Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ears are burning

Posted on December 1, 2008 by Walter Olson

No matter how good a job we do at this site, it’s unlikely we’ll live up to the praise so generously bestowed on us by D.R. Tucker in flagship conservative publication Human Events (“Right Angle“). Daniel McCarthy and commenters discuss … Continue reading →

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Dangerous Places

Posted on November 30, 2008 by Bradlaugh

Further to Heather’s remarks:  the London Daily Telegraph has a photo-display titled “20 of the world’s most dangerous places.” Here are the Telegraph’s 20, with their dominant religions (according to the CIA World Factbook). I think my abbreviations are obvious, except … Continue reading →

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Homeland security in Kentucky

Posted on November 29, 2008 by Walter Olson

Nice to know Kentucky’s state legislature has its priorities straight: The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as “stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.” … Continue reading →

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Religion and moral decline, contd.

Posted on November 29, 2008 by Heather Mac Donald

A reader suggests that one needs to examine the same society over time, rather than comparing different societies, to test whether the waning of religious belief and fervor leads to moral decay. So let’s look at the West over the … Continue reading →

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Kmiec as Vatican Ambassador?

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Walter Olson

I suppose I should pass over in silence the blog flap over whether President-elect Obama might properly name Pepperdine lawprof Douglas Kmiec as Ambassador to the Holy See (Michael Sean Winters, America Magazine, pro; UCLA lawprof Stephen Bainbridge, con and … 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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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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A secularist’s thoughts on Thanksgiving

Posted on November 26, 2008 by Heather Mac Donald

Michael Novak recently asked me: “Am I right in saying that atheists have no one to thank, [unlike] Jews and Christians [who] do thank and praise God for so many good things?” In light of our national holiday tomorrow, I … Continue reading →

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