Reading Time: 4 minutes Since the Pope’s weekend in Ireland is in the news, including here, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a peek into Ireland’s history with the Catholic church. We could look in many places; we could draw up headings such as Cruelty, Child Sexual Abuse, Unlawful Imprisonment, Miseducation, with subheads under each. We could […]
Opinion
Speaking whale backwards
Reading Time: 4 minutes Let’s take a look at Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop (her company) and ‘wellness’. What is wellness, you may ask? You’d think it would be just the obverse of sickness, but apparently it’s much more than that … much more and much less, because a lot of it is about pretend-remedies for non-existent conditions and fantasy […]
Provocative? Well, yes!
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain’s (CEMB) presence at London’s Pride event last year was viewed as intentionally provocative and subversive and to that charge I would say, well yes! Pride, with its radical roots of standing up against bigotry and homophobia, is the best place to highlight and condemn injustices. But as a minority […]
Closer to the edge
Reading Time: 4 minutes We in the US lurched some big steps closer to full-on authoritarianism and even fascism this week (as we do most weeks). Am I sure we’ll end up there? No, but nor am I confident we won’t. We’re terrifyingly helpless to do anything about the relentless lurches. The nightmare of the children grabbed away from […]
A landslide!
Reading Time: 4 minutes Amnesty UK on the facts about abortion in Ireland before the vote to repeal the 8th amendment (convert all verbs to the past tense): Any woman who has an abortion in Ireland faces up to 14 years in prison. The only case in which a woman is legally allowed to terminate her pregnancy, is when her […]
Removed in the dead of night
Reading Time: 5 minutes Back in October 2016, a US group that monitors far-right hate groups – think KKK and similar racist fomenters of violence – issued a new report/field guide on what it called ‘anti-Muslim public figures’. And on that list it included Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, above – a liberal Muslim reformer and a conservative […]
Hell: real or fake?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Barry has already reported on the recurring story of “the pope says there is no hell … or does he?” but I want to point out some Profound Theological Questions the issue raises. Let’s start with the Catechism, via the Washington Post: The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The teaching of the Church affirms the […]
Demand for atheism rises in countries under Islamic rule
Reading Time: 4 minutes The scientist and author Richard Dawkins is giving away translations of The God Delusion in countries under Islamic rule like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan. The reason behind the decision is the thirst for atheism in such countries. Whilst 3.3 million copies of the bestseller have been sold since 2006, the unofficial Arabic pdf alone […]
Most eminent citizens
Reading Time: 5 minutes The American evangelical preacher and publicity hound Billy Graham died last week age 99. Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune reported, people were lining up to ‘pay their final respects to a man who reached millions with his message of salvation thorough Jesus Christ.’ A secular reader might wonder what ‘his message of salvation thorough Jesus Christ’ […]
What Jesus never told Caesar
Reading Time: 4 minutes Jerry Falwell Junior, son of the more famous religious fanatic of the same name, tweeted a profound religious thought a couple of days ago. Jesus said love our neighbors as ourselves but never told Caesar how to run Rome – he never said Roman soldiers should turn the other cheek in battle or that Caesar […]