Category Archives: Philosophy

Links and Comments: Gay Marriage; Evangelical Doomsday; Natural Selection is not a guide to life; Jibbers Crabst; the power of faith, and science, and physics

Posted on Wednesday 10 December 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate’s William Saletan: A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage, subtitled, “How to talk to your antigay religious relatives about same-sex unions”. Key points: homosexuality is not a sin, because it’s not a choice; it’s not harmful, but is in fact … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Humanism, Links, Philosophy, Physics, Religion, The Gays | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Gay Marriage; Evangelical Doomsday; Natural Selection is not a guide to life; Jibbers Crabst; the power of faith, and science, and physics

The Meaning of Human Existence

Posted on Wednesday 5 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

(Earlier posted on Facebook) Quick plug for Edward O. Wilson’s new book, THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, which is as expected a grand if concise philosophical summary of this important scientist’s views on the big issues of science and philosophy … Continue reading →

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E.O. Wilson on Human Existence

Posted on Thursday 18 September 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Via Andrew Sullivan, a passage from E.O. Wilson’s new book The Meaning of Human Existence, to be published October 6th, yet already on the long-list for this year’s National Book Award for Nonfiction [scroll down]. Sullivan quotes, “In a nutshell,” … Continue reading →

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Notes on A.C. Grayling: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism

Posted on Thursday 12 June 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

A.C. Grayling is a British philosopher whose 2013 book The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism, is a clear and concise summary of why religion is best abandoned and why humanism (as he describes it) is a … Continue reading →

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Unafraid of the Dark: Highlights from the last episode of Cosmos

Posted on Monday 9 June 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Passages from the last episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Cosmos”. Early in the episode, he describes a thought experiment: Pick a star, any one of the hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, which is just one … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Cosmology, Culture, Evolution, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Thinking | Comments Off on Unafraid of the Dark: Highlights from the last episode of Cosmos

Kalam, Infinities, and Intellectual Honesty

Posted on Friday 30 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

I was glancing around Adam Lee’s website and noticed his archive of foundational essays (some of which have been partially incorporated into his book). One is a very long, detailed response to the traditional arguments for the existence of God. … Continue reading →

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Cosmos So Far

Posted on Thursday 24 April 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

I should update my thoughts about the new version of the TV series Cosmos, since earlier I posted a mild critique about it needing to explain the background of scientific discovery – presenting not just the grandiose conclusions humanity has … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: Work Habits

Posted on Wednesday 12 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

When I remember a passage from something I read a day or two before, I think it’s worth capturing. From that Steven Pinker interview last week (originally at Mosaic), two paragraphs about work habits, and his book The Better Angels … Continue reading →

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Panic and Alarm (and Why This Is About Science Fiction)

Posted on Thursday 27 February 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria Sad case study of a man whose father disappeared into the paranoid, outraged worldview of Fox News. Like certain kinds of religious extremists, Fox … Continue reading →

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Comments about the Ken Ham/Bill Nye Debate

Posted on Wednesday 5 February 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

A selection of comments about the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate (which I didn’t watch). I think this is a demonstration about how some people think, and others don’t — they ‘believe’. (This divide between thinking and being is in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Lunacy, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Thinking | Comments Off on Comments about the Ken Ham/Bill Nye Debate