My viewing of season 1 of LOST continues. The episode “Not Raised By Another” shows again just how much of later developments were indeed in mind early on. We’ve already been told that the finding of “Adam and Eve” in the caves was an important clue intended to ensure that, whatever twists and turns might follow, some element of the originally-intended plot line could be shown to have been intended from the outset. In this episode, Claire has a dream... Read more

The One is the invisible Spirit. We should not think of it as a god or like a god. For it is greater than a god, because it has nothing over it and no lord above it. It does not exist within anything inferior to it, since everything exists within it, for it established itself… The One is not corporeal and it is not incorporeal.The One is not large and it is not small.It is impossible to say,How much is... Read more

I have now got up to watching some episodes from season one of LOST that I had never seen until now. “Solitary” is familiar from flashbacks later on, but it was still interesting to watch it for the first time, and see how they set up viewers with ambiguities and false trails (as, for example, in the mention of Alex, Danielle Rousseau’s child, whose gender is never specified and thus one would assume that Alex would be a boy). The... Read more

“Action,” said the director. “Blessed are the rich, for they have been blessed by God,” Jesus spoke to the camera. “Blessed are the poor, for through their donations in the hope of miracles, rich preachers can travel conveniently in their own jet plane. Blessed are those who suffer not, for they are clearly blessed by God more than I am.Blessed are the proud, for evidently they are omniscient. Blessed are those who can persuade themselves that they are persecuted for... Read more

Here’s a parable from unorthodoxology: The old Baptist preacher had been around long enough to know a fraud when he saw one. And he had grown tired of listening to this one regaling audiences in the shade of a pecan grove with fanciful tales of God that lacked any proper exegesis and rational hermeneutical lens. So, he carefully picked his question and planned his attack like a biblical chessmaster. “Teacher, I’m confused” he called out, his pleasant drawl lazily floating... Read more

Ron Moore lecturing on religion in Battlestar Galactica. Need I say more? HT Galactica Sitrep Read more

There is a free preview on Google books of the Mandaic dictionary by Majid Fandi Al-Mubaraki et. al. It is extremely limited compared to the out-of-print Drower and Macuch Mandaic dictionary, but at least there are other ways of getting access to this one than inter-library loan! I must say that am extremely grateful to Mr. Mubaraki for sending me a copy of his dictionary and other Mandaic text and transliterations that he has made available. I would not have... Read more

It is well known that the best lies are true ones. That’s why fundamentalists, like the Devil in the temptation story in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, pepper their claims liberally (if you’ll excuse the pun) with Bible verses. A great example of this is the e-mail currently circulating about how Barack Obama removed an American flag from his plane, and perhaps worse still, replaced it with a logo representing himself. As Snopes.com indicates, this is indeed “true” –... Read more

Who speaks of god and conceptualizes an idol, which can profit him nothing? He and his kind will be put to shame; eloquent speakers are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and infamy. The preacher takes a texts and works it into a sermon; he shapes an idol with words, he forges it with the might of his gesticulating arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength;... Read more

At a business meeting at church recently, the agenda for the meeting was distributed, together with other papers and documents. I put mine out of sight under a table, and quipped “Now it’s a hidden agenda”. OK, so it wasn’t funny. But a commenter on the _awakening blog, where my post about fundamentalism being fundamentally unbiblical is being discussed, asked what the agenda is behind pointing out the Bible’s errancy. Here’s what I left as a comment in answer to... Read more