The Unreasonable Man

See here [link].

So, liberal atheists who do not sleep around are intelligent.

Well, what can I say…

In all seriousness, the only surprie to me is the relatively small IQ gap. I would have thought it would be higher. Particularly because atheism is involved, where surely it cannot be very intelligent to believe in imaginary deities. Perhaps this small gap is due to this being a US study: the US has a large pro-religion and anti-atheism bias.

Read this article from a Nigerian newspaper. The use of language is quite poetic. And I love the “nobody saw it coming - not even seers”.

I used to work in Nigeria in the early 80s and I remember being struck by this then. The pictures and article remind me of how it was and show me that apparently not much has changed.

Africa is quite beautiful and I must go back.

Tonight, I feel energized by watching Bill Maher on HBO, saying the things I think. He is funny, irreverent, honest and intelligent.And he gets away with saying things 100 times more bluntly than I ever will!

I feel that with Christopher Hitchens and Bill Naher, I am a voice in the wilderness in not liking the nationalistic Olympic hysteria that surrounds me.

Hey, I like fun too, and watching skiing long jump competitions is exciting, but when I see all these people carrying flags I think “Nuremberg”. Nationalism, of which the Olympics is a clear and excessive example, is a force for evil. Nationalism is the excuse that allowed Mao to kill millions of Chinese. It is the force that enabled Nazism. It causes wars: it has killed as many people as religion.

So to celebrate nationalism, which seems to me the only point of the Olympics, is wrong. Our newspapers’ front pages are all about “Gold!”. Sad.

Now if we celebrated athletic achievement without regard to the athletes’ passports, that would be great.