Letters to the Oregonian: December 2007

[ a fully caused & embodied blog ] [ Good Sense Without God ]

It is in the prosecution of some single object, and in striving to reach its accomplishment by the combined application of his moral and physical energies, that the true happiness of man, in his full vigour and development, consists. Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with repose; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm our eyes. If we consider the position of man in the universe,—if we remember the constant tendency of his energies towards some definite activity, and recognize the influence of surrounding nature, which is ever provoking him to exertion, we shall be ready to acknowledge that repose and possession do not indeed exist but in imagination. - Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government (The Limits of State Action) (1854 ed.)

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Required Reading

Left for dead by New Labour, John Pilger

Five Untouchable Symptoms, Matt Stoller

Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?,Daniel Dennett

Laws of Nature, Source Unknown, Dennis Overbye

Oligarchical decay, Glenn Greenwald

Review - Can Science Help Us Make Wise Moral Judgments? by Paul Kurtz (Editor), Eyja M. Brynjarsdóttir

Friday, December 28, 2007

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Media Ownership w/ Glenn Beck

Via The Largest Minority:

Norman Solomon rocks!!

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Repubs -- Yuck!

Kansas GOP is proud of caging!

To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Hark! Here ye is thine War on Christmas!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Why can there not be a conspiracy?

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Dodd's Efforts on the FISA bill's retroactive immunity for phone companies

Read these and learn how your emails and phone calls do and can have an effect.

Glenn Greenwald: I II

Monday, December 17, 2007

Philosophy Bites: Medical Consent

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Beyone Belief: Enlightenment 2.0 (cont)

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Beyone Belief: Enlightenment 2.0

Yay! The videos are posted!

http://thesciencenetwork.org/BeyondBelief2/

Monday, December 3, 2007

Humanist News Network: Interviews with the "New Atheists"

In this month's audio podcast we celebrate our program's two-year anniversary by interviewing Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. HNN's Duncan Crary interviewed these best-selling authors, a.k.a. "The New Atheists", at the Atheist Alliance International annual conference in September. At the conference, Harris, author of "The End of Faith," told the crowd that they should not identify with the atheist label. Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens react. So does the Rational Response Squad and Pastor Deacon Fred of the Landover Baptist Church. Also, Sweet Reason gives advice on "coming out" as an atheist.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Tally: Week of Nov. 23 - 29, 2007

Letters Received: 575
Letters Published: 71

Most Popular Topic: Iraq War
Number of Letters: 60
Opposed: 56
Supported: 4

Second Most Popular Topic: The now-dead proposal to rename a Portland street after Cesar Chavez
Letters: 57

Good Sense Without God - Paul D'Holbach

50. If God be infinite, he has much less relation with man, than man with ants. Would the ants reason pertinently concerning the intentions, desires, and projects of the gardener? Could they justly imagine, that a park was planted for them alone, by an ostentatious monarch, and that the sole object of his goodness was to furnish them with a superb residence? But, according to theology, man is, with respect to God, far below what the vilest insect is to man. Thus, by theology itself, which is wholly devoted to the attributes and views of the Divinity, theology appears a complete folly.

( See link at top right. )

Letters to the Oregonian