Do you ever consider how sinister the name Salvation Army actually is?
As I found out while recently clearing out my old bedroom I wrote quite a bit back in the day.
Some of my writings included outlines for loads of different TV shows. What I found interesting though is how many of them have manifested themselves as actual TV shows in the ten years since I wrote them. For example Just One Way was an outline which followed the fast-paced action of one man’s life over a 24 hour period, a plot similar to what we would now recognise as 24.
Other shows included The President’s Office which has striking similarities to The West Wing and 100 Deeds Before I Die which could easily be compared to My Name is Earl.
What this shows us it that the makers of today’s television programs have the same imagination, ideas and thought processes as a child. Where this is a good thing or a bad thing I will leave up to you.
Everyone knows that Barack Obama is an atheist.
“And non-believers” may be a small fish in the UK, but in the US even such a small mention is worth something. Not to mention his support of stem cell research and gay rights. So chances are he’s just Christian because you could never get elected president of the United States without being one. If this is the case, it is no suprise he hides his atheism so well – he is smart enough to get himself elected president of the US after all.
This got me thinking – what is George Bush is an atheist? I mean, he got himself elected as president of the United States. Which seemes to leave us with three possibilities:
All three of these I would consider valid possibilities.
It is possible for people to be both smart and a Christian. For them to be scientists and yet when it comes to spiritual matters for them to turn off the logical part of their brain.
It is possible to be president of the United States without being that clever, perhaps. The main reason for thinking this is that George Bush seems to be such an idiot. But also consider how many utter blondes attended your red brick university with you. You think to yourself, “these girls are just so ditzy and blonde, how did they get in here?” Yet they did, and go on to graduate most of the time as well! There are some people who are just naturally really good at something, even academics, or maybe politics, that aren’t overall that smart.
Finally, it could all be an act. This would seem unlikely in George Bush’s case because he on the whole did take a conservative Christian approach when it cames to policy which suggests he did actually want to push these policies through. After all, what would be the point of ataining office only to push the pretence so far as to actually push through all the things you didn’t believe in?
However, if it was anything short of this, I would probably ask the question as to whether George Bush could have been an atheist. It’s no great leap to think that someone could act dumb for his public image when they are actually very clever – take a look at the bumbling Boris Johnson who has now planted himself as mayor of London.
Mulling this over though, it will hopefully make you wonder who else could have potentially been simply religious for political reasons – much like it was suspected that many of the founding fathers of the US were deists because this is as far as they could push it at the time.
Of course, Tony Blair’s secret raging Catholicism adds a whole new dimension to the debate…
Yesterday saw the third run of our One Life course begin with the traditional first topic, the meaning of life.
The session saw a very good turn out of about 20-25 people which is great for a One Life and something I hope we can sustain throughout the course. The food was also excellent so it was an all round winner of an evening. The post-event social was a bit shakey but we eventually ended up settling down at the Cuthbert Brodrick for the evening and didn’t leave until kick out.
On Thursday, The Gijs delivered his talk “Intelligence and Scepticism” to the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire.
The thrust of the talk was that there was an inherent contradiction in Humanism and a rational approach to life because Humanism is something that is very positive and the world on the whole isn’t positive with all the crime, senseless violence, falling out with the people you care about, etc. Although admittedly a lot of this revolves around the Humanist manifesto.
It was never the less a very interesting talk and even though it turned into a bit of a socialist preaching ground at the end (from the audience, not The Gijs) it was a good evening. We finished off at The Well, the rebranded Joseph’s Well which had actually locked their doors because nobody was in there until we came hanging on the door.
Perpendicular parking for the win.
Headed down to Alpha at South Parade Baptist Church last night.
I was expecting a fairly young audience given South Parade is reasonably heavy with students but that certainly wasn’t the case. It was very much a whole of church thing and it was nice to have a bit more of a classy atmosphere for the evening 😉 .
You could tell students weren’t involved from the standard of the food to be honest, which was excellent.
The event itself though was reasonably disappointing, it was a live speaker and the turn out was reasonably good which are both plus points but the standard of table leaders provided was somewhat lacking. Answers like, “yes, that is a tough question” aren’t really what we were looking for.
Still a fairly enjoyable evening and we got an Alpha book out of it so far from wasted time.
Tuesday night saw A-Soc hold it’s Introduction to Atheism talk. This year is was presented by three different speakers – Money Bags did a philosophical look at atheism, Norm did a look at the various terms atheists use to describe themselves and I did applied atheism – atheism in the real world or as I like to put it…
Taking your bucket of atheism and throwing it at the wall of life.
The talk overran a little but was overall very warmly received. We finished off with a social at The Old Bar which featured a surprise visit from Brett who is up in Leeds for a few days!
All in all it was a good night, although attendance was sorely lacking. This is something we can hopefully sort out in the coming weeks.
Went over to my parents for dinner on Monday and somehow got ambushed into sorting through a lot of my old stuff.
So, so many trees worth of paper thrown away. Including my prize collection of empty refill pads which I built up over the years. Not to mention and endless series of course notes from a-levels, books, magazines, comics and a whole heap of other junk.
I also found a few of my early writings including the self explanatorily titled A Stern Letter from Richard Nixon. I vaguely remember writing it though I didn’t dare read it – doing so could only reduce the treasured place such a work has in history.
Wetherspoon’s have now introduced their new menu, which while almost identical to their old menu, provided us with a good excuse to expand our options for Sunday lunch. I’m glad to say that after nearly five years of campaigning, we have finally got profiteroles on the menu. Win.
