While contemplating life the day after an historic US election, I decided to jot a bit about basic, ironic, differences between political liberals and conservatives, and how small group dynamics (in particular, religious group dynamics) play into this. For background, I highly recommend Jon Haidt’s TED talk athttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jo…. Haidt is one of our most consistently…
I found Jon Haidt’s reference in The Happiness Hypothesis to the literature related to ethics of community versus ethics of individuality to be useful. In particular, it was his suggestion that perhaps we would not want to completely eliminate either one or the other that got me thinking about this concept. There is lots of…
“I Am Hutterite†by Mary-Ann Kirkby I saw this book sitting on a stand in and airport bookstore as I was walking past this afternoon, picked it up on impulse and finished it a few hours later. I highly recommend it. This is not a great work of literature. It is, however, a nicely crafted…
I watched Lyndon’s you tube presentation to the Red Mountain Community Church near Phoenix, and thoroughly enjoyed it. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECjddl…. He is an eloquent spokesman for the post-Mormon movement. His personal style is folksy, and pleasant. He is the kind of guy that most people would probably love to spend an evening chatting with. I certainly…
Life is good. One of the things that makes it good – or better – is taking time to record whatever we find satisfying. These are not necessarily highlights. They are, more simply, whatever resonates with us. So that is what I’m going to do this evening. I will reinforce the nice feelings I had…
If this were a Mormon testimony meeting, I would stand up, start with the obligatory “brothers and sisters, I want to bear you my testimony that I know this is the one and only true church on the face of the earth blah blah blahâ€, and then get into what I really wanted to say…
I spent about 18 hours driving this weekend, and it had the opportunity to listen to a lot of music as well as a couple of books on tape. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” has long been one of my favorites, and I listened to it probably a dozen times during the course of my drive. The…
One of my friends is a successful clinical psychologist with a background in theology. He is one of the sharpest people with whom I regularly deal when it comes to understanding the academic psychological literature, and practically applying it. Here is part of a note he sent to me and a number of other people…
This is a contribution I made recently to a science and religion list on which I participate. All the best, bob My continued reading here confirms that I have far more to learn than to contribute to those of you who have been at this science and religion stuff much longer than have I. Thank…
Review of Michael Ruse’s “Mysteries of Mysteries – Is Evolution a Social Construction?†bob mccue July 26, 2005 A friend asked some time ago that I write a review of Michael Ruse’s (“Michaelâ€) book “Mysteries of Mysteries – Is Evolution a Social Construction?†(“Mysteryâ€) and post it to a science list on which we both…