Virtual Methodist

Well, I'm back in harness this week after a short period of aestivation, both in the real and virtual realms. This morning saw me start the day at BBC Radio Ulster doing Thought for the Day (if you didn't catch it you can find it approximately 26 and 86 minutes into Good Morning Ulster on the iPlayer for the next week) and this is that thought, more or less in written form... I’m not very athletic… I can’t play a musical instrument… I’m useless at arts and crafts… and I’m never going to be offered a modelling contract… But I am supposed to be moderately intelligent, if IQ tests and exam results are to be believed… So I was interested to read a report last week suggesting that religious people, tend to be less intelligent than self-professed atheists . This led to some crowing by atheists on social networks, although the study emphasised that it probably wasn’t a simple case of cause and effect. Rather, as well as asking more searching questions than those who are less in...

Last Friday was the 70th Anniversary of Winston Churchill’s famous speech to the House of Commons in the midst of the Battle of Britain referring to the fighter pilots of the RAF saying: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” A number of historians have questioned whether or not that was strictly accurate in historic or military terms, suggesting that the image of the heroic few of fighter command being all that stood between Britain and invasion by Nazi Germany, was a myth sold by Churchill as a morale-booster, in the same way that the disaster of Dunkirk was repackaged (or spun) by him and others in the light of the heroism of the "little boats" (even though the "little boats" only helped a minority of those evacuated from Dunkirk. I wonder whether subtleties of that part of the Second World War was on the history syllabus for A or AS levels? Those results came out last week as well (with GCSEs to follow this week). As ever t...

I've been back from my summer travels for a wee while now and back at work for a few days, but I've had a lot to clear up both personally (I'll rant about that in due course) and in terms of the usual backlog of emails and paper, so I have hardly looked at the blog in ages... So I thought I would dip my foot in the water by sharing a few interesting links that I've come across in recent days... Some I've already posted on FB, but most of them demand more attention than I ever give to something over there. Most are of a theological bent, but some touch on my other diverse interests. On the theological front, Patrick Mitchel picks up on Ben Myers thoughts regarding theology in the blogosphere and applies them to denominational theology in Ireland. It will be interesting to see how this develops. Meanwhile, Karen Spears Zacharias (don't know if she's a relation of Ravi) has written an interesting piece on the hoary old subject of militarism and nationalism in A...