I recently attended the christening of my nephew, the fantastic Stan…

These days it’s quite rare for me to be found in a house of God. His furniture is hard, his wine is weak and I’m not really a big fan of his music.

As a non-believer I always find being in church a little strange – like I’m being hypocritical or somehow devaluing the beliefs of the people around me.

However, christenings are different.

When you take away the religious setting and the mythical basis for the ritual, what you actually have is a group of people – family and friends – all coming together to make a promise to partake in the upbringing of a child. That’s pretty cool.

So, I’ve taken it upon myself to be responsible for a secular role in Stan’s life. To some of the people at the christening I may be ‘uncle Adam, the one who’s going to hell’, but to my nephew, I hope to be ‘uncle Adam, the one who’s still going to hell but is happy to ask questions about why that should be’.

EDIT: Due to requests, I’ve made this strip available as a print in a cafepress shop : http://www.cafepress.com/Flowfieldshop

Any profits from the sale of these prints will be put into an account for Stan that can be used at any time to fund the buying of scientific texts.