Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Democrats are re-introducing the Do No Harm Act to counter the Religious Freedom Act that permits Christians to legally discriminate against citizens they consider to be less equal while Portland adopts Civil Rights Protections for atheists and agnostics. I hope Missouri will follow suit.

The Cuddly One and his pack of Ravenous Wolves.

Nigeria’s undercover atheists.

Secularization without secularism.

The article is so stupid it deserves an award.

This weeks’ Woo: Psychic abilities. See also first video below.

Climate Change: On finding imaginative solutions.

State Rep. Kelly Townsend says mandatory vaccinations are ‘Communist‘.

Why renewables can’t save the planet.

36 podcasts entitled “My Favorite Theorem “.

The concept of probability is not as simple as you think.

An argument for unbelief: A discussion about Terminology.

Psychology and the allure of Conspiracy Theories and the media that is completely hooked on pseudoscience and quackery.

The advantage of understanding your adversary’s arguments.

Long Reads: Arabs and atheism: the politics of disbelief.

This week I am reading this book: Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely.

Some photographs taken last week.  Sony Photography Awards 2019.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil…..

Coffee Break Video: John Oliver on Psychics. The Big Bang and Creation Myths.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week everyone!!

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

The article is so stupid it deserves an award.

In secular society we may indeed be much more religious than many seem to think.

I have a lot of sympathy with the author’s position – that many “non-religious” things (for example, football) possess a religion-like status in people’s lives.

A life without such an overarching passion and reason to live, is dull and boring and empty.

I also can’t deny that nobody can prove there’s no God, and we just don’t know what happens after we die.  So I take it as an article of faith to assert these two positions one way or another.

But to say that therefore, atheists are religious in themselves, is disingenuous.  Atheists specifically disbelieve in the monotheistic God and gods in general.  The clue is in the name – a-theism.  Atheists are just as capable as anyone else as seeing football as a religion.  Their disbelief in God does not have the trappings of religion, such as ritual, community, thought control, and moral self-righteousness, and they attempt to reject these.

We do tend to find alternative sources of ritual and community, although they’re comparatively thin on the ground, and I know they are important for society’s cohesion.  These can feel thin and watery without the magic fairy dust of God.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

The advantage of understanding your adversary’s arguments.

I think the author makes an interesting and important distinction – between “institutional” and “individual” evil.  Institutional evil is when a sick organisation makes decent people do evil things, thinking they’re doing right.  This includes the out-group demonisation we’re all guilty of.  It also includes the mental patient who kills a random stranger thinking that they are Adolph Hitler or whatever.

I’ve always thought that Isis could do a lot of good if they channelled all that undoubted energy and mettle the right way.

Individual evil is when someone is either born or made anti-social.  I find that both can happen.  These are the people who can command an organisation and turn it sick, like (apparently) the Scientologists who have a toxic narcissist in charge.

[_Robert_Participant]

The article is so stupid it deserves an award.

wow…..yes it does.

[StregaModerator]

Thank you, Reg!

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I re-read the “stupid” article. I think it is the worst attempt at an apologetic argument I have ever read.

HaHa…I have just clicked on “archive” by the author name in the article. Have fun.

This includes the out-group demonisation we’re all guilty of. It also includes the mental patient who kills a random stranger thinking that they are Adolph Hitler or whatever.

Don’t demonize mental illness! People who kill because they are deluded are not evil, they are just suffering from a delusion. Evil is the wrong word. It is mostly a religious word, not a clinical term.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

People who kill because they are deluded are not evil, they are just suffering from a delusion. Evil is the wrong word. It is mostly a religious word, not a clinical term.

There’s a difference between evil behaviour – outrageously bad or anti-social – and evil people.  Some people do evil because they’re deluded, some because they are chronically like that.

[NoelParticipant]

The three horsewomen of the apocalypse

“From left: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) listen as Michael Cohen, the former attorney and fixer for President Donald Trump, testifies before the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill on February 27, 2019.”

Found this in photographs of the week. Conservatives nightmare. I knew and grew up with the father of the one on the left Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez .

[NoelParticipant]

Thanks Reg

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Thanks for that photo Noel. I suspect it will be used to create plenty of memes. You know exactly what they are thinking 🙂

 

 

[Daniel W.Participant]

Some thoughtful reads there.  Intetesting contrarian view on renewables.

I recall reading that recycling of most materials is futile – most plastics for instance, may require more fuel to recycle, than making them from oil products.  Ditto for glass.  Plus, alot of what is sorted and saved, cant be used.

Lots more to read there!  Thanks!

 

[Author]

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