Interesting Stuff Thread

recedite wrote: »

I think this crest is the new crest, is it not?

Nope. This is the arms of the University of Dublin, granted some time in the mid-nineteenth century, as opposed to the arms of Trinity College, which have been in use since the sixteenth century.

I think the revised arms for Trinity College are to look exactly like the present arms of the College, including the lion, the harp, the castles and the flags, except that the book/bible will be open rather than closed.

recedite wrote: »

The name is going to cause confusion with UCD. Didn't they try for the name "Dublin University" for a while? If that didn't catch on, I can't see "University of Dublin" working out for them too well; its even closer to UCD's name.

The original idea, as you probably know, was that there was to be a University of Dublin, modelled on the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, and like those universities it would be made up of a number of Colleges, of which Trinity College was to be the first. But no second college was ever established. (They announced the establishment of a second college, King’s College, in the 1660s, but somehow never found the money to get past the announcement stage of the project. There was a proposal to establish a college for Catholics within the University of Dublin in the 1790s, but in the end they gave the money to Maynooth instead. And there were various half-hearted proposals in the mid-to-late nineteenth century that the Catholic University founded by Newman should become a college within the University of Dublin, but nothing came of them.)

So the distinction between the University and the one College that does exist is a pretty blurred one and, arguably, the University has had a pretty shadowy existence as a separate institution. But, while the College enrolls the students and provides the teaching and the examining, strictly speaking it’s the University which awards degrees - so it’s BA (Dublin) and not BA (TCD) - and appoints the Professors. It's the coat of arms of the university - the one with four quarters, and the crowned harp in the middle - that appears on degree certificates.

Internationally, Trinity feels that its brand may suffer from not including the word “University”, since in the US and some other countries a “college” is an altogether inferior creature to a “university”; hence the desire to include “University of Dublin” in the branding.

If it did come to a stoush between TCD and UCD over similar names incorporating the word “University”, Trinity does have priority in terms of longer usage, but ramping up the frequency of that usage may also be an attempt to position themselves for such a stoush.

Not specifically atheism, but this has info on everything. Great if you want to do some bullet point research on things.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

Has info on all religions and lots of extra quackery.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, it's in the great tradition of AIB Bank, TSB Bank and EBS Building Society.

AIB bank makes some sense as it's Allied Irish Banks Bank, as in refferring to the larger bank made up of the smaller ones.

Two that always tickle me are ATM machine and PIN number.

gaynorvader wrote: »

AIB bank makes some sense as it's Allied Irish Banks Bank, as in refferring to the larger bank made up of the smaller ones.

It's either one bank, or it's more than one bank; it can't be both. (And, in fact, it's one bank; they have just the one banking licence, issued to just the one company.)

It started off life as "Allied Irish Banks", for precisely the reasons that you mention. The formal name of the company is still Allied Irish Banks plc, and until about 1990 that was the brand as well. Round about 1990 they rebranded as "AIB". For a while they became "AIB Bank" in the Republic; then they switched back to just AIB. But a lot of the branches were refurbished when "AIB Bank" was in use, and this name is still on the facade.

We have all prob heard about the film Gods Not Dead - well Daniel Finke writes very enjoyable blog called A Philosophy Professor analyzes Gods Not Dead case for God

Worth a read if you have time

Jernal wrote: »

I've had most of that series spoiled for me. Don't know why people do it either. :mad:

Gandalf dies when Eddard Stark blows up the Death Star with an iceberg and turns out to be a ghost the whole .

gaynorvader wrote: »

Gandalf dies when Eddard Stark blows up the Death Star with an iceberg and turns out to be a ghost the whole

time

.

"You win or you die, you fools!" - Gandalf, right before The Mountain pulls him from Dragonmount.

If people don't stop posting spoilers I will unleash my inner Catelyn Tully
:mad:

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Ye're all wrong by the way with yeer spoilerish manners.

Turns out the zebra did it.

What?!

And here I was thinking a 'game of thrones' was playing chess between adjoining cubicles!

You live and learn...

endacl wrote: »

And here I was thinking a 'game of thrones' was playing chess between adjoining cubicles!

Careful, you might end up arrested like 'Mr. Wide Stance'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Craig_scandal

Reality tv is unfortunately the biggest load of disgusting tripe. Just about every show has a production team of cynics behind it looking for the interesting stories. Nobody is reflected accurately. That person who comes across as a complete ditsy has most likely just had their segments edited to appear that way. All the while, the production team, makes sure circumstances conspire to push people's buttons in the desired direction. Little, if any consideration, is given towards the humans at the centre of it all.

The saddest thing is that people lap it up. Unlike hating people in the soaps they actually think the person they hate in the reality show is a reflection of the real person. It's possible, but most of the time it's never the case. Worse still though is the ridiculous notion that some people carry that performers in reality tv shows deserve everything they get. Some of them make megabucks so apparently it's ok that they're depicted to be complete assholes.

Sulla Felix wrote: »

While it is interesting, do we not spend a lot of time trying to argue the point that just because something was written down a long time ago it's not necessarily true?

Indeed. Who cares? The facts of who holybabyjebus may or may not have been married to are irrelevant. The fact that folks believe he is his own imaginary dad is the issue.

sea_monkey wrote: »

I don't see why he wouldn't have married.

Gay marriage wasn't legal then.

1. Although the Vatican has been widely reported as having said it was a forgery, primary cites that they ever said this are hard to come by.

2. Assuming it's genuine, it's a papyrus from somewhere between the sixth and nineth centuries. It's not contemporary with Jesus, or anything like.

3. It's a copy of an earlier text, but the earlier text is (from linguistic evidence) likely from the fourth-century, and from Eqypt. It, too, is not contemporary with Jesus.

4. No scholar suggests that it is evidence that the historical Jesus was married.

5. Some scholars suggest that it is evidence that fourth-century Coptic Christians believed, or may have believed, Jesus to have been married.

6. Others suggest that there isn't enough in the fragment to conclude even this. The fragment includes the words "Jesus said to them 'my wife . . .'". And there, tantalisingly, it breaks off. It can't be shown that this is a reference to an actual wife. In the canonical gospels, Jesus frequently uses relational terms figuratively. ("“Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”) It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that the completed text from this fragment would show a figurative use of "wife".