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47 Ronin and Appropriation
I was at the movies last night, and in the trailers I was subjected to a preview of “47 Ronin”. It seems like a pretty amazing movie, right? I mean minus that we have a white guy ‘saving’ a bunch of Japanese people (yes, yes, the character is “half-Japanese”. Which is simply an expression of…
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An Open Letter to Mark Mercer and Saint Mary’s University
Dr. Mercer, I recently read your article in the UBC’s Ubyssey, and I have to admit: it raised some serious questions for me. I’ve spent some time thinking on them, so I hope that you’re not immediately dismissive. These questions pertain to your being a Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy, and yet you fail to act…
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Religion is the Cause of Terrible Behaviour
A fairly common theme in many atheist blogs is that religion is a causal factor in the various atrocities committed by people who are religious. JT Eberhard makes that point at the bottom of this post when he says (sarcastically): But Islam can’t be the cause of this barbaric behavior because the Koran has some…
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Taking Advantage of Seeking a Better Life
There’s no limit to the number of ‘self-help’ gurus out there, who lay claim to all sorts of nonsense. At best, these people are deeply misguided about what it is they are doing. At worst, they are intentionally running scams and swindling people out of money. I want to focus on a particular example: Psychology…
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Mr. Deity and His Epic Skeptifail
I don’t typically watch Mr. Deity videos, as they’re a little contrived for my tastes, but they’re generally well-received in the Skeptic/Atheist community. They’re light, usually well-informed, and poking fun at believers is bound to raise a few chuckles. Low-hanging fruit. But clearly I was mistaken as to the quality of the skepticism at play.…
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The Death Penalty, Deterrence in Practice
In Part 1 of this series, I dealt with the plausibility of the model in favour of Deterrence. But let’s forget all about that for a moment. Let’s put aside all the science behind our decision processes, how the human brain works, and all of that stuff. Like Deterrence-advocates, let’s pretend that science hasn’t moved…
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Single people don’t have a right to have sex
A good default position to hold is that ‘whatever the Family Research Council says is wrong’. You’ll get a fair bit of mileage out of that, and you’ll generally be on the right side of history as things shake out. However, in this particular case, I’m going to agree with Pat Fagan, senior member of…
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Honour Killings
This isn’t quite topical anymore, but I thought post this dialogue to go to with the reboot of this site. I really liked Xtranormal.com, and I’m disappointed that it’s been shut down, as I was intending to make a few more of these. If anyone happens to know of any similar websites/software out there, I’d…
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Philosophers: Please Take a Stand
This is an open letter to the Philosophers out there who consider themselves to be involved in Skepticism (even if only in a tertiary fashion). The ones that I specifically have in mind as I write this are Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, Dr. Daniel Fincke, and Dr. Daniel Dennett*. Let’s begin with my credentials: I am…
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Because Abortion needs to be explained, apparently.
I am irate. Look, I realise that I am in a position of privilege, and I realise that I’m not angry about this all the time because I’m male and that this is something that I have the privilege of simply not-concerning-myself-about for the vast bulk of my life. I rationalise this as that I…
