Letters to Doubting Thomas (a review)

When Lukeprog posted his Ultimate Truth Seeker Challenge, I read over his reading list and saw that it was mostly books I had already read. But I put my name down anyway, because I figured the books I hadn’t read would be a good way to round out my philosophy of religion reading, and reviewing [...]

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Avatarand weird human impulses

I’m really late to the “explaining the meaning of James Cameron’s Avatar” game–I saw it over winter break, then got absorbed in other “fun winter break things,” then got absorbed in the re-start of grad school. But here it goes: First, yes, Avatar is indeed pretty, so much so that I disagree with the people [...]

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Why Fight Club is better than Choke (review)

Lots of writers put out a great novel early in their career and go downhill from there. The reasons are hard to pinpoint, admitting of only the most general explanations: Maybe it’s because humans are only allotted one book’s worth of truly good ideas for fiction, and after that it’s repeat yourself or dip into [...]

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Marriage, morals, and the green-eyed monster

Atheist perspectives on sexual morality
Recently, I finally got around to picking up a copy of Bertrand Russell’s Marriage and Morals, the notorious book that played a major part of the campaign to get him barred from teaching in New York. I also had brought to my attention a Richard Dawkins piece on sexual jealousy from [...]

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In Defense of Food Isn’t About Nutrition (a review)

In In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan proposes a radical new approach to diet: ignore everything you’ve ever heard about scientific nutrition, and just build a diet of only non-processed foods, with little or no meat. This advice is summed up in a short, pleasing slogan: “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.” And you [...]

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