R.I.P

Unfortunately a colleague of mine passed away the other day, it was an extremely sad event, however, it resulted in an onslaught of religious expression throughout the office which set me to thinking. In situations like this I will, as I would assume most people would, refrain from anti-theistic remarks; if somebodies religion helps them through a difficult episode it is not my place to trample on that. What really got me thinking was when I was signing a card for my colleagues family I barely prevented myself from writing "may he rest in peace." Although it may be a nice thing to say I believe that it would have been written under false pretences.

As an atheist I believe that the statement rest in piece is just a meaningless platitude offered in place of something truly meaningful, yet I know it is a statement theists and atheists a like will often say. I settled for: "he was a man whom I was honoured to know and he will be sorely missed"; not only do I believe this is far more personal and meaningful than R.I.P but I believe it is honest.

I would like to know what your opinions are on this; is spouting something you believe to be false ok in such a circumstance, is offering platitudes to try and comfort someone fine or should we try to be more honest?

Church Army...Seriously WTF?

On a regular basis walking to work I pass a building with "Church Army" emblazoned on the building, I'll be honest this scares the living shit out of me! I immediately get the image of lunatic fundies charging at me automatic weapons (bible verses scrawled on the barrels) blazing. Of course this is mostly just paranoia (I've checked out their website and for an evangelical church they actually seem pretty laid back) but you really have to wonder about a supposedly peaceful organisation that puts "army" right there in the title!

How it all began

This is just a bit of a bio about me and how I found atheism. I was raised in a very religious family with a devout catholic mother and a church of England father and up until about the age of 9 I was a devout christian. I used to pray at least once a day, I would often be found hidden away in my room reading bible stories. You might be asking what changed? It's quite simple really, I read the bible; not my favourite passages or stories, the whole thing, cover to cover.

If you are a christian, questioning your faith or not, I would advise doing this. if you read the bible and analyse it's content, the fallacies and contradictions begin to scream at you. Once the thought implants itself in your mind that maybe, just maybe the texts are wrong it's like a snowball starting an avalanche.

Once I reached the age of 12 and started studying science in depth at school I found something I truly loved...biology! From my very first lesson I knew I was hooked, I started reading anything and everything I could get my hands on, I took the subject through college and then at university, I found something that explained life in a way the bible and an invisible man in the sky never could. I'll often hear religious apologists saying how there is such beauty in the religious world view but I beg to differ; there is far more beauty in nature; from the transduction of electro-chemical signals via neurons to those four tiny base pairs which form all life on this planet...truly beautiful!

I think I would have been perfectly happy to sit quietly let others believe what they wanted without causing any fuss until one day posting on a forum site I saw a post from a 12 year old girl. This post declared (in extremely bad grammar) that anyone who sought medical treatment for anything would burn in hell, followed by very lengthy ramblings about men violating god's will. This medieval thinking that had been imposed on this young girl infuriated me, it was then I discovered more about creationism and fundamentalist sects of christianity; this is when I became an "angry atheist" and this is why I started this blog.

We all know it's true!