1. An Irishman's Diary

Comment #209042 by eoinc on July 11, 2008 at 2:25 pm

This article made my day. Frank McNally is such a witty writer that, whatever one's opinions on correct language use, you have to admire the kind of talent that can write an article about language using religious and evolutionary metaphors, and tie it all together so neatly. I doff my hat, Mr McNally.

2. My quest to get de-baptised

Comment #152440 by eoinc on March 31, 2008 at 3:03 am

How does De-baptism work? Being baptised - for those of us who have been - is something which has already happened, and cannot be changed. If it happened, it happened. We may no longer be members of the religion into which we were baptised, but that's a seperate matter. Indeed, former Catholics (like me) who no longer attend mass or partake of the sacraments, have secured for ourselves an automatic excommunication, so de-baptism wouldn't be necessary anyway.

This sounds much more like an excuse to annoy some clerics.

3. The Lava Lizard's Tale

Comment #134560 by eoinc on February 28, 2008 at 1:55 am

Wikipedia is rather more coherent than I am:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ein_Heldenleben

4. The Lava Lizard's Tale

Comment #134558 by eoinc on February 28, 2008 at 1:53 am

"What would music inspired by the fleas sound like?

Something to make them seem ridiculous, pathetic, desperate?"

I immediately thought of Ein Heldenleben by Strauss (Richard, not Johann). He depicts the life of a hero figure, by which he means himself, and his stuggle with his critics. If you haven't heard it before, you should really listen to it, it's superb music.

It's a single-movement symphonic poem, written in a very lengthy sonata form. The first subject, grand and sweeping and majestic (and in the hero key of Eb major) depicts the hero, who boldly announces his arrival and, with a very dramatic series of pauses and a single monumental imperfect cadence, awaits a response from the world.

The second subject is the critics, represented by sniping, twittering, incoherent woodwinds, verging on atonality.

There follows a domestic scene where the hero's wife, represented by a solo violin, alternately cajoles and nags the hero, before amorous feelings get the better of them both.

And then there is the famous "battle scene", where the hero directly confronts his critics and defeats them in what sounds like open warfare... oh, I could go on about this all day...

5. Why multiculturalism must be abandoned

Comment #125121 by eoinc on February 11, 2008 at 2:10 am

Haven't yet got past the first sentence, but just had to praise its wonderful wordplay:

"How do you solve a problem like Sharia?"

Why didn't I ever think of that?

6. Excerpt from 'The Portable Atheist'

Comment #88021 by eoinc on November 14, 2007 at 7:10 am

"If everybody in the world had an IQ of 140 or higher..."

I'll just be pedantic and point out that that is impossible. The way that IQs are measured, 140 is by definition the top percentile in a population. In a population of geniuses, the average IQ would still be 100. There's a joke about a politician complaining about standards of eduction, saying that half of all students are still scoring below average.

Thank you. We will now return to scheduled programming.

7. I didn't know the FLEA CIRCUS was back in town!

Comment #85117 by eoinc on November 5, 2007 at 2:57 am

Why is it that only Richard and Sam have all those fleas? I have yet to see any books challenging Dennett ("The Unbreakable Spell") or Hitchens ("Oh yes He is!") directly. Are those gentlemen just unanswerable?

8. American kids, dumber than dirt: Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

Comment #81687 by eoinc on October 25, 2007 at 3:25 am

Oh, come on! How many people here went to public schools, have cell phones, iPods (or equivalent), watch TV, play video games or eat junk food? Quite a lot of us, I'll bet. The problem is one of attitudes, which I think are derived largely from the parents. Is education valued by the family? I was lucky: both my parents are teachers, so they value education very highly. This value became imprinted onto me, and so I turned out just fine, despite having watched TV, played video games, gone to a public school, and all the rest of it.

9. The Religious Right's New Tactics for Invading Public Schools

Comment #77700 by eoinc on October 10, 2007 at 8:18 am

This is a difficult situation. One of the most common strawman slogans from those who are opposed to seperation of church and state goes something like "I prayed at school today! Arrest me!", as if prayer itself was what was ruled unconstitutional, as opposed to the school's endorsement of it. An individual student, one must repeatedly point out, is perfectly within their rights to pray when it does not interfere with the school. So, saying grace before lunch is fine, as long as it's not endorsed by the teachers.

But, if there is a group of students who want to pray, should the law really step in to stop them? Students have a right to pray or not to pray, don't they?

10. A Face-Off Over Faith

Comment #75986 by eoinc on October 4, 2007 at 8:18 am

Very bad format for a debate. They gave Dawkins both the first and last word ("out of Christian charity") of the overall debate, but Lennox had the last word on every individual area of conversation!

11. Against the grain: There are questions that science cannot answer

Comment #71911 by eoinc on September 19, 2007 at 11:52 pm

What a stupid article. "Darwin himself said that natural selection was not the only source of evolution." Well, yes, the alternatives include sexual selection (peacock's tails) and artificial selection (domestication of dogs). There is no need for the supernatural anywhere, and to imply that Darwin claimed otherwise is dishonest.

When reading utter tripe like the following, it is clear that Midgley has never read The Selfish Gene beyond its title:

"He says that natural selection means nature red in tooth and claw, but that's not true. Natural selection means using something that others are not, like photosynthesis or a new food source, and we must not forget that co-operation is often terribly important for survival."

It's clear too from her absurd attempt to link this "worship of competition" with a jaw-droppingly naive strawman of TGD (that RD thinks anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot, that he gets very angry at the suggestion that mysteries exist), that she has never read that book either. Shame on The Independent for printing facile rubbish like this.

12. Teresa, Bright and Dark

Comment #66362 by eoinc on August 29, 2007 at 7:35 pm

"Every Catholic is supposed to regard abortion as an abomination (and, if it matters, I concur)."

Does that mean:

(a) I concur that abortion is an abomination

or

(b) I concur that Catholics are supposed to regard abortion as an abomination.

13. Butterfly shows evolution at work

Comment #56088 by eoinc on July 13, 2007 at 4:39 pm

"And a very large and solid nail in the coffin of the creationists."


But I can already imagine the creationists' response:

"But this is merely an example of micro-evolution. Nobody doubts that micro-evolution happens. The new butterflies are still the same KIND of creature as the older ones, and change between KINDS is what we never see taking place.... etc"

14. Christopher Hitchens on Religion

Comment #48366 by eoinc on June 7, 2007 at 3:20 pm

"With his new book, the gloves are really off. He's called it: "god is not Great." Subtitle: How Religion Poisons Everything. You may love it. Billions do."

I know it's doing well in the bestseller list, but "billions" is taking it too far.

15. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45850 by eoinc on May 29, 2007 at 11:46 am

How many books, articles, interviews and essays must there be all with this same title?

16. Dental healer finds share of faithful believers

Comment #43998 by eoinc on May 23, 2007 at 6:40 am

"Why is the DA not doing her job and arresting this loon for practicing medicine without a license?"

Because, technically, he isn't practising medicine.

17. Dental healer finds share of faithful believers

Comment #43959 by eoinc on May 23, 2007 at 5:05 am

Scottishgeologist,

"I am sure that James Randi would like to hear about it - after all there is $1000000 waiting for this guy..."

James Randi covered this guy already in his book The Faith Healers. Apparently, this man's pen-flashlight that he uses when peering into people's mouths has a feeble, yellowish glow, which causes the fillings to appear gold when they reflect the light. Many people who have been healed incidentally report that their fillings reverted to their ordinary silver colour when they got home.

He also used to say that the fillings put in by God were cross-shaped, which he interpreted as being God's own "seal of approval". Randi dryly noted that most fillings are made that way, as it gives strength to the structure.

This guy was debunked was published almost twenty years ago in that book, and yet the gullible masses are obviously still eager to be duped.

The most comical (or, if you prefer, tragic) aspect of all this is that Rev. Steve Jones' own teeth are in dreadful condition. Physician, heal thyself.

18. Potentially habitable planet found

Comment #35063 by eoinc on April 26, 2007 at 5:44 am

Imagine a consignment of alien missionaries from another world arriving at our planet, eager to convert us to the message of their one true faith. That would be fun.

19. Free Speech

Comment #25581 by eoinc on March 14, 2007 at 7:08 am

It's a thrilling speech, but he has an irritating habit of pausing before the end of his sentences and then continuing directly into... the... next one I found it very annoying after the third or fourth time.