Tag Archives: Calvinism

Jerry Coyne: Free Will Is Also A Delusion

It’s not just God that’s a delusion. Free will is also. And our language should change to reflect it. That, at any rate, is University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne’s opinion. Here’s his recommendation, from his blog today, of what … Continue reading

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Muslims in Libya Destroy Cases of Demon Liquor

With the Islamist Ennahda Party winning the elections in Tunisia, we discover that freedom for Tunisians will not include freedom from religion as a human option (and so will not be freedom at all). And here are Muslim men in Libya repeating the phrase … Continue reading

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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

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“Horton Hears a Who”, Alvin Plantinga, and a Tree Stump in Ireland

In Dr. Seuss’s famous children’s book, Horton Hears a Who, an elephant equipped with giant elephant ears can hear the voices of very, very tiny “people” that really are there, lurking among the grasses. Others cannot hear them (because they … Continue reading

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A Profound Job-Like Meditation on Suffering

And probably now illegal to perform in Ireland: I think the secular blogs—and I include mine among them—should call for a boycott of Ireland’s tourism industry until its anti-free speech laws are rescinded. I’m in. 20th century journalist, I.F. Stone: [N]o … Continue reading

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Weight Watchers Meets the Book of Revelation—and Denis Dutton

In the New York Times today, philosopher Denis Dutton meditates on our cultural fondness for the apocalyptic: We wallow in the idea that one day everything might change in, as St. Paul put it, the “twinkling of an eye” — … Continue reading

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I Break Their Nose?

Is that in the Sermon on the Mount—or Mein Kampf? Oops, the video doesn’t embed. Watch on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kayRXtITyw&feature=related

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The Devil Trying to Disrupt and Discourage the Heroic Vitalist

This Albrecht Durer drawing from 1513 made me think of John Calvin (who was born in 1509). I like Durer’s depiction of the devil on the left side of the drawing, with his Medusa-echoing snake hair and taunting display of … Continue reading

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John Calvin: Jesus’s Bulldog?

In the 19th century Charles Darwin had a bulldog (T.H. Huxley), but in the 16th century Jesus had a bulldog too. And this bulldog didn’t just bite rhetorically. His name was John Calvin, and under the right circumstances he had no compunction about literally taking your head … Continue reading

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It’s Not Just the 200th Anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Birth, It’s Also the 500th Anniversary of John Calvin’s!

John Calvin was born 500 years ago, in 1509, but I have a hard time understanding what, exactly, we should celebrate about it, or how to celebrate it. John Calvin, afterall, looked askance at merriment, drinking, and dancing, so what exactly do you do to … Continue reading

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John Calvin’s Geneva: A Little Reminder of What It’s Like to Live in a World Where Church and State are Combined

I’m kind of weirded out by people who express nostalgia for John Calvin, and call themselves admirers of his. I think it a useful correction to this nostalgia to actually recall what it was like, exactly, to live in John … Continue reading

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Should John Calvin’s Theology Be Decoupled from John Calvin’s Geneva?

Something that I’ve noticed about Evangelical intellectual culture is a certain nostalgic fond spot for John Calvin. Philosopher Alvin Plantinga, for example, calls himself a Reformed Calvinist. But I think, before adopting John Calvin’s theology, that it might be useful to … Continue reading

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What is Time?

Is time an illusion in the way that our perception of the earth at rest is an illusion? Below is an interesting and brief documentary on time (in three parts). Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: And here’s physicist Julian … Continue reading

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Question of the Day

If Jesus could (and did) heal individual blind people, as the gospels assert, why didn’t Jesus just go ahead and heal blindness as such? After all, either Jesus had the power to do it, and did not. Or he wanted to … Continue reading

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He doesn’t like “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ”: Mark Driscoll, a Seattle Religious Authoritarian, is Profiled in the NY Times

Can we just start calling some fundamentalist “Christian” leaders by a more accurate designation: religious authoritarians? And instead of calling the places that they build “mega-churches,” can we call them what they actually are: personality-driven mega-cults assisted by the shameless use of contemporary … Continue reading

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