Archive for the ‘ Societal ’ Category

A Task for the Believers (or Bring America Home)

I just caught wind of the coffee party. I don’t know that it will catch on, but the sentiments espoused by the founders and participants appeal, I think, to a broad swath of the not-yet-totally-disillusioned. Here’s the mission statement from coffeepartyusa.com: MISSION: The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation [ READ MORE ]

One Upping the Crazy

I have a new guilty pleasure–not sure how much mileage I’ll get out of it, but it’s off to a hell of a start. Behold, Emmett Tyrrell, founder of The American Spectator and appearing as a writer for Townhall. I think I enjoy his particular brand of right wing-authoritarian ranting because it reminds me of [ READ MORE ]

Revisionist History, aka Reality Based History

I like the thought-exercise of viewing historical events as if one were a disinterested Martian. When stripped of the rhetoric, oratory and emotional appeals to the psychological hooks by which we’re so easily manipulated, what does an event look like? The resulting narrative–in this case, of the creation of the american revolution and creation of [ READ MORE ]

Reason vs. Faith

As further evidence of my unresolved psychological issues, I’ve occasionally have conversations with theists.  A classic dynamic that I find myself in during these conversations is the faith vs. evidence/discernment–I think most skeptics are familiar with the phenomenon. First, the theist will claim that their belief is just a reasonable following of the facts.  After [ READ MORE ]

Mixed Messages

Before I present the story, I need to make a statement for the record: I hold Islam in no lower (or higher) esteem than any other lunacy invented whole-cloth by crazy people and passed down through the generations by abusive indoctrination of children.  Also, this is apparently an old story (Feb 2009), that I’m just [ READ MORE ]

Going on Record

I’m not an original thinker–at least not often. I do have, I believe, a better than average ability to sort claims into categories along the true-false spectrum. Of course, I have several biases in my data collection methodology–1. I am me and am partial to data that supports the hypothesis that I am awesome. 2) [ READ MORE ]

Tipping Sacred Cows: Marriage

I haven’t been posting much lately.  This is largely due to my desire to create posts for punkassblog crossed with the difficulty of packaging my opinions in a manner that will not be immediately dismissed by the readers there.  Another important factor is the amazing tear that Amanda Marcotte of pandagon.net is on with respect [ READ MORE ]

Common Ground with Violence

As Amanda reminds us here and here, the notion of a reasoned debate, of consensus morality, of civilized human interaction vanishes and is impossible to recover when the “conversation” takes place with a gun in the room.  There are no proponents of state-mandated birth, no matter how deep their armchairs, that can claim a non-violent [ READ MORE ]

Following Orders from things that Don’t Exist has Negative Results

Thank you Pew Research Center for doing the legwork to confirm things that we already knew: in this case, the inverse relationship between human decency and church attendance. [ READ MORE ]

Empathy

I bumped into this disturbing gem of mental sickness via a pandagon post.  To summarize briefly: torturing people by simulating drowning can’t be bad because swimmers immerse themselves in water and have people yelling at them, and they’re fine.  My initial thought was to provide the teeny, tiny, bit of critical thought required to dismantle [ READ MORE ]

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