About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves 'Freethinkers,' which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, 'If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?' I myself have written, 'If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.'

My first near-death experience was an accident, a botched anesthesia during a triple bypass. I had listened to several people on TV talk shows who had gone dow…

I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist, Dr. Isaac Asimov i…

As in my other works of fiction: All persons living and dead are purely coincidental, and should not be construed. No names have been changed in order to prote…

I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I t…

If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.

The vicar's right; he says that we Are ever wayward, weak and blind; He tells us in his homily Ambition ruins all mankind;