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Richard Healy's Blog (57)

Started Reading "Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman...

I didn't expect it to be so funny!!

I've had (literal) laugh out loud moments (in public too!)

Very very interesting. And I can see now how it builds on works like "Jesus interrupted" - the revelation about the last 12 verses of Mark / Jesus being Angry / The Woman Caught in Adultery - is just scratching the surface of the complexity in the world of beliefs prior to the New Testament actually being written.

This book is utterly fascinating.

Added by Richard Healy on February 9, 2013 at 3:05pm — 2 Comments

Another enjoyable facebook fistfight

I had fun with this one...

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=481498248542411&id=671304675&notif_t=share_comment

Added by Richard Healy on June 15, 2012 at 3:39pm — 26 Comments

More Photos! Stormy Seas at Southwold

As my week off rounds of to a close, I set off to the coast with the intent of doing some self portraits on golden sands (my online profiles are in serious need of updating); maybe some long exposures of gentle waves breaking over rocks, to hang up around the flat.

This was not to be.

I arrived at Southwold, on the Suffolk Coast, with the sea crashing against the pier in spectacular, pounding, waves, the weather growing steadily worse and just out to sea a large front was… Continue

Added by Richard Healy on June 8, 2012 at 5:01pm — 6 Comments

What I did with my weekend: photos from The Peak District.

For the bank Holiday weekend I assiduously ignored all matters pertaining to monarchy and departed Cambridge to return back to see my family and be in my 'spiritual home' of The Peak District and Derbyshire.

Have wanted to practice photographing long exposures of flowing water for ages - to get a feel for doing it right.

This has proven impossible in Cambridge; a flat-land where the water dies not flow - it ambles ... sedately, like an arthritic sloth on a Wednesday… Continue

Added by Richard Healy on June 5, 2012 at 4:54pm — 3 Comments

Photos from exhibit: "Da Vinci: Anatomist"

Photos from Da Vinci: Anatomist

http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardhealy450d/sets/72157630017433148/

"On the 6th of June 2012 - I travelled to London, Buckingham Palace, The Mall. To the Royal Galleries to see the newly opened "Da Vinci: Anatomist" exhibit. This was truly awesome, and luckily they let me take my camera inside.... It's taken me a while to…

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Added by Richard Healy on June 2, 2012 at 5:01pm — 5 Comments

Creationists say the funniest things....

Stolen from an actual conversation on Facebook between "J" an Intelligent Design proponent who thinkings evolutionary theory is not to be believed and some fellow believers in woo....

Irony abounds...

J: Why is it that young-earth creationist papers (published in creationist journals and peer-reviewed by other creationists) generally quite explicitly start off by assuming what they're trying to prove?

K: Confirmation bias.

J: Many of the… Continue

Added by Richard Healy on May 30, 2012 at 1:27am — 4 Comments

Thank you god - for what exactly??

Chatting to a believer on facebook:

They had posted a status about their car. Thanks to a canny deal with the insurance this allowed them to pay off a loan outstanding and own their car completely, all the actions of which they attributed to the movement of the divine hand:

"we needed to give God another Acclamation (as He is due every moment of every day) for His next blessing in this saga. After giving us the value of the car in…

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Added by Richard Healy on May 27, 2012 at 9:30am — 14 Comments

Proof! Jesus is the only sensible mediator between God and Man!

(From Facebook)

Are you ready?

J: Reading City of God, and St. Augustine just used Greek philosophy/paganism to prove that Jesus Christ is the only sensible mediator between God and man.

Richard: Proof? oh please do let us hear it!

Random Interjection: You could read it for yourself, rather than…

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Added by Richard Healy on May 15, 2012 at 1:42am — 17 Comments

#2 Arrested for "Blasphemy"! (NEW AND UPDATED!)

Earlier in March I posted a blog about an Indian skeptic who debunked a catholic miracle claim of holy dribbling statues as a leaky sewage pipe and so outraged the local cardinals - he was arrested.

That was bad enough.

It's now May and Sanal Edamaruku faces up the three years in…

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Added by Richard Healy on May 9, 2012 at 1:31am — No Comments

Off to London*

To go see an exhibition of Da Vinci's Anatomical sketches at Buck Palace, then onto Kew Gardens - and taking photos.

Should be an enjoyable day out.

Added by Richard Healy on May 5, 2012 at 7:03pm — 3 Comments

Arrested for "Blasphemy"!

Indian skeptic arrested and charged with "Blasphemy" for revealing the secret behind the "miracle" of the cross dribbling "Holy Water"

Sanal Edamaruku, an Indian skeptic, went to Mumbai and revealed that a "miraculous" weeping cross was really just a bit of statuary located near a leaky drain whose liquid reached it by way of capillary action. The local Catholic Church demanded that he retract his statements, and when he…

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Added by Richard Healy on April 16, 2012 at 1:00am — 11 Comments

#Phe - NOMA- na!# Doot doo dee doo-doo.

Am going to spend this afternoon in the company of a friend from work, a muslim as it happens, and as part of Cambridge University's "Festival of Science" - I am going today to see a talk/debate: "

"Can we live in a world of non-overlapping magisteria?"

with…

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Added by Richard Healy on March 17, 2012 at 6:52am — 14 Comments

Some pearls of (un)wisdom from a creationist on facebook.

"You are checking theism with twisted, naturalistic logic. The two are completely incompatible, and thus one cannot define the other. That is the greatest fallacy of those who support Naturalism, thinking that they have an upper hand in defining the undefinable."

"If God wanted himself to be able to be tested by his own creation, then we could do so. We can't, and thus He doesn't."

"Since God works 100% through natural methods (meaning he rarely comes down to earth and… Continue

Added by Richard Healy on March 16, 2012 at 2:46am — 6 Comments

Lizards threaten traditional marriage.

Ha-Ha Hee Hee Hee! ^^

God Hates Lizards

Added by Richard Healy on February 26, 2012 at 5:30pm — 4 Comments

Thaumaturgy

What Dread Sorcery is this?

"Ungodly"

"Fiend"

…

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Added by Richard Healy on August 15, 2011 at 5:00am — 2 Comments

Has anyone else ever had a video uploaded to A|N mysteriously vanish?

I'm just wondering if it's a bug or if I've been gotcha'd by a moderator.

I've an inquiry in with the A|N Admin so we'll see where that goes. Meanwhile a more generalised question - is it just me or has anyone else experienced this?

Added by Richard Healy on May 19, 2011 at 5:27pm — 1 Comment

My record as an Atheist Activist (Your opinions sought....)

I have been, in the past, accused of endlessly whining about religion generally and Christianity specifically and not doing more about it. I respond usually that my activism has included going on marches and writing to my MP.

Here is an example of a recent exchange between me and my MP on the reform of the house of lords which proposes an increase in the religious representation and not as I would prefer the removal of this anachronistic oddity and the advance of a secular…

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Added by Richard Healy on May 12, 2011 at 12:43pm — 2 Comments

Mindblowingly Amazing. Just. Wow.

34 Photos from The ISS

I couldn't decide if my favourite was the shot of The Milky Way from beyond The Earth or the image of the Aurora - taken from what seems like inside the aurora!! or the sunset reflecting of The Caspian Sea.

Okay - that's my top 3 right there - but they are all of them absolutely awesome. Do your brain…

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Added by Richard Healy on April 26, 2011 at 5:24pm — 3 Comments

The Science of Good and Evil (London, April 11th, 2011)

I am going down to London to go see Sam Harris in an Intelligence Squared debate the "reverand" Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral on the topic of where do our ideas about morality and meaning come from?

The last time I went to one of these it was the now legendary Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry Vs Anne Widdecombe and Archbishop John…

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Added by Richard Healy on March 29, 2011 at 4:20pm — 2 Comments

The poverty of miracles

I remember one of my many steps towards atheism was taken when I was at school. It was in history, when we leant about Custer's last stand and the events leading up to it - and finally we arrived at something called the ghost dance - a ritual steeped in cultish logic (and unsurprisingly toxic Christian Missionaries ) seeking divine intervention from a messianic figure , the ressurection of the dead to restore the nation,… Continue

Added by Richard Healy on January 9, 2011 at 2:30pm — 4 Comments