A life in words

  • Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa: bland and divisive

    Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa: bland and divisive

    Not my genre but I can respect some pop. This though does almost nothing for me, and worse “Boys Will Be Boys” laid down some “us vs. them” feminism, shaming anyone who dares not absolutely endorse the song, seemingly rejecting the reality that the sexes experience sexual attraction differently, while ignoring the explicit sexualization happening…

  • On “Is Genesis History?”

    On “Is Genesis History?”

    Is Genesis History? is a 2017 feature film which interviews various believing, literalist, Christian PhDs about how they reconcile their belief in a young earth with their scientific training. And by “young earth” they mean literally 6000 or so years old. Given the fact (in my worldview anyhow) that the planet is vastly older than…

  • Summary and comments on debate: William Lane Craig v. Christopher Hitchens, “Does God Exist?”

    I was speaking to a Christian friend lately and so got in the mode of thinking through various arguments about evolution, existence of God and whatnot. I’ve been watching various debates on YouTube on the topic as a refresher, and wrote up some notes on one of them. They grew far too long for a…

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion…. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations…. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form….John Stuart Mill, On LIberty