Greece... and its situation.

I usually do not talk or write about politics, or economics, for the very simple reason that I hate politics and I get bored by economics. But I need to set the record straight here, as someone who was born and raised in Athens Greece. As someone who made the huge mistake of not staying in the UK when she had the chance but because my family were whining, literally, returned to Greece.

The situation in Greece is not new. It is not something that people in Greece just woke up to. It has been a very long time that the honest and hard working people of the private sector in Greece have been and still are held  hostage by corrupt politicians, the public sector and the Orthodox Church of Greece S.A.

The private sector is the one that is ONCE AGAIN being fucked over because of corruption in the government, because of the public sector. There are good companies that got fucked over and have closed, and people are losing their jobs. My own company is standing for the moment, but as we deal in construction, I may be without work and without any prospects in Greece by the end of the year if things don't calm down. I have paid my taxes, and paid whatever the law has told me, and have not tried to steal or to pay less or anything. And a lot of people are in the same boat with me.

Politicians lie. And everyone knows that greek politicians are the pit. I do not know who has voted for those idiots, but certainly it was not me. Politicians in Greece are interested only in their pockets and getting re-elected. So, what they did is put a lot of people unlawfully to work in the public sector, without any skills a lot of times.

Politicians have not had any cuts in their salaries at all. Oh, no not the Greek politicians. And every politician says that we are against the new austerity measures, but none of them has even said anything about cutting their own salaries. Not even the head of the communist party, has said anything of that sort. 

The private sector in Greece has been shouting for years about the public sector and the problems of putting too many people in there, people who have no skills and no knowledge and about all the problems we have had. I have more than once sent various letters of complaint to various public services because my rights as an individual and the rights of my company were violated, but never got a real answer.

The public sector employees' in Greece are the lucky ones. They cannot get fired; they do not have to worry where their next paycheck will come from or if it will come. And they are the ones making the most fuss. They had extras paid to them in order to :
1. Get to their work on time; no I am not joking!
2. To take documents from one floor of the building to another... Again I am not kidding.
3. In one organization, the 8th hour of work was considered overtime! Oh yes, they had 35 hour week work, and the extra 5 hours were overtime. And I am talking about people in offices!


Next, the Church of Greece. We have no separation of church/religion and state; I, an atheist, am forced to pay the salaries of the greek orthodox christian priests from my taxes, and so do all sorts of other people like buddhists, muslims, etc. etc. And the church of Greece is fucking rich beyond comprehension and there are idiots out there who leave their money and property to the greek orthodox church. It has been estimated that the annual tax evasion of the Orthodox Church of Greece SA is about 4 billion euros, and if we add the priests' salaries, etc. then add another half a billion euros. Oh, yes, the biggest fraud of them all is the Orthodox Church of Greece SA. It makes the greek population pay its employees' salaries, it does not pay taxes on anything, and it always asks for more money from the general populace. The Orthodox Church of Greece SA is nothing more than a black economic hole sucking money out of everyone of us. 

If you want to fuck over the people of Greece, and especially the private sector, then chuck Greece out of the euro. Inflation, and poverty and unemployment will soar and Greece will not be able to survive, and people will die on the streets. And this is not a fantasy scenario. There are right now children passing out in schools from hunger, because their parents are unemployed, and the unemployment benefits all go to pay for the house mortgage.

Yes, the honest and hard working people of Greece are being held hostage. We are being held hostage by corrupt politicians, by the public sector and by the Orthodox Church of Greece. We need new politicians. We need a new type of government and a new public sector. 

Atheist Union of Greece

On May 2010, some of the people and members of the greek Atheist blog and forum, have proceeded to form an official union of Atheists, with the purpose of promoting secularism, atheism, religious freedom, skepticism, science, rationality, critical thinking, etc. in Greece.

I am announcing the formation of the Atheist Union of Greece. For anyone interested, you can contact the secretariat of the union at the address: contact at atheia dot gr

The website of the Union is being built, and as soon as any more interesting news on the Union are published, I will make a new announcement.

Blasphemy in Ireland; The new law is a blow to humanism and secularism.

I was appalled when I heard about the new blasphemy law in Ireland. And here I thought, that despite the religiousness of a lot of Irish people, at least the government was secular. But I couldn't be more wrong. The new blasphemy law, fines anyone who blasphemes against christianity with a 25.000 (twenty-five thousand) euros!

This is a very dangerous law. It is a law that brings Ireland back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition, back to the days when even saying that the Earth revolves around the Sun, was blasphemy. Where do you draw the line? Why is it that religions are the only ones to cry "Blasphemy" every time someone uses their critical thinking and logic to dismantle their irrational claims?

This is a law that limits individual freedoms, the right to free speech. People have a right to free speech, and if they want to blaspheme, that is their right! Why do the religious find it okay to bash homosexuals, for example? And then, they will find it blasphemous to reply to this hate-mongering? How about the oppression of women in many religions, including christianity? Would it be okay to say that in the Bible god is a misogynistic prick? Which is backed up by evidence, from the religious holy book? Or it will be considered blasphemous?

How many books and movies have blasphemy in it? A lot of them. And if fundamentalists have their way, even science will be affected by this irrational and dangerous law. Evolution is considered, only by the religious, and especially the fundamentalists, to be a controversial subject. That man evolved is considered blasphemy to the fundies, even though the scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming. And that is only one of the sciences that can be affected by the law.

And what is next? Would teachers be affected in their teaching of evolution, of the Big Bang, of everything that is contradictory to the holy book of christianity?

Ireland is paving the way back to irrationality, dogmatism, oppression, through this law. Because blasphemy is one important stepping stone backwards to the time of the Middle Ages, and the times of the Spanish Inquisition.

As a response to the new law, the Irish Atheists have put up in their blog 25 blasphemous quotations from famous people, including Jesus Christ, and are asking for everyone's support so that the new law can be repelled:

25 Blasphemous Quotations