Daily Archives: May 27, 2010

Are atheism and secular liberalism ideologies in decline?

John Gray, reviewing the book God is Back (by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge), predicts, for the rest of the 21st century, the decline of Western secular ideologies (like atheism and liberalism):  [A]s energy and power flows eastwards, the secular ideologies that … Continue reading

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Countries that ban gays in the military

The United States is about to be removed from this ignominious group. Thank goodness Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008.

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Have you seen “The Shelter”?

It’s a Twilight Zone  episode that is philosophically interesting. I think of Rod Serling’s “The Shelter” as a profound meditation on Nietzschean v. Christian ethics, Darwinian survival of the fittest, zero-sum games, and living in a world where the civic culture … Continue reading

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Even if the God of Christianity existed, would he be worthy of worship?

Friedrich Nietzsche, in his book The Antichrist, says no: What sets us apart is not that we recognize no God, either in history or in nature or behind nature—but that we find that which has been reverenced as God not ‘godlike’ … Continue reading

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Equal time alongside global warming: biblical armageddon theory comes to the classroom

Teach the controversy? I love the science-and-religion-in-harmony diorama at the 1:20 mark. Did you catch it? It has two smiling scientists and a priest glibly declaring—“We can all agree”—as a meteor hurdles toward Earth.

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Is Christopher Hitchens’s rhetorical combativeness a form of compensation for having never served in the military? And is this compensation leading him to overstate the threat posed to the West by Islamic fundamentalism?

A recent Guardian profile/interview with Christopher Hitchens elicited a curious line of armchair psychoanalysis that I found interesting: In 2006, Hitchens’ wife, the American writer Carol Blue, told the New Yorker her husband was one of “those men who were never … Continue reading

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