Harvey H. Madison | September 30, 2007
Far out on a country hill I place my blanket on the grass and lie flat.
Above my head to the north is steady Polaris.
Off my left arm the gas giant Jupiter rises silently. Off my right, Mercury Is settling into the deep blue twilight.
As velvet black of true darkness comes, the majestic backbone of night [...]
Tibor R. Machan | September 28, 2007
Perhaps the greatest obstacle faced by atheism to becoming popular, or to becoming even palatable, is that most people associate it with amorality, even immorality. That is because ethics and religion are so closely linked in people’s minds, despite the fact that there really is no reason to believe that religious people are more ethical [...]
Bryon D. Howell | September 27, 2007
My First And Last Poem For Christ
The Christians arrived today, just as they always do every Saturday night to feed
the homeless.
I’d truly forgotten what it’s
like
to eat a holiday meal.
Mike Hood | September 26, 2007
Jesus, Buddha, Yahweh (aka Allah), the Pope, Zeus, Odin, and Mohammed walk into a bar…. You don’t hear too many jokes that begin this way.
Religious icons have been fodder for humorists and novelists for centuries, though much of the mockery has stayed underground until the 20th century. Good-natured (and bad-natured) humor directed at gods and [...]
Bryon D. Howell | September 25, 2007
I remember the first time I stayed
at The Salvation Army,
after blowing through $5,000 during
a binge,
which lasted damn near two
long months,
just more
than three years back.
Talk about a conflict
of interests …
John Heckman Wright | September 24, 2007
The Reverend in his quick, excited tongue, proclaims the end times are near. Every headline becomes an affirmation and a warning. As his excitement grows, he slams his fists on the lectern, stomps across the stage, his pacing accelerates in volume and pitch, until his vaulted voice builds to a battle cry of fire, brimstone, [...]
Kenneth E. Nahigian | September 23, 2007
The change winds* are blowing, are blowing - do you feel them? They are bringing to us a new zeitgeist. Suddenly, atheism is almost mainstream. Look:
Militant atheist authors on best-seller lists and talk shows: Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins.
Atheist comedians on major network media: Julia Sweeney, George Carlin.
Popular atheist TV characters: Lisa Simpson, Dr. [...]
Harvey H. Madison | September 21, 2007
Snug in the cockpit, I go by the numbers - Pre-taxi checklist complete, altimeter to three zero point zero five,
rpm to seventeen hundred, check carb heat, mags, vacuum and mixture; flaps to fifteen, radio to one-two-one point nine and transmit:.
“Ground control, this is niner-eight-three-two Uniform, departure heading two-niner-zero for twelve-thousand five hundred, ready for taxi”.
Chuck Lesher | September 20, 2007
The rate of scientific discoveries has been increasing exponentially for centuries and we are on the leading edge of that vast wave. New technology comes at us so fast that most people have become numb to it. New electronics? Ho hum. A revolutionary physics theory, another extraterrestrial planet, or uncovering the bones of a hitherto [...]
Michael W. Jones | September 19, 2007
Mo didn’t think that it was a foxhole, really, but more of a shallow depression left when a recent mortar misfire had landed in the soft, moist, often-tilled black earth of this poor farmer’s field. The ground itself was dismally flat, even this close to the river, as was most of the land in this [...]
