I see Sadie Jones with “The Outcast” has won the prize for a first novel in the coffee cup competition (Wot use to be the Whitbread evidently), is now £5000 richer and no doubt sales of her book will take off. Congratulations Sadie. See my previous Blog but one for my reaction to Sadie’s book. Guess she wouldn’t have got my vote but there you are, nobody ever asks me to vote on anything and I am usually the one out of step anyway.
Chris and Douglas up nice and early yesterday on a cold wet and windy winter’s morning, making their way to church for the six month memorial service for our neighbour Jannis of blessed memory. They must cost a pretty penny these memorial services, paying not only for the use of the church and the priest but all the holy bibs and bobs that go with them, and afterwards the participants retiring to the nearest café for coffee and cakes. Of course Jannis is already swanning it up in heaven. He got there, according to the church, after forty days and that was when the first memorial was celebrated, but there will be another at the first anniversary of his death and finally one at two years. Phew!
One interesting snippet in the paper this week caught my eye: evidently the British Humanist Association has funded to the tune of £140000 a campaign claiming ‘there’s probably no god,’ this slogan is to be carried on hundreds of buses, and ‘Christian Voice’ is complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority that the ad breaks the code on substantiation and truthfulness. Hang on a minute; methinks there is a slight case of pot and kettle here, at least as far as substantiation is concerned. Well, truthfulness as well if push comes to shove as the humanists are only stating their beliefs and, to be on the safe side, inserting the word ‘probably’, just as a spokesman for ‘Christian Voice’ has said ‘There’s plenty of evidence for god from people’s personal experience, to the interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world. But there is scant evidence on the other side…’
Let us take personal experience for starters: personal experience is no proof of the existence of god. Personal belief is no proof of the existence of god. Saying I believe doesn’t necessarily bring him into existence except for you. Personal hallucinations or LSD trips are no proof of the existence of god; even out of the body experience some people claim to have had is no proof of the existence of god. Being taught from childhood that he exists and believing in Christianity is no proof that he really exists. Wishful thinking and belief in eternal life do not prove the existence of god.
Now let us take the second half of the Christian spokesman’s little speech. I don’t actually know what he means by interdependence so we will pass on to beauty and design, starting with design. If you are a creationist then you believe god designed the world and all that is in it about 6000 years ago but if, as fossil and scientific evidence proves, you believe in evolution then there has been many a trial and error and he still hasn’t got it right because you can sing all things bright and beautiful to your heart’s content and, I do agree, the world IS a beautiful place but unfortunately it is also an extremely ugly one and the list of what is not beautiful is virtually endless. Gaza at the moment is not beautiful; neither is Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran and any number of African states where civil war rages or dictatorship rules. Murderous tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions are not beautiful. Untreatable fevers, AIDS, TB, cancers and venereal diseases are not beautiful.

Greed, unbounded ambition, corruption, political sleaze, sadistic thuggery are not beautiful, cruelty to children and animals is not beautiful, drug addiction, murder and mayhem are not beautiful. The Holocaust and the concentration camps were most certainly not beautiful. Need I go on? All right, the Christians would maintain a lot of this is not down to god but down to sinful man but we are told god made man in his own image did he not? Could he not have done a better job of it?
There are unexplainable phenomena of course like instantaneous combustion (probably wished on me by many a loving Christian) and stigmata but does that prove the existence of god? We know the mind has an enormous influence on the physical body so, even though you and I couldn’t possibly manage it, I am sure those saints who did simply thought their wounds into existence. After all they would look terrific on their CV when approaching St Peter at the pearly gates.
Poor Prince Harry is in deep doodoo again, evidently because in a video made some three years ago he called one of his fellow troopers a Paki and that rag The News of The World went to town in headlines three feet high so everyone jumps on the bandwagon, makes a mountain range out of a molehill and comes out with the most outrageous, ludicrous, and stupefying remarks. Nobody of course has thought to ask the recipient of the remark, one Ahmed what his reactions are. Surely just for the sake of decent honest journalism (does it still exist? Did it ever exist with the Screws?) and a completely rounded story the News Of The World owes it to the prince to interview Ahmed and find out. If he said yes, he was even mildly offended by the remark I would be very much surprised.