Estranged Notions: Whatever Happened to the Soul?

Today's (technically yesterday's) post:

Whatever Happened to the Soul?

You can probably guess the content from the title alone...

Estranged Notions: 9 Things Salon.com Gets Wrong About Jesus

Today's post:

9 Things Salon.com Gets Wrong About Jesus

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist by trade, and has written some useful articles from that perspective (one of which is linked from the References page), but has written some other articles for Alternet (some recently picked up by Salon) which are fairly weak as far as factual accuracy goes. Sorenson rips into one here, and the only real surprise is that even on such an easy target his criticism is pretty poor.

Estranged Notions: The Self-Defeating Argument About Intelligence

Today's post:

The Self-Defeating Argument About Intelligence

Estranged Notions: Dark Ages and Secularist Rages: A Response to Professor A.C. Grayling

Today's post:

Dark Ages and Secularist Rages: A Response to Professor A.C. Grayling

Estranged Notions: Marin Mersenne: A Priest at the Heart of the Scientific Revolution

Today's post is another “Look! Catholic dude does science!” article:

Marin Mersenne: A Priest at the Heart of the Scientific Revolution

Of course one can't help noticing things like this:

Furthermore, he “established that the intensity of sound, like that of light, is inversely proportional to the distance from its source.”

This quote is cited to the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, which does indeed have those words, but of course anyone who knows even the first thing about either sound or light knows that it is incorrect. Consulting the original source—Mersenne's Harmonicorum libri XII, book 2, proposition 39—seems to show that Mersenne did indeed have it as the inverse square, not the inverse, assuming I'm correctly construing his Latin in spite of the rather dubious assistance of Google Translate; he states that a quadrupling of the intensity of the source would double the distance at which the sound could be heard.

Score Mersenne 1, biographers and theologians 0.

Estranged Notions: How Modern Art Led Me to God

Yesterday's post:

How Modern Art Led Me to God

I'd have said that this was the usual lame attempt to argue from objective aesthetics to God, except that I've never yet seen Fulwiler produce anything resembling an argument and this post is no exception. Her style is just to handwave and emote at you vaguely rather than make any attempt at substance.

Estranged Notions: Why Something Rather than Nothing?

Today's post:

Why Something Rather than Nothing?

Drivel recycled to shill another book, using the same argument regarding the fallacy of composition that we saw from Feser and refuted long ago.

Estranged Notions: Can We Make Sense of the World?

Today's post:

Can We Make Sense of the World?

The Terry Pratchett Memorial Thread

Sir Terry Pratchett OBE, world-famous author of the Discworld series and other fantasy and science-fiction works, is reported to have died today aged 66 from complications of early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

Estranged Notions: Dressgate: Is Perception Reality?

Today's post:

Dressgate: Is Perception Reality?

Fascinatingly, Becklo manages to botch the issue in a whole bunch of separate ways, even though it is really quite simple: the word “colour” is being used to refer to a whole cluster of related but non-identical concepts.

Estranged Notions: The Bible and the Question of Miracles: Towards a Christian Response

Today's post:

The Bible and the Question of Miracles: Towards a Christian Response

As a ‘response’ this is of course completely inadequate.

Estranged Notions: Do Christians Believe in Talking Snakes?

Today's post:

Do Christians Believe in Talking Snakes?

So that whole thing with the garden and the talking snake? Turns out it could just be a metaphor! Maybe there was never a literal garden and a literal tree and an actual snake. Shock!

Except Adam and Eve. They were really real for realz.

Estranged Notions: Stem Cell Research and ‘Science vs. Religion’

Today's post:

Stem Cell Research and ‘Science vs. Religion’

You'd think that after that Donohue post, anything would be an improvement, but this one tries hard to prove that wrong.

Estranged Notions: The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, and Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful

And today Strange Notions proves that there are absolutely no depths which it will not plumb, by shilling for delusional pompous blowhard and apologist for terrorist violence Bill Donohue.

The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, and Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful