Despite the mild blowback on beards I’ve noticed recently, I formed one. Thus sayeth Clement of Alexandria: How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs … I Growed a Beard
I’m not a super-theology buff so don’t yell at me for being a Piper or Wright fanboy. I have seen some N.T. Wright videos and liked them. I have seen some John Piper tweets and liked them. That’s about it. As with some Hitler Reacts videos, it’s hard to really determine who is meant to … Hitler on John Piper and N.T. Wright
A Facebook friend linked to these recently. Most of them are satirical strawman proofs; no need to take them seriously, but some do point out actual weak arguments. There’s too many good ones to point out, but check out one of the Carl Sagan Dragon arguments, number 90: CARL SAGAN’S DRAGON IN MY GARAGE ARGUMENT … Thomism.org’s Proofs Against Theism
Back when mises.org had the forums, someone posed an hypothetical situation (ugh) of a “uncoerced exchange” between a young boy and a group of pedophiles. The boy has no means of acquiring resources somehow, so he exchanges sex with the group of pedophiles for food and shelter, etc. The idea with this situation is that … The “Roving Hordes of Heartless Pedophiles” Fallacy
Intense online debates tend to go only one way. Some hapless dude makes a claim that is more or less self-evidently true, and a high-minded scientismist-debutante asks for “EVIDENCE??”. That’s really not the only way but many debates can follow this simple framework. The implication with this triple-syllabled rejoinder is that a failure to produce … Stop Asking For Evidence
I heard this sentence on last night’s episode of The Walking Dead: “If you weren’t in here already, you’d be here.” It was spoken to a doctor who had gotten sick and was being quarantined with a load of other non-doctor patients. It was meant to show the speaker’s (Herschel’s) regard for the sick doctor’s … Weird Language on The Walking Dead
Via Aeon Skbole’s Facebook, witness the double-surrealism of this video explaining Plato’s Cave analogy of human knowledge narrated by Orson Welles. I know him most as the voice of Unicron because that’s what I grew up with, but that he was the broadcast voice of the fake alien attack that people took seriously yields some … Orson Welles Narrating Plato’s “Parable of the Cave”
This was a neat exercise, mapping my employment history and assigning levels of happiness to them. I used the word “nurp” as a unit of happiness, a play off of Alvin Plantinga’s “turp” as a theoretical unit of evil. THe ratings I gave each position were based on pay (duh), the actual work itself and … Personal Employment History and Happiness
The dialogue in my current work in progress uses three languages: English (most of it), German (here and there), and Franco-Arabic (it is what you probably think it is). I was under the impression from previous reading that some or many foreign words that were actual foreign language words and not common loanwords (i.e., “taco”) … Italicizing Foreign Words in Fiction
Old, old news by now, but there’s another guy claiming Jesus was invented by Rome in order to appeal to the occupied Jewish population, and he has suspiciously non-peer-reviewed evidence to prove it. That a nation would go to such great lengths and expense to play pattycake-nice with (or a joke on) people who where … Jesus Was Invented By Rome, Why Not?
This came up on a randomized Youtube playlist I was streaming on cred.fm, and it reminded me of how much I liked the lyrics. There’s not a whole lot there, and I get that the music isn’t the first choice of everyone who reads my posts, but it encapsulates the view the church should have … Desire the End
Via Metalsucks here. A specialty burger at Kuma’s Corner has a communion wafer as a garnish. A Catholic foodie blogger (ugh) reacted negatively. From the Director of Operations at Kuma’s: “People have been kind of upset,” he said. “The thing with this is, the communion wafer is unconsecrated, so until that happens, it’s really just … Food Chain Makes Jesus Wafer Burger, Some People are Allegedly Pissed
Old page (a decade old!), but it does a good job of laying out some bare historical facts and estimates on the background of the “creeping death” plague from Exodus: As in many of the skeptical questions I get, the conclusion they end up with is often correct in some basic sense (i.e., ‘we should … Why God Killed All Those Egyptian Babies
The guy who started the self-parodying and extensive av1611.org, the website that documents Ruckman’s dislike for just about everything you can think of, for the flimsiest of reasons. But he also seems to have inside info about aliens and the American government* as well. It’s comforting, in a way, when someone is demonstrably crazy all … Peter Ruckman Really Is Crazy
I had a longer post but I watched the last video down below and it seemed to hit on a lot points of explanation. It also does a good job of putting to rest a lot of “Hey, why would they do that? That’s stupid,” kind of criticisms. Lifehack tip for people that watch movies: … Prometheus Analysis
American twenty-something males shoot each other over Nikes and women. Russian twenty-something males shoot each other over philosophy: [T]wo men in their 20s were discussing Kant as they stood in line to buy beer at a small store on Sunday. The discussion deteriorated into a fistfight and one participant pulled out a small nonlethal pistol … In Russia, Pure Reason Critiques YOU!
Kind of a throwaway post, but in the last few days I made everything darker here at jd.com. The development environment I use at work is by default a white background and customizing the colors is hellish, so I leave it as is. I generally don’t like staring directly into flashlights so I thought I’d … Once You Go Dark…
Rick Sebak narrated a PBS documentary on the history of amusement parks (Youtube playlist here). He mentioned baby incubators at Luna Park in Pittsburgh at the turn of the century, but it was also at the Luna Park at Coney Island. It comes off as unseeming to put babies and nurses on display for the … Baby Incubators in Amusement Parks
From left to right. Just throwing it out there. Found here.
One of the dumbest comments I’ve seen goes to this one, on an article about some schmuck brain surgeon who killed people. See bolded part: There is no regulation in Texas of ANY kind. Regulation in Texas only exists to protect the businesses and individuals from the consequences of their actions, just like this so … “There is no X, except there is X.”