I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup today. It declared, “In case of rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned.” I suppose it was a warning to all the unfortunate souls who don’t qualify for heaven; his truck is going to become a dangerous moving object when the roll is called up yonder. The righteous […]
Continue readingOur Greatest Enemy
No hate can hurt, no foe can harm, as hurts and harms a mind ill-disciplined. -Buddha No nation in the history of the world spends more on defending itself than the United States. According to the Defense Department, the U.S. will expend $687 billion in 2013 on the military, with an additional $54 billion for […]
Continue readingGod Is Nothing
The Buddha was a very practical man. He disliked questions for which there were no answers, calling them a waste of time. In one of his teachings, the Buddha described a man who had been shot with a poisoned arrow. His family retrieved a doctor, but the man wouldn’t accept any help until learning the […]
Continue readingFaith Isn’t Rocket Science
Religion isn’t a scientific endeavor. Religious beliefs don’t require proof or logic, and religious people can believe all kinds of things that conflict with common-sense reality. Thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate group killed themselves, thinking their souls would be taken aboard a spaceship flying in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. Once on board, […]
Continue readingThe Limits of Occupying Wall Street
I’ve been trying to decide what I think about the Occupy Wall Street crowd camped out in New York City’s Zucotti Park. I came of age in the late Sixties, and they remind me a little of that time—a disparate bunch, loosely organized around a sense of injustice, with more than a few joining in […]
Continue reading