1. The $10,000-a-Month Psychic

Comment #200781 by stevecaldwell on June 28, 2008 at 8:27 am

In the past, non-rational explanations were used by people to help us deal with the powerlessness of things we don't understand and cannot control.

In the past, this has included religious explanations for natural disaster, disease, famine, etc.

The economy is something that people often don't understand and certainly cannot control. For example, when one compares the performance of "managed" mutual funds vs. index funds that mimic the overall market, one finds that managed funds underperform the market average:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_fund#Index_funds_versus_active_management

If most trained and presumably rational fund managers cannot understand the economy enough to outperform the market average as one example of the complexity in economic decisions, is there any surprise that business folks are turning to psychics for advice.

The tools for rational decision-making don't exist for them yet -- they're pretty much like folks trying to understand disease prior to Koch and Pasteur. And perhaps they're too scared to say "I don't know."

2. Taking evidence seriously

Comment #135167 by stevecaldwell on February 28, 2008 at 4:05 pm

I've read that there are no safe and effective "alternative" medical treatments.

Once you prove that the "alternative" medical treatment is safe and effective using the appropriate double-blind controls, it's no longer an alternative treatment.

It becomes a part of regular medical science at this point.

3. America: slouching towards the Enlightenment

Comment #135161 by stevecaldwell on February 28, 2008 at 3:49 pm

On 28 Feb 2008, ianmkz wrote:
"I find it a bit odd that Mormons are counted as Christians but Unitarians are tucked away under Other/Other. It's odd that they seem to be the only Christians (or Other/Otherians) who find the Trinity too ludicrous to be taken seriously."

Probably because most traditional Christians don't consider Unitarians (or their modern-day Unitarian Universalist Association denomination) to be properly Christian.

Furthermore, most Unitarian Universalists don't self-identify as Christian either. Here's the results from a 2001 denominational survey showing the religious self-identity claimed by Unitarian Universalists:

Humanist - 54%
Agnostic - 33%
Earth-centered - 31%
Atheist - 18%
Buddhist - 16.5%
Christian - 13.1%
Pagan - 13.1%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism

It's a matter of historical record that both Unitarians and Universalists have historical roots within Protestant Christianity. However, there are liberal Christian ecumenical groups like the National Council of Churches that have rejected Unitarian Universalist requests to join their groups because they are not Christian enough.

It's probably more accurate to say Unitarian Universalist are "Post-Christian."

4. Some non-Christians feel left out of election

Comment #121489 by stevecaldwell on February 3, 2008 at 1:36 pm

On 3 February 2008, Paine wrote:
-snip-
"He's a member of some wacko congegation, but it looks like he joined just to get some street-cred for his social work."

There has been a lot of right-wing smear attempts to say both Obama and his church are wacko.

Similar right-wing smear attempts have been done in the past to say that he's really a closet Muslim extremist.

The UCC denominational response from their President (Rev. John Thomas -- yes, that's really his name) can be found here:

http://www.ucc.org/news/thomas-denounces-smear-1.html

Obama's church is denominationally affiliated with the United Church of Christ (UCC).

The UCC has historical roots in New England Congregationalism which means they're cousins to the Unitarians. The Unitarians moved off to embrace non-Christian influences such as Trancendentalism, Humanism, Atheism, and Agnosticism while the UCC stayed closer to Christianity. But on many social justice issues, they find common cause.

The UCC is the only mainline Protestant denomination to take a stand in favor of marriage equality for same-sex couples (the Unitarian Universalist Association also did this but they're not a mainline Protestant denomination).

The UCC has jointly developed a lifespan comprehensive sexuality education using the best available secular public health and medical guidelines. There are Planned Parenthood clinics and other secular groups who are using their curriculum.

Given this background, a President with a UCC background is certainly preferable to some other religious alternatives in the US political world (e.g. Southern Baptist, Mormon, etc).

5. The Pagan Christ

Comment #102084 by stevecaldwell on December 21, 2007 at 2:26 pm

On 21 December 2007, Radesq wrote:
-snip-
"Are you saying that despite the fact there was an historical Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible is fictional?"

It's entirely possible that the "real" Jesus of history and the "fictional" Christ of faith are not the same person.

The Jesus Seminar is a good source for exploring this -- they use multi-disciplinary methods (textual analysis, anthropology, history, etc) to scrub away the trappings of faith so one can see what remains.

To borrow a secular example, the George Washington of history isn't same person as the George Washington of legends (e.g. the Washington who didn't lie about cutting down the cherry tree, who piously prayed to God during the harsh winter at Valley Forge).

Just because fictional legends are associated with a historical person doesn't mean that the historical person didn't exist.