.  I now know that making wishes to my imaginary friend not only doesn’t work, but that they are entirely unnecessary.  And I don’t feel guilt over sleeping in on Sundays!!

Despite all the chat and the arguments, it’s really easy to be an atheist.  You just don’t have to believe in god or gods.  Which sounds hard, but isn’t.  Christians do not believe in Allah.  They don’t believe in any of the Norse gods or the Indian gods or the Native American gods or the Sumerian gods or in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  And this goes for the believers of any religion – they don’t believe in anyone else’s gods.  So the unbelief is already there and it just needs a little tip to go into full unbelief.  So there you go, lose the shackles of belief and you, too, can be an atheist.  There are no mandatory meetings (no holidays either unfortunately) and you don’t have to twist your head around any of the weirder writings (a man is his own father and the herald of his own birth, really?  your father was a swan and your father was a rain shower?  Really?) and you don’t have to feel guilty just for existing.

Let’s make 2010 the year of reality and throw off the shackles of your Bronze Age beliefs!

Having seen a number of posts about the season, and having spotted that it’s now the 23rd December (unless you’re in Australia or New

Snowy Day in London

Zealand, in which case it’s 4th July 2015 because of the seasonal shifts and stuff), I think it’s time I wished you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Now, as an atheist, many would say that I shouldn’t be allowed to do  this.  To that, in the spirit of giving, I say “sweaty nutsacks“. Lest we forget, English Christians had a real go at banning Christmas once upon a time.  And it worked for a while and then it came back. So that says something. Probably.  It was something about the Pope and something about wassailing – which sounds great and if you didn’t do it you wanted it banned. I’d personally like to see it revived.  Someone get on to that please.

And yes, I am well aware that there have been more than one virgin births throughout the ages.  And I am also aware that the Winter Solstice predates Christianity by a good margin and sounds like a lot more fun.

But, you know what?  I like Christmas.  I’ve always liked Christmas and the fact that it’s supposed to have some significance to non-Atheists will not stop me liking it.  It’s fun, people are generally happy (or less unhappy) and there are presents and good food and good company.  If you insist on spoiling your Christmas by attending a cold church, then I’m sorry, it’s your own fault – though midnight mass is always a good way to break up the drinking sessions on Christmas Eve.

In closing, have a good Christmas, be safe (don’t worry about Rohypnol, worry about getting blackout drunk), if you do drink too much and you’re lying on your back choking on your own vomit only have one or two more and then switch to shorts for a while and I hope that Santa brings you some great toys.

As Greta Christina says in her Atheist Meme series and I have put here in a loosely related way:

Atheists feel compassion, empathy, and social responsibility as much as anybody. We don’t think those feelings come from God — most of us think they’re part of our evolution as social animals — but we don’t need to believe in God to feel these feelings strongly, and to take them seriously. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across