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
The Real Trump Mystery, and My Explanation
Thomas B. Edsall on The Real Trump Mystery, and how base human nature explains this; Fareed Zakaria on how Trump’s economic ideas would stunt growth and spur inflation; Because Trump doesn’t understand money; Short items about Roseanne Barr accusing Democrats … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Economics, Human Nature, Politics, Psychology, Religion
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Francis Collins on Facts (!)
Francis Collins on how facts don’t care how you feel; Short pieces on Trump and golf; how brain damage is linked to religious fundamentalism; how Carlson and Vance are smart guys who play dumb; about Trump’s Truth Social posts; how … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Psychology, Religion
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Distrust of Science and of Public Schools
Thomas B. Edsall on the roots of MAGA’s distrust of science; Hemant Mehta on evangelicals and public schools. NY Times, guest essay by Thomas B. Edsall, 11 Sep 2024: MAGA vs. Science Is No Contest [Gift Link] I’ve mentioned before … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Education, Religion, Science
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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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