I guessed the composer on this week’s Piano Puzzler after the first few measures, and if you want to know how I did it, just listen to Bruce Adophe’s explanation when the answer is reveled. That’s how. But I’m embarrassed to admit I couldn’t get the hidden tune. Normally when I have difficulty with the … Continue reading Piano and Movies and the Bible
Religion
Medical Science and Religion
Quote of the day: Religion is based...mainly upon fear...fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born … Continue reading Medical Science and Religion
Barry
I’ve written several times about how I supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. Goldwater was so conservative at the time that many Republicans fled the party and voted for LBJ giving him a huge win. It goes without saying that I don’t support many of the positions that Goldwater took in 1964, but … Continue reading Barry
Are you an enemy of religion?
In 1988 Isaac Asimov sat down for a lengthy interview with Bill Moyers. Inevitably, the subject got around to religion. Read the transcript or watch the video clip. Or read along as you watch. The transcript has been lightly edited. Bill Moyers: Are you an enemy of religion? Isaac Asimov: No, I'm not. I feel, … Continue reading Are you an enemy of religion?
A Bad Jew?
In 1979 James Gunn interviewed Isaac Asimov in preparation for a book Gunn was writing on Asimov’s work. At one point the conversation turned to Asimov’e views on Judaism. I don't consider myself a particularly virtuous person, but I like to think I have some virtues, of which loyalty is one. But possibly it is … Continue reading A Bad Jew?
Unto the Fourth Generation
It was difficult choosing a story by Asimov where he incorporated religion because he really didn’t do it very much, but I wanted to do a trilogy of the Big Three and contrast the way they approached religion in their stories. So even though “The Last Question” can only tangentially be considered to deal with … Continue reading Unto the Fourth Generation
The Last Question
And so we come to the third of the Big Three, but of course, Isaac Asimov is always number one in my book. In the 1950s when Isaac Asimov began writing a series of stories about a computer that he called Multivac, a sort of super-computer descended from Univac, he wrote what could very well … Continue reading The Last Question
The Star
A writer doesn’t always know what it is he’s got until it gets published. Arthur C. Clarke, one of the aforementioned Big Three of science fiction, originally wrote his short story “The Star” for a contest that a British newspaper The Observer was running, but it didn’t win any prizes. After that, the story languished and … Continue reading The Star
Non Sibi, Sed Dei
Somewhere along the line in the 1950s the science fiction community informally designated Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke as the “Big Three” writers of the genre. Anything they wrote, particularly anything of novel length, from then on became an event, simply because it was written by one of the Big Three. … Continue reading Non Sibi, Sed Dei
A Worthless Study About God
From Arizona Christian University comes a study which at first seems to be somewhat surprising, and perhaps to true believing Christians even shocking. It claims that 60% of Americans no longer believe in God! While that is music to my ears, the devil, of course, is in the details. Alas, the details that it offers … Continue reading A Worthless Study About God