10

The Abraham Test via Big Think by Adam Lee
The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son on Mount Moriah is one of the formative myths of Western monotheism. And most theists of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions look up to Abraham as a model of faith, believing that his willingness to kill his own child in obedience to God’s command is a praiseworthy character trait.
Read More

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
From Wittenberg to Facebook. Martin Luther was the original social-media revolutionary. Via pamphlet and song, the Reformation went viral... more

Our Dangerous Inability to Agree on What is TRUE via Big Think by David Ropeik

There were a lot of thoughtful comments on my observations last week about the ethics of denying that climate change is real. Many felt that I was arrogant, since my case was predicated on my belief that climate change is real. They felt it was arrogant for me to assume that I am rational and right, and that the deniers are wrong because their underlying biases blind them to the truth I am smart enough to know.

Read More

Philip Larkin, Sentimentalist? via Big Think by Austin Allen

Once in a great while, I write something that’s too long to fit comfortably in a blog post. This week one of those pieces, an essay on the notorious and beloved British poet Philip Larkin, is up over at Open Letters Monthly. Larkin is a writer I find continually fascinating: a major poet who produced a slim body of published work, and within that body, I think, only a handful of truly major poems.

Read More

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Authors’ ability to endlessly edit their digital work will overturn publishing. Maybe books will improve, but movable type is easily abused... more

MI5 file opens new chapter in Chaplin mystery via The National Archives Blog by Tommy Norton

Files released by the Security Service (better known to you and me as MI5) are among the most popular records in our collection, especially with journalists. The arrival of new material at Kew gives the press office and our colleagues …

Continue reading →

Dinosaurs and Meteors via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game it is literally a fight for survival as you marshal your dinosaur defenders in a last ditch effort to survive the deadly meteors falling to Earth? Do you have what it takes to succeed or will you become extinct?
Follow Asian Angel’s walk-through here or take a chance and go straight to the game here.

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
How to rebuild a blighted city? Lure the "creative class" with cosmopolitan amenities. Makes sense. Too bad it doesn't work... more

Surprising Science via 3quarksdaily by Azra Raza

An elephant running in the Masai Mara, Kenya (courtesy of flickr user brittanyhock)
From Smithsonian: 14 Fun Facts About Elephants here.

Physics, Miracles, and Witchcraft: 50 Years of “A Wrinkle in Time” via Big Think by Austin Allen
It was a dark and stormy night.
By starting A Wrinkle in Time with the most famous “bad” opening in literary history – the same Edward Bulwer-Lytton line later adopted by Snoopy – Madeleine L’Engle was practically daring critics to doubt her.
Read More

---