Three thoughts

Posted & filed under Life, You can call me faithless.

Yesterday I said that 2009 was supposed be the year where I wouldn’t get wound up about religious stupidity. Well, that’s still true. You see, getting wound up about religious stupidity is one thing. Being critical of religion and pointing out its stupidity is something altogether different.

Here are three things I’d like to discuss today.

re: Vows to Allah not allowed

Last year, there was a little stir-up in The Netherlands when some police districts allowed new officers to be sworn in with an vow to Allah. The SGP (a conservative, christian political party that doesn’t allow women to become a member) and the PVV (a right wing, xenophobic outfit) screamed bloody murder, called it a step in the wrong direction, and asked the minister to outlaw this practice.

Today, the minister replied that police officers may not vow to Allah. “So help me God” and “This I declare and affirm” are, and remain, the only legal options. For police officers and civil servants who work for the central government. All army personnel and civil servants who work for a lesser government are allowed to swear to Allah.

So we have a situation where some people working for the government are allowed to invoke Allah when taking a vow, while others are not. There’s probably some logic behind that, but it escapes me. As I’ve said before, I think that you should either be allowed to swear to any god that tickles your fancy, or to no god at all. And I’d prefer that last option.

Bus campaign

Last year, buses were driving through London with a quote from the bible, and an url. On that website it is stated as fact that if you do not accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour™ you will be condemned to suffer an eternity of torment in hell.

As a reaction to that generous and loving sentiment, Ariane Sherine started a counter campaign. As of today 800 buses with the slogan “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” are riding all through the UK.

There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Advocates of religion often claim that without (their) god, life is meaningless. It isn’t. If you don’t believe in gods or an afterlife, this is all you got. And for me, that alone makes it more meaningful than a life where all your strings are pulled by some god or one where you are only doing good because you’re threatened with eternal damnation. Life is not merely a prelude to eternal life in paradise. It is all you got, and you gotta give it meaning yourself.

You can call me faithless

By now, it should come as no surprise that I do not believe in a god. I’ve been there and done that. When I started to really think about it all, it didn’t hold up and I let it go. It’s only that in the last few years, I kept thinking and reading about religion (as it keeps intriguing me) and I started to feel the need to speak out more. So I did.

When I had written some posts on religious issues, I figured I needed an appropriate category. I took a line from the Rush song Faithless, which seemed appropriate, but also has a nice ring to it.

I don’t have faith in faith
I don’t believe in belief
You can call me faithless
You can call me faithless
But I still cling to hope and I believe in love
And that’s faith enough for me

Why I don’t make new year’s resolutions

Posted & filed under You can call me faithless.

This year should have been the year where I wouldn’t get worked up about religious stupidity. We’re just five days in, and the Vatican that has once again shown why it’s completely irrelevant in the modern world. Twice.

  1. According to the official newspaper of the Vatican, ‘the pill’ pollutes the environment, causing male infertility.
  2. The Vatican’s lead exorcist says that the global financial crisis is the work of Satan.

The Catholic Church’s rejection on any form of contraception is flat out despicable, and a direct health threat to many people. Also, there’s something I’d like to call the 8th commandment: thou shalt not bear false witness against thine neighbor. So when the Vatican claims that the pill not only pollutes the environment, but also cause male infertility, they violate their own dogma.

And Satan? He’s just the imaginary scapegoat you blame whenever you can’t claim that it’s God’s will without making Him look bad.

First lines: The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Posted & filed under First Lines.

Since the conclusion to this review says all I was gonna say much better, I’m not even going to bother.

This short collection would be unremarkable were it not for the body of work that lies behind it. There is an element of padding to make it a respectable length and it will barely satisfy the Potter fanatics for more than half-an-hour. Still there are some nice touches and all profits go to charity, which fits with the generous impulse of the stories.

Book read
J.K. Rowling — The Tales of Beedle the Bard
First line
There was once a kindly old wizard who used his magic generously and wisely for the benefit of his neighbours.

Share alike

Posted & filed under Life.

As most people will agree, I’m not the best photographer around. I’ve got a semi-decent point-and-shoot camera and I keep my eyes open for interesting shots, although I often fail to get them. Basically, I muck around, and sometimes I manage to get that one lucky shot.

Photos won’t have any value if they remain hidden in a folder on my hard disc, so I upload the best ones to Flickr, where most of them are licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. That means that anyone can take one of my photos and do whatever they want with it (use it with an article, a collage, a website, a movie—the sky’s the limit), as long as they credit me, and share whatever they’ve done with it under similar conditions.

Of course, I could have chosen to slap a watermark on them and say © All rights reserved, you can’t use them, not yours. But the cynical side of me says knows that a lot of people won’t give a damn about copyrights and licenses on the internet anyway. If you put a picture up on the internet, you can be fairly sure that someone is eventually gonna use it for something, whether they’re allowed to do so or not. So why not make it completely legal for them to do so? It’s not as if I expect anyone to say, Hey, great shot! Can I buy the rights so I can use it somehow?

And you know what? Every now and then one of my picture shows up somewhere. Here’s what I could find in a quick and dirty egosearch.

There are some more places I found one of my photos, which mostly websites that crawl Flickr for photos that are relevant to their interests. And I’m sure there are some more sites that use one of my pictures without attribution. Well, I don’t mind. My ego is stroked anyway.

Themes of the year

Posted & filed under Life.

This year has a lot of themes. Two quick searches (1, 2) learned that 2009 is the

If it floats your boat, it’s also the year of John Calvin (born 500 years ago), Joseph Hayden (died 400 years ago), the Elfstedentocht (held for the first time 100 years ago) and probably more.