There’s a kind of approach comes up from time to time among skeptics, and it’s often considered a good thing, but I’ve always been of mixed feelings about it. It’s the idea that, in order to get to know those who hold what we consider to be irrational beliefs, we (meaning anyone that wants to promote critical thinking) need to immerse ourselves in the culture. Hemant
Category: Critical Thinking
So did, uh… did jesus really exist?
If you’ve read anything else on this blog, you might think it’s curious (or completely out-of-character) for me to even be asking this question, especially since I’ve been pretty clear about its relative worth. From a strictly historical standpoint, however, it retains
Book and theory review: Chaos
First off, a disclaimer: I’ve never been good at math, or at least, not since the sixth grade or thereabouts. I’ve struggled with it enough that I suspect there’s something fundamental that I missed, or a mental block or even something about my brain (could be that root beer incident when I was 10,) but so what who cares? The point is, someone may be inclined to
If you have to ask…
I know, I know, this is hardly ‘timely,’ insofar as what provoked the post anyway, but the content still applies, and I prefer to take the time to do the subject justice rather than dash off something so it’s “fresh.”
In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Paris a few weeks ago, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, admitted that the attacks had
Let’s hope they’re cute
For one or two posts a year, I have to touch on the idea of extra-terrestrial life, and this particular facet of the topic I’ve mentioned before, but I’m going into it a bit deeper this time. Given the extremely low likelihood of such an event coming to pass, this post counts as far more attention than is warranted, but if I only tackled relevant and important topics, I’d lose
Cry, “Sexism!” and let loose…
I’m not going to finish that header, because no matter what, it’s going to be taken the wrong way…
If you’ve been checking out links on that blogroll over on the sidebar, you may be aware that Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science has a semi-regular Saturday post called, “I’ve Got Your Missing Links Right Here,” that often has links to some interesting
The myth of “live and let live”
It’s not hard to find articles that decry the efforts of the “New Atheists” for their bullying of innocent and defenseless religion, in terms that range from disapproval to outright vehemence, nor is it hard to find comments where the commenter prides themselves on their “live and let live” attitude, maintaining that the only proper behavior is to not judge
Convenient mediocrity
“Convenient mediocrity.” I mentioned it in an earlier post, and while it can be found in use here and there, it is not (yet) a common phrase, even if it is a remarkably common property. What it means (for my purposes here, anyway) is maintaining lowered standards because higher ones take too much effort. More specifically, it means accepting lower quality as long as it’s in a cool,
I know you are but what am I?
Some time back I created the ‘Ask an Atheist’ page linked above, prompted by a similar effort elsewhere, to provide anyone the ability to fire away with any questions they might have regarding atheism, secularism, or perhaps just my own personal outlook on some issue. Some time after that, I amended the initial paragraphs to reflect the bare fact that very few people ever bother to try
Quick! Go here before midnight!
If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed that I have a tendency to post religion-bashing stuff on Sundays, because I’m perverse – we atheists are mean that way. I wasn’t really planning anything of the sort, and have been working on site updates today, but Professor Ceiling Cat has a fun post over at Why Evolution Is True, and you should