Why is blue blue?

Emily, who is currently 6, is very inquisitive about the world. Like many kids her age, she asks many, many questions of her parents. Some of them are funny, some are cute, some are difficult to answer. She recently asked one that was particularly tricky – in her words: “Why does green have to be green and blue have to be blue?”

Well. How do you even start to answer that so a 6-year-old will understand it? How do you talk about the visible spectrum of light and wavelengths? How do you approach the idea that what you see as blue or green may not be what someone else sees – she’s too young to watch The Matrix, after all. I’m not even sure I know the answer. Needless to say, when we tried to answer her she looked at us, uncomprehending, and the longer we talked, the more her look became glazed.

When it had become inescapable that we were failing to answer her question, I asked her if we’d just confused her. She nodded. I then asked her what she thought the answer was. “God decided.” Of course. I might have known. Emily and her big sister Katie are still at that age where ‘god did it’ is an easy go-to answer for something they don’t yet understand.

They’re not alone – as a species we’ve been doing it for thousands of years. It’s a part of us I don’t think we’ll ever truly lose, no matter how much horseshit I consider it to be. I think that’s the case because we’ll never know everything – some things I think will always be a mystery to us. And as long as there’s something we don’t know, there will be something for folks to point at and say ‘god did it’ as if the very fact that we don’t yet know something is somehow proof of god’s existence. Even though, to quote the excellent Tim Minchin, “Every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic.” Every riddle we unravel reveals two more behind it.

This is the way religion has insinuated its way into the lives of men, women and children for generations; it seems like an easy answer for people who want to know how the world works. The way to overcome it is to learn more, to know more. This is why I always try to answer my kids’ questions, and never discourage them from asking them, even though sometimes you really want them to just shut the hell up and give you 5 minutes to think; even though I have the tiniest bit of sympathy for the parent referred to in Neko Case’s Nearly Midnight, Honolulu. Katie is already questioning the logistics of Father Christmas making it all the way around the world in one night, and I don’t think the stock answer of ‘it’s Christmas magic’ will work for much longer. This unquenchable curiosity will, I hope, one day dislodge from their mind this acceptance that ‘god decided’ everything they don’t understand and they start looking for a better answer.

New occasional feature: Ending with a song relating to the post:
Neko Case: Nearly Midnight, Honolulu: “You’ll hear yourself complain, but don’t you ever shut up please kid have your say.”

The little things.

Perhaps I’m alone in this, but lately it seems to me that there is more of a sense of the world spinning out of control than usual. Politically, we continue to lurch to the right both here and elsewhere, paying little attention to the damage we’re doing to ourselves or others. I’m half tempted to move to America just so I can leave the country in protest if that shit-stain becomes President (it beggars belief that I can genuinely look back on the Presidency of Dubya and think ‘Now he was pretty smart for a Republican’). It all feels a little like the beginning of the end.

Climate Change is gathering pace, as we were repeatedly warned it would until we just put our fingers in our ears and shouted “La la la not listening!”. Now that genuine progress has been made in Paris there’s a distinct feeling of ‘too little, too late’ and when talk turns to staying within that magical 2 degree warming limit, you feel like patting them on the head and treating them like a young child who declares their intention to fly because they’re too young to understand gravity: “Aww, sweetheart. Keep dreaming, that’s the important thing.”

The banking world continues to go completely unpunished for their rampant buggering of the West’s economy, while all the normals have to collectively foot the bill. More than that, it seems they’re also allowed to continue on just as before, as if somehow the oft-repeated line it was all the previous Labour government’s fault; they caused the GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRASH (keyword: global) has actually become the accepted truth. There should be scores of hedge-fund managers (generally known to most people as ‘cunts’) in prison. Instead we keep filling jails up with black people and poor folks for minor drugs charges.

Not to mention a bunch of utter fucktards who are constantly trying to murder everyone in the world because hey, god says. Which gives us a great reason to go on selling arms and bombing poor people in the hope of killing some of the aforementioned fucktards.

Up on the world stage it all feels a bit overwhelmingly shitty at the moment, and if I’m not careful, it’s going to start getting to me. I’ve felt like this before though, and I’m sure most people have felt something similar. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like all of that stuff is too big to overcome. Well, so what if it is? As I’ve said before, the key for me is to remember the universe’s opinion of Donald Drumpf or ISIS: complete and utter ignorance. Couldn’t give a sky full of flying fucks. I find focusing on positively effecting my local sphere of the world helps to drive away some of that choking feeling that I get from being a fairly well educated, not particularly well off human in today’s world.

Find joy in the little things. One of your favourite ever TV shows coming back for a 6-episode mini-series and coming back far stronger than we had any right to expect (seriously, I’ve been quietly retro-gasming ever since they announced it and having Mulder & Scully back on screen has been nothing short of glorious). Losing yourself in film (Song of the Sea is worthy of all the comparisons to Ghibli, and it is utterly engrossing and so, so gorgeous). Reading. Meeting new people while out drunk in a new city only to find you seem to agree about absolutely everything. The people you love. Getting a headshot on an Armoured Kantus on insane difficulty (granted, that one might be a bit niche, but there are few things in this world that are more satisfying).

Maybe we’ll find a way to get past the big stuff. Maybe not. Do what you can and let the rest go. I’m not convinced the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders will ever actually get elected, nor that anything will change if they do, but if The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter have taught us anything, it’s that sometimes you need an old white dude to save the world.

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Terrorism. If one were being cynical, one might think that the ill-conceived ‘War on Terror’ was nothing more than a marketing ploy on behalf of the arms trade, with the ultimate aim being to keep volatile situations unstable to perpetuate weapon sales. It’s obvious that a war on terror is unwinnable – you can’t declare war on a concept. May as well declare war on smoke, or time. Perhaps a war on quarks? Or Donald Duck?

The whole point of terrorism is to promote terror. To make people so afraid of you they’ll do exactly what you want. So if we’re too scared of an attack to see people as people first, before all other things like, in this case, religion or skin colour, and, acting on that fear, we refuse to help humans in dire need of our help, or actively seek to hurt (or terrify?) those of a similar religion or skin colour, then, logically, they’ve already won and we’ve already lost.

On the other hand, if we continue to recognise that grouping people together and giving them a label is always the first step on a dark path to dehumanising a whole section of our society, then we’ll never be beaten. That path did not end well the last time it was travelled. It’s fine to be afraid. I’m afraid. But I’ll tell you something. I may be afraid of weirdos with guns murdering gig-goers to impress their made-up god, but I’m much more afraid of a popular Presidential candidate assuming that banning everyone who happens to worship that same made-up god from his country will actually help the situation, while at the same time proposing a wall to keep Mexicans out.

All I can really take from the fuckery that passes for the world stage at the moment is that people make absolutely no sense at all.

Some questions (not exactly Keats).

Widowmakers, are you pleased at what you’ve done?
Are you celebrating, having fun?
Mission accomplished.
Many hundreds dead.
Many lives extinguished.
The fires of hate well-fed.
Your war you can’t ever expect to win, defeat is all you are,
Nous sommes ensemble dans la lumière, pour brûler le noir.

Orphanmakers, what drives you to such hate?
Some deep-seated fear, fear of your fate?
Murdering innocents.
For your made up god.
Do you think that’s what he wants?
Is he really such a sod?
We’ll beat back every one of your attacks; beat back all you are.
Nous sommes ensemble dans la lumière, pour brûler le noir.

Beautykillers, how do you think this will end?
Our death? Your death? The death of all we defend?
You want to make us afraid?
We already were.
Did that ever stop us?
Not bloody likely, sir.
Just a modern day inquisition; that is all you are.
Nous sommes ensemble dans la lumière, pour brûler le noir.

Motherfuckers, what right have you to do this?
Is it still because cartoonists took the piss?
You do not have the right.
No-one has the right.
The hundreds you have killed:
They did not start this fight.
Cunts like you try to drown us in terror, but you only light the spark.
We stand together in the light, to burn away the dark.

Why is everybody doing it wrong?

So. Let’s just say, for example that you wear a clown suit all day. You wear this clown suit because you have a deeply held belief that in the beginning of time the all-knowing Bongo squirted the heavens from his holy plastic flower water pistol, and humanity came into being when the all-knowing Bongo threw the sacred custard pie. You absolutely have the right to hold that belief close to your heart and wear that clown suit. I have a right that is equal to that however. I have a right to find your belief ridiculous. And I have a right to say so. I have a right to point out the existence of the all-knowing Bongo flies in the face of all known science, logic and reason. I have the right to publish my opinion on your belief where I want, be it on a blog like this one that almost nobody reads, or in a satirical magazine sold somewhere in Europe.

There is something I don’t have the right to do. I don’t have the right to make personal attacks on you because of your belief in the all-knowing Bongo. I have no right to desecrate the place where you pray by re-enacting the hallowed step ladder routine. I have no right to curtail your rights in any way or see you in any way other than a fellow human because of your religious beliefs. Your religious beliefs, however, are very different. They are nothing but fair game. There is no creator myth that I do not find inherently nonsensical, be it the all-knowing Bongo, or the stories that sit at the heart of Christianity, Islam or Scientology, or any other religion that purports to know how everything we know and are came to be. That doesn’t mean I can’t find you to be a complex and brilliant human in spite not sharing in your belief. In the words of Tyler Durden, you’re not your fucking khakis. Nor are you your religious belief. It’s not a difficult thing to recognise. And yet, our insistence on putting people into ready-made boxes will never cease.

But. And it’s a big but. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that gives you the right to murder, least of all that preposterous religious belief of yours. There are times when it is possible to see the reasons behind murder – to understand, although not excuse, the reasons. And then there are times when it is not. Whatever is it that makes a person think that a death sentence is an appropriate response to drawing a cartoon that takes the piss out of their religion? It’s like those times when a kid responds to an argument they know they’re losing by completely over-reacting; screaming, hitting, knocking shit over. That’s what they are. Children in adult’s bodies who, having never learned the life skills of empathy and debate, have heard something they don’t like and happen to have a lot of guns.

That’s the really poisonous thing about religion. When looking at it in any depth, sooner or later you have to come face to face with the fact that the whole thing comes crashing down if you don’t force yourself to believe something that is simply so illogical, so damn unlikely, with nothing in the way of observable proof, that all you can do is blindly have faith in something that is almost certainly untrue. I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it must be living with that impossible paradox forming the heart of how I define myself. Of course, I don’t imagine it would cause me to walk into a school and start shooting children like those rotting pustules of cat sick. It feels like the Spanish Inquisition might have if they all had automatic weapons.

I recognise that religion isn’t the cause of all wars, merely the excuse, that if it didn’t exist we’d find some other thing to justify all the despicable things we get up to, but I do fucking despise the way it’s used by the mindless faithful to commit these terrible crimes. And then what do we do? We use it as an excuse to persecute members of the same religion who had nothing to with these atrocities. Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. It might seem a little extreme to suggest that the current way in which people of a certain faith are casually discriminated against by too many people in this country, given a veil of credibility by a lying, fetid press, because of some acts of violent cowardice by other shit munching fuck farts in the name of that same religion could lead to something as horrifying as a holocaust, but the more you learn about the one that took place in Germany during WWII, the more you see that casual discrimination is exactly how it started. It’s the thin end of the wedge, and it pays to remember that.

People are people, whatever else they may be, whatever box they’re put in, whatever label they’re given because of their colour, gender, age, sexuality or faith. Forgetting that puts you on a very slippery slope that ends nowhere good.

Everything’s okay.

Nothing, in the end, when you get right down to it, matters. Sure, they matter to you, but that doesn’t mean they, you know, matter. Everyone has concerns, fears, good times and bad times. While your own personal experiences and those of the people closest to you mean something to you, they don’t to most people. Widen your perspective a little. Whatever you do today, and whatever happens to you, will have no effect on the sun coming up in the morning. It’ll have no effect on the Andromeda galaxy, which is, arguably, more important by virtue of taking up more space than you do. What effect do you think you have on the universe at large, compared to what effect it has on you? We inhabit such a microscopically tiny and unimportant corner of the universe that the idea that all of that was created just so we could have a half-decent view at night makes the idea of the creator myth found at the heart of most religions ludicrous. None of it matters.

While it might sound rather depressing to some, to me that is a great source of comfort. To feel confident that this life isn’t just a test to see if you can make it into to an invite-only everlasting heaven is pretty damn freeing. Plus, even heavenly bliss is bound to get boring if it never ends, don’t you think?

I’m married, have children, family and friends. They all matter to me, and I matter to them, but I’m not arrogant enough to think that we matter in other terms. If I disappeared tomorrow along with everyone important to me, do you really think the universe would give a shit? So, what’s to stop me from doing whatever – shotgun rampage, stop going into work, stop paying my TV licence, walk naked down a busy street and dry-hump a tramp? Where’s my sense of morality? Well, it's probably some complex question of evolution that we’ll never really understand completely, but that doesn’t matter. The way I see it, it doesn’t really matter that it doesn’t matter. That sounds a bit silly, I know, but if I’m too unimportant to affect a cold uncaring universe, then all that really exists for me is my smaller, immediate universe. Andromeda is out there, but so what? So just because it is impossible to affect things on a large scale, it doesn’t mean there’s no reason to care on a smaller scale. There’s no reason not to do your best to positively affect the minute pocket of universe you exist in. Just take comfort in the fact that if somehow you fail, the universe won’t condemn you for it; it won’t even notice.

If what you do doesn’t matter, then all that matters is what you do.

Growing up, guitars and good friends.

When I was in my teens, the big musical thing was Britpop. Now, that isn’t my fault, so don’t be too hard on me. The thing about music is it isn’t necessarily what’s best in a technical sense that becomes your favourite. Sure, everyone can appreciate decent lyrics and great playing. But your favourite music often becomes your favourite because of how you felt, or what you were doing, or even how old you were when you heard it. So when I first really got into music, following a brief flirtation with the mighty Jovi, it was to the strains of the Britpop movement. Blur’s Parklife was the first record I truly fell in love with (and to this day I remain so), but Oasis slowly eclipsed Blur as my favourite. As with so many of today’s leading guitar acts, Definitely Maybe inspired me to buy a guitar. I lacked both the talent and the will for it to go any further than a hobby, but being able to play first Oasis, and later Stereophonics, Blur and Weller was among the greatest joys of my teenage life.

One of my childhood friends, Ian, loved Oasis as much as I did, and there is no doubt that we bonded tremendously over this mutual love. Entire weekends would disappear learning Slide Away or Champagne Supernova; Ian singing, me playing guitar. Our friends were probably bored half to death listening to us, but we didn’t care. Then we got older, and things change as they always do. Girlfriends, jobs, moving all conspired to move my guitars to a cupboard under the stairs. Late last year Ian died of a rare form of Leukaemia, and now I find myself remembering all those weekends spent playing guitar. Turns out I can’t listen to Live Forever all the way through without crying anymore.

We never did get a band together. But in the end that isn’t what matters. What matters is the comfort of the memories I have of those years. There has been much talk of Ian looking down on us and the things we’re doing with approval and love. If you’ve read enough of these you’ll know that in my heart that’s a belief I can’t share, but at times like these I feel and understand the need people have for it, and I cannot give enough kudos to the vicar who spoke at Ian’s funeral, who happily admitted that he had been tasked with giving the ceremony just enough religion ‘to get him in’, and the good grace with which he managed this.

Thoughts now turn to those guitars, gathering dust under the stairs. I think maybe I’ll bring them out again into the light of day and give Don’t Look Back in Anger a whirl. It feels like a modest tribute, but somehow the most heartfelt.

Things change.

You can’t stop the arrow of time. Things, people, societies, they all evolve. Things that used to be a good idea don’t remain a good idea forever. That’s why religious texts look sillier the more we learn. The things in the Bible, in the Koran, the things those on the fanatical outer fringes of religions (or death cults, to put it more accurately) believe are, in the cold, scientific light of day, obviously nonsense. It isn’t the fault of the books, the religions or the people who wrote them. They are merely products of their time, attempts to understand and describe their Universe as best they can. But, things change. Most of us know it wouldn’t be right to stone an adulterous woman to death. Most of us know that homosexuality is not something to be reviled. Most of us know that the Universe is billions of years old, not thousands. Those that don’t tend to be strongly religious. Funny, that.

I apologise for any offence I may cause Americans now, but your Constitution is not immune to this. The 1787 US Constitution is the shortest written constitution and this reverence accorded it is so embedded that to suggest it is flawed in any way is akin to heresy. Mostly it works fine, and is a beautiful example of a set of articles that can be used to successfully govern a large number of people. When the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, I doubt they looked at their muskets and foresaw the utterly terrifying array of fully automatic weaponry that is so easy to purchase nowadays. Of course, they knew very well in 2008, when it was confirmed that the Second Amendment applied to any fucknut on the street who wants a gun. The pressure from the NRA and the fact that pointing out that sometimes a gun is a dangerous thing is political suicide might have had something to do with that.

I’m not saying the US is alone in worshipping old Constitutions – we are very fond of our own 1215 Magna Carta, more than five-and-a-half centuries earlier than America’s, but viewing it in a glass case isn’t tantamount to a religious experience. If people are allowed to carry guns, other people are going to get shot. It really is that simple. The much-celebrated right to bear arms is defective in a modern society, and if you want people to stop getting shot, you need to retract that right, at least partly. Gun crime is almost unheard of here. It has been much reduced in Australia since a change in law was adopted following a tragic shooting incident in 1996. The sad truth is many, many more people will have to die before anything changes. But hey, an outdated civil liberty applicable to a different age is more important than life, isn’t it?

A declaration of undying love for the BBC.

I hate BBC’s Question Time. This is an odd way to begin a declaration of love for the BBC, but I do. I used to watch it and try to think of funny things to say regarding it to post on Twitter. This didn’t work for two reasons. Firstly, I can’t think of funny things to say about anything. Secondly, the programme would never fail to frustrate me and make me angry. It’s completely pointless and is a platform for bigots, politicians and ineffective lefties to spout their opinions, lies and misinformed bullshit masquerading as intelligent debate. So I stopped watching it. I watched one recently because someone I knew at college was in the audience. The show is as bad as it ever was, brought home particularly by Theresa May talking about how she thinks our economy works the same way as a credit card debt and the odious Peter Hitchens spouting the same kind of clueless hatred he fills his Daily Mail column with. In my incoherent rage I managed to make myself look like a dick on Twitter. I mean, more than usual. The lighter final question was about what people need to make them happier. Hitchens proclaimed loudly and proudly that faith in god was his particular remedy. Regular readers of this blog (and I have a few, believe it or not) will already know about my strong atheist opinions. I try my best to draw a line at insulting people who have faith – I try hard to only criticise religion itself. My tweet in response to Hitchens looked, frankly, like I thought he was an arsehole for the contentment he gets from his faith. I don’t, I think he’s an arsehole for his detestable and uninformed opinions on everything from immigrants, through those on benefits to scientists who found that second-hand smoke is harmful. That he clearly has so much contempt for those people he considers beneath him (like the poor or the foreign or, whisper it, the foreign poor) in one comment and then proudly declares his faith in god in the next. Now, is it me or is one of the few redeeming features of christianity the idea that everyone should be compassionate towards their fellow human and help those in need? That he failed to recognise the contradiction in what he was saying caused me to tweet without thinking. Hitchens went on to do what many like him love to do and give shit to the BBC. He criticised the corporation for not believing in god. First off, as Dimbledore rightly pointed out, the question related to a survey conducted by the Office of National Statistics and had nothing to do with the BBC. Also, being a corporation, and not a human, it has no beliefs of any kind. Thirdly, did Hitchens forget about Songs of Praise and Radio 4’s Thought for the Day? Of course he didn’t, he was just ignoring them to hammer home his nonsensical BBC-slagging point.

Frankly, Hitchens and those like him can go eat a shit sandwich, for the BBC is no less than the finest broadcaster in the world and is worth the licence fee a hundred times over. Want some examples as to why? Blackadder, Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, Not the Nine O’clock News, The Day Today, The Young Ones, Bottom, Alan Partridge, Alas Smith & Jones, Comic Strip Presents, The Office, Extras, Faulty Towers, Gavin & Stacey, Hancock’s Half Hour, Monty Python, Not Only...But Also, Steptoe and Son, The Thick of It, Have I Got News For You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, QI ,Shooting Stars. That’s just some of the comedy.

BBC 3 recently had The Fades, an outstanding horror thriller in which the dead came back to take over the world and cannibalise the living – not a terribly original idea, but highly original in its execution (although I was slightly disappointed by the last episode it doesn’t change the fact that it was great). In Fry’s Planet Word national treasure Stephen Fry explored the history and possible future of language, and was wonderful, Fry’s obvious enthusiasm for his subject pleasantly engrossing. As a science-nut, Horizon is like catnip to me, as well as recent documentaries on the history of humankind’s discovery of the elements or the current series exploring our origins (I love the fact that the BBC has no problem with shows that present evolution as fact (because it is) and don’t have to compromise by acknowledging the nutty alternative theories of creationism and intelligent design (which are not fact)). Wonders of the Solar System and follow up Wonders of the Universe were each worth the licence fee by themselves, as was the little-seen three part series All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, which explored the idea that our economic, environmental and political systems are inspired by the way in which machines work and the disastrous results that have come from it. It illustrated quite neatly how Ayn Rand, that hero of misunderstanding leftists and Silicon Valley moguls everywhere and her flawed ideology (that she couldn’t even live by herself, so frick knows how she expected others to do so) contributed to the recent global economic collapse. It showed clearly how we completely misunderstood natural environmental systems for years but based much of our own social and political systems on our misunderstanding of them and then couldn’t understand how things went so badly wrong. It showed the horrifying human cost that is paid when people who don’t know anything act like they’re experts and meddle. It should be seen. And of course there is Planet Earth, The Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, Life in Cold Blood and all those other Attenborough documentaries that are perfect, wonderful, glorious television.

So, the hateful Question Time notwithstanding, I am proud to love the BBC, and will continue to do so, and will never understand why other people don’t.

Crime and Punishment: Sickness and Treatment.

People, generally, are highly reactionary. If someone commits a crime, we want to see them receive the appropriate comeuppance. We often disagree about what that should entail, for example I know someone who genuinely, without a hint of irony, believes wholeheartedly that people caught stealing should have their hand chopped off. I know people who think, more reasonably, there should be stiffer custodial sentences for offenders. It’s an attitude which is reinforced almost daily by the press – take the recent example of The Daily Express proclaiming a man a hero after shooting at some people attempting to steal his car. Stealing is a shitty thing to do and should not be without consequences, but this guy was not under attack, not in danger; he happened to notice two people hanging around his car, looking like they were attempting to steal it. He decided that a car, which is a thing, not sentient, not alive and almost certainly insured, was worth more than two lives. He then proceeded to attempt to end those two lives, instead of informing the authorities. Obviously, he’s going to be if not arrested, at the very least questioned. To call these actions heroic is bizarrely twisted, and yet, thanks to our reactionary attitude, most of us share this apparent hero's backwards notions of value. As such it turns out the police found a cannabis farm on his property. Maybe not so much defending his own home as the Express put it (although, at the most, he was defending his car), more defending his illegal drug dealing operation.

The press do it all the time. Upon the death of Gaddafi, the headlines were ones of taunting joy, happily repeating his final words, which were a plea for mercy. The Sun’s headline “That’s for Lockerbie” made it look as though the editor had killed him in person in revenge for the Lockerbie bombing, which no-one is even sure if Gaddafi is directly responsible for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sorry he's dead; like Saddam and Bin Laden he was a cunt of the highest order, but the vengeance-drunk press delighting in his bloody end seemed to forget they weren’t watching The Crow, which left a rather bitter taste in the mouth.

This attitude is extremely prevalent in our stories. In action films, the audience loves nothing more than to see the bad guys die in imaginative ways while the hero murders them with a wisecrack. Vigilantism and vengeance are two of our favourite subject matters in the stories we read and the films we watch. I don’t stand apart in this, before you take that as a criticism; Mad Max and Kill Bill are among my favourite movies. I prefer not to translate that into real life, however.

There seems to be a growing number of people beginning to think slightly less reactionary and slightly more reasonably. This number, it seems to me, is growing in tandem with the increasing number of people who reject religion. (This is merely a personal observation and not based on anything concrete, so I wouldn't be surprised to find this observation to be entirely wrong). Religions, mostly, are full of death and blood and righteous vengeance. Islam often preaches about delivering death to unbelievers, while the very concept of hell is the ultimate form of revenge – an eternity of pain and torment for anyone who doesn’t share in the delusion of the particular religion the believers belong to. As ever, this slow change in attitude (if it is happening at all) is being brought about as a result of patient, exhaustive scientific research. Studies show that in psychopaths the make-up of the brain is physically different to others. A part of it simply doesn’t work. These people may be bastards, but they are not evil, because, as I’ve said before, evil is a word to describe a concept that doesn’t actually exist outside of religion and fiction. These people are brain-damaged. The research also suggests that people with this unfortunate malfunction are not destined to become killers regardless, but those who benefited from a childhood in which they were loved securely and unconditionally tend not to go psycho. This kind of research is becoming increasingly important in criminal court cases, as it can be used to show some killers are damaged and don’t necessarily commit these acts out of malice, but because they are lacking the part of the brain that neutralises these kinds of impulses. This is highly unpopular with those who continue to cling to the familiar concepts of good, evil and righteous vengeance. The criticism usually levelled at left-leaning people by right wing thinkers is along the lines of, to put it very mildly ‘fuzzy soft liberals’. This, I think, is because they tend to be stuck in a mindset that is influenced by their bloodthirsty religions rather than logical and reason-based science.

This automatic negative reaction is also common when confronted with the idea that those who commit crimes and acts of abuse do so because they were themselves abused as children. Having experienced this very thing recently, when the mere suggestion was greeted by frustrated eye-rolling by people who would rather see a wrong-doer punished, preferably painfully, I don’t see why people can’t see the sense in this. Children don’t come into this world instinctively knowing how to be civil, how to act. They have to learn this, and they don’t learn by being told, they learn by being shown. They come to assume that the way to treat people is the way they themselves are treated. This has been brought home in a way I would never have imagined recently when Katie showed signs of inheriting my occasionally short temper. It’s not as simple as punishing the guilty, because in ways many people might not think, offenders aren’t necessarily guilty in the black and white way it appears.

I do concede that I couldn’t possibly say whether I would still have this attitude if any of my loved ones were to fall victim to any of these brain-damaged people who were abused as children. It’s entirely reasonable to expect me to crave bloody revenge against anyone who harmed my family. I only hope I never have to find out.

Wading in to another pointless debate.

So, I overheard a conversation while out in the world. That conversation was regarding circumcision. A woman was talking about her little boy who she is taking to get circumcised for medical reasons – didn’t hear it all, plus I was trying to enjoy a cup of tea at the time, so I didn’t really want to hear the details – there are apparently problems with the foreskin being too tight and rubbing the little fella’s little fella painfully.

There were two or three other women around this table who then chimed in to the conversation. One of them declared that her husband’s looked so much better so she had her boys subjected to it. Another, whose husband was circumcised for religious reasons, admitted that it was better, and easier to clean (can he not clean his own?), although she couldn’t bring herself to do it to her son.

I sat there, drinking my tea, saying nothing. I was rather proud of my self-restraint. Wouldn’t want to make a scene. I did feel like asking the woman who thinks it looks better whether she was circumcised. Did she think lopping her clitoris off would result in a minor subjective cosmetic improvement? Or her daughter’s, were she to have any? No, that would be barbaric, wouldn’t it? Go ahead; mutilate your boys, no problem. I also felt like turning to the other woman and pointing out that my own uncircumcised knob is very easy to clean – it simply requires washing regularly, just like the cocks without hats. And that having it done for religious reasons is staggeringly bizarre, and further comfort for me in my wholly atheist standpoint. How is it possible that an omnipotent, supernatural creator of everything would give a gnat’s fart whether it’s creations went round with a bit of skin over their bellend or not? Why create it that way if it needed to be cut? If it was decided god didn’t like fingernails, would they have to go as well? If you thought people looked better with only four toes, would it be alright to snip the little one off without waiting for the child to be old enough to be able to make their own decision?

Of course not, so why is this OK? I don’t know, but it's none of my business, so I stayed quiet, finished my tea and decided to moan about it here while subjecting you to altogether too much information.

The biggest and most successful rebranding trick the right ever pulled.

One of the most common criticisms directed at left-leaning folk like myself is the moniker 'bleeding-heart lefties', or the supposedly critical 'do-gooder' (as if it's somehow better to do bad). It's also often intimated that we are immature and under-developed in our worldview; our hope that all kinds of different people could learn to live as equals a childish dream that our right-thinking betters have long outgrown. What's interesting is that this is a nice trick to disguise the real differences between us.

The point of view that we should do what we can to assist those less fortunate than ourselves in an effort to live in a shared community where everyone is valued is immature and unrealistic they say, and we should get on with the more highly evolved business of amassing wealth at the expense of others. If they can't succeed as we have done, the mature thinkers insist, they deserve to be crushed beneath the giant boots of our capitalist steel. Look out for the ones that appear to be all for ending poverty but at the same time refuse to even pay their fair share of taxes (*cough* Bono *cough* cunt *cough*), because they're worse than the ones who don't give a toss openly. This apparent uncaring attitude of the right would seem to be a sham, and much of the policy of the right looks to stem from an inability to think and act rationally, to separate the world in which others live from their own emotional hang ups.

Take the attempt to reduce the legal abortion limit - led mostly from the right. It stems from a failure to differentiate a foetus from a baby. They think they are protecting the rights of innocent little babies from the monstrous and evil medical professionals. They refuse to distinguish fact from an immediate emotional response. It forms part of an attempt to hold on to the outdated doctrine of their religious texts, which leads to a general automatic knee-jerk rejection of science and progress, a refusal to teach evolution as an established scientific theory rather than an alternative to hardline religious creator myths, and to a baffling all out rejection of climate science (however this also comes from good old fashioned greed and the need to hold on to their fortunes - the idea that there is somehow more money in carbon reduction and clean energy technologies than in the continued use of fossil fuels is laughable (although, there is, admittedly, a lot of earning potential in some areas of green technology, just nowhere near as much as the established oil and coal)). These trends, stemming from an inability to change and progress are not just misinformed, but downright dangerous for us as a species.

The general instinct of the left to invest in, and be guided by scientific research, rather than being bleeding-heart wet-blanket immaturity as the right would see us painted, is instead based on reason and rationality, which you'll find is more mature than restricting women's rights because you think doctors are baby murderers, not less. Rather than choosing to assimilate new information and revise their notions of the way the Universe functions, they instead choose to cling to their quaint stories and parables written thousands of years ago (it should be pointed out that I'm not just referring to the bible here, as other religious texts are equally outdated and nonsensical in light of what we've learnt as a species since the time of their writing), like children refusing to relinquish a treasured picture book from babyhood even though they've long outgrown it.* That they have somehow taken that inability to think or reason without letting primal emotional instincts guide them, to let go of infantile ideas about the nature of the Universe, to concede the truth about their morally dubious economic practices, lest it reduce their grossly unfair share of wealth and made it stick to the left is possibly the greatest con the right has ever pulled off. Of course, this is core ideology I'm referring to here - I realise in practice Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, Democrat and Republican have little to distinguish them nowadays, but there are still different degrees of shiteness - a sliding scale of shiteness, if you will, with Labour & Democrat at the top and the Conservatives and Rebublicans at the bottom, and the Lib Dems positioning themselves wherever they think they'll get the most power.

*Obviously not everybody - I know both religious and right-leaning people, both friends and family who are brilliant in every way - it's aimed more at the Michele Bachmanns and Sarah Palins of this world, and there are many more of them than you'd believe; enough to be frightening.

My mind is like a car crash: there are bits flying everywhere.

Something very cool happened to me the other morning. I did a good deed, and shortly after, something good happened to me. How often does that actually happen? Almost never? I got up early and went to wait at the bus stop to get a ride into work. There was one other person waiting at the stop, who I've seen a few times previously. We politely acknowledge each other, but don't speak. When the bus turned up, the other person got on ahead of me, and showed the driver a travel pass. "No good" he said, a little arrogantly. "Different company, you see. West Midlands Travel, not Arriva. Can't do it." When I've caught the bus with this person previously, the pass has been accepted without a second glance, so no wonder this response comes as such a surprise. I'm standing behind, knowing full well I only have enough spare change for myself. They're getting worried, because they need to catch a train. "What can I do?" "You gotta pay." "But I have no money." "Then you gotta get off." The driver is already looking past them and asking me where I want to go. Apprehensive, they begin to walk off the bus.

Enter: me. Imagine me shirtless if it'll help. If you know me in reality, it won't.

I hand over my change, insisting that I'll be fine and can arrange a lift or get some more cash for the next bus. Gratefully, they use my money to pay and get on. I'm probably going to be late for work, but I actually feel pretty damn good. Like Bill Murray at the end of Scrooged preaches, doing selfless things, even a little thing like I did, feels great. I start walking, trying to figure out a way to get into work, when the bus pulls up and the driver lets me on without paying.

Now, I can't blame a driver for not letting someone on if they can't pay and their pass isn't valid - Arriva is in business to make money after all, and they can't give free rides to anyone who looks at them a bit sad, but I thought the driver could have shown a little more empathy. I don't know if I shamed him or inspired him, but the result was pretty cool nonetheless, and the driver deserves credit for swallowing his pride and overcoming his earlier uncaring attitude.

The whole incident has caused my thoughts to go off at seemingly random tangents (hence the post title, which, if it sounds familiar to you, is from the first Bottom Live tour). This is completely normal for me, and I suspect for a number of you too.

It got me thinking (again) about religion. There's a video on Youtube of a debate between famed atheist Christopher Hitchens and catholic apologist Dinesh D'Souza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V85OykSDT8. Usually, someone like Hitchens is able to demolish any defence of faith with relative ease (known as being 'Hitch-slapped'), but here I was surprised at how well D'Souza held his own. It's long (about ten minutes shy of two hours), so I doubt you'll watch it, but the points D'Souza raises that Hitchens appeared to have difficutly resolving was firstly the explanation of the existence of an inherent moral code; an instinctive knowledge of right and wrong (such as giving up a seat on the bus, or even your bus fare altogether) that cannot be adequately explained by evolution alone. Second was the point that our Universe is perfectly 'tuned' to support the evolution of humans - a quicker expansion following the Big Bang, or a slower one, and it would be impossible for life to evolve as it has done. D'Souza reflected that such a Universe must have been designed this way purposefully. Finally was the inability of evolution to explain the complexity of the cell. Evolution starts with a cell, but doesn't explain how such a thing came to be.

For me, every argument D'Souza made served to strengthen my own atheist standpoint. I have an ingrained moral code. I know that I should help people if it is in my power to do so. I know that some things are right and that some things are wrong. It is right to donate to The Red Cross, the organisation organising relief efforts in Japan, Haiti and New Zealand. It is wrong to dismiss such disasters because they occurred in countries other than the one I was born in. I do not accept that my knowledge of the proper way to act is a gift from a supernatural creator. It comes from a simple ability to put myself in someone else's shoes; to imagine the world from their viewpoint. It's such an easy thing to do, and yet so many people, theist and atheist alike, have trouble with it. I could clearly see the person on the bus this morning was distressed at the thought of being stranded with no money and a train to catch. Imagining how it would feel to be in their position, I felt compelled to help. It's that simple. It's perfectly clear when someone is distressed or unhappy, and it is also perfectly obvious that one does not enjoy being distressed or unhappy, so it stands to reason that you would instinctively offer whatever help you could. No divine intervention required - just logic.

The second point, regarding our 'perfectly tuned' Universe highlights the astonishing arrogance behind faiths of all kinds. If the Universe is perfectly suited to us, rather than considering it proof that the entire thing (of which we inhabit only the tiniest, tiniest fraction) was simply pulled out of god's arse for our benefit, perhaps us evolving like this is the obvious consquence of a Universe 'tuned' this way. Evolution dictates that life will always evolve to fill a niche and adapt to its environment. If the Universe had been 'tuned' differently, a different type of life would probably have evolved. Is this obvious only to me? Am I a brain in a jar being given opinions that are not my own by scientists? Do people really think the entirity of the endlessly incredible cosmos was created entirely for their benefit?

And the cell. Hitchens made a point while addressing something else that seems to fit this rather nicely. D'Souza referred to the evolution of the eye to back up a point about (I think) intelligent design (which, as I understand it, basically gives god the credit for evolution without a single shred of evidence other than pointing out the things science doesn't yet know). Hitchens pointed out how not so long ago catholic debaters such as D'Souza argued against evolution by citing the seeming impossibility of the evolution of the eye (even though it is actually addressed in Darwin's original Origin of Species). Now when there is genuinely no credible arguement against all the proof of evolution written in the very fabric of our DNA debaters like D'Souza use it to strengthen the religious argument. The answer now is that evolution was the big man's plan all along, and the cell and science's inability to yet explain its development is cited as proof.

The most important and the most often used answer to a question asked in science is "I don't know". Taking this initial standpoint allows for the development of the scientific process of gathering evidence to support theories. So science can't yet explain the complexity of the cell. Don't tell me that because the answer is unknown the most obvious solution is an intelligent designer. Nothing in the natural world supports this. The more we learn, the more we realise there is still to learn and the more obvious it becomes that the answers can be found. Eventually. Maybe. Even if they never are, science allows for the possibility of failure. It doesn't make it any less compelling as an argument. It's like Bill O'Reilly telling us in his superior explaining-things-to-dense-children voice that no-one can explain the tides. Ahem. That would be the gravitational pull of the moon, Bill. "OK", he replies, as if he has an unbeatable rejoinder, "so how'd the moon get there?" We're not sure Bill. We weren't there at the time. We can extrapolate a theory from our knowledge of the laws of physics and observing other moons, but we can't say for sure. Not knowing, however, is in no way proof of the existence of god as you infer. It never will be. But you'll keep using it, because there will always be things we don't know.

OK, so now I seem to have clouded utterly my original train of thought. I don't think I ever had a point. But I do know that doing nice things to help people is awesome. Maybe that's all the point I need.

Science, souls and salvation: in which a person of limited intellect ponders universal truths that are far beyond him.

Recently, there was a post-doctorate position advertised at the International Space Science Institute in Switzerland. It got me thinking about myself as a young boy, constantly engrossed in books and encyclopedias about space, being obsessed over the subject and even spending time copying my books out word for word by pen and paper (yes, I was sad. I still am. I'm OK with it). If I had realised at that young age that there were occupations such as the one advertised, I wonder if I'd have worked tirelessly to be in a position to apply for it. I wonder if there is another Universe where a version of me is the successful candidate. I'd like to think there is. The harsh truth of the matter is I'm nowhere near intelligent enough, and probably wouldn't be no matter how diligently I applied myself.

However, not being smart enough to be a scientist has in no way diminished my love and enthusiasm for science. It is probably the most wondrous accomplishment of human intellect, and allows me, along with many others, to lift myself clear of the religious doctrine made up by humans who pretend to have answers in order to exert power and influence over others. Thanks to science, I know there is not a supreme being out there that suffers from acute homophobia, or one that favours one country over another (sorry right wing Americans, that's not the truth, it's just what you'd like your god to be). Thanks to science, I know there isn't a place for me furnished with virgins in the afterlife if only I could murder enough people of a different faith (why would virgins be such a turn-on anyway? They'd be shit at sex). Thanks to science, I have a grasp (however small) of the sheer size, scope and beauty of our incredible Universe, and I understand a little of where it (and therefore I, seeing as I am made of stars myself) came from. Thanks to science, I know the secrets of how all things are made up of atoms I can't see, and I have a good idea of the geological and biological history of our planet, which, it turns out, was not made by that homophobic supreme being at all.

There's an awful lot I can't comprehend and will likely never know - how life first came to be before it began to evolve (abiogenesis is fine in theory, but is unlikely to ever be proved), or even how the Universe began (again, the Big Bang Theory and the standard model of cosmology work OK, but have holes that will probably never be filled). What I do know is that even though I don't know the answers, I won't ever chalk them up to a creator made up by men in order to extend their influence over others. There's other stuff that I kind of understand, but have trouble wrapping my head around - Schrodinger's Cat and Entanglement are two elements of Quantum Theory I'll never really get a handle on for example, and dark matter and dark energy are at once both easy and impossible to understand, but that would be down to little old me and my limited intellect again. Then there's the other big thing I can't understand or explain - human sentience. I'm quite sure it's a natural process and one day it may well be explained by a clever chemist or biologist, and I have trouble accepting that it's proof of a soul, whatever a soul is supposed to be. 'Soul' is a simple word to define that which we can't really define, and will always be linked with the other religious arsegravy that organised religions spout while they tell you forces of good and evil are supposedly battling for yours. There is obviously something, for we have conscious thought and sentience, so for arguments sake we'll call it a soul, but there's nothing to salvage and I doubt very much it's a spirit version of a person that will live forever. I do have faith; I have faith in human ingenuity and faith that these kinds of questions may be answered. But I'm sure of one thing - they won't be answered by organised religion. So in a way, my soul (for lack of a better term) has been saved - science saved it, and saved me from worrying about what will happen to it after I'm dead. The idea of spending eternity in either heaven or hell horrifies me. Isn't 100 years of life (thanks to science that figure will probably increase dramatically in the coming decades; I just hope health and quality of life improves along with it) enough? I take comfort in knowing that the atoms that make up my body used to be part of a star, and will be absorbed and become something else after my death. I don't have to kneel before anyone to receive rewards and love in the afterlife, because I will not have an afterlife. I will forever be a part of this incredible Universe.

There is so much we're on the forefront of - many of the technological applications referred to in this piece for example: http://bigthink.com/ideas/20525 sound like the stuff of science fiction - cloaking devices, invisibility, time travel, teleportation? And yet, Quantum Theory, which no-one is even sure is true, is allowing research into these theoretical technologies to develop. Mind: blown.

This video sums things up more eloquently than I can: http://t.co/B51Ky3F. The line "I...stepped out of a supernova. And so did you" literally brought a tear to my eye.

If you do believe in a god, you have every right to. Just remember, I also have a right. A right to deduce what I see and come to a reasonable conclusion.

Atheist or creationist? Still human, it turns out.

I read a piece online the other day written by a guy about losing his faith and becoming an atheist. The blog, to me, seemed a little bittersweet - I felt there was grief over the loss of the comfort of blind certainty that usually comes with a faith, and along with it the person he used to be, but it also had the feel of a man who was happy to have woken from a lifelong delusion and is able to see clearly for the first time. He now uses Twitter (@ZachsMind) to debate with people over their beliefs. Overall, he's usually pleasant and respectful towards the faithful and doesn't tend to criticise them personally, but he can get pretty disrespectful over their faith. I do share in his disdain for all religions, but where I occassionally disagree is where he sometimes insults people directly, particularly their (in his view) lack of intelligence. I don't feel that @ZachsMind does this to be malicious, but rather out of frustration when the set-in-their-ways creationists won't debate with him properly. But I do think a small number of Twitter atheists can be dicks. (If you're a Twitter atheist and are reading this: if I follow you, I'm not referring to you - I don't follow the dicks.)

Creationists (and all those of any faith), I can't deny, do believe in what I consider to be superstition and nonsense. As @ZachsMind likes to point out; if god does exist the sheer volume of unnecessary suffering and general shit in the world would prove beyond doubt that he is a dick and not worthy of worship. And yes, all those shitty religions are responsible in large part for many of the hateful attitudes in the world today - America's greed? That's because the bible told them to subdue the Earth. Violent Middle-Easterners? That's down to them being ridiculously caught up in the 'my god's better than your god...so I'm going to kill you' game. Homophobia? That's because god hated the gays. Obviously I'm simplifying a complex issue, and there are many, many people of every faith that don't completely misinterpret the message of their religion and try to live as decent folk. Like my christian mother or buddhist in-laws. And these people are not stupid. They usually have their faith because it's been ingrained upon them from a young age, and they cannot believe otherwise. It's not that believers are stupid, it's that it's human nature to take comfort from easy answers instead of really questioning the whole idea of a conscious, imaginary force providing your reward for you when you die. It's because the fear of death can become so palpable that telling yourself there is an everlasting existence for you in the beyond, or that you get to come back as something or someone else stops this fear from crushing you. Even the homophobic, Earth-subduing suicide bombers aren't really stupid, they're just conditioned from youth to think and to see the world in a certain way. When a person is conditioned in that way, it is almost impossible to break that conditioning later in life (making @ZachsMind's story a rarity, I think). At least, that's how I see it, although I base that entirely upon my own perception and not on anything actually researched, so I'm probably wrong.

So yeah, religion winds me up quite a bit. But it's not the individuals themselves. It's the pope making excuses for serial child-rapists. It's the educational systems that despite the fact that the answer to how we got here was answered completely and absolutely irrefutably by Charles Darwin over 200 years ago, won't teach evolution as the accepted scientific fact it is. It's the continued insistence of some faiths that women are somehow subhuman. It's a thousand other things that continue to hinder the development of a society based on free thinking, reason and true equality. You shouldn't behave like a decent human being because of some supposed god and his promise of an eternity of torture when you die if you don't, you should act like a decent human being because that's what decent human beings do.

However, atheists don't get off scot free either. Many atheists consider themselves superior because of their rejection of religion and have a nasty habit of personally insulting people of faith simply because they think differently. This is a typically human attitude, which is especially disappointing given their supposed rejection of unenlightened superstition and the acceptance of logic and reason. Insulting people of faith won't change them, it will them more stubborn and less open-minded. (Besides, the trend, as far as my limited research indicates, shows a general moving away from faith and towards atheism in the U.S. despite (or perhaps because of?) the idiotic Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and their retarded take on christianity taking centre stage so often, so they might not need to worry about it for long. Oh, and by the way, purveyors of the special Beck 'n' Palin brand of christianity, opposing the ground zero mosque on the grounds that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by islamic extremists is a bit like saying the religion itself is to blame. Which is a bit like saying all muslims are terrorists. Which is a bit like saying all catholics are paedophiles. Which, in direct contradiction to my earlier point (hey, like the bible!), is fucking stupid.)

It's not really surprising that whatever the faith or lack thereof, there are people who are cool and there are people who are dicks. Because, regardless of belief/non-belief, people are still people.