Media appearances

I make occasional forays out into the real world. Anthony Brabazon was kind enough to start me out with a guest slot on his blog. He's a Young Earth Creationist and does some street preaching in Temple Bar. He's a thoroughly nice chap and bought me tea and coffee. We discussed our differing views on the age of the earth.

I've done three shows for Premier Radio's Christian / non-Christian discussion show, Unbelievable?. Do check out their archives, they've had some great debates. Two of mine were discussions with Dr Craig Keener, author of a rather large compendium of modern-day miracles, on both the miracles of the New Testament and modern-day miracles. I've done two articles on those he's judged to be reliable witnesses of miracles and recommend having a read before listening. The first was the cash-hungry Dawit Molalegn, megapastor of the FBI miracle church, the second was on Reinhard Bonnke, who advocates burning non-Christian religious material in Muslim Nigeria, with predictable consequences.

• Miracles in the Gospels - did they happen?
• Miracles today - do they happen?

My third show was with Andrew Wilson. He's the author of a book I referred to as disappointingly good, and I think he puts forward a fair and honest case for Christianity that starts a conversation, without trying to shut down the opposition. We discussed "What's wrong with the world?" I enjoyed our chat.

More recently I was on Niall Boylan's 4fm late show discussing vaccine opposition with the creative manager of the Girl Against Fluoride campaign. She's of the opinion that the pill and exposure to plastic turns wombs into gay baby delivery devices. She also opposes vaccination and endorses the work of a known charlatan who pretends to cure cancer using castor oil and urine. I quite enjoyed this one.

Atheist Ireland were kind enough to give me a slot at their monthly atheists in the pub gathering. (Come along! Full details on Facebook.) I gave a talk on what we can learn from street preachers. I was quite happy that the Q and A was about the same length as the talk itself. Great crowd, some really interesting questions.

The talk:

The questions and answers:

My special thanks to Michael Nugent, chair of Atheist Ireland, for filming, editing, and uploading within twelve hours. I'm unsure when he sleeps!

I've had a few mentions in newspapers, like this discussion of Americans funding Irish anti choice groups in The Atlantic, or the (UK) Independent's review of a campaign to change Facebook's policy on images that trivialised or celebrated violence against women. I also enjoyed a brief mention in the book Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates. I'm also mentioned in Savita: The Tragedy That Shook A Nation by Kitty Holland. I highly recommend this book.

I'm a big fan of Philosopher Stephen Law, so I was chuffed to bits when he let me guest post on his blog. Twice. I also had the pleasure of meeting Law when he gave a talk in Trinity university. Do read his books. All of them.

Speaking of blogs, the inimitable PZ Myers has been kind enough to reference me occasionally on Pharyngula. I generally discover this when I see a spike of two to three thousand visitors. An hour. He mentioned my discussion of a Muslim apologist's 'borrowing' of a Christian apologist's work, my analysis of the (pseudoscientific creationist) Discovery Institute's Twitter stats, and my review of the secret weapons held by anti choicers here. I also enjoyed a collaboration with Aoife O'Riordan, and have found Atheist Ireland most kind when it comes to mentioning me in their excellent newsletter.