Disqus - Latest Comments for lippard

Re: Signal’s Katherine Maher Problem

Jim Lippard — Tue, 07 May 2024 19:09:08 -0000

Rufo is attempting to create mountains out of molehills, as he has done with much success in the past. He has shown that he is not above misrepresenting the facts, as when he repeatedly described quotes from a guest speaker at a Fortune 500 company as though they were part of mandatory critical race theory training. Rufo is a serial prevaricator: https://twitter.com/realchr...

Re: Why Is This Controversial?

Jim Lippard — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:25:31 -0000

If it's something you genuinely care about, I suggest you go straight to the sources. If you just want to have a dialogue with me about it, I'm not particularly interested. I thought their positions were mildly interesting, unsatisfying to me, but not necessarily incoherent or crazy. I'm not sure "the common meanings of the words" is particularly relevant, and it's certainly not stable over time. I last listened to each of those podcasts when they were released--6 to 8 years ago--and haven't pursued them further, so you're much better off going to the sources directly.

Re: Why Is This Controversial?

Jim Lippard — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 09:14:53 -0000

Google is perfectly adequate for *finding* these references. I've listened to both podcasts and I read Schaeffer's book. I don't agree with any of those positions, but none of those people are dumb and they have put some thought into their positions. Anti-realism is a plausible position in philosophy of science (again, not one I happen to hold myself, at least not in general), and Cupitt applies it to religion. Frankly, I think his position is more reasonable than a fundamentalist Christian position which would be analogous to a naive scientific realism about Christianity, failing to account for the history of the doctrines and practices, which is one of considerable change.

Re: Why Is This Controversial?

Jim Lippard — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 20:13:32 -0000

Philosophy Bites podcast, November 30, 2008, "Don Cupitt on non-realism about God".

Frank Schaeffer, book titled _Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God_, 2014.

Thomas J. J. Altizer, book, The Gospel of Christian Atheism, also on Point of Inquiry podcast from April 2010, interview with Robert M. Price titled "The Death of God".

Google is your friend.

Re: Why Is This Controversial?

Jim Lippard — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 15:36:27 -0000

Thomas J.J. Altizer, Don Cupitt, Frank Schaeffer have all claimed to be "Christian atheists" or "atheists who believe in God."

Re: Trump ‘Explains’ How He’d Eliminate Debt in 8 years

Jim Lippard — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 10:34:12 -0000

"He is going to cut taxes by $1 trillion per year so that leaves $24t over eight years." An $8T tax cut doesn't give you less budgeted expenditure to cover, it gives you $8T less in revenue to pay for those budgeted expenditures. It makes the deficit bigger, not smaller (a point Ed made in the original post).

Re: Mississippi could now legalize discrimination against people who have premarital sex

Jim Lippard — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 21:56:08 -0000

Section 2(c) assumes, wrongly, that anatomy and genetics at time of birth always give the same answer about sex. Google "Guevedoces" for one of a number of cases where that is an incorrect assumption--they are genetic males born with female sex organs, who develop male sex organs at puberty.

Re: About Those Ark Park Billboards…

Jim Lippard — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 10:09:00 -0000

Jack Miles' book, _God: A Biography_, looks at the God as a literary character and tracks how he changes through the books of the Bible.

Re: Arizona House reinforces SB 1070 provisions on immigration lawsuits

Jim Lippard — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 20:36:02 -0000

This is an incredibly stupid idea, even if you think SB1070-related lawsuits are a good idea. This incentivizes frivolous lawsuits, and has the state pick up the tab. That's not fiscally conservative, it's moronic.

Re: Introducing the Patient’s Right to Know Act

Jim Lippard — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 18:17:50 -0000

"Organizations like the Secular Coalition for America (who also helped lobby for this legislation in Arizona) have been working to effect change at the local, state, and federal levels for many years, and I would like to see a whole lot more of us getting involved in what they do." This bill was actually introduced due to the efforts of Tory Anderson, the lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for Arizona, an independent affiliate of the Secular Coalition for America.

Re: Helping Atheists Get Elected in Arizona

Jim Lippard — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 21:13:47 -0000

See my comment above to SchrodingersTherapist.

Re: Helping Atheists Get Elected in Arizona

Jim Lippard — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 21:12:50 -0000

Rep. Juan Mendez (D-AZ LD26) came out as a nonbeliever at the Arizona state capitol in 2013 and was re-elected in 2014. He is one of the Secular Coalition for Arizona's strongest supporters. At last year's Lobby Day event at the state capitol, we had about 50 attendees. At this year's event, which will take place Monday, we currently have more than 150 people registered to attend. The religiously unaffiliated, by the way, make up 27% of the Arizona population; about 7% of the population (a third of the unaffiliated) are atheist and agnostic. The religious demographics of Arizona more closely resemble Colorado, Oregon, and Washington than they do the Bible Belt.

Re: Ted Cruz’ Tithing Problem

Jim Lippard — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 13:13:17 -0000

The former, not nearly as impressive as the latter: http://lippard.blogspot.com...

Re: Ted Cruz’ Tithing Problem

Jim Lippard — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 12:43:31 -0000

Wow, that's almost as bad as Joe Biden, who gave 0.3% to charity in his best year as of 2008--don't know if he has increased his donations since then. The Obamas were at about 5% in 2008, but I think they've given away more since being in the White House. (I last looked at this when comparing Obama/Biden to McCain/Palin--McCain gave about 25% of his income to charity, and Palin hadn't released her tax records yet.)

Re: David Bowie, 1947-2016

Jim Lippard — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 09:21:23 -0000

The Glass Spider Tour was in 1987.

Re: For the Bible Tells Me? No.

Jim Lippard — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 16:05:14 -0000

1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."

But what's scripture?

2 Peter 3:16 suggests the letters of Paul count, but Paul himself says otherwise:

1 Corinthians 7:12: "To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord)"
2 Corinthians 11:17: "That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting."

Re: For the Bible Tells Me? No.

Jim Lippard — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 10:00:17 -0000

In the first few centuries A.D., those who rejected the Roman gods were charged with atheism--recipients of the charge included Christians. Your argument seems to suggest that cultural context--what gods are accepted in mainstream culture--is irrelevant. But why would anyone accept that? A negative lesson for atheists might be that it is more likely that one religion will displace the mainstream religion (as is currently happening globally with Islam vs. Christianity, and on a slightly smaller scale with Pentecostal Christianity or Mormonism vs. Catholicism or more traditional Protestant sects), than it is for religion to be displaced by atheism.

The idea that writing about other religions might help someone immersed in one religion escape it, on the other hand, is not a bad idea--but rather than critiques, I think it makes more sense to explain why people believe or have believed other religions that people reject--i.e., a world religions course, or anthropology courses, or better yet, direct exposure to believers in other religions.

Re: Thirty Percent of Americans Are Really Atheists? Says Who?

Jim Lippard — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 09:49:48 -0000

If Silverman is going to cherry-pick the data to find atheists among religious believers, then he also needs to account for the Pew survey results which show that 21% of self-identified atheists believe in God, 16% believe in heaven, and 10% pray weekly, which move the numbers in the direction opposite the way he wants them to go (2008 Pew Religious Landscape Survey). (I don't know what those results mean, but perhaps some of them are fellow "atheist absurdists" like Paul Krassner, or "Christian atheists" like Thomas Altizer, or "atheists who believe in God" like Frank Schaeffer.)

Re: So Much For the ‘War on Cops’ Part 2

Jim Lippard — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 09:37:12 -0000

Rather than looking at the number of police killings with respect to the total population, it makes more sense to look at the number of police killings with respect to the total number of police officers. That's how you would answer the question, "How likely is a police officer to be killed in the line of duty?"

The FBI Uniform Crime Reports show that the number of police killings per 100,000 police officers has also been declining, according to this blog post: http://blog.skepticallibert...

Re: Alex Jones and the Jesus Picture

Jim Lippard — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 11:09:27 -0000

I don't believe that is accurate. The view that there was no historical Jesus, also known as "mythicism," is a very tiny minority view held by very few historians. Of the major advocates of mythicism, most are amateurs with no relevant credentials. Of the few who have relevant academic credentials (such as Richard Carrier), most are independent scholars without academic appointments. I believe Carrier has identified one or two people who advocate mythicism who have relevant credentials and have academic appointments, but the total number of such people is probably in the single digits.

Re: Why no one should ever join Scientology’s ‘Sea Org’

Jim Lippard — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 18:48:24 -0000

Thanks, daisy! Sorry about all the "uhs" and "ums" in that... BTW, I made a few errors, which I've corrected here: http://lippard.blogspot.com...

Re: Why no one should ever join Scientology’s ‘Sea Org’

Jim Lippard — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 11:12:33 -0000

I think there is an error of interpretation in this reasoning: "In a statement he made defending the church in Monique Rathbun’s lawsuit, Jefferson emphasized that the Sea Org cannot have directors, officers, managing agents, executives, employees, staff members, or volunteers. Therefore, no Scientology senior leadership can be drawn from the Sea Org as the Sea Org has no members to draw from."

The Church's argument is that there is no legal entity as the Sea Org, but not that it doesn't exist as a status that members of an individual church can have (as said in the IRS statement).

Re: Debunking Christianity: Another Example of Jeff Lowder's College Level Approach to the Philosophy of Religion

Jim Lippard — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:14:11 -0000

John: It appears to me that the level of philosophical debate at Jeff's blog is much higher than here. I won't waste my time or yours further.

Re: Debunking Christianity: Another Example of Jeff Lowder's College Level Approach to the Philosophy of Religion

Jim Lippard — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 21:24:01 -0000

I'm not sure exactly what your position is, but I disagree with Clifford's aphorism on the grounds that it is psychologically impossible to follow, seems to presume an internalist foundationalist account of justification, seems to assume voluntarism about belief, and places too great an ethical requirement on meeting an unreasonable epistemic standard. It also fails to distinguish Type I from Type II errors, either of which can lead to moral culpability. I think perhaps something is salvageable, but am skeptical that Keith Parsons has said enough to do so.

Re: Christie’s Unnecessary Lie About 9/11

Jim Lippard — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 17:16:16 -0000

I think it is a mistake to make an accusation of lying on this issue, and also a mistake to omit a critical fact which most other stories on this issue have been updated to reflect. That fact is that Christie was telephoned by the Bush administration on September 10, 2001 to inform him that his background was being investigated and that Bush intended to nominate him as U.S. Attorney. Christie now says that he misspoke, that he had conflated the telephone call informing him that he was going to be nominated with the nomination itself (see, e.g., http://www.nj.com/politics/... ). That seems like a reasonable explanation.