The Preacher

Ecclesiastes 1:1 to 12:1



1:1 The words of the preacher, the son of King David in Jerusalem.



Everything is nothing, absolutely nothing. Everything is absolutely nothing. People live and people die but the Earth just keeps on keeping on. The sun rises and the sun sets.…

Continue

Is myth more comforting than reality?

 

by Quinn O'Neill

 …

Continue

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 has come and gone. Leftist liberals everywhere all seemed determined to make the worst possible interpretations of the U.S. response since that historic day. It was a pathetic display. It's rhetoric like that which has led to my becoming an Independent. I no longer identify with Democrats. I feel pushed to the center and now see myself as a moderate centrist. I'm simply appalled at the extremes of the left, just as I am at the extremes of the right.



When…

Continue

To paraphrase Michael Specter in a TED talk, "You are entitled to your own truths, but you aren't entitled to your own facts." This is a poignant message and one that deserves further exploration.



(Edit: the actual quote, as pointed out in comments on my blog was “...And listen, everyone’s entitled to their… Continue

This blog post stems from a reply I made to a T|A discussion about death.



The prospect of death doesn't worry me.  But the prospect of physical suffering and pain certainly does.  When I die, I just hope it's as painless as possible.  The brevity of life doesn't bother me either.  It's nature's way of telling me to enjoy myself or achieve something or help somebody in need.



The way I see it, it took hundreds of millions of years before the first stars died; coughing up…

Continue

When I was a child I was a bit fanciful. I remember my mother on several occasions explaining the difference between 'real' and 'pretend/imagination'. And speculating about things was fine, playing was fine, but in reality I would not be able to fly off the roof with my umbrella like Mary Poppins and if I got hurt she would kill me.

I love to read. It comes with the whole librarian thing and I have been reading since I was 4. I do read a lot of non-fiction; history, medicine,…

Continue

I just drove by the local baptist church, and their sign declares "Faith makes things possible". And, I thought, what a bizarre concept. Now, faith may give one the impetus to try something he doesn't think he can do, but it doesn't make them possible, and it sure as hell doesn't make something that is impossible, possible. As I tried to get my brain to grasp this concept, I realized that for me to believe such a concept would require a complete reconfiguration of my total view of reality. And… Continue

I always read that agnosticism is philosophically the most logical position since one can never be sure that God does not exist. My question is: how impossible does something have to be before you can be sure it doesn't exist? Take the Flying Spaghetti Monster; does anyone seriously doubt for a second that such a being doesn't really exist? Isn't that the point of FSM? There are infinitely many things that I cannot prove do not exist, but at some point the improbability of something is… Continue

Normally, I wash my car on Saturday mornings when I venture out for quarters. As I rely on the laundry room at my apartment complex , I blow through a pile of coins every weekend to rid my clothes of the week’s grime. The closest change machine happens to be at a self-serve car wash a few blocks away. With just a few minutes and six quarters, I gain a bright shiny black car.





However, I am anticipating a Saturday too busy to include leisurely domestic duties. The dirty… Continue

Here's something that's annoyed me for a while. It came up again in a couple of places in quick succession lately - once in an episode of Bones, I forget the other - so I thought it was about time to try explaining what exactly it is that pisses me off so much.



It's about the assertion that life, or fate, or God, or whatever, "never gives us more than we can handle".



I think it's a phrase that's supposed to be comforting to someone going through hard times, to reassure… Continue