Recently there emerged from Pakistan disturbing news of a renewed campaign against polio vaccination, in which a doctor involved in such a program was shot. Pakistan is one of the few remaining countries (along with Afghanistan and Nigeria) where polio has not been eradicated. [Read more…]
The main shtick of so-called motivational speakers is to persuade people that if only they think positively enough, they can achieve great things. One such speaker named Tony Robbins provides a practical demonstration of this principle by borrowing a practice that is fairly common in India and Sri Lanka during Hindu and Buddhist religious festivals, and that is ‘fire-walking’ which involves people walking across a bed of coal embers to show their devotion to their gods whom they believe will protect them from burns. [Read more…]
In my post Atheists who love religion, I spoke about my puzzlement with the views of self-proclaimed atheists like S. E. Cupp, Jesse Bering, and Jesse Powell. Powell has responded with a long essay in the comments explaining his views. [Read more…]
Human beings have 23 pairs of chromosomes but our closest cousins the chimpanzees have 24 pairs. This was at one time a puzzle because if, as the theory of evolution says, both species share a common ancestor, how could it be that in the relatively short time after the human and chimp lines separated about six million years ago, humans could have lost an entire chromosome, with all the genetic information it contained, and yet survived as a species? [Read more…]
At one time there was a flurry of articles and books around the theme of why some women seemed to be loyal to husbands and partners who abused them, with titles such as Women Who Love Psychopaths, Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them, and Women Who Love Too Much, all exploring the strange attraction that some people have for those who seem to hate them. [Read more…]
The Virgin Mary seems to be quite the peripatetic these days, showing herself all over the place. It looks like time for the Vatican’s crack Mary verification squad to get into action. [Read more…]
Over at The Crommunist Manifesto, there have been a series of offerings from various people based on the above prompt. This is what I submitted in response to a request from that blog’s host: [Read more…]
I came across a website called The Thinking Housewife where the host Laura Wood and her friends (?) give advice to people who write in. A recent question was from Jennifer about what to do with new neighbors in their apartment complex who are lesbians and would like their child to play with Jennifer’s. Jennifer, a Catholic, wants to know the best way to protect her children’s innocence from being contaminated by hanging around with such undesirables. [Read more…]
When the eminent biologist E. O. Wilson visited our university in 2009 to give a lecture, a small group of people was invited to meet with him privately for a discussion. Some of the people in the group tried to ask him his views on science and religion but he responded with some vague noncommittal generalities. It was clear to me that he did not want to get into it. Wilson’s deep passion has been to try and get as many people as possible to realize the danger that the Earth is in and the need to take steps to protect it. He had just published The Future of Life (2008) and I felt that he avoided this touchy issue to avoid alienating potential religious allies in his environmental cause. [Read more…]