“Never speak ill of yourself; your friends will always say enough on that subject.”

Talleyrand

“It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.”

Mark Twain

On June 28, my second wife and I would have celebrated our 31st anniversary.  I meant to write about it on the 28th, but hey, three years after the divorce, a guy’s allowed to…

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I still haven't read Dawkins. I'm getting most my information from posts, comments, my personal experiences, and my Communication education. Most of the ideas I come up with fall in line with Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins and others, but I certainly don't mean to plagiarize anyone's work, and I would hate to put a huge effort into a book only to discover that I re-invented the wheel.

 

I guess I'll just have to start forking over the cash for a whole library of atheist…

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This week, our old friend Bob Larson (whose under investigation-what conservative radio personality isn't) tries to pull off some amazingly New Age therapy on some gay men. It includes the assumption that they hate their fathers, and when that doesn't pan out, they hate their mothers. I suppose if this guy had hated his father, he would have pulled out some old men out of the audience to help with his… Continue

I know its probably been done before, but I'm reading the bible and chronicling my journey through its vast pages.



If anyone is interested, I would appreciate it if they took a look:

http://briandthebible.livejournal.com



I'm trying to get as many people reading my journal, from both ends of the spectrum. Discussion and debate are encouraged!



So far I've read up to Genesis chapter 12. I hope to have chapter 15… Continue

I actually never read it, and I'm quite curious what bullshit I might read...

I wanted to find the bible I had back in primary school (I don't think it is a childrens version), but I couldn't find it, neither here, neither at my parents place...

So I looked for something online. I choose the roman katholic version because it's most common here, and I chose to read it in german for better understanding. (My german is way better than my english).

I do not even have the intention to… Continue

There's no nose to punch, and no balls to kick. They just sit there with their idiot grins, "beaming happiness into the aether"... Makes me sick.



I rarely, if ever, use smiley faces in my online text. Sure, they're a great way to denote sarcasm or attempted humor, but so is just being funny. Not that everyone will always agree on what is or isn't humorous. Take the first three sentences of this post.



There's no nose to punch, and no balls to kick. ;-) They just sit there… Continue

Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You Read



What is the mind's default position: are we naturally critical or naturally gullible? As a species do we have a tendency to behave like Agent Mulder from the X-Files who always wanted to believe in mythical monsters and alien abductions? Or are we like his partner Agent Scully who was the critical scientist, generating alternative explanations, trying to understand and evaluate the… Continue

What's so great about Christianity?

Not much in my opinion. Nonetheless and despite my atheism, yesterday I checked out the book by the same name from my local library. The author, Dinesh D'Souza, has a big task ahead of him. I think he may have bitten off more than he can chew.





In the book D'Souza (supposedly) reveals the following, which is laid out on the inside flaps of the… Continue

"Consider the way that knowledge is organized at institutions of higher education. My university, like most others, includes a College of Arts and Sciences that is divided into a number of divisions. The Division of Science and Mathematics includes physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and one human-related department-psychology. The Division of Social Sciences includes anthropology, economics, geography, history, political science, and sociology. These human-related subjects are often… Continue