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POPSBiocultural Evolution in the 21st Century: The Evolutionary Role of Religion My outline introduces the concept of biocultural evolution, particularly with reference to the Twentieth Century and the prospects for the Twenty-First Century. I then explore the concept of complex distributed systems to characterize all highly creative processes in both culture and nature. Subsequently, I turn to the problem of complexity horizons and the challenge that these present for traditional moral reflections. Humans are then characterized as a Lamarckian wild card in epic of evolution. I close by discussing the evolutionary role of religion. See source for the full paper: http://metanexus.net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/8779/Default.aspx
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POPSFewer Belgians attending Mass 7% attend church weekly (11% a decade ago) 57% new born children are baptised (65% a decade ago) 26.5% opt for a church wedding (49% a decade ago) 61% for church funeral (76% a decade ago) The full press release (27 pages) is available in Dutch or French
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POPSDuelity Just go to http://www.duelity.net/ & click "watch". There are three short movies.
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POPSCreationist vs. Atheist YouTube War Marks New Breed of Copyright Claim As more people catch on to how useful YouTube can be for delivering political, religious and cultural messages, DMCA claims are likely to increase. With news cycles moving at light-speed, an illegal copyright claim might well suppress unwanted news long enough to distort coverage. ... "Oscar Wilde once said that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about," Geller said. "When skeptics bring videos out, come on, that's free publicity ... I've been hounded by skeptics for years. I'm used to turning it around."
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POPSPropagandizing Islamic Creationism Mr. Yahya’s ideas “cast evolution as part of the corrupting influence of the West on Islamic culture, and that promotes a profound anti-science attitude that is certainly not going to help the Islamic world catch up to the West.” As the scientists ponder what to do with the book — for many, it is too beautiful for the trash bin but too erroneous for their shelves — they also speculate about the motives of its distributors.
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POPSIs there an Artificial God? - Douglas Adams
So, my argument is that as we become more and more scientifically literate, it's worth remembering that the fictions with which we previously populated our world may have some function that it's worth trying to understand and preserve the essential components of, rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water; because even though we may not accept the reasons given for them being here in the first place, it may well be that there are good practical reasons for them, or something like them, to be there. I suspect that as we move further and further into the field of digital or artificial life we will find more and more unexpected properties begin to emerge out of what we see happening and that this is a precise parallel to the entities we create around ourselves to inform and shape our lives and enable us to work and live together. Therefore, I would argue that though there isn't an actual god there is an artificial god and we should probably bear that in mind.
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