If you lived with someone who had done EVERYTHING, say a superstar father or mother – a famous author or adventurer or actress or athlete – how would you gain a sense of your own worth and value? How hard would it be to chart your own life course? To find and develop your own talents? Would you live your whole life feeling inferior and lesser? Knowing that you could never do or be anything unique, that you would always live in the giant shadow of their spectacular accomplishments, that by … [Read more...]
Nothing to See Here, Move Along
February 3, 2013 By 9 Comments
This is a little nothing-much, posted mainly to see how I feel about posting. If you've been following my recent exploits, you know I'm just a week into recovery from surgery – the minor-but-major removal of my gallbladder – and I haven't felt much like writing. Or even turning on the computer. But today I felt pretty good. Woke up at 7 a.m., lay in bed thinking and reading until almost 10 a.m., then got up and … well, got a great deal done. … [Read more...]
The Passing of a Loved One
October 12, 2012 By 3 Comments
Greta Christina recently lost her father. My father died on October 1, 2012, at the age of 79. My dad, like me, was an atheist. And when you’re an atheist and a non-believer, and the people you love die, you don’t get to tell yourself that they aren’t really dead. You don’t get to tell yourself that you’re going to see them again someday, in some hypothetical post-death existence that somehow both is and is not life. You have to accept that death is really permanent, and really … [Read more...]
Politics: Getting “Nailed” by Jesus, and Bush
September 29, 2012 By 7 Comments
(This is a repost, slightly edited, from 2008.) Say you did something you thought was good at the time, but later turned out to be bad. You could admit the mistake. Or you could refuse to admit it. Any sensible person would probably say the first option was the best one. If you can admit a mistake, you can probably do something to fix it, or correct your course so you don’t do it again. And you can move on. The second option has some variations built into it, argumentative positions that … [Read more...]
A Basic Motivation for Atheism+ … and for Beta Culture
August 31, 2012 By 13 Comments
In his post "Value-free atheism," Justin Vacula focuses on the meaning of the word "atheism" — making the point, as do so many others, that it means only one thing. The argument seems to be coming often these days following the appearance of Atheism-Plus. Vacula says: … [Read more...]
First Person Revolutionary — Part 4
August 29, 2012 By 13 Comments
[ First read Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ] All the civilizations I ever heard of had this in common: Somewhere right near each one’s heart was religion. It seems impossible to get away from. And yet it shouldn’t be. After all, it’s never been true that religion is ALL people do. And it’s not as if religion is food, or water, or air. It’s just this ... idea. Hideously embroidered, massively wrapped in confusing, fanciful language, aggressively forced upon people in their vulnerable … [Read more...]
First Person Revolutionary — Part 3
August 22, 2012 By 5 Comments
[ Read Part 1 and Part 2 ] The fatal flaw of atheism? Actually, it's a challenge atheism shares with religion. The difference between the two is that religion has found a solution. So let's talk about religion: The weedy form of religion, superstition, arises automatically in each mind all on its own, simply by virtue of our need to create private theories – often wildly personified due to our ability to detect “person-ness” in everything from smiley faces to wind in the trees – about … [Read more...]
First Person Revolutionary — Part 2
August 19, 2012 By 8 Comments
[ Read Part 1 first. ] Atheism (more broadly, freethought) isn’t new, of course. Just in this country alone, it’s as old as Thomas Paine (although Paine was a deist, he was widely accused of being an atheist, and I'm confident he would've been one of us if he lived in a society in which it was possible to actually think about such things), and has had its bright sparks all along the way, right up to Carl Sagan, who published The Demon Haunted World only 15 years ago. … [Read more...]
First Person Revolutionary — Part 1
August 2, 2012 By 16 Comments
Ever think about the revolutions in your life? The things that change, and change greatly, and then affect everything that comes after? Boy, I do. I’ll tell you a little one first, and then a big one, and then a maybe one. The Little One The little one – well, it might be a big one to you – is about music. … [Read more...]
Visits from Dead People — Part 1
July 24, 2012 By 11 Comments
When I was younger, I used to play with myself. No, not like that. Okay, well, yes like that, but that’s not what I meant. (Too much information, huh? The hell with it, I’m leaving it in. We’re all sexy beasts here.) What I mean is that I used to play with different parts of my body, to see what I could learn from them, to see what they would do. … [Read more...]
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