Monthly Archives: July 2022

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

We watched the entire 10-episode run of the latest Star Trek show, “Strange New Worlds,” which finished late last week, and it was OK.

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Intercessory Prayer and Science

About a month ago I put together a post in part about how belief in prayer reflects a fundamental inability to understand cause and effect in the real, actual, physical world; that post is here. I had a current link … Continue reading

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Kids These Days, Bauerlein and Will Style

Beware cranky old men complaining about kids these days. Surely George F. Will, a renowned (conservative) political commentator, knows better. Washington Post, George F. Will, 8 July 2022: How millennials became aggressively illiberal, censorious young adults

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Ensoulment and Miscarriages

Here’s a nice essay that observes how the prevelance of spontaneous abortions — miscarriages — doesn’t seem consistent with the theological position of “ensoulment,” the notion that God inserts the just-feritilized embryo with a soul.

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Fiddler on the Roof

Over the past couple evenings we’ve watched the movie version of a musical I had never seen before, in any form: Fiddler on the Roof. I was aware it was a big-hit musical, back in the 1960s or ’70s, in … Continue reading

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Failed Policies? Or Disingenuous Ones?

Republican policies have failed the nation — Thom Hartmann explains how. Republican positions have been wrong, wrong, wrong — David Brin explains why. Or have they? The rich are getting richer, and the fundamentalists are getting their way. Perhaps it’s … Continue reading

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The Gun Nuts, Like the Terrorists, Are Winning

The terrorists of 9/11 won by not destroying the country, but by instilling a paranoia in American society that entails those excruciating TSA lines to board airplanes that involve taking off shoes and belts. By millions of us, every day. … Continue reading

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Climate Change Denial and Christian Nationalists

Today, links about the threats, to American democracy and the survival of the planet, from conservatives, especially the religious ones. NYT, Paul Krugman, 4 July 2022: Another Step Toward Climate Apocalypse

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Independence

It’s always struck me that America (that is, the US) stands defiantly independent against the rest of the world, secure in its self-righteousness and uncaring or even contemptuous of what other countries think about it. After all, they’re not the … Continue reading

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The Blue Nation and the Red Nation

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” — variations by Bertrand Russell, William Butler Yeats, and others.

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