Blog Stats
- 2,863,206 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- Philosophy homework help - Nursing Essays Center on Feminism for Beginners
- Philosophy homework help - Coursework Heros on Feminism for Beginners
- Pat on Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
- Answer the questions | Philosophy homework help | Writings Gate on Feminism for Beginners
- mike on Blogging UFOs: What Do You Make of Professor Robert Jacobs’s Bizarre UFO Testimony?
- Ray Léonard on In praise of Chateauneuf (Voltaire’s godfather and tutor)
- Green on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Green on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Green on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Green on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Green on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Joshx45 on Feminism for Beginners
- Roger lynn mason on Blogging UFOs: What Do You Make of Professor Robert Jacobs’s Bizarre UFO Testimony?
- geoenergymath on On the Far Right, Ann Coulter and Mitt Romney Are Not Conservative Enough!
- John Mack on Would Friedrich Nietzsche have admired Ayn Rand?
Top Posts
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- "The Poet's Eye in Fine Frenzy Rolling": Shakespeare and the Origin of Religion
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- Woke Fanatics? Essentialists vs. Nominalists
- Ludwig Wittgenstein for Beginners
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- "We Rule You, We Fool You": Classic 1911 Poster Depicting Capitalism Titled "Pyramid of Capitalist System"
- Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
- Irony in a Good Poem: Christina Rossetti's "Dirge"
-
Recent Posts
Recent Haiku Tweets
- @abrahampiper Yahweh as a frustrated deity, much to be pitied! Abraham Piper's insight here, if thought about as a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 9 months ago
- RT @tbonier: More than 80M votes cast and we're not done yet. Thoughts: - It's too late for an "October surprise" to have a significant imp… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: 1. Want to thank @DanielNewman for using his HUGE platform for this work. I want to clarify what this is. In the voter… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Tell me again about how old and feeble Joe Biden is??? twitter.com/ProjectLincoln… 1 year ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Remember when you had a chance to choose country over party and you chose party @SenatorCollins? Well, @ProjectLincol… 1 year ago
Tag Archives: George Orwell
10 Questions to Ask Before You Believe Something
How well does a belief that you currently subscribe to hold up under these ten questions? And wouldn’t it be nice if we all asked such questions before professing belief in something? Do I have any actual evidence for the thing … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, critical thinking, George Orwell, God, philosophy, psychology, reason, theism
9 Comments
Look
Really. Look. __________ No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged art, college, George Orwell, life, music, poetry, seeing, thoreau
Leave a comment
Give George Orwell a Statue Near BBC Headquarters
The exact site has yet to be settled on, but this is in the Telegraph today (quoting the artist commissioned to make the statue): George Orwell is regarded as something of a patron saint of political journalism so his presence … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Christopher Hitchens, critical thinking, George Orwell, intelligence, reason
Leave a comment
In Memoriam of Christopher Hitchens
On hearing of Christopher Hitchens’s death this morning, my first thoughts went to something he had once said as a play on Socrates: The unlived life is not worth examining. Christopher Hitchens lived a life worth examining. May his future … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, Christopher Hitchens, death, George Orwell, God, hitch, Jesus, life, Socrates
3 Comments
Jacob Wrestling the Irrational Animal: George Orwell on Critical Thinking
In London’s Tribune, George Orwell wrote an essay (“In Front of Your Nose,” March 22, 1946) with a number of great observations on critical thinking. The first is this: In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, critical thinking, Freud, George Orwell, God, Iraq, Jacob wrestling the angel, Orwell, Politics, reason, science
2 Comments
Critical Thinking Tip #6: Try These Four Fog Breaking Steps for Getting at the Truth of a Matter
Feel like you’re in a fog about what you should believe concerning a claim? Try running it through the following four criteria and see how well it holds up: The claim is accompanied by evidence. If evidence is not … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, Buddhism, clarity, critical thinking, George Orwell, psychology, reason, science, self help, thinking
Leave a comment
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris: Is This What a Rising Christian Political Star Looks Like?
Mayor R. Rex Parris, 58, a born-again Baptist who last year declared his city, the city of Lancaster, Ca., a “Christian community,” was profiled a while back in the Los Angeles Times, and I notice that the Times described R. Rex Paris’s … Continue reading
An Atheist Poem by Charlotte Perkins Gilman?
Something that people might not know about Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the 19th century author of the frequently assigned (in college) feminist short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), is that she was also a poet. In her lifetime she published well over … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, charlotte perkins gilman, epistemology, George Orwell, Hamlet, philosophy, poems, poetry, psychology, religion
1 Comment
Orwellism Watch: Biologist Jerry Coyne Takes Down Robert Wright a Peg
Atheist biologist Jerry Coyne, in his recent review for the New Republic of Robert Wright’s new book, The Evolution of God, catches Wright out on an Orwellian euphemism that Wright deploys to describe Islamic historical setbacks on the road to greater tolerance: … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1984, atheism, atheist, biology, evolution, George Orwell, jerry coyne, orwellisms, religion, robert wright, skepticism
Leave a comment
Jeff Bezos’s Orwellian Treatment of George Orwell’s 1984
The potentially Orwellian implications of the Kindle here.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1984, Amazon, George Orwell, jeff bezos, kindle, Orwell, totalitarianism
2 Comments
Sarah Palin’s Orwellian Mind: She Can’t Call Things What They Are, and Words Can Shift Their Meaning Whenever They Are Useful to Her
Gail Collins caught these two Sarah Palin resignation speech Orwellisms this week: “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’ Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.’ No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1984, freedom is slavery, George Orwell, James Dobson, orwellisms, rush limbaugh, Sarah Palin, war is peace
11 Comments
Was George Orwell a Clear-Headed Critic of Literature, or Was He Hopelessly Confused About It?
Perhaps something in between. At the New Statesman website, New Yorker staff writer, Keith Gessen, discusses the tensions and contradictions in George Orwell’s writings on literature and the arts. One of the examples that he offers is Orwell’s evaluation of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged criticism, essays, George Orwell, literary criticism, literature, poems, poetry, Politics, T.S. Eliot, writing
Leave a comment
Mexican Flu, Swine Flu, or H1N1? A Pandemic Gets Rebranded
Whether or not the source for H1N1 was a Mexican pig farm (and this is by no means certain), the implication that this virus is somehow a “Mexican flu” and should be called Mexican flu borders on the racist, and carries … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged flu, George Orwell, H1N1, language, Mexican flu, Michael Savage, michelle malkin, orwellisms, pandemic, rush limbaugh, swine flu, virus
6 Comments
Mike Allen’s Orwellian Description of Bush Era Torture: “Aggressive interrogation practices critics decried as torture.”
Glenn Greenwald lets loose: Politico’s Mike Allen — in the same article where he granted anonymity to a cowardly “top Bush official” to do nothing other than smear Obama as a friend of Al Qaeda (and marvel at Allen’s pathetic … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Abu Ghraib, ACLU, bush era torture, civil rights, George Orwell, Glenn Greenwald, Mike Allen, newspeak, Politics, torture
Leave a comment
BIG JESUS is Watching You? Is Christianity a Form of Authoritarianism/Totalitarianism?
Christopher Hitchens thinks that Christianity, in the way it surrounds and encloses the psyche of the believer, and threatens the unbeliever with torture, is a form of totalitarianism: It is an odd thing, isn’t it, to tell somebody, IF YOU … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, authoritarianism, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, George Orwell, Jesus, religion, scapegoat, scapegoating, the Bible, totalitarianism
28 Comments
At Long Last, the Orwellian Language is OVER: Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder Says “Waterboarding is torture”
What a relief to hear honest language regarding what torture is. This today from the AP: It was the first topic discussed at [Attorney General nominee Eric] Holder’s confirmation hearing, and he made an unambiguous statement about its nature: “Waterboarding … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged eric holder, George Orwell, Jesus, language, orwellisms, philosophy, Politics, religion, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, torture, waterboarding
2 Comments
Prometheus Unbound 