The Irony of it all .......

Don't you just love the irony of it. Look at this picture. Remind you of someone? It's the face that many renaissance painters used when depicting Jesus. And it continues to be the face that many people think of as Jesus.

It's actually Cesar Borgia, the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI (Pope from 1493-1502). Pope Alexander has the reputation of being the most Machiavellian of the renaissance Popes - plotting, poisoning, nepotism, scheming, enriching the Borgia family at the expense of the Catholic Church. Cesar is supposed to have murdered his older brother to become the Pope's favourite. He was made a Bishop at the age of 15 and a Cardinal at the age of 18. He was the first person ever to resign as a Cardinal so that he could get more money and power through conquest of Northern and Central Italian states.

Machiavelli was a great fan and many of Cesar's exploits are cited in "The Prince" as guides to governance. For example on New Year's Eve in 1503 he invited to a meeting in Sinigallia three of his captains who had been questioning his aims and methods so that they could sort out their differences in a civilised manner. When they got there he had them imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Good stuff.

In his time he was the feared warlord of Italy - people dreaded coming under his spotlight because often it lead to a painful death. His was one of the best known faces at the time. So who's face do you think was often used by renaissance painters when they were creating their masterpieces for the Catholic Church (i.e. Pope Alexander VI)?

So, thanks to the Catholic Church, the most recognised face of Christ is actually that of a mass murderer and tyrant. Don't you just love the irony?

Why religion damages society (1)

Most of the things that makes our lives better come about because of human discovery - cars, computers, medicines, public health, high food production, and so on. Take these away and life gets shorter, more painful and a fight just to survive. Just look at the difference between life here in the developed world and life in the third world.

The thing is that these advances in human knowledge come about because we have inquisitive minds. Why does that happen? How does that happen? And by trying to answer these questions we make discoveries and progress is made.

The problem with religion is that it deliberately tries to styphle these inquiries because they say they have the answers. "Why does this happen? - because God says so" or "How does this happen? - by God saying it should". Islam says that everything you ever need to know is in the Koran - that book written 1200 years ago out of a guy's dreams. So no need for any other research or inquiry. Look how the Catholic Church tried to stop Galileo from pursuing his theories on the sun, the planets and the universe, because they felt that everything you needed to know was in the Bible.

Thank god that the power of the christian church waned enough to let true scientific discovery develop. If the church had its way, we would all be living like the third world.

It's all the Muslims' fault - apparently

Now, I'm sorry if this blog seems to be obsessed with the many failings of the Catholic Church, but its just that politics (my other passion) is so boring and managerial these days that its only the hypocrisy of this overbearing institution that fires me up. So, here's the latest.

There's a particularly thuggish Liverpudlian called The Very Reverend Vincent Nichols who is currently the Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham. He's being tipped to take-over from Cardinal Hume as the Church's next leader in Britain. He was interviewed in The Times the other day and came out with a tirade of superstitious thinking, such as "I'd go to watch Liverpool and stand on the Kop at Anfield and say to God "Why don't you just leave me alone? Why cant I just be one of a crowd?" People who hear incessant voices in their head tend to end up in prison, mental homes or the church. It's curious how we send people to the first two institutions to prevent them acting on those voices and harming society, and yet when they enter the church they are positively encouraged to act on their delusions do untold damage to society in the process.

Anyway, the point of all this is that he was asked why Britain had become so anti-religious. His staggering reply was that it was all the Muslim's fault! "The acts of terrorism have shaken people's perception of the presence of faiths in this country and the world".

Hmmm....... and what about before 9/11 then? Was Britain a significantly more religious country? Of course not. Faith, thank god, has been declining continuously for years - what a cheap shot to blame the Muslims for the failure of the Catholic Church.

But its even worse than that - and here's where the hypocrisy comes in. The Catholic Church built its political power and its enormous wealth on the back of murder, torture and theft. As early as 1209 the Pope's crusade against the Cathars down here in Southern France saw tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children slain by "The Host", many horribly tortured and then burnt alive. Indeed, when they sacked my local city of Beziers on July 22nd, the soldiers asked the Abbot leading the crusade how they knew which of the civilians were Catholic and which were heretics, he replied "Kill them all. God will recognise his own". In one day the Catholic church murdered over 20,000 people. Just put that into perspective - that's about 7 times more than died on 9/11. And remember, the 12 terrorists who smashed into the World Trade Centre just had to aim their planes at it and everything was over in a few minutes. Think how long it takes, and how much human effort, to kill 20,000 people by hand.

Then, for the next 600 years, up until just 180 years ago, the Inquisition - established and supported by successive Popes - brutally tortured and burnt to death around 600,000 so-called heretics. People were encouraged to name supposed heretics, who they then rounded up and horribly tortured. Once these innocent people eventually confessed (and inevitably they did after days and weeks of torture) they were burnt alive. And all their worldly goods were then stolen by the church to keep the Pope in all the finery and Prada shoes that he so loves.

And when they got bored of hunting heretics, they turned on women in a 200 year orgy of burning witches. Between 50,000 - 100,000 innocent women were tortured and burnt alive.

By the way, in case being burnt alive doesn't sound too bad, just remember that the Catholic Church felt it was more fun to tie their victims a little way above the fire so that they didn't die straight away, but slowly roasted alive feet first to prolong the agony.

So, whilst the would-be Cardinal blames the Muslims for all the world's woes, he should just reflect that his own institution prospered on murder, torture and theft and, had the growth of secularism not put a clamp on its powers, it would no doubt be practicing as much of this as it could get away with today. The Catholic Church - from the Pope down - was very happy to use the political system of the nazi regime (just 60 years ago) to continue its persecution of the Jews as heritics, actively working with the nazis to identify and transport jews and homosexuals to the death camps.

I look forward to more erudite words from the man who may well soon be pontificating more widely on morals in this country.

New Labour, new hypocracy

It has just been revealed that the former Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly (pictured right), has sent her child to a private school because she believes her local school can't meet his educational needs. Her statement defends her decision and her right to do what is best for her children. I have no problem with that sentiment.

But surely what her statement should have said is this :

"For many years I have been a leading member of a Government that has actively worked to remove the choice of parents to send their children to private schools. Indeed, as Secretary of State for Education, I was the standard bearer of this particular ideology. I now understand that I was wrong and that the state school system cannot meet the needs of all of the country's children. Since I believe that a mother's first duty is to her children I have no option but to act in direct opposition to one of my Government's core policies. It is clear that I therefore cannot in all honesty continue to remain as a Cabinet Minister. I do not believe that any decent person with a conscience could defend such a hypocritical position. I therefore resign my cabinet position so that I can spend more time with my children".

Now, wouldn't that be refreshing, eh?

STOP PRESS - The Bible doesnt make sense!

If there really is a God, so intelligent that he designed the universe and all that is in it, and so omnipresent that he can see and hear everything that each of us ever does or think, then there's a problem with the Bible. Because the Bible makes so many basic mistakes - the sort of thing that a 12 year old nowadays would be able to see are just wrong (sun goes round the earth; earth made in 6 days; that sort of thing).

So, there's two explanations. First, the Bible isn't actually the word of God, its just the ramblings of deluded bronze-age tribes in the middle east who just didn't understand how things work and are saying what they (not some god) thought to be the truth at the time. Secondly, it has all come from God, but he must have known that he was having a joke - because he is so intelligent that he would know it was all wrong.

So, in either case, its a bit silly to lead your life by the Bible - you're either living by stone age morals or you're unwittingly part of a great cosmic joke. And what a book to lead your life by - full of instructions from God to murder, rape, abuse women, be bigoted, commit genocide, kill people for working on Sundays, all that sort of evil stuff. I really do wonder whether the folk who say that this book rules their life have ever actually read it - all of it, not just the bits they like.

The wise always learn from History

Well, I just wonder..........I'm reading a great book about the life of Talleyrand, the Foreign Minister of France during the reign of Napoleon and (due to careful manoeuvring) the French kings who succeeded him. It all starts to sound a bit familiar. In France there developed this huge divide between the aristocracy (specifically the court of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette) and the rest of the country. As the nobility enjoyed huge wealth and an amazing lifestyle, consuming the largest amounts of the nation's wealth, the (majority) general population of France starved. They died whilst the rich partied.

Jump forward 200 years. The Nation state is actually just an 18th century phenomenon. Now, with global communications and travel, the world itself is becoming one community. I just wonder whether we need to learn from the fate of the French Court. A relatively small, privileged group, was consuming and living well whilst the masses starved and gradually became aware what was happening. And now we in The West party, consume and live well, whilst the masses.....you get the picture.

Maybe, just maybe, we need to learn from the French Revolution......... except, of course, that our control of power is SO great, its impossible ever to think of it ever being overthrown....... hang on.... that's what Louis XVI thought........

As you sow, so shall ye reap

One of the good things about having a blog is that, on those rare occassions when your letter to The Times is not printed, you can reproduce it here. So, here's my last letter to The Times.

Last week The Times covered 3 pages with a story about Christian Unions (the christian societies on university campuses) suing students unions. This is because the CUs dont comply with the SU's policies, especially their anti-discrimination policies (e.g the CUs wont let homosexuals attend their meetings). Here's my letter -

"Christian Unions who are complaining that they are being prevented from following their religious beliefs on campus would deserve more sympathy if they were not so selective about which beliefs they choose to follow and which they ignore. For example, whilst the Bible clearly proscribes homosexuality – which the Christian Unions uphold – it also dictates that menstruating women should not be allowed within a mile of a temple and that a Christian woman who chooses to marry into a different religion should be stoned to death. I don’t think that the Christian Unions are actively seeking to uphold these particular Biblical teachings. In reality, selective religious belief has for too long been used as a cover for plain bigotry.

"And whilst everyone is free to hold their beliefs, small groups of Christian activists should not be surprised when our overwhelmingly secular society refuses to support their blatant attempts to avoid complying with basic human rights and anti-discrimination legislation."

There, that feels better. Lets keep fighting the good fight against all these horrible religions.

200th anniversery of Napoleon's triumph

It was a cold, foggy morning in the great forests of Northern Germany and the army of the King of Prussia was feeling falsely confident. The inheritors of Frederick the Great's unbeaten military machine had no doubt that they would crush the rabble of revolutionary soldiers that was the French Grand Army. So what if just one year earlier, on December 2nd 1805, Napoleon had scored his greatest ever victory, destroying the combined armies of Russia and Austria in the frozen fields of eastern Europe at Austerlitz, even though outnumbered 2 to 1. The Prussians were known throughout Europe as the most disciplined army in the world. They could maneuver on the battlefield as if they were on the parade ground. They had never been beaten. They were spectacular. They were awesome. And they were totally destroyed by the lightning attack of Napoleon. In one day, 200 years ago, on October 14th 1806 Napoleon caught the Prussians unaware in twin battles at Jena and Auerstadt. Napoleon at the head of the Grand Army believed, in the fog, that he was facing the full Prussian Army at Jena, and he smashed it out of existence. In fact, that was just the advance guard. The main Prussian Army was 20 miles away at Auerstadt. Marshal Davoust, Napoleon's most competent Marshal, stumbled across the Prussians with his III Corps. Outnumbered 3 to 1 he gave battle and after 6 gruelling hours turned it to flight. In one day the stiff, slow, outdated, overconfident Prussian Army was wiped out by the modern, cheeky, risk-taking, swift and driven French.
200 years on, the French have chosen to ignore this anniversary. God knows they have few enough victories to celebrate. It is ironic that last year the French sent more troops, politicians and diplomats to join the 200th anniversary of their defeat at the battle of Trafalgar than they have committed to celebrating any of their Napoleonic victories.
This is the best known picture of this battle. The soldier is saying to Napoleon "send us forward now sire" and Napoleon is saying "when, like me, you have fought 20 battles then you can presume to give me advice" Carlos and I have had the painting reproduced, but with him and me on the horses next to Napoleon - how camp is that?