I have been invited to be on a ‘religious’ panel organized by students at our university to represent the atheist point of view. Now I know of course that atheism is not a religion but we still haven’t found a good umbrella term to cover religion and non-religion and so are stuck with terms like ‘inter-faith’ that misrepresent the nature of atheism. [Read more…]
Carl Zimmer has an interesting article about attempts to estimate how many cells the average human body contains. It depends on how you do it and previous estimates over the past few centuries have ranged widely from two billion to 200 million trillion cells. [Read more…]
If you ask Americans what the major flashpoints are that worsened relations between the US and Iran, the takeover of the US embassy in Teheran and holding the embassy personnel hostage will be easily recalled. Less likely to be recounted is the CIA-backed coup of 1953 that ousted the elected prime minister of that country and replaced him with the despotic Reza Pahlavi who adopted the grandiose title of the Shah of Iran. [Read more…]
(Via Cory Doctorow)
One problem for believers in heaven (or the afterlife in general) is how people look in that place. Most people die when they are, frankly, not at their best. They are either very old, otherwise decrepit, have had some serious illness that ravaged their bodies or died violently and in the process have been disfigured. [Read more…]
Last night we had the first snowfall for the year, unusually early since this usually occurs in late November. So it was a bit of a surprise for me to look out the window when I woke up and see the snow-covered ground. But it was no surprise to turn on the radio and to hear of numerous car accidents all around the town during the morning commute to work, snarling up traffic. [Read more…]
I really don’t know much about this man who is described as an actor-comedian except that he has popped up on some clips that I have seen while surfing the net and he seemed like a lively and interesting guy who seemed to have no interest in being ingratiating and obsequious to the hosts of these shows so that he would be invited back. He seems to speak his mind and I like that attitude in a TV show guest. [Read more…]
News reports recently have focused on the angry reactions of the leaders of Brazil, Mexico, France, and Germany to reports that the NSA was eavesdropping on even their communications with their close confidantes and cabinet ministers and, in the case of the German chancellor, even her cell phone. [Read more…]
Jeffrey Weiss discussed a recent case where the Greek prime minister was accused of showing insufficient respect for Judaism.
Here’s the setup: During a visit to Israel, Antonis Samaras visited the Holocaust memorial center, Yad Vashem, and laid a wreath. Common activity for visiting heads of state. But he refused to wear a kippah, aka yarmulke, aka Jewish skullcap. That’s not so common. [Read more…]
He returned from a one-week hiatus and took on the Republican party and Fox News effort to turn that sow’s ear of the shut down debacle into a silk purse of victory. [Read more…]