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Monthly Archives: November 2009
Atheist Michael Shermer, in the Huffington Post, Quotes Me
And favorably! Shermer thought I had offered an amusing blog post retort to Jerry Coyne’s charge that he (Shermer) had gone soft on theism and now deserved the label “faitheist”. See Shermer’s Huffington Post piece here, and my blog post that Shermer quotes from here.
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, faitheists, jerry coyne, Michael Shermer, new atheistland, New Atheists, reason, skepticism, the big time
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“The Road”: Cormac McCarthy’s Version of Helen Reddy’s “You and Me Against the World”?
Slate recently reviewed the film version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and reported that watching it is—how shall I put this politiely?—emotionally problematic: The Boy and Man on the road, nameless in the long-dead world. Their cart and tarp and tins … Continue reading
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Tagged cormac mccarthy, existentialism, fathers and sons, film, helen reddy, innocence to experience, life, love, movies, philosophy, the road, William Blake
1 Comment
New Atheistland Watch: Bryan Appleyard Owns PZ Myers—Again!
I love Bryan Appleyard’s eloquent retorts to the blistering rhetoric coming out of New Atheistland. Here’s Appleyard today on PZ Myers’s scientism: [M]ention intelligent design and the likes of Myers will be hurling abuse. But I gather from reading John … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheism, atheist, bryan appleyard, Charles Darwin, evolution, God, intelligent design, philosophy, PZ Myers, science
4 Comments
Imagine a World Without Religion. Would It Be Less Violent?
At first glance, one thing that atheism clearly seems to have going for it is this: it doesn’t have any holy books with violence advocating passages in it. Indeed, it doesn’t have any holy books at all. So score one for atheism? Not so … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, philosophy, religion, violence, war
16 Comments
Love Faces, Don’t Eat Them: The Facetarian Decade?
In-Vitro Meat in 3-10 years? This prediction sounds absurdly early to me, but H+ is a respected Internet magazine devoted to thinking about the future, so I’ll quote a recent article that it had on the subject: In-Vitro Meat — aka tank … Continue reading
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Tagged facetarian, fitness, health, life, meat eating, protein, technology, vegetarian
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Love is Worth Fighting For: A Little Life Lesson from Perseus and the Medusa
I took this picture at the Getty Museum in Westwood on Saturday. It is a photo of a painting (from the first decade of the 1700s) by Sebastiano Rici, and depicts Perseus holding the head of Medusa in combat against … Continue reading
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Tagged freedom, gay equality, gay marriage, gay rights, Greek mythology, life, love, Medusa, perseus, scary, stone
3 Comments
Dissent in New Atheistland: Jerry Coyne Takes After Michael Shermer!
At Jerry Coyne’s blog today, Coyne takes after Michael Shermer for being a little too cozy with religion: It always amuses me when an accommodationist tells the faithful that no, there is no conflict between science and religion, at least not if they … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, agnostics, atheism, atheist, atheists, Christianity, God, jerry coyne, Michael Shermer, philosophy, religion
20 Comments
Is Genesis 1 in Accord with Scientific Observation?
Yes. A very particular scientific observation, in fact. The author of the first chapter of Genesis clearly based his narrative on something that he had empirically observed: the world appears to be composed of two things: stage elements (light, darkness, … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, atheism, atheist, creationism, evolution, Genesis, God, Islam, Jesus, religion, science, the Bible
2 Comments
The Ending of Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men”
The film version: Notice, at the very beginning of the clip, the strategic placement of the tree, and Tommy Lee Jones crooking his neck ever so slightly, not blinking, as if his fate is to, as it were, be dangled by … Continue reading
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Tagged a still small voice, cormac mccarthy, death, endings, fathers and sons, film, God, Jesus, life, literature, silence, stillness
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“The Road”: The Movie is Better than the Book?
This looks promising. Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road (2006), has been turned into a film, and a review in Salon suggests that the movie is actually better, on balance, than the book. That doesn’t happen every day. Here’s what Salon’s … Continue reading
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Tagged cormac mccarthy, film, life, literature, movies, philosophy, silence, stillness, the road, writing, yoga, Zen
3 Comments
Have an Edgy Thanksgiving!
In the 1970s, All in the Family had an episode (in season six) in which Thanksgiving dinner is disrupted over Michael Stivic’s atheism, and Michael and Gloria’s determination not to raise their baby with a religion:
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Tagged all in the family, apologetics, atheism, atheist, child raising, children, Christianity, family, God, religion, thanksgiving, the Bible
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America vs. Global Terrorism: What Happens When Ahab’s Pursuit of the White Whale Takes Place in Real Time?
Robert Wright, in the New York Times this weekend, articulated clearly his view of how the viral terrorism meme spreads, in an age of global communication, to psychologically susceptible people (like Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan): One reason killing terrorists can spread terrorism is that … Continue reading
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Tagged ahab, al qaeda, Islam, jihad, literature, melville, Politics, religion, robert wright, terrorism, white whale
1 Comment
Creation vs. Evolution Watch: A Trojan Horse at UCLA?
This past week a group of Evangelicals came onto the UCLA campus in Westwood and gave away 2000 free copies of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). But, as usual, there is a catch to such things. The edition of … Continue reading
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Tagged atheist, creationism, evolution, Genesis, God, intelligent design, Jesus, New Atheists, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, trojan horse, UCLA
1 Comment
Beck Zedong!
Glenn Beck’s got a one hundred year plan (oh, shit): “We need to start thinking like the Chinese.” In other words, Glenn Beck thinks that focused, insurgent, belligerent, fanatically committed mass movement Maoism—with its disciplined cell groups, ideological purity, and relentless propaganda—is the right … Continue reading
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Tagged Andrew Sullivan, Communism, conservatism, fascism, glenn beck, mao zedong, National Review, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, tea parties, teabaggers, totalitarianism
1 Comment
Prometheus Unbound 