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...

My good friend and colleague in exile Barry Sloan posted a link to this piece by Victoria Coren in the Guardian . I'd half heard a reference to it earlier in the week on some discussion show or other (can't remember which) but was interested to read the article in full... Especially as I have the same sort of intellectual crush on Victoria Coren as she has on Rowan Williams... her quiz show on BBC4 " Only Connect ", is an oasis of intellectual challenge (together with Paxo and "University Challenge" immediately before it on BBC2) in a wilderness of reality TV, soaps and quizzes for the illiterate or money-grabbing (or frequently both). I'm sure we've all had fanboy/girl embarassing incidents in our day... Mine involved some simpering infront of Brian Cox years ago before he was famous (the actor not the astro-physics popstar)... although the thought of trying to extricate yourself from an embarassing situation with the Archbishop of Canterbury using ...