Secular Portal Blogs

Tough questions

Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

On Wednesday I headed down to give Kat some company at Alpha at South Parade Baptist Church. The theme of the night was tough questions and so our group discussions looked at a number of questions, namely why does god allow suffering, what about other religions and are science and religion incompatible.

The general answers where because Jesus took our sins, because Christianity has Jesus who was unique and no because Jesus said so . Actually those weren’t quite the answers but that was the general theme. I found this session much more engaging to be honest and enjoyed it far more though I did find some real cliched points.

I had to hold myself back at least twice, first when people commented that what really sets Christianity apart was that it had Jesus and his story was unique. Of course his story isn’t unique, it fits brilliantly into the hero pattern and is very, very derivative of previous gods. Secondly the girl opposite me, Charlotte, was no doubt a very nice girl and very friendly – but did bring up the “bad, mad or god” argument and I had to bite my tongue from saying “I dealt with this last time I was here, it doesn’t hold any water.”

All in all though I found the discussions much more engaging than the previous visit so thumbs up.

The truth is out there

Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

On Tuesday Rich delivered an updated version of his talk to A-Soc (not that he bothered to update the title slide lol). This was a rather good lead in to the night’s social at Vodka Revolution in which several people managed to work their way through several sticks of shots (a stick being a variety pack of 6 shots)! A messy, messy evening.

Debating the Theists

Saturday, October 24th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

I delivered an updated version of my talk Debating the Theists to Atheist Society on Tuesday. It went rather well despite forgetting to plug my laptop in and having it try to hybernate half way through the talk but the audience seemed to enjoy it and the feedback I got was fairly positive. Maybe could have done with a bit more substance but it’s always a tricky balance.

Interestly, the BHA picked up on it and put it in their weekly e-bulletin which was great and made more amusing by the fact that with no background information, many BHA members around the country may be wondering why exactly I am a reverend and whether I’m religious .

BBQ based ethics

Saturday, October 17th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Friday saw us kick things off with One Life, this week’s session being about ethics. As John was running late I started the session as chair for the first half an hour or so raising a few topic discussions before the real content matter was entered when John arrived. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough plates and cutlery for the committee ended up eating out of a cup with a spoon!

Afterwards we headed up to City Church on Headingley road who were running re:fresh, a free BBQ and hot drinks session to catch drunk people Otley running it. We would have had a few drinks in the old bar first but as they were Christians they had to go to bed at 11 so we had to go there first .

Having come direct from One Life we were of course in our Atheist Society hoodies which made for a fun time – of course they were very welcoming though the hoodies did get described as inappropriate by a girl on a fancy dress Otley run dressas as a Roman which we didn’t find at all ironic. After all, what have the Romans ever done to Christians?

Amnesty International fundraiser

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

This evening A-Soc held a fundraiser for Amnesty International. It was reasonably successful – we got around 30 people there and raised over £100, the winning idea of the night being the raffle to which Jonni had secured us some amazing prizes – including tickets to the Four Nations final which I walked away with! I understand it is some kind of sporting event, I will ask the guys at work to explain more tomorrow.

One Life kicks off

Saturday, October 10th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Yesterday saw the third run of our One Life course begin with the traditional first topic, the meaning of life.

The session saw a very good turn out of about 20-25 people which is great for a One Life and something I hope we can sustain throughout the course. The food was also excellent so it was an all round winner of an evening. The post-event social was a bit shakey but we eventually ended up settling down at the Cuthbert Brodrick for the evening and didn’t leave until kick out.

Introduction to Atheism

Thursday, October 8th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Tuesday night saw A-Soc hold it’s Introduction to Atheism talk. This year is was presented by three different speakers – Money Bags did a philosophical look at atheism, Norm did a look at the various terms atheists use to describe themselves and I did applied atheism – atheism in the real world or as I like to put it…

Taking your bucket of atheism and throwing it at the wall of life.

The talk overran a little but was overall very warmly received. We finished off with a social at The Old Bar which featured a surprise visit from Brett who is up in Leeds for a few days!

All in all it was a good night, although attendance was sorely lacking. This is something we can hopefully sort out in the coming weeks.

Welcome to 2009/2010

Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Tuesday saw A-Soc hold our 2009/2010 intro meeting. The meeting itself went well if a little poorly attended – well, I saw poorly attended, there were plenty of people there but a lot of them were old faces, it would have been nice to get some more new faces. We seemed to do an excellent job on the conversion rate however so it was far from a loss.

Afterwards we headed down to karaoke. It would seem a fair comment to say I got rather drunk. Rich was threatening not to sing It’s A Sin due to the price of beer required to get him intoxicated, which resulted in me having to buy a bottle of wine between us and that resulted in Rich having to buy one back, and after that I was buying drinks and after that someone else was buying me drinks long after I had convinced Nicola my archers and lemonade was in fact water so by the time I left I couldn’t really see too much and it was 2am.

Then I had to grab some food of course, which was delayed while I chatted to a very attractive randomer about A-Soc and then I had to get home and sober up before I could actually go to sleep as it always ends badily if you don’t. So it was well into the early hours of the morning and even with flexi I still had to be in work for 9:30 the next morning so by the time I made it in I was shattered. I ended up leaving shortly after 4:45 and headed home for a power nap before I could get anything else done.

Of course we managed to get the obligatory group photo and myself and George performed The Eagles’ Hotel California, not that I remember much about doing it, except of course that we completely rocked and for some reason look like we were doing a love duet in the photos.

In any case, a fitting start to the 2009/2010 academic year I think.