It's commonly known that no woman is entirely happy with her body 100% of the time. Well I suppose one or two may exist in the world but let’s face it they are few and far between. I admit I am lucky enough not to have a perfect body but to be happy with it most of the time. That’s MOST, which is far ALL.

What I really want to think about in this post however is not how we should all embrace the figures we naturally have more etc etc (which of course we should) but where this dislike of our bodies is coming from. The popular modern answer seems to be “from the media”. This is an argument that has obvious strengths, in the modern world we are bombarded by images of perfect looking models that possess chests of impossibly perfect size, waists that are gorgeously narrow and derrières that are just… perfect! We inevitably compare these perfect perfect forms to our own and (because evolution in it’s great providence has made us all uniquely) find that we do not match up. To compare what we have with what someone else has is human nature, I did it first thing this morning while still wrapped in my duvet as I looked out of my window and contrasted what my garden looked like covered in snow with what my neighbours’ gardens did. The results were in my favour J.

Anyway, my point is, perhaps it’s not the media’s fault. Is it in our nature to be self critical? If we didn’t care or know what anyone else’s body was like would we still look in the mirror and think, it would be great if my tummy protruded slightly less? Perhaps we are born with a sense of what’s a beautiful body and we’re born thinking its not ours. After all, I know when my garden looks beautiful covered in snow and I don’t see snow covered gardens everyday in the media.

Well there’s some food for thought. Must dash, I have a hot date with Jesus and some rugged-looking disciples in my bed!

Want a translation? I’m a big fan off the BBC’s short series “The Passion” which covers the last week of Jesus’ life and I’m about to watch on BBC iPlayer on my laptop snuggled up warm in bed. It’s an excellent series and I would recommend you head over to BBC iPlayer now but, sadly it will probably be taken off by the time you read this, sorry (but it's worth a try!).

I have to say, at various points in my life I’ve seen a few of these types films but this is by far the best, I’ve done so much thinking about Jesus this Easter that I’m truly shocking myself. Kudos to the guy who plays Jesus in it, it’s an incredible performance. However what I really like about this drama though is that it makes you see the side of the traditional Easter story baddies, the Jewish and Roman authorities who put him to death, in many ways you sympathize with them. Anyways this was supposed to be a girly post not a religious film review… I may do that in another entry though, as I said it really is a very good film.

 

 Jesus: You're telling me that in 2000 years I'll be reduced to being featured under headings like 'Girls and our bodies'? Christ almighty!

 

 

In emails that I think are likely to be of little to no consequence, where I am unlikely to meet or indeed have never met the intended recipient, I generally use this format:

Mr/Mrs/Miss X,

yada yada yada

Thanks, (this part is optional, depending on whether I like the person)

Mary.

However I today was writing an email and decided to take a little more care and therefore used what you'll generally find to be talked of as the best word to use as the start of an email “Dear”. But it occurred to me how odd this word actually is. Having only met him once, the person I was emailing wasn't exactly dear to me although I liked him enough not to want to use the rather abrupt address of simply using his name as I've put above, which rather gives the feeling of “hey you, do this”. Similarly it feels rather out of place when people email me with “Dear Mary” when I know I am not dear to them. Continuing with the example of the email I sent earlier, I've received a reply and it was begun “Dear Mary”. Of course, it was the appropriate wording, especially as I had used it myself but in both emails it looked odd to me.

Ironically, I wouldn't use “Dear” when emailing any of the people who actually are dear to me, in fact those closest to me are unlikely to get any kind of salutation in the emails they receive from me as they are the most informal communications I send and therefore I generally launch straight into the content of whatever I need from them. But then despite there being nothing at the beginning, there will probably be love and kisses at the end.

So basically what I'm saying is maybe we need rethink the word “dear” at the beginning of emails as we really only use it when addressing those who aren't dear to us and never use it when addressing those who are. Then again, it’s probably just that I have a problem with reading the word too much, most people see “dear” simply as the-word-you-use-before-a-name-in-correspondence but I always see that word as in person-who-is-dear-to-me.

Even so, “dear” is a handy little word and I will probably continue to use it!

 

An "Infidel challenge" has been launched on the internet. The challenge is to "create a horribly drawn image of Islam’s prophet Mohammad, and display it in a public area." the internet counts as a public area.

I shall not be submitting an entry.

I was about to say something along the lines of "the atheists that did this put us all to shame" or "I can’t believe an atheist would do this" but then I realised, of course I can't say that, I have no right to say that. The problem with us atheists as a group or as a community is that unlike religious communities we by definition have to no moral standards to hold ourselves and each to. Therefore we cannot frown upon members of our community (if indeed as I hope there is a small idea of one) who do things that go against our values as we have none collectively. I suppose all this time I have been writing principles that I believe an atheist community should live by at the back of my mind. I've always thought that it is our duty in a way to prove to the rest of the world that we are not in fact the spawn of the devil as many seem to think (see previous post) put we're just normal people and just because we have no religion does not mean that we cannot create our own morals principles with which to live our lives. I hoped that tolerance and respect for others could be one of those principles, but I see it is not.

I can see why people doing this, why is was started and why people are taking up the challenge. Of all the belief systems in the world it has constantly been atheism that people have felt it's ok to believe is evil. In a way, the fact that this drawings are seen as a rebellion shows this. If a similar challenge were to occur in some kind of fundamentalist Christian community I'm sure no one would make a big deal out of it, many Christian teaching talk of the wrongs of us heathens. It is somehow seen as more morally wrong to insult religions.  I suppose we're used to being labeled as the evil non believers and getting those "convert or die" email through (or am I the only one?) but I guess we know they're good people really, they're just slightly mislead by their misinterpreted version of religion.  And yet I don't believe it is right to retaliate in the same way.

Just because we don't not hold the Prophet Mohammed as sacred does not mean we should treat him in this way. Just imagine if it were someone's parents, just because you don't love them don't mean that you disrespect their name. The Prophet is a figure who gains the highest respect from Muslims and I don't see why we shouldn't respect that.

It is true that atheism has few particularly good deeds to its name specifically unlike religion. However unlike religion as yet we also have very few bad ones, we don't wage in the name of atheism or hurt people in the name of the no-God. Starting this disgusting assault on Islam on brings us closer to the bad side of religion. If we do this we lose the one thing we ever claimed to have as a community, tolerance of others.

This reminds me again of the imdb boards before the Golden Compass was released, there was a lot of fierce arguing going on and I have to say it really was mostly Christians insulting atheists but I remember seeing a wonderful dignity in those who calmly explained their point of view without feeling the need to insult the other side.

As an atheist it’s always fun to have a good argument with a believer and yet once that argument turns into openly insulting believers how many steps are we away from becoming the sort of fundamentalists that harm others in the name of their beliefs that we spend our whole lives condemning?

I'm going to be getting hate mail from theists and atheists alike now!  The things I do for my beliefs...  

"Atheism for kids. That is what Philip Pullman sells".  So sayeth the "Catholic League" in disgusted tones.  Now this really makes quite angry, and I am not often angry.  SO WHAT IF HE IS SELLING ATHEISM FOR KIDS IT'S JUST ANOTHER WORLD VIEW, STOP MAKING IT SOUND LIKE WE ARE SELLING DEADLY DISEASES, WE'RE NOT!  Also, lets face it, it's not us that are preaching babies with wings in the sky.  If the Catholic League (lets call them CL) dared to say in such horrified tones that they are "selling Islam for Kids" the lot of them would probably be locked up for inciting religious hatred.  However, they're insulting atheism so of course it's ok, it doesn't matter, in fact it's quite good so they'll put it on their main site.  As long as they can shield the eyes of their religious children away from such obviously demonic films, books and other forms of freedom of expression for those bringers of evil... the a-t-h-e-i-s-t-s.

I'm sorry, I should really explain what the hell I'm going on about before launching into a rant... but I just needed to let it out of my system, sorry.  So, in honor of the genre of art about which I base the post, let's have an exposition:

MARY in a delightfully sweet Julie Andrews style voice: Once upon a time there lived an atheist and this atheist's name was Mr Pullman.  Mr Pullman was scholar, he attended Oxford and soon after realized much to his delight that he was a rather dab hand a writing.  Being an intelligent man and aware of the importance of the littlest in our society Mr Pullman began writing children's books and was soon very successful!  After a while it occurred to Mr Pullman to try to combine his love of writing children's books with his interest in the religious and more specifically atheism.  Therefore he proceeded to pen a trilogy of books.

CHILD 1:  Whats "trilogy"?

MARY: It means a series of three books.  The name he gave to this trilogy was "His Dark Materials", rather grand and impressive don't you think? 

CHILD 2: It's a wonderful name!

MARY: I'm glad you like it!  Anyway, this story was about a wonderful adventure involving a girl called Lyra who crossed between worlds, saw spirits, angels and eventually.. "The Authority"!

CHILD 3: Who's "The Authority?"

MARY: It's the name nice Mr Pullman gave to God.  You see he knew it was for children and he knew mummies and daddies would never let their children read it if it was horrible about God.  But of course, we know that you're more intelligent than that!  Now, where was I?  Oh yes, the book published and it was great success!  However, there were mumblings of protest among the Catholic church but they were fairly quiet mumblings so people generally ignored them.  However, many many years later, a film began to be produced of the books and the mumblings promptly got a lot louder.

CHILD 2:  Why were the nice church people complaining?

MARY: Well some of them felt that the films and books were offensive to their religion, in fact they hoped that the film would do badly in the box office.  You see, they didn't seem to want their children to read any other points of view apart from their religion.  Not even in storybooks.  The CL said "no parent who wants to bring their children up in the faith will want any part of these books"

CHILD 4:  But it's just a story!

MARY:  That's a wonderful point, I think you should tell the CL that.  In fact, here's £10 for you to buy it yourself.

THE END

You see another thing that annoys me about this whole lark is that the films are being religiously (in both senses) watered down so as to not offend the religious.  In fact I've heard the first film has no reference to God whatsoever.  I do wonder however what they are going to do when they get to book 3, which very very obviously deals with religious themes such as angels, heaven, hell, free will, body and soul, consciousness and of course God who is portrayed as a very fragile physical being who in fact dies during the book (spoiler, highlight to read).  It will be such a shame if this film turns out not to be all that it could be because of some extreme censorship, it really will.

That was quite a long post so I would like to end properly, with a thought that that you can "take home with you" as it were.  It is one of (if not the) last sentences in the book.  It is a sentiment expressed by a main character a sums up much of the book, paraphrased it is - let us together build and live in the Republic of Heaven.

Yup, the Republic of Heaven.

It's true that for a while, too long, I didn't have an answer for the Paley's watch argument for God.  It also also true to say that I still think that the "argument from design" as it is called is one of the strongest and most convincing arguments for the existence of God that I have come across.  Happily however, a few months ago I realized the answer, I always knew there was an answer to it simply because the argument had never convinced me, I can just be abit slow at catching on sometimes.

Let me outline very simply the "Paley's watch" argument for the existence of God.  Ok, so imagine you're wondering along on a nice sunny day, walking along soft grass, the birds are singing in the trees and you are pondering the meaning of life or some such.  

Suddenly in your path is shiny new watch, perhaps (God forbid!) you almost trip on it (would have to be a fairly sizable watch though).  I'm sure you wouldn't think to yourself, this watch came of its own accord, grown organically out of nothing with no creator, no purpose, the nothingness of space suddenly decided to create a watch and plonk it before you.  No, of course you wouldn't.  You would think, this is a watch, a watch factory made it, a watch designer cleverer than myself produced it and this probably belongs to someone. 

Or in Paley's own words:

 "But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. "

The reasoning goes that therefore its ridiculous to come across the universe as complex as it is and not assume it had a designer.  Seems to make sense really.  Until... you realize that you assume the watch has a designer because you have seen other such watches around that you happen to KNOW came out of a watch factory and were designed by Rolex/Omega etc.  Therefore, upon coming across a similar watch like construct it is sensible to assume it has a similar history.  I have not come across any other universes that I happen to KNOW have designers so it does not follow that I should assume that our universe/existence has a designer.  Elementary really.

 

 

 

I was putting up some new curtains the other day and anyone who has ever put up curtains I'm sure will agree with me that getting the crinkles at the top just right is by far the most difficult aspect of this particular activity.  Now because they were new curtains and I know they'll be there for a very long time I was doing my utmost to get the crinkly bit at the top perfect.  I'm not exaggerating when I say I spent about two hours trying to get the crinkles even so that the curtains hung perfectly.  However as my arms got heavier and my neck got creakier I thought that perhaps with crinkles, perfection is acceptance.

We consider something to be perfect when we consider it to be just right.  Over time when I look at my curtains I'll get more and more used to the fact they are (to my current annoyance) a slightly less crinkled at the sides than in the middle.   However as with everything, I will get so used to it that how they are will become how the 'should be', and how they are will become perfect.

It's like how some people must have a table at a certain place in the room otherwise its just not right, its not perfect.  They've got used to that table in a certain position that it has become the 'perfect' place for it.  If all the public exams I have ever taken in the past suddenly became full marks, some people would say those marks are more perfect but they wouldn't be perfect for me.  I'm comfortable with the marks I have and I've planned my life round those marks, it would be odd at distinctly uncomfortable if I suddenly got straight As. (or maybe I'm just telling myself this to make myself feel better!)

So my point really is, if anyone is worried about they're curtains, exams results, house, hair colour, over time they will* become perfect.  Isn't that a nice thought?

*sadly, you probably have to think like me for this to work....