Thank you Tat for the link to Hector Alvalos' Minnesota talk. It was so interesting. I didn't realize that Bible studies were done by other than religious people. Interesting what he said about all the students at Harvard divinity school. Just before that we were watching on the history channel abou...

Last night I saw a program on t.v. about Amish children who have left their communities and the difficulties they encounter in finding their ways "outside" and how they are shunned by their parents and other family members unless or until they go back. These (mostly boys) were about 16 or ...

Harry Marks: a person who cannot distinguish the significant is an idiot savant, with perhaps phenomenal powers of recall and calculation, but not the ability to make a life So idiot savants are not living a life? Nor anyone who does not choose to agree with you about what literature has significanc...

Dawn: Prayer is not only about asking for things; it is conversation with God, both speaking and listening. O.K. Dawn I do understand the words above but I do not understand what is said in the "listening" phase. I wonder if you could be so kind to us non-believers to give us an example of...

Harry Marks So is there something wrong with asking humbly for something? I suspect you are focusing on "beg". I rather like the term "implore". Well there is in my estimation. why would I want to be in a relationship (by choice) of such a power differential? Its o.k. with me if ...

Gosh, that is simply fascinating. Using the Bible to support the narrative of the Bible. Of course Finkelstein is wrong. Where does the Bible mention him?

Oh, yeah that thing. Well that means no more to me than the Harold Camping.

until the next date, which, btw is trumpeted by the secular world is it not? The December 2012 date has a much larger following and it is not of religious origin.

It's not been trumpeted too loudly as I have no clue what you are referring to here.

Chris: You're falling out of an airplane and you realize you forgot your parachute. You long for a parachute, yet you understand that a parachute will not materialize out of thin air. Yet, oddly you still long for one. Your wife and best friend dies of cancer in your arms. For the balance of your li...

I have experienced great stress in my life. A result of this stress was the feeling that I needed to be constantly alert and although meditating was not anything I knew about then, I could not also have imagined being "free" to do so. Nor did it ever occur to me to pray. I have also experi...