Beneath The Veil

Eight years ago whilst sitting on my sofa and channel-hopping through the TV schedule I happened across a riveting documentary. A young female reporter of Afghani descent had decided to travel to Aghanistan and see the land that her father had spoken so fondly of. Nothing so unusual about that you may say, there are now hundreds, if not thousands, of reporters male and female cutting about Afghanistan. Note the first three words of this paragraph - 'Eight years ago', this particular young female reporter was entering Afghanistan at the height of the Taliban's power, when they ruled the country with an iron fist and the religous 'police' were universally feared. When public executions in the main football stadium were a regular occurrence (and well attended!) and women especially were subject to the most barbaric and inhumane treatments imaginable.

Why do I bring this up now, eight years later? Because this particular documentary was one that has stuck in my mind in the intervening period and because it is now available on Google video. The reporter in question is a young lady named Saira Shah and she deserves the utmost respect for having the fortitude and courage to enter the theocratic nightmare that was Aghanistan under the Taliban and show the world what was happening.



That is why, ladies and gentleman, we should endeavour to ensure that situations like this are not allowed to flourish. Read more!

Random Hitchens Quote #2

[Religious belief] is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you - who must, indeed, subject you - to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life - I say, of your life - before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea!

Christopher Hitchens

'Nuff said. Read more!

Billy Connolly on Religion

Billy Connolly espouses on the subject of religion:



Yep, the big hairy bollocks would certainly make a man think twice I'm sure! Read more!

Answers?

(H/T to Godless Blogger)

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I Get E-Mail!

Given that I hadn't posted anything on this blog for some months, people may have been forgiven for thinking that I had laid it to rest. I don't attract a great deal of readers anyway and garner limited comments on the posts that I do make, which is why I was greatly amused to find the following e-mail languishing in my in-box. Someone called 'shaunf10186' has obviously discovered my blog, and after reading some posts and my profile, felt compelled to vent by way of e-mail.

I was finding it hard to put into words my feelings on receiving this e-mail, so many questions sprung to the fore. What had I done to deserve this? Was it really for me? Why had I been chosen? I eventually accepted the inevitable and can only simply say...Thank You!

I read a lot of atheist blogs and have always been envious of those that receive e-mail from religious fuckwits and various whackjobs. I've been blogging on here for almost 2 years and have never received so much as a one-line e-mail from anyone that has been so pissed off by what I have written that they just had to respond via electronic media. Sure I've had comments on my posts from individuals such as I have described, but Damn It, surely you haven't achieved anything in the atheist blogosphere until you get a vitriolic e-mail from a nutjob? So Thank You!

I am honoured to join the ranks (albeit as a raw recruit) of those giants of teh internets who receive such e-mails by the bucketload. Some of those blogging giants even, dare I say it, delete such e-mails. Gasp! Imagine getting so much tard in your in-box that you could act in such a cavalier manner? I promise never to become so blaise.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your viewing pleasure, shaunf10186's e-mail. I have reproduced it in full initially and will reproduce it again after the fold with my comments in red.

Subject: opinion-ator

Date: 22/08/2009 18:26:20 GMT Daylight Time

From: shaunf10186@hotmail.com


Dear Psycho-fantic killing machine come Freudian follower,
I know for a fact you enjoy lauding in other peoples discomfort and pain. So I’ll just keep this short and sweet remtard. Your opinions and views are what I can only describe as fashionable for the atheist and secular turning world and for some phyric reason you think you speak common sense well Einstein quibbed common sense was a set of misconceptions attained by your twenties and believe me he has got the moral authority over you and he is Jewish. Fact as fact can be. Keep your Freudian-mum-loving-after-life-hating- killingcareer -living opinions of morality to yourself. You’ve got no reason to wade in these waters and do you want to know why because your path in life has been directed towards killing soldiers in the army/air-service / navy of foreign countries now you broadcast your superior morality over people, who derive their morality from something more pure than post colonial foreign policy and Freudians half baked incestual ideas. Jog on wannabe.

P.S. Half way through writing this I thought to myself I am turning into some kind of religious zealot(I reasoned with myself sometime ago that I’am agonistic maybe a patheist at worst/best) but it looks like I’ve come out the other side a patheist hen again its better to fight for something than live for nothing is’nt that right captain killer. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees is‘nt that what hey make you do in the armed forces for your country. Is that the reason, your nashamedly against organised institutions because they brainwash individuals to kill for ulterior motives. Well get with the program Plato the majority of Christians/Jews and Muslims are peaceful until they are persecuted not at all like the politicians peaceful until the whiff of black gold and power arises. Should we et bums like you destroy the moral reasons of millions of people who selflessly give up time and money to help charitable causes. Should we all gravitate towards a odless world where justice and progress is decided by individuals on WHAT? (political) grounds. Face facts we basically inherited our justice and working system from religion if we hadn’t we would still be fucking cavewomen in caves and made no progress from the age of wholly mammoths. Hardly an atheist utopia back then was it boyo. I will leave with this rhetorical question cave sex with monkeys or religion which one would you of chosen Freud?

May I retort?

Dear Psycho-fantic killing machine come Freudian follower,

I'm so keeping that.

I know for a fact you enjoy lauding in other peoples discomfort and pain.

Have we met? You just described my favourite trait.

So I’ll just keep this short and sweet remtard.

Oh, if only.

Your opinions and views are what I can only describe as fashionable for the atheist and secular turning world and for some phyric reason you think you speak common sense

Fashionable? You say that like it is a bad thing. Fashionable would indicate attractive and desirous, the latest 'must have'. So if by fashionable you mean that people are attaching the atheist label to themselves as some sort of 'latest trend' and don't really dis-believe then I am afraid that says more about the mainstream religions that it does about atheism. 'Phyric reason'? I'm almost sure you mean to say Pyrrhic but I fail to see how it fits into the context of your statement. Perhaps you should consult a dictionary before you hit send on these rants?

well Einstein quibbed common sense was a set of misconceptions attained by your twenties and believe me he has got the moral authority over you and he is Jewish.

Actually what Einstein said was that 'Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen', a misconception on your part perhaps? I'm not sure what his being Jewish has do with anything however, are you a tad anti-Semitic?

Fact as fact can be. Keep your Freudian-mum-loving-after-life-hating- killingcareer -living opinions of morality to yourself.

Don't sit on the fence mate, say what you mean.

You’ve got no reason to wade in these waters and do you want to know why

Do tell!

because your path in life has been directed towards killing soldiers in the army/air-service / navy of foreign countries

I can truthfully say that in 23 years service in the British Army I have never fired a shot in anger. Not everyone who serves in the Army is a combat soldier you know?

now you broadcast your superior morality over people, who derive their morality from something more pure than post colonial foreign policy and Freudians half baked incestual ideas. Jog on wannabe.

If you really think that people derive their morals from the various holy books than you most assuredly haven't read one fully.

P.S. Half way through writing this I thought to myself I am turning into some kind of religious zealot

A rare moment of self-awareness perhaps?

(I reasoned with myself sometime ago that I’am agonistic maybe a patheist at worst/best) but it looks like I’ve come out the other side a patheist

Again, I'm sure you mean pantheist, but for some reason I read it as 'pathetic theist'.

hen again its better to fight for something than live for nothing is’nt that right captain killer.

For once we are in agreement.

Better to die on your feet than live on your knees is‘nt that what hey make you do in the armed forces for your country.

Most assuredly, you're not very good at this insult lark are you?

Is that the reason, your nashamedly against organised institutions because they brainwash individuals to kill for ulterior motives.

Are you trying to say that we shouldn't be against organised institutions that brainwash individuals to kill for ulterior motives?

Well get with the program Plato the majority of Christians/Jews and Muslims are peaceful until they are persecuted

Agreed, it's just a shame that it doesn't take much for them to feel persecuted.

not at all like the politicians peaceful until the whiff of black gold and power arises.

A very astute observation, people in power tend to utilise that power for their own ends. What makes you think a theocracy would be better?

Should we et bums like you destroy the moral reasons of millions of people who selflessly give up time and money to help charitable causes.

I would like to think that people would give up time and money to charitable causes because it's the right thing to do, not because they think it will curry favour with 'the man upstairs'.

Should we all gravitate towards a odless world where justice and progress is decided by individuals on WHAT? (political) grounds.

Where do you think justice and progress is decided upon at the moment?

Face facts we basically inherited our justice and working system from religion

Because prior to Moses rocking down a mountain with a couple of stone tablets the Hebrews were happily killing and fucking everything in their paths?

if we hadn’t we would still be fucking cavewomen in caves and made no progress from the age of wholly mammoths.

Yeah, religion never gets in the way of scientific advancement does it?

Hardly an atheist utopia back then was it boyo.

That would be because the superstition mongers were running the show.

I will leave with this rhetorical question cave sex with monkeys or religion which one would you of chosen Freud?

Do you have pictures of the monkeys?

So there you have it folks, my very first e-mail from a fuckwit. I'm impressed that it carries a lot of the hallmarks of the religious fanatics' e-mail that I see on other sites; it has the atrocious spelling and bad grammar that we have come to expect, the multitude of ad hominems and appeals to authority and a quite obvious display of ignorance. My only criticism (and it's a really small one) is that it could have been so much better. Next time shaunf10186 can you please omit the paragraph break, type in all caps, oh and remember to throw in a few font colour changes.

Other than that you have made my day, so once again, Thank You.

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Did You Miss Me?

Hello folks, as I intimated in my previous post I am indeed now ready to recommence my efforts on this blog. Some of you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything for a while, in fact my last substantive post was in early March. You may also have noticed that I stopped posting without warning, well don't worry gentle readers I didn't disappear from the atheist blogosphere due to discovering a supernatural deity shaped hole in my psyche or anything like that, it was purely and simply due to work commitments. I have never explained on this blog what I actually do for a living and, sadly, I'm not about to now either, but I have spent the past few months out of the country in a location where, due to the nature of my employment, blogging has been impossible.

It may seem that I am attempting to be enigmatic and mysterious with regards to my employment in an attempt to 'big myself up'. I can assure you that is not the case. My job is mundane for the most part, but for reasons that I simply can't be arsed to explain on this blog, I feel that discussing the matter would be giving out more information regarding my personal life than I am currently prepared to give. So sorry readers (both of you!).

However, I am now back in control of my keyboard and will attempt to pick up where I left off, which, as you all remember, is posting random atheistic commentary on a minor blog which probably amuses no-one other than me.*

Good to be back.

*Which is probably the only real reason for anyone to blog anyway.
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Almost

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