In the news: A self-confessed atheist has become a believer after mocking God by sarcastically praying for his mother to win the lottery. However, his joke prayer was amazingly answered as the next day his mother won $1 million on the New York Lottery Sweet Million game. Sal Bentivegna, 28, who did not previously believe … Atheist converts after mock-prayer is “answered”

It’s not exactly new, but I just ran into Gogol Bordello’s song “Supertheory of Supereverything.” Enjoy it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOWx5G76pkU

Well, I’m still here. It also occurs to me that I would have very little opportunity for direct evidence of the Rapture a day after the promised date. I don’t have many friends or colleagues who would be good candidates for being taken up in the air. Maybe if I were to go down to … Unraptured

Taner, Thanks for the long post and the many insightful points and queries. Since Aristotle is the founder of naturalized ethics, it is really important that we get him right. Aristotle does not base his ethics upon “human nature,” but what he calls “the human function.” (Sorry, I don’t know the Greek) The human function … Response to Taner

I want to pull something Keith Parsons just said from out of the comments, since it ties in nicely with some questions prompted by one of the books I’m currently reading. Keith said: . . . collapsing the fact/value distinction does not need neuroscience; it goes back to Aristotle. Really, the idea that there is … It worked for Aquinas, but would it work for us?

All too often, I succumb to the temptation to think that America’s Founding Fathers (peace be upon them) were merely human. I entertain heretical thoughts, such as our Holy Constitution being a superannuated eighteenth century relic. In my darkness of unbelief, I imagine that important parts of the Holy Constitution are structurally antidemocratic, and I … America’s Clairvoyant Founders

I regularly gripe about Sam Harris here. When I’ve had more lengthy pieces to write, I’ve written against his ignorant approach to Islam, and expressed ambivalence about those aspects of the “New Atheism” associated with Harris. But if I’m going to keep griping, it might not be a bad idea to rehash specifically why I … What is wrong with Sam Harris

Historian Jackson Lears has a damning review of all Sam Harris’s books in The Nation magazine: “Same Old New Atheism: On Sam Harris.” It’s not a perfect takedown. Lears can’t resist reaching into the liberal religious apologetic bag of tricks (oh, he’s not addressing real religion, which is the more sophisticated and more experiential stuff), … Lears reviews Harris

I used to have a principle not to be overly discouraged about any insanity I might observe in the US. After all, something similar but worse was bound to have taken place in Turkey. I could then be happy I didn’t live there. With the increasingly entrenched right-wing nature of US public life over the … 30-cubit-tall Adam