1. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #133272 by aw6334 on February 26, 2008 at 2:20 am

Comment #132778 by Steve Zara on February 25, 2008 at 7:47 am

My understanding of why celibacy was introduced was to prevent wives from inheriting part of the property and wealth of the catholic church.

Anyone know if this is true?

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Well Steve, there's the old joke:

The pope arrived at the pearly Gates and St. Peter greeted him and quickly told him that it was very difficult to get an audience with God. The pope said he did not mind because when he was alive he had the same problem. They chuckled together over this and St. Peter said he realized the pope was probably anxious to know a few things judging from the number of times he prayed for guidance. The pope agreed saying that he had a real hankering to see the original scriptures.

So St. Peter showed him to the room where the original manuscripts were stored. He left the old gentlemen there to search them out and soon forgot all about him.

A while later he heard a great wail coming from the room. St. Peter went to investigate and found the pope in an awful sweat. St. Peter asked the pope what was wrong and this loud pitiful voice replied, " OH NO! They forgot the 'R'! It says, 'C-e-l-e-b-R-a-t-e,' not 'c-e-l-e-b-a-t-e!!!'"

But seriously, here's a blog posting that might help answer your question:

http://athinkingman.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/r/

2. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125271 by aw6334 on February 11, 2008 at 6:59 am

Sad to see you go, Richard, but it's good to see that you are going for an active retirement!

My vote for your replacement would go V S Ramachandran, who is an fascinating and entertaining public speaker, and has also published many pieces of ground-breaking research in the field of neuroscience.

http://psy.ucsd.edu/chip/ramabio.html

3. Happy Birthday Josh Timonen!

Comment #118821 by aw6334 on January 31, 2008 at 3:09 am

Happy Birthday Josh, and thanks for all your hard work on this website - much appreciated by all of us!


And Richard, about your card? Not a bad effort ;-)

4. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104625 by aw6334 on December 29, 2007 at 2:58 am

Bonkers. This man is totally bonkers.

The only explanation I can think of is that he has been watching too many horror films over the Christmas period.

But never mind. The more mad pronouncements he makes, the better for us!

5. Talking Action Figure Jesus

Comment #73472 by aw6334 on September 25, 2007 at 4:03 am

There's always this for your bathtub.....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Religion-JESUS-Lamb-Rubber-Duck-Celebriduck-Bath_W0QQitemZ220151126149QQihZ012QQcategoryZ90663QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

6. Talking Action Figure Jesus

Comment #73436 by aw6334 on September 25, 2007 at 2:18 am

These are so funny!
I have listed most of the items named above on my Thank God I'm An Atheist blogspot - if you find any more wonderful items, please let me know, and I will add them. (http://www.tgiaa.blogspot.com)

My favourite find so far is the Jesus pan - you can make your own tortillas and pancakes embossed with Jesus - think of how much could you make selling those pancakes on ebay!
http://www.jesusoftheweek.com/jesii/425/index.html

7. Scientists Induce Out-of-Body Sensation

Comment #65375 by aw6334 on August 24, 2007 at 12:55 am

More research on out of body experiences...

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=363&Itemid=59

(Tongue firmly in cheek)