First, I didn’t talk at all yesterday about the statement of motivations in The Marriage Vow that preceded its fourteen provisions, which included two claims that have since been removed: Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in.
Ed Brayton has a very moving (to me) post today about the progressive acceptance of equality in the face of absolutist proclamations that the faith of the majority rejects it. Using an argument from Southern Baptist Al Mohler which appeals entirely to tradition and biblical exegesis as an example, he notes that advancements in equality.
Today’s incidence of pareidolia is a doozy. Or a doo-….no, I’m just not going there. The title for this post was enough. For the record, pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in.
Hemant Mehta looks at the revenge party after Osama bin Laden’s killing in which t-shirts, political cartoons, and newspapers exult and proclaim that bin Laden is burning in Hell, which a CNN poll says a majority of Americans actually believe, and says simply: Osama bin Laden is not in hell. Because hell doesn’t exist. Damn, it feels.
Best to skip this one if you don’t want to be depressed. Reuters reports: Hundreds of girls raped, murdered in Tanzania for black magic AIDS ‘cure’Hundreds of albinos are thought to have been killed for black magic purposes in Tanzania and albino girls are being raped because of a belief they offer a cure for.
Following on the Pope post, there are various theories about whether people might reject evolutionary theory because it contradicts their intuitions. One was described by developmental psychologist Paul Bloom in an article he wrote for Natural History magazine entitled “In Science We Trust.” Bloom, who lays out a theory of intuitive mind/body dualism in his.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew himas an Australopithecine. Apparently in his Easter address last night, the Pope had some unflattering words for evolution: Pope Benedict XVI marked the holiest night of the year for Christians by stressing that humanity isn’t a random product of evolution. Benedict emphasized the Biblical account of creation in his Easter Vigil.
Michael Blume writes concerning the “personification of the universe” model of religion: Religious traditions seem to derive their motivational, cooperative and then reproductive potentials from the belief in superempirical agents – ranging from deceased ancestors to various spirits, angels and demons to gods, bodhisatvas and alien visitors from outer space to God. . . In.
Terry Jones is on trial this morning by a Michigan jury which is going to decide whether or not he can protest at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn without having paid a $100,000 “peace bond.” If that makes you do a double-take and say “Whaa?” I’m right there with you. If it doesn’t,.
Dawud Walid Anti-Islam pastor Terry Jones takes his show to Michigan…or at least attempts to. In a bid to become to Muslims what Fred Phelps has been to gays and the military, Jones announced that he and his church would be protesting at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, the largest mosque in North.