-
Blog Stats
- 1,278,118 readers since June 2008
-
Recent Comments
- concerned christian on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Santi Tafarella on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Santi Tafarella on Zygmunt Bauman On What Made The Holocaust Possible (And Whether Something Like It Could Happen Again)
- Paradigm on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Nancy on Thomas Gainsborough’s Daughters Hold Hands. One Reaches for a Butterfly. The Other, Holding a Feather, Looks On. There is an Element of Impulse and Restraint in the Painting That Echoes Michelangelo’s Moses
- Paradigm on Zygmunt Bauman On What Made The Holocaust Possible (And Whether Something Like It Could Happen Again)
- Santi Tafarella on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- concerned christian on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Santi Tafarella on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- concerned christian on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Santi Tafarella on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Santi Tafarella on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- David Yates on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Anonymous on No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- Cory Booker « FutureWorld on Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Gay Marriage: Don’t Put Civil Rights Issues on the Ballot
-
Top Posts
- How Many People Could the Ancient Colosseum in Rome Hold?
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Woman in an American Field Hospital in Czechoslavakia, May 1945
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Lined up with Heads Shaved in a Croatian Concentration Camp
- Near Death Experience (NDE) Watch: Waiting for Dr. Sam Parnia
- 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
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Children Experimented upon at Auschwitz
- Evolution v. Creation Metaphor Watch: Charles Darwin's Description of Life as a "Great Tree"
- Hair Hacking: In 1965, Mitt Romney Hazed A Person Presumed To Be Gay By Holding Him Down And Cutting His Hair
- In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Studio Portrait of a Jewish Family Living in Poland Before the Holocaust
- No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
- 55%: The Number of Americans Who Say That a Guardian Angel Has Protected Them from Harm (Source: USA Today)
-
Recent Posts
- Zygmunt Bauman On What Made The Holocaust Possible (And Whether Something Like It Could Happen Again)
- This is Life Affirming
- Ask an Interesting Question, Get an Interesting Answer. Zygmunt Bauman’s Question: Who or What is Responsible for Making the Modern World Go Along As It Is?
- Ask an Interesting Question, Get an Interesting Answer. Michio Kaku’s Question: What Happens to Our Analysis When We Recall That We’re Scarcely Different from Our Paleolithic Ancestors of 100,000 Years Ago?
- No More Jesus Bashing: John Loftus Throws in the Towel
Recent Haiku Tweets
- Southern California. Morning air smells of chlorine. In middle of night, a cat with muddy paws passed over the hood of my car. 2 weeks ago
- The Greece and Italy Crash and Burn wp.me/pgUXj-663 via @wordpressdotcom 2 weeks ago
- Syriza Watch: In Greece, The Center Does Not Hold, And That Means This Bell Is For You wp.me/pgUXj-65v via @wordpressdotcom 2 weeks ago
- Hair Hacking: In 1965, Mitt Romney Hazed A Person Presumed To Be Gay By Holding Him Down And Cu… wp.me/pgUXj-64O via @wordpressdotcom 2 weeks ago
- Oak tree, 250 years old. Veranda I stand on, built in the 1960s. Dinosaurs opened eyes on same blue sky I do. Days left. Maybe decades. 3 weeks ago
Monthly Archives: September 2011
Youcef Nadarkhani Execution Watch: Where’s President Obama on This?
In a recent Washington Post opinion piece on Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor under a death sentence for apostasy in Iran, Jordan Sekulow describes Nadarkhani’s attorney as: . . . a brave Muslim who has been sentenced to nine years in prison and banned from … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged free speech, freedom of religion, human rights, Iran, Islam, muhammad, Muslims, president obama, save youcef nadarkhani, youcef nadarkhani
2 Comments
Youcef Nadarkhani: Christian Pastor Sentenced to Death for His Apostasy from Islam
If normative Islam is, indeed, a religion of tolerance and peace, I would like to hear from American and other Muslims on a recent death sentence handed down, by an Iranian court, on a Christian pastor who refuses to recant his … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Christianity, Iran, Islam, Jesus, muhammad, Muslim, muslim americans, religion, the prophet
2 Comments
The Hair Cosmos: Ancient Greece Had a String Theory
The Greek word cosmos is related to the Greek word for comb. I stumbled on this curious little piece of etymology in a book on art appreciation from 1965 titled, The Book of Art: How to Look at Art (vol. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Adam, art, cosmos, evolution, Genesis, gnosis, hair, life, physics, string theory
Leave a comment
Ayn Rand Against Religion in Conservative Politics
In thinking about Emile Durkheim’s three Ps of sociology (power, prestige, and property), it occurred to me that the contemporary Republican Party has its own three Ps that it’s committed to advancing: plutocracy (rule by the rich); Pentacostal-style revivalism; and … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Ayn Rand, christianism, conservative politics, God, Jesus, libertarianism, objectivism, pentagon, plutocracy, war
1 Comment
Let My People Go: Reconsidering the Tea Party
I have of late been rethinking the meaning of the Tea Party to American politics. My first take was dismissive: this movement is the same type of Herderian nationalism that, last century, brought Hitler and his merry band of crazed … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Ayn Rand, conservatism, Exodus, liberalism, libertarianism, Moses, tea partiers, tea party, the soul, virginia postrel
3 Comments
Neutrino Speed-of-Light Watch: Physicist Dave Goldberg Says Special Relativity Could Be Wrong. All Wrong.
The Los Angeles Times today quotes physicist Dave Goldberg as saying that, if neutrinos can indeed go faster than the speed of light (as some Italian researchers appear to have discovered), then Einstein’s famed theory of special relativity is wrong. All wrong. “Basically, all … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged block universe, einstein, neutrinos, physics, relativity, science, speed of light, theories
3 Comments
Neutrino Speed-of-Light Watch: Stephen Hawking Refuses to Comment Yet
Concerning the Italian researchers’ discovery that neutrinos may be exceeding the speed of light, this is at Reuters today: “It is premature to comment on this,” Professor Stephen Hawking, the world’s most well-known physicist, told Reuters. “Further experiments and clarifications … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged albert einstein, black holes, einstein, holographic universe, physics, speed of light, Stephen Hawking
8 Comments
Dr. Shaul Chorev is Worried that the Arab Spring Could Turn into a Nuclear Fall
Dr. Shaul Chorev is head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, and the Jerusalem Post, reporting on a speech he gave this week in Vienna, had a couple of paragraphs toward the end of the article that are quite unnerving: Chorev also called … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged alarm, arab spring, Iran, Islam, Judaism, kittens, nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, nuclear weapons, syria
3 Comments
Neutrinos Faster than the Speed of Light: Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
Or, as the New York Times put it today, “Incredible claims require incredible evidence.” The reference is to the mind-blowing (apparent) discovery that there are neutrinos that can outpace the speed of light. Here’s more from the New York Times: According … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, einstein, epistemology, lizard lick towing, physics, science, speed of light, truth
Leave a comment
Lucretius: Atheism’s John the Baptist and the Progenitor of a Hell Realm
Below is a great (and very contemporary sounding) atheist quote from Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things. Atomism and evolution have always been the poison pills at God’s bedside (or, at least, the religious believer’s). Have you swallowed their implications yet? As an … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, atomism, God, hell, Jesus, lucretius, philosophy, psychology, the Holocaust
Leave a comment
I Saw Contagion and Got My Flu Shot
But not in that order. I actually got my flu shot on Monday and saw Contagion on Tuesday. My wife and kids also got their flu shots this week. As to the movie, it’s a must-see that is well informed … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged contagion, death, disease, fitness, flu, flu shot, health, life, plague, vaccination
Leave a comment
The Religion Tree
Using the metaphor of a tree, in the following poem I try to boil down the essence of the human predicament (which I take to be suffering, change, and death) and the response of each major religion to it (including the atheist … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, God, Hinduism, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, poems, poetry, taoism
Leave a comment
Listen to Reason? The Laws of God vs. the Laws of Man
Below are some public mug shots of Amish men serving brief sentences in a Kentucky jail. Their crime? They refused to put yellow reflectors on their horse-driven buggies when using public roads. Their religion does not permit them to display … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, amish, civil disobedience, determination, discipline, God, Henry David Thoreau, Jesus, michelle bachmann, notes from underground, religion, Sarah Palin
21 Comments
My Meal with a Muslim 2011
Well, I had my lunch with a Muslim yesterday (I’ve decided to leave his name out of this post). And I must say that, despite getting on famously in conversation, there are enormous ideological gaps between the two of us. I came … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, atheism, dialogue, God, have a meal with a muslim day, Islam, Jesus, muhammad, Muslims, religion, ummah
5 Comments
Jonathan Wells on Whale Evolution
Some thought-provoking observations on whale evolution by biochemist Jonathan Wells (a Berkeley graduate and vocal skeptic of strict philosophical naturalism): In the case of the Durrett and Schmidt (2008) paper, evolutionary biologist Richard von Sternberg has applied the equations employed in that … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, biology, Charles Darwin, creationism, Darwinism, evolution, natural selection, strict naturalism, whales
7 Comments
Let the 30-Year-Old Die!: The Christianist Party Shouts for Crucifixion
This is a must-see. It’s the Republican audience’s reaction to a debate question directed last night to Ron Paul by Wolf Blitzer. The gist of the question was the following: Should society let an employed 30-year-old experiencing a catastrophic health crisis, but lacking insurance, die? … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, Ayn Rand, christianism, crucifixion, health care, health insurance, Jesus, obamacare, Republicans, Ron Paul
24 Comments
