Recent content by Max

Religion is like a skate park. You can glide effortlessly along the predetermined paths. Atheism or deconversion from all religions, is like taking off your skates. At first you feel clumsy, and have trouble walking, but eventually you'll get your land legs and be able to walk where you will. It...

I had an idea that I'd like to share and solicit your opinion about the idea. Suppose you went on vacation once with your parents and your cousin who lived in a different state. You can remember that vacation and the good times you had. Years later you meet the distant cousin again and start...

Can one calculate a probability for something that's already happened, and which is a one time event? For example what's the probability that a tree branch will break given that I already sat on it and it broke? Isn't that a meaningless statement, because it's already broken so there's no...

I'm not sure if this is original, or if I heard it somewhere. The difference between The Bible and The Lord of the RIngs is that one is a work of fiction, the other was written by JRR Tolkien. I thought it was funny, what do you think?

I wonder if religion can be put in a framework of child development? Just as other notions arise in childhood, imaginary friends, athropomophizing pets, talking to oneself, for example. What if religion addresses the fear of death which arises as children become more aware, and is a...

The fear mongering headlines in the media really pissed me off this morning. I checked the NOAA website and found a model of predicted wave heights and it was 1 foot. Last time there was a tsunami warning, the wave height was 6 inches. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan were terrible events...

It might be problematic to use language as an analogy for evolution, unless the fact that is an analogy is strongly emphasized. Language is a construct, and people can actively create new words (neologisms) and grammars. When talking to those unfamiliar with science, the common interpretation...

Re: "Bottles of Beer On the Wall" starting with a large nume It occurs to me there is an even simpler solution, which scans better. Here is an algorithm "Let us define f(n) as f(n) = C - n where C is some arbitrarily large constant and n is an element of the closed interval [0,C]...

Re: "Bottles of Beer On the Wall" starting with a large nume One way to approach this problem is to take the easy way out. Ten to the thirty-ninth bottles of beer on the wall... Ten to the thirty-ninth minus 1 bottles of beer on the wall... So in general Ten to the A-th bottles of...

It is difficult, in my experience, to overcome the fear that religion often imposes. Fear of hell and judgment to a small child can be very real things. Even now that I'm middle-aged, the old nagging fears of judgment creep in. I wonder if others have had to overcome this fear? There was an...

Or at least having a reasonable explanation. In the end it was just a great feeling, I was helping my friend move, I was really tired, and done a lot of physical work and just sitting back and enjoying the moment. It may have been knowing too that the move was finished, and I didn't have to...

After working hard all day moving boxes, carrying boxes, packing boxes, I was very tired and aching. I sat down on the back step and noticed the wind in the wind chimes, a bird singing and the beautiful fall colors on a tree in the yard. I can easily see how such a feeling could be attributed to...

The absence of scatological evidence neither proves not disproves the existence of Unicorns. Only direct observation of such scatological evidence could indicate the existence of Unicorns, but only after ruling out all other possible sources, such as horses. Even were such evidence gathered...

That's my new slogan. If an A-Theist is without god, perhaps a Non-Un-Believer is without skepticism?