In Judaism, the biblical laws that come without explanation—and there are many—are called chukim. This is such a law. The point is, you can never know what is important in the long term. God might hav...
I've even come to a conclusion that would get me blackballed from ever setting foot in liberal education circles again. That is this: colonialism wasn't 100 percent evil. More like 96 percent evil. So...
Huh. I’m not sure how to respond to this. Is Alex Trebek black? He sure doesn’t look black. He looks pretty white to me. He looks like the quintessence, the very incarnation, of whiteness.
Greenberg tells me, Never blame a text from the Bible for your behavior. It’s irresponsible. Anybody who says X, Y, and Z is in the Bible—it’s as if one says, ‘I have no role in evaluating this.’ The
EcclesiastesThis is a book of the Old Testament. I don't believe I've ever read this section of the Bible - I know my Genesis pretty well and my Ten Commandments (I like lists), but I'm hazy on a lot...
A few weeks later, I’m in a fluorescent-lit classroom in Chelsea awaiting the start of the official Mensa test. I’m sitting next to a guy who’s doing a series of elaborate neck stretches, like we’re a...
PhilosophyI studied philosophy for four years. But I'd trade everything I learned for this passage... quoted in the Britannica:'But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were arm...
You tell them you have a hunger and a thirst. You don't sit at the same table but you have a hunger and a thirst.
There is no hell. The Witnesses believe hell is a mistranslation of Gehenna, which was an ancient garbage dump. They say that nonbelievers simply die at Armageddon, rather than being thrown into an in...
The Bible's it's better to give than receive was not the raving of a lunatic. It goes back to a recurring theme that I've found in almost all my experiments: behaviour shapes your thoughts. My brain s...
On the other hand, if you're too delusionally optimistic, you'll be unbearable. You'll refuse to save money or make backup plans. You'll invade foreign countries and expect to be greeted as liberators...
Mrs. Bush answers: I think you ought to treat your spouse like you treat your friends. You clean your house for your friends, you make sure they’re taken care of. A spouse often comes second. So treat...
Lightning goes up. It shoots right up from the ground and into the cloud. This what the encyclopedia says in the section on climate and weather. I reread this passage a couple of times to make sure I...
It’s joyous, he says. If I save someone from breaking a commandment, it gives me a little high. He pumps his fist. I never took drugs, but I imagine this is what it feels like.
In the Odyssey, our craft hero demanded that his sailors tie him to the mast so that he wouldn't take a dive off the starboard side when he heard the alluring singing of the Sirens. You shouldn't trus...
If ever I was going to listen to a string of swearwords sitting next to a ninety-four-year-old, I'm glad that ninety-four-year-old was my grandfather. Not that he swears a lot. It's just that he can t...
I had been avoiding the D-word. But the kids cut right to it. My boys are well aware of death. My twins finish every story they make up with the same phrase: Then everyone died. The end.
I did get a colonic, but I've decided not write about it at length. I didn't find it helpful or enlightening. I can tell you want it felt like, though: It felt like someone shooting water up your butt...
For most of my life, I’ve been working under the paradigm that my behavior should, ideally, have a logical basis. But if you live biblically, this is not true. I have to adjust my brain to this. You
Ezekiel and his fellow prophets have become my heroes. They were fearless. They literalized metaphors. They turned their lives into protest pieces. They proved that, in the name of truth, sometimes yo...