Whoops, apocalypse!

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If I had to be honest I should probably say that I wasn’t the least bit disappointed when I woke up last Sunday morning to find that the rapture Harold Camping had promised, nay guaranteed, hadn’t actually materialised, and it’s not because I felt a sense of relief that his prediction of impending armageddon turned out to be total bollocks. I know that I probably should have been annoyed at the failure of the world’s supply of gullible nitwits to mysteriously disappear while I slept (in much the same way their critical thinking skills had vanished the moment each of them they joined that ridiculous club), but the truth, however, is that I wasn’t disappointed because I was too busy trying to decide whether to laugh or cry. …

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A Manifesto In A-Minor

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About two weeks ago I found myself on the receiving end of a minor ticking off from my mum over having used the c-word in a Facebook status update. Ignoring the obvious fact that I’m 37 years old and, if I want to swear, then I bollocking well arsing will, I think I acquitted myself fairly well. I entirely agreed that it is a deeply offensive word to many people (to some, the most offensive) but, ultimately, it is still just a word and, as such, its ability to cause harm or offence rests entirely with how, and by whom, it is used … rather like the bar of soap my mum threatened to wash my mouth out with – it’s just a tool, and it can be used for good or evil. …

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Not collecting stamps

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Last Sunday, barely 10 minutes after I’d managed to drag myself out of bed, I got a phone call from my sister, Tam. Normally, this appalling crime warrants a stream of profanity-laden verbal abuse, but as she’d only called to let me know that Richard Dawkins was on BBC1’s “Big Questions” programme, and that the topic was whether the bible was still relevant, I was quite content to drop all charges. My abject lack of tolerance for religious nonsense, and my appreciation for the works of Richard Dawkins, are two things (among many) that I share with my sister, so I was grateful for the heads up. However, since I had still to fully peel open my eyelids and let in more than just a thin sliver of daylight, I promised I’d watch it later. …

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Death of a heretic

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One day, in the (hopefully) far distant future, my heart will issue its last, vital beat, my lungs will resign from their tediously repetitive job of inflating and deflating to provide me with oxygen, and, in quick succession, every organ, system, and function within my body will shut down, never to be restarted. The deafening noise of the trillions of explosions in my brain will go quiet, and the light that lives just behind my tired eyes will go out for the last time. There will be no one home. Every biological function that I had enjoyed without ever having paid them much thought will have come to their natural ends, and I will be dead. …

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My atheism

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I’m not sure when I became an atheist; in a way, I guess I always have been. Sure, there have been times when I dipped my toe in the waters of faith, but I always felt rather hollow, usually to the point of dishonesty, when I did. I didn’t really, deep-down believe what I was trying to persuade myself I believed and, on the very few occasions in my life that I actually prayed, I felt like a complete fraud; wishing out loud to a being I didn’t believe existed for shortcuts to problems I was either unable, or too lazy, to solve myself. …

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