Multiculturalism in England

At the Student protest rally in London last November, I saw a group of people marching together; laughing and joking, holding a sign saying “Jewish and Muslim Students Unite“. A Jewish guy was holding the hand of a Muslim girl. Sadly, I didn’t manage to take a photo of those two. But I got a photo of the banner. I cannot think of a better symbol of the success of multiculturalism in this country, than that group of young people. Whilst the older generation (and a few crazed extremists) likes to cling on to some oddly indefinable nostalgic sense of “Britishness”, the rest of us are getting on with each other, just fine.

David Cameron today has claimed that Britain has become too tolerant of extreme Muslims. It is an unfortunate speech because it comes on the same day as the biggest EDL rally in its history in Luton, later today. Cameron’s mistake is that he mentioned Muslim extremism particularly, and not English Nationalism too.

Both are intolerable thugs, yet both are just not important. They should be ridiculed and ignored.

Cameron makes this speech a year after Merkal of Germany made pretty much the same speech in which she argued that German Multiculturalism had failed, and argued for a strong German national identity……… a strong……. German…. national identity…………. I wont point out the obvious flaw there.

He claimed that too many Muslim organisations are showered with public money, without doing anything to combat extremism. The question is, are the extremists part of these groups showered with public money? If they are, then of course they should be trying to combat the extreme element. But if they aren’t, then why should they? It’s like claiming that all middle aged men should be using their time and influence to combat the fact that a large number of paedophiles, tend to be middle aged men.

It would be terribly ignorant to suggest that there isn’t an extreme element of Islam in the UK. There is. Is it a threat? No. It is a fringe group of fundamentalists, just like the EDL, or should not be acknowledged or given a platform whatsoever. When either EDL or Muslim groups start to propagate violence, then it is up to the security services to make sure they don’t make good on their pathetic threats. But whilst they keep talking about “the word of God”, we should shake our heads, wondering how humanity hasn’t managed to progress past the middle ages, philosophically.

There are many many English Nationalist bloggers who blog exclusively concerning Islamic fundamentalism. They never mention violence and racial discourse by English Nationalism, because they are a part of that propaganda machine intended to imagine Englanders as the great victims. It is of course nonsense, but it isn’t just English Nationalists who play that card….

The Islamic Standard takes fairy tale delusions to the next level. It is religious folk like he, that I despise. They are the cancer of the Earth. He states of a soldier who has recently died in combat:

The family said in a statement: “Martin was proud to be in the Parachute Regiment and serving his country. He served three years as a Police Community Support Officer in West Yorkshire Police before joining the PARAs.”

So not only was he in it for the money like many soldiers, but actually believed in this war against Islam and though anyone can change whilst still alive and become a better person, I can’t help feeling the world is a better place without this nationalistic enemy of Muslims on the planet.

One wonders why he thinks we should be a “friend” of his brand of Islam, when he preaches the total overthrow of our entire culture, and replacement by his.
It’s an ugly sentiment. It makes me angry to read it. But knee-jerk reactions, to Religious Fascism is what leads to the rise of National Fascism, and that’s fucking horrendous too.
It is ironic that he uses the term “nationalistic”. Nationalism is the mirror image of Religious fundamentalism. Both are fighting for a silly little concept, an outdated, human invention. A non-divine, delusion. He lives in a Country that allows him the freedom to wish death upon anyone who isn’t the biggest fan of his fairy tale delusion, and yet he condemns it. As an Atheist, I do not condemn him to death, I do not want to impose my ways on him. I’m sure he can be a nice, civilised, loving person, when he isn’t being a massively racist thug. Whether the man who died was a soldier or not, is irrelevant to Islamic Standard, because in his “about” section, he states:

We also don’t condemn our brethren who do violent acts in the UK, they have their evidence, we have our’s and we love them for the sake of Allah, they are our brothers and sisters and we would never agree to hand them over to the kufr Taghoot authorities and believe to side with the Kuffar, aid them in their war against Islam by either spying on the Muslims or joining their crusading armies and police forces are acts of Kufr Akbar (major disbelief).

- He does not condemn terrorism. He loves them, actually. For the sake of a fairy man in the sky, he loves terrorists. But he doesn’t love Western terrorism. The terrorists have to be Muslims. Violence and murder is perfectly acceptable, as long as you’re slightly Arabic. Because his God apparently differentiates between the skin colour or culture of his murderers. He condemns Western aggression throughout the World (which I do too), but he does not condemn Muslim extremism, when its aim is to install its punitive religious bullshit on those of us who would rather drink our own piss than submit to religious “values”. What if his “brethren” (a word that always makes me laugh, a product of religious delusion) who “do violent acts” kill a child? Is that not condemnable? What about an innocent old lady (I know extremists like to try to justify their inherently violent nature, by suggesting that no one is “innocent”, but that’s a cop out)? is that okay too, because it’s a fight for a massively overrated religion?
He, in short, is a thug.
But he is entitled to his bullshit, in this country. I entirely disagree with him. I find him a virus that the immune system of humanity should be intent on weeding out with logic and reason. But I will always defend his right to be a Fascist, in the same way that his mirror image – the EDL have the right to believe the bullshit that they believe. They are a very small minority who do not condemn violence against those who entirely disagree with them, but want others to understand, believe and treat them like our superiors. It isn’t ever going to happen from me. He condemns me for who I am. He condemns me, because I am not a Muslim.

Cameron argues that Multiculturalism has failed.
He’s wrong.
It hasn’t failed.
Thirty years ago, the Tories ran a campaign in Birmingham with a leaflet stating “If you want a nigger as a neighbour, vote Labour”. Thankfully, that sort of far right Nationalist bullshit is past us. Now, your kids could be white and Christian, playing football in the street with their black, Muslim and Sikh friends. My dad coaches youth cricket teams; the young players are all very very good friends, and are all mixed culturally. Cultural integration is a slow process that takes a generation or two to take hold. This new generation of children are far more culturally aware and integrated that we ever were. Cameron’s speech is inflaming a culture of suspicion of the “other” that until now has been left to the idiots on the far right. He is giving a credible face to that intolerance, especially by not referencing the anti-British values of the EDL.

That being said, I am no fan of organised religion, and if I had my way, no religious organisation would be receiving public funds, and I absolutely wouldn’t tolerate religious schools. I do not want Christian influence on politics and law, just like I don’t want Islamic influence on politics and law. I do not want fairy tales to influence reality. Cameron would do us all a credit, if he is taking a swipe at Islam, to also take a swipe at extreme Christians. Contrary to Christian belief, Western law is not based on Christian reasoning. It is based on social evolution and common sense. Law should be based on irrefutable fact, not on largely discredited miserable fairy tales from 1500-2000 years ago, in the desert. Whilst religious people like to suggest that homosexuality is unnatural, I would suggest that religious belief, is the most unnatural and vicious pessimistic invention humanity has ever had the misfortune to invent. The moment we no longer need such bullshit, is the day when we have evolved to the level that we can truly call ourselves civilised. Fundamentalist Islam, like Nationalists in the EDL are not civilised. They are barbaric thugs and nothing else. Do not let them convince you otherwise.

Multiculturalism has not failed.
The experiment of Nation States has failed. The experiment of one overriding National identity has failed. The experiment of organised religion has failed.
Nation States are a left over from Colonial days. They have nothing but a violent history. They are like a market place, always looking for resources to plunder. It doesn’t matter if it is Western Nations or Middle Eastern Nations; the rich ones always want more. It isn’t Islam vs Christianity. It is the rich vs the poor. Always will be. Religion is used as a way to separate the poor Westerners from the poor Easterners, when actually they have more in common with each other than they think. They should be joining hands and fighting back. Racism has always been used as a divisive tool to stop popular uprisings.

We are all a product of multiculturalism. A British identity has always been a little bit obscure. For most of our history, since the year 0, we were a Catholic country, in which the majority of our citizens considered themselves loyal to Rome before loyalty to the Nation. Protestants and Catholics fought for their vision of what it meant to be British. The English fought the Scots. The Royalists fought the Republicans. The Enlightenment thinkers struggled against the “traditionalists” of the elites. Darwin struggled to find a time to reveal the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, in the face of religious fundamentalists, so backward in their thinking, so dogmatic in their delusions, who would have liked him to have been silenced. We are a land of multiculturalism. I guarantee my idea of what it means to be British is far away from what David Cameron thinks it means to be British. Perhaps, in a very broad sense, we can deduce that to be British, is to believe in Democracy, the rule of secular law, and socially liberal values of acceptance. And tea drinking. Lots of tea drinking.

I have always argued that mass migration is linked entirely to global inequality. We, as a Western State had a foot up the ladder of global Capitalism long before Middle Eastern countries started to climb. We used our days of Empire to secure great wealth, that has kept us relatively privileged ever since. We pillaged the World and then blocked our borders to them. We stole resources and labour supplies, and gave nothing back. Now we are complaining that the people we left behind, want a better life for themselves and their families in the UK. That to me, is irrational. The balance has to be tipped toward the centre economically. Flooding the World with American and British multinational companies, is not fair. It is perpetuating the problem, it results in war and in hatred. Always will do. Especially when mixed with religion.

Fundamentalism in religion, is built on a bedrock of intolerance, hate, violence, delusion, anger, and whilst their mindset is undoubtedly influenced by their religious beliefs; they also must have psychological issues in the first place, to allow themselves to condemn large sections of humanity, who have done nothing personally to upset or hurt them, to a violent, miserable death. This is the legacy of religion. To call any religion, the “religion of peace and love” is a contradiction in terms.

George Bush said he had heard the voice of the Christian God, who told him to go to war in Iraq. Absolute madness. And very very worrying, that a man who has such strong delusions can acquire the position of the most powerful man in the World. It is the 21st Century and our leaders are no different from the 16th Century European leaders who were raging wars based entirely on religions. It is almost beyond comprehension that our history for the past 2000 years has been plagued by the dictatorship of a work of fiction. Christian fundamentalism has been the driving force behind the power of the Catholic Church for decades.

If those of us who are sensibly minded, and optimistic for the future of humanity, those of us who are not infected with the disease of organised religion, all accept that it isn’t Islam itself or Christianity itself that are the problems, that they are just systems for spirituality; and we accept that it is indoctrination into extreme tendencies that are the problem, throughout the World of organised religion, we are sure to prevail. Logic, reason, and fact always prevails.

Moderate Christians, Muslims, Jews, English, Middle Eastern etc should be banding together, and enjoying each others company, learning from each other, and progressing. We should not be suspicious of each other, and we should not be condemning each other, purely for the beliefs one has.

Be black, be white, be gay, be straight, be Muslim, be Christian, be Jewish, be Atheist, be female, be male, be fat, be thin, be happy, be miserable, be sporty, be artistic, be eccentric, be philosophical, be left, be right, and live together.

I do not want to see people as being Muslim first. David Cameron is pointing and saying “look, a Muslim, be suspicious“.

…wouldn’t you just eat a salad?

“we are always asked
to understand the other person’s
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious”

In my Politics class, we sit and have a rather tedious discussion most weeks. There is a bin in the corner, about 3 metres from where I sit. I sit with a bottle of water most weeks and finish it by the time the class is over. I wonder if I throw the empty bottle in the direction of the bin, if I will get it on target. I position myself by swinging slightly backward on my chair. I always decide against it. It is tedious because there is no control over the class. People talk on one table about subjects that are absolutely nothing to do with the original topic of debate. Others frequently don’t understand the point of the arguments made by specific political philosophers, and end up rambling on for a moment or two about nothing. They would say more, if they didn’t speak. The day previous, at the gym, in the changing room, a man was in the toilet cubicle. He obviously thought no one was in the toilet and randomly said “Oh fuck it’s a big one!!!!” I am not sure how to respond to that. It’s obviously a sentence of genius. Do I edge slowly toward the door and leave quietly? Or do I bow down in front of the cubicle and worship this legend as he comes out of his castle? Two Christian girls in our class, during a rather slow discussion on Nietzsche attempted to link the entire concept of democracy (not just modern democracy, democracy in general) to Christianity. Christians often narrow mindedly take credit for concepts they simply didn’t create; usually in the subject of art, as if without Christianity there would never have been a Leonardo. But I’ve never seen such a terrible argument presented as to why democracy is a loving gift bestowed upon the World by that beacon of democracy; Christianity.

I pointed out that forms of democracy (quite different to democracy today, I accept) appeared long before Christianity stamped its ugly, overbearing foot on the progress of humanity. One of the two girls looked at me as if I was an utter idiot. She told me, in a naturally patronising voice that democracy came long after Christianity and was a product of it. I mentioned Rome to her, and the election of Tribunes of the People’s assembly, the Senate, and that after around 300bc the lower classes were allowed to stand for office, and that although Rome’s democracy was massively flawed; it was still democratic by the standards of that particular time. The Roman people idolised their Republic. They were scared of absolute power. The Ancient Greeks, long before Jesus Christ wasn’t born, invented Constitutions and in some respects, invented Democracy. She said “no“.

Then more talking ensued…

One person talking louder to make themselves known after the last person. About eight different conversations in the same small room is too much even for my confidence and ego to try to fight over. I dropped my argument. I stared around the room and out of the window. My Kindle holds thousands of books. I have downloaded at least 200 so far, and have only started reading one. Tony Blair’s most recent book. It’s very self serving and has an air of utter arrogance about it. He describes himself as a rebel at heart. He was certainly a great statesman and I have a lot of time for much of what he achieved. But the fact remains, his “modernising” turned the Labour Party into a Tory-Lite Party, capitulating to the excessive power of finance capital. I am reading poems by Bukowski too. As you can tell by the start of this blog. I wish I had more time, and a quiet room. That way, I would have spent the next thirty minutes destroying the argument of massively misinformed, delusional Christians. I get a kind of sadistic enjoyment out of it. I don’t respect or understand their view, when their view is ridiculous, and just outright bullshit.

Democracy, previous to Rome can be traced back as far as pre-historic civilisation. Tribes working as a unit would presume to work together far more democratically, for the common good, than any system forced upon humanity during Christianities harsh hold over Europe. In fact, Christian Europe resembled a system far closer to the that advocated in the Old Testament. The first Pope, in the Bible, says:

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, ¹⁴ or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. ¹⁵ For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. ¹⁶ Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. ¹⁷ Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.
-1 Peter 2:13-17

I think that’s pretty conclusive. Firstly, I take issue with ‘live as God’s slaves’. No. The Christian God disgusts me. I cannot think of anyone worse, to be the ‘slave’ of.  Secondly, it is evident that the first Catholic Pope demanded that his contempories submit to the sovereign authority, whom at the time, was an Emperor, far removed from any democratic principles. St Peter’s role in the Church spanned four Roman Emperors; Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and eventually being crucified under the despotic lunatic Nero. We don’t know who he was writing about when he demanded we all submit to Caesar. I doubt it was Nero, given that Nero really didn’t like Christians. But even if St Peter had demanded that the Caligula, Claudius or Tiberius were to be submitted to entirely, the nature of those first three Emperors after Augustus should be examined. Perhaps they were deep down, democratic?

Tiberius was massively disliked, especially before he died. He spent far more money on the Imperial palaces than on the people. Although the area that St Peter would have lived for much of his life; Israel, has a town named “Tiberias” after the Emperor………. created by…….. King Herod. Executions for small crime went up under Tiberius. He was a bit of a maniac. In fact, he was so anti-democratic, he had his main opponent in the Senate; Gaius Asinius, executed for treason, simply for opposing the Emperor. Why would a loving God desire his faithful subjects to give themselves up to such tyranny? Why didn’t he demand the overthrow of such evil, for a far more democratic model? Why wasn’t that God preaching democratic values, if democracy truly is the product of Christian logic?

Caligula was no better. He had absolutely every Senator who opposed the Emperor investigated, and if he deemed it necessary, executed. This sent a stark warning to the Senate and the final remnant of the old Republic; submit entirely to the Emperor, or die. He then started dressing as a God in public, he called himself Jupiter in documents, and he made Senators who he distrusted, run by the side of his chariot to show their inferiority. Two temples were created and funded by Caligula, for the sake of worshipping…. Caligula. Perhaps this is the beacon of democracy and rule by the people that St Peter was obviously referring to when he demanded people ‘honor the emperor’.

Claudius, likewise, was not elected by popular democratic means. He was the grandson of the sister of Augustus; Octavia. So he believed, through his bloodline, that he was entitled to the Imperial throne. Inherited public power is about as far removed from democracy as it is possible to get.  He pronounced himself the Judge and Jury in many trials during his reign. Absolutely less democratic than even the hardly democratic Republican era of Rome.

So, that leaves us with the notion that St Peter, when asking his people to submit as slaves to God and as subject to Caesar, did not care one bit for democracy, or for personal and intellectual freedom, or the plight of the Imperial subjects and the injustices within the Empire. And so we must conclude, that early Christianity has more in common with its Middle Ages history, than it does with a couple of Christian students’ warped interpretation of democratic history.

Christianity during the Middle Ages was most certainly responsible for the most cruel period of human history in Europe. It was also used as the basis for Monarchy. Kings and Queens did not use Christianity in a manipulative sense just to hold on to power, they genuinely believed, as did their subjects, that they had a divine right to rule, laid out by God. They had inherited the throne of David. That was the justification for Monarchy ruled by ruthless, violent Christianity. Henry VIII was so worried about how he was to be viewed as a King by God, that he divorced Catherine of Aragon, on the pretence that God had punished him by giving him no male heir with Catherine, because she was his dead brother’s wife first.

The Pope arguably had the most power in Europe during the Middle Ages. English people did not consider themselves English first. They considered themselves loyal to the Pope. They did not elect the Pope and they had no say over the policies coming out of Rome. They merely had to accept what the Vatican was telling them. Thomas More (who, quite comically, is now a Saint) advocated the burning to death of anyone who dared to own a Bible in English. Catholics believed only the Vatican and those who were scholarly and rich enough to read Latin, should have the right to interpret the Bible for the rest of the Catholic World. That couldn’t be less democratic if it tried. It wasn’t until Henry broke with Rome in 1534, that England as a culture and a united people started to take some shape. But even then, the despotic power of Rome was merely transfered to the despotic power of the King. No form of democracy was created. The beginnings of Protestantism were not democratic. Americas beginnings were not democratic. The Athens system in the centuries preceding the apparent birth of Jesus included a system that did not allow women or slaves the right to vote. America, similarly started off, for a very long time actually, not allowing women or slaves or anyone whose skin colour was slightly darker than their own, the right to vote.

Skip a couple of Centuries to America, and some would argue that Christianity was responsible for the birth of the nation. Not true. The historian Robert T Handy argues that:

“No more than 10 percent– probably less– of Americans in 1800 were members of congregations.”

Most of the Founding Fathers were Freemasons and Deists. They were, as was America, products of the Enlightenment. Freemasonry and the thinking of the Enlightenment, the moving away from strict Christian dogma, is far more important to the development of early America. George Washington, the first President of the United States of America, and the man who was essentially the pillar on which the early Republic stood and managed to survive the early years, was a devout Freemason from the early 1750s, until the day he died. He became a master mason at the end of the 1590s.

Thomas Jefferson famously despised the dogma of organised religion, stating:

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.”

Jefferson received a letter from the third President, John Adams, stating:

“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

It is thus evident that the United States was not the product of some new found Christian love and appreciation for democratic principles. The Constitution specifically states that there shall be no religious oppression. It does not mention the wondrous contribution Christianity has made to the onset of democracy.

Democracy, like Capitalism, like falls of Kingdoms and Republics and Empires is the result of social evolution and the collective cultural mind of a population rebelling to meet the challenges of major shifts in consciousness and technology and economics. It is not the result of Christian dogma.

The historical reality is almost always, on every issue, entirely at odds with Christian delusion. They never accept it. They invent history. Just like the two girls invented history, and invented their own special brand of logic in my politics class. It was however, one of the only times that my mind hasn’t wandered in that class. Usually we talk about one particular philosopher and it just gets too crowded with the sounds of unrecognisable voices blurred together. It all just sounds like a constant irritating ringing in my ear. There was a man sat out a chip shop in Leicester yesterday. It was 11am. The chip shop must have only just opened. He had a huge bowl of chips. He had his legs wide open, to accommodate the mass of draping fat that swung down below his knees as he sat. At that point, wouldn’t you just accept you may have been wrong all those years? Wouldn’t you just eat a salad?

The Pope in Britain

The Pope is in the UK for less than 24 hours, and he’s already calling the majority of us Nazis. The ex-Nazi Youth member, who brought back into Catholicism a bishop who claims the holocaust never happened and Jews are the enemy of Christ; the Pope turned leader of a mass child sex cover up, said:

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.
I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny.

It’s an often repeated manipulation, that Hitler was Atheist. He wasn’t. Nor did he wish to strip the State of religious influence. I’d go further, and suggest that centuries of anti-Jewish sentiment spewed by the Catholic Church, had far more influence on the anti semitic sentiment in Germany of the time, than non-belief ever had.

Hitler in 1922, said this:

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. .. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.

Hitler in 1933, said this:

“Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity.”

Hitler, also in 1933, said this:

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”

Hitler in 1934, said this:

“National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.”

In 1939, Cardinal Orsenigo was sent by Rome to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. Pope Pius XII started an annual birthday celebration tradition for Hitler in fact. The Catholic Church each year would send “warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany”.

Here are some lovely Catholic Bishops, showing their love for The Nazis.

- You can tell they’re not Atheists, because we wouldn’t wear such pathetically elaborate costumes.

Here is a page from a German kids book, made by the Nazis:

It reads:
“When you see a cross, then think of the horrible murder by the Jews on Golgotha..“
Anti-Jewish propaganda, pointing out that Christians have a duty to hate Jews. Atheists didn’t say this. We didn’t want this.

In 1933, the Vatican and the Nazis signed the ‘Reich Concordat’ which in exchange for the Pope’s power over Catholics in Germany, meant that the Vatican would encourage Catholics in Germany to leave politics (at that time, they were very powerful) and allow the Nazis to centralise power, with no opposition. This allowed the Nazis to take full control of the Country, and progress to the next level, and we all know how that turned out. The Vatican said nothing on the issue. According to writer John Cornwell:

“On July 14, 1933, after the initialing of the treaty, the Cabinet minutes record Hitler as saying that the concordat had created an atmosphere of confidence that would be “especially significant in the struggle against international Jewry.” He was claiming that the Catholic Church had publicly given its blessing, at home and abroad, to the policies of National Socialism, including its anti-Semitic stand.”

In 2009, the Pope lifted an excommunication on a Bishop who is an out of the closet Holocaust denier. Bishop Richard Williamson, whom this Pope brought back into the fold of Catholicism, the same Pope who tells we Atheists that we are Nazis, claimed that Jews were the “enemies of Christ“. He blames Catholic Church corruption, on Jews. He claims Jews are fighting for World domination. He claims there is no evidence that 6 million Jews died in gas chambers in Nazi Germany. The Pope brought him back into the Catholic fold.

Perhaps the Pope should spend less time referring to Atheists as Nazis, and more time trying to rid his Church of systematic sex abuse, anti-semitic bishops, and changing its horrific stance on AIDS in Africa.

So you’re offended. So fucking what?

“So you’re offended. So fucking what?”

- Stephen Fry, on the offence caused when speaking about religion.

When Saint Thomas Moore refused to take the oath of supremacy, that stated the King was the head of the Church in England, and not the Pope; he was executed. Bishop Fisher followed the same fate. As did many other Catholics who refused the oath. It was used as an instrument of propaganda and a power tool. The oath itself went on to inspire the wording of the US oath of citizenship (also nothing more than a power tool and instrument of propaganda, swearing an oath; your life, to an abstract concept of Nationalism), which ends with the line ‘so help me God’. It would appear that with over five hundred years, and countless Christianity inspired murders, Christianity itself still has a debilitating strangle hold over people, especially those who do not wish to indulge in primitive cult worship. We have not learnt a thing, as a species.

It is no secret that I find organised religion to be massively intolerable. It offends my sense of rationale. It’s bloodshed history disturbs me. I also find it particularly funny. Something to be laughed at. I do not like how much power it has over the World.

In 2006 a group called Christian Voice picketed outside the Student Union of St Andrew’s University, where a play called Jerry Springer The Opera was being performed. The musical is written by one of my favourite comedians, Stewart Lee, and is a satirical look at the World and Christianity, based on Jerry Springer Show. Christian Voice threatened members of the audience, and so many extra security guards were brought in to protect the audience. The show inside, got a standing ovation.

In the same year, and for the same reasons, Christian Voice threatened to picket strongly in force outside of the Cancer Care centre Maggie’s Centres, if they accepted a £3000 donation from Jerry Springer The Opera. Christian Voice told Maggie’s Centres that to accept the donation from a show full of ‘filth and blasphemy’ would be a public relations disaster. Maggie’s Centres therefore rejected the donation through fear and intimidation from a bunch of Christian fundamentalists. The donation would have been used to provide a better standard of palliative cancer care for sufferers and their families. But apparently that’s not as important as offending a few nutjobs and their make-believe fantasy World. The Christian Voice website, almost brags incessantly about how they successfully harassed theatres into dropping Jerry Springer The Opera, with threats of private prosecutions for blasphemy under the Incitement To Racial and Religious Hatred Act.

The show failed to gain massive audiences, due to the fact that theatres across the UK pulled out, because of the intimidation from Christian Voice. The group however said that the show’s failings was due to divine intervention rather than their own actions. Clearly divine intervention didn’t reach far enough, because Jerry Springer The Opera won four awards at the 2004 Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best Sound Design, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Acting in a supporting role, and Best New Musical. Best Musical at the Critics’ Circle Awards, Best Musical at the Evening Standard Awards, Best Touring Production at the TMA Awards, and Best Musical at the Whatsonstage.com Theatre Goers Choice Awards. This all suggests that a magic man made God had nothing to do with the lack of viewers, and more to do with the threats, intimidation, and outright bullshit of Christian fundamentalists and their rather pathetic cult.

Fundamentalist Christians are just as much of a roadblock to the betterment of humanity, as fundamentalist Muslims who insist on calling for the deaths of anyone who draws a picture of the Prophet Mohammad. The very fact that a historical speculation rather than fact is taken so seriously to the point where threats upon a man’s life are made, is evidence to me that we have allowed organised religion to dictate our way of thinking far too much over the years. I have no doubt that those muslim fundamentalists find a picture of Mohammad offensive and derogatory, and that is our fault as a society for allowing it to get that far. Generation after generation of indoctrination, and teaching our children not to think for themselves has created a bunch of angry mindless robots who think that their imaginary man in the sky is worth dying and killing for. We are teaching our children that a person is a religion or a nationality first, and a human being second. Why should it matter?

Whilst a large number of US citizens spend their time complaining that Obama is some evil Marxist for extending a decent standard of healthcare to a higher number of Americans; they had absolute no problem when President George Bush spent billions of US$ sending thousands of soldiers to their pointless deaths, and the deaths of many many innocent Iraqi’s including Children. They took it as a sign that their thuggish imperialistic temperament was endorsed by their God, when George Bush told the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in 2003 that:

‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me.’

Perhaps when God told George to go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan, he meant that he should personally go, with a sword and shield to fight them, not sit at home in luxury, sending a bunch of kids from low socio-economic backgrounds to their deaths for a few years without actually achieving a thing other than an increased threat from another bunch of crazed fundamentalists other than his own.

I have no doubt that the power that Christianity has, and the illegitimate authority it commands over our lives is a left over from the end of the Renaissance period, and beginning of Enlightenment. John Locke quite famously said that Atheism was:

“not at all to be tolerated because, promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist.”

These people have always believed themselves to be the height of human morality. The problem is that hypocrisy is lurking ever so slightly beneath the surface of the claims of people like John Locke. The Popes of the time (Middle Ages/Reformation/Renaissance/Enlightenment/present day) were almost always corrupt and up until very recently, made sure those ‘promises, coventants and oaths’ were keeping entirely with what the Church’s understanding of the words meant (which were always very loose definitions; usually definitions that made the Church richer) and enforced it upon the pain of death for those who dissented.

During his reign in the 15th and 16th Century, Pope Alexander VI (Patron of Raphael, Michelangelo and Bramante) had a long term mistress whom bore him four children. She was married to someone else at the time. That didn’t stop the Pope. Before he became Pope Alexander, Roderic de Borja amassed huge wealth, and used it to bribe electors into electing him to the Papacy. His daughter Lucrezia is said to have bore him a daughter/niece. A contemporary writer in Rome wrote that Lucrezia was “the pope’s daughter, wife and daughter-in-law“. An Ambassador to the Papacy, Burchard, wrote of Alexander introducing his son to his court, and the celebration that ensued:

“On Sunday evening, 30 October [1501], Don Cesare Borja gave his father a supper in the apostolic palace, with 50 decent prostitutes or courtesans in bright garb in attendance, who after the meal danced with the servants and others there, first fully dressed and then naked.
Following the supper, lampstands holding lighted candles were placed on the floor and chestnuts strewn about, which the prostitutes, naked and on their hands and knees, had to pick up with their mouths as they crawled in and out among the lampstands.
The Pope watched and admired their noble parts. The evening ended with an obscene contest of these women, coupled with male servants of the Vatican, for prizes which the Pope presented.
Don Cesare, Donna Lucrezia and the Pope later each took a partner of their liking for further dalliances.”

It was during this period, that the Papacy had a strict control over the lives of its citizens. It was beaten into the brains of its citizens across Europe, that Christianity was not to be questions, or attacked. The penalty for heresy in most parts of the known World, was death. So it is no wonder that we are still living with the remnants of those days; angry self righteous Christians attempting to push their sense of organised communal morality onto the masses through fear and oppressive intolerance. We have seen the death and destruction caused when they have a lot of power. They should have no power.

The power of the Papacy didn’t only exist during the corruption of the Renaissance era. In March 2010, it emerged that the office of the Papacy prevented a 1996 prosecution of Priest Laurence Murphy, who had admitted sexually abusing over 200 young boys. Pope Benedict XVI at the time was in charge of the Catholic Church’s disciplinary offices. A trial was organised, but under orders that it be kept entirely secret. We wouldn’t want to taint the righteous name of the Catholic Church. Murphy then appealed to Benedict (then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) for mercy, and the case was immediately dropped. The Pope therefore, covered up child molestation, to protect the name of the Church.

The mother of one of the victims of Murphy said:

“There should be no institution that is not accountable for what they do, that is able to hide behind the faith. You know the Catholic Church is very powerful and that should not be.”

We should not allow the Papacy, or organised religion in general any kind of say as to how we run our own lives. We shouldn’t feel guilty if our standards are below those put to us by the Church or any other religious institution. I would rather not go to a heaven endorsed by the Catholic Church.

Religion should be individual. A sense of spirituality is not a bad thing in itself. If you find a show offensive to your unproven belief, then don’t watch the show. Do not try to ban it for the rest of us. We have our own minds. Personal faith is not a bad thing. Organised faith are comprised of institutions that should be mocked, laughed at, ignored, and powerless.

So you’re offended, so fucking what?

The Abstraction

Around the year of Muhammad’s birth, the Arabians within the central penninsula were actively resisting the Byzantines and the Persians, and in fact organised religion and empire in general. They did not however, escape the pull and the “meaning” that comes with abstract concepts invented by humanity, plaguing the West at the time. The Arabians instead practiced the concept of “Muruwwah”. This idea stressed the importance of courage and patience, endurance and honour. It kept the tribes going. It was a concept that penetrated every aspect of their lives. They were taught that society would fall apart without it. And yet, when logic prevails, Muruwwah doesn’t actually exist. It’s a subjective man made concept.

Man has always confined itself to abstractions. The problem with abstractions, and in particular abstract philosophies and concepts, is that whilst they attempt to provide dogmatic objectivity, they are by nature, massively subjective.

Humans have always placed an unattainable goal ahead of us, a goal that throughout our lives sucks up our hopes, our desires, our dreams, our human decency, like a sponge. The concept of Heaven, which is largely derived from the concept of an eternal World of Plato and other Greeks, tells us that this life is going to be a bit of a disappointment, but your dreams are going to come true in Heaven. Heaven acts as a sponge for positivity whilst the World we live in is a reflection of negativity. There is no Capitalism in heaven. There is no poverty in heaven. There is no climate change in heaven. And yet, the majority of us do not care to see our fantasy of a Heavenly World reflected on Earth. Why is that? Heaven is a man made fantasy ideal, and yet we place it in a box labelled “other“.

The Nation State is a product of colonialism. The Europeans carved up Africa into Nation States as a way of control. We could control the labour force, we could control slavery, we could control information, we could control the movement of capital. Nation borders are meaningless. They always have been. They are meaningless, because they exist in the collective mind of humanity only. The Nation State did not exist before humanity, it did not exist for the majority of the time humanity has been on the planet, it will not exist after humanity, and it does not exist to anything else other than humanity. And so therefore, it is meaningless, because it doesn’t exist. Like organised religion, the Nation State was used as a method of control by humanity over humanity.

As Capitalism took hold, Nation States no longer had the control over labour, slavery and capital that they once had. Nation States are entirely at odds with Capitalism. In fact, Nation States only really work when an economy is entirely protectionist, and Empires exist. Nation States were never about race, or identity, or culture, or anything of the sort. They have always been about control. Control previously lay at the feet of the Monarch. The State, was the Monarchy. Man and State were the same thing.
Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld says:

“What made the state unique was that it replaced the ruler with an abstract, anonymous, mechanism.”

Nationalism by logic then, is less than 500 years old. Racism grew with colonialism, and whilst the cancer of racism has largely been destroyed, remnants still remain and people are still quite unapologetically racist, with no actual reasons for their racism. Nationalism is an “other”. It is something we think is larger than ourselves, it is largely pathological because before human beings, and after human beings, England will not exist. A land mass that we once inhabited will exist. But England, and it’s abstractions that work simply to disassociate ourselves with the rest of humanity in the same way as Christianity and Islam and America and Pakistan and sexuality does.

Corporations today have more rules, more regulations, more limits on information, labour and capital than any Nation has. Corporations and their laws are just as abstract and nonsensical as Nation States. Corporations are the modern day Nation States. You all look a certain way, talk a certain way, waste your life trying to obtain this subjective and abstract concept of “success”. We are now governed by Capitalism or a form thereof. It tells us if we work hard enough, we can achieve anything we wish. But that simply isn’t true. Capitalism is the dome that we are living under, and it’s promise of ‘everything’ is in the same box as Heaven…. “other”. It is religion.

Catholicism, Protestantism, Capitalism, Democracy, Fascism, Communism, Materialism; they are do not exist. They are ideals that soak up hopes and dreams and say “YOU CAN HAVE THEM IF YOU……. work hard enough/are white/keep buying shit you don’t need/own nothing because the State owns it for your benefit………. but eventually you’ll be the perfect happiness.” They are the “other“. The concept of Heaven is very similar. The concept of Plato’s eternal realm is very similar. Abstractions that don’t actually exist in anything other than man’s mind, are used to control man. The men who create these concepts have created them for the purpose of control. Feudalism was a system of control. Capitalism is not much different. There are still Lords who suck up the majority of the wealth at the behest of the many. The U.S Constitution protects a certain class of person. The USSR protected a certain class of person. Whether or not it was designed with that specific goal in mind is debatable, but perhaps subconsciously a certain class of people always assume they are best placed to rule.

The Catholic Church was set up to spread the word of Jesus, yet ended up being perhaps one of the wealthiest institutions on the planet. In the 16th Century, instead of helping the poor that Christianity swears to do, the Catholic Church took money off of the poor, to finance St Peters. They found ridiculous ways to justify the selling of indulgences because the abstract concept they were attempting to spread, which they had inevitably corrupted, demanded obedience, even though the entire doctrine was based on conjecture, dodgy history and man made abstractions.

Catholicism created a culture of idol worship with the creation of Saints. We in the modern era have took that idol worship that the Bible strictly forbids, and our new idols are National pride, pop stars, sports stars, TV presenters, authors. They are also in the realm of “other“. Their public success is largely fatuous, worthless, and offers very little in the sense of the progress of humanity, but they’re worshipped as idols. We salute a flag that we invented, We wear the clothes that the stars wear, we recite their words, we want our bodies to look like theirs, we concentrate far too much energy on being like them, than being like ourselves. Why is that? Is that natural? Perhaps so. Humans have always created an abstraction that we place above ourselves, perhaps because we cannot cope with the notion that we as a species are the height of intelligence. And yet, we are. We created God. We created Nations. We created all other abstractions, the very same abstractions that today hold us all back and group us together into ridiculous categories.

To break away from these abstractions, and concentrate on reality, is in a sense Anarchism. Libertarianism evolves from the idea that we must break away from abstractions, and whilst I think Libertarianism goes too far to the right, I understand it’s principles. But then Anarchism itself, is dogmatic, and an abstraction……and…………… ARGGGH!!!! I don’t know how to end this blog.

The rules of Marriage

It is rather ironic that anti-gay marriage proponent, and self named “defender of Traditional Marriage” in California, Doug Manchester is getting divorced. Almost poetic. Perhaps if Mr Manchester had spent less time funding anti-gay movements, less time stealing $9.3million from the joint account of him and his wife of 43 years, and more time trying to save his traditional marriage, this essence we know as Karma wouldn’t have made him a bit of a public laughing stock.

Mr Manchester told the New York Times in July 2008, that he was funding Prop 8, because; “my Catholic faith and longtime affiliation with the Catholic Church leads me to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.” I hope I can count on Manchester’s money to help me fund an initiative designed to ban divorce… because the Catholic Church doesn’t look too kindly at that particular subject.

The word “traditional” in the horribly right winged mantra; “traditional marriage” is almost ironic in itself. In the same way that American’s tend to call tall people “shorty“. Whilst marriage certainly has been a case of man and woman throughout history (mainly because society had not evolved to the stage where homosexuality was acceptable, and that punishment for homosexuality was considered perfectly legitimate, yet for some odd reason all Christians, even Mr Manchester would agree we’ve evolved enough as a society to ignore other sections of Biblical “traditions“, such as Exodus 21:7 – “If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do“), it has no traditional precedent in the slightest.

Take Biblical marriage for example. If the homophobes among us are going to chant the boring, unoriginal, ridiculous mantra of “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” (God also made Eve out of Adam’s rib. So when you’re finished attacking Gay people, why not surgically remove your own rib, and try to raise it into a Female, go on, try it!) then they also have to, by their very own logic, point out that Exodus 21:10 states “If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights“…… So, traditional marriage, in the very earliest sense, the very essence of what marriage traditionally meant, was that you can marry as many women as you like, as long as you look after the first wife.

Now, if we skip forward to the New Testament, we see; Matthew 22:23-32, which paraphrases Deuteronomy 25:5, with; “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him“
Traditional Marriage is becoming a little bit complicated. It certainly isn’t a romantic union of pure Love between a man and a woman. It can be apparently between a man and many women, a man and his brother’s widow, or if you’re King David – anyone you quite like the look of on that particular day.

Roman marriage was not much filled with love and romance either. Roman women were expected to marry, purely to produce a son, and purely because the wealth of the girl, when married, moved entirely to the husband, who would use it as political capital. The ceremony itself did not involve mother-in-laws crying at how happy their Daughter looked, or the kissing of the bride, or the romantic glance into each others eyes. Instead, it consisted of the two households signing into agreements about property and wealth, and the agreement from the new wife that she would provide children, pretty much on demand. If a wife failed to produce male offspring, the male would often divorce her and just move on to another woman in the hope of producing a male.

Skip even further, to Renaissance Europe, and England in particular, we are presented with the death of King Henry Tudor, and the crowning of his second son (Prince Arthur, originally supposed to succeed his father, died young), the 17 year old King Henry VIII. Henry’s new bride, and the widow of Arthur (sticking with tradition so far!) Catherine was the daughter of the recently formed Spain (the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile) and so a powerful Princess. The marriage between Arthur, and then Henry, and Catherine was one designed purely to create an ally out of England and Spain in the face of a powerful enemy in France. Henry soon became overly bored with Catherine, given that she failed to produce any living sons to succeed Henry. She gave him a daughter, the future Queen Mary, and Henry wanted a son. He became convinced that he was cursed to have no sons, and that God did not appreciate him marrying his Brother’s widow (clearly the contradictions of the Bible confused him). It was always going to be difficult to get a marriage annulment from the Pope, given that the Pope was now under the control of The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who just happened to be Catherine’s nephew. This in turn, lead to Henry deciding he didn’t need the Pope’s permission, and so broke from Rome, which set the ball rolling for what he now know as the Protestant Reformation – cemented fully, during the reigns of Henry’s only son King Edward, and his daughter Queen Elizabeth – the very reason us Brits aren’t some mindless Catholic drones. Meanwhile, Catherine, was simply banished from Court. And the subsequent marriages of Henry, were all designed purely for the creation of a male heir. Marriage in Tudor England, Renaissance Europe, and in fact, the preceding centuries had absolutely nothing to do with love, nor was it anything like it is today. Marriage was reasons of power and wealth, the joining of two strong families with visions of grandeur. It is the reason Henry’s father, Henry Tudor married the niece of Henry’s enemy, Richard III. It cemented the Tudor dynasty beautifully. Marriage in the proceeding centuries following the Tudor’s comes directly from our 16th Century King, marrying six times, executing two, and divorcing two, all for the sake of a male heir.

A couple of centuries later, and America has just elected it’s first President. George Washington at the helm of perhaps the most impressive Government in American History. John Adams as Vice President. Alexander Hamilton at the Treasury. John Jay as Chief Justice. And most importantly to this blog, Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State. Jefferson is possibly one of the most contradictory characters in American history. He promotes small government, wont actually shut up about the joys of small government and how destructive large government is….. and yet it is Jefferson who expands government the most when he becomes America’s 3rd President. Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, writing that “all men are created equal” yet, he owns many slaves. When Jefferson’s wife died, it is widely assumed that he had a long affair with a slave in his possession, Sally Hemings, whom he does not free, but instead, has sex with. His own personal sex slave. She then has children, which DNA testing has supported the notion that all six of them, were Jefferson’s. The four surviving children, also become his slaves until the age of 21 (two ran away). A man has needs!!!! Jefferson refused to marry Hemings, stating of mixed race marriages; “The amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent“. So, marriage between blacks and whites during the 18th Century, it would seem was just as sneered upon by the elites, as gay marriage is today. Jefferson, was the 18th Century’s version of Doug Manchester when it comes to marriage.

In fact, it was only in 1967 that the U.S Supreme Court announced it’s decision in the case of Loving v. Virginia, that Anti-Miscegenation laws were unconstitutional.

Marriage has been a subject that has no formal tradition. It isn’t something that has been set in stone since the Biblical era. In fact, it doesn’t resemble Biblical or even early Christian traditions in any way shape or form. It has been used for wealth, prestige, political gain, property, and power, producing of children, much much more than anything to do with a sense of love and unity. Marriage, like society, evolves. We exist at a time when the next stage in the evolution of Marriage is occurring, and whilst 16th Century Europe struggled to come to terms with a major stage in Marriage evolution, with what it meant for a King to proclaim himself more important than the Church when it comes to the institution of Marriage itself, I’d suggest that in today’s World, society in general has evolved to a much more sensible and reasonable level to be able to accept changes, like the inclusion of homosexual couples, without taking opposition to the extreme.

If we are to cite obscure passages in the Bible, to state our case against certain subjects, then we must also cite the Bible to state our case against accepted norms. I’m sure I can count on Mr Manchester’s support when I start selling my children into Slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7-11.

Books books books

Whilst Whitehall implodes, I will lay off writing a blog detailing the events of the past seventy-two hours; the Cabinet resignations, the sexism allegations, the Alastair Darling situation, the Council Elections; because anything could happen in the next twenty four, and i’d rather wait to see how this story progresses.

So instead of my usual political opinionated articles, you get a round up of the books I’m currently reading, because I really don’t have all that much to write about today. My political mind is focused on the rapid disintegration of the Government. When i’m not concentrating on political situations here and across the ocean in the U.S, I’m reading.

The first book I’m currently reading, is Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes. My interest in Catholic history has developed somewhat recently. Specifically, the early Catholic Church. What Eamon Duffy, the Author manages to do, as a Catholic himself, is to appeal to both a religious audience and a secular audience, by effectively telling a story without bias toward the stories and the myths. I was unaware of just how at odds the different early Christian sects of Rome and elsewhere actually were, the vying for power, the sometimes vehemently opposed Gospel interpretations. This book expresses those differences clearly and and in simple terms. It is of course, only one book, covering two thousand years of Papal history, and so it is vague in many places. A simple introduction to the legend of the Papacy from the early Christian meetings featuring St Peter to the election of Benedict XVI. Highly recommended. I look forward to the chapter on Julius II

Speaking of Pope Julius II, the second book I have here to read, is Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. Having stood inside the Sistine Chapel, in awe at the masterpiece that one human being has created, and the subsequent feeling you get when stood in a place seeped in history, it is only natural for me to want to uncover the myths and the messages buried within the art work itself. Andrew Graham-Dixon, the author shocked me quite early on, by suggesting that there is no evidence whatsoever that Michelangelo was homosexual. I’ve always been persuaded to believe he was gay. Due entirely to masculine figures he created doused in feminine attributes. The wealthy banker Messer Jacopo Galli commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt the Roman God of Wine, Bachus. The finished product is indeed a male, yet of very feminine nature. This, along with other Michelangelo works, and his obvious appreciation for the male form, suggested he was indeed gay. And so it is nice to see a different interpretation of an unsure history.
The art within the Sistine Chapel itself is quite obviously a work of genius, even more so when, like I have, you’ve visited it. The depiction of the creation of Adam is so familiar throughout the World, it doesn’t speak out to us, until you’ve stood directly underneath it, and suddenly the power of the image becomes magnificently evident. You get the overwhelming sense of history, the Popes that have been elected within that room, the fact that the room itself played host to the four years Michelangelo spent painting so beautifully a work of art that demands understanding, 500 years later.

I have already read this book once before, but the subject fascinates me perhaps more than any other subject has ever fascinated me before, and given that i’m seemingly unable to draw my full attention to one subject for more than a month at a time, it should indeed impress you that I’ve been a loyal fan of Roman History for at least four years now. The Book, From the Gracchi to Nero is possibly the most informative and entertaining book I’ve read on the subject of Rome. The author, H.H. Scullard has successfully and scrupulously created a narrative that reads like a work of fiction, a thriller, rather than a simple walk-through of the years between 133BC and 68AD. The book not only covers the obvious centres of power within the Senate and the later Emperors, it covers the economy, the Mithridatic wars, foreign affairs, the importance of Italian agriculture, among others. The book could quite possibly be my most cherished book at the moment.

So those happen to be the three books I’m reading recently. I would recommend all three to anyone interested in the history of Western Civilisation and religion, as I am. To the rest of you, I deeply apologise for wasting the last five minutes of your life.

Pope Ahmadinejad the tampon thief

Homosexuality played a key part in Christmas this year.
Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without the murderous middle eastern tyrant of “wanting to wipe Israel off the map” fame telling us all we should hate gays.
Or the nazi pope telling us all that homosexuality is more damaging than Climate Change. Or, more damaging than an idiot in a hat that very much resembles those worn by the Ku Klux Klan, preaching ancient bigoted bullshit to a bunch of brain washed blinded fellow bigots. The Pope needs to stop directing his anger at ordinary people, and direct it at Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke for metaphorically shitting on the concept of music.
And then of course there was all the gay porn DVDs granny bought me. She says she bought me them, but they were already opened. I suspect they’re the old ones that the family didn’t want any more. I mean, Arse Menace II is so 1999.
Oh and not forgetting the largely ignored fact that Jesus and his twelve disciples were raving homosexuals. Sad times.

Christmas intrigues me. I celebrate it purely for the gifts, the smiles, the family, and of course the food. I care less that it’s the Birth of a man who’s life we know absolutely nothing about (The Bible is not a historical record), than I do for the fact that December 25th is also Dido’s birthday. I genuinely love Christmas, because the mundanity of life becomes amplified and those little pleasures you find in the simple, seem to grow ever so large.

As i’m searching “Boots” on the 23rd, waiting to buy even more last minute cheap gifts, wondering if I could peel the price tag off without ripping the packaging, I don’t want people to know i’ve spent only £2 on them………. even that’s a lie….. it was £1.40, with the VAT cut and the Sale discount. I notice a kid acting suspiciously. He suddenly makes a sprint for the doors. It’s amazing because it’s the first time i’ve ever seen a chav in sports clothes, actually doing an activity other than cider drinking. As he ran for the door the security guard grabbed him. He’d tried to steal two boxes of…… Tampons. I had two questions at this point. 1) What does he need tampons for? Is his arse bleeding? Is that why he made a break for the door, he needed to get home to “plug it in?” and 2) Is he buying those for someone else? A christmas present perhaps? How pissed off would you be if your boyfriend wrapped up some Tampons for you at Christmas? Nonetheless, it was a beautiful moment made all the more beautiful by the fact that the security guard pulling the tampons away from him, was an angry woman. Is there anything more poetic in life than that?

I was standing in the queue at “Boots”, waiting to pay, when out of nowhere I heard the most paradoxical conversation ever spoken by man. It was a disaster of a conversation but oh so beautiful and Melliflous a conversation that when I recount it to you in a second, I will have to end this blog at that point, because I am unable to find the words that can properly emphasise my indelible joy.
So prepare yourselves….

Old man 1 : Ello Dave!
Old man 2 : Oh ello Kev, how you been?
Old man 1 : Yeah not bad, how you been?
Old man 2 : I’ve been top class mate, how’s Edith fairing up these days?
Old man 1 : She….she died.
Old man 2 : Oh Kev I am sorry………………………………………. looking forward to christmas?