Some people – maybe a lot of people – don’t think it’s the right time for a good sense of humor.  I have the opposite view.  I think very hard times are the best times.  But I’ll never be as good at it as my dad. When he was on his death bed in 1989, cancer metastasized flippin’ everywhere, he could barely get out of bed.  I was with him in the hospital.  He needed to use the toilet and insisted on going to it (instead of taking the obvious hospital option).  It took him about 10 minutes to sit up and get his feet on the floor (I remember it as 20 minutes but think now my mind must have exaggerated it).  The nurse was beside the bed, helping him with every incremental movement.  When after much moaning and groaning he finally got to his feet, facing her, he collapsed onto her shoulders with his arms outstretched. And said: “I’ve been waiting all day for this.” Ha!  She laughed and said, I love you [...]

These are trying times.  But here is a bit of good news, especially for those having a tough go of it.  Thanks to the incredible ongoing generosity of members of the blog, there are still a limited number of free one-year memberships available.   These have been donated for a single purpose: to allow those who cannot afford the annual membership fee to participate on the blog for a year.   I will assign these memberships strictly on the honor system: if you truly cannot afford the membership fee, but very much want to have full access to the blog, then please contact me. Do NOT reply here, on the blog, as a comment.   Send me a separate email, privately, at [email protected].   In your email, please provide the following points of information. An indication of why you need a free membership (as opposed to a paid one): just a few words about your circumstances. Your Name Preferred Email Preferred Username Preferred Password Country Of Residence (we need to supply this because of our tax-exempt status) The donors [...]

Pre-order your Heaven and Hell!  So to speak. Despite the current crisis, my new book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife will still be available on March 31 -- less than two weeks! Want a great deal on it?  Have more time on your hands than you anticipated?  If you pre-order the book you can (still) get an unusually substantial discount on any of my courses from The Great Courses. This would be a very good time indeed for all of us to stock up on Great Courses courses.  As you may know, I have done eight courses with them over the past 20 years (starting back when they were called The Teaching Company!).   If you pre-order the book (or have already done so), you can receive an 80% discount on any of them.   That's a pretty rippin' serious discount. Just click on this address. https://simonandschusterpublishing.com/heavenandhell The Great Courses I've done over the years. The New Testament The Historical Jesus Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication From Jesus to Constantine: [...]

Many thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out with the transition to the new blog site.  The response was overwhelming.   I now have more than I need and have contacted them about further instructions.  But there will almost certainly be more needs down the line, as we try to grow this thing and develop more outreach.  When that happens, I will let you know about other opportunities to help out. Speaking of outreach: if you know anyone who is interested in the sorts of things the blog has to offer, do let them know about it!    We grow mainly by word of mouth -- or, luckily in these problematic days of actual contact, by word of texting, email, twitter, and other social media.   But do let family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and complete strangers know about the blog, so we can reach all who might be interested.

As some/many/all? of you know, we are getting ready to relaunch the blog with a completely new rebuild that Steven Ray, my able and talented assistant for all these years, has designed -- after he had come up with the original one eight years ago.  He has been keeping the old one going with bailing wire and duct tape.  The new one looks *great*.  We hope to roll it out soon.   And I'll explain it all to you even sooner, before it happens.  I think you're going to agree, it is terrific. Before we can do it, I have to have some of my old posts reclassified into a few of the new categories that I have devised (to supplement the old ones).   I need a volunteer to do it.  It will take some hours.  No clue how many.  If I have several volunteers, even better.  I won't go into all the details here: simple story, it will involve looking at an old post, seeing what it's about (you wouldn't need to read the entire [...]

Those of you who were planning to go have probably been notified, but in any event: The Smithsonian lectures on Heaven and Hell scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday March 14) have now been cancelled. Keep safe!

I hope all of you are well and staying away from viruses.  As it turns out, just now I’m reading On the Beach, a fantastic 1957 novel set in 1963 about what happens “after the war,” when the northern hemisphere has destroyed itself with a massive nuclear exchange, and the people of Melbourne are waiting as the radiation cloud is slowly heading their way over the course of months, with nothing to stop it.  (I’m reading novels like this, and watching comparable films, as I’m thinking about my next book Expecting Armageddon.)    Suddenly this morning I realized (duh!) how timely it is, mutatis mutandis.  Maybe I’ll blog on such things. But for now!  Our new companion Corona has disrupted many of our lives and is certain to disrupt virtually all of them.  Please accept my hopeful thoughts that the disruptions you experience are merely inconvenient and not debilitating, either physically, financially, socially, or emotionally. Some of my immediate trips and lectures have been cancelled (well, postponed for a year or so!), and I wanted [...]