1. Call to teach biblical creation as science

Comment #225707 by Lamentz on August 7, 2008 at 9:14 am

Cartomancer

I suspect American intervention here, because neither the church of England to which one side is affiliated, nor the church of Ireland which commands the loyalties of the other, has any problem with the teaching of evolution. Nor, as far as I know, is creationism an official tenet of the Irish presbyterian church.

There is a difference Cartomancer in the beliefs of the regualar Presbyterians and the Free Presbyterians, thought you are right in what you say, none of the churchs you mention would teach creationism as literal truth. Here is a link to the wiki cache for free presbyterians, sorry main link kept killing IE

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:YqtX2l26qiQJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Presbyterian_Church_of_Ulster beliefs of free presbyterians&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk

basically they are more closely alligned to american baptists that presbyterians so you are probably correct in citing american interventions on this one :(

2. Call to teach biblical creation as science

Comment #225549 by Lamentz on August 7, 2008 at 1:47 am

Reading this i'm embarrassed to be from Northern Ireland, but then i suppose what more can you expect from the DUP. A party run by free presbyterians who are all biblical literalists. First we had Iris Robinson making a fool of her self and now this moron, scary thing is nearly all members of this party would sympathise with these views,just they are a little more polictically astute that to say it in public.On the whole N. Ireland is much more religious that the rest of uk and most of europe as well, too much sectarian violence and trouble in the past has really entrenced reliously held beliefs among the population....sad really :(

3. Creation 'Museum' honored

Comment #101302 by Lamentz on December 20, 2007 at 7:51 am

I always think of the classic Bill Hicks line when i see Ken Ham

You ever thing that people who dont believe in evolution look really unevolved?
Creationist:"I believe God created me in One day"
Hicks: 'Yeah it looks like he rushed it"

Classic. Get some Bill Hicks up on the comedy section guys :)

4. The Stupidity of Fox News is Truly Beyond Belief

Comment #52464 by Lamentz on June 27, 2007 at 4:35 am

"The Miracle of childbirth" whenever i hear this statement im always reminding of the late Bill Hicks classic take on it.

"Childbirth is no more a miracle than going to the toilet and taking a crap...its a chemical reaction. End of story. Looking around the trailer parks in America this miracle seems to be spreading like wildfire. "
:D

5. Row over Scientology video

Comment #40350 by Lamentz on May 14, 2007 at 6:47 am

Well this isn't the first time we've seen scientology exposed to the mainstream for the sinister cult that it is, but in all honesty are the beliefs of scientologists any more ridiculous than say that of the Pope, a muslim cleric or any baptist preacher, most people have become pre conditioned to simply accept the teachings of christianity and islam as credible because they have been around for so long and they have made it taboo to question them, the scientologists are simply doing now what the others have done for years in trying to surpress others questioning their silly faith.

6. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #29202 by Lamentz on April 2, 2007 at 4:01 am

I think Noam Chomsky (as someone pointed out above made a great observation on this sort of Post modernist gibberish

"There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out."