Reading Time: 6 minutes Caffeine is a psychoactive and addictive drug, even if we rarely think of it that way. Still, our lives would be poorer without it.
Mind and Brain
Posted inScience
What happens to the soul if the brain is brought back to life?
Reading Time: 3 minutes A few years ago, a neuroscience team at Yale University performed some groundbreaking studies on pig brains, showing that after the animal is dead, if the brain is cooled immediately, not all the brain cells die. In fact, they are quite resilient and can be resuscitated if they are provided with the right environment—temperature and […]
Posted inLeaving Religion
Why Christians can’t avoid Jesus goggles
Reading Time: 6 minutes Yesterday, a big baking mistake brought home for me exactly why I suffered from Jesus goggles while I was Christian.
Posted inPsychology
Semantic paraphasia: The things we can’t help
Reading Time: 5 minutes I often mis-say specific words. I know the word I want and I’m thinking of the right thing at the time, but the wrong word consistently pops out. It turns out there’s a term for this situation: semantic paraphasia. Today, Lord Snow Presides over our brains — and the stuff we literally can’t help sometimes.
Posted inGeneral
2000 Years of Disbelief: Sigmund Freud
Reading Time: 5 minutes By James A. Haught This is the nineteenth segment of a series on renowned skeptics throughout history. These profiles are drawn from 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People With the Courage to Doubt, Prometheus Books, 1996. Sigmund Freud, the great Viennese explorer of the mind, is recognized worldwide as the chief founder of modern psychiatry. […]
Posted inGeneral
Revelations, Visitations, and All That
Reading Time: 4 minutes By James A. Haught In the mid-1800s, an imprisoned Persian allegedly saw a vision of a “heavenly maiden” who informed him of his holy status. Later he declared that he was Baha’u’llah, the Promised One of All Religions. In effect, he said he was Jesus returning for Christians, the Messiah coming for Jews, Lord […]
Posted inGeneral
When Do You Need Big Gods?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Historical research refutes the apologist claim that human societies need religion to act ethically or live together peacefully.
Posted inGeneral
The Fountainhead: First Broadway… Then the World
Reading Time: 6 minutes You can savor a fine filet mignon and sometimes still want a greasy hamburger.
Posted inGeneral
Paul Kalanithi’s Argument for Christianity
Reading Time: 4 minutes Meaning, love and purpose exist by virtue of the fact that they exist in human minds, but God isn’t the same kind of thing.
Posted inGeneral
The Fountainhead: Indecent Proposal
Reading Time: 6 minutes For a book written by a woman, The Fountainhead has a surprisingly grim moral for what women should aspire to.