It has become something of a tradition for me to create a death list in the new year. A death list is simply a list of celebrities who I think will die or hope will die this year. It’s just a bit of fun so don’t go giving me that look.
Amy Winehouse – Lucky to be alive
Lindsay Lohan - Doesn’t seem to want to be alive
Prince Philip – Somehow refusing to do the decent thing and die.
The Pope – Benny the Poop, God’s Rottweiller, the Infallible Voice of God on Earth, Honest Jo Ratzinger. I’ve had enough of you. You need to die for your stance on contraceptives and all those deaths in Africa that you could prevent by reversing your decision.
Fred Phelps – Westboro Baptist Church’s mouthpiece. He rants and curses every poor man, woman and child who dies and claims that they will burn forever in hell. There is so much hate in this man that he really should explode from it.
Norman Wisdom – Ancient slapstick funnyman. We don’t want you to die but honestly I have no idea how you can still be standing at 94. It must be your active lifestyle.
Maggie Thatcher – I’ve hated Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher since I was old enough to know who took my playtime milk away from me. Honestly I’d only just started school. Now Thatcher is old and it gives me comfort to know that she can’t have much longer.
Jeremy Clarkson – This is one from the lovely Hil. She can’t stand to bloke for some reason. All I know is that death awaits anyone man who wears jeans that tight with a belly that big. I expect that a tank will crush him or something amusing like that.
Michael Foot – Come on Michael, you were born ancient and you’ve been a favourite on death lists all over the world. Stop disappointing people.
Kirk Douglas – Spartacus isn’t a well man. #17 on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time. Dying now would push him into first place I’m sure. A fitting end for the great man.
Close candidates who were dropped at the last minute.
Frankie Boyle. Although I hope his career dies
Angela Lansbury. We love her but she can’t last much longer.
Special mention must go to the following as well:
The Hoff
Britney Spears
These need to go on a special list of people who will ascend to the right hand of God this year. And become saints. Or angels.
OK, I don’t believe that there is a god but they do and I think it important that such incredibly jammy sods get to have their wishes granted. They are jammy as a jam sandwich that is extra jammy and missing the bread because they have been very successful for apparently no reason. Perhaps it is divine intervention after all.
I know it’s tasteless but I’d love to see your lists. In all the years I’ve made predictions about celebrity deaths I have failed to get any right. It isn’t easy but after all this time I know that I will not be putting money on these predictions.
Last year I wrote some predictions. For the lols and for no other reason. The previous year was 0 for 5. Let’s see how I managed this year.
Sticking to American politics I’m going to go for an assassination attempt against the President. His first year in office and a new face always upsets a few loonies. This may be too easy as there were whisperings of nutters coming out of the woodwork from the minute he put his hat in the election. I’m going out on a limb here and I’m going to suggest that the assassination fails miserably and improves the public perception of Barack Obama due to his level headed handling of the event.
FAIL. OK Obama has been the target of several assassination attempts but 2009 wasn’t the year for a spectacular shoot out in public that I’d imagined. Good thing too.
Banks will continue to be greedy, irresponsible buggers. Now that they know that the government will bail them out when they make costly mistakes they will stop caring about risk and invest in all sorts of hare-brained schemes while throwing away confidential information or leaving it down the pub. Something stupid like that. The FSA will fail to make a difference.
WIN. I think it fair to say that banks are still thoroughly crap and nobody is going to be introducing any of them as their new best mate. Here is a fun list of FSA fines against banks in 2009. UBS AG were fined £8million for being crap.
I have a particular dislike of the BNP as a bunch of racist loudmouthed twats. I therefore predict see some serious legal ramifications for some hate mongering by the BNP. Perhaps a senior policeman gets sacked or a court case challenges them in a publicly embarrassing way. I don’t want to get too specific because that’s not how predictions work. The words BNP, legal, and funny will certainly be involved though.
WIN. Late breaking news that I’m going to count as a WIN. That and all the fun of Question Time just makes me giggle inside that the racist arsehats are being mocked left, right and centre.
Setting aside politics and steering clear of religion (for a change) I focus prediction number four directly on the mystical configurations of the cult of celebrity. A footballer’s wife, perhaps one who sings a bit, will be exposed in the press as being a bit unfaithful. The popular press will use such choice and sensitive phrases as “slapper” and “love cheat” and I fully expect Richard Littlejohn’s head to explode with glee. As a private matter I will fail miserably to have an opinion but the constant chatter about two people who I’ve never heard of will annoy me and I’ll be forced to blog about it.
FAIL. Cheryl Cole, the convicted criminal, has dominated the whole of “footballer’s wife” news in 2009. If there was a scandal then her cheeky Northern charm has eclipsed it completely. The cow.
No prediction would be complete with a little popular news, Zimbabwe in this case. The country will continue to deteriorate and nobody will do anything about it. Not a thing. There will be plenty of talk though.
FAIL. While I’m sure that Zim hasn’t been transformed into a land of milk and honey it has failed to be prominent in the news. I’m not disappointed.
Start with an easy one. The Tories win the election in the UK. We have to have an election this year unless we’re attacked by aliens or something. We have a five year duration of Parliament in the UK and our last general election was in 2005. Brown’s Labour isn’t going to get any more popular although Cameron’s Conservatives could conceivably get less popular. I’m not voting for either of them. Crooks.
China is in the news at the moment having executed that convicted drug smuggler with mental health problems. I predict therefore that the news services keep an eye on China and uncover a string of social abuses perpetrated by the Chinese. China, being answerable to no-one, will stick two fingers up and any criticism. I mean what are we going to do? Stop paying back all the money they’ve lent us to prop up our failing economies.
On the techie side I want to predict something about the iPhone. By all accounts it is a wonderful device with many fascinating apps and gadgets. Sadly it is shit as a phone. People do buy phones to make phone calls after all and I think it is important that a phone is able to do that and do it well. Therefore I predict that Apple will release a new iPhone that is shit hot at making phone calls but gets criticised for some other reason. Probably an issue with compatibility between phone versions. This is because other companies are jealous and don’t have all the best toys.
Gotta have a celebrity prediction. I really want to see Katie Holmes free from the clutches of cult spokesman, Tom Cruise. She is held by forces that we may never understand but we can hope that she can break free and bring her daughter with her.
Last prediction. I think something easy to finish off. As I’m currently snowed in I’ll go with a weather related prediction. This summer we will have the highest recorded temperatures in England since records began. Come on, you know it’ll happen. hundreds will die, they’ll be plagues of locusts and fires all over the land, air conditioning will seem like heaven itself. It will be hot, hot, hot.
@GospelToday left a comment on the blog the other day and on the Friendly Atheist site. Essentially the argument is that atheism is a kind of religion, that it has a central set of tenets and associated symbolism that is common to religion.
This is the response that I left on FA.
@GospelToday is Coca Cola a religious symbol? Is Intel a religion? Is Microsoft or Glaxo? What about the seal of the President of the United States or the Democratic donkey logo?
The Scarlet Letter A is an icon but not in a religious sense. It does remind atheists that there are other people who do not believe in gods, that we aren’t alone in the face of intrusive and ubiquitous religion. The entire OUT campaign is to encourage atheists to be more public about a lack of belief in gods. We can all benefit from dispelling silly rumours about us that only exist because of ignorance of what atheism is.
One such thing that needs dispelling is the assumption that atheists deny the Christian god in the sense of rebelling against God. This is not the case. I do not rebel against God anymore than I rebel against Thor or Ra. I simply don’t find the idea of ANY god compelling. I find the idea of gods logically inconsistent and I give greater credence to the rational explanations for god belief than for actual gods.
I appreciate that some people like the idea and that some even find it comforting. I’ve no interest in shattering that illusion for you. All I want is same consideration from theists. The OUT campaign and the public face of atheism only exists because many theists are not content to keep their “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” (or any other god) personal. They have to force it on others.
Stick around and read some of the articles here. Understand that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet (so to speak) so the concepts and language might be less accessible than a Christian site might be for you. You’ll see an underlying theme after a time and it isn’t a rebellion against your particular god.
If you like I could also point you to many other resources that explain the position of atheists in a largely theistic world.
I can understand how someone raised in an environment where faith took a central place would make this error. It is like trying to understand someone who wasn’t raised within a family. The concept of family is so central to most people that the idea of growing up without one just doesn’t register. Of course, once someone points out that they were raised differently we can adjust our preconceived notions accordingly. We might fall back on old ways of thinking because they work so well but, once informed, we have the new understanding to work with too.
I’ve never had a religion. I was raised with no mention of religion until I went to school. At school it was simply another form or process that we all went through and the lessons in RE dealt more with ethics and how people all over the world have rituals and ideas that we might not understand.
Understanding people who have a faith is difficult for me and I’ve taken great efforts to do so. At least when I haven’t had to defend why I don’t have a faith or why society should have to follow one. I simply cannot make the connection between the idea of gods and what I observe of reality. That isn’t religion, it is an opinion.
Just for the record: atheism is a lack of belief in gods. That’s it. The counter to this is theism (a belief in at least one god) rather than Christianity (a belief in Christ as God as described in the Bible) or Islam (a belief in God as described in the Koran) or any other subset of theism.
A recipe for all members of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and for all atheists. Who says we can’t cooperate with church people when we have to?
Well blow me down if’n International Talk Like a Pirate Day hasn’t come round again right quick. Are ye planning anything special fer the day or are ye stickin’ the the usual fare. Sea biscuits wi’ maggots and a round o’ grog? Meself, I plan on securing a bounty the envy o’ all ye salty sea dogs. First I’ll raid the local town te secure supplies fer me voyage. Then me and the crew are heading out fer a feast. Simple fare it might be but it be respectable plunder.
Me wench be slaving o’er a stall today, selling her wares at ye craft market. She should take up the cutlass like Anne Bonnie but she don’t listen to me. I were pressed into service this very mornin’ luggin sacks a booty fer her te flog. A pirate’s work is ne’er done. ‘Ave a goodun.
Following on from Monday’s comments I was pleased to see that Lewis recognised that there were some valid objections to his points.
These are:
What Lewis calls “herd instinct” or normal human impulses. He provides an example.
Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires – one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self preservation).
He goes on to explain how instincts in conflict must be resolved by a third thing: The Moral Law. As with a lot of things I feel the need to say “I think you’ll find that it’s a bit more complicated than that” and I can think of several alternatives without much effort, one being that these instincts are not of equal and opposite strength, another being that they are not the only two instincts at work in the human mind. He also includes a lovely metaphor of a piano. Each of our many instincts are keys on the piano and the Moral Law acts are the sheet music. It’s a neat idea but it both begs the question as to where this Moral Law resides in our minds and it is wholly unnecessary for understanding human behaviour.
Secondly Lewis raises the objection that what he calls Moral Law is simply a social convention that is taught. he refutes this objection by claiming that this Law of Human Nature is closer to mathematics than taught behaviour. Essentially he attempts to assert that Moral Law is an absolute that does not change but social conventions are changeable. Indeed he tries to make the case that social conventions progress to get closer to an absolute value and pioneers and reformers are those who make these social changes to improve the lot of all of society. This may well be an attempt at Objectivism in a religious sense with absolutes of behaviour being assumed and then used as a comparison. There is nothing wrong with this if you take the assumed standard of behaviour as a model and not a real thing but I fear that Lewis is making an error by granting his assumption too great a value.
In conclusion Lewis uses an example of a witch hunt to demonstrate how social conventions have changed but Moral Law has not. He argues that our knowledge of witches supersedes any desire to kill them. We do not execute witches because we do not believe in them. If we did, he explains, it would be right to execute them. I disagree. We do not execute child molesters or mass murderers in England or in other parts of the world. We know that such behaviour is vile and reprehensible almost beyond belief. We can certainly justify ending the lives of such monsters but we do not do so because the taking of a life is considered to be wrong. A wrong in executing someone is compounding the wrong of their crime, it is not righting it. This is an improvement in moral behaviour for society, not a change in social convention.
Sadly I think he is trying to build a base where the Moral Law is seen by the reader as an irrefutable fact in order to explain the source of this Moral Law. I’m unconvinced so far. I can see far too many alternatives.
I’m reading C S Lewis’ Mere Christianity at the moment and found myself ranting (in my head) before I’d even finished the first chapter. Most distracting, I had to kept shutting me up and going back to read what I’d missed. With that in mind I’d like to examine the points raised in each chapter to see if there is any merit to what he’s written. Fortunately he writes very well with some excellent examples so there are few distinct points in each chapter to confuse thing.
In chapter one Lewis argues that there are things he calls Laws of Nature that are universal for all people. This is essentially a default moral standard enjoyed by all of humanity that included compunctions against killing, stealing, rape, deceit, etc. He argues that these are not learned traits but inherent in the human condition.
There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Creeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to–whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put Yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.
I disagree. Although he does follow up with some neat examples that I do agree with I think he is too sweeping in his assumptions.
There are many different characteristics that human beings could be said to have. I can indeed think of a country where aggression in war is frowned upon and pacifism is considered a positive trait or even where cowardice is excused. I think that we live in societies where exploiting those weaker than us is permissible and even encouraged. Selfishness and self dependence are certainly considered to be traits of value although we do not think of self promotion in such terms.
Are there really universal human characteristics or is Lewis just making a huge assumption? Even if he’s right what does this prove?
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who walk into a room and say, “There you are” and those who say, “Here I am!” – Abigail Van Buren
There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. — Indira Gandhi
There are two kinds of people in the world, those with a zombie plan, and those that don’t. We call the second group dinner.
What two kinds of people are there for you and what’s your zombie plan?
Knowledge of the Bible is in decline in Britain, with fewer than one in 20 people able to name all Ten Commandments and youngsters viewing the Christian holy book as “old-fashioned”, a survey said.
Atheists, however, were not unduly worried about the decline in the Bible’s popularity.
“It shows really that religion is becoming less important to people,” said Pepper Harow, campaigns officer at the British Humanist Association.
I got the article link from the BBC’s Big Question forum. Here was my own response at the time.
Whether you are a believer or not the Bible and the Church of England is part of our national culture and heritage. How can you hope to understand and appreciate the Reformation, The English Civil War or The Enlightenment without some idea of what the bible meant to people. Our language is resplendent with biblical references, our laws are often derived from biblical sources and overturned because we have no secular reason for keeping them.
We should have an awareness of the bible even if we believe that it is myth because people took it very seriously for a very long time. How can you argue against something if you don’t know where the idea came from. If you support stem cell research then you must know about the objections that are derived from Christian dogma as well as those that come from ethical considerations. If you support a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy then you need to understand how others object to it. If you support free education then you need to understand the basis for it and how Christianity was instrumental in creating the public school system.
Some responses lament the decline of knowledge in the general populace. “We are becoming dumber” they say. I disagree though that knowledge is in decline. In the 21st century we have unprecedented access to knowledge on almost any subject you can imagine. I can read Ulysses online, go to a library, order it from Amazon or even borrow a copy. I can discuss the references in a forum with people all over the world if I wish and can even search for one if I don’t know where to find one. I can join a correspondence course, arrange to meet up with Joyce or Tennyson enthusiasts or just write a blog about it. None of this was possible even 10 years ago on the scale we have today.
I think what is in decline is interest. We are becoming the Eloi and the Morlocks, neither is a fate I find particularly appealing. Do you disagree? Should we lament the loss of our history or allow that which has served it’s purpose to pass unremarked and unmourned? Is the decline of biblical knowledge, as I believe, a symptom of a society that has grown bored and indolent, that seeks only survival and entertainment. If we are losing the roots of our history then is this a step to replacing these old myths with something better for everyone?
Britain’s libel laws threaten Free Speech. The article begins with some interesting background on chiropractors and how my nation’s laws are being used to silence science writers who criticise crackpot pseudoscience. Oh the shame.
Outsourcing Faith Apparently the faithful want to be able to talk about faith rather than do their jobs. Fine, but it should be unpaid work right? Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who always come round when I’m in the middle of a strenuous workout (ahem) on a Sunday morning. They don’t get paid.
Well blow me down if’n International Talk Like a Pirate Day hasn’t come round again right quick. Are ye planning anything special fer the day or are ye stickin’ the the usual fare. Sea biscuits wi’ maggots and a round o’ grog? Meself, I plan on securing a bounty the envy o’ all ye salty sea dogs. First I’ll raid the local town te secure supplies fer me voyage. Then me and the crew are heading out fer a feast. Simple fare it might be but it be respectable plunder.
/