The Myth of Compartmentalised Minds

No, not an attack on modular theories of mind. (If  you don’t know what they are, don’t worry, it’s not relevant today)…

Instead I’m talking about a claim I often see levelled against Christians who believe in Evolution — that we are able to hold two incompatible beliefs by compartmentalising (I’m using the British English btw, as I live in England) our minds, keeping the ideas completely separate. Apparently Evolution (by Natural Selection) is utterly incompatible with Christian belief. Now long time readers will recall  that I have said this was certainly NOT the view of most Christians in Darwin’s own time: perhaps because that battle had already been fought over Lyell and Buckland and geology, but rocks are unfashionable and biology is sexy today; regardless I have written on the myths that cluster around Darwin, you can find my essay here.

I will sometime describe how Christians have reconciled the two, and my own theological thinking on the issue, but to be honest it was not a problem for Darwin’s bulldog T.H.Huxley (himself not a Christian but an ‘agnostic’ – not in the modern sense of the word though) who wrote –

” The teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man or in the higher ver-

tebrata, was made with the precise structure which it exhibits, to make the animal which

possesses it to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. But it is necessary to remember

that there is a higher teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is act-

ually based on the fundamental proposition of evolution. That proposition is, that the whole

world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws,

of forces possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was

composed. If this be true, it is no less certain that the existing world lay potentially in the

cosmic vapour; and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of

that vapour, have predicted, say, the state of fauna of Great Britain in 1869, with as much

certainty as one can say what will happen to the vapor of the breath on a cold winter’s

day.” Academy 1869

I think it’s too late at night to explore what Huxley meant by than now: again it’s not strictly relevant. My challenge is far more drastic: I don’t deny that minds well may well be compartmentalised, but I think such an attribute may actually be almost by definition a property of atheist not theistic thinkers. I am not saying atheists are wrong, or stupid: I am saying that some but not all atheists probably have stronger compartmentalisation of neural processes than religious believers, and that I believe if an experiment was conducted, it would show a tendency towards a theists having less compartmentalised mental processes. It’s a typically ironic CJ claim, but I think atheists actually really might have compartmentalised minds. I therefore as so often intend to up end a cliché and play with it till it squeaks…

So what do I mean by “compartmentalised minds”?

OK, firstly I am not sure if this works at mind level (Cognitive process) or brain level (neural connections) or perhaps most likely both, but clear if a mind is ot be compartmentalised then it suggests that parts work relatively autonomously of each other, or only interconnect occasionally. I think the cliché of Christians with “compartmentalisation” is probably meant to work at the level of beliefs, that is I guess heuristic structures  ideas, concepts, whatever. I put my religion in Box A that lives here, and my Science in Box B that works there.  And then I build a bloody great big garden wall in between the two!

There is only one thing wrong with this theory: it’s bollocks. Of course people can hold deeply contradictory ideas, and of course that can arise as a neural network develops and expands, if there is no checking process for consistency.  No disagreement there at all: the whole history of humans on this planet shows it, and I could point out that cancer is caused by smoking, and a lot of people smoke. I know the odds of winning the lottery: I still might buy a ticket (though only about three times since it was launched). That people can hold contradictory ideas strikes me as uncontroversial.  What strikes me as nonsensical though is the assertion that a deeply rational individual such as Prof Ken Miller does this, or I do, or most Christians do it more than atheists.

Now of course individuals brains vary somewhat in anatomical detail, individuals vary in the organisation of their neural networks and relationships to a small extent, and the mass of synaptic connections that  are excited and inhibited and make us “us” are of course unique. Likewise we vary in our cognitive processes at a psychological level, though we presumably share, as with the neurology,  massive overall similarity.  Now I was reading a paper by Dr. Christine Simmonds-Moore, on Thin Boundaries, Transliminality and Positive Schizoptpyy – I’ll reference it at the end when it struck me – atheists should actually have less integrated neural and psychological constructs?

Simmonds-Moore describes the work of Hartmann, especially his 1991 Hartmann Boundary Questionnaire (HBQ). The HBQ examines the boundaries: the compartmentalisation if you like, in the human psyche.His work based on this scale has since been examined, and several predictions confirmed. You can search Google to find experiments and papers, or if you have access just type “hartmann +boundary” in to PSYCHINFO and see what comes up. I’m not making this up… I even found the scale on a website, so you can try the test yourself.

I was unsurprised to note I scored as having thin boundaries.

What does that mean?

I really suggest if you want a proper overview you read Dr Simmonds-Moore’s paper.  I will summarise my understanding as follows -a boundary is the division between two ‘structures or processes’; with thinner boundaries, there is increased interaction between them. Those with thinner boundaries will integrate more structures and processes, resulting in a ‘”looser” associational thinking style’, a tendency to find ‘meaning’ in random noise, to integrate subliminal level information   and a tendency to experience altered states while awake. In short we might expect believers to actually have thin, highly permeable conceptual boundaries – their mental structures might well be expected to be considerable less compartmentalised than that of an atheist, who might have a more focussed/linear method of thinking? SOME BUT NOT ALL: obviously believers and disbelievers might be found in either category, thick or thin boundaried, but thin boundaries appear to be correlated with unusual mental states, belief in psychism, and at high levels sometimes mental health issues. I would suggest from the evidence that believers are more likely to be on average thin boundaried than non-believers: that is their thinking is a ‘”looser” associational thinking style’, subject to Type II errors – seeing things that are not there in random noise, finding false positives, mistakenly rejecting the null hypothesis. (Simmonds-Moore notes Brugger has made exactly this connection with Type II errors).

And thick boundaried (highly compartmentalised) thinkers? They are subject to exactly the opposite problem: failing to recognise the falsification of the null hypothesis, they fail to see what is there, and make Type I errors. Believers would be subject to false positives: non-believers false negatives, but belief or non-belief may well be related to the structure and relationships in brain/mind.

Now this is not a stick to beat atheists with: I am sure some of my more acerbic mates on the forums will type “…therefore God.” in a cynical response. Far from it, I make no claim whatsoever that this gets us one iota nearer to the truth or falsehood of any theistic or atheistic hypothesis – it is possibly completely irrelevant. In this brief piece I just wanted to point out something i said last night – we adopt linguistic  structures in our belief (or non-belief communities) and use them to view the world, often irrespectively of common sense – for it strikes me as fairly non-controversial that believers often show loose and associational styles of thinking, that bear no resemblance to reality, but which we repeat uncritically. Believers do it, non-believers do it, birds do it, bees do it, nice young men who sell antiques do it – we,  no, sorry that’s a song. I was simply interested in debunking one common cliché used to dismiss scientifically minded Christians as somehow mentally split in two: it appears the reverse may be true?

Anyway next time someone tells you  believers who hold to evolution and Christianity have “compartmentalised minds”; ask for the EVIDENCE. And if anyone wants to do a full study of boundary thinness and religious/spiritual belief, go for it I am aware of no paper, but Dr Simmonds-Moores interesting paper certainly made me think about this.

Night all

cj x

References

Hartmann, Ernest, (1991)  Boundaries in the mind: A new psychology of personality. BasicBooks, NY.

Simmonds- Moore,  Christine. ‘ Anomalous Experiences and Boundary Thinness in Mind and Brain’ in Smith, Matthew (2010) Anomalous Experiences, McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina

The End of an Era: Richard Dawkins forum to close

I was going to write a brief piece tonight on my new board game “Earth: Our Home” I created for the the Richard Dawkins Science Writing Contest. I test played it with Luke, Kev and Tom tonight, and we had a wonderful time slaughtering each other species and fighting for control of this pale blue dot.  500 million years passed in two hours, and at the end it was incredibly close, but I won.

Unfortunately I popped over to RD.net to see what was going on, and found that an announcement had been made that the forum is to close. It will remain live for 30 days to allow us to retrieve anything we want to save: given I had written over 10,000 posts (7,000+ remain after an earlier purge)  and I guess many million words as I am not known for my brevity, that will prove immensely difficult. Given that the search has not worked for months, in order to protect other parts of the website and keep the bandwidth manageable, well it will be next to impossible. I have tried waybackmachine: no good.

My RD.net avatar designed by Thwoth to mark my Science Writing victory...

I had a hilarious exchange on this blog once before with someone who had a rather bizarre view of the history of RD.net: the details don’t matter, but I will briefly now discuss the matter. A few years ago the great man Dawkins0 became aware that there were forum posts which were rather er, colourful (“What does sperm taste like? was the infamous example always cited) and suddenly over night a large part of the forum was just deleted.  The bit which went comprised the chatty silly areas -  I lost about 20% of my posts, as i tended ot post mainly in the Faith & Religion and General Science areas anyway. This led to a major row, with a  number of atheist who saw this as censorship buggering off to create their own communities: it was not really the imposition of community standards which did it, but the clunky way it was handled. We lost the original admins (OBC, Kevin Ronayne)  about that point, and by 2009 a new set of mods had taken over. It was still a great site though, though I miss the early days – but nostalgia ain’t what it used to be…

Tonight the proverbial has really hit the fan. Again the closure of the forum may NOT be all it seems: a new kind of heavily moderated discussion area will exist, and approved topic can be discussed. What it does mean is the death of the forum community, and like the end of the Living TV Most Haunted forum dozens of new forums will spring up, but I’lll lose touch with most of the friends I made in my years over there since December 2006.  We can’t even talk about iot now – I tried to log back in and found a message telling me “Sorry but this board is currently unavailable.”

It is such a blasted shame: to try and name them all would be impossible, but my thoughts really go out to all those who worked so hard to make it a success – firstly Sciwoman, so long a mod, then an admin, and a good friend. We shared a lot of laughs and a lot of misery, and she has been a good friend to me. Then there is the excellent CJ – no not me, CJ was an admin or possibly just a mod I think and was one of the best, and used to welcome every new poster. In the great purge he was demoted to ordinary member status for something that had nothing to do with his work as a mod: the backstairs politics of the forum was always machiavellian, but CJ happened ot have publicly discussed things which were considered verboten from his own personal life – ironically things this CJ discusses just as openly.  Who else? The Old Farts were all great, and much missed – they were a loose collective of posters who had a great time. JimC was always one of my faves, a wonderful Australian biologist with a sharp sense of humour.

My life will be poorer for not hearing from the splendid Aussie atheist Goldenmane: I’ll miss Hackenslash, Ilovelucy, Durro, MedGen, Mechtheist, MacDoc, FlyingScot, Natselrox, and me and Tim O’ Neil had a wonderful time together fighting Jesus Mythers and the terminally ill informed. Mercer is a thoroughly fine fellow: and my companions in faith Imperiatorium and of course my good mate Grahbudd, plus the really decent Jewish engineering student whose name I  just can;’t for the life of me recollect right now.

There are SO many others – Darren from Canada, whose profanity was always laced with awesome humour; Mazille, who brought me back to the forum with the science writing contest I have invested so much time on, Thwoth the brilliant artist and sharp wit, Hyrax a truly lovely guy and great mod, Campermom who was always great on science,  the simply awesome FedupwithFaith, and one of the sharpest minds of all Spaghettisawus who is a really top bloke.

So I’m sad: rather than carry on with the litany of names, which is so difficult as i’m missing dozens of really great people out (Topmum?- I just can’t recollect user names right now) I’ll make a few general comments… (but not forget Jerome Serpenti, Homo Economicus, Matalnifesto, Dave C, Pdavid…)   The sad thing about the death of an internet forum is in some sense all these people become part of your life, and they touch you. I really got to care about people I only ever knew as words on a screen. Sad? Maybe, but its a part of life in the 21st century – some of our friendships are with people we may never physcialy meet. (I was lucky enough to meet three members – sadly the accounts of our meetings were lsot in the first great purge.)

I enjoyed being Jerome (a contraction of Jensen Romer), the Anglican who always had something controversial to say. I enjoyed my arguments with the great and the good, my ill fated challenge to Richard Dawkins to a debate on the history of Science, my fun debates on the rationality of theism and on life after death.  Most of all though I enjoyed the people, the new ideas, the constant challenge to my beliefs, and the ability to ask others to question theirs.

Apparently the new website to replace the forum will only allow posts clearly in the areas of Reason and Science, and that is in itself interesting. I wonder what that means? Will Atheism cease to be a major plank of the new website? Will religious believers like me now be officially banned? In my more more egotistical twat moments I’d like to think my success at arguing for actual history over myths may have hastened the demise of the old forum, and this is a ridiculous attempt at censorship — but I VERY much doubt it: in fact it’s absurd.  What I doubt will ever happen on the new website is that someone will win the say writing contest with an essay ripping to shreds the nonsense about the conflict of religion and science, or we will have a sensible discussion about parapsychology, or the evidence for the historical Jesus, or any of the things I spent so much time  writing about on the forum.

That’s a damned shame. Reason and Science were furthered by those discussions I think: people came to examine their personal beliefs (I certainly did) and were exposed to opinions sharply divergent from there own. I learned a helluva lot, but above all I learned tolerance and respect for my opponents, even if I still disagreed with them after all the shouting.

So why has it happened?  No one actually knows. The mods have been dismissed, or rather given notice, and the website administrators made a unilateral decision to withdraw the forum for the new website. My utterly cynical guess is simple: it comes down to money. I have no idea how well offf the Richard Dawkins Foundation is, though it’s a registered charity so the accounts are public domain I think: but ultimately the forum must have eaten a hug amount of resources and bandwidth.  I have no idea if the Rational Response Squad is till going after their troubles in 2008 , but running an atheist forum is probbaly a license to lose money. People loved the forum, but did they buy from the shop, read the main pages and support the RDF? I don’t know, but I suspect most forum users went staright to the forum and ignored all that stuff.

And so I appreciate this may have well been a sound commercial decision: to support the RDF,  more traffic needs to be routed through the main site.  Looking at ALEXA the site had continued to grow slowly in popularity, and was ranked 14,799 in the world (top 2000 in New Zealand and South Africa, top 4,000 in the UK, top 9,000 in the USA) – a tremendous success.  Yet the search function had gone, and as always the forum often fell over through sheer weight of numbers. It desperately needed investment in servers and infrastructure: instead it has been decided to kill the forum, and create a new streamlined website.  I can see why — but it does not help those of us who invested so much in making the site what it is.

Ultimately the decision is one man’s: Richard Dawkins.  I never really got to know the bloke in all my time on the forum, as he posted less and less, and when he did it was often after something like this, when he gets the stick. The Great Purge was necessary to protect his reputation and that of the rDF when it was going for charitable status: some of the stuffon the site might have upset the Charity Commissioners, but I think they could differentiate between what the RDF stood for and the opinions voiced on an internet forum – but maybe not.  Still, if he is digging deep in to his own pockets to support the forum, and would rather spend his money on “God probably does not exist” adverts on the side on buses who are we to complain. Ultimately it’s Richard’s site – and Richard calls the shots.

Still, I think a lot of people are as usual not so much upset that it has happened but at the usual complete lack of communication that have left us with thirty days to save what we can and make our escape plans. And that si really not something i can forgive lightly. Oh well, so be it…

I returned to the forum to say my good byes and found I could not actually post any more.  What I found was a hilarious piece of craven cowardice and stupidity. A notice appended to the previous announcement, which reads –

Update: We had intended to leave the forum fully-funtioning (sic) for 30 days, but due to the inappropriate posts by some users and moderators, we have decided to leave the forum in a read-only state. You can still download and archive your posts and private messages, but the ability to enter new posts has been disabled. It’s unfortunate that it had to come to this. We know that change can be difficult and sometimes frightening, but we are all very excited about the direction of the website and the future.

I’m not, and I suspect over 85,000 other forum users will join me in calling on Richard Dawkins to sack those responsible for what has been a lousy piece of absolutely moronic administration, and boycotting the new website entirely. I don’t mean the decision to close the forum – I can understand if that is necessary – I mean the appalling, insensitive and now frankly ridiculous way it has been done. I wait with interest to see what Dawkins himself makes of all this. To be honest it is a particular kick in the teeth for everyone who has worked so hard on their entries for the Science Writing Contest — voting was due to start tomorrow.

If any one from the old forum reads this, please do comment, I want to stay in touch!

I’ll end with a public service announcement

Atheist forums you might want to try

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/

(a forum specifically set by poster Life up for ex-RD.net folks, where I also happen to be a mod)

http://rationalia.com/forum/

http://forum.herd-of-cats.com/

http://freethought-forum.com/

http://thinkingaloudforum.com/

http://www.thinkatheist.com/

and forums that are intelligent fun and atheists may enjoy, but which are NOT atheist forums

http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum.php

http://forums.randi.org/

have fun guys, and may your gods go with you… 

UPDATE: Former mod Darkchilde’s blog offers inside perspective  on this extraordinary mess:  http://tenebra98.blogspot.com/2010/02/death-of-forum-death-of-rdnet-forum.html

UPDATE: Hackenslash rallys the refugees! – Good on you man… (YouTube link) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyLnxu19DM8&feature=player_embedded

UPDATE: Several mods deleted, along with all their posts.. Mazille, CJ (the other one), Valden, kiki and Darwinsbulldog — about a 30.000 posts gone in this most peculiar purge.

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=8864

UPDATE: Former mod  Peter Harrison blogs on events at the forum -

http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/

Update: Richard Dawkins responds

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=110356

As I have engaged in no such vitriolic attacks i will not be apologizing: they are ridiculously over the top, and i’d love to know where they were posted and take the idiots who said it to task.  I will apologise I personally villified Richard Dawkins in anyway. Yet I stand by EVERY WORD I wrote: this whol ematter was dealt with dreadfully, and the deletion of the mods posts was shameful.

J x  (who is an Anglican: prejudice declared!)

Sunday Sermon 1: Should Atheists Have No Morals? Yes!

An old post, from Richard Dawkins forum. Thought might amuse…

As many of you know, I am a Christian. I post on many atheist and sceptic sites, and often discover Christian posters who arrive, post a few Bible verses and depart. On one such forum I became immensely bored by my co-religionists seeming to believe that morality was dependent upon theism. Not so, as a moments thought will suggest. Did Sartre not say that no really pressing moral problem would be solved by the existence of God? Anyway that forum also has a strict “No Preaching” rule, so I decided that flaunting it to make my point, and making a few serious points with bad humour, might entertain. So in my persona as the Rev. Jerome, I offer this little piece, and welcome comment. Don’t bother telling me I will burn in hell, I won’t care, or that I am a theist delusional moron – I’ll just laugh, and remember, I have no morals either.

Should Atheists Have No Morals?

Here is the Rev. Jerome’s Sunday Sermon delivered to the Reformed Church of Dawkens, Mole-Station on the Marsh. near Greater Whittering, Barchester…

“As you all know, gathered here in the sight of the Mods, I have for the last 75 weeks preached upon the classic Anglican axiom, ‘God is Nice.’ I thought this week as I was sitting on a bench watching young skinheads escorting some nice old lady down a dark subway, anxious to assist her with her heavy shopping no doubt, that I would continue on the same theme.  However I found some delicious fruit, hops, which well prepared allow one to quaff deeply of the well of knowledge, so after several pints I decided to write a slightly different sermon today.

So today I will preach a bit. I don’t do this often, not least since it is technically illegal, immoral and fattening. Nonetheless I see no real harm in it: what follows is my opinion, a lengthy rant on how I see the world, and an exhortation to righteousness as I perceive it. I would like to begin by noting that if you pay attention to me you are a bloody fool – truly it has been written “Think for yourself schmuck.” Still that does not mean what I say is without value, or unworthy of due consideration. I just have no time for sheep, or i would not attempt the lonely life of a goat herd.

Here at St. Dawkens we don’t much care what you believe about the nature of ultimate reality, so it may come as a shock to some of you that I have spoken out, but there are only so many bloody coffee mornings and jumble sales a minister can stand announcing. We have joined together in the rousing hymn “Oh come all ye Faithless” – now you can listen while I drone on a while — because I have things to say.

We often hear members of the congregation bleat on about theists who say they have no morals because they don’t believe in God. Well, I think they have a point. I don’t think we should have any morals. I strongly suggest you give up on this old fashioned morality nonsense immediately. After all, do Christians have morals? I think we should take a leaf from their book.

In the Good Book (wikipedia: morality) we read that morals are

“…are basic guidelines for behavior intended to reduce suffering in living populations.”

In other words a moral is a rule. There are many commandments, and if you wish to abstain from polycotton blend underwear, shellfish or public frottaging on tube trains, so be it. I am not chap to lead my weaker brethren in to sin. And killing is right out, got it? However, the problem with rules is this: the Law is an Ass. if you set up a code of rules designed to cover any situation, then surely enough following them will lead to disaster. It is wrong to run in the school corridors – but the presence of a maniac with a shotgun immediately leads to a problem – do I break the rule? or get shot? It is wrong to steal — but if you are stealing a terrorists plans for a bomb, is that wrong? In civil societies laws are mitigated by other laws – speeding is wrong, but ambulances may do so to save life. Yet in our personal morality we are enjoined to obey moral absolutes: while none would wish an ambulance speeding them to hospital to travel at twenty miles an hour, we rigidly apply laws to ourselves which lead to moral quandaries of a far more sinister type. While we can apply common sense to our law codes in the State, we seem unable to see that the same inflexible understanding of morality can be deadly if applied to our own day to day existence.

So do I advocate moral anarchy? No at all! Then the centre can not hold. Let us look at what the Good Book has to say about Ethics. (Wikipedia:ethics) “Morals are a practice of different sorts of ethics.”

Think about this a moment. A moral is a practical expression of a principle, the principle being an ethic. I have no morals, in the sense of a consistent inflexible response to all situations. I have ethics however – ethics I regard as deeply important and fundamental to my sense of who I am. A long time ago a Jewish carpenter summarized his ethics as follows –

1. One should love Yahweh with one’s entire heart, soul, mind, and strength
2. One should love one’s neighbour as one would love oneself

Now if you don’t include 1, because you don’t believe in Yahweh, you might not regard 2 as absolutely authoritative – as it is not “given on high”. To this JC bloke 2 followed naturally from 1. However, 2, the Golden Rule negatively defined (not don’t do to others what you would not like done to you”, but a little stronger, is I believe acceptable to most of us. What follows is that we should treat ALL others with compassion, love, and forgiveness. If you are a guilty little turd obsessed with your own sin, ritual impurity, tiny manhood or income tax return, then it fails. I don’t want you if obsessed with guilt and misery and hating yourself to love me as you love yourself – it will prove a rather unpleasant experience. I want you to love yourself, be loud, joyful, confident, and embrace others the same way. This is what Christians call the Kingdom — a place where ******** authority, demeaning self flagellation and the divides of race gender and class are swept way in a full and loving reciprocity.

So my first point: morality stands in the way of all this, if by morality you mean an absolute inflexible code of behaviour. You should adopt good ethics, and apply them in the light of the situation, be all things to all men and women and stoats and breakfast cereal and (skip a bit Brother Maynard…) live by an ethic of love and benevolence and acceptance, not some petty collection of ancient tribal laws. Paul of Tarsus understood this beautifully – what may be loving in one situation may be the complete opposite in another. That is why the Law is an Ass. That is why so many feel utterly unnecessary guilt. I don’t much care if your laws forbid it, as they forbade David and his hungry companions to take the sacred bread from the altar, or purportedly (though I very much doubt it – I think 1st century Jews were pragmatists like most people in history) forebade the aforementioned carpenter from healing a chap with a paralysed arm on the Sabbath. Love as an ethic requires intelligence and personal choice: what free will have we if we are bound to a single prescriptive set of applications?

So I suggest firstly you join me in giving up on morality, lest you become a dogmatic wanker. Love each other, and do as you will, bound by that love.

Still lest I sound like a pacifist facing Hitler and giving him flowers, or like i have decided “all you need is love” and have spent too long on an ashram before i roll away in my Rolls Royce to another celebrity party funded by my rock star lifestyle, nope. I believe there is evil afoot, and that I am a sinner, and so are all of you. I believe those who espouse love uncritically as good sheep will be the first fleeced, and that those who follow shepherds invariably end up in Wednesdays mutton stew. Assuming I am not banned for this preaching, or relegated to the dismal wastes of Off Topic, for despite vague stabs at humour my message is deadly serious as many of you who know me will realize, I will explain further.

For now I simply remind you that taking ideas on board uncritically is an abdication of your Free Will, intelligence and moral responsibility, and encourage you to rip my thought to pieces. Doubt is a great virtue in matters of the head – and Faith in our relationships, as I will explain in my third sermon if I am still among you, MV (mods willing.)

Thank you. We will now sit, rise, do hand stands or whatever else we feel like, and sing hymn 666, “To Be a Sceptic”…

cj x