The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.

On Reddit.

A beautifully written and sensitively pitched piece about the rape, attempted murder and murder of a couple in Seattle in 2007.

Before you read any further or follow the links below to the article itself, I can’t emphasize the Trigger warning. And yet, trigger warnings aside, I would recommend you read this.

I won’t pretend I didn’t cry. Such beauty and brutality are rarely seen in such close proximity.
The Bravest Woman In Seattle

If you feel you need some sort of closure after that then she talks herself here:
I Would Like You To Know My Name

Inside Men is about a counting house raid. Called ‘Inside Men’ as the main instigators are all employees working for the counting house. But it’s also a play on words; Inside Men – looking inside and investigating the ego’s, desires and drive of 3 very different men.

The mark of good character writing is someone you can relate to, even if you don’t really want to. In this case the three characters represent the worst of me rather than the best.

I think this is what captivated me, the very excellent performance of Steven Mackintosh as John Coniston; the forever overlooked, yet nonetheless perfectly adequate (with a good job, loving wife, and recently adopted daughter) counting house middle-manager. On the surface it is the age old archetype of the sterilised, castrated middle-aged white-man who, fed up of abject obscurity takes matters into his own hands and through a series of mental and physical trials manages to elevate his lowly status and achieve something spectacular, proving his masculinity in the process. Think; Falling Down, Rambo, Die Hard, hmm, kinda Fight Club*.

But in this instance John Coniston’s ambitions do not save the day (or the girl) but he completely fucks up his life and loses everything worthwhile. And most chillingly, he knows this and still does it willingly. He spells it out twice in the closing stages; to his accomplice Chris and to his wife – he had to do it, he says, not for the money, but to be the man he is capable of being. An Alpha male, a leader, ballsy and efficient. And ultimately, incredibly capable.

I feel his pain. I have an image in my head of a certain person I’d love to be. I would love to live a certain life, and for a large portion of my life I have thought I had some sort of purpose and plan that I was ordained to fulfil (thanks evangelical Christianity).

But I am not this person. Happily. Adventure is exciting but is often incredibly irresponsible.

Would a family fit in with this life? Would they gladly tow around after me, following each twist and turn and waiting diligently for me to burn up my excessive ego.

The downtrodden, middle-class white-man archetype is popular in mainstream cinema because there are so many people who feel they can relate to this castrated male image and who feel there is a ‘real man’ trying to break out of the sanitised corporate restraints.

Basically, men too preoccupied with their own privilege and comfort that they have to create something to fight against to prove they are real men after all.

This is John Coniston. He ‘needed’ to prove himself, and he did it, he succeeded. He fulfilled his potential, showed everyone (from his boss, the girl he fancies, his competition, his wife) what he really was. He won, didn’t he?

I fear this because I feel this desire exists in my character – which is why I go wild-camping once a year, I pretend to be a ‘real man’ – but men don’t just have balls, they have brains as well. And sometimes ‘growing a pair’ can mean NOT being a massive dick-head and destroying everything that is really important.

—
*Fight Club, like Inside Men, makes a comment on this genre rather than being a part of the genre itself. The narrator (no-name) shoots Tyler Durden (his dangerous, macho, masculine, alter-ego) and retires as an emancipated and yet moderated and responsible man. It shows both sides of the divide and he settles on an in-between.

Something that has come up time and again is the question ‘what started your fall from faith?’ as people, mostly Christian friends and family try to understand where I am spiritually. I was asked this recently via email which gave me the oppertunity to type it out and so here is my response (slightly edited) for you to snoop.

His Question:

‘I would be interested to know if there was anything in particular that began your fall from faith, a particular topic or event?’

My response:

… I’ll try to be really brief here as I could write a lot on what I see as the catalyst for my departure from Christianity. It has taken quite a lot of soul searching to try to figure it all out, so bear with me:

I came to Uni full of energy, enthusiasm and most importantly, Faith. The few years before Uni, in YF and the URC, had been challenging but excellent. I had had a few odd experiences, a few ‘misses’ faith-wise, were I had thought God had wanted me to do something and it had fallen on it’s face but nothing too out-of-the-ordinary; I felt some kind of calling to mission, possibly Russia, I had some ‘words from God’ that didn’t materialise etc. but on the whole I was keen as a bean.

I searched ahead at the CU I was planning on going to and found out it was pretty small and their website was awful. A perfect opportunity for me to be involved in different ways. I jumped in to CU, was involved from the start in various things and took every opportunity I could. I got involved in worship leading, I became the evangelism secretary for the CU, was involved a lot in outreach, one-on-one discussions with strangers, evangelism training (both given and received), ran events at Uni; lunchtime talks, music events, an ALPHA equivalent that I can’t remember the name of and other joint events with different Unis as well as a few weekends away. I ran the CU for two years in difficult circumstances and I went to Russia on a mission trip with UCCF, which was in some way testing what I had felt before Uni. And I met a whole load of really nice people and a few not-so-nice ones.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to say ‘look at me, I was amazing’ or to say anything about working for/instead of grace. What I am trying to say is; basically I think I had just enough faith to be dangerous. I put it all on the line, I made big decisions based on my faith and I played my whole hand. I stepped out of the boat…

You see, I (and I’m sure you do too) believed in a God who ACTS, who is interested in our lives and actively engages in them though; worship, revelations through scripture and teaching, an ongoing transformation process (sanctification) and through a two-way communication (prayer/answered prayer).

But what I felt after 4 years of acting on this belief like I had never done before was that my experience of God did not match up to the above list. And that the promises of Christianity had not been delivered. That God had not acted at all.

This made me question a lot, and looking back over my adult life of being a Christian there was not really any experiences that I felt I had any confidence in at all. There have been times of ecstasy, of clarity, of teaching and wonder – but actually they could all be explained by other, more simple and plausible means.

At this point I spoke to my Dad and to Lewis and I asked them, very clearly, “What experiences do you have of God that you can pin your faith on? Does God act? How do you know this?”

This was important to me – does God act in our lives at all?

If he does not then he is a different God that the one I have believed in for 15 years. If he does not then there is no way of knowing if he exists or not as the rest (Bible, Church, Stories etc.) are simply the history left over from a barbaric and ignorant people in the middle of the dessert. If there is no personal ‘evidences’ at all, no relationship, no interest – then God becomes arbitrary. The Bible could be the word of God, but it could just as easily not be, it does not prove itself within it’s own pages, so it takes a God to interact, to let us know that he is there and that we should be engaging with him at all.

So why pray? Why do anything this God says we should do, why evangelise? If there is no relationship then he is simply a dictator, setting down laws and boundaries, many of which have caused pain, ignorance and death rather than being anything near an inspired moral code. And although there is reason to obey a dictator (pain of death for example) the only reason I believed that this God existed in the first place was because I thought he had reached into my life at the age of 10 (and subsequently) and personally revealed himself to me.

With this in mind Christianity started to look very, very different. I was still a Christian, I was still praying, involved in Church, loving God, desiring him. But I was very confused at what exactly this God was. With an ounce of analytical and critical thinking Christianity and the Church seemed to become increasingly odd – it seemed ritualistic (going through motions, inducing responses), shallow (surface level, ticking boxes, shying from difficult questions), and seemed to be feeding a perfect diet to it’s followers to keep them believing against all else.

Anything of merit that came out of Christianity seemed to be self-generated, self-adhered and self-perpetuated by Christians, who were trying their hardest to be, to act and become who God wanted them to be, with little actual interaction (what we recognise as a ‘real’ relationship) from God. And, of course, based on a book that is barbaric (even the NT), nonsensical and bereft of much merit let alone morality at all.

The post ‘Why I am not reading my bible’ may cover some of this.

This was Chapter 1 of my fall from faith.

To sum up in one sentence; I decided that the ‘relationship’ we have with God is unrecognisable from any human relationship we have with humans, not better, but much, much inferior. It is one-sided (we do all the work), uncertain (he answers when and if it suits him, if at all) and it disproves itself on it’s own terms (the scriptures set out a standard that is ultimately not met) – God does not work in our lives.

The next 9 months were Chapter 2 which took me to last Christmas.
This year, 2011, has been Chapter 3.
But they will have to wait until another night, or another blog post.
Speak soon,
Kyle

First up is an article by @jennifurret on her experience of the online sexual abuse that seems to be commonplace for female bloggers and tweeters who hold and share an opinion online. Being a female on Twitter.

Similarly Laurie Penny’s article likens being an intellectually prominent woman online is the equivalent of wearing a mini-skirt – attracting casual sexual abuse from passers by.

Next up is @DavidFutrelle discussing the words of David R. Usher, the president of the right-wing Center for Marriage Policy. David R. Usher – who frankly is trying to use scare tactics, conspiracy theories and hyperbole – is attempting to whip up anti-gay-marriage feeling by elaborating threats to the patriarchy on three fronts: women, government and money. Feminist marriage will destroy America, apparently.

“Feminists … intend to convert marriage into a feminist-controlled government enterprise and subordinate the rest of America to fund it…Feminist marriage is a three-way contract between two women and government.” — David R. Usher

Yep. Lesbian marriage is not about love, how can it be? There are no men involved!
It must be a clever ruse for POWER, CONTROL and WEALTH! What else?
Idiot.

Finally, Can You Tell The Difference Between A Men’s Magazine And A Rapist?

No, neither can I or anyone else.

And on that topic how about this little tid-bit from Maxim magazine:

The bearded wonder has never been a feature of my seasonal celebration on the grounds that my Father was against him on principle.

I remember my Dad saying that a friend of his had grouped Santa in with Jesus as well as other fictional characters in a conversation, something like; ‘…like Jesus, Santa, the Easter bunny and all those other made up things…’ and this was partly the reason he did not want to confuse fiction and reality for his children; because if Santa was believed in and then turned out to be not real, the same thing may be considered of God. I have to say I couldn’t agree more, but perhaps for different reasons.

And reading this article the other day I had cause to consider what I really think: Let The Kids Believe In Santa – by Myra Zepf

Myra Zepf is a rationalist but her stance on Santa is that the fun that her and her children get from the charade is worth the deception.

My wife is of a similar ilk, her parents had Santa and supported the story with fabricated evidence as is the custom – reindeer prints in the snow being her most fond memory of this. Her Santa was fairly harmless in comparison to some, he brought one present for each child and the rest of the day was pretty much normal, civilised and with none of the feeding frenzy that sometimes comes with Christmas. Myra Zepf’s experience of a Santa who brings craft materials is similar and thoroughly wholesome.

So what is the problem with this kind of Santa  – what is so bad with a little fiction, a touch of magic, to bring the day to life?

I’m going to analyse my own rhetorical question – like a pretentious nob.

• What is so bad..? – so, we all agree that it is bad to some degree to lie to our children, good.
• …fiction, a touch of magic… – there is a difference between having a story that is known to be false and deceit, pretending it is real when you know it to be false. We are talking about the later and to do that we’re having to create actual evidence of the existence of a fictional, superior being. We are fabricating physical proofs, verifying Santa as a legitimate ‘real’ entity with communication (letters), interaction (drunken drinks) signs (footprints) and gifts (presents).
• What is the problem..? – When a child reaches a certain age the expectation is that they will come to their own senses to the existence or not of Santa. Either that, or an unscrupulous family member or friend will drop the bomb at an earlier time at which the child may be quite distraught and need some light-weight run of the mill counselling. The assumption is that it does no lasting damage. And that assumption may well be completely correct in all cases. But there is still a problem; my dad was right.

It creates a fiction that is sustained by consciously falsified evidence which cheapens what is real and true in our lives. It cheapens our authentic experiences of wonder, joy and anticipation because they can be engineered so easily, all it takes is a person in a position of trust to pull the wool over your eyes.

My Dad did not want the same thing to be applied to my understanding of God, I think it applies almost directly*, and for that reason I think it is not good.

* ‘almost directly’: the difference is rather than being supported by consciously falsified evidence religion offers unconsciously falsified evidence.

I am surprised by the Myra Zepf article because the religious parallels with what she says are so thick. For instance she says “For a household that prizes reason, scientific evaluation and critical thinking, we are currently so steeped in magic that the air almost glitters.”

Or, perhaps it should read:

“For a household that prizes reason, scientific evaluation and critical thinking, we just don’t bother when we enjoy making our children believe in a fictional being which they enjoy also.”

But does she not think that Christians (for example) also enjoy being Christians? Christians love the idea of salvation, eternity, of the elect and the chosen ones. The great commission and the revealed truth. The air almost glitters in churches with the apoplectic, energetic praise and wonder focused on the everlasting God and his miraculous power over our mysterious universe.

The children love the stories, it gives them excitement, the teens love the group security, the training for a cause, the adults love the responsibility and purpose that belief gives them.

I mentioned earlier the methods of deception with Santa as:
Communication (letters), interaction (drunken drinks) signs (footprints) and gifts (presents).

With religion it looks like this:

Communication (prayer), interaction (praise, emotional response) signs (healings, miracles) and gifts (answered prayer).

Enjoying something or wishing it to be true does not justify the putting aside of ‘reason, scientific evaluation and critical thinking’ and does not justify deceit at all. Because it cheapens our amazing and wonderfilled reality. Perhaps the willingness to compromise on reason in exchange for pleasure is why people find the everyday so ordinary.

Have a wonderful Christmas celebrating what you love the most and what you truly believe in.

But don’t waste your wonder.

Which changes things.
Do I go to Church on Christmas day?
What do I think about the nativity story?
Do I celebrate Christmas at all, on what grounds?

I’ll answer these in reverse order.

1. Do I celebrate Christmas?

Yes, I think so. Firstly there is this:

But also because there is much to celebrate about Christmas apart from the Christian religious elements. As a Christian in churches I would hear it said that Christmas was becoming ever more about the celebration, or food, or presents, or drink, or family and less about the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of Christ.

But this is quite misleading. Christmas as a holiday and a celebration has been overlaid on top of the pagan winter solstice celebration and many of these traditions can still be seen in our current interpretation of Christmas; the feasting, gift-giving, candles etc. So I have no problem with my participation here. I am basically participating in a winter get-together, feast and gift-giving the same as you are but if you want to add your religious beliefs on top of that, that’s fine with me.

2. The nativity story.

Again, as a story I have no problem with the nativity either. We have a lovely nativity book that I will have no problem reading to my Daughter as I did last year. It has nice little fluffy textured bits and it has animals, a baby, stars and the moon – pretty much my daughter’s favourite things. A story is a story.

The problem I have is parading it as a real event with all the historic trimmings. Even to the converted within the confines of the Church. Because even if Christianity is true (quite possible) the nativity story as told through scripture is almost certainly not. And church leaders surely know this, don’t they? The two accounts in Luke and Matthew tell different stories for a start. It is not quite a hands-down conspiracy but some amount of adaptation and elaboration has been conducted before the Bible has ‘gone to press’ to shoehorn the Old Testament prophecies in and so that the story sits on a more elaborate and ‘pre-destined’ backdrop.

The nativity issues:
• There was no census. There is no historical account of it – which is pretty much the long-term goal when conducting a census.
• So no reason for Mary & Joseph to travel to Bethlehem from their home in Nazareth. Even if there was a census of which there is no historical record there would be no reason to return to the land of Josephs Fathers – that is not how a census works, that is just called ‘going home’.
• If there is no Bethlehem that puts the whole ‘Inn and manger’ thing into question – if Mary and Joseph were still at home, why nip out to the shed to have a baby? Serious question.
• Also, there was no ‘killing of the innocents’ as recorded in Matthew. Historically it doesn’t figure, and it would have surely? It could have happened but on a very small scale of a dozen or so children so was not deemed important enough. But I was always under the impression that it was a great deal of children because “[Herod] killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under” sounds like a lot of Children. I didn’t realise that 2000 years ago the great civilised city of Bethlehem was neither great, civilised, nor a city.
• Jesus is said to be of the ‘line of David’ through his father’s (Joseph’s) heritage. But Joseph was not Jesus father.

A few things to ponder. If this much of the story was – at best sensationalised, at worst fabricated – what can we know about it? What can we pin our hopes, dreams and beliefs on if not the story of the virgin birth of Jesus?

None of the above points disprove the central messages of Christianity, I should add. That is not my intention here. But a respectful and yet critical approach should be adopted when a story with so much gravitas is shown to have serious flaws. The points made above are all fairly arbitrary really and are certainly mundane in light of the more miraculous aspects. So the central messages of the Christian faith all remain intact but the dubious historical backdrop that has been painted in sheds a shadow over the more miraculous claims. If the location was fabricated – why not the Virgin Birth?

Jesus was born of a virgin the story tells us. By the will of God. To be God on earth, the saviour of the world, for all mankind and for eternity. And this is believed wholeheartedly, affecting the decisions and judgements of individuals and nations alike for centuries. Unquestioningly (faith is a virtue). Based on a story that has a great deal made up. This quote maybe says it more concisely.

“Which is more likely: that the whole natural order is suspended, or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?” ~ David Hume

So, I do not have a problem with the nativity story, as a story. I don’t have a problem for someone to say that they believe the central message of the story is true. either. As that is a matter of faith.

But the approach taken from the pulpit is dishonest, especially when it comes to how the story is portrayed to children. You must be clear about these things with children – what is fact, what is a matter of faith and what is plain fiction. Church leaders surely know where these distinctions lie but do not readily pass them on to their congregation. And when it comes to children especially, that is dishonest.

I have to tell my daughter that the stories she reads in books or sees in videos are not real, she needs this distinction to be made. It must be vocalised, not left unsaid. Otherwise her world would be a very strange place to her; talking animals, floating babies and when you sleep you’re transported to the exceptionally odd world of ‘In the Night Garden’.

I have never heard a historic assessment of the story from the pulpit. Ever.

3. Do I go to church on Christmas Day?

I have done so every previous Christmas of my life. Not missed a single one. Even last year when I was no longer going to Church and I was pretty sure my faith was all but gone.

If I do not go this year it will be my first ever Christmas that I have not gone to Church on Christmas day.

I am struggling with this. My other-half says that it is to some extent a British tradition and she is in favour of it. Also her family, at whose house we will be this year and which has both believers and non-believers in it, all go to church on Christmas day.

I would be a bit of a wet lemon and would be putting on quite a show if I was not to go along; I would have to feel quite strongly about it. But of course I do feel quite strongly. I have invested 15 years and all my hopes and dreams, desires and decisions into Christianity. Feeling a tiny bit awkward for one hour on one day of the year hardly comes close.

I think I won’t go. Why would I go? Genuine question.
What does it have going for it, or for me?

So I watched Twilight. It was awful. Worse than awful; offensive.

But I know what it is like when a book is butchered by a film, condensing the 5 hour narrative into a 90 minute fly-through. So I read the book (audio-book). It is, unbelievably, actually so much worse. You see, while a film usually chops up the narrative into a barely recognisable bloody mess this film thankfully reduces the amount of extraneous garbage and extended, drawn out dribble that is taking the place of regular teenage thought processes and conversation.

Other people with more time and knowledge and who can write much better than me (or is it ‘I’) have done so here: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/twilight-lessons-girls-learn/

But just in case you do want my thoughts:

It is a backward, middle-American, sentimentalist, masochistic, servitudal dribble.

Bella is very much a possession rather than an individual. She is also completely helpless, hapless and horribly clingy.

She has attributes but they are completely overridden by her inability to do or think anything when she is around this boy.

She is quite quick witted with sharp enough come backs and retorts. She is, of course, good at household chores and other womanly things. But her greatest attribute is her willingness to be at the beck and call of the ‘God-like’ Edward and to not think it is weird when he is obsessive and abusive.

As for Edward himself. He is not brooding, mysterious and certainly not romantic. Edward is:

Aggressive
Possessive
Jealous
All-consuming
Controlling
Secretive
Obsessive – needs to know everything
Intrusive
Oversteps boundaries
Reckless

Pile of pish. But, to be honest, good research.