Monday, 20 April 2009

A Night of 400 Billion Stars (and maybe some string theory)

Tickets are now on sale for the follow up to ‘Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People’‘A Night of 400 Billion Stars (and maybe some string theory)’

Which is as good an excuse as any to repost an old blog about the Godless shows - don't worry, I'm nearly done with the MySpace blog recycling.

So New Humanist printed a feature about it at the time, which consisted of a compilation of short pieces contributed by the performers, including Richard Herring and Ricky Gervais.

I had a piece included, and because I was a regular contributor to New Humanist, I was the only performer they had a photo of.

So they used my picture as a placeholder in the draft copy, with quite freakish results:




The egoist in me obviously wanted it kept like that when going to press…

Anyway, here's what I wrote for my contribution:

Someone recently asked me if being an atheist was a joyless experience. As though one cannot hope to enjoy the Universe and all its myriad contents, colours, shapes and possibilities without believing it was thrown together in a week by a magic super being. Anyway, is it not far more joyless to slavishly attend Church to avoid Hell, or cover yourself head to foot in a burkha? I like the idea that I live in a world that has been millions of years in the making, and that will exist millions of years after I'm gone. I only get to be a momentary part of it but this doesn't make me feel so small and insignificant that I reach for a made up meaning. It makes me grateful for the short window of life I've been granted and pushes me to make the most of every moment.

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