Keith Parsons's Blog, page 10

College Humor: Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends (VIDEO)

And now for some culture war-related humor.








CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos




ETA: Not to be done, there is a lesbian response.









CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Hurting God's feelings...

Learning and Grief

In preparing to teach a class for the first time, I've been reading past posts on the blog In Socrates' Wake (which is a great resource!). I came across a posted titled "Learning as a process of grieving", which quotes a part of the Wikipedia entry on the Kubler-Ross Model:

Studies of epistemology, the process of learning, suggest that the patterns of grief are one way of describing the basic patterns of integrating new information that conflicts with previous beliefs. 

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." said Arthur Schopenhauer of the learning process, which corresponds to the five stages of grief with denial being ridicule, opposition being anger and bargaining, and acceptance being depression and acceptance.

I don't know that all truth passes through these stages. However, I was struck by how well this description mapped my own deconversion from Christianity, and other major changes to my own philosophical views.

Adversarial Communications between Theists and Nontheists

I think it's really unfortunate that some people are adversarial in their exchanges with people who do not share their views. In exchanges between theists and nontheists, I have seen people from both sides do this. Furthermore, the problem seems to be getting worse.





Read more »

Texas Veterinarian Claims to Have DNA Evidence of Bigfoot

(While this has little or nothing to do with metaphysical naturalism, my hunch is that most readers will find this of interest.)






Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/11/27/bigfoot-is-part-human-dna-study-claims/?intcmp=features#ixzz2DV6PPiL1
A Texas veterinarian claims to have DNA evidence of Bigfoot.


ad more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/11/27/bigfoot-is-part-human-dna-study-claims/?intcmp=features#ixzz2DV6PPiL1


Genetic
testing confirms the legendary Bigfoot is a human relative that arose
some 15,000 years ago — at least according to a press release issued by a
company called DNA Diagnostics detailing supposed work by a Texas
veterinarian.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/11/27/bigfoot-is-part-human-dna-study-claims/?intcmp=features#ixzz2DV6PPiL1 Here is a link to the press release:



LINK



And here is a link to an article at FoxNews.com written by a skeptic affiliated with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP).



LINK



I think it would be very cool if this evidence held up under scrutiny. But given the track record of past claims of evidence for Bigfoot, I'm not going to get my hopes up.



ETA: I just stumbled across an article at StatesmanJournal.com which provides some very interesting additional details/claims.



LINK

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi: Morality and Immorality among the Irreligious

Courtesy of Google books, the entire chapter by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is available online for free. 



Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Morality and Immorality among the Irreligious" in Atheism and Secularity (ed. Phil Zuckerman, ABC-CLIO, 2009), 113-148.



You may need a valid Google account in order to access the content. Also, you will probably need to scroll down to page 113 or search on the title in order to jump down to the content.



LINK

Gregory Dawes: Religion, Science, and Explanation

Abstract: A recent legal ruling in the United States regarding ‘intelligent design’ (ID) argued that ID is not science because it invokes a supernatural agent. It therefore cannot be taught in public schools. But the important philosophical question is not whether ID invokes a supernatural agent; it is whether it meets the standards we expect of any explanation in the sciences. More generally, could any proposed theistic explanation – one that invokes the deity of classical theism – meet those standards? Could it be both scientific and religious? The present paper sets out the factors to be taken into account when answering this question.



LINK

Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society

Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann. "Atheists As 'Other': Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society." American Sociological Review April 2006 71: 211-234, doi:10.1177/000312240607100203.

Abstract: Despite the declining salience of divisions among religious groups, the
boundary between believers and nonbelievers in America
remains strong. This article examines the limits of
Americans' acceptance of atheists. Using new national survey data, it
shows atheists are less likely to be accepted,
publicly and privately, than any others from a long list of ethnic,
religious,
and other minority groups. This distrust of
atheists is driven by religious predictors, social location, and broader
value
orientations. It is rooted in moral and symbolic,
rather than ethnic or material, grounds. We demonstrate that increasing
acceptance of religious diversity does not extend
to the nonreligious, and present a theoretical framework for
understanding
the role of religious belief in providing a moral
basis for cultural membership and solidarity in an otherwise highly
diverse
society. 

LINK

Stephen Parrish: God and Objectivism: A Critique of Objectivist Philosophy of Religion

"I will examine what Objectivists, both old and new, have written about God and subject it to critical analysis. My conclusion will be that Objectivists have not only failed to keep up with the work of contemporary philosophers of religion, but that their work is marred by logical fallacies, especially begging the question. Philosophical naturalism is assumed rather than proved. Objectivists have failed to support the atheism Rand so vigorously espoused. Since Objectivists claim theirs is a philosophy of reason, the failure to support such a central tenet undermines the whole project of their philosophy. The rest of this paper will attempt to support these claims."

LINK

Living like a Roman Emperor: the Stoic Life

This seems like a truly worthwhile exercise.