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Religion is seldom held up as the highest and best example of rational thought, but we often ignore the irrationality of religion, especially organized religion. The starting point is the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Legal proceedings, academic arguments, and other arguments that are public require evidence that can be observed by anyone, or could have been, if anyone had been there. Visions of angels or other supernatural characters are not admissible, unless there are photographs. ...

I just ran across a quote from Warren Burger regarding the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: the Second Amendment "has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public," saying that the "right to bear arms" is a right of the states or state militias like the National Guard, not of individuals. They argue that the well-regulated militia clause in the Second Amendment is a restriction on the declaration of the right, ...

One of my more pleasant eccentricities is that I hate the common greeting, “How are you?” I only answer the question directly in very special circumstances, but that’s fine, because most people don’t even realize that they have asked a question.

One of my common responses is, “I don’t know either.” Most people take that wrongly and think that I meant “yet” instead of “either”. There was one person to whom I gave that reply, and he claimed that he hadn’t asked any question. He was ...

Once again I am going to rant about how people believe hype in preference to science. Earlier today his problem came up in conversation. I don’t remember exactly how we got around to discussing Cholesterol, but I mentioned the fact that even the NIH has admitted that the idea that serum cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease. This has been known with complete confidence for the last thirty years, or so, but it was only rarely put forth in consumer level literature, so most people believed the myth ...

Apparently, this has become a matter of contention among some Christians, Muslims, and Jews. I looked at an interview of a professional theologian (what a wonderful job that must be) who is of the opinion that Muslims, Christians and Jews do worship the same God. That should not have required any thought, but some people make mountains out of molehills. There never was any doubt as to whether Christians and Muslims worshipped the same God. Mohammed had already converted to Christianity before he ...