In summarizing his thoughts about religion at the end of the movie Religulous, Bill Maher said something that is seconded by the so-called New Atheists. Namely, that to support any theistic religion is to support all theistic religions. Well, there’s quite a gulf between pacifistic Quakerism and fundamentalist terrorism,

Peggy is a nurse; Peggy hates doctors. If I hadn’t coerced her into going to one after months of pain and immobility, she still wouldn’t know that she has De Quervain’s tenosynovitis. Dogs hate doctors too. Peggy and the world’s dog population are alike in this. I’ve gotten many emails about all the things that pe

Peggy and I camped this week for the first time in two years, which was when my shoulders started hurting so bad that I had to sleep in a chair. Before then, we camped for a couple of nights a week. Camping and hiking was practically our life until bad knees eliminated the one and bad shoulders the other.I knew I would have

Today. Partly cloudy with occasional showers. Temps almost chilly (low 46F, high 67F). That’s what I like about Western Oregon. NO HOT WEATHER almost hardly ever.We went to the Old Cascades yesterday and hiked six miles. We used to hike and camp twelve or more miles in the High Cascades every week, but thanks to one knee

Peggy and I climbed Tire Mountain today where, after eating, I had a terrible spasm in my lower back. After I was able to stop cursing and writhing long enough to explain the problem, Peggy gave me four ibuprofen, and we sat—or rather she sat while I lay—wondering how the heck I was going to traverse the five miles (8 k

The last respondent to my last post wrote: “I don’t know how you could present your theories…in greater detail.”Believe me, Dana, I could, but I sense a readiness on the part of many readers to move on, so I’m going to content myself with one last post on the subject for the foreseeable future.My previous efforts

So, what’s it like being an atheist in a country that prides itself on its Christian religiosity?Some people don’t take me seriously, and they say things like, “You’re too nice to be a REAL atheist.” They mean it as a compliment, like when a racist tells a black person that he’s too smart to be all black. When p

I see that I just lost two long-term and devoutly religious followers, presumably due to my response to Just_because_today following my last post. I would have softened that response had I done as I often do, which is to go away and get myself into a better mood after writing something but before publishing it. I didn't tho

If God does not exist, where did the universe come from?It came from previously existing matter and energy in what’s called the Big Bang. Now, let me ask you, if God does exist, where did God come from?God is eternal. This is part of what it means to be God.You are saying that the universe had to come from somewhere, ther

The radio played Tina Turner today, and I remembered the month I spent in a Richmond, Virginia, commune at which I was the only straight male except for Lee who was dying of a brain tumor. The year was 1984, and AIDS was just becoming big news. I knew a lot of gay men, many of whom thought the disease was a government hoax

I often reminisce about my relationship with my father and about what he was doing at my current age. The year was 1964, and he had a 15-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter. He worked 55 hours a week as a carpenter, and before and after he went to his regular job he spent a few hours each day building a house for his fa

Monday, April 5: I see my internist (Kirk) for my yearly physical and tell him about the sunburn-like pain in my lower leg bones. He thinks it’s the early stage of a rare and devastating disease called CRPS (chronic regional pain syndrome), and orders a bone scan. I know someone with CRPS, and have often comforted myself

The following is a quote I included in my last post regarding my sorry situation. Following it are questions from my readers, which I have ever so thoughtfully answered.“At an advanced stage of the illness, all patients develop significant psychiatric problems and narcotic dependency, and are left completely incapacitated

I study the causes of pain because after two shoulder surgeries in one year, my pain is far worse than it was—and spreading—and my surgeon doesn’t know why. During my studies, I have occasionally come across RSD/CRPS (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/ Complex Regional Pain Syndrome). I’ve found strange comfort in its ni

The question arose as I wondered if America could do its part to win another war like WWII. Well, no. Then, we were lean and Depression hardened. Now, we’re waddling diabetics with telephone earrings. Then, we were physical laborers. Now, we’re clerks and service representatives. Then, we could convert heavy industry to

I made one of Julia Jackson’s pictures (Julia Jackson was Virginia Woolf's mother) into my computer background, and even started talking to her. Peggy didn’t exactly insist that I get rid of, “that awful picture of that depressed looking dead woman,” but I nonetheless replaced it with one of Peggy smiling broadly. W

I’m still unable to write anything creative or thoughtful, but I will at least check-in. The pain is no better on the shoulder that was operated on in December, and it’s significantly worse on the other, presumably due to continued arthritic deterioration. I don’t sleep well because of the pain, and the longer I stay

Believe it or not, I was in worse pain from sleep apnea than from my current problems. For some reason, none of the many doctors I saw over a period of ten years were able to diagnose it, so I suffered increasingly, and even went through two nose and sinus surgeries before it was diagnosed. The first surgery didn't help at

My air mattress went flat last night leaving me atop a sheet of plywood that probably wasn’t the worst bed in the world but wasn’t the best either. I took my pillow to Peggy’s room planning to spend the rest of the night with her, but when I opened her door, I saw that she was with a guy—a black guy. I’ve put up w

If you discount the existence of a deity or the claim of an authoritarian government or institution, the decision is yours. At the moment, I would say that my life has none. It has its compensations certainly, but mere survival marks the limit of my abilities. My pain is such that I sometimes fight back hysteria. Demerol wo

“When I consider the brief span of my life, absorbed into the eternity before and after, the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright… The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.”Blaise Pasca

I got the following email from my friend, Christine, regarding my last post, and knew I would have to fire one last salvo. I will first share her letter, and then I will share my comments, which, like my last post, primarily concern Christianity. "You know, Snow, you take a rather cynical AND egotistical stance against thos

I’m going to start off here with a bit of a disclaimer. I don’t believe in prayer—or in the supernatural for that matter—but many of you do, and many of you have even told me that you are praying for me. I thank you for your prayers. Really, I do. It’s your way of saying that you care, and I am touched by your car

If your dog has a good life, you can take most of the credit. If you dog has a crummy life, you can take most of the blame. This makes it hard to own a dog.But why would your dog have a crummy life?Many reasons. For example, I have a blue heeler and a miniature schnauzer. The blue heeler was born to run from sun-up to sundo

Jesus said that. Ted Kaczynski and John Allen Muhammad were two of the many who lived it for their own reasons and in their own ways. After my surgery in March, I either took narcotics or sleeping pills but never both together. Now that I’m in pain from that surgery and from this surgery, I take whatever it takes to get s

I am ashamed to admit that I regularly try to deceive myself into thinking that my species is more intelligent than I actually believe it to be. I do this because it's so damn depressing to think that decisions that effect millions of people, if not the entire planet, are in the hands of morons. This video raked its way acr

My two-hour surgery started yesterday morning at 8:00. The nerve block wore off last night at 1:00, so I took a sleeping pill and two Percocets. When they didn’t help, I had no choice but to wait four hours before moving up to Demerol, but even with Demerol, the pain forced me from my chair every 45 minutes. Once up, I wo

I lost another follower today. Sometimes, I offend people because I don’t make myself clear; other times because I do. Causing offense is one of the downsides of being: (a) utterly opinionated; (b) seeing myself as the smartest person in the universe; (c) not really liking or respecting humanity in general; and (d) being

Surgeons rarely kill people. They might screw them up, but they don’t normally leave them dead as a doornail on the operating table. Anesthesiologists are more likely to do that. How weird is it then that people choose their surgeons but take whichever anesthesiologist walks through the door? I made a big deal today of re

I have given but little time to blogs lately--my own or others--because I am preparing for shoulder surgery in December on the shoulder opposite the one in the photo. After surgery, I will be limited to using one arm for three months, so I am working to get as many chores out of the way as possible. If something important o