David Hayward shared the above cartoon, about coping with post-traumatic church syndrome. It is a real condition. And for victims of abuse, a punching bag – whether literal or metaphorical – can play a crucial role in the healing process. But we also need to be careful. This is one of the reasons abuse victims have been known to turn into abusers themselves. If you generalize from the man who beat you to all fathers or all men, from... Read more
Marc Cortez shared the above image. I think it actually helps get at a serious point. The role of death in the process is the thing that bothers some people about evolution. And yet, as the person who wrote in their own answer realized, death is not a problem unique to one viewpoint or even to evolution. Death is a reality, and no system of thought can pretend that their view makes everything disappear that seems disturbing on other views.... Read more
Via Claudia Christian on Facebook. Read more
Hector Avalos published a news article on the historical Jesus, which illustrates the danger of trying to interpret evidence in a field outside one’s own area of specialty. Avalos wonders how anyone could have doubted that Jesus came in the flesh, as 1 John mentions, if the historicity of Jesus was well established. This misses completely the nature and rationale of docetism, a known phenomenon which most scholars think was in view in the passage in question. Far from arguing... Read more
The Onion regularly features satire aimed at religion, often with good effect. Recent examples include the spoof news video about the leading cause of death being God needing more angels, and this magazine cover: Read more
“We have kept Jesus’ name on the label, but changed the contents of the bottle. The contents are no longer of his moral quality or spiritual integrity”–The Rev. Jacquelyn Russell A friend shared the above quotation from her mother on Facebook, and it seemed to me to deserve to be more widely shared. Read more
Dustin Smith has continued posting a transcript from when he recently interviewed me. Unfortunately, one of the points looks like it lost something in the recording or summarization process. And since it relates to a potential thesis topic, I thought I’d say more about it here. There was a Sufi mystic, Abu al-Mughith al-Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, who reportedly was crucified by Islamic authorities for saying ana al Haqq, “I am the truth.” The account of him – and/or Al-Hallaj’s self... Read more
John Loftus drew attention to the lecture above. Here are some comments on it. The presentation starts with best books, mentioning Richard Purvo, Dennis MacDonald, and John Dominic Crossan. This was misleading, because these scholars do not draw the distinctive conclusions that Carrier does. Luke-Acts is said to have been written by the same guy, and as a response to Matthew, which in turn was a response to Mark. Brief and oversimplified summaries of the aims of each Gospel. Carrier mentions... Read more
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