Here soon will be the release of another major studio remake of a popular and critically acclaimed foreign film, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” And already I’ve had the debates with people over the inherent “evilness” of remaking foreign films into English versions. “Why should anyone bother,” some people say. “After all, there’s already [...]
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So, there’s a bit of drama going on in atheist circles dubbed “gelatogate.” The Angry Astronomer has a decent, and not very angry, explanation of the deal on his blog; but in brief, here’s the deal: Christian local businessman pops over to the annual free “Skepticon” conference to see what’s going on. Thinking, understandably so, [...]
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Freethinking, and atheism itself, is as old as ancient Greece and Rome with Epicurus, Seneca, Emperor Marcus Aurelius. . . . But there are few comprehensive essays critiquing the idea of a creator omni-god, Yahweh and Jesus in particular, that’s as thorough and reasoned as Bertrand Russell’s 1927 essay, “Why I Am Not a Christian.” [...]
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Had an interesting day last week with a significantly important coincidence: So we spent two hours at work last Wednesday doing our annual insurance benefits review. For two hours, with our insurance broker and our Aflac rep, we discussed how much our insurance costs. How many thousands our deductible is. What’s in-network and what’s out. [...]
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For 25 years, ever since high school and I got involved in drama and speech & debate, I’ve had frequent “actor’s nightmares,” where I’m expected to perform on stage and I don’t know the lines or what I’m supposed to do. I get them probably twice a month for all those years — sometimes less [...]
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Sadly, not as much as I’d like. I’m still very skittish after the incident that happened last autumn that prompted me to give up expressing my opinions publicly; and then, at work yesterday, I had to deal with someone who seems to be obsessed and has been harassing people here at work multiple time a [...]
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I’ve kept my resolutions for a whole day already! Wee, I’m on a roll! I’ve deleted or hidden around 15 Facebook people/pages, 8 RSS feeds, and 6 podcast feeds. What I’ve kept are only media involving sci-fi, writing, literature, general philosophy, and technology news. That so means that this blog will probably go to sleep [...]
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This has, without a doubt, been an absolutely terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. Probably the worst one, evah! (The only, and I mean only, bright spot was I finally got my Masters Degree in English . . . and even that’s pending until next year when I pay for and turn in super-expensive [...]
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It’s official, I am now a regular contributor to the new, up-and-coming blog site for atheism advocacy: Atheism Resource. Their… er, I guess our tagline, is: “Big questions deserve big answers.” In that spirit, my first offering over there is a two-part essay on atheism and its role (or lack of) in determining ethics and [...]
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(This is the 10th edition of my Alpha Course reaction. For the first and all past posts, see the Alpha Page.) Hopefully this will be a short post as well; I don’t seem to have that many notes for this session. I think Nicky is kind of winding down a bit as he’s coming to [...]
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(This is the 9th edition of my Alpha Course reaction. For the first and all past posts, see the Alpha Page.) After last week’s monster of a post, you’ll be glad to hear that this week’s will be shorter than usual. But first, a couple of semi-related things I’d meant to refer to in earlier [...]
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(This is the 8th edition of my Alpha Course reaction. For the first and all past posts, see the Alpha Page.) Oh boy. I’m going to try to keep in reigned in, but this is going to be a doozy edition (as if the previous novels haven’t been). Wife and I attended the weekend Alpha [...]
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Ah, Halloween! Sadly, as an adult, I find October passes by much too fast with my barely able to enjoy the season before it’s gone. But in my mind, Halloween will always evoke the memory of grade school in Westminister, Colorado: paper skeletons with brass brads for joints and bloody paper weapons taped onto their [...]
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(This is part 7 of my, a non-believer’s, reaction to The Alpha Course, an introductory course into Christianity. The beginning is here, and the previous entry, part 6, is here.) (Update: I just read Stephen Butterfield’s reaction to this night’s topic — if you have to read just one, read his! It’s much better written [...]
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(This is part 6 of my, a non-believer’s, reaction to The Alpha Course, an introductory course into Christianity. The beginning is here, and the previous entry, part 5, is here.) I’m going to try something new this time and write my reaction less than 5 days after the event. Like, the next day, maybe. Well, [...]
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(This is my reaction to session 5 of the Alpha Course. The first reaction and explanation is here, and last week’s is here.) Well, I hate to say it, but I think I may have to give this session short shrift; it’s been a week, (such a week), and all I have is my scant [...]
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As I’d mentioned in my part three to my Alpha Course reaction, How Can We Have Faith, I volunteered to help judge a high school speech/debate tournament. It was a blast, and I learned some things, myself. I was hard-core speech and debate in my high school days. (Probably no surprise to anyone who knows [...]
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(This is part 4 of a 10-part reaction to The Alpha Course. Part One: Twisted history; Part Two: The cruel illogic of substitutional atonement; Part Three: Faith makes mountains of of molehills.) This week’s Alpha Class was on the power of prayer. This was a particularly… interesting. But before we get into it, some preliminary [...]
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…To get to the other side! HEY-OHH! (This is part two of a (potentially) 10-part series on my response to the Alpha Course. Part one, with an explanation of what all this is, is found here: Explore the Meaning of…Bitten Tongues.) (Post-pre Script: I’m finishing this at 3am and don’t plan on re-reading to proof-read, [...]
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This last Wednesday I began attending a 10-session weekly Bible study course at the behest of my wife who wanted to involve my non-belief outlook and feedback. I’m going to give it one more shot, but if this first session is any indication of what the rest of it’s going to be like… *sigh* The [...]
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