Feb 28
Most of us spend our days feeling like a single, solid unit—a person sitting in a chair, walking to the car, or staring at a screen. But beneath the surface of that perceived stillness is a logistical feat that rivals the busiest cities on Earth. Right now, in nearly every cell of your body, trillions …
Feb 28
“It is very hard to explain to people who have never known serious depression or anxiety the sheer continuous intensity of it. There is no off switch.” ~ Matt Haig
Jan 29
The current state of America has many of us, I daresay most of us fighting moods from sadness, anger, futility and frustration. And I’d say everyone I know also has some Trump supporter who is delighted with the deconstruction of the country, although they, of course view the erosion as an improvement. For those of …
Dec 30
“Science is not just another belief system. It is a process of testing beliefs against reality. If a belief cannot survive the test of reality, it must be discarded, no matter how ancient or comforting it may be.” ~ Victor J. Stenger In the palm of your hand you can hold a device that captures …
Dec 30
“I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.” ~Clarence Darrow
Nov 30
I love Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece, Psycho. I wouldn’t even say that it ‘holds up’ to modern movies; I’d say that it exceeds most of them. And I resent spoilers enough to say, on the off chance that you’ve either not read the book or seen the movie, stop reading this post now because there are …
Nov 25
“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” ~ John Barrymore
Oct 20
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Sep 28
“If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have …
Aug 22
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
Jul 30
I spotted this on Facebook, shared with the heading, ‘THE BIBLE SAID IT ALL’. and then the post includes a snapshot of a quote from one of the many bibles. The quote is red-underlined and then further highlighted with a great purple border that was added digitally. The image and post don’t include a source …
Jul 30
“It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurts to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth. Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you’d otherwise …
Jun 27
“There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can’t prove that there aren’t any, so shouldn’t we be agnostic with respect to fairies?” ~ Richard Dawkins
May 24
“Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.” ~ Madalyn Murray O’Hair
Apr 29
My recent post addressing the straw man religious arguments against atheism took a remarkably long time to write. I don’t have that kind of energy this month, so instead I’ll share this meta post about Brandolini’s Law. (Credit for the illustration goes to The Unbiased Science Podcast. ) “A lie can travel halfway around the …
Apr 28
“Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power
Mar 27
I saw this meme on a rare visit to Facebook. (Reminding me once again why I’m avoiding Facebook for the most part.) Let’s examine it… Atheism Defined The first miss occurs on the opening line, ‘to be an atheist, I would have to believe…’ But atheism is not a unified belief system. Atheism is the …
Mar 24
“The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.” ~ John Holt
Feb 24
The world feels cold and bitter. Spring is 23 days away. I took this photo Aug. 6, 2011. We’re all looking for some life behind the splinters, rot and rusted nails. … The birds they sangAt the break of dayStart againI heard them sayDon’t dwell on what has passed awayOr what is yet to be … Ah, …
Feb 20
“Chronic anxiety is a state more undesirable than any other, and we will try almost any maneuver to eliminate it. Modern man is living in anxious anticipation of destruction. Such anxiety can be easily eliminated by self-destruction. As a German saying puts it: ‘Better an end with terror than a terror without end.” ~ Robert …
Jan 15
“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” ~ Hector Berlioz
Dec 25
The song, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas‘ always sounded a little plaintive to me. Judy Garland, sang it first for a scene in, “Meet Me in St Louis” (1944) in which her character comforts her younger sister, Margaret. Have yourself a merry little ChristmasLet your heart be lightNext year all our troubles will be …
Dec 18
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a …
Nov 18
“Some days you think you can’t go on because the only thing waiting for you is more despair. Some days you don’t want to go on because it’s easier to give up than to get hurt again.” ~ Marieke Nijkamp; This Is Where It Ends
Nov 06
Ever wonder how the fascist took control of Germany in the 1930s? Ever wonder which side you’d have been on if you’d lived in that country? Now, if you live in America: you know both. – It isn’t simply a matter of stupidity. It is more a matter of disinformation and fear. “I could stand …
Nov 04
Sitting here on the eve of the 2024 election, we don’t know who will be the next president. Trump may win or Harris may win. I could provide a slew of links to all that is heinous about Trump but I’d run out of energy well before I ran out of sources. And at this …
Oct 29
“What words are these have falle’n from me?Can calm despair and wild unrestBe tenants of a single breast,Or sorrow such a changeling be?” ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson; In Memoriam A. H. H.
Sep 29
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” ~ Donald Trump
Sep 19
“Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.” ~ Herodotus, The Histories
Aug 26
“The colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.” ~Edvard Munch
Jul 17
“I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister.” ~Erin Morgenstern
Jun 27
“Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.” ~Edmund Burke
May 27
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ~Anatole France
Apr 27
“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.” ~ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Mar 31
“There should have been a better farewell. But in the end, there never is. And we take what meagre scraps we can find.” ~ Richard K. Morgan
Feb 28
“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
Dec 31
I’ve been fighting a flu here at year’s end. So this last post of 2023 is a quickie. 2023 was a, ‘challenging’ year (to put it mildly). And the sallow, grey, late fall and winter light has been draining. I took this photo at a local fair, July 3, 2010. I chose this image, not …
Nov 27
“You don’t waste October sunshine. Soon the old autumn sun would bed down in cloud blankets, and there would be weeks of gray before it finally decided to snow.” ~ Katherine Arden, Small Spaces
Oct 24
“The blues don’t jump right on you. They come creeping.” ~ Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run (Autobiography)
Oct 22
The King James version of the Bible has a fair amount to say about Hell. A single case in point: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the …
Sep 19
“His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien, (Aragorn), The Return of the King
Aug 22
“Americans used to be ‘citizens.’ Now we are ‘consumers.” ~Vicki Robin, Your Money or Your Life
Jul 18
I saw Mister Silverado on the road a number of days ago. Full disclosure: I didn’t actually see the driver, but I’m highy confident it was indeed a, ‘Mister’. The window sticker, ‘TAXATION IS THEFT‘ is what made the encounter noteworthy. There are some trivial times in one’s life that a person fantasizes about having …
Jul 09
“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.” ~ Charlie Chaplin
May 15
“When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.” ~ Minnie Aumonier
Apr 27
“If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes.” ~Warren Buffet
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