1. Agnosticism

Category Archives: Agnosticism

Quotes About Agnosticism (118 quotes) – Goodreads

Posted on by

Like the most of you, I was raised among people who knew - who were certain. They did not reason or investigate. They had no doubts. They knew that they had the truth. In their creed there was no guess no perhaps. They had a revelation from God. They knew the beginning of things. They knew that God commenced to create one Monday morning, four thousand and four years before Christ. They knew that in the eternity back of that morning, he had done nothing. They knew that it took him six days to make the earth all plants, all animals, all life, and all the globes that wheel in space. They knew exactly what he did each day and when he rested. They knew the origin, the cause of evil, of all crime, of all disease and death.

At the same time they knew that God created man in his own image and was perfectly satisfied with his work... They knew all about the Flood -- knew that God, with the exception of eight, drowned all his children -- the old and young -- the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe -- the young man and the merry maiden -- the loving mother and the laughing child -- because his mercy endureth forever. They knew too, that he drowned the beasts and birds -- everything that walked or crawled or flew -- because his loving kindness is over all his works. They knew that God, for the purpose of civilizing his children, had devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of fire, killed some with his lightnings, millions with famine, with pestilence, and sacrificed countless thousands upon the fields of war. They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Then I asked myself the question: Is there a supernatural power -- an arbitrary mind -- an enthroned God -- a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world -- to which all causes bow?

I do not deny. I do not know - but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme - that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer - no power that worship can persuade or change no power that cares for man.

Is there a God?

I do not know.

Is man immortal?

I do not know.

One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy. Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol 1: Lectures

Continue reading here:
Quotes About Agnosticism (118 quotes) - Goodreads

Words related to Agnosticism – Urban Dictionary: Agnosticism

Posted on by

The greatest set of 'beliefs' you can have. An Agnostic belives that there is no way of knowing if God exists or not. Unlike religious people, who are usually neither intelligent or open minded, or Atheists who are usually intelligent, but not usually open minded, an Agnostic is intelligent and open minded, smart enough not to be brain-washed into believing that there is a God who cannot be seen, but open minded to the idea that there may be one.

Most Christians will get very defensive if someone challenges that God exists, while some Atheists will treat every person who believes in God as if they are wrong, and there is no Gd and anyone who believes there is is stupid. Not all Atheists are like this, though.

A lot of Christians dislike Atheists and Agnostics because they have such a strong belief in God that they believe they know something for sure that no one can. What these people need to realise is that there is a very great gift that God, if there is one, gove us...free will. He gave us a brain which can think for itself and believe what it wants to...why wash it with things that some book or preacher say and make yourself believe it's the truth?

Atheist's response-You're stupid. There is no God. Religion was created by man, everything in The Bible is a lie.

Agnostic's respose-You have know way of knowing that for sure. There may be a God, there may not, we will only know for sure when we die.

Atheist-There is no God.

Religious nut-There is too! The Bible says so! You will go to hell for saying there's no God!

Atheist-You're stupid, there is no God, religion is a myth and was created by man.

Agnostic-There could be a God. It's not dumb to believe there is a God, it's not bad to believe there isn't one. Agnosticism is the best way to go!

More:
Words related to Agnosticism - Urban Dictionary: Agnosticism

Ignosticism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted on by

Ignosticism or igtheism is the idea that every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and other theological concepts; including (but not limited to) concepts of faith, spirituality, heaven, hell, afterlife, damnation, salvation, sin and the soul.

Ignosticism is the view that any religious term or theological concept presented must be accompanied by a coherent definition. Without a clear definition such terms cannot be meaningfully discussed. Such terms or concepts must also be falsifiable. Lacking this an ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the existence or nature of the terms presented (and all matters of debate) is meaningless. For example, if the term "God" does not refer to anything reasonably defined then there is no conceivable method to test against the existence of god. Therefore the term "God" has no literal significance and need not be debated or discussed.

Some philosophers have seen ignosticism as a variation of agnosticism or atheism,[1] while others have considered it to be distinct.

Ignosticism and theological noncognitivism are generally synonymous,[2] but the relationship of ignosticism to other nontheistic views is less clear. While Paul Kurtz finds the view to be compatible with both weak atheism and agnosticism,[3] other philosophers consider ignosticism to be distinct.

The term ignosticism was coined in the 1960s by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism. The term igtheism was coined by the secular humanist Paul Kurtz in his 1992 book The New Skepticism.[4]

In a chapter of his 1936 book Language, Truth, and Logic, A. J. Ayer argued that one could not speak of God's existence, or even the probability of God's existence, since the concept itself was unverifiable and thus nonsensical.[5] Ayer wrote that this ruled out atheism and agnosticism as well as theism because all three positions assume that the sentence "God exists" is meaningful.[6] Given the meaninglessness of theistic claims, Ayer opined that there was "no logical ground for antagonism between religion and natural science",[7] as theism alone does not entail any propositions which the scientific method can falsify.

Like Ayer, Theodore Drange sees atheism and agnosticism as positions that accept "God exists" as a meaningful proposition: atheists judge it to be "false or probably false" while agnostics consider it to be inconclusive until further evidence is met.[8] If Drange's definitions are accepted, ignostics are neither atheists nor agnostics. A simplified maxim on the subject states "An atheist would say, 'I don't believe God exists'; an agnostic would say, 'I don't know whether or not God exists'; and an ignostic would say, 'I don't know what you mean when you say, "God exists".

Although often described as one of the New Atheists, Sam Harris has expressed frustration with the label and often employs ignostic arguments criticizing the ambiguous and inconsistent definitions of "God". Harris finds the label of atheism as extraneous as needing to label oneself a non-racist or a non-believer in Zeus.[9] In this sense, Harris finds debating about the existence of God to be both absurd and ascientific yet still an inconvenient necessity when speaking in defense of reason and science.

Ignosticism is not to be confused with apatheism, a position of apathy toward the existence of God. An apatheist may see the statement "God exists" as insignificant; yet they may also see it as having semantic value, and perhaps being true.[10]

Drange emphasizes that any stance on "Does God exist?" is made with respect to a particular concept of what one claims to consider "God" to represent:

See the original post:
Ignosticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Letters to a Satanist: Is there any place for occultism and magick in the Satanic Temple?

Posted on by

Illustration by Lee DeVito

Recently, Metro Times, our sister paper in Detroit, unveiled a new column called Letters to Satan. Readers are invited to submit questions about Satanism to be answered by Doug Mesner, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple. Since the Satanic Temple has been so active in Florida in the past couple of years (they rallied for Gov. Rick Scott last year, and more recently, theyve been saying that theyll be handing out literature at Orange County Public Schools), we figured wed run some of the letters, too. Heres the next installment. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

You describe The Satanic Temple as atheistic Satanism. Is there any place for occultism and magick?

One of our tenets holds that, Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world, and, we should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs. We dont feel it is our or anybodys place to dogmatically dictate metaphysical interpretations regarding the nature of the universe to our membership, much less the rest of the world. The Satanic Temple specifically fights for a secular environment in which all people who adhere to our basic values can express their beliefs as they wish. If some of our membership subscribe to ideas of ethereal forces, we dont feel we have anything to say about that so long as it doesnt conflict with ones ability to consider the best available scientific and empirical evidence regarding any given subject. Such beliefs, like all beliefs, should be approached with reasonable agnosticism, but one should not pretend that a failure to know anything with 100% certainty means that equal probability can be assigned to every proposition. This usually results in some form of God of the gaps argument where admitted holes in scientific knowledge are filled with speculative and admittedly improbable and often supernatural assertions. Gravitating towards the anomalous a rules obscure exceptions can be an interesting intellectual exercise so long as ones thinking remains open to the possibility of correction. It shouldnt be entirely serious, but it shouldnt be taken as a mere joke. I would prefer to refer to our Satanic occultism as Satanic pataphysics, in the tradition of the French pataphysicians of the 19th century.

Lucien Greaves is the pen name for Satanic Temple spokesperson Doug Mesner.

Tags: atheistic Satanism, doug mesner, letters to satan, lucien greaves, metro times, satanic temple, satanists

See original here:
Letters to a Satanist: Is there any place for occultism and magick in the Satanic Temple?

Grab a free download of Boundarys chilled-out, bass-happy Rosemont

Posted on by

When Ghislain Poirier first appeared on the dance music scene a few years ago, he made a splash with gleefully noisy, jarringlyfrenetic tracksbuiltout ofwailing synthesizers and choppy beats. His songs offered the best parts of dancehall, techno, club rap, and pretty much everything else thats made to get people acting rowdy on a dance floor.At the time, this sort of genre agnosticism hadnt yet become as firmly entrenched in dance music as it is nowwhich meant thatfans scrambled to figure out what to even call Poiriers music. New Yorker pop critic Sasha Frere-Jonescame closest to nailing the musicshighly focused vibrancy when he coined the term lazer bass.

When hes not lighting dance floors on fire, Poirier records stuffunder the name Boundary that does pretty much the exact opposite. His new album Still Lifeis richly textured chill-out music thats calming and conducive to meditative statesbut still delivers enough bass to keep beat junkies happy.Each track is a skillfully uncluttered arrangement of meticulously well-designed tones, and each spin is like entering a perfectly manicured Zen garden of sound. For a sample of its habit-forming vibes, try this free download of Still Lifes standout track Rosemont.

Visit link:
Grab a free download of Boundarys chilled-out, bass-happy Rosemont

Alamon: Head and heart, heart and mind

Posted on by

IN THE past couple of days, I have had the interesting but schizoprenic experience of straddling two seemingly separate worlds engaged in the same task of knowledge production.

Just over the weekend, I was at General Santos City to attend the annual Philippine Sociological Society Conference. It was a happy occasion for a community of practitioners engaged in problematizing social realities to come together and discuss developments in the discipline.

Yesterday (October 20), I was at the launching of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines book Kidlap: A Selection on their experiences working with the lumads and the rural poor in Northern Mindanao. The RMP represents a unique community among the religious and laity who are engaged in the same task of confronting the same social realities -- albeit with divergent methods and shockingly difficult results.

I cannot help but contemplate on the differences of these two worlds. Sociologys history in the country cannot be divorced from the benevolent assimilation goals of our colonial masters and the kind of academic work that is still dominant in various universities in the country still take their cue from the contemporary currents in the field from abroad. The language within the discipline remains steep in positivist science -- a belief that what is knowable about the world, are the only things that can be measured.

There is also a parallel development among young sociologists who have turned their backs on the modern traditions of the discipline and instead adopt the pessimism emanating from the so-called post-political condition. They actually represent the mirror-image of the positivist sociologist who argue that what is true is what is measurable but this time around, they eschew truths completely and suspend themselves in an esoteric language whose hallmark is a deep political agnosticism and undecidability.

The result of these tendencies within the discipline of Sociology is a myopic appreciation of the truth as is the case with positivists and the failure to recognize the enduring social truths of our time as is the case among those who align themselves with the postmodern persuasion. Both fortify Sociologys place in the ivory tower of the academe divorced from the realities of our time that of systemic human suffering and the systemic ways of social movements to end it.

I am glad that within the discipline there are also those who are aware of Sociologys limitations and have sought to free themselves from the blinders that university culture imposes. They are often the pariahs of the discipline, they are denied tenure, or expunged to the margins of academic life. But for this set, these trappings of academic careerism are not the goals of doing sociological work. And their inspiration are not the heralded erudite professors in the field or their fidelity to positivist method, but those who are beyond the walls of the ivory tower yet engage in bravely confronting harsh social realities and seek ways to change it.

I believe that the work that Rural Missionaries of the Philippines does as documented in the book Kidlap that was launched yesterday, together with those that stand with them in the social movement to end human suffering, represent groups that actually live out the ideals of Sociology as an emancipatory discipline even if they do not recognize themselves as sociologists. In fact, I am even brave enough to argue that they are doing more relevant sociological work than most of us who are in the field.

Driven by Christian compassion instead of the indexical parameters ingrained in academic work, they brave state persecution and dangerous working conditions to know the truth among the poorest of the poor and the most historically marginalized - the lumads of Mindanao. More importantly, they empower these communities through their livelihood programs and alternative schools without eliding the issue of historical injustice and the system that similarly victimizes the peasants, workers, moros, women and children in this benighted land of ours.

What I bring with me in my own sociological work after editing the book the said book is the intellectual and should I say spiritual reward as I turn to organizations like RMP and the work they do for inspiration. They prove to me that there need not be a dichotomy between head and heart, heart and mind. That in our shared drive to understand the painful realities of our times, compassion towards others particularly the poorest of the poor is an illuminating resource.

Read this article:
Alamon: Head and heart, heart and mind

Exclusive: New figures reveal massive decline in religious affiliation

Posted on by

In five decades, the number of people with no religion in Britain has grown from just 3 per cent of the population to nearly half, according to a new survey. Among adults aged under 25, nearly two-thirds define themselves as "nones", or people with no religious affiliation.

The findings present an enormous challenge for the churches over how they make faith appealing to young people, in a world where many young will be appalled at how the male-dominated church leadership has made discrimination against women and homosexuals a defining feature of orthodox mission.

If the trends continue, Methodists will be extinct in a few decades and the Church of England also faces massive decline by the end of the century.

Only the Catholics are currently holding up, along with some minority faiths, in the mass move towards atheism and agnosticism in Britain.

Ben Clements of British Religion in Numbershas analysed the latest data from the first stage of the 2015 British Election Study, a survey of more than 20,000 people by a team of academics from Manchester, Oxford and Nottingham universities.

His results, posted on the British Religion in Numbers website, make for gloomy reading for most churches in the UK.

According to the results, nearly half the population, 44.7 per cent, now do not belong to any religion at all. Nearly a third identify as Church of England or Anglican and nearly one in ten as Catholic. Just 1.6 per cent identify as Muslim. Among those aged 18-24, just 14.2 per cent identify as Anglican, 8.5 per cent as Catholic and 11 per cent as other religion. Only among the over 65s are the numbers of Anglicans holding up, at 46.4 per cent.

The average age is highest for Anglicans, at 53.7 years, and lowest for those with no religion, 43.3 years, or a non-Christian faith, 42.2 years.

Clements reportsthat over the five decades from 1963, when the British Election Study began, to this summer, the major features are the resilience of Catholicism and a decline in Anglicanism and other Christian traditions. He also found a significant increase in those affiliated to minority faiths and the growth in what have become known as the "religious nones".

In 1963, Anglicans made up 64.5 per cent of those questioned, compared to 31.1 per cent this year. Other Christian denominations also declined from 23.1 per cent to 7.6 per cent, while other faiths grew from 0.6 per cent to 7.5 per cent and Catholics also grew from 8.6 per cent to 9.1 per cent.

Originally posted here:
Exclusive: New figures reveal massive decline in religious affiliation

Focus on dairy auction

Posted on by

Thursday's GlobalDairyTrade auction is expected to get the most attention in New Zealand this week as most investors focus on offshore developments.

Renewed jitters about global growth would continue to hold greater sway than the little data from New Zealand, BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said.

The resumed price plunge of 7.3% at the last auction had beaten him into a ''stronger stage of agnosticism'' regarding near-term direction for global dairy prices, Mr Ebert said.

''If there is no material bounce at this week's auction, we will crystallise the down-side risk we've been emphasising and move our dairy milk price forecast for this season down to $5 - perhaps even lower - from the $5.30 mark we went with at the time of Fonterra's announcement on September 24.''

Also on Thursday, September's job advertisement figures would be released, he said.

They could be negative, given they were taken before September's general election.

However, on Thursday afternoon, ANZ-RM consumer confidence results would be released, one of the first post-election economic reads.

Attention would turn to whether confidence had lifted from its already sturdy level in September of 127.7 points, Mr Ebert said.

Thursday's Performance in Manufacturing Index would be compared with its solid reading of 56.5 in August.

View original post here:
Focus on dairy auction

Implix launches GetResponse in ASEAN market

Posted on by

Ike Suarez | Oct. 13, 2014

E-mail marketing platform now supports key native languages in region.

Implix has now officially introduced its e-mail marketing platform, GetResponse into the ASEAN.

A press statement by Implix said GetResponse's formal entry was marked by a visit late Septemberby the company's CEO Simon Grabowski to three of the 10 member countries of the Association ofSoutheast Nations, namely Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Accompanied by senior Implix executives, Grabowski toured Singapore as well as the capital cities of thetwo other countries, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, to give educational seminars on email marketing.

Web-based

The press statement pointed out that the Web-based and customized service now offers support for keynative languages in the region such as Chinese, Bahasa Malayu and Thai.

It explained that to be effective, an e-mail marketing tool must include design, device agnosticism,personalization and language support.

It said such support for the Chinese, Malay and Thai languages had been added by Implix early this 2014.It further said e-mail could also serve as a powerful marketing tool for small and medium-sizedbusinesses, if done properly.

Implix has offices in the United States, Poland and Canada, it having been founded in 1998 and beingbased in Gdansk, Poland.

Continued here:
Implix launches GetResponse in ASEAN market

Netflix-Adam Sandler: The digital platform as comeback springboard

Posted on by

Adam Sandler isn't a big digital guy. He's copped to as much recently, telling reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival last month that he by and large avoided Twitter (he has an account but rarely tweets from it) and other forms of social media. (He does sort of like Wikipedia.)

Sandler chalked up this techno-agnosticism to him being "busy doing other stuff." Some of that, apparently, is making 21st century deals after all. Sandler and Netflix announced Wednesday evening that they were partnering on four new films. After rejuvenating the career of Keyser Soze and finding new life in the women's prison drama, the future-minded folks of Los Gatos were now turning to the man who was once Billy Madison. Give us your tired your poor, your huddled former box-office A-listers, yearning to break free.

You have to admire the commitment to the enterprise. Sandler is one of the hardest-working actors in show business, keeping a pace of more than a movie per year for the past two decades. So he'd get to four films quicker than the rest. Still, four movies don't come easy no matter how much you work. (It does bear emphasizing that this is not his four next movies -- he'll keep doing his studio stuff -- and in fact there's no guarantee we'll ever get close to that number; like most long-term deals in Hollywood, these are options, not obligations.)

Also not explicated in the announcement is exactly what kind of movies Netflix is signing up for and what kind of scrutiny the company will exercise on scripts. If history is any indication, they'll give the talent wide berth, which means this is Sandler's chance to really mix it up with some unexpected directors. If you're a filmmaker with a risky or reinvention story in mind, your agent should have been calling Sandler's people at WME an hour ago. At the very least here's hoping he doesn't just pull something out of the drawer with his Happy Madison production banner, which is part of the deal. "Grown Ups 5" doesn't need Netflix's boldness to get to a greenlight.

(One side question if this keeps up -- Netflix's stream and day-and-date policies automatically invalidate films for Oscar contention. If they hope to lure serious projects, that's going to be an obstacle.)

The timing of the news was a tad odd. It came the night of the opening of Sandler's "Men, Women & Children." In the film, his character does spend a lot of time on the Internet -- looking at porn and booking escorts.

That bit of experimentation doesn't seem to be working out as planned, and it's hardly a secret the actor isn't the draw he once was in bread-and-butter comedies either.

Still, it's a coup for Netflix. Sandler is long known among syndication and re-air types as the King of Cable for how his movies pull a number even on their 237th broadcast, so new movies will offer a little bit of synergy. (Netflix noted in its announcement that the old films play well on its service too.)

And Sandler's no doubt lost some luster but he still brings them in, especially when he has other big stars around him--he has a trio of $100-million grossers since 2010 all in that vein. In that sense the Sandler deal comes in a similar mold as the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" sequel Netflix boarded earlier in the week--a brand that doesn't have the equity it once did (and this isn't as expensive as it once was) but still means something to plenty of film fans.

Until now, Netflix has been about creators. But apparently they want in on the star game too. Sandler, for his part, wants back in on the heat, the mojo, the water-cooler -- in short, on the way people once talked about him but now talk about Netflix. The two just landed one other. Now we'll see if they can each get what they want.

See the original post here:
Netflix-Adam Sandler: The digital platform as comeback springboard

Candidates must at least feign some religiosity

Posted on by

Guess how many of the major-party candidates in next month's congressional elections are openly atheist. Hint: You can count them on one finger.

It tells you something that in a time when "no religion" is the category of roughly 20 percent of Americans, virtually none of the hundreds of Democrats and Republicans vying for congressional seats identify as a religious "none."

Whether it's because some consider their atheism, agnosticism or indifference a deal-breaker and don't even try for office, or whether it's because some non-religious candidates fudge the truth for political viability, this much seems clear: Candidates have to at least feign some religiosity to qualify for prominent political office, despite our Constitution forbidding religion tests of this sort. And atheism and related forms of non-belief are about the worst thing a candidate can be associated with.

This situation should not, and will not, hold for long.

Just in time for the "silly season," otherwise known as the elections, a coalition of secular organizations is launching a campaign to destigmatize non-belief in the public square. It's called Openly Secular, and if that brings to mind people coming out of closets as we saw with the gay-rights movement, well, that's the idea.

Explaining the need for the campaign, Carolyn Becker, spokesperson for Openly Secular, points to polling data showing that 53 percent of Americans think it's necessary to believe in God to be moral. Other survey data show that being an atheist is more injurious to one's shot at political office than being an adulterer.

These trends would likely bend if more Americans got to know people who were openly non-religious and saw them working hard, taking care of their kids and neighborhoods, and being generally kind and honest in their dealings with other people.

These days, candidates often rush to outdo one another in showing how religious they are. Those who are quieter about such matters are frequently asked where they stand on matters of faith. Non-believers -- and you know they're out there -- should not have to lie to remain viable.

Get this: Even some conservatives don't believe in God. The prominent columnist George Will, for instance, recently revealed that he is an atheist -- albeit an "amiable, low-voltage" one, as Will put it. Low voltage or high, Will has come out.

So has his conservative column-writing compatriot Charles Krauthammer, who recently distanced himself from conventional belief in God by saying that reverence for the mystery and awesomeness of the universe was as far as he could go.

Read the original:
Candidates must at least feign some religiosity

Here’s what the Netflix-Adam Sandler deal could give each side

Posted on by

Adam Sandler isn't a big digital guy. He's copped to as much recently, telling reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival last month that he by and large avoided Twitter (he has an account but rarely tweets from it) and other forms of social media. (He does sort of like Wikipedia.)

Sandler chalked up this techno-agnosticism to him being "busy doing other stuff." Some of that, apparently, is making 21st century deals after all. Sandler and Netflix announced Wednesday evening that they were partnering on four new films. After rejuvenating the career of Keyser Soze and finding new life in the women's prison drama, the future-minded folks of Los Gatos were now turning to the man who was once Billy Madison. Give us your tired your poor, your huddled former box-office A-listers, yearning to break free.

You have to admire the commitment to the enterprise. Sandler is one of the hardest-working actors in show business, keeping a pace of more than a movie per year for the past two decades. So he'd get to four films quicker than the rest. Still, four movies don't come easy no matter how much you work. (It does bear emphasizing that this is not his four next movies -- he'll keep doing his studio stuff -- and in fact there's no guarantee we'll ever get close to that number; like most long-term deals in Hollywood, these are options, not obligations.)

Also not explicated in the announcement is exactly what kind of movies Netflix is signing up for and what kind of scrutiny the company will exercise on scripts. If history is any indication, they'll give the talent wide berth, which means this is Sandler's chance to really mix it up with some unexpected directors. If you're a filmmaker with a risky or reinvention story in mind, your agent should have been calling Sandler's people at WME an hour ago. At the very least here's hoping he doesn't just pull something out of the drawer with his Happy Madison production banner, which is part of the deal. "Grown Ups 5" doesn't need Netflix's boldness to get to a greenlight.

(One side question if this keeps up -- Netflix's stream and day-and-date policies automatically invalidate films for Oscar contention. If they hope to lure serious projects, that's going to be an obstacle.)

The timing of the news was a tad odd. It came the night of the opening of Sandler's "Men, Women & Children." In the film, his character does spend a lot of time on the Internet -- looking at porn and booking escorts.

That bit of experimentation doesn't seem to be working out as planned, and it's hardly a secret the actor isn't the draw he once was in bread-and-butter comedies either.

Still, it's a coup for Netflix. Sandler is long known among syndication and re-air types as the King of Cable for how his movies pull a number even on their 237th broadcast, so new movies will offer a little bit of synergy. (Netflix noted in its announcement that the old films play well on its service too.)

And Sandler's no doubt lost some luster but he still brings them in, especially when he has other big stars around him--he has a trio of $100-million grossers since 2010 all in that vein. In that sense the Sandler deal comes in a similar mold as the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" sequel Netflix boarded earlier in the week--a brand that doesn't have the equity it once did (and this isn't as expensive as it once was) but still means something to plenty of film fans.

Until now, Netflix has been about creators. But apparently they want in on the star game too. Sandler, for his part, wants back in on the heat, the mojo, the water-cooler -- in short, on the way people once talked about him but now talk about Netflix. The two just landed one other. Now we'll see if they can each get what they want.

Read the original post:
Here's what the Netflix-Adam Sandler deal could give each side

Physicist Steven Hawking Claims There Is No God, Says He Is Atheist

Posted on by

In a recent interview with a Spanish newspaper, British physicist Steven Hawking claimed that there is no God, remarkingthat he believes that science offers a more convincing explanation for why the world exists than biblical Creation.

Hawking, who suffers from a motor neuron disease similar to ALS but has far outlived the normal life expectancy, told El Mundo journalist Pablo Jauregui in an interview published on Sunday that he doesnt believe in God or miracles.

[A]lthough many have come to describe it as a miracle that Hawking is still alive, half a century after being diagnosed with a disease whose life expectancy is usually a couple of years, the astrophysics rejects all religious beliefs, Jauregui explained.

The El Mundo reporter asked Hawking about his beliefs since in his book History of Time Hawking asserted that if the theory of everything were unlocked, man would know the mind of God. But Hawking had also noted in the later publication The Grand Design that he believed the universe came come out of nothing, out of nowhere, and that God is not necessary to explain the origin of life.

As Jauregui found the two statements to be contradictory, he sought to know whether Hawking had changed his mind between publications and converted to atheism or agnosticism.

In the past, before we understood the science was logical to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation, Hawking replied. What I meant when I said I would know the mind of God was that we would understand all that God would be able to understand if any exist.

But there is no God. I am an atheist, he continued. Religion believes in miracles, but they are not supported by science.

In past statements to the media, while not necessarily declaring his atheism, Hawking has likewise expressed his rejection of the supernatural.

Im not religious in the normal sense, he told the BBC in 2007. I believe the Universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.

View post:
Physicist Steven Hawking Claims There Is No God, Says He Is Atheist


  1. Agnosticism