Event - Wednesday, July 1, 2000h, Science Gallery, Pearse Street

robindch

There's a talk on this Wednesday evening at eight in the Science Gallery on Pearse Street. The topic is the historical spread of religion. Fans of memetic explanations for the existence of religion should find this talk interesting.

Here's the blurb:

Science Gallery wrote:

Is religion infectious? The spread and future of religion.

As part of INFECTIOUS at the Science Gallery Dublin's political cabaret Leviathan presents a very special interactive public conversation.

The BBC's William Crawley addresses the question of the infectious and contagious spread of religion through the ages and examines its future in all it forms. The panel includes Michael Kelly, Deputy Editor of the Irish Catholic, Dr Peter Rollins, author of "How (not) to speak of God", Gerard Rory, Scientologist and Mick Nugent, Chair of Atheists Ireland.

This will be followed by a head-to-head discussion with two of Ireland's leading scientists, Dr William Reville - a Catholic - and David McConnell - an atheist - on how religion spreads.

Abie Philbin Bowman also brings his brilliantly-observed and incredibly well-travelled comedic insights on religion throughout the world.

You may need to book in advance through the Science Gallery Website.

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DapperGent

Cheers, looks cool. Myself and the main squeeze are going to head along.

Zillah

DapperGent wrote: »

Cheers, looks cool. Myself and the main squeeze are going to head along.

You're keeping the other squeeze as a back up I assume?

pts

Looks very tempting, they've even got a Scientologist in there! Curious to see how that one works out.

MrPudding

Zillah wrote: »

You're keeping the other squeeze as a back up I assume?

Redundant squeezes are essential for the modern man about town, which DapperGent obviously is...

MrP

stevejazzx

|Looks great but I'm working!

Húrin

ah nuts! I'll be out of town!

pts

So did anyone go? I would have love to gone. I find the topic of how religion spreads to be extremely fascinating.

robindch

Yep, I went along.

The first half saw Abie Philbin-Bowman riffing on religion for half an hour -- had a few good laughs, and this rolled into a discussion between Dave McConnell (former TCD head of genetics) and William Reville (UCD microbiologist, Irish Times columnist). McConnell was clearly the better speaker, and spoke with far more authority than Reville who tended to lose track of the point, or simply ignore it. There were two creationists in the front row who'd clearly been out for a few jars before the thing started, and one of them offered a grand to anybody who could "demonstrate evolution", so two people did and the creationists immediately shifted the goalposts and said that the arrival of new features wasn't evolution at all but "variation" instead. Most people were in stitches of laughter while this was going on and the two lads popped up from time to time during the course of the evening with a variety of enjoyably pop-eyed opinions. In fact, their opinions were so off the wall, that had the guy in the light-colored jacket started littering his weirdness with little airborne smilies, he could have passed for our very own JC.

The second half saw Reville take McConnell's wobbly chair and the two were joined by a black-clad guy in his mid-twenties from the Irish Catholic, Mike Nugent from Atheist Ireland, and a small scientologist. The discussion was a bit less structured in the second half and grew quite heated a few times, especially when one guy up the back said that the scientologist shouldn't have been there and BBC NI's Crawley ripped him a new asshole in short order.

Overall, the evening was fun and twits aside, Crawley managed to keep things light-hearted. But what was most noticeable was (a) that nobody really addressed the topic of how religion spread from person to person, and what little McConnell said on the topic was nothing like complete and (b) how desperately weak the arguments were from the religious side.

On the few occasions where he was clear enough to convey any obvious meaning at all, the guy from the Irish Catholic appeared to be well on his way to atheism, Reville frankly didn't have a clue (almost embarrassingly so at times) and the scientologist thought that "science" was a Greek-derived word, and he went downhill fast from there.

pts

robindch wrote: »

Yep, I went along.

The first half saw Abie Philbin-Bowman riffing on religion for half an hour -- had a few good laughs, and this rolled into a discussion between Dave McConnell (former TCD head of genetics) and William Reville (UCD microbiologist, Irish Times columnist). McConnell was clearly the better speaker, and spoke with far more authority than Reville who tended to lose track of the point, or simply ignore it. There were two creationists in the front row who'd clearly been out for a few jars before the thing started, and one of them offered a grand to anybody who could "demonstrate evolution", so two people did and the creationists immediately shifted the goalposts and said that the arrival of new features wasn't evolution at all but "variation" instead. Most people were in stitches of laughter while this was going on and the two lads popped up from time to time during the course of the evening with a variety of enjoyably pop-eyed opinions. In fact, their opinions were so off the wall, that had the guy in the light-colored jacket started littering his weirdness with little airborne smilies, he could have passed for our very own JC.

The second half saw Reville take McConnell's wobbly chair and the two were joined by a black-clad guy in his mid-twenties from the Irish Catholic, Mike Nugent from Atheist Ireland, and a small scientologist. The discussion was a bit less structured in the second half and grew quite heated a few times, especially when one guy up the back said that the scientologist shouldn't have been there and BBC NI's Crawley ripped him a new asshole in short order.

Overall, the evening was fun and twits aside, Crawley managed to keep things light-hearted. But what was most noticeable was (a) that nobody really addressed the topic of how religion spread from person to person, and what little McConnell said on the topic was nothing like complete and (b) how desperately weak the arguments were from the religious side.

On the few occasions where he was clear enough to convey any obvious meaning at all, the guy from the Irish Catholic appeared to be well on his way to atheism, Reville frankly didn't have a clue (almost embarrassingly so at times) and the scientologist thought that "science" was a Greek-derived word, and he went downhill fast from there.

that sounds like so much fun. I'm disgusted I missed it

bus77

robindch wrote: »

and the scientologist thought that "science" was a Greek-derived word, and he went downhill fast from there.

Going in I reckoned the Scientologist present was the only hope of getting something with a bit of bite to it from the humanist, but the Scientologist just wasn't smarmy at all.

As regards the origin of the word science thing, he was asked if 'Science' had anything to do with Scientology, to which he replied no. And then naturally switched to trying to explain the word ''Scientology'' as a whole. He got a bit muddled there trying to get that out because the ''-ology'' bit is Greek.

robindch

bus77 wrote: »

And then naturally switched to trying to explain the word ''Scientology'' as a whole. He got a bit muddled there trying to get that out because the ''-ology'' bit is Greek.

It's a bit like a christian not being quite sure where the where the word "christian" comes from. Not a very impressive performance from him, I have to say. Still, he seemed like a nice chap, though he was so far out of his depth that he must have had vertigo.

On BBC Radio 4's News Quiz a few weeks back, Sandy Toksvig commented that the "scien" comes from the Latin "to know", the "ology" comes from the Greek "the-study-of" and the "t" comes from "bullshit".