-
Blog Stats
- 1,157,330 readers since June 2008
-
Recent Comments
- Matt on “Oh, Wow! Oh, Wow! Oh, Wow!”: When Singularities Come Nigh
- Santi Tafarella on Mao Luther King?
- Santi Tafarella on The Speech: Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’ SOTU Retort
- David Yates on Mao Luther King?
- Longtooth on President Barack Obama’s Long Game
- ruth1940 on MIT Physicist Ian Hutchinson Calls Gnu Atheists “Militant” and Wants Greater “Respect” Directed Toward Religion and Faith
- susie on Recommended Books & Films
- Santi Tafarella on Contemporary Iconoclasm: Jesus Statue Beheaded in Boston
- Apuleius Platonicus on Contemporary Iconoclasm: Jesus Statue Beheaded in Boston
- Paradigm on President Barack Obama’s Long Game
- eartha on Question of the Day: What is the Origin of the Yellow “Star of David” That the Nazis Required Jews to Wear at the Time of the Holocaust?
- Santi Tafarella on The Other 1%
- Paradigm on The Other 1%
- Santi Tafarella on The Other 1%
- Santi Tafarella on Atheist David Silverman to Tim Tebow: Read Matthew 6:5
-
Top Posts
- 55%: The Number of Americans Who Say That a Guardian Angel Has Protected Them from Harm (Source: USA Today)
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Woman in an American Field Hospital in Czechoslavakia, May 1945
- How Many People Could the Ancient Colosseum in Rome Hold?
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Anne Frank and Margo Frank in a Purim Holiday Photo with Other Jewish Children, February, 1934, and an Image from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Where Anne and Margo Died
- Near Death Experience (NDE) Watch: Waiting for Dr. Sam Parnia
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Lined up with Heads Shaved in a Croatian Concentration Camp
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Stacked Corpses
- Negative Capability Defined: Walking in Mysteries---and the Shoes of Others---with Keats, Shakespeare, Whitman---and Barack Obama!
- In Evolution We Trust?: England Puts Charles Darwin on the Back of Its Ten Pound Bank Note
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Image from the Concentration Camp at Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, 1945
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Experimented upon at Auschwitz
-
Recent Posts
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Quote of the Day: William Clifford on the Duty of Inquiry (from his Essay, “The Ethics of Belief”, 1879)
William Clifford (1879): A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheist, Christianity, Politics, reason, religion, skepticism, william clifford
Leave a comment
Why I’m an Agnostic: Believers, Nonbelievers, and the Waving of Intellectual Garlic
The existence of the universe is a mystery. And we are, all of us, embedded in that mystery, and so we need to keep talking about it, like Jacob wrestling the angel, and not drive it away as if it … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, fundamentalism, philosophy, psychology, reason, religion, richard rorty, skepticism, the Bible, the ontological mystery
3 Comments
Mental Health Break: My Uncle Writing Jokes at a Kitchen Table
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, comedy, humor, italian americans, jokes, psychology, Santi Tafarella, steve rossi
Leave a comment
My Uncle on Television with Woody Allen—and Forty Years Later
In February of 1967, Marty Allen and Steve Rossi were on the television show, What’s My Line? and Woody Allen was on the panel. Steve Rossi is my uncle, and “Rossi” is his stage name. His actual last name is … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged comedy, humor, jokes, Santi Tafarella, steve rossi, steve tafarella, television, viagra, what's my line, woody allen
Leave a comment
Kindle 3.0?: Russ Wilcox on the Future of “E Ink”, the Electronic Newspaper, and the Electronic Book
Russ Wilcox is the co-founder and CEO of E Ink, which produces the low-power/high-contrast “electronic paper” screen that has made Amazon’s Kindle 2 such a huge success. Wilcox spoke to Xconomy.com and set some dates for what’s just over the horizon … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged books, e ink, e-books, e-newspapers, ecology, los angeles times, magazines, New York Times, newpapers, russ wilcox, trees, valley press
Leave a comment
Philosopher Nigel Warburton Weighs in on the ATHEIST BUS AD CAMPAIGN in Britain
British atheists recently put together some money and purchased bus ads around their country proclaiming, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Christians promptly responded with counter-ads of their own. Philosopher Nigel Warburton offers his perspective … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnositicism, apologetics, atheism, Blaise Pascal, Christianity, david hume, Jesus, philosophy, Politics, religion, Richard Dawkins, the Bible
Leave a comment
A Very Short Quiz to Help You Figure Out Where You Are at Right Now
Read each question slowly, and respond honestly. 1) If it is in fact the case that you are, right at this moment, occupying a very definite volume of space, then why is it that you do not know, without first taking a moment to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged augustine, bodhidharma, Buddhism, Hinduism, life, paradox, philosophy, psychology, quizes, space and time, the self
Leave a comment
Suicide is Painless? Albert Camus’s First Problem of Philosophy—and the Southern Novelist Walker Percy’s Answer to It
Is the game worth the candle—or not? And if life is worth living, why aren’t you doing it? I like this reflection on suicide in Walker Percy’s brilliant Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self Help Book (Pocket Books 1984, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Albert Camus, cosmos, death, existentialism, life, literature, lost in the cosmos, philosophy, psychology, religion, suicide, walker percy
10 Comments
Is the Bible an Anthology—or a Unity?
F.F. Bruce, a biblical scholar rather better known in the 1960s than he is today, once said this: [T]he Bible is not an anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together. Bruce, as an “old school” conservative scholar, has long been … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, Christianity, contradictions in the bible, ff bruce, inerrancy, James Dobson, Jesus, John Macarthur, New Testament, religion
9 Comments
Big NY Times Science Story TODAY: 1.5 Million Year Old Proto-Human Footprints Discovered in Kenya
Can we put the inanities of young earth creationism to bed now? And can we finally just admit the obvious—that, yes, we descended from ape-like ancestors? The NY Times reports today that, in Kenya over the past three years, proto-human footprints (almost certainly … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged anthropology, apologetics, Charles Darwin, creationism, evolution, Genesis, homo erectus, humans, Jesus, planet of the apes, science, the Bible
3 Comments
Jesus of Nazareth, Republican?
Hey, you “Christian” Republicans out there! Jesus was a liberal. That’s right. Jesus said to sell all you have and give it to the poor, and he said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged al franken, Christianity, gospel of Luke, gospels, Jesus, Politics, religion, Republican party, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, the poor, true religion
6 Comments
John Cleese of Monty Python on Twittering
John Cleese deconstructs “twittering” in ten short seconds here.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged books, communications, inanity, john cleese, media, monty python, technology, twitter, twittering
Leave a comment
Mid-Day Caffeine Substitute
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged dance, energy, life, mental health break, music, republica
Leave a comment
35 Years Ago (in 1974)
. The groovy-guy dancing, horns, and duds put me in mind of this late medieval Italian painting at the Getty Museum in Westwood:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1970s, 70s, clothes, dancing, Getty Museum, life, love, music, westwood
Leave a comment
Weird Fact for the Day: Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana (and Serious Rush Limbaugh Dittohead) WAS A COLLEGE EXORCIST!
So says TPM Online. Money quote: As others noted during his 2003 and 2007 gubernatorial campaigns (see update), in an essay Jindal wrote in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, a serious right-wing Catholic journal, Jindal narrated a bizarre story … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged bobby jindal, college exorcist, demonology, demons, exorcism, faith healing, philosophy, Politics, religion, rush limbaugh
Leave a comment
Talk Radio and the Louisiana Exorcist: Beloved Leader of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, HEARTS Exorcist Bobby Jindal—and Exorcist Bobby Jindall HEARTS Rush Limbaugh, Too
The love affair between Rush Limbaugh and exorcist Bobby Jindal is getting intense. Exorcist Jindal seems to have a serious crush on El Rushbo: In an interview with Limbaugh in 2007, Jindal gushed that he reads Limbaugh’s books and that he is … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged bobby jindal, dittohead, exorcism, love, Politics, psychology, religion, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, the exorcist
Leave a comment
“I’m Still Falling”: A Russian Joke and the Global Economy
There is a Russian joke that I like, and that bears upon the global economy. It goes like this: Ivan sees his friend, Dmitri, fall into an old well. Ivan runs up to the rim of the well and calls down, “Oh my God, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged comedy, economics, economy, Great Depression 2.0, humor, wall street
Leave a comment
Don’t Buy Yet?: Yale Economist Robert Shiller Thinks the Housing Market is Only Halfway to Its Bottom
Yale economist, Robert Shiller, thinks we are only halfway to the bottom of the housing market, and, in consequence, that the economy’s general recovery is still 3-5 years off. See a five minute interview with Shiller, and a chart that he … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged depression 2.0, economy, Great Depression 2.0, housing, markets, real estate, robert shiller, wall street
Leave a comment
