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Recent Posts
Monthly Archives: December 2009
Dr. Jekyll, Meet Mr. Hyde: What Can Happen To a Gentle Person Under the Spell of Nationalism, Ideology, or Religion?
Andrew Sprung, at the Daily Dish today, has written what I would regard as an exceptionally important—and even seminal—little blog post reflecting on the Iranian Revolution (“Gentle mullahs transformed”). In it, he simply offers two quotes and a bit of commentary that concisely lay out … Continue reading
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Tagged authoritarianism, christian nationalism, conservatism, far right, glenn beck, Iran, Islam, Politics, religion, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, teabaggers
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John Szostak on His Abiogenesis (Origin of Life) Research
More on Jack Szostak’s work here: http://exploringorigins.org/. Hat Tip: Heuristics
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Tagged atheism, atheist, biology, Charles Darwin, Darwin, evolution, intelligent design, john szostak, life, origin of life, science, strict naturalism
2 Comments
Getting the Thomas Nagel Treatment: Brian Leiter and the Policing of Intellectual Discourse
Brian Leiter’s attacks on Thomas Nagel for giving a nice blurb to Stephen Meyer’s ID book, Signature in the Cell (2009), are getting a bit of pushback from some of his philosophy colleagues, most notably Chris Bertram, who wrote this to Brian Leiter: My initial sympathies … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, biology, brian leiter, Darwin, evolution, God, intelligent design, philosophy, religion, science, thomas nagel
14 Comments
Maybe
Or maybe not. Good music, though: To this rather breezy video—which makes abiogenesis seem so easy-peezy—I offer British chemist John Walton’s recent letter to the Times Literary Supplement: Sir, – The resilience of the “prebiotic soup” myth, in spite of torrents of … Continue reading
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Tagged abiogenesis, biology, chemistry, Darwin, evolution, God, life, nature, origin of life, science
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Evolution v. Creation Watch: A Caution about Jumping to Conclusions
Abiogenesis (how life may have come from nonlife) continues to be a thorny problem for science, but ID people and creationists should be careful about running too quickly to the conclusion that the problem is insoluble. I was reminded of this … Continue reading
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Tagged abiogenesis, apologetics, chemistry, Darwin, Darwinism, epistemology, evolution, Genesis, God, life, science, skepticism
4 Comments
Here’s My Response to Atheists Who Say That Abiogenesis (the Origin of the First Cell from Nonliving Matter) is Not a Serious Threat to the Coherence of Atheism—or to Strict Naturalism
Check this out: http://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell-Evidence-Intelligent-Design/dp/0061472786/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260897320&sr=8-1 And here’s what philosopher Thomas Nagel says about Meyer’s Signature in the Cell (2009): Stephen C. Meyer’s Signature in the Cell: DNA and the evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperCollins) is a detailed account of the problem of how … Continue reading
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Tagged abiogenesis, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, Darwin, evolution, life, science, the origin of life, thomas nagel
30 Comments
Today’s Atheist Parable (Refuted?): To What Shall We Liken an Amino Acid?
Forget the mustard seed. Behold the amino acid, the building block of the protein, lifeless in itself, and yet, given enough time and chance, it self assembles into the greatest tree of all: the Tree of Life. So is the … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, creationism, evolution, intelligent design, life, origin of life, parables, science, the first cell, tree of life
30 Comments
Mental Health Break
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Tagged 2010, Christmas, December, happiness, happy holidays, life, new year, snow
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John Bolton: Wrong in His Prediction That Israel Will Bomb Iranian Nuclear Facilities?
Neoconservative, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said this past summer that he thought Israel might well bomb Iranian nuclear facilities before the end of the year. With just two weeks to go in 2009, he … Continue reading
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Tagged armageddon, China, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Israel, john bolton, Judaism, neoconservatism, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, Russia
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Dueling Atheist Philosophers, Batman! Thomas Nagel Now Has an Atheist Ally: Philosopher Bradley Monton of the University of Colorado at Boulder!
The United Front is breaking and it’s on! Stephen Meyer’s ID book has started to divide atheists who are also professional philosophers. First the (once) highly esteemed Thomas Nagel dared to break ranks from the New Atheists, calling, in the … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, batman, brian leiter, evolution, God, intelligent design, philosophy, reason, scientism, stephen meyer, thomas nagel
2 Comments
Dueling Chemists over Philosopher Thomas Nagel’s Plug for Stephen Meyer’s ID Book!
Philosopher Thomas Nagel’s endorsement of Stephen Meyer’s ID book has generated dueling letters to the Times Literary Supplement from two chemists. The exchange is quite informative. The first came from a British chemist, Stephen Fletcher, who scolded Nagel on December 4th, … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, biology, chemistry, Darwin, evolution, Genesis, God, intelligent design, life, life's origins, science, thomas nagel
5 Comments
Was Emily Dickinson an Atheist?
In the December 2009-January 2010 dead tree edition of Free Inquiry (on pages 47-48), Gary Sloan, a retired English professor, did an interesting investigative piece on Emily Dickinson’s relationship to religion. I thought his conclusion quite delicious (because it mirrors my own relationship … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, Christianity, Emily Dickinson, God, God the Father, John Keats, percy shelley, Shelley
4 Comments
A Different Kind of Parousia
From Wikipedia: The original Greek version of the New Testament (Novum Testamentum Graece) uses the term parousia (παρουσία from the Greek literal meaning of parousia: divine presence, derived from “para“: beside, beyond, and “ousia“: substance) the “appearance and subsequent presence … Continue reading
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Tagged goddesses, greek, life, longing, love, Mary, New Testament, parousia, romance, the second coming
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The Right Song for the New Year?
As we approach the end of one insanely dangerous year (in which we were extremely fortunate that war between Israel and Iran did not erupt), we begin yet another one, the same threat looming. This, unfortunately, seems the apt transition song between 2009 … Continue reading
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Tagged 2010, apocalypse now, death, Heart of Darkness, horror, Iran, Israel, kurtz, new year, nuclear weapons, the middle east, war
1 Comment
Philosopher Thomas Nagel Replies to New Atheist “widespread intolerance of any challenge to the dogma that everything in the world must be ultimately explainable by chemistry and physics.”
After taking quite a pummeling among the New Atheist blogs, philosopher Thomas Nagel has responded, in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement, to one critic in particular—chemist Stephen Fletcher—who himself wrote a letter to the Times. Here’s Nagel’s reply to Fletcher … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, evolution, intelligent design, jerry coyne, origin of life, philosophy, religion, Richard Dawkins, stephen meyer, thomas nagel
32 Comments
An Atheist Writes a Poem: Thomas Hardy’s “God’s Education”
I love this poem, not just for its power as language, but also for its Job-like evocation of the problem of suffering. Hardy recounts the death of a loved one, and his subsequent argument with God over her death. In content and world-weary tone, Hardy’s poem … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, evil, God, irony, Job, suffering, the book of Job, the problem of suffering, thomas hardy
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Gay Rights Hysteria Watch: A Big Boned She-Man May Be Headed for a Restroom Near You!
The far right’s effort to stall, in Congress, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), is getting desperate, warning that, should the legislation pass, heterosexuals might be forced, at their workplace, to share restrooms with people who are transgendered. This today from Mother Jones Online: … Continue reading
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Tagged far right, feminism, gay, gay equality, gay marriage, gay rights, homosexuality, lesbian, restrooms, transgendered, women's rights
2 Comments
A Golden Rule for the 21st Century? And a Quote That Rivals Anything in Shakespeare or the Bible?
I certainly don’t always live up to it, but this quote of Spinoza’s, like Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be”, or the Bible’s “love your neighbor”, is also a taut summing up of one aspect of existence, the intellectual … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, atheism, atheist, God, jerry coyne, Michael Shermer, philosophy, reason, religion, Shakespeare, the Bible, the golden rule
3 Comments
