Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Meta
Category Archives: Religion
Plot Armor
Beginning with this unusual topic. Not about Trump per se; more a general principle of story-telling. And faith. OnlySky, Dale McGowan, 6 Sep 2024: For the Trump faithful, it comes down to plot armor, subtitled “It’s no surprise that Trump … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, conservatives, Lunacy, Narrative, Religion
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Friends and Neighbors, Conformity vs. Liberty
How the Walz/Vance debate revealed two different views of America: conformity v liberty; How we depend on friends and neighbors, and Oprah’s DNC speech; How morality evolved, and religion merely captured it; Brief items about crowd sizes and looks; taking … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Culture, Politics, Religion
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Neopatriarchy, Tax Cuts, Conflict Entrepreneurs, and How the Nonreligious Might Save Humanity
Catching up on odds and ends today. The Right’s “neopatricarchy” is nothing but a prioritization of tribal morality — that nothing matters than having more children; Republicans are famous for bribing voters with tax cuts; now Democrats are doing it … Continue reading
Tara Westover: EDUCATED: A MEMOIR
And here’s a third memoir I read recently, inspired by that NYT list — though in this case, the book didn’t place on the final list, though it was nominated by a couple of the 500 contributors who revealed their … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Religion
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Nones, and Genre
Why did the rise of the “nones” begin in the 1990s? Thoughts about how science fiction is, or is not, a “genre”. Here’s an article I stumbled upon today, from 2019 in The Atlantic, by a writer I’ve see a … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Religion, science fiction
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Seculars, Human Nature, Abstraction
Some more abstract, intellectual topics for today. As the rise of ‘nones’ increases, what will society look like in a hundred years? How people are instinctively nice, more often than religions give them credit; An idea from S.I. Hayakawa about … Continue reading
Posted in Morality, Religion, Social Progress
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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 4
More summary of this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3. In these chapters Greene summarizes how imagination, extrapolating from dreams and the perception of patterns, led to the formalization of myths into religions, which may have … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Meaning, Religion
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More About the Weirdos
Why folks in Louisiana are obsessed with placing Bibles in every classroom; The books Utah is banning from all classrooms; How JD Vance’s shifting religious beliefs have aligned to the ancient authorities; And short items. When I was growing up, … Continue reading
Things Change, Necessarily
Seen in passing on Facebook today: Understand science, and you’ll understand religion. (In particular, I’d say, cognitive sciences, and human evolution.) \ Today’s topics: How Republicans accuse Democrats of being anti-family, while voting against programs to help families; How about … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Human Progress, longtermism, Religion
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Tribal Antics, Racism, Misogyny
Thought for the day. It occurs to me that — at the risk of tossing out another simplistic dichotomy — the OT is pure tribal morality, while the NT, parts of it anyway (Jesus, maybe, though not Paul), presents a … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Religion
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