General - Intelligence - Love - Politics - Religion - Church/State - Definitions

I present them here, not to convert anyone to my way of thinking or to spark debate, but to provide a more rounded idea of who I am and what makes me tick—and perhaps to give you a chuckle!  For articles with more substance, check the ISSUES menu.

The most recent entries in each category are highlighted.

The true value of art is determined more by its insight than by its beauty, rarity, or fame.

Someone who behaves well only because he fears punishment isn't truly moral; he's merely afraid. Where's the virtue in that?

No incentive or investment can make a business prosper without customers.

The clothes don't make you look fat. Being fat makes you look fat.

The probability that an idea is false is directly proportional to the fanaticism of those who advocate it.

Humor is like bread: best when fresh, most flavorful when wry.

Hunting isn't sport unless the duck shoots back.

Law is what prompts us to do good when we think someone else might be watching.
Morality is what scares us into doing good when we think God might be watching.
Ethics is what convinces us to do good even when we think no one is watching.

Another's right to swing his fist ends where your nose begins—unless you stick your nose where it doesn't belong.

The one thing harder than doing something right is repairing the damage after doing it wrong.

Ordinary men quote the ideas of great men. Great men have ideas of their own.

Science doesn't have all the answers—only the most likely ones.

Survival is less a matter of being smart than of not being stupid.

Intelligence is figuring out what to do with knowledge. Wisdom is knowing what to do with intelligence.

Belief is pointless: It neither validates ideas that cannot withstand scrutiny, nor improves those that can.

Just a couple of words about Intelligent Design: "WISDOM TEETH!"

He who knows everything should reflect that most of human knowledge is nonsense.

What you don't know might not hurt you, but it can make a fool of you if you presume to talk about it anyway.

Without the critical evaluation of ideas, mere knowledge is no better than ignorance. Worse, it is dangerous.

I would trade all the world's knowledge for a grain of understanding.

It is wise to remember the past, lest we repeat its mistakes.
It is wise to pay heed to the present, and not mistake ideology for reality.
It is wise to be mindful of the future, so that we may have one.
So, it is wise not to elect leaders who are the opposite of wise.

Hugs are the perfect gift. They are always the right size, never the wrong style or color, and actually improve when returned.

The only hard and fast rule in love is that hard and fast is best at the finish.

Size doesn't count, perhaps, but sighs do!

Real love isn't blind. It's just tolerant, patient, and forgiving.

If there is any sexual behavior that can be considered truly unnatural, it is celibacy.

The Confederate flag's rightful place is with the swastika and the hammer and sickle, in a museum of horrors and lost causes, not flying over any public facility in a nation that professes liberty and justice for all.

Conservatives advocate states' rights. Liberals defend people's rights.

Democratic Party: a den of iniquity. Republican Party: a din of inequity.

"Liberal" is not a dirty word, except to those who despise liberty.

A liberal is someone who has figured out that having a job and no tax cut is better than having a tax cut and no job.
A conservative is someone who reads the adventures of Robin Hood, and thinks Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham are "the good guys."

If humans could survive on red herring, world starvation could be eradicated by a single political campaign.

The First Amendment protects the right of the individual to believe as he sees fit, not the right of organized religion to compel him to believe as it sees fit.

Whether government is too big or too small misses the point.  Our first goal should be to make it good (hint: see U.S. Constitution: Preamble), and then make it whatever size it must be to get the job done.

It strikes me as odd that busybody politicians, who as a group have statistically demonstrated themselves aberrant or incompetent in conducting their own family lives, should presume to dictate to the rest of us how we must conduct ours.

"Believing in" something is a futile concept.  Without good evidence it's unjustified, and with good evidence it's superfluous.

What a person believes isn't nearly as important as why he believes it.

If a person believes for no reason, but for fear of being called a fool if he does not, then he already is one.

It's difficult to imagine a worse blasphemy against a truly benevolent deity than most religious scripture.

Curiosity about the unknown is a normal, healthy, and occasionally enlightening or profitable pursuit; but obsession with the unknowable is pointless folly.

A faith that requires frequent revival is obviously not a very healthy one.

Faith is the happy sense of security of a self-imprisoned mind, babbling uncomprehendingly to itself in the darkness of smug ignorance.

Fundamentalists deem the idea that humans and monkeys have a common ancestor outrageously insulting, yet are comforted about being likened to mindless sheep, and become ecstatic about being fleeced by the clergy.

As long as there are fundamentalists to expose the silly side of religion, atheists will never need to recruit.

How can anyone presume to know a universal God, if his feeble comprehension of the universe extends no further than the prejudices of his own wretched little tribe?

If almighty God truly wanted infidels eradicated, wouldn't he just prevent their being conceived?

Losing religion might seem the end of one's world; but indeed, it may well be the beginning.

People who believe in life after death are often confused about other things, too.

However great the power of faith, it is easily overwhelmed by the power of stupidity.

It is better to live a single life as an honest free thinker, than a thousand lives as a slave to ignorance and superstition.

One night I prayed to know the truth. The next morning I found I was an atheist.

If atheists believed that there was something to pray to, they would devoutly pray for the deliverance of fundamentalists of all persuasions from the frightful and demeaning confusion born of prideful ignorance of the world about them.

If reality were determined by what people believe, everyone would be boundlessly happy.

Religion's role is to teach traditional morality; it is no more equipped to teach science, history, or ethics than it is to teach carpentry, cartography, or calculus.

The scriptures of the world's various religions are evidence, but evidence only that many people are inclined to believe peculiar things, not that the beliefs are true.

I'm as spiritual as anyone; I just don't consider body and spirit to be detachable.

Had the telescope and microscope been invented first, religion never would have been.

The theologian's greatest difficulty in ascertaining the nature of the universe is his insistence upon viewing it through a stained-glass window.

If atheism can endure without government endorsement, shouldn't any religion worth believing be expected to do likewise?

Any self-respecting God would consider political support for its religion an insult.

Politicians seek the endorsement of religion, not to heighten their virtue, but to hide their lack of it.

ATTITUDE: a loser's substitute for personality, talent, wit, culture, and charm.

FOX NEWS: faux-news.

○METAPHYSICS: One or more adjectives masquerading as profundity while searching in vain for a noun to modify.

RAP: ebonic plague.

S.U.V.: a device for inflating a deficient ego with the toxic combustion products of non-renewable resources.

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