September 2007 Archives

God Is Not...Well, He's Just Not by Susan Jacoby

All belief in the supernatural; ie., that which contradicts the laws of nature, is irrational by definition. But there are many religious denominations that are no longer violent, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children. You know which ones they are. These are all, as Sam Harris has pointed out, religions that have allowed themselves to be modified by secular knowledge. But I respectfully disagree with Harris, Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, who have all suggested that "moderate" religion is even more dangerous than fundamentalist religion because moderate religion is the stalking horse for the worst forms of religious fanaticism.

The power of faith against the bullet - Telegraph

These monks staring down the guns - presents a problem for a militant secularist in the Dawkins or Hitchens mould. I don't mean that it has any bearing on the argument about whether there is or is not a God. Buddhist monks don't worship anything resembling the God on whom the Dawkins guns are trained in any case; and the fact that they stare down the guns doesn't make a difference to whether or not what they believe is true.

But stare down those guns they do - and their behaviour does have a strong bearing on the question of whether religious belief "poisons everything", as Hitchens puts it. I'd submit, as an irreligious bystander, that one of the things that helps those monks hold the line is faith. The form that their resistance takes is shaped by that faith - and it is uniquely powerful.

Are Sacred Texts Sacred? the Challenge for Atheists -- The Chronicle Review

"Those who call the King James Version of the Bible the unerring word of God," writes reviewer Doug Brown, "have a slight problem. The New Testament of the KJV (as the King James Version is usually referred) was translated into English from a version of the Greek New Testament that had been collected from 12th-century copies by Erasmus. Where Erasmus couldn't find Greek manuscripts, he translated to Greek from the Latin Vulgate (which itself had been translated from Greek back in the fourth century). Here the problem splits into two problems. First, Jesus spoke Aramaic -- his actual words, never recorded, were only rendered in Greek in the original gospels. Thus, the KJV consists of Jesus's words twice refracted through the prism of translation. Second, Erasmus's Greek New Testament was based on handwritten copies of copies of copies of copies, etc., going back over a millennium, and today is considered one of the poorer Greek New Testaments."

Religion as a Black Market for Irrationality by Sam Harris

Reason is a compulsion, not a choice. Just as one cannot intentionally startle oneself, one cannot knowingly believe a proposition on bad evidence. If you doubt this, imagine hearing the following account of a failed New Year's resolution...

Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life's Origin

...But now, Dr. Dawkins and other scientists who agreed to be interviewed say they are surprised -- and in some cases, angered -- to find themselves not in "Crossroads" but in a film with a new name and one that makes the case for intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism.

The Malleus Maleficarum

An unabridged online republication of the 1928 edition. Introduction to the 1948 edition is also included.
Translation, notes, and two introductions by Montague Summers. A Bull of Innocent VIII.

The Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer), first published in 1486, is arguably one of the most infamous
books ever written, due primarily to its position and regard during the Middle Ages. It served as a guidebook for
Inquisitors during the Inquisition, and was designed to aid them in the identification, prosecution, and dispatching of Witches.

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side' - Times Online

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its "spiritual capital". But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills...

"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

"The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."

A PRACTITIONER'S GUIDE TO HEDONISM | More Intelligent Life

That is why the real Epicurus--in contrast to the crude sybarite invented by his detractors--denounced the rapidly rotting fruits of dissipation and excess. The constant pursuit of intense pleasures will in fact backfire, according to Epicurus, because it leads to the psychological hell of enslavement to unsatisfiable appetites. The would-be hedonist must take care to ensure that the pain of overreaching desire does not ruin his peace of mind and thereby defeat his original aim of securing a balance of pleasure over pain.

The best sort of life, says Epicurus, is one that is free from pain in the body and from disturbance in the mind. That sounds a rather negative credo for a 21st-century devotee of the good life. Were he writing self-help books today, Epicurus would probably acknowledge that you can aim a little higher than that. He might point out in his own defence that health and peace are essential preconditions of happiness, and are easy to belittle if you are lucky enough to have them. But perhaps his most useful observation for the discerning hedonists of today, when such an intoxicating variety of gratifications are dangled before them, is a reminder of caveat emptor: "No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves."

Treasures in full: Shakespeare's plays, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Gutenberg's Bible -- The British Library

Examine every page of rare historic works; compare different editions side-by-side; choose standard or magnified view; read supporting material by our curators and other experts.

Some of the works you can access: Shakespeare in Quarto, Caxton's Chaucer, The Gutenberg Bible, The Magna Carta, Renaissance Festival Books, Malory's Arthurian manuscript.

Two sites that will help with bibliographies and citations. Use with care.

• OttoBib:Make a bibliography. It's free, easy and OttoMatic.
• BibMe! The fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It's the quickest way to build a works cited page. And it's free.

Colleges ignore life's biggest questions, and we all pay the price. -- The Boston Globe

In the past few weeks, tens of thousands of young men and women have begun their college careers. They have worked hard to get there. A letter of admission to one of the country's selective colleges or universities has become the most sought-after prize in America.The students who have won this prize are about to enter an academic environment richer than any they have known. They will find courses devoted to every question under the sun. But there is one question for which most of them will search their catalogs in vain: The question of the meaning of life, of what one should care about and why, of what living is for.

Is 'Do Unto Others' Written Into Our Genes? By NICHOLAS WADE The New York Times

Many people will say it is morally acceptable to pull a switch that diverts a train, killing just one person instead of the five on the other track. But if asked to save the same five lives by throwing a person in the train's path, people will say the action is wrong. This may be evidence for an ancient subconscious morality that deters causing direct physical harm to someone else. An equally strong moral sanction has not yet evolved for harming someone indirectly.

The World's Greatest Spirit Medium

No matter how often the confidence scammers are exposed, those who believe will happily continue to pay cold hard cash to be deceived. The believers are not victims of the miracle workers: they are willing, eager, happy participants in their own betrayal (usually in the form of cash money, real estate, jewels, and expensive works of art). That they can believe that which cannot be believed is a mark of how well so-called "psychics," palmists, spoon benders., etc., know the business of deception. The fact that not even one miracle worker has ever demonstrated, in properly controled conditions, even one "psychic" or "paranormal" ability or phenomena is lost upon true believers--- they just do not care. They would rather believe a lie.

Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?

Many explanations have been offered to make sense of the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of medical wisdom -- what we are advised with confidence one year is reversed the next -- but the simplest one is that it is the natural rhythm of science. An observation leads to a hypothesis. The hypothesis (last year's advice) is tested, and it fails this year's test, which is always the most likely outcome in any scientific endeavor. There are, after all, an infinite number of wrong hypotheses for every right one, and so the odds are always against any particular hypothesis being true, no matter how obvious or vitally important it might seem.

The Skeptic's Dictionary

The Skeptic's Dictionary provides definitions, arguments, and essays on subjects supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. I use the term "occult" to refer to any and all of these subjects. The reader is forewarned that The Skeptic's Dictionary does not try to present a balanced account of occult subjects. If anything, this book is a Davidian counterbalance to the Goliath of occult literature. I hope that an occasional missile hits its mark. Unlike David, however, I have little faith, and do not believe Goliath can be slain. Skeptics can give him a few bumps and bruises, but our words will never be lethal. Goliath cannot be taken down by evidence and arguments. However, many of the spectators may be swayed by our performance and recognize Goliath for what he often is: a false messiah. It is especially for the younger spectators that this book is written. I hope to expose Goliath's weaknesses so that the reader will question his strength and doubt his promises.

Argument Mapping Tutorials

If you look closely at all the reasons and objections in Tutorial 1, you'll see that each one contains a claim. A claim which is inside or part of a reason or an objection is known as a premise.
This reason contains a claim. The claim is a premise.

Language is a Virus: Cure writer's block: inspiration - creative writing games - brainstorming toys - poetry generator - character name generator

Greek Philosophy -- The Big View by Thomas Knierim

Astonishing advances in art, science and politics were made in the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea about 2,500 years ago. Greek philosophers were among the first in the West to explore nature in a rational way and to make educated guesses about the creation of the world and the universe. This is why Greece is often referred to as the birthplace of Western culture.

Some of the ancient philosopher's speculations have successfully anticipated findings of 20th century science. The concept of atoms, for example, was first formulated by Leucippus and Democritus around 400 BC. Greek thought and values have been extremely influential throughout centuries and lasted until the present day.

The ancient Greeks viewed the world in a way that one would today perhaps describe as "holistic". Science, philosophy, art and politics were interwoven and combined into one worldview. Moreover, those who look carefully will find subtle, but intelligible parallels between early Greek philosophy and Eastern thought. The Heraclitean fire resembles Buddhist impermanence, while the Greek Logos resembles the way of the Tao, just to name two examples. More detailed portraits of Greek ideas and their contenders can be found on the following pages; so read on and find out more about them.

A very well designed site by Thomas Knierim offers historical perspectives on the mind from ancient Greece to today along with a look at neuroscience and the question of freewill.

The Mind and Consciousness -- The Big View What is mind? What is consciousness? There seems to be no single answer that explains the phenomenon of mind. The contemporary views of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and cybernetics all come up with different interpretations of mind and consciousness.

It is a bit ironic that something we claim to possess is so hard to explain. Obviously mind cannot be an object of itself. Or can it? If we should one day understand the chemical and electrical processes in the brain completely, would this explain mind? Would this understanding account for all faculties including intelligence, consciousness, emotion, and volition?

Welcome to the Encyclopedia Mythica

Please enter the award-winning internet encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and religion. Here you will find everything from A-gskw to Zveda Vechanyaya, with plenty in between.

How to Write Faster, Better, and Easier

If you are a writer, you've probably wished that you could write faster, better, and easier. I have too. I've been writing for many years now and I've found some tricks that help. They just may help you too! Everyone has their own system, but sometimes learning about another person's system can flip a switch that enables you to improve your writing.

The Godless Freshman -- Council for Secular Humanism

According to a survey by the Higher Education Research Institute, students entering college are staying away from religion in record numbers. Nineteen percent have no religious preference, and more than 23 percent have not attended a religious service in the last year--a new high in the thirty-nine-year history of the survey.

Is There Anything Good About Men? By Roy F. Baumeister -- Denisdutton.com

You're probably thinking that a talk called "Is there anything good about men" will be a short talk! Recent writings have not had much good to say about men. Titles like Men Are Not Cost Effective speak for themselves. Maureen Dowd's book was called Are Men Necessary? and although she never gave an explicit answer, anyone reading the book knows her answer was no. Louann Brizendine's book, The Female Brain, introduces itself by saying, "Men, get ready to experience brain envy." Imagine a book advertising itself by saying that women will soon be envying the superior male brain!

Nor are these isolated examples. Alice Eagly's research has compiled mountains of data on the stereotypes people have about men and women, which the researchers summarized as "The WAW effect." WAW stands for "Women Are Wonderful." Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men. Almost everybody likes women better than men. I certainly do.

Mom's Genes or Dad's? Map Can Tell --Washington Post By Rick Weiss

Scientists have for the first time determined the order of virtually every letter of DNA code in an individual, offering an unprecedented readout of the separate genetic contributions made by that person's mother and father.

By providing a detailed look at maternal and paternal DNA strands, rather than the blended composite that was yielded by the 2001 Human Genome Project, the work offers the clearest snapshot yet of just how different those two contributions can be. Assuming the newly decoded sequence is typical, as scientists presume it is, there are five times as many differences between individuals' DNA as was previously thought.

An Interview With Peter Singer: Utilitarianism- ABC Radio Australia

Peter Singer: Utilitarianism, in the broadest terms, is the ethical view that whether an action is right or wrong depends on its consequences. More specifically, and in a sense in which John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham held it, it's the view that the consequences we should be looking at are the consequences in respect of pleasure and pain, or happiness and misery. So on that version of utilitarianism, an act is right if it will produce better consequences in terms of making people happier on the whole than any alternative action that you might have done.

The Chinese government has just introduced new regulations that aim to prevent exiled Tibetans from selecting the next Dalai Lama. (The current Dalai Lama is 72.) Here's a fascinating excerpt from the BBC's report on the news:

[Thubten Samphel, spokesman for the Tibetan government in exile] says choosing the child who is a reincarnation of an eminent monk can only be done by an organisation with spiritual authority, and that does not include China's Communist government.

Also, the spokesman, based in Dharamsala, India, says that the Dalai Lama has already said he will be born outside Tibet if he is not allowed to return there during his lifetime.

Are Health, Wealth and Happiness Linked Worldwide?
By Melissa Lafsky

Levitt and Dubner have blogged quite a bit about the growing literature on happiness studies. Meanwhile, the media has been abuzz recently over the relationship (or possible lack thereof) between happiness and wealth.

Enter Angus Deaton, a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton. Deaton has a published new paper, "Income, Aging, Health and Wellbeing Around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," that analyzes the results of a 2006 poll in which participants from 132 countries were asked identical questions on topics including standard of living, personal health, and their country's healthcare system.

Bruce Eisner's Writings: Why We Get High

Almost all of you have gotten "high." You might call it "getting stoned" or "tripping" or "having a session" or "going on vision quest" or "partying" but the urge to switch channels and move to another and less usual state of consciousness is as old as our species itself. Actually the quest for intoxication is even older!

The Online Books Page -- University of Pennsylvania.

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