by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune by Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner Tab, The Calgary Sun -- Dangerous Intersection proudly supports the creators of these cartoons, which are printed by permission, pursuant to an arrangement with Cagle Cartoons.
Nor should there be such a word. For adults, at least, it’s normal to not believe in the existence of Santa Claus. Nor do we have labels to describe people who don’t believe in Elves Levitation Squared-circles Talking apple trees, or The claim that Elvis is still alive. What if those who…
I’m a newcomer to an extremely popular website called Lifehack. The site specializes in “hacks, tips and tricks that get things done quickly by automating, increase productivity and organizing.” There is obviously a lot to consider at Lifehack.org. One might wonder, though, how much time one should spend on productivity lest…
I struggle to see through the rampant commercialism, the over-consumption and the glazed-eyed happiness of the holiday season. But maybe I’ve had a break-through. It keeps recurring to me this month that kind and thoughtful atheists/agnostics have an immense amount in common with millions of kind and thoughtful people who believe in God.
Too many of us have too much in common, in fact, for me to stand by silently while the “new atheists” (led by Richard Dawkins) repeatedly belittle Believers. Most of these new atheists claim that religious moderates, by their silence, are enabling the social destruction wrought by fundamentalists. I think that is often true. By the same token, moderate atheists/agnostics are adding unnecessary fuel to the belief/non-belief wars when they fail to speak up during the new atheist hyper-scoldings of believers.
I suspect that many of the new atheist criticisms of religion underestimate the function served by the type of religion practiced by most religious moderates (I think that David Sloan Wilson has it right on this point) and that they over-estimate the ability of science to provide substitutes for whatever it is that religious moderates get out of their practice of religion (on this point, see this Salon.com interview of theologian John Haught).
In fact, many of the new atheist scoldings smell of schadenfreude and vengeance. I agree that much of criticism is warranted on an intellectual level, but it seems like we really need to sit down and figure out how to get …
I have a box before me, the determination of the disposition of which is at hand. "Huh?" you may well ask. I need room, and gotta choose stuff to throw away. This box is from my first job out of school, when I was as an industrial robotics designer. I…