Saturday, February 12, 2011

@40 it's probably time to start looking. After my self a bit..

I recently had a run in with a bout of flu that knocked me sideways for a few days, but that was just the tip of what seems to be a never ending dribble of colds and sniffles that constantly beset me.

It's no secret that I live a fairly sedentary life and the long walks once a month, not even I can claim them to be 'exercise' at least not in the sence of being regular. So when my house mate Dan said "maybe if you looked after yourself better you might not pick up every stray bug you run across?". And you know what? He's right. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Also at 40 as I am now aim loosing the vigour of youth and their ability to burn the candle at both ends and suck it up. I simply can't stay up till 2am and then up again for work in the morning and not feel the effects..

And my old scales crapped out on me. This was after my latest run in with flu (i always shed weight with the flu)and switching to coke zero instead of sprite (200cal/serve. Down to less then 1cal/serve) and swapping out cider for vodka and diet coke (200 down to 58) and watching what I eat. So I had been expecting a drop in weight so I was not surprised to see me down to 14st from 15. But in the next few days I dropped to 13 then 12.5!!! Ok that is either medically worrying weight loss or the scales have given up on me. As I truly didn't feel that much lighter I was inclined to believe it was time to buy a new set of scales...

And I was right. The old scales were still resolutely lying to me at12.5st where as the new digital ones had me at 15st bang on.. One worrying not is that maybe the old scales accurately portrayed my weight loss but were inaccurate in what my weight was. This means I could have been 16-17st and not known it.

Either way I trust the new scales but they also come with a BMI (fat) reading and a hydration reading (it mesures the your conductivity). @15st my BMI was 28.7 which is on the wrong side of the obese line... Today my weight was reported as 14.11st which gave my a BMI of 27.7, or in other words I am officially 'overweight' and not 'obese'. Whoo!

I'm now off to buy a biycicle. Hopefully more exercise will be heading my way in the not too distant.

Friday, February 11, 2011

So what's all this then?

I don't like religion. No, it's true, I seriously don't.

You may think it's because of all the crazy bomb wielding maniacs out there (or so we are told), and yes that Is a reason to not like religion, but it is not mine.

My biggest beef with religion is that it is, by any meaningful definition of the word, simply not true. It is myth and legend, off the wall crack-pottery wrapped up in horrific moral turpitude and oft misogynistic social control. And I'm not just talking Christianity here. No I mean the whole drop-dead crazy, put the money in the collection tin on your way out circus of religious wing-battery. All of them. Every last one!

And what's worse is that there are many, many millions of otherwise rational people who accept all this crazy without batting an eyelid. They take it in their stride, and without the slightest trace of irony or questioning hold it all as absolute truth.

These people will look at the claims of rival religions and scoff, laughing these competing theologies off the page as ridiculous, patently false, and yet absolutely fail to understand how someone could ever paint their religion with the same brush. This is even more tragically hilarious when members of the big three monotheistic religions deride each-other's beliefs when it is abundantly clear they are worshiping the same god!.

It is the insidious way religions go out of their way to promote ignorance and rejection of demonstrable fact in favour of their oft re-hashed and warmed-over bronze age mythology reengineered as social engineering.

There is little surprise as education levels decrease in the USA that the religiosity of that nation grows. Ignorance and poor education and the quelling of inquisitive minds go hand in hand with the propagation of misinformation, propaganda and the flat out lies that is religion.

It is that religions teach their adherents that ignorance, rather than something to recognise and correct, is something to be cherished and lauded, that it is virtuous!

And those are just some of the reasons I dont like religion.