Listen / Read It was good to hear a rabbi speak on this. The Chief Rabbi would not have been so balanced in his reflections on the conflict, but good old Lionel has used one of his comparably infrequent readings to recognise the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians, and to criticise the politics of [...]
Monthly Archives: February 2009
New blog on the block: Wonderful Life
In addition to my modest linkage on the left, you’ll find a link to a new blog about all things atheist from a biological slant. So when you arrive here in the daytime to discover that I still haven’t written my Afterthought, go there and read the undoubtedly more interesting and informative entries. You’ll find [...]
Tuesday 3rd February 2009: Ann Atkins
Listen / Read Yesterday I predicted that The Good Childhood Inquiry would become a topic for one of this week’s Thought for the Day readers. That’s right, I can prophesy the future! Perhaps now Ann Atkins and her friends will quote me, and worship me, and have erotic dreams about me. Actually, scratch that. I’d [...]
Wednesday 4th February 2009: Akhandadhi Das
Listen / Read Currently, depending on whose opinions you sample, Obama is either a raving socialist (conservatives), infallible (moderate liberals), or a neocon imperialist (leftists). There aren’t many politicians who receive relentless denouncements from both extremes of the political spectrum and yet secure unconditional hero worship from the centre. But Obama is no ideologue, and [...]
Thursday 5th February 2009: Rhidian Brook
Listen / Read Some waffle about the snow! Another one of my prophesies comes true. How depressingly predictable. I’m just kicking myself that I didn’t predict that it’d be Rhidian Brook waffling about snow. I might have to devise a scoring system…
Friday 6th February 2009: Rt Rev Lord Richard Harries
Listen / Read A laughably pathetic defence of religious belief. Admittedly, there was a moment there when I was almost convinced, but then I farted and it ruined the moment and by the time the smell had subsided and I’d regained my concentration the reading had finished and I was back to my good old [...]
Saturday 7th February 2009: Canon Lucy Winkett
Listen / Read Nooo! I failed. Not only in writing my Afterthought before midnight, but I also cockily predicted that The Good Childhood Inquiry would be discussed twice this week, and I was wrong. Just the once. It seemed like something that one of the regular reverends would want to have a jolly good finger [...]
Pledge your thoughts
PledgeBank: Secular TFTD As you likely know, despite a superbly impressive campaign and some marvellous press coverage (not to mention an upcoming series of podcasts on the Guardian website’s Comment is free section entitled Another Thought for the Day) Gavin Orland‘s pledge drive to remove or reform Thought for the Day failed to change the [...]
Monday 9th February 2009: Rabbi Lionel Blue
Listen / Read Another pitiful defence of religious belief. Or a non-defence, I’m not too sure. He didn’t try to prove the possibility, or the likelihood, to non-believers, but instead he set out to reassure believers that their ‘grace’ is evidence in and of itself. In other words, their being good shows that god exists [...]
Tuesday 10th February 2009: Ann Fuckins
Listen / Read I’ve been keeping this to myself for a long time now, but having heard her wrap her tongue around those words as if they were slippery penises, I just can’t live this lie any longer. I was seduced by Ann Atkins.
Wednesday 11th February 2009: Akhandadhi Das
Listen / Read I haven’t mentioned this before, but hearing him wrap his tongue around those words as if they were little soldiers, I just can’t live this lie any longer. I was seduced by Akhandadhi Das.
Thursday 12th February 2009: Rev Dr David Wilkinson
Listen / Read Oh, now I understand, they were saving Wilkinson for the actual birthday. Always save your big guns for last. But of course, what can a bona fide Christian double-doctor do besides sidestep science to legitimate his belief in God?
Friday 13th February 2009: Abdal Hakim Murad
Listen / Read Well, no mention of the fracas over multi-faith assemblies (something you might consider pertinent for a religious commentator to comment on), but Ming the Merciless is back after a long sabbatical from sermonising on the airwaves. Welcome back Ming. I’ve missed your monotonous and slightly eerie voice.
Saturday 14th February 2009: Canon Lucy Winkett
Listen / Read Christians love evolution. They just can’t talk about it enough on Thought for the Day. They like name-dropping Darwin and lots of clever sounding scientific words, and they love to make it absolutely clear that the theory of evolution simply confirms their belief in a divine evolver. That’s what they’ve been saying [...]
Monday 16th February 2009: Rabbi Lionel Blue
Listen / Read Happy birthday Lionel! You’re the most loveable delusional reader by miles and today’s ramble was as innocuously enjoyable as usual. I can’t say the joke tickled me all that much, but I gave you a courtesy chuckle anyway.
Tuesday 17th February 2009: Ann Atkins
Listen / Read Being as she writes for the Daily Mail, Ann Atkins has no trouble taking what’s written in its permanently nowtraged pages as the gospel truth. And just like her favouritest book ever, the Daily Mail is full of fantastical exaggerations and the delusional imaginings of idiotic nobheads.
Secular Thought for the Day
secularthought.org Today is the launch of Secular Thought for the Day. It’s all come about so swiftly that I have yet to write my own secular thought, but most people are less remiss than I and the first post, Be Selfish: Forgive Someone, is a thought-provoking little read.
Wednesday 18th February 2009: Akhandadhi Das
Listen / Read Taking the lead from yesterday’s misinterpretation and misrepresentation of scientific findings, Akhandadhi Das has decided to jump on the religio-scientific bandwagon too. It’s a contradiction in terms on wheels, if you will.
Thursday 19th February 2009: Rev Dr David Wilkinson
Listen / Read I switch off when it comes to talk of celebrity culture and reality television, so I’m finding it difficult to comprehend that the media that catapulted Jade Goody to the heights of pleb stardom is going to follow her all the way to an early grave. I feel on the one hand [...]
Friday 20th February 2009: Abdal Hakim Murad
Listen / Read There are a number of disappointed counter-protesters, ready with placards and t-shirts printed with captions such as ‘FAG ENABLER’, who were looking forward to the arrival of the Phelps family representatives. Apparently God hates us. But don’t get excited, it turns out God hates the entire world, so it’s not like we’re [...]
Saturday 21st February 2009: Canon Lucy Winkett
Listen / Read Bollocks. I’m not a morning person but I do specifically set my alarm and wake up a few minutes before Thought for the Day is due to start on a Saturday morning. But between me waking up and and Thought for the Day starting (or just as it begins) I manage to [...]
Monday 23rd February 2009: Rev Joel Edwards
Listen / Read My apologies, but I’ve said before that I think Christians in particular love the poor. It makes them feel better about themselves, and the poor are always susceptible to the forms of manipulation that come with any help they receive. When you’re starving and have no hope and someone gives you food [...]
Tuesday 24th February 2009: Rev Giles Fraser
Listen / Read Fuck you Fraser, pancakes are awesome. I ate so many pancakes today I nearly exploded and I wouldn’t swap them for trombones or drag queens. Pancakes trump trombones and drag queens any day and Ash Wednesday is my annual ‘syrup shitting’ day; out of the pong came forth sweetness.
Wednesday 25th February 2009: Rev John Bell
Listen / Read Great finger-wag Reverend Bellend. I’m sure you have enough material there to fill another songbook. I’ve already suggested ‘Sing Away the Bling: Songs for a Simpler Life’. How about ‘Chirp Away the Cheap: Songs for Middle Class, Self-Righteous Dongs’ (see what I did there; dong as in ‘penis’, and dong as in [...]
Thoughts on Secular Thought
secularthought.org There are now several alternatives to Thought for the Day, a mere 3 minutes of religious comment on a radio programme listened to mostly by middle class, middle aged, English southerners. There’s Thought for the World (reinforced by the Guardian’s Another Thought for the Day). There’s Freethought of the Day over at the Freedom [...]
Thursday 26th February 2009: Rev Dr David Wilkinson
Listen / Read Young people are good. It’s a shame when they die. But most of them don’t, and the good ones help people because that’s what people who believe in Jesus, and only people who believe in Jesus, do best. Amen.
Friday 27th February 2009: Catherine Pepinster
Listen / Read Considering the deliciously problematic predicament of a Catholic tackling the topic of teenage pregnancy, what with their anti-contraception, anti-abortion, pro-abstinence and generally medieval stance towards all things sexual and most things female, Pepinster approached the topic a fairly sensibly I think.
My secular thought
Read My submission to Secular Thought for the Day was published this morning, if you fancy reading it. Remember, it’s open to anyone and everyone so if you haven’t submitted your own you should.
Saturday 28th February 2009: Canon David Winter
Listen / Read What? Football? Skipping briskly over that… hymns. Football and hymns? It’s the sort of stuff I have dislocated nightmares about.