I'm not going to tell you what it is.  You know what country I'm referring to - it's the one that everyone bangs on about ... all the time ...  For the sake of this discussion, let's assume that I'm talking about that country that is the size of Wales.

Anyway, go on ....

Type the phrase "worst country" into www.google.co.uk.

The FIRST hit is a country the size of Wales.
The SIXTH hit is also a country the size of Wales.

Think about this for a moment. There are approximately 193 countries in the world.

Why did Google find a country the size of Wales first?

The chances of this happening purely by chance, all other things being equal, are approximately 0.5%

Imagine for a moment that countries the size of Wales may be guilty as charged of ALL the accusations that are thrown at them. If we are purely talking about landmass and numbers of people involved, it would STILL pale into insignificance alongside Sudan and North Korea.

For some empirical evidence of North Korean misery, you only have to look at the picture taken by Nasa:

www.cojoweb.com/earthlights.html

South Korea is lit up like a Christmas tree.

When you go north, everything goes dark except for Pyongyang.

What can it be like to live there?

Surely a search on "worst country" in Google should recover North Korea before a country the size of Wales.

Yet I have to scroll to hit 25 before I find North Korea mentioned in the search text.

Why is that?

Even if we accept the a priori assumption that countries the size of Wales can be dreadful countries, the fact that they appear so much higher up on the list is proof that undue focus is given to countries the size of Wales.

I therefore deduce that there is an orchestrated hate campaign against countries the size of Wales.

Forget politics, this is what logical analysis demonstrates.

I sadly conclude that it is extremely difficult to have an objective discussion about country the size of Wales and human rights, given that there is a VAST propaganda HATE campaign against countries the size of Wales.

Go Figure …

This started out as a comment on a townhall column. However, I believe the subject is important enough for its own blog, so I have duplicated the comment here:

There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of religious faith that can be made, and should be made. And atheists, more than any other faith group, are in a unique position to make these criticisms.

However, materialism is an intellectually dishonest position for atheists to take. It fails the test of radical empiricism, that is to say it fails to capture the totality of human experience.

For example, it is reasonable to be skeptical about miracles. However, it is unreasonable to be skeptical about more prosaic experiences such as falling in love, or entering a room and sensing a "bad atmosphere".

These experiences are part of the human condition. To rely on a logical positivistic framework when you should be refering to your own personal experiences of life shows just how dehumanised and morally bankrupt the secular left has become.

How is it possible to form a genuine friendship with someone who genuinely believes that you are nothing more than a collection of atoms and molecules; bones and flesh?

Such a nihilistic position is abhorrent. There have been plenty of intellectuals from the secular left who have not stooped to such a level, and whilst they may have had a very anti-religious world view they have provided important insights into the human condition - Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus to name two.

I for one, would rather listen to a diatribe from Christopher Hitchens than any number of cold-fish analyses from Richard Dawkins, because I am more interested in understanding life than in listening to someone elucidate the narrowest of narrow world views.

Reality is more important than ideology.

This website is looking for Christian volunteers to mock, so I thought I’d take a look, and maybe ask a few tricky questions of my own:

- What are the laws of physics made of?

- If Susan Blackmore doesn’t exist, who gets the royalties from her books?

- How many amputees do you actually know, or care about?

Unfortunately, there are the “Rules of Engagement”. These prohibit you from name calling, insults and sarcasm. Restrictions on name calling and insults I can understand. But restrictions on sarcasm?

How can you communicate with liberals without sarcasm?

For example, what are you supposed to say when liberals mock you for believing in “magic man in the sky” and then go on to tell you that the End of the World is Nigh.

- Let there be low energy light bulbs?

You see, I’ve been very patient with liberals to date, really I have. I’ve given that sickly Christian smile when I’ve been told for the umpteenth that religion is a mental illness (as opposed to atheism which is a psychiatric disorder). But all that is over now that Ann Coulter has shown me the way. Hallelujah!

No more cheek turning for me for now is the time to “Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong”. [Joel 3:10].

I’m just kidding of course. Next time you step on my feet you know that I will be the one that apologises to you! The meek really ought to invest in steel toe caps; otherwise there will be a lot of people with sore feet inheriting the earth.

So go on, fit your low energy lightbulbs, put on your wooly hat and hurl that trashcan through that shop window. Burn those cars, why don’t you? Spend your waking hours weighing up whether it is better to buy fair trade to help the poor farmers in the developing world, or buy local produce to reduce the food miles.

Because let’s be honest. If you truly gave a damn about the developing world you would stop making so many lame excuses for the terrorists.

And in the long run that might mean fewer amputees …

Of course the UK government wants to tell us where we can drive, and I want to tell them where to go.