Gretchen The Amazing Meeting has announced its list of speakers for this year, its ninth meeting. There are a lot of them, and quite a few– at least ten, from what I can tell– are people who can speak to the topic of how and why people believe weird things. Or rather, why everyone isn’t skeptical … Read more
Journalist Lauri Lebo wrote a book about Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the 2005 creationism case which occurred in her home state of Pennsylvania. Prior to the actual court battle she had been covering the situation locally in newspapers, reporting on what transpired at school board meetings and such. During and after the trial, … Read more
…poorly: The Times responded Wednesday evening to The Cutline: “Neighbors’ comments about the girl, which we reported in the story, seemed to reflect concern about what they saw as a lack of supervision that may have left her at risk,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the paper. “As for residents’ references to the … Read more
Conversation continues about interpretation of Dan Savage’s sexual ethics. Savage himself responds to Lindsay Beyerstein thusly: Terry and I wouldn’t describe ourselves as monogamous-apart-from-an-occassional because we wouldn’t—couldn’t—feel comfortable using the word “monogamous” in reference to ourselves, not even monogamous-with-an-asterisks, because technically we’re, you know, not. But we kindasorta hate the term non-monogamous because when a gay … Read more
Cross-posted from State of Formation. Sue Blackmore is one of the go-to voices in the UK on matters of religious thinking and consciousness. She is, believe it or not, an atheist with a PhD in parapsychology. Originally a firm believer in the paranormal, she reached the conclusion in the course of her study that it … Read more
A horrible crime happened in Cleveland, Texas. A small town just northeast of Houston, it has a population of only 9,000 people, but that apparently includes up to 18 boys and men who were willing to take part in the gang rape of an eleven year old girl. I imagine that the fallout from this … Read more
As president? Well, maybe not…but we could do and have done a lot worse for that, too. Lutheran pastor Benjamin Dueholm wrote an interesting and thorough article on this subject for Washington Monthly. It’s definitely worth a read, though I disagree with some of his analysis. So does Amanda Marcotte, who ripped into the article … Read more
From The Daily Caller: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin clarified remarks posted on Twitter this week in response to a Supreme Court ruling in favor of a church that demonstrates at military funerals, saying she was making a point about a double standard on free speech, not that the group shouldn’t have the right to … Read more
…this is pretty much the definition of it. I’m not sure if I want to write a full-fledged post on this topic or not. As you can see from that timeline it’s a controversy that has been going on since August of last year with frequent twists and turns, and no shortage of different perspectives– … Read more
So Rock Beyond Belief has apparently been canceled. All of that time and effort put into creating a secular concert and expecting the military to honor its agreement to support the show to the same extent that it supported a Billy Graham evangelical event before, and it’s not going to happen. “It’s heartbreaking,” said Sgt. … Read more