Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Tim Stanley writes in the UK’s Telegraph a rather strange religious blog posting entitled “Christianity is neither Left nor Right, but radical and daunting“. I guess this is perhaps the time of year when the religious go into overdrive … here are a few extracts with my thoughts (in red) … I’ve always found Easter … Read more
A very interesting paper is available from the Cornell University Library entitled “Gods as Topological Invariants“. The abstract reads … We show that the number of gods in a universe must equal the Euler characteristics of its underlying manifold. By incorporating the classical cosmological argument for creation, this result builds a bridge between theology and … Read more
It strikes me that the word “Atheist” is indeed a rather odd word, because it is used to describe people who do not believe in something quite specific – the reality of a god or gods. There are of course various flavours, for example there is “Implicit and explicit” atheism to differentiate between those who have not … Read more
Last week, some students at the University of Texas at San Antonio ran their now-annual “Smut for Smut” campaign. The deal is that holy books could be exchanged for hard-core pornography. <you can insert your “???” comment here> Is this a joke? Nope, it is a real offer, so what is this all about? The … Read more
There is a rather odd story in today’s Guardian about an Irish Priest who gave a rather surprising Powerpoint presentation to the parents of children in his care. It was supposed to be all about their upcoming first confessions. It all happened at St Mary’s Primary School in the Northern Ireland village of Pomeroy, County … Read more
Yep, it’s that time of year again, this year’s Pigasus Awards have been announced. It is about here that some might be wondering “the what award? OK, first let me explain. Each year the JREF pokes a bit of fun at the parapsychological, paranormal or psychic community by granting it to those who have done something spectacularly daft. In fact, when … Read more