A new movement has emerged from California's Silicon Valley. It's a combination of philosophy, faith, and science known as transhumanism. An article in The Futurist magazine describes transhumanism as "radical life extension and life expansion." Those devoted to the movement "perceive the human body as a work in progress." They believe that "evolution took humanity this far…and only technology ...

I recently read an article about 2009's Tyson, a documentary about the life of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Tyson is remembered for being one of the most feared boxers of all time, not just for his knockout punch—he knocked out 44 of his 50 losing opponents—but also for his anger, his unpredictability, and the impression that he was a powerful man wildly out of control. In 1992, ...

My daughter, Zoe, is two-and-a-half and loves to play hide-and-seek. Sometimes she hides, but usually the game involves hiding my cell phone. Unfortunately she doesn't yet understand the object of the game. She makes me close my eyes—that much she gets. But it's downhill from there. First of all, she always hides my phone in the same place: on the stairs, in plain sight. No matter how many times ...

I recently saw Religulous, a film that's billed as the "No. 1 sacrilegious comedy in America." It's supposedly a documentary, in which comedian Bill Maher (of Real Time with Bill Maher and Politically Incorrect) travels the world asking religious practitioners questions about their faith. Though Maher makes fun of every world religion, as well as some minor ones, about two-thirds of the film focuses ...

In the movie Artificial Intelligence: A.I., technologically advanced robots look like human beings but are discarded whenever they are no longer deemed useful. One such robot, a child-model named David, is adopted by a woman who believes her "real" son is going to die. When the child lives, however, David falls out of favor with the woman, and she sends him away.

Through David's resulting journey, ...

Albert Einstein wrote things that suggested he had some sort of belief in God, but he also wrote of his own unbelief. James Randerson says:

Einstein penned [a] letter on January 3, 1954, to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.

In the letter, ...

There is a huge difference between being smart and being wise.

Exhibit A is the story of Steffi Krause, age 17. She and her 19-year-old friend were in a German juvenile detention center for stealing. The 19-year-old was about to be released but Steffi had more time to serve. Steffi, of course, did not want to wait any longer behind bars, so the two friends concocted a clever plan for springing Steffi: ...

While an old proverb claims that ignorance is bliss, Amanda Brisendine would be the first to tell you that ignorance can have unexpected consequences.

Although Brisendine had gained 30 pounds in the past year, she attributed her weight gain to rich foods and the fact that she had quit smoking. But after several days of abdominal pain so intense that she even called in sick from work, the 26-year-old ...

In July of 2006, the world-famous geneticist William French Anderson was convicted of child molestation charges. In a press conference, his attorney said, "Nothing about having a 176 I.Q. means you have good judgment."

Solaris is based on the Stanislaw Lem story of a psychologist's investigation into the bizarre and often deadly behavior of a small group of scientists working on a remote space station.

Rheya (Natascha McElhone), the psychologist's wife, thinks back to an evening of dining in a restaurant with her husband, Chris (George Clooney), and a mutual friend. Chris says, "The whole idea of God was dreamed ...