I’m sure I’m not posing an original question here, but really… where does everyone go on Sunday?

Is it some kind of antiquated vestigial thing from our monotheistic days? Is Sunday still ‘the day of rest’? Does every blogger suddenly leave their computer to go and be with their families? Are those large Sunday lunches so vast that every blogger falls asleep afterward, not to awaken until Monday?

I might be slightly blinkered by the fact that I don’t have kids, or (m)any friends. I don’t go to church; Sunday isn’t a day of rest — it’s just another day for me. I wake up, climb out of bed, pour a massive mug of coffee, sit down at my computer and… where is everyone? It’s always so lonely out here in the blogosphere, with no one to keep me company.

Perhaps there’s some secret activity that everyone does, except for me. Can’t we we find something to do, or blog about on a Sunday?

So, tell me, where does everyone go on Sunday?

(I am fully expecting this post to go unnoticed and unreplied to, as it is Sunday after all… sweet irony!)

First, a little derivation of one of the most recognisable phrases in modern English. ‘Till death us do part’ is one of a few phrases from the Book of Common Prayer. Along with the works of Shakespeare and the King James bible, these three works form the basis of English as we know it today.

I just looked up the full title, it’s one hell of a mouthful: The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches and the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons. I guess that didn’t fit on the front cover (it must’ve been horrible to copy out in full, back before printing presses were invented), so it’s known simply as ‘The Book of Common Prayer’ today.

It seems that the book was written and revised a few times around the 1500s and then majorly in 1662. The point is, I’m not sure who actually penned the famous phrases. I guess, much like the Bible, no one really knows who wrote it. It just kind of… appeared on paper. A great example of divine will at work, I guess…

Much like the works of Shakespeare and passages from King James Bible, phrases from the Common Prayer Book have actually become part of our language. Today, many people use phrases such as ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace’, or ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ without really knowing where they came from; we heard them as children, or more commonly nowadays in popular media. They are very religious phrases indeed; they stem from some of the oldest Christian rites!

Anyway, using a line from the marriage liturgy was perhaps a little disingenuous, as I actually want to write about the complete opposite of marriage: death. Perhaps the ‘Earth to earth’ phrase would’ve been a better choice… Oh well!

For those of you that are following me on Twitter you might be aware that a few days ago my great uncle died. Now, being the lucky kind of guy that I am, this is actually the first death I’ve had in my immediate family, discounting my grandmother that died when I was quite young (and I wasn’t very close to). Tomorrow I will attend his memorial service, and on Thursday I will attend my very first funeral.

‘What will the mood be?’ I asked the world in general, when I found out I would be attending a funeral. ‘Bittersweet’ came the reply from my friends. Instantly, being a connoisseur of dark chocolate, my mind hopped, skipped and jumped back to the sensations I experienced while eating my very first piece of 99% cocoa Lindt chocolate. Now, I have to tell you that my first piece was enjoyed in the presence of The American, so my senses were perhaps just a little skewed, but the experience was… unique. But what I do remember clearly, once I strip out the fuzzy, love-fuelled memories, was a moment — a brief, fleeting explosion — of dark and powerful intensity. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it was intense.

That’s what I imagine the funeral will be like: dark and intense, but swiftly followed by clarity and the brightness of things to come. Once our farewells have been said and our prayers delivered I hope the sadness and loss that hangs over the ceremony like a cloud will simply waft away. He’s gone and the darkness of his death will be quickly be replaced by the sparkling possibilities of tomorrow.

If anything does in fact remain after death, it will certainly be his wise, gently-nagging Jewish rasping voice whispering time-tested advice into our ears!

Looking forward though, even if the day itself is veiled with sadness, I know he will be happy knowing that he brought the entire family together again. People will come from all over the world — hundreds of people — to remember a great man, a man that was dearly loved by many and respected by all.

Discussing the funeral itself, I posed a rather silly question to my mother:

‘Mum, can I go to the funeral with my half-good-half-evil beard? I’ll be able to mourn with one side, and be happy with the other at the end!’

‘No, Seb, don’t be silly; there might be some nice girls there that you can marry!’

Jewish to the very end!

Despite my tirade against showers in specific and personal hygiene in general, I have to admit that a lot of incredibly wise and incendiary thoughts come to me in the bathroom. Those thoughts that strike you, out of the blue, and completely change the course of your day — or entire life, in the case of some famous Greek philosophers!

Once, for example, I was reaching down to soap that bit of my legs that I don’t see all that often (at a guess, it was my calf  — when you’re tall like me, there are outlying parts of your body that you might only see every other year), when inspiration hit, like a beam of holy light lancing down upon my up-turned visage: I should design a site that allows people to freely stream the contents of their computer screen! Sadly, I was beaten to that one by a week or two when UStream launched (and they do it really well!)

But the point I was trying to make is: some of our greatest inspirations come to us while we’re just sitting/standing/laying there and being.

And thus I found myself this evening,  standing up from my gleaming white throne and looking down at the silvery knobs that controlled the fate of my stodgy deposit. In that brief moment, looking from knobs to deposit, and deposit to knobs, I reflected on the sheer quantity of the food I ate earlier today.

Opting for the larger, more powerful flush, I stumbled back to the living room and collapsed flatulently on to the sofa.

I had intended to rant today about monotheistic religion and its poor suitability and applicability to modern civilisation, but I thought it could wait until tomorrow, after the food has settled and the massive amount of insulin has left my system before I try to write sensibly on such a sensitive topic.

So, saving the topic of religion for tomorrow, I’ll simply leave you with the list of food that I ate today, in audio format (so that you can hear the pain that I’m still suffering in my voice).

I suffered, so that ye can enjoy! Just like Jesus. Oops, it slipped in…

(If you can’t see the player, you’ll have to view it on my blog!)

Recently, my ego suffered a bit of a hit; I was dumped. My self-esteem, which has never been the greatest due to some bullying at school, was taken down yet another notch. It’s not something I should blog about though (those who follow my Twitterings will have some idea of what I’m talking about though!); I have never one to kiss and tell. Perhaps in a few years, when my feelings have been tempered a little and my nerve endings aren’t quite so raw.

I think the worst thing about being dumped is that it instantly brings back into focus all of the previous times you’ve been unceremoniously ‘let go’; no golden hand-shake, no pension — and most importantly, certainly no more sex.

I don’t know if it’s a ‘girl thing’, but when you’re dumped, why can’t the dumper tell you why you’ve been dumped? Why is there such a restriction of knowledge? It’s the unknowingness that is the most troublesome. When there are unknown factors, the human mind starts thinking; it starts formulating wild, implausible solutions to an unknown problem. Completely irrational scenarios are computed and rolled around in your head, each and every facet being analysed and fretted over — and then re-analysed and fretted over again!

I should probably be grateful that I’ve only been dumped and left in the dark twice. My first ever girlfriend (at the ripe old age of 18 — I was such a late bloomer) dumped me without even so much as a whisper of the reason. ‘It’s not you, Seb, it’s me.’  It was only a few weeks later that I found out she’d dumped me for a guy 7 years her senior; one that could drive, and shared her love of anime (I’d sell my soul to keep a girl I love… but anime? I have limits). At least I got a shag out of her before she dumped me, though… I guess I was too good to dump without one last orgasm. Used, and abused… my poor soul.

I want to tell you this story because on the flip-side, there’s also being dumped with too much information.

My next girlfriend was a great believer in full disclosure and as a result our relationship was passionate, if short-lived; like a firework! We’d not been dating for long, but I already knew every inch of her body; and she’d discovered bits of me that I didn’t even know existed. I was so blinded by the passion — the sex! My God, the sex! — that the lesbianism really was a curve-ball.

I knew she had a little bit of a history; those performing artist types always seem to have a history. Some were beaten and some were impoverished, and nearly all have experimented a little — or a lot — with the same sex. I guess it’s all about being dramatic and pushing the boundaries a little; exploring and poking at what really makes you you.

Looking back, I probably should’ve noticed, from the complete lack of boyfriends in her photo albums, that I was her first boyfriend. I was so blinkered and hormonal that when I added 1 and 1 together I somehow came up with 69. The fact that she was a Bible-toting and scripture-quoting strictly-religious girl also obscured her true sexuality from me. Christians are meant to be straight, right? That’s what the Bible clearly says! Looking back, we shouldn’t have been having sex before marriage either, hm…

But anyway, as I was soon to find out, full disclosure and a hedonistic lifestyle were going to quickly catch up with my poor arithmetic skills.

I was on my way over to her place for dinner. I had a lovely bunch of flowers and some bars of chocolate with me, for afterward (stealing a cube of chocolate from between a girlfriend’s lips is still one of my favourite ways to pass the time). I knocked on the door but strangely there was no response. I let myself in with my key (she liked it when I surprised her in the morning, before she was awake) and made my way to her bedroom.

It was then that I heard the whimpering. Quiet, measured panting, and whimpering.

I stood there for a while, transfixed. I put my ear against the door to make sure the noises were in fact coming from her room.

They were, and the panting was getting slightly erratic, and louder.

Uncertain of what to do in such a situation — this was only my second girlfriend, don’t forget, and certainly my first ‘no holds barred’ sexual relationship — I opted for the safe option. Going back to the kitchen, I called out her name.

‘Seb? Come in, we’re in my bedroom.’

I slowly pushed open the door. The image I was greeted with is still seared into my mind today. Two beautiful girls entwined in some kind of sexual embrace. The other girl was not quite as pretty as my girlfriend, of course, but she was still very easy on the eye. I couldn’t differentiate who owned each limb. My eyes danced, alight with delight, but not quite sure which body parts I should be staring at.

‘I thought it would be easier if I showed you like this, Seb’

Showed me what? That you’re still into girls? That you were never into boys? But you let me do things that no one should be allowed to do! WHY IS THERE A GIRL IN YOUR BED INSTEAD OF ME?

I had only recently watched The Exorcist, and watching this ungodly — but highly erotic — sex-act unfold infront of my very eyes, I was very, very tempted to bellow something sanctimonious at the top of my lungs. ‘By the power of Christ I compel thee to remove your tongue from that orifice!’

Being a red-blooded male, however, and not one to bite the hand that feeds, I decided to simply shut up and stare at their yummy, interlocked bodies some more. I’m told that I stood there for quite some time, licking my lips.  Sadly though, for them,  I actually turned and left them to it. I left her the flowers, but took the chocolate with — I was going to need some comfort food after that little event in my life.

To this day I still find myself wondering what my life would’ve been like if I had dived into that bed and been smothered with smooth, soft, lesbian kisses. You know that scene in American Pie where Jim is standing outside his bedroom, knowing full-well that Nadia’s inside, looking for action? That’s exactly how I felt, standing in the doorway, looking down at that landscape of lesbian limbs. Do I, or don’t I…

I believe I was her one and only boyfriend. She sampled the male race, and it was offensive to her tastes. Do you have any idea what that did, and still does, for my ego? I turned a girl gay. I think the only possible cure for that is to turn a girl straight, which I haven’t succeeded in doing yet — though that’s not for lack of trying.

Which reminds me, any gay girls out there up for a pleasant challenge?

But this story just goes to show that there’s a mid-ground between being told nothing, and being shown everything, OK girls? It also leads neatly into a rant on the hypocrisy and outmoded design of monotheistic religion…

(For the sake of privacy, and because I believe in our rights as humans to do whatever we damn well like, some details and the time line have been modified a little. It is still, in essence, true, despite how weird it might sound. To all you Christians, Muslims and other monotheistic worshipers. or members of any kind of church — keep on believin’! It is your right to do so!)

So as I covered yesterday: I turned a girl gay.

Hindsight shows that I actually turned her straight first and then gay again, but my ragingly hormonal and underdeveloped teenage mind at the time could hardly make sense of that. It was an experience, that’s all I can say really. Be willing to experience everything, Sebastian I tell myself. At least once, anyway; it’ll be something to tell the grandchildren if nothing else.

Having your loved one suddenly find God almost pushed me over the edge though.

‘Seb… I’ve found God again; I’m leaving for the seminary on Monday’

We had both just collapsed back onto my water bed — my king-sized water bed — with grunts of exhaustion and satisfaction. I thought we’d cuddle a little, perhaps play a bit of big-spoon-little-spoon… but no, it wasn’t to be. She turned her head to me, a glimmer of religious fervor sparkling in her eyes and spoke unto me those fateful, prophetic words.

You thought you’d had the classic ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ line? Well, try ‘It’s not you, it’s God.’ She didn’t actually say that, but she might as well have. The not-quite-wood I’d been secretly harbouring quickly dissipated into the dark folds of the bed linen, never to be seen again.

That must be the worst thing a girl has said to me after sex, just ahead of ‘Is that it?’

I know sex between two people deeply in love can raise you to other planes of existence and all that, but really… born again? Was that teary, wide-eyed rapturous look during sex actually her glimpsing God; rediscovering Him?

Was it something I did, or said? Did she suddenly have the overwhelming urge to find God when I grabbed the lube to prepare for a quick dash up the downwards escalator?

(That’s outlawed in the Bible, right?)

And so she left, to the seminary, her love redirected forevermore to the only other monumental force in her life and universe: God. She’s still there, the preacher-woman of some fortunate community. She has a lot of love to give, so I suppose it’s not surprising that she felt the need to find role in life where she could give as much as possible.

You are perhaps beginning to understand why I am slightly bitter towards organised religion, and belief in a single omnipresent and omnipotent figure.

Forgive me Tolkein for ripping off your beautiful poem from Lord of the Rings. It is perhaps aptly fitting, considering he was quite famously a devout Christian man.

I should preface this rant on monotheistic religion by saying I don’t intend to belittle your beliefs; I firmly believe that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions. It is your God-given and basic human right to be allowed the freedom of thought. What I plan to do here is simply state just how out-dated and perhaps antiquated a lot of our religious doctrine and axioms are. I want you to see that just because you’ve been told something, it doesn’t necessarily make it true. Because someone (or some people) wrote something 2000 years ago, it does not make it accurate or true today.

Let’s begin with the creation of the Hebrew Bible, or the Torah, sometime around 1300 BC, and the major contributing factor to monotheism in the world today.

Curiously, depending on the interpretation, some people claim that the God that exposed himself in the Torah wasn’t the ONLY God — he was just the only God that showed himself to Abraham. He may have just been the God of Israel, an idea which would fit in with the polytheistic pantheon of Greek and Egyptian Gods, and the slew of other tribal Gods that existed all around the world. Over the following years, and as more scripture was divinely inspired and added to the Hebrew Bible, it seems that the Israeli God slowly pushed out all other Gods until he was the only one:

“Know this day, and take it to heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is none else.” Deuteronomy 4:39

And thus, monotheism was born. Polytheism quickly fell by the wayside, shunted aside by the vast strength of the monotheistic belief system. Christianity quickly followed in the first century AD, with Islam following a little later.

Fast forward to today and the belief in a single almighty, all-knowing and dreadful God rules more than half the world.

Humans have long believed in some kind of spirituality. We want to believe that we’re not just lumps of meat that walk around for 80 years and then die, to be consumed by the earth; there’s something in our DNA or our physiological makeup that makes us inclined to believe in some kind of higher power. Somewhere along our genetic time track, between being primordial ooze and the humans we are today, something went click, and we started explaining away certain phenomena as the actions of Gods, or at least some kind of omnipresent force that watches over us.

With so much belief, it’s unsurprising that Gods literally sprung up everywhere. A God of Wine, a God of Battle, a God of Love — you name it, at some stage there was probably a God that ‘oversaw’ that sphere of reality. When Caesar won a battle in Gaul against an army 10 times greater than his, that belief in something greater, that urge to find explicate all things wonderful, he attributed his overwhelming good luck to a benevolent Mars, the God of War.

It is this slightly odd urge to attribute everything that happens to some kind of higher power that makes us susceptible to religion in general, and monotheism in particular.

I wonder if, when a male lion fends off his pride from another male, he stops to thank the Gods or God, or if he just marvels at his own prowess and strength. Why then must we, as humans, always be humble in the eyes of God? Why can our greatest endeavours only be realised and ratified with the grace and benevolence of God? Why can we not be great and powerful in our own right, and why must we thank God instead of the work by other great men and women?

The thing is, monotheistic religion actually had a valuable place in ancient civilisation. Most things happen for a reason, and monotheism was required for the development of the world that we live in today. It’s widely believed that the development of monotheism went hand-in-hand with the development of large cities and trade between countries — as people moved from villages and tribes into larger cities, monotheism began to take hold. In such a large, messy and dangerous environment — a veritable melting pot of different cultures  and tribes — a single religion, with a single God, was undoubtedly a desirable resolution to such problems.

When you swear on mighty, vengeful God to make good on a trade agreement, other believers of the same religion are very likely to believe and trust you. Before monotheism, trading and buying goods from around the world was almost nonexistent. Unfortunately, for the believers, some intelligent people quickly realised something else about monotheism: it’s very good for controlling people.

While polytheism was generally about explaining away unknown phenomena, monotheism is much more about the control of people, and much more importantly about the control of thought. God expects you to act like this and treat other people like that; God tells you what is right, and more importantly what is wrong.

Therein lies the rub: it’s not actually God telling us these things, it’s a bunch of prophets, scribes and priests. Not to be left out, even a few kings and emperors, over the millenia, have leaned over the shoulder of a scribe and said ‘Oh, I don’t like that bit… take it out.’ If an almighty being, one that was  actually omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent had written the Hebrew Bible or New Testament, then we might be on to something. Sadly, they didn’t — humans did. Now, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Religion had its place, historically. Sure, it preyed upon our inherent belief that there’s something bigger than us out there, but it did enable civilisation to grow, and develop. It made it possible for people to live in relative safety, and to develop empires that shaped the world we know today.

Now that we’ve reached modernity, religion seems a little outdated. It still controls what we say and what we do. Once upon a time, eating bacon or shellfish was undoubtedly risky; just as a homosexual relationship probably was too. Today, they are not. Today, religion — organised religion, with a hierarchy, with priests, and with a system for regulating our actions and thoughts — serves very little purpose. It might be argued that religion has killed more people over the past 2000 years than it has saved. It might be argued that the world would be a different, wonderful place if the intellectual and spiritual road-block of the Dark Ages had never existed.

The problem is this: our need to believe in something is so great and so unerring that once belief is instilled in us, it’s almost impossible to shake off. The most monstrous atrocities can happen to a person, and they will still believe in God’s infallibility; they will still believe that God is watching over them, and that he has a mighty plan that justifies everything.

The root of almost every failed civillisation can be traced back to an over-zealous High Priest

I use the term ‘High Priest’ loosely; it could be a king, emperor, president or anyone that is buoyed up by the belief of a religion’s followers.

The thing is if God actually existed, and he actually guided us, there wouldn’t be a problem. He would actually know everything that has happened and will happen in the future. Unfortunately, I can’t disprove God — no one can. That’s the key, the linchpin and the crux to every single organised religion: they prey on our fear of the unknown. That’s why every religion exists and why they are followed fervently — from tribal polytheism to modern monotheism — to explain unknown phenomena. Every single religion has some tie-in to an afterlife, or heaven, or hell, or purgatory, or even rebirth. They rely on ideas that most likely can never be proven wrong. They rely on appealing to that spiritual side of us that we seemingly have very little control over.

Perhaps it is finally time to throw away a God that disables and lessens our vast abilities. Letting someone else decide for us what is right and wrong, what we can and can’t do, is such a damn cop-out! We, the human race, are so infinitely capable; why would we listen to anyone, or a God, that tells us otherwise?

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law

In 1968, Clarke and Stanley Kubrick finally finished 2001: A Space Odyssey – the book, and the film. It would change the way the world looked at evolution and ethics; artificial- and extra-terrestrial life. Religion and genesis.

But those are meaty topics that I couldn’t hope to cover in a simple blog entry. Instead, I want to talk about all of them combined, magic. Events that leave you so mystified, so jaw-droppingly nonplussed that you can only call out in disbelief that’s impossible! Perhaps you mumble it incredulously, wiping away an emotional tear, your raw nerves leaving you overwhelmed. It’s the same thing, though, magic: the impossible, in the blink of an eye, becoming possible.

When magic occurs, it’s like the world has been re-written. You have one moment in time, the past, where it seems impossible. Snap. You’re in the future, impossibility split asunder and replaced with a new reality. Magic occurred before your very eyes. The world changed around you. The flat line blips and shows a pulse. The Great Wall of China disappears. Poof.

And that’s all magic is, whether it’s performed by Harry Potter or Gandalf, a heroic doctor or David Copperfield. Now, the fun bit, and the tie-in to religious ‘miracles’ — magic is based on what we, by consensus agreement, deems impossible. We agree that it’s impossible for a man to disappear. We agree that, really, you shouldn’t be able to step through a plate glass window.

Once upon a time we agreed that being chained and helplessly dumped, submerged in a tank of water spelled certain death. And then Harry Houdini did it, and it wasn’t quite so magical any more; it’s only magic once, afterward it simply becomes a talking point, a fantastic improbability. The magician moves us from an impossible past, to a future full of possibilities where his ‘magic’ continues to occur around us, unabated. The cat’s out of the bag. Pandora’s can of worms hasn’t just been opened — it lies broken upon the floor, exposed, the world looking on in wonder — so that’s how it’s done! – our decision of what constitutes reality is rewritten in that moment. Magic becomes mundane.

It’s by this logic, sadly, that you disprove the existence of magic. The last 200 years have more than adequately proven that declaring something ‘impossible’ is stupid and counterintuitive. It’s not impossible, someone just hasn’t done it yet! It’s not a miracle, it’s just utilising mechanics that you didn’t know existed. Perhaps someone close to Jesus invented the sterile bandage and handed one to Our Lord — ‘Here, try this, mate’ — maybe he didn’t actually cure people with the power of God.

That’s what Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law is all about. Technology — a sterile bandage — is magic. Magic changes history, redefining our universal axioms, redeclaring what can and can’t be done. The impossible, as the cliche goes, becomes possible. Stone Henge, the Great Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower — pure impossibilities, paper-only pipe dreams, fabrications only extant in the minds of great thinkers until someone actually devised a way to make them. Technology allows engineers to transport ideas from the realm of fantasy to reality. Imagine bringing a Roman forward through time to modern-day and showing him a computer. Magus he would say. Magic.

It is for this reason that inventors and scientists belong in a higher echelon. Without them, we’d still be in sitting in a cave, lamenting the taste of raw meat.

The search for immortality has plagued humanity since the dawn of time. The only certain thing in life is death: we can run from the Reaper but we can’t hide. Eternal life, or the lack of, remains a problem that scientists and philosophers alike have failed to solve for millennia.

For centuries we have gone to extreme lengths to prolong our life, but so far physical immortality has eluded us. With drugs and surgery — and leeches and the warm blood of animals! — we can maintain the illusion of youth for decades, but evading death itself has proven a little trickier.

Enter religion with its universal theme of immortality of the soul, or in some cases reincarnation — the best get-out-of-jail-free card ever. ‘Hey, we can’t grant this body of yours eternal life, but how about another go if you mess up?’ The single most wished for trait of all time, that which all humans crave — more than wealth, or happiness, or progeny — immortality became available at a low low price of a few Hail Marys or donation to the church of your choosing.

Immortality: the frustratingly-close mirage, finally within reach! Trample each other as you try to get to it first; God doesn’t mind. Anyone can have it, at the price of your dignity and a handful of coins; who cares if you live this life in squalor, while a fat priest sleeps soundly, resplendent in his gold-trimmed vestments — there’s always the next life! A helpful, portly priest once told me that there’s surround-sound TVs in Heaven; The Kingdom of God, Araboth, Nirvana. In the old days there was obviously lots of black slaves, and taverns with lots of beer — and quaffing! — and Valkyries. But today, that doesn’t sell so well…

I wouldn’t be quite so pessimistic if all religions could at least agree on one common theme — immortality of the soul or reincarnation — but as they can’t seem to agree, and kill each other over the minutiae, it’s likely that none of them are right. God himself seems to vary a lot from religion to religion, and if you can’t agree on something as basic and omnipresent as God, what’s the point? Were the gods of ancient history (there were hundreds of them!) fake?

That’s the problem with a divinely-inspired canon – words, from the infallible mandible of God – if you disprove just a single facet of it, one breathlessly intoned phrase of God, the entire thing falls to pieces. So if the tribal shaman got it wrong about their deities, and the Greek priests got it wrong about their polytheistic Parthenon, why should we believe modern-day monotheistic religion? You can read a little more about my views on monotheistic religion, if you like, but that’s enough for this entry.

If you take God and paid-for immortality out of the equation what do you have left? A moral code of conduct and a few archaic rules that (sometimes) made sense in the religion’s hey-day: a moral code then, and not much else.

But wait… there has to be something to it. Unless humanity really has fabricated a belief in the supernatural (and geneticists will argue that this is the case) for the past 10,000 years, there has to be some truth in it all. What if we take God or any ‘higher power’ that we are subservient to out of the equation, and just leave the spiritual side of things? Current science is leaning towards something, a quantum force created by particles either millions of times smaller than atoms, or by something else entirely. We might never know what that force is, but the mere fact that there’s something outside the realm of empirical measurement — the most common argument against the existence of a spirit or soul — will certainly be a tricky one for scientists.

Physical immortality is just around the corner, or at least you’ll soon have new organs grown at a whim. Bust your heart? Buy another one — it might be grown inside a pig, but who are you to complain? You’ve probably seen or heard about the mouse genetically engineered to grow an ear on its back. There are projects working on the important biological aspects of aging (cell aging being the main one), but there are other caveats too. Is it ethical for us to live forever? Do we have the technology and the resources to sustain 40, 50, 60 billion people here on Earth? Perhaps most importantly: would we do anything today if we could always put it off until tomorrow?

It’s at times like this I wish I could remove myself from the equation. I have beliefs which interfere with my objectivity! It’s awfully hard to derive a solution or even an answer when my flesh-and-blood brain has to be consulted first — my brain which has been meddled with by my parents, my friends and the media. It’s comforting to know that everyone else suffers the same fate though; even philosophers had to grow up.  It’s impossible for me to claim there’s a world beyond our own, but if science and technology has shown us anything in the last 50 years: don’t place any bets.

If we could give birth to a fully-grown adult — a test-tube human born into physical and mental maturity, without any of the pain or suffering sustained in childhood — how would they view the world? Without bias and with complete and utter objectivity, some pieces of the universal puzzle might just slip into place.

If immortality yet again slips  between our greedy paws, we still have transhumanism to look forward to: augmented human bodies. Bionic eyes, mithril exoskeletons and steam-powered muscles — well, perhaps not so much the mithril or the steam-power, but it’s coming! I’ll talk about that after Terminator 4: Salvation hits the cinemas.

I took yet another wrong turn and looked around. It was 10am, but down here in the maze-like bowels of Venice it could’ve been 10pm. I’d been up since 4am and the caffeine from the cup of coffee on the plane was wearing thin. Breakfast would’ve been lovely and there was certainly the tantalising smell of food in the air, but following my usually-acute sense of smell had already led me into three dead ends.

A couple of geriatric Italians grinned at me toothlessly from a doorway. Even if I attempted to ask them for directions in Italian they would feign illiteracy.

I stared at them and grinned back, making the shape of a gun with my index finger and thumb. My over-sized canines had done most of the work, but I had to admit: the finger-gun was a nice touch. Pointing it at the pensioners I asked: ‘Dov’è Al Doge Beato?‘ They showed me, with a nervous succession of frail arm movements, where I might find my humble abode for the next two days: The Blessed Duke, the Happy Duke — something like that.  It sounded cheesy, but it was charming– everything in Venice is lovely.

Perhaps ‘lovely’ isn’t quite the right word; ‘quaint’ better describes the almost-complete dilapidation of the city. As I walked on, almost everything is in an awful state of repair. There’s something about floating in the middle of a warm and windy salt-water lagoon that really eats away at the paint and brickwork. A few bridges and labyrinthine turns later, I stood outside my hotel: a canal-side, turn-of-the-millennium building — and I’m not talking about a few years ago! My room looked out over a canal on one side, and had a floor-to-ceiling double-door leading out onto an ancient stone balcony on the other. It wasn’t cheap, but considering nothing in Venice is, I thought I’d splash out.

‘You can’t miss Piazza San Marco, just head towards…’ I zoned out as he begun gesturing wildly with his hands. It was obviously an Italian thing, pointing and gesticulating; some kind of sign language that I wasn’t privy to. He noticed the blank look on my face. ‘I’ll get you a map.’ Armed with my map and camera and finger-gun I looked around and then at the map, trying to catch my bearings. Picking one of the three paths that headed south at random I felt like one of my other namesakes, Sebastian Cabot. He’d been a major player in Venice back in the day and he’d probably had less difficulty navigating Venice than me — he ended up exploring Brazil for the King of Spain! — but I gave it my best shot. I’d already decided ahead of time that ‘getting lost in Venice’ would be one of the primary objectives of my trip. Losing myself as I cut between two buildings that were no more than half a meter apart; disappearing amongst the endless serpentine alleys, lost to the world. Venice isn’t big, but you only need walk 50 meters off the beaten path, turn a few corners, and you’ll find yourself alone, standing beneath the imposing facade of a  Gothic church or Renaissance house.

First up was a trip to to the Piazza — the only real open space in central Venice and the home of most major landmarks in Venice. There’s also a huge clock tower in the middle which, as you’d expect, grants a spectacular view of the ancient core of Venice.

There are museums and churches aplenty in Venice, much like every major city in Italy, but they pale in comparison to the ones in Florence and Rome. I could easily spend hours writing about the 50 churches that I visited during my trip, but that’d be boring! (Unless you like churches a lot… like me!) Perhaps you can now understand where my recent interest in dissecting religion has come from — you can only spend so long basking in the shadow of such an ancient, powerful institution — Roman Catholicism — before something goes ‘pop’.

Venice was home to the very first Jewish Ghetto, a Venetian word that probably derives from ‘iron foundry’, or a corruption of ‘Judaca’, the name given to the streets in which the Jews were confined to in Venice. This is where Jewish segregation all began, though this ghetto didn’t enforce labour like later incarnations around the world — it was merely separation from the aggressive and violent Christians. Set up by the incumbent Duke to protect rather than enslave, the Jews probably sought refuge there — they definitely weren’t free to leave however! It was also around this time that Jews became, um, Jewish: Catholic law prevented money-lending, but Jewish law did not. Jews also became the best doctors because most medical texts at the time were in Arabic, a language that Italians and Venetians struggled to understand.

The Venetian Ghetto existed until Napoleon came along in 1797 and removed all of the gates that had penned them in for 250 years, though some early documents could put it over 700 years! All that remain are the hinges that held those gates, but the Jewish love of money lives on! (Remember, it’s not our fault though — blame the Pope!)

It was a little sad, walking around the dirty, tired streets of Venice, a city that had once been the most affluent city state the world has ever seen. The Queen of the Adriatic was one of its many names, a name that makes you wonder just how opulent and vibrant the city had been 600 years ago. For centuries, Venice was ruled by merchants – a republic, led by aristocratic merchants, their sole purpose being to make more money (something they did very well. What most people don’t know is that Venice actually held an empire — a small one, mainly consisting of the Aegean islands Crete and Cyprus, but an empire nonetheless. They had a sizable military force, and their navy of 3,000 ships were almost invulnerable in their stronghold of a lagoon. Most were merchant ships but often converted into warships when piracy flared up in the East, or when they played a large part in the Forth Crusade — the crusade often viewed as the final schism between Catholic and East Orthodox religions — a role in a war that would ultimately spell the end of the Byzantine empire. Not bad for an unnavigable flyspeck of an island!

And the scary bit? It was all made possible with money; a leader with almost unlimited resources and support from a loyal, trusting republic:  that’s capitalism.

(Another entry, another podcast! Recorded all in one take without any kind of planning, so the voices you hear are ‘off the cuff’ — I’m particularly proud of my attempt at a crazed feminist. Hopefully there are no repeat or missing paragraphs. It sounds a little bit nasal and wet in places, but hey, I can’t and don’t want to fix that: excess saliva has always served me well in the past.)

Once upon a time there were was a seedy, fleet-footed fellow that only moved under the cover of darkness. Only after the sun had descended and the campus took on the dusky, dark-blue hues of night would he emerge in his long coat and broad-rimmed hat. His black leather boots moved with surprising grace, the slight squeak of foot against foot the only noise betraying his location.

He skirts the meeting point, watching his target nervously hop from foot to foot and light a third cigarette, its burning tip faintly outlining his hooded face. Eventually he approaches, sidling up next to the smoker. He grunts a quiet greeting.

‘Got the money?’

‘You got all the stuff I want?’

‘Of course.’

‘Even the ebony-and-ivory one?’

‘Does the Porn King ever fail to deliver?’

…

At university I ruled the roost. I was invited to all the parties and chicks clung to every limb. I was that guy on the white leather sofa, splayed out languidly like a snow angel, girls curled up in the spaces left between my arms and legs. Merely opening my mouth would cause those nearby to quickly hush and watch me; watch my lips, my teeth, the expansion of my ribs as I breathe in, preparing to speak.

‘The Porn King requires a blow job.’ A flurry of activity followed as the girls quickly clambered off the sofa onto the ground and two others standing nearby rushed to help.

I once lived a life of regal opulence. Hedonistic extravagance. Girls and boys available to me at any time for any need and every want: food, sex or even… conversation. I’d be given free tickets to the local cinema and I’d be rushed through the other entrance at nightclubs, the one without a queue. At restaurants I’d always get the best table, the freshest bread and it wasn’t uncommon for the chef to prepare a special dessert, just for me.

I felt just a bit like The Godfather.

Unlike the Godfather though, I hadn’t built an empire based on coercion, fear and racketeering; this was an empire built upon something far healthier: sex and satisfaction. Not the human-trafficking kind either: sex, gooey and juicy, safely condensed into an easily-transportable disc.

The word ‘pornography’, perhaps aptly if you’re a ‘moralist’, comes from ancient Greek literally meaning ‘the writing/recording of prostitutes/prostitution’. That’s not a good start for an argument in favour of pornography, but wait!

Historically porn has been outlawed for religious reasons — monotheistic of course: the Greeks and Romans loved sex and all the sticky extras it entailed — but more recently the anti-porn brigade has been led by the feminists: ‘Porn is degrading to the female form!’ they decry. At the same time they claim that we’re now grown up enough, as a culture, to grant women the rights they’ve for millennia done without: to vote, to display and do with themselves as they see fit, to sleep with whoever they damn well please — to be a separate race or species: women. For the longest time women have merely been an extension of man, their subordinate helpers, humans without penises. Feminists — and most sane people — argue that it’s time women were allowed to plant their feet on the ground, look around, and strike out in any direction

The argument is, of course, that the actresses in porn aren’t ‘being women’; no, they’re prostituted lumps of meat, their bodies sold for money to the highest bidder for the satisfaction of a paying audience that’s sitting in front of their TV or computer screen, fapping, flapping furiously. But… is there something wrong with that?

It’s the classic problem: how restrictive do you make laws? You can’t re-outlaw porn — it just wouldn’t wash without the stranglehold that religion once held over law-making. You can’t point your finger at the mischievous boys and girls and say: ‘You behave and keep your clothes on now, y’hear?’ The cat — the pussy — is out of the bag.

Perhaps a better question to ask is: why is porn considered to degrade women, but not men? Is it because the woman always ‘receives’? Is it purely because women have been on the receiving end of male leadership and ownership since the dawn of time? What about gay male porn? Are there masculists out there campaigning for the rights of men that always ‘play the bottom’ in porn? Another case in point: I had to look up ‘masculist’ to see if such a word even existed. That’s how foreign the concept of ‘male rights’ are in today’s society.

It’s a shame that women and men must resort to starring in pornography, and no doubt it’s hard and unsatisfying work wrought with risk. In all but a few unfortunate cases however, it was their choice to take part — perhaps they like sex so why not be paid for it? It’s a lot safer to have sex on a porno shoot than with some random guy or girl that you meet at a club — for a start, you have a camera crew and director watching to make sure they don’t stick something in the wrong hole. That’s probably a better problem to address: the current urge for ‘modern women’ to screw anything with a pulse just because they can, but that deserves a separate topic of discussion.

It boils down to this, feminists, priests and conservative law-makers: is it possible to have too many human rights? Do you somehow pretend to understand more about ourselves than us? Ethics — the ability to decide what is right and wrong — is fundamentally personal. You can’t tell someone the right answer for any given situation: to retain the human right of free thought and self-determinism they have to decide for themselves. Instead of trying to govern our actions, educate us fully and hope that we come out the other end wiser and relatively unscathed.

As a race we’re great at getting through things if we know what we’re getting into. When we are blinkered by lies and propoganda, when we walk into a situation without unbiased information, when we are unable to see both sides of an argument due to outside influence — when we lose our ability to make rational and fair decisions, then we’re in trouble.