A cool way to disperse seeds
If you like paper airplanes, you like the way the Alsomitra vine disperses its seeds. Commentary by Sir David Attenborough.
Reviewing Proofs for the existence of God.
Over at Edge.com, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein presents an extraordinary collection of proofs for the existence of God. The problem with these proofs, however, is that they aren't actually proofs, which Seltzer succinctly explains, one-by-one. Take, for instance, Goldstein's analysis of the Argument from Holy Books:
1. There are holy books that reveal the word of God. 2. The word of God is necessarily true. 3. The word of God reveals the existence of God. 4. God exists.Seltzer isn't convinced:
FLAW 1: This is a circular argument if ever there was one. The first three premises cannot be maintained unless one independently knows the very conclusion to be proved, namely that God exists. FLAW 2: A glance at the world's religions shows that there are numerous books and scrolls and doctrines and revelations that all claim to reveal the word of God. But they are mutually incompatible. Should I believe that Jesus is my personal savior? Or should I believe that God made a covenant with the Jews requiring every Jew to keep the commandments of the Torah? Should I believe that Mohammad was Allah's last prophet and that Ali, the prophet's cousin and husband of his daughter Fatima, ought to have been the first caliph, or that Mohammad was Allah's last prophet and that Ali was the fourth and last caliph? Should I believe that the resurrected prophet Moroni dictated the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith? Or that Ahura Mazda, the benevolent Creator, is at cosmic war with the malevolent Angra Mainyu? And on and on it goes. Only the most arrogant provincialism could allow someone to believe that the holy documents that happen to be held sacred by the clan he was born into are true, while all the documents held sacred by the clans he wasn't born into are false.Keep in mind that Goldstein's analyses are rigorous and serious. Her collection includes many "proofs" that you don't typically encounter in philosophy of religion classes, but you constantly encounter in people's living rooms and on public buses. Consider these "proofs," for example:
19. The Argument from Personal Purpose 20. The Argument from the Intolerability of Insignificance 22. The Argument from the Consensus of Mystics 23. The Argument from Holy Books 27. The Argument from The Upward Curve of History 33. The Argument from the Unreasonableness of ReasonIf you're in a mood to have a chuckle at those who conjure up supernatural beings through word-logic, try these humorous proofs for the existence of God.
Photographing crayons
Economic news on the street
Avert your eyes from Wall Street to see what is happening to America. These statistics are part of a terrifying article by Elizabeth Warren, who serves as the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the banking bailouts:
Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.There are many other statistics in this article. For instance, fully employed males haven't seen a pay increase since the 1970's. Warren also presents banks as villains in her story:
Boring banking has given way to creative banking, and the industry has generated tens of billions of dollars annually in fees made possible by deceptive and dangerous terms buried in the fine print of opaque, incomprehensible, and largely unregulated contracts.
Christopher Hitchens: Where is Bernard Law?
In this lecture, Christopher Hitchens asks about the whereabouts of Cardinal Bernard Law, who is guilty of crimes "too hideous to describe." The undeniable fact is that Law is currently a powerful member of the Catholic clergy in Rome--he is one of the people held in high enough esteem that he has the power and privilege of voting to choose Popes. Any organization whose leaders have basic moral decency would have put such a man into handcuffs and delivered him to the police. Hitchens has many more questions for the Catholic Church too, and not an unfair attack among them, in my opinion. Examples include forbidding condom usage in Africa, where AIDs is an epidemic. This is not an academic issue--it is killing thousands of people. I also know many thinking Catholics who are driven to distraction by the official church teachings in regard to gays and birth control. Here's what Hitchens has to say about the need for the Catholic Church to apologize: I do not post this video to condemn lay Catholics, many of whom are good-hearted people who do inspiring works of kindness in the name of the church. Instead, I've posted this video because I have become weary of seeing the Church automatically and publicly presented as a font of moral judgment just because it is a church (or, in some circles, The Church). I am wondering if we will ever see a day when the Catholic Church (and every other church) is not judged favorably merely because it is a church. I'm wondering whether we will ever see the day when, in response to a claim that we should follow rule because "It is a rule of a church," people will generally ask: "What kind of church?" or "What is the track record of that church?" In any regard, we should never assume that a church is wise or moral just because it is a church. The current job title of Bernard Law compels this. Bottom line: No more free passes for churches. Or for any entity or any person, for that matter.