The sky's your aubergine

Fazal Hussain's Allahu in the sky compared to Allahu in Arabic script.

The Asian News today features a Manchester man showing off a photo of the sky taken by a friend of his in Pakistan, apparently with a cloud formation bearing a faint resemblance to the Arabic Allahu, as in Allahu akbar ('God is great').

The man, Fazal Hussain, says:

Allah exists in everything including the sky and this
amazing picture is proof of that."

Proof indeed. And there I was wondering why so many people buy into homeopathy...

For similar silliness, see Miracle pictures of Islam.

Before Stonewall...

I hadn't heard of the Compton's Cafe riot until I read on Gay.com that a plaque memorialising it was unveiled in San Francisco last week (shame on me).

Predating the Stonewall riots by three years, it prompted positive local community police liaison among other things. A 2005 film documents the events, as does this website.

Speaking of uncovering LGBT history, it was amazing to see Remember When's Rainbow City exhibition at the City Art Centre in my old home of Edinburgh when I revisited it the other weekend.

Apart from having had some minor early input in collecting the material used, it was an enriching experience to see the gay history of the city in which I lived for thirteen years celebrated in such a visible and well-executed way.

Now I'm just waiting for someone to buy me the book!

What's wrong with 'atheism'?

Nothing as far as I'm concerned, so I have to admit to being slightly nonplussed by the Brights movement, which says it aims to promote a "naturalistic worldview, which is free of supernatural and mystical elements."

I agree with Pandagon that calling yourself a 'Bright' simply sounds nerdy and superior - see Pharyngula for further interesting discussion.

I have no problem calling myself 'atheist' when I want to express the fact that I do not believe in anything divine, and 'humanist' to say that I believe in making judgements about right and wrong without referring to supernatural concepts. I also call myself 'secularist' because I think the only way to avoid one belief group unfairly dominating all others is for states to not align themselves with any.

Despite the fact that I do think religious beliefs are at best silly and at worst downright dangerous, I'm suspicious of atheists clubbing together to tell other people what they should and shouldn't believe (I'm perfectly good enough at doing that on an individual basis). I'm also not convinced that the apparent growing zealotry of Richard Dawkins and others is at all constructive in dealing with the very real threats posed by anti-secular groups.