Mid-Week Religion and Free Thought Report 9/4, part 3

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atheism, bill nye, children, consciousness, creationist, duck dynasty, france, ian mcewan, islamic, jehovah's witnesses, liberty, mike dobbins, morality, muslims, new age, paganism, prison, religion, republicans, sam harris, science, secular, skepticism, spirituality, supreme court, symbols, synogogue, voyeurism

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The Coming Secular Era

The most important changes don’t come in the form of attention-grabbing headlines, but subtle trends that quietly gather momentum until, by the time they finally burst into public view, they’re unstoppable. [Read more]

Review: ‘The Children Act,’ by Ian McEwan Puts Beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses on Trial

Believers of a millennial bent might consider this a sign: It’s not every summer that we get two dark and serious novels focused on Jehovah’s Witnesses. [Read more]

Republican Says ‘Hundreds’ of Americans Have Joined Islamic State. True?

Have hundreds of disaffected Americans traveled overseas to train as terrorists with the brutal Islamic State? That’s what Rep. Mike Rogers (R) of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said. [Read more]

Atheism as a Religion – Mike Dobbins and Atheist Symbols

There is a subtle irony about a religious person pooh poohing science while writing on the Internet. That’s about as hypocritic as someone bemoaning the horrors of science and urging us to live like hunter gatherers after flying across the planet to do so. [Read more]

Muslim Girls Arrested for Plotting To Blow Up Synagogue in France

The girls, ages 15 and 17, were arrested last week after the plot to blow up the Great Synagogue of Lyon was discovered, the French language JSS News website reported. [Read more]

A Prisoner’s Beard Offers the Next Test of Religious Liberty for the Supreme Court

When the Supreme Court comes back from its summer break next month, it will pick up where it left off, returning to the subject of religious freedom. [Read more]

Sam Harris, Waking Up, and What I’ve Learned about Spirituality

Sam Harris’ new book is entitled… Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion. That’s the title to Sam Harris’new book. Now, this should be interesting. [Read more]

Creationist Suspected of Bathroom Voyeurism

The Irish Times of Dublin carries this story: DUP MP ex-aide held over toilet camera. Toilet camera? Yes, dear reader, that’s what the headline says. For those who don’t know, “DUP” is the Democratic Unionist Party. [Read more]

Airline Pilot Teaches Skepticism, While Flying!

One woman became upset as she said “It is flying right alongside us!”  Another man announced, “There is something funny, it shouldn’t be this close to Earth!”  A mild panic ensued. [Read more]

The Value of a Robust Core Curriculum, with Bill Nye

In his recent Big Think interview, Bill Nye proposed his version of an ideal core curriculum. Spoiler Alert: there’s science involved. [Read more]

Paganism & The New Age

Much of my Pagan practice comes from books. My first three years as a Pagan were spent as a solitary and in order to learn as much as I could I read as much as I could. [Read more]

What Robot Theology Can Tell Us About Ourselves

Weighing at a little over 11 pounds and costing $16,000 (the seminary was given a discount from Aldebaran, NAO’s French manufacturer, and a donor covered the cost), D.A.V.I.D. evokes a certain sculpture by Michelangelo—human artifice reaching for a kind of material perfection. [Read more]

Sprouting New Moral Foundations

There are a lot of important ideas in Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, which I just finished reading. He makes a descriptively compelling case for how WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) most of the readers of his book are. [Read more]

The Intuitional Problem of Consciousness

Could a computer ever be conscious? I think so, at least in principle. Scientia Salon has seen a number of very interesting discussions on this theme which unfortunately have failed to shift anybody’s position. [Read more]

Duck Dynasty Guru Becomes a Political Pundit on Fox News: “We Have to Either Convert Them or Kill Them”

Phil Robertson, Christian, hunter, homophobe, and Duck Commander (aka patriarch) on the execrable television show Duck Dynasty, was brought onto Sean Hannity’s television show to give his opinion on ISIS.

[Read more]