Charlie Stross, author of the highly-praised novel Accelerando, has written an interesting skeptical article on the technological singularity. The article makes many good points — except when it comes to “religion”. When it comes to “religion”, specifically religion and mind-uploading, what he says is remarkably silly. Here it is: Uploading … is not obviously impossible [...]
A good day for freedom of speech as the censorious FCC loses its case trying to levy a fine for a naked butt on NYPD Blue: NEW YORK – The Federal Communications Commission cannot fine broadcasters for showing a woman’s nude buttocks on a 2003 episode of “NYPD Blue,” a federal court ruled Tuesday, citing [...]
A really enjoyable video, especially for his remarks on magic, other magicians, and why magic on TV isn’t real magic. And I really appreciated his stress on the importance of having “out” atheists to identify with. In his case he discusses being joyed, inspired, loved, and comforted by having famous atheists like Martin Mull, Randy [...]
BBC Radio 4 analyzes the pope’s catchphrase, “a dictatorship of relativism”, used for describing the secular West. Here’s the program description: The idea that no one has a monopoly on the truth seems to be fixed in the modern Western psyche. But it’s an idea that is under attack. Pope Benedict claims that we are [...]
I am a bit late on this story but wanted to offer a contrary viewpoint to the dominant one of the outraged blogosphere. Though I have never seen the show, I was interested in the controversy over the show Modern Family which apparently features a gay couple among its lead characters. The controversy centers not [...]
Diana Bass complains: It just wasn’t very funny to see four smart American women parading western consumerism and sexualized identity in blatantly insensitive and anti-religious ways in a traditional world. Wait a minute, what she describes may not be funny but it’s certainly the best thing I’ve heard about the film from everything that I’ve [...]
Sarah Haskins always provides the most hilarious and incisive commentary tearing into the lousy logic and vapid condescension packed into advertisements targeted at women on her recurring Infomania segment called Target Women. Her dry witted satirical media criticism would be a perfect fit on The Daily Show and in logic classes. Every time I watch one of [...]
Click here for a truly hilarious look at social trends and events in 2009. The whole thing is hilarious, here are just a few bits to entice you to read the whole thing: Movie that I loved from 2009 that I’m bound to hate by the end of 2010, thanks to Facebook: The Hangover I [...]
Saturday on the subway I was enjoying the above poster, as I have numerous times throughout the semester. And in fact, I haven’t just been seeing it on the subways but in my mind whenever I think of sodas now. In fact I’ve had this image in my head since before I saw the ad [...]
Richard Wade on the evolution of a holiday: Last night, we celebrated Celtic Harvest, Livestock Slaughter and Passing of the Dead Festival Co-opted to Roman Pagan Harvest, Livestock Slaughter and Passing of he Dead Festival Co-opted to Roman Catholic All Saints Vigil/Feast Co-opted to Capitalist Subconscious Psycho-Sexual Sado-Masochistic Eros-Thanatos Paravestite Fetish Fantasy Catharsis and Candy [...]
I am simply appalled at the deep cynicism that keeps this rotten reckless, racist, careless, moronic, lying lunatic on the air: Your Thoughts?
Andrew Sullivan points to this post arguing that the law is damaging many lives by not adequately distinguishing the difference: The sex offender laws will kick in and are guaranteed to destroy any ambition your child may have for success. Any attempts to better themselves, or become productive members of your community, will be throttled [...]
Recently Karen Armstrong is coming out with a book arguing for an extremely apophatic conception of God that rejects all manner of biblical literalism but still insists on some important reference to God and is critical of the New Atheists. Recently she and Richard Dawkins both responded to a Wall Street Journal solicitation for their [...]
Creation, a new film about Charles Darwin cannot get any US distributors because of fear of fundamentalist backlash: However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of [...]
I was really irritated last night by Derren Brown’s choice to use his lottery trick on national TV in Britain to propagate fundamentally bogus mathematical thinking and to convince a group of people that their belief in their abilities to reach into the subconscious was able to generate knowledge of winning lottery ticket numbers. It’s [...]
As I’ve mentioned before: As far as I go, no singer/songwriter better explores the theme of religion or better employs religious imagery than Nick Cave. Very few people write either religious music or music about religion that avoids either preaching on its behalf or railing against it. Nick Cave is liberated from any creedal loyalty [...]
We all think we know what happened to the Empire’s first Death Star a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but this unnerving fact sheet raises numerous causes for doubt about the official story we’ve been fed: 4) Why has there not been an investigation into allegations that Darth Vader, the second-ranking [...]
Via Pitchfork comes David Byrne musing on the uneasy symbiotic relationship between commercialistic pop art and pop art with artistic pretensions through which the big sell out acts make possible investment in the smaller ones which retain some credibility. A parallel situation can be found in the film industry where low budget indies are made [...]
Jennie Yabroff offers an interesting theory as to why a grainy spy video of a nude ESPN anchor, Erin Andrews (who they say is barely identifiable in the video), brushing her hair is in such high demand on the internet given the wide array of available high resolution porn on the internet: What’s really provocative [...]
Greenwald is scathing on the media in general and takes the late Tim Russert to be the avatar of all that is wrong with them: Tellingly, his most celebrated and significant moment — Greg Mitchell says “this broadcast would help save many thousands of lives, U.S. and Vietnamese, perhaps even a million” — was when [...]
Greta Christina attacks what she calls “the myth of sexual spontaneity,” defined as the idea that “for sex to be good and meaningful, the desire has to strike both partners out of the blue and be acted on immediately” on the grounds that arises from and implictly reinforces negative views of sex: Our culture tends [...]
Feministing breaks down Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Twilight, and True Blood for their implicit (and explicit) views on sex. While comparing and contrasting True Blood and Twilight, Latoya Peterson drops this tidbit, which is the first thing to make me curious to peek at Twilight (though I’m 99% sure I still won’t): In both series, [...]
Rod Dreher stresses that he has nothing but good will towards Evangelicals and does not mean to bash them but nonetheless relays these interesting critiques of the movement from a couple of former Evangelicals who wound up becoming Orthodox after disaffection with contemporary Evangelical marketing and practices: I pointed to a particular megachurch, and told [...]
A couple clips of Rebecca Walker’s article on meeting Michael Jackson at 14, on experiencing life to his soundtrack, on gawking at his sordid personal implosion, and, finally, on responding to his death: Why Michael approached me in a room full of superstars after the show I will never know. Perhaps because I was the [...]