On February 10, 1980, the Russian national hockey team absolutely demolished the U.S. national team in an exhibition game in Madison Square Garden just prior to the Olympics, by a 10-3 score. Arguably the game hadn't even been as close as the score. The Russian team looked a lot like the Harlem Globetrotters on ice, and the U.S. team appeared to be significantly less competent than the hockey equivalent of the Washington Generals. They didn't even look as good as the Mighty Ducks (meaning the team coached by Emilio Estevez, not the NHL version.) After that brutal and humbling loss, U.S. coach Herb Brooks made a very interesting observation. He said: "Sometimes a real butt-kicking is good for a quality team, or a quality athlete." Incredibly, less than a month later the U.S. national team managed the unthinkable and defeated the Russians in the far more-important "Miracle on Ice" rematch in the Olympics. Do you believe in miracles? I do. I happened to watch that 1980 hockey game in the SAE fraternity house in Athens, Georgia as it happened, in real time. And yesterday I witnessed a similar sports miracle. Georgia won the SEC Championship by three touchdowns by the same team that had beaten them by more than three touchdowns, only three weeks earlier. Don't pinch me. If I'm dreaming, I don't want to wake up. The University of Georgia Bulldogs are the 2017 SEC Champions. Say it again, out loud and proud. Go Dawgs! Sic 'em! Woof woof woof woof! Who could have believed it, before this season started? Heck, who besides our players and coaches believed it … [Read more...]
Never Discuss Religion With a Unitarian
I've never liked to fight with people. To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've thrown a punch in anger since my junior year in high school, more than forty years ago. It isn't my natural instinct to start an argument. I've only had one formal debate in my entire life, and it wasn't my idea in the first place. By the same token, I'm not afraid of a challenge, or to defend my personal beliefs. My opponent on that momentous occasion was a former president of American Atheists, a guy named Ed Buckner. He proposed our debate only a couple of months before my book Counterargument for God was published, so I saw his challenge as an opportunity to test the substance of that argument. Personally, I liked Ed. If he ever wants a rematch, I'd only have two conditions: I don't want to argue cherrypicked verses from the Bible all night, and a second debate should be held on Ed's home turf, the normal meeting place for freethinkers in the Atlanta area. I've come to believe there are two kinds of atheists -- the kind that hate Christianity and religion in general (anti-theists), versus others who also don't believe in a supernatural God, but without the latent hostility toward people with religious beliefs. A handful of my virtual friends on Facebook are the latter variety of atheist, and those are some of the friendships I value the most. Recently one atheist friend took the time to send me this message: After years of (dogmatically) thinking creationists as ignorant/dogmatic etc. (much like many feel about atheists), you are the one who has taught me otherwise. I'm glad you … [Read more...]
A Brief Glimpse Of Life After The Apocalypse
Armageddon. The Apocalypse. Christians have heard these words occasionally uttered since they were children. Most of them know those words are typically associated with the Book of Revelations. However, prophesies of the end of days can be found in practically every religion. Even non-religious people (including Hollywood) have some doomsday cataclysmic scenario conceptualized that involve zombies or radioactive mutants, but the common theme of every scenario where life as we currently know it ceases to exist, and we might eventually “devolve” into some primitive, subhuman species. You know, like zombies…or Antifa people. There are a number of scenarios by which the end of the world might come, including nuclear war and natural disasters. After my experiences of the past several days, my personal preference would be that in any apocalyptic scenario, our current location would be the initial point of impact, in order to put my family and me immediately out of our misery. To be brutally honest, we would not make very good doomsday survivors. Here, this journal written over the past week ought to prove my point… Day 1 (9/11) Time: Approximately 2:15 p.m. Log Entry: We lose (gasp!) electricity and Internet service. It’s okay, though. We’ve lost power before. The longest previous outage in this current house was almost eight hours – to the point we’d begun to get irritable and had to go out for dinner. Oh, well. Could be worse. It could be raining. Oh yeah, it is raining. As I like to say, suck it up, buttercup. Time: Approximately 8:15 p.m. Log Entry: … [Read more...]
Bacteria and the Origin of Life, by Landon Freeman
[Editorial note: Landon Freeman is one of my bright young internet friends. He wrote this very compelling essay on a subject that interests me quite a bit, and gave me permission to share it here.] AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: Landon Freeman is a native Georgian who currently studies psychology at Georgia Southwestern State University. He has been interested in the creation-evolution debate for several years now and runs the Facebook group “Evidence for Creation”, which discusses a variety of topics related to creationism and evolution. When not discussing the topic of creation online, Landon can usually be found writing, listening to music, or playing video games. When discussing the hypothesis of abiogenesis, I'm astounded to see that many atheists and evolutionists act as if it's a given that life evolved through purely naturalistic processes, and that life wouldn't have much trouble getting started. There are several issues with abiogenesis, though the one I'm going to discuss is the problem of not only functional, operating organisms arising from non-living matter, but intelligence arising as well. Indeed, even allegedly simple bacteria display intelligence and foresight. An article from NewScientist states and provides evidence that microbes can communicate with each other, make decisions, form communities, and even accelerate mutations to gain new abilities. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17390-why-microbes-are-smarter-than-you-thought/ The issue here is bacteria have been living since not long after life began. Life allegedly began around at least 3.5 … [Read more...]
Good news and bad news
I always like to get the bad news out of the way first. I'm not going to be writing as often here at my own website, Southern Prose. However, the good news is that I am still writing online, more than ever -- but now I actually get paid something for it. My new gig is freelance writer for TheResurgent.com, a website owned by conservative radio host Erick Erickson. But don't blame him for anything I write. They pretty much allow me to just do what I've been doing here, without earning income. If you're interested, you can find my new articles here. … [Read more...]
