”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 …
Tag Archive: religion
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 …
Dec 20 2010
DADT and the Religious Right’s Clout
Jonathan Chait dissects the breach in Republican resistance to gay rights in the wake of the coming repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and reaches an astounding side conclusion, emphasis mine: The progress of gay rights in the United States over the last generation has been intoxicatingly rapid. It’s happening so fast that opponents, rather than fomenting …
Nov 18 2010
Let’s Get More Humans
Jen McCreight has a very smart take on the issue of a lack of ethnic diversity among we seculars. The biggest problem in her mind is the denial that a problem exists by many within the atheistic ranks. Many dismiss it as a simple fact of the matter, and that to highlight minorities at things like conferences …
Jan 07 2010
Armstrong’s “The Case for God”: A Case Not Made
Few religious thinkers have eased the consciences of spiritual liberals, anti-fundamentalist religious moderates, and functional nonbelievers unwilling to stake any affirmatively atheistic ground than Karen Armstrong. For years she has been making the assertion that her scholarship proves that the “great” monotheisms ought not be associated with the fear, xenophobia, irrational faith in the absurd, …
Oct 25 2009
Lisa Miller Exorcises Her New Atheist Demons
Lisa Miller of Newsweek, it seems, has had it with us nonbelievers. In her latest column, she seems to be indulging is some form of guilt-laden catharsis, awash in shame for having devoted too much precious ink to the New Atheists. For five years, since the publication of Sam Harris’s The End of Faith … three charismatic …
Sep 19 2009
Parade of the Fanatical Ignoramuses
All photos in this post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/progressohio/ / CC BY 2.0 It is almost becoming a ritual in our house these days. At the end of a long day at work, the wife and I turn on MSNBC and watch, stunned, as Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart put on the parade of angry right wing lunatics. We …
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