Daily Archives: June 28, 2009

The Big Picture

If you’ve ever wondered how Rush Limbaugh and Fox News have attained such large followings via their daily dishing out of “thought terminating cliches” and oversimplifications, here’s part of the answer:

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Jazz Interlude

Louis Prima:

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Whence Nietzsche in Contemporary Atheist Reflection?

Philosopher John Gray sees it only in Michel Onfray: Among contemporary anti-religious polemicists, only the French writer Michel Onfray has taken Nietzsche as his point of departure. In some ways, Onfray’s In Defence of Atheism [titled in its U.S. edition as … Continue reading

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Thomas Jefferson’s Second Birth, and the Intersections of Apollo and Dionysus

  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? (John 3:4 KJV) I love this portrait of Thomas Jefferson. In good Neoclassical … Continue reading

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Evolution v. Creation Watch: What are Goose Bumps for?

It turns out that goose bumps are an evolutionary holdover from when we had fur. Here’s Harvard’s Steven Pinker: Our own bodies are riddled with quirks that no competent engineer would have planned but that disclose a history of trial-and-error … Continue reading

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O Brave New World!

This month’s Wired is reporting on a shocking scientific finding: A self-assembling molecule synthesized in a laboratory may resemble the earliest form of information-carrying biological material, a transitional stage between lifeless chemicals and the complex genetic architectures of life. Called … Continue reading

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