The Republican base is now made up of religious and neoconservative ideologues, and the uneducated white underclass with a token person of color or two up front on TV to obscure the all-white, all reactionary all backward — there-is-no-global-warming — rube reality. Actual conservatives, let alone the educated classes, have long since fled.

You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. Now you have the nerve to criticize the 'architect' America just hired - President Obama - to rebuild from the ashes.

Of course as soon as I say something or write it that sounds like I believe it, and really I'm never entirely sure.

Scientists and theologians can’t offer better than circular arguments, because there are no other kinds of arguments. Bible believers quote the Bible, and scientists quote other scientists. How do either scientists or theologians answer this question about the accuracy of their conclusions: “In reference to what?

Positions on politics and religion are labels. Inside I'm still me, just older and tired.

My problem with all forms of fundamentalism is that the position is fixed. This is like talking about a fixed position as seen from a moving jet: it's disappearing over the horizon with or without your permission.

There is nothing more profane than the image of an atheist with tears in his eyes conducting the glory and passion of Handel's Messiah.