I thought of going on a – um – not exactly a pilgrimage but a bus-spotting trip. We don’t have them where I live in the arse-end of beyond.

Yup that is my photo of one of the bus ads in Manchester city centre (the one with the advert quite large)
For the original photo

Hmmm, I have always wondered how the Vatican got to look like it was without using the money of us plebs on it’s own beautification.

I have yet to see a building built purely to worship there not being any supernatural beings. When I look around toans and cities what buildings stand out and above all the rest? Religious and mainly, in this country, CotE or Catholic. Lots of ‘believers’ money tied up in stone to worship one of the thousands of gods that have been invented.

I look at cathedrals and wonder how many people died bulding them while living in poverty while the church people lived in relative luxury. I wonder how better thmoney that was spent comsrtucting a building just to worship some go could have been better spent improving the living conditions and lives of the people building those churches. And please don’t say the church gave them jobs. They could have had jobs building something useful rather than a folly to a pernicious, sadistic being.

How much money has been spent in Africa and China persuading the populace that condoms are evil or that the whay of the white man is better than 1000’s of years of indigenous history in China?

How much money has been spent on Alpha courses? On the signs outside churches saying ‘Jesus saves’ etc.

The money spent on the dresses vicars and priests wear?

Who are you, or anyone for that matter, to say that this will not transform lives? I hope that just one person, as a result of this campaign, rejects the bronze age death cult nonsense they’ve probably been inculcated with since birth. That they realise that hell is a nasty, disgusting idea made up by sexually frustrated old men to terrify children and illiterates, and that it’s a load of cobblers. And, more importantly, that there is no heaven, no seventy two virgins, no strumming a harp with little wings etc. etc., so if you want your reward for your life you’d better actually get on with living your life instead of trying to store up favours with your imaginary friend(s). Just one person rescued from this pernicious garbage and set free to live their one short life here and now instead of in thrall to fairy tales, is money well spent.

Anticant – I rather like the slogan though it’s clear that many feel it’s too wimpish. The religious folk seem to attack it on the grounds that if we way “probably” then we doubt our beliefs – thereby both missing the point and illustrating it. I also like it’s lack of stridency.

Daft Old Bat – sorry about the song.

Singing Librarian – thanks for dropping by. I’m astonished that any believer could feel threatened by these ads. Saddened, annoyed, irritated, yes. But threatened?

Hi Omega Mum. Yes, you are right of course. Our beliefs are very central to who and what we are and how we define ourselves. Which is why discussions about them get so highly inflamed.

Paul. You work with disabled children and mention their pain. How about those people whose ability to think logically has been disabled by their own religious indoctrination or that of their parents? Not to mention the pain that religious extremism causes all over the world. Or doesn’t that count? I am sorry to be discourteous to you – but you seem to make some rather startling assumptions about the charitable giving of those concerned. Disabled Kids have Terry Wogan and the BBC on their side. Philosophical positions – not so much. I’m sorry to give you such short shrift, but I don’t take kindly to being patronised.

Thanks all for dropping by and commenting.

Also, the hardest thing as with politics is to espouse an idea for decades and then have to consider the possibility that you might be wrong. So any comment that possibly echoes in a way we find uncomfortable (because it might be right) will be met with a disproportionate reaction. Same thing true of politics, I guess.