Pullman says Jesus isn’t God. Film at 11 9 Sep 2009 Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, has a book coming out that asserts Jesus isn’t God: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. It will be interesting to see how the religiosi play this, but let’s just note now that so too do the Muslims, the Jews, the Unitarians, the Bahai, the Hindus and the Buddhists. But this will be spun as “atheists hate God”, you watch. Pop culture Religion
History It’s a mystery 28 May 2010 Since the earliest times in recorded Graecoroman history, there have been mystery cults. Every cultic practice for a god had secret rituals and spaces, and there were a number of mystery religions, known as the Eleusinian mysteries, that developed that we know little about. In an excellent review of a… Read More
Accommodationism The “developmental hypothesis” of belief acquisition 29 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 In the last two posts I have discussed why members of belief-groups have silly beliefs (that is, beliefs that the wider population finds silly), and why those particular beliefs, whatever they are, are the ones they believe. In broad terms, the answer is that these are arbitrary, costly hard-to-fake signals… Read More
Philosophy I will not read Dan Brown’s latest 17 Sep 2009 He’s a pap writer. Nicely chewed and digested screenplays for filming. Nothing deep, nothing that might stretch a reader. Obvious plot turns. So the reviewer at First Post UK suggests some other reading. I add this: I am surprised that the reviewer did not suggest some Umberto Eco novels. I… Read More
Uhh, the generalization about all atheists might but unwarranted, but I was under the impression that Pullman explicitly acknowledges his maltheistism…. Take it for what it’s worth, since I haven’t read it yet, but I’m concerned about his foray into non-fiction. I’m a big fan of his Dark Materials trilogy, but the last thing we need is another “New Atheist” offering intro-level attacks on the strawman that is fundamentalist Christianity. The rhetoric, I admit, can be quite satisfying at times, but it is ultimately shallow and counterproductive, IMO.
Actually I thought the maltheism (nice term; I’ll take it) in Pullman’s trilogy was the least interesting and most tedious part of it. I endured it so as to read the story, and because I think atheism needs to be more normalised in society in general.