Blog Stats
- 2,749,560 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- Aletha Balke on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- De Seksuele Sociale Norm - ilvy.com on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Kelsey on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Fake People, Pure Product - Ordinary Times on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Hailee Steinfeld’s ‘Afterlife’ Debuts in New ‘Dickinson’ Trailer - Screen Times on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- fred on Have Yourself a Maoist Little Christmas?
- Les on Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris: Is This What a Rising Christian Political Star Looks Like?
- Anonymous on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Pandora on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Pandora on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Pandora on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- xgenx on Free Will Objectivism Fail: Two Mathematicians Demonstrate that Ayn Rand’s Philosophy is Incoherent
- Naomi on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Naomi on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Graduate Degree Seeker on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
Top Posts
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- What is an Etiological Narrative? And Might Confusion About Its Nature Be the Source for Fundamentalist Religion?
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- What Did Friedrich Nietzsche Take from Charles Darwin?
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: A German Jewish Girl Who Was Part of the Kindertransport (1939)
- The Santi Report (My Version of a Drudge Report Page)
- Albert Camus: The Absurd, Rebellion, Freedom, Passion, and Solidarity
-
Recent Posts
- Woke Fanatics? Essentialists vs. Nominalists
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.10: Emerson’s “Circles”
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.9: Imitation And Emulation With An Eye On Competition
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.8: Selection And Editing
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.7: Audience And Rhetorical Strategy
Recent Haiku Tweets
- AOC says it well. twitter.com/CNN/status/108… 1 year ago
- nytimes.com/interactive/20… 1 year ago
- RT @mrchan: So much has changed in America, and yet so much hasn't https://t.co/x2mthUr4Kc 1 year ago
- Perfect. twitter.com/newsundayheral… 3 years ago
- RT @goldenglobes: At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. https://t.… 3 years ago
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Atheist Michael Shermer, in the Huffington Post, Quotes Me
And favorably! Shermer thought I had offered an amusing blog post retort to Jerry Coyne’s charge that he (Shermer) had gone soft on theism and now deserved the label “faitheist”. See Shermer’s Huffington Post piece here, and my blog post that Shermer quotes from here.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, faitheists, jerry coyne, Michael Shermer, new atheistland, New Atheists, reason, skepticism, the big time
Leave a comment
“The Road”: Cormac McCarthy’s Version of Helen Reddy’s “You and Me Against the World”?
Slate recently reviewed the film version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and reported that watching it is—how shall I put this politiely?—emotionally problematic: The Boy and Man on the road, nameless in the long-dead world. Their cart and tarp and tins … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cormac mccarthy, existentialism, fathers and sons, film, helen reddy, innocence to experience, life, love, movies, philosophy, the road, William Blake
1 Comment
New Atheistland Watch: Bryan Appleyard Owns PZ Myers—Again!
I love Bryan Appleyard’s eloquent retorts to the blistering rhetoric coming out of New Atheistland. Here’s Appleyard today on PZ Myers’s scientism: [M]ention intelligent design and the likes of Myers will be hurling abuse. But I gather from reading John … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheism, atheist, bryan appleyard, Charles Darwin, evolution, God, intelligent design, philosophy, PZ Myers, science
4 Comments
Imagine a World Without Religion. Would It Be Less Violent?
At first glance, one thing that atheism clearly seems to have going for it is this: it doesn’t have any holy books with violence advocating passages in it. Indeed, it doesn’t have any holy books at all. So score one for atheism? Not so … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, philosophy, religion, violence, war
16 Comments
Love Faces, Don’t Eat Them: The Facetarian Decade?
In-Vitro Meat in 3-10 years? This prediction sounds absurdly early to me, but H+ is a respected Internet magazine devoted to thinking about the future, so I’ll quote a recent article that it had on the subject: In-Vitro Meat — aka tank … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged facetarian, fitness, health, life, meat eating, protein, technology, vegetarian
Leave a comment
Love is Worth Fighting For: A Little Life Lesson from Perseus and the Medusa
I took this picture at the Getty Museum in Westwood on Saturday. It is a photo of a painting (from the first decade of the 1700s) by Sebastiano Rici, and depicts Perseus holding the head of Medusa in combat against … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged freedom, gay equality, gay marriage, gay rights, Greek mythology, life, love, Medusa, perseus, scary, stone
3 Comments
Dissent in New Atheistland: Jerry Coyne Takes After Michael Shermer!
At Jerry Coyne’s blog today, Coyne takes after Michael Shermer for being a little too cozy with religion: It always amuses me when an accommodationist tells the faithful that no, there is no conflict between science and religion, at least not if they … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, agnostics, atheism, atheist, atheists, Christianity, God, jerry coyne, Michael Shermer, philosophy, religion
20 Comments
Is Genesis 1 in Accord with Scientific Observation?
Yes. A very particular scientific observation, in fact. The author of the first chapter of Genesis clearly based his narrative on something that he had empirically observed: the world appears to be composed of two things: stage elements (light, darkness, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, atheism, atheist, creationism, evolution, Genesis, God, Islam, Jesus, religion, science, the Bible
2 Comments
The Ending of Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men”
The film version: Notice, at the very beginning of the clip, the strategic placement of the tree, and Tommy Lee Jones crooking his neck ever so slightly, not blinking, as if his fate is to, as it were, be dangled by … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged a still small voice, cormac mccarthy, death, endings, fathers and sons, film, God, Jesus, life, literature, silence, stillness
Leave a comment
“The Road”: The Movie is Better than the Book?
This looks promising. Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road (2006), has been turned into a film, and a review in Salon suggests that the movie is actually better, on balance, than the book. That doesn’t happen every day. Here’s what Salon’s … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cormac mccarthy, film, life, literature, movies, philosophy, silence, stillness, the road, writing, yoga, Zen
3 Comments
Have an Edgy Thanksgiving!
In the 1970s, All in the Family had an episode (in season six) in which Thanksgiving dinner is disrupted over Michael Stivic’s atheism, and Michael and Gloria’s determination not to raise their baby with a religion:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged all in the family, apologetics, atheism, atheist, child raising, children, Christianity, family, God, religion, thanksgiving, the Bible
Leave a comment
America vs. Global Terrorism: What Happens When Ahab’s Pursuit of the White Whale Takes Place in Real Time?
Robert Wright, in the New York Times this weekend, articulated clearly his view of how the viral terrorism meme spreads, in an age of global communication, to psychologically susceptible people (like Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan): One reason killing terrorists can spread terrorism is that … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged ahab, al qaeda, Islam, jihad, literature, melville, Politics, religion, robert wright, terrorism, white whale
1 Comment
Creation vs. Evolution Watch: A Trojan Horse at UCLA?
This past week a group of Evangelicals came onto the UCLA campus in Westwood and gave away 2000 free copies of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). But, as usual, there is a catch to such things. The edition of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheist, creationism, evolution, Genesis, God, intelligent design, Jesus, New Atheists, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, trojan horse, UCLA
1 Comment
Beck Zedong!
Glenn Beck’s got a one hundred year plan (oh, shit): “We need to start thinking like the Chinese.” In other words, Glenn Beck thinks that focused, insurgent, belligerent, fanatically committed mass movement Maoism—with its disciplined cell groups, ideological purity, and relentless propaganda—is the right … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Andrew Sullivan, Communism, conservatism, fascism, glenn beck, mao zedong, National Review, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, tea parties, teabaggers, totalitarianism
1 Comment
