The Labour Humanist

Top of the freethinking atheist pops (Nominations 5): Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ian Brown

The nominations keep rolling in, I think we're going to end up with a cracking list at the end of the exercise. Here's the next two nominations.

Nomination 11
The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Shallow by thy name
Check these lyrics (and video)out, get off the fence boys!

"To anyone who's listenin'
You're not born into sin
The guilt they try and give you
Puke it in the nearest bin
...
To think that you're above
The laws of nature what a joke
oh Purple sashes feeding masses
Smoke on which to choke"

Nomination 12
Ian Brown - F.E.A.R

Now I'm not 100% sure of the lyrical intent, but it pretty much looks like a negative equation of the religious impulse with the fear of uncertainty. Some lyrics and the video below:

"For each a road
For everyman a religion
Face everybody and rule
For everything and rumble
Forget everything and remember
For everything a reason
 
You got the fear
You got the fear
...

Final eternity arouses reactions
Freeing excelle
nce affects reality
Fallen empires are ruling
Find earth and reef
 
Fantastic expectations
Amazing revelations
Final execution and resurrection
Free expression as revolution
Finding everything and realizing
 
You got the fear
You got the fear
..."

Recap, Nominations so far

1. The Cardigans - Godspell
2. That Petrol Emotion - Creeping to the cross
3. Oasis - Do you know what I mean?
4. Ziggy Marley - Love is my religion
5. The Hoodoo Gurus - Middle of the Land
6. Nine Inch Nails - Heresy
7. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Born secular
8. The Shamen - Jesus Loves Amerika
9. The Clash - Rock the Casbah
10. Teenage Fanclub - Starsign
11. Willie Dixon - I ain't superstitious
12. Red Hot Chilli Peppes - Shallow by thy name
13. Ian Brown - F.E.A.R

Going to church and voting for the right makes you scientifically illiterate

The graphs, consider the graphs of shame! New research shows that people who go to church regularly and/or Republican are most likely to be evolution deniers:

Thanks to BLIGBI

The quotes of the week

From Christopher Hitchens and his Q&A for the Times:

"I remember once saying, in despair, to my somewhat turbulent two-year-old son: "I suppose you know that Santa Claus knows what's going on here," and it was like waving a magic wand, and I remember thinking this is what the priests must have worked out a long time ago."

And this quote is pretty good as well:

"There was ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University challenging the graduates to confront 'the radical secularists' who 'insist that religious belief is inherently divisive and that public debate can only proceed on secular terms.' Excuse me, but how would you have a public debate in religious terms? A Scripture-quoting competition?"

(Carol Towarnicky, Philadelphia Daily News)

Labour Deputy Leadership candidates take part in Humanist survey

Labour's six candidates for the post of deputy leader of the Party have all taken part in a survey of their views on issues such as faith control of schools and welfare, House of Lords reform and assisted dying. Their responses are on the web site of the Labour Humanist Group.

The Basil Fawlty model of conducting relationships with party members

Fingers crossed that today's stories of Gordon Brown allowing party supporters more say and involvement in policy development will actually happen. In many ways Tony Blair's approach to the fine men and women who make up the grassroots of the Labour movement was to distance himself as much as he could. I am indebted to this Fawlty Towers analogy from Richard Heller published on Jon Cruddas' web site, which paints the picture splendidly:

"In the last four years we have shed over four million voters and half of our party's membership. It is not hard to figure out why so many of our most loyal supporters have deserted. The government has treated them like Basil Fawlty treats his long-term guests on Gourmet Night. As riff-raff. They have been insulted and sent to their rooms in the hope of attracting a better class of customer. New Labour's Gourmet Night has been as big a disaster as Basil's. The regulars are leaving the hotel and no new customers are coming in to replace them."

Top of the freethinking atheist pops (Nominations 4): The Clash and Teenage Fanclub

Right I reckon I've got some official stonkers for you this time around.

Nomination Nine
The Clash - Rock the Casbah

I reckon that regular readers suspected this was going to be nominated at some point, and quite right too. One of the band's better known numbers this simply has to be included for its lampooning of how religious leaders can't stand rock and pop culture and how they seek to control it or ban it.  It blends this theme together with the insane hatreds of middle east politics. This song attacks religious leaders in a way that, I suspect, if released today would face many, many calls for it to be censored and taken off the radio. How things change eh?

Nomination Ten
Teenage Fanclub - Starsign

This song by Teenage Fanclub, great in its own right, demonstrates a fantastic contempt for new age superstitious beliefs and their attraction to selfish, vain individuals. The lyrics revolve around various new age activities followed by the response "big deal"...love it! Lyrics and video for the song:

Hey there's a horseshoe on my door; big deal.
And say there's a black cat on the floor, big deal.

If these things make your day
Well if these things change your day

Well do you know where you belong?
And is your star sign ever wrong?

If these things change your day,
Well if these things make your day
Seen it all before, seen it all before...
In a time these things will change

Hey there's a side of me unknown, big deal.
And say, should this unknown force be shown, big deal.

If these thoughts make your day
Well if these thoughts change your day
Seen it all before, seen it all before
Given time these things will change
Seen it all before, seen it all before
Given time these things will change.

Recap, Nominations so far

1. The Cardigans - Godspell
2. That Petrol Emotion - Creeping to the cross
3. Oasis - Do you know what I mean?
4. Ziggy Marley - Love is my religion
5. The Hoodoo Gurus - Middle of the Land
6. Nine Inch Nails - Heresy
7. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Born secular
8. The Shamen - Jesus Loves Amerika
9. The Clash - Rock the Casbah
10. Teenage Fanclub - Starsign
11. Willie Dixon - I ain't superstitious

Never had this feeling before, I'm a floating voter

Never had this feeling before, I'm a floating voter.

I've got my ballot papers today for the election of a new deputy leader of the Labour Party, and I still really don't know who to vote for.

As others have said, the quality of the six candidates is really impressive. Any of them would do a good job and there's no way either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats could find six candidates of this calibre.

I think Cruddas, Johnson and Harman are on my shortlist. Still there's no rush to make a decision yet and I'll read with interest when the Labour Humanist Group publish the result of their candidate survey.

Getting to grips with those huge timescales of evolution

This is a great resource. Children often have trouble conceptualising the huge timescales involved in the development and evolution of life on Earth, in fact, many adults have trouble as well. So have a go yourself and point your mouse and slide through evolution.

Is the Dutch Labour Party "muzzling" activists who want to help victims of religious intolerance, I really hope not

I can't emphasise how much I hope this story isn't true, because if it is, then it is to the eternal shame of our comrades in the Dutch Labour Party. The accusation is that the party are trying to muzzle a young activist of Iranian heritage, Ehsan Jami, who is organising to assist other people who want to leave Islam but face horrendous hurdles, including threats of violence or murder. Sounds like exactly the kind of thing a young Labour activist should be involved with, as I said, I just hope this is wrong is some way, and that I can blog instead about trash media cooking up a load of nonsense.

To be stoned to death for having an "extra marital affair"

Vile Islamic courts in Iran are carrying out judicial murder through the in-human barbarity of stoning people to death for the "crime" of having an "extra marital affair".  I have no hesitation in asking people to read this story and take the recommended action.