December, 2007
Proof of the existence of God (so glad we finally got it sorted!)
From Keith Yandell’s The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Cambridge University Press, 1994):
We can now put the view that religious experience provides evidence in favor of [the claim that] God exists along these lines: If one has an apparent experience of God under conditions in which there is no reason to think [...]
Happy Winter Solstice
Other bloggers would use an artsy-fartsy fey kind of glimmering sunray image for this post. But not me.
The solstices, both of them, are two of my favorite holidays. Not holidays in the sense that I observe social rituals involving other people, but holidays in the sense that I mark them, and [...]
Our new religion already has its first carol!
I know we’re still creating the religion, but I can’t hold off on this: the Rev. B. Dagger Lee has already composed our first carol. It seems the Rev. Lee is a Charles Wesley type, combining song-writing with preaching. In truth I don’t think she actually had our new religion in [...]
Quick note about our new sponsor
If you look over to the left you’ll see that I’m running an ad from the Sassafras Collection, the first time I’ve done any ad stuff in over a year. The women behind the Sassafras Collection really are feminists, though it doesn’t say that on the website (apparently that sort of thing isn’t [...]
Our group project for the week: let’s decide what features we want in our new religion
Inspirational image: World’s First Festivus Pole Lot — Milwaukee, Dec. 7, 2007
Foilwoman kicked us off a few days ago:
Oh, I think we need a new religion, where those of us who are worthy get to spend the afterlife (and if we’re really good, the next year or so) drinking wine of our [...]
Another reason to boycott Walmart
Just in time for Christmas, Junior Prostitute Wear:
I see this as meshing well with Walmart’s whole philosophy. This is the company that’s notorious for refusing to fill women’s prescriptions for contraception, the company that yanked a “Someday a Woman Will Be President” T-shirt from their shelves because it didn’t “fit in with family [...]
Another nail in the ev psych coffin
One of the central claims of evolutionary psychology is that virtually all human behavior was hard-wired into the brain during the “Era of Evolutionary Adaptation,” a mythical time deep in the Stone Age that bore an uncanny resemblance to The Flintstones. According to ev psychos this golden age ended 10,000 years ago, and the [...]
Here’s an idea: let’s stop calling it “faith”
The blogosphere is picking up on a story that started coming in over the wires last week: religious vigilantes in Basra have murdered at least 40 women in the past year for various infractions of Islamic law. Typically the victim’s body is mutilated and dumped with a note pinned to it explaining [...]
Is the goddamn speech over yet?
Mitt Romney’s religion speech has had more advance publicity than “The Passion of the Christ.” Every goddamn day for the past month, it seems, the media has been pumping it. “Romney schedules religious speech.” “Romney to discuss Mormonism.” “Romney will seek to allay fears.” “The most important speech of Romney’s career.” [...]
The New York Times thinks rape is “salacious”
From the story about Huckabee’s parole of rapist Wayne DuMond:
It has all the markings of salacious, tabloidian detail that can haunt a candidate, a lawmaker, an elected official, who walks and stalks the halls of criminal justice, who has, as he has said, weighed decisions on whether to impose capital punishment, and has ordered death. [...]
