Sunday, February 04, 2007

Local boy in the photograph

I have been absent from mine own blog for a while. This is inexcusable, although I have an excuse: I have been working on my book, Baby Cwm Bach: A History of Welsh Rock 'n' Roll. Unfortunately, that excuse is also a lie.

Gentle reader, I cannot tell you a lie. I have been spending my time doing that crazy little thing called work, as well as making occasional forays deep into enemy territory: the comments sections of fundy blogs like The Briefing Room. It really is extraordinarily good fun. Here, for example, is an object lesson in how not to write a blog posting and how to manage a discussion. Lesson one: choose Fox News as your news source to ensure you have no credibility. Lesson two, criticise a magazine article written in a language you cannot read, so everyone will know that you are talking out of your fundamental orifice. Lesson three: discover that your opponent can read that language and has read the article. Lesson four: attempt to conceal your obvious ignorance. Lesson Five - and this is the really important one, so pay attention: allow discussion to degenerate into a slanging match between the Prods and the Papists. So much for Christian unity.

I have since decided that I am wasting my time arguing with these people. Henceforth, I shall confine my commenting activity to serious blogs which consider the real questions of the day, such as Brainstab.

Meanwhile, Harvest Bird has written an eloquent account of her unspiritual journey . If any readers do not have a blog and would like to contribute their own thoughts about their Atheism, they are welcome to do so here. Send contributions to fundypost at gmail dot com.

Oh, and here's some Welsh Rock 'n' Roll: Stereophonics.

18 comments:

Sam Finnemore said...

Paul,

Looks like Ian has invented an entire website category just for people like you!

http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/errors_made_by_skeptics/index.html

Oh dear.

Sam Finnemore.

Paul said...

This is beginning to look like obsession.

Anonymous said...

NEWSFLASH:

"SEDUCTIVE MARKETING AND MEDIA SPIN are just two of the tools social engineers are using - not to sell you a product but to change the way you and your children think, forever.

Ian Wishart is back with his hardest hitting book yet, EVE'S BITE, an expose of just how much damage social engineering and political correctness have done to New Zealand and the western world.

Wishart tracks the spread of the world's most contagiously deadly ideologies and finds them now deeply rooted in schools, universities, workplaces and governments throughout the West. He looks at who is behind them and why.

Record murders, sex crimes, social and family breakdowns. How has the West slipped so far in just two generations - did we win the battles last century only to lose the war?

Can New Zealand and the West survive, or is this the fall of Rome all over again? There are answers. They're in EVE'S BITE."

NZ Party Babe

Anonymous said...

And does the title give the reader any clues on which gender the blame might be placed?

Anonymous said...

Yes poor Eve is likely to take another hit I am afraid. Even though Adam was almost certainly the one who was unable to control himself!!

The book itself will presumably be not unlike another book - by a Fundy Post favourite, Frank Ellis!!

Paul, memory is hazy, perhaps you could remind the Fundy brethren of this former "academic" - who was less qualified to deal with Political Correctness and Racism than Dawkins was to talk about Evolution!!!

NZ Party Babe

Paul said...

You will find Dr Ellis here

Thank you for the information.

Anonymous said...

If Mr. Wishart had as many hard-backed books on early modern literature as he does on theology, might he have have realised that connecting contemporary social ills back to the original First Lady was considered done to death even in Shakespeare's time?

I shall stop, lest I turn into one of those who mocks something they haven't read (although it must be said, it is fun).

Anonymous said...

Soon to be remaindered in a used bookstore near you!!!

Craig Y.

Anonymous said...

Do you think Christian Book Shops would be interested in stocking Wishart's book?

It would actually be a good experiment to ask one if they have the latest copy of Investigate.

The advertisement above says:

"How has the West slipped so far in just two generations - did we win the battles last century only to lose the war?"

I can see evidence of such a slippage, but at this moment mainly at the level of Wishart himself.

stephen said...

"the fall of Rome all over again?"

Didn't Rome fall after adopting Christianity and abandoning healthy pagan practises?

Anonymous said...

It is hard to see in the long term what positives will come out of Christianity from Roman Times and through the Dark Ages!

When the Renaissance came along, it was great pre-Christian thinkers such as Plato, Socrates and Aristotle that inspired, and actually they do so today.

Sure the Roman Catholics continue to revere Thomas Aquinas and all those guys, but that is just an in house thing,

Think of it this way..
Religion is really just one branch of a much bigger subject called Philosophy!

Along with those who follow religious codes, especially when their livelihood depends on religion .. you clearly need independent atheist or agnostic people to act as referee in society.

PW

Swimming said...

Paul, hang in there, don't give up, even when the Christians are providing better arguments...

Paul said...

Dave, the Christians seem to be fighting among themselves , as usual. It would be impolite of me to interfere.

Anonymous said...

Christians do fight .. for example at Presbyterian General Assemblies.
where about 2/3 oppose gays and 1/3 don't mind. They are all praying to one god? It is great fun .. nothing can be substantiated.

Little Red Riding Hood said...

Lesson one: Praise feminism.

Anonymous said...

meanwhile, courtesy of Andrei from Wisharts rag:

"As for the Copernican model of the solar system it is neither more or nor less correct than the Ptolemaic earth centered system or one based on using Titan as the center.
The Copernican system has the great advantage of making the math much simpler when calculating planetary orbits. Which is the only reason why we favor it. "

Is he seriously suggesting that a model of the solar system with the earth at the center is no more or less correct than one with the sun at its center?

Paul said...

As someone once said, "I have seen the enemy and they are idiots."

On TBR right now there is a fascinating post about cosmology called Big Bang "shows fingerprints of maker."

Anyone for a feeding frenzy?

Anonymous said...

its funny, because Simon Singhs book seems to indicate pretty much the opposite of what they're arguing. Mind you, its not hard back. Maybe copies of TBR should be printed out and bundled with investigate to show just how water tight their research actually is.

Scott