Flavour of Christianity vs 10 year bond spreads, relative to German rates.
No joke. Austerity = fiscal protestantism.
Month: July 2012
@BHAhumanism Creationism in Schools
I’m against the teaching of creationism in school. Teaching about it in social / cultural / religious studies is a different matter of course. Teaching its content as factual is a no-no. But then the balance of good teaching is not pedagogical anyway – it’s about learning how to learn and think.
I’m also totally fed up with campaigns that are always against things – see my reference to the BHA below. It was of course the recent “free schools to teach creationism” scaremongering headlines to which I was reacting in part in that post. It is naturally suspect that the headline is actually true, but no smoke without fire I guess. Hence this post to confirm what I am actually against, lest there be any doubt.
Better though to see much more intelligent comment from Tom Chivers in The Telegraph, and Tom taking the time to moderate and comment on the comment thread generated. Real debate takes effort, not 140 character knee-jerk tweets.
Soccer Mad
Why would anyone want to play or watch football in a sh*t-hole like that ?
It’s bad enough it has a running track, but there’s about another track and a half width on top of the track itself between the pitch and the supporters – utter madness.
Pullman on Blake
Been reading around Philip Pullman since discovering earlier this year he was a beacon of hope in the BHA (British Humanist Association) and that he’d received the BHA award for services to humanism in 2011. (I guess in that context Dawkins‘ award in 2012 counts as balance?)
I’ve been a humanist since I recognised the word used by my first mentor back in the early 80’s. I’m a BHA member, a non-theist / atheist, but sick and tired of their monotonous cracked-record of one campaign after another against just about anything religious; faith-based schooling, creationism, the lords-spiritual, etc, with barely a hint as to what they might actually be for apart from science, scientific knowledge, scientific truth, evidence-based choice, etc. A literal god is not great – we get it already. What else? Beginning to despair that humanism had redefined itself entirely as scientism set against theistic faith.
If humanism is to be more than scientism the BHA must redress this balance in the messages it promotes. Finding things to fight against is all too easy, or poke fun at (fair game) if you’re the recognised court jester like @rickygervais, but what is BHA’s vision of a better future ? That’s not in fact a rhetorical question, but I digress from the point of this post. Pullman has a wiser vision.
Rather than murder by my analytical dissection, just read this and weep.
Recognising “the system” that makes you “twice-born” rather than clinging to the belief that you operate within a baggage-free neutral absence-of-belief-system. Better a good value system than the neurotic pretence of none. Beautifully argued. Twice-born(*) = Wise. Hallelujah. Nuff said.
[So close to Nick Maxwell’s scientific neurosis thesis too.]
[More – And so gently but skilfully effective in damning (Dawkins and Hawking) with genuinely-respectful-but-faint praise for being half-right – as in 100% right but barely half the humanist story. On a par with Wittgenstein – who came to bury logic, not to praise it. So many more good articles here too.]
[(*) Not to be confused with born-again.]
Who’s This We ?
Free will, or quantum indeterminism ? (Hat tip to PsybertronJr)
Police State ?
Stevie’s right when he asks,
When did Britain become a police state?
Little people (the people holding the event license) hide behind applying rules, to apply objectivity rather than sound judgement. It’s what gives “health and safety” and a lot more a bad name. The only point he has wrong, is in blaming the police, he should be blaming us for wanting clear application of blame. The blame game wins. More’n my job’s worth, to do anything where I could be blamed for overriding objective facts. Where he is right is that UK and Europe are much worse than US.
Somatic Stomach
Never been any doubt that the workings of our minds reside throughout our entire electro-chemical system, not just the hemispheres of the organ we call the “brain” confined to our skulls. Gut feel is no joke. Case in point.
Tragic Case
Seems strange to add this case to my agenda, just one extreme example of valuing what can be counted rather than what counts. Life is more than logic and objective calculations.