The Clergy Project

The Clergy Project is a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs... The project's goal is to support members as they move beyond faith.

The Clergy Project was made possible through a donation from The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

The website of the Clergy Project is available here.

Rand versus Tolkien

Brian Leiter at "Leiter Reports" (14 August 2012) has posted a picture that compares Ayn Rand and J.R.R. Tolkien (the picture is based on a comment made more than two years ago by John Rogers at the "Monkey Kung Fu" blog).

You can view the picture here.

The Leftwing Sellout

Christopher Hitchens, writing in his book Hitch-22:

"As 1968 began to ebb into 1969, however, and as 'anticlimax' began to become a real word in my lexicon, another term began to obtrude itself. People began to intone the words 'The Personal Is Political'. At the instant I first heard this deadly expression, I knew as one does from the utterance of any sinister bullshit that it was — cliché is arguably forgivable here — very bad news. From now on, it would be enough to be a member of a sex or gender, or epidermal subdivision, or even erotic 'preference', to qualify as a revolutionary. In order to begin a speech or to ask a question from the floor, all that would be necessary by way of preface would be the words: 'Speaking as a...'. Then could follow any self-loving description.

I will have to say this much for the old 'hard' Left: we earned our claim to speak and intervene by right of experience and sacrifice and work. It would never have done for any of us to stand up and say that our sex or sexuality or pigmentation or disability were qualifications in themselves. There are many ways of dating the moment when the Left lost or — I would prefer to say — discarded its moral advantage, but this was the first time that I was to see the sellout conducted so cheaply..."

The Higgs Boson in Context

The Higgs boson was discovered a few days ago. I read a number of news reports about it, but I soon realised that I needed to know a bit more about bosons in particular and particle physics in general.

Here is my somewhat amateurish attempt to do just that.

Soldiering On

Two staff sergeants and a captain: three photographs of life, death and loss in the military...

You Must Also Be Right

Many conspiracy theorists and pseudoscientists (and some New Agers as well) like to see themselves as the noble Galileo, standing courageously against powerful institutions which are arrogant, complacent, and closed-minded.

However, as Robert Park said: "Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough to be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right."

Changing the World?

My favorite story about Steve Jobs (1955-2011):

The year was 1983. Apple needed a new CEO. Jobs went all out to persuade John Sculley (president of Pepsi Cola) to become the CEO of Apple. Jobs turned his reality-distorting gaze on the hapless Sculley and said to him: "Do you want to sell sugar water to adolescents for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?" Sculley accepted the job.

In early 1984, the legendary Apple Macintosh was released. Less than two years later, Jobs was banished from Apple, only to be recalled twelve years later to save "an insanely great computer company that had gone insane" (in the words of Michael S. Malone).

I have never bought or used anything made by Apple, but I have met many of its bright-eyed devotees. Perhaps Jobs is saying to me: "Do you want to stay as you are for the rest of your life, or do you want to buy some shiny toys that are a bit more expensive than they should be?"

Some pics of the young Jobs (Jobs at school, Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Jobs and John Sculley).

Down With Evil Corporations!

Have a look at this picture...

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

Steve Jobs of Apple (who died recently) and Bill Gates of Microsoft (who hasn't died yet) used to be enemies; in later life they were able to have friendly conversations together...

Policing Or Community Relations?

How political correctness is crippling the police in England.

Trickle Down Theory

The Power of Soccer

John Sweeney of the BBC:

I'm an old war reporter and I owe a debt of honour to football. I can't remember how many times I've been up to my neck in shit in some awful place with a lunatic threatening to put TNT up my nose and an AK up my bum and I've said: "Manchester United" and everybody starts talking about Eric Cantona versus Wayne Rooney and then the beers are opened. I've been all round the world and seen people do terrible things to each other, but football is a beautiful thing and it converts the passions of war and tribalism into a game and at the end somebody loses but, fingers crossed, nobody dies.

A thank you to football for its part in helping along world peace. Oh, bugger, I'm sounding like Miss World now.

Catholics in a Faraway Galaxy

Click here for a video report on the Pope's elevation to inter-galactic status.

Understanding Lefties

Some people (confusingly) use the word "liberal" as a synonym for "lefty" (leftwinger). But many self-declared liberals are not lefties at all; indeed, many liberals regard lefties as deluded clowns.

The other day I saw this brief account on the Web of what a "lefty" allegedly stands for. Do you think it is spot on? On the right track, but could be tightened up? Mostly unfair? (Please let me have your comments.) Here goes:

The West is despicable. America is trash. But let's be soft on African thugs and militant Muslims. Let's constantly portray the Third World in a positive light (but secretly get down on our knees every morning and thank our stars that we are living in a gated community in California and not some God-forsaken hovel in Somalia). Let's insult capitalism while often reaping the rewards of capitalism. Let's see the normal family as distorted and fascist (but bend over backwards to accommodate every conceivable form of weird sexuality). Let's be soft on violent yobbos (because it's not their fault, poor darlings), but if a teacher puts her arm around a child, arrest the bitch and charge her with assault.

Let's fawn over anybody's attempt to protect and value their "identity", but if a White man says he is proud to be White, then dismiss him as neo-Nazi scum. Let's gurgle with delight at the customs of the various ethnic communities (no matter how blatant or outlandish), but if somebody wants to put up a small Christmas tree in the corner of their office, they should be treated like dirt. Let's sneer at classical art but see dried urine on a toffee paper as an avant-garde cultural statement. Let's deconstruct and undermine all "absolutes", except (of course) the self-evident and eternally valid absolute that conservatives are evil.

This Is Not My Father

The adventures of George, Barbara, Laura, and Bill.

No Work Today

America Versus Russia

Bananas and Coconuts

Something Fishy?

The rain beats down on a small Irish town. The streets are deserted. Times are tough. Everyone is in debt and living on credit.

A rich German arrives at the local hotel, asks to view its rooms, and puts on the desk a 100 euro note. The hotel owner gives the German a bunch of keys and he goes off for an inspection. As soon as the German has gone upstairs, the hotelier grabs the note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher hurries down the street to pay what he owes to his feed merchant. The merchant heads for the pub and uses the note to pay his bar bill. The publican slips the note to the local hooker who's been offering her services on credit. She rushes to the hotel to pay what she owes for room hire, and puts the note in the hotelier's hand. He thanks her and puts the note on the desk in front of him. Less than a minute later the German appears, says the rooms are unsuitable, picks up his money and leaves town.

No one did any work. No one earned anything. But everyone is out of debt. And the German still has all his money.

Is there or is there not something fishy about the above account? Please email me and help my poor brain to sort it out...

The Government Wants To Help You

In A.N. Wilson's book The Victorians, he points to an important difference between a prudent and sensible government (whether conservative or liberal) and the whining, interfering nanny state supported by today's prissy leftwingers. A government which tries to improve the quality of things like pavements and roads and parks and tapwater and drains and beaches and public libraries and facilities in schools may occasionally be thanked for its efforts; but a government whose odious and tiresome mission it is to improve the people themselves (or to try and "protect" the people from themselves) will receive at the least irritation and ingratitude and at the most abuse and contempt.

And so it should be.

Get Over It

Whenever I see a poster that says:

     Some people are gay - get over it

I imagine another poster that says:

     Most people are not gay - get over it

Toad of Towed Hall

American education on the decline: