Why is it so difficult for many people to discard harmful religious beliefs? Atheist Ireland hosted Dr Darrel Ray, psychologist and president of Recovering from Religion, to give this talk at Buswells Hotel, Dublin. The Talk: Religious Trauma and Your Brain Religious ideologies create psychological conflicts that have life long consequences. Even people who were […]
We often read about millions, billions, and trillions with no real idea of the size of those numbers. A guitar is a metre long. A thousand guitars would fit end-to-end along Sydney Harbour Bridge with a bit of room to spare. So far, that’s easy, if a bit odd, to picture. But when we go […]
The Irish Presidential candidates debated on telly this week. Too many questions were about their political views. This is outside the remit of the President. Here are ten relevant questions that future debate hosts could ask them. Taking Office 1. Article 12.8 says the President must make a declaration ‘In the presence of Almighty God’ […]
Of every ten Irish people, only one now says they are religious only, three say spiritual only, and another two say they are both. Another three say they are neither, and one doesn’t know. That’s from a recent survey by Amárach for the Iona Institute. This survey updates a previous Iona/Amárach survey in 2011. Back […]
Do I have free will, or does my body just do things and let me notice later? I ask this because of something that recently happened to me. I am recovering from diabetic amyotrophy, which wasted away my muscles and stopped my nerve signals from working. While spending months in hospital, and after I returned […]
Fintan O’Toole has a wonderful article in today’s Irish Times titled “I have had more wives than Henry VIII. It’s news to me too.” It shows why Google’s new AI Overview should not be trusted to produce the genealogy tv show “Who Do You Think You Are?” With his trademark witty irony, Fintan reminisces on […]
During my long stay in hospital and my slow journey learning to walk again, I have thought a lot about life. Many fellow patients had worse illnesses than I have. They inspired me to focus on the positive. Accept what is real, then improve it. Be fair to myself, and to others. Shortly before my […]
In debates about freedom of religion, people often assume that these protections only apply to religious believers. But they don’t. They also apply to those of us who have nonreligious philosophical beliefs such as atheism, secularism, and humanism. The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, oversees the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council has […]
Can you believe that Earth was heaved out of a cosmic seaOr that it poked out of a broken egg so we could be?Or do you trust that Brahman must sustain the three in oneThat Brahma makes and Shiva breaks and Vishnu gets things done? Can it be true Chinese Pan Gu split up the […]
It’s about how we live, not just how we die When my late wife Anne Holliday was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, she made preparations to be able to take her own life at the end, if she needed to do so to avoid unnecessary suffering. Anne died naturally at the end. But the peace […]