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Atheism is not such a hard and fast thing. It is essentially the belief that God does not exist. For atheists to condemn theists for their belief based stance is therefore somewhat hypocritical.

I would go further. I would say that the extremist atheist view that states categorically that God does not exist is fundamentally flawed.

Definitions of God are slippery, but the general view is that He is a supernatural being who created all matter and living things. And as such, He lies outside that which He has created. He is not confined to the rules and logic of the material Universe we inhabit.

His existence is therefore a non-flasifiable hypothesis. He lies outside of the scope of the scientific method. So atheists should really only see their viewpoint, in the time honoured scientific tradition, as the best current theory.

However, Religion does not limit itself to simplicist understandings of God. Not only are there many hundreds of diverse religions, but most religions embrace a complex set of literature, such as the Bible and Koran. It is not enough that God made everything.

My problem, as an atheist, is that complexity, inconsistencies, dogma, inhumane ritual and vagueness suffocate most religions. This alone makes them very unpalatable. But this is compounded by the mutually exclusive nature of the majority of religions.

To buy into any one religion requires a rejection of hundreds of competing religions. To do so intelligently requires that you understand what you are rejecting. I suspect that the vast majority of religious people know very little about other religions. There is simply not enough time to do so. Yet each religion proclaims theirs to be the right one, of course!

After abitrarily buying into one religion, you must then suspend your concerns about the aforementioned problems that are likely to afflict your chosen religion.

The liklihood that all religions are man made wrappers around the central belief that everything was made by God is very high indeed. If any are indeed sufficiently accurate understandings of this non-falsifiable supernatural being, how am I to know which one?

Of course, if God one day actually did speak personally to me, and I was able to somehow be sure that I was not delusional, then He might guide me to the right religion.

Apparently, recent research has indicated that we do not possess much free will. It appears that our conscious mind is a mere play thing of our sub-conscious mind. It is spun a line much as Government do to the masses. And for much the same reasons - reveal too much detail about the real World (the state of the economy/our underyling reasoning) and anarchy can ignite. Or panic.

We may feel that we are making literally conscious decisions. But experiments have revealed that the decision is more likely to be made behind the scenes by our hidden sub-conscious, with the spin given to the conscious mind that it was the originator to keep it happy. Deluded, really.

However, all is not lost, for it seems that we can cast a veto vote - we can have the last say on a matter - the last rites. We can spurn a choice the sub-conscious has made for us.

Further to this, our free will is highly limited anyway - we cannot choose when to fall asleep. We cannot choose when to be angry, or stop being angry in a trice. We are often emotionally hi-jacked by our sub-conscious mind. (I am in particular). We cannot choose to be clever when our genes say otherwise. We cannot play tennis like Roger Federer, much as we would like.

So, bearing this in mind, this gift from God is not what it seems.

But lo and behold, God wants us to to compromise this free will even more. He wants us to follow His way.

Very interesting.

There is a jolly, cloak clad bearded man who I see on a regular basis. This is fairly inevitable since he dilligently answers the Islamic call to prayer 5 times a day. I have encountered and greeted him at various points on what is obviously a non trivial route.

So I reckon that he spends 20 to 30 hours a week following his Religion, giving worship to Allah.

Now if I were a Muslim, I might also be obliged to do likewise. But I would find it extrordinary difficult to do this.

If Allah were so worthy of worship, why would he want us to waste time worshipping rather than helping some of the people of the World less advantaged than us?

I’ve been caring for a cat for over a year now. It initially came to my back door scrounging for food, and nervously gradually made itself comfortable in my house. I believe that it belongs to a neighbour. Or it could be stray. I prefer the latter option, otherwise I am denying the current owners many hours of cat company.

I always saw myself as gentle and affectionate towards cats, and indeed I am to this one, even though it was initially very aloof. After a very long time, it eventually felt comfortable sitting on my lap as I watch TV or work on my PC. So much so that it often falls asleep.

But it swiftly seeks solace away from me if I give it less than appropriate attention. This happened when I got my Nintendo DS. My brain was getting training, but the cat was losing out. So it sat alone. And continues to do so, biding its time until it feels it will get the right level of care.

The whole point in writing all this is that the cat appears to me as an echo of my general thoughtfulness towards others. It has made me realise that I too am very aloof, preferring to attend to my own interests rather than continually stroke the fur on the back of the cat. The cat has become a kind of guide for me. The more aloof the cat becomes, the more I have to check on how I am behaving.

You need to read the title of this entry carefully. There is no typo - I am writing about Good behaviour.

I do so because of some positive aspect about life that I have acquired from reading “The Bible Book”, a precis of the Bible that I mentioned in an earlier blog. As an atheist, I admit to having read about the Bible with a little trepidation. I suspect that this was fuelled by decades of indoctrination about the significance and reverence with which society holds the Bible. After reading through Genesis, Exodus and a few more books, however, I feel less daunted. More bemused by the slaughtering that God involves himself in.

But this article is not about the slaughtering. It is about the recurring theme of God’s frustration with His people. No sooner do they pledge loyalty to Him than they are manufacturing and worshipping false Gods. Repeatedly! Aside from the matter that God should not get frustrated, since he surely knows the character of humans, having apparently made them, and aside from the matter that He knows the future so He knows in advance that they will fail to be consistent worshippers, there is something to be learned from this recurring theme.

Namely that humans are by nature inconsistent and hypocritical. Many of us know this about ourselves, yet conveniently turn a blind eye to these deviations from our normally morally good behaviour. We readily chastise someone who fails to adhere to our own moral code, yet very rarely give credence to the possibility that our own moral code may itself be flawed, and that we do not always even adhere to it ourselves!

The point I am laboriously trying to make is that most people try to be good, independent of any religious bent, but we often are not, often do not know when we are not, and are essentially too close to ourselves to have a hope of being good consistently. So the concept of turning to an overseer, such as God if he were to exist, to put us on the right path is a wise one I feel.

Often, your parents provide external guidance, but even that is flawed - they would be unlikely to rule conisistently fairly when judging you against someone else’s offspring. And they guide you with their own flawed outlook on life also.

I’m not so much talking of living a perfect life, but more that we delude ourselves into thinking we sit on the moral high ground far more than we actually do, and this delusional aspect of human nature blinds us to ever really working out for ourselves how to be truly good.

Additionally, we are simply not party to enough information about the World to act the good life. Someone we know may hate our sweet nature to them, preferring that we treat them with honesty, warts and all. We rarely know this since they fail to inform us. I am also reminded of the rare occasions when I went to Portsmouth Cathedral to watch my girlfriend and her sister sing in the choir. Her deeply religious father would sorely chastise them if they were a few minutes late after changing for their lift home with him. He was blinded by the hypocrisy of the situation by the simple expedient that he is a fallible human.

So when we atheists say in defence to Christians that we are ‘good people’ regardless of our faiure to salute a potentially non existent higher being, we are being somewhat arrogant. We are only good in a qualified sense - our blinkered view of the World and our role in it necessarily stops us from being more. It is not our fault, it is just one of our limitations that a higher being might help us with.

Except that from my perspective, if God does exist, He has been astonshingly, invisibly quiet in my life. A guiding figure does indeed need to guide. If his existence is as hard to rationally believe as I find it, then the Catch 22 situation where I must blindly believe Him before he will start guiding me is a crazy one. If He exists, He knows this of me, but fails to solve the dilemna.

For reasons not obvious to me in my youth, I never studied Latin. My father occasionally demonstrated his linguistic prowess by voicing the latin names of each plant in the garden, but I barely listened of course, since at that time my only interest was in their English names, and then only a vague interest at that.

Having just visited the Science Creative Quarterly web site, I noticed in the top corner of the page were the words Lapsus Nivium. I have no idea what they mean, but once again it has rekindled a strange feeling in me - a regret that I never learnt Latin. From my simple understanding of the language, not only is it the basis of many other languages, but that it is very orderly and logical in its structure. Unlike the grossly inconsistent English language. That would certainly appeal to my logical mind.

But it was something in the physical appearance of these words, as has happened many times to me before, that sparked strong feelings in me. They reminded me intensely of the first book I ever read - something like Fred meets Mary. Not in the words, since they were in English, of course. But in the power of the feeling - that raw excitement I felt when I realised I was learning to read successfully.

These latin words had that same excitement, as if I had indeed studied the language. Now for the life of me, I cannot figure out why. If there was ever any truth in the concept of reincarnation, then I would almost be tempted into buying into this - as if I had a glimpse of a former life where Latin was a major focus.

But I do not see much truth in that strange concept. So I remain baffled.

Maybe I should simply learn the language and see what happens?

I sent a reminder letter to a customer by recorded delivery on the 20th of December 2007. My receipt claimed that this method was :

“Ideal for items you might need to prove were received, like job applications or legal documents.”

As you might guess, 3 weeks later, the letter was declared lost by the Royal Mail. They didn’t write to tell me this. Oh no. I had to ring their ‘help’ line. ‘Hinderence’line is a better description. I had to speak the 13 character reference number and then speak the date of delivery. Five times in fact, until it could understand what I said.

After a delay, a human at last appeared.

“Can I have your reference number please.”

Can you believe that? The system failed to pass on the information I had laboriously told it!

And the lady who spoke to me was very impatient that I give her this number rather than escalate my concerns about the stupidity of the system.

So I was then told to complete a loss or damaged form. I tracked this down on the Internet, and filled it all in. And, of course, rather than receive this information and immediately process it, I had to print the form and post it.

Can I trust it to be delivered?

And who exactly can I contact in the Royal Mail who might want to know the reality of how their business can fail and infuriate the public? Someone who would both reply, and have the power to act. If you know, then please tell me.

4th February 2008 update : the saga continues …

3 weeks after posting my form, it was returned. Apparently, it is not enough to tick the box on the form that says that I have a receipt - I must enclose it. Why on earth does it take Royal Mail 3 weeks to tell me this? And why do they not make it clear on the form page that it is mandatory?

So no I look set to another 3 weeks before any possible compensation!

 13th February 2008 update :

I received a standard letter saying that they were ‘.. sorry to hear that we did not deliver a Recorded Delivery item …’, and compensation in the form of 12 stamps. They give me more means to lose mail! Hoorah! They do not compensate for the loss of the contents of the letter. So why do they ask for the amount I am claiming? I asked for £20 pointlessly.

It sounds to me like a service that is simply not worth using - it is better to use Registered Delivery, except that this costs £4.30

There is no doubt that technology is intruding ever more on our lives. We cannot live without our mobile phones. Even poor families have computers and large screen TVs.

The attraction of technology often blinds us to its value - are we actually happier, or more content in our lives after buying the latest must have? Rarely so, after the novelty has worn off. Most often, it has simply raised the bar of expectation, and reduced our ability to live in a humble way.

And  a humble way may be a reality if it all implodes in on us. The so-called Civilised World is chronically reliant on the Internet, and Computer technology in general. If we were to be bombarded with a radiation that knocks out the delicate processors used in a vast array of appliances, way more than ‘just’ computers, then a World recession would be likely. And what we now take for granted would simply not be there.

I just wonder if we should learn to be able to live without the modern technological necessities of life. A humbler life.

I quote from Exodus 32 in the New International Version of the Bible :

9 “I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

 11 But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “O LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ” 14 Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

These words from the sacred book are a revelation to me. I had read that there were strange things in the Bible, but I had no idea God allowed Himself to be potrayed as badly as this. He is purportedly all knowing, all powerful, and all compassionate, yet harbours anger sufficiently bitter to want to kill a large number of people, and thereby break one of His own commandments. And he can hardly be all-knowing if a lesser person was able to enlighten Him, and change his mind.

I am trying to read (a precis of) the Bible with an open mind, although this is impossible at the age of 50 and with an Atheist outlook. But attempting to cast aside my bias, I still find it a huge struggle to find God rational or likeable. He comes across as an impatient, recriminating dictator.

Or is it more likely that the passages above are a fabrication, and not an accurate recounting of a real event?

I am an emotional person, much as I often wish I were not. Throughout my life, like everyone else, I have had my ups and downs. Alas, the intensity of my feelings on this emotional rollercoaster has often been matched by their duration. It seems that my subconscious is not content enough flaring up with upset about some trivial event. Oh no. It prolongs this exaggerated emotion far longer than could ever truly be warranted. And no, it does not listen to my reasoning that I have come to terms with the situation, and could I please just get on with life, thank you very much (credit to Jeremony Clarkson for this turn of phrase).

As I write, I am into the 22nd hour of distress following a justified criticism of my photography at a Wedding in November. Myself and the couple have negotiated a work around to the situation, and they are actually overall very happy with the results of my work.

So all is well. Except in my head and my heart. I am still pinned down by my emotions, relentlesly churning away as my mind still relives what went wrong, and how I might have done better, and how frustrated it is with me for messing up.

We all make mistakes. I know this. I tell my subconscious this, but it stubbornly refuses to listen to this line of reasoning. It seems to be treating this scenario as the ‘one that really was too important to mess up’. Like it has done with so many other scenarios.

All that I can do is wait, and distract myself, it seems, for distraction eases the discomfort, and time really does heal. Or rather, time allows my brain’s fabulous capacity for forgetting things to kick into action.

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