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Monthly Archives: August 2010
Herderian Religious Cleansing, 1930s style, in Malaysia and the United States
Here’s an image of a book burning in Berlin, May 10, 1933: And here’s an image of a burned out synagogue after Krisallnacht (November, 1938): These two images are what anti-Enlightenment Herderian political action so readily devolves into. And now here … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Christianity, freedom, ground zero mosque, herder, herderianism, herderites, Hinduism, Islam, religious intolerance, tea partiers
1 Comment
Daniel Dennett v. David Chalmers on consciousness (with Terence McKenna putting in his two cents)
Daniel Dennett deflates consciousness here: __________ David Chalmers inflates it here: __________ And Terence McKenna takes some DMT to break the tie, struggling to share in words, to the uninitiated, the qualia that accompanies ingestion of the chemical.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged consciousness, Daniel Dennett, david chalmers, dmt, ontological mystery, philosophy, psychology, qualia, terence mckenna, the brain
6 Comments
A Thoroughly Awesome Take on Civility in Public Discourse from Terry Teachout (and George Washington)
Not that I always live up to it, but I think that this is great: George Washington once drew up a list of rules of civility. Here is the first one: “1st Every Action done in Company, ought to be … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, blasphemy, civility, critical thinking, dialogue, discourse, reason, rhetoric, templeton foundation, terry teachout
1 Comment
Drinking Coca-Cola in Weimar
Below is an Egyptian ad for Coca-Cola, and in watching it I can’t help but think of 1920s Weimar. Urban Muslims, living in Cairo, can welcome a bit of homoerotic humor. Like Berlin in the 1920s, city dwellers today tend to be … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1920s, America, Egypt, fundamentalism, glenn beck, Politics, Sarah Palin, weimar republic
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The Last Exorcism: The Blair Witch Project Meets Marjoe and Nathaniel Hawthorne
At Salon, Andrew O’Hehir describes the genre that the Blair Witch Project launched: Your horror movie’s going to look like raw documentary footage, full of mistakes and retakes and hinky camera angles and jagged non-edits. In fact, why not make … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, demons, exorcism, film, God, Jesus, marjoe, movie review, nathaniel hawthorne, the last exorcist, Young Goodman Brown
1 Comment
Go West, Young Species? Like Ulysses and Darwin, Launch Out?
Exploiting an open territory appears to be a larger driver of big evolutionary changes than getting into an already crowded market and competing for local territorial niches, suggests a new scientific study that, at first glance, might seem to contradict Charles Darwin’s … Continue reading
Kepler Telescope Detects an Earth-Size Planet Orbiting a Star Like Our Own
The New York Times today: Scientists working with NASA’s Kepler satellite reported Thursday that they might have spotted a planet just 1.5 times the diameter of Earth around a Sun-like star. And, not to be outdone, the Europeans announced an … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged astronomy, biology, earth-like planets, Genesis, kepler, kepler telescope, life, louis armstrong, ontological mystery, planets, stars
1 Comment
Mosque NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) Spreading from Ground Zero to Other Parts of America
We all like for the lights to come on, but we don’t necessarily want to look out of our kitchen windows and see a nuclear power plant alongside what was once a pristine bay. Likewise, we all like the First … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, bill of rights, bryan fischer, conscience, first amendment, freedom of religion, ground zero mosque, Islam, Jesus, Muslims
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Maureen Dowd on Some Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Anti-Muslim Crowds
In a recent New York Times column, Maureen Dowd tracks some of the Herderite stupidity swirling around the so-called ground zero mosque: The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy. The unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show … Continue reading
Kepler Telescope Watch: Will the Discovery of an Earth-like Planet Be Announced By NASA Tommorrow?
Something seems to be brewing around a NASA announcement scheduled for tommorrow. Here’s Denise Chow at Space.com: NASA is expected to make an announcement Thursday on the progress of its Kepler spacecraft, which has been staring at one patch of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aliens, astonomy, astrophysics, biology, kepler telescope, life, life on other planets, planets, science, SETI, the stars, UFOs
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Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin Have No Jeffersonian Clothes: Ron Paul Favors the Building of the Ground Zero Mosque and Castigates Its Opponents
The so-called ground zero mosque is generating a rift between Jeffersonian libertarian conservatives and those who identify with the Herderite Tea Partiers. The latest evidence of this split can be found in a statement released by the libertarian congressman, Ron Paul, who wrote … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Calvinism, ground zero mosque, Islam, Jesus, muslim americans, newt gingrich, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, tea baggers, tea partiers, the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson
1 Comment
Shadows on a Distant Wall: Nikodem Poplawski Says We Might Be Living in a Black Hole
In a new theory worthy of Alice in Wonderland, the Washington Post reports today that a cosmologist, Nikodem Poplawski, posits that each black hole may contain a universe inside of it, and we ourselves may be inside a black hole: We could be … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged black holes, carl sagan, consciousness, cosmology, holographic principle, holographic universe, LSD, mushrooms, physics, science, trippy
16 Comments
Prometheus Unbound 