Quote of the Day, By Anthropology Professor David Eller
"Religion is not what you believe. It's what you do."
Depending on the nature and strength of an individual’s pre-existing beliefs, willful ignorance can manifest itself in different ways. The practice can entail completely disregarding established facts, evidence and/or reasonable opinions if they fail to meet one’s expectations. Often excuses will be made, stating that the source is unreliable, that the experiment was flawed or the opinion is too biased…In other…more extreme cases, willful ignorance can involve outright refusal to read, hear or study, in any way, anything that does not conform to the person’s worldview. Rational Wiki.
Mike Pence, Governor of Indiana |
Labels: "Avalos"
Feather has seen wars and heard rumors of wars, and it vexes him to see religion causing more of the same...His goal is much like that of the ancient gadfly Diogenes who carried around a lit lamp in the daytime, looking for an honest man. Feather is looking to get people to start being honest with themselves about what they believe. To this end, he has put his career's worth of expertise in media, marketing, and communication to work, producing a series of mini-essays published as ads in various magazines and newspapers...Feather's gift as well as his technique is to set forth the issues in a manner that is short, sweet, and right to the point. One might even say, right to the jugular.In this book you'll find a lot of ads that he placed in the Free Inquiry magazine and in select newspapers around the States. Feather has also created the best Robert G. Ingersoll site online, from which he chose some of his material to reproduce in this book. I like having them in print, in one book! This is a good work filled with great essays and ads! I have it placed on a shelf next to my own books. I liked reading his personal story, and I liked the responses to his many ads reproduced in the book. Bravo! He is a man of great passion and knowledge. Keep it up!
Chemists report today that a pair of simple compounds, which would have been abundant on early Earth, can give rise to a network of simple reactions that produce the three major classes of biomolecules—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—needed for the earliest form of life to get its start. Although the new work does not prove that this is how life started, it may eventually help explain one of the deepest mysteries in modern science. LINK.I can hear God's defenders now. Rather than being excited about this development they will think first of poking holes in it before actually reading what researchers have found. If you seek first of all to poke holes in this research you're not really interested in the truth. This should be an indicator your brain is lying to you.
Where the Bible is proving to be an embarrassment. |
[Insert Religion] Epistemology shows that [Insert Believers] can be rational in having a "full-blooded [Insert Religion] belief" in the "the great truths of the [Insert Text]" ... because ... we [Insert Believers] have a sensus divinitatis within us, and a [Insert Religion] spirit guide who guides us to know "the great truths of the [Insert Text]."But under this schema, there won't be just one "epistemology," like there's one "chemistry," or one "astronomy." We'll end up with a new "epistemology" for each shared delusion. So, then, that would beg the question, why doesn't each religion need it's own chemistry or astronomy too? By the rubrik that there is only one periodic table, and that we all gaze up at the same sky, likewise, as members of the same species we share essentially the same sensory and processing aparatus, so there can only be one epistemology, christian claims of a specifically christian "sixth sense" notwithstanding. Plantinga is basically saying, "You can't expect me to live in your oppressive reality, man." Is this supposed to be "rational"? Problem is, Plantinga needs another "warrant for rationality" for this. And then it's turtles all the way down
Labels: Reformed Epistemology