Reading Time: 3 minutes Contrast the recent violence in the Middle East over perceived insults to Islam with a couple of historical examples (Japan a century ago and the Islamic Golden Age). Has the Islamic world missed an opportunity?
Religion
Posted inReligion, Science
Why Map of World Religions but not World Science?
Reading Time: 2 minutes A map of world religions shows that, in contrast to science, religious answers to life’s Big Questions depend on location—hardly a compelling foundation on which to build truth claims.
Posted inReligion, The Secular
Project Reason Video Contest
Reading Time: < 1 minute Project Reason’s annual video contest has six short, pithy videos. Here’s my favorite.
Posted inReligion, The Secular
MS-DOS and Objective Truth
Reading Time: 2 minutes IBM-compatible MS-DOS PCs used to start up displaying a C-prompt (the “C:>” with a blinking cursor). We don’t conclude anything transcendental from this. Similarly, most humans have an innate sense of morality, but we can’t conclude anything transcendent from this either.
Posted inComedy, Religion
Where Religions Come From
Reading Time: < 1 minute From Mitchell and Webb, a video that explores the origin of religions.
Posted inReligion
Word of the Day: Burqa, Niqab, Hijab
Reading Time: 3 minutes Muslim traditional clothing requirements for women are often in the news. Let’s get the names straight for the different elements of clothing and look at some of their consequences.
Posted inReligion
The Religious Foundation of Groundhog Day
Reading Time: 2 minutes Groundhog Day (February 2) is a day when we can celebrate some old wives’ tale about groundhogs seeing their shadow, but few people know about the religious foundation of this day.
Posted inReligion
Using the Monty Hall Problem to Undercut Christianity
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Monty Hall problem is a simple puzzle with a paradoxical answer. It has a lot to say about the validity of religious belief.
Posted inReligion
Map of the History of Religion
Reading Time: < 1 minute I made an interesting discovery a few years ago. Not an especially unique discovery, I’ll admit, and rather obvious in hindsight. But here goes. The Eastern Mediterranean spawned three great religions: Judaism, then Christianity, and then Islam. With Christianity dominant in the US, it’s easy to focus only on this region. But northern India also […]