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Introduction and welcome

Posted by Tim on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 | View Comments (17)
 

Hi, welcome to the new Religion is Bullshit! website.

If you have been here before you will notice that I've re-designed the site and added this blog section. The main part of the site will still be the articles - which I have yet to add, along with a number of links and other stuff. I'll be doing this over the next few weeks - I just wanted to get the site up and running again in the meantime.

Thanks go to Brother Jeff for letting me have the religionisbullshit.com domain, and for letting me use some of the material from his original Religion is Bullshit site. Jeff is back with a new site at religionisbullshit.org - well worth visiting regularly.

Ok, some background:

I don't consider myself an "ex-Christian". Although I accepted much of what was told to me about God as a kid, I'm not sure I ever truly believed it - I certainly questioned such things at an early age. Nowadays I find it hard to believe that anyone, apart from maybe young children, can believe in such complete utter bullshit! Strangely, I personally know intelligent Christians (surely that's an oxymoron?) but none of them seem to be able to explain or justify their beliefs.

I'm English. That's worth pointing out because England, unlike much of the U.S. it would seem, is not "Jesusland". There are plenty of Christians around, but they are not generally fundamentalists. Evolution is generally accepted (there is even a picture of Darwin on the back of the £10 note). Religion is, in many ways, dying out here (and partly being replaced by a sort of vague "spirituality") but as it does so the remaining believers start shouting louder. There are some ancient blasphemy laws (which are generally ignored) but these may be replaced by laws against "religious hatred" (which I don't see as much of an advantage as they would very likely cause problems for free speech - I'll be blogging on this subject in due course).

I'm a church organist ..... Ok, before I get called a hypocrite, let me explain.
I am a musician and make my living in various ways - this is just one of them. It is a very liberal church and I have made it clear that I do not share their beliefs. I do not take part in active worship - I play for the hymns, a few bits and pieces the choir sing, and "general bullshit music" while people enter or leave. I actually like some of the music - in fact I would say that the only worthwhile contribution to the world religion has made is to inspire some great works of art.

I am very liberal and left-wing but I don't want to put off right-wing atheists. I have another blog for my political and general rants and will try not to let the two blogs bleed into each other.

Finally, I have not got email set up at either religionisbullshit.com or religionisbullshit.net - so believers in mythical deities will be wasting their time trying to convert me, judge me or send me viruses in the name of the Lord!