2007-12-19
Atheist philosopher follows the evidence where it leads … to God!
Why did the worlds most important atheist scholar, Antony Flew decide in his eighties that there is a God after all?
The New York Times was quick to suggest senility, but reading his book with Roy Varghese, I dont think that will wash. Their slender hardcover, There IS a God (Harper One 2007) introduces us to [...]
2007-12-15
Compassion is strictly a personal thing
Recently, a friend who lives in California wrote me a heartbreaking note. His daughter had gone on a mission trip to a poor district in Mexico and discovered, among many needy people, a child who appeared to be abandoned and starving. The child became very attached to his daughter and called her “Mother.”
He mused, “How [...]
2007-12-05
Politically incorrect social trends you don’t hear much about
In case you think nothing is changing in society, here’s a quick overview of two changes that are likely to make a difference in the long run: Who actually has kids and what do the kids think?
Who actually has kids?
That is a highly political issue. Some - for example, Pennsylvania State’s Philip Jenkins - argue [...]
2007-12-01
Politically incorrect speech on the subject of AIDS, and many other topics …
If you live in a jurisdiction that enforces political correctness, consult your human rights advisor about whether you are permitted to read any of the following items of information:
Robert Knight asks the questions many won’t ask about AIDS:
One would think a 10 percent failure rate against a 100 percent fatal disease would continue to make [...]
2007-11-23
Grandma was right: Just eat and be thankful
In a recent post at TCS Daily (Technology. Commerce. Society), John Luik takes on the food fascists. About time, too.
In Fat and Happy: The Weight Story No One Wants to Talk About, he observes,
It’s been a tough time the last little while for the fatties among us - which is supposedly most of us. According [...]
2007-11-19
Ten worst psychology ideas a cautionary tale
Like many Christians, I have been suspicious of psychology, principally for the same reason that philosopher of science Karl Popper was: In its twentieth century incarnations, it was typically not falsifiable. For example, if you doubted that some Freudian theory was true, you were defensive about it, and therefore the theory must be true. If [...]
Comments (11) Filed under: Vox Populi — Denyse O'Leary @ 7:36 pm | 6 views2007-11-17
Did God create us? Or did we create him? Canadians much less sure than Americans
A recent Decima poll shows that Canadians are pretty evenly split on whether God created us, and if so, when.
Twenty-six percent of Canadians believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so. A dramatically larger percentage of Americans (46%) believes that.
Thirty-four percent [...]
2007-11-14
Human beings can genuinely take risks for others
Recently, while working on The Spiritual Brain, I had a chance to study altruism, a technical term for the quality that causes people to prefer others welfare to their own, even if the others are unknown strangers.
Much social science literature on altruism is not worth reading because it proceeds from a fundamentally wrong assumption: Concern [...]
Anti-God books: The god they dont believe in certainly isnt great. But so?
Why the recent spate of popular anti-God books? Books like Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Daniel Dennett), The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins), God: The Failed Hypothesis (Victor J. Stenger), God Is Not Great (Christopher Hitchens) and The End of Faith (Sam Harris) dominate the charts, with some help from conferences such as [...]
Comments (2) Filed under: Vox Populi — Denyse O'Leary @ 12:12 pm | 81 views2007-11-08
O’Leary on radio today, tonight
Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and I will be on American radio host and columnist Dennis Prager’s show today, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, to discuss the findings from our recently published book The Spiritual Brain (Harper One 2007). You can listen online using the button here.
I hope I will be asked about coverage [...]
2007-11-02
A Tongan asks, What would atheism offer that is better than Christianity?
In a recent column, Dinesh (What’s so Great about Christianity?) D’Souza recalls an incident in his recent debate with Christopher (god is not Great) Hitchens:
One of the most interesting questions in the debate was posed to Hitchens by a man from Tonga. Before the Christians came to Tonga, he said, the place was a mess. [...]
2007-11-01
Hello from Denyse, new contributor
Mike Lasalle recruited me, and I hope he neverregrets it.
I am a Toronto-based journalist, author, and blogger - and Irish Catholic granny.
This site provides help for fractured families, right?
Fractured? I’ve been there. I was once put under pressure to accuse a man of something he never did (by people who KNEW what “men are capable [...]
