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Author Archives: Brendan
Spiritual Positions: Six Ideas That I’m Reasonably Sure Are True.
Having set aside some ideas that I’m very sure are false, the way is opened to investigate alternative positions that might be true. I use the word position in a multifold sense: first, as the opposite of a negation; second, … Continue reading
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Spiritual Negations: Ten Ideas in Religion and Spirituality Which I’m Very Sure Are False.
“People don’t care about knowledge and enlightenment. What they want is validation.” –Heathcliff Weatherby, “Hallowstone“. People in many religious communities are fond of “affirmations”: proverbs, wisdom teachings, “laws of magic”, and the like, usually in the form of only one … Continue reading
“Elderdown”, and a New Book Giveaway!
Two days ago, I finished the second draft of “Elderdown”, the fourth and final part of my Kickstarter-funded urban fantasy series. I sent it to the editor and designer. Want to be among the first to read it? Of course … Continue reading
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Fictive Metaphysics, The Neverending Story, and The Nothing
Science fiction and fantasy, two distinct genres of storytelling, have at least this in common: fictive metaphysics. That is: there’s some regular feature of reality described in such stories which clearly doesn’t exist in our world, or which could not … Continue reading
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Tagged existentialism, fantasy, fiction, The Neverending Story, writing
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Bren’s Capitalism Game: Another occasion I used games as a teaching tool in a college philosophy class
Last year, I invented a game about capitalism which isn’t really about capitalism. It’s really about ethics: it’s about how to build trust with competitors, and how fragile that trust really is. Here’s a brief summary of how my game … Continue reading
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Republic Of Tamriel: Things I think computer games need to do differently.
When I’m taking a break from writing another book, I like to play console-based role play games. I do this for perhaps no more than two or three hours a week, but over several years that was enough time to … Continue reading
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Christians, Pagans, and Doctor Assisted Suicide
The argument about doctor-assisted suicide (and its kin) is really, really old. Like, it’s around 1,600 years old. Maybe older. Today, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that doctor-assisted suicide should be legal in Canada. A report on the CBC … Continue reading
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Think Outside the Clickbox: Storytelling, Facebook, and HyperReality
A popular slogan of freedom and individualism goes: “Think Outside The Box”. But what is the box? Where are its edges? What does it really mean to think outside it– and does anyone really know how? I’ve been thinking about … Continue reading
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The Last Fence
The last time I visited Ireland, my other “my country”, was 2009. Yesterday I got this painting from my dear friend Corina Thornton, an artist based in Ireland; and as you can see, I’ve hung it just above my writer’s … Continue reading
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“A Trick Of The Light”: What I knew as a child, but as an adult forgot.
When I was a child, an empty and partially run-down house stood in my neighbourhood, just along the line where the century-houses ended and the postwar bungalows began. My sisters and I sometimes made up stories about ghosts who lived … Continue reading
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