Monthly Archives: October 2017

Pinker and Crane: Quotes and Comments about Faith and Religion

Posted on Monday 30 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Still working my way, slowly, through Steven Pinker’s THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE. In Chapter 4, The Humanitarian Revolution, he discusses various kinds of violence over human history, beginning with human sacrifice, and then to violence “against blasphemers, heretics, … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Fake News and the Narrative Bias

Posted on Wednesday 25 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Tuesday’s New York Times Science Section has an article by Benedict Carey called How Fiction Becomes Fact on Social Media (it was posted several days ago online). Among the endless stories about fake news and books about the human mental … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Philip Pullman meets Matthew Hutson

Posted on Wednesday 25 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

There was a big profile of Philip Pullman in the New York Times Magazine a couple weeks ago– Philip Pullman Returns to His Fantasy World — on the occasion of the first book in his new trilogy that parallels his … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Reviews of Books about Religion and Science

Posted on Monday 23 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

NY Times: “Ivory Tower” column review of three university press books on religion: Unknown Unknowns: Three Inquiries Into Religion, by James Ryerson. The most interesting of the three seems to be the first, Tim Crane’s THE MEANING OF BELIEF: Religion … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: An Abortion Thought-Experiment, and Conservative Thinking

Posted on Monday 23 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon: The Twitter thought experiment that exposes “pro-life” hypocrisy. Subtitle: “Comedian and sci-fi writer Patrick Tomlinson on the dangerous question that abortion foes refuse to answer” Last Monday, a tweetstorm eviscerating abortion foes went viral. Science fiction writer and comedian … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker’s THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE, Chapters 2 and 3.

Posted on Wednesday 18 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

More on Steven Pinker’s magisterial 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined — one of the best books of the 21st century, surely — that takes a long-range view of human history to show that … Continue reading →

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Silverberg: All Sadnesses Flow to the Sea

Posted on Wednesday 11 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

The planet cleanses itself. That is the important thing to remember, at moments when we become too pleased with ourselves. The healing process is a natural and inevitable one. The action of the wind and the rain, the ebbing and … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: War on Science; How to Make a Prophecy; Nazis and Magic

Posted on Monday 2 October 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Catching up on some saved links from some weeks ago… NYT: long editorial, from Sept. 9th: President Trump’s War on Science Among the points: the Trump administration has — Stopped a study of the health risks of mountaintop-removal coal mining; … Continue reading →

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