Blog Stats
- 2,909,975 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- Evelyn Stone on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Bible says beastiality is ok on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Stan on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Tess on In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Tess on In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- geirsmith1 on Barack Obama: The Leopard in the Book of Daniel?
- Christian on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- nothingbutthepub on Evolution v. Creation Metaphor Watch: Is Nature “Red in Tooth and Claw”?
- Anonymous on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Carol Dickinson on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Bradley on Bonobo Liberals? Chimp Conservatives?
- Bill on Shakespeare, James Joyce, and the Dirty Encoding in Britney Spears’s “If U Seek Amy”
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
Top Posts
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- Was Emily Dickinson an Atheist?
- "The Vision of Christ That Thou Dost See": William Blake on the Many Faces of Jesus
- Ludwig Wittgenstein for Beginners
- About Santi Tafarella
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Aquinas and Superstition: Thomist Philosopher Edward Feser Is An Aquinastitionist. What Is That?
- Blogging Schick and Vaughn's "How to Think about Weird Things," Chapter 2
-
Recent Posts
Recent Haiku Tweets
- @abrahampiper Yahweh as a frustrated deity, much to be pitied! Abraham Piper's insight here, if thought about as a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 year ago
- RT @tbonier: More than 80M votes cast and we're not done yet. Thoughts: - It's too late for an "October surprise" to have a significant imp… 2 years ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: 1. Want to thank @DanielNewman for using his HUGE platform for this work. I want to clarify what this is. In the voter… 2 years ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Tell me again about how old and feeble Joe Biden is??? twitter.com/ProjectLincoln… 2 years ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Remember when you had a chance to choose country over party and you chose party @SenatorCollins? Well, @ProjectLincol… 2 years ago
-
Tag Archives: existentialism
A Bit of Advice for People Who Think They Ought to Have Others’ Approval–or God’s Approval–for What They Value
If you look around you and find that you’re the only person who values a particular thing, you need to have the self esteem to say, “It still has value for me.” And if you don’t value what others value–or what … Continue reading
Camus in a Nutshell: God is Not Good, Nature is Not Good, and We are More Moral Than God or Nature
God didn’t prevent the Holocaust, but we would have. And God didn’t prevent the 2004 Christmas tsunami that killed over 100,000 people, but we would have. And Nature doesn’t care if death is the engine of evolution, but we do. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Albert Camus, atheism, ethics, existentialism, God, meaning, philosophy, psychology
14 Comments
Sailing?
Embodied and mortal consciousnesses together–7 billion of us!–subject to pain, held to the rocky surface of a sphere by gravity in a vast cosmic ocean, beacon lights (such as they are) random and far away. The Earth is our Titanic, … Continue reading
Sandra Bullock As Odysseus: The Film “Gravity” Is Insanely Good
I saw Gravity, and plan to see it again before it leaves theatres. But it’s not a perfect movie. With its inane exchange of banter between the ground crew and astronauts at the beginning of the film, it gets off … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged death, existentialism, film, gravity, life, movies, Sandra Bullock, space
Leave a comment
James Baldwin on Death
Nicely, nicely said: Life is tragic simply because the earth turns, and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged African American, atheism, death, existentialism, gay, gay equality, james baldwin, life, nationalism
1 Comment
Existentialism Defined in Two Sentences
The following occurred to me on waking from a nap this afternoon: Existentialism can be summed up in just six words consisting of two sentences: You’re going to die. Your move. Chess players, medieval Germany, circa 1305-1340. (Image source: Wikipedia … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Camus, death, existentialism, Kierkegaard, life, philosophy, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir
4 Comments
A New Zealand PSA of Unusual Rhetorical Power
Wow. This works on so many levels. It humanizes the strangers to one another; it points up our liabilities to impatience and misjudgments of risk and distance; and it vividly dramatizes the consequences of casual bad habits, distraction, and inattention. A … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged ads, behavior, cars, crashes, drama, existentialism, Greek tragedy, new zealand, psychology
Leave a comment
Our Collective Existential Situation in a Nutshell (In Case You Missed It)
Here’s the two-fold problem: (1) each of us is limited to a body we did not choose and that dies, and (2) science since Darwin has revealed living things to be machines that evolve by competition (the proteins in cells, … Continue reading
The Meaning of Life in the Midst of Large Numbers
In For the Time Being (1999), Annie Dillard (b. 1945) writes the following: “There is now, living in New York City, a church-sanctioned hermit, Theresa Mancuso, who wrote recently, ‘The thing we desperately need is to face the way it is’” … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged death, demographics, existentialism, happiness, life, numbers, statistics, suicide
2 Comments
The Zen of Woody Allen
From a recent interview: It’s just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don’t have to really face up to the fact that, you know, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, existentialism, God, philosophy, woody allen, Zen
6 Comments
Dog Plays By Itself
Pleasure in concentration and pursuit. And notice the constant tail wagging. On your way to dusty death (Heidegger called us “beings unto death”), do you have a satisfying mental and physical practice that keeps you occupied? Aside from giving you … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged death, dogs, existentialism, games, intelligence, life, philosophy, play, psychology, vanity
2 Comments
Death and Persona
Heidegger calls each human being a “being unto death”–that is, a being turned toward and moving in death’s direction. What is the consequence of this? One is that each of us adopts a persona. The time-limiting nature of your existence … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged death, existentialism, persona, philosophy, psychology
Leave a comment
We Live Without a Net on the Outskirts of Nowheresville
The below image of the Earth and our moon (the starburst is our planet and the tiny dot under it, the moon), recently taken by the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn 900 million miles away, is more than a little unnerving. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged alone, atheism, death, existentialism, life, margins, science, space
1 Comment
Life Perspective from Three Vantages
First vantage. Astronaut Suni Williams on what it’s like to look down on Earth from space: When you’re flying in space some of the things down on Earth seem trivial. Things like politics leave your mind. […] For me, [most] news … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Buddhism, carpe diem, existentialism, God, life, Nietzsche, space
2 Comments
“You Know Him Not, Sir”: Shakespeare And Limitations On Self-Shaping
How much can you change your life and those of others, really? That’s a question I’ve been gnawing on a bit after seeing this past weekend an outdoor staging of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare, famously, was obsessed … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Buddhism, existentialism, life, literature, philosophy, Sartre, schopenhauer, Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
2 Comments
Emily Dickinson’s Poem, “My Life had stood–a Loaded Gun–“
I’d like to offer an existentialist interpretation of Emily Dickinson’s famously perplexing poem, “My Life had stood–A Loaded Gun–” (poem 754 in her collected works). Here’s the poem: My Life had stood–a Loaded Gun– In Corners–till a Day The Owner … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged death, Emily Dickinson, existentialism, God, life, Loaded Gun, poems, poetry, Terror Management Theory
9 Comments
Embrace Chance?
In a collection of art essays by Roger Kimball titled Art’s Prospect (Ivan R. Dee 2003) is an essay on a Matisse exhibit in which Kimball writes the following (151): [Matisse] arrived [in Morocco in 1912] in the rainy season, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alan Ginsberg, art, chance, contingency, creative writing, existentialism, Freud, literature, Matisse, Neal Cassady
Leave a comment
The Lowdown
If you’re like me, you don’t want to die. And if you’re also like me, you’ve got things you tell yourself and things you do to divert your attention away from the fact that you will die. But even Ray Kurzweil will die. That’s … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, contingency, death, existentialism, God, kindness, life, love
6 Comments
Assert Yourself
The below video is a nice introduction to existentialism. And so is this brief passage written by historian Carlin Barton in her great book, Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones (University of California Press 2001, 31-32): On the morning of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cheating, choices, existentialism, freedom, life, Sartre, work
1 Comment
A Great Stephen Gould Quote on Evolution
What appears below can be found at the beginning of Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995). It’s hard to contrast the West’s religious era with its secular era more clearly. So much is implied in the way Gould has put this: … Continue reading
Prometheus Unbound 