But how do you do an entire show on RHE and progressive faith, @kristatippett, without mentioning Dayton TN? That she grew up THERE and STAYED is one of the most impressive and improbable facts about her. https://t.co/IUoZIvQwNK
— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) December 27, 2021
Monday, December 27, 2021
Rachel Held Evans
E.O. Wilson, a Pioneer of Evolutionary Biology, Dies at 92
A Harvard professor for 46 years, he was an expert on insects and explored how natural selection and other forces could influence animal behavior. He then applied his research to humans.
...During his baptism, he became keenly aware that he felt no transcendence. "And something small somewhere cracked," Dr. Wilson wrote. He drifted away from the church.
"I had discovered that what I most loved on the planet, which was life on the planet, made sense only in terms of evolution and the idea of natural selection," Dr. Wilson later told the historian Ullica Segerstrale, "and that this was a far more interesting, richer and more powerful explanation than the teachings of the New Testament."
...
nyt
...During his baptism, he became keenly aware that he felt no transcendence. "And something small somewhere cracked," Dr. Wilson wrote. He drifted away from the church.
"I had discovered that what I most loved on the planet, which was life on the planet, made sense only in terms of evolution and the idea of natural selection," Dr. Wilson later told the historian Ullica Segerstrale, "and that this was a far more interesting, richer and more powerful explanation than the teachings of the New Testament."
...
nyt
Monday, December 20, 2021
French Secularism Leaves Little Room for Religion - The Atlantic
…When I look at France, I have to admire an educational system that at least tries to give everyone a common grounding in the core principles of national life. At a time when everything is being privatized, from running elections to fighting wars, it's useful to be reminded that there is something important called "public space," beyond the market economy, and that we must protect it. In the Cartesian construct that is France, there's a place in the garden for any flower that accepts the design. But as laïcité illustrates, the formal system can be rigid and unforgiving. Individuals and groups are constrained by law in ways that have no parallel in other democracies. The French may be more multicultural in practice than in theory, but theory carries weight. In France, individuals are expected to suppress fundamental parts of themselves in public life.
Emmanuel Macron was right that an existential battle is under way. But the larger war is about democracy itself, and it is being waged on a bigger field than France.
This article appears in the December 2021 print edition with the headline "France's God Complex."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/france-god-religion-secularism/620528/Sunday, December 19, 2021
Read the syllabus
Professor Put Clues to a Cash Prize in His Syllabus. No One Noticed.
Tucked into the second page of the syllabus was information about a locker number and its combination. Inside was a $50 bill, which went unclaimed.
Kenyon Wilson, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, wanted to test whether any of his students fully read the syllabus for his music seminar.
Of the more than 70 students enrolled in the class, none apparently did.
Professor Wilson said he knows this because on the second page of the three-page syllabus he included the location and combination to a locker, inside of which was a $50 cash prize.
"Free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five," read the passage in the syllabus. But when the semester ended on Dec. 8, students went home and the cash was unclaimed.
"My semester-long experiment has come to an end," Mr. Wilson wrote on Facebook, adding: "Today I retrieved the unclaimed treasure."
...
Tucked into the second page of the syllabus was information about a locker number and its combination. Inside was a $50 bill, which went unclaimed.
Kenyon Wilson, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, wanted to test whether any of his students fully read the syllabus for his music seminar.
Of the more than 70 students enrolled in the class, none apparently did.
Professor Wilson said he knows this because on the second page of the three-page syllabus he included the location and combination to a locker, inside of which was a $50 cash prize.
"Free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five," read the passage in the syllabus. But when the semester ended on Dec. 8, students went home and the cash was unclaimed.
"My semester-long experiment has come to an end," Mr. Wilson wrote on Facebook, adding: "Today I retrieved the unclaimed treasure."
...
Saturday, December 18, 2021
Bad Beliefs: Why They Happen To Good People
Free Open Access copy of Bad Beliefs: Why They Happen To Good People | by Neil Levy | https://t.co/dMd8MqQx31
(https://twitter.com/GreggDCaruso/status/1472191992788566018?s=02)
(https://twitter.com/GreggDCaruso/status/1472191992788566018?s=02)
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Tom Paine’s religion
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Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu
👣Solvitur ambulando
💭Sapere aude
Bill of Rights Day
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