It’s sad about Denis Dutton. ALDaily is all in black.
Denis was a friend to B&W, from very early in its career – about three months into it, I think. He added it to Favorites, and soon after that he started linking to articles. He helped B&W get an audience.
It is melancholy that he’s gone.… Read the rest
Second annual blaghag poll. It is an Honor Just to be Nominated. It’s an honor to get ten votes, too, chiz chiz.… Read the rest
Jerry Coyne on a new paper that shows mathematically that simultaneous substitution is much much faster than “serial” substitution.… Read the rest
The US Army requires its soldiers to have something called “spiritual fitness.”
The US Army distributes a mandatory survey called an SFT, which stands for “Soldier Fitness Tracker”. The purpose of this survey is to measure an individual soldier’s competency in four areas, Emotional, Social, Family and Spiritual.
Yes really.
Here is what they tell someone who scores badly in that last area:
… Read the restSpiritual fitness is an area of possible difficulty for you. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your
This is very trivial, but quite funny in a way. Remember “steph” who derailed the “F word” thread last week with endless passive-aggressive rambling about gnu atheism and New Zealand? And then suddenly at the end went all cuddly and we can get along? No, you probably don’t, because you probably stopped reading that thread when she derailed it, and quite right too.
But if you do, you might be amused to learn that she didn’t really mean the cuddly part. She derailed someone else’s thread – some theology type – to say how horrible I am. Apropos of absolutely nothing. I mean, it’s like a clown suddenly appearing in the middle of a sober newscast. Wha?? Truly funny.
… Read the restas
Detox, the Master Cleanse, magnets, Power Balance bracelets, charcoal.… Read the rest
The four held in Denmark planned to enter the building housing the Jyllands-Posten and “kill as many of the people present as possible”.… Read the rest
The Danish newspaper and those connected with the publication of the Muhammed cartoons have been regular targets of violence.… Read the rest
What does it say about the US that a hack like Breitbart can destroy a decades-long career in one day?… Read the rest
I start this piece by stating emphatically that if lack of critical thinking or inability to apply one’s common sense to issues is what makes one an African, then I am not an African. I say this – and I really mean it. That I hereby renounce my African identity if it means that I should not exercise my critical intelligence or apply reason and science in all areas of human endeavor. If being an African means I should suspend and shut down my thinking faculty and blindly accept whatever any person or prophet says or preaches, then, I say, count me out. Don’t count me as an African. I am making this assertion because very often blind faith, dogma … Read the rest
Amir Afkhami, an American psychiatrist, gets to meet a “faith-healer” in Iraq and watch him doing his stuff.
The path of a faith healer is arduous, Mullah Eskandar told us, speaking in Kurdish. “Such a calling,” he said, “is best reserved for a religious and spiritual man.”
Right. Religious and spiritual because there is no actual knowledge or technical skill involved, and man because it’s women who get fucked up by misogynist religions and traditions. Totally makes sense.
… Read the restHe went on to recount his 15-year apprenticeship to a renowned senior healer, who taught him the basics of spiritual treatment and the essentials of Koranic law and prophetic traditions. His description reminded me of my own long and difficult years in
The furor over the rape allegations against Julian Assange reveal that when it comes to rape, the left still doesn’t get it.… Read the rest
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops insists on exactly the same murderous policy that the rebarbative bishop of Phoenix does. The CCB is very clear about it. The CCB doesn’t mess around.
“Surgery to terminate the life of an innocent person, however, is intrinsically wrong… Nothing, therefore, can justify a direct abortion. No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.”
No circumstance whatsover, including the circumstance that the fetus is already doomed and will not survive no matter what, can make it licit to remove the … Read the rest
Nothing can justify a direct abortion. No circumstance whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God.… Read the rest
Pro-life? A policy that would let both a woman and a fetus die when the woman could be saved?… Read the rest
God created a perfect environment for humans; the banana proves it.… Read the rest
It is true that Robert Latimer was suffering, and he suffered so much because someone he loved was suffering.… Read the rest
Let’s see if I can force myself to read and comment on some of the horrible dogmatizing of Catholic theologian Ronald Conte. I could manage only about three paragraphs on the first attempt.
The subject of his anathema is “M. Therese Lysaught’s grave doctrinal error.” He notes that she points out that the fetus was doomed no matter what, that
it was not a case of saving the mother or the child. It was not a matter of choosing one life or the other.
Then he spends the rest of the long piece saying fuck that.
He quotes JP2 saying it’s disobedience to God’s law. He quotes the catechism. He insists on the (authoritarian and theocratic) claim that some … Read the rest
A Catholic woman priest is trying to convince herself that the bishop of Phoenix didn’t mean what he of course necessarily did mean. She’s not having an easy time of it.
When I was a teen, I saw a movie that depicted a bishop, the brother of a pregnant woman, who loved his sister, but when the chips were down and it was her life or the baby’s life, the choice was his to make and he chose the baby. I will never forget how horrible I felt that his sister was powerless in this situation, and that the decision was her brother’s to make.
Quite – and in the bishop’s case, it wasn’t even a matter of choosing the … Read the rest
