Recently, I wrote about a theory that had been put to me, suggesting that we should align the age of sexual consent and the age of voting. I founded it difficult to come up with arguments to refute it.
But there is a problem. If you just put the age of sexual consent up to 18, kids will probably just have sex anyway. It’s not like people really pay that much attention to the law as it is. Indeed, some people make the argument that the age of sexual consent should be lowered.
Of course, that isn’t necessarily an issue. Maybe you just lower the age of voting to 14 as well, but then we would probably all agree that that would be pretty crazy. Still, once you agree that people can do more harm with sexual activity than they can with voting, how can you argue that the age of consent should be lower than the age of voting?
So, what are we do to then? Do we just live with the contradiction that it doesn’t make sense to have a higher age of voting than sexual consent, except it doesn’t make sense and settle with a logically inconsistent but ultimately pragmatic approach? Maybe that in itself is logical justification? I’ll throw it open to the floor…
One question I often get asked when discussing religion with Christians is “you do accept Jesus as a historical figure, right?”
The argument goes along the lines of this:
There is evidence that there was a character called Jesus in historical records
Therefore, you have to accept that some of the Bible is true
If you accept the historial parts as true, why not accept the rest of it as well?
But do I accept Jesus as a historical figure? No, I don’t. Actually, more accurately, I don’t accept that the question really makes sense. I mean, what exactly are you asking me?
For example, I do accept that there was someone called Jesus. But that is misleading. I believe there were lots of people called Jesus. It’s a nonsense question. It’s like saying “do you believe in John?” in this day and age. Well, of course I believe there was someone called John, I know lots of Johns, it’s a very common name.
What you need to ask for the question to make sense is, “do you believe in this specific John?” And when it comes to Jesus, if you’re asking me “do you believe in Jesus, the son of God”, the answer is of course, no, I’m an atheist, so I don’t believe in a god and therefore I didn’t believe he had a son.
I recently washed a Channel 4 documentary on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. While I had heard all about the exposing of the Iraq War Logs and a lot of the surrounding fall out, I was somewhat shocked at some of the footage shown in the documentary. I wondered how many other people had seen it, so I thought I would post the YouTube on here.
I thought I would write to share what I consider to be quite a positive experience I have recently had with the Advertising Standards Authority. Last month, I complained to them about an advert by Boots which I consider sexist.
It’s updated to their YouTube channel with the caption “the girls can’t let the onset of man-flu slow them down.”
Just three days after I had made the complaint, they posted out a letter to me! While it said they wouldn’t be taking any further action, they did take the time to explain to me why they wouldn’t – in this case because they did not feel the advert caused sufficiently widespread offence for them to take action. However, given complaints so often disappear off and are never heard of again, I think the ASA deserve praise for their speedy and in depth response.
Earlier this month, George celebrated another anniversary of his birth.
We did so in style, by heading down to Stick or Twist for Curry Club to grab some dinner before everyone else arrived. Unfortunately, their freezers had broken down so we had a very limited selection of curries to choose from as they were actually having to cook things from fresh.
George received an excellent turn out with us constantly having to expand on more and more tables as people turned up. Unfortunately, some of George’s friends are from Leeds Met so our constant jokes about prime numbers were lost on them. One of them had only just turned 18 which made us all feel old though George explained that he hangs out with them because they are easy to mould at that age. We use the term mould because the term groom has become a political no-no.
I also managed to scare the bar staff. I ordered a dessert and they explained it was cheaper if I ordered it with a hot drink. So I said OK and asked if I could have a hot chocolate, but they explained it had to be tea or coffee and suggested a coffee with two shots in because it was quite chocolatey.
I agreed because it was a money saver and I could just give the coffee to someone else. After I got back, Norm and Phil headed to the bar and were joking about the fact I couldn’t have caffeine. Apparently, this panicked the barmaid who was quite concerned that I might not have realised just how much caffeine there was in the drink she served me :D.
For the last talk of 2011, the Atheist Society had shameless plundered my Leeds Skeptics speaker (who I had plundered from Bradford Atheists) to present his talk “Neuroscience for the Soul” which he presented at Skeptics last month.
Rebecca, being very well to do, had recently mentioned that she had been invited to the launch part of Rib Shakk, a new restaurant slash takeaway which was opening up in the basement of the Corn Exchange, alongside Piazza by Anthony.
So, when hungry one Sunday night, and being inspired by seeing Norm watching Man v Food, I decided to head down there to try out some of their ribs.
When I arrived there was only one group in the restaurant and with nobody else in sight they seemed to have more staff than customers. It’s no surprise really. There is no mention of the place on the Corn Exchange, nor any on the website for Anthony’s Restaurant (I’m not entirely sure if they are linked or not). Their website simply says “under construction” and there is no signage outside. I would have gone before, to be honest, but I didn’t believe it was really there.
Not to mention that googling their name doesn’t help because you put “rib shack” into a search engine and they are nowhere to be seen due to their unconventional choice of spelling. However, I eventually managed to stumble over their Facebook and Twitter pages.
I opted for their meatier rips with a classic BBQ sauce. They were excellent, they are some of the meatiest ribs I have ever had, though I was a little disappointed by the BBQ sauce which wasn’t quite as special as I was hoping for.
Overall, I would probably go back, as the price is comparable to Nando’s – around £10 for a half rack and two sides. That said though, for another £5 I could pick up a full rack from Cattle Grid next door, and their baby back rips really are amazing.
Recently, I headed down to Leeds Salon for their debate on “The Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?” The event was well attended and had a diverse range of people there. Though as the event was part of Leeds Summat, I’m not sure whether that was partly responsible.
The speeches were good, though as someone who only dips in and out of politics a lot of the time, some of the content went over my head. The discussions afterward were very interesting as well. I’m looking forward to attending their next event.
No, this isn’t another ridiculous situation at Sainsbury’s, I’m talking about the “please confirm you are ana adult” boxes that are constantly popping up on my iPhone, 4OD and BBC iPlayer.
I understand that such apps probably need to confirm that I am over 18 for legal reasons. The problem is that they ask me every time. I’m sure that my date of birth is somewhere in my profile, and even if it wasn’t, the app could prompt me to enter it once and then have done with it.
But it doesn’t, my 4OD app continues to prompt me to confirm I am old enough every time I open it.
Now, even if you accept the idea that a child could steal my iPad and decide the first thing they want to do is watch some video that isn’t appropriate for them on 4OD and hence they need to confirm it every single time, why can they broadcast such shows on TV without requiring such a mechanism.
The answer is the Watershed. After 9pm at night you can broadcast much more filth on TV. But if you’re going to argue down that line, given my device knows what time it is, why can the app not stop prompting me between 9pm and 5:30am?
