Link blog: religion, christianity, de-conversion, politics
What Is Evil For The Darwinist, CtdAndrew Sullivan posts some well-reasoned letters from readers on the question of what a non-theist would call "evil" (presumably responses to the old "how can you say God is evil when you don't have a basis for morality?" question). Bizarrely, he then describes them as showing "contempt" for religion. There's no pleasing some people. The letters are good, anyway.seek and ye shall find…. but what?“If you REALLY had been a Christian you would have never de-converted.” vs the observation that many de-converts are former Christian ministers.
(tags: de-conversion religion christianity)Buddhism and the God-ideaInteresting. I liked: "Whether we call those superior beings gods, deities, devas or angels is of little importance, since it is improbable that they call themselves by any of those names."
(tags: buddhism god religion)Why it's so hard to quantify false rape charges. - By Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore - Slate MagazineFalse accusations probably account for 8 to 10% of all accusations, though the research isn't conclusive, and it's not clear how this compares to false reporting of other crimes. Interesting story about the falsely accused man who found support from his girlfriend who had been raped some time ago: emotions were similar on both sides.
(tags: feminism research rape crime)Justice with Michael Sandel - HomeHarvard has put Michael Sandel's justly popular "Justice" course on the web. Well worth watching.
(tags: education philosophy morality ethics video community politics harvard justice)Messy Revelation: Why Paul would have flunked hermaneuticsSusan Wise Bauer in Christianity Today, writing about Peter Enns, who noticed that the NT authors don't interpret the OT the way evangelicals would. I liked this bit: "This is the exactly the kind of exegesis that terrifies most evangelicals. The man who admits that meanings can be "read into" Scripture stands on the fabled slippery slope, right above a sheer drop-off, while below him churns a sea of relativism, upon which floats only a single overloaded lifeboat, captained by a radical feminist gay & lesbian & transgender activist who is very anxious to make the final decision about who gets pitched overboard."
(tags: bible hermaneutics peter-enns christianity religion paul old-testament)What’s so great about being an ex-Christian? Intellectual integrity.This sounds familiar.
(tags: ex-christian de-conversion atheism christianity religion) Omnipresent G-d (LORD_YHWH) on TwitterGod's on Twitter, with some new commandments. I don't know why these atheists complain about divine hiddeness. "My word is a knife made white by heat, such as that which one uses to cut pastrami." - wisdom for us all there.
(tags: god yhwh religion funny satire christianity judaism twitter)Science, Pseudoscience and BollocksAn interesting essay which talks about the demarcation problem in science and argues that we should be against creation science because it's wrong, not try to argue about what science is. I'm shocked he referred to a Christian belief as "bollocks". I got told off for that once.
(tags: bollocks science pseudoscience epistemology empiricism logical-positivism karl-popper popper creationism dover)Thunderbirds will grow a generation of mad engineersFAB, Mr Ellis.
(tags: warren-ellis thunderbirds tv)On The Possible God Of Philosophy And Cosmology Vs. The Personal, Historical God Of FaithCamels With Hammers links to Dennett's remarks on hearing William Lane Craig's cosmological argument, and then talks about the gap between the source of the universe (which we should properly be agnostic about) and the gods of major religions.
(tags: daniel-dennett dennett william-lane-craig craig cosmology kalam philosophy physics)Rock-Bottom Loser Entertaining Offers From Several Religions | The Onion - America's Finest News SourceCruel but funny
(tags: onion religion funny satire humour)"A Different Way of Knowing": The Uses of Irrationality... and its LimitationsGreta Christina talks about "other ways of knowing" and their uses, as applied to the theism/atheism debate.
(tags: religion epistemology science atheism greta-christina empiricism)Understanding Sarah Palin: Or, God Is In The WattlesPeter Watts gives his grand theory for why religion hasn't died out. It's all about preventing free-loading once societies get above a certain size.
(tags: peter-watts religion evolution sarah-palin politics psychology signalling)Whence Rationality?Some responses to the evolutionary argument against naturalism. The point that evolution is unlikely to come up with the sort of elaborate errors Plantinga mentions is new to me.