Death Makes Life More Meaningful

The very fact that life is finite is the very thing that makes life meaningful. If we had eternal life, then what would be the point of it? We strive and work hard in life because life is short and so we feel an urgency to live our lives with passion . . . By taking death out of the equation, religious believers also take the passion out of our existence.
Read more . . . 

Aphorism: On Supply-side Economics

By Madison S. Hughes (09.20.2011)

Anytime the responsible idea of increasing taxes, or decreasing subsidies on corporations making record profits during times of economic recession caused by the economic policies implemented by the corporate masters, the specter of the “job creators” raises its ugly head in its usual punctual manner. The spurious “job creators,” especially corporations, have never, ever created a job. That is worth repeating, the spurious “job creators” especially corporations, have never, ever created a job. DEMAND creates jobs, not supply.

The idea that “job creators” create jobs, and must be kowtowed to so that they will give us the privilege of laboring for minimal sustenance is not only absurd on the surface, but it is utterly inconsistent with empirical evidence, particularly since the inception of the neoliberal experiment of the first 9/11 disaster of 1973. Supply-side economics has proven over, and over, to be an utter failure. Repeating supply-side economic mantras does not make them viable.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900)
German Philosopher, Classical Philologist, Poet, and Composer, Atheist

It is impossible, as is commonly said, for us to ‘feel’ for others; we feel only for ourselves. The proposition sounds hard, but is not if it is correctly understood. One loves neither father, nor mother, nor wife, nor child, one loves the pleasant sensations they produce in us.

Equality In The Military: Religious Right Suffers Setback In Its Campaign For Theocracy

Today gay men and women are serving openly in the U.S. military, marking another milestone in the march toward equal rights for all Americans. And needless to say, Religious Right leaders aren’t happy . . . Goldwater famously said of this issue, “You don’t have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.” Equality and fairness. Those are concepts that are foreign to the forces of the Religious Right. They prefer intolerance and theocracy. But in a nation built on the separation of church and state, they cannot and must not prevail. Read more . . . 

Job Creators

 . . . Boehner’s so-called “job creators” become “job destroyers” as they lay off people and close businesses. That is if we adopt the “employer” definition of “job creators” as opposed to the “consumer” definition . . . Representative Boehner is giving us meaningless political rhetoric rather than meaningful political solutions. Read more . . . 

Richard Dawkins, “A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy”

His epiphanies follow on the heels of long sessions of reading and thought, and a bit of procrastination. He is an elegant stylist with a taste for metaphor. And he has a knack, a predisposition even, for assailing orthodoxy . . . His impatience with religion is palpable, almost wriggling alive inside him. Belief in the supernatural strikes him as incurious, which is perhaps the worst insult he can imagine. “Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers,” he says. “It’s a sort of crime against childhood.” Read more . . .