Time Dilemmas

I wish mine were ‘multiple choice’… *grumble*

I have some potentially devastating news for you guys. Ready the tissues.

Now, as many of you already know, I am a student. If this is a shock, the clue’s in the blog title, so get over it. I called this ‘The Ramblings of a Young Atheist’ for a reason – and like so many other young’uns in the UK, I am about to start a month of GCSE exams.

And along with it, a month of relatively solid revision. Which is where this story gets sad.

Revision requires time, and a lot of it too… Unfortunately, blogging does as well (if you’re as much of a proof-reading pedant as I). So something has to give.

Now, before you go off thinking I’m going to neglect this space, hear me out. I won’t stop writing, I’ll just have to do it when I have ‘free time’. This could mean one of two things:

1. I miss an entire week every so often.
2. I post at irregular intervals when I remember to.

(Well, more irregular intervals than now anyway.)

However, on the upside, if this whole ‘school’ thing goes to plan, results day will be fun. No offence but, at this moment in time, grades are a slightly more important endeavour than periodically entertaining/infuriating strangers on the internet… So wish me luck (not that it helps).

Or pray for me (because that works, apparently).

As always,

Carnun

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Oh, and P.S: it’s entirely possible that next year, once I get to college, I’ll be involved with/running a student Humanist group there – so you can all look forward to that-inspired posts after this shit-storm.

Edit: I meant to schedule that for tomorrow… Whoops.

I Call Bollocks: “Contraception: A Psychological Prostitution”

Oh, Catholics… Some of you never fail to entertain disgust me.

Made aware of its existence by bigots on Twitter, I recently came across an article at ‘catholicstand.com‘ entitled ‘Contraception: A Psychological Prostitution‘. So here’s that…

It began with a quote:

Gee, how reputable. A Doctor!

This ‘Edith Stein Foundation’ (an organisation I cannot be asked to put the time into researching just to sigh at) puts him down as a “devout Catholic”, founder of the “Christian Cardiovascular Institute”, and a “missionary medical provider”. The fact that he’s presumably provided medical care in the past is a good thing – but his subsequent views are far from healthy.

‘Atheism is for white people’ – The Young Atheist’s Handbook

Here’s another post inspired by Alom Shaha’s outstanding ‘Young Atheist’s Handbook’.

I hope that these will help a few to consider donating to the campaign to get copies of the book in all English and Welsh secondary schools, the website for which can be found here: http://yah4schools.org.uk/.

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“My friends joke that I am a coconut: brown on the outside, but white on the inside.” – Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist’s Handbook.

I wrote a post fairly recently for the Rationalist Association’s blog (soon set to be in New Humanist magazine too) entitled ‘Does Humanism have a demographic problem?‘. In it, I put forward the idea that organised humanism may experience a turnout perhaps unrepresentative of the total population of humanists. At the lectures that the British Humanist Association provide, for example, the audiences tend to be, on the whole, rather white and rather middle-class, and I think that this is a problem. I understand that this tendency is an issue shared by many membership organisations in the UK; but I can’t help but feel that it needs to be more vocally addressed in humanism’s case, as an idea or belief should have no racial or income-based requirements (even if they are unintentional or accidental).

The article focused more on the ‘class’ side of things though, simply because Alom Shaha himself had provided me with enough quotable material to ‘leave it at that’ when it came to race – but here I will go into more detail of my own on the topic.

Effective Altruism

Early on, waiting for the hall to fill up.

Last Tuesday was a good day. Peter Singer gave a lecture.

I’d been looking forward to it for some time, early on securing a place on the Facebook first-come-first-served waiting list just to be sure of a seat. Of Singer, I knew fairly little. His name was familiar (as it turns out I have one of his books in my room), but I had no idea of his philosophy, opinions, or even personality.

I went into the hall fairly blind and un-opinionated, ready to ask myself some questions (and ready to potentially challenge Peter if I felt I needed to). Purposefully, I’d avoided doing research beforehand too: I didn’t want there to be any spoilers.

And, so, it was all pleasantly surprising.

Beginning the talk, entitled (as I should have mentioned) ‘The Life You Can Save‘, he opened with a straightforward ethical question. Showing us all a relatively infamous video (below) of a 2-year-old girl in China who was run over by a van and subsequently ignored by many passers-by, he asked: ‘Would you stop to help this girl?’

(Warning: upsetting scenes.)

Everyone’s answer, evident in their silent nodding, was yes. Of course they would. Walking past, like a good few actually did, would simply be immoral.

Then it got interesting.

The Scriptural Illiteracy of Believers – The Young Atheist’s Handbook

Here’s another post inspired by Alom Shaha’s outstanding ‘Young Atheist’s Handbook’.

I hope that these will help a few to consider donating to the campaign to get copies of the book in all English and Welsh secondary schools, the website for which can be found here: http://yah4schools.org.uk/.

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“I find it astonishing and depressing that many people who lead their lives according to the ideas and rules laid down in these books have not read them” – Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist’s Handbook.

You may have guessed it, but faith often has a lot to do with religious belief. Strip even the most ‘educated’ theological argument down to its core, and what you’re often left with is ‘we just don’t know – therefore God’.

The ‘we just don’t know’ part is reasonable. The leap of faith required to justify the existence of a very specific, very personal deity is anything but… Yet, that is the argument many make. Even Theologians.

Don’t Reply to Well-followed Christians: A Twitter Lesson

It was a simple question…

RT @RyanWesleySmith: "All we need is Jesus."

And food, no? Water?—
Carnun Marcus-Page (@CarnunMP) April 18, 2013

But then this happened:

@ogada700 @CarnunMP @RyanWesleySmith Is this the part where you fall down and flap like a chicken?—
Jorita Groenewald (@JoritaGroenewal) April 18, 2013

(At least chickens have an excuse, eh?)

I learnt a lesson that day: ask a slightly sarcastic yet entirely reasonable question on a public forum, and you’re doomed to a timeline full of annoyed hysterical apologists.

“I once met a Texan who…” – The Young Atheist’s Handbook

Here’s another post inspired by the outstanding ‘Young Atheist’s Handbook’ by Alom Shaha.

I hope that these will help a few to consider donating to the campaign to get copies of the book in all English and Welsh secondary schools, the website for which can be found here: http://yah4schools.org.uk/.

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“I once met a Texan who bragged that he had only ever read one book from cover to cover: the Bible” – Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist’s Handbook.

I’ve read the Bible; and if I’m honest, the prospect of having it come along with me, by default, to a celebrity/music-filled island is, to say the least, a little disappointing.

Don’t get the reference? I’ll explain… Desert Island Disks is a popular and long-running radio show in which relatively well-known public figures are invited on to talk about what music they would least detest being stuck with for the rest of their lives on a fictional desert island. They also get a loosely enforced ‘luxury item’, as well as the choice of a book to go with the Bible (or alternate holy book) and the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Even though I’ve never thought about it, I think it’d be easier for me to pick the music than the book. I’ve read far too many to pick a favourite, and far too few to reassure myself that a decision would be in any way well-informed.

But, thankfully, this is a wholly fictional scenario – in real life I don’t have to think about restricting myself to a single text.

Why anyone would do so voluntarily, and be proud of it, not only deeply confuses me but saddens me too.