Originally published at the USU SHAFT site. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman details the Republican war against science. Several groups, notably the National Academy of Sciences, are encouraging scientists to be more vocal politically and even run for office. Scientists have a lot to contribute to our political discourse, especially where it concerns issues ...
GQ magazine ranks Salt Lake City and Provo among the worst-dressed cities in the country. Our fashion sense aside, Utahns are still counted among the best looking people. Maybe it’s all that plastic surgery. Harrison Ames argues that the frequent use of corrective words and phrases like “rather” and “in other words” in the Book ...
Originally published at the USU SHAFT site. (Sorry for the length! I had a month’s worth of links to cover.) After being teased at work for believing the Rapture would occur on May 21st, Dale O’Callaghan brought a gun to the office and shot a coworker (who thankfully is expected to recover). Sam Harris makes ...
Originally published at the USU SHAFT site. A history of the LDS garment. Another interesting history is the evolution of the LDS prayer circle. What a religious debate on Facebook would look like in the Mayan pre-Columbian America. Sincere devoutness is sometimes indistinguishable from good satire. Case in point: this Stake President’s blog. I hope ...
In a Psychology Today interview, sociologist Duncan Watts takes a critical look at common sense and shows how dangerously bad we are at predicting certain outcomes. Common Sense Atheism is one of my favorite atheist blogs. Here, its author Luke Muehlhauser recounts the blog’s history and most important posts. An oldie, but goodie: Pure Mormonism ...
I had planned to write a review of this latest General Conference, but I couldn’t muster up the interest. This conference was particularly dull for me as a nonbeliever, and by that I mean it was controversy-free. Well, almost. Monson’s admonishment to young single men to get married received some attention, as did Packer’s statement ...
Wikileaks is back in the news with revelations about the detention of Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old soldier accused of divulging classified information to the group. I’ve been critical of Wikileaks, but I nonetheless disapprove of Manning’s treatment. In a Virginia military brig, he has been kept in intensive solitary confinement for many months, and has ...
In Cache Valley news, a group of Hyrum students seek to form a ‘no cussing’ club. If you don’t want to use certain language, fine—don’t use it. But what will creating a group accomplish to that end? To me, this just smacks of self-righteousness, and that’s a greater social ill than cussing. Slate Magazine reviews ...
(Because it has been a while since the last link bomb, this will be the biggest one yet—a nuclear link bomb, if you will.) South Park’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are about to unveil their first broadway musical, The Book of Mormon (it premieres at the end of February). The show tells the ...
A new year, a new link bomb. (This is my second link bomb here, but the 14th in all. You can read the previous installments here, at the USU SHAFT blog.) Philosopher Nicholas Everitt discusses God’s various attributes (omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenovelence) and their incompatibility. Everitt recommends that theists tweak these traditional attributes, and some ...
I have been doing my ‘link bomb’ series for months over at the USU SHAFT blog, but I’ve been invited to share them here also. I hope you enjoy it! Last Thursday, the pope called Christians the most persecuted people in the world, and this immediately elicited derision from my fellow liberals, gay rights activists, ...