Abstain from… Texting.

Apparently, it’s Lent, again. That time of year I look forward because, they tell me, it’s a time when Christians give up things (although, I heard a priest on the radio just the other day insist that it’s also about taking up “better” things… sounded suspiciously like spin to me, but what do I know?) The idea of giving up something because it is part of some sort of religious festival doesn’t really appeal to me, naturally, my being an atheist — but it can be rather entertaining watching from my unabstemious (if there is such a word) vantage point.

Especially when presented with the ridiculous prospect of Bishops in Rome calling on Christians to give up mobile telephones and texting!

Of course, I’m sure we’ve all at one time (!) been annoyed by people using their mobile phones at the most inappropriate times. But the very notion that a tool for communication should be “given up” for a Christian holiday, or for any other reason, for that matter, strikes me as quite simply absurd.

As a priest points out in the video clip, he can use a text message to give advice to his parishioners. He sees the value. It isn’t a replacement for other forms of social interaction, it’s merely another way of keeping in touch, communicating, sharing, laughing, crying, arguing, debating — and, yes, sharing crude jokes, of course. It isn’t something that needs to be given up by most of us. My mobile phone is with me almost constantly. Data flows back and forth in numerous forms — telephone calls, text messages, emails, Twitter messages and so on — and my life isn’t tainted by it but, rather, enriched.

It’s all too easy to condemn communication because it involves a relatively new and speedily developing technology, because “the kids” are obsessed by it. But talking, whatever form it takes, is about sharing — about giving and receiving, learning (sometimes) and, quite often, growing.

It’s about the promulgation of myth and, also, the undermining of it. It’s one of the things that makes us human, and just because we’ve found a new way of doing it, it doesn’t make it bad.

If you really want to give up something worthwhile for Lent, I have a suggestion… but I’ll keep it to myself, because you’ve probably already guessed what it is, anyway.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

Richard Dawkins Interviewing the Novelist Ian McEwan.

A little short on time and inspiration again, today, but I have, thankfully, an interview that I really must share with you. An atheist and a novelist! How could I not?

All text © 2009 Gary William Murning

David Attenborough’s Going to Hell — Yippee, At Least We’ll Have Good TV!

I’m a little pushed for time (and energy) today, so in lieu of my usual, rambling observations on anything and everything, I thought I’d just share this article on David Attenborough with you.

I was especially interested to read his views on the teaching of creationism and evolution in schools as if they were equivalent, alternative perspectives:

“It’s like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five… Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066.”

It really is that simple.

© 2009 Gary William Murning except for quotation.

Happy New Year!

My, doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself? It only seems the briefest of moments since we were all preparing to ring in 2008 and, now, here we are again, on the brink of a fresh, brand spanking new year.

So, here’s wishing you a healthy, fulfilled and safe 2009 — with heaps of good fortune and freedom from superstition!

Normal Gary William Murning Online service will resume in a day or two. Be good or, if not, at least be careful.

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Pissing off the Pontiff.

Oh, dear, it seems that dear old Pope Benedict XVI has gone and done it again — spouting his bigoted, antiquated malevolence, insisting that we need to be saved from a destructive blurring of gender.

‘It was not “out-of-date metaphysics” to “speak of human nature as ‘man’ or woman’”, he said. It came from the “language of creation, despising which would mean self-destruction for humans”.’

Firstly, there are many reasons why it is out-of-date metaphysics to speak of human nature in binary terms. Gender — or sex, if, as I prefer, we’re talking in biological terms — is far more complex than that, and, secondly, to issue a statement which attempts to misrepresent it in this way, throwing in words such as “despising” willy-nilly, isn’t merely irresponsible and unacceptable, it’s evil.

I very much doubt it will be news to my regular readers, but this guy is once again at the top of my 2008 List of Vile Individuals. And as such, I think he deserves a record dedication…

… this one goes out to the ungrooviest dude to ever don a frock and jangle his jewellery, The Deluded of all Deludeds, Pope Benedict XVI. For you, Popey-babes, because I know it’s a personal favourite, I give you, all the way from Greenwich Village — that den of iniquity — The Village People with… wait for it… Macho Man.

All text, apart from quotes, © 2008 Gary William Murning

Coming in a Big Black Cadillac.

Okay, I surrender. It’s Christmas and this here atheist feels Christmassy. What the hell.

Let it snow and let there be Elvis. Christmas as it really should be.

[Edit: My apologies -- I had to turn off the snow because it was messing up the loading of my page... hell, Christmas makes me feel so darned powerful...]

All text © 2008 Gary William Murning

Richard Dawkins: An Interview with Derren Brown.

Many of you will already be familiar with Richard Dawkins’s series, Enemies of Reason. In this series, Dawkins examines the all-too-readily accepted charlatanism of psychics, astrology, homoeopathy and more.

During one section of Enemies of Reason concerning spiritual readings, Dawkins interviews the illusionist Derren Brown in order that he might be better prepared for the tricks (cold reading etc) that will inevitably be used during a visit he plans to make to a spiritualist church.  

Below, you will find the complete, uncut interview (not shown in the original series.) The interview is taken from “The Enemies of Reason: The Uncut Interviews“.

All text © 2008 Gary William Murning

Christmas and Mithras.

Okay, so it’s true. As bizarre as it might seem, and however much you might wish not to hear it, I, the above-mentioned Gary William Murning, writer, owner of this website, world-renowned grumpy old bastard, actually felt — very briefly — a little bit Christmassy earlier today. It was rather fleeting, and, you’re right, it may just have been the cheese I ate last night, but there it is. I looked at the token Christmas tree, thought how pretty the lights and baubles looked –

– and then slapped myself a few times, went along to YouTube (dashing all the way) and found the perfect antidote.

Dear Stephen Fry and the QI team. Facts many of us are possibly already more than familiar with, but presented so entertainingly!

© 2008 Gary William Murning

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas.

Ah, yes, that magical season is almost upon us and as is my custom at this time of year, I’m already finding myself wallowing quite nicely and appreciably in the anti-Spirit of Christmas — grumbling away to myself about the excess and foolishness, and generally having a thoroughly enjoyable time being quite contrary.

Bearing this in mind I thought now might be a good time to issue fair warning. Over the next four weeks or so Gary William Murning Online is very likely to become a place at least in part dedicated to everything that is not Christmas. The festive season will be mentioned frequently, of course, but the attitude will strictly be one of irreverence and hopefully enjoyable complaint.

If Christmas is not for you — or even if you only pretend not to enjoy it — remember to keep calling back. There will be (if I can be arsed) suitably atheistic delights, anti-Christmas quotes, possibly the odd dig at the expense of the various (stolen!) Christmas traditions and maybe even some mulled wine (because, let’s face it, it isn’t all bad, right?)

In leaving, and so that I might suitably set the tone, I’d like to share with you a quote from that wit and all-round good egg Mr Stephen Fry:

“Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Why I Get My Knickers in a Twist.

Very occasionally, when I write about my atheistic/humanistic approach to life on this blog, I am asked why expressing my bordering-on-antitheistic position is so important to me. I mean, if I don’t believe, I don’t believe. What more really needs to be said on the subject? It’s not as if I’m being forced at gunpoint to attend church, now, is it?

And this is a valid point. Or it would be if we lived in a world where the actions and attitudes of others did not impact upon the world and people around them.

Frankly, I’ve never really hidden my atheism. I’ve never had to. But my decision to be more vocal about it, to encourage debate and to look at the issues that concern me as a human being was, it has to be said, partially prompted… substantially prompted by the overwhelming assault from Christianity I started to see online. On my MySpace page, for example, I’d selected “atheist” not as some kind of statement but merely in the same way that I had selected “male”. When I started receiving friend requests from Christians intent on showing me the error of my ways, however, I dashed along as quickly as was humanly possible to Richard Dawkins’s website and found one of those nice red “A”s to stick on my then blog over at MySpace.

There seemed a lack of balance in cyberspace. In a virtual sense, I felt as if I were at times living in the American Bible Belt.

And when I started to see similar religious attitudes creeping more forcefully into the UK, I didn’t believe that I had any choice other than to continue to openly and unapologetically express my views. The things I held dear were being gradually undermined.

And it would seem that they still are:

“Doctor Adam Rutherford has told Teachers TV News he has serious concerns over the findings of a survey on creationism in the classroom.

“Nearly a third of teachers, who responded to an email poll for Teachers TV, think creationism or intelligent design should be given the same status as evolution.

“Of the 248 science teachers who responded, 18% agreed that the two should have equal status.

“Dr Rutherford says that science teachers with those views need retraining or should be taken out of the classroom if they refuse to change their opinion.”

18%. It quite possibly doesn’t sound a whole lot to many people — and I know that some of my readers would argue (wrongly) that the 18% are quite correct. But given the number of teachers in the UK, this is a significant body of people. A body of people that does not understand scientific principles, or is perhaps taking the politically correct stance — afraid for whatever reason to challenge religious belief in the science classroom. A body of people that, as Dr Rutherford says, should be removed from their posts unless they teach the syllabus as it’s meant to be taught.

The insidiousness of creationism, it would seem, continues to make its mark in British schools, presenting a distorted view of science and attributing an utterly ridiculous equality to mythological mumbo-jumbo.

If we are to protect and nurture scientific development in the UK — continue to build a future founded on fact, logic, science and rationalism so that we all might enjoy the benefits — it’s vital that such opinions be relegated to their deserved position.

Religious Studies lessons or, even better, History.

© 2008 Gary William Murning