OH what fun we’ve had today!
On the way to work this morning, I spotted this poster outside my local news agent.
What, I wondered, could that be all about? I soon learned that it related to a report in the Argus that a priest has made it his mission to turn atheist (and gay) haven Brighton into a much more pious place.
Reverend Archie Coates has arrived in the city to establish a franchise of London’s evangelical Holy Trinity Brompton church at the failed Anglican St Peter’s Church – a landmark building dubbed Brighton’s Cathedral, the congregation of which had dwindled to about five pensioners and a dog.
The thing was about to close when Holy Trinity stepped in in the hope of reversing its fortunes.
In a web video, Coates said:
Brighton is a place of great social and spiritual need. Homelessness, drugs and young men and women caught in the sex industry. It has been dubbed Britain’s most Godless city.
He said his church could transform Brighton.
Our vision is not just to fill the church but it’s to build in the heart of this city a community and do whatever we can to sow our best years into playing our part in the re-evangelisation of Brighton and transformation of this society.
Coates added:
Since I moved to Brighton six weeks ago I have realised that it is a lot more godly than I imagined. If you look around you see the creativity, the vibrancy and the life of the city.
Well, that was just too much for P Z Myers, over at Pharangula, whom I alerted to the report the moment I read it. His acid response was:
Twit. Those are symptoms of godlessness, not godliness.
I thought PZ would be interested because lately he has been taking a great deal of interest in on-line polls – and the Argus chose to run one alongside the Coates report.
Here were the results at 6pm:
Marvellous, huh?
More fun was had reading some of the comments left on PZ’s blog. This one, from Cuttlefish, deserves a wider airing:
There once was a preacher in Brighton
Whose clerical collar’s a tight’un
When he asked, in a poll,
‘Can I save your poor soul?’
They chose ‘Go bugger off!’ as the right’un!(The original – not mine – goes:
There once was a hooker from Brighton
Whose client complained ‘you’re a tight’un!’
Quoth she: ‘Pon my soul,
Guv, you’re in the wrong hole –
There’s plenty of room in the right’un!’)
There are some pretty good comments under the Argus report too.
Incidentally, a current poll on the Alpha Course website, asks “Does God Exist?” Nine-Seven percent responded NO!
On the way back from work this evening I spotted a fit young hunk walking past the sad, almost-derelict St Peter’s, which has signs warning of falling masonry. He was dressed as Batman – and he didn’t look the least out of place!
Welcome to my world – welcome to Brighton, godless, gay, goofy and guaranteed to resist Coates’ best efforts!
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
October 16th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
But how will the people of Brighton…
receive a chosen retard
October 16th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
I'm packing my bags already, Barry!
This reminds me of my days as an evangelical. Every location that these evangelists take their silly campaigns is the most Godless place that they have ever come across in their whole life, full of "challenges" and "Satanic opposition"! (Ask Danny Nalliah about that, if you don't realize how "very real" it is!!) And every time they start up somewhere fresh, they have been assured by the Almighty that He is going to perform wonders there to outshine all that has been experienced heretofore! It's a load of marketing bullshit, that puts even Anthony (Big Teeth) Robbins to shame!!
October 16th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Thought I'd beat you to it…
Reverend Archie Coates = researcher to deviance
or
censored avarice there
or
seedier havoc recanter
or
Creator. Deviances here!
or
Creator evaders. Nice eh!
Best I can do at short notice.
October 17th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Come here and re-colonize us. Please.
Sarah from the US
October 17th, 2009 at 7:22 am
This is good news!! If only Brighton were to advertise with something like "Brighton, City of the Godless", that would get some god-nuts' knickers in a twist.
October 17th, 2009 at 7:28 am
He says "Godless" like it's a bad thing.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Reading this has brightened my day. I bet the xtians et al will be busing in their troops to evangelise.
If only every town and city was godless!
October 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
These polls are magic. One of the problems that they sometimes have is that there is no box for the correct answer, in the case of the Alpha one I think that that would be "probably not" though with added reference to Russell's teapot. Incidently, I read in last week's NSS Newsline that a guy is being prosecuted for putting an X in the no box on an Alpha course poster. The police wanted to do an on the spot robbery but he elected to go to court.
October 17th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
'Reverend Archie Coates '?
He'll be one of god's anoraks then
October 17th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
We had an infestation of Jesus Army weirdos here a few weeks back, and I caught one handing out tracts outside the shop where I work. "Shoo!" I said to the woman "This is a respectable sex shop and we don't want people handing out filthy Christian propaganda to our customers!" She took off like a seagull with its tail feathers on fire!
October 18th, 2009 at 12:30 am
This comment reveals how successful the godphuqt have been in deluding even nontheists into believing the Big Lie that it is impossible to prove a negative. Consider the following: "A square circle cannot exist." "A living corpse cannot exist." "God cannot exist." Each of those statements is true by definition, since each concept identified as nonexistent is a self-contained oxymoron. Square-circle and living-corpse are self-evidently absurd. "God" is by definition a god with the specific qualities of omnibenevolence that would cause him to wish to protect humans from harm, and omniscience that would enable him to protect humans from harm. If God, so defined, existed, massive human deaths from natural disasters and disease could not exist. But they do exist. The answer to, "Do gods exist?" is, "probably no." The answer to, "Does God exist?" is "unequivocally no."
October 18th, 2009 at 4:00 am
I lived in Brighton for 6 months and the best thing about it is its incredible diversity – and along with it, a complete lack of labels. As a visiting Indian student remarked, a Tory in a three-piece suit with a briefcase can be best mates with a transvestive with purple dreadlocks and nobody will bat an eyelid! I still miss it – it's the place where you can be just *anyone* and you're accepted. You can walk round the beach or the cheesy pier at 1am and feel perfectly safe, not because everyone is godly and placid, but because everywhere is populated and happy, and people are communicative and look out for each other.
Brighton is far too smart to be in the least bit swayed by yet another weirdo. I expect they will just laugh!
October 18th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I agree that in this case the poster is referring to a specific God and in that case the answer is definately no. It only becomes an open question when applied to some vaguely defined deist god and in that case I think that the correct answer is probably not. I also think that the existence of such a god is highly unlikely, hence the reference to Russels teapot.
October 18th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
"omniscience" was a typo. I should have written "omnipotence".
October 19th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
You're a funny lot aren't you? Spending your days posting comments on your own religious site? Oh well. I vote for this guy based on the fact that he's said he's going to be "playing [his] part in the re-evangelisation of Brighton and transformation of this society." Course he'll have to earn those colours along with everyone else. However: even if you don't like the evangelism, God knows (no pun intended) that the city needs a few do gooders to do some good. I read in one of the posts that a girl died of an overdose on the stairs of the church the other day. It's such a shame that it had temporarily closed since that is exactly what he wants to take part in addressing from what he seems to have said. Not such a bad thing – however misguided you might think he is about his faith. Presumeably Brighton isn't "too smart" to welcome another pair of hands. No of course it's not.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Oh this is priceless. Apparently the founder of your magazine was “Cutting”, “abrasive”, “sarcastic”, “offensive”. And you are so proud of it. What makes you so proud? I'll go the faith based route I think. Nicer bunch of people even if you think they are barmy. You're pseudo-intellectual arrogance is repellent. Freethinkers my arse. I dare any of you to go on an Alpha course and engage in the debate face to face with Christians. You'll find they are the least pushy people you might care to meet and you may water down your hate a bit. In fact – I kind of find your hate a bit sinister. What's the point of it?
October 25th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
^Hey Michael, I did go on an Alpha course, and they asked me to leave – because by well-behaved but persistent questioning of anything they said which didn’t make sense, I was bringing more people round to a non-Christian way of thinking than they were managing to convince of their way. You say you find the ‘hate’ here a bit sinister. All I see is good-natured joshing. What I find sinister is that your first-century ‘holy’ book tells me that my expression of love for my partner is “an abomination”. Now that’s hate.