the concept of wondrousness

Is it possible for me to assert that God is real.
If God is real he is the ultimate of wonders.
Does the concept of wondrousness have any meaning?
If God is real, we might expect to see other things in the creation (in what is) that are wonders, wondrous or wonderful, ie knowable in some way to the senses yet still utterly inexplicable.
That is to say, things that when conceived of somewhat correctly by a human consciousness betoken in that consciousness pure wonder.
Not just because those things are unexplained. mark you but often specifically and precisely because those things have within certain human perceptual limits been explained.
I submit to the Jury for your consideration... sunrise on the mountains, forests, a robin greeting you, dreams, the oceans in turmoil, the ocean calm, the ocean viewed internally, the ocean from afar, deoxyribonucleic acid, crows, Faure's Pavane, Feel It Still by the music combo styled The Man Portugal, Petula Clarke's Down Town, the good Bat For Lashes song, music generally, Eric Satie's Gymnopedies, Ludovico Einaudi's Divenire and sundry other infernal tootlings by Ludovico Einaudi, the Michael Nyman thing that was misused on a feminist film, 20 Palms by one Robert Plant, literature, the writings of David Berlinski, mystical experiences, The Prisoner Of Zenda, CS Lewis' The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning, the Catholic Church, the Bible, the Jews, Anthony Hopkins acting before he let himself down with that dreadful rubbish,  paintings by Seurat, Renoir, Vincent Van Gogh, the three good episodes of Seinfeld (the Soup Nazi, the Marine Biologist, and the Dentist), Larry David occasionally, John Carpenter's film Dark Star, electricity, the eye, heroism, goodness, and human consciousness itself.
There are earthly wonders which we do experience and which even as we know them remain somehow unknowable.
We find wonders in the world and in experience and in thought which point to a greater wonder as source.
God is the summation of wonderment which all wonders point to.
The television cartoonist Seth McFarlane has contended in one of his entertainments that Christianity has held back the development of science, culture and the human race.
We may contend by replay that without Christianity, there would be no science, no culture and indeed no advancement of any sort whatsoever.
Without Christianity there is no Mendel (the monk who pioneered understanding of genetics), no Isaac Newton (who pioneered our understanding of gravity), no Le Maitre (who pioneered conceptions of Big Bang astro physics), and of course no music, no literature, no poetry.
It seems to me in fact that as atheists make science their own in moving away from Christianity, they ever more willingly lay aside the key note of science, which is (believe it or not) Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness.
We are seeing the monumental fooboonery of atheism's hijacking of science in our life times.
Near cosmic wrong turns into con jobs like String Theory, Anti Depressant culture and (I hazard here) the Darwinian notion that life started spontaneously by chance.
I will oppose myself to the great McFarlane on this one.
And in so doing I will seek, however briefly, to stand with the poet Blake as he says:

The atoms of Democritus
Newton's particles of light
Are but sands upon the Red Sea shore
Where Israel's tents shine so bright

closing scene of the second terminator movie

Sarah Connor clutched Arnie's arm.
Together they watched as Independent Newspapers sank into a molten lake of High Court appointed Inspectors.
Strange to see such a scene not a week since Ian O'Doherty had crowed in the pages of the Irish Independent that "the Catholic Church has had its last waltz with the Irish people."
Ironic.
Hubris.
Something.
So not a week since the great O'Doherty predicted the end of the Christian faith in Ireland, the newspaper for which O'Doherty writes is whining to its readers: "We intend to continue publishing while the Inspectors investigate us."
"Are they dead?" breathed Sarah, scarcely daring to hope.
"Terminated," said Arnie who looked a bit like me.
Right that moment the melted Independent Newspapers group shrieked from within the molten flames briefly taking the form of white collar criminal Denis O'Brien, its current proprietor, to rise out of the fires with whatever remained of its strength. and intone with deep threat:
"I'll be back."
Then the twisted, bankrupt newspaper group sank once more into the vileness of its own crudescence.

the sage and the parsley

"The actor Burt Reynolds is dead," Ralph Bainsamy remarked in the Tearman Cafe. "What do you think of that?"
I pondered as I do prior to dispensing my pearls of oh you know.
"Nihil de mortui Bono," I said measuredly at last.
"What does that mean?" quoth he.
"It's a saw from my old Revenue Commissioners days. It means: We're gonna tax you Bono, until you die."

the transatlanteans

Cousin Pauline was bidding her mother goodbye at the airport.
"Here," said the cousin, "you can take my copy of the Guardian to read on the plane."
Standing a little to one side, my mind reeled between two immediate probabilities.
Jihadis seize the plane.
My aunt offers one of the terrorists (a nice looking young man)  her newspaper to read.
The Jihadis all start reading it.
In quick succession they each die of suppurating boredom.
The UN Rapporteur on Human Rights charges my aunt with war crimes and breach of the Geneva Convention for boring the Jihadis to death.
Oh the humanity.
Conversely my aunt reads it herself and Pauline gets charged with Matricide.

the story of my argument with the bbc

(James Wick Chapter 2)


Via email.


From BBC Personnel Dept.
To James Healy

James, we have written to you recently regarding your profile on the BBC Careers Hub. If you do not respond within one day, your profile will be removed.
Regards.
BBC Team



From James Healy
To BBC
Via A Personal Visit.

All right cee words. I've laid it on the line to you time and time again. Right. That's it. I'm going to give you a damn good thrashing.



Cut to: The Nine O'Clock News.


Libby Fembo: "We interrupt this report for a breaking story. A seemingly hysterical Irishman has been arrested purportedly outside BBC House with an alleged tree branch apparently trying to beat up the building."

Cut to: Footage of Heelers hitting Beeb House with a tree branch.

Cut to: Footage of Heelers being arrested.

Cut to Footage of Inspector Plod of the Freemasons (Yard surely - Ed note)

PC Plod: "We arrested the individual who was in a clear state of distress. We cautioned him that he did not have to say anything to which he replied: 'They're mad. They're mad. They keep writing to me. I tell them to go away and frame Cliff Richard for child abuse again. And they just keep writing to me. I refer to them openly as female genitalia and they just keep writing to me.' The suspect became incoherent at this point. Whereupon I read him his rights and warned him clearly that I had been involved in the framing of Cliff Richard with the BBC and that there was to be no more loose talk about that particular stitch up. I then read the charges to the suspect: to wit that he had knowingly ripped off an episode of Fawlty Towers with intent to commit satire. He replied: ' Homage,' and we led him away."

Libby: "Was he irate?"

PC Plod: "He was as mad as a brush. No disrespect to any brushes who are watching this."

Libby: "Before you go Inspector. what does PC stand for?"

PC Plod: "Political Correctness of course. Arf arf. Jahbulon for President."

the gentleness of the pseudo elites

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has announced: "Ireland has had a gentle revolution."
He is referring to his legalisation of abortion through referendum vote.
Sometimes it's the sheer violence that gets me.
I mean the sheer violence that attends the supposedly humane value system and culture propagated by our pseudo elites.
No, not just their maniacal advocacy of the killing of unborn children.
I mean daily life for the citizenry of Ireland amidst Leo Varadkar's gentle revolution.
Teenagers slaughtering a 13 year old girl. More teenagers slaughtering a teenage boy in a group murder that certainly looks satanist. A ten year old child supposedly committing suicide. Gang bangers killing each other and using staged traffic accidents to conceal their murders. Rackateering IRA proxies campaigning openly for the legalisation of drugs which legalisation they say has been a success in Portugal no less, in order to turn their dirty money earned by hooking our people on their poisons, into clean money.
All this in the couple of months since Leo Varadkar's gentle revolution.
The morally and financially bankrupt Beobachter Zeitung media groups of our fair Republic (RTE, Independent Newspapers and the Irish Times) ignore most of it.
Their only interest is in slandering the Catholic Church out of existence.
Everything else takes second place.
Wasn't it strange that on the eve of a papal visit to Ireland (a visit by Pope Francis who acceded to power by coup d'etat in my view so I normally take no interest in what he does) suddenly the American State of Pennsylvania publishes a review of sex abuse cases dating back to 1950.
Only cases involving Catholic Church employees mind.
And going back to 1950 so that they could juice up the numbers without anything so convenient as exculpatory testimony or a fair trial getting in the way.
The report did not concern itself with the vast preponderance of cases that have no connection to the Church whatsoever.
Only the Catholic Church was targetted for review.
And the report was released right before Pope Francis attended the World Meeting Of Families in Ireland.
Well, well, well.
What a fortunate coincidence that a Papal visit could once more be couched by the Beobachter Zeitungs of Ireland as being all about sex abuse.
Does anyone really believe the publication of the Pennsylvania report was a coincidence?
Really?
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar asserted manfully that he would challenge the Pope on the matter.
Ironically enough Prime Minister Leo Varadka asserted this within days of a previous statement he had made about a current Irish sex abuse case which has no Catholic angle, to wit: "We have unearthed the worst paedophile ring in Irish history."
Ah yes.
Just a throwaway statement in parliament.
No further action necessary, eh?
This statement by the Prime Minister has had no follow up reporting.
Because the ring doesn't involve the Church.
And the paedophiles from the worst paedophile ring in Irish history?
Why they're out on bail of course.
I kid you not.
A file is being prepared for the Director Of Public Prosecutions.
So no worries there then.
It's all in hand.
You couldn't make it up.
Have members of the worst paedophile ring in Irish history retained visitation rights to the children they abused?
What do you think!
Irish social workers are ever so sensitive about such things.
And members of the currently operating worst paedophile ring in Irish history have of course not been named by RTE. the Irish Times or Independent Newspapers.
Or doorstopped by RTE. the Irish Times or Independent Newspapers.
Or challenged in any way by RTE, the Irish Times or Independent Newspapers as to their whereabouts and current activities.
Because this paedophile ring, the worst in Irish history, and still currently operating, is of absolutely no use to RTE, the Irish Times and Independent Newspapers in their attempt to eradicate Christianity from Ireland by stampeding the Irish peasantry away from the ancient Church.
Listen folks.
Every generation of Christians has to face something.
A few centuries ago in Ireland it was the Penal Laws.
Christians were murdered by decree.
Near where I live six nuns were killed on an island in the river for refusing to accept the religion of King Henry the Eighth.
How quickly we forget.
In the present era all over the world we've had the Communists murdering Christians.
Then Nazis doing the same.
And of course when it comes to slaughtering believers always the Islamists excel the lot of them.
The present media orchestrated pogrom against the Church differs only in its methods of murder.
The media and their Judicial and Political acolytes are not cutting off heads.
They are murdering reputations.
Their aim as I've said, is to slander the Catholic Church out of existence, to harry elderly priests, nuns and Bishops into a mass grave of contrived guilt.
Today I am sitting in the Tearman Cafe on Kilcullen Main Street.
Behind me two of the town's leading abortion activists are sitting.
The cafe is agreeably quiet with a gentle burble of voices and laughter..
Yet all I can hear is the sobbing of the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, the millions, of Irish people who will be murdered because of the two men behind me.
It's a long way down from Mount Olympus.
They are creating hell on earth.

obitcheries

United States Senator John McCain is dead.
His funeral has been used by some as an opportunity to criticise President Donald Trump.
Criticising political rivals at a funeral is normally considered a bit infra dig  because they can't really talk back to a dead man.
As a young fighter pilot Senator McCain was captured during the Vietnam war and supposedly refused offers by the communists to release him.
The communist Viet Cong knew he was the son of an Admiral and were inclined to treat him with what we might call paradoxical favouritism.
McCain insisted on being treated like the other American prisoners.
His captors took him at his word.
He was held in squalor and tortured.
Back in America he became a long serving Senator.
In more recent years he was himself a Presidential candidate.
During the Republican Party's nomination season, members of his own party who perhaps supported other candidates and may not have been objective or fair, warned that Senator McCain had a volcanic temper and should not be trusted with the nuclear codes.
There was no evidence of volcanic temper in Senator McCain's public persona over five decades.
He did have a weakness though for trading in wives when they weren't as good looking as they once were.
Still that's a common enough failing in these harsh atheistic times.
He was also a bit weak on sanctity of life issues, hence his popularity with media groups who routinely despised other Republicans.
In a full life replete with valour and accomplishment, he will be remembered best of all for an earlier clash while still living with Donald Trump. This occurred when Mr Trump was seeking the Republican nomination to stand for the Presidency.
Senator McCain told reporters: "Trump's supporters are crazies."
This comment was repeated to Mr Trump by an interviewer who attempted to stop Mr Trump answering it by adding: "And John McCain's a war hero."
Mr Trump did answer.
He said: "He's not a war hero. Is he a war hero? Because he got captured? I prefer my heroes not to get captured."
Personally I thought neither Donald Trump nor John McCain were discredited by the exchange.

the french man

"James," he said, "I don't understand why the IRA doesn't destroy every symbol of British oppression still in Ireland."
"The IRA is a drug gang Jean Claude," I explained patiently.

sherlock holmes and the postulations of fear

"Where's my sandwich?" exclaimed Sherlock Holmes.
I unburied my visage from the Atheistic Abortionists Gazette aka the Irish Times.
Around us the sheepdog and the Jack Russell seemed intent on something outside the window.
"Sherlock old pal," I told him kindly, "if you have to ask that question in this house, there is no sandwich."

they use dark forces

"There's an anger in you," said the television astrologer Fergus.
"How do you know that Fergus?" I wondered on the verge of being stunned.
"I can see your aura. There's a flash of red in it."
I looked at him searchingly then smiled.
"No you can't."
"I can yeah. Your anger shows in your aura. It's shimmering there all around you."
"I've got a ratty little face, haven't I Fergus?"
"No, it's your aura. I can always tell from the aura."