Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Hooray, it’s the atheist bus

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

I completely forgot that the Atheist Bus Campaign ads started appearing this Tuesday (6 January). I’m proud to have been one of the many people who donated to this. Apparently they raised £135,000. Well done to them and it’s a testament to the number of people who are fed up with those ridiculous religious adverts going unchallenged.

Ariane Sherine wrote a piece about the campaign in this week’s Comment is Free on the Guardian site which also has an audio and video clip about the campaign’s launch. AC Grayling wished we didn’t have to use the word “probably” in the campaign’s message (”There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”). Still, as he points out, if the campaign is forced to use the word “probably” to fit in with advertising guidelines, then religious adverts should have to use the word “allegedly” in their claims. Fantastic!

This week we also had the first non-religious thought for the day (on in the afternoon). Plus you can also now follow the Campaign on Twitter.

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Oh shit, Facebook *is* a popularity contest

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

… and I’m losing.

It hasn’t bothered me up till now but today when I was at a loose end, I casually looked at some of my friends’ profiles to check how many other friends they had. Frankly I was astonished — 80, 90, hundreds? Is it really possible to have that many friends? I’m not sure I’ve even ever met that number of different people. Or, as I head into my late 30s am I just getting plain grumpy and lazy when it comes to making and sustaining friendships? Err, yes, probably.

I started to feel quite ashamed of my paultry 40-odd friends, especially as some of them may not actually be, umm,  real people (one of them may be a friend’s cuddly toy which I initially had some qualms about adding but then did so in a flurry of desperate activity to bump up my numbers).

But why does it matter? Do I really want to compete in a game I know I’ll never be able to win? Is it even a game anyway, or, unbelievably, are my friends really just more popular than me? Hmm, I guess the answers to those questions are possibly, no, yes and yes. It only possibly matters when you’ve obviously got a secret agenda — for instance you’ve had a “friend” request from that really popular person at university, or even worse, an ex. I say “no” to not wanting to compete because it’s in my nature to lose interest in things I have no clear ability to do even reasonably well in (like being able to change a duvet cover in less than half an hour without getting angry for instance).

I also looked at Flickr today and realised most of my contacts (about the same number as Facebook friends) I have never met or am likely to meet. I just like their photos; and can do so without any sense of social inadequacy. Much better, although it has to be said you can’t play scrabble on it. Well, you probably could, but it might take some time. Actually, I bet there’s actually a Flickr group for doing just that…

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The wonderful world of Anne Atkins

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

I must have been in a good mood this morning as I just laughed at Anne Atkins on Thought for the Day rather than just shouting abuse at the radio and despairing of the world as I usually do.

For those of you who might not have any idea of what I’m talking about, Thought for the Day is a five-minute slot on BBC Radio 4’s flagship news programme, The Today Programme in which representatives from various religions all get to talk varying degrees of nonsense about what they believe. If I listen to TFTD in the morning, it’s bad for two reasons: one — it means I’m running late and two — it annoys me intensely.

Anne Atkins is a particular favourite or bête noire of mine, depending on my mood. Basically she’s an incredibly smug, patronising, horribly conservative Christian who likes to point out how awful secular liberals are for doing things like stopping religious bigots like herself discriminating against people they don’t like.

This morning’s was a corker. In summary it went something like this: our liberal secular society is intolerant and we should show a bit more charity (her word, used sans irony) when dealing with people of faith who refuse to act within the law because their beliefs tell them they shouldn’t. She quoted the example of a registrar in Islington who refused to conduct same-sex ceremonies and who claimed she was harrassed because she refused to do so. Religious intolerance won the day on this occasion. Basically, said Anne, us intolerant liberals should be learn to be kinder to these people of faith and cut them some slack when they want to act outside the law.

I have no problem with people holding these views of course, but I do have a bit more of problem with a publicly-funded broadcaster providing a mouth-piece for them. Still, on the other it’s nice to be reminded occasionally why I’m an atheist, and this did the job nicely. Thanks Anne.

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