Heavens to Mergatroyd, I’m an atheist
Dawkins says the following about definitions of God: If the Word God is not to become completely useless, it should be used in the way people have generally understood it: to denote a supernatural creator who is ‘appropriate for us to worship.’ The God Delusion, p.33 The belief structures of indigenous people—extinct or extant—as well as many dharmic and asian religions More…
Believe our converts but not theirs
Do ex-atheists exist? How about converts to atheism? Dawkins appears to be of two minds on the question depending on the needs of the argument at hand.
Richard Dawkins is a media personality
Over to the right is a screenshot of the Official Richard Dawkins web site, with a cover overlay classifying different kinds of content on the page. Blue items indicate site branding and navigation. Green items indicate editorial content. Yellow items indicate visitor content. Pink items indicate sales content. It’s not that I’m opposed to marketing yourself. Authors really have to do [MORE…]
Should government get out of business?
Government protects major companies from the “piracy” of derivitive works like those from Rifftrax. Is it really true that the best thing the government can do for business is just get the hell out of the way? I don’t think so. I don’t think most businesses think that way either. I mean, the Republicans had a golden opportunity to operate that [MORE…]
News-like Entertainment Substitute
I completely unplugged from television news years ago, but I understand that television is leaning pretty heavily on Twitter these days for news coming out of Iran. That’s interesting, but it’s good to keep in mind that the unfiltered news is not necessarily reliable. Mark Ambinder wants us to treat Twitter the way a CIA analyst would, and I think it’s [MORE…]
Sprout firsts
New things Sprout has done today: Tasted faux-chicken Morningstar Farms buffalo wings. Learned to dip his finger in honey-mustard dressing to see what it tastes like. Tried drinking honey-mustard dressing. Seen a dog parade. Gone to his first community festival. Waved at a couple hundred people Eaten kettle corn.
Prematurely declaring the death of fail
Anil Dash has had it with “FAIL:” FAIL is over. Fail is dead. Because it marks a lack of human empathy, and signifies an absence of intellectual curiosity, it is an unacceptable response to creative efforts in our culture. “Fail!” is the cry of someone who doesn’t create, doesn’t ship, doesn’t launch, who doesn’t make things. [* * *] So, fail [MORE…]
