Monthly Archives: June 2014

Primitive Values, Mature Ethics, and the Failure of Religious Texts

A point that bears repeating: there is nothing in the Bible that couldn’t have been written by ordinary people On the point of the previous post: it has been frequently observed that the Bible contains nothing that could not have … Continue reading

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Another Ten Commandments – Actually, Two

Ten Commandments That Would Have Changed the World Who knew? Valerie Tarico points out, in this post, that there is a second set of Ten Commandments a bit later in Exodus following the ones from Exodus 20 most often cited. … Continue reading

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Ann Druyan on Cosmos

Salon’s film critic Andrew O’Hehir interviews the actual creator and author of the recent Cosmos TV series– not Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was just the on-screen host, but Carl Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan. “Why is God telling me to stop … Continue reading

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Science Fiction and the perception of a greater truth

Here’s a passage from an early 1960s science fiction story, a story later incorporated into a novel, about a young man who works as a yardboy in a small town in a pre-industrial society near the “Katskil border”. One morning … Continue reading

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Links, Quotes, Comments: 20 June

A post today by Amanda Marcotte, on both Salon and Alternet– Salon: Reason vs. the right: Have conservatives abandoned science and rationality? Alternet: Have Conservatives Abandoned Rationality, Skepticism and Truth? The possibility that rationality itself has become a partisan issue … Continue reading

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Mahler 6

When I was 18 or 19, still living at home while commuting to college at UCLA, I had a tiny clock radio in my bedroom, which was my only source of music aside from the Tijuana Brass LPs playing in … Continue reading

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Ann Druyan on Cosmos

Salon: Interview by film critic Andrew O’Hehir of Comos writer and executive producer Ann Druyan. Neil deGrasse Tyson was the visible host, but he didn’t write the show; Druyan, the widow of Carl Sagan, did. You’ve been pretty outspoken over … Continue reading

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Links and Quotes, mid-June

Preoccupied with writing up book notes this past week (and other things), I have a bunch of linked articles to note without making any of them separate posts. From last Monday, two interesting op-eds in the New York Times. Charles … Continue reading

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Notes on Adam Lee

A final set of book notes for the moment, this one the fourth of several books about atheism, humanism, and why people believe what they do (which last item is my central concern). Adam Lee is a blogger who writes … Continue reading

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Notes on Peter Boghossian

Peter Boghossian’s book has an aggressive title, A Manual for Creating Atheists, though it is in no way as ‘angry’ as Greta Christina’s book, discussed last time. Boghossian is a faculty member in Portland State University’s philosophy department, and his … Continue reading

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