Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Bertrand Russell, the great British philosopher and social critic, appeared on the BBC program Face-to-Face in 1959 and was asked a closing question: What would you tell a generation living 1,000 years from now about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned. His answer is short, but pithy. You can read a transcript … Read more
It was International Blasphemy Rights Day (30th Sept) a few days ago, and so it is perhaps appropriate to remember that the key point is not to offend, but rather to reject the meaningless concept of Blasphemy, a tool deployed by some to both oppress and to also enforce irrational dogma as “truth”. So who gets to decide when … Read more
There was a recent discussion on CNN recently between Sam Harris and Islamic “moderate”, Dean Obeidallah. Here is that actual clip, it runs for about 10 minutes. The context is the prevailing issues regarding the very negative attitudes of many towards Islam, and of course this dialogue was triggered by Ben Carson’s declaration that a Muslim could … Read more
The British Humanist Association has a fun little quiz that consists of a series of questions that ask you how humanist you are. For example … There are a total of exactly 10 questions so it does not take very long and then at the end it tells you what your humanist percentage is. What is interesting … Read more
Being religious is about investing in an idea emotionally, and sometimes (I really do mean sometimes for a minority) that happens to such a degree that the person doing so is completely oblivious to what has happened to their ability to think clearly about specific things. While within this post I am thinking specifically about creationism it can … Read more
The public pressure has been sufficiently large enough to embarrass Warwick into doing the right thing. It was only yesterday that I was blogging about it all and now today comes good news … Maryam Namazie had been banned by the university’s students’ union over fears she may offend Muslim students after 48 hours of … Read more