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- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Woman in an American Field Hospital in Czechoslavakia, May 1945
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- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Anne Frank and Margo Frank in a Purim Holiday Photo with Other Jewish Children, February, 1934, and an Image from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Where Anne and Margo Died
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- Negative Capability Defined: Walking in Mysteries---and the Shoes of Others---with Keats, Shakespeare, Whitman---and Barack Obama!
- In Evolution We Trust?: England Puts Charles Darwin on the Back of Its Ten Pound Bank Note
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Image from the Concentration Camp at Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, 1945
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Experimented upon at Auschwitz
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Recent Posts
Monthly Archives: March 2009
A “Defamation of Religion” Ban? Philosopher AC Grayling Takes on the PC Speech Police at the United Nations
Today in the Guardian: Facts speak for themselves. Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, 29, a journalist and blogger, has taken his own life in Evin prison in Iran, where he was serving a two-year sentence for “insulting Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei”, … Continue reading
Happiness: Don’t Worry About the Quality, Focus on the Quantity? Gretchen Rubin Tries to Live a Happier Life by Counting Her Moments—Literally
At Slate.com, Gretchen Rubin has a way for increasing her happiness that works for her: [T]he fact is, if you want something to count in your life, it helps to figure out a way to count it. To put it another way, … Continue reading
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Tagged Ben Franklin, business, exercise, gretchen rubin, happiness, health, life, organization, psychology, self help
3 Comments
Philosopher Julian Baggini on Strident, Evangelical Atheism
Philosopher (and atheist) Julian Baggini does a thoughtful ”take down” of strident, evangelical atheism of the Richard Dawkins variety here. Money quote: It is only because of historical accident that atheism is not widely recognised as a world-view in its own right. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, Alvin Plantinga, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Christianity, julian baggini, philosophy, religion, Richard Dawkins
2 Comments
Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: The Story of Jadwiga Hassa
Jadwiga Hassa, a Christian woman who was part of the resistance against the Nazis in Poland, was arrested by the Gestapo and ultimately ended up in Ravensbrueck concentration camp. The U.S. Holocaust Museum photo archive tells her story this way: She … Continue reading
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Tagged adolf hitler, Christmas, Holocaust, jadwiga hassa, Nazi Germany, poland, ravensbrueck, the Holocaust
4 Comments
Onward Christian Fascists? An Example of Christian and Fascist Syncretism in Nazi Germany, May, 1936
At the U.S. Holocaust Museum photo archive is a sobering front page of the anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Stuermer, from May, 1936, in which Christianity and fascist messages are blended. Here’s the Holocaust Museum’s catalog description of the image: Front page of the … Continue reading
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Tagged anti-Semitism, Christ, Christianity, fascism, Hitler, Holocaust, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Judaism, Nazism, Politics, the Holocaust
5 Comments
Keep Your Blinders on at All Times!
Chinese Buddhist Huang Po (circa 850 CE): The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see. [Source: The Quotable Atheist, 156, Nation Books, 2007] English scientist James … Continue reading
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“The Key is the Starting Point”: Michael Shermer, of Skeptic Magazine, Interviews Dr. Georgia Purdom of the Creation Museum in Kentucky
Michael Shermer is the founding editor of Skeptic magazine. In the below clip, Shermer visits the young earth Creation Museum in Kentucky, and has a sit down in the cafeteria with Dr. Georgia Purdom. Dr. Purdom got her PhD in … Continue reading
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Tagged Christianity, creation museum, Darwin, dr. georgia purdom, evolution, Jesus, Michael Shermer, religion, science
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The Free Will Delusion v. The God Delusion?
Atheists and agnostics (of which I am one) often insist that religious people should live without illusions or delusions. In other words, atheists and agnostics (in general) profess to believe that people should never believe things that run counter to science or reason. … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, free will, Jesus, philosophy, psychology, reason, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
14 Comments
“There must be an easier way”: Kevin Roose Spent a Semester at Jerry Falwell’s Orwellian Named “Liberty University” and Wrote a Book About It
Kevin Roose pretended to be a fundamentalist Christian, and got himself admitted into Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. He spent a semester there taking classes in young earth creationism and evangelism and wrote a book about his experience (which included a week … Continue reading
Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Anne Frank and Margo Frank in a Purim Holiday Photo with Other Jewish Children, February, 1934, and an Image from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Where Anne and Margo Died
Anne Frank is the little girl to the left (in a dress in the front row). Margo Frank, Anne’s older sister, is with the taller kids in the back row, and is wearing a dress similar to her sister’s. Margo … Continue reading
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Tagged 1930s, 1940s, anne frank, bergen-belsen, Christianity, europe, genocide, Holocaust, Judaism, margo frank, purim, the Holocaust
68 Comments
Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: A Color Photo, Made by an American Soldier in 1945, of Prisoner Clothing Hung Before the Crematoria Doors at Dachau
The photograph was taken by American Colonel Alexander Zabin in May, 1945. According to the U.S Holocaust Museum archive description of the photo, Col. Zabin “had landed in Normandy on the day after D-day and moved with the Third Army … Continue reading
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Tagged adolf hitler, Bavaria, crimes against humanity, dachau, genocide, Hitler, Holocaust, nazi genocide, the Holocaust, World War II
3 Comments
Nearly One Third of Americans Say to the Clergy: Don’t Marry Me. Don’t Bury Me.
In the Guardian of London (and reposted at AlterNet), Michelle Goldberg has an essay on secularism in America. Money quote: [N]o religious group in the United States is growing as fast as those who profess no religion at all. The … Continue reading
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Tagged America, faith, funerals, gay marriage, life, marriage, philosophy, reason, religion, same-sex marriage, secularism
1 Comment
The New York Times on the PSA: Maybe Prostate Cancer Screening Doesn’t Matter Too Much
If you’re a male, and a Woody Allen-like hypochondriac (like me), perhaps you feel anxiety each year when you go to get your PSA blood test. Today the NY Times reports on a big study that suggests that all that … Continue reading
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Tagged cancer, death, diet, exercise, health, life, prostate, prostate cancer, reason, science, woody allen
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Emerging from the Conformist Psychological Pain of the 1950s: See Here People Trying to Get Themselves Free by Shaking Their Bodies and Screaming at the Beatles
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Tagged Apollo, beatles, dance, Dionysus, group psychology, psychology, social psychology, the Beatles, therapy
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Peak Oil: Has It Already Happened, or Are We Still a Couple of Years Away from It Happening?
We’ve long unveiled our Earth Mother, and easily stolen her oily milk and fruits. Maybe that’s over. Most of the professional energy watchers at TheOilDrum.com think we passed the “peak oil” threshold in 2008, and that oil supplies are now … Continue reading
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Tagged earth, economy, Freud, gasoline prices, mother earth, oil, Peak Oil, Politics, psychology, religion, social psychology
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Most Professional Contributors to TheOilDrum.com Think the World Reached PEAK OIL in 2008
The very smart collection of professional energy watchers at TheOilDrum.com have arrived at something pretty close to a consensus: Oil “peaked” in 2008. Here’s the chart they present: And here’s what they say: As everyone knows, there is never a post on … Continue reading
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Tagged America, ecology, economy, environment, environmentalism, gasoline, gasoline prices, global warming, oil, Peak Oil, science
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