'IS GOD WILLING TO PREVENT EVIL, BUT NOT ABLE? THEN HE IS NOT OMNIPOTENT. IS HE ABLE BUT NOT WILLING? THEN HE IS MALEVOLENT. IS HE BOTH ABLE AND WILLING? THEN WENCE COMETH EVIL? IS HE NEITHER ABLE NOR WILLING? THEN WHY CALL HIM GOD.' (EPICURIUS : CIRCA 300 BC)
I am a middle-aged animal fan and deist with a rather misanthropic outlook on life. I am a recovering Christian and most of the ranting on this blog reflects my now non-belief and the reasons I got to it.
Leucism is a genetic mutation that alters the natural colouring of the covering of an animal or bird. Unlike albinism it isn't just the amount of melanin that is effected.
I took this photo of a leucistic Canada goose by the boating lake near where I live. Apart from the colour, he was just like the others around him. And if the others noticed, they made no difference towards him in their attitude or behaviour. He was very much one of them. Fascinating stuff.
There are hundreds of them growing along the side of a main road that cuts through a green area within five minutes of my home. I can detect the hand of the Grand Architect that cooked up the materials that led to the evolutionary path that is here at the moment. Me? It's just come home to me in the most fascinating and delightful way that my cats are felids and that I am a primate.
And at last here we are, number one in my personal top ten freethinker songs. I chose it as number one on purpose, because to me it rolls freethought, free expression, free everything, into one, and with no hint of any need for a deity at all. This is the song. It's: Nina Simone-Ain't Got No (I Got Life)
OK, thanks for sticking around through this top ten, and it's back to the critiquing religious belief and religious people now.
In at number two on my personal top ten freethinker songs; Alice Cooper-School's Out
I remember it well, that sunny warm summer day in July 1979, thirty-two* years ago when I picked up my bag and walked out of school for the last time. Up the small ramp onto the path leading up and along and onto the pavement. Goodbye school. I sang this all the way home. I'm still singing it now. Leaving school was the best thing I ever did.** I can feel an echo of joy at the sudden total freedom. Hated school, me. And then I had to walk into work and grown up life. No deity involved.
*Goodness, how the years fly! **And even now I wake up from some flashback-dream and am thankful it's all over, I don't have to go anymore.
We're almost at number one in my personal top ten freethinker songs, and in at number three is;
Cat Stevens-Moonshadow
The tale goes that a kid from an urban environment with lots of artificial light is standing on the coast in a more natural place and sees his shadow by the light of the moon.
And nothing is ever the same again.
No mention of a deity or a need for one, just a kid discovering there is more to life than what he had always known.
In at number five, the half way point of my personal free thinker top ten; Joan Armatrading-Love and Affection
Although it's a celebration of love and self realisation and acceptance, I always heard the undertone of melancholy in it. When I discovered Ms Armatrading was gay, in an era when being gay, black and female meant physical harm,* I understood why. She never calls on a god to assist her.
At number six of my personal top ten freethinker songs; Prelude-After The Goldrush
Brilliant song. When I first heard it, I understood it as the tale of the Twentieth Century so far (up to the early '70s), with the events in no particular order. The Knights in Armour coming, saying something about a Queen. . .The death of Queen Victoria. Fanfare blowing to the sun that was floating in the breeze. . .The idea of UFOs and those who acknowledge them, especially the event labelled the Miracle of the Sun in Fatima and Mother Nature on the run in the 1917. . .the destruction caused by trench warfare in the Great War, both the Miracle of the Sun and the peak of destruction happening in 'the' 1917. Lying in a burned out basement. . .The blitz, the aerial bombing of cities on and by both sides in World War Two. The sun burst through the skies. . .Alamogordo, 16th of July 1945. The silver spaceships flying. . .The V rockets on Britain or maybe the B29 bomber raids on Japan. Banners flying all around the chosen one. . .Hitler's election to the Reichstag. Flying Mother nature's silver seeds. . .the Apollo programme, especially the moon landings. And it doesn't mention a god or the need for one at all. I was wrong, of course. But not about it not mentioning a god.
In at number seven of my personal top ten of freethinker anthems; Frank Sinatra-Pass Me By
Except for number one, they are in no particular order, but I especially like this one. I am who I am, I'm never going to alter, I'm on my own in the world do my own thing and go my own way and if you don't like it, get on with your life and don't bother with me, I don't care. No mention of a god or anything. Plus, it's by Frank Sinatra, and I'm getting to that age (it comes to us all, whether we admit it or not) where I'm starting to like Frank Sinatra.
In at number eight in my top ten freethinker songs; Flanagan and Allen-Are you Having Any Fun?
The song was written in 1939 and recorded (with slightly altered lyrics) by Flanagan and Allen in the same year. The ex servicemen that make up the band are veterans of the 1914-1918 war, as were Chaim Reuben Weintrop and William Ernest Chesney Allen.
