It was on this date, May 20, 1958, that talk radio host, political analyst and son of 40th President Ronald Reagan, Ron Reagan Jr. was born. Born in Los Angeles to his father’s second wife, Nancy Reagan née Davis, and reared in Sacramento during his father’s terms as Governor (1967-1975), at age 12 he declared […]

Read about George Carlin, Pope Gregory and calendar reform, creating Israel, churches vs. workers, Lady Mary’s skeptical letters from Turkey, journalist Studs Terkel, getting scared sacred with “Godspell,” Bertrand Russell, and more …

It was on this date, May 15, 1689, that English writer Lady Mary Wortley Montague was born Mary Pierrepont in London. Self-educated in her family’s extensive private library, Mary began writing prose and poetry at an early age. She taught herself Latin and translated Epictetus at age 20. Against her father’s wishes, she eloped with […]

Read about John William Draper’s “Conflict,” Sigmund Freud, David Hume, Edward Gibbon, The Pill and freedom for women, book burning by Nazis and other fanatics, Irving “God Bless America” Berlin, and more …

I've been thinking about Game of Thrones... Just once... I’d like to be treated to a popular TV show about a democratic republic with no games and no thrones and nobody is better than anybody because of what family they were born into but because of great achievements in science and technology. Where the drama does […]

Read about fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, ye Age of Chivalry, George Washington, the churches vs. working people, Catherine the Great of Russia, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, Darwin’s Bulldog, and more …

"There is a rumour going around that I have found God," says Pratchett. "I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."

Read about religion vs. science in “Inherit the Wind,” “In God We Trust” on US coins, Shakespeare and God, churches vs. libraries, godless DNA described, H.C. Bastian, General Grant vs. theocracy, Mary Wollstonecraft vs. sexism and more …

It was on this date, April 26, 1837, that English physiologist and neurologist Henry Charlton Bastian was born in Truro, Cornwall. He graduated with an M.B. from the University of London in 1861. Bastian married in 1866 and eventually produced three sons and a daughter. He was professor of the Principles and Practice of Medicine […]

Read about the churches and slavery, Leonardo da Vinci, Anatole France, the Dark Ages of Pope Benedict III, the creationist film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the Branch Davidian Conflagration, the Columbine Massacre and more …