Philosophy

Where to Dwell

I’ve been considering the house, and decided to consult The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path. In the chapter on preparing for meditative serenity I found this: Dwelling in an appropriate area The area should have five attributes: (a) easy access, so that…

More Focus! More Family

Back in March, I wrote a letter to Focus on the Family about a show that they aired on ‘the new atheism.’ They wrote back. So today I’m firing off a response to the response. Also, my friend Dan has a radio show called Freethought…

Quote

I’ve got a Dalai Lama “quote of the day” tear off calendar on my desk. The insights are sometimes more directly applicable and sometimes less. Sometimes I’ve been reminded of a friend and sent them the quote directly. This one strikes me as not unreasonable…

Let the wheel come around

redmed informs me that there is a Hebrew tradition of celebrating a 28 year solar cycle – when the vernal equinox falls on a Tuesday at Sundown. According to wikipedia this represents a return of the sun to the position where it was when the…

Signs of intelligent life

I recently wrote a letter to Focus on the Family. I very much did not expect a response of any sort. I’m pleased to report that I was wrong.

Scholarship

I’m sponsoring a scholarship. While it says “RI Atheist Society” on the top – this is my baby. I just mailed out a copy of this announcement to more than 30 high schools and colleges in Rhode Island. Mail merge is simple and fun, once…

Charity

I asked friends to share their strategies and targets for charitable giving. In the spirit of “show me yours …” here’s our current plan: We’ve got a budget that works pretty well these days. It took about 3 years of effort to get good at…

How to conduct yourself in training

I copied this off the wall of the dojo the other night. As I’ve re-read it a few times and shared it with a few people, I find it more and more valuable and accurate – in contexts not necessarily limited to the martial arts.…

Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family recently aired an episode on “the new atheism“. After catching it on the radio while driving across Virginia, I decided to write a letter to them, and wound up thinking about it perhaps a bit more than I should have. Here…