Today I travel to the joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. I will try to blog about the conference as it happens. My conference paper for this year’s SBL conference will be presented in a session of the Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship program unit on the theme Imaginal Worlds and Biblical Studies. It focuses on what we can learn by comparing the concept of “canon” as it functions in relation to the Bible... Read more
A fantastic point was made recently on the blog Atheist Revolution, defining freethought as above all else a rejection of tribalism. Here’s an excerpt from the post: I find that one of the most important implications of freethought is that it rejects the sort of tribalism that would lead one to accept some ideas and reject others on the basis of their source. Political ideologies might provide the most striking example of this. Someone who swallows the entire ideology of one political... Read more
This year’s session of the SBL Blogger and Online Publication program unit will be the last ever, and we will be going out with a bang. This final blogger session will feature a panel of well-known bloggers whose blogs – like their scholarly activity more generally – reflects and represents well the full range of kinds of blogging and scholarship that exist. The panelists are Bart Ehrman, Wil Gafney, and Lawrence Schiffman. Come hear them talk, then engage one another in conversation,... Read more
As the song lyrics indicate, it genuinely was at the 2015 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium that I got the idea for this song, and mentioned it to Bart Ehrman over a drink after his keynote address, which was the primary inspiration for the song, although the whole range of papers were in mind and there are nods to many of them. This is the kind of silliness I tend to engage in when I’ve just finished a project, and so... Read more
If someone moves from fundamentalist religion to fundamentalist atheism, or vice versa, they haven’t actually converted or deconverted. It is only when you move from fundamentalism to a more mature and balanced view that you’ve actually undergone a fundamental change. I wrote the above words when sharing Allan Bevere’s tips for diagnosing and curing unreformed fundamentalism on Facebook. That post of his sure has generated a lot of interesting reflection and discussion! Read more
Here’s the latest and probably final update about the meeting of AAR religion bloggers and SBL bibliobloggers at this year’s annual meeting in Atlanta, for dinner and/or drinks. It is scheduled for the evening of Sunday, November 22nd, at 5pm. The event will be held at Meehan’s Public House, which is located at 200 Peachtree St NE. They have reserved their Dublin room for the event. It starts at 5pm, but it is perfectly acceptable to arrive later if you can’t make it... Read more
I just saw the news that Indiana governor Mike Pence has begun turning away refugees. It would be shameful under any circumstances, but Pence pretends to be a defender of Christian values, which makes it all the more disgusting. The above image came my way via Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook isn’t letting me post links to my blog there at the moment. If readers who are on Facebook could try sharing links to some recent posts, to see if it works... Read more
Yesterday I came across quotes from Roslyn and Bob Cargill, and I thought they deserved to be shared with a wider audience. First here’s Roslyn: Why is it when it comes to helping refugees in need, treating others as we would want to be treated, and loving our neighbors, conservative Christians scream out, “Yeah, but it only takes one. It only takes one nut job to blow us all away, so we got to keep out ALL refugees.” And yet, when... Read more
This thought from Waleed Aly was shared by J. K. Doyle: Terrorism is, above all, a test of character for the community that suffers at the hands of terrorism. The very worst people in the world have come to take away our humanity. What are we going to do about it? The community that keeps its values in the face of hate and fear wins. What do they win? They win the war, the contest of wills, they win the... Read more
There have been nuns who have been mystics. But that’s not what this is about. It has been common for religious freethinkers of various types to be labeled atheists by their religious opponents, and then claimed as such by atheists as well. But in many instances, these individuals are spiritual and may not sit comfortably in the “atheists” category. I’ve mentioned this before in relation to the labeling of mystics as “atheists” in Hume’s dialogues. It is interesting to see that Diana... Read more
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