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- This Hans Holbein Painting of Christ after Crucifixion Sparked Fyodor Dostoevsky's Imagination
- "Good Friday": A Poem by Christina Rossetti (Published in 1896)
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Tag Archives: skeptic
Is the Privately Financed Mars Mission for 2022 a Colonizing Mission or a Suicide Mission?
Not to be impolite, but this video strikes me as flim-flam. Perhaps it is being used at fund-raisers to coax seed money from gullible wealthy donors. Watch the video and see if you agree with me. __________ Why do I … Continue reading
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Tagged astronauts, critical thinking, Mars, reason, science, skeptic, space
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Near Death Experience (NDE) Watch: Waiting for Dr. Sam Parnia
Late last year, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece on near death experiences (NDEs), and it included an aspect on the phenomenon that I’d never heard of before: near death awareness: In his book, “Visions, Trips and Crowds,” David … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, body, cancer, death, God, life, mind, NDEs, near-death experiences, psychology, skeptic
21 Comments
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) on Hell Belief and Critical Thinking
In John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography is a brilliant reflection on hell belief: he argues that belief in hell is made paradoxically both strong and weak by an across the board system failure in critical thinking. Here are the two critical thinking errors that Mill … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, critical thinking, God, hell, Jesus, john stuart mill, liberty, Michael Shermer, reason, skeptic, skepticism, the Bible
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David Aaronovich on the Growing Skeptics’ Movement
In a Salon interview, David Aaronovich, the author of a new book that historically contextualizes and debunks conspiracy theories, praises the post-9-11 growing skeptics’ movement in the United States and Britain: Maybe I’m a false optimist, but I think we have a … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, conspiracy theories, critical thinking, david aaronovich, history, reason, Richard Dawkins, skeptic, skepticism
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Should Liberals Have a Scientistic or Poetic Vision for Society?
This is a question that Stanford philosopher Richard Rorty used to ask, and he put it another way as well: is it the scientist or the poet who is (or should be) the liberal’s hero? Or to put it yet another way: Is a human … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, God, literature, Michael Shermer, philosophy, poetry, Richard Dawkins, richard rorty, science, skeptic, the Bible
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A River Not Out of Eden: Christopher Columbus and Critical Thinking
On page 2 of A New Literary History of America (Harvard 2009) is an interesting account of what Christopher Columbus thought he had found when he explored the Venezuelan coast on his third voyage to what would come to be known … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheist, critical thinking, Eden, Genesis, God, Michael Shermer, philosophy, reason, religion, skeptic
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Here’s the Groovy UFO Historian Dude I Went to Lunch with on Saturday
At a Burbank UFO conference I attended on Saturday, I had lunch with Richard Dolan (I tell that story here). In the clip below, Dolan is being interviewed at a UFO conference in Nevada: And here’s Dolan’s website and the Amazon link to … Continue reading
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Tagged aliens, atheist, conspiracy theories, NASA, project camelot, richard dolan, SETI, skeptic, UFOs
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I Went to a UFO Conference! And I Took Pictures!
This past weekend, a UFO conference came to Burbank, California. It wasn’t far from where I live, so I went. The event was sponsored by Project Camelot, and was held at the Burbank Marriot (by the airport). Here was the event’s poster … Continue reading
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Tagged aliens, ant people, atheist, Nefertiti, pictures, project camelot, reason, richard dolan, science, skeptic, ufo conference, UFOs
4 Comments
What I Think about Near Death Experiences (NDEs)
For the past couple of weeks now, I’ve been reading and thinking about NDEs as a phenomenon, and if I were forced to bet, I think that the near death experience is real. In other words, it’s probably more than … Continue reading
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Tagged death, life, NDEs, near-death experiences, neurology, philosophy, psychology, science, skeptic, the brain
3 Comments
The Rational, the Irrational, and the Nonrational: Are These the Right Categories for Meaningful Distinctions?
In a Chris Hedges talk that I recently listened to (on my iPod), Hedges made, in passing, a critique of the New Atheists that they frequently fail to make distinctions between: the rational the irrational the nonrational In atheist terms, according … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, atheist, Chris Hedges, philosophy, psychology, rationality, reason, rhetoric, skeptic, skepticism, UFOs
5 Comments
Dean Radin, Speaking at Google, on Psychic Phenomena
Oops. I see that this talk does not embed. See on YouTube here.
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Tagged dean radin, materialism, mind, philosophy, psi, psi phenomena, psychic phenomena, reason, science, skeptic
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The Morristown UFO Sightings (2009)
Something creepy in the sky akin to what people saw in the 1997 Phoenix Lights incident: The UFOs did not appear on local radar and a pilot who witnessed them insisted that they were not aircraft: But, alas, it was … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, aliens, atheist, hoaxes, reason, science, skeptic, skeptic magazine, ufo hoax, UFO sightings, UFOs, weird things
1 Comment
UFOs, Witchcraft, and Young Goodman Brown
I mean no disrespect of abductees or eyewitnesses who have had vivid and life-disrupting UFO encounters, and know things that a UFO nonexperiencer (like myself) does not, but as I’ve thought about UFOs in a serious fashion these past few weeks, … Continue reading
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Tagged aliens, atheist, history, psychology, science, skeptic, social psychology, UFOs, witchcraft, witches, Young Goodman Brown
2 Comments
The Famous Tether UFOs Explained
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Tagged aliens, Michael Shermer, reason, science, skeptic, tether ufos, UFOs
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Thinking about UFO Abductees with Harvard Psychologist John Mack
This is a segment from a documentary on Harvard pychologist John Mack and some of the UFO abductees that he has interviewed and worked with. I thought that this segment was especially interesting and informative: Hat tip: Atrueoriginall
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Tagged abduction, aliens, demons, grays, psychology, skeptic, space, ufo abductees, ufo abduction, UFO sightings, UFOs
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The UFO Hypothesis: Strong v. Weak Versions, and the Skeptic’s Retort
In researching UFOs over the past several weeks, and trying to decide what I think about the claims surrounding them, I’ve noticed that there are strong and weak versions of the UFO hypothesis. In general, people who believe in the strong … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, aliens, apologetics, atheist, hypotheses, hypothesis testing, psychology, religion, skeptic, social psychology, UFOs
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The Number One Photographic Case in UFO History?
The segment below comes from a History Channel documentary titled Where are All the UFOs? (2005). The documentary itself is excellent—really a “must see” for anyone interested in critically examining UFOs as a phenomenon. The thesis of the documentary is that UFOs are … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, atheist, extraterrestrials, photography, psychology, religion, saturn, science, skeptic, ufo, UFO sightings
2 Comments
Two Roswell Witnesses: Major Jesse Marcel in a 1984 Interview and Lt. Jack Trowbridge in a More Recent Interview
Both Jesse Marcel and Jack Trowbridge sound credible to me. They don’t seem mentally disturbed, and they come across as truthful elderly men recounting their memories of an “out of the ordinary” occurrence from their military service days. They don’t seem to … Continue reading
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Tagged aliens, jesse marcel, Michael Shermer, reason, skeptic, skepticism, ufology, UFOs, witnesses
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Blogging UFOs: A Sad, Sad UFO Story
Below is a bit of testimony concerning the experience of Miriam Titus, an executive secretary at the military base hospital to which the injured, as well as dead, aliens at the Roswell UFO crash site were allegedly brought immediately after … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, aliens, atheist, court, eye witness testimony, judgment, Michael Shermer, reason, skeptic, skepticism, UFOs
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Apollo Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Says There’s a Monolith on Phobos!
I count at least three American astronauts who take UFOs seriously: Edgar Mitchell, Gordon Cooper, and Buzz Aldrin. On C-SPAN, for example, Buzz Aldrin recently made the bizarre claim that Mars’s satellite, Phobos, has a monolith on it. A monolith?! I … Continue reading
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Tagged aliens, Apollo, buzz aldrin, Dionysus, evidence, extraterrestrials, Mars, phobos, reason, skeptic, UFOs
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