Nov
28
2015
A Truth Universally AcknowledgedShe minded her p’s more than her q’s, Jane Austen,A piercing pen, pride, prejudice, polished irony,A perfect punctuated life, politeness, puntiliousnessNo awkward questions or quibbles about the universeJust Mr Bennett was cynical, D’Arcy a snobAnd poor...
Nov
25
2015
How could you not admire Richard Dawkins for his wonderful writing, his enthusiasm for science and even more his courage, his determination and his unwavering pursuit of truth? The publication of The God Delusion was a great event. It...
Nov
16
2015
It isn’t the economy stupid, or the strategic position of the western powers in the Middle East, or even how to respond to the terrible attacks in Paris on Friday, it is our refusal to quit oil and our...
Nov
13
2015
In chapter 4 of his book The God Argument, ‘An Axe to the Root’, A.C. Grayling rebuts the charge that you cannot condemn something without first investigating it thoroughly, especially in the case of religion, which, being so complex and varied...
Nov
13
2015
The whole point about religious belief is that it might be wrong. If it were certainly true you wouldn’t believe you would know. I believe because my belief might well be the complete nonsense that atheists say it is....
Nov
10
2015
Although less well known than Girard’s theory of scapegoating, the great classical scholar Walter Burkert’s ideas about the origins of human societies in sacrifice offer us a fascinating complement to it. The Greeks were obsessed with sacrifice. They offered...
Nov
09
2015
The Chapman Brothers’ hideous mannequins, Hirst’s dead shark and mother and calf chopped in half, Tracey Emin’s dirty bed, Hirst’s jewelled skull, Rachel Whiteread’s inner space turned into concrete. Is this the death of beauty? If not that certainly...