Rob Smith returns: The Top 10 Ways To Tell You’ve Watched Too Much Glenn Beck

To be honest, I’ve been catching up with too much stuff that I’ve neglected elsewhere to be bothered tending to this blog right away. Thankfully I’ve got mates. Rob Smith gives me a break in his third guest appearance at Thinkers’ Podium.

Hi again everyone. I’m Rob, if you don’t know or remember me. The theology student from STFU with a charity for neglected greyhounds.

I’ll forgive you for forgetting me because it’s been so long since my last post, not because Jesus whispers in my ear that I should. (Seriously, where do you atheists get this stuff?)

The Top 10 Ways To Tell You’ve Watched Too Much Glenn Beck rob_smith

Rob Smith Continue reading “Rob Smith returns: The Top 10 Ways To Tell You’ve Watched Too Much Glenn Beck” →

Is this mainstream enough for you II?

Last week I blogged about how it’s the common conception that (with the exception of the US) bigotry against atheists is something that exists at the margins of religion in the developed west, and asked if a few examples of mainstream bigotry were mainstream enough.

Some of you may already be familiar with the story, but now ex-British PM and political father of the Faith School, Tony Blair, in much the same style as the Pope did with environmental issues, is blaming godlessness for what our PM, Kevin Rudd, calls “free market fundamentalism”, and for the subsequent World Financial Crisis.

Talking about materialistic individualism under the title ‘Without God’s Truth at its centre, no community can fulfil its potential‘, Blair tells us that…

“The danger is clear: that pursuit of pleasure becomes an end in itself. It is here that faith can step in, can show us a proper sense of duty to others, responsibility for the world around us, and can lead us to, as the Holy Father calls it, caritas in veritate.”

(Tony Blair, 2009)

For a start, he’s got his logic wrong. Blair starts out arguing for the logical necessity of his favoured cause, so asserting instances of how it can be the case isn’t enough. One needs to establish that alternatives are impossible (i.e. in “no community” is it possible without “God’s Truth“).

And it would help if exceptions to the alleged faculty of his favoured cause weren’t undermined by well established history. If only Tony Blair had used his relationship with George Bush Jr, so as to get him to more involve his religion in politics, Wall Street would be a-okay right now! Oh, wait!

theatheist

I is in your industries, winding back your economy.

Blair’s ill-thought-out polemic is nothing more than dog whistling to anti-atheist prejudice, with a halo.

And it’s directed largely towards mainstream religion, not the fringes. Nor is it delivered in such a denominationally specific manner as the Pope’s blaming atheists for environmental woes – it’s interfaith. By the terms of Blair’s argumentation, any God will do.

If you are of the interfaith persuasion and you buy Blair’s line, please spare me the pretense of tolerance. This rubbish has far too great a similarity to tales of greedy Jewish bankers ruining European economies.

But it’s not just economic woes as a result of atheistic, secular materialism (which for reasons of obvious convenience, always seem to get surreptitiously treated as synonymous with practical and/or philosophical naturalism). Blair brings out the old chestnut of Fascism/Sovietism/Maoism.

“After the experience of fascism, Soviet Communism or viewing life in North Korea or the cultural revolution in China, it is easier for us to grasp the dangers of a too-powerful state.”

(Tony Blair, 2009)

What has this to do with secular societies? Specifically, how is the totalitarian state a logically necessary outcome of secularism?

Hello! Denmark! While a secular nation like Denmark is capable of not being totalitarian, totalitarianism can not be a logically necessary outcome of secularism. Unless Blair is going to equivocate with a new definition of what a community/nation’s “full potential” is (which could have other, possibly more disturbing consequences than just poor logic) Denmark breaks Blair’s entire case! (While there is a national church, the populace – the community – is very godless as is the governance).

And just how is the theocracy in Iran treating its own religious communities? And how’s the supposedly reformed, and deeply religious Afghanistan going? Men can still legally beat their wives and misogyny is rife. Apostates can still be executed and the constitution prohibits the passing of any law contrary to the word of The Prophet. Which word of The Prophet of course depends entirely on which sect is in power at any given time.

Of course, only to a man like Blair with the blood of thousands on his hands, a public funded faith school legacy that discriminates on the basis of a student’s religion, and an uncanny ability for mental gymnastics, can examples of religious persecution like this not contradict his claims of categorical religious moral monopoly. Naturally he won’t see exceptions to his thesis – he won’t let himself.

Blair finishes of by praising the latest Papal encyclical, one that condemned atheism – painting atheists as necessarily environmentally irresponsible, and claiming that relativism and self-serving individualism were the only alternatives to God. Of course as has been typical with these childish Papal outbursts, Godless ethical systems such as preference utilitarianism, which are neither self-serving, nor relativistic, aren’t mentioned. Why mention the existence of something if it prohibits your claim of logical necessity, right?

The standard line is that it’s either God or self-interested nihilism. This is absurd. The mere existence of ethical philosophies such as that of John Stuart Mill (again, neither self-serving nor relativistic) show this standard line to be a false dichotomy. The fact that these secular ethical systems have been popular in philosophical thought since the 19th century, shows how mind-bendingly ignorant the standard line is. If you consider a godless categorical imperative (also not self-serving, nor relativistic), you can extend this willful ignorance back to the 18th century.

And what I’ve mentioned doesn’t exhaust the list of non-self-serving, non-relativistic Godless ethical systems anyway. (You only need one example of an exception to break alleged logical necessity, so I won’t expand the list further.)

Nobody is necessarily bound to ethical relativistic nihilism in the absence of God. This is basic philosophical history and the fact that Tony Blair and The Pope flunk it in order to prosecute a grudge against atheism is rather telling.

How telling is it then, when religious moderates take this tripe seriously? And how many moderates do you think are likely to take it seriously.

~ Bruce

Is this mainstream enough for you?

We’re often told that’s it’s only those whacky-at-the-fringes types that have the chip on their shoulder, and that any comparison between them and the mainstream is a straw man. It’s misrepresentation instrumental to intolerance.

Or at least, when the numbers of aggressive, bigoted, fundamentalist types are pointed out to be quite large, we are often told “but we aren’t like them!” It’s usually true. The bigots amongst the fundies tend not to have had the same education or (unless they are televangelist) economic opportunities as the more moderate theist.

This raises a question. Are the intolerant persuasions less persistent in the ranks of the moderately religious, or are they just more gentrified? Does this gentrification help us to underestimate the size of the underlying problem and is it only when the facade crumbles away that we get a look at what’s really going on?

A few mainstream examples of tolerance in action come to mind. Some more respected than others.

“Without God, everything is permitted.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

I know I can’t start my day properly without burning a baby over an open fire. Mmmm. Crunchy, fatty baby crackling. There are people who would seriously give pause at me making this joke. They would seriously ask, failing to appreciate my humanity (and telling us something disturbing about their’s), “what if not God stops you from doing such things?”

Maybe Dostoyevsky is a bit old to be drawn against the modern mainstream.

“Though atheism, historically considered, has meant no more in the past than a critical or sceptical denial of the theology of those who have employed the term as one of reproach, and has consequently no one strict philosophical meaning; and though there is no one consistent system in the exposition of which it has a definite place; yet, if we consider it in its broad meaning as merely the opposite of theism, we will be able to frame such divisions as will make possible a grouping of definite systems under this head.”

(Francis Aveling, The Catholic Encycolpedia, Appleton, New York, 1907.)

Or in other words, “atheism isn’t what I’d like to represent it as, but if I characterise it as what I want to, I’m able to associate it with a heap of definite systems that otherwise I couldn’t.” What profound intellectual dishonesty!

Francis continues!

“One system of positive moral atheism, in which human actions would neither be right nor wrong, good nor evil, with reference to God, would naturally follow from the profession of positive theoretic atheism; and it is significant of those to whom such a form of theoretic atheism is sometimes attributed, that for the sanctions of moral actions they introduce such abstract ideas as those of duty, the social instinct, or humanity. There seems to be no particular reason why they should have recourse to such sanctions, since the morality of an action can hardly be derived from its performance as a duty, which in turn can be called and known as a “duty” only because it refers to an action that is morally good. Indeed an analysis of the idea of duty leads to a refutation of the principle in whose support it is invoked, and points to the necessity of a theistic interpretation of nature for its own justification.”

(Francis Aveling, The Catholic Encycolpedia, Appleton, New York, 1907.)

Or in other words, “Without God, everything is permitted.” Never mind that there’s no demonstration of how it is logically impossible to arive at ethical decision making without invoking theology – you would think that with so damning a judgement, the prosecutor would take his evidence a bit more seriously. But no. It’s just assumed. Pre-judged.

This is mainstream stuff. Or at least it was in its time.

Moving on…

Skipping past the practical and pseudo-atheist (an exercise in manipulating terms to yield palatable conclusions), Jacques Maritain wrote.

“Finally there are absolute atheists, who really do deny the existence of the very God in Whom the believers believe — God the Creator, Savior and Father, Whose name is infinitely over and above any name we can utter. Those absolute atheists stand committed to change their entire system of values and to destroy in themselves everything that could possibly suggest the name they have rejected; they have chosen to stake their all against divine Transcendence and any vestige of Transcendence whatsoever.”

(Jacques Maritain, 1953)

Charming stuff. And this from a chap who helped draft the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I guess seeing an outgroup as set out to destroy in themselves, things that you value, or perhaps misinterpret, needn’t be reconciled with the purpose of the UDHR. That humans can hold irreconcilable ideas to be true at the same time is uncontroversial.

If Maritain sparks your interest, go check out his version of “critical” versus the likes of Kant or Hume (the phrase “prejudice” comes to mind). He’s well published and liked by Catholic philosophers so you should be able to find something around the libraries. At the very least you can see his prejudice if you follow the link in the above citation, where he alleges a “dual inconsistency” in atheism that is entirely a product of the rigged terms he’s himself decided to use.

Perhaps something a little more contemporary?

What about Francis Collins’ assertion that a capacity for ethical reasoning (not an evolved “do or don’t list” for those contemplating using the popular straw man that “evolution determines what is moral”) is not possible as a product of the combination of evolved altruism and evolved reasoning. That God had to do it.

Aside from the very real problem this scientific prejudice (and it is a prejudice – there is no evidence to support Collins’ position) presents, can you not see how it feeds into the “atheists are denying their God given morality” dogma? Atheists need God to be good. Atheists don’t have God, or are going to lose his blessing. Collins may not believe that atheists are incapable of being moral (or he may – really, I don’t know), but he’s clearly an enabler.

One has to wonder how much people have invested in this trope. Ken Miller, famous opponent and critic of Intelligent Design, and star witness, saw fit to flatly lie about the content of Sam Harris’ criticism of Collins’ prejudice when the latter was appointed as director of the NIH (under which research said prejudice is particularly relevant to, i.e. mental health.) That’s a big about face in terms of positions on religious interference in science – one is left wondering if there was any other motivation other than Collins’ views being less repugnant to Miller than the theology of Intelligent Design.

What’s Miller’s interest in the ideology of God being necessary for ethics, and why’s he willing to look the other way for Collins but not others? And why so dishonestly? Could the slings and arrows hint at some kind of projection going on?

Let’s move on shall we?

“Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where his existence is denied? If the human creature’s relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the “final authority,” and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.”

(Pope Benedict, 2009)

Yep. Without God, a feverish race to possess the most possible is permitted. Which if Ratzinger’s shoes and accommodation is anything to go by, is also permitted by God. I’m not seeing much in the way of a moral monopoly going on here. “Go forth and multiply”, anyone?

Perhaps Ratzinger thinks his urges for the splurges would be worse without God, but he doesn’t need to project his flaws onto the rest of us. I’m an atheist and I’m happy living in my low-cost, ex-public housing home in a working class suburb, thank you very much. Oh, and my shoes are cheap as well.

One could make the case that the current Pope is hopelessly out of touch with his flock and completely upstaged by his predecessor. Fair enough. One could infer that he’s not necessarily the best indicator of the mainstream, or at least the mainstream for Catholics in the developed west. That would be a bit more of a stretch.

Still, there’s plenty more atheist hate floating around the mainstream. Take Steve Harvey. Successful comedian. Star of his own Warner Bros. sitcom. He has a nationally syndicated radio show that’s kicking out radio staples from their time slots. He’s the 2007 syndicated personality of the year, beating out has-beens like John Tesh.

He’s in touch with the people. He’s also a bit of a dickhead.

Here he is chanelling Dostoyevsky, albeit without the gentrification.

Spot the self-contradiction. (1:12)

He starts out saying that he doesn’t believe that atheists can’t be moral, like he knows it’s wrong, then once he gets going… It’s like his cognitive biases are playing ping-pong with the peanut in his skull.

But maybe I’ve strayed to far. Maybe unlike all the other alleged moderates (I guess there’s always going to be disagreement as to what constitutes one), Steve Harvey is probably a bit too born-again.

Still, you have to wonder. What would the moderates look like with the gentrification stripped away?

~ Bruce

Names changed to protect the innocent… And the guilty.

I’ve never blogged under a pseudonym. The closest I’ve come has been to help set up a blog for another blogger, blogging under a pseudonym.

It’s been a bit topical of late, what with Google being forced to out a blogger for defamation. Can’t say that I disapprove entirely.

On the one hand, I’ve been on the “protect the blogger” side of the argument, wherein the blogger hasn’t to my mind, used their anonymity to make false allegations about others without come-back. On the other hand, bloggers using anonymity to slag off at others, I think is cowardly and I’ve called people on it (e.g. colourful trolls like “LaVallette” and “Bourbon Boy”).

I’ve been in a bit of a bind about my own blogging practices being associated with my identity. Especially on the odd occasion when I write autobiographically.

I write under my own name and I’ve disclosed before, that I’ve…

Had two attempts on my life, hospitalising one of the perpetrators in the process (drug related).
Been 1 degree of separation from a murderer, his victim and their antics (drug related).
Been the recipient of oral sex in a church and not from the clergy (fun related).
A bunch of other stuff that I won’t bore you with.

It’s pretty candid stuff, although I’ve had to weigh it against the possibility that by knowing of my involvement (which I don’t so much mind about), possessed of certain contextual details, others may be able to find out more. Possibly dredging up things for other people who have either reformed and moved on, or who were entirely innocent to begin with but otherwise vulnerable.

With this in mind, consider that I haven’t as yet told you squat. I know a bunch of things that at the time, probably would have been of interest to the AFP. Quite some time ago that is.

No, I don’t have a criminal record. No, I wouldn’t get one if the police knew what I knew, nor would I if the activities of interest had no statute of limitations. I’m still one of the good guys, okay? And I’m not a beneficiary of course – just close enough to the action.

A number of the people of interest at the time, in as far as I know, have either reformed and moved on, or died. As for those that I don’t know about, aside from the initial bad behaviour, I’m going with the presumption of them being innocent. If they are still in the game, I don’t know anything about it. If they aren’t, I still don’t want to know – it’d mean knowing the circumstances under which they left and those may not be legal, nor particularly nice.

I don’t want to inadvertently involve myself in the solving of a potentially nasty crime, which (pun intended) was otherwise dead and buried. If I did know something like that had happened, I wouldn’t be writing about it or even this post – I’d be doing what any responsible citizen would do and contact the police myself.

On the other hand, some of my previous acquaintances that were guilty, may have already been dealt justice and wouldn’t appreciate the salt in the wound.

And that’s part of the risk when using your name. You don’t have all the facts and presenting them along with your name potentially allows another to connect your facts to theirs. Indeed, it may not even be the police, or the garden variety voyeur that you are inadvertently helping. What if I put someone in danger?

At any rate, to my estimation I know the secrets behind precisely zero unsolved murders. Sorry, I hope I didn’t excite you too much.

It’s becoming increasingly the case that I think I’d like to get some (or all) of this stuff off my chest. You have no idea what some of this shit is like – which perhaps provides justification for its publication. Alternatively, perhaps you do know and like me, you don’t find it easy to talk about – which perhaps also provides justification for its publication.

I’ve never appreciated the biographical very until recently, thinking it too self-obsessed (hah hah! look at this post!) and pointless – best to get on to what they did in life rather than them. I think perhaps I was wrong. It’s about connecting – between people of similar experience who don’t get much time to talk, and between people who just don’t get to talk.

Perhaps someone in the middle class would take their privilege just a little less for granted, stop looking at it like some kind of entitlement, if they saw just how nasty things could be for people no less deserving than them. A cynical, perhaps a tad sadistic side of myself, thinks that if my innocence was taken away as a child, it’s not entirely unfair that I rob a few grown adults of theirs.

How much weed have you seen in your life? Ever broken a bone in someone else’s body and for an instant, not been able to tell if the crack happened in your body or in theirs? How much of that meat you eat, have you had to kill for yourself? Ever had someone lay into you with a cricket bat? How many times have you had to protect a family member from violence? Times – just once in a dark alley you’ll never visit again doesn’t count.

How old were you when you killed your first vertebrate? Have you ever been tortured just to see if you would or wouldn’t crack? To see if you could be trusted? To see if you hadn’t already betrayed a secret?

This isn’t about self-pity and repressed emotions opening up to a 1990s, drum-beating-in-the-woods, new-age feelgood experience. Even if only very privately, I was confrontational about these things at the time – I didn’t exactly bottle them up.

This is about deliberate, if not very practical secrecy, possibly opening up to a rationale for discussion with safety afforded by the passage of time. Safety for yours truly, other innocents, and some of the (then) guilty.

Like a lot of Australians, I’m at odds with most of the rest of Australia. Or out-of-synch at any rate. I don’t know you the way I could and you sure as hell (doesn’t exist), don’t know me.

The not-so-secret, but not-that-great a joy I’d get out watching your blood curdle isn’t my imperative. The prospect of teasing you that I’ll eat your family, and knowing that you aren’t sure that I wouldn’t, isn’t that enticing (Dexter is Delicious – sorry). The idea of knowing that neither you nor I have even seen anything close to the worst horrors on Earth, and that laughably, some of you are still afraid, is an aside. A trivial peccadillo.

People have had it worse than me, than us. Much, much worse.

It wasn’t so long ago that the West said “Never Again”, in response to a massive failure of understanding and of will towards people who had seen the hardest times. Yet here we are, sixty odd years later and we’ve just seen a decade of to paraphrase Bill Maher, “AGAIN!” – Don’t let the refugees in! It may possibly, just possibly, threaten the privilege I enjoy to the extent that I’m going to claim it as an entitlement! How dare my entitlements be threatened! Waaaa!

Oh, the angst! Boo-fucking-hoo! Xenophobic Australia, the obscenity of your lack of empathy and sense of proportion is almost matched by that of your weakness and cowardice. And don’t get started on how great your culture is – you’re so low an “Untermensch” couldn’t use your arse as a slipper.

Frightened of refugees and you talk about greatness? Conceit!

I use invective to describe what I think of this type of frailty, because frankly I don’t have the words to curse the associated inhumanity as much as I’d like. Take it that I’d say much worse of it. I’d like my barbs to be more articulate if only to be reserved for this one purpose.

Like most of you, I’m no refugee. I’ve never seen a war zone. But I don’t take my relative safety for granted and I’ve got less to be thankful for than a lot of you. What are you complaining about?

Like you, I can’t possibly relay the horrors of a war zone the way a refugee can. Even a well versed foreign correspondent can’t do that. What would I have to be thinking?

But is it too ambitious to think that some horror stories from Australia’s own working-class backyard couldn’t act as a kind of a thin-edge-of-the-wedge – to cut into the dense sense of entitlement of at least someone’s privilege-addled mind? To reach someone not too far gone down the road from humanity, toward delusions of self-sustaining importance?

And would that make it worth it?

But then I’ve gone and blogged in my own name now haven’t I? And for just over four years now at that. Could I truly remain pseudonymous? I suspect that writing anonymously at any great length at another blog would leave my fingerprints all over it.

Can you see my dilemma?

I want to let loose. I want to challenge comforting and dangerous (dare I say it?) bourgeoisie (there, I said it) notions, not like some beret-wearing, class-tourist, undergrad snot, but as someone who’s seen a bit of sex and violence. And drugs and a few corpses (please note that I separated the sex from the corpses precisely because it didn’t happen). Someone who couldn’t call their Dad to stop it all (although upon reflection, pending justification*, I possibly could have called my Dad to have your kneecaps smashed).

On the other hand, I’ve got vulnerable people I want to and should protect. Scruitiny isn’t welcome or needed. Seriously. Can you safe people empathise with that?

So unless I get a nom-de-plume, a book deal and a good editor that can compensate for my fingerprints, I’m screwed. I’d better shut-up.

Naturally, you can see how I don’t see the issue of Internet anonymity in terms of black and white. I think I can safely say that under my own name.

~ Bruce

* I’m really just a big softy and so was my Dad.

Photo: Frome Road

I like to walk a lot, which given a rather permanent injury to my foot, can be a bit difficult at times. I’ve got a 17k course that I like to walk very early mornings, weather, time and foot permitting, that I’ll have to take some photos from.

When I moved to Adelaide as a teenager back in 1992, I had a different route which ran down from the north-eastern suburbs into the city. Frome Road was a welcome part of the walk, especially in early autumn when the leaves on the trees had just started to brown.

fromeroad

Frome Road in winter (2009)

It’s a bit barren now with all the leaves fallen and cleared away, but when things liven up, especially in early summer, it’s quite nice. It’s a bit haunting like this.

The Royal Adelaide Hospital is off to the left, which has a few unpleasant memories attached to it. My Aunt passed away there the other week, as did my Father in April 2003.

Up until my father’s passing, the sunny weather managed to hold out. The last night I spent with him, we snuck him out of his bed for a smoke and the skies were crystal clear. He’d spent a good part of his last years planting trees and if I was prone to woolly spiritual thinking, I probably would have made something of the leaves suddenly falling in large numbers the day after, along with the first heavy rains of the year.

I spent part of April 2006 off to the right, studying biology. Specifically, on the anniversary of my Dad’s passing that year, I was working on a cell biology practical in a lab that faced across the street, which naturally had to raise the topic of cancer.

I’m here doing my one and final subject of my science degree, which is only going to entangle and reinforce the memories further. Still, I guess I’ll be leaving on an upper, with fresh new leaves growing in the sunshine.

~ Bruce

Rob Smith: A Farewell to Grods

Rob Smith returns in a surprise post to lament the surprise end of the blog known as GrodsCorp. Why he felt the need to write such a post to save me the effort, I don’t know. Maybe he thinks I’m too serious. Maybe he’ll enlighten us in this, his third post.

Hi folks. You probably remember me from my fabulous first post to this blog – How to talk to an arrogant New Atheist. If not, here’s the rundown on my bio.

I’m a part-time youth group leader at The Uniting Church Way of The Blessed Tree, a part-time external theology student studying at the Sydney Theology of Faith University (STFU). In my spare time I run the unofficial, non-profit organisation known as Hymns for Neglected Greyhounds, and now on Friday nights I can be found with my re-united Stryper tribute band, Stripes, playing all new material we made ourselves.

Of course, I’m also a blogger now. 😀

Why would I write a tribute post to an atheistic blog that I’ve never commented at? Read on and you’ll find out!

[Rob has posted ribald lyrics, so it’s all over the fold. I don’t endorse any of it. – Ed.]

A Farewell to Grods (or ‘My time as a secret Grodster’) rob_smith

Rob Smith

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Death #1

I’ve been planning to write about death for a while now, specifically what I think is wrong about the concept and the way it is dealt with in our language. I’ll put that to one side for the moment, because there is another aspect about people passing away that I just want to get off my chest first.

This is going to be the blogging equivalent of me throwing furniture around, so if that bothers you, don’t read on.

Loved ones passing away usually pisses me off. Really pisses me off.

I don’t even get as sad as I used to. I think, “well, they had a life at least” and if it’s been cut short or taken away in stupid circumstances, I’ll get livid.

I can understand why some people look to find blame in others at times like these. How are you going to vent your anger?

Blame God? I don’t believe in he/she/it. That’s got to be an issue for atheists. At least those that get pissed off like I do.

Blame the hospital/family/etc? That’s usually unfair because unless there actually is negligence, which usually there isn’t, a death can be the result of a conflation of causes. If find it hard to blame people for this stuff.

Crying is easier, I think, than venting anger. Just let your sadness out like air out of a balloon. You can’t get it all out, but you can make a difference.

Eventually I get over anger, but it takes longer.

So what do you do if circumstance keeps throwing you the kind of deaths that piss you off?

At age 50 a few years ago, my Father was given two years to live. Four months later at age 51, he was dead. It made me very sad, naturally, but the circumstances really pissed me off. I could have vented unfairly I guess – the Doctor who took the first biopsy left the results on his desk for two weeks before calling my Father.

But that’s not what killed my Father. He worked hard in the sun, was exposed to various industrial chemicals and particulate matter, and smoke and drank quite a lot more than one should.

Contrast this with my Grandmother’s death later in the same year. 93! And she went out on her own terms! Knowing she was going to pass away soon, she went out and visited her grandchildren to make sure they were doing alright, placed her last bet on the horses, won, then quietly passed away with dignity.

You don’t get too many passings like that in life.

Two years later, my Uncle Den had decided with my Aunt, that they were going to retire. They worked hard all their lives to get where they were, really having to scrape the barrel at some points – especially back in the 1980s when they were paying off their housing loan. But eventually they made it.

Den was a top bloke. Everyone thought he was. He was a reliable best mate to his friends and he was exceptionally supportive to everyone when my Father passed away.

Later the same day that my Uncle Den had settled on his retirement, he drove back to the city, got home and collapsed on the floor and was unable to be revived. Nobody to blame, but still utter f**king bulls**t.

I was sad at his passing, but more than that I was angry. He deserved to live on more than many who do.

There’s nobody and nothing that you can smash to bring them back. You want to fight to protect or bring back your loved ones, but you can’t. I f**king hate it.

There have been other deaths in the past few years. And near deaths. And incidences of terminal illness. But the bad ones stick in your mind.

Right now I’m pissed off.

At around the same time that my Father was diagnosed with cancer, so was another Aunt of mine. She was given five years to live and she outlived it by a couple of years, her cancer going into remission.

The other day she went into the Royal Adelaide Hospital for a visit (things not going too well in the past few weeks) and contracted Swine Flu. A couple of hours ago she passed away.

I don’t as yet feel sad. Maybe I am and I just don’t feel it. But I am very f**king livid, as you can probably tell.

Seriously, for those who don’t go around blaming people (or things), how do you deal with this s**t?

~ Bruce

P.S. Don’t expect Death #2 until I calm down a bit. Which may take a while.

Rob Smith on ‘Worship at the temple of Onan’

Young men and women, have you ever felt guilty for your need to pleasure yourself? Have you ever felt guilty because of need arising before marriage? It could just be that you’ve been misled as to what The Bible alludes to. Rob Smith spills the beans in his second guest appearance at Thinkers’ Podium.

Hi everyone. I’m Rob, as you probably guessed from the introduction. Between work and running my unregistered charity, Hymns for Neglected Greyhounds, I pitch in as a youth group elder at the Uniting Way Church of The Blessed Tree. I’m also a part-time external student studying theology at the Sydney Theology of Faith University (STFU).

Obviously I’m not a theologian yet, but I do get quite a lot of young adults coming to me and asking if it’s okay to masturbate, or engage in pre-marital sex. So as Bruce says, I’ll spill the beans. (And to keep Bruce and Tipper happy, I’ll put all the smut over the fold.)

Worship at the temple of Onan rob_smith

Rob Smith

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Rob Smith’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame

It seems that Rob Smith’s first post to this blog was quite well received. My blog stats for the weekend are usually quite low, even when I post on the weekend – my usual readers apparently having more of a life than I do.

Within the first few hours of the statistical day clicking over, Rob had around a couple of hundred hits, thanks mostly to being discovered by someone using StumbleUpon (Rob says “thanks”, K-ady.) I bet if I didn’t shamelessly promote Rob’s post over at this thread at Pharyngula, it never would’ve happened. *Grumble, grumble, teeth-grind*

I didn’t think Rob’s post was quite that good!

rob_smith_15

‘My 15 minutes beats your confected envy, poor atheist…‘

At any rate, in the interests of traffic, I’ve secured a promise from Rob that he’ll write again for this blog. Indeed, he’s already got a topic in mind and further to that, he’s noticed that Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism (2004) has sat on my bookshelf, as yet unread.

The idea has got into his head that he could fill in as a guest book reviewer for when I’m too busy to read anything other than that which could turn out to be a waste of time. I guess that also includes Ken Ham’s The Lie: Evolution (1987), which made it onto my shelf for the princely chimney-sweeply price of ten cents.

But I digress. If Rob is or isn’t to write book reviews in the future, it’s very much up to him. What he has promised to do, in his own words, is to write a post…

“…refut[ing] the straw-men put about by New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens, on the topic of Christian positions on pre-marital sex and masturbation.”

(Rob Smith, last night.)

By “Christian positions”, one hopes that he doesn’t mean “missionary.”

Between Rob’s apparent popularity and that of the topic of sex on the Internet, I can feel my own posts being eclipsed already.

~ Bruce

How to talk to an arrogant New Atheist – Rob’s First Post!

Ever wondered just how to deal with that arrogant, intolerant New Atheist that heckles you so? Maybe you have one for a neighbour, or sadly, one of your family. Maybe you chat around the blogs and forums and keep running into them.

They can be very frustrating, these New Atheists. What with their mocking and what not.

Hi. I’m Rob. I’ve been allowed to use Bruce’s WordPress account to write this post.

I’m not a theologian, but I do like to read a bit of liberal theology from time to time. I love Jim Wallis and I think Obama marks a defining moment in the history of religion. I’ve been an on-and-off again elder at youth group and in my spare time I organise the unregistered charity, Hymns for Neglected Greyhounds.

I’m not a blogger, otherwise I’d have written this somewhere else. (Gee am I glad that Bruce is just an ordinary atheist and not a New Atheist, otherwise I’d never have gotten around to posting this. Perhaps I can coax his defection to liberal theism at a later point. Kidding!)

On with my first post!

How to talk to an arrogant New Atheist rob_smith

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