F Rosa Rubicondior: About Me

About Me

Firstly, Rosa Rubicondior is not my real name. It is from the Latin, rosa rubicundior, lilo candidior, omnibus formosior, semper in te glorior (redder than the rose, whiter than the lilies, lovelier than all others, I will always glory in thee). The only significance is that, when I was a radical lefty I wrote a weekly column in a magazine and wanted something red for a pen name. I found it in the lyrics on the sleeve of Carmina Burana, a mediaeval poem in German and Latin which was set to music by Carl Orff and which was very popular in the 1960s.

I toyed with Rufa Tunica (Red Shirt), which is also in the lyrics, but in the end settled for Rosa Rubicondior. The name lay dormant for some 35 years until I resurrected it for this blog. It was only later that I realised I had misspelled it slightly; it should have been Rosa Rubicundior.

My reason for wishing to be anonymous was that I originally intended this blog to be about UK politics and, as a part-time employee of an NHS Trust and a former member of the senior management team of a one, I wanted to be free to comment on the NHS without compromising my employers and jeopardising my position. It was only later that I discovered blogging about Atheism, Humanism, religious apologetics and, especially, biological science was actually closer to my interests as I got pulled more and more into Atheism vs religious fundamentalism and creationism, especially in their right-wing political forms.

The decision to be anonymous has since been vindicated by the threats and campaign of lies and vilification to which I have been subjected by religious extremists, psychopaths, obsessively psychotic stalkers and inadequate characters with self-evident personality disorders on Twitter and elsewhere. Religion, it seems, is a fertile breeding-ground for inadequate nutters looking for an excuse for their antisocial behaviour and a justification for their hate campaigns as they try to make their own little lives have some sort of importance by constant attention-seeking and pathetic displays of what power the Internet gives them to pester others. In pre-Internet days, these sad individuals and failures of the mental health services would have been restricted to standing at their windows shouting abuse at strangers in the street, stealing underwear off washing lines at night or posting anonymous poison-pen letters to neighbours.

Then of course there are the seriously dangerous individuals who believe they know what their god thinks and who it hates and have decided it requires their help to hand down punishments. I have no intention of exposing my family to these deranged individuals whose 'love' for humanity involves cutting heads of.

Anyway, enough of why I use a pseudonym.

I was born and brought up in a small North Oxfordshire village during the post-war baby boom and have had a love of nature since before I can remember. I was one of the five children of the daughter of a Cotswold shepherd of some renown and a car factory worker and former soldier who was rescued from Dunkirk and spent the last three years of World War II in India where he learned to speak fluent Hindi. By any standards we were poor and grew most of the food we ate in our garden and on a allotment on the edge of the village. In some respects we were close to hunter-gatherers and never passed by a chance to gather firewood from the woods and fields when a large elm tree fell or shed a branch, to collect watercress from the banks of the Evenlode and to gather mushrooms from the fields in Autumn. We took other free food from the countryside too but we needn't dwell too much on that here.

I don't remember learning to read but I read anything I could get my hands on, especially anything to do with nature. I realised I was an Atheist when I was nine years old when it suddenly dawned on me that not all religions could be right, but they could all be wrong. Since there was no more reason to suppose only ours was the right one while all the others were, and had been, wrong, the most sensible view was that they were all wrong. I have been an atheist ever since.

On leaving the rubbish-dump school I had been consigned to at the age of eleven, with a few 'O' levels, and being determined not to conform to the lower-class role we had been prepared for, I worked as a laboratory technician for Oxford University on a Medical Research Council grant, working my way up to Senior Technician and gaining an ONC in Science, an HNC in Applied Biology, and state registration as a Medical Laboratory Technician, and co-authoring a paper on reproductive physiology in guinea pigs in the process.

After eleven years I was made redundant when the government cut back on research spending and, disillusioned, I decided on a change of career and joined the Ambulance Service. Using my medical and biological knowledge I became one of the first UK Paramedics and an instructor, eventually working my way through the ranks to become a Control Room Manager, gained a postgraduate Diploma In Management Studies at Oxford Brookes University, taught myself computer programming and became the Trust's Information Manager and Data Protection Officer. I formally retired nearly six years ago but was asked to return part-time as a performance information analyst and deployment planning consultant.

I have been a socialist and trades unionist since my teens and have been a member of the Labour Party for about thirty years. Briefly, during the early 1970s, I was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain but left after a couple of years when I realised it was as dogmatic and cultic as a fundamentalist religious cult and quite incapable of holding rational debates about policy and changing to meet the changing needs of a post-industrial economy. Within twenty years, Communist regimes in Eastern Europe were collapsing under their own inertia and irrelevance and the people of Eastern Europe were taking their countries back. The collapse of capitalism, the inevitability of history and the establishment of the Socialist Utopia that Marx had predicted had always been a delusion on a par with the delusion of an eternal life in Paradise after death, and a protective magic man in the sky.

So that's me: a materialist rationalist who took a decision to be led by the evidence many years ago and who thinks the Universe is wonderful enough without magic and forever-hidden mystery, and that being an evolved ape, 3.5 billion years in the making, is infinitely more marvelous than being the unworthy product of a magician who made me out of dirt.

[Update] I've now retired completely and have published several books on Atheism and science.





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13 comments :

  1. Hi, Rosa, of late I've had computer troubles, even my 2nd back up died,(one PC[I have 2 identical ones, 2nd one as backup], and a 14 yr old as a 3rd backup,man is it slow, max RAM is 512M), 2nd is under warranty though) and unable to tweet, or even follow the 2014 election debacle, TV coverage just makes me want to throw something at the screen.So, as repair was dragging on I got a cheap laptop<500 bucks and here I am.I came for the article via email invite, and got sidetracked with the About Me link, so clicked and I see, we are fellow ideological Socialists, and though I played around with Communist ideology found it wanting, too dogmatic and controlling, I think of myself as a Bleeding Heart Progressive for the Commons, as the word 'liberal' has become so polarising in the USA. In 2010, Koch bros had $54 billion and in 2014 now has $80 billion, this is criminal as kids under 5 all over die from preventable illnesses, and multi billions live on $2-3 dollars a day. I feel no one should have much more than they need, hence Capitalism is out, because unless you have way more than you need being a shareholder is out as well. Capital to me should go right back into the system of Democracy and to sustainable businesses that don't create markets, but supply goods for markets that show obvious necessity for the earth and its inhabitants, and ecosystems. Never to go to give a few multi vacation homes, or a home in more than one country, as there's a price to pay for them to have so much, someone has to do without.I think people if given a chance would do honest work for themselves and their families. I was brought up in 2 church orphanages, first was supposed to be for a few months that became over 2 years, a Pentecostal go to church 3 times a day, study in class Xian bible banging, hypocritical place that attracted pedophiles and sadists who loved being around innocent naive kids to beat and sexually abuse. Second was a Methodist, and only a Sunday sermon attendance was required& few pedophiles, or sadists, 265 of us was happy about that..The Pentecostal place was a hurtful place for kids.
    I hope you don't mind, I made copies of your article on why you're special, and have been passing them around hoping to promote rationalism and science.
    Just wanted to leave a comment I'm @jr_nash and an atheist but not as reaction to my childhood, but at 10 I just never bought it, as the idea occurred, a Supreme Being created the world and this is his best, where suffering and dying to live is a way of life? Nah, After learning of photosynthesis, I thought, damn, I'm no Supreme Being, I'm a mere mortal, so why not have all of life photosynthesize, no suffering and no bloodshed.I know, simplistic at best, but then as a mere mortal sounds great to me.
    I loathe creationists, especially the Ray Comforts and Ken Ham's who blatantly lie to kids.
    Peace.

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    1. Thank you. Feel free to use whatever you want from my blogs. All I ask is that you give me credit and, where possible, link back to the original.

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    2. Great, thanks so much. Actually, when I copy and paste your work, I include the URL from the webpage as the first line of the article with space between. Actually, I felt readers might want more info from Rosa, about the author, so have begun to use a bit of your Bio to make convenient for those interested in the source provide it with the article, and the links, include the About me, and the URL of the article with the short bit on the author to whet appetites, then the About me URL link to complete the picture of the good stuff at your blog, Is that okay?
      I think what you write is good stuff to push rationalism and science and put religious ideas in their historic place away from 21st century thinking(I'd prefer a large hole dug half way to the center of the earth, to toss in Abrahamic especially religious books, Korans, WhollyBabbles[Xian BUYBULLS], and perhaps preserve library copies for legacy/historic purposes).
      I'm an AAAS member(which means I get their magazine weekly, Science),but having no career in science interacting is mostly internet and stuff.I enjoy youtube debunkers like Wildwoodclaire, AronRa, American Atheists, and The Living Dinosaur and others. Until 2013, I was a subscriber to Scientific American that began in 1976. I recall how I struggled to understand the articles, and over the years it kinda paid off, as I got better at understanding terms and the language of the scientists/authors. I'm on disability and a lack of funds limited my re-upping the subscription to SCIAM, and they were not as member/subscriber friendly as Bill Nye's The Planetary Society, who has kept me on temporarily as a member though I couldn't pay(seemed reasonable, since from the outset of Carl Sagan's venture SETI and then The Planetary Society, of which I was one of the first to sign up, with the charter mag in Dec 1980, a bit after the first Cosmos on PBS.
      I allowed a friend(my counselor since 1997, as I was homeless for a bit[mental illness has no bias, so they say, and so combatting it what's one to do?The movie A Beautiful Mind about John Nash, the Mathematician was inspiring])to subscribe me for the AAAS membership($150/year), how weird is that my friend retires from his 2nd retired job and I get gifts from him, nix the reverse.When I can, I plan to give him a 1 year gift to Funny Times.Turn about's fairplay, right?
      Peace, and thanx for allowing me to promote your articles. BTW...uh, I do sometimes correct the spelling and tenses of terms, but never the grammar cuz I don't wish to change what you write, but me, personally, misspelled words are distracting. :-)

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  2. Hi Rosa, what an interesting life you have lead. I also have an ONC in biology which I gained as a technician, many years ago. Fascinating that I gained that position with 5 O'levels- you need a degree these days. How life has changed. Like your good self, I'm a rationalist, scientist and an atheist. This didn't come about easy. When young I toyed with irrational bollocks. It took me a long time to find my intellectual feet. I've read widely and I'm convinced that the Western scientific model of sound reason overrides any so called mystical 'paths to knowledge'. I consider myself a 'Radical Atheist' and despise religion in all its many guises. I also think that Islam presents a threat to our way of life. This is often understated in the 'leftist' lead media. Importing millions of Muslims into Europe is going to cause conflict and dare I say it, societal collapse. The majority of migrants are young men who are moving for economic reasons. Of course, the burden will have to be faced by the European tax payer. What happens when the money runs out? Western society has become too liberal and thus exploitable. Everyone from the 'world' wants to move to the West and enjoy a Western life-style. The irony, of course, is that eventually, the money will run dry and Western civilisation will be dragged down to the Third World. In truth, most of the world is a 'shit hole'. We in the West have striven, over many centuries to build our society and principles. To be free from religion has not come easy or overnight. Islam is primitive and barbaric. To unleash the hordes on our society is to our detriment. They will not integrate; they will try to impose their 'world view' on us. That is Islam. I worry for the future. I emigrated from the UK to New Zealand 15 years ago. I am so glad that I did so. Being mired in the South Pacific has its advantages. Far away from the madness...... Anyway, Rosa, keep going with your blog and keep chipping away at a world gone mad. By, the way, I never caught the left wing bug and have always been 'Right Wing' by nature and inclination. Although bonded by a common 'Atheistic Cause', atheism is not a way of life. Atheists do not share a common philosophy or anything else, for that matter. Although, I suspect, we may be smarter than most folk. Tis a hypothesis and requires data. Otherwise it remains just anecdotal bollocks.........

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  3. I must say I love your blog! Never seen such a satire blog be so good.
    You kept me entertained a lot. :)

    You should do a part on antitheism as well.

    Thanks!

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    1. Nice try at wit Manny.

      Had you read the post to which seems to have upset you though you would have seen that it does deal with anti-theism. The same paper shows how those with a high IQ tend to be anti-theist.

      Maybe you just didn't understand it.

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  4. Praying for you William. What is your evidence that God does not exist? As you state opinion is not an established fact unless corroborated. Is your evidence based on fact or opinion and if indeed fact share your evidence.

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    1. Firstly, please do not threaten me with your passive-aggressive threat to commit spiritual rape. The motive for non-consensual prayer is the same as that for rape - to exercise power without responsibility.

      Secondly, in addition to that demonstration of your moral bankruptcy, thank you for showing how you need to try to dump your burden of proof because you know it's too heavy for you, and how you need to lie to defend your superstition. I have never ever claimed to have evidence that your god or any other god doesn't exist. When you show the world you know you need to lie for your faith, you show the world you know your faith is a lie.

      My claim is and always has been that YOU have no evidence for any god. My evidence for that claim is your inability to provide any.

      So, having just demonstrated for the world your moral and intellectual bankruptcy and shown us how you use your phoney piety as an excuse for condescending to people, perhaps you would like to try to explain why you need to blame your god for your personality.

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  5. Hi, My sister gave me your books 'In the blink of an eye' and 'A goose for Christmas'. I then realised we both knew your sister. My sister Marilyn went to school with her at Spendlove, I knew her later on the bus to work and after our marriages we used to meet up. Sadly over time I have lost contact, with the last address I have for Pat being in Tackley. I wonder if you could let me have some contact details. Would love to get in touch with Pat again. Many thanks, Janet Blackwell/nee Moss.

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    1. Hi Janet,

      If you let me have your email address I'll pass it on to Pat. Or maybe you have a Facebook account?

      I remember her talking about you and your sister.

      I hope you enjoyed the books, by the way.

      Best wishes.

      'RR'

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  6. Hey Rosa....it's me, Mark Alien....loved your "testimony" *wink wink....I would comment on Twitter but I have been suspended for the past 3 weeks. I don't know if Twitter will unsuspend me. Keep up the good work

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  7. "materialist rationalist" is a contradiction in terms. That you think nature can produce coded information processing systems proves that you aren't rational.

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    1. I'm sorry that you have a problem with written English. I'm also sorry that you've retained the teleological thinking from your childhood into adulthood. This developmental defect is now known to be the cause of creationism in adults. See https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30863-7 for details.

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