Darkins denies the existence of light

Professor Richard Darkins has launched another scathing attack on those "gullible" folk who believe in the existence of light.

Richard Darkins - refuses to walk in the light.

Darkins is well-known for his books written in Braille, such as The watchmaker with no disability and The Light Delusion. These books insist that light does not exist, because if it did he would be able to see it. Darkins is prepared to remain open-minded on the existence of the sun. "Sometimes it gets quite hot, I can feel that," he said, "but no rational person believes that there is such a thing as 'light.'"

A "vile and bigoted" sun-worshipper.

The good professor set up the Richard Darkins Foundation for Reason and Science, in order to propagate his ideas that light does not exist. One sect that he has particularly attacked is the Lunatics - fanatical believers in the light of the moon, who use the crescent as their symbol. Two days ago, the RDFRS website was hacked by lunatics, and the general view was that it was a great improvement.

Mrs Darkins with Richard's guide-dog, K9.

Darkins's views are not universally accepted, and many people ridicule his aphosist stance. A few years ago he was slightly injured when trying to drive a bus round London, bearing the message "Light probably does not exist": after going strongly for half a mile, he then crashed into a lamp-post.

We spoke to Francisco Bergoglio, a retired chemist who now holds an administrative position in Rome. "Darkins means well," he said, "but he doesn't have a sound academic background in logic and reasoning, and he does tend to get confused. He sends me hate messages, because some of my staff like singing songs such as Newman's 'Lead, kindly, Light.' He tells me that a belief in light is responsible for everything that's wrong in the world."

A totally pointless "light" house.

Some New Hymns

As a change from "Bad hymns," where we say cruel things to modern hymn-writers, we are now going to invite in some older hymn-writers, to tell them where they went wrong. Today we welcome John Henry Newman, author of hymns such as Lead, kindly Light, and Praise to the Holiest in the height, which are hardly ever sung in church these days. Now, why is that?

Cardinal Newman - where did he go wrong?

E: Welcome, John, and congratulations on your Beatification - I was really rooting for you. Now, your first hymn starts:

Lead, kindly Light, amid th'encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

Not very snappy, is it? I suppose you never used to play the guitar, did you? Or shake the tambourine?

JHN: That's true, Eccles, I did try to introduce these to the Birmingham Oratory, but the traddies wouldn't have it. So how can I bring my hymn up to date?

E: Well, taking the tune of Walk in the Light, how about rewriting it as:

Lead, lead, Kindly Li-ight,
Lead, lead, Kindly Li-ight,
Lead, lead, Kindly Li-ight,
Lead on, as I'm far from home!

Watson, the night is dark and we are far from home.

JHN: Yes, I think that would work. So Verse 2 could be:

Keep, keep Thou my fee-eet,
Keep, keep Thou my fee-eet,
Keep, keep Thou my fee-eet,
One step's the right thing for me!

E: You're learning quickly, John. This is the sort of hymn that Catholic congregations are singing these days. None of your flowery language!

JHN: Can we do something about Praise to the Holiest in the height, Eccles? It comes from my poem The Dream of Gerontius.

Gerontius, catching up on some sleep.

E: Gerontius? I suppose it's too late to give him a more with-it name? The Dream of Dave, maybe? Well, let's see how it starts:

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise;
In all His words most wonderful,
Most sure in all His ways.

E: I think the problem here, John, is that there are at least four different ideas in that verse. And later on you get very involved in sin and redemption, and all that sort of Jesus-stuff, whereas modern congregations should be singing about how happy they are.

JHN: Yes, I think I'm getting the hang of this now. Could I use the tune of "Follow me, follow me?"

When we're up in the heights, or we feel a little blue,
Oh we like to praise our holy holy Friend,
For He sorted us out, yes He did, for me and you,
So we're saved, yes we're saved, and that's the end. 

Chorus: Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, 
praise the holy holy Lord... (ad libitum)

When we're up in the heights, or we feel a little blue...

E: Very good, John. You got through the main points of your hymn much more quickly that time, didn't you?

JHN: Thanks for your wise advice, Eccles. Now I see how real hymn-writers work.

Tonight's Television

The Vicar of Webly

It's not over until the fat bishop sings.

In tonight's episode of The Vicar of Webly, the Church of England is in crisis after a measure to appoint women bishops is narrowly defeated, and it is realised that they will have to keep taking votes every few months until they get the answer they were supposed to get.

Ambitious Geraldine, the Vicar of Webly, having set her heart on promotion to the cushy job of Bishop of Milton Keynes, is in no doubt where the fault lies. "After weeks of discussion and lobbying, the Church of England made the mistake of allowing two minutes of prayer before the vote," she says. "It is entirely possible that the Holy Spirit intervened at the last minute and blocked the measure. Now is it right that God should be allowed to intervene in a democratic process?"

The Holy Spirit - dragging Religion into Politics.

Meanwhile, the Catholic church rushes to sympathise with the Anglicans in their time of trouble. In a personal phone call to their new leader, Archbishop-elect Webly, Pope Benedict XVI makes the comforting remark, "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

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Duffy the Vampire-slayer

Duffy the Vampire-slayer

The Catholic church has problems of its own, as the spectre of Traditional Catholicism, believed to have been buried in the 1960s, begins to rear its ugly head once more. A foolish old woman called Tina finds herself harassed on all sides, simply for speaking up against the mysterious forces called Magisterium. Banished from San Diego, she takes refuge in a dreadful wasteland called Roehampton.

Now all eyes turn towards Duffy the Vampire-slayer, a clever history student, who decides to rescue Tina from the forces that assail her. He invokes the spectre of Cardinal Newman, a well-known liberal Catholic who wrote regularly about how same-sex marriage, women priests and abortion were necessary for salvation. Duffy calls Newman to his aid in the battle for the soul of the Catholic church, and the fight is on.

John Henry Newman, author of Apologia pro Tina sua.

Will Duffy rescue poor Tina, or will he too be destroyed by the sinister doctrine known as Orthodoxy?

How Damian Thompson saved the Catholic church

We are pleased to welcome a celebrity guest blogger, the Archbishop of Corby, the Most Reverend Paul Priest, who will explain (more briefly than usual) why the Catholic Church in England and Wales owes so much to his friend Damian Thompson.

The Archbishop of Corby (H/T Maria Narwhal).

God, that man Damian is just so WONDERFUL. Remember when we were looking for a successor to Cormac as Archbishop of Westminster? Damian PERSONALLY spied on all the Magic Circle bishops and dug up all the dirt on them. For weeks he wrote hard-hitting articles pointing out that Arthur Roche was too fat, and Peter Smith smoked too many cigarettes. And in the end, the Nuncio got the message, and Vincent Nichols got the job. BLOODY MARVELLOUS, Damian!

The Pope's visit to Britain would never have happened if it were not for Damian. The organizer, Mgr Andrew Summersgill, had forgotten to make any room bookings, and the Papal Mass for the beatification of Cardinal Newman would have taken place in a bus shelter in Lincolnshire. But Damian came to the rescue, and in the end they used Cofton Park. AWESOME!

Cramped conditions for a papal mass to be attended by 55,000 people.

In fact Pope Benedict himself was going through a crisis of belief, and had to be rescued by Damian. To put it in layman's terms, the ontological neo-Kantian paradigm of Sacerdos Paulus semper obscurissimus est was giving him grief. I wrote to him myself: "Benedict, dude," I said, "just remember my encyclical Carpe vacuum, natura abhorret diem, and reflect on how Aquinas would have reacted." But, it took WONDERFUL Damian to tell the Pope the words he really wanted to hear, "Holy Father, I think your hair is fantastic." If it had not been for that, you can be sure that Benedict XVI would have resigned and we would now have Hans Küng as Pope. MAGNIFICENT, Damian! We LOVE you, dude!

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Other News

Richard Dawkins, with Charlie the chicken

An early photograph of the religious leader Richard Dawkins has just been published, which will be of great interest to Dawkists everywhere. It shows the brilliant man conducting research into the behaviour of chickens, a subject on which he was said to be a world authority. However, many modern scholars believe that the picture is a forgery, and they have even asserted that Dawkins was a purely mythical figure, whose life story was invented by his disciples. They point out that the writings attributed to Dawkins, being incoherent and inconsistent, are probably little more than clumsy forgeries put out by the Dawkist cult.

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The first women bishops in the Church of England.

Meanwhile, the Church of England has finally taken a decisive step in gender equality, by ordaining its first female bishops. The four saintly women in our photo, Mothers Avaritia, Ira, Invidia and Superbia, are expected to bring a new style of worship with them, based less on God and more on getting their names in the papers. With this aim in mind, it is rumoured that they are already in contact with Giles Fraser, the producer of Thought for the Day.

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The Cristina Odone horror mask

A few weeks ago we advertised the Damian Thompson horror mask. Now, for the ladies, we have the Cristina Odone mask! Terrify your Catholic friends as they think you are about to unleash a stream of garbled nonsense in your role as a "Catholic spokesman." Scare off your children's boyfriends and girlfriends, as they fear they may be saddled with a mother-in-law whose head gives off steam when she tries to think! Dress up as the woman who, without any sense of irony, dared to criticise Britt Ekland for her looks! With Christmas fast approaching, it is also useful for prospective pantomime dames, ugly sisters, and wicked witches!

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 11

Continued from Chapter 10

1. So Richard entered into the evening of his life, that is, the days of his retirement.

2. And his wife Lalla spake unto him, saying, "Richard, thou hast served thy genes well. Now is the time to take it easy, to sit on the sofa and watch Countdown."

3. "Or we could go down to the Darby and Joan Club and play Bingo; or we could travel afar and see my relatives on Gallifrey, such as the Meddling Monk, Morbius, and the Valeyard."

Uncle Morbius.

4. But Richard said, "Nay, my work is not yet done. For example, I have to minister over my website, dawkins.egotrip.net, that which is banned in Turkey, because it dares to say the unsayable."

5. For Richard had bravely mocked the Prophet Mohammed, hinting that he was not the sort of person who would be welcome on High Table at New College, Oxford. And this did not go down too well with the Turks.

This town ain't big enough for two prophets

6. After this humiliation at the hands of the Turks, Richard was wrathful, saying, "How is it that I, who wrote a thesis about chickens, am not idolized in Turkey?"

7. And the worshippers at the shrine of Dawkins laughed heartily at Richard's brilliant pun, saying "ROFL" and "LOL."

8. Which, being translated, means "O Richard, not only do you have the wisdom of Solomon, but you also have the comic genius of a Groucho Marx."

Richard, from the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

9. Then it came to pass that Richard had an even more strikingly brilliant idea, which would bring him great fame, and lead to increased sales for his books.

10. "I SHALL ARREST THE POPE," he said.

11. "For he is guilty of crimes against humanity, because he refuses to bow his knee at the shrine of Dawkins."

Probably drinking the blood of sweet furry kittens

12. "Indeed, this international gang-leader cometh to Great Britain soon, to meet his criminal associates, 'Vicious' Vince Nichols, Keith 'The Hat' O'Brien, and 'Fingers' Murphy-O'Connor."

13. "I have discovered that they are going to dig up the loot stashed away by John Henry 'Gerontius' Newman."

"Gerontius" Newman, the 19th century gangster

14. "And when the Pope appears, I shall arise and grab his collar, saying 'Ullo, ullo, ullo, what's all this then?' and 'You're nicked, sunshine.' Then I shall say unto him, 'I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the station'."

15. "And the Pope will reply unto me saying 'It's a fair cop, guv'nor. I dunnit all right. Pax vobiscum.'"

Richard Dawkins prepares to arrest the Pope

16. But in fact things did not quite work out according to plan.

Continued in Chapter 12.