Many Christians seem to love the idea of humans being hardwired for belief. By this phrase, they mean that their god placed in each human’s heart a desire to worship something supernatural. Unfortunately, their god didn’t finish the job.
One of the very most human parts of the human situation is our love of stories. It’s how early humans formed groups and stuck together, and it’s how we learn even today.
One of the most potent ways historians connect people to our past is through facial reconstruction. As the technology to reproduce those ancient faces progresses, we’re discovering that we need to be aware of how we use it. Our biases can accidentally shift the appearance of those faces and distort Read more…
Christian claims always have a pedigree, if our two current series, Journey Into Hell and 1st-Century Fridays, are anything to go by. I want to know the source of this particular mythology. So today, let’s check out this wingnut’s specific claims — and see, if we can, where she’s getting them and why she cherishes them so much.
Today, let’s see how wingnuts like Patrice Lewis assess truth claims in the first place. They do it a lot differently from reality-based people.
I can easily see why 3rd-and-4th-century Christians felt an irresistible urge to edit Josephus’ work to better support their own claims. Around then, they were just starting to wonder why they lacked that kind of corroboration, and it bothered some of them a lot.
Hi and welcome back! The other day, I showed you an odd little essay by Amy Laura Hall, a Duke University ethics professor. In it, she twice displayed a cognitive bias called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias, if allowed to rule people unchecked, can prevent their ability to learn and grow. Today, Read more…
Today, Lord Snow Presides over the way one ancient human species, the Denisovans, reached the present day through our DNA.
One of her biggest mistakes might be how she views COVID denialists themselves. They are, in essence, griefers. And ignoring griefers does not make them go away.
Hi and welcome back! My mind was blown by this opinion piece in Religion News recently. In it, a Duke University ethics professor tells us she wants us to stop talking about COVID deniers getting COVID and dying. Instead, she wants us to focus on happy things and bringing about Read more…