Is Atheism Irrational?*

Professor Kelly Clark has a very interesting discussion  on the correlation of atheism and autism, and addresses the question of whether atheism could merely be the result of defective cognitive faculties in Is Atheism Irrational?.  

HT: Big Questions Online.

* I changed the title of this post.

Season 7 of "24": 9/11 Truther TV Show?

I spent the greater part of this past weekend on a DVD marathon watch of season 7 of the television show, "24."  I must say it was far more entertaining than the first season of the show, which had to rely on very contrived scenarios to fill in the timeline, such as Jack Bauer's wife experiencing amnesia (which is when I gave up watching the show).  It's clear that at least by the seventh season, the writers had figured out how to come up with far more credible subplots in order to keep the story moving, yet keep everything happening within a 24 hour period.  Perhaps they accomplished this in much earlier seasons of the show.  I wouldn't know.

Anyway, the local library had the seventh season, which I checked out and watched as close to non-stop as I could.  It was fairly entertaining, and involved four successive terrorist attacks, each by a different and higher level group in an ever larger and expanding hierarchy of power.  I imagine that if they had gone to a fifth level, we would no doubt be introduced to the Illuminati.  Meanwhile, the fourth attack involves a false flag terrorist operation.  The powers (a group of military contractors in the U.S. who want to create chaos and panic in America, allowing them to take over the country) try to set up an innocent Muslim immigrant as the fall guy for the attack.  Interestingly, they threaten to kill his younger brother in order to make him follow their orders.  For some reason I was reminded of the recent Boston bombing attack.

I haven't watched it, but JDB pointed out that the fifth season of the show also involved a false flag terrorist attack.

Since 24 is usually viewed as a right-wing television show that tried to defend the actions of the Bush administration when it came to the war on terror, one wonders if it is legitimate to label these seasons as "9/11 Truther" shows.  I would contend that yes, it is legitimate and proper.  But then, I'm using a rather broad definition of what would constitute a "9/11 Truther" show, film, book, play, etc.  My definition is fairly simple:  any fictional work that displays a false flag terrorist attack, post 9/11.  And my justification for using this definition is also rather simple.  Any fictional work, post 9/11, that involves terrorist attacks, will be written with the events of 9/11 as background information, known by the authors and their intended audience.  Thus, if they write a narrative of a false flag terrorist attack, they are consciously (or unconsciously, it doesn't matter) comparing that attack to the events of 9/11.  This does not mean that the authors believe that 9/11 was a false flag terrorist attack.  They may or may not.  It does mean that they most likely know that their audience, if at all imaginative, will compare it with 9/11 and perhaps wonder if 9/11 itself was a false flag terrorist attack.  In light of this fact, I think it requires re-evaluating the common view that the authors of "24" wrote only in order to try to defend the actions of the Bush administration.  I suggest that it is obvious that they did not.

By the way, I don't know if that left-wing Democrat Janeane Garofalo was in any other seasons of "24," but she played a major role season 7.  Perhaps this had something to do with it:

"Broken City": Another 9/11 Truther Film? (Spoiler Alert)

I just watched the DVD Broken City,  which is the story of a corrupt mayor of New York City.  Though it is set in the year 2012, there's some reason for thinking that the filmmakers had Rudy Giuliani in mind when they made it.  In the film, during a political debate, the mayor boasts of how he has been fixing the broken city of New York.  Strangely enough Giuliani had written an article in which he boasts of saving the broken city of New York.  In the film we discover that the mayor has a secret partnership in a demolition company and is using his position to generate business for it.

What's interesting is that Giuliani was the person responsible for  approving the contracts for the demolition companies that hauled away the steel of the WTC buildings after 9/11. That makes him responsible for destroying evidence at a crime scene. If it turns out that - like the mayor of "Broken City" -  Giuliani also had a secret partnership with a demolition company, then he might be guilty of other crimes, as well. 

Two More 9/11 Websites on my Blog List

I've added two more 9/11Websites to my Blog List:

 9/11 in the Academic Community
and
 sharpprintinginc.com/911, which claims to be an archive for "evidence based research" on 9/11.  I expect I'll be looking into both of them frequently.

HT:  Debunking the Debunkers.

Creative Way to Shut Down the NSA: Turn Off the Water

No Water = No NSA Data Center:

From offnow.org

HT:   The Corbett Report

Another Hollywood "9/11 Truther" Film: The Lone Ranger (Spoiler Alert)

The Lone Ranger now joins the list of films that include in their plot some sort of false flag operation by the bad guys that plays a key or central role in the film. Others would include the remake of "Total Recall,"  "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows," and the most explicitly 9/11 Trutherish, "Iron Man 3". I'll have to start making a list, before I forget them all.

Doubts about Glenn Greenwald

Interesting interview of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds raises doubts about the ethics of journalist Glenn Greenwald, and in turn may raise doubts about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden:
"Glenn Greenwald, NSA Documents, and Checkbook."

HT: Commenter Mike Corbeil at Kevin Ryan's blog, Dig Within.

An Interesting Historical Jesus Question

Over at the Jesus Blog, New Testament historian Anthony LeDonne passes on a very interesting question from an old friend:

If I met Jesus in the flesh, he would affect me in a certain way. Which of the four Gospels would you expect would affect me in the most similar way?

I left my answer there.  Feel free to visit their blog and do likewise.