While I have been searching for a topic that heralds the return of spring, or at least something interesting on the science front, current events present their own topics that require broader examination. Though numerous pundits and bloggers are offering their own take on things, I would feel remiss if I sat back and ignored them myself.
The violence in Afghanistan over the burning of a qur’an
Mike Booth has almost got it pinned down:
I was about to add that he missed the part where you post updates to your “Wall” about things you should have found too boring to pay any attention to yourself, but think must become more interesting when shared. Then I asked, “And how is a blog post different from a status update?” and trashed the whole idea.
I can has virile now?
Some time back I talked about the power of tradition, and why it even has this power. Now, as I approach a topic that’s been stewing in my head for a while, I recognize that this same power is one of the things that seems to be working directly against our understanding and use of a simple subject, so much so that scientific and philosophical debate are actually taking place.
That subject is
I know I just did a comic, but this one was in progress beforehand. Regardless, I think Randall Munroe at xkcd understands:
I’m not much of a fan of philosophy, for several reasons, not the least of which that it can devote considerable time and effort into suppositions or posits that have little bearing on anything at all.
Plato’s Cave refers to a philosophical concept of how nature
Up until this point, this blog has been largely a singular effort, all posts but one guest book review being written by yours truly (what the hell does that even mean? I can barely call myself “mine truly.”) But now it appears this may be changing, because I’ve invited a few
I’m sorry, I’ve been doing a string of religious posts recently, and it’s because every time I turn around something else stirs some thoughts that I want to pass along. I’m trying to space them out with items of other interest, but because I know not everyone here necessarily wants to see me pick on religion all the time, I will break the post up between the teaser and the
Scenes From A Multiverse shows how parallelism works:
Of course, the deity in an alternate universe like Aetherea IV might actually have a history of answering prayer, in which case such advice might be worth something. But in this one, even if anyone really believes in their deity, are they fulfilling their requirements for good works by chanting? I’m just wondering.
Yeah, I’m sure
Two quick notes here. The first: I added a new standing page at top, “Ask An Atheist,” dedicated to fielding any questions anyone wants to throw specifically at an atheist. Credit to Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist for the idea. I’m game to just about anything – fire away!
Second, I noticed that my spam filter had improperly tagged a comment, and I’m not sure how often
While I mentioned this before, people might still be surprised to know how often I turn the autofocus off when shooting pics. There are a couple of reasons for that. Mostly, it’s when I’m trying something like catching birds in midair, where they represent too small a target for the autofocus area within the camera to obtain enough contrast, so the focus winds the entire
In the latest issue of Skeptic magazine (Vol 16 No 2), there’s an article by Benjamin Grant Purzycki and Kyle Gibson regarding religious violence, which raises the question: does religion cause violence, or are we mistaking correlation for causation? This is an exceptionally intriguing question. Confusing correlation for causation is one of the fallacies with which
