Interesting Ad

There’s an interesting campaign going on in Britain and though it touches the most sensitive issue there is — religion — it is actually all about free expression.

I have stopped engaging in religious debates ages ago, my recollection of the last one being a realization that both sides of the divide may just as well agree on what unites them rather than argue on what separates them — assuming arguendo that the antagonism doesn’t necessitate confrontation in which case  a resolution of the contradiction is in order — and from that basis, work together.  It is not only productive but also less stressful.

United front tactic is surely a magic weapon — and Mao would not have been more correct — especially in a society where contradictions at various levels are sharply defined. But I digress.

So the British Humanist Association launched a “No God” ad on bendy-buses to counter the “repent” and “convert” blah-blah that assaults passengers and the public everyday at every public space they  find themselves in.  This is not unlike the bible-toting evangelists that bug us with their praise the lord speeches at  every public gathering or transportation.

Professor Dawkins said: “Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride – automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children.

Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the BHA, said: “We see so many posters advertising salvation through Jesus or threatening us with eternal damnation, that I feel sure that a bus advert like this will be welcomed as a breath of fresh air.

Yes, it is a breath of fresh air. After all, freedom of religion includes the right not to believe.  Also, apart  from the fact that I have no quarrel about the idea of enjoying life, I worry more about the vanishing returns and eventual non-existence of my retirement benefits before I turn 65 than the issue of existence or non-existence of God (perhaps because i have personally answered this question a long time ago.)

But apparently, some religious crusaders are not aware of this constitutional right.  Said the pressure group Christian Voice “Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.”

I wonder if a campaign of this kind would even be allowed in our country whose claim to democratic practice is matched only by its perversions of it.  And shouldn’t religion make people more understanding?

The BHA executive  spoke of having “difficulty understanding why people with particular religious beliefs find the expression of a different sort of beliefs to be offensive.

He added he  “can’t understand why some people seem to have a different attitude when it comes to atheists.” (see full story)

Amen.

Guess Who Forgot He Had a Blog

Ha ha ha.  So, guess who forgot he had a blog!

A full month after my last post (if you would consider uploading a picture as blogging), and after successfully resisting  the idea of  having a new year’s resolution (i’m so good at breaking it I now find the exercise rather completely boring aside from being totally futile — but this is not to mean I am making friends with complacency either, it’s just that making a list and checking it twice is something I leave Santa (like I even believe him) to worry about — I finally found the time (more of effort really) to blog my night away.

Hello once again dear readers (as if I had any aside from myself)!

So what unstoppable force animated the (seemingly yet temporarily) immovable object (blame it on my holiday excesses and guilty pleasures  induced by my petit bourgeois origins) into logging on to his dormant site?

MORE THAN A THOUSAND DEATHS IN GAZA as I pound my tired laptop keys!

This US-backed Israeli mass slaughter of Palestinians merited a condemnation of  a “terrorist organization” (blaming Hamas for the invasion) from Bush because, as the world knows, he is an idiot fly.

I would not wait for  a statement from Obama  (his excuse for not doing so is that he is not yet officially the president).  Why, it doesn’t take the highest office of the land to recognize genocide.

Gaza children

So what does Israel want from this invasion aside from the keynesianism?  Well, one is  an internationally-supported mechanism to ensure that Hamas can not re-arm in the future.

Bastards.

What demand can be more ridiculous than that?  Israel, the biggest recipient of US military aid and the only nuclear power in Mid-East, wants the region castrated.

In this one-sided war condemned by the world (except the US of A), I do not find myself a stranger in the Palestinian side.  And nobody should.

And while Israel uses phosphorus in Gaza, it refuses journalists entry without supervision and blockades the strip on all three borders.

Stages of Occupation

The Zionist Israel has not stopped since 1947.  But the world is protesting and it is determined to put an end to this atrocity.