Category Archives: Religion

Item’s from Sunday’s New York Times: Pace of Change; Criticism; Religion in Politics; Creative Children

Posted on Thursday 4 February 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Most interesting, a review, by Paul Krugman, of a book by Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, whose thesis is that the extraordinary growth and change brought about by technology over the past century has pretty … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Fear, Terrorism, Fear, and Religion

Posted on Tuesday 12 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

The New Yorker, January 2, 2016: Thinking Rationally About Terror, by Lawrence M. Krauss How people overestimate the risk of low-probability (but highly-publicized) dangers, like terrorism, and seldom worry about more mundane dangers, like gun violence and auto crashes. As … Continue reading →

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Review: The Outsider Test for Faith

Posted on Tuesday 12 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

John W. Loftus’s THE OUTSIDER TEST FOR FAITH: How to Know Which Religion Is True (2013) is a trade paperback book, one of a number of similar volumes I’ve perused over the past couple years, generally from Prometheus Books or … Continue reading →

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Link and Comment: Terrorism and Republican Fear-Mongering

Posted on Wednesday 6 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne points to an essay by Lawrence Krauss, in The New Yorker: Thinking Rationally About Terror. Krauss’ essay addresses the fairly obvious fact that incidents of ‘terrorism’, despite the publicity they get and panic they trigger, are very rare … Continue reading →

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Link and Comment: The Year in Religion, and Adults

Posted on Wednesday 6 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon, Jeffrey Tayler: Religious delusions are destroying us: “Nothing more than man-made contrivances of domination and submission”. Subtitle: “We managed a year of Charlie Hebdo, Franklin Graham, Ted Cruz, Josh Duggar and more creationism. To sanity in 2016” An unfortunately … Continue reading →

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Review of David Silverman

Posted on Wednesday 6 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

The book is FIGHTING GOD: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World, just published in December 2015, and I’m not linking it with a cover image as I often do with books I review, since I can’t especially approve of … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Politics and Religion

Posted on Monday 21 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Three items by Jeffrey Tayler at Salon recently. First, in what I might call the pot-kettle-black category, Religion is the real problem: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and GOP demonize Muslims, but too afraid to take on the real truth, where … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments from Sunday’s New York Times

Posted on Tuesday 15 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I’m finishing up a book by Chris Mooney that explores motivated reasoning and how we are all subject to seeking out evidence that confirms our pre-existing views, and disputing evidence that challenges those views. And that nevertheless claims that conservatives/Republicans … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Haidt’s THE RIGHTEOUS MIND: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, 3

Posted on Wednesday 9 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

First, an aside that I didn’t mention earlier, in the chapter about how people are more concerned about reputation than actually being virtuous. In the discussion about how you can use ‘reason’ to reach any conclusion (based on whatever you … Continue reading →

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More notes and comments about Haidt’s THE RIGHTEOUS MIND

Posted on Tuesday 8 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I like the way Haidt outlines his thesis in the introduction, provides central metaphors for each of the three main sections, and provides a 1-2 page summary at the end of each of the 12 chapters. (Academic books do this … Continue reading →

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