No.

As a scientist, I am accustomed to the idea that truth claims ought to be justified with some reasonable evidence: if one is going to claim, for instance, that a Jewish carpenter was the son of a God, or that there is a place called heaven where some ineffable, magical part of you goes when you die, then there ought to be some credible reason to believe that. And that reason ought to be more substantial than that it says so in a big book.

Religious claims all seem to short-circuit the rational process of evidence-gathering and testing and the sad thing is that many people don’t see a problem with that and even consider it a virtue. It is why I don’t just reject religion, but actively oppose it in all its forms - because it is fundamentally a poison for the mind that undermines our critical faculties.

Religious beliefs are lazy jokes with bad punchlines. Why do you have to chop off the skin at the end of your penis? Because God says so. Why should you abstain from pork, or shrimp, or mixing meat and dairy, or your science classes? Because they might taint your relationship with God. Why do you have to revere a bit of dry biscuit? Because it magically turns into a God when a priest mutters over it. Why do I have to be good? Because if you aren’t, a God will set you on fire for all eternity.

These are ridiculous propositions. The whole business of religion is clownshoes freakin’ moonshine, hallowed by nothing but unthinking tradition, fear and superstitious behaviour and an establishment of con artists who have dedicated their lives to propping up a sense of self-importance by claiming to talk to an invisible big kahuna. It’s not just fact-free, it’s all nonsense.’

I am a reasonable man and am certain that Christian holy book the Bible is an absolute heap of disgusting, slavery condoning, male infant genital mutilation demanding, repellent, demented, vicious dark age mumbo jumbo. Given the time gap between the events recorded in the gospels and the and the estimated time they were written, the fallibility of human memory, and the potential unreliability of eyewitness testimony, the Gospels are not historically reliable with regard to the resurrection of Jesus. The gospels were written decades after the events they describe. They are reliant on the memory of unknown persons, oral traditions, and possibly other written sources that are no longer available. What’s wrong with memory? Human memory is fallible, particularly over long periods of time. It’s feasible that the authors unintentionally introduced errors while describing the resurrection event. What’s the problem with oral tradition? It was a means of transmitting information in societies that were largely illiterate. Unfortunately, as stories are passed down, the retelling of the story can include slightly different details due to memory distortion and reconstruction, and the differences can become amplified as the story is retold many times. We have watched this happen in a manner of minutes of a story being told. If you’ve ever heard of the telephone game this is a great example of this phenomenon happening. Perhaps the gospels were based on prior sources. If they are, we know nothing about these prior sources. Christians should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock god and Jesus to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Christians have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Reformation and postEnlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else; they are, after all, spoilt for choice, at least in theory. Iran seems to be a very enlightened state.!

Religion has mastered one remarkable skill: surviving without evidence. For thousands of years, gods have been proposed, worshiped, feared, obeyed, and defended yet never independently verified. This is not a minor oversight. In every other domain of human knowledge, claims without evidence are discarded. Only in religion are they protected, revered, and shielded from scrutiny. Atheism begins with a simple, unromantic question: Where is the evidence? Not the feelings, not the traditions, not the anecdotes but the verifiable, testable, independently confirmable evidence. When that question is asked honestly, belief systems that rely on revelation and authority rather than observation begin to wobble. Faith is often praised as a virtue. In practice, it is an admission of ignorance dressed up as confidence. Faith exists precisely where evidence does not. No one has “faith” that gravity works or that germs cause disease. Those are facts established through experiment and replication. Faith only enters when knowledge fails. If faith were a reliable path to truth, different religions would converge on the same conclusions. Instead, they contradict one another on every fundamental claim how many gods exist, what they want, who they favour, and what happens after death. Billions of believers, thousands of gods, zero consensus. Why should we treat any one of them as special? A popular apologetic claim is that religion “invented” science or was its primary driver. History tells a messier story. Scientific progress emerged when thinkers began questioning authority including religious authority and insisting on evidence over scripture. Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and countless others faced religious resistance, not encouragement. The Catholic Church condemned heliocentrism. Protestant leaders rejected evolution. Even today, creationism and intelligent design attempt to smuggle theology into science classrooms despite overwhelming biological evidence to the contrary. Another common claim is that without God, morality collapses. This argument misunderstands both morality and human behaviour. Moral systems existed long before monotheistic religions and vary widely across cultures. Empathy, cooperation, and fairness are products of social evolution, not divine command. If morality truly came from God, believers would behave demonstrably better than nonbelievers. They do not. Study after study shows no consistent correlation between religiosity and moral behaviour, and some of the least religious countries score highest on measures of social trust, equality, and well-being. Prayer is often described as powerful, transformative, and effective until it is tested. Controlled studies consistently show that intercessory prayer has no measurable effect on recovery, illness, or outcomes. In some cases, being told you are prayed for worsens outcomes due to performance anxiety. If prayer worked the way believers claim, hospitals would replace ICUs with chapels. They do not. Why? Because when lives are on the line, even believers trust medicine, not miracles. Why is scepticism encouraged everywhere except religion? Why are children taught to question advertisements, politicians, and strangers but not gods? Why is doubt framed as intellectual honesty in science and rebellion in theology? What would happen if religious claims were held to the same standards as scientific ones? If holy books were treated like hypotheses? If miracles required evidence before belief? Would anything remain? Atheism Is Not Nihilism It Is Responsibility. Atheism offers no cosmic rewards, no eternal surveillance, no divine forgiveness loopholes. That is precisely its strength. Meaning is not handed down; it is constructed. Morality is not outsourced; it is owned. There is no god to blame, no plan to hide behind. If this life is the only one, we know we have, then cruelty is less excusable, not more. Kindness matters now. Justice matters now. Truth matters now. And that is what makes atheism unsettling not that it removes meaning, but that it removes excuses. If faith is a reliable path to truth, why does it produce contradictory conclusions? Why are religious claims exempt from the standards applied to every other claim? If morality comes from God, why do moral intuitions change over time and culture? What belief would you abandon if evidence disproved it and why should religion be different?

This black man fought with Wellington at Waterloo. Is he not English?

Here is an interesting image. It is of John Blanke who was a prominent Black musician and royal trumpeter in the early 16th-century English courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. He is one of the earliest documented people of African descent in Tudor England, famously depicted in the 1511 Westminster Tournament Roll. As a court musician, Blanke played at major events, including the funeral of Henry VII and the coronation of Henry VIII.

He is black but undeniably English.

+

“Races” as distinct biological categories do not actually exist in humans; genetics shows more variation within so-called racial groups than between them, meaning humanity is one interconnected, genetically diverse species, Homo sapiens. While there are physical differences such as skin colour, these are superficial, resulting from adaptation to local environments, not deep genetic divisions, and race is understood by scientists as a social construct with real-world social impacts, not a biological reality. I attach a fine soecimin of the English race.

By the 1450s, Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type and printing innovations gave rise to early printed books (incunabula) such the Gutenberg Bible and the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, which used mass-produced books with woodcuts for illustrations.

Wrong. By the 1450s, Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type and printing innovations gave rise to early printed books (incunabula) such the Gutenberg Bible and the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, which used mass-produced book with![

](https://feddit.uk/pictrs/image/a23e7137-c1f2-495c-b772-e59990fc2393.webp) woodcuts for illustrations.

Predictable.

Both sociopathic pieces of shit.

Britain does not need to fear a Russian invasion. It needs to wake up to the one that has already happened in our politics, our economy, and our national soul.

‘For years, British politicians warned that “the Russians are coming.” The phrase conjured images of spies, hackers, and shadowy figures manipulating Western democracies from afar. But the truth is starker: they are not coming they are already here. The influence of Putin’s Russia has seeped deep into British political life, reshaping the nation’s direction through propaganda, financial infiltration, and the nurturing of divisive political figures. The evidence is all around us in the rise of Nigel Farage, Reform, the toxicity of Brexit, and the slow, deliberate decline of Britain’s economic and democratic strength. The seeds were planted long before the referendum. When UKIP and later the Brexit Party now Reform UK surged to prominence, their rhetoric carried echoes of Russian disinformation: anti-EU, anti-immigrant, anti-establishment. Each slogan was designed to pit neighbour against neighbour, region against region, and Britain against its own interests. Russia’s playbook has always been about destabilisation, and few events have destabilised Britain more than Brexit. Nigel Farage, feted by Russian state media as a “man of the people” and given disproportionate airtime by RT (Russia Today), became the perfect vehicle. His populism masked a geopolitically convenient mission: to weaken the European Union and fracture Western unity. Nathan Gill, Farage’s close ally and UKIP MEP, echoed the same anti-Brussels line, parroting narratives that dovetailed neatly with Kremlin talking points. The push for Brexit was not simply a domestic rebellion it was a geopolitical victory for Moscow. By removing Britain from the EU, Putin achieved through propaganda what decades of espionage never could: a divided, isolated Britain, struggling to find its footing in a global economy that has moved on without it. The results are plain to see. The UK’s economy is shrinking relative to its peers. Public services are starved of funds. Inflation and interest rates squeeze households while infrastructure crumbles. Britain, once a pillar of European stability, is now plagued by instability of its own making. And who benefits? Russia watching gleefully as one of NATO’s key members turns inward, distracted by culture wars and internal strife. The links between Russian money and the British right are no longer mere conspiracy. Under Boris Johnson, the Tory Party accepted millions in donations from individuals with ties to the Russian elite even as intelligence agencies warned of growing Kremlin interference. Johnson himself shelved the long-delayed “Russia Report,” which detailed how deeply Moscow had infiltrated British political and financial systems. Instead of confronting the threat, he and his allies downplayed it while their media surrogates, The Daily Mail, branded anyone who raised concerns as “Remoaners” or “traitors.” Meanwhile, Nigel Farage continues to parrot lines that have been written in the Kremlin press office. His public sympathy for Putin’s “understandable” invasion of Ukraine, his criticism of NATO expansion, and his insistence that the West “provoked” Russia reveal the depth of his alignment with Moscow’s worldview. Farage and his Reform movement are the tools in a decades-long campaign through direct command, and through shared goals: dismantle trust in democracy, erode Western alliances, and replace reasoned politics with perpetual anger. Farage as a fascist knows his next move is to gain power through the ballot box. Following that, the dismantling of the democratic system and replacement with his authoritarian regime. The Russians are not coming. They have already won their quiet war not with tanks or troops, but with propaganda, money, and manipulation, and the active participation of Farage and his secret army of Fascists. Their victory is visible every time a politician like Farage blames Britain’s struggles on migrants instead of oligarchic corruption, every time the Daily Mail echoes disinformation, and every time the government prioritises division over unity.’

Someone asked, “Why do some British people not like Farage?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer wrote the following response: “A few things spring to mind. Farage lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which Boris lacked. So, the stark contrast does throw Farage’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Farage may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty, or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I do not say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Farage, it is a fact. He does not even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Farage is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he does not just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and automatic nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance, or depth. It is all surface. Some might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we do not. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Farage is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He is not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He is more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully and racist. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a few of us– of look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: You do not need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty hard to miss. After all, it is impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Johnson look trustworthy and Liz Truss look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Farage. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumps of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created? If being a twat was a TV show, Farage would be the boxed set.