The YouTube video above is of a very rough recording (one take, live, just me and a guitar) of a rough draft of a song that I started writing a while ago, when a niece of mine died. It was at that point just some rough ideas, snippets of lyrics, articulated as an outlet for grief. I didn’t pursue it further, until I saw the movie The Fault In Our Stars. That got me thinking once again about untimely deaths,... Read more
S. Brent Plate coined the word in a recent article about a new TV show, The Leftovers. It refers to the use of expectations of a rapture of the end of the world to mentally terrorize people. Read more
The quote comes from Eddie Arthur’s post “Poverty Simply Explained” (which also quotes from Terry Pratchett’s novel Men at Arms). Read more
As one person guessed, I am in Vienna for the International Society of Biblical Literature conference. Here are some photos from around the city today: Next to Beethoven's piano, in the building where he composed works such as the 5th symphony and Fuer Elise. Read more
Via Rebecca Trotter. Does anyone know the actual precise source of the quotation? Read more
Internet Monk shared the image below depicting how religious affiliations change or remain the same, as well as some thoughts on the comparison someone recently made between modern Evangelicalism and Caffeine Free Diet Coke. It made me think that the image below has the makings of a religious cola label of some sort. Since I am traveling, I don't have a way to tinker with the image, but if others do, feel free to share your “labels.” Read more
A poster from Slingshot Publishing, which has a lot of familiar information, some problematic information (which ones can you spot?), but some things that are probably new to anyone who happens to read this. Is there anyone out there who already knew (or knew better than) all the details on this infographic? Read more
A recent online article by Giulo Prisco drew attention to the fact that Octavia Butler’s fictional religion Earthseed (a major focus in her novel Parable of the Talents) has apparently inspired the creation of a real-life religion based on it. This new religion, Terasem, is intended to recall “Earthseed” although the article reflects some confusion about what language is being drawn on to make the name. Presumably “Earthseed” itself is copyrighted, although sometimes people like the mystery that is created... Read more
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