A calm reply from Stephen Fry

If I wasn't an atheist...

I follow this group on Facebook.  It is so refreshing to see a church stand up and publicly push for what they think is right.  Others may do it behind the scenes but Gosford have decided to be a vocal critic of the things that are wrong with our society.

Their Facebook header is the word "Decency".  They deserve all the support they can get.

Oh Joy, Oh Rapture!

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(Click to enlarge)

An apology.

Attention please.

I have been getting a bit carried away with my disgust with the Wikileaks fiasco and letting my political comments bleed over into my bland family pap blog, where I should just post flowers and recipes and family archive stuff. I have alternate blogs for those three trouble makers of polite social chit-chat, sex, religion and politics and, chastised, will use them appropriately.

My apologies.

As you were.

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No miracles here.

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The Australian media is in a 'bite its own leg off' frenzy over the impending canonisation of Sister Mary MacKillop.

It is happening as I type. The canonisation, not the self-legectomy.

As an atheist and the son of a man who carried the mental (and physical) scars of mistreatment by Catholic nuns for all of his life, it can't be over soon enough.

At least he wasn't in the care of Catholic priests.
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Smite smote smitten

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Above is a headline on The Age website this morning.

Didn't seem right, somehow. Smitten to me is all puppy-love, doe-eyed and gooey.

I obviously wasn't the only one to point this out to The Age because, later in the day, it changed:



At least now it makes sense.
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Snowparkle's Question

Snowsparkle asked if I could do a poll where I asked whether things happen for a reason, or just happen.

Always wanting to please, that is the poll for this week.

I will comment further on it at the end of the week.
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At long last!

By my reckoning it is 101 days since Hot Cross Buns came into the shops in Melbourne.

I had three today, having patiently waited until the 'right' time.

"Right time?" (I hear you ask) "But you are an atheist!"

Yes, but I am also someone who likes nice food and likes tradition. So I like to eat hot cross buns at the right time. The same way I prefer to wait until Christmas for the local strawberries to ripen rather that forking out for the insipid hydroponic glasshouse variety that seem to be one of life's more expensive ways to buy water, even if they are available all year round.

Will it be 365 days until my next hot cross bun?

No, probably not; you see there are a few that have not been eated and they may, may, still be around in the morning. Left overs are fair game. (But freezing them is cheating.)

Next comes Sunday and the chocolate eggs...
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Imagine that!

I moved this post across to The Odd Angry Squark blog, to keep the Curate's Egg less contentious; religion and politics free, as far as possible.
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Forgive me Lord, for I have grinned!

Had the Jehovah's Witnesses on the doorstep this morning. Well, one of them; don't know where the other was; they usually hunt in pairs.

Anyway Vickie was happy to talk to me without a chaperone and I was happy enoough to listen. Niggling a little here and there, you understand. I like to play with them, if I have the time.

After a while I said "Can I just tell you a little story?" Always polite, how could she say no?

"I have a friend who is a farmer, who lives at a place up in the country called Wedderburn. On his farm he has a tractor, an enormous thing with two wheels at each corner, that he uses for ploughing his paddocks. The wheels are as high as me and it has a fully enclosed, air-conditioned cabin."

(pause to let this sink in...)

"Do you have one?" I asked her.

(Puzzled look and a cautious answer.) "Nnno..."

"Why not?"

"I have no need for one."

(Pause)

"Can you see how this might apply to me and religion?"
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Noah way known!

"How old is the Grand Canyon? Most scientists agree with the version that rangers at Grand Canyon National Park tell visitors: that the 217-mile- long chasm in northern Arizona was carved by the Colorado River 5 million to 6 million years ago.

Now, however, a book in the park's bookstores tells another story. "Grand Canyon: A Different View," by veteran Colorado River guide Tom Vail, asserts that the Grand Canyon was formed by the Old Testament flood, the one Noah's Ark survived, and can be no older than a few thousand years.

- San Francisco Chronicle.

Ye Gods! Sorry, Ye God! Where do these people come from?

And where did the water go to?

Even if you take the view that God did the forty day and forty night thing and that this resulted in a world wide flood that killed all creatures (both wicked men and innocent gazelles!) except those on the good ship Menagerie, you have to just wonder about the mechanics of the process.

If the whole earth was covered to sufficient depth by water to do the mass slaughter deed that was required, it raises a number of questions:

Where did the water come from?
Where did the water go to?
To carve out the canyon it would need to be flowing, not just evaporating. To where? What is down stream when the whole place is flooded? When New Orleans got flooded there wasn't great erosion, there was a great deposit of silt and sludge.

And most pertinently: Do these people have George's ear?
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The new religion?

Someone once said that the English were a godless race so they invented cricket to give themselves some idea of what eternity was all about.

Well, times have changed a little from the days when the game was played solely in white uniforms and cartoonists used to draw cobwebs between the players and the ground.

Test mateches (up to 5 days long) are still played in whites but the shorter forms of the game are in coloured uniforms.

We went to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) yesterday for a one day match.

Both sides face 300 balls, highest score wins.

It was a fascinating day. It was my first visit to the MCG since it had been renovated - a circular, four-tier stadium that holds just short of 100,000 people. The attendance yesterday was just over 78,000. There is very much a colesseum feel to the place.

I am certain that the Australians would not like to consider themselves Christians in this modern day colesseum but the English lions were sorely mauled by the end of it all.

Sadly the experience was marred, for me, by too many drunks and too many Mexican waves. We left when the result was without much doubt but in time to beat the mob to the trams.
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