140 years ago today (June 27, 1876,) a column of soldiers discovered the bodies of George Armstrong Custer and 210 of his soldiers on a desolate ridge in Montana, above the Little Bighorn River. Dug in atop a ridge four miles southeast, were Major Marcus Reno, Captain Frederick Benteen, and the 400 surviving members of […]
Custer’s Last Stand Pt. 1: The Little Bighorn’s Stepfather
This weekend will mark the 140th anniversary of George Armstrong Custer’s demise–along with 250 men under his command–at the Little Bighorn River in Montana. For insight into how and why Custer and the 7th Cavalry met such a fate, we need to start with the previous decade. Picture a wintery scene: Nov. 26, 1868. A […]
A Reflection on Wounded Knee
This December 29th will mark the 125th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre. As students of American history probably already know, this 1890 horror was, in a real way, the end of the so-called “Indian Wars.” That is, it marked the final crushing blow specifically against the Lakota on the Great Plains, but symbolically against […]
Transcendence for Atheists
Let’s begin with a neurological reality: we humans are limited in what we can experience. The finite human nervous system can only absorb about 10% of the information around us. The other 90% goes unprocessed: unseen, unheard, untasted, untouched, unfelt–unimagined. Mind you, that’s only talking about what lies within earshot and vision. It’s not even […]
Why Do Religions Hurt People?
I submit that to understand religion, particularly as practiced in the West, we need a basic understanding of group dynamics: to wit, what sociologists call the “ingroup” and the “outgroup.” Group cohesion and cooperation were essential to the survival of prehistoric Homo sapiens. We have evolved to instinctively assign artificial positive qualities to “our” group […]