Keith Parsons's Blog, page 66

The Attack on Higher Education

This post is a bit off topic, but I think people interested in higher education (which include many followers of SO) need to know that higher education is presently under strident, well-funded, ideological attack here in Texas. Be warned. If it succeeds here this campaign will be coming soon to a neighborhood near you:Presently there are some who claim to value education, but think that public

Natural miracles?

Say you run into a conservative Christian church that advertises that next Sunday, the minister is going to call on the power of Jesus and resurrect a dead member of the congregation.

You stop by, thinking the attempt might be amusing. As you walk into the service, it looks more crazy than fun. They really have brought up a stinking corpse to the altar; one that should have been buried a week

Books on Islam

I occasionally get asked for recommendations about books to read on Islam, particularly if lately I've been grumbling about superficial descriptions of the religion.

Usually I pull out some intro-to-Islam undergraduate textbooks. There are many good examples. But I wonder if they are really not to the point. After all, especially for skeptics, there may be little useful in learning about ritual

Texas Day of Prayer and Fasting. Yee Haa!!!

If you are an atheist in Texas, you can never be bored. There is always something interesting going on. Our Governor, Rick Perry, has declared that August 6 will be a day of "prayer and fasting" with a big prayer meeting at the Houston Reliant Center. Now, from what I see on TV, several days of fasting might be good for some of the governor's "bigger" supporters. The prayer stuff though is a

On the "Think Atheist" radio show

An interview with me is appearing today on the "Think Atheist" radio show. They tell me that "The show will air at 5PM Pacific/8PM Eastern but then be available to stream from our archive immediately after it concludes."

Being identified as an atheist

I'm not always comfortable being publicly identified as an atheist.

The label is accurate enough; I don't think that any God or other supernatural entities exist. But the word "atheist" has other connotations as well, and I don't always want to take them on board or fight against them.

For example, in a piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education that quotes me, there is this paragraph:
Now, the

Unabashedly Self-Promoting Blurb

John Loftus' latest anthology, The End of Christianity has been printed by Prometheus and is now being distributed. I have an essay in the book titled "Hell: Christianity's Most Damnable Doctrine." (BTW, John and Victor Reppert are having a knock-down-drag-out squabble on their respective blogs--Debunking Christianity and Dangerous Idea--about what John calls 'the outsider test of faith.' The

Son of Naturalism and Norms

First, apologies if I am boring the hell out of everyone but a few of us fanatics with yet another sequel on naturalism and norms. It is just that I think the issues are very important, and I have gotten such terrific feedback on these points, that I am going to post a couple more replies to Philip K. and Dianelos.Philip K, Your commentary raises a good many deep issues, so many

Religious Reminiscences

We usually debate weighty issues on SO, but I thought I would offer something a bit lighter. For fun I am writing a memoir (I was inspired by Bill Bryson's Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid) of growing up in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia in the '50's and early 60's. These are my religious reminiscences. Names have been changed. Mom and Dad were both practicing Christians. Grace was said

The Monty Hall Problem - Part 3

I'm going to make two objections to standard justifications of the correct answer to the Monty Hall problem. The conclusion to an unsound argument can still be true, so if I'm successful at showing that there is a problem with the reasoning supporting the accepted answer to the problem, this will not show that the accepted answer is false, just that the justification of the answer is faulty.At a