There is a blog dedicated to bad Hebrew tattoos. I had apparently neglected it for a long time, because in a post from quite some time ago, they shared this gem: The person apparently wanted to profess their love for someone, and so decided to do so in Hebrew using Babylon translation software. If you have ever used automated translation software, you can already tell this is going to be bad. But what they ended up with is actually even... Read more
Healthy doubt is often the prelude to deeper relationships and a richer faith… If our doubts can lead us into a deeper connection to our faith tradition where orthopraxy trumps orthodoxy and into a deeper relationship with the Divine where love trumps doctrine then we may indeed find religion and spirituality life transforming.Good religion and spirituality make us good and compel us to pursue the good within ourselves and in our larger world, thus inspiring us to work for the... Read more
As a Baptist, we don’t really have holy water. Nonetheless, my pastor recently reflected on the memory of water – metaphorically speaking. Water is a closed system on our planet. And so when we drink it, we may well be drinking water that was in the Jordan when Jesus was baptized, or part of the wine that was shared at his last supper. Water connects us with the past. Water is also, in our time, a privilege which some enjoy... Read more
I saw this offered on Reddit as “How to Become an Atheist.” One problem is that atheists sometimes turn the critical gaze they probe religions with on their own worldview, and find that it is not without those same human imperfections, shortcomings, and unanswered questions that religious worldviews have. Using the “outsider test” (as John Loftus calls it) has turned religious people into atheists, but also into liberal religious people, and it has also turned atheists into other things as... Read more
When the above cartoon appeared on Gavin Rumney’s blog, it struck me that it is a great depiction of the viewpoint of a variety of fundamentalisms. The cartoon captures as well the fact that, while the one who is fact-checking might believe themselves to be wise, they are in fact immature, and failing to appreciate the importance of genre. Gavin also drew my attention to the following quote, which makes the same point: “Both theists and most of today’s agitated atheists get a... Read more
I haven’t tracked down the exact source of the quotation, but Borg discusses the domination system of Jesus’ time, and his relation to it, in The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith. Read more
The purveyors of religion insist that their product is so powerful it can transform a life, but somehow, magically, it has no risks. In reality, when a medicine is powerful, it usually has the potential to be toxic, especially in the wrong combination or at the wrong dose. And religion is powerful medicine! – Marlene Winell and Valerie Tarico, in an article in Alternet. I appreciate the fact that Winell and Tarico – critics of religion in general – recognize... Read more
Allan Bevere shared this cartoon from Inherit the Mirth. It actually highlights something about the powerful. They have the audacity to claim that they are “traumatized” by their involvement in processes in which they snuff other human beings out of existence, and the luxury to cope with such trauma by relocating to someplace warm and opening a new business. If you have the same kind of luxury, even on a smaller scale, then there are at least some respects in which... Read more
The call for papers for a conference on transhumanism and the church (which I blogged about previously) has been extended. Click through for more information. Read more
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