Author Archives: David Hume

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Creationism in the Muslim world

A ScienceBlogs I have a post on Muslim Creationism data up. The paper, On being religious : patterns of religious commitment in muslim societies, has lots of information. You can download it at the link. Here are the topline results … Continue reading

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The rise of McChurch, but not Old Time Theology

Mr. Bradlaugh’s post on the death of intellectual Protestantism, the highbrow aspect of what we normally term “Mainline Protestantism,” prompts to revisit some data which I’ve reported before, but want to reiterate. First, the old Protestant denominations which have dominated … Continue reading

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Traditions and tribes; the genealogy of civilizations

A few weeks ago the socially conservative sociologist who blogs under the name “Inductivist” had an intriguing post up, Social conservatives and Muslims: Social conservatives typically align themselves with the West against the Islamic world in the “clash of civilizations,” … Continue reading

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Ross Douthat is back blogging

At The New York Times, Evaluations.

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