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Monthly Archives: March 2011
Thinking about Entropy
One way to think about entropy is as a measure of disorder in a system: where disorder is high, entropy is high; where disorder is low, entropy is low. I don’t have the exact quote in front of me, but the … Continue reading
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Tagged adam's curse, energy, entropy, life, physics, thought, work
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A Modern Iphigenia Story Plays Out in a Custody Battle Turned Murder Trial
A new nonfiction book, Janet Malcolm’s “Iphigenia in Forest Hills”, is the story of an ugly custody battle in which a little girl named Michelle is lost in the fray, and her father is ultimately murdered by her avenging mother. At Salon, Laura Miller says this … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agamemnon, clytemnestra, custody battles, feminism, Greek tragedy, iphigenia, justice, life, murder, the law, the oresteia, trials
1 Comment
Are the New Atheists Insufficiently Serious?
R. Joseph Hoffmann, an atheist himself and the author or editor of numerous academic books—including Jesus in History and Myth (Prometheus Books 1986)—thinks so, writing at his blog recently the following: The mode of critique [by New Atheists] is lodged somewhere … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, Albert Camus, apologetics, atheism, atheist, God, matthew arnold, nihilism, Prometheus, the Bible
41 Comments
Who is Dagny Taggart? Atlas Shrugged Part 1, the Movie, is Coming to Theatres April 15th
Atlas Shrugged Part 1, the movie (which depicts the first third of Ayn Rand’s famous novel of ideas) comes into general release on April 15th, and I must say that the following YouTube teaser clip posted by the film’s producers is … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Apollo, atlas shrugged, Ayn Rand, capitalism, dagny taggart, Dionysus, film, libertarianism, Nietzsche, philosophy, Prometheus, selfishness
9 Comments
End Times Hysteria Watch: Lyn Benedetto Allegedly Tried to Kill Her Daughters to Save Them from The Tribulation
The Antelope Valley Press, a northern Los Angeles County newspaper, had the following disturbing headline on Sunday, March 20, 2011: Mom feared ‘The Tribulation,’ cops say: Cut daughters’ throats, then her own. And the opening paragraph to the story was … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 2012, apologetics, doomsday, End Times, fundamentalism, hysteria, John Macarthur, psychology, Revelation, social psychology, the Bible, the tribulation
25 Comments
Sweeping the Prudes into the Dust Bin of History: Camille Paglia on Elizabeth Taylor
Camille Paglia has been working on a book and, consequently, her Internet presence has been near to zip for more than a year. But Salon recently interviewed her on the death of Elizabeth Taylor, and here’s part of what she had to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Camille Paglia, elizabeth taylor, feminism, film, Ishtar, madonna, paganism, queen of heaven, sex, Sexual Personae, the whore of babylon, Virgin Mary
12 Comments
In the Free Will Debate, Does the Truth Matter?
According to the New York Times this morning, researchers have discovered a curious correlation between belief (or disbelief) in free will and behavior: [W]hen people doubt free will, they do worse at their jobs and are less honest. This raises … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged arthur schopenhauer, atheism, critical thinking, determinism, free will, God, materialism, philosophy, pragmatism, psychology, truth
6 Comments
What is a Human, Really? Thinking about Definition via Aristotle
If your definition of a word is to be any good, Aristotle was the first to notice that it should say something general and something specific. Aristotle designated these two components the genus and species of a definition. Thus you might … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, aristotle, atheism, Ayn Rand, critical thinking, definition, gods, logic, philosophy, precision, reason
32 Comments
Critical Thinking Watch: Ray Kurzweil Says Solar Cells Will Power the World in 16 Years. Should We Believe Him?
Futurist and inventor, Ray Kurzweil, predicts that advances in nanotechnology will result in solar energy powering the world in just 16 years. The Big Think website recently interviewed him, and here is part of the editors’ summary: [H]ow far away … Continue reading
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Tagged critical thinking, energy, evolution, oil, predictions, ray kurzweil, science, solar, solar cells, solar energy, the future
21 Comments
Chris Hedges the Prophet on Print Culture Turning to Image Culture
Former New York Times war correspondent, Chris Hedges, has, over the past couple of years, taken on the mantle of a secular prophet—an emperor has no clothes truthteller—writing scathing (and I think powerful) books and essays documenting the messes that we find ourselves … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, books, Chris Hedges, Fox News, illiteracy, intellectuals, life, literacy, propaganda, reading, truth
4 Comments
Is Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Heading for a Meltdown?
The New York Times today explains what’s most worrisome about Japan’s post-tsunami Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station crisis: [As the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,] Mr. Jaczko’s most startling assertion was that there was now little or no water in … Continue reading
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Tagged economy, Japan, nuclear power, oil, power, radiation, triggers
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Hell Apologists Watch: Albert Mohler wants people to awake “in the morning” and go “to sleep at night with the fear of hell never far from consciousness”
Here’s Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and evangelicalism’s leading “intellectual” (at least according to Time magazine), lamenting at his blog the fact that literal hell belief no long terrorizes the psyches of most people living in western countries: … Continue reading
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Tagged albert mohler, atheism, atheist, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, God, hell, Jesus, John Macarthur, psychology, the Bible
2 Comments
Japan’s earthquake and tsunami: there was a terrible noise. There was a terrible silence. There was a terrible noise. There was a terrible silence. There was a terrible noise.
The most heart-breaking and arresting sentence (or, rather, portion of a larger sentence) I’ve encountered on the Japan earthquake and tsunami was penned at Salon this morning by Matt Zoller Seitz: [W]omen and children walking and in some cases swimming through … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged civilization, death, earthquake, existentialism, Japan, life, love, Santi Tafarella, the heart, theodicy, tragedy, tsunami
1 Comment
Chris Hedges the Prophet
Former New York Times war correspondent, Chris Hedges, has, over the past couple of years, taken on the mantle of a secular prophet—an emperor has no clothes truthteller—writing scathing (and I think powerful) books and essays documenting the messes that we find ourselves … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Chris Hedges, easter island, fundamentalism, global warming, God, matt ridley, plutocracy, prophets, social psychology
50 Comments
In Japan’s quake, God is revealed. Is she serious?
I genuinely can’t tell. Can you?
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, atheism, God, Japan, Jesus, Job, praise, prayer, psychology, religion, stupidity
5 Comments
The Thorny Problem of Defining What a Book Is (It’s Not as Easy as You Might Think)
I like this definition of a book (which I found in a Times Literary Supplement essay): I. A. Richards called the book “a machine to think with” . . . Notice that the definition has the two elements that Aristotle … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aristotle, biology, books, civilization, definition, entropy, information, life, literature, the book, words
5 Comments
Be nice to your co-workers (or Darwin may give you the smackdown)
In a New York Times science article this morning is a superb reason for being nice to your tribe of fellow co-workers (and even to the people in the competing tribes around you): A team of anthropologists led by Kim S. Hill … Continue reading
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Tagged business, Charles Darwin, cooperation, evolution, facebook, human evolution, paleolithic facebook, psychology, social psychology, success, work
8 Comments
Do the universe’s most terrifying and nihilistic truths birth the gods as intoxicants?
University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne calls the below quote (from rabbi Eric Yoffi) “Abrahamic religion in a nutshell.” I’m inclined to agree with Professor Coyne. See if you do. Here’s the quote (the rabbi is speaking): All of this might be … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, faith, Freud, God, jerry coyne, psychology, reason, religion, science, the future of an illusion
1 Comment
