A Thinking Man

In 1968 the sociologist Peter Berger famously predicted that in the 21st century, religious believers would only be likely to be in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture.  In 1710 Thomas Woolstan predicted that religion would be gone by 1900.  And many other thinkers (Voltaire, Jefferson, Marx, Engels, Freud) have all anticipated [...]

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Although it is nearly 24 hours since I watched the first in Channel 4’s new series, The Bible: A History, I still find myself annoyed at the mere memory of it.  It ended up being more of the aspirational wishful thinking of a romantic presenter than the history deceptively portrayed in the title.
The first quarter [...]

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It is now over 18 months since I first got her - ‘it’ seems way too impersonal for an object which has become an almost indispensable part of my life.  I have blogged before about the first love, about speaking to her so that she never forgets (ReQall), about the app that enables me to [...]

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When you stand back and think about it, it’s really strange.  I mean, it may have some side benefits, but the primary activity is odd.
What got me thinking was a wonderful essay (A Deal-Breaker by Ophelia Benson in 50 Voices of Disbelief) in which the author points out that some of the supposed characteristics of god [...]

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There is a sick theme running through all of this - or at least a clear attempt to involve some form of mental illness, and an attempt to bring in the people in white coats - well, at least psychologists if not psychiatrists.
Hey, I really, really don’t want to jump on the bandwagon and pour [...]

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Apologies for my absence.  I’ve been pre-occupied over the ‘holidays’ with a couple of other writing tasks that I needed to complete.  Having finished them today I found myself with a few idle hours before returning to work tomorrow and started amusing myself with dreadful similes to tweet.
For those of us who have forgotten, a simile [...]

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You had to be there to feel the menace!
I wouldn’t have believed it possible. So much threat packed into such a small package.
It was at my supermarket last Saturday.  Ok, I was slightly jaded having just completed a shop almost three times the size of normal (my wife has a large family coming to stay). [...]

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I think that people are sometimes snobbish about language. For me, words and phrases are like clothes in a wardrobe. In terms of linguistic benefits, there are at least two possible results of having an education: you have more clothes in your wardrobe to choose from; and you may choose your garments with [...]

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There are two types of managers that I hate: those that bully, and those that bend.  I have worked for both in equal numbers during the course of my career - two bullies, and two bendies (as well as the occasional ‘good guy’), and I have to say, I actually prefer the bullies to the [...]

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Local vicars in Winscombe and Sandford in Somerset have been pressing to have prayers reinstated at the beginning of Parish Council meetings, a month after they were dropped.
The reason why they were dropped is not that the Parish Council wished to stop individuals talking to their imaginary friends in the privacy of their own homes, [...]

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