-
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: April 2010
Albert Einstein vs. Sarah Palin
Physicist Lawrence Krauss, as a prelude to a recent essay that he wrote for New Humanist, paired an Albert Einstein observation with a tweet from Sarah Palin, and I thought the effect was striking. Here are the quotes: “The unleashed power of the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged albert einstein, conservatism, fundamentalism, Republicans, Sarah Palin, stupidity, tea partiers, teabaggers
Leave a comment
Biologist Jerry Coyne vs. Adam and Eve
At his blog this week, Jerry Coyne calls out the BioLogos Foundation, a self-professed reconciler of good science with reasonable religion, for not unequivocally rejecting the historicity of Adam and Eve: BioLogos does not take an official position on the historicity of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Adam and Eve, afrocentism, atheism, atheist, Genesis, God, jerry coyne, Jesus, Michael Shermer, Noah, the Bible, young earth creationism
12 Comments
“A Parable for Thomas”: a poem by Santi Tafarella
. Beauty is noticing the lonely Boulder on yonder hill casting . In your way a long black Tongue declaring that, yes, . The sun is rising, and you Need not ascend yourself . The hill, nor touch … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, doubting thomas, Easter, Jesus, koans, parables, poems, poetry, reason, Santi Tafarella, the resurrection
Leave a comment
A gorgeous image of a cow in the Swiss Alps accompanied by the opening stanzas of James Dickey’s “The Heaven of Animals” (1961)
From Wikipedia Commons: . And from James Dickey: Here they are. The soft eyes open. If they have lived in a wood It is a wood. If they have lived on plains It is grass rolling Under their … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged animals, beauty, cattle, cows, james dickey, life, meditation, perfection, poetry, serenity, the heaven of animals, yoga
Leave a comment
Robert Campin (1375-1444): the truth will out?
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I get a “the truth will out” vibe from the paintings of Robert Campin—a sort of protective concealment-revelation cycle of some sort functioning as a subtext in at least some of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged art, confirmation bias, critical thinking, intuition, painting, painting interpretation, Plato, psychology, reason, robert campin, subjectivity, truth
Leave a comment
The Bangles’ “In Your Room”
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1980s, America, bangles, girl bands, life, mental health break, music
Leave a comment
A lesson in growing up: I know that you are offended—and no, I won’t be apologizing or adjusting my language to match your sensibilities
I’m here. I have unorthodox views. I’m expressing them directly. Deal with it. Philip Pullman asserts his right to set the rhetorical tone and intellectual content of the messages that he sends and the right of people to give them attention … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, Christ, Christian, freedom of speech, God, Islam, jerry coyne, Jesus, Judaism, Muslim, religion
5 Comments
Innocence to experience—to emotional blackmale
After the gorilla’s existentialist period of Camus-like despair, I suppose that the next episode will be devoted to his religious conversion: a trainer comforts the gorilla by convincing him that he doesn’t really die—but nevertheless might go to hell if he … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Albert Camus, death, eternal life, existentialism, gorillas, life, life after death, philosophy, psychology, the sinner's prayer, William Blake
Leave a comment
Are you a member of the faith community—or the doubting community?
Because every other year or so I teach the Bible as literature course at my college, I was asked to be on a panel discussing how to deal with religion in the classroom. The event was held last night and one … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, agnostic, apologetics, atheism, atheist, doubt, Emily Dickinson, faith, Jesus, religion, the doubting community, Thomas Jefferson
7 Comments