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Showing posts from 2013

Happy Thanksgiving, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving to All! Whatever our personal beliefs, no one is an island‒we all depend on the kindness, generosity, hard work, and sacrifices of our fellow human beings. If a neighbor foolishly fails to thoroughly read the directions on their new turkey fryer and sets fire to their house, but the fire is extinguished before it burns down their house (and possibly spreads to yours), and you feel a need to thank (insert preferred higher power), go ahead‒after all, reciting the right words in the right order demands very little us in the way of thought, reflection, or labor. However, (you just knew this was coming) a far more sincere, tangible, and morally praiseworthy way of expressing one's heartfelt gratitude would be to do something for the firefighters and other first responders that gave up their holiday to protect the lives, safety, and property of their fellow human beings. Bring a meal to the station house, or ask if there are any that are without families nearby

Just What Does the Far Right Not Understand?

Well, here we are again, pawns in yet another game of “chicken” that puts the economic well-being of the United States of America at risk. The current situation is the result of many things, but I want to point out the complicity of my fellow citizens, because without their ignorance and intellectual laziness, we might not be in the mess we are in. What galls me the most, is how many people do not know that the Affordable Care Act (ACA‒a.k.a. "ObamaCare"–a label that sounds like it was made up by a 7 y/o playground bully–which seems about right given the apparent cognitive capacities of the right-wing rank-and-file) is already a law! It was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law on 23 March, 2010 by President Obama . It then withstood a challenge that went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States (ScotUS)! Check it out yourself–there may be a quiz later. The coup de grĂ¢ce of the whole thing is after all the wrangling, all the far-right rheto

Intellectual Honesty, Atheism, and Faith

I was recently asked two questions by a long-time family friend – who also happens to be an ordained Assembly of God minister. One was how an “intellectually honest” atheist could deny the “historical fact” of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? The other was one atheists have heard (and answered) too many times before: “How is atheism not a faith too?” Intellectual Honesty There is nothing “intellectually honest,” at all, in asserting that any miraculous, supernatural phenomena is a “historical fact.” This is so obviously wrong – and on so many levels – that it was difficult to know where to begin. Here is a partial (and abbreviated) list of what is, and is not, intellectual honesty: Intellectual honesty... does not allow one to ignore evidence that goes against whatever it is that they want to be true (e.g. “So, Mr. President, what was it that made you think Saddam had all those WMDs in the first place?”) is implacably opposed to compartmentalized thinking (