Tim Worstall

As the old saying goes, Argentinians are really Italians who speak Spanish and think they’re English.

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Though conservative on church doctrine, he has criticised priests who refuse to baptise babies born to single mothers. Well of fucking course! In doctrine, baptism is that first and essential step towards future eternal life. If you want to be really crude about it, that Mommy (sans confession) is going to the eternal flames is [...]

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As Mr. Thompson points out, in many parts of the world it’s more honoured in the breach than anything else. In some parts of the world it’s heterosexual marriage, in others the discreet “housekeeper” approach (a favourite in rural Ireland for a long, long, time) and today in urban areas homosexuality of a more or [...]

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The Guardian asked the Vatican’s representative in London, the papal nuncio, archbishop Antonio Mennini, why the papacy continued with such secrecy over the identity of its property investments in London. Hm, gosh, I wonder. How the Vatican built a secret property empire using Mussolini’s millions……the church’s international portfolio has been built up over the years, [...]

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My Lord Archbishop, I do hope that you have been misquoted in today’s Daily Telegraph. On the off chance that you have not may I offer a small deal? One that should make both of us considerably more use to the rest of the population. I promise not to spout nonsense about the Sky Fairy, [...]

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Instead, Jesus was more likely to have been born in Bethlehem of the Galilee, a hillside village in northern Israel, The Times reports. Aviram Oshri, an Israeli archaeologist, told the paper that the genuine site of the Nativity had been mistaken by thousands. “Bethlehem in the Galilee was inhabited by Jews at the time of [...]

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There is a difference between being an observant Christian and the way one was brought up. I was baptised and brought up a Catholic but have now ceased to believe in God but I remain a Catholic by my culture and nothing will take that away From somewhere in The Guardian. I rather think this [...]

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As L Ron Hubbard pointed out, if you want to get truly rich, found a religion. And everyone, but everyone, gets to the point where they find out whether that was a good idea or not. As Dr. Moon just has. If there’s no Pearly Gates, no afterlife of any kind, then the decades of [...]

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In the UK….halfway through the service I realised it must be CofE or something, not my usual. Priest was neither Irish nor drunk. Bit of a giveaway that…

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All of which presents an opportunity to clear the decks and say why I am not a liberal. No, I’m not a conservative either. I’m a communitarian. Blue labour, if you like. But certainly not a liberal. What I take to be the essence of liberalism is a belief that individual freedom and personal autonomy [...]

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Over at Liberal Conspiracy we have a Catholic trying to make a religious argument in favour of gay marriage. I think there are excellent arguments in favour of gay marriage (not least they should be allowed to be as miserable as all us heteros). I think there are even better arguments in favour of a [...]

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Yet it is time that foreign churches, as well as sending money and priests to the Middle East, used their influence to reform family law in the region. Who will bring pressure to bear to modernise the dense muddle of Christian personal status laws in the Middle East? The majority of the 14 million Arab [...]

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No. Use this page as a handy check as to whether the Rapture, the giant earthquake which will sweep believers into heaven, has happened as yet on 21 May 2011. If the page is still here, no it hasn’t.

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No, not the europhilia (although that grates) but the Heresiarch has something about his religious faith: It makes people think I’m peculiar and lack intellectual fibres because I don’t have any doubts about my faith, but I’d be terrified to have doubts. Which is really a rather odd statement actually. For his faith is Catholic, [...]

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Not a great surprise in the Church of England of course: Dr Williams said the Bible made clear it was the duty of the powerful to ensure ordinary people were “treasured and looked after”, particularly those without the resources to look after themselves. “What about having a new law that made all Cabinet members and [...]

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Emdadur Choudhury, 26, a member of Muslims Against Crusades (MAC), was convicted of public disorder after burning two poppies during the two-minute silence on November 11 last year. He added: “I get more when I get a parking ticket.” Judge Howard Riddle imposed the low fine despite saying Choudhury was guilty of a “calculated and [...]

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This is actually a very good piece indeed. You’ll know that I’m not religious myself and there’s certainly lots of the Mormon world view that’s easy enough to mock. But an intelligent piece in The Guardian about one of the symbols of fatih: who would have thought it?

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Normally the non-Catholic partner agrees, at the request of the priest, to let the Catholic partner bring up the children in the faith if they are being married in a Catholic church. Umm, no. The non-Catholic partner has to agree to let the Catholic partner bring the children up in the faith if they are [...]

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And agnostics and atheists seem to get better results. And on the short version you can take yourself, this agnostic/atheist got 100%, aided by two things. One, a lucky guess on the last question and two, well, try this: When does the Jewish Sabbath begin? Possible answers are Friday, Saturday or Sunday. The correct answer [...]

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