Jonny Scaramanga makes some excellent points about debates. He’s talking about his appearance on the BBC’s The Big Question, but it’s the same thing: what makes for drama is to have two sides battle it out, and you get even more dramatic drama if one side is a collection of extremists who are committed to a set of demented views.
It’s a live-action remake of Bambi. Perfect casting, too.
Here is my $5.50 already.
Clearly, I need to do more shopping at IKEA. I have enemies who deserve presents, and since they tend not to be very bright, it’s good that the instructions are so simple and clear.
After that peculiar documentary on atheism that made it seem like we’re all just white men pinin’ for a church, CNN makes partial amends with an article on black atheists by Mandisa Thomas.
Nick Cohen gets it exactly right.
A few weeks ago Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign minister, denounced the subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. As the theocratic kingdom prevents women from travelling, conducting official business or marrying without the permission of male guardians, and as girls can be forced into child marriages where they are effectively raped by old men, she was telling no more than the truth. Wallström went on to condemn the Saudi courts for ordering that Raif Badawi receive ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for setting up a website that championed secularism and free speech. These were ‘mediaeval methods’, she said, and a ‘cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression’. And once again, who can argue with that?
I previously cited that extremely critical evaluation of evolutionary psychology by Jonathan Marks, but what I didn’t realize is that it was one part of a whole series of articles that were mostly favorable reviews of EP. Of course, the pro-EP articles were awful.
But at last, I have an excuse! I’m not a wallflower, I’m a Noble Gas!
CNN has followed up on their documentary about atheists with a set of interviews. The money quote:
The biggest misconception about atheism is that atheists are a just a bunch of angry white men who want to destroy religion and who don’t have high opinions of most religious people. A relative handful of atheists fit that description, and they make a lot of noise, but that’s not representative of atheists.
Here’s a great list of 9 things many Americans just don’t understand — I’ve distilled it down to just the main headings, but you should read the whole thing.
