Notice it is becoming ever more popular to tell others who believe differently what they are doing wrong (e.g. , Republicans to Democrats, Democrats to Republicans, Atheists to Theists, Theists to Atheists, the NOH8 crowd, and of course the Westboro Church to everyone else), instead of examining our own points of view.

:WM

I love poring over these demonstrations and arguments, something about the purity and simplicity of the logic, and the specificity of the language, appeals to me. And then I had a striking thought, which I thought at first was just my subconscious being irreverent, but now think that maybe it is accurate: that devoting one's time solely to memorizing and studying proofs of God's existence is like reading pornography instead of experiencing an actual relationship.

:WM

Not a good idea to give Congress, or any federal enforcement agency, an ”off” button for the internet. Are well-crafted, narrowly-focused laws impossible to pass these days? No on SOPA - a law so labyrinthine that, as Wry Jr. said, we are using an acronym to refer to the actual acronym.

:WM

The amount of stuff we have to take for granted in a given day, just to keep from being overwhelmed by how many details our lives depend upon, is mind-boggling.

Philosophical nothing is more nothing than the nothing of most cosmological theories. I read about philosophical nothing and infinitude; it is related to mathematical concepts.

Then I go to sleep, and dream, and in my dreams I am.

http://arewelumberjacks.blogspot.com/2012/01/theyre-immanentizing-eschaton-again.html

Lumberjack, over at AreWeLumberjacks? posts a scathing editorial on federal-level Green insanity here. Starting with the title, it is by turns funny, shocking and saddening:

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... this is the balance they've struck. We pay more for gas. We pay more for food. The government gets income in the form of fines which the EPA can use in its quest to fix our lives even further.

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So sad, to see many of my ex-students enthralled by the theological musings of Richard Dawkins. He is as fine a biologist a there can be, but getting philosophical or theological information from him is akin to going to me for information on biological systems.

(a) become an orthodox Jew

It is certainly more comforting, and safe, for the materialist to try and believe that Jesus the Nazarene never lived, and is just a mythical character.But the best evidence points to his existence, and the fact that something very strange happened surrounding his life.

A nicely-written article here by a journalist who converted to the New Atheism, and back again.

" In so far as we can discern anything about Jesus from the existing documents, he believed that the world was about to end, as did all the first Christians. So, how could he possibly have intended to start a new religion for Gentiles, let alone established a Church or instituted the Sacraments? It was a nonsense, together with the idea of a personal God, or a loving God in a suffering universe. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. ..."

"Now He Has Experience"

"Hey, Rocky! Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat!"

" OBAMA FOR PRESENT "

http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/criswell.txt

Possibly one of the finest scripts ever written. So what if it is unintentionally humorous? This doesn't seem to be an actual script, but is a fair transcription of the final (broadcast) screenplay.

Happy 2012.

"Not *THAT* Much Hope!"