I don't want out of the relationship or marriage. I just want to go back to living by myself ... seeing each other several times a week as we did before.

This sounds to me like the definition of being out of the marriage. Living apart is one thing; seeing a person "several times a week" is dating, not a marriage.

My advice would be to terminate the marriage and go back to what you had before, assuming your spouse agrees.

It's not an issue of whether a married couple living apart is "untraditional", it's an issue of both parties agreeing to the living arrangement. Perhaps her husband would be fine with it, in which case it will work. Perhaps he wants to (heaven forbid) live with the woman he married, in which case it won't.

A part of marriage is sublimating your own desires for the good of the other person. This goes for men as well as women.

I am wondering if the reactions would be different if the writer was a man who wanted to live apart from his wife. I highly doubt most people would not look askance at that.

someone named a restaurant "Bearded Clam".

Doesn't Patrick race Indy cars? That's not NASCAR, I don't think.

My point about Patrick not being a NASCAR driver is that NASCAR still is old-school sexist, if we can use Richard Petty's recent comments as any indication: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060526/SPORTS18/605260374/1066/SPORTS18.

"I just don't think it's a sport for women," Petty, 68, told the Associated Press. "And so far, it's proved out. It's really not. It's good for them to come in. It gives us a lot of publicity, it gives them publicity."

but this article promised to reveal the joys of life without God. all shermer mentioned was a tingly feeling. that's it?

Did you forget this part?

I believe in the indomitable human spirit and the amazing capacity we have for understanding the world; for love, joy and happiness. Science not only does not take away any of those things, it adds to the sum of human knowledge.

I'm sure it's still insufficient, but there you have it.

that if every Afterlife-believing theist were suddenly convinced that their God or Gods didn't exist, the world would be consumed in an orgy of murder, rapine, and depravity?

I guess I'm glad so many people are religious then.

mor·al Audio pronunciation of "moral" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (môrl, mr-)

adj.

1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.

2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.

3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.

4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.

5. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.

6. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.

n.

1. The lesson or principle contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event.

2. A concisely expressed precept or general truth; a maxim.

3. morals Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong: a person of loose morals; a decline in the public morals.

I see no reference to a higher power anywhere in here.

When I took philospohy back in college, one of the first things we discussed was ethics and morality. To take the Old Testament as an example, I think most resaonble people can see that God was morally wrong when he instructed the Israelites to kill everything breathing in Canan. The fact that we can say this means morality comes from something other than a higher authority.

So, what about "thought"? Where does a thought come from. Chemistry? That is a leap of faith that it just too great. What if the brain is only a computer-like repository of only phyisical experiences? What if the conscious mind is just a split brain argument with one's "self"?

What if the invisible spectrum is reality and what the eye sees is only what's discernible by the brain.

And, what is imagination!? Just exactly what is our ability to create something in the "mind" that is not just a sum of all previous experience, but totally unique from all other experience?

The fact that I have no answers for them does not automatically cause me to believe in a Supreme Being, or a soul, or an afterlife.

I'm not afraid of unaswerable questions. Perhaps someday, science will find an answer to some of them, but perhaps not. Either way, I don't think going back to ancient religious texts clarifies these issues. But maybe Shakespare would... hmmm.

Lewis posits (rightly I think) that you can't reasonably label someone who SAID he was God, and knowingly inspired his disciples to do all they did (with devastating or fatal results for many of them), as a "good man" or a "great teacher." Lewis' point is that those are irrational cop-outs.

Yes, because no human ever inspired anyone to the point where they willingly gave up their lives.

Is it just me?

Why can't Jesus have lied that he was God in order to inspire people to do "good" things? That doesn't make him a "fiendish bastard"; he could still be a "good man", and a "great teacher", just like us normal humans who do lie, and on occasion inspire others to greatness, sometimes because of a great lie.

Still feels like a false trilemma to me.

Kudos to Kaliston and Ceej, BTW. Amazing posts.

How did you guys not catch this?

The regular Broadsheet hecklers are going to have a fit over this one!