Two topics today. About the James Webb Telescope photos; and about why people feel the world is broken.
I chimed in on Facebook on Monday with a link to this image, as many of my Fb friends were doing, only to put a well-known science fictional title over it: the name of a short story collection by Brian W. Aldiss, first published in 1960.
The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein, 8 July 2022: The Glaring Contradiction of Republicans’ Rhetoric of Freedom, subtitled, “Democratic governors are showing the national party how to challenge the red states’ rollback of rights.”
Republicans say freedoms for me, prohibitions for thee.
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We watched the entire 10-episode run of the latest Star Trek show, “Strange New Worlds,” which finished late last week, and it was OK.
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About a month ago I put together a post in part about how belief in prayer reflects a fundamental inability to understand cause and effect in the real, actual, physical world; that post is here.
I had a current link at hand, what prompted the topic, but I couldn’t find an older link about a more recent and thorough study about so-called “intercessory prayer.” Now I’ve found that link; it’s an article that apparently cycles on and off the homepage of Free Inquiry (https://secularhumanism.org/) as a feature article, and earlier today it cycled back on.
This is worth reviewing closely because it’s an excellent example about how to actually test a religious claim, and about how the faithful will find ways to dismiss the evidence when it conflicts with their beliefs. Again, somehow the evidence of cause and effect (or non effect) that they would apply to other situations doesn’t apply when it comes to their own “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Apparently sincerity trumps evidence and rationality.
Beware cranky old men complaining about kids these days. Surely George F. Will, a renowned (conservative) political commentator, knows better.
Washington Post, George F. Will, 8 July 2022: How millennials became aggressively illiberal, censorious young adults
Here’s a nice essay that observes how the prevelance of spontaneous abortions — miscarriages — doesn’t seem consistent with the theological position of “ensoulment,” the notion that God inserts the just-feritilized embryo with a soul.
Over the past couple evenings we’ve watched the movie version of a musical I had never seen before, in any form: Fiddler on the Roof. I was aware it was a big-hit musical, back in the 1960s or ’70s, in roughly the same era as West Side Story and The Sound of Music. The main thing I knew was that it included a couple three memorable songs, in particular “Sunrise, Sunset,” a moving, even heartbreaking song about parents observing how quickly their children grow up. It’s been on my list of favorite sentimental songs (stub list here) for years. Here’s the wedding scene with the song:
Republican policies have failed the nation — Thom Hartmann explains how. Republican positions have been wrong, wrong, wrong — David Brin explains why. Or have they? The rich are getting richer, and the fundamentalists are getting their way. Perhaps it’s just that Republicans are playing a different game, and are being disingenuous about it. More about this at the end.
The terrorists of 9/11 won by not destroying the country, but by instilling a paranoia in American society that entails those excruciating TSA lines to board airplanes that involve taking off shoes and belts. By millions of us, every day. That has gradually eroded civil trust in the 20 years since, and arguably has contributed to the political divide in this country. Now the gun nuts — er, second amendment absolutists — are doing the same, by undermining the confidence ordinary Americans have to participate in ordinary, traditional civic events. It’s only going to get worse.
Today, links about the threats, to American democracy and the survival of the planet, from conservatives, especially the religious ones.
NYT, Paul Krugman, 4 July 2022: Another Step Toward Climate Apocalypse
