Category Archives: Religion

Stephen Prothero on ‘why liberals win’ America’s culture wars

Posted on Tuesday 16 December 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Stephen Prothero is a religious scholar at Boston University, who gave a talk on October 23rd called Why Liberals Win: America’s Culture Wars from the Election of 1800 to Same-Sex Marriage. It’s a preview of Prothero’s upcoming book of nearly … Continue reading →

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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

Links and Comments: Memory, Math, Church and State, Faith, Facts, Stories

Posted on Friday 5 December 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

New York Times: Why Our Memory Fails Us A fascinating NYT op-ed about the fallibility of memory, led by a notorious example from Neil DeGrasse Tyson. \/\/\/\/ Math Anxiety: Why Hollywood Makes Robots of Alan Turing and Other Geniuses How … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Lunacy, Mathematics, MInd, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Memory, Math, Church and State, Faith, Facts, Stories

EO Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence, part 3

Posted on Monday 1 December 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Third of several posts about Edward O. Wilson’s book THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, which as I described earlier both here on my blog and on Facebook, is a concise summary of this important scientist’s views on the big issues … Continue reading →

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Scientific fidelity vs narrative; anti-gay bigotry and socialism; the ecology of faith; Valerie Tarico on religion; Hans Zimmer and conceptual breakthrough

Posted on Tuesday 18 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s one of several articles in the past week or so about why we should not nitpick the science in Interstellar: Slate: Back Off, Scientists: Don’t be so nitpicky about the technical details of sci-fi movies like Interstellar I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Films, MInd, Music, Psychology, Religion, The Gays | Comments Off on Scientific fidelity vs narrative; anti-gay bigotry and socialism; the ecology of faith; Valerie Tarico on religion; Hans Zimmer and conceptual breakthrough

EO Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence, part 2

Posted on Monday 17 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Second of several posts about Edward O. Wilson’s book THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, which as I described earlier both here on my blog and on Facebook, is a concise summary of this important scientist’s views on the big issues … Continue reading →

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EO Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence, part 1

Posted on Thursday 13 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s the first of several posts about Edward O. Wilson’s book THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, which as I described earlier both here on my blog and on Facebook, is a concise summary of this important scientist’s views on the … Continue reading →

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Fundamentalist Beliefs, the Real World, and Science Fiction

Posted on Thursday 6 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

“Those of us in the U.S. think we’re amazing at everything… mostly because we’re blissfully ignorant about how the rest of the world operates.” Here’s a fun video of a fundamentalist pastor from an Atlanta suburb whose mind is boggled … Continue reading →

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Education and Faith; Reza Aslan and Religious Apologists

Posted on Tuesday 4 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s an article in Psychology Today about Why Education Corrodes Religious Faith. Well, of course it does; it’s all pretty obvious, but the article is a nice, concise summary for those who need it spelled out. (And an antidote, perhaps, … Continue reading →

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Apophenia, Religious Apologists, No True Scotsman

Posted on Tuesday 4 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

I maintain a Word document where I compile links and quotes from online articles I intend to comment on in this blog, and as I post each one, I gray out the text of that section of the Word doc. … Continue reading →

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