Deck the Halls

I am most surprised that South Africans’ (and South Americans’ and Australasians’) heads don’t explode from the overload ofCognitive Dissonance they must be labouring under at this time of year.

There’s the Holly.And the Ivy.



There’s the reindeer



The Tree



And all those bloody Christmas carols going on about In the Deep Midwinter, Rejoice the Son is Born.

Whose Son?

Her’s,maybe:



It’s not even as though they’re celebrating the anniversary of a real birth.

But Baby Jesus has been sharing his birthday with Mithras for 2 Millenia.

Now, as if this was not enough to make me grumble and gurgle in the corner, we have Pagans in this country who celebrate Yule at this time of year, as well as Samhain at the end of October.

I would’ve thought that they could at least get it right, seeing as how their ‘religion’ is seasonal and earth-based.
I’m going to Grinch it out for he next couple of weeks, though:just don’t expect any Scrooge-like conversions as the miraculous Day approaches.

Happy, festive, fertile Litha to all!

The Neo Pagan Right

Big Fat Whale posts this send up of the Christian Right, with the rider “This is not an endorsement of neo-pagan hippie bullshit.” attached. I thought it was fun, appropriate and in time for the holidays.

Apologies if the strip isn't too clear.You can go read it on the original.

Thanks to Jason Pitzl-Waters for the link.

What is Your Animal Personality?

What Is Your Animal Personality?

The Menace of Faith-Based Unreason

Sam Harris is at it again


He opens in characteristic Harris fashion, with a jab to the guts:

Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of 6 billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girl’s parents believe—at this very moment—that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this? No. The entirety of atheism is contained in this response

But this piece, while less of an emotional brick to the head than “There Is No God and You Know It” is a bit fuller on the proposal that atheism is not only the good way to go, it may be the only way to go, if we are not all to be joining up with Vehement(thank you, Supergirl!).

When we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; when we have no reasons, or bad ones, we have lost our connection to the world and to one another. Atheism is nothing more than a commitment to the most basic standard of intellectual honesty: One’s convictions should be proportional to one’s evidence. Pretending to be certain when one isn’t—indeed, pretending to be certain about propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable—is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Only the atheist has realized this. The atheist is simply a person who has perceived the lies of religion and refused to make them his own.

Just a small nitpick, Sam and Richard Dawkins: More people than you think actually do believe in the existance of Zeus and Thor.

No, I can’t do anything about them.


Sam Harris has kicked me out of the dire depression I was in yesterday.

From my obviously biased viewpoint, that alone is reason enough for his existance.

The Solar System is an Alien Humidor

2003 EL61,a cigar-shaped object orbiting our sun in the Kuiper Belt- a trans-Plutonian region of the solar system- has thrown up a couple of further surprises.

It has at least two moons, one of which is revolving around its primary at an angle of 40 degrees to that of the first, larger moon.

2003 EL61 also rotates on its axis once every 4 hours or so-which may or may not be responsible for its bizarre shape.

All this, apart from throwing astronomers into a quandry about what does and does not constitute a planet, reminds me, and probably others out there, of Arthur C Clark’s really boring Rama novels.




If we did find superior-quality aliens lurking around the solar system it might be the very thing to kick earthbound humanity out of its morbid fascination with religion, death and salvation.The details are left up to the reader.

All of which, of course, is just the excuse I need to post another pic on the blog


Because:




Have a great weekend, people.