Did you see the above advertisement in today’s USA Today? This quote from an article by Quassim Cassam on conspiracy theory thinking: It is in the nature of many intellectual character traits that you don’t realise you have them, and so aren’t aware of the true extent to which your thinking is influenced by them. The gullible rarely believe they are gullible and the closed-minded don’t believe they are closed-minded. The only hope of overcoming self-ignorance in such cases is... Read more
Fred Clark has a great blog post, pointing out that, in most cases, saying “the Bible says” involves ignoring those places where the Bible says something else different from what it says in the passage you cited. But there seems to be one exception, which the Bible is consistent about: usury, i.e. the charging of interest on loans. Fred writes: It’s interesting, then, that this biblical clarity does not translate into Christian teaching, belief, practice or politics. “The Bible is... Read more
I came across an image on Twitter with the quote from the Doctor Who episode The Robots of Death which I blogged about, and thought I should share it. I’m interested how many readers of this blog agree with or disagree with the quote. Read more
I read recently that the Butler University use of the Bulldogs for the university team name and mascot began when the Butler team – known as the “Christians” (since the school was then still affiliated with the Christian Churches Disciples of Christ) or sometimes the “Blue and White” – played a team from Franklin, the “Baptists.” The heated rivalry led to the creation of a cartoon for the student newspaper on November 21st, 1919, in which a bulldog attacks John the Baptist. Our archive librarian Sally Helton-Childs... Read more
From People In White Coats. Read more
The Doctor Who episode The Robots of Death explores a perennial theme in science fiction: the great potential for robots to make our lives easier and safer, the potential for them to do us great harm if they are misused, and the fear that any safeguards we put in place to avoid the second possibility may not be enough. While many explorations of robots focus on artificial intelligence, in this episode, most of the robots have not been made so as to... Read more
This infographic addresses several widespread misconceptions about evolution in a clear and yet detailed manner, and so I thought it was worth sharing here. Read more
If any readers are in the vicinity of Ann Arbor, Michigan, I’ll be speaking at the University of Michigan tomorrow evening on the subject of the Mandaeans. Here’s the blurb from the University of Michigan website: 2015 David Noel Freedman Lecture Gnostic Survivors: the Mandeans in their relations with Judaism, Christianity and Islam The 20th and 21st centuries witnessed a revival of interest in the approach to religion known as Gnosticism, as well as major textual finds such as the... Read more
I think this applies beyond the realm of the natural sciences. What do others think? Read more
The Doctor Who episode The Deadly Assassin offered another glimpse of the Doctor’s home planet, Gallifrey, and a return for the Master after the death of the actor, Roger Delgado, who had played him. The Master appears as a degenerating figure, at the end of his final regeneration. And the Matrix, a database of history and time lord consciousnesses, is introduced, in ways that will be echoed and repeated in the later sequence of episodes The Trial of a Time... Read more
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