I have pondered recently upon the way our society is slowly crumbling, the evidence is everywhere:

• The lower crime rate which is an illusion caused by the fact that fewer people report a crime nowadays because they know it won’t be taken seriously.
• Low levels of numeracy and literacy in school leavers.
• The rise of the underclass. Their offspring are evident in groups around every corner shop drinking cheap cider and intimidating the older customers.
• A disturbing lack of manners and a selfishness which is apparent in people of all ages. How many times have you had people entering a shop push in front of you as you are leaving, they have no idea how they should behave.
• The large minority of imbeciles who seem to hero worship a murdering thug like Moat, a pathetic mental case who they only know of because of the extraordinary level of publicity throughout the media.
• The false mourning; I call it “Diana syndrome” where total strangers leave tawdry bunches of petrol station flowers and cheap soft toys with soppy messages outside the houses where murders have taken place or near the scene of a fatal motor accident. There is nowhere more typical of this phenomenon than the village of Woolton Basset (aka Ghoul Town) where people who never knew them shed false tears for soldiers killed in action, and throw cheap bunches of half dead flowers still in their cellophane wrapper onto the bonnet and roof of each passing hearse.

If you put all these things together you get the distinct impression that we are rapidly going down the plughole, with very little time left to escape our collective doom. This is my take on the root causes of the situation:

1. Texting and “txt spk”
Relaxation of the rules of grammar and spelling into this form of patois has had a corrosive effect on the ability of the people that use it. This slack and equivocal method of communication is already migrating into email and some online fora and message boards. It restricts the vocabulary of the user to a few very common words that can easily be shortened. The richness of our language is curtailed as users communicate in a simplified English that has no depth and no beauty.

2. Social networking websites
These “social networking” sites are places where people who have very little to say (and nothing at all that is interesting) can get together and bore each other senseless.

It is the internet dumbed down so that the dull and witless can cobble together their very own “web page” and fill it full of pictures of themselves when they are the worse for drink, showing parts of their body that should remain hidden or urinating in the street.

This overkill of minutiae is great if you really care that dismal old Stephen Fry has just “pee spotted his pants” with excitement, but I don’t see the point or the pleasure in revealing your mundane everyday activities to a lot of followers or imaginary friends.

3.Rap
Please don’t call it Rap Music. It isn’t. It is rhythmic doggerel. Rap was invented so that people with very little talent and no inclination to learn how to play an instrument or sing properly can become superstars. The banal lyrics are performed quickly (so you can’t hear how utterly crass and boring they are) and always spoken in a cod ghetto accent. This misogynistic, pro criminal, pro gun culture, pro knife carrying claptrap has contributed to promoting violence and gangs worldwide.

4.Reality TV
Simon Cowell and his ilk are driving standards down so that the great unwashed can pretend that they have talents and abilities that they really don’t, because they haven’t worked for them. Our “celebrities” now are people who are no more talented than anyone else. It is no coincidence that most of these “superstars” created by TV shows don’t stay at the top for long; they have not served their apprenticeship, played at small clubs all over the country and learned their trade. They don’t have the experience to succeed long term.

Public participation “reality” shows like big brother and wife swap where members of the public are encouraged to humiliate themselves encourage us to be cruel and over judgemental of our fellow humans.

5.Political correctness
At one extreme the lack of any deterrent to bad behaviour at school (since the ending of corporal punishment) has fostered a culture where the children’s so called “rights” and the fear of making any physical contact lest they be accused of touching the child improperly, has made a generation of teachers impotent and ineffective. At the other extreme the rise of the health and safety brigade has badly effected productivity and led to ridiculous and risible instructions on products like the peanut packets that have “warning may contain nuts” printed on them. This fear of taking any slight risk and the fear of potential legal action if you don’t strictly follow these draconian rules mean that (for instance) most window cleaners now don’t use ladders and “clean” our upstairs windows from ground level using a telescopic brush and water. I could give many more examples but life’s too short.

6.Computer Games
The popular shoot and kill computer games are teaching a generation to react swiftly and violently to any challenge to their perceived authority and rights. The lack of consequence in these games (when you are “killed” you just reset) embeds a false feeling of invulnerability into their psyche.

7.Religion, Faith and Spirituality
All of these things were invented by mankind basically to make themselves feel better and be less afraid of the dark. We should have outgrown this nonsense by now, because it is all nonsense - we are born, we live then we die there is nothing else. We are all just a piece of meat with thoughts and emotions controlled by electrical impulses and chemical changes. There is no big father figure in the sky who knows us all personally, looks after us and loves us in return for us meeting up once a week and singing a couple of songs in his praise. How ridiculous does that sound? Really; Enid Blighton’s Noddy, who paid for his milk by letting the milkman nod his head a couple of times was more credible.

There is a great mass of people who believe all this tosh, and live their lives according to stuff written hundreds of years ago by primitive tribesmen who had none of the advantages that we have and had no inkling of how big the world is, our place in the universe or how intelligent life evolved. They should be pitied not vilified, but society should not conspire to teach this nonsense in schools and there should be no state involvement in religion at all.

These factors have combined to produce a sizeable minority who think they know everything but in fact know very little. They know their rights but have no concept of their responsibilities, they demand respect but have done nothing to earn it. “Are you dissing me?”

These people are now starting to have children and are no doubt bringing them up in an even more haphazard way than their own parents did. To any unbiased observer it is pretty much obvious that the next generation is going to end up even more “intellectually challenged” than the last. We are heading towards a lowest common denominator society where excellence is unrecognised as it slowly drowns in a great sea of mediocrity.

I voted for John Terry mainly because of his Twatish new haircut, but don’t let me influence you, what do I know?

There is a link to the site in my blogroll on the right hand side.

Remember if you don’t vote you shouldn’t complain about the outcome.   In a way it is just like the general election except the candidates are even less impressive.

Unfortunately twatboy.com has been withdrawn due to possible copyright infringement so the link to the site has been removed.

The Internet
The web will degenerate into a vile soup of twitter / facebook type sites where everybody talks in txt spk and consequently no one understands each other. Computers will cease to be the main interface with all this rubbish, and the mobile phone will be favoured because it is so much easier to say nothing much on a smaller device.

Politics
There will be a general election in the UK and the results will not mirror the polls.

The turnout at the general election will be so poor that the new government will contact Simon Cowell to organise a television celebrity politics program and telephone voting.

A new general election is called for later in the year. In an interesting twist the three main parties are eliminated from the contest in the early stages. One of the leaders becomes abusive to the judging panel and has to be taken away by security staff. The other two become tearful and start weeping, one of them pleads “let me do the speech again, I know I can do it” All three judges give the thumbs down sign and he is lead gibbering away. All three leaders are interviewed by (minor UK celebrities) Ant and Dec and they vow to come back next time with a new act and win it.

In the series final the Scottish Nationalists win by a considerable margin over the far right BNP and the anti Europe party UKIP. The Scotts Nat leader moves in to No 10 Downing street and after consultation with his party declares that they no longer wish for independence, but since they now rule the UK there will be a new bill later in the year to extend the Scottish border down to the south coast and rename the UK “Scotland”. Trousers will be banned and everyone, male and female will have to affiliate themselves to a clan and wear the tartan in the form of a kilt. Haggis and deep fried Mars Bars will become mandatory in Fish and chip shops and takeaways across the country. This is part of a plan to reduce the life expectancy to that of Glasgow so that the country will have less to pay out in old age pensions and thereby solve the outstanding national debt in a much shorter time scale than would otherwise have been possible.

Prison Reform
The Isle of Wight will be evacuated and turned into an inmate controlled penal colony (similar to the movie escape to New York). All the empty old prisons will be converted to hostels to house the rising number of unemployed homeless people. The prison warders will be re-employed as Hostel Wardens with similar powers to those they previously enjoyed but slightly fewer opportunities to give someone a good beating.

Celebrities
Some famous people will die, others will get married, have a civil partnership and/or adopt some poor unfortunate little orphan from a third world country.

Technology
3D TV will become more popular but a Japanese manufacturer and a Korean company both announce that they are perfecting a 3d/Holographic display that will give you lifelike images at full size projected into your room. Both of these new services will be interactive, using the “hard light” holographic system invented on “Star Trek” so that the viewer can touch and communicate with characters. Unfortunately the two systems are incompatible and neither manufacturer will back down so the market is put on hold as no one wants to commit the $20,000 for a set until they work out which one is the betamax.

UFOs
A flying saucer will be publicly caught by the US Military when its invisibility shield is deactivated by vandals pointing their laser pen lights at an aircraft cockpit as the flying saucer accidentally crosses the laser beam. To everyone’s surprise the occupants are not from another planet they are human time travellers from after the next ice age. They explain that they have been observing us for years so that they can analyse where we went wrong in our attempts to control the climate. Apparently the man made global warming was the only thing stopping the ice age from happening, and as soon as we stopped using fossil fuels the glaciers took out most of the temperate zones.

The House of Windsor
A prominent member of the royal family will unexpectedly die in very unusual circumstances.

More Technology
A breakthrough will be made in producing electricity by cheap-to-make cold fusion generators. At last the electric car is a viable option. Road traffic accidents and deaths start to escalate as pedestrians cannot hear the cars coming. The government decides that all electric cars should be fitted with a new loudspeaker and amplifiers system continuously playing the new Scottish National Anthem “Donald where’s your trousers”.

Around the World
Celery will be declared an illegal substance in Uzbekistan, possession of Celery and Cottage Cheese at the same time will become a capital offence.

Show Business
Beth Ditto will join the Cheeky Girls and they will have a number one hit with an old Rolf Harris number. Beth will also become romantically involved with a minor member of the Royal family. Unfortunately it will all end in tears.

Conspiracy Theories
There will be a major revelation regarding the involvement of a certain fugitive bearded terrorist in the assassination of JFK, Princess Di and several other prominent figures from recent history.

The Environment
As the glaciers start to melt information regarding the last period of global warming starts to appear. Evidence that Intelligent Dinosaurs had a vibrant civilisation and invented the internal combustion engine millions of years ago is seen as proof that the people at the top of the food chain are always causing global warming.

The World of Sport
Southampton FC will be promoted into the championship where they will play against south coast rivals Portsmouth who will be relegated from the premiership.

England will win the world cup beating surprise finalist USA by 1 goal in an exciting match.

David Beckham will be knighted.

The World of  Television
Reality TV program “Big Brother” will be pulled from the schedule halfway through the series when the producers realise that in spite of the incredible free publicity from the gutter press nobody can be bothered to actually watch it.

Health Matters
New research will indicate that exercise is bad for you and that chocolate, doughnuts and ice cream are health foods.

Religion
There will be a major scandal towards the end of the year when a leak from area 51 reveals that the captured UFO Time travellers have unequivocal proof that in the early 35th century the remains of what can only be the supreme being will be discovered floating in deep space behind the Coal Sack nebula.  This information, dragged out of them by waterboarding and other unpleasant activities, also confirms that the deity had been dead for several million years.  The world will be appalled that the US military had tried to surpress this information because it didn’t fit in with what they had already decided to believe.

The organised religions will all protest about this except the Roman Catholics who are strangely silent.  On the last day of the year the pope announces that they have known this for centuries and that it doesn’t matter because “Nobody takes this stuff seriously anyway”.

International Show Business
The Australian spin off talent show “Australia’s got talent” will be won by an aboriginal gentlemen who has an original act juggling live cats.

Remember -You heard it all here first!

A friend in the USA sent me this link to a Daily mail article. His email was titled “Say it ain’t So”.

Sharia Law Legally Binding In The UK

Sadly it is completely true. However the perpetrators of this gross inequality say it is only entered into on a voluntary basis by consenting Muslims who agree that the decision of the unelected, unqualified, half assed stone age cleric will be legally binding.

Sounds harmless, and they point out that a similar arrangement already exists for orthodox Jews.

I think this is the thin end of the wedge, what happens in 2 or 3 generations when due to their rising birth rate and the falling birth rate of the rest of the UK population they are the majority?

I don’t see why:
1) Any religion is given any weight in law. It is all crap invented for people of simple minds.
2) Why we jealously guard the “rights” of people who want to live by a code of conduct that would have been considered barbaric in the middle ages.

If ever I am in power, I will rescind the legal and charitable status of all religious groups (including the bloody Christians). I will do it gradually so that they don’t rise up on one of their silly bloody jihads or crusades.

I would also make it illegal for schools to teach any religious faith whatsoever and replace the lesson slot with the subject of “personal moral responsibility”. Instead of teaching them that “Thou shalt not kill” because God commands you not to, I would teach them why it is wrong to kill and what the implications are for the survival of the species if we all start killing each other.

I would make sure that no religious group has any relevance in law nor any influence on government.

I would ban any advertising and self promotion by religious groups. God TV etc would be gone. Let them try and increase their membership by word of mouth. Their congregations would dwindle in weeks.

I would impose a tax on places of worship which would be introduced as a variant of the business rates and would increase by small amounts every year. I would call this the “Idiots Tax”.

It would be illegal to give anyone the right to teach creationism or the ludicrously labelled “Intelligent Design” in schools. Let them preach the crap in their churches to their dwindling band of oddball supporters, don’t indoctrinate our children with this risible nonsense. I heard a BBC radio program recently where some redneck, God-Bothering students were saying that because they believe this they have the right to be taught it! What a ridiculous argument, if I believe that the moon is made of green cheese and Elvis lives there with Adolf Hilter and Marylin Munroe do I also have that right?

Getting back to the original point, it is a difficult situation because the silent majority who are appalled at this dare not make any public objections for fear of being called a racist and attacked by the “right-on” politically correct brigade. These people preach “multiculturalism” by which they mean that we, the indigineous population must go out of our way to immerse ourselves in the so called “culture” of these primitive people. If like me you are happy to let anyone live in this country so long as they contribute to society but you don’t particularly want to get to know them, their way of life or their beliefs you are considered to be a trouble maker and a potential racist.

I’ve just read through this; it could be the start of a new political movement. My dad always said I would be Prime Minister one day, perhaps it’s not too late.

Vote Donkey! You know it makes sense.

“The most senior judge in England yesterday gave his blessing to the use of sharia law to resolve disputes among Muslims.”

More Info Here

If Deputy Dawg lookalike Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips is the top judge in the country we are well and truly up shit creek without a paddle.

What a load of bollocks the man spouts, we can’t have separate laws for minority groups and any law that is based on religious belief should never get on the statute books.

In this country the laws are made by Parliament not some half-assed idiot cleric who has a belief system that is about a thousand years out of date.

It is quite simple if you live in this country you have to comply with our laws. Your religion or lack of it is not even a consideration. If two Muslims want to settle a dispute according to their sharia law that’s fine as long as it is a personal agreement between them - it can have no legal validity.

If this sort of mealy mouthed support for this particular minority group is enshrined in our legal system where will it end? Can I make up my own set of laws and demand to be taken seriously? After all that is what the Muslims did.

I’m really fed up with hearing rubbish like this from people who should know better. Why do they seem to be bending over backwards to please these demented enthusiasts for a primitive religion that tries to drag us all back to the middle ages? Could it be that they are all good Christians trying to bend over and turn the other cheek? That is part of the problem; the Christians don’t want to exclude the Muslims so we end up with people who believe in absolute rubbish trying to promulgate the “rights” of another group of people who believe in a slightly different load of old rubbish.

When will the world wake up and shed this need to invent religions and gods to make them feel safe and cosy? Anyone with half a brain can see it is all delusion.

This morning’s drive into work, skirting the edge of the New Forest was one of the best I’ve had in the 3 years I’ve lived in this part of the world. The weather was very agreeable and this is one of my favourite times of the year; not too hot, a very slight chill in the air - a beautiful early spring morning. It was one of those mornings when you want to slow down so you can enjoy the journey more.

The morning sun highlighted the bright yellow gorse flowers that gird the road for a good part of the trip, rising behind them the still bare winter trees look as though they have a fine mist of green settled upon their branches as the new growth starts to show through. Every few yards there is fresh new green tree with leaves almost fully formed and the early sun makes these leaves glow in their lush greenery against a soft blue sky with just a few wispy clouds.

It is a fantastic privilege to be alive and able to experience such things.

Don’t spoil it by telling me that there is any input to this from any god! It’s nature pure and simple; there is no need to give thanks to anyone for this - it is here free for you to enjoy.

Unlike the hysterical masses calling for archbishop beardy’s resignation I take a more charitable view, I think we should deal with him under Sharia law in the same way as the extreme Muslims solve their homosexuality problem - Defenestration.

Stoning seems a bit too horrific and personal while amputation is a very crude deterrent if indeed it works as a deterrent at all. I mean if according to the religious nutters the thought of doing evil is as bad as actually doing it, then you can’t tell me that those poor buggers with their hands cut off don’t think of flicking a “V” sign or giving the finger to the rest of us. It is only human nature.

Perhaps we should amputate his beard - that would be a great improvement; he is after all the scruffiest archbishop we have ever had in this country, and the scruffiest public figure (if you ignore Mr Geldof) since poor old Michael Foot shambled about the House of Commons in his Donkey jacket. The man looks like he could do with a good wash! I bet that beard is shampooed less than once week it looks like it’s dirty and I expect it feels itchy all the time. I should imagine it smells of old communion wine and stale aftershave.

On a serious note any man who thinks that there should be different laws applied to people who believe different fantasies than the rest of us is one bollock short of a full sac! It is a reprehensible selfishness and naivety which fosters extreme behaviour. These people think they are above the law as they are answering to a “Higher authority”, doing God’s will as interpreted by them. So it OK to abuse women and treat them like property, stone adulterers to death and murder people who have different sexual preferences, oh and by the way amputation is the only real deterrent to the curse of shoplifting. All these things are OK because God said so - you and I never heard him say this but what the hell that’s all right because we should have faith in the rantings of these priests shouldn’t we?

Talking of amputees I am sad to hear that my good friend Abu Hansa (it is always a pleasure to shake his hook but the bear hugs can be a problem) is likely to be moved into less salubrious surroundings in the American Rockies. How brutal that he will only have a small black and white TV pumping out US propaganda all day instead of the wide-screen luxury that he currently enjoys (he is great fan of the X factor). I wonder what poor unfortunate will take over the job of wiping the buggers shitty ass every day (you couldn’t pay me enough to do that job) I expect the redneck miltary will employ a minimum wage black man for that job. Quite a contrast - the prospect of a black man in the white house and another one in the shite house!

Defenestration:Throwing out of a high window, a method of execution specialised in by the Czechoslovakian Secret service during the cold war period.

7^th November 2006

I would like to point out an excellent service offered by the Supermarket Tesco.

This offer is only available to those of us lucky enough to reside in the UK.

It is even better that the BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offers that you see in the supermarkets everywhere, it is a BONBANO (Buy One Never Buy A New One) offer.

If you follow these instructions you will only ever have to buy one toaster in your life.

The procedure may not work for on-line purchases so I suggest you go into the local store.

There are three factors that make this work.

1) The EU directive that all small electrical products are now guaranteed for 2 years.

2) The fact that a lot of really cheap Chinese made electrical products are built to last about 6 months.

3) Tesco’s ineptitude.

This is what you do.

A) Purchase a cheap Tesco own label toaster for £4.78- keep your receipt.

B) When it goes wrong as it usually does after 3 to 9 months (mine first clapped out in November 2006 - purchased in April 2006) take it back for a replacement under guarantee. Showing your receipt as proof of purchase.

C)Tesco give you a new receipt as proof of purchase dated from the day you picked up the replacement!!!

D) Repeat steps B to C as required.

I urge everyone to take up this offer it serves the retailer right if they sell crap products when they know they have to guarantee them. It’s a small blow against the forces that are driving down prices and consequently quality in our electrical sector.

Unfortunately you don’t get clubcard points each time you get a replacement. For some reason they take them off then add them back on again. No idea why.

This is why we are “Great Britain”! You won’t get a deal like that in Wallmart.

7^th April 2007

Just a quick update to let you know the plan is still working, the everlasting toaster is now in its third incarnation, and again they have given me a guarantee starting from yesterday.

I feel slightly cheated because the toaster has been reduced in price - it is now 3.76 including vat.

Good old Chinese workmanship the first one lasted nearly six months, the second one just about five months so if this is a trend I should be onto number 4 by sometime in August.

This time the Tesco customer service guy seemed surprised that I should want a replacement, I suppose everyone else just asks for their 3.76 back. Losers! I will never have to buy a new toaster.

Tesco seem to miss the point about guarantees, I sell Italian made domestic cleaning and ironing appliances in the UK, and like most manufacturers we will continue to repair or replace a faulty item up until the guarantee period is over, the guarantee runs from the date of the original purchase. When we replace or repair we make a point of telling them “you have X months left on your guarantee” so there is no argument.

Tesco either don’t realise that this is the way the system works or they have a different policy so they give you a new purchase receipt dated the day you get the new exchange model. It really is an everlasting toaster. If they sold products that lasted more than a few months then they would not have a problem.

I suspect that they are just sending them back to whoever imports them from China for them so Tesco won’t suffer, just the poor supplier as usual.

There is no extra cost involved in making lots of trips to Tesco. I drive by the shop every day and quite often call in to get a paper or some milk so there is no cost really.

As it is a shoddily made piece of Chinese engineering I take the precaution of keeping it turned off when it is not being used.

3^rd August 2007 - Update - Now on version 4

As I so accurately predicted in my post of 6th April the toaster gave up the ghost again this week, and has duly been replaced yesterday (Saturday) afternoon when we did our weekly shop. Once again my guarantee runs from the day of exchange. It is weird; they check my details on the Tesco clubcard so they know that I am now on my 4th Toaster but they make no comment. One would assume that they would think I was involved in some sort of toaster scam and give me the third degree, but no they meekly exchange it . They must have a mountain of these knackered toasters somewhere. The young lad who exchanged it for me did comment that he has one the same that he’s had for 2 and a half years and it’s still going strong. Perhaps Tesco staff trainers tell them to say that in a vain attempt to keep up morale.

If anyone else would like an everlasting toaster details are here Tesco Cheapo Toaster

They are even cheaper now £3.75 “cheap enough to buy to throw at the cat to make the baby laugh” as the market traders used to say.

I hesitate to make a firm prediction, but if the trend in toaster longevity continues I should be replacing it again in late November or Early December. Watch this space.

12^th February 2008 - Update - It’s still working!

This could be the worst case scenario - this one isn’t faulty so far - if it lasts until the guarantee runs out then cacks out I may have to invest £3.76 in a new one.  I’ll keep you informed…

12^th February 2008 - Update - It’s still working!

One is pleasantly surprised that this last incarnation of the device has soldiered on so long, it is definitely out of warranty now so when it turns up it’s toes (as it probably will now) I will bin it and probably buy a better one.

——————–Story Ends——————-

If like me you use the Mayan calendar you may have noticed that it finishes on December the 21st 2012. That’s it! It’s over. The end!  The end of the world; you see the Mayans believed that humanity lived in cycles of approx 5,000 years at the end of which some cataclysmic event came along and scoured the earth clean of this infection that is humanity so that the whole sorry mess can start all over again.

You probably think - what a load of old cobblers, and who were the Mayans anyway just some half-arsed jungle dwellers that got their ass kicked by the Spanish a few years ago. Well… you may have sort of a point but they were a fairly advanced civilisation in many ways, their pyramids were very precise cosmic clocks and calculators. The downside was their absurd religious beliefs and their bloodthirsty nature, but you can’t have everything.

I digressed. The point I was getting to is that there is correlating evidence that this is not just some old mumbo jumbo, the New Scientist predicts that in the year 2012 there will be unusually intense solar activity. So that’s it then turn up the sun for a few days sterilise everything then chuck in some more of the human fruit flies and see what sort of a fist they make of it this time. Makes you sick doesn’t it, my ripe old age cruelly taken from me.

That’s what I call global bloody warming, so you can stuff your windmills and your solar panels where the sun don’t (often) shine.

It’s not all bad news though at least we’ll see the 2012 Olympics in London, and even better we won’t have to pay for it. My advice is cash in your pension and any savings you might have now, change to an interest only mortgage and start defaulting about 2010, it’ll take a few years to evict you and by then you’ll be a small quantity of vapour heading out past Jupiter. Those letters you keep getting from the banks, insurance companies and the AA, don’t bin them take the loans, max out all your cards and spend the money on enjoying the few years you have left; wine, women and song etc. (I’m not sure how enjoyable the song is especially if it’s country and western). Then when the end comes you will have the unmitigated pleasure of knowing that you were a winner in the end.

Legal Notice
In the event of a non-apocalyptic event, the writer accepts no responsibility if you are daft enough to follow any advice given above.

This link gives more info:

http://www.exodus2006.com/6maya.htm

Well do you?

I mean in a religious sense. Do you believe in the words of the Bible, the Koran or whatever? Even though you know it was all written years after the events and then translated through several languages and then updated to the current authorised version.

Why?

Are you stupid?

You must be if you accept anything like this as “the truth” without a shred of real evidence. (By real evidence I mean evidence that will stand independent scrutiny you can’t for instance cite on part of the Bible as “evidence” that another part is correct)

My views on religion are best left for another more detailed discussion at a later date, suffice it to say that the one single thing that Karl Marx ever got right in his life was to describe it as “the opiate of the masses”. In my opinion he should have stayed with the rest of the Marx brothers.

In this post I am asking why some people think faith is a good thing. It is plainly not. It is an irrational belief in the veracity of a statement purporting to be true but which cannot be proved to be true. Now who in their right mind would have “faith” in something that cannot be proven and such strong faith that they will alter their behaviour and wear strange clothing because of their faith? Some of these zombies will even stone people to death because of their faith.

Yet faith in this context is generally seen to be a good thing. A “man of faith” is usually a good man, an example to us all. I contend he is an example of plain stupidity. People talk about having their faith to fall back on, well that may comfort them but it’s just a placebo effect.