Richard Holmes’ 2009 tome is aptly titled. It’s a wonder, and it takes an age to read it. Right. I wanted to get that out of the way, as the fact of its lengthiness weighs on me as I consider penning a reaction to its substance. It feels really long. But, as with many efforts, …
Tag Archive: Atheism
Jan 29 2012
My Treatise on Atheists in Politics is Now a Kindle Book
I know what you want. You want a heavily footnoted, yet deliciously readable academic tract on the plight of American atheists in the contemporary political environment. But you don’t want it to be too long — 50 pages or so will be fine, thank you — and you don’t want it to be so tied to …
Dec 26 2011
Constructive versus Destructive Atheist Activism
Chris Stedman gives voice to a concern I’ve had of late (and unfortunately does so in the Huffington Post, but we’ll let that go): I maintain significant disagreement with many religious beliefs, but I do not wish to be associated with narrow-minded, dehumanizing generalizations about religious people. I am disappointed that such positions represent atheist …
Nov 20 2011
My Atheism Will Not Save the World, Ctd.
Friend-of-the-blog Marty Pribble picks up on my lamentations about the state of atheist/skeptic activism, and explains my point about there being a deeper core of crisis than religion alone better than I did: I feel we are lacking focus. The problems of the world are not caused by religion alone, rather abuse of religious privilege, …
Nov 19 2011
My Atheism Will Not Save the World
After working professionally in the atheist movement, something about my passion for the cause dwindled. This happens a lot to me — I take on a given subject as my profession, and I subsequently grow disillusioned in said subject. Something about a thing becoming one’s job can spoil it. But after putting aside theatre a …
Sep 05 2011
Save Science by Not Talking about Science, Ctd.
Side note: My dad actually bought me this shirt. I love it, and my wife hates it when I wear it. She just thinks it makes me look stupid. I don’t think she cares about the rabbit. John Timmer at Ars Technica places a plague o’ both your houses when it comes to the convenient …
Aug 30 2011
Save Science By Not Talking about Science
”At last! I have discovered the formula for making the uneducated feel even MORE inadequate!” I almost wasn’t going to read the recent Paul Krugman column on the proud anti-science stance of mainstream Republican thought. You know, “this also just in: Fire is hot.” But it got so much attention in my social media circles, that I …
Jul 20 2011
The WTC Cross: Like it or Not, It’s a Piece of History
Among the many government-funded museums of New York, Washington, and other cities across the country, there are historical artifacts and pieces of art that are significant to their creators and to their later admirers for their religious meaning. From ancient Egyptian idols and glyphs, to Renaissance paintings of Christ, from the religious trinkets of concentration camp victims in the Holocaust Museum, to Bibles owned by …
Mar 19 2011
Bell, Dinged
Pastor Rob Bell has my attention. From what I’ve gathered of the various bits of media that have sprung up in recent weeks about him, he’s a relatively hip, relatively liberal evangelical who is trying to open up Christianity to folks who find its more dogmatic and arcane aspects intimidating. He is repackaging Christianity — …
Feb 09 2011
The Food of Art
On last week’s Thinking Unenslaved podcast, we considered raising for discussion the topic of religion in the arts, and what might become of the arts if religion were not the force it is in our society and culture. We wound up not getting around to it, though I expect we probably will. Regardless, I had written up …
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