Nine year old shows up most Christians

I agree that it is not fair to compare most Christians to the wackos at Westboro Baptist Church.  They are extreme fundamentalists and quite honestly really have to be regarded as emotionally or mentally disturbed.  Criticizing them cannot be legitimately regarded as a criticism of Christianity in general. But recently, nine year old Josef Miles [...]

Royalty, …a poem

One day, much like today, I was leaving early in the morning and noticed that all of the blossoms on the apple tree had fallen during the night and were carpeting an area of the lawn.  As I watched, a fox emerged from the trees.  The following poster is a poem I wrote that grew [...]

The KONY Question

What is it about Joseph Kony that makes him impervious to public opinion in the Western World? Last weekend’s “Cover the Night” campaign fizzled.  An attempt to show how social media could mobilize support for a cause only demonstrated the apathy that seems to be epidemic in our society.  Was it the fact that the [...]

Religion, Secular Humanism and Morality

A question pops up frequently on the forums that often discuss religion and atheism.  It’s about whether morality is inevitably tied to religion and the word of God, or whether morality can exist within secular humanism.  Religious people often argue that morality cannot be separated from religion and so a secular world is devoid of [...]

HOW DEAD IS DEAD?

Read the interview with Dick Teresi. Years ago I read a SciFi book called Passages by Connie Willis.  In the book a team of doctors investigate brain activity during near death experiences and find that subjects often return to the same hallucinations before they are brought back to consciousness.  Their explanation was that as the [...]

SHADOWS, SEX & DRUGS

I’ve spent a lot of time recently looking at the psychological issue of “Shadow Work”.  The main idea here is that we all bury and disown parts of ourselves that we don’t want to deal with.   It is nicely related to Hal and Sidra Stone’s Voice Dialogue theories and also the Big Mind work directed [...]

Entitlement

“Entitlement”  It’s a word that I seldom heard used before the current political competitions in the U.S.  To be entitled to something means that you feel that receiving it is your right.  In the battle between Republican candidates and also between the Left and the Right, political entitlements have come to mean things like medicare, [...]

2012 Disasters – Political issues (Pt. One)

So 2012 is supposed to be the year of cataclysm, whether it be natural disaster or man-made disaster.  I’ve made it clear that I don’t really believe that and that if there were anything to it, the Mayans really say that the years leading up to Dec. 21, 2012 are supposed to be the time [...]

The Power of Dreams

The retired life allows you to wake up slowly.  I’ve found that when that happens and you’re not jolted awake by an alarm going off you are much more likely to retain some of your dreams.  In my case, at least, quick wakes wipe dreams from my mind, while a slow waking gives me at [...]

Deaf and Blind

Wish I had this when I was writing Chapter Three of my Philosophical Autobiography.

Philosophical Autobiography Updated

Chapter 7 has been added, called “Why I Am Not An Atheist”.  I was thinking about sending it in to Meyers, but it’s a little long for his blog.  I’d be particularly interested in any feedback on this one as it was really an exercise in my clarifying my own ideas and beliefs.

Freedom, Igorance and Education

As I was reading some comments from HuffPost’s reporting of the death of Kim Jong Il, this comment from an unknown poster jumped out at me. The veneer of civilization is very thin, and ignorance is a contagion. The only inoculatio­n is education. Three very important points summed up quite succinctly.  As a society, we [...]