Religion for Atheists: A Nonbeliever’s Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton. When I learned that Alain de Botton had written a book with the title, Religion for Atheists: A Nonbeliever’s Guide to the Uses of Religion I thought, why of course he has. I was introduced to de Botton through, The Architecture [...]
I am very hopeful about our long-term prospects, it is the near-term ones I’m worried about. What’s the near-term?—the next few hundred years, give or take a century. Since the near-term is when my children and grandchildren will pass their lives I feel I should do something to help them. I’ve passed the half-life stage [...]
Chapter One in The Young Man’s Guide to Building a House Experts in this sort of thing tell us that there are three tasks you must perform in order to survive in the wilderness. They even give us some helpful deadlines—dead being brutally factual in this case. In ascending order here they are: you have [...]
Pastor Ricky had placed all his hopes on the Hawaiian shirt. He wanted to connect with people and he had seen one of those television preachers wearing one. The people at the TV preacher’s church were all tanned and good-looking. Some were even drinking coffee during the service. I need what that guy has, Ricky [...]
Recently some astronomers discovered two earth-sized planets orbiting Kepler-20, a star roughly 1,000 light years away. Congratulations to them; their detective work was nearly as awe-inspiring as the news. A flurry of articles followed the find, speculating on the nature of these worlds, along with a little speculation on whether or not we will ever [...]
So I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I like granola. But since when did getting a little closer to nature make you a hippie? There’s probably a better word—but hippie just works for me. They’ve won by the way—the hippies I mean. Not the unkemptness thankfully, but the outlook. You can see [...]
When it comes to the opinion of the people who matter, the Shakers are hip. They had all the correct views: They practiced sustainable agriculture and gender equality, and they even reduced their carbon footprint to almost zero. (There are said to be only three Shakers left in North America—that’s what celibacy will do for [...]