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Monthly Archives: September 2010
A Muslim Rises to the Existential Occasion, Protecting a Jew from Some “Christians”
A little reminder about making hasty generalizations about people:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Christianity, humanity, Islam, Jesus, Jews, Judaism, love, muhammad, Muslims, peace
29 Comments
Atheists Top the Religious in Religious Knowledge
A recent Pew Survey on religious knowledge has found that atheists do better on a battery of religious knowledge questions than Jews, Christians, Mormons—indeed, anybody else. Out of 32 questions, atheists, on average, managed to answer about 21 of the questions … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheists, Catholicism, God, idiocracy, Jews, Martin Luther, mormons, Muslims, Protestants, psychology, transubstantiation
3 Comments
In a word, I hate all the gods?
In introducing his new book, To Set Prometheus Free, philosopher A C Grayling explains his choice of title by referring to Aeschylus’s play, Prometheus Bound, and quoting from it: As so often, the Greeks themselves understood with a preternatural clarity … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aeschylus, agnostic, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, existentialism, Karl Marx, percy bysshe shelley, philosophy, Prometheus, walker percy
3 Comments
A Swami for a Sunday
Swami Satchidananda is my all-time favorite Hindu guru. His name consists of a combination of three terms that, taken together, sum up rather nicely the Hindu spiritual quest: that which is (sat); that which is consciousness (chid); that which is bliss (ananda). … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bhagavad Gita, death, flow, gurus, Hinduism, life, meditation, philosophy, Swami Satchidananda, yoga
1 Comment
Go with the flow? Six plausible options for dealing with change
What is the proper response to this burning, bleeding, milk secreting, honey babbling world? It seems to me that the range of responses are pretty limited, and can be boiled down to six plausible options: acceptance and celebration (go with the flow) … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Apollo, Bakkhai, dionysos, Dionysus, Euripides, existence, flow, God, life, meaning, philosophy, psychology
5 Comments
Johann Hari Makes the Case for the Pope’s Arrest
Eloquent. Shocking. Pro-Catholic. Johann Hari on Pope Joseph Ratzinger’s flagrant criminality, and why he should not be above the law (and notice Richard Dawkins standing behind Hari): Andrew Sullivan, a Catholic, has also been wise to Ratzinger. Here’s some of what Sullivan said, … Continue reading
In Your Trance You’re Not Unfortunate: Atheism vs. Theism in Euripides’s Bakkhai
In scene 3 of Euripides’s ancient tragedy, Bakkhai, is a brief passage that overbrims with implications for the atheist vs. theist divide. Addressed to the anti-theist Pentheus, king of Thebes, a messenger calls on him to reconsider his hostility toward the divine and … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, delusion, Dionysus, Euripides, God, Greek tragedy, illusion, Jesus, literature, Richard Dawkins, tragedy
3 Comments
Christine O’Donnell Says That Young Earth Biblical Creationism Has as Much Evidence Supporting It as Evolution Has
The GOP’s Delaware Senate nominee, Christine O’Donnell, has a history of saying rather ridiculous things about matters of science. Here, for example, is something that she said on CNN about the merits of reading Genesis chapter 1 literally, and how … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, biology, christine o'donnell, creationism, evolution, evolution v. creation, Genesis, God, Jesus, origins
5 Comments
Big Bang Buzz: Is Some Huge CERN Hadron Collider News on the Way?
Physicists are excited. The Washington Post this week has a very brief article, absent details, suggesting that maybe the CERN Large Hadron Collider has started to pick the lock on the Big Bang and the so-called God Particle (the Higgs boson): … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged black holes, cern, experiment, geeks, Genesis, large hadron collider, particle physics, physics, reason, science, the big bang
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The “It Gets Better Project” at YouTube
What would your older self say to your younger self, if you could? That’s the premise behind the It Gets Better Project: older gays and lesbians attempt to persuade gay and lesbian teens contemplating suicide to refrain and look with … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, California, Colorado, don't ask don't tell, gay, gay marriage, gay rights, homosexuality, James Dobson, Jesus, John Macarthur, lesbian
4 Comments
The Question Biologist Matt Rainbow Would Ask an Imam
Yesterday, I interviewed an American imam, Kamal Al-Khatib. Originally from Jordan, he has lived in the United States for 24 years and heads a mosque in northern Los Angeles County. Joseph West, a Muslim friend and coworker of mine, video taped the … Continue reading
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Tagged biology, dialogue, God, Islam, Jesus, kamal al-khatib, koran, matt rainbow, muhammad, Muslims, religion, the quran
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Quick Thought for the Day: Atheists are Like Frogs
Atheists are like frogs in the proverbial pot of hot water. They look through their glass across the stove at the hell realms of religion, critiquing them as psychologically warping, but have conveniently forgotten that they themselves are in a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged archetypes, atheism, atheists, boiling water, cognitive dissonance, existentialism, frogs, hell, jerry coyne, projection, psychology
5 Comments
The Theist’s Hell vs. The Atheist’s Hell: Which is Worse for Children to Learn About?
Startling the mind of a child (or a vulnerable adult) with threats of hell is manipulative and, yes, even abusive. I see no sense in denying it. But there is a premise that underlies the condemnation of hell preaching that deserves scrutiny: … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, child abuse, existentialism, heaven or hell, hell, innocence to experience, Jesus, Nietzsche, the devil, William Blake
27 Comments
The Prodigal Son (and Daughter) Culture
Should we call our time the era of the prodigal sons and daughters? Chris Hedges, from page 44 of his book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009): We are a culture … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, atheism, Chris Hedges, culture, fundamentalism, Jesus, reason, Sarah Palin, television, the doubting community, the prodigal son, Voltaire
3 Comments
The Decline and Fall of the Reason Empire
Chris Hedges, from page 44 of his book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009): We are a culture that has been denied, or has passively given up, the linguistic and intellectual … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, capitalism, Chris Hedges, Christianity, freedom, Islam, janus, Jesus, literacy, muhammad, reason, the roman empire
7 Comments
What I Believe, and What Islam Teaches
On Wednesday, I’m scheduled to interview an American imam. But I’m a member of the doubting community, not any faith community, which means that I trace my intellectual lineage to people like these: Rene Descartes. Descartes made the first principle of his life, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Abraham, Allah, America, atheism, atheist, God, Islam, Jesus, Muslim, Santi Tafarella, the doubting community, Thomas Jefferson
15 Comments
Prometheus Unbound 