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This chapter is a work in progress, but I promised to post it today and I think the first few sections are solid. Again, this chapter is very weird to write, because I’m going on at length about things that feel very basic to me, please at least one person read it and tell me whether it’s boring. If you don’t want to read it all at once, I’ll be spinning a few sections off into blog posts.
Looking for examples of Jewish groups taking offense at things Christians have said about Jews.
May 23, 2012 at 10:16 am 
Chris Hallquist The this week’s chapter from the my book beta-test was intended to have a brief discussion of Christian-Jewish relations, but on re-reading what I initially wrote, I began to wonder whether my take was quite accurate, and also got worried about a lack of good examples of what I had in mind. Instead of posting what I initially wrote, I’m going to start off by quoting from the post I did two months ago on Mormon baptism of the dead:
The Big Bad Dawkins Quote
May 23, 2012 at 10:00 am Chris Hallquist It occurred to me that I could spin off small sections from the book I’m writing into blog posts. Giving people 6,000 words to read at once is kind of a burden, so it’s really in my interest to break things down into more digestible pieces. Also, in this particular case, taken from chapter 2, I want to be able to say “the BBQ” in future posts and have people know what I mean. Excerpt is below the fold:
Jason Rosenhouse on philosophical turf guarding
May 22, 2012 at 10:22 am Chris Hallquist Much of the silliness of philosophers is confined to the ivory tower, but Jason Rosenhouse has a very good summary of one of the main ways philosophers manage to be annoying when trying to bring their “philosophical expertise” to public debates:
Moral theory isn’t as helpful as many people think
May 22, 2012 at 10:11 am Chris Hallquist I actually have some nice things to say about moral theory, but I’m saving them for another post because I’ve been kept up late doing other things, and a purely negative post is easier to dash off late at night. Let me begin by quoting a great bit from Eliezer Yudkowsky:
Discussion: what philosophical arguments should everyone know about?
May 21, 2012 at 12:12 pm Chris Hallquist One of my most-read posts of all-time is my post on Judith Jarvis Thompson’s “famous violinist” argument in defense of abortion. It’s somewhat unusual among my blogging in that I have something unambiguously positive to say about a very typical bit of contemporary philosophy (as opposed to, say, heretical x-phi stuff on free will.) I like it when lots of people read something I’ve written, so I’m thinking about trying to write more posts like it, specifically in the sense of posts that explain a bit of philosophy more people should know about. But what would I write about?
Why is South Korea taking evolution out of textbooks?
May 21, 2012 at 11:11 am Chris Hallquist I was initially puzzled when I read from PZ that South Korea is taking evolution out of its textbooks. Sure there are some pretty hardcore Christians here, but on the whole my impression of South Korea has been of a pretty secular country.
Imperial Stormtroopers get a bad rap
May 18, 2012 at 12:18 pm Chris Hallquist Pop quiz: how many fights do Imperial Stormtroopers lose in the first two Star Wars movies (in order of release, meaning A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back)? Going by their reputation, you might think “a lot.” After all, Imperial Stormtroopers are currently the page image for mooks, which is defined as, “the hordes of standard-issue, disposable bad guys whom the hero mows down with impunity… they provide a chance for the characters to show off their flashy fighting skills and can be shot without guilt.”
Abortion is about the right of women to control their bodies
May 18, 2012 at 11:11 am Chris Hallquist This is something I’m posting on Facebook, in part for the benefit of a high school friend, but I’m posting it here so non-Facebookers can see it. To some extent it’s a rehash of this post, but I’m going to see if I can make the points made in that post even clearer.
E.J. Dionne Jr. on why he’s not leaving the Catholic Church
May 17, 2012 at 12:26 pm Chris Hallquist In March, the Freedom From Religion Foundation ran a full page ad urging Catholics to leave their church. Now, liberal columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. has a column up explaining why he’s staying (HT: Balloon Juice). Here’s the key paragraph:
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