Daily Archives: June 28, 2008

Doubters of the World Unite: Peter Ustinov on Belief and Doubt

The British actor Peter Ustinov, who died in 2004, made this rather astute observation: Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them. The quote is taken from Jack Huberman’s The Quotable Atheist, p.306. The way I read the quote is that … Continue reading

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Distorted Recall and False Belief: A New York Times Essay on Why People Believe Weird Things

The following essay, titled “Your Brain Lies to You,” by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, appeared in the New York Times on June 27, 2008:   FALSE beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one … Continue reading

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“Miracle, Mystery, and Authority”: A Poem by Santi Tafarella

  A brown robed friar among mission flowers.   A child spins before him.   Sun-gleaming,   dizzying the motion.   Will the heavens never stop   in their orbits and explosions?

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Death Proof: Quentin Tarantino Finds His Mojo in Foot Fetishism—and Shows His Feminist Side

I thought that with the two “Kill Bill” films, Quentin Tarantino had lost his way as a filmmaker. “Death Proof,” for me, is his comeback film. It’s an enduring, “Jackie Brown” quality piece, with a great feminist subtext (though if … Continue reading

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No Matter What You Do, Cosmo, You’re Still Going to Die: Gilgamesh as a Superman, But Not Quite a God

Two-thirds they made him god and one third man, is how the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic describes Gilgamesh in its prologue. Like its sister texts, the Mesopotamian creation myth the Enuma Elish, in which the gods also fashion human beings after their image, … Continue reading

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