The Pope comes to town

In the last week the UK has had a very powerful, important and controversial visitor; The Pope is making his long awaited state visit. This visit has caused outrage among many non-Catholics ever since it’s announcement in April. The most outspoken and widely reported press campaign against the pope came from our old friends Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchen who, with the typical diplomacy of a sedge hammer wielded by a maniac, threatened to have the pope arrested and charged for crimes against humanity. Unsurprisingly these threats turned out to be hot air, but there remained a large group of people who protested the Pope’s visit this week, claiming that he had no right to a state visit to the UK.

You might already know that I’m not the biggest fan of organised religion and indeed I think the world would be a better place without some of the dogmatic, ignorant and frankly irrational views of some of the world’s more extreme religious groups – and yes I count the traditional Catholicism that the pope represents in that group. However whether we like it or not the pope is the leader of one of the world’s largest religions, and one which hold considerable clout in the UK. He is also the Head of State of the Vatican City – his country may be small, but it is still a country. He has every right to a state visit just as any other state leader has, as indeed does any other major world religious leader.

Just because the pope has visited the UK, does not mean that the British Government stands behind all of the pope’s views – many of which display an almost painful irrationality and backwardness. Traditional Catholicism is a horrifyingly dogmatic and intolerant religion which has done much to damage international relations and has held back progress in some of the poorest and most hunger stricken parts of the world. The UK government should in no way support or endorse many of the pope’s policies. This is not to say however that he should not be allowed to make a state visit to our country and be allowed to voice and propagate views with which most reasonable people will see to be utterly absurd.

We might object entirely to what the pope has to say, indeed we should, but that does not remove his right to say it. As a head of state and the leader of a major world religion he has every right to a state visit and to meet with important British politicians. To deny him such is to be as intolerant as the views that he propagates. Tolerance of those who are also tolerant is easy – there’s no reason not to accept accepting people into society – it is tolerance of the intolerant this is far harder because we know their views are abhorrent. However in the same way as legalising something does not make it moral, tolerating someone does not mean agreeing with them.

Just as the pope has every right to a state visit, we have every right to tell him that we believe his views to be abhorrent, irrational and deeply damaging. Rather than protesting that the pope has no right to come to our country on a state visit like petulant children who can’t stand the thought of people with whom we disagree being in the same room as us, we should act like mature, responsible, intelligent human beings and tell the pope by whatever means possibly – and, the UK being a democratic country, there are plenty of them – that we disagree with his views. I very much doubt that the pope will be moved to completely change his views on fundamental issues, but at least we will be able to hold our heads high and say that we tried and did so in the best way possible.

In fairness to this protests it is principally trying to do just that; demonstrate to the pope that we disagree with him on fundamental issues, however it is unfortunate that, as is so often the case, intolerance of the intolerant crept into the protests and made it too much about whether the pope should even be allowed on a state visit to the UK and too little about why his views are so unpleasant. As is often the case, the intention was good, but the execution sadly failed because it is far too easy to be unpleasant, intolerant and unfair and far too hard in the face of the same unpleasantness, intolerance and unfairness to be civil, tolerant and just.

Hey, priest, leave those kids alone!

I’m sure you’ve all come across the jokes about catholic priests abusing alter boys, and I’m sure you’re all aware that, in recent weeks, these jokes have been revealed to be largely based on fact. The best jokes are always based in reality, which is then ridiculed, taken too far or misconstrued. The facts in this case, however, are probably too chilling to joke about in good taste. It started in Ireland, where reports published last year revealed the extent of child abuse, and more worryingly, the extent to which it has been covered up. Since then the rot has spread across Europe and America, with more and more allegations of abuse and cover-up coming out of the woodwork. So far the main response of the Catholic Church has been to send out an apology and mumble something about not interfering with secular prosecution, when it seems to me hard to argue against excommunicating the abusive priests, and severely punish those involved in covering it up.

The allegations against the priests are universally sickening. For years, hundreds, probably thousands of young, vulnerable boys were systematically abused by people in authority. Often these boys had no-one to turn to and were too afraid to speak out. What was done to them has left them traumatised for life in many cases. The worst thing is that the many senior members of the Church knew that this was going on and turned a blind eye, even helped to cover up the appalling abuse.

Priests accused of abuse were moved onto a different parish so they could continue their abhorrent activities elsewhere. Reports to authorities within the Church were largely ignored or dealt with in such a way as to favour the priest, not the victim. The pope himself has been dragged into it, facing allegations of ignoring accusations of child abuse against priests in Wisconsin. It seems that child abuse is not only something done by sick individuals abusing their power over young boys, but something which has become institutionalised within the church. Rather than trying to face these allegations and accusations head on, the church has, for years, tried to cover them up and pretend they didn’t exist. They’ve put the interests of the Church ahead of those for whom the church is responsible. They seem to care more about an abstract concept; the church, than the individuals who make it up.

It is ironic that of all the institutions it is the Catholic Church which is awash with allegations of sexual deviance, the very same institution which prides itself in the celibacy of its priests and the specialness of sex, which must be exclusive to the marriage relationship. The Catholic Church prides itself on being a moral authority, especially when the issue of sex is involved. It is deeply ironic and also very disturbing that the world’s most sex-obsessed institution and the one so keen to give unbreakable rules to everyone, no matter how impractical, is the one rife with sexual deviance.

I’m not sure this is entirely surprising though. Can we really expect that people abstain from sex for their entire lives? Sex is not only something which we are hardwired to want as animals; it is also the greatest act of love one can partake in. That Catholic Church’s long time fear of sex and something which is to be avoided by those most holy is born of a misunderstanding of sex as a necessity for reproductions and little else, and has led to appalling sexual abuse of vulnerable people. Priests who abuse young boys are undoubtedly evil, but the Catholic Church should look very hard at itself in order to see why such abuse is rampant in such a supposedly celibate group of people.

That is for the long term. In the short term the church should excommunicate anyone who is guilty of child abuse and hand them over to the civil authorities for punishment. It’s my hope that very few of them ever get to see the outside of a prison ever again. The church must also look very hard at the process for dealing with such allegations. It cannot continue to put the credibility of the church ahead of the wellbeing of its most vulnerable; it must face allegations of abuse honestly and critically. Anyone involved in the mass cover-up, yes, even the Pope, must be punished for what they have done. I’m sure the church has internal means of punishing people who have sinned; they should use them to show the world that they do not accept child abuse. Overall, as a result of this scandal, the church has a lot to answer for and must hold itself accountable, or be held accountable by everyone else.

Suspension of Non-belief

In a few days time (or a few days ago depending on when you’re reading this, or even months ago!), atheists from around the world will gather in Melbourne for The Global Atheist Convention. Given that I don’t believe in God you would assume that I would be in support of a meeting of atheists from around the globe to send a signal out to religious people that atheism is a strong and growing movement. You would be wrong. The Global Atheist Convention may well do more harm than good to atheism as a concept because it will lead to a misunderstanding of what atheism is, probably because the people attending the Convention have the same misunderstanding.

Atheism is a meaningless word. It describes a non-belief; an absence of dogma and faith. An ‘atheist’ is simply someone who does not believe in God, just as someone who doesn’t believe in astrology is an ‘a-astrologist’, or someone who doesn’t believe in alchemy is an ‘a-alchemist’. We do not have words for people who reject most spiritual non-scientific practices or beliefs, why do we have one for religion? For both astrology and alchemy we have more scientific, rational approaches to the same issues; astronomy and chemistry respectively. These are positive, rational, scientific positions which have long since shown both astrology and alchemy to be absurd (although astrology does still have a worrying amount of popular appeal). Perhaps a better way of showing religion to be absurd (and much of it is) is to focus on the alternative, rationalist approach, or approaches should I say.

The problem here is that, aside from the very theoretical and minority debate about God’s place in science as the creator and sustainers of the universe (a possibility which I am open to, but don’t understand enough about to make a worthwhile judgment), religion focuses on morality. Morality is a slippery issue with so many competing ideas, most, if not all, of which are fundamentally flawed, that it is difficult to present a credible alternative to religion’s very strong and usually pretty sensible rule. There is also so much debate within religion about morality and so many of our assumptions and values come from religion, that it can be difficult for a secular point of view to penetrate and make much of an impact on moral discussion.

Nevertheless it seems that the incredible intelligence and articulation of people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens would be put to better use in support of a secular philosophical system which tries to play the same role as religion, rather than simply trying to destroy the credibility of the claims of religion without suggesting an alternative. Religion is more than just a pseudo-science which claims to provide answers to scientific questions using God to fill the vast gaps in our scientific knowledge. ‘Atheists’ have spend far too much time to date trying to discredit religion on this point, unsurprising given than people like Richard Dawkins are mostly scientists and so that is what they are interested and knowledgeable about. The fact is that most religious people don’t really care about the scientific claims of their faith and that is certainly not why they hold that faith. Faith is something which goes far beyond scientific claims; religion is a way of life. Religion makes claims about morality, it gives purpose and meaning to people’s lives, it makes moral statements and gives people a clear way in which to live their lives. This is not going to be destroyed simply by showing people that their belief is a nonsense; it cannot be destroyed per se, only replaced by something based more on reason and science.

This is where I believe that movements like Humanism and Utilitarianism are far more valuable than Atheism. They do not exist for the simple purpose of discrediting religion, but for the purpose of offering a secular alternative to the claims that religion has on people’s lives. They don’t even do this directly, but simply by existing they offer an alternative in the same way that chemistry offers an alternative to alchemy. Atheism does not offer an alternative, it is a non-movement of a non-believe which is deeply damaging because is portrays atheism as an equal and opposite faith statement to religion. It is not. Atheism is a meaningless word which needs to be dropped. Events like the Global Atheist Convention present to the world a false impression of what it actually is to not believe in God.

I personally do not subscribe to any particular believe system, like Humanism or Utilitarianism, the best way to describe my belief system would be ‘me-ism’. Obviously I think it would be ideal if everyone subscribed to their own personal ‘me-ism’, but I don’t think that is ever going to happen; the popularity of mass movements such as religion proves that. Atheism is not a believe system that anyone can subscribe to because it does not put forward any belief, so what is there to have an international convention about? Richard Dawkins is vice president of the British Humanist Association and I’m sure most of the people both attending and speaking in Melbourne belong to the same or similar organisation. At the very least they have constructed their own believe system based on their lack of belief in God. It would serve the cause of replacing religion with a secular viewpoint (or several secular viewpoints) much better if these intelligent, influential and committed people spend their time and energy trying to put forward those viewpoints, rather than continually putting down religion, usually on the grounds of science.

The Global Atheist Convention, and the work of people like Dawkins and Hitchens has done much to put Atheism on the map. While I am glad that this has happened, I can’t help but feel that self-professed Atheists are missing the point somewhat. They should stop gathering to slam down religion again and again, but instead start putting forward alternative, secular ways of life which replace, rather than destroy religion.

Merry... Saturnalia? (lessons from history 3, festive edition)

or the ‘birthday of the unconquered sun’, normally referred to as Sol Invicta. December has always been a month of celebration. With the sun getting lower and lower there has always been a tendency to try to make sure the sun does actually come back. Plus it’s cold, dark and food is short, so a celebration is quite nice to keep everyone’s spirits up. Celebrating the winter solstice has long been a feature of human society.

Christmas is no different. The date of Christmas is supposed to be the date of Jesus’ birth, but this is probably not the case. Festivals in late December had long been a feature of the Roman world; in fact there were at least two of them.

The first one was called Saturnalia. It took place in late December and saw the exchange of gifts and the relaxing of formalities. In fact it was tradition to reverse social roles; the wealthy were expected to pay the rent for those who couldn’t afford it. Master and slave exchanged clothes, family households threw dice to decide who would play the role of family monarch. Overall, a rather Christmassy affair.

Saturnalia was originally a festival to celebrate the end of the autumn planting season. It came later and later as the years went on and the scale of the festivities also increased. By the birth of Jesus it was a two day festival around mid-December. A hundred years later it lasted for a week. Changes to the Roman calendar placed the festival at 25th December, around the date of the winter solstice. From the third century AD there were public banquets in celebration of Saturnalia. The authorities tried in vain to restrict the festivities. By the end of the first century however they had embraced the festival and emperors started using it as a tool to improve their own popularity by putting on typically lavish celebrations at their own expense.

Even with the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity in the fourth century, Saturnalia continued to be celebrated. The Roman Empire did not turn Christian overnight. The majority of the empire remained Pagan for years after the official religion became Christian.

The second contender for the Roman forerunner for Christmas is called the festival of dies natalis solis invicti It was not actually a roman festival to start with, but originated in Syria as a celebration of the God Mithras. Typically of the Roman Empire, the cult was soon assimilated into the Roman Parthenon. Celebrations of Sol Invicti took place on the 25th of December, the day after the winter solstice on the Julian calendar. It was first introduced to Rome in the late third century and took over many of the features of Saturnalia. Sol Invicti is linked with the monotheistic cult of Mithras, which strongly resembled Christianity and indeed many of the non-biblical catholic rituals; celebrating a festival on 25th December being one of them, derive from this cult.

When the Roman Empire became Christian in the fourth century, the new Christian religion had to be made to fit with current religious practices. Christianity was made more acceptable by simply not changing much for most people. This cynical pragmatism does not however indicate a lack of belief, simply an acceptance of the difficulties of imposing such a radical change on people.

Fear not though, there is some Jewish basis for having Jesus birthday on 25th December. In Judaism the time of a prophet’s death is often associated with the time of their conception, so if Jesus was conceived in late March, he would be born in late December.

Why am I telling you this you ask? Because I can and because knowledge is always good to have. It’s Christmas, so my gift to you all is something to impress family and friends with next year; knowledge of the roman origins of Christmas. All that remains is for me to wish you all a very happy Sol Invicti and hope that Santa gave you lots of pressies. Maybe next year I’ll talk about why Santa Clause is part of the Christmas festivities. Meanwhile, goodbye the 00’s next time I write it will be 2010. Isn’t that exciting?

Lessons from History 2

Earlier this week Barak Obama pledged a further 30,000 troops to the war in Afghanistan in the hope that this troop surge will have the same effect as a similar surge in Iraq last year. It won’t. The war in Afghanistan is not one that can be won by sheer force on numbers. Indeed I would debate whether the war in Afghanistan is winnable at all. Certainly when one looks to the history of Afghanistan, we see that every invader has come upon the same problems as the British and American troops are coming upon today.

We can go even as far back as Alexander the Great and still see similarities. Alexander invaded Afghanistan in 330 BC and, despite early success, was soon dragged into a long and arduous guerrilla war which claimed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of troops and led to Alexander himself receiving a near fatal wound. While Alexander’s powerful and experienced army was able to sweep away any opposition that stood in its way, it had a much harder time dealing with the guerrilla, hit-and-run tactics of the Afghan tribesmen. As soon as Alexander swept through Afghanistan, founding cities and replacing the Persian Satrap with his own governor, the locals fled to the hills. Strategic victories and the besieging of major cities was not enough to conquer Afghanistan for Alexander, nor was it enough for the British invaders over two millennia later.

In 1839 Afghanistan provided a neutral buffer between British controlled India and Russia, which was hostile to British control of the subcontinent. So when a Russian diplomat arrived in Kabul, fears of Afghanistan becoming a Russian Satellite state ignited. In a typical aggressive, imperialist move, an invasion of Afghanistan was ordered. British troops took Kabul in less that 8 months and installed a puppet ruler on the throne. Despite this they spent the next three years trying and failing to subdue the Afghan countryside before withdrawing, having achieved little apart from the loss of thousands of men. The British faced the same problems as Alexander; the Afghan tribesmen retreated to the hills and disappeared into countryside that they knew far better than the British. The invaders ended up trying and failing to fight an invisible enemy who could disappear as quickly as they could emerge unsuspected from the hills and wreak havoc on the British troops. This time however they were not only fuelled by a general distain for the invader, but a fierce nationalism fuelled by religious devotion, a devotion that would only become more prevalent in later invasions.

Little had changed in 1878, when Britain invaded again for similar motives. Again quick gains were made, with Jalalabad and Kandahar being subdued within a couple of months. A treaty was drawn up and it seems that the objectives have been achieved quickly and easily. However when the British ambassador was murdered, the war began again. A long guerrilla war was only adverted by installing a governor who was favoured by the tribesmen. For a change the second Afghan war was fought like a conventional war, with armies fighting each other, rather than elusive guerrillas. It is not surprising then that the British won. The aims of the war were not to conquer Afghanistan, but to achieve a limited set of objectives which would result in Afghanistan falling under the Empire’s sphere of interest, but not actually being ruled directly by Britain. Britain did not try to subdue the Afghan countryside because it recognised that it could not, instead it was content to install a friendly ruler and leave him to manage the Afghan tribesmen.

More recently, in 1979, the Soviets attempted an invasion of Afghanistan. It has been called ‘Russia’s Vietnam’. Russian troops very quickly took Kabul, but were drawn into a long guerrilla war against the Mujahideen, an extreme Muslim group who took to the hills and violently opposed the Russian invaders. Fuelled by religious fanaticism, the Mujahideen out fought the second most powerful military in the world. After using extreme measures to dispose of the Guerrillas, such as Napalm and poison gas, the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, her face red with embarrassment at the failed war against such a minor power, despite the support of the ruling party.

History tells us then that wars in Afghanistan almost inevitably descent into vicious insurgency. The mountainous landscape of Afghanistan endears itself to hit and run tactics from locals who know the area far better than any invader could hope to. These tribesmen come not from major cities, but small towns and villages, scattered around the country and almost impossible to subdue. Strategic victories are a myth. Taking cities and establishing control over the political centres is pointless, opposition comes not from the ruling classes, but the fiercely independent tribesmen. Extremist Islam only serves to extenuate this problem; Islamic hatred towards western Christianity fuels the tribal hatred of invaders. In short an invasion of Afghanistan is doomed to failure.

Obama’s decision to pour more troops into Afghanistan then, when set against the context of the violent history of the country, is absurd. More troops on the ground are not going to be any better adept at flushing out the insurgents as the troops currently in the country. No amount of troops will ever be able to subdue the country because whenever an area is cleared to the Taliban, they wait until the troops have left and return from their hiding places. The tribesmen live in the villages, so all then need to do in order to melt away is to return to their homes. They then become no different from other civilians.

When set in its historical context, the invasion of Afghanistan was never going to be anything but a futile waste of life and resources. The war is unwinnable because Afghanistan is not like any normal theatre of war. Unless the tribesmen are in support of the invader, the invasion is bound to become a guerrilla war, which the invader will never win. Further proof that we do not learn the lessons of history.

The Pope's not the brightest bloke

The Catholic Church is often accused of being out of date and distance from the real world and the Pope’s comment earlier this week that contraception is ‘not the answer to AIDS’ does lend rather a lot of credibility to this accusation. As someone who dislikes religion, particularly organised religion, particularly the Catholic Church, you could hardly expect me not to use this to slate Catholic now could you?

In the Pope’s defence (I never thought I’d write those words) he has a point; contraception is not 100% effective and can lead to complacency, even, heaven forbid, promiscuity, however it think it is safe to say that they form part of the solution to the spread of HIV rather than part of the problem. In place of contraception the Pope and indeed the Catholic Church promotes abstinence, which is fair enough; as a solution to Sexually Transmitted Infections not having sex would be pretty effective, but it seems rather harsh on people to ban them from sex with anyone in case they catch something when there is a perfectly reasonable method of protection available. Of course you would not expect the Pope to know anything about that, given that he is so pious that he has forgone sex in order to be able to drive a funky car (the Pope Mobile). I’m sure that there are other benefits, like a really nice house and plenty of choir boys to molest, but I guess the car is the major advantage. There may even be something about an afterlife as well, but I’m not entirely up to speed on my theology these days.

Sorry, I got a little distracted there, where were we? Oh yes. Sex. The reason the Catholic Church in all its majesty has decided that contraception is a bad idea is that it prevents any possibility of conception, as if we need any more children in a world which is already incredibly overpopulated and very poor in many areas (like the one that the Pope was in when he made the comment). The reason, incidentally, for this stand point was that St Thomas Aquinas decided that going at it like rabbits and making as many offspring as you possible could in your life time was inherently virtuous and we should do it as much as possible, which makes abstinence a bit of a no go. Ok I’m slightly misrepresenting catholic doctrine there, there are other things which we should do such as try to survive which mean that abstinence is probably ok, but frankly who cares?

The fact that the Catholic Church clings to these outdated ideas in the face of an ever changing and complicated world in which seems to be embracing postmodern relativism is admirable, but ultimately they are barking up the wrong tree. Banning the use of contraception in countries where HIV is widespread and medical care is poor is simply absurd. Morality should be based on principles, but they have to be the correct ones and a principle which condemns millions to die needlessly of a wasting disease is not moral. Not that the Pope, sitting in the Vatican, riding around in his pope mobile blessing random passers by, is going to recognise that because he is so distant from the real world that he might as well be cryogenically frozen and left to sit on his seat in the Vatican for all eternity.

Not that the Catholic Church needs its pope to make absurd and insensitive decisions; its bishops can do that just as well. For example in Brazil this month a doctor was excommunicated for aborting a nine year old rape victim. I don’t think I need to examine the Catholic arguments against abortion for you to appreciate just how absurd this is. Obviously when Jesus went on about compassion and mercy the Catholic Church weren’t listening very hard, or maybe they heard something we missed, maybe Jesus said that in the case of a women being raped, no mercy should be shown. Somehow I doubt it.

So, in conclusion, the Catholic Church is an insensitive, outdated institution which is in needs of some serious introspection before it can become in any way useful to society. Shame that it provides moral authority for more people worldwide than any other institution, religious or otherwise isn’t it?

N.B. This will be the last entry for a while as I’m off to Dubai on Thursday for a couple of days before flying on to Japan for just under 2 weeks. Pictures when I return.

Bar Humbug and all that

With Christmas just round the corner it’s tempting to be cynical about the whole thing. Actually that does sound fun… no! I promised myself I would cut the cynicism somewhat. Although a few weeks ago I was shouting ‘bar humbug’ from the top of my lungs with genuine enthusiasm (yes I was getting enthusiastically cynical, or is it cynically enthusiastic?), as the 25th gets closer and closer I am actually quite looking forward to it this year. The fact that I am going skiing tomorrow (hence why this is early this week) may have something to do with that.

The thing that does rather get on my nerves is the fact that Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier every year. By mid-October we have advertisements for Christmas offers and gaudy, ugly and absurd Christmas lights adorning people’s houses in some mad disregard for all standards of taste and reserve. I don’t mind people getting together and having a bit of fun in the bleak mid-winter, but it seems that we are taking this whole exercise of social engineering a little too far. I think Christmas would actually be improved if we held back a little and actually started thinking about Christmas a little later, rather than beginning the long tedious build up in mid-autumn so that by the time the 25th does come about we are not all bored stiff of the hysteria.

Well that is the first dose of cynicism out the way. I do actually quite like Christmas; while it is a completely absurd and transparent piece of social engineering designed by an utter genius a few too many thousand years ago to make us all happy when it’s cold and wet and crappy, I do find it works rather well. I quite enjoy waking round my sleepy village in the middle of nowhere delivering Christmas cards to random houses hoping that the name on the card corresponds to the name of the person who receives it. I wish random people a Merry Christmas and generally get to feel good about myself despite being cold and wet.

Christmas presents too are good fun, especially when you know exactly what you are getting. My family has done away with the façade of surprises at Christmas time and have taken to ordering our own presents on Amazon and faking surprise when we open them. We have not yet taken to wrapping our own presents, but I’m sure the time will come. We are not even bothering to open Christmas presents on Christmas day this year; we are moving it forwards to this evening in a complete abandonment of tradition and the generally accepted formula. This is not a whimsical eccentricity on our part (if you’ll excuse the sheer pretentiousness of that statement); as we are going skiing over Christmas (sorry did I not mention that, oh no, of course I did. I‘m so sorry), we will not be here on Christmas day and it would take the weight of our luggage over the limit if we were to try to take all our presents over to Austria with us (which is where we’re going skiing, obviously).

One thing that has always worried me about Christmas is the myth of Santa Claus (oh sorry, did you not realise he wasn’t real… I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Please stop crying. I guess this would be a bad time to say that the Easter Bunny and God don’t exist either huh? Yeah, I though so). As far as I can tell, Christmas is the only time when we think that the idea of a fat old man climbing down our chimney and giving our kids presents is a good thing. Normally we would be phoning the police faster than you can sing jingle bells.

Another thing that I find amusing is the fact that people take the religious part of Christmas so seriously. Has it not occurred to them that Jesus probably wasn’t born on the 25th of December and the Church just decided to hijack the midwinter festival I order to make the new religious more acceptable to the pagans of the Roman Empire? If anything we should be praying to the powers that be to make sure the days start getting longer rather than continuing to shorten until we are left with eternal darkness and hence the end of the world, which isn’t going to happen by the way so put the goat down and step away from the alter.

In fact the Christian story of the birth of Jesus has long perplexed me. A woman claims to have been impregnated by the Holy Spirit? And no one thought this a tad bit unlikely? No one cried wolf an accused Joseph of screwing Mary a little before the wedding? Either the people of first century Nazareth were monumentally gullible or our sources miss out a large part of the story. Exactly what census demands that you return to the place where your father was born anyway? Which socially repressed retard out of touch with the real world decided that the best way of counting how many people there were was to make half of them temporarily move to a different town? How spastic do you have to think that is a good idea?

So anyway, away from all the religious bullshit and absurd myths, Christmas is fun, ‘tis a season to be merry and all the cliché stuff. Go be happy or something. I’m gonna go to Austria and ski. Bye! Next weeks blog will be a little late as I don’t get back until Saturday and you can fuck off if you think I’m gonna write a blog the moment I get back. So anyway, see you next Sunday and have a very merry Christmas, and don’t drink too much…