Category Archives: Religion

The Christmas Shoebox Appeal Is A Manipulative Indoctrination Campaign.

OCC

Christmas is coming, which means it’s almost time to dig out that awful sweater, retrieve the decorative tat from the attic and pay tribute to everyone’s favourite magical zombie Jew-God. This has something to do with sprouts too, for reasons unknown.

However, unlike Jesus, one thing guaranteed to return is the Christmas Shoebox charity appeal (AKA ‘Operation Christmas Child’). This appeal usually makes itself known via your offspring’s school, your place of employment or various other local establishments such as pubs or supermarkets.

Operation Christmas Child’ is a seemingly commendable endeavour whereby the general public are asked to fill up empty shoe boxes with unwanted toys, which the charity then transports to children in less privileged regions.

For anyone in possession of a pulse – this will understandably feel like a worthy cause. But are you aware of the charity’s robust ideological goals and troubling behaviour?

Read more

I Don’t Believe Andrew Brown Knows What He’s Talking About

Image from http://www.businessweek.com/

Image from http://www.businessweek.com/

When engaging with honest critics of Islam, the popular weapon of choice for apologists is often misrepresentation. Commonly we’ll read that those voicing concerns about the doctrines of Islam, and their earthly consequences do so only as a symptom of their bigotry towards all Muslims as people. One smear is rarely sufficient in this regard however, so a conflation with racism is seemingly necessary to give it that extra bite. Andrew Brown seems to be ticking all the boxes in his latest Guardian piece: ‘Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims’

Yes, we are now essentially being told: “No, this is what you really think”. This is as lazy as it is dishonest.
Read more

Easter Review: ‘The Real Easter Egg’

Evangelism is alive and well.  Chocolatey, chocolatey evangelism.

The Real Easter EggMany of you may have noticed ‘The Real Easter Egg’ gracing our supermarket shelves, adorned with the promise of telling the ‘true’ story of Easter.  Not to mention the proclamation of ‘charity’ plastered all over the packaging.  Ever wondered what it’s all about?  Probably not.  But I’m going to save you the £3.00 and tell you anyway.  You’re welcome.

Given the fact that there are now a few variations of this product on the shelf this year, I would be inclined to believe they’ve been selling well (It is chocolate after all), or perhaps they’re simply happy to pour ‘God’ knows how much of whoever’s money into a failing enterprise for the sake of filling some impressionable child’s noggin with superstitious nonsense.  Indeed, I’ve had images tweeted my way to show these packaged humpty dumpties, sitting tragically alone on the shelves, remaining long after the other non-indoctineggs have been snapped up.  If anyone knows how to obtain sales figures on these tasty propagandeggs, I’d be pleased to have them shared my way.

The egg I’ll be taking a look at is the one shown in the image above.  If you’ve picked up one of the other variations, please feel free to let me know of any differences in the comments below.  I must say on a personal note, I was incredibly disappointed to discover the sticker set was absent this year.  Arranging Jesus in imaginative positions amongst the other characters filled my entire Sunday last year.  I’ll do my best to avoid egg puns, but I’m not promising anything. Read more

Are Students Required To Accept Islam Is A Religion Of Peace? The BBC Thinks So..

Religion of Peace

The BBC is not unaccustomed to criticism. Some of it is merited; some is simply due to their stature.  People love to take a swing at a giant once in a while. I hold no agenda to single out the BBC as frequently as I have this year; it’s just that they seem to be going out of their way to mock the gods of reason.

From the censorship of satire in response to a chorus of bleating from a humourless Christian minority, to refusal to re-think the increasingly outdated and less than inclusive format of its ‘Thought For The Day‘.

There was also that nasty business whereby a ‘journalist’ was able to assert something as utterly irresponsible as “men are raised to hate women” on the flagship BBC news programme, without so much as a follow-up question. Poor editorial indeed.

Throw in the BBC’s unquestioning promotion of Atheism Plus’ odious Block bot and we have an organisation that has truly earned itself a spell on my naughty step.

Imagine then, the look of unrefined exasperation on my face, as I completed a “Practice exam” on their High School revision service, GCSE Bitesize.  You could have driven a school bus into the gaping negative space created by the rapid expansion of my oral cavity.  I still have jaw ache.

For the uninitiated, GCSE’s are qualifications awarded to high school students (age 14-16) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The BBC’s ‘bitesize’ service aims to provide revision tools and practice exercises relevant to the current school curriculum. In this instance, the subject in question is Religious Studies, with a focus on Islam.

Upon taking the two minutes required to answer the questions in question, it soon became clear that the BBC, or the relevant educational bodies do not give a flying horse about objectivity where the ‘Religion Of Peace’ is concerned.

As you can see from the below, two questions in particular, or more specifically, what the exercise deems to be the correct response, caught my eye:

RelOfPeaceIslamEquality

If you’re unsure as to my gripe at this point, it may be best to return to your bubble.

Read more

Godless Spellchecker Christmas Podcast Invite

stopsign

Yes, like it or not, that time of year is almost upon us again. Fox News will soon be rallying a call to arms to fight an imagined war on an imagined deity.  And Christians that are unfamiliar with the word ‘Paganism’ will take to social media to vent their displeasure at the fear that nonbelievers may be enjoying a holiday that isn’t ‘theirs’. Delicious irony. Ho ho ho.

Personally, I love Christmas. For me, it’s a time to catch up with family.  Great company, mixed with laughter, too much food and drink, terrible sweaters and worse socks. What’s not to like?  I’ll pass on the sprouts however, thanks.

This got me wondering (see Oprah? See?).  I’d very much like to hear what Christmas means to other nonbelievers with similar or completely different cultural backgrounds to me.

What do you do at Christmas?  Do you hate it? Do you love it?  Do you refuse to celebrate it?  Are you forced to endure the religious convictions of your family?  Do you insist on calling it Xmas? Has a recent loss of faith spoiled what was once a meaningful time of year for you? And why the hell didn’t Santa bring you that Megadrive you asked for when you were 7?  You were really good that year. And you wrote him a nice letter. A nice letter specifically asking for the console complete with two controllers and a copy Streets Of Rage so that you could play with your best friend, Paul. Yet nothing! Nothing!

I digress.

I want to hear as many varied viewpoints as possible, from as many countries as possible.  So, throughout the coming weeks, I hope to reach out to a number of those who fill in the below form.

The intention is to take up two minutes of your time via Skype voice chat (free download/Also available on smartphones) to ask you to vocalise/expand on your answers given below.

Read more

Podcast – Thoughts and Thanks

Podcast

Recently  (Fri 12th July) I was fortunate enough to be part of The Herd Mentality Podcast hosted by Mr Adam Reakes, with special guests Mr Oz Atheist, and a young up and coming comedian, eager to make a name for himself, Ricky Gervais.

He’s going to be big one day.  Remember you heard him here first.

You’ll click below to listen to it immediately if you know what’s good for you.
iTunes (Episode7)
Direct Link
Android (Stitcher)

I had lots of fun.  I’m a huge fan of Ricky; I’ve been to his live shows, adore his sitcoms and hold fond memories of laughter-filled evenings gathered with good friends, cold beverages and a download of his latest podcast.

ricky-gervais-show-550x366The irresistible combination of wondering what Karl Pilkington will say next, how exactly Ricky will react to it, whilst Steve Merchant tries to hold it all together has made me laugh to the point of abdominal pain.  Please seek them out if you haven’t already listened to them.

It is for this reason, that hearing the disembodied voice of Ricky booming from my laptop seemed familiar enough for me to forget I was actually part of the conversation at times.  And I often did.  This is fine by me however, as I said, lots of fun!

A huge thanks to Adam and Mr Oz for making this happen. They were responsible for all the technical aspects and organisation respectively.  All I had to do was take the day off work (already worth it), sound disappointingly Mancunian (I’m not Prof Brian Cox) and be entertained by two Aussie gents and my favourite comic.  A great way to spend a morning, I hope you’ll agree.

A massive thanks to the Podfather himself for giving up his morning just to have a chuckle with a few like-minded strangers.  I was really taken aback by Ricky’s generosity and praise. It’ll stick with me.  Kindness is magic.

“How dare you have a go at Rihanna!” is still making me chuckle. Haha!

Thanks to anyone who has already listened and sent kind words our way.  I’ll never cease to be amazed at how rewarding just having fun on Twitter has become.

Please subscribe to the Herd Mentality Podcast and check in on the previous episodes too.  There’s some great stuff in there.  Also, please check out the hilarious Ricky Gervais on his YouTube channel and subscribe.  Go and get the guitar…

GS

1 2 3