Ruth Bader Ginsburg sadly passed away and there seems to be little that the Democrats can do to stop her replacement being installed. This meme points out some potential hypocrisies: Here are a few more for you: This last one is interesting for me as it evokes the need to normalise; let me analogise. A few weeks ago, I was watching a film on Netflix with my partner called The Old Guard. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable action/fantasy movie. It wasn’t until… Read more
September 25, 2020
Mano Singham on The Unnecessary Science
September 25, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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Mano Singham, over at Freethought Blogs, has recently kindly reviewed a book I edited by Gunther Laird, The Unnecessary Science: A Critical Analysis od Natural Law Theory (UK). The book is particularly prevalent now as Natural Law Theory forms the foundation upon which conservative lawyers, lawmakers and justices stake their claims, and we have the whole debacle concerning nominating conservative justices for the Supreme Court: A few weeks ago I received the manuscript of a book THE UNNECESSARY SCIENCE: A critical analysis of natural… Read more
September 25, 2020
Pearced Off! #8 – The Kalam and Free Will as Not Compatible
September 25, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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I am running a series of the old podcast segments from my Pearced Off! section of the Skepticule Podcast (a British skepticism-based podcast now on hiatus) that I used to contribute to. Some of the earlier ones have some quieter audio. Apologies. They run at around ten minutes. Something to keep you company outside of Netflix and the news… Please subscribe to my channel if you can be arsed. One day, I might get to 1000 subscribers when they allow monetisation. Until then,… Read more
September 24, 2020
Zero Sum Game
September 24, 2020 By Bert Bigelow
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Zero sum game: a situation in which one person or group can win something only by causing another person or group to lose it. A few days ago, I was having a discussion with a friend who leans rather heavily toward the political right. He is a union hater, and claimed that unions had used their collective bargaining power to push up wages in the US to the point that businesses had been forced to move their manufacturing facilities overseas… Read more
September 24, 2020
Peaceful Transfer, Courts, Cheating and Lindsey Graham. Sweet Bejesus.
September 24, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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Reporter: Will you commit to making sure that is a peaceful transferral of power after the election? Trump: Well, we’re gonna have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots; and the ballots are a disaster… Reporter: I understand that but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferral of power? Trump: Get rid of the ballots and you will have… a very peaceful… There won’t… Read more
September 23, 2020
Pandemics and Sequels
September 23, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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As many of you will know, I wrote my first fiction book a few years ago – Survival of the Fittest: Metamorphosis (UK) – and I am finally getting round to finish the sequel (Survival of the Fittest: Adaptation). I have been waiting to see how this pandemic pans out to try to write some references into the book about it. Rebecca Bradley, author and blogger over at SIN, has read the manuscript and thinks it’s a great, smooth continuation to… Read more
September 23, 2020
Is Gnosticism a Thing?
September 23, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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Here’s another nice quick Dana Horton guest post. Enjoy: Is Gnosticism a Thing? (4 minute read) What is it? Gnosticism is a collection of belief systems that arose in the 1st and 2nd century among Christian sects. In this context, it is separate from the idea of being agnostic. What’s the main point? For the Gnostics, salvation was not about obeying specific rules and repenting for your sins. Rather, it was about finding a personal and mystical relationship with the… Read more
September 23, 2020
Quote of the Day: Republicans and the Economy
September 23, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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I had a rant about the Republicans earlier and there were some interesting comments on the thread worth dwelling on. Here are a few. These are from (((J_Enigma32))): And they don’t even represent monied interests well, because what the Republicans are doing is utterly unsustainable. Their economic policies, their social policies, and their fiscal policies are all leading to an inevitable cliff, and rather than put on the breaks, they’re shoving more madmen in the engineering cabin to drive the trains… Read more
September 22, 2020
Democrats Ignoring Young Nonreligious Voters
September 22, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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I’ve always been interested in the demographics of the nonreligious (hence my massive fanship of The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies by Zuckerman, Galen and Pasquale). As a result, this FiveThirtyEight article is of particular interest. The main point has been pretty obvious for some time: the nonreligious are far more likely to be left-leaning and Democrat voters (obviously not exclusively) and so, even if the Democrats superficially embraced religion (for the optics), such voters would stick with the Democrats. On the… Read more
September 22, 2020
Republican Lawmakers, with Their Lack of Principle, Disgust Me
September 22, 2020 By Jonathan MS Pearce
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Get ready for a rant. And I’m holding back an awful lot. I can’t help but think that this Ginsburg debacle – indeed, the last four years – has highlighted how far the GOP has sunk and how their politicians fundamentally lack principles. You could look to when Ted Cruz and his family were personally insulted by Trump and how quickly he came to lick his dictator-in-chief’s boots. You can look at the montage of GOP lawmaker’s who explicitly argued… Read more
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