This is Michelle Goldberg’s debut column. … and transcends our current political nightmare: We have entered a period of minority rule. I don’t …
How to be Rational about Rationality
So when we look at religion and, to some extent ancestral superstitions, we should consider what purpose they serve, rather than focusing on the notion of “belief”, epistemic belief in its strict scientific definition. In science, belief is literal belief; it is right or wrong, never metaphorical. In real life, belief is an instrument to do things, not the end product. This is similar to vision: the purpose of your eyes is to orient you in the best possible way, and get you out of trouble when needed, or help you find a prey at distance. Your eyes are not sensors aimed at getting the electromagnetic spectrum of reality. Their job description is not to produce the most accurate scientific representation of reality; rather the most useful one for survival.
C-SPAN: Bill Browder Testifies about Foreign Agents Registration Act
Foreign Agents Registration Act Financier and former Russia investor William Browder testified at a hearing on the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). This law requires those representing the political interests of foreign powers to disclose their relationship. Mr. Browder told committee members that the Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr. was heading Russian efforts to get sanctions under the Magnitsky Act repealed. The act blocked Russian government officials and businessmen associated with the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky from entering the U.S., froze assets in U.S. banks, and banned the use of American banking systems.
Mr. Browder was originally scheduled to appear the previous-day as the second of a two-panel hearing, but Democrats invoked the “two-hour rule,” so the second panel was re-scheduled for the following day. The first panel can be viewed by typing program identification number 431604-1 into the “Search the Video Library” search bar.
(Left off: 40:39 min)
The sacred and the human (Archive.org)
Today’s atheist polemics ignore the main insight of the anthropology of religion—that religion is not primarily about God, but about the human need for the sacred. As René Girard argues, religion is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it