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Oh man, Bob Catley is a fucking rockstar. He’s basically a superhero. I met him, and shook his hand, and was all “yo AHS, check out Bob Catley,” and they were all “woah, his music is awesome!!”

We went to Tamworth for Jenna’s generic-winter-festival party and saw her dad and sister and town. We had a great party.

Then I went back to Leeds (again) to share Liz’s birthday party with Chris and Norman at their four-fifths atheist domicile…

Then I came home. I got back to Leamington and almost kissed the ground with happiness. But not because I’d been away, but because of what happened while I was away. Basically, I was glad to be home without regretting being gone. Let’s leave it at that.

That’s the summary of all the decent things that happened this weekend. Not at much detail as last time, I guess I’m just not in the mood.

Oxford

So began the first of my holiday outings last Wednesday, when I went to visit the wonderful Jenna at her Oxford University college: Linacre.

We decided to try and cram as many awesome things into the day as possible, which is why we set off to Modern Art Oxford and the Natural History Museum (which were great) and also swung past the “castle,” or the mound-where-a-castle-once-used-to-be (which was not so great - not only was it a lame attraction, but Jenna confessed that she hated me so much that she was skipping the country to avoid spending new year’s eve at my house).

Modern Art Oxford was a very pleasant experience. They had a few exhibitions on (including one which was disappointingly closed), ranging from boring to plain weird. It was all loosely connected by sharing common binaural techniques to create the sense of sounds coming from positions they weren’t, which was interesting and entertaining. We stopped by the gift shop and I was bought a 25mm badge.

The Museum of Natural History, where I had previously had the pleasurable experience of watching Richard Dawkins face off the imposing John Lennox in debate, was another fascinating experience, made even more so in the light of the remnants of the memories of my last visit; atheism and evolution tend to go hand-in-hand these days.

I got to spend some time in Linacre college, which my friend Tom Etheridge tells me is “not a real college, [because it's] full of grads.” But what if I’m visiting a “grad”, Tom? The college was nice and modern (but still with that Oxford University class pretension about it). The student rooms were cosy and nice and the dining area was homely.

The most important thing that I can say about Linacre, however, was that when I got a shot at using one of their computer rooms, I got a nice surprise. Some of the new motherfuckingly huge iMacs were there, but what did their screens have plastered all over them? It wasn’t Leopard… it was XP! That was quite an unexpected highlight that appealed to my technological nature.

In the evening, we stayed in the college’s common room, and I met some people. We had fun playing darts and Pictionary and watching some Channel 4.

Leeds

The first thing to note about Leeds is how fucking far away it is! Regardless, hitching the train up there was alright; I do like getting trains. While I was there to see and hang out with all of Leeds’ remaining A-Soc, strictly speaking I was Liz’s guest.

When I arrived at the station, I moved into the shopping centres, passing through all sorts of different bits, including “Victoria Quarter,” which had an interior made of gold and had shops whose very names were too expensive to pronounce. Liz and her housemate Michelle intercepted me (despite the terrible description I gave them of my location) and we wandered around the city centre for a little while. I spotted four Caffé Nero coffee shops, and visited two of them (Stuart, have pride). After some guilty confessions from Liz that she didn’t actually know her way around Leeds’ centre, we decided to try and find the restaurant that we were meeting A-Soc at later. We did find it, and spent the waiting time in Wetherspoon’s (where else?).

The restaurant served fairly standard food but I’d say it was overpriced as well. Nice atmosphere, though, and the glass panel in the middle of the landing of the first floor was just terrifying. Afterwards, we didn’t return to Spoons, as was my initial inclination, but headed off to somewhere a little quieter, which was a better idea now that I think about it. I heard about the London antics of Leeds Atheist Society and met and spoke to some cool people.

i think a-soc is a pretty cool guy. eh debates god and doesn’t afraid of anything

After things wound down (meaning: they closed at 11pm and didn’t give me the required time to finish my bottle of wine), Chris gave me a lift back to his house, stopping at Tesco to pick up the classic Southern Comfort and Pepsi Max party drink. Back at “Atheist House” (which is not as good as the name “Fort Atheist”), we stayed up most of the night watching various animated shows (American Dad prominent amongst them).

In the morning, I got up and sped off to Leeds station to catch a ride back home, but not before having my half-can of Relentless thrown off the First travel bus. They got their comeuppance, however, because I scrawled “FGW Are[sic] cunts” on the First Great Western train that was my final connection to Basingstoke (and last public transportation vessel for the day). That will teach them not to allow cans of drink on their Leeds buses.

What else? What else? Oh, I’ve got else. You haven’t even seen “else” until you’ve seen MY “else”.

One More Gripe

As far as content management systems (CMSs) go, different applications need to match different purposes. While I am a self-confessed WordPress fanboy, I will freely admit that it’s not ideal for use in every situation*. I wouldn’t use WordPress for anything other than blogging, really; it wouldn’t be good for getting a lot of information across when the information doesn’t benefit from the context of being in chronological order.

Where this is going

And, I wouldn’t use a wiki in a situation where one organisation is meant to be an authority on a subject. I think it undermines the credibility of that organisation when their advice and support is actually community advice and support.

The AHS’s use of a wiki comes under this category, I think. I don’t like it very much as a public front. As a private working ground, I love it. But as the end product of our thinking? It’s just a bad idea.

End.

*Does this still make me a fanboy? I feel like one, with the hoody…

The thing that has always bugged me a bit about the AHS is that the ‘S’ stands for ’secular’.

I would like to point out that the word ’secular’ means non-religious. What I think the ‘S’ should stand for is secularist. Why?

A secularist is someone who advocates secularism - that’s the idea of having a secular state. But having a secular society… well, lots of societies are secular. Warwick’s “Wine and Whiskey” society is secular. Warwick Snow is secular. Now do you see what I mean?

A secularist society would be, I think, one that could dabble in the things that other AHS-affiliated societies do; atheism and humanism and rationalism all thrown in together, because these are natural precursors to promoting a secular state. There’s a difference between ’secular’ and ’secularist’, and being secular doesn’t necessarily imply the latter. What’s more, being secular doesn’t justify irreligious events; it just means the society holds no religious viewpoint. In fact, boasting being a secular society should mean that the society has nothing to do with religion at all, even being critical of it…

A secular state is one that gives no benefit to the religious. In that sense, it’s what could be described as “religion-neutral”. Now, if it can give no benefit to the religious, it can’t really disadvantage the religious on the grounds of religion either. It can’t speak out against religion or criticise it, because we’re secular, not atheist.

Secularists, on the other hand, are justified in speaking out against religion as long as religion still enjoys unwarranted benefits. Secularists can be anti-religious as a matter of persuading and campaigning for a secular state.

Oh my god, things are fucking kicking off with the AHS. From it not really moving much over the six months between its official conception and its official creation, things have sped up a hundredfold and we’re flying now down the channels of activity. Everyone’s up and moving and it’s great.

Watch the fuck out, everyone. If you’re godless and part of an atheist/humanist/secular(ist)/rationalist society, we’re coming to find you. If you’re godless and you don’t have an atheist society? We’ll help you set up the bastard.

If you believe in god? Well, the shit’s hit the fan now for you guys, because we’ve just become the country’s best catherds, and we’re rounding up the godless power lying dormant amongst you.

Fuck yeah.