Tag Archives: england

School demolishes chapel, replaces it with science classrooms

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Finally, some good news coming out of the UK. It seems a public school founded 500 years ago by the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral has decided to demolish its chapel in favor of building science classrooms. Can you imagine a more cheerful sign of progress?

St Paul’s School in south west London has knocked down its chapel to make way for new science classrooms, becoming the first of the country’s leading public schools to do without a place of worship.

While £5 million has been spent on a new theatre and £4 million on a sports complex, no money has been made available for a replacement chapel.

There are now plans to start saving money in 2020 to pay for the construction of the remaining buildings, but no date has been assigned to the chapel, leading to fears that it will be seen as expendable.

What’s the point? In a few decades, there won’t be enough religious rubes to pay for the damn thing anyways. What is a chapel but a testament to our own ignorance and superstition? I love the fact that a school originally founded by a church has made the decision to move forward and abandon its religious roots. It’s proof that the power of these institutions is seriously starting to wane. A few more decades, and they’ll hopefully be just a painful distant memory…

The Church of England is dying

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Man, once in a while you see a headline that just makes you want to smile. Today, my special little surprise was the Telegraph reporting if things don’t significantly improve for the Church of England, they will go the way of the Dodo bird. Of course, Church officials are scrambling to figure out what to do next:

“We are faced with a stark and urgent choice: do we spend the next few years managing decline, or do we go for growth?
In other words, do we accept the continual numerical decline of the Church of England as inevitable, or do we dare to believe a different future, that God might want his Church to grow, in holiness and in numbers?”

If your God wants his church to grow, he sure has a funny way of showing it. The decline is real, as opposed to their invisible friend who doesn’t have enough influence to keep his own followers from leaving in droves. The power of Christ compels you to leave! So, what do the numbers actually show? Are you ready to be in a good mood?

According to official figures, the number of worshippers attending church each week fell by 30,000 between 2007 and 2009, to 1.13 million.

Church of England officials argue that the decline partly reflects the nature of modern society, in which many kinds of membership organization – including political parties – have lost supporters.

Or it could be because people are tired of spending their free time being told by a clown in a dress that their ticket to magical-fun-playland is only good if it gets validated by Jesus. And if they think other organizations are losing 30k people a week, then I want the crack they’re smoking. Clearly, the Brits are saying “no thank you” to the Church of England, and why shouldn’t they?

The General Synod will also hear a call for an emergency debate on homosexuality. Church officials will be accused of “woeful” failure to protect the institution of marriage from erosion by the rise of civil partnerships and Coalition plans to allow same-sex couples to register their partnerships in religious settings.
A lay member of Synod, Andrea Minichiello Williams, will urge the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to call an “emergency” debate to discuss Church’s stance on marriage reforms.

Experts in sophisticated nonsense having a debate on the morality of homosexuality? And they wonder why people are fleeing in droves from the embarrassment that is the Church. While the rest of us are trying to ensure every person is treated with the same rights as everyone else, these morons are still stuck trying to figure out if their 2000 year old dead Palestinian carpenter would approve. I think they should take the fucking hint that a million departures in 2 years means an increasingly large segment of the population doesn’t really give a shit what Jesus thinks about who they decide to fuck, and in a few decades, no one will.

What Churches are all about

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If you’re a small church in the West, odds are attendance is at an all time low, tithing is way down, and desperate vicars are looking for ways to attract people into their nonsense. With profits dwindling away, any bit of parlor magic or cheap holy relic is bound to seem like a boon. Of course, it’s important to capitalize on these opportunities while your congregation is still shockingly ignorant and impressionable. Such was the hope for the now defunct “Wax Jesus” in a small church in Wiltshire.

An “image of Jesus” seen in dripped wax by worshippers at a church in Wiltshire has been removed by a cleaner. Created over a four-month period, the wax image was apparently removed by a diligent cleaner last week, although nobody has owned up.

Owned up to what? Doing their fucking job? If cleaners had to keep every stain that looked like someone’s extremely blurry messiah, then no cleaning would ever get done. Remember Christians have been “Waiting for Godot” for over 2000 years, and that’s bound to make anyone restless. They want him to return so badly they’ll start worshiping toast if it looks even faintly like someone in their supernatural pantheon. How do you tell someone in such denial of reality their God is no more real than Santa Claus?

I find the response of the church warden especially revealing:

“I felt really disappointed actually and I wished I’d done more about preserving it,” admitted Mrs. Irwin.

“The Church of England is not very good at this sort of thing and if I’d done something sooner it could have been a bit of a money spinner.”

There you go. Thanks for finally being honest with us! Rather than be upset that their false idol is now gone, the Church regrets that they aren’t as organized and efficient as the other faiths when it comes to exploiting opportunities to scam gullible people out of their hard earned cash. I mean, who wouldn’t want to pay premium monies to stare at a bunch of wax that looks like Cat Stevens?

I will say this for their congregation: most had not been fully convinced of its divinity, and so the loss of Wax Jesus is no big loss to them. I’d say for people who are superstitious and cling to anything that might resemble their hippy messiah, they show a remarkable amount of skepticism when it came to the sighting. It’s a fucking miracle!

UK secularists need to grow a pair

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As the UK continues to fund sectarian institutions, some politicians are beginning to warn officials that this trend will ultimately do more harm than good. Grassroots Liberal Democrats are “pressing” (whatever the fuck that means) the government to stop funding religious organizations, lest they be used as proselytizing tools.

In east London, a new website aiming to promote sex education for young people “using a faith sensitive approach” has been launched after receiving funding from health authorities. It follows a recent controversy in south-west London over Richmond council’s awarding of a £89,000 contract to the Catholic Children’s Society, which will be involved in advising pupils on issues including contraception and teenage pregnancy.

The government spent over 100,000 dollars spent on this bullshit? That’s insane! Don’t worry though, they totally got their money’s worth: just check out their website‘s pregnancy page for proof (it’s hilariously empty). Maybe they’re still trying to figure out how to gently tell expecting young mothers wishing to terminate their pregnancies that they’ll burn in Hell for eternity. Is there even a nice way to say that?

If you dig a little deeper, you’ll also find some false facts meant to persuade individuals abstinence teaching is effective. For instance, they claim that:

  1. Teens living in two-parent homes are less likely to have sex earlier than teens living in single-parent or step-parent homes [Me: “see, you shouldn’t have divorced your abusive husband. Now your daughter is a whore!”].
  2. Perceived parental disapproval of sex has a strong delaying factor throughout adolescence.[Me: “yes, because no one likes to rebel against their parents”].
  3. Teens who are more religious are more likely to delay sex. [Me: “while the average religious person may wait longer to have sex, it usually leads to more pregnancy and STI’s than their secular counterparts].
  4. The combination of academic achievement and sports participation (for girls only) have the strongest delay effect in early and middle adolescence. [Me: “yeah, it’s pretty much the opposite for guys, so how is this helpful for half the population?”].
  5. In late adolescence, girls with high self-esteem are less likely to engage in premarital sex than girls with low self-esteem. [Me: “what better to teach a girl self-esteem than inculcating her with a faith that considers all women sinners and the ruin of mankind?”].
  6. The more religious the teen and their family, the less likely they were to start having sex early. [Me: “and the more likely she’ll have an STI or a baby on the way!”].

Isn’t it great when you can cherry pick facts to make your side sound so much better? I will admit that at the very least, this site does encourage people to use contraception (bad Catholic alert). This, however, is their “last resort” in case you happen to be a human being and love getting shagged.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: kids are going to fuck each other whether or not you want them to. If fact, the less you want them to, the hotter it is. The last thing we need is a bunch of religious rubes confusing kids with dumb messages about sin and how their invisible friend only wants sanctioned sex. What’s worse, it also seems as though the result of their “sex education” is an adult with a less enjoyable sex life. Do religions ever get anything right?

The point is, religions are scarred by the misogynistic, ignorant, barbaric and primitive mores of the people who wrote their holy texts. Sure, some of their cults have embraced the values of the Enlightenment rather than follow their own code, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the basis of their beliefs are still predicated on utter nonsense. In other words, foundationally, they poison the very notion of intellectual integrity and reason. This, at the very least, must bar them from sharing or overtaking secular programs.

So what’s next? I guess we’ll continue to act like pussies and complain about this while money is slowly diverted away from secular programs and into the pockets of proselytizing organizations. At a time when the government is slashing spending, do you really think putting a bit of “pressure” is going to do anything at all? Religions are going to find ways to siphon money to themselves unless you expunge them all from your government. Get rid of the House of Lords. No more faith schools. Get your fucking secularist act together, England. It’s beginning to be an embarrassment.

Negligent mother thanks invisible friend for rescued baby

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Imagine you’re a shitty parent, and your unsupervised 16 month old falls through the balcony railing of your 4 story hotel room and into the arms of a resourceful passer-by. Is your first instinct to thank your invisible friend in the sky for the rescue?

Jah-Nea Myles, 16 months, apparently slipped through the balcony railing and fell into the arms of Helen Beard.

Ms. Beard, of Worksop, was at the pool at Orlando’s Econo Lodge hotel when she saw the baby hanging from the railing and ran underneath, she said.

Ms. Myles told Reuters: “I’m thanking the Lord above right now for saving my child’s life. I’m also thanking that lady because she was an angel sent from heaven.”

It wasn’t your Iron Age God, or one of his sexless servants who saved your kid; it was a young woman from Worksop, England with a head on her shoulders.

Faith in UK is eroding

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Some of you might recall the recent campaign in the UK encouraging people to mark “non-religious” on census surveys, and while the effort had positive results, there are still Britons who check-mark the religion they were born into.

Cognizant of that fact, a recent survey conducted by the British Humanist Association asked respondents two different questions designed to identify the percentage of people who still chose to incorrectly answer this question by including another one asking them if they were religious or not. The results were enlightening to say the least:

While 61% of the poll’s respondents said they did belong to a religion, 65% of those surveyed answered “no” to the further question: “Are you religious?

Among respondents who identified themselves as Christian, fewer than half said they believed Jesus Christ was a real person who died, came back to life and was the son of God.

The survey seems to indicate individuals are still identifying themselves with the religions of their parents, presumably because they’re reticent to accept the label of atheist.

Hey Britons, it’s time you fucking stopped pretending to be religious, and stop filling in your surveys incorrectly! If you don’t believe in a personal savior, then stop saying you’re a Christian. Trust me, the real ones think you’ll burn in hell anyways; why give them the satisfaction of thinking they are the majority?

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 138

This week: why ‘Everyone Draw the Holocaust Day’ makes Muslims look even more insane than usual, and how Dr. Wakefield can’t use the name doctor in Britain anymore.

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 138
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UK judge says religious beliefs have no legal standing

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A few weeks ago, a councilor named Gary McFarlane was sacked after he refused to assist a gay couple due to his religious convictions. McFarlane then tried to sue his former employer for religious discrimination (yes, the irony burns deep here), which has subsequently created a firestorm of controversy in the UK. In a way, this recent conflict is really a microcosm for the clash between secularism and sectarianism that is raging, which is why Lord Justice John Grant McKenzie Law’s recent ruling comes as a bit of good news. The suit was thrown out, and here is what McKenzie had to say about the whole thing:

Religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence.” He added that to use the law to protect “a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified.”

No religious belief, said the judge, can be protected under the law “however long its tradition, however rich its culture.”

Finally, a bit of common sense for once. I think it’s important that religious people start to accept the fact that their personal beliefs are things that they can privately hold, but that society does not need to necessarily agree with. The notion that homosexuality is a sin and against “God’s will” is not a statement of fact, but rather an ancient prejudice that has been allowed to continue thanks to the tireless efforts of religious bigots from around the world. A country is no more obligated to respect this belief than it needs to respect a man’s right to sell his daughter into slavery.

Now, if you guys could just stop jailing people for no fucking reason, that would be great!

The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 133

Why eating bugs isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, how Britain’s Foreign Office Memo leak makes the Church seem stupid, and why Comedy Central sucks. Also, why swearing is an important form of free speech!

The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist
The Good Atheist Podcast: EP 133
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Richard Dawkins wants UK to arrest the Pope

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It looks like someone is finally taking a stand against Pope Benedict XVI for his role in covering up the abuse of children, and it’s none other than atheist superstar Richard Dawkins. Along with Christopher Hitchens, the pair is trying to see if they can get the UK government to arrest the pontiff when he comes to visit in September to beatify some 19th century theologian no one actually gives a shit about. Since the Vatican isn’t actually recognized by the UN as it’s own state, he wouldn’t be able to claim diplomatic immunity, making his arrest a real possibility. Now all they need to find is a prosecutor with some balls, and then we can all sit back and witness something spectacular; a religious leader actually being held responsible for his actions.

Now before we all get too excited, you have to wonder what the backlash from this is going to be. There are still lots of Catholics willing to defend Benedict no matter how guilty he is for the simple reason they are convinced as an avatar of God, he is quite literally infallible. Luckily, the Vatican seems to be in complete denial over the seriousness of these allegations, so my guess is they won’t even take this threat seriously until it’s too late.

I’m not sure how all of this is going to go down, but with Dawkins on the case, it’s safe to say he isn’t going to let this thing slide that easily. Good luck you beautiful British bastard!

Billionaire donation to Catholic church fulfills “pact with God”

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Albert Gubay, founder of Kwik Save (a grocery chain in the UK) has put his business into a trust in order to keep a promise he made to an invisible sky deity after he asked his help to become a millionaire. Now, at 82, this Catholic is now donating almost a billion dollars to various Roman Catholic charities (you may recall these are the same institutions that use homeless people and orphans as pawns in their fight against equal rights for gays).

I know what you’re thinking; how awesome would this headline be if it said “pact with the Devil” instead? It would certainly highlight the fact it wasn’t a pact with a supernatural entity that made this guy successful, but rather hard work and determination (and probably stepping on a few throats too I assume). I’ve never been a huge fan of charities (especially not the religious kind), but it is nice this guy feels the need to donate such a large amount to those less fortunate; I just wish it wasn’t all tied to a religious organization that places the well being of molesting priests above that of children.

Catholic charity gets the right to exclude gays from adopting

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Amidst the heady swirl of controversy surrounding the Catholic Church (with more and more evidence of priestly misconduct and of their highly organized protection of these offenders), a UK judge has allowed a Catholic adoption agency to openly discriminate against gay couples wanting to adopt. They are now allowed exemption from sexual orientation regulations that make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of their homosexuality.

The Church had threatened to cut all of their services if they were forced to comply with the law (which essentially amounts to nothing less than blackmail), and it appears that, unlike Washington DC which upheld their right to pass laws the way they see fit, this tactic has succeeded in England (with an atheist faces blasphemy charges).

The Bishop of Leeds had this to say about the victory:

We look forward to producing evidence to the Charity Commission to support the position that we have consistently taken through this process: that without being able to use this exemption children without families would be seriously disadvantaged

So what he’s saying is without the ability to openly discriminate and violate the law, children would be “seriously disadvantaged” by being adopted by loving gay parents. Yeah, he’s a real fucking swell guy, and honest to boot.

I’m sick of this bullshit, and I’m especially tired of the way ignorant bigots like Leeds try to make themselves look like the good guys. They go around pretending they don’t disrespect or hate anyone, when it’s quite clear they do. They treat gays like sub humans, and deny them the ability to invite children in their loving homes, all because of a few Bible passages that claim God hates the idea of gay men and women having sex with one another (why don’t you mind your own fucking business, you overbearing father figure?). If it’s a crime for people to love one another, then your God has no place in this world.

This Valentine’s Day, submit to your husbands, ladies!

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What better way to show your love than by submitting to your husbands? Rev. Angus MacLeay, a member of the General Synod of the Church of England recently sent out a pamphlet in time for Valentine’s Day containing the not-so-subtle message the Bible specifically outlines a need for women to be subservient to their superior male counterparts. MacLeay, who is fighting against all the reforms in his church, is a hopeless romantic:

Wives are to submit to their husbands in everything in recognition of the fact that husbands are head of the family as Christ is head of the church. This is the way God has ordered their relationships with each other and Christian marriage cannot function well without it.

It would seem that women should remain silent….if their questions could legitimately be answered by their husbands at home.

Not every woman listening to his sermon was impressed by his loving respect of the Bible:

One disenchanted female parishioner said she was “disgusted” by the sermon.
“How can they talk that way in the 21st century?” she said. “No wonder the Church is losing touch if this is the kind of gobbledygook they want us to believe in”.

Gobbledygook? Is this how modern women feel about the Bible? What sacrilege! The word of God is quite clear about the role of women in society, and the fact some seem disgusted by the sermon only goes to show what little attention people actually pay to their own holy scriptures. God doesn’t mince words when it comes to the ladies:

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner”
(I Timothy 2:11-14).

…[F]or man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (I Corinthians 11:3-10).

What’s wrong ladies? Can’t stomach the fact God’s infallible word makes you a second class citizen? If you want to be a good Christian, don’t you think it’s time you put aside all influence of modern society and live according to the word of the Lord? Or, you could join the rest of us who recognize the inherent misogyny of the Bible is further proof of its entirely terrestrial origins.

Tony Blair’s wife thinks religion is a “get out of jail free” card

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Imagine you’re waiting in line at a bank and suddenly you get in an argument with someone waiting in the queue with you. Maybe he cut in line, or maybe you’re just a dick; doesn’t really matter. Things escalate, and suddenly you sock him right in the face. Now, should you be exempt from punishment because you had just come from a religious service not 10 minutes before?

Cherie Booth sure thinks so. The judge and wife of former douchebag Prime Minister Tony Blair recently spared a man from going to jail because he was religious, and she felt this indicated something about his character. The National Secular Society is not amused, and they claim her attitude was discriminatory (would she have been so lenient with an atheist?).

I’m sick and tired of the mistaken assumption religious people are somehow more moral than their non-religious counterparts, especially when every study seems to indicate that if there is a trend, it’s usually that religion actually makes you LESS moral. It’s probably because when every decision is made for you, you don’t take the time to actually weigh the consequences of your own actions, like say, whether or not it’s OK to punch a man in the face for no fucking reason. Still, I won’t assume the accused was more violent simply because he was a religious man, but I certainly wouldn’t let anyone off the hook simply because they had just come back from mosque.

Lancaster mayor claims city is “growing a Christian community”

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Seems like every politician these days has forgotten about the First Amendment, since they can’t stop trying to shove their religion down everyone’s throats. The latest clueless jackass is Mayor R. Rex Parris of Lancaster, in Southern California, who said during his annual State of the City address that the city was growing a Christian community.

I need [Lancaster residents] standing up and saying we’re a Christian community, and we’re proud of that,” the mayor said.

Needless to say, not everyone was thrilled with this statement, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations has demanded that he apologize for using his office to promote his religion. Parris has refused, saying it’s just the group’s way of trying to get attention. If you read the comment section of this article, it looks like the vast majority of respondents are happy with the Mayor’s speech.

Islamists will always complain about any religion unless it is their own [as opposed to Christians?].

Wether [sic] you moslems like it or not, this IS a Christian country, just as Egypt is a moslem country and just as Saudi Arabia is a moslem country [what great countries to compare yourself to!].

I don’t care what Muslims say anymore. If they don’t like the USA, then get the hell out. This country is predominately christian and Jewish [give me your poor and tired, but only if they accept Jesus Christ].

Of course, because they’re in the majority, Christians haven’t stopped to consider the corrosive effect religion has on politics; they may also have overlooked the fact there are over 30,000 different Christian sects, and many of them are so different as to be almost unrecognizable. The entire reason you separate religion and government is to avoid having to deal with a candidate’s private beliefs affecting the lives of people who have different beliefs themselves. You can bet your ass no one would have been happy if the Mayor had instead stated Lancaster was growing “an Islamic community, and we’re proud of that”. The wall separating church and state is starting to crumble, and that’s not good news for anybody.