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This is trending in the twittersphere (via @rickygervais who else?)

Post – My son is 15 he gave his heart to the Lord when he was 4, but now he claims to be an atheist. I’ve been praying for him day and night I don’t know what else to do. PLEASE help.

Response (example) – Let go and let God. At 15 he is still at that age where uncertainty is at its best. Keep praying for him and lead by example. If you force him to believe in God he will move further away. Ask God to soften his heart. Keep praying for him. take care.

What atheists should notice is that even unsophisticated theists understand how to make progress with other human beings. You can always pick a fight if you want one – but unless war is your objective, it pays to use more subtle “co-evolutionary” tactics.

Uncertainty is best, lead by example, don’t force, care … it’s all there.

Society has always needed “court jesters” and we need Ricky to poke fun at the expense of theistic madness. The point of the court jester IS to point out things that those actually responsible for progress probably shouldn’t say. A court made up entirety of jesters is not the optimum solution.

Anyway, I’ve made enough points about being pissed at the BHA for being a stream of simply one negative campaign against another. Atheists need to up their game for the sake of humanism / humanity. Listen to the poets (as well as the jesters).

You must go, and I must set you free,
Only that will bring you back to me.

Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy)

If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he, who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.

John Locke – “On The Understanding” (1670-80ish)

Been looking for this quote. Two purposes; firstly the general idea of pragmatism – ie it’s better to do something than sit and worry about rules and definitions, and secondly the more specific god vs science – proven / not-proven stalemates, where each holds up an impossible (disingenuous) truth test to the other. All truth – except our immediate personal empirical experience –  involves some faith in the current state of authority and some level of creative metaphor, or both. There are no absolute facts in theology or science.

Couldn’t remember where I’d come across it or even that it was John Locke, and actually gave up when searches for the key words on quotation sites failed to find it. Then noticed it was the motto I’d seen on the BrewDog web pages. Funny old world.

In vino veritas, well, craft-beer anyway.

Flavour of Christianity vs 10 year bond spreads, relative to German rates.

No joke. Austerity = fiscal protestantism.

I’m against the teaching of creationism in school. Teaching about it in social / cultural / religious studies is a different matter of course. Teaching its content as factual is a no-no. But then the balance of good teaching is not pedagogical anyway – it’s about learning how to learn and think.

I’m also totally fed up with campaigns that are always against things – see my reference to the BHA below. It was of course the recent “free schools to teach creationism” scaremongering headlines to which I was reacting in part in that post. It is naturally suspect that the headline is actually true, but no smoke without fire I guess. Hence this post to confirm what I am actually against, lest there be any doubt.

Better though to see much more intelligent comment from Tom Chivers in The Telegraph, and Tom taking the time to moderate and comment on the comment thread generated. Real debate takes effort, not 140 character knee-jerk tweets.

Why would anyone want to play or watch football in a sh*t-hole like that ?

It’s bad enough it has a running track, but there’s about another track and a half width on top of the track itself between the pitch and the supporters – utter madness.

Free will, or quantum indeterminism ? (Hat tip to PsybertronJr)

Stevie’s right when he asks,

When did Britain become a police state?

Little people (the people holding the event license) hide behind applying rules, to apply objectivity rather than sound judgement. It’s what gives “health and safety” and a lot more a bad name. The only point he has wrong, is in blaming the police, he should be blaming us for wanting clear application of blame. The blame game wins. More’n my job’s worth, to do anything where I could be blamed for overriding objective facts. Where he is right is that UK and Europe are much worse than US.

Never been any doubt that the workings of our minds reside throughout our entire electro-chemical system, not just the hemispheres of the organ we call the “brain” confined to our skulls. Gut feel is no joke. Case in point.

Seems strange to add this case to my agenda, just one extreme example of valuing what can be counted rather than what counts. Life is more than logic and objective calculations.