I watched a mini-drama unfold on a thread that was linked to my Deepak Chopra post a couple weeks ago. Some of the massage professionals on the site did not take kindly to the idea of skeptics telling people that they were wrong.The ‘arrogance’ card was pulled out (although I think telling people you have …
Monthly Archive: June 2010
Jun 19 2010
What you missed this week: June 14th – 18th
Well don’t you feel foolish? Look at what you missed this week: The ghost of Bertrand Russell and his flying teapot; Race and politics in South Africa in the face of the World Cup; A less-than-politically-correct argument against hate speech laws; Do Canadians have a national culture? I’m not sure; and The single greatest poem …
Jun 18 2010
Racism is alive and well in Canada
I want to re-iterate something off the top of this post: I love my country. I love how we have managed to find a way to safeguard individual freedoms without sacrificing our sense of mutual custodianship to each other. I love the fact that we pride ourselves on separating religion from politics, and are, for …
Jun 18 2010
Movie Friday: STORM (Tim Minchin)
I’m not going to lie, this might be one of the greatest things ever written. I’ve had too many first dates with the Storms of the world, especially since moving to Vancouver where critical thinking skills seem to be out of fashion. It’s perfectly reasonable to say that we don’t know how to explain everything …
Jun 17 2010
Do Canadians have a common culture?
Back in April, I talked about Canada’s unique position when it comes to race and identity. Specifically, I talked about the fact that Canada doesn’t have a unified national identity, and that this allowed us to absorb culture from all over the world in a way that other countries can’t. It appears that about half …
Jun 16 2010
I take an unpopular stance on Holocaust denial
I know that some of my readers are Jewish. I hope that I have established my bona fides in your eyes that I am not an anti-Semite, nor will I rush to defend Jews when they are wrong. I see Judaism and Jewish people in the same way I see all religions and religious people …
Jun 15 2010
Fuck you too, Somalia
No sooner do I write a summary of my warm, fuzzy feelings about the World Cup, when I read that Islamic militants in Somalia are executing people for watching the matches on TV. Of course it’s couched in religious justification (it always is). So while the rest of the world is trying to come together …
Jun 15 2010
The World Cup – South Africa struggles to modernize
I’m not a soccer fan. I’m not a sports fan in general, but I’d much rather watch hockey or basketball than soccer. When the Olympics came to Vancouver, I didn’t pay much attention except to the overall medal count. There is one thing about sport that I think is absolutely fantastic though – it’s the …
Jun 14 2010
Do you believe in flying teapots?
I grow very tired of hearing people tell me that atheism is the same as religion. “I believe there is a God, and you believe there isn’t. We both BELIEVE something – it’s the same!” This is the problem when one makes assertions based on “common sense” (a.k.a. not thinking before you speak), and is …
Jun 12 2010
What you missed this week: June 7th – 11th
This was a big week here at the Manifesto: I talked about the virtue of keeping your self-worth separate from your ideas (which for some reason became a mini internet sensation, with more than 5000 hits this week alone); I updated you on Pakistan’s Youtube and Facebook ban; You got to watch footage from a …
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