SerPolUS_IDES

"The existing evidence does not support the conclusion that free will is an illusion. First of all, it does not show that a decision has been made before people are aware of having made it. It simply finds discernible patterns of neural activity that precede decisions. If we assume that conscious decisions have neural correlates, then we should expect to find early signs of those correlates "ramping up" to the moment of consciousness. It would be miraculous if the brain did nothing at all until the moment when people became aware of a decision to move. These experiments all involve quick, repetitive decisions, and people are told not to plan their decisions but just to wait for an urge to come upon them. The early neural activity measured in the experiments likely represents these urges or other preparations for movement that precede conscious awareness. "This is what we should expect with simple decisions. Indeed, we are lucky that conscious thinking plays little or no role in quick or habitual decisions and actions. If we had to consciously consider our every move, we'd be bumbling fools."

"I urged that we be realistic about reasoning and recognize that reasons persuade others on moral and political issues only under very special circumstances. "Reason is far less powerful than intuition, so if you're arguing (or deliberating) with a partner who lives on the other side of the political spectrum from you, and you approach issues such as abortion, gay marriage or income inequality with powerfully different intuitive reactions, you are unlikely to effect any persuasion no matter how good your arguments and no matter how much time you give your opponent to reflect upon your logic. "I never said that reasons were irrelevant. I said that they were no match for intuition, and that they were usually a servant of one's own intuitions. Therefore, if you want to persuade someone, talk to the elephant first."

'Haidt's lone hero among the great philosophers - David Hume - points out, there is a logical gap between what is done (descriptive ethics) and what ought to be done (normative ethics). Haidt acknowledges that his concern as a psychologist is overwhelmingly descriptive. But he says almost nothing about how to connect his work with the compelling normative questions of human life. Engaging with the extensive philosophical discussions of Hume's distinction between "is" and "ought" could help fill this major gap in Haidt's account of ethics.'

Dostoevsky's great virtue as a writer is to be so utterly convincing in outlining what he doesn't believe and so deeply unconvincing in defending what he wants to believe. As Blake said of "Paradise Lost," Satan gets all the best lines. The story of the Grand Inquisitor places a stark choice in front of us: demonic happiness or unbearable freedom? And this choice conceals another, deeper one: truth or falsehood? The truth that sets free is not, as we saw, the freedom of inclination and passing desire. It is the freedom of faith. It is the acceptance - submission, even - to a demand that both places a perhaps intolerable burden on the self, but which also energizes a movement of subjective conversion, to begin again. In disobeying ourselves and obeying this hard command, we may put on new selves. Faith hopes for grace.

"Rational deliberation is not a switch to be thrown on or off. It is a process, and therefore many of its effects would have to be measured over time. Tellingly, the participants in Haidt's original harmless taboo studies study had little time to deliberate. But as other studies have suggested when people are given more time to reflect, they can change their beliefs to fit the evidence, even when those beliefs might be initially emotionally uncomfortable to them. "To engage in democratic politics means seeing your fellow citizens as equal autonomous agents capable of making up their own minds. And that means that in a functioning democracy, we owe one another reasons for our political actions. "Giving up on the idea that reason matters is not only premature from a scientific point of view; it throws in the towel on an essential democratic hope. Politics needn't always be war by other means; democracies can, and should be places where the exchange of reasons is encouraged. This hope is not a delusion; it is an ideal - and in our countdown to November, one still worth striving for."

cf ABSimpson - focus is on building community

Challenge of declining evangelical membership (by evangelical minister)

increasing # of "no religious affiliation"

In the past year, a spate of Jewish authors, from the popular to the rabbinic to the scholarly, have wrestled with what Jews should think about Jesus. And overwhelmingly, they are coming up with positive answers, urging their fellow Jews to learn about Jesus, understand him and claim him as one of their own.

Its cross shape, two small rooms connected by a breezeway bisected by a long deck, mimicked that of the great cathedrals. Cost-conscious environmentalists and those devoted to the tiny-house movement applauded its price and its size. And architecture writers worked themselves into a lather over it.

Frugal Traveler - 10 web aids to travel within budget

"...As a transplanted Englishman one thing to which I've become rather sensitive is which prejudices New Yorkers are permitted to express in public.... It's really fine to say totally uninformed things about Mormonism in public, at dinner parties or wherever."

ALF usually leads to NH (if survive)

The Lazy Paralytic & other parables

Martini, once favoured by Vatican progressives to succeed Pope John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday (8/30), gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times.

The North Shore-LIJ Health System, with 16 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient centers in Long Island and New York City, is laying the groundwork to be an insurer, as well as a provider of health care.