Archive for the ‘Essay’ Category
Things that never happen
When I was in grade school, I was really interested in UFOs. I read every book in the school library about them, watched every TV show I could find about them, and had long conversations with my friends about space aliens and ancient visitations. Then, as the years went by, I discovered more skeptical books [...]
One last bit of Christmas bile
The Pharyngula blog had a note today that mentioned a post-Christmas article by an angry Christian on another blog entitled The Next Person Who Says Happy Holidays Shall Be Punched In The Throat. I would like to comment on a few things said in the latter post as they are good examples of someone using [...]
The Iliad: a parable
Joey was eleven and very precocious for his age. He loved to read more than anything, and gladly spent afternoons and evenings with his nose stuck in a book. One day, soon after Joey had finished reading the Iliad, he and his mother were driving in the car. “Mom?” Joey said. “If I ever have [...]
In: Essay · Tagged with: parable
Self Defense: a parable
Sarah was on her lunch break, enjoying the sunshine as she sat at a table in the park, reading a novel. Right in the middle of a particularly enjoyable paragraph, she was interrupted by a young man. “Excuse me,” he said with a perfect smile. “My name is Hank. I’d like to give you this.” [...]
In: Essay · Tagged with: parable
The Pirate King: a parable
Constance had a small shipping business, delivering food and clothing at charitable prices to people all over the world in her private boat. Being a realist, Constance knew that because of where she sailed and the amount of time she spent on the water, it was only a matter of time before she was confronted [...]
In: Essay · Tagged with: parable
Post 1,000
Hard as it may be to believe (particularly considering my erratic posting habits), this is my 1,000th post to this blog. To celebrate, I’d like to share an e-mail I received some time ago but have been saving because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Atheists are stewpid. Here are things that atheists [...]
In: Bad atheists, Dealing with religious folks, Essay
October 2007
I have some questions for my Christian readers regarding the morality of slavery. The Bible is not anti-slavery, and in fact has instructions for the moral treatment of slaves. I understand that this, as most theists have explained it to me, is because although slavery is wrong it was so ingrained in society that God [...]
February 2007
A number of times in my replies to your letters I have mentioned that I consider personal revelation to be irrefutable (but only personally compelling) evidence for the existence of a deity. That is, if there was an all-powerful deity, that deity could reveal itself to an individual in such a way that the individual [...]
February 2007
Now that I have this blog, I’m going to try and publish little items once and a while that aren’t correspondence. I thought I’d start by going through all of the “arguments against atheism” on IAmAnAtheist.com and giving examples of why I really might respond to them (as opposed to the silly responses currently listed). [...]
