David Shariatmadari is asking what is indoctrination and is it such a bad thing?

Of course, for many, the idea that anyone should spend their whole lives believing something wrong is bad. Those who are convinced of the truth of Christianity, whether they suffer or not, have been convinced of a lie, so the argument goes. But why single out religion? Lots of people believe lots of things that are probably wrong: they cleave to political and social hypotheses whose benefits are hotly contested, and sometimes impossible to test. Most of our working models of the world are based on a very fallible combination of imagination and experience, not scientific truth.

It’s not so much the spending one’s whole life … Read the rest

Well I had good luck with the travel: a big wind blew into California the night before I came down so it was crystal clear – the flyover of San Francisco was absolutely spectacular, and even the shuttle bus trip from San Jose to Monterey was beautiful. And the stars – !

The wind had died down but it was still very clear yesterday so I went to Point Lobos to take advantage of the weather while it lasted. I went to Sea Lion Point and Cypress Grove trail and then I went back on the North Shore trail, where I haven’t been before. It’s very up and down, so you keep arriving at places where you look down sheer … Read the rest

Hello. I haven’t disappeared – I spent most of today traveling and then a big chunk of it walking along a bit of the California coast in a strong wind and then another big chunk of it writing a piece for Comment is Free. Normal broadcasting will resume shortly.… Read the rest

Sad sad sad. Sunny at Liberal Conspiracy – see comment 12:

I buy Jonathan Dimbleby’s arguments:

First, even the editor agreed that printing the images were not central to the story anyway since the Yale Press was central to the story. So it’s not censorship. Printing them would be gratuitous.

Really. The images were not ‘central’ to the story because Yale Press was central to the story. Well what about Yale Press was central to the story? Its pretty blue eyes? Its taste in music? No; its withdrawal of illustrations from a book about a controversy about those illustrations. So in what sense were the illustrations not central to the story? Who decides what’s central? Since when is reporting supposed … Read the rest