Musings of a free mind...

Catholicism: It's all me, me, me.

I thought without internet access I'd be without material to blog about.  Luckily you can always rely on the Pope and some hardcore catholics for a bit of irrational thinking, blog-fodder.

I'm sitting here in the library of my university trying to get Virgin Media to install internet into my new house, when I stumble across a story on Yahoo (UK) news.  In a nutshell, a now dead German artist created a sculpture of a green frog, up on the cross, holding a beer mug in one hand and an egg in the other.  Despite the obvious religious connection, I must admit that the first thing that occurred to me was that the frog was able to grasp things in his nailed hands.  Clearly a feat that Jesus wasn't capable of.  Pussy.  You've gotta work through the pain, man.

Anyway, I'm not here to have a go at Jesus, I'm sure he was a good chap, and he was definitely a great magician.  No, I'm here to have a go at the Pope.

His Holy-Popeness is up in arms (nailed ones?) at this sculpture, claiming it's offensive.  One of his representatives, Franz Pahl is president of the regional government that opposes the sculpture.  He went to the lengths of hunger-strike over the summer in a bid to get it removed.  His faith clearly didn't allow him the strength to follow through with this threat as he was taken to hospital and has subsequently recovered.  He's now threatening to step down as president of the regional government.  Isn't this obvious?  Let him!  The last thing anyone needs is some guy being president of anything if their judgement is so obviously blinded by religious dogma and superstition.  It's like a mini version of the Bush administration.

But here's what annoyed me most about this story:  The catholics involved are making a massive assumption that the sculpture is some kind of anti-God statement.  It's not.  The artist said himself that the sculpture represented a self-portait of human angst.

Doesn't catholicism remind you of that annoying guy in the workplace who always thinks you're talking about him?  The one who tries to get in on every conversation because he's so 'holier-than-thou' (excuse the pun) that you MUST be talking about him.  Pull your head out of your own arse, grow up and, please, go away.

Finally, even IF the sculpture was deliberately having a go at the catholic belief system, that doesn't make it wrong.  Offensive, yes, but not wrong.  I find things offensive every day, as do most people, but that doesn't mean I should be able to just click my fingers and make it go away.  It's called Freedom of Expression.  And it's beautiful.

Just because religion's involved doesn't mean it should be afforded more respect than any other belief system.  After all, if you're insulting God, so what?  Remember, I'm pretty sure he can look after himself.

I must credit the artist who created this sculpture.  Without him I would never have been able to write this blog post.  But, more importantly, without him so many catholics would not be upset right now.  Ladies and gentlemen:  Martin Kippenberger.

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A neccessary post...

I don't like making personal posts on a blog.  I like my blog to me insightful and, hopefully, informative.  My ultimate goal is that it provokes thought.  If it does any of these things then I'm happy.

Unfortunately I have to post this personal post, just to let you, my readers, know what's happening.

I haven't posted in a while because I'm moving into my new house and currently have no internet access.  It's horrible.  As someone who's grown up alongside the internet I feel very disconnected at the moment.

I should be back as normal within the next week or so.

Keep checking back people...

The problem with marriage.

I'm going to take the opportunity of the first paragraph to apologise for the lack of posts in the last 4/5 days.  I'm in the process of moving permanently to London and I have limited internet access.  All shall be back to normal soon.  Thanks to all my readers who have kept coming back, and thanks to all those who have visited, pushing this site into the good side of the top 1million Alexa ranked websites.

Now, the problem with marriage.

This area of thought has spawned due to conversations with my sister recently.  She can't understand why I don't want to get married.  Equally, I don't understand why she would wish to marry at all.  I mean, what's the point?

I could understand if marriage was a symbol of love, but is it really?  Don't get me wrong here, I know it CAN be, but surely there are greater, more powerful symbols of one person's love for another.  Also, of course, there's the issue of whether human beings are cut-out for 'mating for life'.  It's a rare sight!

The main, traditional reasons for marraige are, to me, superficial at best.  Religion and financial gain.  People marry because their religious beliefs dictate they must do so, especially before they have sex.  And, let's face it, sex is a pretty important thing for most people in a relationship (pretty much all people, with the exception of asexuals) and so religion denying this pleasure forces marriage upon you.  It's entirely irrational.  I don't understand at which point the major religions decided that sex was a bad thing.  It's another sign that illustrates how stuck in the Dark Ages they are, but I digress...

The other reason marriage has survived as an insitution is for financial gain.  It was a way to ensure property and capital was passed on to the 'correct' family.  This is much less neccessary in the modern world.

Marriage is an outdated institution and barely shows any correlation with love.  If two people love each other, surely that would be enough for them to be together forever?  Or maybe you could have a child together to symbolise your undying love for each other?  'Cos no-one's parents get divorced, right?

As for marriage, well, a friend of mine once said:  "'Cos it's all about the romance.  And there's nothing more romantic than a legally binding contract."

How about we all experience REAL love for a change?

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Stop moaning America...

I've read many, many articles over the past few days written by disgruntled Americans complaining about their 'gas' prices.

Man, they should try coming to live over here in the UK.

As I understand it, prices in the US are roughly $4.00 per gallon, depending on your state (after all, it's a big place) this will vary.  The Americans are having a hard time dealing with this, but imagine how we feel over here.  After some quick dollar/pound and litre/gallon conversions I'd like to inform our cousins in the States that we're paying:

- $7.85 (Unleaded)
- $8.53 (Diesel)

Again, these are rough prices and it depends whereabouts in the UK you are, but it illustrates my point!

And to think, our government forced us to follow the US into war over all this oil (well, depending on how cynical you are) and yet we still don't get their lovely cheap prices.

It's gonna cost me £20 to drive to London tomorrow...

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We're all going to die!!

As sarcastic as the headline was supposed to appear it is also, ironically, true.  Sorry.  Nothing I can do about that one.

Today's post has been triggered by an article I read on Yahoo (UK) news.  The headline was:  "Thousands of Brits may have fatal disease."  Naturally, being British and NOT wanting a fatal disease, I was compelled to read further.  I simply must find out what this fatal disease is, why it applies only to the British, (maybe it's called 'Gordon Brown?') and how I can avoid it.

The article itself turned out to be something quite different to the apocalyptic scenario I had imagined.  Apparently two thirds of doctors (i'm assuming, British doctors) do not know how to read Hepatitis C results and this means that 90% of sufferers do not even know they are ill.  (I'd love to know how they did the maths to get the 90% figure.)

Firstly, there are thousands upon thousands of conditions that a person may have without knowing.  You simply can't cover them all.  Unless you can afford full body scans and intensive check-ups every 3 months then there's, I assume, quite a large probability that you're going to have some condition that you're unaware of.

Secondly, doctors are only human.  (Again, I'm making assumptions here.)  These guys study for many years, intensively, through a gruelling medical school and then go on to serve the millions of people who need medical attention each year.  They do an incredible job that many of us simply are not capable of.  But whilst they do hold this kind of 'gift of life' status, we must understand that they cannot know every one of the thousands upon thousands of medical conditions off by heart, inside out and back to front.  Eventually, mistakes will be made.  It's inevitible.  But give them a break.

Thirdly, if you think you may have Hepatitis C, go to the doctor and insist your GP double checks your results.

Finally, stop fear-mongering, Yahoo.

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Annoying Bible verse of the day...

Ok, so I'm not going to do this every day, but this one annoyed me enough to post it.

I was just reading through some other blogs when I came across this proudly displayed verse:

ROM 8:28 "We know that in all things God works for good with those who love Him, those whom He has called according to His purpose."

(Yes, in the interests of grammar I'm sticking with the convention of capitalising the pronouns of our imaginary friend.)

These Christians aren't doing their God any favours here.  Surely God is above the petty jealousy of only working for good those who love him?  What about other good people who don't believe or follow Him?  I guess God just ignores them.  As the great Bill Hicks said:  "No, you're WRONG.  Because God would be very sane.  Don't you see?" 

Once again I feel compelled to state that the Bible is JUST A BOOK.  A self-prophecised 'gospel' adapted by various men and women (although mostly men) over the centuries.  By this fact alone, IF it ever was the word of God, it certainly isn't anymore.  So, please, don't live your lives by those verses, the very idea people do is a very worrying thought indeed.

And, to finish, the famous quote:  "If God exists, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion." - Edmond de Goncourt

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The Sun prioritises...

Well the Olympics kicked off yesterday and everyone and his mum has been writing about the grandeur of the opening ceremony.  "Isn't it stunning!"  Clearly too stunning, as everyone seems to be overlooking IMPORTANT issues in the world today.

The Sun, the UK's most popular newspaper, (that shows how much of a moral mountain we have to climb, doesn't it?) today also reported on the 'spectacular' opening ceremony of the Beijing games.  In fact, as well as the substantial image on the front page, pages 4,5,6,7,8 and 9 were all dedicated to the Olympics.  It wasn't until you turn to page 13 that the new war between Georgia and Russia was mentioned.

Since when did the loss of an approximated 1,500 lives become less important than a few fireworks?

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China has got it wrong.

I just read a Sky News report on Yahoo about the lengths China is going to to ensure that the Olympics in Beijing runs flawlessly.

Some of the more humourous ideas they've taken on  include 'taxi drivers' English school' (one taxi driver was quoted to have said:  "National stadium, lovely jubbley" whilst giving a tour) and cabin attendants conscripted as hostesses at medal ceremonies.  The key word there being 'conscripted'.  To train for this, they practiced carrying heavy trays whilst gritting chopsticks in their teeth to 'perfect their smiles'.  Airport police were also sent to 'smile school' in order to ensure that guests receive the perfect welcome on arrival.

This would all be hilarious if it wasn't for the fact that the Chinese government is deadly serious about the whole affair.

An estimated £21bn  has been spent on the Olympic Games by the Chinese authorities this summer.  Fair enough, if you have the money to spend.  But when there are people dying in Tibet (people who just want their freedom), peaceful protestors being silenced by the government, people kicked out of their homes without compensation to make way for the games, children working in sweat-shops and countless other human rights abuses, this is silly money that could, no, should be spent elsewhere.

The Olympics are a marvelous world event, but when comparing it to loss of life and the suffering people are experiencing daily in China, they're nothing more than a few people running about.

China said they would improve their human rights record if they were given the Olympics.  Well they have been given the games, and nothing has changed.  Even foreigners in China are not allowed to access the Amnesty International website.  Countless other websites are censored by the government, also.

The only positive we can take away from this is that the games present an opportunity to embarrass China on a global scale.  Let's hope the games serve as nothing more than a window with which to view and raise awareness of China's colossal human rights abuses.

From there we can begin to make changes.

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One worth reading...

Zee over at 'Black Woman Thinks...' has written a fantastic article on the British Monarchy, follwing today's backlash from the Royal Family over announcements that Prince Philip may have prostate cancer.

This woman ALWAYS talks sense, so I strongly advise you go and read the article now.

If you've missed the other two links that are just above you, you can find it here.

Expect a new article from me tomorrow!

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GTA to be pulled in Thailand?

An 18 year old man in Thailand has admitted robbing and killing (stabbing, 10 times) a 54 year old taxi driver.  He has allegedly confessed to committing the crime due to the influence of Grand Theft Auto.  He wanted to see if it was 'as easy as in the game.'

Horrible and tragic, I know, but the authorities in Thailand are in uproar and are requesting that GTA IV be removed from sale:  "We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games," Sakchai Chotikachinda, sales and marketing director of New Era Interactive Media, said.

The problem with this kind of situation is that there's always going to be one idiot.  The guy who kills because of the game.  The guy who kills because of the movie.  The guy who kills because of the heavy metal band.  The guy who thinks he can fly and so jumps from a building instead of trying to take off from the ground.

You can't punish everyone for one person's idiocy, neither can you protect everyone from that person and their aforementioned idiocy.  It just breeds hatred and contempt.

There will always be idiots who kill the innocent, it's very, very sad.  But it's a fact.  Put GTA back on the shelves, don't let the stupid among us dictate our entertainment.

And to finish off, here's an amusing quote from Ladda Thangsupachai, director of the ministry's Cultural Surveillance Centre: "Today it is a cab driver, but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner."

I'm sorry, what?  A video game shop owner?  How did they pull that one out of their ass?  Why not a policeman, a prostitute, a drug lord or any other character in the GTA series?

Anyway, off to the X360 to go shoot some people.  I expect you'll see me on the news later, then?

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