Thomas Hobbes was born on this day in 1588. Among other things he addressed questions on the rights of the individual and with that how any particular state is an artifact, not divinely ordained. Celeste Friend writing at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says Hobbes “argues, radically for his times, that political authority and obligation are based on the individual self-interests of members of society who are understood to be equal to one another, with no single individual invested with... Read more

It was on this day in 1855 that Theodore Parker, Unitarian Transcendentalist minister was put on trial for inciting a riot. A well known abolitionist, and a member of the Secret Six, who fostered any number of fugitives and in response to threats from pro-slavery northerners was known to keep a pistol in his pulpit. He was principal among those who gathered to prevent the arrest and return to slavery of Ellen and William Craft. They succeeded, giving the Crafts... Read more

Today is the feast of fools. It is also Arthur Smith‘s birthday. A fool for the guitar. And ain’t we better off for it? Read more

John Donne died on this day in 1631. Donne was variously a lawyer, member of parliament, a satirist, a womanizer, which, incidentally, in good part cost him his inheritance, a fortune he ran through with astonishing speed. He was also a reluctant Anglican priest and eventually dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. He was also one of England’s greatest poets. Somehow I find it delicious that he has a feast day in the Anglican calendar. We need, I suspect, a few... Read more

FALLEN AMONG THIEVES A Meditation on the Parable of the Good Samaritan James Ishmael Ford 30 March 2014 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text A lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus told a story. “Once there was a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho who was set upon by thieves, who beat him severely, stripped him of his money and even his clothing, and left him lying in the road, half-dead. A series of people... Read more

I had a recent brief and light exchange of notes on Facebook with someone about pantheism. The writer threw out the old canard about pantheism being atheism in drag. I made some silly comment. The writer pursued it a bit farther, seeming to feel the “theism” in pantheism implies something extra. I posted a link to Peter Mayer’s Holy Now, to which my interlocutor replied, “nothing holy.” Now that was a lovely response. Nothing Holy. Echoes, probably intentional to Bodhidharma’s... Read more

By some traditions today is the birthday of the prophet Zoroaster. Zoroaster is often considered the first monotheist (Please note this is a fact challenged with some vigor at my Facebook page by some of a more scholarly turn than I), although as his dates are in fact far from certain some Jews might reasonably object. When the Jewish faith evolved from henotheist (the belief in many gods but yours is best) to monotheist (only one deity worthy of the... Read more

The Western church celebrates today as the feast of St Dismas, the name that has been attached to the story of the two thieves who died with Jesus, for the “good” one. In the story actually the thief has no name. We no longer live in a biblically literate culture, so for you who do not know, the short version of the story is that there are thieves on either side of Jesus as he is hoisted up on the... Read more

It was on this day in 1811 that Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from Oxford for publishing, and at the same time sending copies to the heads of all the colleges, a brief tract, The Necessity of Atheism. In 1813 he published a somewhat revised and expanded version of his tract. The following is the original and briefer version. The Necessity of Atheism Percy Bysshe Shelley A close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support any proposition,... Read more

“Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling... Read more