Church ATP Interviews Jonathan Burrello on Comedy, Cartoons, Religion and Politics. And Pentecostalism! Another cracking interview here with multi-skilled contributor to Patheos Nonreligious, Jonathan Burrello. He recently contributed to the excellent PNR anthology Atheism in the 21st Century [UK - on super paperback offer now.] Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook: A Tippling Philosopher
secularism Humanist Legal Center Seeks God-Free Mississippi License Plates This is from the American Humanist Association: The American Humanist Association’s legal center is demanding that Mississippi state officials make license plates without “In God We Trust” available to motorists at no additional cost. A new state statute makes “In God We Trust” the default license plate. To avoid
Economics Sapolsky: The Negatives of Income Inequality Returning to Robert Sapolsky Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst [UK], I thought this following excerpt plays nicely into the piece I posted on countries with the highest wellbeing and peace. It's a good fit [Chapter 9]: STRATIFIED VERSUS EGALITARIAN CULTURES A nother meaningful
Cosmology Guest Post: Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Hi. My name is Roger. I'm from Michigan originally but have lived in Columbus, Ohio for 29 years. This site contains my ideas on physics and philosophy. Throughout these papers, I try to make as few assumptions as possible, try to be internally consistent and try to follow
cognitive dissonance A Few Chats for You: Human Rights, Atheist Deaths, Veganism Due to the fact that I have a little more time in my staring at these four walls in isolation, I have decided to resurrect my YouTube channels in a few ways: firstly, to recreate some of the old posts that I have done in head-on-a-stick format. Secondly, I am
Demographics of Religion World's Happiest Countries Revealed: And Religion? CNN have recently produced a list of the world's happiest and least happy countries. There are no prizes to those who guess the correlation between lack of religion and happiness. This is a recurring pattern that we have seen over the years. Of course, we can talk more
Alan Duval ATP Interviews Alan Duval on Freedom of Speech Here is an isolation video interview for you, a la One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAj5KhdNFgU
Economics Big Pharma, Universal Healthcare and My Experiences Here is a bit of a magnum opus I have just written to some MS forums that should be of pretty universal interest here. I will end it with some comment specific stuff to those who have cast their naive opinions here. Although you might think this overly personal, please
Arts God's Been on Holiday Some Monday music for you, to keep you company. I always loved this. Good lyrics:
determinism What Would Be Your Last Question? Here is a sample from thinkers from the edge.com, asked by John Brockman: John Brockman, Editor of Edge, each year asks scores of notable scientists and other intellectuals one very challenging question. For 2018 he received 284 answers to: “What is the last question?” Most were about abstruse subjects.
Culture Sapolsky on Cultures: Collectivist vs Individualistic I am presently getting an awful lot of having read the behemoth that is Robert Sapolsky's Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst [UK]. There is a lot to chew on here. I have selected a lengthy excerpt to whet your appetite concerning cultures, both
Economics "Socialism Always Fails"? [This is a guest post from J Enigma - enjoy]. The other week I was engaged with an individual on Facebook arguing the merits of employing a universal healthcare system (why yes, I am American. How did you guess?) Normally this is a waste of time, but I wasn’t
Personal It's My Birthday, My Stem Cell Birthday... Well, it's about time I updated you all on what's going on over here in Russia. I have been here 16 days now and I am in fantastic hands. The hospital is superb, being very clean, exceptionally well-organised and full of equipment that appears to be
atheism Hope: What Offers the Most? Theism or Atheism? It is a word that can often get confused or conflated with trust and faith and other such terms. But in this context, I would like to her think about what worldview (and I know atheism isn't technically a worldview, but just the sake of argument let me
atheism Atheist Answers: A Return to "Atheist Dictators Committed Atrocities" I recently wrote a post on supposed atheist atrocities being worse than Christian ones, as argued often by naive apologists. One commenter made a video that should be interesting for you (Derek Mathias - Underlings). It's not about atheism vs. theism per se, but about authoritarians having to
Book Reviews Some of the Projects I am Completing I'm holed up in a room for most of the day enjoying the delicacies of chemotherapy infusions and sleeping and whatnot, so I have been able to achieve a number of things. Firstly, I have written a few blog posts, as you have seen. Thank you for engaging!
atheism A Great Myth about Atheism This has come up in conversation on the last thread, and being in second day of my Russian chemo, I thought I'd repost for your delectation: This post was one of my most popular pieces on my previous blog, and I have, over time, revised it slightly to
genocide The Myth about Atheist Atrocities and Numbers of Dead Many years ago I had a habit of watching a huge amount of debates and between atheists and theists. I do less of it these days as I just don't have the time. However, there was a stage where I watched a number of debates by the now
atheists Religious "Nones" Are now a Force to Be Reckoned with Unless you have been hiding in a hole today, you will have heard the news that "nones", those who are religiously unaffiliated, now comprise the biggest religious group in America today. The latest figures show that this group just about eclipse Catholics and evangelicals to the top spot.
catholicism More Catholics Considering Abandoning the Church These excerpts come from the Wall Street Journal, which is behind a pay wall, but the headline stats are interesting. See what you think: More Catholics Considering Abandoning the Church By Ian Lovett – The Wall Street Journal March 13, 2019 4:00 a.m. ET . . . according to new research conducted
Cosmology God's Superfluity in Creating the Universe “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed
Arts The Scary Prescience of Olaf Stapledon I am reading a book written in 1930 by Olaf Stapledon called Last and First Men and wow, it sure seems prescient, not only for the Second World War but also for times now. It is not so much a novel of fiction but an alternative history book. There is
determinism There Are Only Two Gods Available, Really I was recently having a rather abstract conversation with my good friend and Tippling Philosopher founder the other night. We were talking about the different kinds of gods that logic could get you to. And I came to the conclusion that really, there were only two types of gods available:
gun control Trump Effectively Endorses NZ White Nationalist Killings Trump came out in a press conference in condolence for the terrible killings in Christchurch, New Zealand. Some 49 worshippers were gunned down in several mosques by a white nationalist. After giving short condolences to NZ, Trump went on a rant about an invasion of immigrants into the borders of
