The information age

I was just sitting here a few minutes ago answering e-mail, and felt something shake the chair I was in gently, as if a strong gust of wind had shaken the house, but if there was a sound, it was at the edge of hearing. Went outside to see what might have caused it, but found nothing even remotely likely. I thought I might have had my first encounter with infrasound.

…Until The Girlfriend called read more

No flag at the summit

In working on an earlier post, a particular observation suddenly leapt out at me, making me wonder if skeptics and critical-thinkers need to put a little more emphasis on a different approach. Whether it is sufficient to increase the number of people reached will remain to be seen.

Some of us mix it up on forums, websites, bulletin boards, and whatever, addressing the various flaws of religious belief read more

The mailbag

Hi, all you spambots out there! You’ve been sending me so many fascinating comments that I’ve been neglecting, so I thought I’d sit down and finally answer some choice selections. I’m sorry that I can’t get to all of you, but I can say that I appreciate your efforts nonethemore. Also, for those of you who included links (which seems to have been most of you, come to read more

That’s where I draw the line

There have been some interesting discussions coming up of late within skeptical circles, largely based on a survey report regarding religiosity in select populations of the US. The critical thinker in me starts asking these sneaky little questions, as usual, but in this case the answers may not be evident without a lot of examination. Bear with me a moment, here.

The census report in question is read more

Too cool, part 10: Bang!


I’ve related this in part elsewhere on the site, but I thought it deserved its own post, especially since it was one of the more memorable experiences from a few years ago.

When I lived in Florida, I started “maintaining” a small saltwater aquarium to house photo subjects and interesting marine critters. Being close to both the ocean and the Indian River Lagoon, a large isolated read more

Illusion interlude, or interlusion, or something…

I’ve been a little slower in posting than intended, for several reasons, among them dueling on other blogs and doing computer upgrades. I’ll have more coming shortly, but in the meantime, check out this video version of Edward Adelson’s classic checkerboard illusion over at Why Evolution Is True.

… which is not a blog. If you remember nothing else, remember that.

Conformity

Walkabout podcast – Conformity

Secular humanism is the concept that, put simply, human beings can be good without god – no religious or scriptural moral guidelines are necessary, since we have the ability to recognize “good” and “bad” without cribsheets. We’re not abject idiots, in other words. read more

Busy, busy, busy

No, not me so much, but the image. I took this one foggy morning when the woods were laden with spiderwebs, trying to capture the two webs in an interesting way. I’m not sure if I succeeded – while I like the look of the upper web, perhaps the lower web is too unfocused, or the background too complicated to carry the image? If you need to see it in better detail, clicking on the image read more

Rock Beyond Belief, back on!

I just got word that the secular military event, “Rock Beyond Belief”, has been re-approved and is scheduled for March 31, 2012! As you no doubt remember because you’ve read everything I’ve ever posted (snerk!), read more

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