Category Archives: Religion

Sundry Links and Comments

Posted on Thursday 22 October 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

» A Publishers Weekly review of a book about expanding human perception: We Have the Technology: How Biohackers, Foodies, Physicians, and Scientists Are Transforming Human Perception, One Sense at a Time, Kara Platoni, Author This is a superb account of … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments from Sunday’s New York Times

Posted on Monday 19 October 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Front page article: Indian Writers Return Awards to Protest Government Silence on Violence File this under Conservative [religious] Resistance: …growing activism from conservative Hindu nationalists who seek to suppress forms of expression they view as offensive to their religion. They … Continue reading →

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The Atlantic on trigger warnings; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the war on reason

Posted on Tuesday 29 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I mentioned a while back the cover story on The Atlantic magazine’s September issue, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. (Haidt is the author of the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Morality, Provisional Conclusions, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on The Atlantic on trigger warnings; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the war on reason

Politics: Religion vs. Rationality

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Jeffrey Tayler’s latest weekly essay at Salon, this past Sunday, can be keyed to my earlier posts about Ben Carson. Make them shut up about God: The right-wing’s religious delusions are killing us — and them. It focuses on the … Continue reading →

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Salman Rushdie, Two Quotes

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Yesterday’s (print) New York Times Book Review, the Inside the List commentary, discussing Salman Rushdie’s new novel. (Paul Di Filippo’s review, posted last Friday, was seen by Rushdie himself, who tweeted it to his 1M+ followers — you can see … Continue reading →

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Ben Carson follow-up

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I wrapped up my previous post about Ben Carson a bit too hastily, because I do have a fairly solid provisional conclusion about why some people don’t “believe” in science and ascribe instead to faith or various subjectively attractive supernatural … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Religion and Science

Posted on Tuesday 8 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

The latest essay by Jeffrey Tayler at Salon, Bill O’Reilly’s nonsense “nihilism”: Now the Fox News host is even lying about God, addresses common misperceptions not just about the abstruse philosophical concept of nihilism, but about the general perception that … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Religion and Education; Religions around the world; deGrasse Tyson on the history of the universe

Posted on Tuesday 1 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

ABC News: latest example of how religious groups reject education, because, of course: NYC to Probe Secular Education at Jewish Schools. There was no science, no geography and no math past multiplication at the ultra-Orthodox Jewish school Chaim Weber attended. … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Hand-Picked Truths and Moral Progress

Posted on Wednesday 26 August 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

First, taking the high road, an op-ed by NYT science writer George Johnson, in yesterday’s NYT Science section: The Widening World of Hand-Picked Truths. (The title in print was “The Gradual Extinction of Accepted Truths”.) This speaks to the increasing … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: David Barton; Jeffrey Tayler

Posted on Tuesday 25 August 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon calls out phony baloney historian David Barton: Meet the Tea Party’s evangelical quack: David Barton is Glenn Beck’s favorite “historian” The larger issue here, of course, is about *narrative*: about how people need to adjust and retell history in … Continue reading →

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