Mr. Kurtz, I admire the work you are doing, but I must criticize your talk on a minor point. You used the word "fallibilism" three times during this talk when the word "fallibility" was called for. I know it was three, because each time I felt sparks fly in the grammar region of my brain. Each time, your point was that religions deny their fallibility; that is, they think they are infallible. But you used the word "fallibilism", which means the opposite. Religions can’t deny their fallibilism because they don’t have it to begin with.

Paul Kurtz - World War and World Religions

Mr. Kurtz, I admire the work you are doing, but I must criticize your talk on a minor point. You used the word “fallibilism” three times during this talk when the word “fallibility” was called for. I know it was three, because each time I felt sparks fly in the grammar region of my brain. Each time, your point was that religions deny their fallibility; that is, they think they are infallible. But you used the word “fallibilism”, which means the opposite. Religions can’t deny their fallibilism because they don’t have it to begin with.

Great episode as always.

My one comment involves the ediorial regarding the ethics of Donald Rumsfeld (sorry, can’t remember the name of the person giving the editorial).

While I completely agreed with the thesis and content of his talk, I question whether the CFI podcast is the venue for such a polemic.  Agree or not, that was purely a political diatribe, and I fail to see how that relates to the paranormal, alternative medicine, and the intersection of science and religion, the stated mission of our podcasts.

I’m sure most of our listeners are anti-Bush, however I’m assume there are Republicans who happen to be free thinking, pro-science, agnostic/atheists who want to learn more about that realm than the same old tired anti-Bush, anti-Iraq rhetoric.

However, it was a great editorial.  Just for a politcal podcast, IMO.

Well, Jayhox, I’m glad you spoke up—I think it is an interesting debate how much politics should influence what we do or discuss.

It’s true that this particular podcast waded more than normal into the political arena, what with David Koepsell’s trenchant criticism of Rumsfeld and Paul Kurtz’s discussion of the political impact of religion on war. FWIW, I thought both were very thoughtful discourses, with which I was basically in complete agreement.