American culture celebrates the quick fix. Diet pills like Trimspa and Ephedra enjoyed massive popularity despite their health risks because many people want to look healthy without actually living healthfully. Take a diet pill, pop a multivitamin instead of getting nutrients through food, starve yourself- it doesn’t matter how you…
A friend called me recently. The doctor just found a “suspicious” lump and scheduled a biopsy. As you can imagine, she is anxious that she might have cancer.
What can a good agnostic say to such a person? Consider these options:
Now compare the above impotent responses to the following (add reverb for effect when you read these out loud):
Promising to pray makes it appear that one is really doing something. It would certainly be much more satisfying to both me and to my friend I I could honestly tell her that I was doing something rather than settling for the agnostic version of prayer (i.e., “I hope it isn’t cancer” or “Would you like to talk about your upcoming biopsy over dinner?”).
The false efficacy of prayer plays into one of the great fallacies of our time, …
Howard Zinn recently spoke on patriotism on DemocracyNow: Patriotism to me means doing what you think you're country should be doing. Patriotism means supporting your government when you think it's doing right, opposing your government when you think it's doing wrong. Patriotism to me means really what the Declaration of…
We’ve had a horrible tragedy back here in the United States. Thirty-three students are dead at Virginia Tech, with many others wounded. Our papers are going to spill a lot of ink on this story, as they should. But on the other side of the world, multitudes of innocent civilians…
There I was, minding my own business, when WHAM! I was damned to hell. Thankfully, my salvation is being actively prayed for, so maybe, just maybe, I still have a chance. OK, well, perhaps "minding my own business" is a bit of truth-stretch. I was actually stirring a pot, just…