Monthly Archives: November 2009

The malleability of political religion

The Big Money has an entry up, Karl Who? China is a Communist country, but I have yet to meet an actual Communist. After reading the first paragraph I began to think of the clear analogies between conventional supernatural organized … Continue reading

Posted in culture | 1 Comment

Roissy No Alpha

I’m a big fan of Roissy in DC — who isn’t? — but someone should tell him that he’s got the alpha-beta stuff all wrong. In hierarchical primate societies, the alpha males are the ones with power. They have legions of … Continue reading

Posted in politics, science | 21 Comments

Mythical heroes

There’s a new evangelical Christian college in New York, the King’s College. You can read a somewhat quizzical article in The New York Times about it. This part caught my attention: Clues about the college’s philosophical underpinnings reveal themselves here … Continue reading

Posted in culture | Tagged | 14 Comments

Variation in belief 1988-2008, the rise of skepticism

Below in the comments David Heddle says: Of course there is no way, that I can see, of estimating how many of those leaving the church were self-identified Christians but who were actually in-the-closet unbelievers. Perhaps (who knows?) this is … Continue reading

Posted in data | 17 Comments

Its Own Worst Enemy (and Publicist’s Best Friend)

Fresh from the, um, triumph of its attacks on Hallowe’en and Harry Potter (to be fair, the latter was subsequently revoked), the Vatican is now taking aim at New Moon, the latest chapter in the Twilight saga. The Daily Telegraph … Continue reading

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

Mammograms v. buying a loaf of bread

The furor over the recent mammogram recommendation illustrates how distorted our assumptions about health care and health insurance have become, distortions which the Senate and House bills only exacerbate. In a saner world, where medical consumers paid for routine services, … Continue reading

Posted in politics | Tagged | 5 Comments

Being wrong is good

I’m re-reading Who Are We: The Challenges to America’s National Identity now that I know a lot more American history than I did when I first read it in 2004. The book was probably written in the early 2000s, so … Continue reading

Posted in culture, data | 3 Comments

Creative Destruction: Pretty Much a Good Thing

The house of the right should have many mansions, whether it’s the cathedrals of the theocons, the country clubs of the RINOs, the unadorned blocks and towers of the Randians, the revival tents of Huckabee County and… well, you get … Continue reading

Posted in economics, philosophy | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Fake fact: America is not secularizing

The whole post is at Gene Expression, but the chart to the left is the core of it. 1980-2008 can to a great extent be labelled a conservative era, when the New Right set the terms of the national debate … Continue reading

Posted in culture, data | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Reviews of The Faith Instinct

Awhile back Mr. Bradlaugh mentioned he was going to review The Faith Instinct. His alter-ego has now put up a review. And so have I. Unbelievers have much to say about God on High.

Posted in culture | Tagged | 5 Comments