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A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think
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Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
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This past Tuesday, a DC-9 jetliner crashed on takeoff in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After failing to lift off, the plane crashed and burst into flame on the ground. Among the passengers were the Mosiers, a family of Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries. With the help of other ...
I love this kind of film contest – one that focuses on the intersection of positivity, creativity and technology. It’s right up my Alley (digital film guy and all). So it’s with great happiness that I’m announcing this contest! Pangea Day: Uplift the World with Video! The 2008 Nokia Mobile ...
This past Sunday, I went to church and had a wonderful time. No, I haven't converted, nor am I thinking of doing so. I was there to accompany my girlfriend, who's a lapsed Catholic and is seeking a new church to attend. We went to a Unitarian Universalist church on Long Island. That Sunday there ...
The May 2008 issue of Portfolio magazine ("the brilliant issue") has a listing of the 73 most brilliant thinkers in business - the rebels, upstarts, game changers and connectors who are changing the way we think about business. There are some familiar names, of course - Steven Spielberg, Rupert ...
In the book God?: A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist, William Lane Craig (debating Walter Sinnott-Armstrong) makes the following argument for why God chooses to remain hidden: "Could God reveal himself more clearly?" Of course, He could: He could have inscribed the label "Made by God ...
Has anyone else noticed that this site seems to have gotten dramatically slower in the past week or two? Lately, it's been taking me minutes to load even the simplest administration pages. When I load the front page or other public parts of the site, it seems somewhat better, but still slower ...
"We need to ask ourselves this question: 'Where do we put our faith and trust? In the words of scientists who don't know everything, who were not there? Or in the Word of God — the God who does know everything — and who was there?'" —Ken Ham, "Were You There?" I've been reading this ...
One of the recurring fantasies of Christian end-times believers is that, after the Rapture, the world will be united into a single government which will be presided over by the Antichrist. As such, these believers view any sign of increased global peace or cooperation as an ominous sign of growing ...
At some point early in the previous century, island nations particularly were gripped with air raid angst. The relatively new threat of airborne destruction was especially poignant for countries that for centuries were able, for defense purposes, to profit from their aquatic isolation ...
I don't make it my mission to slap down every loudmouth religious-right crackpot on the internet. Really, I don't. If I wanted to make it my mission, I could do nothing else, but it wouldn't accomplish anything and it wouldn't make for a very interesting site. However, the other day, this giant ...
I've been watching the "Four Horsemen" video, a two-hour conversation among four of today's leading atheists: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. Right at the beginning, Dan Dennett brings up a point that's also been on my mind. Speaking about his pre-publication ...
Recently, the state government of Illinois proposed a $1 million grant to rebuild the historic Pilgrim Baptist Church, which was destroyed by a fire earlier this year. Atheist Rob Sherman testified before the House State Government Administration Committee to oppose this blatant violation of the ...
…is something my dad used to say all the time when trying to corral the dispersed Willis children into giving up their “way to busy for family” lives for a few days and making a communal trek somewhere for a very untraditional Christmas. We were usually pretty successful in making this holiday a ...
As you can see from this picture, the building where I live has no thirteenth floor: But of course, what this picture depicts is a mathematical impossibility. My building does have a thirteenth floor; it's just that it's mislabeled as the fourteenth floor, with all the floors above it ...
Kathleen Seidel, author of the Neurodiversity weblog, writes extensively about issues related to autism. Among other things, she gives the scientific perspective on claims that autism is caused by vaccination. One of her recent posts, The Commerce in Causation, concerns the career of one Clifford ...