Thursday 24 March 2011

Burnee links for Thursday

Creation Science Movement - News
Stephen Hayes reviews Alister McGrath's Why God won't go away: engaging with the New Atheism — and gets in plenty of incidental invective against Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris, accusing them of rabble-rousing, and their output as "too vile to be quoted". McGrath apparently "exposes the the real nastiness in the underbelly of this movement". (And for good measure The God Delusion is a "revolting book of crude and bigoted propaganda".) I think I can tell where he's coming from, but even without this helpful review I shan't be reading McGrath's book. I've read some of his stuff online and I've heard him speak — or rather circumlocute, and I choose not to subject my brain to being savaged by a blancmange.

Jourdemayne: Mrs. God
The shocking revelation turns out to be a bit old hat.

Free schools will not teach creationism, says Department for Education | Science | The Guardian
Credit to the BCSE for getting a response, but I wonder how much Gove's assurances are worth.

John Ronson On...
Useful links to Jon Ronson's BBC Radio 4 documentaries.

Advertising that will catch your attention: 20 awesome billboards
Some of these are fun, some clever. All eye-catching.

Do You Have Free Will? Yes, It’s the Only Choice - NYTimes.com
Fascinating article. I tend towards the compatibilists.

Atheist throws in towel: 6-year lawsuit challenging Pledge of Allegiance in California | Spero News
This is curious. Not sure what's going on here.

Harvard University professor Michael Sandel said Tuesday that reasoned argument is missing in political discourse, but the solution is more debate, not less | Gainesville.com
Michael Sandel tells us what's missing in public debate. And I really must find time to watch his series Justice (which I have on my iPod).

Hell and linoleum | Andrew Brown | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Andrew Brown attempts to ponder the justice of Hell — and finds he can't.

I've no faith in this idea that religion is dying out | Wendy M Grossman | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Wendy Grossman isn't buying it.