- From the 16th Skeptics Circle [via RSR], a couple of standouts: Rich Reynolds of the RRRGroup writes of UFO abductions in the light of similar transcendent experiences described in the Upanishads and Vedanta Sutras. This post is especially interesting because it's impossible to tell from it whether Reynolds himself believes in a transcendental reality.
- Mike Huben revisits the centuries-old watchmaker analogy (apparently erroneously credited to William Paley, according to Wikipedia) from the point of view of a hypothetical future anthropologist, and sees implied in the watch not merely one designer, but an entire culture of designers, with a long, complex history of design by small, gradual steps, an intersection of several lines of technological development - in metallurgy, mathematics, commerce, physics, astronomy - that culminated in this little mechanical pocket watch.
In other news: I have an IM client now, which I use to observe how busy my friends and fellow LJers always seem to be before they finally go to sleep. Me, I don't bother to say I'm busy or away; "idle" is description enough.