Archive for the 'History' Category

Islam: A Peaceful Religion

Thursday, July 21st, 2005

February 26, 1993 - World Trade Center
         6 dead, 1,000 injured
October 4, 1993 - Black Hawk Down Incident (Somalia)
         18 dead
June 25, 1996 - US Base in Saudi Arabia
         19 dead
August 7, 1998 - East African Embassies
         220 dead
October 12, 2000 - […]

God in Your Pocket

Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

What if the U.S. Government forced you to carry around a religious text in your pocket in order to make simple, everyday purchases? Would you stand for that? Would you just let them get away with it? Before you answer, take a look at the often-overlooked profession of faith on every single […]

Unconscious Greeks

Saturday, June 18th, 2005

At the suggestion of a reader (jdt), I’ve been reading The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes (1976). I’m not even 100 pages in, but there’s already enough material to make for a good post.
Jaynes starts out with a discussion of what exactly consciousness is. At […]

War of the Worlds

Friday, June 10th, 2005

On October 30th, 1938, Martians landed in Grover’s Mill, NJ and began their invasion of the United States by advancing on New York City. At least that’s how some remember it. About 6 million people tuned in to CBS radio during Orson Welles’ dramatization of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. […]

The Second American Civil War

Monday, June 6th, 2005

Let me begin by quoting from the First Amendment to the US Constitution. In this crowd, I imagine half of you can recite it from memory, but here it is anyway… “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That’s a little vauge. […]