On Value-Neutral Bravery

August 6, 2012 By 104 Comments
green-day-heart-grenade

Back before I went off to awesome, wacky summer camp (a few more things to come on that, by the way), I was writing a series of posts on martyrdom, pacifism, drone strikes and other problems of offering resistance.   And it turns out, looking over some of the posts I missed, I wasn't the only Patheos blogger wondering whether you can praise courage regardless of what exactly the person you're admiring is steeling herself to do. I was talking about drone strikes and David French is talking … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Morality in Practice, Uncategorized Tagged With: , 104 Comments

And Speaking of Sample Size Problems…

June 26, 2012 By 104 Comments
family sample size

Remember that study contrasting outcomes for children of gay parents with children in other kinds of families?  We discussed a couple methodological concerns here already, but I want to give them credit where it's due.  The New Family Structures Survey put together a very nice interactive visualization for their data.  And, even more credit, their sample sizes and demographic breakdowns are available right on the first page of the visualization. People have complained about how few … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage Tagged With: , , 104 Comments

A little about the queer stuff

June 22, 2012 By 442 Comments

I had some major qualms about talking to a writer for the Blaze, but I remembered the byline from a pretty good interview with Todd Stiefel (a major atheist philanthopist), and I liked the questions that Billy Hallowell sent over. Now seems like a pretty good time to mention that talking to someone doesn't mean I'm endorsing them.  I generally find it easier to thrash out and clarify my ideas when I've got an interlocutor to play off of, so I've done some chatting with people who seem like … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conversion, Parsing Catholicism, Possibly Heretical Tagged With: , 442 Comments