Recent Blog Posts
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Sue Blackmore decides that religions are not, in fact, viruses of the mind
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…
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How not to represent rape: a report on a Texas travesty
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…
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Dan Savage as sexual ethicist
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…
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Palin clarifies– that she still doesn’t understand freedom of speech
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…
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Speaking of what makes people laugh becoming a moral issue…
…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–…
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Should we be surprised?
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.…