Critical Thinking

Making good choices – why do so many of us not do this?

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Harriet Hall, the skeptic-doc, writes over on Science Based Medicine a fabulous article all about why people ignore the facts and instead buy into absurd ideas when it comes to making decisions that can potentially be the wrong side of the line between life and death. (Side note: she is a fascinating person, not only is she … Read more

The long reach of reason – Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

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Now this is interesting, it’s a TED talk, but in a format I’ve never seen before – they have animated it, and also it is a duo, not a single individual. The TED site describes it as follows … In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally … Read more

Letting go of religious hatred – escaping into a better world

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At a deep psychological level people tend to flow with the cultural tide, and so we have the observation that the religious belief people embrace tells us a great deal about their geographical location and the micro-cultures they inhabit, and not much else. Those born into a Sunni family will generally tend to be Sunni … Read more

Reviewing a Christian response to the atheist ten non-commandments

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If you are not sure what these new improved ten commandments are or where they came from, then you can read the posting I wrote about them here. Many “Christian” responses to them are what you might indeed anticipate and expect, and fall into categories that are best described as either “unthinking” and/or “impolite”, but I have come across one … Read more

10 new improved and far better commandments

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There has been a “10 ‘Non-Commandments’ Contest,” in which people were asked to offer modern and far better alternatives to the famous 10, and the prize on offer for the winner was $10,000. Who is doing this? Lex Bayer, an executive at AirBnB, and John Figdor, a humanist chaplain at Stanford University Why? The cynical might simply make … Read more

Ken Ham – “Creationists are not science deniers”

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Nobody ever thinks to themselves, “I believe in things that are simply not scientific or true”, but rather we all hold positions that we are sure are correct. If this is indeed the case, then why is there a prevailing confidence in some minds regarding ideas and thoughts that have been truly discredited? … now that actually is … Read more