Monthly Archives: November 2008

On religion & morality

Posted on November 28, 2008 by David Hume

Heather’s post, Religion and Moral Behavior, allows me to make a point which I think is important.  Some conservatives who argue for the powerful utility of religion in promoting the social order ignore the confounds with other parameters, and look … Continue reading →

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On social science data

Posted on November 28, 2008 by David Hume

Since some have asked, let me stipulate unless otherwise noted my survey based charts are all drawn from the General Social Survey.  UC Berkeley has a very user-friendly interface which one can use to replicate my findings.  As they say, … Continue reading →

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Ears are burning

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Walter Olson

Some reactions to the site in its first days: Moxie (“Perfectly timed… I’ll be reading it, and you should too.”) Opining Online (“I hope that it does not devolve into merely discussion of evolution and whether God exists.”) Social Services … Continue reading →

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Theology Outside the Tribe

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Bradlaugh

The ravishing and brilliant Ilana Mercer has a column on input from Judaism to economic principles. In line with its efforts to educate about Judaism’s philosophical affinity with the free market, the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies has inaugurated the … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, debate | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Oogedy-Boogedy

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Bradlaugh

Ron Guhname, “The Inductivist,” is scathing about Kathleen Parker’s now-famous  “oogedy-boogedy” column. New York City Republicans should become the center of the party. That there are six of them and 100 million born-agains isn’t the point; the NYC-ers are cooler. … Continue reading →

Posted in politics | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Skepticism of science, necessary & needless

Posted on November 28, 2008 by David Hume

Just a quick addendum to my previous post where I advised caution about skepticism of science.  A biomedical scientist recently told me that the journal Virology had a statistician audit all their papers within a 1 year interval with statistics to … Continue reading →

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Yes, I am a fundamentalist….

Posted on November 28, 2008 by David Hume

…about certain things.  Someone named Floyd quotes my post where I explain why I won’t talk much about Creationism and observes: That sounds pretty fundamentalist to me. Jerry Falwell couldn’t have said it any better. There will be no debate. … Continue reading →

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Religion and Moral Behavior

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Heather Mac Donald

Jerry Muller’s excellent Public Interest article, linked by Hume, references the ubiquitous “social utility” argument for religion: “belief in ultimate reward and punishment leads men to act morally.” The disappearance of religious belief, religion advocates argue, will produce individual and … Continue reading →

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The varieties of conservatism

Posted on November 27, 2008 by David Hume

Jerry Muller, the author of Conservatism, has given me permission to reprint an article of his that might be of interest to readers of this website, “Dilemmas of Conservatism,” The Public Interest Number 139, Spring, 2000.

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The Secular Right on controversial issues

Posted on November 27, 2008 by David Hume

In my previous post, Who are the Secular Right?, I focused on demographic differences between the Secular Right, Secular Left and Religious Right.  Using the same methodology in that post, I will now shift a bit more to controversial issues, … Continue reading →

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