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Tag Archives: history
Confidence Theists, Confidence Atheists, and Bayes’ Rule
As an agnostic, I think that both theists and atheists have reasons, some of them good, for believing what they do. It’s not just thoughtlessness or blind faith that causes someone to declare for theism or atheism. My issue is … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, Bayes' Rule, God, history, philosophy
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Four Hundred Fifty Antisemitic Verses In The Gospels And Book of Acts
Acclaimed Holocaust historian, Daniel Goldhagen, in his most recent book, The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism (Little, Brown & Co. 2013), claims the following about the New Testament: The Christian bible contains four hundred … Continue reading
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Tagged antisemitism, atheism, Bible, God, history, Jesus, New Testament, religion
26 Comments
Stunning Video Reconstruction: The Evolution of Ape to Human in Less Than Three Minutes
Based on real ancestral (and human cousin) skull findings, the evolution of ape to human here is thoroughly mesmerizing. Created by the renowned paleoartist John Gurche, the recreation is notable for its meticulous anatomical and forensic accuracy. __________ Gurche’s book on … Continue reading
Telling The Truth About The United States Is Hard
What makes the United States the greatest country in the world? I dunno. Yosemite? ___________ I like the above video’s puncturing of American exceptionalism. I especially like the Yosemite line, but when the piano starts to play, and the patriotic … Continue reading
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Tagged America, history, patriotism, philosophy, the Enlightenment, the united states, Thomas Jefferson, Yosemite
13 Comments
Saint Ranieri, Meet George Jetson: Deconstruction Illustrated with a Catholic Painting
__________ What is deconstruction? In postmodern theory, deconstruction (in a nutshell) is the undoing of an author’s controlling intentions by time and audience reception. This can only happen because texts are made of parts, not coherent wholes. Over time, parts … Continue reading
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Tagged art, deconstruction, history, imagination, lenny kravitz, literature, philosophy, postmodernism, time
3 Comments
The Living Statue of Liberty vs. the Old Junos (and Jesus on the Cross)
Robert Wright has recently given up blogging at The Atlantic to write a book about Buddhism. His parting admonitions on foreign policy include these two sensible gems: [1] The world’s biggest single problem is the failure of people or groups to look … Continue reading
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Tagged God, henry james, history, Islam, Jesus, literature, philosophy, robert wright
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Beauty Explained
Sounds right to me. ___________ A quick thought: what if the very things that move us in landscape paintings (water in the distance, grassy fields, etc.) are the very same stimulants that our ancestors followed out of Africa 60,000 years … Continue reading
Who Is Stephen Greenblatt? Why Should You Care?
Stephen Greenblatt (b. 1943) is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard, a Shakespeare biographer, and a recent recipient for general nonfiction of the Pulitzer Prize, but most importantly, he is the founder of “the new historicism,” and … Continue reading
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Tagged critical theory, history, literature, new historicism, philosophy, pulitzer prize, stephen greenblatt
2 Comments
Biblical Archaeology: Believe the Biblical Writer or the Physical Evidence?
If, in a biblical story, the biblical writer appears to contradict the physical evidence as revealed by archaeology, then, in my humble opinion, one should tend to believe the physical evidence—the discoveries of the archaeologists—not the biblical writer. Why? Because physical … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, critical thinking, history, Israel, Jesus, reason, testimony, the bible. archaeology
6 Comments
The Bright American Future
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Tagged America, college, education, geography, globalism, high school, history, illiteracy, school
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Critical Thinking Watch: Sybil Exposed
I haven’t read Debbie Nathan’s Sybil Exposed yet, but it certainly looks promising as an exercise in critical thinking and reflection. Here’s the author talking about her new book:
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Tagged atheism, atheist, critical thinking, history, philosophy, psychology, reason, sociology, sybil exposed
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Question of the Day
If Adam or Eve, in the Garden of Eden, had cut down a tree, would they have discovered that it possessed tree rings? Image source: Wikipedia Commons.
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Tagged Adam and Eve, biology, Genesis, history, myth, time, tree rings, trees, young earth creationism
1 Comment
Which Germany would you like to live in? Luther’s, Hitler’s, or Habermas’s?
In thinking about what worldviews are broadly contending for the human future, it occurs to me that Germany, over the past 500 years, has basically passed through the three key ones: The religious civilizational vision. This is embodied today by contemporary fundamentalists … Continue reading
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Tagged Germany, history, Hitler, jurgen habermas, Martin Luther, philosophy, Politics, the Enlightenment, the future
16 Comments
Is Atheism the New Normal?
Recently perusing a back issue of The New Yorker (from May 21, 2007), I noticed an article by Anthony Gottlieb on post-9-11 atheism titled “Atheists with Attitude” (77-80), the conclusion of which I found arresting: [O]ne can venture conservative estimates … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, God, history, internationalism, Jesus, muhammad, philosophy, secularism, social psychology
30 Comments
Prometheus Unbound 