William McGonagall was arrested for murdering Patrick Kavanagh on March 3, 2011. He shot Kavanagh in broad daylight, at a cafe` in Brooklyn when a fight erupted about the check, following a fight over reviews the men had received in the New York Times for their writing. Both of which were very bad.
McGonagall is known as a staunch atheist, and it came to be that he stood trial before a judge who was also an atheist. On learning this, he devised what is now known as the McGonagall defense. Rumor has it that it was a bit of a surprise to his lawyer.
After the opening statement by the prosecution, McGonagall asked to approach the bench. “Your honor,” he said, “you and I are both men of science, not fettered by the constraints and definitions of religious tradition.”
The judge agreed. He had already allowed McGonagall to proceed without swearing to tell the truth with his hand on the Bible, but rather with his hand on his own heart.
“And as such it would be unjust to conduct this trial as though we were men of religion. It would be unjust and unwise for us to lay a foundation of Christian dogma to determine my fate, but rather we should lay a foundation of science and reason to proceed with this trial, should we not?”
The judge agreed. Continue reading
Secularism had so numbed to the brains of all of my professors that when I asked them, “Well, how do you define art?” they said, “We can’t say, but that’s what the aesthetic
In the fall of 1860, the Linnean Society of London gathered for a dinner at which scientific papers were shared and discussed. One of the works discussed at length was On Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, first published only two years prior. The keynote speaker was Louis Pasture. Following is a transcript from the night’s proceedings. 
A Bit of Orange 