As some of you will know, at The Philosophers’ Magazine we have a number of online interactive type things which are designed to flag up some of the possible difficulties with religious belief (problem of evil, that kind of thing).

And since it is always amusing to tease the religiously afflicted, I thought I’d post an email I received yesterday about one of the activities. It kind of teases itself, so I won’t say any more.

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Your message is stupid as well as your test. There is a all loving, all caring, all knowing and all every where at one time God who truely exists. You think too much with your head and it is the wrong head. You … Read the rest

Some oddly-assorted items.

There was a terrifying item in the Village Voice today, about the cozy friendship between the Bush administration and something called the Apostolic Congress – a group of ‘rapture’ Christians – you know, those nice people who look forward to the day when Jesus comes back and boils the blood of unbelievers by the power of his gaze. Just the kind of folks you want influencing US policy toward Israel, yes indeed.

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be “the Christian Voice in the Nation’s Capital,” the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian

Religious believers can be weird. Very, very weird. I know it’s not considered polite to say that – and that’s why I tend to avoid them rather than engage them in dialogue. Precisely because there is so much that it is not considered polite to say about religious believers, that yet becomes so glaringly obvious when one does try to engage them in dialogue. It’s kind of a You can’t win situation. You simply can’t say certain things, and yet the things you can’t say are at the center of the whole discussion – so the discussion is lamed and hobbled and disabled before it ever starts. It’s a stalemate. So the familiar and much-repeated idea that discussion on this … Read the rest

So perhaps it does matter after all, what the truth is, who is telling the truth and who is lying, who has it right and who is deceived, what pictures are authentic and what are fake. Is that possible? It looks that way. It looks as if in fact we do care whether on the one hand soldiers of a certain regiment did abuse Iraqi prisoners, or whether on the other hand someone faked up some pictures that purported to show that but in fact (being faked) did not, and gave said pictures to a large newspaper. You can see where it would make a difference. We can all think of other pictures that matter – pictures that we … Read the rest

A reader raises some interesting objections, in Letters and then at my suggestion in a comment, on our Freud-skepticism.

For example, there may be an alternative explanation for Jedlika’s finding that children of mixed race couples are more likely to marry someone of the same race as the opposite sex parent, but it is prima facie evidence for oedipal feelings that cannot be ignored.

I haven’t read the study in question – but just to deal with what is said in that sentence, I have to say I am not convinced. I am in fact quite skeptical. It seems to me that it is not at all obvious that oedipal feelings are the only possible explanation for why children of … Read the rest