Wisdom in the Face of Authority in the Iliad
Among those who begin to read the Iliad thinking that they already have the gist of the plot, many are surprised to discover that the foremost warrior in the epic…
Holy Nihilism on the Godcast
My interview on the Godcast is now up. Overall, I think it went very well. In retrospect, I probably could have presented my argument a little bit more directly, but…
Debating Christianity
Next Saturday (June 20), I'll be debating with Myles and SuperLutheran over at The Godcast. No doubt, we will rehash episode 119, where they attempted to take down Holy Nihilism…
The Godcast Addresses the Dis-Ontological Argument
SuperLutheran and Myles from The Godcast recently took a shot at my dis-ontological argument. Their criticism was relatively snarky and obnoxiously nit-picky (at one point, they corrected a date that…
The Ecumenical Slope
I think it is critical -- in beginning an essay criticizing ecumenicalism -- that I begin by saying that I understand the attraction. By "ecumenicalism," I am referring to the…
On Homer (Part 3): Connecting the Iliad and the Odyssey
In his book Why Homer Matters, Adam Nicolson pointed out how people seem to generally fall into two camps: those who like the Iliad, and those who like the Odyssey.…
TOOL and Religion
Before everything shut down, I got a chance to see Tool live in concert. One of the things that surprised me was that Maynard really wasn't the star of the…
The Question of Consciousness
After studying religion for a while, I have discovered that one useful way of categorizing different varieties of religion is how they answer the question of consciousness. I am not…
What is a “Hero?”
"The man's a war-hero." Is he though? We hear men -- and sometimes women -- called "heroes" today. From soldiers to single moms, even the nobody working the nine-to-five grind…
On the Origins of Truth-Telling
In Holy Nihilism, I posited that the origins of truth-telling as a value originated in the piratical militarism of steppe-based warrior cults: The origins of true testimonialism appear to lie…