EricHoefler.com

Choosing How We Argue

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Sean Carroll, writing for the Discover blog Cosmic Variance in a post called "The Grid of Disputation," makes an excellent point about cultural arguments and provides a helpful grid. Here is the most salient quote, for me: If you want to play a constructive role in an ongoing cultural conversation, the sizable majority of your disputational [...]

I Don’t Get Why You’re Friends

Thursday, July 30, 2009

3 Comments

This could also be titled: “The Post Where I Get Myself into Lots of Trouble” So, I’m confused, but I am genuinely trying to understand. I hope that some people will bother to read this whole thing, trust that my intentions are what I say they are, and help me out by sharing their thoughts and [...]

Joss Whedon on Humanism

Monday, April 27, 2009

0 Comments

Joss Whedon was recently honored with the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at Harvard University. Part of his acceptance speech is below (link). If you know me, you know that I’ve been a long-time admirer of Whedon as a creator, thinker, and activist as well as a fan of his work, particularly Firefly/Serenity and [...]

Role of Symbol in the Onikare

Monday, October 27, 2008

Comments Off

This essay was my senior thesis for my religious studies B.A. I decided to focus on Native American spirituality because of a course I took that fall with Jacquelyn Bralove, who had lived and worked on the Navajo reservation for five years. (This led to my time spent volunteering on the reservation for the next [...]

Burning Potter

Saturday, August 11, 2007

6 Comments

I just finished the final book in the Harry Potter series. It’s a fitting ending to a great series. Regardless of your opinions of the books themselves, I find it hard for anyone to think of Rowling’s work and not also think: “What a great thing she’s done for kids” … in at [...]

Visualizing Comparative Scripture

Friday, August 3, 2007

1 Comment

I love it when some clever person finds a way to represent complex data in a unified, visual form. “Similar Diversity” is an exhibit that attempts to do that with the scriptures of the major world religions (courtesy of information aesthetics). I just wish I could find a larger image so I could try to [...]

Evolutionary Theories of God

Sunday, March 4, 2007

1 Comment

If you haven’t already seen it, there’s a great article in the New York Times’ Magazine called “Darwin’s God.” It spells out the various sides of an ongoing scientific debate about why religious beliefs are so pervasive across time and culture. It’s long, but well worth the read. Here’s my diigo highlights and annotations.

Making a Bad Date

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

5 Comments

On the list of things you’re not supposed to talk about on a first date, religion sits at number one … and for obvious reasons. Disagreements can get nasty and irrational, and in most cases, nobody is going to say anything original anyway–much of the talk that surrounds the topic is poorly-imitated and poorly-informed [...]

A Religious Shoot-out

Monday, February 19, 2007

15 Comments

[Disclaimer: By making both a "Full Feed" and an "Education Only" feed available at the top of this blog, I sorta' warn that I might write about things not directly tied to education, educational technology, or the classroom. I also say this on the "About" page. Since this is the first time I've [...]