Today I lost an hour as the clocks went forward. Sparkling lost an hour, Rock Chick lost an hour, Big Moma lost an hour everyone I know and quite a few people I don't know lost an hour. It was stolen in the night from the stealer of time. But nothing to worry about because later on in the year the giver of time will come and place it back in your lap. When it happens you fall in love with the extra hour in bed, cozying up to a soft pillow and warm duvet. So there are some pluses and minuses to losing and gaining an hour. But it will return.
Most of the day I've been tipping my toes in and out of videos on YouTube and have been entertained by some stimulating debate from the likes of Christopher Hitchen, Dan Dennett and Richard Dawkins. In what is and will be for ever the greatest debate of all, where scientists of an atheistic persuasion take on all the world's religions by using reasoning, by examining closely what are taken as given facts but in reality are not fact at all. Belief without any substance is in this way a delusion.
I have no doubt it is a great and wonderful debate, and every person on this planet should have an opinion on it. Provided they are allowed their own opinion. One Atheist I heard on YouTube his name is Pat Condell said his holly trinity was freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of identity. He despises any religion which does not accept this, but in the same light will defend the religious people the right to give their opinion. However, they should not in turn want to take his right away to state his opinion. He certainly does have a lot to say and sometimes does go on in quite a vitriolic rant. Maybe it's something to do with age or just religious people trying to force their views on him. Dawkins suggests in a lecture I've just seen, atheists should become militant atheists. To suggest moral values would not exist without religion he notes is silly. For people who are atheists do know what the difference between right and wrong is, perhaps more so than believers. I've heard it said there are more believers in jails than atheists. Personally I do think religions can present an opt out clause to humanity. Of the like, if we believe then it don't matter what we do to the planet, because in the end our maker will come down and correct it all. But things don't work out like this in reality.
Being a humanist, is being a person who cares for every single breath of life each and every living thing has on this earth. This is not to say being a believer means you don't care so much. But to imagine this one thing and play with the idea is both profound and frightening. The idea is, what if we only have one life, it is here and it is now. There is nothing else after this. To me this means I am going to enjoy it, love it, and love those people around me and close to my heart more than anything else. It means, if the word holly can be hijacked, then life is holly, being here and being privileged to be alive is a chance solicitation to hold tightly in both hands. Play with the thought and it will wake you up. Chew the idea, let it savour it's flavours in your mouth. Then the hour I lost this morning is put into context. An hour of life, but then it's all perspective. How I see it will be different to how you see it.
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