Quote 17 May 2009 The custom of making abstract dogmatic assertions is not, certainly, derived from the teaching of Jesus, but has been a widespread weakness among religious teachers in subsequent centuries. I do not think that the word for the Christian virtue of faith should be prostituted to mean the credulous acceptance of all such piously intended assertions. Much self-deception in the young believer is needed to convince himself that he knows that of which in reality he knows himself to be ignorant. That surely is hypocrisy, against which we have been most conspicuously warned. [Ronald Aylmer Fisher, BBC broadcast on “Science and Christianity” 1955, from Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 9: 91-120, (1963), p96] History Religion
Evolution The kangaroo is the first organism, but the fungus is not the biggest 12 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 So the record for the “world’s largest organism” has again been claimed for a fungus, something Stephen Jay Gould wrote about in his wonderfully titled essay “A Humongous Fungus Among Us” back in 1992, and which was included in his volume A Dinosaur in a Haystack. The previous fungus, Armillaria… Read More
Journalism Amis to Hitchens on agnosticism 25 Apr 201125 Apr 2011 My dear Hitch: there has been much wild talk, among the believers, about your impending embrace of the sacred and the supernatural. This is of course insane. But I still hope to convert you, by sheer force of zealotry, to my own persuasion: agnosticism. In your seminal book, God Is… Read More
Religion A poem to remember – meme 17 Jan 2008 Shelley at Restrospectacle gives a poem she learned in school, an excellent piece by A. E. Housman, So I got to thinking – what poem sticks with me? Is it the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by Eliot, who I think is a wonderful poet? Shakespeare? Kit Marlowe? I… Read More