Books that "preach to the choir" give me the same feeling, but I do find them useful, in sometimes making connections that are helpful. You know, like where you're driving in an unfamiliar place and all of a sudden you go "oh....this meets up with THIS road! How about that?" So I sometimes get new and different ways of thinking about an issue by reading those.

I only briefly spoke with PZ, but he was quiet and thoughtful. He's going to post about the talk and his reaction to it later on, I think. Dennett was proposing mandatory teaching about world religions in the schools, which PZ agreed with, but he also thought that this would lead to a "more benign" form of religion, and PZ was not so sure about that. That's the gist of it.

posted by Atomicmutant at 4:09 pm (EST) on Apr 4, 2008

I thought you'd appreciate this . . . I met PZ Meyers last night!
I went down to Mankato to hear Daniel Dennett speak, it was very
good. PZ sat down right beside me, so I introduced myself and
thanked him for the blog....and the fact that I wouldn't have
been there if I hadn't read about it on Pharyngula! We also
chatted oh so briefly after the speech, which was very well attended.
Have you read "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"?
That is primarily what the talk was about.

posted by Atomicmutant at 1:32 pm (EST) on Apr 4, 2008

Well, hi back! It's interesting to be called a "fellow Pharyngulite and Heathen", lol. I haven't been all that vocal about my philosophical/religions preoccupations (or lack thereof) until the Heathens group on LT, and of course Pharyngula stokes the fires so well. I'm like a lot of people, I think, who in "real life" don't go on and on about things the way we tend to on the web. There have been several local Minnesota events that I wish I had been able to get to, it'll happen eventually, I suppose.

Taking a look at the books we share, it's a pretty darn good list of excellent reads!

Nice to meet you, thanks for dropping me a note!

posted by Atomicmutant at 8:26 pm (EST) on Mar 30, 2008

Hi!
I just saw your review of March, and while I enjoyed it, you forgot to close your italics somewhere in the middle, and the entire rest of the review page has gone italic-y. If you wouldn't mind, could you make that one change?
Thanks so much!
Alana

posted by Caramellunacy at 8:10 pm (EST) on Mar 24, 2008

We have a lot of books in common (I haven't included many of them, I'm being rigid about only including ones I've read since November 2006) I'm enjoying library thing, seeing my book list grow

posted by amf0001 at 1:40 pm (EST) on Apr 18, 2007