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Continue reading →: Prose poetry and drama
I was lucky enough to win a pair of tickets to see Sean O’Casey’s Shadow of a Gunman at the Lyric yesterday. My son and I tuned our ears to the rapid Dublin dialogue and enjoyed watching the humour and tragedy burst from the stage. I can’t claim to closely…
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Continue reading →: Scientific proof of virgin birth
Science and scripture have not always been easy bedfellows, but today there is incontrovertible evidence of the virgin birth. The only wise men on the horizon were ecologists whose findings have been published in the journal Current Biology. The latest virgin births do not herald a new messiah, but may have…
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Continue reading →: Preference
I must stop listening to phone-in radio shows. The Minister, and successor to Ian Paisley at the Martyrs Memorial church in Belfast, was pressed by Stephen Nolan on a couple of points. To the question “do you believe that the power of prayer can convert someone from gay to straight?” Rev…
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Continue reading →: self improvement or verse
I am aware of my shortcomings when it comes to writing poetry, so I have applied for three workshops on the theme of ‘place’ which might help improve my output. I submitted some poems recently to a couple of poetry publications, but I was not surprised to have had my offerings rejected. There…
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Continue reading →: Marriage
Talkback is the local phone-in radio show and Stephen Nolan encourages the usual suspects to come up with controversy. Gay marriage found callers divided on whether it would break 5 of God’s 10 commandments (?), or Christians should wake up and join the 21st century. A logical argument would not get much…
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Continue reading →: Eurovision weird lyrics
It’s that time of year again – Eurovision, the singing extravaganza that is such an easy target for ridicule, and yet we still watch it. I love the bizarre lyrics either in translation or in some semblance of English. Here are a few that took my fancy: This year’s entry…
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Continue reading →: Responsibilities
The Conservative government wants to restore the balance between rights and responsibilities in UK law. Here are a few suggestions for a citizen’s responsibilities; do not go running off to the European Court of Justice, because the UK parliament is always sovereign (if not always fair – MPs can be convicts (e.g.…
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Continue reading →: Gay cake and religious freedom
The Ashers case highlights the clash between firmly held religious beliefs and equality laws that prohibit discrimination. The campaign to make same sex marriages legal in Northern Ireland goes on, despite Unionist political parties blocking legislation with barely a dissenting vote. We take our religion very seriously in God’s own country, even…
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Continue reading →: Religion and Conflict
I have been studying a very interesting MOOC put together by the University of Groningen. Some of the case studies are particularly stimulating. The Hobby Lobby case is about how freedom of religion legislation applies to companies in the USA. The Christian owners of a chain of craft shops objected to providing health care…
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Continue reading →: Potted History of Human Rights in the UK
In 1688 a Bill of Rights was enacted after the Glorious Revolution that got rid of James II and enthroned William of Orange at the request of English parliamentarians. This set out various protections for citizens and limited the power of the monarchy. In 1998 the Human Rights Act specified how the European…
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