Simon is blogging again!

Those of you who are still hanging around here, like Tom Cruise hanging on to his last thread of sanity, may be interested to know that I'm blogging again.

You can find my new blog, maybe a bit more grown up than this one, maybe just a little bit more sensible, but probably just as full of rubbish as this one is, at SpiritualAtheist.co.uk.

Come and take a look and let me know if I've matured at all over the years

If you don't like Gay marriage, Don't have one

The Friendly Atheist just wrote a brilliant post on Gay Marriage, Religion and the U.S.A.
Well worth a quick look.

[Un]Intelligent Design

A respected argument for 'God's existence’ is 'Proof by Intelligent Design.' I.e. 'When we look at the world around us it looks designed. We do not know anything that looks designed which does not have a designer. Therefore there must be a designer, and we will call that designer God.'

I'm not sure why we should call the designer 'God' rather than, say, ‘Cecil.’ But then I’m not a Philosopher; such things our beyond my intelligence.

The proof is logically sound and infallible. I often wonder why it isn't used in courtrooms, 'When we look at the Defendant we see he looks guilty, therefore...'

The difficulty with ‘Proof by intelligent Design’ is that many things which appear designed also appear ridiculous.

Take me for example.

Every day go through an almost identical routine. Firstly I lock the door and leave my flat. A few moments later I unlock, go back into the house and check the windows are shut. I leave again, then turn back and check the lights are switched off. I exit once more, go back to double-check the door is locked, and then, finally, I head to work. I'll be halfway there before I realise I left the iron on.

This is not intelligent. In fact, I am less proof of ‘intelligent design’ than I am proof of a ‘vicious joke’. Something, it seems, is wrong with the theory of intelligent design.
Evolution, however, is just as disappointing. My morning routine, should have evolved out of existence decades before 'the iron' even existed and been replaced by a stronger, manlier gene that closes the windows before leaving the house and understands the off-side rule without needing a 'Shoe shop' analogy.

The fact that my paranoia still exists says evolution no longer works, and it is no longer only the ‘fittest genes’ which are being passed on to the next generation. Almost anyone can have children now, (even ugly people get laid thanks to Friday night 'happy hours') so natural selection fails and the gene pool gets weaker with each generation.

Evolution must evolve to survive, and I've got a horrible feeling I’m the outcome of evolution’s evolution

Having established I am not the fittest of the species, Darwinian selection has decided to end my bloodline, not in the conventional way (Death), but with the last weapon left in it's belt. It is, after all, harder for a man to reproduce when womanly bits make him feel as horny as a castrated camel.

Yes, homosexuality, it seems, is nature’s counter-attack to the Weekend pub crawl.

And suddenly the idea of a creator God with the IQ of a Texican President sounds surprisingly good to me.

I'm left with two conclusions. Either I'm a failed product of Darwinian selection, or I'm the creation of a 'God' who forgets his keys a lot and considers 'worrying' one of the beatitudes. 'Blessed are the worriers for they shall be ever late to work.'

Either way, 'When I look at things around me they appear to be entirely discouraging. Therefore...'

Logically sound remember...

Infallible...

Do you have any examples of unintelligent Design? Is evolution a gift left to us by an alien race? Comment and tell me what you think?

Posts that make you go 'Hmmm...'

• Building Bridges
• Going Green
• The Moon Conspiracy

A moral Pillar of Society...

I'm finding it hard to find funny things to write about right now, and so, instead of taking the micky out of George Bush - my usual stand-by, I'll let someone else be funny for me until I remember my wit.

It's the same technique Jay Leno built his career on.

George Bush does a similar thing, with speech writers and think-tanks, until he remembers not be an idiot. Unfortunately however, we're still waiting.

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Today's joke is sponsored by the Internet. Have you tried it yet? God bless Far-Right Republican America . Afterall, no-one else will.

WIN 250 free blog hits yet! Link to the Freelance Cynic or add it to your Technorati favourites now to take part. Click here to find out more.

Deity Defined

While surfing through the blogosphere, which isn't as 'extreme winter sports' as it sounds, I came across the blog Words ,Words, Words an aggressive blogger with a serious rant on.

Somewhere among the dog poop and yellow snow was this atheism reaffirming gem.


This series is joining my iTunes playlist. Thank you Jesus.

Silent Séance

I’ve recently become an atheist.

Like most major life decisions it was influenced by a book. My commitment to Christianity, my conversion to spiritualism and my brief flirtation with the Enchanted Forest were all caused by various reading material. It’s not that I’m fickle, just that I believe everything I read.

This conversion was at the hands of Richard Dawkins, Derren Brown, other books that I was lead to by a guiding spirit I no longer believe in, and a healthy dose of logic.

It’s left a hole. For 22 years of my life I’ve believed in a make-believe entity. He/She/It (depending on my varying beliefs) gave me support when there was none, listened to me when I was depressed, and found me a parking space in busy car parks. I need God. He’s the only friend I have left, all the others lost by not keeping in touch. I’m not about to lose one more for such a feeble excuse as not believing in him.

And so I’ve been desperately trying to find proof of the metaphysical. I’ve researched, conducted experiments and watched Most Haunted but there is nothing that is not fallible to logic, Occam’s razor and an IQ greater than 100.

Finally, I held a séance.

There should be at least one ghost in my building. It was built in the 1600’s and used as a workhouse and pottery workshop. I imagine pauper’s ghosts working the treadmills and pottery workers burning to death in the Kilns. But if I told my boyfriend I was planning to hold a séance he would freak out, so there was no chance of getting some mediums round to join me. I would have to do it alone.

I waited till he had gone to bed and closed the door to my room, drawing the curtains and even turning of my PC, an action in my mind similar to human sacrifice.
There were candles on the book shelf, tea lights but I figured that workhouse ghosts wouldn’t be fussed by the quality.

I sat down and breathed deeply. ‘Is there anybody here?’ Nothing, I waited, focusing on the candle flame.

‘Come on, don’t keep me waiting.’ I’m very impatient even with dead people who are by their very nature quite slow. The room was completely still, not a single noise, not a breath of wind. Just silence and calm like the grave. And then I noticed a candle flickering. Its flame was streaming like it was caught in a gale.

‘Is that the best you can do?’

There was a tapping on the wall behind me. I spun around, but there was nothing there. Something knocked against the wall opposite me, then next to me, behind me, by my computer, then next to me again. It was getting closer and louder, and harder, closing in on me.

I stood up screaming, ‘Who are you!’
And at the moment the candle blew out.

I ran to the light switch, flicked it on. Smoke was pouring off the wick clouding the room. I walked over to it waving the smoke away.

It had run out of wax, burnt itself out. The flickering was caused by the changing wax flow and convection currents from the cooling radiator next to it. The cooling walls caused the taps as the plaster settled and contracted. There was nothing that couldn’t be explained. There were no ghosts, no mystery, Most Haunted was faked, and there was no afterlife. Disappointed and lonely, I walked out the room, closing the door behind me.

But I swear, that night as I was falling to sleep, something whispered in my ear ‘Good Night.’

But that could have just been my boyfriend.