The six Eccles laws

Spending 23 hours per day on Twitter has enabled me to appreciate some fundamental truths, which need to be recognised more widely. This post is less spiritually nourishing than some, but I'll do my best.

1. Actors have nothing intelligent to say if they are not given a script, and often not even then.

Socialist actor Brian Cox calls the Bible 'one of the worst books ever' and says 'the theatre' is the 'one true church'.

2. Never click on anything described as "hilarious". It will just be mildly amusing.

A few from the Daily Mail to illustrate my point. Would you really bother with any of these?

Spilling the dirt! Hilarious moment man covers himself in soil after wheelbarrow tips over.

Plane passenger reveals his hilarious take on what your seat selection means about your journey.

We're live, guys! Hilarious moment BBC's Chris Mason realises he's standing in the wrong spot at start of live News at Six broadcast.

3. All those in positions of power in the 1960s were stark staring bonkers.

Well, you may be thinking of Beeching closing the railways, Vatican II doing untold damage to the Catholic Church, and almost any 1960s architecture:

St Horten in Ahaus, Germany. Before and after.

4. "Could" is journalese for "won't".

There are many variations on this, e.g. "explains" is journalese for "guesses".

We're doomed, do you hear me? Doomed!

Another example:

There's more than one way of being doomed.

5. Anyone with pronouns in their profile is bonkers.

I think the non-binaries are the most bonkers, but kids these days are always trying to attract attention, and asking to be referred to as "whee/whoosh" or whatever is probably less of a public nuisance than breaking windows.

6. Finally, applicable to religion and politics: those who rant and rage are usually wrong: those who can laugh and joke are generally right.

Rather than posting yet another picture of Pope Francis or Austen Ivereigh throwing a wobbly, let's be synodal (hmm... I feel another Eccles law coming on here...).

Nobody sensible actually enjoys synods.

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 28

Continued from Chapter 27

1. A year passed, and Richard achieved the age of four score; thus, he reflected on the words of the psalm:

2. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

3. "Aha, but I am not cut off," he said, "and I do not fly away! In fact I am still locked down in Delusion Towers, with no prospect of any flight to distant parts. This proves that the Bible is wrong."

4. However, Richard had spent his year under lock and key wisely, for in response to his critics, who had said "Get a life!" he had written another book, entitled Books do furnish a life.

Richard getteth a life.

5. This book recorded the deepest thoughts of the greatest scientists of our age, all of whom were personally known to Richard.

6. For example, Albert Einstein had met Richard as a child, and uttered the immortal words, "Why doesn't that kid shut up? I hope he goes far... away."

7. And the learned professor Bill Nye, he whom they called the science guy, the greatest scientist of the age, had also spoken to Richard in words too profound to record here.

"Professor Doctor Nye complimented me on my bow tie."

8. But now Richard needed to sell his new book, and so he thought of a cunning plan to bring himself into the public eye.

9. "I will find some way to insult Catholics," he said. "Then everyone will remember me once more, and maybe a dozen hardy souls will buy my book."

10. In doing this he was using the methods of the great scientists Brian Cox, who had used physics to prove that soul music did not exist, and Alice Roberts, who told the astonished world that dead people did not come back to life on Good Friday.

11. So Richard spake out, saying "Beware Catholics who tell you that bread can become the body of Christ, and wine His blood. Is it not pernicious to bring God into a religion?"

"If only Richard were here to explain it to us!"

12. Then he spake out further, saying that most Catholics did not believe this teaching; for being a scientist he had asked one Jesuit and stopped his experiment because he had the answer he wanted.

13. However, Richard was unaware that Catholics had discussed this teaching for two thousand years: for scientists only read the most recent literature.

14. Thus once again Richard became the stock that laughs, and was roundly mocked by all men of faith.

15. However, he had sold three more copies of his book, and was exceedingly happy.

Continued in Chapter 29.

The Book of St Richard beginneth here.

Science rules out the existence of the soul

Hello, my name is Brain Cox, aged 13, of St Dawkins' Comprehensive Shcool, Oldham. I am a very clever boy, and top in Sceince, which is Pshyics, Chemitsry, Boilogy ect. I am so clever that the other boys call me Proffesor, Swotty, and sometimes Genuis!

Today's guest contributor.

Anyway, I have made a brillaint discovery! There is no SUOL! All those old fools we were taught about in Divinnity got it wrong! Let me explain.

I have read a big book with long words in it called "Particule Pshyics for Boys". This book says we are all made of prottons, nuetrons and elecctrons, which go whizz whizz whizz isn't is super? Then they are made up of quacks and there are six types of quack called strange, charm, fizz, pop, bang, and woke. After that it gets a bit complicated as there was a chap called Heisenbreg who was uncertain, and another one called Schrodigner who had a cat.

Anyway, the point is that the book doesn't mention the SUOL. If we had a SUOL, it would react with the quacks and release gama rays. We would all go BOOM. Which we don't. QED.

"If you're so clever, padre, where's your SUOL?"

In this big book, it says that sceintists have made very accurate measurements looking for a SUOL, and didn't find one! I even did my own experriment, and put some nitrogen iodide on the floor of the shcool chappel, which goes BANG if you tread on it.

What hapened, Proffesor, you are going to ask. Well, I'll tell you. The shcool chaplin went BANG when he trod on the nitrogen iodide, but we did not observe any signs of a SUOL emanating from his holly body as he fell to the ground. And the Headmaster was very cross with me and gave me six of the best for doing sceince in chappel during Lent.

P.S. The chaplin survived the experriment.

Still, all is not lost. The BBC was very impressed by my sceintific accumen, and they have invited me to do a TV series in which I blow up holly men to see if they have a SUOL. My first guest is Cradinal Nickles!

A tricky moment for Cardinal Nichols.

A Satanist, a Jesuit, an atheist, and a radical Muslim meet

Once upon a time there were a Satanist, a Jesuit, an atheist and a radical Muslim, and they decided to compare their achievements.

It's hard to look normal when you're a complete loser.

"I must be the most evil," said the Satanist. "I have backed the Devil, the Father of Lies. I like backing losers: I also support Norwich City football club, the Zimbabwe cricket team, and Jeremy Corbyn. I am really attracted by the possibility of eternal damnation and the Lake of Fire. Knowing that God is almighty and could obliterate me with a crook of his little finger, I take part in black masses where I profane the sacrament, simply because it makes me feel really naughty. Look at me, folks, I'm the bad boy of the class."

This is what passes for Catholicism in New York.

"I'm not evil," said the Jesuit. "In fact I am MERCIFUL. I also practise a new type of Catholicism, in which we deny all the established teaching. The pope's going to ordain women, you know - after all Mary Magdalene was the Head of the Church at the time of the Resurrection (and she even wore a dalmatic). The Holy Spirit is a woman - trust me on this - and so is the Spirit of Vatican II. Now I want to encourage people to practise Ignatian Discernment: nowadays, this means dreaming up the wackiest ideas possible and imposing them upon an interpretation of holy scripture!"

Brian Cox knows what K(q",q';T) is, so he must be CLEVER.

"We've been having a hard time recently," said the atheist. "Dawkins has been ill, and split from his wife; Grayling's still sulking about Brexit; Fry's thrown a wobbly and vanished from Twitter; I've been making a complete hash of pretending to be a climate scientist; only Elton John can be said to be leading a truly happy life. Moreover, everyone laughs at us, because we can't find a single rationalist who isn't just a little bit odd. Indeed, worldwide we're in decline, even though in the UK the Catholic and Anglican bishops have done wonders for our cause. So, although I would like to say we're undermining the Christian religion, it is in fact the Christians who are doing it themselves."

"Swing low, sweet Sharia..."

"We've been having a good press lately," said the radical Muslim. "Our ISIS chaps have been torturing women and children, burning people alive, feeding them to wild animals, etc. These are Western ideas - your chap Hitler wouldn't have found them at all horrifying. Now I understand that Owen Smith - the man who will lead the Labour Party if Jeremy Corbyn doesn't - thinks he can solve all our problems by inviting us to sit round a table with him. There was even talk of beer and bacon sandwiches, like the politicians used to offer to trade unionists in the 1970s. I can't see that working: indeed if Owen Smith drops round we shall probably EAT him."

In the end, all four of these guys died and went to Heaven. The ways of God are strange indeed.

Ancient comedy team reunited

All eyes were on the O2 arena last night, where a group of 1960s comedians (described by Mick Jagger as "a bunch of wrinkly old men trying to relive their youth and make a load of money") were reunited in a performance of "Monty Python and the Holy Smoke", also known as "The Spirit of Vatican II".

Cardinal Kasper and friends in "Nobody expected the CDF".

The names on stage were legendary: people who we thought we'd never see again - such as Hans Küng, Tony Flannery, Basil Loftus, and Lorenzo Baldisseri - and they performed all those comic sketches we remember from the 1960s.

Basil Loftus - later starred in "Fawlty Dogmas".

As expected, we had a revival of the famous "Dead Parish" sketch, in which the customer complains that nobody attends his church any more, and the shopkeeper tries to persuade him that guitars and clown masses are the answer.

The Ministry of Silly Walks - liturgical dancing from Liverpool.

A touch of glamour was provided by Prof. Tina Beattie, who starred in "The Killer Joke", the tale of a woman who writes such a funny book (God's Mother, Eve's Advocate) that everyone who reads it dies laughing.

We also enjoyed the "Argument" sketch, in which an innocent pope goes into the Tablet offices, and finds himself engaged in a meaningless dialogue, in which everything he says is contradicted.

It's Da Bishop! And he's caught one of his deacons blogging!

Finally, the audience joined in with enthusiasm when Paul Inwood appeared on stage to lead them in a chorus of his notorious hymn "I'm a lumbering hack and I'm OK, ch-ch", backed by the ACTA choir.

Paul Inwood.

Of course, it is now illegal for anyone to put on a public performance without including at least one of Stephen Fry, Brian Cox and Stephen Hawking, and this show was no exception. But curiously their pompous atheism fitted in very well with the rest of the proceedings.

Atheists to issue nude calendar

Following the water attack on Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard of Mechelen-Brussels, by topless "Femen" protestors from Kiev, unwilling to tolerate Catholic teaching on homosexuality (and probably almost everything else), atheists have decided that the best way to get their message across is to strip off. The first Atheists' Nude Calendar is already being prepared.

Archbishop! Buy our calendar!

Said a prominent atheist, Prof. Brian Cox of Manchester: "The production of J/ψ mesons is studied in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC. The measurement is based on a dimuon sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 314 nb⁻¹. The J/ψ differential cross section is determined, as a function of the J/ψ transverse momentum, in three rapidity ranges.

Which basically means, 'If I strip off it will persuade more people to take me seriously.'"

Brian Cox, March's Calendar Boy.

Of course, female atheists are also anxious to contribute their charms to the cause of denying God in the home. Said Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, "Recently, I haven't been stripping off so much, but I am allowing the producers of the calendar to use an old photo taken in my wilder student days."

Polly Toynbee (Miss December) in her student days.

Another exhibitionist, er, I mean selfless contributor to the cause of atheism, is Stephen Fry, who posted on Twitter: Whooooooooooooop!!!!! Life is so rich and varied. Lovely Stephen, you're a naughty boy! Bless!

Stephen Fry (August), also posted his bathtime video on Youtub.

But what of Richard Dawkins, the "Unholy Father" of British atheists? Will he be baring all for the sake of persuading people that God does not exist? No, so far he is remaining modestly covered up, to the annoyance of his fellow-atheists. Some people are just shy and self-conscious, don't you find?

Even when he goes swimming, Richard keeps his shirt on.

So far it seems unlikely that any Christian organizations will be producing a rival nude calendar, although Giles Fraser has declared himself "willing to strip off if the money's good enough."