Armwood Editorial And Opinion Blog

Friday, March 22, 2013

The Last Word: Pres. Obama makes history in Israel

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The Last Word: Pres. Obama makes history in Israel: ""

(Via.)

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Hardball: Strengthening the US-Israeli relationship

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Hardball: Strengthening the US-Israeli relationship: ""

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An Evening with Rachel Maddow, a brilliant woman.

Ronald Dworkin's 'Religious Atheism' - NYTimes.com

Ronald Dworkin's 'Religious Atheism' - NYTimes.com: "The Stone’s weekly briefing of notable philosophy-related issues and ideas from around the Web.

Recently, perhaps in response to the uncompromising, militant ‘new’ atheism of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and others, a gentler, more diplomatic atheism has emerged. The writer Alain de Botton has even proposed a ‘religion for atheists,’ in a book with that title released last year, and earlier this year The Sunday Assembly, an ‘atheist church’ in London, apparently the first such, opened its doors. The Stone moderator Simon Critchley has made his own contributions of this sort, summed up in his book ‘The Faith of the Faithless.’)

Later this year will see the release of ‘Religion Without God,’ a posthumous work by the late, eminent legal and political philosopher Ronald Dworkin, and The New York Review of Books has posted an excerpt from the first chapter. Dworkin, too, believes there is no contradiction in the term ‘religious atheism,’ and offers no less towering examples than Shelley, Einstein and William James to show that it’s possible to adopt what he calls a ‘religious attitude,’ a worldview which ‘accepts the full, independent reality of value,’ as distinct from scientific fact, and which holds that both individuals and the natural world they inhabit have intrinsic, transcendental value, without believing in a personal God. "

(Via.)

Religion Without God by Ronald Dworkin | The New York Review of Books

Before he died on February 14, Ronald Dworkin sent to The New York Review
a text of his new book, Religion Without God, to be published by Harvard
University Press later this year. We publish here an excerpt from the first
chapter. —The Editors

The familiar stark divide between people of religion and without religion is too crude. Many millions of people who count themselves atheists have convictions and experiences very like and just as profound as those that believers count as religious. They say that though they do not believe in a
“personal” god, they nevertheless believe in a “force” in the universe“greater than we are.” They feel an inescapable responsibility to live their lives well, with due respect for the lives of others; they take pride in a life they think well lived and suffer sometimes inconsolable regret at a life
they think, in retrospect, wasted.

Religion Without God by Ronald Dworkin | The New York Review of Books

Saxby Chambliss: 'I'm Not Gay. So I'm Not Going To Marry One.' Typical Southern backwardness

Saxby Chambliss: 'I'm Not Gay. So I'm Not Going To Marry One.'

Tea Party Caucus is dead, but other Tea Party groups will form anew.

Tea Party Caucus is dead, but other Tea Party groups will form anew.: "Two-odd months ago, I asked a Republican Hill staffer what had happened to the Tea Party Caucus. Launched with great fanfare in 2011, it was often cited in Michele Bachmann's introductions on the presidential campaign trail—'she's the founder of the Tea Party Caucus!'—and it brought luminaries like Antonin Scalia in to educate Republicans. At its height, the caucus had 60 members, but 10 of them lost their 2012 elections.

So how many members remained in the caucus? 'We are actually in the process of re-filing the caucus,' said the staffer."

(Via.)